The Most Dangerous Animal of All Read online

  She hoped he would be waiting when she got off the bus the next afternoon.

  He was.

  Van watched as Judy looked around for him. He saw that beautiful face light up when her eyes met his, and he moved toward her, taking her hand.

  “Where are we going?” Judy said, not really caring. She had no fear. Van made her feel safe.

  “It’s a surprise—one of my favorite places,” Van replied, steering her toward a nearby bus stop.

  “We’re going to church?” Judy exclaimed when the bus let them off on California Street and Van pointed to Grace Cathedral.

  “Have you ever been inside this church?”

  Judy shook her head, staring at the majestic building, with its high towers and tall steeple that jutted up toward heaven.

  Once inside, Van pointed out his favorite works of art hanging on the cathedral’s walls, including murals by Jan Henryk de Rosen, and impressed her with his knowledge of the history of various pieces.

  Judy was fascinated—not just with the art but with the man who seemed to know so much about the church. No grown-up had ever talked to her like this, like she was an equal, like her opinion mattered. Van proudly showed her the cathedral’s organ, pointing out the long tubular pipes suspended on the walls. “I play the organ here sometimes,” he informed her.

  They had made their way to the stained-glass windows depicting Adam and Eve when my father decided it was time for Judy to go home. As they headed back toward the Sunset District, Judy suggested that he meet her mother.

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” he said. “It would be different if you were seventeen. She won’t like me. She’ll say I’m too old for you.”

  Judy nodded and agreed that they would keep their friendship to themselves for a while. She liked the thought of Van being her very own secret.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow?” he asked when she turned toward her street.

  “Yes,” Judy said breathlessly. “I can’t wait.”

  Swinging her book bag over her shoulder, Judy almost skipped up the steep hill. She had never felt so happy. The young girl didn’t question why a man Van’s age would be interested in her. She didn’t know to ask questions about his past. In her mind, their relationship seemed perfectly natural. She felt giddy when he touched her, when he smiled at her. That was all that mattered.

  Soon she would discover there was much more to Van than his charming exterior, that he had a dark side, a past cloaked in pain that he kept carefully hidden.

  2

  Van’s father, Earl Van Best Sr., was born October 16, 1904, into a loving Christian family. By the time Earl was born, the Best family name had become synonymous with love of God and country. Earl’s ancestors, beginning with his grandfather, John James (J. J.) Best, had fought hard for their beliefs, right or wrong. J. J. had been a Confederate captain in the Civil War, assigned to the South Carolina 9th Infantry Battalion, known as the Pee Dee Rifles. On April 1, 1865, J. J. was shot and captured at the Battle of Dinwiddie Court House and taken as a prisoner of war to Johnson’s Island, Ohio. On June 18, 1865, two days before the last shot of the war was fired, the Confederate captain signed an oath of allegiance to the Union and was released.

  Prior to the war, J. J. had been a tobacco farmer and a registered slave owner. After the war, he returned to his farm, in Galivants Ferry, South Carolina, and reunited with his wife, Winnifred, and his two children. Because of the injuries he had sustained in the war, some of his slaves stayed on the farm to help him, despite the fact that they had been freed.

  The year after the war ended, J. J.’s third child, Earl Van Dorn Best, was born, named after Major General Earl Van Dorn. Dorn, J. J.’s hero, had fought gallantly in the war but had suffered defeat at the Battle of Pea Ridge, in Arkansas. This battle had been a turning point, because it was here that the South lost control of the Mississippi River to the Union soldiers.

  In 1880, J. J. donated some of the Best land for the construction of a new Methodist church and then more land across the dirt road to be used as the church cemetery. That cemetery is known today as Old Zion Cemetery, but back then the locals referred to it as the Best Cemetery.

  Like his father, Earl embraced the southern tradition of tobacco farming, and he spent his childhood working the fertile land. As an adult, his knowledge of farming and his business acumen made him one of the wealthiest citizens in the small community of Galivants Ferry. In the late 1800s, Earl served as his pastor’s right-hand man and confidant, and in 1902 he was elected Horry County superintendent of schools.

  Earl eventually married Anna Jordan, and the couple had eleven children, among them my grandfather Earl Van Best.

  Then tragedy struck.

  Earl Van Dorn Best was shot and killed by a former slave in 1907, when my grandfather was two years old, and Anna suddenly found herself a widow with a brood of children to feed.

  The stories told to him about his father steered my grandfather into the ministry, and he would remain committed to God for the rest of his life. As a teenager, long before he had any formal training in the ministry, Earl became one of Bishop Francis Asbury’s circuit riders, who traveled from town to town on horseback preaching to anyone in Horry County, South Carolina, who would listen to their message of salvation. Earl later left his family home to attend the University of South Carolina, putting himself through school on a preacher’s meager salary. When he met the pretty Miss Gertrude McCormac, from Mullins, South Carolina, Earl fell in love with the talented girl, who could play the piano so well he knew the angels in heaven must be singing along. But Gertrude was not an easy girl to understand. She said she loved him, and Earl believed her, but when he could not be at her beck and call, Gertrude would replace him without a thought. It was a lesson she would teach him over and over again during the years they spent together.

  On November 9, 1929, my grandmother wrote my grandfather a letter, explaining how grateful she was that he had recently traveled to visit her. She mentioned that she would soon be attending an oyster roast and she wished he could be there, but she understood how difficult it was for him to make the long trip to see her every day. “I want you to understand me now beforehand and know that my intentions will always be for the building up rather than the breaking down,” she wrote, before adding a postscript on November 10 that read, “Had a very good time at the oyster roast. Nick was kind. He brought me back. Wish you could have been with me instead.”

  Her ploy worked.

  Earl hurried back to Mullins to ask Gertrude’s father, Duncan, for her hand in marriage. Duncan gave the earnest young man his blessing.

  “Will you marry me?” Earl implored, kneeling gallantly before Gertrude in the parlor as she reclined on a sofa.

  Gertrude pouted prettily and thought for a moment. “I would love to,” she said, smiling into her fiancé’s eyes.

  Gertrude was impressed by the minister’s intelligence. He was the most motivated and educated man she knew, even if he was a bit boring. The young woman was aware of the respect she would gain as the wife of a minister. It was a very appealing prospect.

  Everything had gone well in the marriage for a few years, until Earl’s brother Austin Haygood Best died in 1931, and his wife, Betty Wilmoth Best, died in 1933, both having contracted consumption from the sanatorium where Betty worked. The couple left behind four children—Louise, Mildred, Aileen, and Geraldine (“Bits”). Mildred was sent to live with Earl’s sister Nan. Aileen and the youngest child, Bits, went to live with Earl’s sister Estelle. Gertrude, at Earl’s insistence, unwillingly took in Louise, who was fourteen.

  My grandfather didn’t make a lot of money, and my grandmother had to stretch every nickel now that they had another mouth to feed. While moving from college town to college town had seemed exciting at first, being tied down with no money and a child did not fit in with Gertrude’s plans. “Why can’t Nan raise Louise?” Gertrude complained.

  Earl, who attended the College of Charleston,
looked up from a paper he was writing and sighed. “Because she can only afford to raise one,” he explained again.

  “But it’s not right. Mildred is always saying that the Best family split them up like a litter of kittens. Sisters need to be together.”

  “Well, maybe we should bring Mildred here,” Earl said, watching Gertrude’s reaction with smiling eyes.

  She shut up and stomped out of the room.

  Earl laughed as he went back to his writing. Sometimes his spoiled bride begged to be put in her place.

  For the next year, Gertrude suffered in relative silence, fearful that Earl would get the notion that raising all the girls together was the right thing to do. But she wasn’t nice to her niece. Earl, who had grown up without a father, was a strict disciplinarian, because he was determined to raise Louise right. As the years passed, Louise came to hate her aunt and resent her uncle for letting his wife treat her like the orphan she was.

  Toward the end of 1933, Gertrude missed her monthly cycle and feared she might be pregnant. She and Earl were living in Wilmore, Kentucky, while Earl studied at the Asbury Theological Seminary, on his way to earning another certification that hopefully would bring more income into the family.

  “How will we support two children?” Gertrude whined after sharing her news with Earl, hoping this would force him to send the girl away.

  “We’ll manage just like we do with one,” Earl reassured her.

  Gertrude decided she wanted a girl—a girl of her own. Maybe when Earl held his own daughter, he would realize that the other one didn’t belong. She began sewing dresses for the baby from yards of lace and cloth, never once entertaining the idea that her baby could be a boy. That just wouldn’t do.

  On July 14, 1934, Gertrude gave birth to a son, Earl Van Best Jr. Earl decided to call him Van.

  When the midwife tried to place my father in Gertrude’s arms, her cheeks turned red and tears streamed from her eyes.

  “Look, dear. He’s a fine, healthy boy,” Earl cajoled, trying to get Gertrude to hold her son.

  Gertrude wouldn’t look at him. “Take him away,” she insisted, turning over in her bed to face the wall.

  Earl didn’t understand. Mothers were supposed to love their children.

  A few days later, Gertrude was still in bed when her husband brought the baby to her again.

  “I’m not well,” she said when Earl moved toward her with the child in his arms.

  “Just look at him,” Earl begged. “Hold him for just a minute. He’s a sweet fellow.”

  “No. Leave me alone. I don’t want it.”

  Every day for weeks, Earl brought the baby to her, and every day, she refused to hold him. Finally he could take it no more. He was tired of washing diapers, feeding his son every four hours, listening to him cry for the comfort of a mother’s arms, doing all the things Gertrude should be doing. Enough was enough.

  “Get up,” he ordered after another sleepless night. “Get out of that bed and take care of your child like a good Christian mother. I will not allow you to act like this. Get up!”

  Gertrude knew she had pushed him as far as she could. She got up and reluctantly assumed her role as a mother to the boy. She fed him. She changed and washed his diapers. She bathed him. But she didn’t mother him any more than was absolutely necessary.

  Happy that his wife was better, Earl left her to her duty. In a letter to his mother, he explained that he and Gertrude had very definite ideas about rearing a child. “When he cries, we let him whoop it out,” he wrote. “If he is comfortable, we try to forget about him and let him alone. I believe to walk them around and humor them when they get blue from crying is one of the worst things that can be done for them. He will be a fine boy if we don’t coddle and fondle him into being a regular sissy.”

  In 1935, my grandfather became an ordained Methodist minister and accepted a missionary assignment to Japan, taking his wife and their one-year-old son with him. Louise happily joined her sisters at Estelle’s house. Earl’s assignment was to help create a universal Christian church in Japan that incorporated all denominations. As a representative of the Methodist Board of Missions, my grandfather had been invited to meet with Emperor Hirohito (the Mikado), along with representatives from other Christian denominations, to discuss bringing more American missionaries to Japan. Earl would later write about his efforts in his master’s thesis. It took five years to accomplish, but in 1941, church union became a reality in Japan.

  Earl was very proud to have been a part of this effort, but the highlight of his time in Tokyo was meeting the Mikado, and he liked to impress Van with stories of the meeting. He took his son to see the Gilbert and Sullivan opera The Mikado, among others, and sent the playbills back home to his nieces.

  By 1940 Van had grown into a six-year-old who was already showing signs of becoming a polymath, much to my grandfather’s delight. He had picked up Japanese effortlessly, as easily as he had acquired the German that Earl often spoke with him. While other American children were learning to write from the left side of the page to the right, Van was learning to write in three Japanese scripts—kanji, hiragana, and katakana—going from right to left in columns. Earl insisted that Van take advantage of the unique opportunity living abroad afforded him. Gertrude fed his artistic side, teaching him to play piano and organ, teaching him to draw—more to keep herself occupied than out of any affection for the boy. There were no kisses on the cheek or affectionate hugs. There was no sympathy when Van got hurt. “Dust yourself off. You’re a man. You have to be tough,” Earl would say. Perversely, Gertrude would decorate Van’s clothes with lacy collars and ruffles, doing her best to turn him into a “regular sissy.”

  Van tried to be tough. He tried to please his father, but Earl’s philosophy of “Spare the rod, spoil the child” resulted in whippings for minor infractions. And when Van cried, the rod became more vicious.

  Van understood early on that learning was paramount to his well-being, and so he studied to stay out of trouble. He learned. And he made his father proud.

  Earl had equally high expectations of Gertrude, but she needed constant attention and strained against the restrictive bonds of her marriage. My grandfather had suspicions about her activities when he wasn’t around and occasionally voiced them, but Gertrude always assured him that he was being silly. Wanting to believe the best, Earl allowed himself to be consoled. Not many men could resist when Gertrude turned on the charm, and her husband was no exception.

  Between his wife’s flirtations and the instability in the region, my grandfather knew it was almost time to send Gertrude and Van home. Japan had formed an alliance with Italy and Germany, and Earl realized that did not bode well for any peaceful resolution to tensions that were building around the world. My grandmother couldn’t wait to go home. She had not bargained for the strict lifestyle she endured as the wife of a missionary in Japan. For five years, she and Earl had lived at Aoyama Gakuin, a university established in 1874 by the Methodist Episcopal Church. Her life might have been more bearable, but she was an artist and musician, a free spirit, and Earl and his Christian ideals were much too rigid for her creative soul. Gertrude liked to have fun. Earl had responsibilities, which he took very seriously—namely, saving heathen souls from the fires of hell.

  On October 28, 1940, Earl waved good-bye to his wife and son from a dock in Kobe as they boarded the ocean liner Tatuta Maru, bound for the United States. By January 1941 they would be back in Japan, their return spurred by Earl’s family, who had no problem informing him that he needed to keep a closer eye on his wife.

  3

  On December 7, 1941, the Japanese Imperial Navy bombed Pearl Harbor. Two thousand four hundred and two Americans lost their lives in the attack, and more than twelve hundred people were wounded. The United States responded with a declaration of war the next day. My grandfather sent my father and grandmother home on the first ship out of Japan. Gertrude and Van anxiously waited for Earl to meet them in San Francisco and were r
elieved when he finally arrived a few weeks later.

  Earl didn’t waste a second thought on the six years he had spent in Japan. His country had been sneak-attacked by the Japanese, and he wanted to pay them back for their treachery. “I’ve decided to attend the U.S. Army Chaplain School,” he told Gertrude. “You and Van can move back to South Carolina and stay with Estelle until I finish. I’m going to join the military.”

  Gertrude pleaded with Earl to let her and Van stay in California, but he refused. “No. We don’t know what’s going to happen. They might attack again. I want you with my family, where you’ll be safe.”

  The next day, the three of them rented a car and left California, heading for Estelle’s home in Conway, South Carolina. Earl kept up a steady stream of conversation with Van, who relished the attention, while Gertrude pouted the whole way across the country. Her mood worsened a few days later when they pulled into Estelle’s driveway and she saw Bits and Aileen playing outside. It dawned on her that she would have to help take care of them.

  “I am not taking care of those brats,” she informed her husband.

  “Calm down, Gertrude,” Earl said. “Estelle can’t continue to care for three children by herself. She was kind enough to take Louise while we were gone. We’re Christians. These girls are family. We must behave like Christians and help her.”

  “Christians be damned!” Gertrude shouted, marching into the house and slamming the door behind her.

  After getting their bags from the car, Earl put his arm around his sister.

  “Don’t pay any attention to Gertrude,” he said. “She’ll be fine.”

  Estelle wasn’t so sure. She loved her brother and wanted to help, but she was well aware that Gertrude was spoiled and petulant. Louise had often complained that Gertrude had treated her poorly when she lived with her.