Labor of Love Anthology: 10 Anecdotes of Love and the Struggles Within

by Aliyah Burke

Kyleigh shook her head in anger. If there was one thing she hated, it was stupid and racist stupid was even worse.

  “Lord, white folks are dumb. This girl is Catholic. I’m talking communion, body of Christ, blood of Christ, confession and rosary beads Catholic,” Olivia snarled as she chuckled at the lack of knowledge among them or even their desire to hide how lost they truly were.

  “I…I’m so sorry… ma’am,” the sheriff stammered. “I did make a stupid assumption. Something I reckon I can’t condemn these boys for. My apologies again, Kyleigh.”

  Shaking her head she took a deep breath and once again let it go.

  They sat in deep silence. The sound of doors sliding open and shut, the air-exchanger kicking on while people were talking in low voices, the intercom calling out codes and directions, squeaky wheelchairs reverberating around the room like a cymbal, yet no one blinks or moves. They just stood there in the post 911 Barak Obama fearful of white American's silence. The fragile peace this country had formed in the civil rights era was over before it really had a chance to take root.

  Clearing his throat, the sheriff went on. “Because of the boys' reason for choosing Ms. Mohammed, correct or not, the prosecutor has said that Karter will be charged with felony arson with the special circumstance of it being a hate crime.”

  “WHAT?” the Patton’s all yelled.

  “Sheriff, he’s twelve years old! This will destroy his life!” Jesse pleaded.

  “I.. know… I know,” the sheriff tried to console them. Angela had fallen into a chair sobbing sadly. “Listen, right now what is important is that Karson is ok. I have all my deputies out looking for Jimmy and this Fo-wizzle, and we are going to have to leave an officer here to watch over Karson for his safety, of course.”

  “Don’t you mean to make sure we don’t help him run?” Jesse snapped angrily.

  “I think it’s time for us to leave,” Kyleigh interrupted softly. “I just wanted make sure he was ok.”

  As Kyleigh turned to leave with Olivia and Paityn, Olivia whispered, “I’m still trying to figure out where he came up with Fo-wizzle!” struggling not to laugh.

  “I swear I can’t take you anywhere,” Kyleigh told her as they walked down the hall.

  “All I’m saying, is they are always so quick to talk about us, act like we are the problem in the country, but there is more of them than there are of us and they are a hot mess!” Olivia rambled.

  “I agree with you,” Paityn interjected. “But there is a time and a place, Liv. With you there is never a time it’s not ok. That old fart back there may be a racist asshole but his grandson is shot and could die. What did getting all worked up with him get you?”

  Paityn was not a fighter, she liked to get along and have fun. She’d spent her whole life with the subject of race over her head. Her father was black and her mother Korean. She was half-way accepted in her father’s family and not accepted at all in her mother’s family. She looked a lot more black than she did Korean, and there was no way they were going to claim her. To be rejected by your family for your race is the worst thing that can be done; of all people your family should love you. You came from them. Rather than rage and be angry like Olivia, or march and fight injustice like Kyleigh, she stayed within her core group of people that she knew loved her and ignored the rest.

  “It got him to know he can't just talk to a black person like that,” Olivia defended.

  “Did it? Or did you just confirm what that country hick thought of you the moment you walked in? You can’t change people’s minds by giving them what they give you, you only bring yourself to their level and for my money, you are better than that, Liv,” Paityn offered.

  As they got to the elevators, Kyleigh looked at her reflection in the mirror. Covered in that little boy's blood, as tears streamed down her cheeks she thought, 'everybody’s blood is red'.

  Chapter Three

  It’d been two weeks since Karter’s shooting and he was set to be released from the hospital the following day and would immediately be arrested for the crime he’d committed. The Sheriff’s Department had been able to catch Fo-wizzle at his grandmother’s house but no one had seen or heard from Jimmy.

  As he walked down the halls of Medford Hospital, the smell of antiseptic, sweat, blood, and vomit filled Jesse’s nose. It had been two days before Jesse had gotten a chance to talk to his nephew after the shooting and hear from him what had happened that night.

  “Karter, why did you do this?” Jesse had demanded. The thought of Karter going to juvenile hall had been eating him up for days.

  Karter had dissolved into tears. “Uncle, I miss my dad!” the young boy had wailed, his face red with pain. “Those Muslims killed my daddy! They just killed him. He went there to help them! That’s all he wanted to do was help! They killed him for it!”

  Jesse had sat on his bed pulling Karson into his arms and let him sob. It was a pain and an anguish he understood. Jesse knew Tony had been naive about what he was going to the Middle East for and how he would be helping. He knew that. Like him, Tony had known nothing about the Middle East or the Muslim religion. Hell, Greensboro had a total of five black people in the town, so it was sad to say that none of them knew anything about other Americans of a different race. His mind had wandered then to Kyleigh. He wouldn’t mind getting to know her better. God, that woman’s hips were big, round and made for sin. Shaking his head, he came back to the problem at hand.

  As hard as it had been for him to do, Jesse had remained staunch. “I know! Don’t you think I know? He was my little brother. Your grandparent's son. We all miss him. You had no right to do what you did! Who told you the person that owned that house was Muslim?”

  “Jimmy said it was a Muslim family that had moved here from Iraq. I thought it was pretty fucked up that they could come and live here in a big old house and my dad is six feet under,” Karson raged.

  Ok, Dad of The Year he was not going to win.

  “Karson, the woman that owns that house isn’t Muslim. She’s black and she’s Catholic!”

  “Fo-wizzle says the niggers are just as bad.”

  Without even thinking first, Jesse had slapped Karter across the face, so fast it surprised him. “DON’T YOU EVER LET ME HEAR YOU SAY THAT WORD AGAIN!” he’d yelled at his nephew.

  If there was one thing he didn’t respect about his father, it was his racism. Although, he himself had been going the way Karter was going when he’d joined the Army. Joining had forced him to trust in and put his life in the hands of some great black men and women. Although Greensboro was home, the closed minded hateful environment had been the thing that had made him not want to return.

  “WHY NOT!? POPPA SAYS IT!” Karson wailed holding his cheek.

  Pulling him back into his arms, Jesse rocked him, whispering apologies until Karson had calmed down. War had changed so many things.

  It was well known from the monsters of history that people didn't react to death tolls if they were too high to comprehend. One death can immobilize a community, even a nation. Many deaths, hundreds or thousands, can make a lasting impression to be used for good or bad intentions. September 11th had devastated so many people’s lives and the war that followed had taken and destroyed many, many more lives. It’d catapulted a religion most knew nothing about to the forefront of that pain and given people something to rail at, whether what they were being told was the truth or not. Jesse could admit to himself that he’d made the same assumption about Kyleigh Mohammed the moment he heard her last name. If he was honest with himself, he’d had a passing thought about her race but nothing that made him feel like he was a racist.

  However, his time in Kabul fighting side by side with his brothers-in-arms and sometimes with the citizens of that country, he’d learned most Americans, especially white Americans, sadly didn’t know shit about the religion.

  Karter had gone on to explain that the idea of vandalizing and burning down the home had been Jimmy’s idea.

  Jimmy’s father, mot
her and uncle had all been killed in Afghanistan. He was stuck living with his alcoholic grandfather who abused him when he was drunk and his grandfather's new, young drug-addicted wife. He wasn’t just angry; he was sixteen and explosive and too old to be hanging around with Karter. Jesse had been saying for more than a year to fire Johnson from his crew and hire back one of the old workers that weren’t a mess. But his father’s loyalty to the family had gotten in the way, leaving Jimmy the opportunity to be around an impressionable and broken-hearted twelve year old Karson.

  Now he was walking to his nephew's room, ready to brace him for his imminent arrest.

  Just as he got to the room, Sheriff Riley was coming out.

  “Hey! Jesse how’s it going?” the sheriff beamed.

  “Hey, Sheriff. I thought you said you were going to wait until tomorrow to place Karter under arrest?” Jesse ridiculed, looking at him suspiciously.

  “I was actually here to talk to your parents to let them know that no charges will be filed against Karter and we think we know where Jimmy is. The deputies are on their way to arrest him as we speak,” Sheriff Riley replied slipping his pad into his pocket.

  “Wait a minute!” Jesse blurted. “What do you mean no charges are being filed?”

  “Well, Ms. Mohammed had a meeting with the district attorney and basically explained that if they called her to testify she would say she’d left a cigarette burning in a bedroom and that she’d found Karter in her yard running from Jimmy and he shot him. Without the support of the victim, in these cases, it’s very hard to prove guilt. So the district attorney had no choice but to drop the charges. You know, that Ms. Mohammed is a pretty nice lady. I’m sorry I didn’t meet her before now.”

  Jesse couldn’t believe what he’d just heard, not only had this woman who knew nothing about him, saved his nephew, but she’d actually used her clout and money to stop the prosecution.

  He walked into his nephew's room expecting to see smiles all around. But there were none. Instead, his father's mouth remained an uncharacteristic grim line amid his stubble. Almost robotically, his hand raised upward and passed Jesse a folded piece of paper, his eyes almost as still as some billboard poster.

  “I know, I saw Sheriff Riley in the hall,” Jesse told his father.

  “I can't believe that she....” Angela said trying to hold back tears.

  “Yeah, me neither,” Jesse mumbled. "And I’m almost sorry she did.”

  Jesse knew if Tony were alive and knew his son was being molded into a racist, he would be like a raging beast. Karter was getting older not younger. Next time it may not be someone like Ms. Mohammed. He had to know there were responsibilities to every decision.

  “JESSE!” Angela chastised before the words could get out of his mouth good.

  “I’m serious, Mom,” Jesse yelled. “Has he learned anything from this? Are we going to have to keep getting these calls until we get the call that he had accidently or intentionally killed someone? We all lost Tony, not just Karter. He doesn’t corner the market on pain. Dad, you have to stop teaching him the crap you teach him. You know Tony wouldn’t have wanted that for him."

  “I’m sorry, Uncle Jesse!” Karter yelled tears pooling in his eyes. "I know it was a bad idea. I know what I did was wrong. I just needed to blame someone! I didn’t mean to hurt her. I never even wanted to burn her house. I just… I don't know. I thought Fo-wizzle and Jimmy were my friends.”

  “Where in the bulls nuts did that boy get that damn name!?” Jesse Sr. roared. “Who names their child that?”

  “It’s probably a nick-name, Poppa,” Angela exclaimed to her husband.

  “No, Nanna. That’s his name,” Karson whispered.

  “I tell you it’s that damn meth!” Angela reiterated.

  “Can we focus here, please?” Jesse interrupted. “What is going to be his punishment for this now that she’s given him this gift of not going to jail?”

  “Hell, son, you don’t think getting shot was enough?” his father asked.

  “Well, I would think a gunshot wound would suffice,” Angela chimed in.

  Jesse knew, had always known, his parents would cater to Karson after his father’s death. It was part of the reason he’d decided to come back home and help them raise him. He understood their need to be easy on him. But this needed to be a wakeup call; for everyone.

  “I think I have an idea of something that would be fitting for him to atone for his bad decisions.”

  *******

  Kyleigh had decided to check into the Parisian Hotel while she figured out what she was going to do about her beautiful home. The Parisian was sixty miles outside of Greensboro in what was more like a New York City feel. The Parisian had unrivaled sweeping views of the city from Mason Avenue and 125th Street, with spacious guestrooms and extraordinary suites unlike any other. Kyleigh was located in one of the suites in the top fourteen floors of the hotel. It was entirely private with breathtaking skyline views, a boutique hotel complimented by opulent amenities such as spacious marble baths, nightly turndown service, and exclusive maître d’etage butlers to create a truly indulgent experience. She was about to take a warm bubble bath to relax after a long day when her butler came into the room.

  “Ma’am,” Wesley started.

  “Wesley, what did we say?” she interrupted.

  Kyleigh was the daughter of Arabic business man, and her African American mother was an opera singer. Her mother and father had married while her mother was pregnant with her and were divorced by the time she was six months old. Her father’s family didn’t approve of him marrying an American black woman, and they’d disowned him. Jabiru Mohammed had never really been on his own at the age of twenty-seven years old. He was the youngest son of a very wealthy and connected family in the Middle East. He’d completed his education here in the states getting a finance degree from Princeton University. Kyleigh’s mother had seen his weakness, and refused to stay married to a man that couldn’t stand up to his family for his wife and child.

  Her mother had moved her to Willacoochee, Georgia and raised her in the back woods of the south raising a Southern Belle who was smart, talented and ready to take on the world. She had gone to the University of London in London, England on a full scholarship for architecture. Once she’d graduated, she’d gone back to the states where she’d gone to Harvard for her master's degree.

  It was when she finished that degree that she got word that her father was dying in Dubai and wanted to see her. Her mother had encouraged her to go and see him when she’d scoffed at the idea.

  While spending time with her father, he’d marveled at her talents in architecture. He said she had an eye and smarts for the business of it that he knew would make her very successful.

  It was four years later when he finally passed away and Kyleigh had come back to the states the CEO of a booming business, and the daughter who’d formed a loving, bonded relationship with her father that she wasn’t sure could have been better if he’d been with her, her entire life.

  Now all these years later, she was a billionaire business mogul, like her father had told her she would be in one of their long talks. She would one day wish for love and a family. He’d told her not to let her money and power make her forget she was a child of God and that she was required to give and have compassion for those in pain and with less than her.

  “That I should call you Kyleigh, miss. My apologies,” the butler replied.

  “What can I do for you?” she asked beaming at him.

  “There is a Mr. Jesse Patton here to see you, ma’am.”

  “Oh!” she said surprised. She stood and then sat down and then stood again. Suddenly very nervous, she didn’t know what it was about Jesse Patton but he was like the Sun. He had people orbiting around him; some were so close it burned them; some were so far they were the coldest they could be because they wanted to be closer. The lucky ones were in the perfect distance to feel his warmness and live with him peacefully. In one way or another all
the people that met him felt attracted to him. He was the brightest person you could ever meet.

  And Kyleigh? Well, in his little Solar System, she was Pluto: a strange little cold planet that no one wanted around the Sun, but who oddly was spinning around him in circles, in the opposite direction as everyone else.

  And how would the Sun notice Pluto? She didn’t know but the idea of it made her very nervous.

  “Uhh.. Yes, yes. Please send him in,” she said moving around the room trying to figure out where she should sit, or should she stand. Why was she so nervous?

  “Mr. Patton,” the butler said before leaving Kyleigh and Jesse alone.

  There was a static again, that crackling in the air that always happens whenever the two of them got within a foot of each other. Kyleigh made the little baby hairs on the back of his neck stand up, but sending goosebumps all over his body. Jesse had thought it was the circumstances for their first meeting, but now he knew it wasn’t the circumstances; it was the beautiful woman, and her delicious curves. While Jesse had never dated a black woman before, he wasn’t deaf, dumb or blind. This woman was sexy as hell.

  “I’m sorry to intrude, but I wondered if I could talk to you?” Jesse announced.

  “I… yes… yes…. Come in, come in. Can I get you anything?” she asked him.

  “Ummm… No,” Jesse replied nervously.

  “Please, please, sit down. How’s your nephew doing?” she asked him sitting down on the couch next to him.

  Her perfume was the scent of lemons, lilacs, and fresh linen. Jesse could see himself spending hours close to her just for her scent.

  “Umm… He’s doing great! He got out of the hospital yesterday and he’s finishing his recovery at home, thanks to you,” Jesse told her.

  “Oh great! I’m so glad. I was so worried for him for a minute there,” Kyleigh beamed.

  Kyleigh had called the sheriff the day after the fire, and that was when she’d discovered all that the Patton family had been through. Condemning that little boy with the mark of a hate crime over his head because of his bad, and basically young, choices in friends had been something God hadn’t allowed her to sit with. So she’d called the district attorney and pulled some strings in the hopes it would be the help he needed to get on track.