too, but that’s way too much trouble!”
“Well, I just think that’s amazing!” She hesitated. “But Hammie, didn’t you say Grover Cleveland’s name twice? Will the teacher count off for that?”
“No, Mama, he was president twice at two different times, so we have to list him twice.” Then Ham remembered why he recited the list.
“Mama, there’s no Thomas Hamilton who was ever president.”
“Well, maybe he’s in the list you haven’t learned yet Hammie.”
Ham leaped to his feet and pounded the kitchen table. “No, Mama, I looked ahead. There’s no Thomas Hamilton. And Sarah Elizabeth Corn made fun of me. ‘Ham, we thought you were named after a president.’ ‘I was,’ I said. ‘Well, apparently you warn’t!’ Then everybody giggled. So I looked ahead and sure ‘nough. There’s no Thomas Hamilton anywhere. I was embarrassed Mama. Kinda like when I got in the fight on the school bus when I was seven with Dennis the Menace Pinnix because he said Santa warn’t real, and I said he was. I was wrong about that, too.” Ham took a breath and sighed.
“Hammie, sit down.” Ham sat back down in the chair at the kitchen table. His mother sat beside him, and took his hands into hers. “I should have told you this a long time ago, I guess, but it never seemed like the right time. You had an older brother, Hammie. He was born six years before you came along. He only lived a couple of days; he had a lot wrong with him—congenital defects the doctor called them. Anyhow, he lived long enough for us to name him, and we did. Alexander Hamilton.”
Ham sat in silent disbelief. He had a brother? He had a brother he never knew and never knew about? He felt numb. He knew his daddy was a little older when he was born. Thirty was ancient to father your first child by mountain standards. And twenty-six for his mother was not much better. He had always thought—in fact, he had always been told—that his parents wanted some time together alone before they had children, and that’s why they waited seven years to have children. But that was a lie! He had a brother! What else haven’t his parents told him, he wondered. Then it came to him.
“Mama, Alexander Hamilton warn’t no president either!”
“I know, Hammie. Your daddy was so upset about how sick the baby was, and I wasn’t well either. It was a hard delivery. So when they asked for the baby’s name, your daddy tried to honor the MacPherson tradition and said the first name that came into his head: ‘Alexander Hamilton.’ He told me later it was the only name he could remember from U.S. history, and he was sure he had been a president. When we tried to change the name later, it was too late. It was Alexander Hamilton on both the birth and the death certificates.”
“Daddy couldn’t even get the damned name right,” Ham half muttered to himself. “Probably drunk.”
“Thomas Hamilton MacPherson! Do not use language like that in my house. And your father was not drunk!” She paused. “And though he warn’t a president, Alexander Hamilton was a very important American. He was the first treasurer of the United States or somethin’ like that. In charge of the country’s money.”
Ham tried to let all this sink in. Finally, he spoke again. “So where did the name Thomas Hamilton come from?”
“Well,” his mother hesitated. “We wanted to honor the memory of your brother, so we kept the Hamilton part. Neither of us liked Alexander very much. And Thomas is your daddy’s name, of course. So we chose Thomas Hamilton. There were a bunch of Thomas Hamiltons in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. All of them some kind of Earl in Scotland. I looked it up in the Encyclopedia Britannica. And your daddy’s family is Scottish, so it seemed right. Plus, the name sounds like a president’s name. Fooled everybody in North Wilkesboro all these years.”
Dazed, Ham rose from the table and wandered back upstairs to his room and crawled into bed. The same bed he was lying in the morning after Opening Day thinking about that day. The day he had his presidential credentials ripped from his self-identity. Five years later and it still stung, and classmates from school still ribbed him about it, especially Sarah Elizabeth Corn, whom he didn’t like, and JC MacPherson, whom he did.
“Hammie, breakfast is ready!” His mother called up the stairs.
“Comin’ Mama.” Ham rolled out of bed and put on his slippers. When I have a son, he thought, I’m gonna name him Ulysses S. He knew Grant was a Yankee general so that would piss off Thom Jeff—an added bonus—but from Miss Turnage’s English class he knew Ulysses was a Greek leader in some big war. Plus, he really liked the way the name sounded. Ulysses S. Then Ham paused on the bottom step of the staircase to ponder: Wonder what the S. stands for?
He entered the kitchen, hugged his mother and said, “Smells delicious, Mama!”
Chapter 5
Grandpa Dubya’s eightieth birthday celebration was that same night—Saturday night—and it began with a surprise. Carl showed up in the hearse to take Dubya and Cornelia to the Hillbilly Hideaway. Carl was not a blood relative, but Dubya refused to ride with Thom Jeff, and neither he nor Cornelia drove after dark anymore. Carl had the same proclivity to drink as Thom Jeff, but unlike Thom, he recognized when he should not be behind the wheel. So Carl recruited Ham to go with them as the designated driver on the way home. Dubya was fine with these arrangements; he liked Carl and enjoyed his offbeat sense of humor.
So Dubya and Cornelia were not surprised when Carl and Ham showed up to drive them. But they were surprised to see Mr. Ed.
“Whatcha drivin’ Carl?” Dubya asked tentatively. Cornelia didn’t say anything.
“My new hearse!” Carl exclaimed. “Well, it’s not new, but it’s new to me.”
“Happy birthday, Grandpa Dubya,” Ham said, trying to change the subject.
Dubya turned to Ham and gave a broad smile. “Thanks Ham.”
“Okay, everybody ready to go?” Carl asked.
“Where are we all goin’ to sit?” Cornelia asked. Ham hadn’t thought of that when he agreed to ride with Carl.
“Well, goin’ up, Ham can ride in the back. I’ll ride back there comin’ home.”
“That okay with you Ham?” Cornelia asked.
Before Ham answered, Carl said, “Why sure, Miss Cornelia, Ham has been back there before.” He turned and winked at Ham.
“That right, Ham?” Dubya asked.
“Oh, you know Uncle Carl, Grandpa.” Ham said as he headed to the back door of Mr. Ed.
When he opened the door, he saw Carl had removed the mattress. He tried to position himself between the grooves that would hold a coffin in place.
“Don’t raise up too quickly, Ham, you might hit your head.” Cornelia offered.
The ride to Hillbilly Hideaway was nearly an hour, but it felt like ten hours to Ham. He couldn’t hear the conversation in the front seat, but he did think he heard Al Green singing “Let’s Stay Together” on the tape deck until it was abruptly shut off, probably at Cornelia’s request.
By the time they got to the reserved room at the Hillbilly Hideaway, all of Dubya’s family was there, at least those still living. Aunt Nora, his oldest daughter, was there with her husband Wilson and their two children. They lived in Chapel Hill, and Aunt Nora was a deacon at Pullen Memorial Baptist Church, one of the first women to hold that position in the state of North Carolina. Thom Jeff and Nina were already there with Diane and Michael Allen, whom Dubya called “Mike Al.”
Dubya’s youngest daughter, Edith, was there with her step-husband, Bill Lovette, and her three boys. Bill was the younger brother of Fred Lovette, who started Holly Farms Poultry in North Wilkesboro in the 1940s. Thom Jeff said Bill and Edith were “well off.” Ham had gone to basketball camp with Edith’s boys when he was fourteen. They went to the camp at Campbell College run by Fred McCall and Press