The Stone Society
The story of Villetoffe Eachom who is a probable member of the Metoyer family. His story begins in his teenage youth where he shirks responsibilities of his home to roam the country in Louisiana in drunken stupor. He is privileged as a black adopted son of a plantation owning family. He decides to woo the daughter of polish sharecroppers but he disgusts them with his drinking. Having betrayed their expectations of his behavior and shaming the daughter, Villetoffe is beaten severely and he is left for dead in river cargo. Villetoffe is revived in a coastal city not like New Orleans by an undertaker and sorcerer. He enters the undertaker and grave tending society to become more civilized. Villetoffe discovers his polish girlfriend is being sold as a slave to a rival society. His teacher decides to go to war with the society on behalf of Villetoffe to rescue his girlfriend.
Monologue:
Drunk drink not think. I drunk it all my fill a long time and a place far away. I thought I could drink my way into the arms of a Angel. I had walked most time by her family land. And seen her there in her garden. I Say Hi. And on the next week I notice she look too long at me. So i say she must see some devil need curing. So I start to beg her to learn me. Said she dress so well she must be a school teacher. The next week I came to her with a carved branch and tied a long long string. I threw the branch over a high topped tree and broke off the small branch. I showed her how it was done and that she could clean the tree of the small branch so the large branch could get more sun.
Soon I started to see her most two times out of the week, I bring her some liquor rich. You know liquor that you buy twice is price and Drunk slow.
Bout this time I had made good with the family of Ms. Ulireigh. They still wouldn’t let her go to no place. They like the bourbon I seem to always bring and ask me about my work like good folk should. I told them I did a piece here and there but I always found work.
They didn’t mind that. Whole family was in love with me, they said they kind of knew I couldn't be bad, not many from around the town could come so regularly and on time. The farm there was hard because a man had bought all the land. Everyone there could work their own as long as tobacco was grown and all given to him.
My uncle was that man, and he learned me how to box a house by numbers. Didnt know much words on the paper then. Noone to read them as far as the eye flew.
Ms.Ulireigh found this when I finally got to walk her to town with her brother, Trent. My Uncle was in town, paying off a debt for the fix of someone plow. He waved to me and called me son. He was more genial than the benefactor had been known to show to most others. This was important because this was a town of migrant people. My uncle paid for their voyage and promised them hard work and land. What they found was that I was just another kind of tax collector in their recollection. For a time all the Ulireigh’s did not like my coming. They jist tell me off and tell me their daughter was nowhere near. It must have been a bad time, because they never let her outside.
Hennyway, I got so drunk I start to pick on most kind of women I see in that town. I was so drunk they didn’t think I was any kind of getting. I was just like my Uncle’s family but with none of the money. Trent saw me in town just like that. When I work my way down to their house he grab a thick strop and hit me with it till I fell to the ground. He ask me if i was sorry. And I could barely speak. I didn’t say nothing about the beating because I was still trying to understand what had struck me. He beat me so hard but no one knew because I couldn't make a sound. I heard somewhere another man walk up, his father maybe and say he never seen a street dog beat as hard. That man beat Trent but not as hard to lay him down. I think my drunk made my breath easy. Trent father, must have been, said something like how you beat a fortunate bastard? I must have started smiling cause that seemed funny to me.
I wasn’t missed. They boxed me up in a tobacco case, bloody and beaten. And sold me down the river.
The store man who unboxed me thought I was soon about to die. They laid me in the doctor’s place who was also a coffin-maker. I don’t think he knew much medicine but I came around after a time. When my Uncle found where I was and sent for me. I told him that I had gotten in with the undertaker that I was a society man and journeyman carpenter.
