Amazon
Category:
Children
Publisher: R.E.Williams
ISBN-10: B00IZEU490
Type: Fiction
Pages: 100
Copyright: Mar 1, 2014
Price: $0.99 (eBook)
Five rural Kansas kids discover a hidden treasure they hope will make a million dollars.
Otis is a ten year old kid who knows what he wants in life- a million dollars. Along with a memorable cast of friends and siblings he discovers something they just might be able to turn into the million he has been wanting.
Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
I had always felt special somehow living in the geographic center of the United States. Our state of Kansas had long ago been determined to be the middle of our country. If you looked at a map of the entire United States you could see that Kansas was right there in the very middle of everything. For us it was kind of a big deal. When you’re from a state that really isn’t known for very much you sort of cling to what it is known for. We had always lived in Kansas, it was all we knew. It flatness was a part of us. You could stand on a high point and look out at miles and miles of wheat fields. Sometimes it looked like the whole state was one big wheat field. The trick was finding a high point. The running joke was our state was so flat you could watch your dog run away for three days. As a kid I didn’t really understand why that was funny; it would have been terrible to have my dog run away; and then have to watch it for three days.
I had been told on many occasions how serious I was at ten years old. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to be serious, it just seemed like life made you what you were. I probably looked more serious than I really was; I liked to keep my hair cut short and neat with a part cut deep into one side by the electric clippers our dad used when he cut all of our hair. For us poor kids’ life wasn’t always a hand full of candy. It was probably closer to being a kick in the butt. Like all kids we found things to do that didn’t cost anything, and hopefully wouldn’t get us into trouble. It was a fact of life that the most fun things were usually on your parents list of things you shouldn’t do; like walking on the train tracks or picking apples in the neighbor’s bull pasture. The thing was, parents had rules and kids had goals. The number one kid goal was to not get killed. If you got killed it would mean no one would be allowed to play in any dangerously fun area again. Or at least for a good while. Another goal was to somehow make a million dollars. We would lay out in the sunshine, breaking another parent rule by staring up at the Sun while speaking in hushed but excited tones about what we would do with a million dollars. It didn’t matter that none of us had ever had five dollars. The kid goal was set at a million. At ten years old it seemed like a reasonable goal; heck, it was simply a million one dollar bills. We’d had one dollar bills lots of times. We just needed to find a way to make a lot of dollar bills.
My father, Big Otis Hightower worked in one of the mills in the area. The job didn’t pay much he often said, but it did pay. Many times he would come walking up the road after work, still lightly dusted with flour from the mill. It wasn’t so bad when he milled corn, but flour had a way of coming home with you. He walked home most days even though we had a car on the side of our house. Problem was it didn’t work very often. In fact if you put both your hands out like you were a scale and let one hand be the days it worked and the other hand the days it didn’t work; I’m sure the “didn’t work” hand would be dragging the ground.
Big Otis never complained about walking to work and back. I think he was so happy to have a job that nothing could take away from that. Every few days or so he would get a hankering to tinker around with his broken car. I don’t think it stayed broken because he couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it; I think it stayed broken because he wouldn’t spend money on car parts that could be used on his family. He would rather sacrifice his shoes rather than risk one of us not having enough to eat, that’s the kind of man Big Otis was and the kind I wanted to be when I grew up.
It didn’t matter if he walked or drove, he arrived home with a big smile on his face anyway. Sometimes you had to wipe the flour off to see it, but it was there for sure. Big Otis was a powerful man. At six foot four he towered over most folks, but the smile he usually kept on his face put everyone at ease. Big Otis rarely raised his voice; choosing instead to let his eyes speak for him. He had a way of looking at you that told you it was time to stop acting up, or eat your dinner. I know he worked hard to make things better for all of us. On his income we fell well below the lower income level. He could even make you smile about being poor. Like when we would ask for something and he would tell us that even if it was free we would still have to put it on lay away.
Macaroni and cheese meals were common place in our small house. We were fortunate to be able to add some scraps of meat from Bardo’s slaughter house where he worked part time; mainly cleaning up, but sometimes he filled in as a butcher. That’s when he would come home with Pig tails, Ham hocks, and other less than choice cuts of meat. Mama was always happy to have meat in the house and daddy seemed to smile more on the days he was able to bring home something. He was a proud man who hated being poor. Which is why he worked his normal job at the mill and then worked three or four shifts during the week at Bardo’s. He would work from seven to eleven in the evening over at the slaughter house, then wake up early the following morning for his other job. I know my father struggled with the situation for many years. The sad fact was in 1962 there simply wasn’t a lot of work available to a Black man who didn’t even have a high school diploma. He did what he could and we got by with what we had. Whatever we were missing, we tried to not worry about.
At ten years old I was the oldest of his five kids. After me came Russell, who was eight years old, Daisy at seven, and the twins Sean and Shane, age two. Poor Russell probably didn’t know what a new pair of pants was; I think almost all of his clothing was passed down from me at some point. With five kids, hand me downs were a way of life. A lot of days there seemed to be more hands than bread, but no one had died from a lack of food yet, so I guess we were doing okay.
Many days were spent lying on my back on the sparse grass in our front yard staring up at the clouds and thinking about Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. Me, Russell and Daisy had watched the movie on our small black and white television. We were hooked from the moment we found out Dorothy was from Kansas. I truly believed someday I could go off beyond the rainbow just like Dorothy had. Daddy told me to click my heels three times and then sit my butt down ‘cause I was already home and wasn’t going anywhere soon. He said there wasn’t nothing over the rainbow for black folks except maybe a puddle of water someone would probably try to make us clean up. Still I maintained my dreams which were free; unlike most things in my life, I could have all the dreams I wanted, and I didn’t have to put them on lay away.
I was named Otis after my daddy and naturally had been given the nickname of “Little Otis.” I wondered often what would happen when I grew up. Would they still call me Little Otis? And if I ended up taller than daddy would he then be Little Otis and me Big Otis? I knew it was one of those questions that would eventually answer itself, all we had to do was wait long enough. I’d heard often enough from folks that I was the spittin’ image of my daddy, so I guess it was true. That was okay with me since I thought he was a good looking man. Russell probably looked like daddy too, he just wasn’t a spittin’ image like I was.
My mama was a real quiet woman. She wasn’t a very big woman; even now she only stood a few inches higher than me. She hadn’t even gotten very big when she was pregnant with the twins. I always liked watching her brush her long, black hair. She said she had gotten it from her Grandmother who had been a full-blooded Kaw Indian. I would sit quietly watching her stroke her shiny black hair over and over with her brush. She took such good care of it sometimes I got the feeling she felt it was the only nice thing she would ever own. Daisy had the same long black hair. Mama made sure to take special care of Daisy’s long hair as well. It was good to hear people compliment them on having such nice hair. Me and Russell just had normal hair. That was one reason I was sure to get a part etched into one side during haircuts. It kind of made me special in a way.
Mama was soft spoken most of the time. It seemed like she couldn’t find anything in her routine life to get excited about. In fact the only time she ever raised her voice was when she played cards with Big Otis and some of their friends. And that was only after she had a couple of Black Label beers to help her loosen up. Once she was loose she would become uncharacteristically vocal. When it was her turn to play a card she would slap the card down onto the table, accompanied by a loud “take that!” That’s when Big Otis would say the Black Label was working its black magic on Mazie; she would have a good old time and I’d sit and watch her; wishing she could be more like that all the time. Every few minutes or so she would suddenly feel the music and would jump from her chair and begin dancing; either with Big Otis or by herself. The more beer she had, the less she seemed to care if there was a dance partner or not. She would eventually return to her chair in time to slap another card to the table. Every now and then she would grab me or Russell by the hand to pull us out into her makeshift dance floor. I would offer up my best dance moves, which must have been okay because everyone would clap and yell encouragement. It was a little embarrassing, but it made her happy.
By morning the Black Label black magic would have run its course and she would quietly prepare breakfast for all of us. I always thought she just needed more courage like the lion in the Wizard of Oz.
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