Ezra Fairchild

[ezrafairchild]

Basics

Full Name: Ezra Jebediah Fairchild

Birthday: April 30th

Age: 74

Zodiac Sign: Taurus

Religion: Baptist

–Religious Level (1-10): 10

Birthplace: Birmingham, Alabama

Current Residence: Birmingham, Alabama

Height: 6’ (formerly 6' 2")

Hair Color: Grayed with streaks of black

Eye Color: Dark Green (let's pretend Jeremy Irons matches that okay)

Sexuality: That is about the silliest question he ever did hear. The good Lord would not have gone and made Eve for Adam if there was no reason behind it.

Love/Romantic Preference: The prettiest unripened peach of a woman.

Relationship Status: Twice a widower. Married his childhood love when they were 14, but she gave out on him a few years later. Later married a woman who had been widowed herself with a sweet girl named Delilah. It's a blessing she reunited with their Father before all that mess happened with the girl.

Languages Known: English

Details

Car: 1962 Ford F100 in baby blue with a little rust for character [x]

Phone: Landline

Music Genres: Gospel, Folk, Bluegrass

Wardrobe: Old classic southern upper-class attire. "His Sunday bests" [x] Will always have a handkerchief embroidered with his initials EJF. Walking cane with a silver wolf's head at the top, tarnished finish from wear, with teeth baring. Old brown leather loafers.

Estimated Net Worth: $50 million (and saved every penny)

Ransom Value: *crickets*

Education: Has no need for any of that higher education. His higher education comes from the only good book he knows. Amen.

Accent: Southern (9/10 strength)

Bloodlines + Connections

Wesley Bartholomew Fairchild | Grandson/Son

Delilah Celeste Fairchild | Step-Daughter | Resides in Belmont Psychiatric Hospital, the Celestial Wing.

Mary Magdalene | Bless that Catholic girl's heart

Levels

Drinking (1-10): 0 like a good Baptist would, even if he still has bourbon around the place... says it's good to resist temptation as a testament of faith.

Swearing: 0 also like a good man of the Lord would do. But don't you test him.

Smoking status: 8. Cigarettes seem in bad taste, but he smokes from a pipe.

Drugs: 0 and never will. 

Cooking proficiency: 0. Any man who knows his way around a kitchen has been around his mama's apron strings for too long.

Intelligence: 7. In spite of Ezra's lack of formal education, I wouldn't underestimate his way of the spoken word, but throw in some "higher education" words at him and he will be a bit lost by that gibberish noise you have.

Emotional/Social Intelligence: 5. His way or the highway, but he's got the added advantage of southern hospitality keeping him at a 5.

Creativity: 2. This man's creative thoughts only involve harming vulnerable girls!

Temper: 7. He's bad when he's mad, but he's cool, calm, collected right up until then.

[ezrafairchild]

claudiamcrshall​:

all her justification is blown out, taken down to the level of manners. she is right, she knows that what she’s said is the truth, that it’s the whole reason any of them are there. but she looks back into his eyes, finds nothing but a cool steel behind the, the warning to watch her step among the garden paths. there’s still steam to what she said, the bitter retort that could find its way to the light after the insult that burns towards her. but before she can, he smiles, pushes onward. she can only follow if she has any respect left for wes. 

the turn in topic catches her abruptly, trying to realign herself with his new topic. she racks her brain for the last name elkins, coming up completely void. there is only one possibility, the confusion underlined in her words. “mary astor?” certainly the cancellation department was to be avoided as much as possible. what did she know about mary besides rumor, the hatred by association that gave way to more questions than answers for him. “she’s from here?” she wishes someone else were here so she might shoot a questioning glance, be given something other than the void of uncertainty that she can offer. “you know her?”

"Bless her heart. The poor thing still goes by his name, does she now?" He speaks more to himself in between the slow shakes of his head. "A devoted woman is hard to come by in these times, especially one so young as our little Mary." But he's taken out of his cloud of thoughts, brought back by another young bride and her questions. It tells him she's not all that close to her at all, but he still engages with her. "She was raised up about a stone's throw from around these parts, over yonder," he explains, gestures slightly with his cane to the east. "Oh, sure I know her. Around here there's no such thing as strangers much like there is where you all come from. Been knowing her and her kin long before her granddaddy went to be with the Lord."

[ezrafairchild]

claudiamcrshall​:

“no.” the wind kicks up, turns the branches away from them, carries something burnt on the ends of it. she can correct, or she can ignore. in the past it had always been an easy choice. in the past, she had been alone. “just the neighbor.” little girls walking to school the pace behind chaperones, left with doors that couldn’t lock anymore. she thinks of how alone she might have liked to have been. none of it is fit for polite company. 

“we’re not lazy.” she scoffs, as though he’s angling for some kind of weak spot that she has yet to relinquish. the time might come given the property, but as long as the topic was work, she would not relinquish. “this is my purpose, our purpose, to keep the film going.” the path winds, the smell has not left her.  she had nothing else to say, what was the devil to her now that could be concisely answered. “that’s what’s important.”

They have had a fine conversation between just the two of them until she's gone to be unnice, just like an apple to go on and spoil, sold by a snake in a garden it don't belong to. "Well, all right, now, little miss," he starts with a stop in his pace, the tip of his cane digging itself into the rich soil beneath. He'll do the courteous thing and stare at her right in the eye when he addresses her; the way a guest on his very land is meant to be treated. "There's no rhyme or reason why you ought to be in your feelings all of a sudden. No one's done pointed a finger at neither one of you to give you that ugly idea. I'm awful sorry if you heard me all wrong, but that's all there is to it." He's a better host than that. He's much too mannered for that. "Might could use a cleaning or two behind your ears," he gestures with a nod of the head before the cane makes a new hole a foot forward. It's all left behind, but the mark remains.

"Blood is what's important to us down here," he goes on, a smile to her from up above. "I've heard word that little Mary Elkins found a place with what all y'all do over that way. The poor child has had her fair share of heartache, best believe. What has she been doing with herself of late?"

[ezrafairchild]

claudiamcrshall​:

dizzy spells are a sure sign of many things in her life, she’s found. most of them happen to involve tequila or being drugged, neither of which are possible in the presence of ezra fairchild. neither of which should be mentioned in company of any kind, if she were to be considered the polite kind of girl. the only fault she’s found is in the ground, his arm yanking her back onto the correct path. her reflex is to pull her arm away, but already she’s been released— personal space undisturbed. shaken 

“i wasn’t alone.” she says finally, begrudgingly, as though she cannot at the same time continue the fantasy that she grew up alone without also acknowledging that her father tried. tried his best, some might say. the tightrope of being beholden to the dead, no one knowing could interrupt her, and still she tried to explain. the second sentence drops, leaving room for nothing but a shrug. “good to know.”

her mind rebounds back to the location she’s supposed to be scouting, thinking of how this might become a boarding school for young girls, not recounting how her father raised her for strangers. “do they get to count it as community service?” she doesn’t know anything about the church anymore, never did really. a step missed on behalf of everyone in her life, though she knows already that if it had been a choice she would have always said no. “or is purpose enough.”

"Now, if you had no brothers or sisters, sugar, you must have had yourself other family about to keep you from being all by your lonesome. Is that right?" Ezra's land is too far from Hollywood glamour, where the television sets have no place inside the old mansion they're walking around, where the name Rick Marshall hasn't reached in life nor echoes in death. There's a great many things about film-making that haven't touched him and his property until this very moment.

"With no purpose, a man has simply nothing to live for," he preaches to her, as if the question hits a part of him that's triggered into sermon. "The devil loves lazy, and there's no better service out there than to keep him from looking around these parts to find it."

[ezrafairchild]

claudiamcrshall​:

her mind instantly rejects his meaning, tossing back the ideas that he proposes just as quickly as they might have been absorbed. nothing ezra fairchild said went with her own perceptions of herself her life, nor her relationship. and while her first instinct would have been to fire back some great comment about the state of the world, she found only that she could imagine wes, how she didn’t want to be the one to cause the problem again. and in doing so her dry mouth could only mumble “i’m an only child.” the words stuck together, as though she was pulling them through molasses. implicit with you didn’t know her, you will never understand. the pool of good will she had promised to set aside has all but evaporated, turning to see how far back the house was now. 

but she wasn’t so far gone that the cane coming towards her went unnoticed. she gestures to push it away although it never gets so close, taking a faltering step backwards that can’t be ignored, almost off the path they’re walking, leaving her one step behind. “don’t hold your breath.” she counters finally, the veneer of whatever politeness she thought herself capable of chipping away at the insistence that she of all people need to give up and resort to children. “i’m fine— more than fine, just how i am.” imagery thrown out at the next possible opportunity, pulling the viewfinder that had been dangling around her neck up to her eye as though she were looking at terrain and no longer interested in her company. “do you have a a gardener?” 

An only child. That's no fault of hers, but the apple never falls too far from the tree. A mother is to a daughter like a father is to a son: a guide to how to live your life the right way by following in their footsteps. If those footprints lead one downward way, then there's only intervention that can save them from falling. Sounds to him that Claudia was not the most planned child, and that often does happen, but that should have made her all the more loved to death, wanting more. There's only one type of woman that runs too wild to be tamed even by childbearing, a woman like Delilah who bolts out before the first is reared, doing whatever she must have done to poor Wesley Bartholomew. Ezra wants no part of the thoughts of what she might have done to prevent him from entering into the world, simply too unthinkable to bear.

"I'm sure your daddy did try to give you a little brother to bother," he finally tells her, as if consoling her in a fact he knows nothing about, only feels the faith behind it. "About broke his heart to know you'd be all alone growing up. Left it all up to him to beat the boys off before--Oh, now, be careful there!" She's gone off the path, reaching out a hand to loop around an arm to help right herself. "Dizzy spells can be a sure sign," he informs in good nature, whosoever nature that's defined as good is not welcome.

She's released. Health restored. She's fine because the good Lord allows her to be so. He likes to think she understands a bit of that, but there's just something about her feet that tells him all he needs to know: she's as unsteady as they come. "A gardener, you said? Once in awhile I have some of the youth from the church come by to help trim back the untidy parts. It gives them purpose and keeps them out of all that trouble from temptation you find so much out on the streets. It's a right shame what goes on out there." His eyes wander back to her, as if the example is known more to her than it is to him. "This becomes a safe place for them. The boys on the trees. The girls on the flowers. You can spot the difference when we get closer to the house, where you can see the roses all trimmed back nicely and blooming. Only the best ones make it to the dinner table, ones that are more flower than thorn."

[ezrafairchild]

claudiamcrshall​:

hearing it out loud, no matter how clumsy and forthright, blew another cold gust through her. the chill of winter finding its way in by mere mention of mother, of kim’s opinion on a matter that she could never have known. “my mother didn’t like children.” she shouldn’t have said anything at all, and let the presumptions go without a second thought. but it was too late now, as though the wound hadn’t been sealed up quite right and was still oozing into her life. whatever signs there were, she certainly was missing them. 

she was still trying to connect dots to what they were there to do, failing to see where it matched a single frame of what she set out to film. the last option was simply herself, of which there was a blistering cold answer. “i’m not a mother” she sounded unsure, only in that the thought had never even crossed her mind. in the millions of questions that might have surrounded her marriage, there was no point in considering it. she could hardly keep a plant alive, she had even less interest in another human being. “i’m not coming down with anything.” and she certainly was not blessed, though he’d already said as much himself. “there are no signs.”

"Now, that's downright the silliest set of words I ever did hear be strung up like you've done there." There's something about her words that makes them akin to this little breeze around them. Oh, it knocks around a few leaves here and there, but it sure doesn't make any dent on anything else, especially a man's skull. It's that look again from him that's glowing from the inside out, a jack-o-lantern lit from a candle of hot wax and a flickering flame, that plastered smile that is not meant to mock but is still made from a sharp knife found in the kitchen drawer. "There's not a single woman on this green earth that can, in good conscience, resist what good having a baby does for the soul. Your momma poured all her love into you and any brothers and sisters you might may have."

"Well, of course you're no one's momma, sugar." His voice is touched with an undertone of laughter, the obviousness of it all a bit too rich for it to not color it so. "There's no motherhood out there that leaves no trace, and you're so small that it about makes a splinter look like one of them giant sequoias out west." As if emphasis is needed, the tip of Ezra's cane lifts a bit, gestures up, points to a particular guest's stomach as all the evidence he ever did need. "You just wait until you swell up like a tick in July."

[ezrafairchild]

claudiamcrshall​:

the smile might have glanced off her skin like an ill-timed blow, the wink might have done the same. but together, they’re just enough to drain away any confidence she might have had in the interaction. there’s never been pleasure in the religious, and there is nothing about ezra’s words that hint that things will get better. he makes sure of it, the sort of holy threat that doesn’t carry much weight unless the person uttering it believes. and how could she know if he truly did, certainly she knew what happened if she misjudged the mark. there was a mighty special place for those kinds of girls. how easy it was to be reminded with the right combination of words and actions. but he doesn’t know about her in any detail, and there’s no reason to give him any information that he hasn’t asked for. she is trying her hand at politeness, not therapy. and ezra fairchild seemed only concerned in saving her moral soul. 

the turn towards wes’s mother turns in her mind, as she tries to make sense of the information that he’s sharing with her. she doesn’t trust him, he hasn’t earned that much. but she can’t help the curiosity that stems from “my thinking?” her brow furrowed. “is his mother—” she didn’t know exactly what he was trying to insinuate, the in between the lines of having a baby lost on her cyclical thought that ezra fairchild can simply not know anything about her life that she doesn’t tell him. “the film isn’t about motherhood.”

"Oh, bless your heart... You poor thing you..." he almost murmurs, borders on coddling, as if by God's own design, with no fault of her own, she is incapable of knowing what matters most in His plan for her. There's an expression that can only be described as pity lurking in the wrinkles of his smile. "Your momma must be having a right conniption that you've given her not one grandbaby yet." He hums once behind pursed lips, a single shake of the head, a shot of sympathy for only someone he's never met nor ever will. The thought of Claudia's mother outweighs anything that reality can give him for once you have met one mother, you have met them all; for once you have met one woman, you have met all mothers.

"Now, there's just no good in testing His timing by ignoring those signs of His," he preaches from some oversung gospel that is handed down only by mouth. "He'll be sure to make the time for you and all the blessings that'll sure to be coming down with it."

[ezrafairchild]

claudiamcrshall​:

she was pulled from there by divine force, ripped from the state of washington by someone who knew better and had better. she didn’t believe that it was god who did such a thing, but how could she argue with the statement. she agreed with the core, was that not enough for the moment. was god good? ezra kept talking, the line blurred more between what she could assume and what she had to ignore. “i didn’t learn anything there.” she smiles back, the mirror of some pleasantry, she thinks. she’s never been good at knowing, and it’s never been asked of her. “no lies, anyways.” iron lingered in her mouth.

anything that she knows about wes has been told in the utmost confidence, it the realm of never to be repeated to anyone. she might know plenty about him, and he might know even more about her. none of it was to be repeated, least of all here in the sunlight with his father hanging on each word. “we don’t talk about that much.” who is to be believed in this world: the mother or the father. she used to think she knew, but there was little hope of clarity as she continued to grow. his words are just wide enough to cast thoughts back to her own father, trying to peel back layers of memory that she’d tried to seal away. would nate say the same? that he tried everything, that in the end it made any difference? most important of all— did he try everything? 

“i always find a way to bring it back to work.” she said finally, although it’s not the out that she hopes it would be. there’s a halting start, not the mark of dishonesty but rather a mind trying to pull itself out of a downward spiral. “his mother doesn’t come up there.”

"Well, we'll certainly receive that as a blessing. Those are few and far between when it comes right down to it from where you come from." It's not just from where she's born, but she's uprooted and gone some place just as bad, hasn't she? Southern comfort surrounds her, now. "We all know there's a mighty special place for liars to find themselves at," he tells her, in case she's forgotten a few Sundays in her time, all included with the same smile any preacher gets to wear, the same slight wink that any sinner is warned with. "He makes sure of it."

Delilah Celeste might one day know all about it. She sure has done enough damage for one soul to bear by itself. Her step-father can't decide if he feels grateful or heartbroken by news that stories of her ways have not been retold. There is no need protecting a girl from her own wrongdoings, in spite of every shred of love she's been shown. It makes Ezra shake his head again and the smile to molt.

"We'd much appreciate it if you kept her in your prayers." It's about all that can be done for her, in her delicate condition. "Having a baby like she did should have done her some good.-- I have not a single doubt that you'll see in no time at all just how that shapes your way of thinking for the best."

[ezrafairchild]

claudiamcrshall​:

she wasn’t exactly dazzled by the script, though she’d known that there was going to be a lull. maybe they had been distracted by other things— misery had taken more than she’d thought, meaning layered in meaning. a film created for only one person, with the rest of the world on standby. this was completely different, simply a script taken up because it was pitched. that it could be completed, and they could do it well. she could make it outstanding without batting an eye. candles already gleamed in the dining rooms of her sketches.

but there’s hardly room to try and explain the film when she gets caught on every sharp word, the grating suggestions that push at topics she’s not sure she understands completely. she will never speak to any kinfolk, she can hardly get through the true meaning of it without bristling thoughts that threaten sharper comments. “washington.” is it easier to give up personal information than it would be to say it doesn’t matter where any of them are from, so long as they’ve ended up in the same place. that’s not his business in the slightest— but his eyes find her again. she bites her tongue, waits for the blood in her mouth. 

“he was willing to bring us here.” is it an olive branch? that he might not sound like his grandfather, but there was still something to the property worth mentioning. she would never have thought to bring anyone to her own home, a separate distinct thought from who might actually go. but they stood here on an estate, she could talk to the owner, there was little mystery left to hide. it stood for something. neutral terms, or at least the hope in them. she has little practice in being a polite guest, the rust seeps through even in the simplest comment: “you don’t forget your childhood.”

He is not impressed by where she comes from. It settles like a stone thrown in the ocean, someday hitting rock bottom. Though everyone must come from somewhere, must they not? It hardly can be helped in matters like these. "You happened to be born and bred there?" The head shakes a little from side-to-side with a click of the lips, seemingly interested in the taken note. "God is good, pulling you out of a den like that." Nothing but liars and cheats and everything else in between. A den of vipers. "Now, we do try our hardest not to mess around with politics down here on this land, but there's only so much a man can see with his own two eyes before he starts getting opinions about things. I hope you got moving on out of there before some of those lies started rubbing off on you, sugar." But he passes along a pleasant smile to her. Of course she's no peddler of dishonesty. He would never say such a thing, even if it was true, not to a friend of Wesley's.

"He's been on this earth far too long not to know he's always welcome, along with anyone else he wants to come with," he assures as the sun warms his face, the host of so much, open arms and open gates. But the thought of a childhood he wasn't allowed to be a part of causes the wind to leak out from his lungs, his face straight out to a horizon unknown. And his head begins to shake again, slowly, with too much weight to carry against his shoulders before it dips. "The good Lord knows I did everything I could to have a part in that boy's upbringing, too," he sighs out. "I'd imagine he's shared a piece of all that with you, about how his momma did while raising him?"

[ezrafairchild]

claudiamcrshall​:

that man of hers. she looks sharply up at the walking companion she’s found, under the guise of tour of the property. some kind of traditional that she could find no reasoning for other than the pained expressions on the other two men if ezra fairchild stayed in the room any longer. she didn’t know when she’d developed such tact, she had doubts of how long it would hold out with such questions being asked of her. the nickname catches her on a sharp edge, given away from the way she casts a sidelong glance of confusion, eyebrows raised for a fraction of a moment before sugar is filed under grievance to be dealt with later. 

“a few days.” the real answer is couched somewhere between leaving tonight and a genuine unknown. they will stay as long as it takes to see if this is the fit for their set, if it is they will stay on for months after. “just to see the location.” enough time to decide if it is enough to bring the story to life, if there are any adjustments to be made. there is no doubt that they are in the south, a place that she has never travelled to before with the stick of humidity on her skin, the restless quiet of the undisturbed past. “we want to film on a practical estate, and well—” she gestured to the path ahead of them as though she couldn’t think of any adjectives that might be good enough to describe the space. in truth she didn’t know what she was looking for either among the aging trees and grand staircases. she hoped she would find it quickly. 

“my husband,” tries the weight of the word out, likes how official it sounds even to this stranger. “is from spain. it’s not peculiar.” the line of protection is the first to come up, from what she’s not sure but the defense is put out all the same. only then does she remember who she’s with, why it might be important that she’s the one out on the grounds. she has never been taught manners, she tries to feign what she might think a nicer answer could be. “i must sound different too. and you don’t sound like anyone i’ve spoken to recently.”

The vagueness in her answer is billowing from her breath, but it's taken in all the same. There's no manners in running off guests that so far have been good people. "Well, however long it might come to be, we are downright tickled pink that you'd think of us for your little movie business.--You'll have to tell us what it's all about some time. No need rushing off into the thick of it and put a spoil to things, now." What else is good manners if not enjoying the amble along the grounds, basking in the sunbeams, instead of letting you and your company be blinded by the artificial flash of Hollywood?

What is not expected is the thorn that is heard in her tone, but this is a matter of a wife protecting her husband, excusable to an extent, honorable to a fault. "Oh, I could never mean any offense when it comes to our overseas friends. I surely do hope none was taken." He has the air of sincerity beneath his wings, even if those feathers are the slightest bit on the ruffled side. "What I mean to say is they can hardly help how it is that they sound like, much like how we might sound to him and his kinfolk, as you've already spoken to. Why, you must come up north a ways to talk the way you do."

Ezra's cane has the head of a wolf beneath his hand, something primeval in its tarnished edges, the wrinkles of the flesh that overlap the silver teeth. There isn't enough weight resting against it to show that it's needed, only that its been with him so long that it has become a part of him. It's as much him as this family estate, as much as his grandson. "Wesley has lost a good bit of home to his voice," he muses before the head turns in Claudia's direction, the narrowing of the eyes to emphasize his words, "but best believe his roots run as deep as that there magnolia."

[ezrafairchild]

It’s too late in the season for the air to be sweet with magnolias. Those trees have all but turned into kindle with how their leaves have browned up, but there are still rosebuds in the warm dew of Alabama, sprinkled here and there on the property. The south never does know the meaning of winter most of the time, free of snowstorms and ice, only a frosty chill can ever come from visitors that haven’t a clue what it means to be hospitable nor to accept it in a kindly manner.

“Has anyone happened to tell you he’s not all that much for conversation, that man of yours?” Ezra laughs as they stroll up the walkway, brick-lined with boxwoods to the sides and spanish moss above. “The most peculiar accent he has,” he goes on, the tip of a cane punctuating the statement. “Must be why.” Almost sounds understanding, pitying, really. A smile to the girl, all in good nature. “We do love having you come down all this way to see us.--How long is it that you’ll all be staying with us for again, sugar?“

[ezrafairchild]