Little Black Girl Lost 4 (19 page)

Chapter 54

S
ix months passed and Lauren was still in New Orleans, still living on Bouvier Hill as a free woman of color. She decided to stay because there was much truth to what Walker Tresvant said. There was no guarantee that she would ever get back to Nigeria; and if she did make it back, she wasn't sure her family would still be there.

The one thing she knew for sure was that she wasn't the same person who was taken, and she never would be again. But still, she felt a longing for home, a burning desire to see her mother and father, her sisters and brothers, and all the people of Dahomey. A day didn't go by that she didn't think of her family and Amir. She imagined that they were fine, living their lives, enjoying themselves, but never forgetting Ibo Atikah Mustafa, the seventh daughter of the first wife.

She was becoming more and more American with each passing day, having learned arithmetic, the clothing business, and the value of a dollar. On occasion, she would get angry with herself for enjoying life in America so much. It didn't make sense to her. Why would God allow her to be kidnapped and brought to the shores of North America—New Orleans, specifically—only to set her free three days later?

She had given much thought to the number three. It took three months to get to the Isle of Santo Domingo; three months to get to the shores of North America. Her father had three wives. Her relationship with Amir was threefold: Ibo, Amir, and Adesola. Captain Rutgers' marriage was threefold: Joseph, Tracy, and Jonah. Beaumont's marriage was threefold: Beaumont, Cadence, and Tristan. The resurrection happened after three days. They all needed to forgive and be forgiven, she realized.

Those realizations made her reexamine the night she took flight and the consequences of that decision. When she thought about all that befell her, her love for Amir, the voyage, Captain Rutgers, the murders aboard the
Windward
and at Bouvier Hill, she would never let the words spill out of her mouth, but she was glad it had all happened the way it had. She knew there was a higher purpose in it, but she didn't know what it would be. She had often wondered if God truly existed and now, in her own heart, she knew he did. Nevertheless, she still didn't understand him or his methods.

She now had plenty of money, but it came from slave labor. Hundreds of people were on the
Windward
. Many died on the way to America; she didn't. Why? Women were brutally raped; she wasn't. Why? She was purchased and set free by a homosexual. Why? It would have made more sense to her if she had been purchased by a member of the clergy and set free. Why didn't it happen that way?

Beaumont Bouvier had done right by her in the end, and yet he had been slaughtered. Why? So far, nothing had happened to Cadence and Joshua for the murders they committed. Why? Would Beaumont, Aubrey, and the others ever get justice? If so, who would be their avenging angel? These and many other questions clung to her, forcing her to think of why she was in New Orleans.

She had promised Amir that she would come for him if she ever had the means. She didn't dare leave New Orleans, but with help from Marie-Elise, she hired an attorney to go to the Isle of Santo Domingo and buy Amir if he could be found alive.

She had done that three months ago. She had been expecting a ship for nearly a week, and it had finally arrived. She was on her way to the docks to see if the attorney was on this ship. She had been disappointed several times. She hoped it would be different this time.

Seeing the
Windward
docked and being unloaded was bittersweet. She'd had firsthand experience on the ship, so she knew what the slaves had endured. But still, she was glad to see a familiar face coming down the gangplank.

She tried not to smile when she saw Captain Rutgers disembarking. After all, he was the man who had brought her to New Orleans and told Beaumont to buy her. She couldn't help herself, though. Six months of living well had dulled her senses to the idea of slavery, because she was greatly benefiting from it. For those reasons, the peculiar institution was almost acceptable.

She remembered her first day in New Orleans, the day she witnessed Kimba's savage lashing and subsequent subjugation. Now she thought Kimba shouldn't have tried to run away. Six months of living off the backs of slaves had altered her sense of right and wrong; yet she had no problem determining the guilt of Cadence and Joshua. As far as she was concerned, they had to answer for that.

She waved at Rutgers, and he did likewise as he made his way over to greet her. As expected, Jonah, his brother, approached him. Jonah was trying to talk to him, but Rutgers kept walking, and never even looked at him. It was as if he couldn't hear him, like he didn't exist. It was a cruel thing to do and a difficult thing to watch, yet she understood how Rutgers felt and agreed. His brother had crossed a bridge that he didn't know was burning behind him.

“Well, hello,” Rutgers said like they were old dear friends who hadn't seen each other in more than a decade. “You'll never guess who's onboard.”

“Amir!” she said with unbridled excitement.

“He'll be coming at any moment,” Rutgers said.

“Is he well?”

“He is well.”

“Ibo!” Amir exclaimed when he saw her.

She looked up and saw him running down the gangplank. Seeing his smile warmed her heart. Without excusing herself, she ran to him and he to her. They embraced and held on tight. The love they had for each other had survived.

“I'm told that you are wealthy now,” Amir said in Yoruba, their native tongue. “Is it true?”

“It is,” she said, speaking the same language, unable to hide the joy that bubbled beneath the surface.

“Come,” she said. “I have so much to tell you.”

“As do I,” he said. “I want to hear it all.”

“Do you still want to marry me?” she asked. “I am still a maiden—your maiden, if you still want me.”

“I do want you, Ibo. Virgin or not.” He kissed her. “I love you so.”

“I love you too,” she said and kissed him back.

“I've learned so much. I now understand my mother and why she was willing to sacrifice her life for us. She found peace, and so have I. In exchange for peace, I have forgiven Captain Rutgers. I am forever free now. Have you found peace, my love? Please tell me you have.”

Before she could answer, a man she had often seen at the docks whenever she was there walked up to them. He smiled and said, “Excuse me, good sir. Did you just arrive from the Isle of Santo Domingo?”

Lauren was about to answer when Amir said, “I've learned to speak English.” He looked at the man, smiled, and said, “I was on the island, sir, yes. It's beautiful there. Have you ever been?”

“That's what I thought,” the man said. “And this is for you.”

He pulled out a pistol and
bang!
He blew Amir's brains clean out of his head and all over Lauren.

Everything had happened in slow motion. She had seen it, but she could not believe it. Amir stood perfectly still for a few seconds as his eyes lost their light. Then, as if in slow motion, the rest of him realized he was dead and floated to the ground, making no effort to brace the fall.

“Noooo!” Lauren screamed.

The man leaned over Amir's dead body and screamed, “That was for Francois and Helen Torvell! Helen was my sister, and you savages raped and killed her!”

Pow!
Another shot rang out.

Captain Rutgers had killed the man, blowing his brains clean out of his head. “And that was for killing an innocent man.” Then he fell to his knees and wept bitterly. “This was my last contract. I was finished after this.”

Jonah, who had seen it all, walked over to his brother and stood next to him. He never said a word. He just looked down at his brother.

Joseph could sense someone was staring at him. He turned to see who it was. When he saw his brother's compassion, Joseph wrapped his arms around his legs and said, “I forgive you, Jonah.”

Just like that, the bitterness he had held on to for decades, fled.

Just like that, bitterness entered the heart of Lauren Renee Bouvier, and it would be with her for a long time.

Author's Note

T
hinking back on it, my most vivid memories of a love for stories came from two sources: high school literature and movies. I took literature when I was fifteen because it was supposed to be an easy A. After all, the only requirement was reading a few books, right? Uh, no. Not only did the teacher expect her students to read the books she assigned, she expected her students to figure out what the authors meant by what they wrote.

I was a sophomore attending Jesup W. Scott High School, home of the Bulldogs (All for Scott, stand up and holla.) Scott was a predominately black school, but my literature teacher was a white female. I wish I knew who she was and where she is today; she would be the first teacher of all my academic teachers I'd hug and thank for her attention to detail and her ability to take a story apart, piece by piece, and explain it to the neophyte. She was the person who taught me to look beyond the obvious and see the message behind the words.

What I enjoy reading most is biographies of famous people and nonfiction Mafia books. I'm currently reading Diahann Carroll's
The Legs Are the Last to Go: Aging, Acting, Marrying & Other Things I Learned the Hard Way
. I'm really enjoying it. Not only is she the most beautiful woman that ever lived (that's right, I said it), she is one of the most overlooked bright and burning lights the African American community ever produced. She is the epitome of class and elegance, and I wish more African American women knew and emulated the best in her.

Anyway, back to my little soliloquy.

I'm often asked in emails and on book tours how I came up with the character Johnnie Wise. I must admit that I think a lot of women come to my signings because they do not believe a man actually wrote the series—that's what many say in emails and in person. The truth of how I created Johnnie Wise is not a sexy story, but here goes:

I needed a villain to say some very nasty things to a character named Terry Morretti, a major character in my first novel,
Fate's Redemption.
If you all know anything about any of my novels, you know that I bring in all the races, sexes, politics, religion, sports, martial arts, music, and everything else I see and read about.
Fate's Redemption
is no exception. Terry Morretti was a white woman with Italian and Cherokee bloodlines. She fell in love with a black man of considerable wealth and education—William Wise, Johnnie's nephew and Benny's son. The black women in his family—some of them anyway—hated her and women like her for daring to do so.

As you know, I try very hard to tell the truth in fiction. I know that's an oxymoron, but it is what I believe in. It is what I believe my high school literature teacher was trying to teach me—to look behind the words, for there, the real story lies.

I'm sure that some of the people who read
Fate's Redemption
didn't like the truth I told, but I told it anyway, much like I do with all my novels. The trick is to see if you can discover what truth I'm telling. There are always two truths in my stories: the obvious truth and the hidden truth. The obvious truth is for you, the fans. The hidden truth is my need to speak.

In the aforementioned novel, Ms. Morretti is to meet the black family on Thanksgiving, and she's ambushed by some of the women in the main character's family. They corner the poor woman and give her a severe tongue-lashing. The women are led by none other than the famous Johnnie Wise. In
Fate's Redemption
she only appears for a few minutes. She serves my purpose, and off I go with the telling of the story.

Well . . . wouldn't you know that many of the women in Toledo, Ohio, my hometown, didn't like the outspoken Johnnie Wise?

I thought that was so unfair—so unfair, in fact, that I decided to go back in time and write a novel showing how a person could become so cruel. But a strange thing happened. As I was writing the story, I got ideas for about ten to twenty books—or more, if the fans demanded them.
The Diary of Josephine Baptiste
is just one of them.

Every character in every novel should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Just like a real person's life, we are born, become middle-aged, and then we die. I understand this, and so I believe that any character I create, no matter how small, has a beginning, a middle, and an ending.

Anyway, I've got less than an hour to finish this and send it to the publisher, so I better move on. Perhaps I'll tell you all more about the novels in a future author's note.

The other major influence in my life of stories is movies. I love them more than books. Believe it or not, I'd rather see a good movie that I've seen dozens of times than watch a pro football game. And I'm a huge NFL fan. I used to live across the street from a movie theater that was in the heart of the ghetto. I lived in an apartment over an establishment that served liquor. It was called the Doorbell Bar, if I'm not mistaken. I suppose I should ask my mother, but she's not here (smiling) and I have what, about fifty minutes left to finish this.

Anyway, I went to the movies every Saturday without fail. I would stay in there all day long. I'd watch the same movies over and over again. Most of the time, it would be a double feature of some sort. And of course, they would show reels of the Three Stooges, or vampire and werewolf shorts. Sometimes they'd show Bugs Bunny cartoons. I had a marvelous time.

What I didn't know was that all those films were honing the God-given gift of storytelling already in me. I truly believe that's why people tell me my books are cinematic and read like films.

What you should all know is that I was almost destroyed by my composition teacher when I transferred to a predominately white school, Robert S. Rogers. I was taking an English course, and I had written a paper that I was quite proud of.

To understand this story, you must first understand that I was a very poor student. I rarely cracked open a book that wasn't a novel. I graduated at nearly the bottom of my class. I think there were like 530 graduates; I think I was 529. Frankly, I think the faculty got together and said, “Let's get rid of this guy!” Just kidding, but I did graduate with a D+ average, I think.

Anyway, the teacher, a white male, unlike my white female teacher at the predominately black school, used my paper as a vivid example of how not to write. I had gotten a big fat F on my paper. I was the only black person in the class. The year was 1976. This guy did a real number on me, and the white kids were literally falling out of their chairs laughing at me. I was so hurt by this that I got up, walked out of his class, never to return.

To his credit, he found me walking the halls later that week and apologized, but it was too late. I was so embarrassed that I couldn't go back to the class and look into the faces of my white classmates.

From that moment forward, I had no plans to be a good student or even to read again. It wasn't until twenty some odd years later that I went back. This time, I was a grown man; strong of mind, strong of spirit. And wouldn't you know it, the same thing nearly happened again. Two more white English teachers—two males, this time—pre—dominately white college, literature teacher vs. fiction writing teacher.

I am running out of time, so I will have to cut this story short. Suffice it to say, the literature teacher, whether he knew it or not, was a source of discouragement. The fiction writing teacher was a huge source of encouragement. I was not going to school to become a novelist. I happened to fall into it because of the above scenario. One man nearly ruined me for life and probably has no idea what damage he'd done.

Twenty some odd years later, another white man mended and healed wounds sustained two decades earlier. There's so much more I could say, but due to time constraints, I'll sum up everything by saying
The Little Black Girl Lost
series arose from an unusual set of circumstances over the course of nearly thirty years.

My point is this: Don't give up on your hopes and dreams. Know what you want out of life, and diligently pursue it in spite of all that would come against you. I am living proof that no force of nature can break your will to succeed. The will . . . is surrendered.

Until next time, keep buying the books that you love.

 

Wishing you all the best in all things good,

Keith Lee Johnson