What Others are Saying about Joshua’s Harvest - Volume I The Opus
“I read this novel and couldn’t put it down. Joshua’s Harvest will definitely be a series on my network next season!”
Joseph Collins, President and CEO
PUNCH Television Network
“The Burstons and their colleagues are the only MovieBook writers I’ve ever heard of! Get Thee Behind Me I and II is a play, a film, and now a TV series. I can’t wait to see the Joshua’s Harvest TV series.”
Dr. Mona Scott, Creative Director
The Black Repertory Theater of Berkeley
“Joshua’s Harvest feels so real!”
Heidi Mulligan, Author
“I Am a Ghost: A Spectral Exchange”
“Wow … I couldn’t believe what transpired near the end of this book. I can’t wait for Volume 2!”
Dr. Barbara Willis
Professor of Philosophy
“This is a vampire novel that transmits an inspirational message!”
Rev. Dr. William Bennett
“As a senior citizen, this book took me back to a different era, a different time, and a different space. All it needed was Elvis Presley music playing in the background!”
Arguster Daniels, Executive Producer
Joshua’s Harvest: The TV Series
Joshua’s Harvest: Volume 1
The Opus
By Betty Collier Burston
Story by Sid Burston and Maxie D. Collier
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 FalkonQwest/PorchReed Publishing
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Joshua’s Harvest
Chapter 1: Begin the Beginning
June, 1959
Troy, Alabama
The boogie-woogie blues of a Saturday night flowed outwards and into the veins of the pulpwoods workers and the Monday-to-Friday maids who were the patrons of the T-Bird, a backwoods juke joint that had captured the fancy of Troy, Alabama’s young and fast crowd. Tethered to low-paying jobs that suffused their minds and spirits in shame, the night life that could be had called upon its patrons to don bought-on-credit zoot suits and twice-handed down silk and satin dresses that sparkled in radiance against the silky brown, yellow, and black skin of its wearers.
Jed McCleod, tall, muscular, midnight dark with a smile that shone like a noonday’s sun in those rare moments when he chose to use it, sat perched upon a stool at the end of a plank/on/barrels that paraded as a bar. Arthur, his physically and temperamentally different cohort, chattered as usual about his favorite topic-women. Jed, a non-drinker and a non-pursuer of those of the opposite sex, faded Arthur’s remarks into the background with the other voices that mingled with the syncopated sounds of the music.
“You-u-u…know I love you, Baby. Though I’m..walking…out the door-r-r. Oh-h-h you know I need-d-d you, Sugar, but-t-t I don’t love you anymore,” sang Willy Lee Peacock as he used the strings of his guitar to strum the emotions of the crowd. And Willy was, indeed, accomplishing his goal. Lit by a bare, low wattage electric bulb, the sheen of the sweat-filled brows of men seeking near entry to their partners love portals despite the double barriers of fabric, the room spoke of lust and love and unspent emotion. But Jed McCleod was unmoved by the music and barely moved by the breasts of the peach-colored woman who shoved her softness against the hardness of his upper arms.
“Ain’t seen you in a long time,” Serena whispered, the moist heat of her breath seeking to enter the pores of Jed’s cheeks. “Only been a week,” Jed responded in a tone that clearly transmitted the unimportance of Serena’s tantalizing love within the overall scheme of his life.
“As-s-s I said,” Serena purred, “it’s been…a…long, long time.” Not one to settle for less than any man’s full attention, Serena’s large, full buttocks rolling under the tightness of her red satin dress and her red, strappy heels, crossed in front of Jed and strolled to the other side of the room.
At least ten men, captivated by the smallness of her waist and the flowing softness of her store bought hair, rushed to ask her for a dance.
“They going after your woman,” Arthur, always the provocateur, remarked.
“Good, I’m not a greedy man,” Jed answered.
“Besides, she’s not my woman.”
“That’s not what she tells all of the other women who like themselves some Jed.”
“Oh? So what does she tell the men?” Jed, still far away from the T-Bird and its going-ons, asked.
Arthur laughed. “Last time I tried she told me the same thing.”
Willy Lee, finished with his last song, decided to slow things down a bit. In doing so, his elongated whole notes in the key of ‘C’ brought even more couples to the dance floor.
Jed, not usually a smoker, pulled out a tin of Prince Albert’s tobacco and quickly rolled himself a cigarette.
“Who’s he?” he asked motioning towards a tall, thin stranger who pulled Serena into his arms.
“Why you wanna know if she ain’t your woman?” Ignoring the remark, Jed continued smoking and observing. Made nervous by his silence, Arthur sought to answer the question.
“Don’t know. Never seen that city slicker before.” In his curiosity, Arthur stood straighter and twisted towards the dance floor.
“Thought you know everything that happen in Troy and everybody who come through the county,” Jed replied.
“I do. At least most of the time I do. Let’s see who he’s with. Maybe he got kinsfolk down in these parts.” Arthur’s voice, normally baritone was made tenor by his curiosity.
“He’s not with anybody. I’ve been watching him all evening and he hasn’t spoken to anybody and nobody’s spoken to him,” Jed answered.
“Well, he’s certainly speaking to somebody and that somebody’s speaking right back to him.” Arthur peered towards Jed as he spoke hoping to catch a flitting view of jealousy. Arthur had known Jed since first grade as a boy and as a man, Jed had always kept himself way above ordinary human emotions. Even now as he watched Jed watching Serena smiling coquettishly at the stranger, Jed’s face revealed only curiosity.
Before Jed could complete his observations, Ginger, short, round and curvy, sauntered over. One of Serena’s many competitors for Jed’s affections, she was now joyous that someone appeared to finally be competing with Jed for Serena’s affections.
“Hey Jed, Arthur. Did you and Serena break-up?” she asked in a voice that was annoyingly gruff and manlike.
“How you doing tonight, Ginger?” Arthur asked “You look gorgeous in that tight yellow dress.”
“Why thank you, Arthur. I made it myself.” Ginger answered preening for Arthur.
“But, then, you look good in everything you wear. You could put on a cloaker sack and still look pretty,” Arthur continued. Watering Ginger’s oscillating self-esteem had become a habit with Arthur whenever Ginger came around. Although he knew that Ginger, like all women ages 3-100 in the county favored Jed, his own closeness to Jed made him their likely choice when it became clear that Jed was going to pay them no never-mind.
Still ignoring Ginger and having exhausted his interest in whom Serena did or did not dance with, Jed returned his mind to the theme that had consumed his thoughts for most of his adult life – how to get out of Troy, Alabama and create a more inspired existence for himself elsewhere.
Oh, Troy, Alabama had been good to him and his family. With roots that extended into the area for more than a century, a farm of more than 500 fertile acres that provided well for his extended family, and preacher father and teacher mother, Jed McCleod lived upon a pedestal within the cloistered confines of his rural community. But Jed’s dreams fell beyond the boundaries of Troy, Alabama and the life experiences that its sparsely populated community could offer him. He had had a taste of that world as an undergraduate at Morehouse College in Atlanta and as a medical student at Howard University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C., but feelings of honor and duty had driven him to establish a much-needed medical practice in the area of his birth. But, he was dying a rapid, agonizing death that could not be averted by the sweetness of Serena’s thighs nor the glimmer of love that shone in her eyes. Indeed, Serena’s adoration, the intensity of her attachment, her cloying desire to assume ownership of him, reinvigorated the urgency of his need to be gone from the culture and substance of his homestead.
But, the web that held him captive had tightened. His now aging parents needed him, their only son, their only child to care for them as their bodies decayed into aches and pains. Even more compelling, his father’s recent diagnosis of dementia had sentenced him to a lifetime as a resident of Troy, Alabama.
“Jed-d-d-d? Are you sleeping or somethin’?” Arthur had stared at Jed for more than ten minutes. The blankness of his eyes, the despair that Jed’s unguarded moment had made visible, had shaken the laughter and light-heartedness out of Arthur’s spirit.
“Go dance wid some of these sweet mamas in this place. This is a party not a funeral.” As if to demonstrate the gaiety that ought, by right, to have belonged to both he and Jed, Arthur walked across the floor, extended his hand to Ginger, and pulled her onto the dance floor. Shrugging and deciding to follow suit, Jed extended his hand to Judy, a slim, trim chocolate girl who was a distant cousin by marriage. The best female dancer in the area, Judy was pleased to take to the dance floor with Jed, the second best dancer in a seven county radius. Only his friend Arthur could deliver a better performance and he did so on this night.
Arthur danced and danced and danced. He danced with every woman whose loneliness had brought her into the T-Bird on that humid, June, Saturday night. Arthur, like his longtime friend, Jed, was not a drinker. And so he drowned his worry about his dear friend Jed in feet that tapped and cakewalked, and arms and legs that flew his many partners around the room dizzying each with the adrenaline of action. When things slowed down a bit, he pulled woman after woman into his arms forcefully pushing his convexity into their concavity.
From the moment that Jed had joined him on the dance floor, Arthur had been transported back to their past life, their younger life of roaming the hallways of their high schools, playing football and basketball against rivaling high schools, kissing their classmates on hayrides, and dancing their first dances under the watchful eyes of Mr. Hopkins, their math teacher, and Mrs. McIver, their school counselor. Those were, indeed, the good ole days when no life decisions had to be made and food grew in the dark, manured lawns of their father’s fields and was seasoned and placed on the tables by the loving hands of their mothers and grandmothers. Arthur longed for those days. He thirsted for the Monday night, family nights around a twenty-one inch television set with his family laughing in collective chuckles at the antics of Lucy Ricardo and her sidekick, Ethel.
Arthur’s dancing legs kicked up memories of Friday fish fries and Saturday nights beneath polished moons at open-air drive-ins.
“Why do things have to change?” Arthur thought as he danced himself into breathlessness.
“Why do things have to change?” Arthur pondered as he allowed his resentments of his pulpwood worker status to rise to the surface marring and scarring the texture of his continued friendship with Jed, “Doctor, pulpwood worker, Doctor, pulpwood worker,” was the rhythm his legs and feet tapped as the melody of his thought superimposed itself upon the rata-tat-tat beats of the drum.
“Arthur, Arthur, take it easy, man. The T-Bird’s gonna still be here tomorrow.” Jed whispered as he pushed and pulled Arthur from the floor.
Arthur, grateful for the intrusion, thankful for the unasked-for signal that stated, “I care”, smiled.
“I kinda got carried away,” he mumbled.
“That’s okay. We both probably needed the exercise. Ma bakes a pie or cake every single day and I don’t have sense enough to say no. Hey, it’s pretty late. We had both better get home. I’ll give you a ride,” Jed offered.
“Naw man. I ain’t that far. I’ll walk. With all of these pretty mamas out here tonight, I just might be able to finish off the night with the type of explosion I need right about now.” Jed reached out his arm and shook Arthur’s hand.
As the crowd began pouring out of the door to cars, bikes, and even wagons, Jed, always curious about the lives of musicians, entered into conversation with various members of the band. In his enthusiasm to discuss current, future, and past trends with musicians who, unlike himself, had found the courage to follow their hearts’ calling, Jed forgot to extend to Serena and her friends the courtesy of a ride to their respective abodes.
Serena, already angry that Jed had spent the evening dancing with others but not with her, stood in the doorway of the nearly-empty T-Bird observing Jed engage in highly animated conversation with his would-be peers. She resented that their gifts could bring forth a liveliness to Jed’s face that her unique talents could not. She resented that her beauty, her sensuality, her sultriness, her womanly skills had not the power to sustain Jed’s interest beyond a night.
An animosity so intense and so complete that it bubbled up from her intestines yielding a bile that soured the sweetness of her breath transformed her face as she turned and walked out of the door leaving behind the scent of her departure. Ginger and Judy, her friends who both loved and hated her, for that brief moment, permitted her pain and sense of rejection to join their own and sought to shelter her as part of the sisterhood of the rejected.
“Forget Jed McCleod. We’ll walk home,” Ginger, her love for Jed hidden and subdued for the moment, said.
“Let’s go, Serena. The night air will do us good,” Judy added.
They turned, walked into the fullness of the honeysuckled evening, and began the trek down the dusty, red-dirt road. Shaded in the day by pecan trees and oak trees and pine trees and other trees from which hung the grayness of moss, the very vegetation that lent oxygenated beauty in the day, created shadows and shapes of the unusual at night. Because they had waited, unnoticed by Jed for so very long, not only those who traveled by motorcars and/or beasts had gone, but those others whose only mode of transportation was tired feet and strong legs were now too distant along the road to be noticed.
And so the women, young but not too young, so luscious and so beautiful, and differing only in the knowledge of their own power, walked in silence along the long, dark road, each clothed in the patterns of their own thoughts. Even when the urge to speak entered one of them, it was denied because somehow the silence of night willed them to not shatter its essence with useless chatter. Legs aching from the overly high heels, hearts aching from their mutual aloneness, lives aching from the routines of repetitive work that drifted in and out of repetitive days, the three women trekked down the barren road. Suddenly, they stopped.
“Who is that?” Serena whispered.
“Could be a h’aint,” Ginger replied as her arms rippled into goosebumps at the mention of the ghosts and spirits that supposedly made their way along the backroads of Alabama during the witching hour.
“You think it’s a Klansman?” Judy said in a voice that was a bit too loud for the time and the occasion. The women inhaled. While the officials of the city denied the presence of an order of men who were committed to the preservation of a state of being that they felt was Godmade, the three women knew that the Klansmen, the nightriders, still patrolled the area and had been known to enter their seeds into the wombs of many unwilling women who dared to travel these lonely roads. Suddenly, laughter disavowed them of the notion that nightriders were about to quench the desire that the music and the men had stirred.
“No, my dears, I…am not a Klansman come to claim your bodies.” Serena, recognizing the voice of the stranger who had been her chosen entertainer for the evening, smiled.
“Al? Is that you?” she asked already shifting back into siren mode.
“It is I,” the voice replied.
“Boy, you almost scared us to death,” Ginger, who had been introduced to Al by Serena, responded.
“Who in the world…is Al?” Judy whispered.
“That stranger, the really harmless guy that Serena danced with all night,” Ginger whispered back. Al laughed.
“Why thank you for the compliment,” he answered as he walked towards the three women.
“It’s a little late for the three most beautiful women in southern Alabama to be lingering on these backroads,” he said in a velvety soft, bass, woman-enticing voice.
“Could be dangerous for a tall, good-looking stranger to run into three local women who know their town,” Ginger said in a flirty voice.
“Touché,” the stranger, Al, responded taking a brief bow that added to his mystery.
“You never did tell me how and why you came to our little community,” Serena asked as she moved forward leaving behind her friends.
“No, I guess I didn’t,” Al answered.
Not to be outdone by Serena with every single male that entered their lives, Ginger, quickly stepped forward. The reddish tones of her hair sparkled in the moonlight lending even more vibrancy to the lightness of her eyes.
“So,..Al, why is you here?” Ginger asked.
“To have this meeting with the three of you,” Al answered, the levity of his past words now transformed into seriousness.
“What?” Judy also within arm’s length of Al, asked.
“You don’t know us,” Judy continued. “Or, at least you didn’t until tonight.”
“Oh, but I do know each of you,” Al said, a touch of lightness re-entering his voice.
“I’ve been searching for the three of you for more than five years. Or, I should say, I’ve been searching for three women like the three of you for some years now,” he answered.
“And what are we ‘like’?” Judy, the most reflective of the three, asked.
“You’re each beautiful, intelligent, and strong,” Al answered.
“We look alright, but since the three of us barely finished high school, I don’t know how we can claim to be too smart,” Ginger answered in an embarrassed voice.
“Intelligence isn’t based on education,” Al answered.
“That’s true,” Serena agreed, “but, let’s get back to why you’ve been looking for us. Tell us why?” Suddenly, another man magically appeared next to Al, a slightly older man.
“My name is Joshua and Al has been in search of the three of you on my behalf,” Joshua, a very tall man of 45 years of age, continued. Draped in the clothing of a late 19th century gentleman and speaking in an accent so soft as to deny its presence, Joshua walked up to each lady, bowed, and kissed her hand.
“I…have…a business proposition for each of you,” Joshua said without hesitancy.
“Business?” Ginger said, “I don’t know what you’re thinking but we’re not that type of girls.”
“No, I would never dishonor the three of you by assuming that you’re anything other than normal young ladies,” Joshua quietly added.
“Then, what kind of business proposal do you have for us?” Serena, both curious and offended, offered.
“I…would like…for each one of you to bear a child for me.” Joshua stood tall and regal as he made his request.
“What?” Judy yelled.
“Please, just listen,” Al interjected.
“And why would we want to have a child by you?” Ginger asked in voice filled with outrage.
“Because I will gift each of you with $1 million, beautiful homes, and a loving husband if you will each bear my child and rear my children until the age of twenty-one years. At that time, I will return and gather my heirs to me.” As Joshua spoke, he staggered, falling onto the road. Al quickly fell to his knees and began ministering to his friend and mentor.
“Joshua, your injuries have worsened.” Joshua quickly walked him away as his eyes made a plea to the three young women to accept his offer. His unspoken plea was followed by a verbal one.
“There’s not much time. There are certain of my own people who have sought and nearly succeeded in taking my life. I need from you each your answers, now, before it’s too late.”
The women looked at each other. Their agreement was visible in there exchanges. They nodded.
“But you’re hurt, how will you…?” Serena asked.
“I…will not enter onto you. I have injected large quantities of my blood into Al, my friend and comrade. Al will lie with each of you and Al will be my agent to ensure that all that I promise will be delivered.” Joshua’s voice was becoming weaker.
“But, who are you?” Serena asked in a desperate voice.
“You may want to ask what is he?” Al, his voice filled with awe, added.
“Then, Mr. Joshua what are you,” Judy asked.
“I…am…a vampire,” Joshua answered as he slowly sunk…into…the ground.
Chapter 2: Beyond Our Wildest Dreams
The smells of frying bacon, country ham smothered in red-eye gravy, grits, homemade fig preserves, freshly churned butter, and eggs scrambled with cheese as they dropped from brown shells woke Serena early the next morning. Despite the lateness of her evening, she felt alert and unusually alive. The pink flowered spread under which she lay appeared alive and the morning sun brushing against her cheek thrilled her in its radiance. While the smallness of her parent’s home normally transmitted sounds from room to room, the clarity with which she heard her father and mother’s conversation was astounding.
“Shouldn’t you wake Serena for breakfast?” her father asked.
“Let her sleep awhile,” her mother responded. “She was out pretty late last night.”
“I don’t know why that chile spends all of her free time down at that juke joint,” Bill, her father, complained.
“Serena’s nineteen. That makes her a grown woman. She can do what she wants to do.” As usual, Barbara, her mother, defended her. Still in her early thirties, folks in Troy often confused Barbara with Serena. Interestingly, Bill, her father, appeared to an older, less sophisticated Jed. Married to each other when Bill was 17, and Barbara was 15, her mother was a stay-at-home Mom and her father, Bill, owned and operated a small bait store that sat on the corner next to their home. Because living was cheap in Troy, they had always managed to shower Serena with clothing, perfumes, and the store bought hair with which she often covered her own head of long, rich, curly hair.
“I don’t understand why Serena won’t go away to college,” her mother, frustrated that her role as an early mother had denied her the education that she had so very much craved, was intent on her daughter not making the same mistake.
“You’re too close to her, Barb. That girl could have gone right up the road to Alabama State in Montgomery on a full scholarship. Instead, she chose to say here and get a job working as the maid to the Mayor’s wife. I never wanted my wife nor my daughter working as anybody’s maid. I’ve worked too hard to provide for my family for my daughter to be a maid.”
“Sh-h-h honey, she’ll hear you. She’s only nineteen. There’s still time for her to go to college and make you proud of her,” Barbara whispered.
“I’m always proud of my beautiful daughter. I just want her to have a better life than the one we have,” her father answered, lowering his voice.
“Maybe she and Jed will get married.” Barbara’s statement was a wistful one for it was clear to all that Serena was in hot pursuit and Jed was in retreat.
“Jed may be a doctor and all, but he’s too old for our Serena.” The thought of his baby girl with a man was still too much for Bill, a highly protective father.
“Anyway, Jed’s too old for our Serena,” Bill continuing to frown, pushed away his plate as if the mere thought of his daughter as a married woman caused a lousy appetite.
“Jed’s only 27 or 28. Remember, he started college at 16, went to medical school, did his internship and came on back to Troy to look after his parents. The thought that Barbara left unspoken was, “Serena would do quite well for herself to get Jed as a husband.”
Before the conversation could continue, Serena burst into the room.
“Good morning, Daddy, Mommy,” she beamed, “Isn’t it a beautiful day?”
“My, goodness, Serena, you look more beautiful than ever,” her mother exclaimed. Bill simply stared more impressed than ever that he and Barbara had managed to produce such a lovely, lovely child.
And her parents were correct. Everything about Serena appeared enhanced. Her skin, always clear, looked moist and rosy. The darkness of her eyes had deepened into black and the lashes that were the envy of every woman in town appeared to have lengthened and thickened.
“Did you two miss me or something? I look exactly the same as I did last night,” she teased.
“Have some breakfast,” her mother intoned, “There’s plenty here.” Serena quickly shook her head. Merely the sight of the table piled high with food triggered a queasiness she had never previously experienced.
“Come to church with us, Serena,” her mother pleaded.
“Why not?” Normally resistant to regular worship, Serena acquiesced because she knew that it would make her parents happy. The happiness she felt led her to want to share her joy with others.
~~~~
Clifford Temple Christian Methodist Church, a small redbrick church that was noted for the best choir and the best preaching in Troy, sat in the midst of a residential neighborhood that was primarily inhabited by persons of color. And, each Sunday, townsfolk and country folks alike walked, rode, and drifted into town to experience the feeling of renewal that Reverend Dr. Bennett, its pastor, bestowed upon them through his inspiring and uplifting service.
Bill Follett, Serena’s father, was a Deacon in the church and her mother ushered on a regular basis. Anxious to be on time to assume their duties, they smiled at Serena and quickly rushed into the church as she went to greet her friends, Ginger and Judy.
“I’ll be in shortly,” Serena said in a half-raised voice as her parents entered into the rear of the sanctuary.
“Okay,” nodded her mother as she gave Bill a kiss and scampered away with several friends.
As Serena turned once again to speak with her friends, she stopped in stunned silence. Very pretty young women in their own right, the wattage of their beauty has been turned up so far that even Serena would not have recognized her friends had she seen them under different circumstances. Their hair was more abundant, the clarity of their features was more pronounced, and the curves of their body had ripened in the few hours since they had last seen each other.
“Ginger, Judy, you two look stunning,” Serena exclaimed. And, before the young women could exchange reminiscences, they were surrounded by others who oohed and ahhed over their enhanced physical selves.
Finally alone, Serena whispered, “I had a strange, strange dream last night.”
“So did I,” Ginger hesitantly admitted.
“And so did I,” Judy whispered.
“Was, was, was that fellow, Al, in your dream?” Serena hesitantly asked. Once again exchanging looks, Ginger and Judy both nodded affirmatively.
“But, I’m confused,” Judy choked barely getting the words out and simultaneously hustling the other two girls away for the thinning stream of late-goers for the Sunday service, “Why would we each have the same dream?”
“Maybe it wasn’t a dream,” Judy, normally the most rational of the group, said in a quiet, reflective voice.
“Stop talking crazy, Judy, there ain’t no such thing as vampires,” Ginger whispered in a voice filled with scorn and derision.
“I…never said nothin’ ‘bout no vampires.” Judy, her face filled with fear, barely managed to squeeze the words for her mouth.
“Were vampires in your dream, too?” Judy asked Serena. Serena, the joy of the morning tainted, nodded yes.
“We need to git in church,” Serena said looking at her Bulova wristwatch and noticing that they were already twenty minutes late. Nodding in agreement, they walked to the front doors of the church. Each reflecting on the reality of their experiences, they simultaneously touched the metal handle of the door and simultaneously yelled. The door felt fiery hot under their touch.
Staring at their hands and the handle of the church, Serena, tentative in her movements, placed her fingers upon the handle of the church. Before she could pull away, heat rose and an odor of skin searing against metal filled the air. Unable to pull away, the other two girls grabbed Serena’s arm and, pulling forcefully, pried Serena’s burning fingers away from the door.
Crying in pain, Serena and the girls stepped away from the entrance. However, before their retreat was complete, Serena’s burns began healing right before their eyes.
“It wasn’t a dream,” Judy whispered.
“It was real,” Ginger, holding and inspecting Serena’s hands, cried.
“We need to talk,” Serena, still trancelike in her movements, said in a distant, confused voice. As they walked away from the church trying to decide where to go and what to do, Al Hatteras, the conduit for their experiences pulled up in front of the church.
“Get in,” he said with a bright beautiful voice. He only had to ask once.
~~~~
They drove, for what appeared to be a couple of hours. As they rode, Al sought to relax them through the heart-felt music of Johnny Ace, Sam Cooke, and other current stars. Quite soon, the girls felt the return of a semblance of normality. Arriving in Dothan, Alabama, Al drove to a large, white, columned house. Using a key already in his possession, he entered the house and was quickly greeted by a group of ten to twelve other males and females in their early to late twenties and thirties. After a brief introduction, the group retreated to a high-ceilinged dining room where steaks, cooked rare, whistled against the metal of platters that still sizzled with heat. An assortment of other foods were also served. Ravenous with hunger, the group ate, drank a red colored punch, and discovered their commonalities and differences.
Finally, Al pulled the guys away from the group and led them to a smaller room where they could talk.
“Before I hear your questions, may I share a few things with you?” The girls, wide-eyed, excited, and fearful, nodded their consent.
“No, it wasn’t a dream that you shared. Each of you are now the brides of Joshua and yes, Joshua is a vampire.”
“But what about you?” Serena asked. “Are you also a vampire?”
No, I am a…different breed. I started out like each of you, as a normal, regular human being. And then, late one night, I encountered Joshua. Joshua offered me entry into a world that I didn’t know existed. In exchange, he wanted to give me his blood making me what is known as a half-vampire. As a half-vampire, I can mate with humans and produce children. But, because those children will have the blood of Joshua, they will belong to him and only to him. And, when it is time, Joshua will return and harvest his family.
“But, Al, why do we look different?” Serena asked.
“And feel differently,” Ginger added.
“And want different foods,” Judy, still seeking to digest Al’s story, queried.
“Because you are different. As a result of our time together early this morning, your bodies already contain the seed of Joshua.
“You mean we’re pregnant?” Ginger shocked and offended, shrieked.
“Yes, but through your own consent. Vampires can only claim you if you give them permission to do so,” Joshua, sounding like the teacher that he once was, added.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” Al continued, “I also gave each of you a small amount of Joshua’s blood.”
“You gave us Joshua’s blood? How?” Judy looked faint as she asked her question. The reticence displayed signaled her fear of hearing Al’s answer.
“I think you remember, Judy,” Al said in a quiet voice. “Some things are better unspoken.”
“But why?” asked Serena, “Why did we need Joshua’s blood?”
“So that your bodies will not reject Joshua’s seed. Your pregnancies will be difficult. Joshua’s blood intermingled with your own, will make you stronger…”
“And prettier,” Ginger, never before certain of her beauty, added.
“But, we’ll be considered sluts. Even the church will kick us out.” The thought of a child out of wedlock terrified Judy. She suddenly stood and began pacing. Al walked over and took her hands in his.
“You will each have husbands,” my lovely.
“I will marry you, Serena will marry Jed, and Ginger will marry Arthur and it must be done quickly least the pregnancies set the tongues of those in Troy wagging.”
“So how will we get these men to marry us?” In asking this particular question, Serena was actually thinking of Jed upon whom she had exhausted her womanly antics.
“Serena, you will use the healing blood within your body to free Jed’s parents from their illness. His gratitude will trigger a proposal which you will, of course accept. You will then express your desire to leave Alabama and move to Los Angeles. Jed has always wanted to experience Big City life and will welcome the chance to share such a life with the woman who freed him from himself.
“But what about me?” Ginger asked, “Do I really have to marry Arthur?”
“A woman has the best life with a man who truly wants her in his life. Arthur truly wants to spend a lifetime with you. He will be good to you and good to the child you carry.”
“Arthur’s funny and good-looking,” Judy thought. “If I wasn’t going to marry handsome Al, I could have married Arthur.”
“No, Arthur loves Ginger. He wouldn’t treat you as kindly.” Al’s answer shocked each of the women for it revealed his ability to read their thoughts.
“Can we do that, too, read people’s minds?” Ginger asked.
“No, you don’t have enough of Joshua’s blood to do that but, if you observe others carefully, you will be able to know them more intimately than even their closest friends.” Al staggered for a moment.
“I must rest now. This is the key to the car. Take it and share it. As you know, Joshua promised you each a large sum of money. Those satchels over there contain the money.” But, in addition, the gifts you have received through Joshua’s blood will allow you to succeed in numerous business ventures so that prosperity follows each of you and your families.”
“You mean, we’re going to be even richer than you’ve already made us?” Ginger, the most mercenary of the three girls, eyes were abuzz with visions of the lifestyle she would have.
“But, as with everything, there are costs involved,” Al added in a tired voice.
“Costs?” The girls chanted in unison.
“Joshua’s enemies will seek you out and will seek out the children you carry. Therefore, you must live great distances from each other for the blood of Joshua has a distinctive odor. Even here, in this house, your human nose can’t smell it, but Joshua’s enemies can, particularly here. Each of those whom you met were humans who have achieved half-vampire status. Through the gift of Joshua’s blood, we can defend ourselves against Joshua’s enemies and have come together for that purpose. None of you can do so. Therefore, you must hide by living in large cities populated by many humans so that Joshua’s enemies will sniff only human blood.
“But, will we ever see each other again?” Serena, saddened by the thought of being forever separated from her childhood friends, began to drip teardrops upon the crispness of her Sunday-go-to-meeting outfit.
“I must go, now. Judy, I will meet your parents on tomorrow and ask for your hand in marriage.” Judy was ecstatic.
“I want Reverend Dr. Bennett to marry us and I want a big, fancy church wedding.”
“No, that can’t be. Neither vampires nor half-vampires can enter a church. And, until the babies are born, God himself, will deny you entrance to a church,” Al explained.
“But what about our babies? Will we be able to christen them in the church?” Judy, once again distraught, asked.
Al hesitated before he spoke. “We don’t know. In the past, Joshua’s efforts to mate with humans resulted in stillbirths. He injected me with more of his blood than the other half-vampires but allowed me to maintain enough human blood to mate. This is something new. Neither Joshua nor I know what your children can and/or cannot do. But no more questions. I…absolutely must rest.”
The girls quietly moved through the home of Al and his comrades and towards the car.
“Who knows how to drive?” Ginger asked as they neared the classic lines of the burgundy and cream Buick Dynamo.
“I can,” Serena said. Judy tossed her the key.
“Hey, drive my husband’s car carefully and don’t get us in an accident,” she joked.
~~~~
Bill and Barbara, worried into despair by Serena’s failure to show up in church and her continued absence, drove up and down every street in Troy in search of their daughter.
“Have you seen Serena?” They asked children, adults and seniors who sat on porches lined by pots of flowers and green plants. And, since nearly everyone in town had seen her leave Troy in a fancy car driven by a fancy stranger, everyone had tips as to where Serena might be. Somewhat comforted by the news that her good friends Ginger and Judy were also seen riding in the fancy car with the fancy stranger, Bill and Barbara followed up every single lead but to no avail.
“Honey, look, isn’t that the car?” Barbara asked as a car fitting the description of the one that dad spirited away her daughter, passed by and then backed up.
“Mom, Dad, I’m sorry I didn’t come in the church but I was injured and Al, Judy’s fiancé came to take care of us.
“Judy’s fiancé? I didn’t know that Judy had a fiancé.”
“Oh yes, I’m engaged, but he’s not from around here,” Judy yelled out of the window as she fondled the strange ring Al had placed on her finger before their departure from Dothan.
“Then why are you driving his car,” her father yelled putting off the additional questions that Barbara was prepared to ask.
“I’m driving ‘cause Ginger and Judy don’t know how to drive,” Serena yelled back.
“But you don’t have a driver’s license,” Bill mumbled to himself as he vowed to continue the conversation with his daughter at home.
~~~~
But, it was sometime before Serena returned to the cocooned warmth of her parents’ home for any length of time. Excited by their gift of a brand new automobile, caught in the fullness of a Benjamin high as a result of the piles of money that lay in their newly acquired satchels, and freed from the life of drudgery that had been their future less than 24 hours before, Serena, Ginger, and Judy went forth to share their uncontained joy with others.
While Sunday nights were not normally a party night in Troy, on the fourth Sunday of each month the young, the near-young, and the wannabe-young gathered at the American Legion to hear the regionally famous Big Gike Band perform. It just happened to be a fourth Sunday.
Serena followed her parents home so that she could transform from sweet little church girl to her better-known Jezebel attire. Chattering about everything including the things they were instructed not to disclose, the girls jumped out of the car and rushed into Serena’s house.
“Dad, Mom,” Serena said as she pecked each on the cheek and ran into her room to change clothes.
“Judy, did I hear Serena say you’re getting married?” Barbara asked as she heated food cooked on Saturday to serve on Sunday as the day’s supper.
“Yes ma’am, I sho’ am, Ms. Barbara.” Judy’s smile was wide and steady and she appeared ready to burst from the joy that had risen within.
“Who you gonna marry, Judy?”
“You don’t know him, Ms. Barbara. He ain’t from around here.”
“This is all kinda of sudden, ain’t it?” Barbara, still stirring the field peas with okra and tomatoes, and still warming the smoked chicken and rice, asked.
“Yes ma’am. It all happened so suddenly that I feel that God in Heaven done worked a 360-degree miracle in my life.
“So what’s this boy like that asked you to be his bride?” Bill, Serena’s father, chimed in.
“He’s just about the best looking man you ever seen in your life,” Ginger, who sat at the table changing her nail polish in preparation for the night on the town, announced.
“Oh? Who he look like?” Barbara, made more curious by Ginger’s description, asked.
“Well, first of all, he ain’t a boy, he’s a man. He thirty-two years old already. Hmm-m, now who he look like that around here. I can’t say Ms. Barbara. He just look like hisself that’s all.
“Well, when you meet him?” Judy’s response to Barbara’s question was to glare at Ginger. Ginger’s slight shake of her head reminded Judy that Al had warned them not to give out too much information.
“How this dress look, Mama?” Serena swirled into the room wearing a very fitted, strapless red satin dress. Her arrival forced her mom to forget that Judy had not answered her question. Overcome by the radiance of her daughter, Barbara literally stood and stared at the breathtaking beauty who was her child.
“My God, Barbara, how did you and I manage to produce such a beautiful creature?” Serena’s father announced. “Our baby look like one of them Hollywood movie stars!”
Every word spoken by Bill was true. The dress, Serena’s happiness, and, unknown to her parents, the blood of Joshua had wreaked its magic elevating Serena’s already astounding beauty to even higher levels.
“See you later, Dad, Mom. We’ve gotta get over to Ginger’s house and then Judy’s house so that they can get changed. We’re going to the American Legion and I promise we won’t be out late, okay?”
And, of course, before Serena’s parents could respond, she and her buddies were out of the door.
Driving down Jackson Street, everyone stopped to stare at the three beautiful girls riding in the brand new, beautiful, maroon and cream Buick with its white-walled tires. Within ten minutes they were at Ginger’s house. Not to be outdone by Serena, Ginger changed into a green sequined dress that had been given to her by Al. The reddish brown of her hair was even more radiant against the shine of the sequins as they captured light and each slight movement. Finally, they arrived at Judy’s house so that she could change. When they arrived, Judy’s parents, grimfaced and angry, stood in the yard.
“What’s this we hear from everybody else across town ‘bout you getting married?” Marcus, Judy’s father was short and wily, something he sometimes tried to make up for through the largeness of his temper.
“Answer your father, girl.” Lois, Judy’s mother, barely stood five feet from the ground, something she tried to overcome through the toughness of her tone.
“It’s true, Mu’Dear and Paw Paw. See my ring? See how big the diamond is?”
“Girl, it don’t make me no never mind about the size of no diamond. Whoever this fellow is, he disrespected you and me by not coming into our home and asking me if he could have your hand in marriage before he put that diamond on your finger.”
Suddenly, out of nowhere, Al, now refreshed, appeared.
“My apologies, Mr. Perry. I had planned to seek your permission before I placed that ring on your daughter’s hand, but, I fear I was so overcome with love that I failed to follow proper procedure.” Al walked forward into the light. Dressed in a blue pin-striped suit with red tie and clutching a hat in his hand that he twisted on a regular basis, Al looked like a colored Clarke Gable from Gone With The Wind.
“My, my, my,” Lois exclaimed before her husband threw her an angry glance.
“May I introduce myself. I’m Al Frisson. I’m a native of New Orleans. I was passing through your lovely town on my way to Atlanta and happened to encounter your lovely daughter. I, must admit, it was love at first sight.
“I should hope so if you met her last night and gave her a ring today,” grumbled Marcus Perry.
“It’s somewhat less simple than that. You see, I had seen your daughter with her beautiful companions in a dream. Since then, I’ve traveled near and far seeking her. And so, Mr. Perry, Mr. Marcus Perry, will you give me the pleasure of allowing your beautiful, petite, flower of a daughter, to share my life in marriage?” Al asked.
Marcus, shaken, surprised, and, like the women present, overcome by the overall eloquence of Al, didn’t know quite how to answer.
“Problem is, Mr. Al, I don’t know you. I don’t know nothing about your folks or where you come from or even who you is as a man. How I know you gonna treat my Baby Girl right?”
“A question that any responsible father would ask,” Al answered. “But, in all honesty, we won’t know what the future will hold, but, I can say this, I intend to make Judy very happy.”
“Marcus,” his wife whispered in a don’t/blow/this/for/our/ daughter voice.
“Then, go ahead. Marry our Judith but if you don’t treat her right, you’ll have hell to pay.” Serena, Ginger, Judy, and Lois cheered.
“Al, we were going to the American Legion to hear Big Gike’s Band. I mean, if you don’t want me to go, I won’t.” In making the statement, Judy had already shifted into wife mode. Al smiled in appreciation of the submissive effort.
“No, Baby, go out with your friends. Spend as much time with them as you like. Remember what I told you about the future,” he pulled her into his arms, and for the first time place a light kiss upon her lips.
“Oh Marcus,” Lois said as tears formed in her eyes, we’re being rude. Mr. Al’s gonna think that we country folks ain’t got no manners. Won’t you come in? We already had supper but there’s lots of food left.”
“Thank you ma’am, but I can’t stay. I’ve got so much to do in order to plan a life for me and my wife. Anyway, the girls are going out. Let them have some fun before they settle down into married life. Evening ma’am, sir.” Al began walking back down the road and even as they stared, his sturdy back disappeared into the night.
~~~~
The T-Bird crowd and the American Legion crowd were, for the most part, quite different. Kids home from college, youngish adults who saw themselves as higher in status than the T-Bird crowd would come out and hear the progressive jazz and R&B cover songs that were Big Gike’s trademark. But, Serena, Ginger, Judy, and a few others frequented both spots.
From the moment the girls drove to the green grass, one-acre lot set aside for parking, it was as if a group of celebrities had arrived. People known and unknown came forth questioning Judy regarding her impending marriage, complementing the girls on their natural beauty and the beauty of their attire, and seeking to lend credence to the floating rumor that Judy had bagged a rich guy from up north as a husband. Even Jed, who normally remained aloof from the gossip and other carrying-ons of the small community, found himself intrigued by this sudden turn of events. And Arthur? Well, Arthur was as excited as any town gossip could be when juicy events occurred that lent substance to the dullness of their usual conversations.
Despite the intensity of his curiosity, Jed allowed the crowd that surrounded the three young women to subside before he pushed his way through the crowd and asked Serena to dance to the stirring melody of the singer performing Jerry Butler’s, Your Precious Love.
Rather than working overtime to seduce Jed, to intrigue him and pull him into her aura, to captivate him with her wit, and to stimulate a response to her previously unrequited love, Serena went quietly into Jed’s arms, allowing her body to fall into the curvature of his arms. Leaning her face against his chest and wrapping her arms lightly around his neck, she allowed, for once, she and Jed to just be.
“For you-r-r precious love-e-e, means more to me-e-e, than-n any love-e-e, could ever be. For when-n I wanted you-u, I was, so lonely and so blue, for that’s what love-e can do-o.”
Holding Serena in his arms was not new to Jed. Yet, on this night, her presence triggered new sensations. He wanted to protect her, to love her, to never let her go. When the song finally ended, he held her still and she invoked in him the sensations of a good movie that left him sitting still, and wishing that the end had brought itself forth more slowly.
“The song’s over, buddy,” Arthur joked as he tapped Jed on the shoulders.
“Let them be and come dance with me,” Ginger whispered in Arthur’s ears pulling him as far across the floor from Jed and Serena as she could while remaining the lady-like creature she was on her way to becoming.
As if sensing that the mystique of love had filtered through the floors and windows of the American Legion and into the hearts of its occupants, the vocalist began another love song, James Brown’s ballad, Try Me.
“Try-y-y me-e-e, try me,” he sang. Even Arthur left behind his levity and his comedic antics that made him the life of everyone’s life and fell into the rhythm of an evening that seemed to be dedicated to the sweetness of love.
“Ginger girl, did I ever tell you that I’m crazy about you?” Arthur whispered.
“No Arthur, you ain’t never said nothing like that to me before,” she whispered back her lips curved into a smile as each of Al’s prophetic statements began to bloom into fullness.
“That’s because you always seemed like you were sweet on Jed and Jed and I don’t play nothing like that,” Arthur whispered back cuddling her more closely and breathing in the perfume that radiated from her hair.
“Jed was always Serena’s man and I don’t do that either. I’ve always liked you Arthur from the time we sat next to each other in first grade and you pulled my pigtails.
“You never said nothing,” he growled.
“That ain’t the way my mama told me its supposed to go. From what I’ve always been taught, it’s the dog who’s supposed to chase the cat, not the other way around.”
“Then Baby, let me be the dog, bow-wow, ‘cause I show wants to chase you tonight.”
Judy, delighted to breathe into her nostrils, the smell of love in the air, sat alone at their table. Man after man asked her to dance but she turned down every single one of them because after all, she was almost a married woman.
~~~~
Nearly a week had passed since the night at the American Legion and it was now Friday night. Although Serena had more money stuffed under her mattress than the town as a collective had made in the last ten years, she had, as Al had asked, continued her job cleaning and dusting for Mrs. Johnson, the wife of the mayor, by day. However, her evenings were spent with Jed. They took long drives down back roads and talked after bringing their bodies together in a passion that was so intense that it frightened them both at times. On one evening, they had ended their day early and gone fishing for catfish on the riverbank. Between threading worms onto hooks and placing the catfish which virtually jumped into their boat into buckets of water, they talked.
Jed was amazed at himself. He had never, ever unburdened his fears, frustrations, dreams, likes and dislikes as he did with Serena. The only child of parents who were in their mid-forties when they had birthed him, they had reared him to be a serious and silent child whose primary company was books. Although his parents loved him dearly, they were unloquacious in their declaration of affection. Avid readers themselves, their family had found contentment in the companionable silence that were the staples of their thin conversations as each family member read a book of their own choosing. And now, with his parents’ illnesses, the dearth of energy that claimed their bodies left little fuel to spark conversation. And so, Jed, in the absence of Arthur, had developed into a silent man who thought much but spoke little.
Yet, in the five days since their true courtship had began, Jed felt his life lightened and the weight of things released from his soul. Not one to lightly allow the word “love” to escape from lips, he sought more descriptive adjectives with which to define the emotions that their togetherness was triggering.
As he went through days that consisted of delivering babies, and the setting of broken bones and other regular injuries of a workforce that disproportionately worked at the sawmills, he tried on different verbs in an effort to pinpoint his feelings. Adore, desire, need, want, worship, honor, respect, like, and a thousand other synonyms ran forth in his brain each day as he sort to find the best nomenclature to describe his growing response to Serena. Nevertheless, he surprised himself when by the seventh day of the week, he had given her the ring that his father had once gifted to his mother and which his grandfather had purchased for his grandmother when he had asked her to become his bride.
To his surprise, she did not immediately say “yes”.
“Jed, we can’t get married if our future together includes staying in Troy for the rest of our lives,” she said.
“I can not leave Troy, Serena, my parents need me,” Jed responded as he began to return the ring into its velvety case where it had previously nested.
“I ain’t asking you to leave your parents, Jed. I know an old folk remedy that will make your parents well. Then they can come with us or they can stay here and take care of themselves.”
“But, if I leave Troy, who will take care of everyone? I’m the only Negro doctor in the county.”
“Well, I did something that I hope ain’t gonna make you mad. I wrote Meharry Medical College up in Nashville and they got two or three young doctors who would love to take on your practice.”
Jed became quiet. One of his problems in not allowing Serena to get too close in the past was that he saw her as all beauty but no brains. Suddenly, he realized that a near-genius mind lay beneath the layers of her physical beauty.
“Okay, let’s work on getting my parents well and we’ll see what happens.”
“Oh, and by the way, your Mama told me she had some kinfolks down in Brundidge. I drove down there a few days ago and found your Mama’s cousin. She and her husband are ‘bout ready to retire from teaching and won’t mind coming back to live out here with your parents if they can build their own house,” Serena said.
Jed’s face burst into the biggest smile anyone had ever seen on his face and he knew for sure that he had found the woman that God intended to be his wife.
~~~~
“I just don’t understand it,” Ginger complained, “I’m having a harder time getting Arthur to propose than you had getting Jed to.”
“And we had gotta hurry. Al said that as our babies grow, we can’t all be together here in Troy because Joshua’s enemies will smell his blood and come and destroy not only us and our babies, but others in the town as well,” Judy added.
“Serena, stop daydreaming about Jed and help me out here,” Ginger yelled.
“I told you before, Ginger, but you won’t listen, ask Arthur to marry you,” Serena remarked.
“I can’t do nothin’ like that. It ain’t ladylike,” Ginger responded.
“Well, it certainly ain’t ladylike to be caught by the police with your bra off and your dress up over on Collier’s Hill,” Ginger looked away as Judy reminded her of the most embarrassing experience of her life.
“Then if you won’t ask Arthur to marry you, Judy and I will,” Serena said in a voice that made clear her intentions.
“Let’s do it now, girl. Here comes Arthur,” Judy whispered.
“Hey Baby, let’s go for a drive,” Arthur asked with a wink.
“Ginger can’t go for no more drives with the likes of you Arthur.” As Serena spoke, she stood up, placed her hands on her hips, and got directly into Arthur’s face.
“She show can’t,” Judy added following Serena’s lead. “You done made her the laughing stock of Troy. Every woman, man and child knows what color the nipples are on Ginger’s breasts and it’s your fault Arthur.
“I, I…”
“Just shut up, Arthur,” Serena moved even closer into Arthur’s face as if daring him to push her away.
“Any decent man would at least have married her,” Judy added.
“I’d marry Ginger any day,” Arthur answered in a half angry voice.
“Good, then we can go to the justice of peace this Friday,” Ginger said as she “switched” down the street leaving Arthur to digest the fact that he was about to become a married man.
~~~~