The Greatest Race: A Reparations Wager

By Doc Spoon

The Greatest Race: A Reparations Wager is a near future, dystopian adventure exploring the convergence of race, DNA, climate change, world financial systems, technological advances, and a raging cannabis industry all within a society totally enraptured with gambling.&nbs

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Spruill
• Release date: Apr 15, 2024
• ISBN: 9798989473519

Doc Spoon

Dr. James E. Spruill, who writes under the pseudonym of Doc Spoon, is a technology consultant and charter school administrator with over 25 years of experience as a Superintendent, Principal/Assistant Principal, IT Consultant/Educational Technology trainer, and Technology Director/Instructor. He has a doctorate in computing technology in education and is a licensed Restorative Practices trainer. He is a proud father of four children and a veteran of the United States Army currently residing in Inkster, Michigan.

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CHAPTER ONE

THE BILDERBERG WAGER

THE BILLIONAIRES WERE face-to-face and nose-to-nose, with flushed cheeks and clenched fists. They were about to put hands on each other.

Square has not lost a race in five years! Fixon and the cognac shouted. Monroe Fixon was an African American pharmaceutical mogul who capitalized on the human genome project.

Neither has Quad! screamed Bishop and the liquor. August Bishop was a British Caucasian who made his fortune by patenting a process that economically turned salt water into fresh water.

Both men’s natural disposition was to talk rather loudly. Their usual volume only increased with sipping from some of the world’s most expensive bottles of cognac. Their numerous glasses equated to about eleven thousand dollars a glass.

I was laughing quite a bit and feeling the whole spectacle. It brought to mind the old saying, A drunk ain’t nothing, be it a hood wino, my alky uncle, or even a one percenter.

A small crowd of billionaires had surrounded them and were egging them on like elementary school kids on the playground at recess. I figured the net worth in this spot was around $250 billion. The smoke from the many cigars formed a hazy ceiling, adding to the sense of surrealism. As the only salaried person present, I took full advantage of my position and indulged in not only smoking the cigars but also partaking of the cognac.

Square has lowered his times each and every race, Fixon countered.

Bishop bellowed, So has Quad!

Why not place a bet on who will win? asked Abernathy.

I recognized this gentleman. Sebastian Abernathy was an African American urban entrepreneur from Houston, Texas. Abernathy represented the confluence of the legalization of two of America’s longest- running rivers of sin: drugs and gambling. He opened a chain of marijuana shops where people could purchase five ounces of recreational marijuana and place a five-dollar bet on the rise or fall of bitcoins daily, the Double Nickel package. Prizes ranged from $5,000 to $50,000. All you had to do was flash five twice, the Double Nickel signal, and the clerk prepared and delivered your weed with an outcry stock ticket. Abernathy’s ad campaign even reached back and used a hit 1990s rap song titled I Got Five on It. From thirty-eight-year-old grandmothers to skinny jeans-wearing millennials, Abernathy got the whole world to put five on it.

Abernathy’s recipe for his cannabis provided a more lasting effect, and he patented the genetic composition. The company Abernathy founded to handle bitcoin betting and cannabis distribution grossed over $300 million in profits in its first year. It was poised for even more explosive growth as more states legalized recreational marijuana use and financial organizations joined the bitcoin train. Investors were falling over themselves here at Bilderberg for a chance to meet him.

I would be willing to coordinate, promote, and execute this greatest race, offered Skeets excitedly.

Billy Skeets Jessups was a hustler from the streets of Oakland. Early in life, he was a standup comedian. That’s how I came to know him. Skeets and my late uncle Willie James Chambers, who went by the stage name of Uncle Ol’Boy, were playing local clubs around the country. I met him one summer at my aunt’s house in Mississippi. Skeets was poised to be the next big thing. However, Skeets walked away from it—sort of. Skeets believed it was easier to talk club owners into holding his events than to tell jokes. He became a promoter for Uncle Ol’ Boy. His offer brought to mind Uncle Ol’ Boy’s observation about Skeets.

Old hustlers never die. They just reinvent pimping.

Skeets always bragged that he could talk anyone into anything. He got his skills, honestly. He grew up in the Black Pentecostal church under the tutelage of Rev. Dr. Theodore Teddy Holloway, who was known as the Hypnotic Preacher for his ability to mesmerize his congregation. Dr. Teddy practiced the Black Pentecostal Church tradition of whooping preaching, where the pastor employs such strategies as melodious chanting with call and response to arouse emotions to a fever pitch. Skeets’ father was not around, so the married Rev. Dr. Teddy assumed the role of a father figure since he was banging Skeets’ mother—another Black church tradition. By the time he was ten years old, Skeets was traveling with Rev. Dr. Teddy, delivering sermons to standing-room only church services.

Well, well, well, if it ain’t Skeets Jessups. I greeted him with an air of feigned concern about his health, borne out of having known him most of my life. How are you doing?

No complaints, Winifred A. Chance. Ain’t seen you in a minute, not since your uncle’s homegoing, he replied, gripping me in a bear hug of familiarity.

Yeah, it has. But I knew you weren’t dead because they hadn’t had a picnic in hell.

You would know. That’s where you get your mail. Skeets was quick, always had been.

You still trying to be a journalist since you failed as a soldier? Yessir, I replied, mockingly snapping to attention while rendering a proper military salute with my right hand and the middle-finger salute with the left.

Skeets had made a killing with the advent of legalized betting in America with his IBETCHA app. However, it was Skeets’ MMA events that brought him worldwide fame. He put on outsized MMA crossover events between boxers, pro wrestlers, former NFL players, backyard fighters, and bare-knuckle brawlers. Additionally, whenever there was a hyped, super event, the betting set a record for wagers. Skeets was the promoter of most of those events. His last five multi-national events grossed a combined $11.8 billion. Skeets knew people and was successful in connecting with them. I reflected on a previous conversation about how he discovered the secret to his success.

When the Rev. Dr. Teddy died suddenly, I was about fourteen years old. I was lost and trying to find my way. I developed an interest in magic and hypnosis, which led to a rift between me and my deeply religious mother, who accused me of practicing the devil’s arts. She kicked me out. I dropped out of high school and took care of myself by doing street magic, hypnosis, and selling drugs. One day when I was slinging, I just happened to go into one of the back rooms of the trap house. We had set up a one-stop shop where people could buy their drugs and pay another five dollars to get high in one of the rooms. I was enthralled by the looks on the faces of the people who were getting high. I had seen that look before—when I was preaching, when I was doing hypnosis, and later when I was doing standup. Those looks of pain and longing, seeking release, and the total vulnerability as the release was being achieved, either through a theatrical scripture delivery, the rush of the high, or the execution of the punchline. That stuck with me. I always was curious about what if I could have saturated my connections with people in those moments. Then God gave me the internet and social media.

Gentlemen, I have been thinking about something like this for a long time. The mention of the race just clicked because I have a schema from having planned and executed other multinational competitions. It’s what I do.

Skeets was a master storyteller and had refined those innate skills as a stand-up comedian. His pre-fight stories, quasi-fictional accounts of the lives of the combatants in his MMA crossover fights, broadcast across all media platforms, became must-see events that routinely outperformed the actual fights in terms of viewership. These fabricated backstories were so thoroughly convincing that supporters of either side genuinely grew to hate each other. Actual violence was not uncommon between them. Skeets struck upon the idea to hold his pre-fight weigh-ins as TED Talks, the perfect vehicle for Skeets as he disavowed being a speaker but rather a talker to engaging in conversations. Skeets used visual shots of the off-stage combatants rumored to be interspersed with subliminal suggestions, though never proven and probably not needed. The internet and social media are the ideal propaganda delivery tools. His talks exuded hope and expectations because he took viewers on a personal journey through the important events of combatants’ lives in short, concise, focused, and universally relatable destinies ending with ah ha moments (the reveal or the punchline).

What kind of shitshow are you thinking of this time?

Chance, you better be more respectful. I knew yo’ momma and could’ve been your daddy.

Skeets stepped away from me and back into the midst of the small gathering of billionaires.

Gentlemen, I think we have a real opportunity to do something never seen before: put on a worldwide race between Quad and Square, the two greatest runners in the history of mankind. Let’s adjourn to my suite and explore options.

Fixon, Bishop, and Abernathy fell in behind Skeets, who spoke to me as he passed.

You can come too. Just don’t smoke anymore of the Ghurka Black Dragon cigars; it seems the move up from those gas station, party store, or car wash Swisher blunts you usually smoke is too much for you. Save the extra ones you have in your jacket pocket for later.

Be careful. I know yo’ daughters, and I could still be their daddy.

CHAPTER TWO

THE BILDERBERG CONSIPIRACY

WE ENTERED Skeets’s suite and were greeted by floor-to-ceiling views of the surrounding mountains and the Bow Valley. The suite’s wraparound terrace contained a hot tub and assorted chaise lounges for use even in the winter. A round dining room table was in the center of the elevated cove with a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree floor-to- ceiling view. Fixon, Bishop, and Abernathy took seats on the couches in the living room. Skeets straddled the two steps between the cove and the living room. Andrey Jafar, Skeets’s right-hand man, sat at the dining room table. I took a seat at the desk by the French doors leading to the terrace.

Skeets and I and the rest of those present were here at the 2026 Bilderberg Conference at the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel in Alberta, Canada. Started by royalty in 1954, the Bilderberg Conference was an annual invitation-only meeting of the richest, most influential thinkers, and most powerful people in the world. I was there as a free-lance science and technology writer and gained access by calling in an old debt from a friend. I was especially interested in the latest innovation in technology, specifically Abernathy’s digital cannabis patch.

Skeets asked, How can we convince ALL the countries of the world to place a planet-wide wager on The Greatest Race? And, by the way, if we are successful in launching this, we need to position and brand this event as larger than life because it will be a once-in-a-life-time, history-altering event. I think the timing is right. Polls consistently show over eighty percent of the world’s population places a bet and/or consumes some form of cannabis daily. We have to move extremely fast to sell this event to affect a binding decision before people rationally reflect on it. The world has a short attention span thanks to social media.

What does each country value the most? Fixon yelled, Autonomy.

Tradition and culture, countered Bishop.

Jafar added, Identity, sovereignty, freedom—you know, the givens.

Skeets nodded. Come on, gentlemen. Let’s be for real. We all know the obvious answer is money. How can we monetize this event globally?

With genius insight, Abernathy added, What about the GDP, the Gross Domestic Product?

At that suggestion, Skeets’ face and eyes lit up. Damn, Abernathy! he exclaimed. That’s it.

What if the losing countries had to pay a certain percentage of their GDP to the winning countries in order to significantly raise the winning countries’ Gross National Product, per capita, for two years? Bishop blurted out, along with some flying spittle, You mean, specifically, the Gross National Income. The GNI is the metric the World Bank uses to measure countries’ wealth because it includes economic development aid and foreign investments. It is the perfect vehicle for payments. That would mean the average citizen could potentially see their annual income increase five to ten times current amounts.

My God, Fixon stammered, that would be huge in any country but especially in poor countries like Tajikistan, Burkina Faso, Burundi, and Haiti, where the annual income is less than $1000.

That would be huge even in industrialized countries with high annual incomes, Skeets reasoned, as that would mean more disposable income for spending, investing, and betting, of course.

There already exists a structure for distribution of the funds via the World Bank and the IMF, Jafar said, referring to the International Monetary Fund sharing his knowledge of world finance.

Damn, Bishop gushed. It is beautiful in its simplicity!

Skeets continued. How will nations be able to collectively self- determine who they want to back, not necessarily based upon race but on who they think would win?

Wait a minute, Bishop said., You mean to tell me that for The Greatest Race, a race between a black man and a white man, race would be secondary?

Race can be secondary to money. At one point or another, every- thing has been secondary to money. Religion. Governments. Health. Sex. Education. Environment. Family. You fill in the blank, Skeets said with a side-eye and smirk. We want to sell this thing as a way for people to, in effect, place a bet that would allow them to potentially win a two-year lottery. The Greatest Race is an intentional double entendre. The majority would probably take The Greatest Race as a competition between white people and people of color, given the participants. That is the emotional hook that will get people to act on what they believe is their own self-image. That is purposeful.

Jafar added, The definition of race is so fluid. It is more of a social construct than a scientific one.

Exactly, said Skeets. Race is mostly based upon how people see themselves. If there is a chance to be on the winning team by conveniently claiming a certain racial heritage, people would absolutely do that. People bet and vote on their feelings and beliefs—their gut, not their conscience. The Greatest Race will give people a chance to vote or bet on their champion or who they perceive to be THEIR CHAMPION.

Okay, Jafra added, you may be on to something. When you look at the survey data from the last four years concerning the chance of either runner EVER losing a race, you will see almost 95 percent of the respondents, especially black and white, believe, barring injury, it is virtually impossible. Those opinions are shared by all races and nationalities.

Fixon said. With race being the determinant, it begs the question, why not use DNA?

Skeets nodded in agreement. I thought about that when I envisioned pitting these runners in a head-to-head competition. DNA use could lead to some very strange bedfellows indeed.

I could not believe what I was hearing. I thought of the rumors about Bilderberg. Because it was so secretive, conspiracy theorists postulated it was really an annual meeting of the Illuminati—that evil, secretive society that had been manipulating world events for its benefit since the 1700s.

One of the founding members of the Bilderberg group did little to dispel that theory when he stated, A one-world government is exaggerated but not wholly unfair. We felt we could not go on killing people and rendering millions homeless. So, we felt a single community throughout the world would be a good thing.

Conspiracy theorists argued that such obvious statements of intent were purposely done so as to cast doubt on the existence of the Illuminati because they would never make their motives and intentions so obvious. Or would they?

Yet, I was here, the poorest or most common person in the room, being privy to one of the conversations that had probably been held in countless one-percent gatherings, where they decided the direction of the world for their fancy. I decided to try and tamp down their runaway speculations and expectations.

How do you get the backing of politicians, bankers, finance ministers, CEOs, venture capitalists, etcetera that would be needed to even start to advance this insane bet?

We have them all right there at Bilderberg, Skeets replied. And I have an idea to get them all in the same room at the same time?

And how’s that? Bishop asked. The annual focus meeting.

The annual focus meeting was where the Bilderberg attendees and participants gathered and agreed to act in unison on some issue facing the world’s population. In the past, there have been concerted efforts to address religious-inspired violence, AIDS, food security, freshwater access, crypto-currency, right-wing nationalism, and immigration. This year, the focus was on climate change for the second time. The United States and the oil-producing countries stifled the implementation of more stringent guidelines for limiting carbon emissions at the 2018 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It was done despite mounting evidence of climate change’s damaging environmental effects.

How will you get to address the meeting? Having covered Bilderberg previously, I know the agenda had been set for over a year, I pointed out.

Nothing is ever really written in stone. I am sure of a last-minute cancellation; there is always some at these types of events. Skeets spoke assuredly. Are you with me?

Fixon and Bishop nodded in agreement; they said they were curious to see if he could pull it off.

Skeets requested the group take a dinner break and assured them he would know whether he would be able to address the focus meeting by the conclusion of dinner. Jafar ordered dinner and quickly exited the suite.

Skeets opened the suite’s French doors and stepped out onto the terrace. I followed him. The sweeping vista was breathtaking. The panoramic view of the wind blowing snow off the mountaintops above and the Bow River gently rolling its way down and across the valley below was a cause for wonder and reflection.

I paused and studied Skeets for a moment from behind. Skeets did look a lot slimmer. At my Uncle Ol’ Boy’s homegoing two years before Skeets told me he was going vegan, All the extra weight was bad on his knees and back. It looked like he’d done it. At six foot two and two hundred and thirty pounds, he was one of the fittest sixty-two-year- olds around. Skeets had decided to forego the Bozo the Clown hair- style, with the ring of hair around the back and sides and bald on top. He shaved completely bald. With an extremely bushy mustache, Skeets now had more hair under his nose and above his lips than on his head. I had mostly stayed the same since my uncle’s homegoing, but I had stopped growing at six feet and added a few pounds—up to 225 pounds—but I could still fit my old Army uniforms, six years after my honorable discharge. I run at least three times a week, so I was still fly and more fit than most sedentary, twenty-eight-year-old, single fathers. One noticeable change was my thinning hair and receding hairline, which revealed the contrast between the ruddy complexion of my face and the lighter areas where hair used to grow.

I got my ruddy complexion from my father. People said his great- grandmother was a Cherokee Indian. I also inherited his keen features. My face was all angles—high cheekbones, sharp noses, closely set slits for eyes, thin slivers of flesh for lips, and a chin that could chisel stone. I didn’t inherit his hair gene. Every time I saw Mr. Alex Planter, his wavy, grey hair was pulled into a ponytail. Everyone knew Mr. Planter. He was the neighborhood handyman. Mr. Planter lived around the corner from us for all our lives. I didn’t find out he was our father until my brother was killed.

Skeets appeared to have a somewhat far-away look in his eyes. He placed both hands on the rail and slowly scanned the surroundings as if he were surveying his kingdom. Skeets’ speaking seemed to be more thinking out loud than really asking.

Do you realize the opportunity to promote The Greatest Race presents me? It gives me a chance to engage in a worldwide conversation and sell the earth’s population a year-long escape from reality and the dream of almost unimaginable wealth for many.

Skeets often repeated a coarse boast.

I could talk a thirty-five-year-old fag into buying a sixty-five-year- old piece of pussy.

The gift of being able to talk anyone into anything was how he got his nickname from my late uncle and fellow comedian, Uncle Ol’ Boy. Uncle Ol’Boy told me that he and Skeets were on the road doing some shows, and at the time, Skeets had three different women in three different states pregnant at the same time. Skeets already had two kids with two different women.

Uncle Ol’ Boy said he told Skeets.

You better strap one on and stop'skeeting' in all dese womens you talk out dair clothes. Matta uh fack, dat’s whut I’ma call you from now on. Skeets.

The nickname stuck, and Skeets did stop—permanently. He went and got snipped.

You believe promoting this race puts you in a position to ‘talk’ to the entire population on the planet? Why you?

I ain’t new to this. I’m used to this. I started to visualize the logistics, the marketing, and the profits like so many of the other multi- national events I had put on before, but never at this scale. My creative juices are just overflowing at the challenge. My success has been based on my strong belief that everyone in the world is in some sort of pain or bored and wants an escape. I have made a rather nice living acting on that belief. Not a perfect world, you know.

"Wow. You discovered we live in a fallen world. What a revelation.

So, you are going to make the entire world feel good?" I dryly asked.

Skeets turned and removed his hands from the rail, grabbed my shoulders, leaned in at eye level, and stated definitively, Yes, because I can.

We stepped back inside the suite. Skeets called Jafar to see what was holding up dinner and was told it was on the way.

Chance, why don’t you entertain us with a story about your country-ass family? Skeets asked in words but demanded in tone. It was his passive-aggressive way of checking me or putting me back in my perceived place.

Tell them the story about how that damn dog of your aunt’s got his name.

Skeets was an alpha. He only asserted his dominance when he felt threatened. So, every time he tried to belittle me, he only confirmed his own self-doubts about his superiority. Skeets made it a point to tell anyone who was listening that me, my late Uncle Ol’ Boy, and the rest of our family were the countryest people he’d ever seen. But I didn’t mind telling the story because I thought it was funny as hell too.

Every summer, my mother, like a lot of black northern mothers, sent me from Detroit down south for the summer. It was done partly to keep kids in touch with their southern heritage but mostly for their safety. Parents did not want their children spending idle summers in the unsafe city but rather in the slower-paced and safer south—the horrific civil rights murders notwithstanding. Over time, the fear of southern Klansmen was replaced by the fear of Bloods and Crips. After my brother’s murder, I was off to my aunt’s house in Greenwood, Mississippi.

Well, one summer, I explained, this dog just showed up under the church bench on my aunt’s front porch. He was a white, mongrel mutt mix between an American bulldog and a lab and stood about two feet tall.

Tell them about how you country folk name stuff, Skeets interjected. Tell them about your colored cousins.

I sighed and continued. Anyway, Black folks in the south will give you a nickname for a physical feature to identify something or some- one. I had two cousins. One was named Red Bruh, who had red hair and freckles. The other was Black Bruh, whose skin was as dark as deep space. And sometimes they would just use the pronunciation of a word to differentiate. It took all of my adolescent years to realize that my Aunt Soo and my Aint Suh were two different people.

Get to the dog. Skeets agitated as if he wanted to tell the story: That dog hated me, and I hated him. I tried to avoid him every time I went down there.

My Aunt Lenora started feeding the dog, so he hung around like people and dogs do. Eventually, he became her dog and was very protective of her. Anybody that came around that the dog didn’t think was right, he would bark, growl, and nip at them. You know they say dogs and babies can detect character. It didn’t matter—Black or white, young or old, or anybody. Well, it must have been a whole lot of un- right folk around because it became a common refrain throughout the neighborhood to hear people at the front of the house frantically yelling, ‘Miss Lenora, git yo’ dog—to which my Aunt Lenora would loudly reply from the kitchen in the rear of the house, running all the words together, ‘Didhebite?’ and the dog would come a-running. So that became his name. Diddybite.

Now, Skeets asked, triumphantly doubling over in laughter, ain’t that the countryest shit you ever heard? The others present followed his lead with animated laughter of their own.

There was a knock on the door, signaling dinner had arrived. The hotel’s restaurant staff, escorted by the chef himself, brought in dinner.

Soon after dinner was served, Jafar returned, and he and Skeets excused themselves to the bedroom and closed the door.

I was hoping to get an interview with Abernathy, and fate seemed to have obliged. There was talk of an investigation into Abernathy’s cannabis products. I wanted to write a story on Abernathy’s cannabis patches and their popularity, which I knew I could sell.

Excuse me, gentlemen. My name is Winifred A. Chance, and I am a free-lance science and technology reporter.

Nice to meet you, Mr. Chance, Abernathy replied.

Fixon loudly responded, I know your work, Mr. Chance. Glad to meet you face-to-face.

As am I. I was surprised at your insight on just what my desalination process would mean for increasing the world’s fresh water supply, Bishop said in a voice as loud as Fixon’s, and grateful. After your article came out, my company’s stock prices tripled in value.

You’re welcome, I replied smugly. Mr. Abernathy, I am here to cover your cannabis products. So can I ask you a few questions?

Good to see you again. Sure. I’ll be happy to share. I have no secrets. I am rather proud of the success.

Why have your products become more popular than many of your competitors?