Chapter Eleven

“Promoted Beginnings and Canned Endings”

 

 

Wesley arrived home in the Jeep and pranced gallantly to the front door. He opened it, and brought her a bouquet of roses and she greeted him not only with a great big smile, but with red lipstick and of course open arms.

She was just blown away that every time she saw this man, how he lifted her soul, lighted her future and the here and now with his actions. There was no actual group of words that could best fit what Wesley Houston was doing. He was just that grand a human being, as human beings could be.

She kissed him, then took the bouquet and put them in a vase with water near the pantry window. She turned to him. “What is it, you sounded so excited?”

“Tonight, we’re celebrating, it’s a surprise,” Wesley told her. “Get your things together, because right now you just got a new surprise and I think you will have to take me out.” He led her to the kitchen window and there in the driveway sat a black Porsche 911 convertible with a big pink ribbon as a present.

The golden California sunshine glistened off the new sports car in a heavenly sort of way and a real stunner.

Lana remained speechless as she stared and gasped a moment at the site. She had never dreamed she would receive such a gift, yet there it sat waiting for her. “You mean—?” she stuttered as she choked for words in disbelief.

“Lady, let us celebrate…and you’re driving,” Wesley teased as he dangled the car keys. She turned, got a bit flustered with a frustrated and impatient expression upon her face, and then she snapped them from his hand.

“Yes, I certainly will be driving Mister Houston,” she told him in a scorned, but playful manner. She dropped the keys in her pocket, then turned to him, and embraced him in a deep passionate kiss.

Later that evening the two of them sat at a restaurant table in an upscale steakhouse with a candle light at their table, only highlighting the romance and passion the both of them shared together. If anything it was almost fairytale, too good to be true, as she anticipated Wesley’s big news of the day. “Okay, what’s this big secret, your surprise you’ve been hiding from me all afternoon?” she persisted.

“A promotion, I am to be the new CEO of our corporation. He picked me as his replacement. I sometimes have questioned if I am really up to running this.”

“Wesley Houston, don’t go and die on me now,” she chastised. She grabbed his subtle hand and rubbed it gently. “You’re up to it,” she smiled and that boosted his ego significantly enough that he needed it, but not much of it.

“And how would you know?” he teased her, rubbing her hands, ever so gently in subtle, passionate strokes.

She scooted over in her chair to his face. “A man like you can do anything,” she kissed his lips. “I know you Mister Wesley Houston. You will make a fine leader for your corporation, and I will stay with you my entire lifetime. It will be us, you and I together in the world.”

Across town at the Bakersfield Hospital, her pain is tremendous, her life dissolving and her body failing.

Doctor Beck rushed into the room when she hit the nurses button, and a nurse followed him in. “My time grows short,” Emma rolled her head, her glazed eyes staring up at the doctor. “You must page my son,” she continued. “The number is on the table, please hurry.” The doctor turned and grabbed the paper with the number. “I want to see both him and his girlfriend,” she displayed a polite smile, considering her dying agony that she was able to smile at all.

“Okay Emma, I’ll get him as quickly as possible,” Beck responded in a desperate rush.

Wesley’s pager went off and right in the middle of having steak and lobster. It could not have been worse timing, but it meant he had to call in and he checked the message. He dialed it in the cell phone and suddenly he became frantic. “Yes, I understand. Is she still awake?” Lana didn’t want to guess what was going down as she dropped her fork and wiped her mouth, but she knew what it probably was. “Okay, we’re on our way,” Wesley replied in a desperate tone.

“Wes, what is it?” she calmly asked while acknowledging he was about to confirm her worst fears.

“We have to get to my mother’s bedside,” he responded in desperation, as he became flush with panic, uncertainty and grief.

He choked a lump in his throat and fought bravely not to cry in front of her, putting on his bravest face. He walked around her seat put her coat on while the waiter returned with the credit card bill, which he signed.

“I think she’s dying,” he told Lana as she hugged him with tears down her face and other restaurant patrons turned to them, in bewilderment mixed with sympathies.

At the hospital, doctor Beck exited the room, turning and nodding his head at Wesley and Lana. They could see he was frustrated and grieved as well.

Lana took Wesley’s hand as they both entered the room. The lights were a bit dim as they approached her bed, and Emma rolled her head and eyes to glimpse them, a sudden smile upon her face. “I never thought of it this way,” she told them, taking a deep breath. “But the two of you complement each other as a fine Couple.”

Wesley let go Lana’s hand and kneeling beside her bed, as he reached through the side rail and grabbed Emma’s hand squeezing it gently, tears welling in his eyes. “Mama,” he told her, again gently squeezing her warm hand.

Emma looked past him at her. “Lana—” she took another deep breath and the pain in her body shot through her as she maintained a brave face. “I must be with my son, alone for a few minutes.”

There was a moment of stunned silence when both ladies were eye to eye. Then Lana felt something in the pit of her stomach. “I understand, Misses Houston,” she replied turning and running out the door as tears flowed from her eyes.

Lana took a tissue out of her purse and wiped her eyes, crying and crying, but as quietly as she could.

“Now you listen to me son,” Emma told Wesley in a stern and commanding voice, while the pain tightened in her chest. “That lady out there is your first concern now. If you don’t take care of her, I’ll come down from the heavens and whack you upside the head one.”

Wesley chuckled for a second as a tear ran down from his eye. “I know you can, but I don’t want you to leave,” he told her.

“I have to go,” she told him, a serious look stamped upon her face, mixed with a reality that things in life are finite and that we are only here for a short while, before our time on Earth comes to an end, and we go elsewhere to do new things.

“It’s my time to join your father,” she continued, resting her head back upon the pillow and closing her eyes for a moment while she struggled with another deep breath of air. It seemed that every time she breathed, it was worse and worse and that she had been fighting this a long time.

“Leave me these last minutes to pass on my son. I’ll always love you,” she told him as she turned her head away from Wesley. She let go his hand, as he tightened his grip on hers.

“No mama, no,” he held on for dear life, but it was no use. Her grip faded every second as Wesley began to breakdown emotionally at the life long relationship he had grown under, and she was gone.

The heart monitor went to a straight line and the doctor and nurses rushed into the room ASAP as Wesley stood up, glancing down at an empty shell of a formerly grand person.

Lana rushed into the room and both the doctor and Lana had to pull him back, as he completely broke down in hysterics.

“I’ll take him away from here doctor." Lana shuttled Wesley out of the room, into the hallway and tucked his head into her shoulder, hiding him from the view of others.

The squad car skidded to a stop in Damon’s driveway. The officers all got out of their cars, their car doors opened as shields and then one of the cops called out on a loudspeaker, as Damon threw on the porch light. “Damon Washington, we have a warrant for your arrest, suspicion of murder.”

Their guns were all drawn as the second cop told his partner, “I’ll call for more backup.”

The door opened slowly while Damon smiled politely at the cop, Kerry standing in the background. Hands up, he cautiously walked out the open front door as not to give them any reason to drop him.

The second cop cautiously approached him cuffing Damon while the first cop followed up, gun drawn, ready to shoot. If anything can be said, it was that the Bakersfield police were highly efficient in bringing down crime, oh, and don’t mess with the police!!!

While Damon was being cuffed, the first officer read him his Miranda rights. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand these rights?” he asked.

“Yes I do,” Damon responded quickly turning his head, glancing back at Kerry. “Call my lawyer, his card’s on the table.”

“Backup should be here any minute,” the second officer told the first one.

The first officer turned back to Damon. “You sir, are being arrested on suspicion of murder. A witness has placed you at the scene of the crime, and also has stated that you committed the crime.”

 

A day had passed and it was a warm autumn morning. Wesley sat on a hammock on the side of the house. It was an older tree that secured him while Lana massaged his shoulders. His expression remained one of shock, but one had to ask, as great a loss as it had been, was it as bad with her here? “She’s found her peace,” Lana told him gently caressing his tired back.

“I know,” Wesley choked a whispered reply. He felt tight inside as though it would be almost the end of the world if not for her.

She wasn’t only his lover, best friend, his mate, but she was also here to handle the little kid in him too. A woman whose sole commitment was to him as well as herself.

The two of them were now fast becoming a family, much to the wishes of others around them, but a family at that and a damned good one too.

“She suffered a long time with that horrible disease,” he continued, while fighting tears, and still in a state of denial. Wesley turned and glanced up at her from his shoulder while she continued to gently massage him. “She said we made a good couple.”

Then he smiled a bit, hard as it was and told her, “I want you to marry me…I want to make you my wife.”

She stopped massaging him, and cautiously walked around him, kneeling before him, and glancing into his soul piercing eyes. “I have something to tell you,” she told him in a soft gentle and easy voice.

“What’s that?” he asked.

She took a deep breath then cracked an innocent girly grin. “I think I’m pregnant.”

That very instant, his depression disappeared and he gained a neutral expression upon his face. They were eye to eye the two of them in a world that had bantered them around in every direction and yet here they were, at this very moment that had befallen them.

Two grand individuals in life, both with their share of problems and solutions, each working through a life that had at times, been kind and unkind in its ways. Nonetheless, they were here and with all that had confronted them; the moments had come to this. Would he heed his mother’s dying words, or go another direction and dump her?

He suddenly cracked the greatest smile a man can dawn upon his face and asked her, “how do you know?” The excitement had set upon his heart and sole, and he waited as it had to be ages, but it had grown to the moment and it was now here before them.

“I just do,” she smiled leaning forward, grabbing his face, and drawing him closer and kissing him. “I’m getting a pregnancy test to confirm this, but I think I am carrying your child.”

She kissed him even harder, then pushed herself back and in a great big inviting smile replied. “I accept your offer of marriage Wesley Houston…I love you,” and the two embraced as they hugged each other. Suddenly the phone rang, interrupting the moment. She got up and grabbed the phone. “Hello?”

“Please tell me you love me,” it was a desperate Steve Schweinfert, his voice as down as he had ever gotten.

“How did you get this number?” she walked away from Wesley, filled with rage that this piece of filth had interrupted their moment together.

Wesley stood up and watched from behind her, a growing concern upon his face. “Who is it Lana?” he asked.

“You must leave me alone,” she insisted. “I’m going to have his baby, do you understand?” she told him. “I love him and I am going to marry this man and you can’t stop me,” she told Steve.

“Please give us another chance,” he persisted in a desperate tone. “I promise—”

“There is no us.” She took a deep breath, got her courage. “Steve the only promise I want, leave Wesley and I alone,” she hung up.

Then she turned and Wesley held her in his arms as she breathed a big sigh of relief. “That was Steve,” she told Wesley, taking another deep breath, staring in his eyes. She seemed to realize it was a last attempt, that her time to start enjoying life had just come at the insistence of the propagated and desperate phone call from an evil scumbag.

“I think this has gone far enough now,” he got angry.

“You don’t have to worry about him anymore,” she smiled.

“But he’s still on the loose,” Wesley replied.

“No,” she told him rubbing his cheeks. “I think he understands that it’s over,” she gave Wesley a quick kiss with a smile like a loving angel.

“And how would you know?”

She paused a moment, swallowed hard, but kept her angelic smile about her, caressing his cheeks, gently soothing his fears. “His voice, he just broke…it was in his voice.”

Outside, a squad car parked near a curb. Both officers got out and then walked behind the pickup truck before them. The lead officer bent down and matched up the license number. He glanced up at his partner and nodded.

Inside the apartment, all was quiet as the Landlord opened the door with a key. She looked up, put her hand over her mouth and gasped in horror at the sight of a body swinging from a noose.

Both officers entered the room and gazed up at the body as well. It was a very lonely thing to behold and foretold the outcome that some would have expected, but which was not out of the norm.

This individual had given up in life or perhaps they were murdered as the body slowly swung, gently swaying in a sort of soft harmony to a fitting end. Both men turned to her as she glanced up one last time at the swinging body of Steve Schweinfert.

Below him the chair had fallen over in his last action to reject Lana’s future with a black man, no another man. He had lost her, his own self-respect, and finally his own right to exist by the very evil that had consumed him. An evil, driven by the fear of change. A fear of retribution he had brought upon his own iniquities. One that weighed upon a lost soul, gone bad.

An end to a very bad situation that at least for one special couple may bode well in the years that lay before them. It was a rotten past giving way to a grand future that would only grow from here. A justice imposed by a raging hatred turned to guilt that would no longer permit a decaying existence, whose purpose was only to destroy rather than to grow.

Steve Schweinfert’s call to Lana Picard had been as she saw, a last call from a doomed individual whose sentence upon his own soul was but to cease, and he did, as he had no other means by which to live. He was for all intents and purposes dead, a very long time ago and now it was over.

Night had fallen while Fred lay across the bed from Priscilla as she stared up at the ceiling. Suddenly there was a knock at Fred’s door, and Priscilla got up to answer it.

As she opened the door, Fred got a shirt on and came out. She opened the door. It was Amos and for a moment, both Priscilla and he were staring at each other, and the old man’s eyes narrowed. “Amos, it’s been a long time,” she smiled in a phony voice.

Fred approached from behind her, as he stood behind them, Priscilla unaware that he was right there. “Yes it has Priscilla Washington. I didn’t know you were with…” Amos was interrupted.

“You two know each other?” Fred asked.

“Yes,” Amos told him. “We used to go together, a long time ago.” He again turned to her and asked, “How’s your brother doing?”

Fred picked up on it as he snapped his fingers. Something had just clicked and it wasn’t hard to figure out. “I asked you if you had any other family?” he spun her about. “Do you have a brother named Damon?” he asked.

She paused a moment, a look of shock upon her face as she turned to Amos for a moment then back to Fred. “Your brother is still alive?” Amos asked her.

“Last time I looked,” she snubbed him, gaining an attitude towards Fred as she turned to him.

Fred grabbed her shoulders and she pushed him away. “How did you get my number?” he asked her. His tone had changed, no longer a lover but rather a foe. He never liked people misrepresenting themselves or practicing deceit, yet it was all falling into place. “I asked you a question,” he insisted as she backed up into Amos who was blocking an escape through an open door.

“Priscilla, what have you gone and done now woman?” Amos gently pushed her to Fred.

“Not your business,” she told him.

“Can’t you see this man’s hurting, what are you doing to him?” Amos persisted.

“I asked you a question,” Fred took a step forward causing her to step backwards. “How did you get my number?” His tone had demonstrated that he was growing angrier each moment that passed with no answer.

She let out a great big sigh, and then put her hand on his face. She almost looked ready to cry. “I got it when you called your girl Kerry.”

“You were the lady that answered?” Fred continued. “Did you pass her my message?”

“No, I didn’t,” she glanced down at the floor.

“Why all this, girl?” Amos questioned as he folded his arms.

A moment went by as she turned to him, and looked in his eyes. He could clearly see that she hadn’t enjoyed this moment, for she had really fallen in love with Fred as things unfolded. But her relationship had been based on a lie intended to bring harm upon another, if but for a misguided revenge.

“I didn’t want his girlfriend with my brother,” she told Amos who was exasperated and threw his hands up in anger and disbelief.

“But that wasn’t your decision to make,” Amos protested.

“It doesn’t seem right, my brother going with a white woman. She acts like a whore around him.” Priscilla’s words stung Fred, and Amos walked past her, as she looked at both men, ashamed at what she had just said, her feelings of hatred. She had become the same as Steve Schweinfert, hate driven by fear of change–for fear of the new.

Fred wiped his eyes as Amos grabbed onto him, trying to calm him. He looked up at Priscilla and she had for the first time a fear within her that she had not only done this man wrong, but also hurt others who were genuine people.

“Get your things,” he mumbled. Then he stomped his foot in an explosive rage. “Get your things…get out! I don’t ever want to see you again,” he raged as she broke down into a panic and cried running to the bedroom where she gathered her things hastily, and then paused, watched him a moment and ran to the door turning one last time.

“Didn’t you think that what you were doing to this man, was no different then what your brother was doing?” Amos asked. “Woman, you are a disgrace to the black community,” he told her.

“No,” Fred stared at her in disgust. “She’s a disgrace to any community. Now get your fat ass out of my life.” She completely broke down with Fred’s comments and ran out the door as Fred held his hand on his forehead. Then he turned to Amos. “I need your help as a friend. I suspect Kerry still cares about me, as much as I care about her.”

“How can I help?”

“I’m going to need someone with me,” Fred told him.

“Someone black?” Amos got a bit hot answering Fred’s question with a question.

“No,” Fred grinned, patting him on the shoulder. “I’m going to need a good friend.” With those words of wisdom, Amos broke a grin and the both of them went easy.

 

Meanwhile across town at the Bakersfield jail, in a cell with Damon and a bigger man, the guy kept pacing back and forth glancing down at Damon, a mean expression projected at him. “What you lookin’ at chomp? You look the other way, or I’ll fuck up yo face,” Damon threatened, which brought the guy around.

Just as the prisoner turned away from Damon, his attorney arrived at the bars along with the jailor. “I’ve arranged for you to be released on bail. They have no positive ID, nor any other evidence to hold you here overnight,” he informed Damon, who shot up on his feet and over to the bars.

“Good, I don’t like this place, rather be dead than here,” Damon responded. There was arrogance in his tone, as though he owned the system, and what took them so long?

He was soon released and with his attorney and a jailor, they escorted him to a room, where Kerry jumped up on her feet with open arms for Damon as the two of them hugged.

 

Fred and Amos were at Damon’s home as they again rang the bell, yet the place was dark and nobody was answering. Fred grabbed his chin, and then turned to Amos. “I don’t know where they are. She must have gone somewhere with him.”

“You know something Fred. This whole thing seems like stalking to me,” Amos replied. “I think the best thing you can do is leave her alone. If she wants you, she’ll call you.”

“No,” Fred replied in a calm voice. He seemed at peace with himself. “The last time she turned me down had to be from what Priscilla did. If she had known I still loved her, she’d have come back to me.” He turned and looked at the dark house, spying the empty driveway, finally turning to Amos. “Okay,” he broke a friendly and agreeable smile. “Let’s go for now. We’ll come back later.”

“I’m not coming back here,” Amos scowled. “I’m going home after you drop me off.”

Fred paused a moment and took a deep breath, but kept a pleasant manner at the response. “Okay,” he patted Amos on the shoulder. “I appreciate your coming here with me. Perhaps you’re right. Maybe its time for me to set my sights elsewhere.”

The two men started walking to the street. “You’ll be a lot better off for it,” Amos told him. “Besides, you know the old saying…lotsa fish in the sea.” Both men got in the car and drove off.

As they drove around the corner, a few minutes passed, and Damon with Kerry driving, pulled into the driveway, missing the other two men by less than five minutes. Had it been fate saving Fred or Fate destroying a last chance between Kerry and himself?

 

Two days had passed and Fred still could not get Kerry off his mind as he entered the office in the morning. He had been more and more under pressure and even his secretary noticed what was happening. The door to Fred’s office swung open and Jim entered.

“Fred, I’ve been asked to make changes in the business,” he told him, as he pulled up the leather chair in front of Fred’s desk, after closing the door to the office. “I first want to tell you how much we have appreciated your work for this company over the years.”

Jim could see that Fred was already uncomfortable and irritated, which made things that much more complicated. “But,” he leaned across the desk clutching his hands tightly. “We’ve had to make some cuts that are necessary to our profitability, and well, unfortunately…you’re going to become one of those cuts.”

“You fucking prick,” Fred stood up glancing down at Jim in anger, but not surprised. He thought this might one day happen and now it was here, and not long after he landed some big sales for the company.

“This decision is effective immediately.” Jim stood up.

“What about my recent major sales gains I’ve made. What about my nearly flawless attendance and the other contributions? What about the times I saved your neck?” he asked in disgust and anger.

Jim looked almost depressed over the decision as though he really cared. “I’m sorry Fred, it wasn’t my decision to make.” He took a deep breath and then put his hand up as if he was swearing all this on his Mother’s grave. “I know you’re going through a rough time in your life. I know you’re pissed, but—”

“You’re damned fucking A I’m pissed,” Fred exploded in utter rage. “Do you know what my figures are, huh?” he took a folder slamming it down before his boss on the desk, “do you?” He took a moment to catch his breath as he was having a very hard time breathing. “What about that old fart, how I sewed him up?”

Fred threw his hands up in the air. “Don’t you give a damned here, what’s happening to American’s in this country?” he paced over to the window glancing out, while Jim just turned and watched Fred.

“For God sakes,” he told Jim. “This is my life man,” Fred broke down in tears. “Don’t take it away from me. It‘s all I have left.”

Jim took a deep breath, turned and walked to the door. He opened the door and turned to Fred once more, trying not to look him in the eye. “I’m sorry Fred. I think its best that you clear out your desk, now.”

“Some day,” Fred responded aloud. “Some day, I’m gonna be in a position to FUCK you, and I promise to do just that.” With those hostile words, Jim left through the open door as Fred walked back to his desk.

He began to gather his personal things together on his desk, when Dan happened to slip into the office. Dan leaned over Fred’s desk and watched his buddy for a moment, while Fred grabbed a small bag and stuffed the remaining things in there. “Fred, what’s up, what’s going on here?” Dan pretended. It was too obvious that he and the rest of the office were aware of the yelling, threats, cursing and bad news for Fred.

“I just got canned.”

“I don’t understand, your numbers are better than mine are,” he protested to Fred. But Fred wasn’t in any good mood to hear the protests from his former co-worker.

“I understand. I understand it completely,” Fred grabbed the bag together and tied the top of it, gazing one last time into Dan’s eyes.

The Secretary and another salesman also entered the office to see what was happening. “I’m going to miss all of you guys,” Fred told them. “A piece of advice, keep small numbers Dan, you haul in big sales and they’ll fuck you up the ass like they did me.” The secretary’s jaw dropped.