"Plus, it’s a hell of a lot easier to electronically transfer money to a man who has saved your life than to give hard cash to a man who threatened to take it," Chandler gravely chuckled and then walked out the door.
After the door closed, Mason lay his head on Orinda’s hand and squeezed it. He wanted her to wake, but also he wanted her to rest. They didn’t have to work in the morning, and they had as much time as they needed to recover. He only wanted her to recover. The time on the clock said that yesterday was over and today had started. They were no longer running away from death. Now they were going to take a slow paced walk toward living and toward the future.
With his eyes closed for longer than a prayer but shorter than sleep, there was a slight feeling that opened them. The grip in his hand was tighter than it had been, but it wasn’t because of his own power. Orinda found the strength to squeeze his hand. The feeling woke him and when he opened his eyes, he was greeted with the most beautiful brown eyes he had ever seen.
"Baby! You’re awake!" Mason said as she painfully winced a smile. "I have so much to tell you, but first let me call the doctor."
Chapter 21
Most men who fight in war, fight out of obligation to their country. It’s rare, if ever does a man who has no interest in freedom, for him to volunteer to risk his life for the flag of a nation. Especially a nation who has turned its back on its own for 500 hundreds years as if slavery, lynching, and Jim Crow did not exist. The man who fights in war only fights because of the promise of returning to his family, but in the back of his mind, he is steadily hoping his bravery and bloodshed will lead to the possibility of acceptance, and of equality. He wants to return to his family because he is essential to them, and they were essential to his survival. The risk of not returning lay in the hands of fate and the scope and barrel of another risking his life at the same demand of his country as well. When battle is all over, family and the men in the fight are all each other had. In a sense the latter is your family.
War has been the manmade pandemic since creation, the virus of ego and control that has led to the death of many millions. The cursed blessing of capitalism brought war and conflict to the shores of lands that may have never been approached, but they harbored much resources for wealth.
Special interests created enemies of friends and friends of enemies at the expense of many lives, and every generation faces this inevitability. Just ask the slaves who fought aside the British against the hypocrisy of the American forefathers. The tide turns when new enemies are made because a new ally is required but if history is ever viewed in the way it was written, the strongest enemies force a union once a greater foe threatens them both.
When I returned from war, I learned this. I didn’t understand why I was told to trust a man during the day, but keep a watchful eye on him the seven nights that he slept. I was a man but not to those who instructed me. I was only a carrier of blood, the ability to hold solid until pierced by a bullet or the shell of a mortar by the opposition to spill my blood on a land that never had a history of hating me until our country’s leaders disagreed. I would come home to fight another battle. I came home to fight another battle in an old war. A war readjusting to a civilization who publically praised my efforts but assumed that because of my sacrifices, I would not be able to fully function. That has always been the case and until something changes, it will continue. In every war, men leave to fight collectively for the special interest of the United States of America but come home to fight another battle. For instance, Vietnam a war so unpopular because of the public’s growing rejection of a war that America lost, created addicts and homeless of epic proportions. The men didn’t return home to a hero’s welcome. America lost more than just the war. America lost a generation of men who could have made this country greater by fighting another fight, a civil fight. Not to relive the Confederacy against the Union but the fight against racism and economic oppression. Thousands of men perished that could have gained more ground for equality at home. Yet they were sent away to fight in a scary new land to defend the spread of communism because it wasn’t the American way. Not to say there was a guarantee that every one of the 58,000 men who met their demise would have fought for the equal rights of not just blacks in this country but all men, black, brown, and yellow that our country’s creed announced should be equal for over 200 years; but they would have the option to fight. They would have the option to fight for justice or aid the fight for justice, but they would definitely hold the option. Many men and woman perished in the streets of America during the same time our country deployed men to die far from home for a war that none really completely understood.
Before Vietnam, there was Korea. Before Korea there was World War II and many others dating back to the only acceptable revolution, The American Revolution. Wars where the black man fought to prove he was able. They needed to prove that they belonged in hopes that if they risked their lives for the colors of red, white and blue, that the Red, White, and Blue would see them as equals, as Americans and not a nuisance of colored folk. That was another fight that many fought through the years. They fought only to return home as niggers, not even American niggers. Denied veteran benefits of housing, jobs and other comforts that others took for granted, they risked their lives to obtain, in vain.
The war was at home the entire time not in places with names they couldn’t pronounce. The war was in the de jure south where blacks swung in the breeze from trees. The war was in Georgia where they were hunted on the red clay roads sweetened by the scent of peach trees and willows. The war was in Birmingham, Alabama where churches were bombed simply because blacks were not American enough to live the American dream. The war was in Detroit, Harlem, Tulsa, and Saint Louis. Others felt the need to give them an American death. Death at the hands of a “real” American was a glory given to those who were not supposed to be here. The war was here.
I appreciate those soldiers who died for my cause. Not just those who wore the colors of a country who forgets its past but those who voiced to that same country that we are people. We are human. We want what you say we deserve it. We will die for it. We want freedom and equality against systematic, de facto oppression. We want to live in peace at home before we run to fight abroad. We want the freedom to walk peacefully down the streets of Virginia and Georgia and Texas without being called a nigger before we land on the soil of a country who only sees an American. We want jobs to support our families and fair access to any union just as our counterparts, but we don’t want to bomb the rice fields or oil fields of an enemy that only wants the same. We want education that will allow our little brown and black babies a chance to recover from growing up in poverty.
That would be so much better for us. Have you ever had to listen to an older person read aloud, sign their name, or even write how they feel? It’s hard to understand because they were denied the ability to gain an education. They didn’t lack the tenacity to obtain it. Those are my wants. I want that for my country and then and only then will I volunteer to go abroad to liberate any people from the grips of a government with poisonous intentions but who will do that for the Americans at home? Who?
Every generation will face war but if the soldiers return home only a shell of themselves, then we as a country, we should give them the souls back that they lost. Give me my soul, America. I know you have reserves because the soul of a man is taken when the life from his body is taken. America has taken so many of its own lives that we know you have souls on reserve. I don’t want reparations of monetary worth. I want the souls that were taken from us when you took lives.
That can only be given back through the fair distribution of education, knowledge, liberty and equal justice for all. Because America never said liberty and justice were for a few. It said for all. That means everyone. The home of the brave belongs to everyone. There will be no exceptions or limitations, or America’s greed and her hypocrisy will be her legacy. None! This is not the home of the brave unless you’re a descendant
of a slave or of red men, massacred and disposed of in hidden graves. Give us that America, and then I will give all that I have, except my life. I have given you too much of it to give you more.
Mason sat back and read what he wrote as he sipped his tea. To create a journal would not be enough because he had a story to tell, and he didn’t want to leave anything out. He wanted to start from the beginning. He owed it to Detective Griffin, Vernon Chandler, and the many men and women of ancestry who fought in a battle. He owed it to himself. He needed to tell the story of truth that would liberate the future and would liberate the spirits of those lost souls from before.
He couldn’t be specific because every war was different but ultimately everyone that leaves for war prays to survive. Not only do they want to survive, they want to live. Even in war, people still smile. Some laugh and some cry, but that’s life. Life is about living the daily battle by surviving the war.
"Baby! Come here please! I need you," Mason shouted from upstairs as he pushed back from his desk. He was elated. He did what he promised Chandler a year and half ago. He also did what he always wanted to do. He finally completed his first novel that told the tales of many wars. To avenge his fallen comrades that he didn’t speak up for, Mason finally spoke for all who fought for a cause.
He spoke for all who went to battle with hopes of being able to pray to the heavens again the next day. He was able to tell the story and only then made up for not speaking up when it mattered.
"Did you finish?! Dear God, tell me you finished," Orinda said as she slowly walked into the room. She was holding his other greatest accomplishment. Masha ‘Allah Cesar Sessions. The son that he would love for helping his mother through a dark time in their lives a year and a half ago.
During a time when they were trying to figure how to not only solve a murder but to prevent another, Orinda was in the height of her ovulation cycle. When she comforted him with herself, she allowed him to release his relief into her. While she lay quietly in the hospital bed after being brutally and savagely beaten, inside her womb was another life fighting to survive.
He survived and gave them hope when the doctor came with the news the next day after Orinda was unconscious for hours.
"I finished, baby. It’s done and now I can really rest. I told our story but also the story of the survival. That means any and every one that has ever had to deal with any adversity, I told their story," Mason said slowly.
His words brought a proud smile to his wife’s face. She was proud of him but more so, she was happy to have him back. The times he spent in his office to chronicle his experiences, read and research the lives of Americans that lost the fight of life on homegrown soil took their toll. He was finally able to tell the story. She handed him Masha ‘Allah as he stood to kiss her.
"Tell the story to the world, baby. I’m so proud of you!" she said as they walked out of his office and down the stairs. She had been cooking when he called her. The food smelled divine.
"Baby, I didn’t want to bother you while you were working, but a letter came in the mail from the Griffins. I didn’t open it. I thought it would be nice to do it together," she demurred. Mason opened the letter and found a picture of Griffin and his wife standing in front of a beautiful home with a Spanish tiled roof, their new home in Arizona with a letter only saying.
"Since you’re keeping your promise to me, I’m keeping it to you. Hello from AZ."
Mason smiled and then showed the picture to Orinda.
"They look great!" she said while serving their plates.
"I just hope they can survive the heat out there," Mason said.
"I’m sure they will be just fine. If they can survive everything else they have, this is just another part of their lives to do the same. Surviving is life."
Slivovica Mason Page 24