Promises I Must Keep: Maintaining My Family's Legacy

By Jay Thomas Willis

The author has written fifteen short stories that come straight from his cerebral-conscious and -subconscious mind. Each story contains approximately 2,500 words. These stories are easy reading, original, and guaranteed to entertain. They are congruent, sensible, and logical. They are fresh, entertaining, and creative; also succint, down to earth, and will force one to engage his or her imagination. The stories mimic some of the author's experiences, but are completely fictional, and in no way represent reality.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669841456

Jay Thomas Willis

Jay Thomas Willis graduated from Stephen F. Austin State University with a B.S. degree in sociology. He also graduated from Texas Southern University with a M.Ed. in counseling, in addition to receiving a MSW in social work from the University of Houston. Willis has held numerous social work positions.

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Copyright © 2022 by Jay Thomas Willis.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 08/04/2022

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

845617

ALSO BY JAY THOMAS WILLIS

Nonfiction

A Penny for Your Thoughts: Insights, Perceptions, and Reflections on the African American Condition

Implications for Effective Psychotherapy with African Americans

Freeing the African-American’s Mind

God or Barbarian: The Myth of a Messiah Who Will Return to Liberate Us

Finding Your Own African-Centered Rhythm

When the Village Idiot Get Started

Nowhere to Run or Hide

Why Black Americans Behave as They Do: The Conditioning Process from Generation to Generation

God, or Balance in the Universe

Over the Celestial Wireless

Paranoid but not Stupid

Nothing but a Man

Things I Never Said

Word to the Wise

Born to be Destroyed: How My Upbringing Almost Destroyed Me

Nobody but You and Me: God and Our Existence in the Universe

Got My Own Song to Sing: Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome in My family

Random Thoughts on My Reality

A Word to My Son: A Celebration

Messed-Up Kid

Off-the-Top Treasures

Going with the Flow

Man’s Basic Purpose

God Told Me to Tell You

My Life and Times: Some Personal Essays

Life’s Lessons: Some Passing Thoughts

Why I Write: Notes Straight from the Hip

Just Jazzing: Thoughts from the Depth of My Soul

Fiction

No Worldly Options Except Suicide or Schizophrenia: But God Has His Own Plans

You Can’t Get There from Here

Where the Pig Trail Meets the Dirt Road

The Devil in Angelica

As Soon as the Weather Breaks

The Cotton is High

Hard Luck

Educated Misunderstanding

Dream On: Persistent Themes in My Dreams

Longing for Home and Other Short Stories

Poetry

Reflections on My Life: You’re Gonna Carry That Weight a Long Time

It’s a Good Day to Die: Some Personal Poetry About the Ups and Downs in My Life

CONTENTS

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Preface

1 Ticket Trap and Earlier and Later Reminiscence

2 The Worthwhile Sacrifice

3 The Casino Visit

4 Fighting for the Big-Time Supervisor’s Role

5 Promises I Must Keep: Maintaining My Family’s Legacy

6 A Graduation Surprise

7 Searching for a Ghost: The Old Grey Mare Ain’t What She Used to Be

8 A Dream Date for a Recluse

9 Purebred and the Beast

10 Prejudice and Bigoted, and a Follower of Jesus Christ: What Do You Believe In

11 The Unexpected Bridegroom

12 The Girl from Around-the-Way

13 Brick House

14 Some and Others say

15 A Girl in the Neighborhood

About the Author

DEDICATION

To my father, Johnnie Willis and the rest of my family members.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to all my teachers, my family members, and the educational system, for teaching me more than I realized. Some of this teaching was due to omission and some by commission.

Thank God for giving me a fully capable and engaged imagination.

PREFACE

In these fifteen short stories the author writes about fictional aspects of his life in East Texas, in college, the military, on the Gulf Coast, and later in a South Suburb of Chicago. Each of these stories are approximately 2,500 words.

These stories come from the author’s own cerebral processes and are not imitations of stories found elsewhere in the literature. They are not what someone else told him but are completely raw products. Some of his experiences are represented in these stories, but they are completely fictionalized.

The stories are fresh, entertaining, and creative. They came from the recesses of his conscious and subconscious mind. The stories are succinct, down to earth, and will force one to engage the powers of his or her imagination. The stories are also congruent, sensible, and logical. The stories are fictional but are full of realistic possibilities.

The stories will get your cerebral fluids flowing. The author is happy to say that he enjoyed writing these stories, and you will enjoy reading them.

The author’s sister Erma Jean read several of his books. She suggested that he write about the way he would have wanted things to be, rather than writing about how things were. He didn’t think much about the suggestion at the time but later considered that it might be a good idea. So, some of these stories are about what the author would have wanted his situation to be. Some of these stories are just the opposite. Of course, some of them mimic conditions that he experienced.

Ideas for these stories simply came to him out-of-the-blue, but he framed them toward the perspective that he desired. He conceived them while going about his daily activities. They are great-family oriented stories. You won’t get such stories anywhere else.

The author is seventy-five-years old and have had many experiences. These stories are fictionalized accounts of his experience.

A great read for anyone interested in original stories combined with an African American male’s experience.

1

Ticket Trap and Earlier and Later Reminiscence

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My wife and I had lived in a South Suburb of Chicago for almost fifty-five years. We moved to Matteson soon after I graduated from the University of Houston’s School of Social Work. I didn’t have close family in Houston or nearby. My family and I had never been close. So, I wanted to get away from the area. I wanted to get as far away from East Texas as I could possibly get. The heat, climate, nor family and social situation in general agreed with me.

I had been thinking about giving up driving for a few years, but it was always convenient to just get in the car and go where I wanted to go without being dependent on someone. I had a vague feeling that my perception was not clear: my sight was cloudy, my hearing wasn’t what it used to be, my judgment was hazy, and my reaction time wasn’t as good as I would like for it to have been. We had a nice four bedroom, two and a half bathroom, brick house in a pleasant area of Matteson called Butterfield Place. We bought the house soon after we moved to Chicago in 1976. We also had a 2027 Hyundai Genesis and a 2030 Jeep Wrangler. The area had some good schools and good shopping—part of what attracted us to the area. We generally liked the area. Otherwise, we probably would have gone to a retirement home. I had several successive experiences where everyone involved knew it was time for me to give up driving.

It was a cold, windy, icy night in October. I left the house headed to my usual destination: the casino.

Before I left my wife had told me, Don’t go to that casino the weather is bad, she looked stern and determined to keep me from going.

I’ll be all right. I said, determined to go.

You will get enough of going to the casino late at night in bad weather.

It was not only the weather to be concerned about, but we both had heard about people occasionally getting robbed at various casinos, not to mention the other vices that sometimes go on there.

There wasn’t much for me to do. Most of my friends had long since passed away. I couldn’t dance any more, and when I tried to dance my feet would swell as big as a melon. I was a little too old to hang out in clubs and drink. The only activity I could think to engage in was to go to the casino and go for rides in my car. Most of the time I reminisced about the old days while driving.

One day my wife said, You’re going to get in trouble going to the casino late at night.

My wife didn’t care for going to the casino. She saw it as a losing proposition. She didn’t care for losing money she had worked hard all her life to obtain. At one time she enjoyed going to the casino, but the slots seemed to get tighter and tighter. "The house always wins," she would say.

It’s as safe as anywhere else, I said.

The freaks and roustabouts come out late at night. In addition, all you’re going to do is lose your money.

Such types are always out these days, and everything in life involves taking a chance. You can’t make progress unless you are willing to take a chance. In any case, it’s hard to tell a roustabout from an ordinary hard-working citizen.

One day you’re going to find out what I say is true.

You’re getting a little senile in your old age, I said.

Realizing that both of us had already gotten senile, and we had earned that right to be senile.

And so are you, she said, all I can say is take care if you must get out at ungodly hours of the night.

I’ll be careful, don’t worry.

I left the house anyway and pulled into the street with the car slipping and sliding on the black ice. But I had to somehow get to the casino. I’m afraid I had developed somewhat of an addiction. I drove for about five miles. I was on I-80 headed toward Joliet. The rain started pounding on the car, the wind was howling, and the streets were getting more slippery. Suddenly, the rain came down harder, and the wind started blowing even more fierce. I couldn’t see where I was going, and I felt like someone had taken control of my car. Suddenly, all I could do was to hit my brakes in a panic. The car went into a ditch and was prevented from going into a field by an embankment. Luckily, I was not hurt.

It took a while for the State Trooper to get there. He asked me, What happened?

The wind, rain, and ice were in such a combination that I lost control of the car and hit my brakes. The car skidded and went off the road, I told him.

I’m giving you a ticket for going too fast for the weather conditions, he said, and it sounds like a problem with your judgment.

How old are you? he asked.

I’m seventy-nine-years old, I told him.

Nothing else was said. The tow truck came and picked up the car. The tow-truck driver said something about the A-Frame being bent. He gave me a ride to my residence. I was lucky there were no other cars close by at the time of the accident. The situation could have been disastrous. When I got home my wife reiterated, I told you that you needed to quit going out at night and to quit driving.

Later that month, I had a few drinks too many at the casino. I usually didn’t drink at the casino. After being diagnosed with prostate problems, I figured drinking was not good for me anymore. I knew how beer went straight from my mouth to the urinal. I ended up somehow lost on one of the backroads in Joliet. I found myself in an area that I wasn’t familiar with. I couldn’t remember how I got there, how long I had been driving, and must have blacked out for a while. I kept driving until I ran into familiar streets. I almost panicked. This should have been enough to curtail my driving activities, but driving was in my blood, and it would take a lot for me to give it up.

I noticed my reaction time was getting slower. It took me a while to decide to put on the breaks. Sometimes almost hitting the car in front of me while going