The Devil's Dupe

The devil’s dupe called last night.

I left a message for her husband. She presumed to return the call and ask if she could help me. She could not.

She wondered aloud what he might have wanted. I knew. He was returning an earlier call from me. I did not care to discuss the topic with her.

Her protracted wondering aloud morphed into a litany of disrespect and delusion, punctuated by gluttonous open-mouthed chewing and habitual verbal abuse hurled toward her children.

Thirty minutes into this mess, she announced that he was right outside in the garden.

She did not hand him the phone for another 30 minutes, which she used to besmirch him.

Once she gave him the phone, I thanked him for the remarkable benevolence he extended to a certain family dealing with protracted illness. Gratitude and word of his kindness ricocheted through six states before it got to me. I told him to expect deliver of a Mystery X fig tree as a token of my appreciation. The Mystery X Fig was discovered among the ruins of slave quarters in South Georgia many years ago. Experts have not been able to classify the variety. Hence, the name, "Mystery X.” Black people held in bondage developed it. I know he will cherish it as living history and the legacy of our ancestors. I pray it thrives in his yard.

I do not wonder how and why she could sit in the house he built with his own hands, gorging herself on food he cultivated and denigrate him in the hearing of his own children and loving friends.

She is duped and despicable.