Promised Land

By Brenda Hampton and Nikki Michelle

Written by Brenda Hampton and Nikki Michelle. One question. What would you do, if you woke up one day and life as you’ve known it changed forever? For Aubrey Evans and Melody Daniels, along with their families, that day has now arrived. Their lives will never be the same, and after believing that silence is golden as it pertains to the biggest sins of America, they will be forced to confront White Supremacy head on and fight for what they once relished as FREEDOM.

Succumbing to hatred and bigotry is not an option for Malcolm Garvey. He’s an activist who has intensely studied the Promised Land; a land that was created by The Masters who are determined to take their country back. By any means necessary they plan to do it, but will the strength of black men and women, along with their efforts to unite, be enough to put an end to the gut-wrenching madness they all endure in the name of hate? No one could’ve predicated it would come to this, not even in their wildest dreams. But when reality kicks in and the truths behind the Promised Land are revealed, the shock will be felt across America. Next question. Will it shock you?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brenda Hampton
• Release date: Mar 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370829668

Brenda Hampton

Brenda Hampton has written more than twenty novels. Her name has graced the Essence magazine bestsellers list, and she was named a favorite female fiction writer in Upscale magazine. Her mystery novel The Dirty Truth was nominated for an African American Literary Award. Visit her online at BrendaMHampton.com.

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Promised Land

Promised Land

Brenda Hampton

Nikki Michelle

Singleton Press

BRENDA HAMPTON ENTERTAINMENT

PUBLISHED BY

Singleton Press/Brenda Hampton Entertainment

P.O. Box 773

Bridgeton, MO 63044

Promised Land

Copyright © 2018 Brenda Hampton and Nikki Michelle

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior consent of the Publisher, except brief quotes used in reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

This is a work of fiction. Any references or similarities to actual events, real people, living or dead, or to real locales are intended to give the novel a sense of reality. Any similarity in other names, characters, places, and incidents is entirely coincidental.

ISBN 10: 1982054530

ISBN 13: 978-1982054533

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land.

—Dr. Martin Luther King

April 3, 1968

Dr. King never could have envisioned that the

Promised Land would resort to this . . .

Chapter One

The Story of Aubrey Evans

February 1, 2017

America. Land of the free, home of the brave. I guess that applied to some of us, but with all that had been transpiring lately, America wasn’t living up to its purpose. There were too many black men and women being killed by law enforcement, hate crimes on the rise, millions of people out of work, and cowardly acts of hatred were being played out all across the country. I could barely stand to watch the news anymore. It had become sickening to watch; therefore, I opted to tune in to some of my favorite reality TV shows and left it at that.

I simply didn’t understand how or why so many people got involved in politics. From what I knew, this country was run by white men in power. They called the shots, and with African Americans only accounting for 12% of the population, what difference could we really make? That was one of the many reasons why I was a registered voter, but I refused to vote. I wasn’t convinced my vote actually counted. Nor was I convinced, as an African American woman, my vote could make a real difference in this crazy country that needed some serious healing. More than anything, I had my own problems to deal with. Life hadn’t been kind to me or my family. We’d been going through hell over here, and no matter who the president was, my life could be summed up, at best, as shitty.

There was a time when life felt good. Not great, but decent. A time when I was married to a man whom I thought was my soulmate; he probably viewed me as the same. We had a solid family, especially when our twin boys, Drake and Demonte, were born. Our daughter, Sasha Marie, came two years later. Sad to say, a few years after our children came into this world, many problems started to arise.

My husband, Brian, lost his job at an automotive plant he’d worked at for nearly ten years. He refused to work anywhere else to help us stay on our feet, so unemployment was his only solution. We were left scrambling to pay the bills, and when my job laid me off, the bottom fell out from underneath us. We had to move from our two-story house on the Southside of St. Louis and resort to a two-bedroom bungalow in St. Charles County. The boys’ room was in the basement, the two other rooms were on the main level. One bathroom didn’t cut it, and the whole place was congested with furniture I refused to get rid of. That was because I had high hopes Brian and I would get back on our feet and one day move into a house bigger than the one we’d had before. My dreams, however, were quickly shattered. Brian and I got a divorce—he went his way and I went mine. The kids had a difficult time adjusting to the change, and with Brian barely around anymore, raising the kids was pretty much left up to me. I could only do so much, especially after the boys turned fourteen. Things started to spiral out of control. Drake was arrested for shoplifting and assaulting a security guard. They were always somewhere gangbanging and our house had been vandalized twice. Demonte had been arrested for setting fire to a neighbor’s house, but without any evidence, they released him. He claimed that he didn’t do it, and the truth was, I didn’t know what to believe. Black kids were always being accused of being unruly or out of control. And even though I wanted to believe Demonte, there was a tiny part inside of me that couldn’t.

I sat at my desk in my home office, thinking about all of this while trying to focus and listen to a lady on the other end of the phone. Unfortunately, she had problems too.

The accident wasn’t even my fault, she cried. That fool, Mr. Jacobs, was speeding. He purposely crashed into my car because I ignored him. I couldn’t believe the foul names he called me, and when he yelled out of his window and called me a nigger, I tried to get away from him. I didn’t want no trouble, but that bastard kept following me.

I felt bad about the incident, but what did she expect me to do? All I was supposed to do was schedule an appointment with her so I could inspect the damages to her car. According to the full accident report I’d had in front of me, she’d done more than try to get away from him. But who was I to judge?

Calm down, Miss Loyd. Just be sure to explain all of that to your attorney, okay?

I did. I can guarantee you Mr. Jacobs will pay for fucking up my car, whether he likes it or not. And you need to get over here soon to look at it. I don’t have any transportation, and to be honest, this insurance company I have ain’t worth a damn!

Her nasty attitude didn’t prompt me to move any faster. As a matter of fact, I told her my availability wouldn’t be until next week.

Next week, she shouted. Bitch please. I’m calling my lawyer.

She hung up on me—it was something I’d gotten use to as an insurance adjuster. I released a deep sigh, reached for a lit cigarette that was already in an ashtray, and started thinking about my children again. My boys were now eighteen. They were expected to graduate this year, but Demonte sold liquor to students at school and had gotten expelled. My hands were tied on this last incident, and no one knew how disappointed I was in my son for not being able to graduate. I’d been speaking to him about getting his GED, but he seemed disinterested. I couldn’t force him to do what he didn’t want to, and day by day, I could see many good opportunities in his life slipping away from him. I feared for my sons. Feared that, one day, they wouldn’t return home. Feared that I would get a call from someone at the morgue, asking me to come identify my children’s bodies. I didn’t know what kind of shenanigans they’d gotten into when they left home, and after all the punishments and spankings I gave, none of it mattered. Brian tried to put his foot down, but it was too late. He wasn’t here on a regular basis like I was. He was free to come and go as he pleased, and you’d better believe that with all that was going on, he purposely stayed away so he didn’t have to deal with our problems.

The sad thing was, after I divorced Brian, he started dating a woman in my neighborhood. She was a white woman who lived on the next block. Normally, I wouldn’t trip off who Brian dated, but this particular one cut me like a knife. Why? Because she had recently had his daughter and he spent more time at her place than he did with our kids. It was a slap in all of our faces, especially to the kids who let him have it one day. I didn’t have to say one word. All he did was offer a fake apology for his actions, but no one really accepted it. From what I could sense, the kids were at a point where they hated him. I couldn’t blame them one bit; I despised him too.

In addition to Brian carrying on a relationship with Miss Jessica, Sasha had been going through it as well. She was eight months pregnant, and at sixteen years old, I didn’t know what in the hell she was thinking. I had enough on my plate already. When she told me about the baby, I could have died. The father of her baby denied his status, and that made Sasha more miserable. She kept mentioning suicide as her only option, but after several long talks between us, she was convinced that, no matter what, she had to keep it moving.

As for me, there were times when I wanted to pack up my belongings and leave. Nobody on earth understood my pain but me. This was too much for one woman to handle. I wasn’t made of steel, and I regretted that black women always had this reputation for being so strong and able to deal with anything that came our way. That was true to some extent, but having a reputation for being strong wasn’t going to get me through all the madness I’d been dealing with. I stayed in prayer, but I guess God had been ignoring me these days. Maybe, because, America had problems that were much bigger than mine, and my issues weren’t His priority. Yes, I had lost faith in everything and everyone, yet I was so close to reaching my breaking point. Who in the hell could blame me, after being faced with all of this?

On the flipside of my madness, at least, I had a job where I could work from home. My office/bedroom was a mess though. I didn’t have time to clean up much, and it was like pulling teeth out around here to get the kids to do chores. Every time I asked any of them to do one single thing an argument ensued. The grass was high, trashcans stayed at the curb days after the trash had been picked up. And what I considered roaming trash was strewn throughout the yard. Unfortunately, we had the worst-looking house on the block, thanks to my lazy-ass sons who thought yardwork was beneath them. When things got too bad, I had to pay someone to tend to the yard and cut the grass.

I took one last drag from the cigarette, before smashing it in an ashtray next to me. My room felt stuffy, so I got up from the chair in front of my desk, making my way to the window and opening it. I moved the curtain aside, feeling irritated while looking at our trashcan blowing in the street. A driver swerved his car around it to avoid damaging it. I witnessed him shake his head, then he pulled over to converse with another neighbor who was walking her dog.

What a mess, I heard the man say to the woman. Her eyes examined our yard and she shook her head too.

It is a mess. Our property value is going to go down because of this. I wish they would clean up and take better care of their property. With so many people living there, this should not be.

They continued to talk, but I was so embarrassed that I closed the window. I guess I’d have to take another fifteen-minute break to go outside and get the trashcan. There was no telling where Demonte was, but with rap music thumping loudly from the basement, I figured he was downstairs. Drake hadn’t made it home from school yet, and I predicted that I would find Sasha in her favorite spot on the couch. The place where she often sat had a sunken cushion that fit her butt like a glove. She sat there all day, complaining about getting fat and messing with her cell phone. I was highly upset with her, but I stopped griping because I didn’t want to make her life more hectic than it already was. Her doctor even said she was stressed, but I guess my stress didn’t matter.

I left the bedroom with a twisted face, displaying anger. As expected, Sasha was chilling on the couch with her cell phone grasped in her hand, eyes glued to it. When I called her name, she didn’t even hear me. The next time I yelled her name, her head snapped up.

What? she said, frowning as if I had interrupted something important.

Where is your brother at? Have you seen him?

He’s probably still downstairs sleep. You know he don’t get up until one or two in the afternoon.

That’s because he stay up too late. He needs to go outside and get our trashcan that’s in the middle of the street. I was going to get it, but I get tired of doing everything around here. That would include those dishes over there, Sasha. They’ve been sitting in the sink for three days now. You said you were going to wash them.

She had the audacity to roll her eyes. I am, Mama, dang. I was going to wash them today, so stop fussing.

My eyes narrowed to slits as I looked at her. I had to count to three, before I unleashed some hurtful words that promised to deliver tears.

Sasha, don’t concern yourself with how much I fuss around here. Just get those dishes done, now, and put that phone down!

Can I do them after I get done with one more chapter in this book? I’m almost done reading. That’s what I’ve been doing on my phone, since you won’t buy me a Kindle.

I guess reading never hurt anybody, so I agreed to let Sasha do the dishes after she finished reading. As I moved toward the basement door to wake up Demonte, Sasha struggled to get off the couch and approach me. I couldn’t believe how hefty my baby girl had gotten—the pregnancy hadn’t been good to her. She went from being one-hundred-and-thirty pounds to well over two hundred. Her nose had spread real wide, as well as her hips. Her long, thick hair was in a ponytail, and her caramel-colored skin, like mine, was often dry and ashy.

Look, she said, extending her phone to me so I could see it. Look at how ugly she is.

I squinted to look at the image on her phone. Whoever the girl was, she looked okay to me.

Who is she? I asked.

My baby daddy’s new girlfriend. I can’t stand her. All she does is post pictures of the two of them on Instagram, just so I can see them.

I released a deep sigh, before rolling my eyes. "Sasha, stop