CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
They lived across the tracks, on what was obviously the black side of town given the faces they passed. But what was also obvious was how well-kept and clean that side of town was. It was even more pristine than downtown.
It shouldn’t have been surprising, but it was.
Because every small town Vince had ever ventured into, and whenever he crossed what was usually railroad tracks of separation from the white side to the black side, there would always be a stark difference.
There would always be rundown shacks, and dirt roads littered with trash, and dilapidated buildings that seemed centuries old and just as long unkempt.
The remnants of a double standard that blacks had to suffer through the entirety of their lives. But not in Milton.
Black men wore suits, and black women wore fancy dresses. They were in and out of their black-owned restaurants and barbershops and beauty salons and feed stores and a bank and a library too. It seemed like another world Vince had entered into. And he was pleased.
“African-Americans appear to be doing quite well here in Milton. When did it change?”
Ricki looked at him. “When did what change?”
“All of this black success?”
Ricki looked back out of the side window.
She knew he didn’t mean it the way it sounded.
“It was always this way here and all over the United States. But the Klan and other racists took it all away and the law didn’t protect blacks so there was nothing anybody did about it.
But here in Milton, the laws did protect them.
Those racists tried to burn us down or loot from us or just steal our land, but the law wouldn’t let them.
And since the industries we were relying on belonged to us, we didn’t suffer businesses shutting up whenever whites moved out of the area, creating poverty.
There were never any whites in our area to begin with, we didn’t rely on their businesses, so we became one of the few successful black communities that were able to prevail. ”
“A perfect storm of positivity for a change,” Vince said.
Ricki looked at him. That was a good way to put it. “Right,” she said.
But when he looked over into those big browns, he could tell she was worried. “I know you hate to bring this kind of news to your folks.”
It was deeper than that. She hated facing her folks at all. But it had to be done.
Vince placed his hand on her inner thigh, sliding it up against her vagina, and squeezed. He wanted to do her again, which he knew was inappropriate in the extreme given what she’d just been through, but he couldn’t help it. But he wanted to comfort her more. “You’ll be alright,” he said to her.
But when she directed him to turn down a long driveway that led to a large, ranch-style red-brick home at the end of that drive, her heart began to hammer and her palms began to sweat. She was going home for the first time in years.
Everything looked so different.
Everything felt the same.