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She saw him before he saw her. The flash of adrenalin shooting through her body upset her equilibrium. Excitement pumped in her chest. Uncertainty crept through her mind. Should she?
Yes? No? Duck and hide?
The old woman, talking in her ear, droned on incessantly. “So Simone…
Blah! Blah! Blah!” The old lady continued. Simone was oblivious to the old woman’s words. Her eyes were glued to him.
It had been fifteen years, another life ago, but he was aging well. He was a little heavier. He had a slight limp. He had less hair. His hair was now the silver color that gives men distinction. Dressed smartly, his body language said he was still comfortable in his own skin. He was still cocky, but in a more mature, dignified manner.
At the bar, a glass of wine in his hand, his eyes canvassed the reception. No one he saw interested him.
She sank further down in her chair.
Should she confront him? Say hello? Accidentally bump into him? Or just leave. Maybe he’d never know she was there.
She’d anticipated this moment for over a month after she had seen his picture in the Festival Program. Still, seeing him in the flesh had set off her alarms. She never thought of him anymore. She figured she had doused those embers a long time ago, but apparently not.
Had he seen her picture in the program? It was a nice picture. One she’d had made for the occasion of the book festival. The photographer had done a good job of hiding her baby fat.
. . . . .
The Montgomery, Alabama sun turned orange.
There was maybe another thirty minutes of sunlight left in the day and she was on his mind. Two days before the festival Eric had been shocked to find her picture in the festival lineup. He’d not heard of her book, based on her family’s Alabama Civil Rights History. Nor had he heard of, from, or seen her in the fifteen years since he’d...
Fifteen years ago he’d ended their relationship. No, he hadn’t ended it, he’d simply quit calling, would not return her calls, and within months married another woman. Someone he thought he’d always loved.
That was the best excuse he could come up with for his behavior.
Their mutual friends had to choose sides. Her female friends said he’d screwed up badly. “A dog, a low down, stinking, rotten dog,” they called him.
He’d convinced himself he would not be embarrassed to see her. “If I can avoid it, I will,” he thought. “Should I apologize?” The conversation played on in his head. “What if she’s forgotten? What if she’s simply moved on, not wanting to revisit the ugly past?” That would be a relief. He’d feel less guilty. He decided he’d play it by ear.
Besides, he was a different man today. Happily married, but not to the woman he dropped her for. That ended up being a living hell. Today, his life was peaceful and full of bliss. In addition to loving his wife and son, he liked them. They were his friends. They were his backers. His work required him to be away from home for long stints and they hung in there with him.
He had almost not made it to the Festival.
A scheduling conflict had him in two places at the same time. The important, but boring university meeting had droned on all day when he decided to skip out on the dinner hosted by the University President, and drive the fifty miles to the Book Festival reception.
He enjoyed book festivals. His book was doing well. The attention, money, and increased sales pleased him.
He liked the book world. It was the entertainment business yes, but the main characters, the writers in their rumpled clothes and smart glasses underplayed their roles. Writers, unlike actors, didn’t strut around like peacocks, their “look at me” attitudes flashing their colors. Most of the writers he’d run into at least had something to say. There was an intelligentsia. At book festivals, there were people eager to explore ideas and discuss differences.
He started to wander around the dusty reception area. He watched the authors and benefactors mingle. She was on his mind.
Suzie, the forty-something volunteer chairman, came over with a red headed friend accompanying her. “Eric, thank you so much for coming,” she sang in her Alabama accent. She draped herself over him in what passed for a hug. He felt her press her pelvis up against him, the way women will do when their hug says more than hello. He politely hugged her back.
For Eric, this function was strictly business. Suzie could only help him by giving him a platform to sell more books. There was one personal issue he needed to attend to and he would avoid that one if he could.
Suzie’s husband, Sylvester, standing by as his
wife groped Eric, obviously did not care. Sylvester was verbally engaged with a
sloppy, fat writer who liked himself far more than was warranted. Sylvester and
Suzie had been married 25 years and over that time
Sylvester had trysts with both girlfriends and boyfriends.
Suzie introduced her friend, the red head. Eric shook her hand. He thought she was cute, “southern white girl, cute.” Marge, an author, had written a book about her native state of Mississippi, Mississippi Mud. It had gotten good reviews and Eric promised to read it. All smiles and giggles, she couldn’t wait to ask, “Do you know Morgan Freeman?”
“No,” Eric begged off, excused himself, and wandered away to enjoy the Alabama Book Festival.
. . . . .
Simone had come from Washington D.C. where she was now a federal judge appointed by President Barack Obama. She was on track to fulfill her life’s ambitions. Back then, fifteen years ago, as they lay in bed, she had confided to him that one day she hoped to be on the U.S. Supreme Court.
He had made the journey from California. Hollywood, to be exact, a fantasy world he’d escaped into after college. He’d been successful but after a while, become bored. Since he’d gotten married, “for real this time” is how he described it, coupled with the changes in the business, he’d found writing as his rescue. Thus, he’d written a memoir about his early days in Hollywood and the stars he had known. It had been a kiss and tell with juicy, salacious sexual details.
There had been no mention of Simone. He respected her too much.
They had met in his hometown of Birmingham. She was the hotshot lawyer out of Harvard, working at a local firm for the summer. He was in town visiting his family. One of his lawyer friends hooked them up.
It had been a long-distance courtship, a whirlwind. Dates became weekends in D.C, New York, Los Angeles, and Birmingham. Hollywood and lawyer types were their friends. It was a wonderful ride, until one day she had rushed home from her clerk job on the federal bench to call him. She fell asleep waiting for his return call. It never came. She called again the next day wondering if he was ill. He did not answer. She called again that evening and again the next day. He never returned her calls. She tried again a week later, and again two weeks after that.
She never heard from him again. She never saw him again, other than television and films, until now. She did hear from a colleague that he’d gotten married.
“Why couldn’t he at least tell me?” she wondered.
. . . . .
Simone decided she had to conquer her fears, meet them head-on. She purposely walked right into Eric’s sight line, making sure he saw her.
He saw her. He smiled.
She was not a flamboyant woman. She was dressed comfortably but professionally. She projected the sexiness that comes from being smart and assured in your chosen area of life.
His smile of recognition lifted her.
“I didn’t want you to think I was ducking you,” she said, her words fighting through a nervous smile.
I’m often asked about the short stories in the Slice Of Life trilogy of stories, A Slice of Life, Another Slice of Life and The Rest of The Pie. Are they true stories? Do I know the people? Did I really make them up? Yes! Yes! And Yes!
“Yes” doesn’t mean I didn’t have help. Inspiration is everywhere if you just take a good look around. I take things I’ve heard and seen and lived and turn them into stories.
Much like an actor on an audition, I pull from my experience to come up with a new character. I’ve often gone into an audition and use an aspect of a person I know to pull off another character. It’s taken from somewhere or someone else, but it then becomes an original.
Actors and writers are observers. We watch people. We notice a tick in a character. We study mannerisms. And if you’ve lived an adventurous life, you have life to draw from.
One source of inspiration for me has been all of my past summer jobs. As a teen without connections and as a hungry young man, I worked all kinds of summer jobs with all kinds of people. My first job was at Shoney’s Big Boy at Eastwood Mall in Birmingham. It was a lesson in priorities. Once school started, I continued to work there on weekends. After a night of high school football, I was up at 6am and on my way to Shoney’s. I remember the night I scored my first touchdown. I was at work the next morning.
I spent two summers at US Steel. It was work for grown men, grueling, grinding, back breaking. I learned a lot from the men I worked with. They did what they had to do to support their families. It reminded me of my dad who did the same kind of work at another plant in town. Daddy always reinforced the idea in me that college would be my ticket out of the plant.
I sold shoes at a ladies shoe store in downtown Birmingham on 2nd Avenue North. Don’t remember how I got that job but it was fun, especially the stretching machine. Some ladies would insist they were a size or two smaller than they actually were. It was a comic battle trying to get an oversized fat foot into shoes a size too small. That’s where the stretching machine came in. If they were repeat customers they’d heard of our stretching machine. They would ask if we could stretch the shoe. Trying to beg off did no good. The broom handle in the back room closet came in handy.
I worked on a Garbage truck one summer while in high school. Worked for a janitorial service, and worked construction; but at the top of the list were the two summers I worked as an ice cream man; truck, ringing bell and all. I sold ice cream all over the north side of Birmingham. I had a ball. Picked up my truck about 10:30am. Brought it back to the lot about 7:30pm. Counted up the Ice Cream and Popsicles I had left and got paid in cash. Everyday! Most of the drivers were full time, grown men. Every week the manager would post the top ten sales lists. My goal was to get into the top ten. Halfway through the first summer, I made it as high as #8 and stayed there through the next summer. The store manager was proud of me. I was proud of myself!
I met some characters through the many stops, construction sites, playgrounds, customer regulars, and the children. Oh man, the children! As soon as they heard the bell, whatever they were doing, playing ball, hopscotch, jacks; whatever, it was over until after they got their ice cream.
There was a method to ringing that bell just long enough to where the parent would give in and break down with the words directed to their children I waited to hear, “Go in the house, and get my purse.” I was in business.
My favorite stop was with the hippies – boys and girls, with their glazed eyes, and the munchies. “Heeey man!” They would drawl. I’d park the truck. Feel the cool breeze from the freezer in the back of the truck. Open it to ice cream goodies and proclaim to my audience “The Ice Cream Man is here.”
Summertime and the reading is easy!
For some wonderful reason, summertime is the time for reading and relaxing for those who still remember how to do that. Photos and artwork depicting a slow, lazy day of summertime reading adorn many of the walls in our homes, offices and in the pictures of our lives. Can’t afford to take a vacation away from the hurry up world of electronic gadgetry? You don’t know what you’re missing. So, in a throwback to yesteryear, reach for a favorite book(s), plan a slowdown vacation and get your read on.
“What are you reading this summer?” I’m asked. “Great question,” I respond. For me, 2017 is the year of the biography. It started with “The Godfather’s” Kill ‘Em and Leave by James McBride. Kill ‘Em and Leave was “The Godfather,” James Brown road motto. After “killing them” (the audience) during another “funky as you want to be” show, James Brown would immediately retreat to his dressing room, according to author James McBride, get his hair done (if you know the Godfather’s shows, you understand), and slip out without the hugs, kisses and well wishes friends and fans were waiting to bestow on him. The book ventures inside Brown’s tiny inner circle and instead of looking for the “Godfather of Soul” the author instead searches for the real James Brown with his hidden stash of cash and his love and fondness for Michael Jackson. It’s a great read but more so if you’re a “Godfather” fan.
Lorendo by Ken Ringer is an interesting look back at a time and a man who became a three sport athlete at Georgia, led the Southeastern Conference in pass receiving in 1949, was drafted by the Green Bay Packers, was an assistant to legendary football Coach Ralph “Shug” Jordan at Auburn and was my offensive coordinator on some great Auburn teams of the 1970s. Coach Gene Lorendo was probably the coach who was most responsible for my being awarded a full athletic scholarship within 11 months of my arrival as a walk-on. I started for him as long as he was the offensive coordinator. He was the rough and tough “right hand man” for “Shug Jordan” for 25 years. We won a lot of games together. Coach is a man who should be remembered and Ken Ringer has done a good job of giving him his due.
Up next is Bus Ride To Justice: The Life and Works of Fred Gray. I’m already a hundred pages into it and as soon as I finish Lorendo, I’ll be in with both feet. I am a history buff, especially when people I know have been involved. Much of what is included in the book served as a precursor to my life and the challenges I faced during integration. Fred Gray’s book reminds me, I would not have been in the position to face integration were it not for people like Fred Gray.
During his legal career, Mr. Gray was the attorney for Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr, The Montgomery Bus Boycott, The Tuskegee Syphilis Study, The Desegregation of Alabama Schools, The 1965 Selma March and The Harold A. Franklin case that desegregated my alma mater, Auburn University.
Finally, I will get into Hook. It’s a book I’ve been anxious to read ever since I got it. Again it’s by someone I know. Hook, by my friend, my book editor and one of my former football players, Randall Horton, recounts his “gripping story of transformation.” As a recent college graduate in 1975, I was asked to coach the B-Team at Parker High School in Birmingham. Randall Horton was a wide receiver on that team. He was a nice, smiling 15-year-old with a positive future ahead of him.
In Hook, Randall tells of his downward spiral from unassuming Howard University undergraduate to homeless drug addict, international cocaine smuggler and incarcerated felon-before he discovered literature and reclaimed his life and is now a college professor.
So what are you reading? Click off the television. Put your devices down. Select the book of our choice; whether hardback, paper cover or electronic, pick yourself out a good spot by some calm water, or sink into a comfortable couch and gorge yourself on a load of some summer reading. Have a good summer! I plan on it.