Chapter Eighteen Derek #2
“No,” I answered quickly. “Not at all. Jasmine makes me happier than I ever thought was possible. Falling in love is something I wasn’t looking for. I never expected it.”
“Yeah, that’s usually the way it happens,” he conceded.
“I was raised by two people who I thought were happy and in love. Then, in what felt like an instant, they hated each other.” I drifted off, afraid to reveal too much personal information and shocked that I’d confided in someone besides my brother about my parents’ divorce.
“Did you ever worry about your feelings changing in the future?”
“Hmm.” David leaned back in his chair, and he seemed to be measuring his words carefully. “Love doesn’t always last, and when you’ve been around as long as I have, you’ve seen relationships stand the test of time and you’ve seen relationships fall apart.”
I nodded and took a sip of my beer.
“To be honest with you, I never really focused on my future with Eleanor.” He chuckled when I furrowed my brow.
“Yes, we made plans and had babies, but what I mean is, I focused on the present, what was in front of me. All I ever wanted, all I still want, is to spend as much time with that woman as God sees fit to grant me. I can’t even imagine wasting a second thinking about what might happen to us in the future when I have her in front of me right now.
I sure as hell don’t compare my relationship to anyone else’s.
They aren’t us. We aren’t them. Shit, even now.
Every morning, I wake up and see her lying next to me, and I let the rest of the day happen. ” He chuckled.
“I don’t know if that’s the answer you were looking for.
I’m not much for giving relationship advice.
All I know is that I found the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with, and I’m lucky enough that I get to do that.
” He sipped again. “And I don’t take a second of that life for granted.
It’s one of the lessons my great-grandfather instilled in all of his children, and they passed it down through the generations.
Never, never take one second of your life for granted, because it’s not promised. ”
He got quiet and reached into the cooler for another beer. I quickly finish my bottle before accepting the one he offered to me, and we sat in silence for a few long moments, sipping our drinks, deep in thought.
My mind was whirring, trying to internalize David’s words about living in the present, but David seemed somewhere else, somewhere far away.
“Do you know the story of how the town was founded?” he asked me in a low voice, taking a deeper draft of his beer.
“John William Pike used his modest fortune from inventing to start a—” I had begun to rattle off information from my many hours of internet research when I was interrupted.
“No.” David cut me off. “Not the Google search, Wikipedia nonsense. I’m talking about the real story of how this town was founded and why.”
“No,” I said in a low voice. “I guess I don’t.”
“I’m sure you’ve heard of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma.” He leaned forward in his chair. I nodded but was afraid to speak, wondering how Miller’s Cove could possibly be connected to one of the worst tragedies in American history.
“They called it Black Wall Street. It was founded in the early 1900s by wealthy Black business owners looking to build communities exclusively for Black people, where they could flourish free from the racism they encountered damn near everywhere else in this country.”
His expression became stony, but he continued to speak.
“And flourish they did. The biggest Black-owned hotel in the country. Movie theaters, restaurants, libraries, a damned airport. You wouldn’t even believe a place like that existed in the early 1900s unless you’d been there.
Sometimes I wondered if the stories my grandfather would tell us as kids was true. ” He chuckled, and I joined him.
“That’s what attracted my great-grandfather.
He graduated from the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, just Tuskegee University today.
He studied botany under Dr. George Washington Carver.
Yes, that one.” He chuckled in response to my jaw drop.
“He grew up on a plantation, probably knew everything there was to know about farming before he set foot in a classroom, but what he really had a knack for was inventing. He invented so many different types of farming equipment and growing methods, you wouldn’t believe it.
Within two years of graduating, he’d tried to patent fourteen inventions.
He’d either been cheated, robbed, or rejected every time.
“One day, he attended a speech given by Booker T. Washington—yes, that one,” he replied again to my shocked expression, “and he talked about a place called Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Black people prospered without the burden of discrimination. That same day, in 1907, my great-grandfather gathered up his life savings and boarded a train bound for Oklahoma. He hired a Black attorney to file his patents, and within ten years, he was one of the richest Black men in the country. You won’t find him in any of your history books, even though half the food folks eat every day wouldn’t have made it to their tables without his inventions.
“He made a good life for himself. He worked hard. Supported his community. He moved all of his family from Alabama to Tulsa. Met a good woman and started a family. It should have been perfect, but it was too good to last.”
“So, your great-grandfather was there when…” My voice died away when I realized that I didn’t know how to finish that sentence. It seemed insensitive to use the word “massacre” when a man was discussing his family.
“He was supposed to be away on a business trip, but according to the story my grandfather would tell us, his grandmother had a dream and told his father that he needed to cancel his trip. If he hadn’t, I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you.”
“He obviously survived,” I started in a low voice. Sheer morbid curiosity was waging war with decorum in my mind. The beers didn’t help. “But how?”
“A damn miracle.” David continued, “God was watching our family that night. My grandfather would tell me this story every year when I was a kid: The day started like any other day, except it was the day after Memorial Day. My grandfather was getting ready for school. My great-grandfather was getting ready to fly to New York for some kind of business meeting. My granddad remembered he was annoyed because he wanted to go on the trip but his mother, my great-grandmother, wouldn’t let him miss school.
They were discussing the matter over the breakfast table when Mawmaw Babette came running into the kitchen telling my great-grandfather that she dreamed that if he left, something terrible would happen. ”
“A dream?” I asked.
“Mawmaw Babette was my great-great grandmother. John William Pike married her daughter, Adelaide. She was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, and according to my grandfather, she could see things in her dreams.”
I sat back in my chair and nodded as he continued his story.
“So, whatever she saw in her dreams was powerful enough for my great-grandfather to cancel his trip but not powerful enough to keep my grandfather and his siblings from missing school.” David let out a small chuckle.
“The trouble started that afternoon. My grandfather said that there was talk around town about some trouble at the courthouse. Something about a boy named Dick being arrested for trying to assault a woman in an elevator… a white woman. He was well-known around town and nobody thought he was guilty, but…” He trailed off and raised a telling eyebrow at me.
That look told me everything I needed to know. Too many tragedies in our history started the same way.
“He said the energy in the town was electric. Some of the businesses were closing early. My grandfather was told to go straight home after school. Some of the men in town were talking about forming a militia.” He adjusted himself in his chair and continued.
“A white man had been recently lynched, and folks were afraid that something similar would happen. A few lawyers even went to the courthouse to try to help the kid, but things were getting tense.”
I was perched on the edge of my seat, rapt with attention; I wasn’t even aware that my beer was empty until I’d raised it to my lips to unsuccessfully take a sip.
The story wasn’t completely unfamiliar. I’d heard stories about the Tulsa Massacre, but hearing David tell it in such detail, no doubt from countless retellings from his grandfather made it feel real. Too real.
“My grandfather had gotten most of these details eavesdropping on a meeting his father was having with some other prominent men in the town. That is until his mother and grandmother forced him and his younger brothers and sisters to spend the rest of the night praying, lighting candles, burning oils and incense. He used to make a face when he talked about the way the house always smelled after one of his grandmother’s praying sessions.
” He let out a nostalgic chuckle. “He said the smell would stick to your clothes for days.”
I smiled in agreement and slid another beer out of the cooler.