A. E. "Pop" Cason, Sr., was crazy.
Discharged from the Army during WWI
as a paranoid schizophrenic, he drew a disability pension.
He was crazy before he went over there. He was in
the Quartermaster Corps. In Gay Paree. A supply sergeant.
He traded butter for silk stockings out of the PX on the black market.
Or maybe butter out of the commissary for silk stockings on the black market.
I don't know how that worked, but Pop did. Grandma Cason's husband,
a man named Saunders, was a Marine. He was wounded, got patched up,
elected to stay, and was killed in action. A tale of two soldiers.
She built a house with her widow's insurance. That was her dowry.
Pop married her and raised Dad. They had Van Jr. They called Uncle Van
and Dad Junior and Brother. The true blood heir and the redheaded stepson.
After Dad died, I did Pop's taxes for him. That was the time of year
he usually went crazy. He thought the IRS were out to ruin him.
By the time I got the job he had outgrown his raging hormones
and was just especially nervous, at tax time, like a racehorse that has seen
a snake. I acted like I knew what I was doing and he trusted me. I was
40 years old with a wife and two children. A college degree in anthropology.
I was a veteran of two hitches in the Air Force. I wasn't blood kin, but I was as close as
he could get. Uncle Van couldn't deal with him. They set each other off,
like Asiatics. Latah. Windigo psychosis. I knew this from
my anthropological training, and from reading William S. Burroughs.