Players3
The Players in my life...
"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages."
--William Shakespear, From As You Like It (II, vii, 139-143)
Iva Marie Beal Timms - deceased, half sister and mother of James Thomas Timms, known variously as "Red", "Jimmy", and to me, "my Jimmy" (his siblings; Jacqueline Marie {Jackie}, Billy Daniel*, Stephen Randall {Steve}, Robert Earl {Frog}. Interesting fact about Marie: She very much wanted to have children but discovered the man she had married, Elbert, was apparently sterile. She loved Elbert, and saw no need to go through a divorce or any such disruption, nor did she see any reason why this setback should prevent her from having children. So, she found other men to impregnate her. She kept this secret until very near her death when she decided to share it with me, though she didn't tell even me the names of the men. She said that Jimmy and Jackie were the only two that had the same father, and other men fathered Steve, Billy and Frog. I'm not sure how many knew this secret, even Jimmy didn't know, and I have my doubts that even Elbert knew/knows.
James Thomas Timms - deceased, "my Jimmy".
Samuel Scott Cain - deceased 05/20/1958 - circa 1991. Aside from maw and Jimmy, the best friend I ever had. I first met him when we were 12 in 1970. His folks had moved (from Liberal, Kansas) into a trailer about a quarter mile down the road from our house when we lived in Felton. We spent the 70's together, and some of the 80's, and kind of drifted apart. We sang a lot together, we laughed, we cried. We went through marriages (his to Terri and mine to Philis), (his) fatherhood (he has a daughter named Angela), (his) various relationships with females and males (I lived vicariously through him for a while), were jailed together... and the last picture I saw of him showed his body with huge black splotches - the ravages of AIDS-related Kaposi sarcoma. He died at 33 - his father refused to have his body brought back to Georgia for a funeral or burial, and the last I heard, his ashes were on a mountain somewhere around Estes-Park, Colorado.
FLASH: One of the worst things I ever did. Jimmy, Sam and I, along with several other boys were at Jimmy's house one day. Somehow, talk got around to Sam, as it tended to do when anyone other than Jimmy and I were involved. Some other kid made some snide comment about Sam being a queer. Made me mad. And yet... somehow the jeering continued, I supppose Sam didn't help his case much, and I think maybe he made some comment that irritated me, especially since I was already irritated and my testosterone was flowing. I pushed him, he pushed me back, there were the sounds of boys laughing and jeering louder, and adrenaline combined with the testosterone, and I sort of went away for a few seconds and I slammed Sam against the wall of Jimmy's house... hard enough to make the entire house shake and his head bounce. I was 17 with rippling, bulging muscles, a desperate need to fit in, to be liked, admired, respected, somewhat feared; a need to feel like a man... I was there with a fist drawn back and a visualization of my fist passing through his head and into the wall, and there wasn't the slightest shred of doubt this would happen if I let go... It was a moment frozen in time in my mind... a few seconds which seemed much, much longer, that forever affected my life... me with cocked fist, on the verge of murder... and torrents of emotions raging within me, the "animal side" wanting to hit and feel the satisfaction of release, the grim crushing sound of bones under my power; wanting to feel the awe and approval of the boys behind me... this at war with the "human side", seeing the stunned look of pain, fear and utter betrayal in the eyes of my friend... an incredible hyperspeed movie of scenes of my life after letting go... a palpable feeling of sickness like a rotting skull lying in my stomach... rising into an awareness of near-betrayal of my... self. The tableau thawed, my fist slowly lowered, sound returned to the world, like when you've been underwater and thenbreak the surface, though there remained an almost funereal quietness in the previously jeering boys. I hugged Sam, he hugged me back, I told him I was sorry and we never spoke of it. But I never forgot.
It took a little while to process but gradually I realised, with gratitude, that I had experienced a great life lesson; that of the greater power of restraint over force, of love and compassion over lust for blood, perceived power and approval, of "human" over "animal", of the light of reason over the blindess of emotion.
Philis Annette (Barfield) Beal - ex-wife, disabled
Lillian (Lil) Johnson - former lover
Bessie Louise Rodriguez - former girlfriend, fiance, lover
Melinda Sue Beal - current wife
George Zeinelde Jordan - good friend
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Bessie Florine Timms Beal
deceased, Mother, and while I knew her, the best friend I ever had.
09/11/1911 - Spring 1999. From her genes I seem to have inherited my "feminine side," my tendency to be "too good for my own good," the traits of being a listener, kindness, good humor, and a predisposition for obesity. I knew her for 41 years and in that time saw her really angry maybe three times. She laughed a lot, which always made her "Santa" belly go up and down. She was simply the kindest and sweetest-natured person I have ever known. I was her only baby, quite literally, scraping the bottom of the barrel. She told me I was the product of her very last ovulation.
Her siblings were Clarence, Chester {Chet}, Thomas Jefferson {Tommy}, Emma Timms Carnes - Homer, Myrteel Timms Davis-Rice,
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Robert Thomas Beal
- deceased, Father, and while I knew him, the strangest individual I knew.
04/26/1900 - April, 1976. From his genes I seem to have inherited my tendency toward a quick temper, rebelliousness, craving knowledge, need to write, etc. I was the second time around, family wise, for him. He already had seven living (and two deceased - a male unnamed child and a girl named Susie? beside whom he fetched up in death in a cemetery in Jacksonvillve, Alabama.) children (with Ollie) before he met my mother. Dad apparently had a thing for "J" - his sons were John, Junior, Joseph, Jim and Jack (though Jack is actually Robert Louis). He started the girls with "M"; Mary and Marie. His youngest, Marie, lived with my mother and him for a time before she got married. He and my mother were married in 1950 and I was born in 1958. He was 57 and my mother was 45 at the time of my conception.
He spent some years in prison during his thirties, most or all of it in Atmore, Alabama (fortunately for him, and ME!?, he was out before the prison burned in 1949). One of his greatest fears while there was possibly being transferred to Kilby. According to his interpretation of the Bible, his daughters were to service him just as his wife would - the conviction was apparently for incestuous sexual relations with at least the eldest daughter, Mary, and possibly with Iva as well.
While in prison he was assistant to the State Chaplan; he was apparently still a Baptist. At some point he became enthralled with Jehovah's Witnesses founded by Charles Taze Russell, and thus, dragged my mom and I to meetings at the Kingdom Hall in Cedartown, Georgia. Actually, we were there and helped to clear the lot and BUILD that Kingdom Hall. Before that, there were meetings in various private homes.
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