WAKE UP!

By Lawrence DAntonio

Time travel with roving historian Danto through America's racial maze. Follow him as he searches for the roots of our country's racial stain. Along the way, meet real historical figures, gods and goddesses, and villains and heroes as the story unravels.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Indy Pub
• Release date: Mar 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9798330208265

Lawrence DAntonio

My name is Lawrence DAntonio and I am the author of THE GREATCOAT. I am the first born of six of a seriously charming salesman father, and a richly talented, pitch perfect, lyrically loving musician mother. My drift toward history led me to concentrate on this subject in secondary school, undergraduate and graduate studies. I taught US and European History on the high school level and in college. Additionally, I created and taught courses on the American Civil War, the Thirty-years War in the 20th century (aka WWI and II), and the War in Southeast Asia (Vietnam).I left high school teaching (retaining an adjunct position, part-time in college), and pursued a career in sales which eventually landed me in the fine wine business, where, in addition to importing and selling fine wine, I also became the wine educator for my distributor employer.THE GREATCOAT is a fictional memoir, the product of family stories from the Depression and WWII generation told me by my mother. As it is multi-generational, I rely upon memories of people, events, and places prominent in my life as I came of age. The story will take you through a horrifying episode witnessed by a young pilot shot down in the Battle of the Bulge, onto his son's struggles with service in Vietnam and onward to the 911 era.

Book preview

I CANNOT BREATHE — NINE MINUTES IN MINNEAPOLIS

George Floyd: Sir, I cannot breathe. Please.

Officer: Silence

George: Water.

Officer: Silence

George: Please, Sir, I cannot breathe. I cannot breathe. I cannot breathe. Mama.

Officer: Silence

George: Don’t kill me… I’m about to die. Everything hurts.

Officer: Silence

George: Mama.

JEFFERSON AWAKENS

Jack Jouett’s horse raced up to the front of Thomas Jefferson’s monumental Monticello. An early June, Virginia sun peered over the blue mountains as Jouett dismounted without tying his horse. He sped up the steps to the front door, pounding the portal furiously and screaming, Wake up, Governor Jefferson, British dragoons are coming. You must flee! A house slave named Sanco rushed to open the door.

Thom Jefferson put his feet over the side of his bed and ran his fingers through his thin, red hair. He arose and reached for his britches. Shirtless, he emerged from his bedchamber to encounter his neighbor in the foyer below.

"What in hell is going on, Jack?

The British, Thom, Jack yelled, they are coming. I rode all night to get here to warn you. You must flee!

Jefferson remembered that flight to his safety when, years later, he awoke sweating fitfully from a dream. A dream of the moral frailty of humans. A dream of a bloody, national conflict inflicted on themselves. He remembered the chaotic rush away from his beloved Monticello: would anything survive of it when the redcoats arrived? His slaves would all be set free, while he, the author of all men are created equal, would be shackled and tried for treason if caught.

When one of my slaves cut themselves, Jefferson mused, they bled just as I did. I remember the clever ones easily doing the reading, the writing, the ’rithmatic. I remember the marvelous culinary gifts of James, my chef. I remember the sweet bed with Sally, she raising our enslaved children while I could not bring myself even to acknowledge their presence.

JAMES MADISON AND ALEXANDER HAMILTON MEET OVER DINNER AT CITY TAVERN IN PHILADELPHIA, SPRING, 1790

MAD: Your assumption proposal will not find acceptance in Congress from the southern states. It is about as popular a notion as Old Ben showing up in the gallery with his Quaker contingent demanding Congress address the issue of slavery promised back at the time of the Declaration.

[A waiter approaches to review the menu with them and take their order]

HAM: Ben was well within his rights to be there to advocate for a plan to end the bondage of the African slaves. It needn’t be immediate, but some measure to ensure that, by 1820, all the slaves will be manumitted is in keeping with the wishes of the many, who, in the glow of your friend Jefferson’s words in the Declaration, dreamed of our continent free of this scourge.

MAD: Your argument is noted, Alex. So, what will you dine on this evening? The fish here is quite good, according to Washington. Shall we start with a drink to toast our new Constitution?

HAM: I avoid alcohol but will toast with a coffee.

MAD: And for me, a hard cider would be fine. Shall we order the meal as well?

HAM: [Addressing the waiter] Coffee through the dinner, please, and I will have the mutton and a plate of preserved fruit at the end. I can have some potatoes, or if you have some other fresh root vegetable?

MAD: Good, Alex. And for me, I will have the baked shad and a side of roe. I also will have a plate of the vegetable my friend is having. For dessert, the special Constitution Cake with sweet rum recommended by Ben Franklin along with some ice cream. [The waiter returns to the kitchen. Madison turns back to Alex] The shad are running very strong on the Delaware and are exquisite baked on a wood plank opposite a blazing fire pit.

HAM: I see your appetite has not waned, but your frame remains quite thin. Let’s get back to the discussion at hand.

MAD: Alex, the southern planters will never agree to put an end to their slave labor. You saw how violent their rebuke of Franklin was on the floor of Congress. Remember, we need the southern states to ratify the Constitution. Any attempt to end slavery will be met by their refusal to ratify at the very least, and outright secession from our budding union at the worst.

[The waiter brings the coffee and the cider]

MAD: Let’s toast, Alex!

HAM: [Lifting his coffee cup to James’s cider mug] To our precious Union, may it never be torn asunder.

MAD: A fitting toast, Alex. [They touch cups]

HAM: Regarding my assumption proposal. I have spoken with Jefferson, and he is opposed, as I am sure you know.

MAD: Of course, he is. The proposal for the Federal Government to pay off the debt the states incurred fighting the Revolution would involve giving the central government more authority than is appropriate. If the central government has the authority to assume the states’ debts, then we are saying it has the power to do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, and that is precisely the kind of absolutist power the king wielded against us. [Madison takes a sip of his cider.]

HAM: My dear James, the Federal Government has no interest in, nor did we vest it with, powers to interfere in the legitimate internal business of the states. Do you forget what disorder reigned in the country before the Constitution? Calamities which compelled you to call a convention to provide a more perfect union? Perhaps you forget the border war between Connecticut and Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia fishermen shooting at each other on the Chesapeake—the outright rebellions for which there was no national government to settle the disputes at hand. We wrote the Constitution, which was in its own way, a second revolution to create a government that united these states and deliberated on laws for the common good of the people. With assumption we can erase the states’ debts and move forward with a clean slate to new industries.

MAD: I feel there is more to your assumption proposal than meets the eye.

[Madison shoos away a bothersome mouser cat seeking attention beneath their table.]

HAM: There is. I need you and Jefferson on my side of this issue. Tell Thom if he will support assumption and agree to the creation of a National Bank—and a mint, of course—to create a unified currency, I will agree to move the Capital from Philadelphia to the banks of the Potomac, in the middle between the northern states and the South. Adams and the other Federalists will go along with this. Washington will support it as well. We will name the new city after him.

MAD: You make good compromise, Alex. This is the kind of government I have long dreamed of. One where those extreme positions its representatives harbor can be washed over in debate, worn down like the rocks at the bottom of a river so that, sooner or later, the estuary of compromise is reached.

HAM: Yes, I entirely agree. Men make governments. Men are fallible and often extreme in their positions on issues. When the people send their representatives to Congress, they expect them to act on the principles that compelled them to vote. True leadership arises from hearty debate and the ability to find common ground.

[As the kitchen prepares their meal, the two founders discuss the details of their compromise to be presented to Jefferson, Washington, and Congress. Finally, the dinner arrives.]

MAD: Looks good, don’t you think, Alex?

HAM: Very good, James. You’ve ordered the Constitution Cake. Do tell me how you like it. Not as fine, I am sure, as the delicacies prepared by your good wife.

MAD: Oh my, yes. I call them Dolly Cakes! Her creations are the talk of Virginia. She always surprises me on my birthday with one, complete with candles, though the years are now adding more candles than I care to blow out.

[MAD swirls his cider mug such that a bit spills onto his coat.]

HAM: James, you have stained your coat. [MAD moves quickly with his napkin to blot the liquid. There is a silence, and Alex adds a comment a more diplomatic man might have avoided.] Just as slavery will be the stain on our Union.

MAD: Perhaps, Alex, but let us set the foundation and see how the building rises.

[The waiter approaches with their check.]

HAM: Am I paying for this, James?

MAD: You are the one with the bank, Alex.

HAM: Gladly will I pay, then. James, let me ask you, will the art of compromise ever apply to the slave issue?

MAD: I do not know, Alex. I do not know. What I do know is that the states have rights not to be abridged by a central government.

HAM: Agreed. However, the states do not have the right to avert issues of national concern. The Federal Government is there to unite us in times of peril and on the great issues of importance to all the people. It is not empowered to force everyone to eat Dolly Cakes, however delicious they may be.

MAD: [Suppresses a mild laugh.] Point well taken, Alex.

HAM: Slavery could well be a mortal sin on the soul of the republic. I fear it may not be washed away so easily. Let us pray the common ground on this issue is not a bloody battlefield.

We the people, in order to create a more perfect union…

Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America

I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away; but with blood.

John Brown’s written message as he faced the gallows.

ZEUS AND STYX CONVERSE

ZEUS: Well, your Thom Jefferson is really something. All men are created equal. What nonsense. He doesn’t even believe it himself. What a mess these humans make.

STYX: No more so than your exalted Pericles of Athens!

ZEUS: You have, no doubt, come to regret involving yourself in their sordid affairs.

STYX: You formed the humans, I freed them. Listen, Lord Zeus. In one of my human forms, I met a time traveler, a searcher, really, on a quest for knowledge. He appeared before the Congress of Heroic Historians for induction some time ago.

ZEUS: Who is he?

STYX: He is a professor of history at university. His students call him ProfD. He will visit us on his quest to find the roots of the racial divide that plague the humans.

ZEUS: Interesting. I have had no human visitors for a while.