Day 860: 5 Minute Freewrite CONTINUATION: Thursday - Prompt: barn door

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Mildred York called her bosom friend Selene Slocum-Lofton Saturday afternoon, but had trouble holding onto the receiver of the phone … .

“Mildred! Mildred! I can't understand a word you are saying – stop giggling and call me back!”

“Wait, Selene – just wait – ha ha ha ha ha ha – hang on to the phone until – ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha – I get myself together – you would never believe – he he he he he he he he – what your interested neighbor just did at the Southern Senior Investors Luncheon!”

Whereupon – between bursts of laughter – Mrs. York proceeded to tell her friend how John Worley had told off their peers, turned over a table, and “bolted like an old stallion ready for new adventures through an open barn door!”

“Well, it's about time somebody did it!” Mrs. Slocum-Lofton said. “And I don't think it's a laughing matter, either – you see I'm not over there today! All these really old 'good old boys,' stifling regional progress for their little peccadilloes about days gone by already before they were born! I tell you, Mildred, I think sometimes that some of these people would trade a billion dollars or more just to be called Marse [antebellum Virginian for “massa” or master] So-and-So by some dark-skinned folks – but since they don't have sense enough to make a billion dollars to trade for it, they keep giving away our billion in opportunities for it! It's about time somebody turned the tables on them!”

“Well, you know, Selene, a man can sometimes find a new love so inspiring he breaks out of old habits!”

“Mildred, if you do not stop that nonsense immediately!”

But Mrs. York was laughing hysterically and paying absolutely no attention to Mrs. Slocum-Lofton's displeasure.

Mrs. Slocum-Lofton just put her smartphone down and started thinking as her friend laughed on … the joke was actually on a lot of people. Mr. Worley was making a disruptive move. His frustration was likely real, but he also knew the power of making so terrible a scene after the people in question had been so rattled by the police coming out in force against Perseus Slocum and his fellow criminal conspirators the previous day. Whole bunches of people would be in disarray come Monday … meaning those who were not bothered could clean up on available opportunities.

“Mildred, you enjoy your laughing. I need my phone clear. I'm not yet back at the house [they had shared a home on Jonathan Lofton Avenue since the Ridgeline Fire], so you get it all out of your system before I get there and let me get some calls done.”

Ah, yes … first of all, the branch of the Slocum family that had spawned Perseus was in complete disarray, especially since the Big Loft police department had turned the case over to the FBI. The FBI was of course a different kind of animal … once they got hold to you, no telling what they might find … and of course, Mrs. Slocum-Lofton's grandson, Captain H.F. Lee of the Big Loft police force, had served up Perseus Slocum and his ilk with all his famous Lee meticulousness, so they were about to be in all evil and not paying attention to their businesses and investment portfolios...

Mrs. Selene Slocum-Lofton's neighbors … generally in disarray since the Ridgeline Fire, understandably, but losing ground every day since because of complaining instead of getting positioned to invest in all the infrastructure rebuilding that needed to happen to make their neighborhoods habitable again, getting positioned to invest in all the modern improvements that people of the millionaire and billionaire class would expect in going into a new decade.

It mattered not why her neighbors were complaining … how could things like this happen to people like them … how come their Black and Latino servants needed to be counted … how come the mayor and the city were doing as much if not more for the Black and Latino family members than for them … blah, blah, blah … meanwhile, Mrs. Slocum-Lofton was investing everywhere money was about to be spent to rebuild structures and infrastructure, from inside Lofton County all the way to China!

Mrs. Slocum-Lofton also had her eye on what Mr. Worley had been talking about at the luncheon – if the 39 percent of Lofton County that was Black stayed united, and the three percent of the Latino population stayed united and in lock-step with the Black community, their spending habits were likely going to change. They would soon enough prove that they were not cattle with their dollars, and they were 42 percent of the county in total – businesses run by people who kept on trying to make it 1865 were about to pay a terrible price.

There was already one immense indication of the price many of Lofton County's businesses were about to pay. One would think that the death of 12,020 people would be enough work for funeral homes throughout the county – but, instead, all that business had been given to the Stone Funeral Home, owned by the Stone family – an unapologetic and proud Black family. Average funeral costs ran about $5,000-$10,000 in Lofton County – had it been an average funeral situation, that would represent $6-$12 million in revenue for the Stone Funeral Home. Of course the Ridgeline Fire was not an average situation, but memorials, repasts, programs, advertising, urns for ashes – that was still at least $1,000,000 in revenue, and if the Stones could pull that off in style, 42 percent of the county would stay with them a long, long time. Basically, integration's advantages to 58 percent of Lofton County had just gone up in smoke in terms of the funeral business!

With that said: there were several transfers of wealth already happening or about to happen in Lofton County – two required investing, one required divesting and re-investing. Mrs. Slocum-Lofton had her finger on three of those transfers and always had her eyes and mind open for more.

“Who would have thought it possible?” she said to no one in particular later that afternoon. “I am 83, and I am just now seeing the greatest opportunity for wealth building in Lofton County of my lifetime.”

And then, she felt the tears coming to her eyes.

“I wish Aaron [her late husband] was here to do this with me!”

And this was why Mrs. Mildred York, Mrs. Slocum-Lofton's bosom friend, knew that it was no longer good for Mrs. Slocum-Lofton to be alone when someone of the same mind as her, and at least with the capability to be a friend and companion, was so clearly interested. Mrs. York was rooting for Mr. Worley, really hard …

Photo by Jenny Marvin on Unsplash