Prelude
In the outset of this chapter in my life I was a normal child who loved my life reveling in my own individuality. Snatched from that reality I was forced to endure the under belly of others hatred. Hard luck made me a runner. I ran to escape a predator and intimacy. I kept running out of desperation, to outrun my past, shame of my indignity. I ran from all that was familiar toward recovery. I played life’s sadistic game and triumphed over the haters who attempted to stifle my creativity dishonor me and suffocate my dignity!
Though changed by time and distance I was unable to settle anywhere in anyone. With no ties to bind disoriented confused I built a new world to recapture some semblance of normality.
Relationships became strenuous at best. The most difficult place for me was the vulnerability the stark raw honesty of true love. My Nemesis snatched the naïve exposed unprotected side of my childhood leaving behind a cold heartless unfeeling vessel of survival.
In my quest for normalcy I became a much stronger wiser woman. Though harsh as it was for a naïve young girl tainted by life’s cruelty it carried me full circle to the woman I am today.
I can now dawn; my stilettos put one foot in front of the other and tell the world to kiss my ass.
The Great American Dream
The Great American Dream is a farce I shall not soon forget. As a child, I respected my parents. I was raised to respect them just for the mere fact that they were my parents, but me I took it one step further. I believed they could do no wrong even intentionally to lie. I possessed a blind faith; a condition that I know now was wrong.
For in their quest to create their perception of their perfect world they did weave a web of lies false hope and broken promises. We lived their reality of the life of Riley... the great American dream. They fed us a reality of money being the beginning middle and end all. It was the advantage that made our lives a major production in which I shared the lead. The cast of characters was my immediate family.
Charles and Vicky Latimore, Steven, Frankie Me (Josephine) Gregory and Megan my eldest sister.
Later in life after many a blunder I came too identify this means of philosophy a farce imposed upon us to guide us along their path of understanding. I came to believe that finance was the beginning middle and end all. Back then we kept up the guise of being a close knit family… a good life for as long as it lasted.
The stage is set the curtain goes up on a great big old house on the hill… the hill that overlooked the Greenfield Guardian subdivision or anyone of our five restaurants. Just to let you know I like the C & V Grill best. It was the beginning of our empire.
The C & V Grill was a place where I learned to sing and dance and mingle with the customers. It gave me my start as a people person. We were little kids back then and spent most of our time with our parents just being kids. Personally it was the time of my life. I spent all my time under foot. It was a place where people paid attention to me respected me and never judged me. The lessons I learned then I used later in life to survive.
It was a simple place brightly lit well stocked and running like a well-oiled machine. We had a jute box... a big huge brightly lit monstrosity with nearly a hundred of the latest forty fives.
Whenever a customer played something I liked posted front and center I danced and sang up a storm. I got so good imitating the artists that our customers tipped well to see me perform. Some of Motown’s finest artists coached me presentation, until I perfected an act skillful enough to perform before an audience.
Force Fed
The dignity they instill in family is to force a private education down your throat. Since I like to perform, mother afforded me vocal, dance, piano and charm school coaches five times a week. Saturday morning my sister Megan I attended Virginia Farrell’s charm school. Our dance classes were located in a quaint school across the alley from the restaurant.
We had coaches for everything possible to mold us into a well bread young woman of the time. We worked hard to be the perfect candidates to marry into a wealthy family like the ones Father and mother chose for us. Unbelievably they prearranged marriages between the youngest son of a congressional representative for me and the Mayor’s son for Megan.
My brothers had it easy Greg was into sports he played football and basketball.
Steve on the other hand played tennis. He coached one the our Countries leading congressmen, John Conyers, Jr. for years until he lost interest and began hanging out in the hood with his friends. We rarely saw him much before midnight unless he made a pit stop every now and then to pick up more of his products or drop off the spoils of his business dealing.
Megan was fine as hell all the boys loved her later it was all the men. She entertained the likes of Marvin Gaye, The Four Tops, Teddy Pendergrass, and the Spinners. Me on the other hand I was a late bloomer. I wanted more than life itself to perform. I had the pipes the looks and the discipline all I needed was the training… and mother was willing to impose the proper guidance upon me if she had lived I may have realized my destiny as a star. Unfortunately my dream died with her.
My Edification
Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG Texte: Ginger Fernandez / URBAN FICTION UNCENSORED Alle Rechte vorbehalten Widmung:
My edification was left to the old man. Occasionally he’d see fit to lay down his raw uncut version of wisdom on me. I especially remember an unfortunate war story he used to teach me a lesson. He drummed it into my head and heart until I can still see his face as he’d sat me down stare coldly in my eyes and impacts my life with his hatred of broken virginity.
“When I was a boy maybe about ten growing up back in Mississippi my big sister, your Aunt Jessica started dating the captain of the varsity football team... a boy from the wrong side of the tracks. Pauli’s old man was Robert Ramona my dad’s boss at the Ramona’s Italian restaurant up on Main Street. They were one of the wealthiest families in the community... rich as cream.
If anybody knew about how the rich and famous practiced the separation of the classes; it was your Grand Pa. Every day of his young life he had to listen to Mr. Ramona and some of his boys kick the game on the subject in his kitchen while he worked... as if he was invisible.
He knew that the good old boys would never agree to a marriage between Pauli and Jessica. You see we were poor... poor as a church mice. Grand Pa tried to lay that message on your Aunt Jessie to save her the humiliation of a dressing down by the Ramona’s, but Jessie loved Pauli and paid no attention. Jessie kept right on sneaking around seeing Pauli in spite of your Grand Pa’s warnings.
A year into the relationship Jessica wound up pregnant. When she told Pauli about the baby, he offered her five grand to see the old woman who lived on the edge of the swamp in a logger’s cabin for an abortion and to leave town.
Jessica cried her eyes out. Then she thought about her options and cried some more. When Pauli saw how much it hurt Jessie, he asked her to marry him. Thinking that his old man would respect his decision. She agreed and he told his old man about the wedding the baby, the whole ball of wax. In a huff, Mr. Ramona forbad him to have any further contact with Jessica with threats of cutting off without a cent of the family fortune.
Father said Mr. Ramona sat Pauli down right there in the kitchen at the restaurant and told him, “Boy you better listen to what I’m telling you. That little whore of yours only wants to get her greedy little hands on my money. I am not having it. If you go against me on this, I will suspend your birthright disown you and cut you off. You won’t get another dime out of me. Now go tell that little tramp what I told you and see if it ain’t so.”
Slamming his fist down on the cutting board growling, “ When she finds out that you will be penniless, she will drop you like a hot potato. I know her kind... she’s using you.”
Pauli kept looking over his old man’s shoulder at your Grand Pa. Feeling belittled by his father’s disregard for his girlfriend’s father he shook his head, but didn’t bother to say a word. Pauli huffed and puffed squirming in his seat until finally he put his finger to his lip and motioned toward your
Impressum
Bildmaterialien: Ginger Fernandez / URBAN FICTION UNCENSORED
Lektorat: Roberto Collins
Übersetzung: Roberto Collins
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 04.06.2012
ISBN: 978-3-7309-0815-0
To all the friends and acquaintances you know who you are. You are the ones who encouraged me to buckle down and get my story told. I listened and here it is!