Always
Page 31
People often ask me, now that I’m not even fifty years old and retired from political office, what will I do? Well, I have a new hobby. Jigsaw puzzles. I never imagined it before, but simple things like that are so much fun for me. I’m also working with this young writer on my memoirs. But the thing I am most proud of is the fact that I am starting an organization that will help millions of people in this country. The idea was one that I detailed in my previous book, but now that I am out of politics for the first time since my early twenties, I can actually do something about it. The name of the association will be Educate and Counsel the Homeless. The goal of EACH is to eliminate homelessness in twenty years. How? Well, I noticed that day I met Ora how the store employees would sometimes come out and ask her to leave the front of their store—as if she were just a pile of garbage that had accidentally washed up on their doorstep. So in my plan, store owners would make a tax-deductible donation which would be about half the rate of minimum wage, and homeless people would work in the area of their store. Cleaning signs, sweeping, handing out flyers, scrubbing graffiti, et cetera. The store would receive half-priced assistance and a person whom they could train to be a full-time employee while receiving goodwill and a healthy tax break. The other half of the minimum wage would be contributed by major corporations such as Denny’s and Texaco.
In each city where the program is in place, we would find a building that we could refurbish to house all of the homeless individuals in the program. They would pay a very nominal amount each week for rent, and we would require them to set 10 percent of their pay aside for savings. My friend Michael Dell agreed to install computers so people who were once asking for dollars on the street will someday surf the information superhighway. Bill and Camille Cosby, Ted Turner, Donald Trump, and Oprah Winfrey endowed the program substantially, giving us the ability to reward each person who was able to save a thousand dollars with a lump sum of two thousand dollars so they could try to eventually provide their own housing. Most important, the co-ops will be run in many cities by the cavalry of students who once called themselves Henry and Leslie’s Kids. They will get experience as well as a strong dose of volunteerism, and the enrollees in the program will hopefully learn work skills from the students. Most important, this program would be underwritten totally without government funding.
A week ago I went to the mall for the first time in more than two years and walked into an engraver’s shop. You should have seen his face when I picked up a desk plaque and asked him to engrave “President Davis” on it. “President Yvette Leslie Davis,” I clarified, because she will oversee the organization and I will be there to support her in any way I can.
Once, when I was attending a fund-raiser for my presidential campaign in tiny Hope, Arkansas, this lady who must have been at least ninety was brought to my hotel room to meet me. She was very dark complexioned and had a loose-fitting partial bridge. She was the mother of Annette Smith, a young lady who was killed during a civil rights protest in Birmingham in the late fifties, and when she was being interviewed once, she told the reporter the one thing she wanted to do before she died was to meet me. When she shook my hand, tears rushed from her eyes and she could hardly speak. I was humbled by the scene and would not allow my photographer to take any snapshots. She wiped her eyes, and said, “Son, you are not here by accident. It was meant to be. My daughter’s life was taken so you could fulfill your promise, and I know you will do great and mighty things.” She was one of the first people I called to thank for her support after my defeat, and even at her age, she will spearhead another program called the Candlelight Campaign.
The name of the organization is taken from my last speech in the run for the presidency. As I was closing the speech, in my heart I knew I would not win, so I wanted to make the campaign as well as the last 32 years of my life stand for something. I spoke to them about giving back and mentioned that the light from a candle is never diminished when it is shared with another candle’s. And in fact at the moment the light is shared it is at its brightest. This campaign will be Marcus’s baby and it’s an international mentoring program I am sure he will do well with.
I became the first defeated candidate for the presidency to win Time magazine’s Man of the Year award, for which I felt extremely honored. Since I am still in my forties, I know every four years for the next twenty or thirty years of my life, I will be asked if I have plans to run. I will always flirt with entering the fray, but I’ve run my last political race. At this point I can effect legislation more with the threat of running than actually reentering the arena. Great and mighty things sometimes come from the most unusual of places.
I have changed my opinion on many things over the past couple of months, but my faith remains firm in one simple fact. In spite of its ills, in spite of the mudslinging, backbiting, egos, and greed, I believe being a politician is the most noble endeavor one can aspire to. The Bible says there is no greater love shown than one who would lay down his life for a friend, and our history is marked by great men and women who knew they were doing that, yet put themselves in harm’s way so they, too, could, in one way or another, change the world.
We have a duck pond near our home, and I often find myself first thing in the morning walking down the hill to sit and watch the sunrise there. Sometimes I sit in the grass with the newspaper and fall asleep, and once I woke up and noticed a blanket over me and my wife holding my hand, sleeping peacefully by my side. It’s at these moments when I know, no matter what I could or would ever achieve, not one thing could compare to what I already had.
I’m a little sore today. The old back injury from college flared up when I was playing basketball in the backyard with a foster kid we are in the process of adopting. His name is Chaz and he is every bit of thirteen years old. Oh yeah, we also are in the process of having a baby. We are adopting this little girl named Mikila Ruth and we are converting one of the rooms into a nursery. Yeah, that advice of living each day as if it were your last day has indeed changed my world. So in losing the election I won a family. But most important, I won a life, and that’s not a bad trade-off.
“Teddy?” Leslie called from the living room. “Are you out there?”
“Yeah,” Henry said, sitting beside the pool and staring at the end of the Steiner inauguration on television.
“Look what I found!”
“What?”
“You gotta come in here and see it.”
“I can’t,” he said as he sipped his Coke. “My back is sore again.”
“Henry! Please don’t make me come out there and get you!”
Henry stood and put his feet in his flip-flops while streching his stiff body. As he walked inside he said, “Hon? Where are you?”
And then from nowhere he heard the static-laced sound of a forty-five on the record player:
And it’s me you need to show
How deep is your love?
“May I have this donce?” Leslie asked, walking toward her husband with the rose held between her teeth.
“I love you,” he said as he held her in his arms. He took the flower from her and kissed her softly on the lips. “Leslie, I love you more than you will ever know. I think . . . no, I know my love for you will last . . . for always.”
“For always? That’s a wonderful phrase. Where did you hear that?”
Always
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, I thank my Heavenly Father for giving me a measure of talent and allowing me to share it with you.
To the one who taught me that true faith is the act of holding on to nothing, until it became something. It was you who showed me how a woman could be both strong and beautiful. And when Dad died, it was you who chose not to meet another because as you said, “I gotta take care of my boys.” Thank you Annie Mae McCann for holding on to me until I became something.
To my heart and soul and you know who you are.
To the numerous writers whose shoulders I stand on, I thank you. May the words
of Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, Alex Haley, Charles W. Chesnutt, Paul Dunbar, Ernest Hemingway, Langston Hughes and Chester B. Himes forever ring in our hearts.
To my contemporary brothers and sisters who continue to raise the bar with each release: Lolita Files, Eric Jerome Dickey, Victoria Christopher-Murray, Margaret Johnson-Hodge, Tracy Price-Thompson, Franklin White, Monique Gilmore-Scott, E. Lynn Harris, Van Whitfield, Pearl Cleage, Jacqueline Jones-LaMon, Linda Grosvenor, Connie Briscoe, Grace Edwards, Kimberla Lawson-Roby and Tracy Grant. Your words embolden me to make my best even better.
To friends and family who prayed for me after my loss. Thank you, and the prayers were felt.
To the numerous readers worldwide who sent me S-mail and E-mail. Words do not convey the power to tell you how much it means. I read them all, so keep them coming.
Please continue to visit TimmothyMcCann.com to see what is next on the horizon and I trust you will continue to enjoy the ride . . .
Until . . .
Timmothy B. McCann
March ’00
Timmothy B. McCann
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Gainesville, Florida 32635-7814
About the Author
TIMMOTHY B. MCCANN is a Florida native who started “writing” short stories at the age of three. As he grew older, he attained numerous accolades in sports, which provided him with the opportunity to play football on a collegiate level.
After graduating from Florida A&M. Timmothy established Timmothy McCann and Associates, a financial planning firm. The agency achieved national recognition within its industry, but Timmothy sold the business to pursue his true passion, which has always been writing, and a gift that began with composing love letters grew into Until . . . , his first novel. He currently resides in Florida.
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Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
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ALWAYS. Copyright © 2000 by Timmothy B. McCann. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data:
McCann, Timmothy B.
Always / Timmothy B. McCann.
p. cm.
1. Afro-Americans—Fiction. 2. Florida—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3563.C3354 A79 2000
813’.6—dc2100-29287
Avon Trademark Reg. U.S. Pat. Off. and in Other Countries, Marca Registrada, Hecho en U.S.A.
HarperCollins® is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
ISBN: 0-380-80597-9
EPub Edition October 2015 ISBN 9780062467836
RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
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