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Thou Shalt Eat Dust – Chapter 35

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Chapter 35

THE PHONE RANG and Elizabeth rolled over onto her back and reached for it before it could ring again.

“Did I wake you?”

“Yes, but it’s OK. I should have been up half an hour ago.  Morning Mass will be over by the time I get there.”

“Well, then. How about having brunch with me instead?”

“Are you deliberately trying to make me fat, Mayor Davis? Every date, with you, involves food.”

“You don’t have to eat, you know.”

“Sure. I’ll just sit there and watch you eat,” She said pulling herself  into a sitting position in the king sized bed.

“We’ll have coffee, no cream, no sugar, no extras, and we’ll talk.”

“Talk about what?”

“Finding you a place to live.”

Elizabeth chuckled a little before realizing that Frank was serious.

“What’s wrong with where I’m living now?”

“Listen. I like you Elizabeth.  I like you a lot.  And I want to get to know you better.  But I can’t do that with you living in that place.”

Elizabeth’s Sunday morning drowsiness was gone in an instant.

“I don’t understand.”

“That’s why we have to talk. I’ll pick you up, downstairs, at one.”

 

At precisely one pm, Elizabeth Burdolic Widenhammer walked out of Trump Tower and got into the Black Range Rover that had been waiting for ten minutes. She said nothing to its driver as she buckled herself into the seat.

“I thought we’d have brunch at The Allis. You’ll like it there and we can talk.”

“Talk about what? How you’ve decided my life for me.  Like, where I’m going to live — how I’m going to live.  What else have you decided for me, Frank?”

“I’m not trying to decide your life, Elizabeth. I’m trying to have a relationship with you. Something I thought you want, too.”

“Not if you’re going to be telling me where I can and can’t live. I’m a grown woman, Frank.  I don’t need you arranging things for me.  I had enough of that with Charles.  I don’t – no, make that – I won’t repeat the experience.”

“I’m not trying to arrange your life, Elizabeth. I’m trying to keep you from being implicated in your father and brother’s problems.”

“My father and my brother can take care of themselves. My father, Mr. Slick, as he’s known to his friends, is no stranger to political controversy.  He’s a lawyer and a damn good one. He’ll be fine.”

“The apartment you’re living in was bought and paid for with monies his law firm made from political kickbacks. It’s one of the things we have on him.  If you stay there, we, and by we, I mean, The City of Chicago, would have to call you as a material witness.  If you and I are sleeping together there, it could get pretty embarrassing for us both.”

“Who said we’re going to be sleeping together?”

 

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By
Eliza D. Ankum
Author of
Flight 404
Ruby Sanders
Jared Anderson
OneThreeThirteen – Master Of The Day Of Judgment
Dancing With The Fat Woman
STALKED! By Voices

 

Thou Shalt Eat Dust – Chapter 17

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Chapter 17

GOD HAD HEARD every prayer and had counted every tear. And thus he was moved.

Out on the Sonoran desert, the Arizona skies darkened with storm clouds and a cold wet wind rolled over the parched and cracked desert floor picking up particles of dust and blew with His ferocity towards downtown Phoenix.

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Thou Shalt Eat Dust – Chapter 16

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Chapter 16

BOXES! BOXES! BOXES! Boxes stacked higher than she was tall.  Boxes in the living room.  Boxes in the dining room. Boxes in the kitchen.  Boxes in her bedroom and in her bathroom.  There were boxes in the kids’ old rooms, too, even thou she’d express shipped to Jennifer and Tony those things that held precious memories for them.

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Thou Shalt Eat Dust – Chapter 13

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Chapter 13

ELIZABETH’S BROTHER, Roger, and her next door neighbor, Nancy fussed around her busily making themselves feel better. Liz eased back into the living room couch with its taupe linen fabric trying to remember just what had happened that had caused her to end up like this.

Roger had told her, several times, that it was Nancy who had found her lying sprawled in the driveway beside Charles’ car with the keys in the ignition.  Supposedly, she was about to take the car for a drunken spin, but had passed out before getting into the car.  And according to Roger, Hero Nancy, on the pretense of coming over to invite her out to lunch, had most certainly saved her from death by exposure.

All she could remember from that night was standing at the bottom of the stairs and thinking about Charles’ empty chair.

“Would you like a cup of tea dear,” Hero Nancy asked.

“A cup of tea sounds wonderful Nancy, if you wouldn’t mine.”

“Not at all dear.  I’ll be in the kitchen, if you need anything.”

“Thank you Nancy,” Liz replied, without removing the cold compress from her forehead.

“Good,” announced Roger who had been standing with his back to Liz looking out of the large sliding glass doors.

“Good?” Elizabeth asked.  She was curious how Nancy being in her kitchen and seeing all of the empty vodka bottles was good.

“Yes.  I need to talk with you privately for a moment.”

“Shit,” Elizabeth thought.  Here it comes.  Big Brother Roger about to dole out his knowledge of good and evil.  Big Brother Roger who was always the good one.  The one who always did everything right.  A paragon of virtue.  She resisted an urge to let out a deep sigh.

Roger F. Burdolic, her older brother, by two years, had recently taken over as Alderman of the 14th Ward from their father, Roger E. Burdolic.  And now, it seemed to her, that he was also taking over for their father in other ways.  She could tell from the tone of his voice and from his stance — legs spread, feet firmly planted, and with both hands in his pants pockets – as if to protect whatever money there was in them — that he was about to give her some ‘fatherly’ advice.

“Liz.  I’ve thought it over, said Roger, turning from the window and staring directly at his younger sibling.  You should sell this house and move back to Chicago where you have family.”

“Move back to Chicago?” Liz yelled sitting upright for the first time since she’d walked through the door.

“Yes, move back home with family.  This place is full of nothing but memories of your life with Charles. Memories that will only lead to more nights like the other night.”

“That was an accident.”

“Accident?  Is that what you’re calling it?  An accident.  It was an accident that you passed out before getting behind the wheel.  You were drunk Liz.  And I know that because I came by earlier and found all the empty liquor bottles in your kitchen.”

Elizabeth turned a pained expression away from her brother.  “Roger, did you …”

“Don’t worry, I tossed all of your empties into the trash and carried the bag out and dumped it into the garbage can before coming to pick you up.”

She let out a sigh of relief knowing that Nancy wouldn’t see and spread the news all over the neighborhood that she’d started drinking.  Charles would never forgive her for ruining their reputation.  She chuckled to herself at the thought.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing.”

There was nothing for her to say, just accept Roger’s act of kindness even though it cut like a knife.  She knew full well that loneliness was no defense for drunkenness.

And she was in no condition to argue with Roger at the moment.  So, she leaned back into the couch cushions, pressed the cold towel firmly against her forehead, and asked, “And do what once I’m back in Chicago?”

“You can come work for me.  As you know, I’ve taken over as Alderman for Pop, while he nurses the law firm back to health.  I can always use your help.”

Liz swung her feet off the couch and went to stand up to protest this indignity – the assumption that she was helpless – but a wave of nausea sent her sinking back down.

“Roger, you don’t need my help.  You have a perfectly capable assistant and you know it.  And I don’t need your pity.”

“No, you don’t, Liz. But you do need something. You need hope and a new direction.  Out here, you’re flailing against a sea of misery.  And you shouldn’t be alone.”

“I told you, my passing out in the drive way was an accident.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.  Next time, you might actually get into the car and kill yourself.  Or worst, kill someone else.”

Liz slumped forward and covered her face with her hands.

“It’s just that I miss Charles so much.”

“I know,” answered Roger, reassuringly.

 

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By
Eliza D. Ankum
Author of
Flight 404
Ruby Sanders
Jared Anderson
OneThreeThirteen – Master Of The Day Of Judgment
Dancing With The Fat Woman
STALKED! By Voices

 

Thou Shalt Eat Dust – Chapter 10

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Chapter 10

BENJAMIN DAVIS is an honest god-fearing man who has devoted himself to his family and making the community in which they live gang-free, drug-free, and free of urban blight which has destroyed so many Black Chicago neighborhoods.

Benjamin was the oldest of three boys that were born to Roy and Bertha Davis.  He was born on July 15, 1952 in Centralia, Illinois where the Davises resided until the fall of 1960.

In the summer of 1960, Benjamin, his younger brother Joseph, and their mother were walking along a dirt road on their way home from Bertha’s job as a domestic for Mr. and Mrs. Hillstead.

On her meager salary of five dollars a week, Bertha could not afford to pay someone to keep the boys as she washed, dried, folded, and put away clothes, scrubbed and waxed floors, dusted furniture and knick-knacks, and cooked numerous meals for the Hillsteads.

Consequently, in the summer months, the boys played outdoors in back of the house, out of sight and away from Mrs. Hillstead’s flowers.  And in the winter months, when it was too cold for them outside, they sat quietly in a corner of the kitchen pantry while their mother worked.

On that particular Friday evening, Bertha had stayed late preparing food for a party that Mrs. Hillstead was giving for the new minister and his wife.  Most of the town’s social elite where there.

It was well past nine and darkness had enveloped the tiny town, since at the time Centralia had no street lights.  Bertha had finished putting away the last of the dishes around eleven.  She removed the frilly black and white apron from around her waist that Mrs. Hillstead had given her to wear for the party and rounded up her sleeping boys and started the long journey home.

She had gotten maybe a mile or so from home when from behind her she heard the rowdy, and perhaps drunken, voices of a car load of young white boys.  Who, as history would prove, were capable of being just as deadly as their fathers.

Bertha knew all too well the dangers of a Black woman being caught out on the road alone late at night.  Roy had been very clear on what she should do if ever a White man spotted her walking alone.

As quick as she could, she hustled the two boys, Benjamin six and Joseph two, off the road and down into a ditch.  She plastered her hands over the mouths of the two boys and pressed herself and them as flat as possible against the ground so that they would neither be seen nor heard by the passing car.  Bertha held her breath and her boys.  The light from the passing car swept over them like a prison beacon in the night.  When the car sped pass them down the road, Bertha let out a sigh of relief and pulled the boys to their feet.  Back on the road, she hurried her two young boys along as quickly as they could go.

After a few heart thumbing minutes, Bertha could see the lights from the Negro section of town where she lived.  She hurried the boys along even faster now, wanting the safety of her home.

She did not see the car or hear one peep out of the young men inside it, until its lights were turned on and it was roaring down the road towards her and the boys.  She gripped the hands of her boys even tighter and once again, yanked them off the road.

This time, however, the occupants of the car were not fooled.  The occupants of the car were jostled about as the car’s driver veered off the road and aimed the car at the young mother and her children.  Bertha, in a full run, looked over her shoulder and realized that she’d never out run the car.  She let go of Benjamin’s hand and yelled for him to run off, as fast as he could, off to her left.   She’d planned on running straight ahead and tossing little Joseph, to safety, in a clump of bushes just up ahead.  She hoped the men would continue after her.

She was breathing hard now from the fear and the weight of the child.   If only she could reach the bushes before the car reached her.   She could hear the young men now, their hoops and their cries, “Run her down, Henry.  Run that nigger down.”   She was getting tired and she could feel the heat coming off the car’s radiator.  She wasn’t going to make it.  She made one last desperate attempt to save Joseph by flinging him as far away from her as possible.  She watched as Joseph’s tiny body flew through the air and landed about four feet away but not in the protective covering of the bushes as she’d hoped.  To her horror, the car veered away from her towards Joseph.  “Nooooooo,” she screamed.

“You got him, Henry,” one of them yelled.  And it was their laughter, as they’d crushed little Joseph’s body with the car, that Bertha would never get out of her mind.  And it was his mother’s wails that Benjamin would never get out of his.

Bertha would tell Roy, later, that she recognized one of the voices in the car that had killed Joseph, as the teenage son of Mr. and Mrs. Hillstead.  And as such, Bertha never returned to the home of her employer.  And when Roy tried to get justice for his murdered son, he was encouraged by the local White Police to leave Centralia.  All this, Benjamin witnessed.

 

 

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By
Eliza D. Ankum
Author to
Flight 404
Ruby Sanders
Jared Anderson
OneThreeThirteen – Master Of The Day Of Judgment
Dancing With The Fat Woman
https://24thehuntforrednovember.wordpress.com

 

My Ode To Denzel Washington

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My ode to Denzel Washington, Flight 404 A Novel, made the Amazon Best Seller List for its category, again today, probably because of the upcoming novel, Thou Shalt Eat Dust.

This time, it’ll be an Oscar for Mr. Washington

 

https:thoushalteatdust.wordpress.com

By
Eliza D. Ankum
Author of
Flight 404
Ruby Sanders
Jared Anderson
OneThreeThirteen
Dancing With The Fat Woman