I Waited for You

By Eric Childs

Recently published poet, David Alston loses his job, and sales from his book can't stop him from finding an eviction notice attached to his front door. Trying to keep a roof over his head with only a few dollars left, he finds himself in a shabby motel. There, he encounters the beautiful, but mysterious Shonte, and his misfortune seems to immediately take a turn for the better. But as suddenly as she appears she is gone.

Prayerfully, David finds a back-breaking job in a retail shipping department. With Shonte gone, he sets his sights, however lustfully, on the unrepentant exotic dancer, muse, and former flame, Red.

In the midst of loneliness, and professional despair the hope of success as a writer, and his desire to see Shonte again remain. With a little luck, David discovers the possibility of a love and financial life which he couldn't have dreamed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 29, 2008
• ISBN: 9780595616695

Eric Childs

Eric Childs is the author of the poetry collection, Seeing Red, on which this novel is based. He lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

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I WAITED FOR YOU

Copyright © 2008 by Eric Childs

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

ISBN: 978-0-595-50832-7 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-0-595-61669-5 (ebk)

for

Takaita Burrell

Ausha Childs

&

Ashanta Niya Childs

Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER 1 

FORMER LABORER WEAVES WAY OUT WITH WORDS: local scribe makes good, read the sensational headline of the local free newspaper inside the blue stand right next to an employment paper inside a green stand. I stared at both of them as I thought back over the time that had brought me to where I now stood in life. My face was behind the papers sensationalized headline. I smiled, and thought for a second about taking every paper from the stand, but I didn’t want to rob the rest of Milwaukee’s citizens from my local fame. It hadn’t been so long since I would have grabbed the employment paper just as quickly as I would have grabbed the paper that now bared my likeness.

I stood at the familiar bus stop, and waited. I didn’t need to catch the bus, I could even see the tip of my cars shining silver emblem glistening in the sun. But, I wanted to feel the bus ride I wanted to feel the pulse of the city in a way that cruising through traffic didn’t give me. Besides, in all likelihood, since I would be traveling outside of the city in the next day, Milwaukee would never again be my home again.

The bus eased up in front of the stop, and I climbed aboard. The bus driver’s familiar face, pretty and brown, flashed a brilliant smile and greeting.

Hi I said

I walked to nearly the back of the bus, sat down, and gazed out the window, watching the city go by as if I were viewing a great mosaic. A few patches of snow remained from the passing winter. The early morning sky was cloudy, but a glimpse of sun threatened to break the gray into blue.

I opened the copy of the paper and turned to my story. The story of David Alston, while peculiar, is not unique to the American experience. His story is that of the self made man, which is as vital to the American dream as is the white picket fence. I was impressed with the writer’s words, but had never seen myself in such grand terms. I had latched on to the hope of the American dream that the writer spoke of almost by accident. I had shot the gun of hope in the darkness of despair, and miraculously had hit the bull’s eye of success. I had done so with a vision that if I had analyzed more closely would have been out of time, and out of place. In a sea of rappers boasting of bling-bling I had made poetry my thing. Poets Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes had been more my heroes than rappers Chuck D. and Kanye West.

Because I did not aspire to any type of professional position, and because the numerous jobs that I had worked failed to bring me any personal gratitude, I looked to what I loved; and what in many instances I was: poetry. I would self-publish a book. The book would be called SEEING RED: a testament of love, loss, and longing, a collection of love poems written over the past twenty years. With the few dollars that I had remaining from my last job, I would publish the book myself. At the very least, if I hustled, the book would help keep a roof over my head while I looked for new work.

After collecting the material for the book, I set out to find an inexpensive company to self-publish the book. The first company’s price was nine thousand dollars for a printing of one thousand, plus the availability of the book on-line, and through bookstores that were willing to carry it. With only a few hundred dollars to my name, that was more than impossible. After doing a little more research, I settled on QuickBooks, a company that operated out of Marion, Indiana.

Initially, I was hesitant because the town of Marion made me recall the infamous photo of the two black men being hanged in the 1930’s as a white mob filled with blind hate looked on. But, the price was too good to be true for the fifty copies that I had decided to start with it would cost one hundred seventy-five dollars—so I went on with it.

I hit the streets as soon as the initial fifty copies arrived. It never crossed my mind that it was hard to give away books, much less expect people to pay for them, particularly a book written by an unknown poet, who hadn’t so much as gone to more than one poetry reading. But the zeal to at once let someone outside of myself know that I was in fact, by my own definition, a writer got me going. Besides, I was jobless, and nearly broke. To have the seven-dollar selling price in my wallet would have felt like gold to me.

I was down to my last three dollars the day the box carrying my books arrived via UPS. I placed the box on my kitchen table, and sized it up. I prepared my mind for the worse, and hoped for the best. At the very least it would look like a decent pamphlet, at the very best it would look like a small book. I thought about the play for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow wasn’t enuf, a small book which I read in college, and still had. I went to the linen closet where I kept some books, and searched for it. It was right on the top shelf. I pulled it down, and took it over to the box.

Hopefully, it will at least look like this, I thought, as I placed the Ntozake Shange book down, and tore open the box. The books (my books!) were stacked neatly, bright red, with the title SEEING RED trimmed in black bold block letters. I was pleased. It was only a little thinner than the book I was hoping it would be like. I was proud of myself. My heart felt a tinge inside that felt like love. I paced the floor, wondering what would be my next move.

Where now? What next? Who should I call (oh, I don’t have a telephone)? Should I go see my sister, who lived down the street from me? Wait. Do something normal, watch TV, and take a shower. Eat. You haven’t eaten yet.

I crossed my bare living room, went into my bedroom, sat on the bed, and turned on the television. It was early afternoon so there was only your typical fare: Jerry Springer, and the many television judges, real and fake. Might as well shower, and get dressed. By then, I’ll know what to do.

I showered, got dressed in my favorite black dress pants and maroon dress shirt, and headed for my sister’s house with five books in a scholastic case, which I had borrowed, but never returned to my niece.

It was a warm March afternoon, the sun felt like a spotlight that was shinning on me alone. I was now a published poet. I felt like I was more than the average Joe that everyone had taken me for, as if I now counted for something, felt like I was more than the jobs I was being turned down from as of late. Yes, I would make the book sale at all cost; and then I’d write another one. In the mean time, I was still broke.

I rang my sister’s doorbell, and stood there excitedly. She didn’t answer, so I knocked on the kitchen window. I could hear her footsteps approaching the door. She opened.

Daveeed! she liked to pronounce my name with a French sounding accent.

Hey, Alicia! What’s goin’ on?

Watchin’ Young and The Restless She said a she stepped back to let me in.

The house was as spotless as ever. It always seemed as if it could pass a military inspection. There were pictures of different coffee cups, cappuccinos, and other coffee flavored beverages hung high on the walls of her, and her husband Joe’s putty yellow kitchen walls. The ebony kitchen table was perfectly polished, along with high backed wooden chairs.

Alicia was dressed in jeans that fit perfectly for a forty-two year old mother of a twenty-year-old son. She wore an old navy blue sweatshirt with OKINAWA, JAPAN and an Air Force insignia beneath the words. The shirt still looked new. I only knew it was old because I had sent it to her fifteen years ago when I was stationed in Okinawa. Her face looked happy and youthful. Some people who knew both of us thought she was the younger of the two of us, though I was seven years younger. She was beautiful. Standing next to her always made me feel handsome, though when I was alone I felt less than so.

She led me down toward the basement of there three bedroom townhouse where she was down stairs watching her soap opera. The basement was less, than neat, but not a mess. It was the one area of the house that she let Joe worry about. The wood paneled walls were decorated almost exclusively with photos of the boxer Muhammad Ali. Our admiration for Ali was one of the few things Joe and I had in common.

I took a seat on the striped beige and black love seat across from the matching sofa where Alicia sat.

So what’s goin’ on with you David?

I got my books today! I said, as I took them from the case.

Aw man, you did it! These look good. She said as she leafed through the pages.

Oh, so they’re poems?

Yeah. I thought I told you that.

Oh, okay

They turned out pretty good. I’m very happy with them. I was worried that they might end up looking like a pamphlet.

So, when are you going to start selling them?

Right now. I smiled to let her know she was my first potential customer.

How much you sellin’ ‘em for?

Seven bucks.

Seven bucks, that’s not bad. How many did you bring?

Five.

One for me. Joe. I know Jackie and Teresa will want one She named five or six more people, who were friends and family of hers, or ours. You should have brought more copies.

Well, let them know that the book is available, and I’ll bring them over here when they give you the money.

Cool, but you can give me the five now. She had already pulled the thirty-five dollars from her purse.

I handed her the books. I felt guilty taking the money—felt like I should have been giving them to her for free, but I looked at it as my business; particularly since I was unemployed.

We talked for about an hour. Alicia filled me in on what was going on with our brothers and sisters. I didn’t get around to seeing them much since I didn’t have a car, though they all lived in the city, and they seldom came to see me. Since I hadn’t lived much of my adult life in the same city as them I think we grew accustomed to not seeing each other. Besides, I was the youngest, and since the closest to me was four years older, many of them had not been around me even when I was a child. However, Alicia and I had always remained close, had spent hours running up high telephone bills even when I was in the Air Force stationed overseas.

Barron was the oldest of the seven of us. He and I always enjoyed each other’s company, though we were total opposites. He liked to drink, and cuss loudly, whereas I had never been drunk, and was thought by most people, to be shy. Still, we swapped stories about our old military days, the women we’d known, and every topic that ran across the sky of our brains. Our similarity lay in the fact that we retained facts that most people thought meaningless. In a way we balanced each other out. He was tough where I was sometimes reluctant to face conflict. I loved him deeply. I held him out as a kind of big brother, protector.

My brother John had been incarcerated most of his adult life. Had been imprisoned on at least two burglary cases that I was aware of, each of which all of us remained in the dark about. I had in fact put John way back into the unused recessed of my memory. When I thought of him I usually only remembered him teasing me mercilessly as a child, and his almost blind fondness for white women. I hadn’t seen him since our mother’s funeral, which was nearly ten years ago. Paul, the closest to my age, was in jail as well. He was serving two years for his third DUI. We were close like two ex-lovers who hold out a fondness for each other only because of the memories of their past love. Naturally, I would always love him, but through the years, we had had many differences. He, like Barron drank heavily. But because he lacked Barron’s intellectual flexibility, and broad interests, our conversations were usually dull.

Then, there were