DAY 10: Castle of Sand

Cornrow Local Council has a lot going for it.

For one thing it sits out there just at the edge of civilization-not really removed from the rest of the world but safe enough to be a resort for the healing mind. And the population is just. And I don’t have to tell you what that signifies for a man who’s had his share of sex and the city. Who’s been whacked upside the head by the hands of fate.

Cornrow is a place of possibilities and improvement. Improvement-the word holds a special meaning for me. A touch of magic, if you want. I came here to get rehabilitated as one who’s been grilled in the furnace of testing. Tests, yeah I seen some in my lifetime, if you see where I’m coming from.

I used to be a writer in my other life. Here’s what I did; changed my name, my background and, of course, my lifestyle. Damn I changed everything about me down to my haircut.

The fellows here are nice, easy-to-get-along-with neighbors. They don’t bother me at all about back stories and all that touching the hornet’s nest kind of stuff. Nobody here trying to poke their nice noses into nobody else’s business, if you see where I’m coming from.

So, I came here, to this nice and privy place to rest and think, cause I needed a breather, to start all over again. Am I clear to you thus far? Life has shown me the flip side of the coin. It was a hell of a ride, if you asked me. Not a journey you’d wanna hang around for that long, not as long as I did, anyways.

I came to Cornrow to start all over again. Why do I gatto keep telling you this, you wonder. Oh, you’ll see if you tarry with me for a while. I didn’t drive down here to pick up pieces that was broken, but to fix it. Stitch it like fishermen fix torn nets; set it right side up like the mechanic restores a beat-to-shit Peugeot 504.

It trips up the fountain every time it cross my mind-trips up the tears. So, you’d understand it’s not something I really like to talk about. I’ve been through some pain that’s a killer. And God if it ain’t a tear jerker.

Used to have a woman in my life, did I mention her to you? The two-bit whore brought the goddam misfortune like a flood upon the walls of my universe. Should have ditched the bitch like a bad case of addiction. I know it now and I see it as clear as day, if I do say so. This don’t feel as easy as it ought to be spilling my guts to you a total stranger. Pardon me, but I feel like I’m giving in to depression, letting my woes get the better part of me.

Doesn’t it strike you as funny how the two words rhyme? Woe and whore, I mean. Never let no woman take charge of your life, pal. No woman, you hear me?

Trisha, damn beauty she was. But shoulda let her get gone with her bad self. But what did I do? Became a squirt of shit on the soles of her shoes, that’s what. That woman ran my life like it was her private railroad-like it was her own kitchen.

I should have hauled stakes and left town right from the very start of things. But you guessed what I did? Hung around long enough to be the Devil-woman’s ass wipe. And it wasn’t even news in the town we lived in at the time. I came down to Cornrow to begin afresh.

But before this time, something happened. That’s why I came to you with my story and I want you to listen up. I got a message for everyman folk and I want you to pass it along just the way it is. Cause this tale is true. Has always been. I only got to find that out on a personal level and it wasn’t a very nice experience.

The first time I saw Trisha something passed between us. I’m no longer taken up by that term love at first sight. All who believe in that ought to have their heads examined. Hell, you can’t truly love someone unless you trust them and you can’t, by all practical purposes trust a personality you don’t know. That’s the way it worked between me and Trisha and looked where it landed my ass. I’d love to tell you I was never in love with that woman but I’d be lying my butt off if I said so.

I used to be Langston Dew in my other life. I was a fiction writer who’d achieved considerable success selling novels in e-Book format. I used to live in the local library as a young chap. It was the only way I knew to pass the time. I had access to practically millions of resources. The day I met Trisha it was, how do the British say it, tipping outside. As a kid I believed it rained whenever somebody, probably an angel forgot to lock a tap and water ran off in floods from heaven to earth. That day, the angels must have turned on a series of taps probably, bust some pipes for good measure.

Thoughts of Trisha preceded every thought of rain. And why doesn’t that surprise me? She’d washed up on my shore like foam tipped breakers and dragged off my sand castle to a land where the sunshine grows dim.. Trisha told me at a later time she’d never been inside a library before that day, the rain had brought her. I should have seen the sign then, shouldn’t I? But guess what, I believed God sent her to me with the rain. Love’s blind, huh? I mean, what sort of a woman never visits a library? What does she do the rest of the time she ain’t messing up her toes with paint? Reading the shampoo manual? Get outta here.

Sadly, we got married and had a child. Trey was an intelligent boy. As sharp as spear points. He got along just fine with everybody. Ain’t no wicked bone in his body. Never went around picking fights like these kids you see on the streets these days. God’s favor was on him.

My son, he wanted what I wanted and he could never have been more right. He wanted to tread his swell feet into the well-trodden path of the writer. Trey wanted to be a fiction writer. It was alright with me. Trisha would hear none of it. You know, they say God rested only once after he made woman and even then, He only did it for spite or whatever they call the God kind of spite. On the day Eve died, God took a vacation. Didn’t want to bump into the old crone at her welcome party.

Now, my wife, you know what she wanted for our son? The doggone bitch wanted him sitting behind some stinking box, locked up in a freaking cubicle like some officious hog. She wanted him whooping suspects upside the head with a gavel. Trisha wanted to be the mother of some high court judge.

What the hell did the kid have to be a justice for? I was never against nobody wanting their son to be some high court judge. Nah, shit’s probably legal (pun might be intended). It’s one of the best jobs someone could aspire to. But it wasn’t nothing for the kid that Trisha put him through. Not the gig he was s’posed to take up as a trade. He wasn’t cut out for it, in point of fact.

Of course, you bet your ass, I fought against it. But you can’t change a woman’s mind when it’s made up. You can only hang on for the bumpy ride. Never argue with a woman, my dad once told me and he wouldn’t have been caught dead in a verbal contest with momma.

Trey, that’s my son, all the way. He got trained and all that for the wig job. When he earned his robe, he looked cute every time he put it on. Almost blamed myself for vetoing the gig in the first place. I didn’t though. That kid was good for any respectable trade but nobody knew like I did that the only job he was cut out for was writing.

Trey was called to that accursed box and he moved out of our house. Well, couldn’t blame him for that. He was a man. He got his own wife and family. Trey presided over many lawsuits in time. He became a respected high court justice because of his industry. I raised him well, you know. That kid never got his hands soiled in courtroom politics. He was sure to cross his ts and dot his is. Nothing like the back door deals most judges got chaining them down like a leash.

If a dad ever taught their son the art of honesty and the dignity of labor, I did Trey. And it worked for him, if I do say so.

Every good thing’s gotta come to an end. Whoever said that was right as rain. One day, damn it’s how it all starts, ain’t it? Trey gets to judge a case, the details are lost to me, but it was a tough one even for Trey. It was about some stink-infested pot. Like I said details are lost to me but wads of dough changed hands. You didn’t want to be presiding when this kind of shit went down. Trey’s mind was made, though. Justice’ flame will not be smoldered.

I said to him, “Stand down, son. Let it go, you’ll have your day, yet.”

            “Then, they should never have fixed the case on my watch.”

            “Tell them you can’t do it, then. Let one of their own do it,” I pleaded.

            “I’m not running, dad. I got this. Let me handle it.”

            “There comes a time when walking away isn’t cowardice. Even the good Lord winked at a few things in ‘em scripture. Let this pass, Trey.”

            “For justice, the time is always now never later.”

I knew he wasn’t going to call in sick. He’s my son. I once told him, Never take shit from nobody. Besides, you don’t argue with a judge and expect to win, do you? Ask lawyers.

I had no premonition of what was waiting for my family that cold November evening when my wife went visiting at Trey’s. Like I told you early on, Trey made some really nice friends in the underworld. The day they chose to pay him a visit my wife was up there in his apartment.

The unidentified gunmen popped the cops on guard and got in.

Trisha was the first to go when they accessed the house. Then, they made Trey sit and watch as they took apart his family. That was what they did-they dismembered his wife and kids. They chopped my kid’s family like cattle at the butchery. I once visited the abattoir at Agege in Lagos-I’ll never taste beef again.

When they took Trey, he didn’t scream like when he pleaded for them to spare his family. I watched the whole mess on tape. (The bastards wouldn’t spare me the pleasure.) They recorded the entire carnage; it was like watching a B rate gore fest. First, they chopped him up at the joints, chopped him up alive. If you watched that war movie Sometime in April, it’s about the size of it. Then, they clawed out my son’s eyes and left him to bleed to death.

Well, it’s my story. That’s why I came down here to Cornrow. I lost my wife, my boy and his lovely family, too. This is probably the last story I’ll ever write. My journey as a master of the imagination has reached its unheralded conclusion. There are some interesting roles I could successfully play in this part of the globe like hunting rabbits, for one thing.

On that note, may I reintroduce myself? Hi, my name’s Davis. Davis Newman. Pleased to be your hunting guide for the evening.