My New Black Magazine - NYU Black Renaissance Noire BRN-FALL-206 ISSUE RELEASE | Page 122

“Yes, yes, yes, I remember now. In fact,
Jeff and I talked about the store the
very first time he and Myra came to
our door with an apple pie. Yeah, sixty
years ago, Jeff’s father served black folks
just like he would serve anyone else,
invited them to walk right in through
the side door, if not the front, helped
them out when they needed credit,
helped some folks find a place when
Camp Peary displaced so many,” I said,
holding Janice close and tasting her
delicious neck.
“I’ll listen to the rest of your Virginia
history lesson, while you prepare our
breakfast, professor. Remember, no
cheese on my omelette,” said Janice,
smiling mischievously and unwrapping
my arms from around her waist and
padding leisurely down the hall.
I didn’t start breakfast right away but
sat rolling a an emerald green bottle of
Prexylin back and forth on the kitchen
table and thought about my long ago
conversation with Jeff. Even then I
had marveled at my own restraint. At
the end of the conversation he’d said
something like, “All people are human
and we stay human by remembering
that about each other and that’s that.”
After all these years, did Jeff still believe
his own words?

“Man, it comes out in strange ways,
almost like a burp. That trap? I’d call
that straight-up racism. That was your
yard, man. He had no right! Don’t
forget, they sold your kind straight off
the boat not too far from here!” Stew
laughed at his own joke.
“That might be more about your own
paranoia than reality, the trap, I mean.
Jeff and I have been neighbors and
friends for close to twenty-five years.
The man’s a hundred years old, if he’s
a day. We’ve even done the Kingsmill
River course, although lately we sit
in the restaurant and talk about golf.
You know Janice and I are thinking
about adding a couple of rooms to our
Cape Cod and getting a summer place
in the Outer Banks, instead of getting
a larger home.
“Bill, if you don’t watch out, you’re going
to become a Republican. In fact, I think
you already are a secret Republican.
What’s up with that tie, dude?”

“But on the serious, sounds like your
white folks are messin’ over you in the
Grove, man. Didn’t you tell me you
and Janice are the only blacks on your
street?” Stew snickered.
“Stew, coming from Philly, what! You
still think we live on plantations down
here, and white folks dress