How Do I Go On

By Lonnie Spry

When Elbee Neesprin becomes a victim of company downsizing and begins a diligent search for employment in a decreasing job market, he is faced with depression, a girlfriend who is becoming increasingly dissatisfied with their relationship, and a faith that is being tried by fire, as he tries to determine, "How Do I Go On?"

• Language: English
• Publisher: LonnieBell Publishing
• Release date: Sep 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536555844

Book preview

How Do I Go On?

A Novel By

Lonnie B. Spry

How Do I Go On? © 2010 Lonnie Spry

All rights reserved

Without limiting the copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without prior written permission of both copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

ISBN-13:

Editor/Typesetter: Carla M. Dean, U Can Mark My Word

Book Cover:

Photo of Author:

Printed in the United States of America

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I would like to give praise and thanks to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ because through him all things are possible.

I would like to acknowledge my wife, Tonya. Thank you for helping me with and supporting my dream. To my mother, Dorothy Colbert, thanks for always being there for me. To my daughters, Erin and Michaela, I love you both.

I would also like to acknowledge my aunt Joanne Martin (I love you, Auntie), my father Lonnie B. Spry, Sr., Shavon and Orren Mingo, Tyrena Spry, Timothy (Tim Dawg) Spry, Gabrielle Gabbie Sherrod. Special thanks to Truman TJ Martin, Jennifer Yella Gurl Martin, Richard Big Rick Colbert, Aunt Germaine Hubbard, Dana Hubbard, Harriet Bell, Joseph Bell & T’Wana Warrick-Bell, and Joseph Jo-Jo Warrick-Bell.

My main apple scrapples Geoffrey Adams, Darryl and Tara Jordan, Lorenzo Watson, Sherrell and Tolaundo King, Robert and Lisa Smith, Lori Kearse (We always got Carrabas), Meryl Williams, Sheila Bunn, Alexis Pate, Tere Meads, Essence Morris, Carl and Angela Cameron, Gerald Wilson, Monica and Oscar Pleasant, Jocelyn Lawson (Thank you), Naloe Ervin (Thank you), Yonder (You always know which way to guide

me in my writing career), and The Sweet Soul Sisters Book Club.

I also want to give a special shout out to my publicist, Kelli Parker www.unpluggedpublicity.com, Editor Carla M. Dean www.ucanmarkmyword.com, Sylver Logan Sharp (You have to get her album at www.sylverwear.com), Demarco Solar www.demarcosolar.com, We R One www.weronegear.com.

Lastly, for my loved ones who can’t be here to help me celebrate this accomplishment, Truman Pop Martin (You helped make me the man that I am), Altovese Martin (You left us too soon), Lillie Mae Lawson, Robert Spry, Barbara Jean Nesbitt, Robert Colbert Sr., and Wayne Bagby. I will mourn you until I join you.

To anyone I forgot charge it to my head and not to my heart. Thank you all for your support.

How Do I Go On?

Prologue

T

he day is starting off beautifully, Elbee thought.

The sun was shining brightly, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the smell of freshly-cut grass was in the air. For a Friday morning in August, it wasn’t too hot, and the breeze was just perfect. In the Washington DC Metropolitan area, it was either too hot or too cold. Very rarely was the weather just right, but today was one of those days.

It was 7:15 a.m. when Elbee hopped into his SUV headed for work. His black 1999 Yukon Denali was his most prized possession. It was customized with 20-inch chrome rims, coach leather seats, TVs in the headrests, a DVD player, and a top-of-the-line Bose stereo system. He was feeling quite light on his feet this morning as he left Tasha’s house after making love all night to the woman of his dreams.

He had been kicking it with Tasha since meeting her at his mother’s birthday cookout. She had come to the cookout with one his mother’s co-workers, and she was looking rather fine. Tasha was 5’3" tall, with a luscious brown complexion and short haircut like Anita Baker. Elbee was not a fan of short haircuts, but at first glance, she resembled Wendy Raquel Robinson, Regina Grier from the Steve Harvey Show. So, he was willing to make an exception. However, after the problems he had with his last girlfriend, Aisha, he wouldn’t have asked her out if it was not for DB pressing him.

DB, which was short for Deanté Barnes, had been Elbee’s best friend ever since they were in the seventh grade. They met when Elbee moved to Maryland from Georgia at the age of twelve years old. DB was a solid two hundred pounds and stood 6’1, but would have been 6’3 if he weren’t so bowlegged. He was brown-skinned with a head full of curly hair. The other reason they called him DB was because that was the football position he starred at when he attended Suitland High School in Forestville, Maryland, and the University of Maryland before he blew out his knee. After getting his degree in telecommunications, he married his high school sweetheart, and though he was happily married, he liked living the single life vicariously through Elbee.

Elbee was on the 95/495 beltway headed towards Rockville, Maryland, where he worked at Telecom Technologies. After only six months with the company, he had gotten promoted to Outside Plant (OSP) Engineering Manager, and DB had received the Inside Plant Engineering Manager position. He was about to have an accident because he was laughing so hard at the Russ Parr Morning Show with Olivia Foxx. They were doing one of their skits where they talked to a character named Incomplete. He was called Incomplete because he never finished his sentences. Elbee was so into the show that he didn’t notice he was almost at the office. There was very little traffic on the beltway, which was unusual because there was always bumper-to-bumper traffic going into Montgomery County. Traffic was so light that Elbee started wondering whether it was a holiday he had forgotten about.

Elbee walked into the office to find everyone laughing. He knew it had to do with him, because when everyone saw him, they laughed even harder. He asked what the joke was, and then he noticed his boy DB in the middle of everything. Elbee walked up to DB, gave him a pound, and asked what was up.

DB said, I was just telling them about the bushes incident you had about eight months ago.

Elbee started to laugh as he reminisced about the incident.

It was the middle of January and cold as ever. The weatherman said it was fifteen degrees and ten degrees below zero with the wind chill factor, but for it to be so cold it was a gorgeous night. The moon was full, and the stars were shining ever so brightly across the sky. Elbee was on a date with a young lady named Monique, who was 5’4" tall and black as the midnight sky with extremely smooth skin. She had long, straight, jet-black hair, which Elbee loved. She had a body that would make a brother scream. They met when Elbee was at the grocery store with his mother. Elbee had talked to her on the phone for about two weeks, and she constantly tried to get him to come over, but he didn’t want to see her unless it was guaranteed he was going to smash. On this particular Friday night, Elbee was bored and decided to take Monique out to eat.

So he would not be seen by any of his other women, he took her to Outback Steakhouse in Waldorf, Maryland. Elbee asked to be seated in a booth in the back of the restaurant so the lights would be dim and they could talk without any interruptions. Elbee knew he was in there when Monique said how much she liked the restaurant and that she had never been there before. To him and his boys, going there was some short shit they did for Happy Hour on a regular basis.

Noticing that Monique’s cell phone kept ringing, he told her that it was okay to answer it. Monique became quite agitated once she realized it was her son’s father trying to find out where she was and whom she was with. Elbee didn’t think anything of the conversation. He just figured the guy was like a lot of guys who didn’t want to be with their child’s mother but didn’t want them to be with anyone else, either. The evening went on without any other mishaps, so Elbee figured everything was cool.

As the date was coming to an end, Elbee and Monique were doing a lot of kissing and touching while walking to her door. When Monique went to unlock the door, her son’s father jumped out of the bushes and scared the hell out of Elbee. He had a high yellow complexion that was now beet red because he had been hiding in the bushes for hours. Monique and the guy started arguing and fussing, but Elbee was so shocked that all he could do was tell Monique to unlock the door. When Monique finally opened the door and went inside, Elbee turned and quickly headed for his car. The only thing he could think about on the way home was what if that fool was really crazy. He could have stabbed or shot him. At that moment, Elbee told himself from then on he was going to take his 9mm with him on all first dates. Monique called a couple of days later, but Elbee was not interested in anything she had to offer.

Just as everybody was getting ready to leave the office for the day, Steve, the engineering director, came into the office and asked everyone to stay. Elbee was in a hurry to get uptown to Mazza Gallery so he could hit Saks Fifth Avenue. He had the sexy little saleslady holding some Gucci loafers for him so he would have a slick pair of shoes to wear to Tyler Perry’s play Diary of a Mad Black Woman, but he found out they would have to wait. By eleven o’clock on a Friday morning that started out so beautiful, Elbee had been laid off and faced being unemployed.

As he rode home and started dialing his mother’s number on his cell, he wondered, How do I go on?

The Introduction

S

ix o’clock Monday evening, Elbee pulled up in front of Hair Palace in Temple Hills, Maryland. He turned off his engine, sat in his car, and thought about the events that had led up to this point in his life, while listening to DJ Flexx and Rane on WPGC. He always tried to catch a little of Flexx’s broadcast, which always gave him fond memories of the house parties Flexx used to deejay for them when they were in high school.

It had been eleven months since he had gotten laid-off from Telecom Technologies, and he was still unemployed. Since he was a manager in his last position, most telecommunication companies didn’t want to give him a position as a technician, which he would have loved to have. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 only made things worse, because when people started hiring for upper level positions, they wanted you to have a Top Secret security clearance, and Elbee’s had been expired for a while.

Hair Palace was owned and managed by Elbee’s cousin Shanté, who was in need of a new receptionist. She had been through two since her first one, Renee, had left to get a job in the government, saying, I need me some benefits, child. The receptionist after Renee was truly ghetto fabulous. Everyday she came to work with everything hanging out everywhere, and to make things worse, she was messing up the stylists’ appointments, which was sure to get her ass whipped. The second one she hired was always late and never answered the phones because she was running her mouth with the stylists. Finally Shanté couldn’t take it anymore. Knowing Elbee was in a financial crunch, she asked him if he would take the job until he found another one. As much as Elbee wanted to say no, he couldn’t because his savings was running out along with his unemployment benefits. If he had only started that portfolio at twenty-one like his uncle had told him, he might have been able to live off of that for a while.

A knock on the window of his SUV brought Elbee out of his trance. He looked over to see his cousin standing there smiling. Shanté was 5’2" tall, 120 pounds, brown-skinned, and extremely beautiful. She looked Black and Phillipino with an olive complexion. At twenty-nine years old, she was moving on up like the Jefferson’s. Hair Palace was her salon and the main reason Elbee was able to take the receptionist position and still be able to go on job interviews on a regular basis without any hassles.

Elbee hopped out of his SUV to speak to Shanté. Elbee stood 5’10", and at 250 pounds, he was cut up. He had a caramel brown complexion and a freshly-shaved baldhead. He was an attractive man, but it was his gift of gab that made him so appealing to most women.

Shanté greeted Elbee with a hug and said, What’s up?

Nothing much, Elbee responded. But guess what? I just lowered my cholesterol.

After Shanté told Elbee that he was stupid, she decided it was time to let him know the idea of him being the receptionist wasn’t going over too well with