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Amanda sat in the car with Abry and her youngest child, Lani, while parallel parked next to Pittiesburge Cemetery. Lou and Marquis hopped out the vehicle and side by side, walked towards the graveyard.
“Mommy!” protested a restless Abry. “Why are we here? I want to go home! I’m starving!”
“Now Abry, please be patient with daddy and grandpa,” Amanda responded in a calming voice. “This is a tough thing for both of them, so just be a trooper for us all.”
“Why?” Abry still insisted while thinking with his stomach.
“I promise that you’ll understand when you’re older! For now, you just need to be on your best behavior and practice a little bit of patience and respect! They’ll treat you well in life, honey, if you know how to use them.”
Both Lou and Marquis’ hearts were heavy as each man struggled to withhold his tears. This was Marquis’ mother’s birthday, and it was never an easy day for either of them. On this particular day, however, Lou was visibly more distraught than Marquis. Lou felt as if the weight of the world was on him as he paid his respects to his departed wife.
“Marquis,” Lou quietly uttered as he sniffled and wiped a tear from his eye. “I’m so sorry. I never meant to become such a burden on you after your mother died. It’s just been so hard for us all since she left.”
Marquis waited a few seconds before responding, as he found his eyes fixated on his mother’s tombstone. After a couple of minutes of silence had passed, he felt the urge to finally say what had been on his mind.
“No, Pops, it has nothing to do with Moms.” Marquis took a deep breath. “Look, this all goes back to Alex! He’s the one who fucked all of our lives up! He's the one that caused all this shit! It ain’t fair to put that on Moms!”
Lou looked quite taken aback and wiped a few smaller tears from his eyes which fell.
“Marquis, I appreciate your enthusiasm, I really do, but first of all, please don’t use that type of language! I mean, sheesh! We are paying our respect to your mother! And second of all, your mother was the one who had advised me to retire years ago.”
“What?” Marquis appeared quite shocked. “That doesn’t make any sense, Pops.”
“Well, she got sick before I could really consider that option, but after she passed, I figured that my barbecue joint would be the only thing that I could still hold on to. At least the restaurant could never kick the bucket on me.”
Marquis found it increasingly more difficult to suppress his emotions and walked off rather briskly. He eventually found a concrete pillar that he decided to sit behind and shed streams of tears. While Marquis was having his moment, a gentleman approached him.
“Are you alright, young man?” the guy questioned.
Marquis hesitantly turned around to see that it was the same light-skinned man that he had stopped from choking a few weeks back.
“I’m fine.” Marquis cleared his throat.
“You know, I get it, brother. I’ve lost my share of loved ones too.”
The man proceeded to point at two headstones a few feet away positioned next to each other.
“Those be my folks. My own flesh and blood. You know, I don’t think we caught each other’s names after that little episode in Corky’s. The name’s Shawley, but folks tend to call me Shaw.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Shaw.” Marquis officially shook his hand. “I’m Marquis.”
“The pleasure is mine, son. Oh! And just call me Shaw, none of that Mister crap. But anyway, those two be my parents. I had a black mama and a white daddy. They were two very special people, Marquis. They had met, so the story goes, during a sit-in down at a diner in Mississippi. They both were very involved with the civil rights movement. Unfortunately, their efforts to integrate that particular diner were only met with it being shut down to the public, but that really didn't faze them too heavily. They were cool people like that, and my God, did they have balls! They decided to open their own diner down in the same state. Of course, with everything going on at the time, this was a bold move all within itself, a colored woman and a white man owning a diner. It had a good little run. Went longer than most folks expected.”
“Well, what happened to it?” interrogated Marquis
“Oh, well, it got firebombed by a white supremacist group. Some folks called it karma, but then again, that was just the politics of the south. I recall as a young boy, having to stay with friends while they were rebuilding. You know, come to think of it, I believe I was around the age of the little one you had in Corky’s.”
Marquis reflected deeply on the story that was shared with him.
“So,” Marquis began, “if you don’t mind me asking, how did they ever get it rebuilt?”
Shaw gave Marquis a radiant smile.
“Well...through prayer, of course,” he replied, patting his shoulder.