by James Ross
Neal laughed out loud as Harold sat back in his chair and rolled away from his desk. A great deal of space existed between them. Harold purposely served the ball into Neal’s court. He wanted him to stew a little. “Then we’d be fifty-fifty partners,” Neal hypothesized.
Harold smiled. “Is that what it comes up to?” He looked down at the pad on his desk and did some scribbling. “I’ll be darn.” He looked once again at the total. “You’re exactly right.”
“So I’ll have to give half my farm away just to sell it,” Neal concluded.
“That’s only if you want to be a risk taker, improve the property, and then deliver developed lots to the builders,” Harold observed.
“Can I make any more doing it that way?” Neal probed further. It sounds like doing it like that means that I’ll have to wait several years for my money too.”
“We can put a pen to the paper and see,” Harold stated as he rolled his chair back up to the desk.
“No, no, no. That can wait,” Neal insisted. “My bigger decision right now is whether or not I want to sell my soul to the devil.”
“I hope that isn’t directed to me,” Harold roared. “I’m doing you a favor!”
“No, no, no. It was just a figure of speech,” Neal said not wanting to anger the guy that had the money. “I just didn’t think that I’d have to give up that much of the deal to make an extra buck.”
Harold was resolute. “Everything has a price. We can put the figures down for raw land value, development costs, interest carry, and then set our lot prices accordingly. I would think that you could make a little more and I could make a few bucks too.”
“How worried are you about getting the loan through?” Neal’s naïveté was reaching a new peak.
Harold chuckled to himself. Then he started laughing. “I’m chairman of the board you know. And I’ve handpicked all of the directors of the bank.”
Neal thought long and hard about what he had just heard. He was starting to acquire an understanding of how it all worked. “Let me talk it over with Kristin.” He got up out of the chair and stretched his arms toward the ceiling. “How much time do you need for the paperwork?”
“I’ve already got a dummy corporation set up,” Harold answered. “It’s SS Development.”
“What’s the SS stand for?” Neal pried. “Screwing suckers?”
Harold shook his head back and forth and creased his lips. “No. It’s named after my better half.” The banker gave Neal a wry look and after a momentary pause he continued. “Stella Syms.”
CHAPTER FIVE
City Hall was located in a two-story, all red brick building that sat in the middle of the town square. Suburbia of metro St. Louis was stretching into the small towns of the Illinois corn fields. The cars parked at forty-five degree angles to the sidewalk. Parking meters reminded the drivers that the freebie spots were a distant reminder of yesteryear. An old Civil War cannon sat on the southeast corner of the square. Kentucky bluegrass that sat in the sunlight all day was burnt to a crisp. The grass that received water and ample shade from the majestic oak trees thrived a little better.
Harold Syms was on a mission. Neal Brownfield struck a deal with him on the development of his farm property after talking to his wife Kristin. Although the husband and wife weren’t fond of being fifty-fifty partners in the development of their farm with the banker, the couple understood they could make a lot more money selling improved lots to the builders than selling raw farm ground. Harold got the application for the rezoning as well as the preliminary site approval filed before the August deadline. He wanted that issue to be discussed at the September meeting. His desire was to get final approval within sixty days, which was unheard of unless strings were pulled and favors awarded. The banker wanted to get final approval of the project agreed to at the October meeting. That would mean he would have to get his butt in gear.
All the banker could do in early August was lay out the plan and get the engineers working hard. So Harold Syms started everything in motion. In the meantime, the monthly meeting at city hall was scheduled for the first Wednesday of August.
The cast of characters at the city hall meeting was as eclectic as the circus performers in a traveling carnival show. Mayor Broderick Leavitt presided over the meeting. He was into his sixteenth year on the job and possessed the deep set, dark, hollow eyes that gave his facial characteristics the look of a raccoon. He was the elder statesman at the front table and stressed to all within earshot how valuable his lifelong experiences had been. Mayor Leavitt, in a manner similar to that of an attorney, constantly reminded everyone of his vast knowledge. In his opinion he thought that it would be wise for everyone to pay undivided attention to what he had to say. He supervised the affairs of the city like a dictator. Very rarely did an opposing view get much footing.
Mayor Leavitt’s right hand man was disbarred attorney Maurice (Monty) DiMonte. The ex-lawyer was friendly and connected to the local Congressman. Monty had a brush with the law earlier in his career, served some time in prison, and was subsequently stripped of his law license by the state. He was an unsightly character. With a pot belly and a ponytail it was hard to distinguish whether or not he was a university scholar or a seventies hippie who passed time smoking pot on the farm. His pointed nose and narrow chin suggested that he was a rat and many around town thought that he was. But he was in an advisory position and had the ear of the mayor and a hand in all of the political favors that came with the territory.
On the advice of Monty a middle aged fellow by the name of Kenneth Ficke was appointed as city attorney. Mr. Ficke was supposed to be the brains behind all of the decisions that came out of city hall. In reality his job was to find justification for all of the decisions that Mayor Leavitt wanted to implement. In effect, he was a rubber stamp with a head and shoulders. One of the city attorney’s habits was constantly gnawing his cheeks and gums. His mouth was always twitching. This was due in part to his endless snacking on sunflower seeds. Even though food was not allowed in the meetings, Mr. Ficke was always popping seeds into his mouth and spitting the shells into a plastic cup. Because of those twitches his mannerisms took on the appearance of a squirrel chewing on a nut. He could often be seen sitting in a chair with innocent brown eyes and looking as tame as a critter on a country club golf course.
Four people served on the city council . . . two men and two women. Each had been elected to represent the four wards of the city. Tillie Vinton represented Ward One. She was in her late fifties and had already sent her kids off to college. She was a grandmother three times over. Tillie was most distinguishable by her unusual posture. The top half of her body seemed to be six to twelve inches ahead of the lower half. She had a long, out-of-proportion neck and seemed to be in everyone’s conversation despite being several feet away—like a turtle with its neck protruding from its shell. Facially Tillie possessed an overbite that was so severe that it caved her cheeks in. During her early years she had become notorious for popping the caps off of long-necked beer bottles with her upper teeth. She was included in the after-hours parties during her high school years as the designated bottle opener.
LaVerne Price was the councilwoman for Ward Four. She was a sweet-natured woman who sat passively at the meetings and sided most often with the non-combative point of view. Her nature was gentle and unassuming . . . almost jittery however. Very rarely did she speak, unless she was addressed. More often than not LaVerne sat at the front table and nervously twitched her mouth like a rabbit nibbling on a neighbor’s leafy dessert. Her husband and best friend had been confined to a wheelchair after an auto accident so she accepted the public responsibility to supplement the family income.
The elected councilman for Ward Two was Lamar Dalton. He was a nasty old codger who would make a promise to your face and vote against you when the hands were counted. He had an attitude that was as fierce as a badger. His head was abnormally small for the size of his body and the pin-sized ears on each side were almost lau
ghable. To make up for those deficiencies he covered his face with a wooly, full length beard. With short legs and an elongated, heavy torso Lamar sort of looked like a badger as well. When he walked, his body moved side to side as much as it did forward. He was overweight, awkward, and untrustworthy.
Finally the councilman for Ward Three was a gentleman by the name of Hank Hardin. He was small in stature and always looked fearful . . . almost like he wanted to get under a chair and hide. Hank was easily intimidated and Mayor Leavitt could always count on Hank voting with the majority. He looked like a gopher and acted like a spineless rodent. The only reason that he was on the city council at all was because no one ran for office in Ward Three and Hank got the most write-in votes.
The Director of Public Works carried out the dirty deeds of Mayor Leavitt. R. W. Reeves was as bald as a cue ball and wore perhaps the worst toupee east of the Mississippi. His personal hygiene was disgusting. Tooth decay had taken an incisor and a couple of molars. A faded crown had covered a front tooth that needed a root canal. He sported an unkept little moustache that seemed to grow out of his nostrils and was no wider than the width of his nose. But it was his body odor that caused people to turn away and shake their head as they came into his presence. R.W. slid around and slinked his way into whatever nook and cranny that Mayor Leavitt directed him.
The ticket cop that wrote up the ordinance violations for R. W. Reeves was a middle-aged woman appropriately nicknamed Big Bertha. She had a huge bubble butt that took on a shape of its own every time she tightened her belt one more notch. Instead of giving her an hourglass figure the belt tightening caused her ass to flair wider and her belly to fall closer to the ground. Big Bertha’s round face suggested that too many dinner rolls were an everyday staple. As she roamed her beat around the town square the old-timers on the park bench would comment about how out of place she looked in her undersized blue khakis that rubbed against her inner thighs. That, coupled with a small blue shirt and red tie that appeared to squeeze all of the blood into her head, generated a remark or two about a job interview with the circus. Together R. W. Reeves and Big Bertha made like a slimy pair of snakes as they slithered around town enforcing all of the city ordinances.
Finally the two people who had been hired to ensure that peace was kept in the family and that no public outbursts would occur during the monthly meetings were the security guard that watched the front door and the Sergeant of Arms that presided over the council room. Riley (Bucky) Lawton was the security guard. The most distinguishing characteristic about Riley was how he got his nickname. Virtually his entire face was two buck teeth that always were on display because the guy never closed his mouth. No one knew if Bucky had a lower lip because it had been hidden from view for years. Nevertheless he watched the front door and generally mumbled some sort of cheerful greeting as townspeople entered the confines of city hall. He loved to play catch with his two teenage boys and took the part-time job to help finance weekend baseball excursions.
The enforcer on the inside was Festus, the Sergeant of Arms. He was the night shift cop who had watched Harold Syms go safely out of the side door of the bank during the midnight hour. Festus was known to all in town. His bulging frog-like eyes and slouched over appearance were unforgettable, distinguishing traits that the townspeople knew him by. His call to recite the Pledge of Allegiance began each meeting at city hall. “And now, would you all rise . . .” Festus began as the words rolled out of his throat.
CHAPTER SIX
The first order of business during the August meeting at city hall was a rehashing of July’s old business. After the minutes of the prior assembly were read, the August meeting got off the ground with comments from the various council members and the public. In all respects the August meeting started off just like all of the previous quorums until a soft-spoken, black man approached the board members to register a complaint and comment about citations that he had received concerning ordinance violations.
“State your name please.”
The man was known by all in the room. His jovial disposition was infectious. His face always carried a wide smile that displayed gaping spaces between his shiny, white teeth. “My’s name be WeWildapheet Ulisees O’Tweety.”
“State your order of business.”
“’Tis ’bout aw uh dese ord-nance vylayshuns,” WeWildapheet began.
The council members exchanged glances around the room. For Pete’s sake, here we go again, Mayor Leavitt thought to himself.
WeWildapheet Ulisees O’Tweety had been born and raised in the inner city projects of St. Louis’ East Side. The mere explanation of how he obtained his three given names is somewhat of a story in itself. His mother, Maebelle Jones, was bound and determined to prove to the world that she and her firstborn son were going to beat the odds of a troubled beginning.
As WeWildapheet grew in Maebelle’s womb during her pregnancy an amazingly uncharacteristic epiphany occurred that surprised Maebelle. After cleaning herself up and getting off of drugs, she developed a bond with her unborn child. It was an event that she had not experienced on earth in her seventeen years. Even though she was still a teenager Maebelle was unwavering with her insistence that her newborn was indeed going to be a special child. It was during that time that she came up with a motto to try to stave off the difficulties that she knew were going to be present in the everyday life of the inner city. Simply put, the slogan was “We Will Defeat.” That was the not-so-subtle origin of WeWildapheet.
Little WeWildapheet arrived on earth just outside the door that led to the stairwell on the eighth floor of the Grimm-Shracke Housing Project. It was a sweltering hot day when his momma felt her water break. She headed for the door and only got as far as the concrete steps on the rear stairwell. So amid the heroin needles, discarded tourniquets, and horrific stench, WeWildapheet entered the world.
When the moment of birth rolled around for WeWildapheet, Maebelle was convinced that she had given birth to a godly figure. As she held the infant and admired his strength the first thing that popped into her mind was something that her aunt had said about a guy by the name of Ulysses. In her mind Maybelle had given birth to a Greek or Roman god. Later, at the hospital, as the nurse asked her for the information to complete the birth certificate the jumbled-up spelling of Ulisees flashed through Maebelle’s mind.
But the coup de grace came when Maebelle was asked to provide the last name of the father. On the night of conception Maebelle had been high on heroin. As the neighborhood boys had their way with her she vaguely remembered one of them calling out, “Oh, Sweetie.” However, he had a speech impediment or a lisp and was also high on heroin. So Maebelle, in her drug-induced, distorted confusion, misunderstood the pronunciation. Her version of what he had been moaning was “O’Tweety.”
What followed on the birth certificate was WeWildapheet Ulisees O’Tweety.
From the day of his birth WeWildapheet’s momma nicknamed him “Tuey” because each of his three given names had two e’s back to back. It was pronounced like Huey, only with a T. To say that Tuey lived the privileged life from day one would be a mis-statement. In fact, quite the opposite was true. But despite Tuey’s humble beginning, Maebelle watched over him and insisted that he not fall into the abyss of the projects.
Tuey existed on a diet of collard greens, turnips, steamed spinach, and cream of wheat while growing up. Maebelle was adamant that her son would not eat any of the fried foods that were abundant to the other kids of the project. French fries were off limits. Deep fried okra was not allowed. Even the gizzards that were a one-day special during the week at the neighborhood KFC were not acceptable. Maebelle was bound and determined to feed the proper foods to her first-born son. On the special days she would include a ham hock or hog jowl with green onion to the menu. But on his birthday and Christmas little Tuey was treated to a meal that included smoked turkey.
Tuey’s ancestors were from the cotton fields of Mississippi. In the projects where Tuey was raised the on
ly family that he knew was his momma. However, Maebelle’s daddy and granddaddy had migrated up the Mississippi River to the St. Louis area back in the post-World War II years. That was right after the mechanized farm equipment, such as tractors and cotton pickers, all but eliminated sharecropping. As a little boy Tuey remembered the stories that his granddaddy told of the days around World War I and the Great Depression.
Back then the Negro help worked as sharecroppers for the wealthy, white landowners. In the southern states of the U. S. where cotton was primarily grown the Negroes were only a couple of generations removed from the slaves that worked the fields. It had taken a while for the new labor system to change and be accepted after President Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery. Somewhat of a compromise took place during the late 1800s and the early 1900s. The rich landowners wanted to keep peace with their work force so they devised a plan that allowed for the freed slave laborers to purchase small plots of their land. Thus, sharecropping was born.
Under the sharecropping arrangement the wealthy landowners would provide the Negro sharecropper with the land, a place to live, seeds for the crop, and all of the equipment necessary to work the farm. The supervision and management of the farming operation stayed with the landowner as well as the legal rights or ownership to the crop. When the cotton was harvested the landowner typically turned over a third of the crop to the tenant farmer instead of paying the Negro sharecropper in cash.
The beauty of the program for the landowner was that he could keep the tenant farmer in debt. The landowners could provide food and loans and clothing to the tenant farmer and charge excessive interest rates. When the crop came in, oftentimes the tenant farmer, or sharecropper, would owe more money to the landowner than what the crop was worth. If bad weather, poor crops, or volatile commodity markets reared their ugly faces, then the landowners would keep the sharecropper obligated further. This, in turn, made it nearly impossible for the Negro sharecroppers to get ahead as they were plunged into a continuous debt cycle.
