1. Holden Gunner Beckett Jr. “Gunner”
NEWSOME, ALABAMA
SOME TIME LATER…
“Come on, Black. Bring your ass on na.” I fussed at my overly active Labrador retriever.
We hadn’t been hunting in a while.
He had a lot of extra energy that he needed to get out.
I planned to take him and my other babies to the lake tomorrow.
I had just pulled up to my parents’ house.
I didn’t live too far from them on the land that we owned.
Our family’s land had been passed down through the generations.
Over four hundred acres in a small town named Newsome in Alabama.
Out of the land that we owned, we leased about 150 acres to about twelve families.
I lived on ten acres of land that my father gave me when I turned eighteen.
The majority of my parents’ income came from the leased land along with the small grocery store and liquor store we owned.
The town was seventy miles outside of Birmingham, and it was as rural as rural could be.
There were no major stores, restaurants, or anything.
Newsome was a family-oriented town where we hunted, fished, and rode dirt bikes or ATVs for fun.
The biggest business that supplied our town with our biggest revenue was the chicken plant.
Black ran up on the porch, where I stood waiting for him.
My mama, Mabel, called me to run to the store for her.
The cabbage in her garden wasn’t ready yet, so she wanted me to go to the store since she was in the mood for some.
There was no way that I would tell her no when it meant that I would eat some of my mama’s good ass cabbage.
“Mama, where you at?” I yelled when I walked into the house.
My mama came from the kitchen.
“Boy, you act like we live in some big mansion that you got to scream in. I’m right here seasoning this chicken so I can fry it. Ya daddy out there by the lake.” She waved her hand.
“Go to ya pillow and lay down, Black.”
Without hesitation, my dog walked over to his pillow in what my mama called the babies’ room.
All of my dog babies had pillows.
What annoyed me when I brought my babies over here was that they listened to my mother better than they listened to me.
How the hell did that happen?
I just glared at Black on his pillow, like he wasn’t just giving me hell less than three minutes ago.
“Alright, Mama. I’m about to go back here and mess with Daddy,” I told her after I kissed her forehead.
“Make sure you got everything you want on your list, Mabel Ann. I’m not going back to the store after I leave it.”
My mama smacked the shit out of me on the back of my head.
“Play with me, Gunner. Call me Mabel Ann again like you lay with me every night.”
See, that was where I took my exit.
From the sly smile that rested on her beautiful face, she knew that I didn’t want to hear that.
She played too much.
“Bye, Mama.”
I heard her boisterous laugh through the back door after I closed it.
My daddy sat in his seat on the dock.
It was his end of the day, wind down place to be.
My sister, Nadine, was at the grocery store, closing tonight.
“Hey, my boy. What’s going on with you today?” my daddy, Griff, asked.
He passed me a glass of Yak after I took the seat next to him.
I took a sip as I looked out over the lake.
The same lake that I learned how to swim, fish, and kissed my first girl in.
“Man, today was a good ass day. Mitchell called to let me know that the beer endorsement deal went through.”
My daddy’s back lifted from the seat.
“That’s what the hell I’m talking about, boy! I knew you had something special the first time you cast a line. I never in a million years thought you would turn fishin’ into a successful career. I just wanted to teach you how to fish and hunt so you could always feed yaself.”
My daddy’s pride in my accomplishments meant everything to me.
I was a professional angler who was currently the number one angler of the year.
I made good money as a competing angler.
Last year, I pulled $450,000 in payouts from competitions.
I had two major endorsement deals with a major sporting store and a fishing rod manufacturer.
My ambassador deal for each was a three-year commitment.
Both deals paid out at $800,000 over the three years.
The beer deal that I just closed was a two-year deal with a payout of $300,000.
I’d been a professional angler since I was eighteen.
I didn’t start really making a dent in the industry until I was twenty-six.
It was crazy that a Black man dominated a space that was majority cauliflower.
It was cool as fuck to meet young Black boys who looked up to me and wanted to be a professional angler one day.
“Daddy, you did more than just teach me how to fish and hunt. You taught me how to be a man. I love you for that and could never repay you.” I knew that I wouldn’t be where I was if it wasn’t for my parents.
When I got my first two big wins, I told them that I wanted to build a house for them.
I was ready to drop a big bag.
Instead of letting me build them a house, they opted to buy a large, manufactured home.
They said that they’d rather me invest to build wealth for our next generation.
It wasn’t often that you saw someone from a rural place like Newsome create wealth.
Yes, my family was land rich which was a blessing.
I wanted us to be wealthy all the way around.
“It’s a privilege to be you and Nadine’s father. You two are my greatest joys, longest challenges, and proudest achievements. One day, hopefully, you’ll get to experience the same.” My daddy’s brow was arched higher than the golden arches.
My mama and he had been on my ass about their non-existent grandbabies.
At thirty-eight, I knew it was time, but I refused to let just anyone be the mother of my children.
Newsome was small and had its fair share of hos.
Most of the good women were already married or left the town.
There was a younger generation of good women, but young wasn’t my thing.
If you weren’t at least thirty-two, I wasn’t interested.
I chuckled under my breath.
“I’m sure I’ll get a chance to experience it, Daddy. Trust me, I’m gonna give you and Mama some grandchildren. I’on see y’all on Nadine about grandchildren.”
He ignored my statement.
I knew he didn’t want to think about Nadine having children, because that meant that he had to think about her being with a man.
No father wanted to think about that.
“The puppies almost ready?”
“Yeah, they are. Another two weeks and they’re ready. Out of the nine of them, seven have already been sold,” I told him.
“I never have a problem when I breed Jaya, but this is her last litter.” Jaya was a purebred Chesapeake Bay Retriever.
“She’s had five litters, and her baby Jackie is ready to have some babies.”
Another thing that I learned early was to have multiple streams of income.
The fishing thing was cool; however, there might come a time that the fish stopped biting.
I had to make sure that I always had money constantly flowing in.
When I was thirty, I got into professional dog breeding.
All my dogs and litters were full-blooded and registered with the American Kennel Club.
My daddy taught me to never do anything half-ass.
Because I also hunted, I bred mostly hunting dogs.
The cauliflowers came far to buy my retrievers, spaniels, beagles, and hounds.
I spent a lot of money on the care of my dogs.
They all lived in pristine conditions.
My litter limit was five for my dogs.
Once they’d met that number, I’d retire them, get them fixed, and they’d live a good life hunting with me, and just being my babies.
“That’s good, Son. When I told Sal that you had some ready last week, he ran me down to give me that nine hundred to give to you,” my daddy said before he chortled.
We laughed together.
“Gunner, you gonna go to the store or sit out here all night with ya daddy? I know y’all both want to eat.” Mabel Ann Beckett will not be held up.
“Let me get to this store before she come out here and beat me up, Daddy,” I joked.
“I know her list probably got stuff on it that I can’t get at the Soups. I’m gonna have to go to the grocery store next town over.”
Soups was a local grocery store that my family owned.
We sold a lot of things, but there were just certain things that my mama wanted that we just didn’t have.
There was a major grocery store in the small city that was thirty miles away.
When I came into the kitchen, my mama had the list in her hand, ready to hand it to me.
One look at the list after she gave it to me confirmed what I thought.
“I’ll be back, Mama.”
My mama said she wanted to make cabbage, but she sent me to the store with a list like she was about to cook Thanksgiving dinner.
When you lived in a small town like we did, there was no such thing as delivery.
Yeah, we had local restaurants, but for something major, you had to go somewhere else.
The small city that was close to Newsome before you got to Birmingham had a lot of major franchised restaurants and stores.
“Cousin!” I turned around to see my little cousin, Tink.
It wasn’t uncommon to run into people from Newsome at the grocery store in another close town or city.
With a bright smile, I opened my arms to hug her.
“What’s up, Tink? I haven’t seen you in a while. Where you been?”
“You know I stay out the way. What Auntie Mabel got you in here buying?” she asked with a giggle.
She knew if I was here, then my mama sent me.
I kissed my teeth. “Man, she said she wanted to make some cabbage for dinner. Look at this list, Tink. Why the hell my mama got a damn ham on this list?”
She took the list out of my hand, looked at it, then burst into laughter.
“Auntie Mabel is hell. Maybe it’s for Sunday dinner. You know she throws down on Sundays. Why do you think everyone comes over there?”
She had a point.
My daddy was one of two children, but his youngest brother passed when he was a kid.
My mama, however, had three older brothers and a younger sister.
Only two of my uncles, Tink’s daddy being one, still lived in Newsome.
The rest moved away years ago, but that didn’t matter.
Between my two uncles, they had seventeen kids and twenty-four grandchildren.
My mama always joked that one thing backwoods country people knew how to do was have babies.
On Sundays, my uncles, their wives, my cousins that still lived close, and their children came to my mama’s house for dinner.
The men would end up in the backyard afterward to smoke and chill, while the women stayed in the house to mainly gossip.
There was a lot of gossip in a small town.
My cousins and I turned our heads to the sound of someone clearing their throat.
My head tilted to the female that stood behind a shopping cart with an expression of annoyance plastered on her beautiful face.
She looks familiar as hell.
“Um, are y’all going to continue to have a meaningless conversation in the middle of the aisle or move? Some of us have actual shit to do.”
When Tink’s brows furrowed, I knew it was about to be some shit.
My cousin was only five feet two, but she had an attitude like a whole nine-foot giant.
Tink had the hands to match the attitude.
Her small stature caused her to get bullied, so our cousins, her brother, and I ensured she knew how to beat ass.
“Bitch, who the fuck are you talking to like you done lost your mind?” Tink looked around the aisle.
“You have more than enough room to move that cart around us. Even that fat ass of yours will fit.”
I snapped out of my slight daze.
My mind was occupied in figuring out where I knew ole girl from.
“Tink, chill.” My attention went to the female.
“Our bad. We’ll move over so you can get through.”
Tink mumbled that she wasn’t moving shit.
The female rolled her eyes.
“If I needed a captain save me, I would have summoned you.”
Her words triggered a memory from decades ago.
My ear lowered toward my shoulder.
I picked apart her face, then it hit me.
“Adabelle Lee?”
Tink’s head snapped in my direction.
If I recalled correctly, Adabelle and Tink graduated high school together.
“Wait, wait! Adabelle Lee from Newsome? Not that uppity bitch that thought she was God’s gift to the air. Didn’t you run your ass to California after graduation?
“Why the hell you back around here?
” Tink asked Adabelle with a titter.
“What, even Cali didn’t want you?”
There was a flash of sadness in Adabelle’s eyes.
She recovered quickly.
“First, my name is Belle,” she said with her eyes on me.
Her head slowly turned in Tink’s direction.
“Secondly, bitch, fuck you.”
Instead of going around us from the space that I’d created, she backed out of the aisle.
“I wonder what brought her back to Newsome. Didn’t she put some crazy quote in the yearbook her senior year?”
Tink snickered.
“Yeah, she said some shit about she was always too big for our backwoods town. Talkin’ about we were all beneath her. She said it in a nicer, still condescending, but nicer way.” Tink waved her hand.
“Fuck that damn girl. Clearly, something happened to bring her snobby ass back here.”
Two hours later, I was at my parents’ house, putting up the groceries while my mama cooked dinner.
My daddy was now in the den, watching his favorite show that I couldn’t believe still came on, Highway to Heaven .
That damn show was old as hell.
“Mama, Daddy, guess who I saw in the store today?” I paused to make sure I had their attention.
“Y’all remember Adabelle Lee?”
My daddy thought about it, but my mother knew right off the bat who she was.
My mother knew everyone in and around Newsome.
“Oh, that’s Sidda Mae and Jessie’s daughter. Yeah, I forgot she was back in town. From what I hear, she’s been here for a while now. Looks like she’s finally getting out of her house.”
“Oh, yeah,” my daddy said.
“She sure did move back here. Jessie said her husband did her dirty.”
I side-eyed my daddy.
“Let me find out you’re gossiping, old man.” I snickered at the thought of it.
“Damn, that’s messed up. Her husband did her that dirty that she had to come back here? He must have taken all the money.”
“Boy, you know Jessie and I play poker together and we fish together from time to time. Yeah, it’s a lot deeper than that, but I’m not going to tell her business,” my daddy said.
He turned his attention back to his show.
I glanced over at my mama.
I knew if my daddy knew that much, then my mother knew more.
A bunch of women in town got together to knit as an excuse to gossip.
Mabel Ann shifted on her feet like she wanted me to just ask the right question.
“Mama, what do you know?”
She put the top on the pot she was over before she spun around.
“Boy, I thought you’d never ask. You know me and her mama knit together in our group.”
My mother told me all she knew about Adabelle’s business with some of her own opinions mixed in.
It was ashamed that her mother freely told all of her business like that.
It was even crazier that Adabelle had been in a fake marriage for a damn decade.
“How the hell did she not know? Wouldn’t she have had to take her license to the social security people to change her last name?”
“Honey, Sidda Mae said that she never legally changed her name. Something about that man told her to hold on to her last name since she was the only child, and it was the end of her lineage.” She huffed before she turned back to her pot.
That was the stupidest excuse to convince someone not to change their last name.
Although my mama said that Adabelle’s husband claimed it was an accident, that name change shit told me something different.
Wasn’t no way a man in love forgot to file his marriage license.
I called bullshit.
A LITTLE TIME LATER…
I was tired as hell.
I’d been busy with the customers that bought Jaya’s babies.
There was still one puppy left, the runt.
As the breeder, I always reserved the right to keep my runt of the litter if I wanted it.
Most of the time, they were sold, but this one hadn’t yet.
My phone ringing awoke me from the sleep I didn’t know I fell into.
I saw it was my daddy when I picked it up from the coffee table in front of the couch I slept on.
“What’s up, Daddy?”
“Nothing much, son. I got Jessie here. He wanted to know if you had any more puppies left from your last litter?” he asked.
I sat up, then stretched.
“Um, I only have one left. It’s the runt though.”
The runt of this litter was considerably smaller than his siblings, but weaker was questionable.
My Boy was feisty. He may not have been as big as his siblings, but he would still grow to be a beautiful dog.
I listened to my dad tell Jessie that I only had the runt.
Surprise hit me when he still wanted it.
He told my dad to let him talk to me.
There was shuffling on the other end.
“Gunner, hey, man. I saw your last competition. Boy, your daddy taught you well with a line.” He didn’t give me a chance to thank him before he continued.
“I want to get that runt for my baby girl. She needs something to take care of to consume some of her time. Maybe if she has to take care of someone other than herself, she’ll remember what it is to be a caring damn person.”
He sounded frustrated as hell.
I acted ignorant to knowing that his daughter was back.
“Your baby girl? Adabelle is back in Newsome? Wow, I haven’t seen her in like almost twenty years.”
“Yeah, her ungrateful ass is back. She’s been on the West Coast too damn long. It turned her into even more of an entitled brat than she was before she left.” He huffed.
“I swear I love my baby girl, but Lord, she needs to come down to Earth before her mama slaps her ass.” Well, damn.
I laughed at his clear frustration.
“You can bring her by, Mr. Jessie. I know you want her to have a pet, but I want to see her interact with My Boy before I let him go. As far as the cost, if she wants it, we’ll just consider it a welcome home gift for her.”
“That’s understandable, son. Shit, I’m about to go to her house now and drag her ass over there. She lives in her grandmother’s house that was left to her.” We talked for a few more minutes before we disconnected the line.
He told me that he would be here in fifteen minutes.
I took a deep breath before I got up to go into my kennel house where I kept my dogs when they weren’t in the house with me.
My kennel house was connected to my main house from the backdoor entrance.
My house was built eight years ago, and the kennel house was added three years ago.
“Hey, my babies!” My dogs were excited to see me.
They knew after they ate dinner that I generally brought them into the house.
It was past that time now, so they were antsy.
“I got one more thing to do, then I’ll bring y’all in the house.”
My Boy’s tail wagged when I bent down to lift him.
“Aye, My Boy. You might get a new home. We’re going to see if this girl is worthy to have you.”
I set him on the couch so that I could take my shirt off.
Shortly after I brought My Boy into the house, my doorbell rang.
I opened the door with a smile, but I wasn’t met with one.
“Adabelle, how you doing this evening?”
She kissed her teeth.
“I already told you that I don’t go by that anymore. My name is Belle. B. E. L. L. E. Belle, okay? My dad told me to come over here for a dog or something. Is that the mutt?” she asked after she pointed at My Boy.
My eyes tightened. I looked down at My Boy who looked at her like she’d lost her mind too.
Mutt! The fucking disrespect.
When I looked back at her, I knew this exchange wasn’t going to be like our first. Captain save me had flown the coop.
“You got me and My Boy fucked up.”