Page 57 of Miles. Alton & The 9:04
The girl scowled at him and asked, “How do you know I dance?”
“Your feet,” he said.“You're standing in first position.”
His eyes went to Ella, who wore a pair of treble cleft earrings.He smiled at her, “Jazz or R & B?”
“I prefer jazz,” she said, “but how did you know?”
Thom pointed at her earrings, which earned a smile from the parents.Jae moved on through the room.“This is our sister, Fae, well, Felicity, and her husband, Rick.Those are her boys, James and Roderick,” he stated.
Fae seemly fairly amused at his presence, the boys didn't bother to look up from their electronic devices, and when her husband looked up, he spotted Thom.“Hey!He's a white man!”
Thom, acting surprised, held out his hands as if he were in shock.He turned quickly to Mae, “Mary, why didn't you tell me I was white?You know I'm color blind!”
Mae burst into laughter along with Jae, eliciting a giggle from Sherryl as the mother came from the dining room and spotted the white man in her living room.It was then that Thom removed the hat.Bae Weston's eyes immediately went to Thom's missing ear.It became her primary focus as she announced dinner was ready.
Mae went over to hug her mother, introducing her husband, who wanted to shake her hand, but he could smell the upcoming showdown with his new mother-in-law.He wasn't planning to become belligerent with any of them; however, as he told his wife before their arrival, Thom Brown knew who he was, and her family could test him if they so desired, but he would stand his ground.
He provided a pleasantry to her as she called for everyone to come to that table.Thom wanted to wash his hands, and Mae showed him to the bathroom.She rubbed his back, telling him to relax.
“I'm cool,” he said.
“I know you are, but they aren't, so relax; we'll get through this,” she said, more for herself than her husband.
They arrived in the dining room for Thom to find himself seated directly in front of the mother-in-law, Jae, on his left and Mae on his right.It was a flanking maneuvering designed to bring him comfort but the food on the table was already upsetting his stomach, and he had yet to taste any of it.His mind immediately went to “Rapper's Delight” when he saw the macaroni and cheese, crispy on the edges with orange puddles of grease floating on top.The pork chops were fried harder than a press and curl the Saturday night before Easter.The greens sat in a bowl with an iridescent slick coating covering the saturated leaves.Only the corn on the cob appeared edible, which for Thom would not be the first thing he chose because of the bridge work on his incisors.
Rae Weston offered a prayer, food was passed around the table, and plates were filled.Thom opted for smaller portions since he had no intention of eating any of it, outside of maybe cutting the kernels from the corncob.He could feel eyes on him looked up to spot the guy Rick, staring at him.
“I bet you don't eat nothing like this where you come from, huh?”Rick asked, trying to be sarcastic.
“I sure don't,” Thom replied, taking his knife to cut the corn off the, which also drew attention.
“You can't bite into the corn?”Ella asked.
Thom snarled his lip to show the silver wires around his incisors.“Bridge work, which also makes eating apples no fun either,” he said, offering her a smile.
“Bad teeth, missing ear, what else is broken on him?”he heard Bae mutter under her breath.
He continued cutting off the corn, also noticing Sherryl wasn't eating the food either, and Jae was working hard to get it down.The girls were toying with the greens, but the two boys were scarfing down the food.Thom sawed through the pork chop, which was fried so hard it curled up on the ends.His mother-in-law, still muttering under her breath, making offense remarks on everything from his teeth to his ear, was starting to bug him a little bit.He felt Mae's hand on his thigh as he inhaled deeply.
“We don't even know what kind of stock he comes from, who his people are, or if he has my baby living in some trailer in the middle of nowhere,” Bae mumbled.“And what is up with that ear?I mean, his teeth and the ear, is it some form of a birth defect, and will it affect their children?I don't know why she felt working around all them white men, she thought we'd be okay with her bringing one home.Really.Is he going to like explain what happened to that ear, or do we have to guess whether their kids will have the same deformity?”
Thom had enough of her passive aggressive bullshit and finally decided to answer her.
“My ear was shot off when I was three as I wrestled the gun away from my mother who was attempting to take her own life,” Thom said as all eyes at the table focused on him.“My brother LeBeau and I are only 18 months apart, and at the time, no one understood post-partum depression or the impact it would have on a military wife living in a place like Ft.Leonard Wood in Missouri.”
Everyone at the table was looking at him, and he lowered the knife and pushed the plate away.“My father was a career Army soldier, who on that day became a single parent.My mother went into care in the state of Missouri, and my father had orders to report to Kit Carson in Colorado, a nice place with a great Army unit who provided support for my dad during a difficult three years.”
He looked at Mae before taking a breather.“The next duty station was Ft.Riley, Kansas, the complete opposite of Colorado, with no support, and a single father with two very active boys became a bit much, along with a unit that hated each other, the mission, and everything the Army trained them to do.My father became a functioning alcoholic, and one Friday, he didn't come home.”
Everyone at the table was engaged in what he was saying.Thom continued to speak.“A neighbor realized she hadn't seen his pickup, and on Monday, she called for aid.The Friday night brawl that got my father sent to the brig for drunk and disorderly on Monday turned to involuntary manslaughter.My father was sent to Ft.Leavenworth, and we were sent into care with a woman we call Aunt Sue.”
He smiled at Mae, who leaned into him.“I grew up on a farm in Kansas, Rick, where we grew much of our food, canned, and lived a lot off the land, so meals like this are not uncommon to me,” he told them.“There were seven of us kids to start, and Aunt Sue raised us as siblings, and we to this day refer to each other as brother and sister.It is not about blood, but family, and my family is everything to me, so Mrs.Weston, please allow me to tell you the kind of stock I come from.”
“My eldest brother Gael recently moved back to the farm to look out for Aunt Sue,” he said.“He's a computer-aided drafter who was kind enough to draft the plans for Mae's barn to park her engine.As soon as we lay the tracks off the 9:04 lines, she will be able to drive her engine home and park it in her very own garage.”
“The 9:04 line?”Rae said, “They used to call it that because it was one of the only lines that the train came in on time, at exactly 9:04.Wow, it’s been a minute, but that line is closed.“
“It is, but I maintain the track from the railroad and I own the old Alton Train Depot, which I converted to a museum for my train collection,” Thom said.
