The black swan by Day Taylor

there?"
    "No! Edmund—"
    "Then it's agreed. I'll provide the party. You provide the entertainment, Tom. We'll put on a soiree no one will ever forget. It's settled, Tom?"
    Edmund had left Tom no way to refuse, knowing full well he dared not show up. "It's settled, Edmund. Excuse me if you will, gentlemen."
    "Hey, Tom!" Ross called after him. "I'm gonna nut me a dirty nigger lover pretty soon now. Want to be in on the fun?"
    Tom hurried from the coffee house, Ross's crude laughter in his ears. He strode quickly toward his attorney's office. Damn Edmund Revanche! He'd seen him play such cruel tricks on others. He'd watched innumerable times as Edmund took one then another oblique step, leading his victim into position. Just so, Edmund had won today. He'd set his trap, springing it as soon as Tom allowed himself to be lulled by the war talk. And what would come next?
    He burst into Andreas's office unannounced. "George! I want you to sell everythin' ... stocks, warehouses, saloons . . . everythin'!"
    Andreas half rose, his cheeks quivering in indignation. "What is the meaning of this, Mr. Pierson? This office is private!"
    Tom glanced shame-faced at an elderly man whose eyes were wide in startlement. "I'm sorry, George." He bowed in deferential embarrassment toward George's client. "I beg your pardon, sir, I'll—I'll wait outside. I must see you, George, it's urgent."
    Tom stood up immediately when the elderly gentleman made his way out of George's office, his cane tapping in

    unrhythmic cadence to his faltering steps. More in control, but no calmer, Tom entered the office. "George, my apologies. I was in a lather, and—"
    "No gentleman conducts his business in a lather. Pier-son. What is so urgent?" He folded his hands on the desk top, elaborately patient.
    In Andreas's eyes it would be Edmund who was behaving in a civilized manner, not Tom. It would be foolhardy to explain that he simply loved Ullah and wished to conduct his life as he saw fit. George would fix him with a baffled blank stare as if faced with the logic of a maniac.
    More clearly than Edmund would ever .have guessed, Tom understood Edmund's wrath against the North. While Edmund cried out that the Southern planter had the slave's well-being at heart in a way no Northerner could understand, Tom cried out silently within himself that he was no insurrectionist. He was only one man who had taken one slave to heart and to wife.
    Bleakly he watched George making notes.
    "Assuming I can find buyers for your holdings, what do you want me to do with the proceeds?"
    "I'U still do my bankin' on Carondelet Street," Tom said, saddened at the hard-drawn disapproval of his father's best friend. "George ... I can't explain, but I know what I'm doin'."
    "So do I," George said implacably. "You're destroying your life. You are making the good name of Pierson anathema in New Orleans."
    "George—'*
    'There's no more to be said between us, Tom. I'll have your affairs in order as quickly as possible. Good-bye." George's face, along with his friendship, was closed against Tom.
    Saddened and subdued, Tom rode through the Streets of Nine Muses to his house. The elegant Greek Revival mansions stood as symbols of wealth and position. As George had pointed out, Tom was on the verge of throwing it all away. In the bayou house, warm and tended by Ullah, it seemed easy. Here in New Orleans, faced with what he had been and all his father had labored to make for his family, Tom was finding it a task most painful. He was not merely leaving a house, he was turning his back on his own father, his city, his people.

    His tread on the piazza was slow and heavy. The front door flew open, and William's purple-black face smiled down at him.
    "Welcome home, Mastah Tom. We sho' does be missin* you."
    Behind William came Bessie, puffing from the exertion her speed had cost her. "Where y'all been? Folks sayin' bad things. An' two o' dem wuthless niggers done run off. Wa'n't a body to gits 'em