THE CHARLESTON SILVER LADY

Continued from last week—a visit to the “Root Man’s” house.

And standing at attention on the far wall of this room was a tall clock. From where I stood, it seemed enormous— nearly the full height of the room. The case of the clock was not dark wood, but a light, rather mottled wood like I had seen on the library walls at the home of a friend.

I loved the way it looked as if the forest itself has made it. It had a square, box-shaped top with a glass cover and some numerals to indicate time. I don’t recall if the hands were on the clock then. I can’t be sure. I saw the front door with it’s linear carving to match the overall theme of the piece. I was still observing it when it began to strike. It sounded liked a large metal gong. It reverberated in the air and hung in the heat and stillness of its island home. It stuck 4 times. I was sure then that my life was over- I had spent the entire day here, dying of boredom. It seemed so perilously close to night. I did not want to be here after dark.

I walked back down the steps and around to the front, relieved to see my aunt walking towards the car with a small bag in her hand. She and her friend had finished with their conversation and I was set free.

On the way back home, as we bumped and skidded back down the sandy road to freedom, I happened to notice the time on the dash board clock—12:45. We had been there less than an hour. I now know the tall clock had long since stopped keeping time. I also now know my aunt had gone to get an herb or flower to help with my grandmother’s illness. The Root Man dispensed the “new-age” medicine of the 1960s. This was a secret meeting, as my family was “in medicine” and would never have approved of this. I was chosen to keep the secret and I did. I never told.

Then, one day, the clock appeared in my aunt’s modest home. I didn’t ask her where it came since I knew. I did wonder how she got it. In the years it was in her home, I never heard it strike. It never made a sound. I did open the long, skinny front door to see the large chains and heavy ballast that hung from them. I have always loved metal of any sort, so these weights and chains were beautiful to me.

There were 2 family funerals that year. One attended by many, the other by just a few.  My aunt’s friend, the “Root Man” came to one but would not come in the house. He stayed in the yard to pay his respects and spoke with my aunt at length in the yard. What a sight that was. She was the epitome of the 950’s housewife and he was Bob Marley! My aun told me bits and pieces about their friendship. She said he had come from “good people.”

The wonderful clock is now in my home. Its lovely cypress case and linear carvings are elegantly restrained. The chains and weights are still inside. It was my aunt’s desire that this clock come to me after her death. Other family members were relieved they didn’t have to take it. Its old-world charm was lost on them. The secrets of southern life my aunt shared with me are embodied the clock. It no longer marks the passage of time, for immortality has no set schedule.