by Bob Blanton
“And who’s fault is that?”
“I know it’s my fault. But, I’m better now.”
“I can see that. So how do you want to do it? You can see them with Mama, or with me. I’m not letting you be alone with my kids.”
“I understand,” Barry said. “With you would be fine. We could go out to the lake and rent a boat. Do some fishing.”
“Them kids don’t wanna do no fishing. They’ll want to play. We can go to the beach.”
“The beach is fine. How about the one over at Emerald Isle? That’d be fun.”
“Okay. We can meet there on Saturday. Have you talked to your mama yet?”
“No, I wanted to talk to you first. I’ll see Mama on Sunday after church.”
“You’d better. She finds out you’ve been in town and didn’t come see her, we won’t be needing to talk about you seeing the kids.”
◆ ◆ ◆
Barry was waiting in the parking lot at Emerald Isle. Raelyn and he had decided it would be easier on the kids to meet him there instead of having to spend an hour in the car driving with him. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, shorts and sandals, and an Atlanta Braves ball cap. There was a nice breeze, but Barry was sweating up a storm.
Finally, he saw Raelyn’s car drive up. He waved, and Raelyn drove over and parked next to Barry’s rental car.
A boy and a girl got out of the car’s back seat and stood next to the car staring at Barry. Raelyn got out. “Devin, Talia, this is your daddy. You remember us talking about him.”
Devin was nine and Talia was seven. Barry had checked their birthdays before coming to Jacksonville.
Devin gave Barry a hard look. “Where you been?”
“Devin, it’s where have you been?” Raelyn said.
“I’ve been getting better,” Barry said. “I needed to get myself fixed up so I could come back and be your daddy.”
“You got legs,” Devin said.
“Yep, I got some new legs, and the doctors that gave them to me also fixed up my other problems. I’m all better now.”
“Talia, say hi to your daddy.” Talia was hiding behind her brother and shook her head.
“That’s okay,” Barry said. “Why don’t we go to the beach and get a good spot on the sand. There’ll be plenty of time to say hello.”
Barry grabbed the umbrella, two boogie boards, and some mats from the back of the rental car. “Devin, can you carry that cooler?”
Devin hesitated. “Go on, get it,” Raelyn told him.
“I got two chairs,” Barry said. “I thought we might prefer them to the mats.”
“I’ll get them. Talia, go get the basket out of the car.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“Let’s rest some,” Barry told Devin. “You’re wearing the old man out.” Barry and Devin had been boogie boarding for the past half hour and Barry wanted to get back and spend some time with Talia.
“Come on, let’s go again.”
“We will, but after I get some rest.” Barry grabbed both boards and headed back to where they’d set up their umbrella.
“Devin, come here, let me put some more sunscreen on you,” Raelyn said.
Devin stomped over to his mother and Barry plopped himself down next to Talia. “What are you building?”
“A castle.”
“What kind of castle?”
“One with a princess.”
“Oh, do you like princesses?”
“Yes.”
“Guess what, I know a princess.”
“You do?”
“Yep, I met Princess Catie of Delphi last year. She was pretty nice.”
“Did you really?”
“Sure. Do you want to see a picture?”
“Yes!”
Barry took off his specs that he’d been using as sunglasses and put them on his daughter. “Show pictures of Princess Catie,” he ordered his Comm.
“She’s pretty,” Talia said as the Comm displayed pictures of Catie at her last birthday party when she was dressed up as a princess.
“Yeah, she is. Show Catie in her shipsuit,” Barry ordered his Comm.
“What is that she’s wearing?”
“They call it a shipsuit. Princess Catie is a pilot, and that’s what all the pilots wear.”
“She looks like a girl.”
“She is. I think she’s sixteen right now. I think that picture was taken right before her birthday. The pictures with her in a dress were at her birthday party. I’ve been told she doesn’t like to wear dresses.”
“Barry, don’t be telling stories,” Raelyn scolded.
“I’m not. It might be different now; it’s been almost a year. But the story is she spends more time in shipsuits than dresses. And when she’s around the city, if she’s not wearing a shipsuit, she’s wearing jeans or something like that.”
“Do you really know her?” Raelyn asked.
“I’ve met her. Show picture of Princess Catie and Sergeant Knox.”
“That’s you,” Talia said.
“Let me see.” Raelyn reached for the specs, but Talia pulled away from her.
“Wait,” Barry said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the keys to his rental. “Devin, go to the car and get the blue box out of the trunk.” He looked at Raelyn to see if it was okay to send Devin by himself.
“Go on, get it,” Raelyn said.
Devin raced to the car and back in two minutes. He was convinced that there were going to be presents of some kind in the box.
“Here, sir,” Devin said handing the box to Barry.
“Don’t call me sir, I work for a living,” Barry said automatically.
Raelyn laughed. “What are you going to say if they make you an officer?”
“I know. If I take that promotion it’s really going to mess me up.” Barry laughed at the thought.
Devin stood there looking a bit confused. “Don’t worry about it,” Barry told him. “It’s okay with me if you call me Barry, that is if it’s okay with your mom.”
“It’s okay with me.”
Barry opened the box and pulled out three sets of specs and Comms. “I brought one of these for each of you.” He handed a pair of specs to Raelyn and one to Devin. “Put them on; these Comms you can strap to your arm. They’re waterproof. I’ve got some earwigs for you, but we’ll deal with them later.”
“Earwigs, Yuk!” Raelyn shuddered at the thought of bugs in her ear.
“They’re like earplugs; they let your Comm talk to you when you’re not wearing the specs or if you want to be sure nobody else hears. Okay, Raelyn here’s your Comm. Press your finger on the glass.”
Raelyn pressed her finger to the glass. A second later the Comm beeped. “It’s registered to you. I’ll help you set up some more stuff, but for now, tell it to show you the picture.”
“Show me pictures of Princess Catie and Sergeant Knox. . . . Hey it worked. Wow, these glasses are cool.”
“Yes, they will let you adjust the tint, so you can use them as sunglasses. I’ll show you how in a minute.” Barry turned to Devin and held out another Comm. “Press your finger here.” . . . Beep. “Good, it’s registered to you. Now you can tell it to show you stuff, or just use them like sunglasses. It’ll play music if you want, or even show movies.”
“Play Black Panther,” Devin ordered his Comm. . . . “Cool!”
“Hey!” Raelyn said.
“Just let him watch a few minutes,” Barry said. “You can set rules on it about what it’ll show him. I’ll show you how.”
“Okay,” Raelyn said. Then she turned away and whispered something to her Comm.
Barry wondered what she was doing, but decided to ignore it and move on to the process of exchanging specs with his daughter. Talia didn’t seem convinced that she should trade in her specs, the ones she had on were working just fine.
◆ ◆ ◆
“Mama,” Barry greeted his mother when she answered the door.
“Barry?! When did you get into town?”
<
br /> “A couple of days ago. I had to meet with Raelyn and talk about the kids.”
“That’s good. How come you didn’t come early and go to church with me?”
“I didn’t want to have to deal with all your friends,” Barry lied.
“Well get your butt in here and talk.”
Barry followed his mother into the living room and sat down in one of the wing chairs, his mother took the other.
“Where are Eric and Jeremy?”
“Your brothers are out playing with their friends. But you’re staying for dinner, they’ll be home by then.” Barry knew it was an order not an invitation, so he just nodded his head.
“How are you doing?” Barry asked.
“I’m doing just fine. Still working at the market as a cashier. Kelsey and I still go to bingo every Thursday Night.”
“That’s good.”
“Now tell me about what’s happening with you.”
“I wrote you all about it already.”
“Your letters don’t say much, they’re so short. One would think you didn’t know how to write,” Mrs. Knox said.
“Mama, I’m good. I told you I’m a staff sergeant now. I have my own team. I’m taking classes, saving as much money as I can, what with needing to send money to Raelyn.”
“That’s good. You keeping your head on straight?”
“Yes, Mama. The doctors took care of the PTSD, so I’m good.”
“What do you do for fun?”
“I train and study,” Barry said. “Sometimes I go to a movie or out to a bar with my team.”
“No girlfriend?”
“No, Mama. I’m still hoping I can fix things up with Raelyn.”
“I don’t know why that girl would take another chance on you after you done messed up the last time.”
“That was the PTSD,” Barry said. “I hope she’ll understand.”
“We’ll see. Right now, my fence needs fixing, why don’t you go take care of it?”
“Yes, Mama,” Barry said, recognizing another order.
◆ ◆ ◆
“So why did you want to have dinner without the kids?” Raelyn asked.
“I wanted to talk about something, and I figured we’d do better without having to worry about what the kids hear. Is your mama okay watching them?”
“Sure she is. I work part-time as a bartender so I work nights on those days, she’s used to it.”
“You seeing someone?”
“I don’t have time for no man!”
“Sorry. Just wanted to know.”
“So, what do you want to talk about?”
“I wondered if you would be willing to move to Delphi City?”
“Hey, I’m not sure I want you back.”
“I know, and you don’t have to get back with me to move to Delphi City.”
“I’ve got a job, Mama’s here, what would I do in Delphi City?”
“You’d only have to work one job. I have a condo allotment I could give you. That way you’d have a double condo, four bedrooms. You could start taking classes again.”
“How do you know I’d get a job?”
“Because everyone gets a job. They’re set up to make sure anyone that wants a job has one. And they’re growing so fast that it’s not a problem.”
“What do they do if they have a recession? Kick all the Black folks out of work?”
“Nope, everyone works. Their work contracts say that everyone will have their hours cut back exactly the same for each job class. That way nobody is unemployed. And they’re always offering training and education so you can get a better job.”
“How’s that work?”
“One of my guys’ wife just finished up her associate’s degree in marketing. She worked as an assembler in one of the factories while she went to school. When she graduated, she interviewed for three jobs, and get this, she got five offers.”
“How did she get five offers if she only interviewed for three jobs?”
“Two of the companies said they had another job that she was qualified for, so they made her two offers, she got to choose which one she wanted. And now that she’s working, they even let her come in late two days a week so she can take a marketing class at the university. Apparently, some big-shot marketing guy is teaching it.”
“But what would Mama do?”
“If she wants, she could come, too. She could open a restaurant. There’s nothing there that serves good southern food like your mama’s.”
“How’s she going to open a restaurant? We don’t have that kind of money.”
“She can borrow it.”
“And who’s going to loan a forty-five-year-old Black woman money to open a restaurant?”
“The Delphi Credit Union. I’ve got some money saved that I can chip in. But they’ll loan her the rest.”
“You’re sure confident about that!”
“I know some guys that opened a Jamaican restaurant and they didn’t have any money. They borrowed it all from the credit union.”
“What about your mama? Maybe she can come and open the restaurant with Mama. They’re good friends and your mama’s a good cook, too.”
“Umm.”
“Hey, what’s wrong with you? You want us to move there, but it’s not good enough for your mama?”
“That’s not it. It’s just I get along better with my mama over the phone.”
Raelyn laughed. “Tough! Are there any other Black people in this city?”
“Sure, lots of Marines are people of color, and they have families, so there’ll be plenty of Black people. But Delphi City is really integrated. They mix people up in the various condos. There is the Hillbilly House, but only about half of the people who live there are hillbillies.”
“What do you mean by hillbilly?”
“It’s actually Appalachia House, they just call it Hillbilly House and call themselves hillbillies. They’re the miners from West Virginia. When they first moved to Delphi City, they put them in the same building so they’d be around people they knew. But after that, they mixed in people from other places. There’s also a Jamaica House. I think only about half of the people in there are from Jamaica, the rest are from all over.”
“What about the important people? The McCormacks are white.”
“Sure, but you can’t hold that against them. The president of MacKenzie Discoveries is Black.”
“Is he really the president, or just some token?”
“He’s the president. Kal says that Fred, that’s his name, started out as one of the pilots for their private jet. In the beginning, he was going to the board meetings to report on the stuff he was assigned. Whenever someone wanted to give up some work they were doing, Fred volunteered to take it over.”
“Just like white people to make the Black man do all the work.”
“No, it wasn’t like that. The rest of them kind of focused on the new stuff and weren’t really thinking about the fact that they were running this big company. Fred cottoned to it right away. He put in for an assistant to help, and Marc, he’s the big boss, signed off on it right away. So later Fred asked for another assistant. Kal says that pretty soon he had twenty people working for him. He had them managing other parts of the company so he could review what they were doing once a day and keep everything working. Marc’s no fool, he knew what Fred was doing, and last year, he made him the president.”
“Anyone else besides this Fred?”
“Well, there’s Kal, he’s Hawaiian, so he’s a person of color. The prime minister is a Syrian. The chief of police is Polynesian, kind of like Kal. I don’t keep track of it, I just know that when I go somewhere, I’m treated with respect and I’m just as likely to meet a person of color as a white person.”
“Okay, we can go check it out.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“I can’t believe they sent a plane for us,” Raelyn said.
“Me neither. I just put in the paperwork for you guys to come, and told my boss when we were plan
ning to travel. Then I get this message saying they were coming to pick us up.”
“You know Mama’s never flown before.”
“Yeah, and neither has my mama.”
“Why are we meeting the plane at this little airport?” Mrs. Knox, Barry’s mama, asked.
“Because it’s a private jet. Like those corporate jets you see on TV,” Barry explained.
“Is it going to have tiny seats?” Mrs. Knox asked, she was a sizable woman and wasn’t looking forward to flying for the first time. “I keep hearing stories about how they keep making the seats on the planes smaller.”
“No, Mama, they’ll be nice seats.”
“My friends will never believe this,” Eric Knox said. He was Barry’s fifteen-year-old brother.
“Eric, go get your brother. I don’t want him wandering around by himself,” Mrs. Knox said. Her other son, Jeremy, was wandering over by the baggage claim area.
“Why do I have to watch him?!” Eric whined.
“Because he’s your brother, and if you don’t, I’m going to smack you upside your head. Pick whichever way you want to do it, but go get him.”
Eric shuffled off slowly to get his ten-year-old brother before he got them both into trouble.
“Here comes the plane,” Devin said.
“Oh, that can’t be it. That’s too big,” Raelyn said.
“My specs say it is.”
“Then you must be right.”
The whole group paused what they were doing while they watched the Lynx land and taxi over to their gate. Once it came to a stop, Barry led them out onto the tarmac.
“Wow, that is a nice-looking jet,” Eric said.
“Is it all for us?” Talia asked. She was hiding behind her brother again.
“Yes, it is,” Barry replied.
The hatch opened and a set of stairs came out of the jet. Then a flight attendant came out. “Hello, my name is Jenny, and I’ll be helping you folks out. I assume this is Sergeant Knox and his family.”
“That’s us.”
“Good. We’ll be ready to board in a minute, but first, let’s get your luggage taken care of.” Jenny walked down the ramp followed by a second flight attendant. This one was a young woman. While Jenny had chosen to wear slacks, the other attendant had chosen to wear a knee-length skirt. Eric noticed that she had very nice legs.
