Quid Pro Quo/The Requirement for an Unleveled Playing Field

By Arlene Avery Burke

Small town boy moves to the big city, reinvents himself and starts a small minority consulting firm in Chicago. He quickly learns the first rule of doing business..."you have to pay to play!" This story filled with secrets and lies, promises to keep you on the edge of your seat as this self-made small businessman wades through the rough seas of dirty politics and business. Though he tries to escape it, his past eventually catches up with the present as his carefully planned world starts to unravel and explodes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arlene Avery Burke
• Release date: Sep 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466063129

Arlene Avery Burke

Arlene Avery Burke was born in Evanston, Illinois where she attended Evanston Public Schools graduating from Evanston Township High School in 1964. She holds bachelor and master degrees in education and taught elementary, junior high and high school for seventeen years. She has also worked as a consultant and supervisor with the Chicago Regional Program Chapter I servicing non public special education facilities in Chicago. Ms. Burke retired from IBM where she worked as a senior client representative in the education industry for an additional seventeen years. Her first work, Nothin' Like I Thought, published under emersonstreet books, is a creative nonfiction/memoir that brings a glimpse of a baby boomer's life and those of her girlfriends through their experiences, thoughts and reflections while coming of age in the sixties. The book is comprised of short, funny and inspirational vignettes based on real events and people's recollections of growing up and growing older. Her second work is Grandma's Fairy Tale Museum, co-authored with Phyllis McAllister Hamilton, a children's book written in verse which was published in 2009. It encourages children and parents to explore the fairy tales again. Her third work, a novel, Quid Pro Quo, is a work of fiction about a small minority business's effort to survive amid big city politics. Future works include a sequel to Quid Pro Quo entitled The Beginning of the End, available fall of 2014.

Book preview

Chapter One

You want to believe life can be better. Your dreams display this picture in Technicolor, yet reality fights hard for the black and white classic in your head. Dreams are just that, dreams. They are not reality, not her reality.

It was exceptionally dark that evening as she left work. There was only a quarter- moon to use as light to guide her home. The street lights had long been destroyed by rock throwing children with nothing better to do. The city had not bothered to replace what residents had never cared to complain about. Living among hopeless people is like a double whammy. You don’t have the means to change your life or the life you want for the children you see playing under the flashing store signs.

The neighborhood housed too many bars, too many juke joints and too few libraries and legitimate stores. These were the thoughts Lilly fought hard to keep from holding space in her head. Tonight was like any other on the long twelve block walk home. The fall breeze had turned a bit cool as she pulled the collar up on her coat. Even though it was not yet winter, she wished she’d thrown a scarf around her neck when she left home that morning. She was more tired than usual. Her feet hurt. Her back hurt. She thought about the late hours she would need to spend studying and writing a research paper due on Friday. Coffee would help her stay awake. I hope there’s still some left in the pantry. She planned to eat a good dinner when she arrived home and all the pain would be forgotten. She never wanted anyone to know her struggle. She would finish college for many reasons. Those she left at home hoped for it. The teachers who supported her expected it. Life with a degree is surely better than this.

Suddenly out of nowhere, a rough calloused hand reached out of the darkness and surrounded her throat. An elbow to the chest momentarily loosened the grip on her throat. As she turned to see her assailant, he grabbed her again and in a raspy voice calmly told her, Do not turn around or I will kill you. Who is this man? Jesus, help me! She could smell his sweat, his alcoholic breath. It was hot on her neck and made her feel nauseated. She felt something warm on her, as if he had drooled down her back. Was it saliva or blood?

What do you want? Take what I have, just don’t hurt me. I have a son waiting for me.

She had hoped he would take pity on her if he thought she had children at home. It mattered not what she did or didn’t have, what awaited her at home, her life or her future. Her voice was weakening from the blows delivered to her head, neck and back. Why was this happening to her? She felt her mind start to drift with each numbing blow until she lay unconscious on the ground. He left her there to die, leaving with a purse that contained two dollars and thirty five cents.

She awoke four days later in the county hospital barely, able to open bruised and swollen eyelids. Though she could barely hear or speak she could hear a child with his mother whispering, Who’s that Mama? What happened to her?

She heard a voice say, Take the boy home. Get him out of here. With every nerve ending screaming with pain as she tried to speak, nothing would move, not her lips or her body. She quietly slipped back into a coma.

The doctor spoke softly to the worried family in the waiting room. She took a serious beating. Cracked ribs, bruising in the brain, and in bad shape is all they could hear as their thoughts drifted in the fog of what the doctor was saying to them. What, how, who was all they could think about as he explained the extent of her injuries. Who would want to hurt such a sweet, kind, brilliant, young woman? Nothing made sense. Then the biggest shock of all was announced.

She’s in a coma and might be for years so you will have to move her to a rehab facility, perhaps closer to your home, said the doctor. She can’t stay here.

She gonna be all right? asked Sarah.

Time will tell, is all the doctor could say. He couldn’t make any promises.

Sarah and her husband, Samuel Jones fell simultaneously down into unsuspecting, barely cushioned, plaid, hospital waiting room chairs. Sam put his hand to his head and said, Dear Lord, what are we going to do now?

No worry, Samuel. With the Lord’s help, we will know exactly what we should do, said Sarah with tears in her eyes.

You rest now, Lilly, Sarah said, and held her sister’s hand through the night, and the night after that and for several nights until her husband, Sam made her go home. She had the rest of the family to tend to, he reminded her. Their church back home helped finance Lilly’s move to a facility near Carlinville. Sarah visited her sister every day, faithfully praying for a sign of recovery. Though others tried to discourage her, even the doctors, she, never gave up on her sister.

You don’t know Lilly like I do, she would say. Lilly is a strong woman. She’ll come back when she’s ready.

Though there was little change in her condition, physically Lilly began to look like her old self again. The swelling around her face, as well as, the black and blue color to her skin, was now gone.

As they awaited Lilly’s return to life, the Jones family welcomed another life, a little boy to their clan. His birth weight was a little low, but that didn’t worry Sarah.

We’ll fatten him up in no time, she proudly said. Her husband, Samuel looked at her with uncertainty, but had learned over the years that whatever Sarah put her mind to, would always be all right. Sam looked at the small child and said, Let’s name him George Jefferson Jones. Give him a president’s name and maybe that’s who he might be one day.

Now, Sarah really had her hands full caring for a newborn, taking care of the rest of her family and visiting her sister every day.

One day and two years later, while the Jones family celebrated baby George’s birthday in Lilly’s nursing home room, Lilly came back. As they sang happy birthday and the little boy blew out the candles, Lilly sat up and opened her eyes. It was also her rebirth. They had just witnessed miracle number two, though incomplete because she would never be the same. She would never be as she once was, the precocious, energetic girl with a bright future. Not even after another year of rehabilitation, learning to walk and talk again would she remember what had happened to her nor return to a state of independence. She never asked what had happened to her. In a way, that was a blessing.

Chapter Two

Mama, where are you? his voice called out. George started calling to his mother from the side of the road as he jumped off of the school bus.

I got an A on my history test today. Look! Mama?

She heard him run through the door, as he did every day, screen slamming shut behind him. He tossed his jacket on the nail in the wall standing in as a coat hook. It was April, 1968, and a young eleven- year- old boy arrived home from school to find his mother, a strong woman he had never seen cry, standing at the kitchen window staring into an abyss. She was silently crying. Tears were rolling down a sad and weary face. She rocked back and forth, moaning, as if in physical pain.

What’s the matter, Mama? he asked, almost afraid of the answer. Is it Daddy? His heart was beating fast. He could feel the thumping against his chest.

He’s dead, she said. They killed him.

Who? Killed who? Who, Mama? Daddy?

Martin…

Uncle Marty? he asked innocently.

No, George, Dr. Martin Luther King. They shot him dead. He was in Memphis…That’s nowhere from here…To help striking black garbage collectors. They just wanted a decent wage…To be treated fairly…Earn a decent living. Dr. King was a nonviolent man and look what they did to him.

She drifted off into her own thoughts again. George had never seen his mother like this before. She drifted weak and defeated, like someone sucked all of the air out of her. She didn’t even acknowledge the A he had received on his test. She always gave him a big hug and kiss when he received good grades. Most times she would even make a special dessert for dinner like a pie. He didn’t know what to do. Comforting his mother was a role reversal. George gently patted Sarah on her back and said, It will be all right Mama. What else would a young boy say?

Don’t let anything stop you from the pursuit of your dreams, Georgie. Other than Lilly, you the gifted one in this family. You have to do it. It’s too late for me and yo’ daddy.

Do what? he asked.

Make it.

I will, George said. I promise.

Chapter Three

George Jefferson Jones, pull the god damn trigger! Boy, you are such a pussy, his daddy said with an audible sigh. You let him get away again. What’s wrong with you? Hunting is a man’s sport. Sometimes I really wonder about you… He could smell George’s fear. Sensed fear only made his daddy push harder.

These were the same words he’d heard a hundred times from his own father, a tall, thin and proud man who represented generations of the same. I hate hunting. It’s not a man’s sport. The animals never have an even chance. How can you be a man if everyone isn’t on a level field? It’s not fair!

One day I’m going to leave here. I’m gonna leave this dust, dirt, and your mouth forever and never come back, said George in frustration and shame at disappointing his father yet again.

What’d you say, boy? shouted his father Samuel Jones, though everyone called him Sam. From a short distance, he stared across the prairie in search for the deer that had bolted just moments ago. That buck would have made a good dinner for two or three nights.

Nothin’, Daddy, can we go now? I imagine it’s time for dinner. Mama won’t want us to be late. You know she likes to serve a hot meal for her family.

Sam took out a well used, wrinkled handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his salty brow and said, Come on, boy. Get in the truck. George couldn’t miss the manifestation of displeasure on his face. Sam slammed the door and mashed his foot down on the accelerator almost before George could close his own door. The truck roared down the dust cloud road as if it were as angry with George as his daddy.

Daddy, how come we can’t go fishing sometimes instead of hunting? asked George. At least the fish have a choice in whether to take the bait or not. It only seems right to me. And I’m good at fishing. Sam just shook his head in disbelief and said nothing as they headed home.

George was quiet on the way home as he rode in his father’s rusty pick- up truck. With each bump his skull hit the handle of the rifle resting in the double hook gun rack behind his head. So many thoughts floating through his mind, he couldn’t even enjoy the country music on the radio. Why did they name him George Jefferson Jones anyway? It sounded like a character on a TV show or some runaway slave named after two presidents. There were so many things he was ashamed of. He hated the way they lived in what he considered a shack off a rainy day mud hole in nowhere southern Illinois. He felt like the share croppers he’d read about in history books except with no crop to harvest. With the exception of his mother’s vegetable garden which she tended to like a baby with croup, nothing grew in their yard. They didn’t even have a decent lawn in front of their house as a semblance of some pride of ownership. The Jones’ dilapidated neighborhood was identified by its derelict homes some inhabited and some deserted. The dreary homes were characterized by peeling paint, fallen shutters with most in need of roof and gutter repair. Barking, collarless dogs ran up and down the road, at will, chasing the occasional car.

George was born in 1957, three years after the Brown vs. the Board of Education desegregation decision, one year before Rosa Parks was arrested in December, 1955 thereby setting in motion the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the same year as President Dwight D. Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard and deployed paratroopers to carry out the desegregation orders of the federal courts to desegregate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Amid all this turmoil, one would not have noticed any change occurring in the small town of Carlinville, Illinois.

The only business in town where any colored man could get a job was Shaw’s lumber mill. The pay was low which allowed money mostly for the basics and little left over for home maintenance or repair. It was the way things were. Those who were handy were able to make some minor improvements, keep things standing. Sam, George’s father was not, nor did he seem to notice that his home was in disrepair. The roof leaked when it rained and the windows and doors were drafty in winter. This did not go unnoticed by a young boy with higher aspirations.

Old man Thomas Shaw was the richest man in town and his daddy before him and his daddy before him. The Shaw house was a mansion on a hill with so many colors you couldn’t count them. Beautiful flowers, black eye susans, daisies, zinnias, petunias grew in assigned areas, weeded and well groomed. Even the trees bloomed in spring and his grass was so green, it appeared painted with a brush. Weeds knew nothing of this well manicured lawn and yard full of trimmed white hydrangeas and lilac bushes. Dogs were housed in neatly fenced pens or little houses with their names painted on front. They wouldn’t dare go where they didn’t belong. Old man Shaw used prisoners from the Lauterdale County jail to keep his yard in perfect order. Tuesdays and Fridays they came to cut his grass, pull weeds and trim the bushes and it didn’t cost that rich asshole a dime. The program was open to all residents. All anyone had to do was travel down to the jail and sign a couple of prisoners out for the day. It was a win-win situation. The prisoners got to be out for the day breathing fresh air, and the residents got some work done. All they had to pay was for lunch and a package of cigarettes. Most white residents and a few black ones took advantage of the service. It just didn’t seem right to hire your relatives for free labor and they didn’t trust the white prisoners, few that there were. They might retaliate for the humiliation once released. One day that will be me, with the big home and servants, thought George, but not here, anywhere but here.

Supper’s ready, Sarah Jones proudly called to her family household of eight. She had to call three times, upstairs to Aunt Lilly and out of the kitchen window to children playing in the backyard. Through the screen door in the front, she saw George and his father as they pulled in from their hunting trip. She wanted to remind her husband, Sam as he entered the door of the hole in the screen permitting the nightly flies and mosquitoes inside. It was either close the door and suffer in the smoldering heat or open it and swat at the mosquitoes as they sang from ear to ear through the night.

You’re just in time for supper, she said instead.

Bring the clothes in off the line with you, she yelled to her daughter, Lucy who was grabbing up the twins in a basket across one arm. She grabbed a handful of diapers from the line and threw them in the basket with the babies and left the rest hanging.

Sarah had little physical possessions to be proud of, but she had more than her parents did while growing up. The family was everything to Sarah, her whole life. Her family included Samuel, her husband of twenty five years, and her children: George, sixteen, her favorite for his gentleness to her, and Jacob (Jake), twenty- two, the oldest of the Jones’ offspring. Jake was the apple of his father’s eye, tough and strong, following in his father’s footsteps at the Shaw’s mill. Only he would one day make his father proud by becoming the first black foreman on the line. Lucy was seventeen and already the mother of the Jones’s two grandchildren. The twins Kiki and Little Mo were barely nine months. And last there was Sarah’s sister Lilly, who was known to be a little eccentric and harmless.

Sarah’s kitchen, though small, was overflowing with her love and good smells at dinner time. Homemade flowered curtains hung from the window above a badly stained porcelain sink. The table was set with a mix of dishes, some purchased with S&H green stamps, some found at local garage sales. Mason jars served as water glasses most of the year until they were needed as pickle jars to hold Sarah’s prize pickled cucumbers and onions. After that, the jelly jars doubled as water glasses. Eight white chairs, matching in color but not style surrounded a small table in the middle of a worn, speckled linoleum floor. On her gas stove sat several boiling pots and a can of saved bacon grease for flavoring.

Aunt Lilly came to the dinner table dressed as usual in a pink fleece robe and matching slippers she found for a bargain at the Salvation Army store. Sometimes she would wear a big pink bow on top of her head. She just didn’t feel up to getting dressed again today, much to her sister’s distress. Her hair was pulled into a knot in the center of her head with strands hanging everywhere like the spine of an umbrella. No one questioned her appearance. So this family of eight squeezed around a table for six to partake of a meager supper of ham hocks with corn bread and sliced tomatoes and collard greens from Sarah’s prized garden. She was recognized for miles around as having the most productive vegetable garden. She supplied almost everyone in a three- mile radius with zucchini and squash each summer. Sarah Jones served zucchini raw in salad, baked in a casserole, fried and sautéed. It was sliced, chopped, shredded or slivered. Known to all at church as the zucchini queen, she shared zucchini bread, cookies, and pie on a regular basis.

The dinner conversation consisted of the usual, who did what at the mill, and how strong and wonderful Jake was. Of course Lucy had to share some milestone the twins had accomplished that day.

You helpin’ Sissy do heads this weekend? Sarah asked her daughter Lucy, as they ate supper. George had another older sister named Sissy, now twenty- one and moved out of the household. Sissy had her own apartment in town from which she did hair and gossiped from her kitchen Wednesday through Sunday.

Yeah, she say she gonna be real busy this weekend and need my help. Can you keep the kids? replied Lucy.

Again? whined her father Sam.

Yes, Daddy, She replied with a sigh. I could use the tips to buy shoes for the kids. They starting to walk now.

Samuel let that conversation go and instead started in on his son George.

George let another deer get away, too nervous to pull the trigger, told Sam in shame.

George sat day-dreaming about his future and wondering how, since he was so different, Sarah and Samuel could be his parents.

Leave him alone, Sam, begged Sarah of her husband. You know the boy is different. He’s smart as a whip and will make us proud one day. She all too often had to come to George’s rescue, saving him from the resentful brow beating of his older brother and father.

When dinner was done…Come on, Georgie, help Mama clear the table. It will give us some time to talk. You can read to me from some of your school books.

Sam left the table, pipe in hand, to have his evening smoke out on the porch. Well, he believes he’s better than the rest of us. One day he’ll find out different, mumbled Sam barely audible to George and the rest of the family who had retired to the living/family/all purpose room where the only TV set was located to watch Bonanza. George knew deep down inside, but not usually at a conscious level, that something just wasn’t right as he helped his mother clear the table of dirty dishes. There were no leftovers to refrigerate; there rarely were. Washing the dishes should be one of his sister’s jobs to do except his mama always wanted George’s help in the kitchen after dinner. Sarah washed and George did the drying. He silently noted the cracks and chips in each plate, cup, and bowl as he put them away. It was their time to talk and share dreams for Georgie that the rest of the family would never understand. Sarah had big dreams for George Jefferson Jones but not nearly as big as those George held for himself.

Aunt Lilly had been the only member of the family with the opportunity to attend college. She was brilliant as proclaimed by all of her teachers from first grade through high school, so gifted that her talents must not be wasted in this small town. They made arrangements for her to attend college at the University of Chicago with a full scholarship. Her dream of becoming a teacher ended too soon. She ain’t been right since, said most people in town who encountered her from time to time. Some days she was perfectly lucid and others she rambled on about her baby and a man she used to know and love. No one paid attention to her ramblings. Everybody knew Aunt Lilly never knew a man that way or had a baby. She was just too good a Christian woman to lay with a man without benefit of marriage.

Chapter Four

Are you looking forward to graduation, Georgie? asked Aunt Lilly. Yes Ma’am, I can’t wait to go away to college, answered George. Rufus, Charlene, and I have all been accepted to PVU in Clarksville. George, Rufus and Charlene had been like the three musketeers since they were children. They did everything together: played sports, studied, partied and grew up, one for all and all for one.

Where? asked Aunt Lilly rolling her eyes to the top left corner of her head as if trying to retrieve long lost stored information.

PVU, said George, you know, Prairie Valley. It’s kind of small but we got scholarships. We’re real excited to get our futures started, replied George. And get the heck outta here!

It’s not that small… Almost big as Western Illinois University! Hmm…Well, just be careful. Bad things can happen to nice kids away at school. Maybe you should stay home and go to the junior college in town. It’s safer, shared Aunt Lilly.

I’ll be okay, Aunt Lilly. You worry too much, answered George slightly annoyed at Aunt Lilly’s paranoia. Old ladies are a trip!

Sit down and have a bowl of grits. It will keep you all day, offered Aunt Lilly.

"We have grits every day, Aunt Lilly. I still get hungry before noon. There’s no butter to put on them. Isn’t there anything else to eat? Never mind, I’ll just have a slice of bread and some peanut butter. Where’s the jelly?"

In the cabinet next to the refrigerator, where it always is. Who you taking to the prom, that girl down the road? asked Aunt Lilly.

Yeah, we’ve been dating all year so I might as well. Ain’t nobody prettier than Charlene in the school. But I’m not going to be hooked up with her when I leave for college. I’m leaving my options open to new puss… Uh…People.

She is a pretty child, repeated Aunt Lilly. Is she a nice girl? Does she go to church? Nice girls go to church, you know.

That question went unanswered as George quickly left the room. All kinds of girls go to church, Aunt Lilly. Their mamas make ‘em go whether they’re good or not. Charlene was George’s first sexual experience, a cheerleader, popular (more than he), talented, and beautiful. He often wondered what she saw in him other than he was the captain of the football team, a losing team year after year. They had been best friends since childhood. George wasn’t sure when their relationship actually changed. It had just been the natural order of things. She was pleasant but somewhat controlling, always wanting to get in his business and tell him what to do. Even that he could deal with on most days. Her one major flaw was that she was from the same rotten town as he. That would never do if he were going to reinvent himself.

Carlinville was a town of about three hundred and fifty people, mostly old folks. The young ones left town after graduation if there was any way they could. There was one Kindergarten- through- eighth grade elementary school, Miss Emma’s nursery school, and a high school which supported three different communities. Main Street, once a bustling downtown, as far as small towns go, was becoming a ghost town. Half the stores were boarded up or abandoned. The other half included a small bank where rich white townspeople deposited their money. The black folks didn’t have enough money left over for a savings account and most people took cash so there was no need for checks. There was a Buy It Again resale shop, an antique store, general store, drug store, café where everyone picked up their morning coffee, at a restaurant called The Corner Diner where folks went for fine dining. The white folks still living in Carlinville mostly shopped in the next town over which had nicer strip malls and one department store, Sears and Roebuck. There was also Junior’s car repair where you could also get your shoes shined or TV and stereo repaired. Next to the Greyhound Bus station was The Pig Shack barbeque joint convenient for townspeople and travelers. Carlinville boasted of two Texaco gas stations, one as you enter and one as you leave town. Across from one of the abandoned stores was the Main Street Full Glory non denominational Church and just a little ways down on the corner of Main and Thigpin was the Four Corners Missionary Baptist Church where most of