A MILE IN MY SHOES

Ever wonder what America would be like if blacks had brought whites here as slaves?  A Mile In My Shoes is my first novel and that is exactly the premise it stands on.  In short, it would be the same ol’ song and dance because it is not about color.  It’s about whoever is on top wants to stay there and somebody has got to be the “nigga”.  Human nature is the operative factor, not color.  Color is only an easy designator of difference.  In considering possible cultural changes, I figured that if blacks came here partly for religious reasons like they say whites did, then one of the things they might have brought would be “female circumcision”.  Whether one calls it circumcision, castration or mutilation, the truth is that it is a horrific travesty and mutilation of God’s gift to women!  America would be very “different” even though people’s behavior would come from the same spirits.
We have come a long way racially, but we still have yet to “be in each others shoes”.  We cannot go back in time, so the only way to experience lessons of the soul the opposing races feel is “strong visualization”.  Therefore, A Mile in My Shoes is written at gut level, but with high ideals.  I seek to promote greater empathy for the other man’s position and nothing here is designed as a put down of individuals, but attitudes, ways of being and the way we treat those different from ourselves.  The story is starts as a flashback, but actually is set in modern day Los Angeles.  The main character, Tremaine is a young white, who having witnessed tragedies no child should, grows to manhood, by twisting the twisted roots provided to him, his own way.  The whole country knows the gang he initiated at 14.  “Nails” is his life, but at 36 can an “old soldier” cross the tracks with a black woman and start a new life?  This is but one of the problems facing him, but no matter how many there are, God has said his “investment” of spirit shall not come back void.  So, without further explanation, I offer an excerpt from my first novel “A MILE IN MY SHOES”.

A MILE IN MY SHOES
BEGINNING ENDINGS

Gentle was the breeze that married the sun and the fields in glorious union.  Infusing father sun and mother earth in holy trinity as only spirit can.  Not too hot.  Not too humid.  Pleasant, this summer of 1889 was.  The breath of life would have surely completed this vision of heaven had it not been for the realities of life among the cotton.  Sheer godly beauty scarred by human degradation.  No, not by the honest sweat and toil the work of picking cotton is, but by the fact that it was not for hire.  Nor was it for the simple love of doing it.  Slavery had soured this hallowed ground for too many years.  So many that the majesty of this day barely made a dent in Dugu’s armor.  His blue black skin still sweat and strained against his facial bones as only a cruel overseers could.  It was his job to extract bales, many bales from these fields and also as a perk any hint of that thing called pleasure.  What a mistake for any cotton-pickin’ white to show any tit of enjoyin’ their communion with nature.  Indeed, the pleasure for Dugu was not in the atmosphere, but in actively bringing about the pain and suffering of these less than human, white trash nothings.  Slaves.  Blanks.
Still there was just no way for Dugu to completely remove the spirit.  Master BuDro had imported several slaves trained specially in African work rhythms.  Though they were slaves and therefore under Dugu’s charge; they were also BuDro’s pets. Very expensive.  They beat their drums from pre-dawn ‘til sunset, driving the pace of pickin’, pushing their brethren to maintain Dugu’s employment.  It didn’t matter to him that the beat drove those blank niggas into a trance-like state that allowed them to go beyond their normal endurance and make him look good.  In fact, it pissed him off.  Just like it pissed him off that those damn drummers got to sit shaded from the sun.  Hell, if they didn’t produce he’d just beat them like drums.  Either way it really didn’t matter because he would simply constantly patrol the fields searching out any glimmer of serenity among these white bastards.  Fuckin’ pigs!  The day was still young; it wouldn’t be long before some poor ‘wood would fuck up and allow Boss Dugu catch them with some dreamy eyed, contented cow look on their face.  That’s when he would get the pleasure of puttin’ his big black foot up that silly white ass!
The business at the stables did dictate a slight alteration in his normal daily activities though.  He had to play nice.  Today the Mugabes’ were being wined and dined, shown around and hopefully impressed enough to buy a number of prized slaves.  Dugu had not been allowed to touch any of the studs for at least two weeks since the Mugabes’ had previously said they not only wanted to purchase a few house niggas, but they wanted at least one good stud.
Master BuDro seemed to be pacing even though his back and forth movement was limited to shifting from foot to foot as if he were in a long line waiting for important business with the john.  He watched and listened as best he could under the circumstance, but he simply could not get his mind around the thought that after weeks of preparation that that fuckin’ nigga had the nerve to run away now.  Mohammed was BuDro’s pride and joy.  It pained him to think of selling such a fine white buck, but increasingly he had become an annoyance.  Fuckin’ when he wasn’t told to, impregnating bitches that shouldn’t be.  Nobody fucked unless BuDro said so!  That was the way it was supposed to be.  What does that look like when a breeder can’t control his breedin’ stock!  Now, not only was Mohammed missing right when he wanted to show him off, got damn it, so was Bea his favorite house girl!  BuDro tried to look like the confident, attentive salesman as Mr. Mugabe spoke, but it was very hard to disguise his anxiety.
“I always let my wife control our breedin’ stock.  Gives her a sense of purpose.  Hell, I do everything else.  ‘Sides it makes her so happy.”
Mrs. Mugabe inspected the five studs lined up in front of her with the intensity of a seasoned horse trader.  Staring, patting, poking and generally probing them anyway she saw fit.  Though she swaggered with the importance of a consummate professional, the glint of a child in a candy store danced in her eyeballs still.  She finally stopped at one, looking intently in his face.  Her hand swept past the small loincloth, the only garment on his otherwise naked body, and thoroughly man handled his manhood.  She stroked its length then squeezed his heavy sack.  He winced at the intrusion.  Mrs. Mugabe smiled slyly in his face and shot the same message over her shoulder to the by standing men.
Mugabe reared back full of his wife as well as himself and started to speak.  Instead the moment burst in the hurried entrance of a gasping young slave boy.  The Mugabes’ froze in their posturing while the boy whispered in Budro’s ear.
“Good!  Tell the overseer to fetch them and then sound the assembly!”  BuDro having refilled to the full with himself, turned to Mugabe.
“It seems that in addition to what your wife has apparently just chosen, you get a special treat courtesy of our missing stud and my favorite house girl.”
Bea certainly was not only BuDro’s favorite; she was hands down the best he had ever had.  Soft, sweet spirited and when she was bathed absolutely succulent.  She accepted anything she was told to do with poise and maturity that he was sure no other fourteen-year-old white or black possessed.  Never so much as a speck of the attitude he invariably got from his older playthings, Manda or Shukee.  Never the less he would whip her ass periodically anyway.  Maybe not so much to show her he was boss or that she had done anything wrong, but to pinch himself into the reality that he could do whatever he wanted.
But this!  This time she would really get it!  Being caught with the love-hated Mohammed was so far beyond betrayal that he nearly had achieved full erection by the time he had left the stables.  Hot waves powered through his body obviously accumulating in his mind and loins.  The flaming rush of bent emotion, while sparked by the thought “how can these ghosts conceive to defy me?”, was fanned to frenzy by coincident thoughts of what he could now do to them.  Both of their asses were his and he was going to prove it!  Beating that damn impudent Mohammed would be slightly above the everyday pleasure he experienced kickin’ white asses all over the plantation, but Bea….

Why he hadn’t even circumcised her!  All the good black women in these parts were circumcised by the time they were fifteen and the slaves by ten.  Bea was eight when he had begun fiddlin’ with her and well, she was just different.  He wanted to keep her all woman, full of her animal receptiveness.  BuDro reveled in the sounds of her yowlin’ like a cat as he thrust her everyway imaginable.  Anyway he wanted. Anytime he wanted.  Damn, he almost loved her!  Is this the price he had to pay for not clipping her clit?  Betrayal?  Ha!  Though he had assumed the position of the broken hearted, he had no intention to allow any nigga to change his plans.  She’ll still keep all of her vaginal parts, but she will know beyond doubt that they, as well as the rest of her, were completely, irrevocably his.