Chapter Twenty-Four

Stella was still shaking even though it was half an hour later. They were sitting in the family area around one of the picnic tables. Bodie was next to his wife while Ashleigh was holding Christopher Jr. as Christopher played in the clearing with all of their children, acting as both sentry and tackle dummy.

Even little Jace was toddling along after them, giggling and falling more than anything else. Bodie’s girls were fierce and wild as they all played a game of tag, but Adam was careful and gentle with the smaller ones, especially when it came to Brianna. He was younger than her but he was bigger and he refused to tackle the girls, only allowing himself to be tossed to the ground by those wild ones (his nick name for Bodie’s girls). Christopher liked Adam a great deal.

But at the picnic table things were not as easygoing. Stella had wanted to leave but Riley had taken one look at the expression of fear on his son’s face and had asked to stay. He refused to allow Brady to turn this day into a bad memory for his son. He refused it. And reluctantly Stella had agreed. He was right, but she was done. She was done with Cobb Hill and Estill County and rednecks—and she was done with any fantasy that she might have had of a relationship with Riley.

Today had started off perfect. But she had forgotten the America that she lived in where racist felt they had every right to come up to someone different and spew hate talk. She and her son had to be warriors and she was not meant to be some passive black woman that shook her head at the reports of injustice. And she couldn’t be with a white man who didn’t know that there was a war brewing and that you had to take sides.

“I can’t stand it here anymore,” she finally said. She looked at Riley who was still holding her hand, as if she might fly off the handle if he didn’t keep hold of her. He could feel the goose pimples on her skin and that her eyes were too bright. She was scared and she was angry. She slipped her hand from his and rubbed her goose pimpled flesh. Afterwards she kept her hands tightly clasped on her lap.

Shaun nodded her head at Stella. “I understand what you’re feeling, Stella. Sully Pranger shot at me and Bodie while chasing us down Cobhill Rd!” She had only just met Stella but she understood the shock that she saw in the woman’s eyes.

Stella looked at her in surprise. She barely knew how to form her next words. “Shot at you?”

“Bodie kinda laughed it off and I freaked out. I told him that I didn’t want to be a part of this redneck town and I called him all kinds of names and told him to drive me to the bus station. I left and I had no plans of returning.”

Bodie’s face was growing red. “It was a little more involved than that. I wasn’t trying to laugh it off. Up here in the mountains we are a special kind of crazy.”

“Yeah,” Shaun said dryly. “Where shooting at each other and driving off the side of a mountain is part of the fun.” She turned to Stella. “The point is that there are some crazy dumbasses out there. But those people are gonna be everywhere. All across the world you hear about terrorism and hate.”

“I’m tired of it! Every time blacks do something to bring focus on what’s happening to us, we’re called aggressive and biased!” Stella practically spat. “I’m a militant black woman if I talk about it! If I tell you that I know that black boys and black men are targets than I’m talking about things that make white people uncomfortable!” She looked at Bodie and Riley. “Well I don’t care if whites are uncomfortable. I’m uncomfortable!”

“But these men aren’t the enemy.” Shaun said.

Riley looked hurt. “Stella I want to understand. I know that living on this hill is like a blanket where I don’t see all that you experience. But I know what’s happening out in the world. I have a son that’s African American. Yeah he’s multiracial, but here in America he is black. I want to do everything that I can to protect him.”

“Then be honest.” Stella said while turning to him. “Stop trying to hide behind political correctness!”

“So political correctness is wrong?” Riley asked.

“Yeah when you can’t talk honestly because whites are so afraid of offending black people if they say that…black people…” she searched her mind “…dance better than whites!”

“What?” Riley said after a long pause.

Ashleigh coughed back a laugh and then tried to clear her throat.

Bodie opened his mouth and Shaun lightly elbowed him. This was the conversation that Riley and Stella needed to have.

“What I’m saying is that whites are so afraid of offending us that you can’t even get to your truth.”

“If you know about my truth Stella, then tell me what it is. So I can stop guessing.” Riley snapped. He wanted to learn but why should he be punished because of it? And that’s what she was doing, punishing him just because Brady had done something fucked up.

“You can’t fix America until whites recognize that slavery fucked it up for us all.” Stella said.

“Oh shit…” Bodie whispered. Stella turned to him.

“Well you don’t agree?” Stella asked.

He looked at his wife for guidance or for perhaps her okay to add to the conversation. His wife seemed to be waiting for his response as well.

“In truth…” he looked at Riley who also was waiting for him to continue. He swallowed. “In truth, I wish blacks would stop bringing up slavery. How is that even still relevant? Everybody that owned slaves is now dead. Look, I’m as far from being a racist as I can get.” He reached out and lightly squeezed his wife’s hand. “I’m part Cherokee, I’m married to a black woman and I have two black children and another on the way. But it ain’t right for blacks to be asking for reparations when they weren’t even slaves.” He looked at Riley for backup, but Riley thought it would be wise for him to say nothing.

Before Stella could speak Shaun did. “You don’t know that slavery impacts us today? Right here on this mountain there were families that owned slaves. Can you imagine what it takes to be able to own another human being?”

“Not even to just own them, but to be able to convince yourself that they aren’t humans.” Ashleigh added.

“Blacks owned slaves too.” Bodie said, “Just like the Native Americans, but I hear that blacks were much rougher on their slaves.”

Don’t say it, Riley thought. Don’t you say it Bodie…but he did.

“Besides, not all white slave owners treated their slaves bad.”

Shit. Even he knew how stupid that statement was.

All three women instantly stiffened. “So stealing someone from their home and working them without pay, breeding them like animals and selling their children off to make a buck wasn’t bad treatment?” Shaun spoke.

“Maybe some slave owners didn’t rape and beat their slaves, but the act of taking away your freedom is cruelty.” Stella added.

“Besides,” Ashleigh added. “Slave owners had to convince themselves that blacks weren’t human in order to justify their actions. And when you strip away a man’s humanity you don’t want them to talk back, to fight for their rights, to voice their opinion—to prove that you are wrong.”

“I would like to think that if I lived during the times of slavery that I would never have been that kind of man.” Bodie said softly.

Shaun kissed his cheek. “So many people died fighting to end slavery; black and white. But whites rarely listened to the blacks. It was the white voices that made an impact on other whites.”

Stella nodded her head and looked at Riley again. “So the history of slavery taught generations of whites that they once were able to own people like me. And people like me question how the difference in the race of a man can equate to them being treated as less than a dog. You don’t string up dogs. But whites strung up blacks.”

Riley frowned but he looked at Stella. “Because a dog can’t talk back.”

She sighed and nodded her head. “That’s right, Riley. We began to talk back.”

There was quiet. “When I was a kid I asked my mother how slave owners could torture black people, how they could live with themselves,” Stella said. “My mother told me that it was because white people were incapable of knowing right from wrong. They even had to make simple, stupid laws in order for the rest of them to understand how to behave.”

“And that’s not racist?” Riley asked.

“You white people are the ones that shoot each other up in schools, and snatch each others kids so you can eat them. That’s white people that do that kind of shit.” Stella stated angrily. “You don’t see black people burying a bunch of people in their back yards!”

“But there’s no such thing as black on black crime?” Riley said sarcastically. This time it was Bodie that subtly shook his head at Riley.

Shaun frowned. “Why is it black on black crime? Or reverse racism? Crime is crime. Racism is racism. If a crime is committed in your neighborhood and you live in a black neighborhood than it’s called black on black crime. There is statistically more crime committed by whites against whites.”

“Because there are statistically more whites in the world. But the percentage of crimes that take place in black neighborhoods by black people is proportionately more...” Stella gave him a hard look. “I hear,” Riley finished slowly.

“You hear right.” Stella said. “And that’s more than likely because blacks have systematically been routed to the worst neighborhoods and given the least opportunities. When we ask for programs to help us out of that hole that we were shoved into, we are told that it isn’t fair to the whites who weren’t pushed down into those areas. That we’re taking jobs from a white person who already owned those jobs and only shared them with their own kind!”

Riley stood up. “The hell with this! I’m not taking the blame for shit that I don’t have anything to do with! I didn’t make any of these rules, Stella! I live in the same America that you live in and I know that young black men get shot disproportionately by cops. But I also know that if there wasn’t a generation of thugs running around talking about killing the police and sagging their pants and talking with disrespect than those cops might not be so quick to pull their triggers!”

Christopher paused from where he was in the clearing playing with the kids and he looked over to where the adults were gathered. “Hold on kids. Be right back. Don’t run off anywhere. Bri, you and Adam are the oldest so you’re in charge.”

“Okay, Daddy,” Brianna said.

“And for the record. I have all the respect in the world for Colin Kaepernick.” Riley said. “He has every right in the world to voice his dissatisfaction about the state of race in America. He’s a black man, I’m not. I have no say in his choice to fight the injustices that he sees happening against his race. But do you think that the whites in America that are against him are against him because they don’t think he has a right to voice his opinion? That they don’t think that he might not even have a reason to protest? He lost a lot of whites who believe that if you live here you are expected to pledge allegiance!”

“Pledging allegiance is just a bunch of political, white, rhetoric.” Stella said while standing.” The two were nearly nose to nose. Bodie opened his mouth but Stella placed a warning hand on his and he wisely closed his mouth.

“I pledge allegiance to my family!” She said. “I work hard every day so that I can provide my son a good life and not so that he can serve in some war and fight battles created by little dicks who don’t want to fight for themselves!”

“No.” Christopher spoke. “You pledge allegiance so that if someone comes onto your land and threatens to take what you have worked hard for, to regulate when and what you eat, where you live or to take away the rights that you and your son have, your pledge of allegiance is your promise that you will do everything in your power to prevent that.

“If you’re talking about Colin Kaepernick, that is the reason that it has so many people up in arms,” Christopher said. “It’s not just a racial divide. I work in the military with plenty of non-whites who don’t like it just like I work with whites that totally get it. Now if we’re not talking about Kaepernick then the pledge of allegiance is something that you might willingly want to make because if you go into a third world country and you see a woman stoned for learning how to read, or you see a child forced to join an army that slaughters people over racial differences, and you don’t want to be one of those people, you might be inclined to fight against it. I pledge allegiance daily because that’s my job.” He looked at each of them.

“Now back to Kaepernick. That’s not his job. It’s his choice. And that’s why I fight so that we Americans can make our choices.” He looked over his shoulder. “Now I gotta get back to the kids. Bodie your girls need to join The Marines. They are some kind of rough.” Maddie had just tackled her older sister who was just about to pop her one.

Riley blew out a breath. “Let’s sit down.” He said to Stella. She nodded and sat down.

“Will we ever be able to come to an agreement when it comes to race relations?” Ashleigh asked mostly to herself.

Riley thought about Sully and how completely he believed in his ideas. “Not if we’re afraid to understand our differences.” He looked at Stella. She shook her head and looked away.