The Last Boyfriend

by CMJ Publishing

  “I didn’t mean to be rude to you back there, Lucky.” Zane started talking slowly as he drove. “You know I think you’re special. I’m just not one of those guys that likes being questioned.”

  “I understand,” I mumbled, continuing to stare out of the window.

  “I met Angelique through my brother, Noah. We have a special relationship.” His voice was soft.

  “Does she know I’m staying with you?”

  “I don’t answer to anyone, Lucky. I thought you understood that.”

  “Do you love her?”

  “I don’t do love.” He sighed. “If you don’t think you can handle an unconventional relationship, we should end this now, Lucky.”

  “End what?” My voice rose. “You mean, we should stop fucking?”

  “If you aren’t able to separate sex from a commitment, then maybe we should.” His voice was gruff. “I know you haven’t been in a relationship in a while and I understand if you can’t do this.”

  “Do what?” I laughed lightly, trying to hide the pain from my voice.

  “I know it’s hard for girls to sleep with a guy and not develop feelings, but I thought after our conversation that you knew the deal.”

  “I do know the deal.”

  “I don’t want to argue with you, Lucky. I’ve enjoyed two week so far, but I’m not going to put up with you trying to go down the relationship and jealousy road.”

  “What jealousy?” I said, feeling mortified. “I was just asking you a few questions. It’s not a huge deal, Zane. What’s your fucking problem?” I started shouting. “Why is everything a secret? Shit, we’ve all got issues. We’ve all been hurt. Deal with it. Okay? Just deal with it.”

  “Calm down.” Zane’s voice became cold. “Take a deep breath and calm down. We are going to pull up to Mr. Johnson’s house in a few minutes. I don’t want him seeing you look like a shrew.”

  “I don’t look like a shrew,” I screamed at him angrily. I was upset that he had turned it all around on me and hadn’t addressed my questions.

  “Do you have the questions ready you are going to ask him?” He changed the subject. “We’ll need accurate dates and names from him. Write down every detail. We should also confirm when he is available for us to come back with cameras.”

  “So we’re not going to talk about it anymore?”

  “Lucky, you have a decision to make.” He looked at me briefly, and I quickly averted my eyes from his gaze.

  “I have a decision?” I laughed sarcastically. “I don’t think this is about me.”

  “If this is too hard for you, we don’t have to continue.” His voice was soft as he pulled up in the driveway. “I don’t want to hurt you.” I felt his arm on my shoulder and I continued staring out the window. I could feel tears welling up in my eyes and my head was starting to pound.

  “Lucky, look at me please.”

  “What?” I turned to face him, and I was surprised by the hurt in his expression.

  “I don’t want to hurt you.” He sighed and rubbed his forehead. I was starting to realize that was his tell sign for when he was feeling stressed out. “Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t.” I replied slowly, and sighed.

  “I like you a lot, Lucky.” His words were slow. “I love waking up to you in the morning. I love spending time with you. I love talking to you about history and movies.”

  But you’re not in love with me. I stared at him and studied the cut of his jaw. It was so square and sharp. His face was so classically handsome. I thought he could have been a chiseled statue of a Roman God. He was so hard and unflinching. To some he would also appear uncaring, but I knew that he was not at all what he appeared to be. Inside, he was one of the most caring and wonderful men I have ever met.

  “Are you going to answer me, Lucky?”

  “Let’s go inside.” I took off my seatbelt and opened the car door. I was not willing to have this conversation now. I needed time to think. I knew that I should just tell him it was over, but there was a part of me that loathed the thought of saying the words. I didn’t want to give him up already. He had already wormed his way into my life, and I didn’t want to let that feeling go.

  “Okay, let’s go and see Mr. Johnson.” He nodded at me as he closed his car and walked towards the front door. I followed him in silence, hoping that I would not start crying during the interview.

  ***

  “Thanks for allowing us the opportunity to do a pre-interview with you, Mr. Johnson.” Zane shook the elderly man’s hand, and I nodded my affirmation.

  “No problem.” The man ushered us in to his house. “We’ll sit in the kitchen if you don’t mind. My wife has made some tea and cookies.”

  “That sounds great. Thank you.” I beamed.

  “No problem. We are happy to have visitors.” He chuckled. “My Betty and I don’t know many people here in California.”

  “You moved from Chicago, right?” I smiled, trying to impress him with my knowledge.

  “Yes.” He shivered. “We moved to get away from the cold.”

  “Sidney’s arthritis couldn’t take the winter’s anymore.” An elderly lady came up to me and gave me a hug. “Hello, my dear. I’m Betty Johnson, Sidney’s wife.”

  “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Johnson.” I gave her a big, genuine smile, happy to forget about my conversation with Zane for a while.

  “No problem. Sidney and I were happy to hear that a documentary was going to be made about residential segregation. You don’t hear much about it these days.”

  “That’s why it’s so important for us to make this documentary,” Zane interjected.

  “Well, what do you want to know?” Sidney Johnson smiled.

  “Everything.” I laughed.

  “Lucky’s a history major, with a focus on the Civil Rights Movement.” Zane explained. “She’s also my assistant.”

  “Oh, so then you know some of what happened then?” Sidney looked at me with kind brown eyes. I grinned back at him and thought of my father. They had the same aura to them, and in some inexplicable way, I felt a certain connection to this elderly African American man.

  “I’d like to hear about it from your perspective.” I looked at Zane and he nodded. “I had some questions, but I thought maybe you could just sort of run through your experience first?”

  “Sure. Y’all better have a seat.” He laughed. “And some tea and cookies.”

  “Sidney can talk, so I hope you have a long time.” Betty laughed at us, and I smiled back at her.

  “Thanks.” I helped myself to a cookie and sat back.

  “Well, I was born in North Carolina, you know. Back in those days, most of us were still in the South. I was born in the 1930s, right before WWII and the Great Depression.”

  “Sidney, that was long before WWII.” Betty rolled her eyes.

  “Well WWII began in 1939, when were you born, Mr. Johnson?” I asked.

  “He was born in 1930.” Betty laughed.

  “Wow. You look great for your age, Mr. Johnson.” Zane complimented the older man.

  “It’s because my wife has treated me so well all these years.” He laughed, and Betty hit him with a cloth.

  “He is always trying to butter me up.”

  “So, like I said. I was born in North Carolina. But back in those days, we didn’t really have any opportunity for jobs or school. My parents had six kids, you know. They had a lot of mouths to feed and they wanted us to get a good education.”

  “So they couldn’t get jobs in North Carolina?” Zane interrupted.

  “No, not back in those days.” I interrupted. “The South was still very much full of Jim Crow. I’m sure his parents would only have gotten sharecropper jobs or work on some farm.”

  “Exactly.” Sidney smiled at me and nodded. “My momma got a job cleaning houses for some of the rich white people in town, and my pops worked on a cotton field. They made okay money, but they got no school for the blacks in the town we liv
ed in.”

  “Whites didn’t want blacks to get education.” I interrupted, as I noticed Zane’s puzzled face. “Back in those days, not many people went to school. Only rich whites. Poor whites had some opportunity, but blacks only had access if another black decided to teach them, or if a teacher came down from the North.”

  “Thanks.” Zane smiled at me, and I noticed the respect at my knowledge in his eyes.

  “And boy, let me tell you. There was no opportunity for any education in my town.” Sidney shook his head. “So when the man came down from the North, telling my parents that he had jobs for them and that there was schools for us to go to, well they got real excited.”

  “I was already in the North.” Betty interrupted. “So my family didn’t go through this.”

  “Yes, Betty’s great grandfather freed himself.” Sidney nodded. “He was a butler for a rich white family in New York.”

  “They treated my family real nice.” Betty nodded. “The whole family was real nice. They treated us well.”

  “He freed himself from being a slave?” Zane leaned forward excitedly. “I bet that’s an exciting story.”

  “One we don’t have time for today, Zane.” I reminded him gently and Sidney laughed.

  “You two remind me of me and my wife.”

  “Oh, we’re not—” I started, but Zane frowned at me, shaking his head slightly.

  “Continue with your story, Sidney.” Zane spoke over me. “This is all new to me, and I’m excited to hear what happened next.”

  “Well my pops packed us all up and we moved up to Chicago.” He paused. “It wasn’t normally like that though. Most times, the man went up to the North by himself and got everything ready and sent for the family later. But my daddy didn’t want to be without my momma.”

  “That’s so sweet.” I exclaimed touched.

  “Yeah. Well, it may have been sweet, but I’m not sure it was smart.” He shook his head. “By the time we got to Chicago, the Great Depression had hit. They weren’t giving the jobs to blacks no more. There weren’t enough jobs to go around and we was at the bottom of the pile. It didn’t help that neither of my friends had a high school diploma either.”

  “So what did they do?” I leaned forward.

  “They had some money saved, so they tried to rent an apartment in Hyde Park. It was a nice part of Chicago and they had good schools. They wasn’t segregated at the time and so we could go to them.”

  “So it seems like all went well?” Zane looked at Sidney curiously.

  “It wouldn’t be worth a documentary if it went well, would it?” Sidney cackled and shook his head. “At first we thought it would, we got a two bedroom place and my momma found a job as a cleaner for a nice family. But then they raised the rent. They wanted us to pay double what the whites were paying or we had to leave.”

  “That’s not fair,” Zane interrupted again.

  “There was no housing laws then.” Sidney shook his head. “When we said we wouldn’t pay more than the white folks, we got evicted. My parents, they tried to find another apartment in that part of town, but no one would show them any. Said we weren’t qualified. Well, we knew that what they meant was that we weren’t white.”

  “It happened all over Chicago, and New York, and Boston.” I nodded. “Residential segregation was rampant after The Great Migration.”

  “The Great Migration?” Zane frowned.

  “That’s what they called the time period when a huge mass of blacks moved up North from the South. At first, the whites didn’t mind, they didn’t have the same institutionalized racism as they did in the South. I mean, there was still racism, but that was towards anyone new really: the Irish, the Italians—they were all met with skepticism. But the big cities, they grew too big too fast, and as jobs were lost, the new migrants were the ones that the hostilities were taken out on.”

  “They lost jobs due to the migration?”

  “No, do you know about The Great Depression?”

  “Not really?”

  “Oh.” I frowned suddenly confused. Why was Zane making a documentary on a subject he knew so little about?

  “You’re very knowledgeable, Lucky.” Sidney smiled. “Unfortunately, there was a lot of corruption in Chicago and a lot of politics going on. They created a ghetto in the South side and basically all the blacks were forced to live there.”

  “Forced?” Zane interjected. “How did they force you?”

  “I’ll explain it, Zane.” I laid my hand on his arm and stared into his eyes. “Let’s let Mr. Johnson finish his story.”

  “My pops eventually left the family.” Sidney looked at us with intense eyes. “He thought he was a failure. Momma was still washing clothes. He never got a job. My brother got recruited by the mob and became a smalltime drug dealer, and me and my other brothers, we didn’t really get no education.”

  “But you got a good job?” I interjected. “How did that happen?”

  “They say everyone has a Guardian Angel, don’t they?” He smiled suddenly. “One day I was walking down the street, getting up to no good, and I saw Betty running after a bag.”

  “I was helping my momma and she had sent me to go pick up some shoes.” Betty interjected, rubbing Sidney’s back.

  “And she looked so pretty and sweet, and she completely snubbed me.” He laughed. “She was too good for the likes of me, and she knew it.”

  “I was from a good family. He was just a street boy.” Betty smiled. “It wouldn’t do for me to associate with a street boy.”

  “I fell in love with her at first site. I knew I had to do whatever I could to win her heart. I went to a school one of my neighbors had set up. He was self-educated and I was able to get a job as a delivery boy for a local store.”

  “He made it to college.” Betty beamed proudly. “He only started getting a real education at 14, and he made it to college.”

  “Only because I knew you wouldn’t marry an uneducated man.” Sidney laughed.

  “You mean date?” She shook her head, but her eyes were beaming.

  “I mean marry, my love. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to marry you.”

  “So you changed your life around for love?” I felt tears well up in my eyes again. We had completely veered from the residential segregation conversation, but I was caught up in their obvious love for each other. “What a wonderful love story, this is.”

  “Now you’ll be telling me you want to focus the documentary on love, and not the move.” Sidney laughed and I saw him squeeze his wife’s hand.

  “I love a good love story.” I smiled, and avoided Zane’s stare. “Especially when it has a happy ending.”

  “Well, we have four kids and seven grandbabies, so I think it worked out pretty nicely.” Sidney chuckled and stood up. “Excuse me, I have to stand up and stretch before my old bones get locked in one position.”

  “No worries.” I stood up as well. “Do you want us to reconvene next week? We can pick up where we left off.”

  “You don’t have to leave.” Sidney stretched his arms, and I motioned to Zane.

  “I think we have all we need right now.” I paused. “Do you have a list of names and numbers for the other people you told us about from your neighborhood?”

  “Yes, Betty wrote it down for you.” Sidney nodded. “Some of them may be dead now, we’re getting on in age.”

  “We understand. And thank you, Mr. Johnson.” Zane stood up and took Mr. Johnson’s hand.

  “No problem, son. You be nice to this young lady here. She’s a good catch.” He winked at me. “And take it from someone that knows. don’t let her get away.”

  I blushed furiously at his words, and I could sense that Zane was staring at me. “Thanks for everything, Mr. Johnson.” Zane’s voice was light, but I knew he must be feeling annoyed.

  “And Ms. Lucky, I look forward to seeing you again. Let me get a hug.” Sidney gave me a huge hug, and whispered in my ear. “Your young man will come around. Don’t giv
e up on him.”

  “I what?” I looked at him in shock, and he winked.

  “Just let me know when you want to come by again. Betty and I will be here.”

  “Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson.” I smiled at them as we exited the house. I got into Zane’s car in a much happier mood than when I had gotten out.

  “They were nice.” Zane looked at me before he started the ignition. “And you were great.”

  “Thanks. They were amazing.” I sighed. “What a perfect couple they are. And man, that story. How sad. But yet, so sweet.”

  “It’ll make a good documentary.”

  I nodded and took a deep breath. “I wanted to ask you something.”

  “Go on.” His voice was tense.

  “Why are you making a documentary on the Civil Rights Movement when you obviously don’t know anything about it?” I looked down at my lap.

  “I guess I owe you an answer, don’t I?” He sighed. I looked up at him, and he was staring at me with emotional eyes.

  “If you don’t mind.”

  “My brother studied history as well.” He half-smiled. “I still don’t know much about it though.”

  “Noah?”

  “Yes.” He nodded. “When we were younger, we watched a movie called Imitation of Life. I thought it was terribly depressing, but he loved it. He always wanted to make a movie about that time period. Like a look at race relations during the Civil Rights Era—he was almost obsessed with it.”

  “Oh?”

  “I think we were so young when our mom left. And we had so many unresolved issues. Well, I think he wanted to displace his hurt. He wanted to understand the human psyche. Why people treated others the way that they did.”