Love Knows No Color Pt. 23

After lunch, we all got ready for our visit to New Castle. I put in a red dress shirt while Shavonda wore that red sleeveless dress from the reunion. We dressed the kids in the nicest clothes they had, and left the house in midafternoon. We followed Mom and Grandma over the mountains. I told Shavonda it was a good thing she wasn't pregnant, or we'd have to trade my Jeep in on a minivan. We were running out of room with all the kids.

Jamie greeted us at the door. After the usual hugs, she led us to the back porch where Grandpap sat drinking iced tea and listening to jazz on a portable cd player. He rose to greet us and Shavonda gave him a big hug as well. It was who she was, how she was raised. Once you were family, you were greeted as such.

"So glad you could make it," Grandpap said. "Don't worry about Nora, she's away for the evening. I didn't want her to spoil your visit."

"You like Thelonious Monk?" Shavonda asked.

"What would you know about Thelonious Monk?" Grandpap asked.

"I listen to a lot of jazz. Jason does too, when he's with me. Matter of fact, a lot of the greats came from Pittsburgh, so I grew up around it. Walt Harper, George Benson, Stanley Turrentine and a lot of others were all local boys."

While Mom helped Jamie with dinner, Shavonda and I listened to and discussed jazz with Grandpap. Honestly, I'd never known how much he loved that music. "Your Grandma preferred country music," he explained, "So I listened to my jazz alone mostly. There wasn't anybody else nearby who liked that music." He turned to my wife. "Shavonda, you're an amazing woman. Every time I meet you, there's always something new and fascinating about you. I understand why Jason was willing to risk being an outcast to be with you."

"That was all we have ever asked of anybody," Shavonda said. "Get to know us before you judge us. I am not that different from anybody else. I may look different, speak different, even act different. But inside I have the same hopes and dreams as anybody else. But I am my own person. I do things my way, and I don't apologize for who I am. Jason is my husband because he's accepted all of me without question or criticism. I can be who I am, and he's not threatened by it. In fact, he revels in who I am." I noticed the subtle change in Shavonda's speech. She sounded slightly more proper. Nobody else picked up on the difference but I knew. Shavonda. While she liked Grandpap, was still not completely comfortable around him. When she felt comfortable around somebody, she slipped back into her natural speech patterns, as if she were cutting up with family.

Grandpap asked about the business. "What made you decide to open a store?"

"I loved making jewelry. And people started wanting to buy it. It grew from there. But really, I'm glad it took off the way it did. You met Edie and Shaunice. Ask them sometimes about what it's like working in an office. Both of them work very hard, and have earned their positions and promotions. But there are always those who say, 'she only got that position because she's black. Never mind that they earned it by being better at the job than anybody else. I didn't want to have to go through that. My business sinks or swims based upon what I do, and the decisions I make. By owning my own store, I don't have to prove myself to my coworkers, I can just be me, and let my work sell itself,"

"My Mama was the same way. She worked hard, along with my Daddy, to put us through school. Nana babysat us while she worked. Our family saved what money they could, and with my parents both in decent paying jobs they were able to put all three of us kids through college. Mama had a government job, and after Marcus graduated she had enough time in to collect a pension." Shavonda turned to me. "Jason, that's why she is able to sit the kids for us."

I'd never known that. Shavonda didn't talk much about her childhood, just bits and pieces. I knew she and her Grandma, or Nana as she called her, were very close. Now I knew the whole story. Did she resent Althea for working while she was growing up? Obviously not, for they were very close now. Althea was a force of nature, a strong black woman who literally ran the family. She was a queen in the truest sense of the word. I now knew where Shavonda had gotten her strength from. It was ironic how much our own situation mirrored her own childhood.

My own childhood had been much different. Mom had never worked; Dad's job was good enough she didn't have to. I'd grown up in a nuclear family, in a house we'd owned for generations. Three generations of Waites had all lived together in one big house. By the time I was old enough to remember, the family had gotten out of farming, though we earned extra income by renting out our pastures to a neighbor. Unlike Shavonda, whose family had worked extra hard to build up resources, and with the grace of God had the opportunity to do so, I grew up in the shadow of what once was. People down here clung strongly to tradition, and my family was no exception, though we were a bit more progressive than most. It was only when I moved to the city after high school that my attitudes began to change, as I was exposed to a wider variety of people. I remained, even after all these years, in a sort of limbo: too liberal to really fit in where I grew up, but too conservative for the city where I lived.

And yet, Shavonda had unquestioningly accepted me for who I was from the very beginning. Her unwavering support through rough times had made life inconceivable without her presence. Though we tried for a sense of balance and equality between us, like her mother Shavonda was a queen. In reality, she ruled the roost. And I was happy, happier than I'd ever been in my life. Well maybe not at this particular moment, as I was still dealing with Grandma Duncan's passing. But overall, things had turned out far better than I'd hoped for.

We sat there on the porch, listening to jazz with Grandpap, and it occurred to me that he'd just lost the pillar of his existence, but he was coping. And doing so in a way similar to me. While I drowned my grief in the bass guitar, he immersed himself in the music he couldn't share with her. It was our way of dealing with things. Music will set you free. It can take you on journeys to places that only exist in your mind. And in doing so, it gives you room to breathe, and space to heal.

I noticed that Ethan, as he'd often done lately while I was playing bass, was sitting on the floor listening to the music. He reminded me so much of myself at that age, when Dad would come home from work and relax in the living room. I remembered sitting there in the dark living room with him, listening as the multi disk CD player churned through disk after disk of Beatles, Jethro Tull, and Moody Blues albums. Neither of us said a word, letting the music take us to far off places. It had instilled in me a lifelong love of music, and it appeared Ethan had caught the same bug. I nudged Shavonda, and pointed to Ethan. She smiled, saying to Grandpap, "I think we have a budding jazz fan here."

"I tried to get Jason into this music when he was small, but all he ever wanted to listen to was that rock n roll." He shook his head sadly.

"Grandpap," I said, "No disrespect to you, but did you ever stop to think that maybe the lines between rock and jazz aren't as clear as you think? That maybe the two coexist in the same songs?"

"Yeah, I know all about Chicago and Blood Sweat and Tears. But that's not serious jazz. Steely Dan is closer to real jazz, but still not quite there."

"Then you really don't know much about rock then," I replied. "So many of the bands I listen to had strong jazz influences. I'll be back. I've got to educate you."

"Oooooh, you got him started," Shavonda laughed. "Now you in for it." I left them sitting there as I retrieved the iPod and aux cord from the Jeep. Returning, I plugged the iPod into the cd player.

"Do you mind?" I asked Grandpap. He nodded his head so I continued. "I want you to hear something that may change your mind." Searching the iPod, I pulled up the King Crimson song Lizard. "Now this track is about 23 minutes long but I think you'll appreciate it."

"Trust, he knows his stuff," Shavonda said. "If he says rock bands play jazz, then believe him. I know, because I've heard it. Not that there's anything wrong with Steely Dan. We both like them. But what he's about to play is far beyond that, almost free jazz."

We let the song play through its many subtitled parts, watching his reaction all the while. He listened politely through the opening sequence Prince Rupert Awakes, but by the time the song had tracked to Battle of Glass Tears, it had his full attention. When the song was over, he remarked, "Impressive. That's not what I expected from a rock n roll band."

"That's because all you knew were the songs they played on the radio," I explained. "There's a whole world of music out there that doesn't get played. Radio plays it safe. They're not going to play something challenging to listen to on a rock station. I've often found the best songs are buried on albums that never get played. It's all out there waiting to be discovered. But you have to put in the time and effort to search to find stuff like this."

Next, I played National Anthem, off Radiohead's Kid A album. "This one is also almost free jazz. But I'm going to let this album play through the next 5 songs so you hear the context in which they dropped this song. It is far beyond jazz, or rock, or any other type of music. This band is all over the map on this album, yet it all flows together as a coherent whole. Take any one song out alone, and you lose the whole of what they are trying to do. The whole is far greater than its parts." He listened intently as the album played on. I hoped that, as a serious music fan, he'd get the sheer power and uniqueness of what Radiohead had done here.

"I stand corrected," Grandpap said as the songs ended. "There are people in rock n roll who are adventurous with their music. I'll give you that."

"I told you not to get him started," Shavonda laughed. "I knew he had some rabbits to pull out of his hat. Remember, I know what he listens to. Trust, he understands what he's listening to, and he gets bored by a lot of the stuff you think of as rock music. Now it's my turn, though. Soul music owes a huge debt to jazz, and this one illustrates that perfectly." She played the opening tracks to Stevie Wonder's Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants. I loved this album, precisely for the very tracks she played. We listened to the lush strings, Stevie's mournful harmonica, the thumping upright bass, and even the bird calls.

"Now that one," Grandpap said, "I can relate to. I always liked the exotica and space age records of the late 50s. This reminds me of them, it's easy to see where the influence came from."

"I love that upright bass," I said. "You don't hear that often."

Shavonda smiled. "You could play that, you know. There is an upright at your parents' house. And you've played more intricate stuff on your electric. I think it'd be cool to listen to you play along with this song."

"I think you could, too." Grandpap smiled. "I've heard you play."

I was struck by the irony of it all. The man who didn't like rock n roll was expressing confidence in my ability to play a challenging piece, based solely on his hearing my playing of rock on a completely different instrument. The same man, who'd initially shunned our mixed marriage, bonding with my ebony wife over a shared love of music. All the while, my 5 year old son sat quietly listening to the music, a child so full of energy he rarely sat still.

"I'm glad you think I am that good," I said. "I'm intrigued enough to try it."

"We'll make a jazz fan out of you yet," he said.

"I already am to some extent," I replied. "I see music as a box of crayons. On the one extreme, you have punk rock. Very simple music, like using only the red and green crayons. Not a lot you can do with those colors, and if you try to mix them you'll get another color but it won't be pretty. Most popular music is like using the box of 8 crayons. It is possible to create something of great beauty with those colors, and it is possible to mix them to create subtle shades. What you listen to, and what we've played for you, are like using the big box of 64 crayons. You have a wide variety of colors and shades to choose from. You don't have to use every crayon in the box, but they are available. You can experiment and explore in a way not possible with fewer options. You get subtle shades and tones, and by mixing those subtle shades you can get even more precise and subtle shades. The whole world opens up for you, and it is possible to create something beautiful, or something disturbing, or even something of disturbing beauty."

"What would be disturbing beauty?" Grandpap asked.

"In the real world, a tornado, the mushroom cloud of a nuclear bomb, the awesome destruction of a raging flood. Musically, you can create disturbing beauty by well-placed passages of dissonance in an otherwise peaceful song. You can elegantly lead into the sound of a wall crashing down, then spend the rest of the song exploring the various pieces and how they fit together to reconstruct what came crashing down."

"I never heard it put like that," Shavonda said. "But I understand where you're coming from."

"It can be as simple as one dissonant chord in a song, one that's out of place yet one the song keeps returning to. Or one beat that's slightly out of place that throws the whole piece off balance, Or something much bigger than either of those. But even those subtle misplaced notes and beats can have a powerful effect on the music itself."

At that point, Jamie informed us dinner was ready, and we gathered around the dining room table for baked chicken with mashed potatoes, peas, and fresh rolls. Mom and Jamie had done a wonderful job with the meal. Shavonda and I took turns feeding the baby, who by now would get all fussy if she saw or smelled mashed potatoes. If she knew they were around, she just had to have some.-

After dinner, Shavonda and I helped the ladies clean up, while Brittany played with Miracle, and Grandpap, Grandma and Ethan sat on the porch listening to music.

"That's a beautiful dress," Jamie said. "It shows off your figure nicely. I wish I had the curves for something like that."

Shavonda laughed. "Shaunice calls it my bootylicious dress. I wore it the first time I met Jason, and you see what it did to him."

"Bootylicious?" Mom raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah," Shavonda replied. "Shaunice came up with diva names for all of our little group. We get together to play cards once a week. You met them all, they were my bridesmaids. Tamika, my maid of honor, is boobalicious. She's busty. Patty, the one with the two kids, is cutielicious. And Edie is sweet petite. Shaunice calls herself divalicious."

"I never met Tamika or Patty," Jamie said.

"Tamika is a big girl. She's a little over two hundred, all breasts and hips. Patty is built like me, but a couple inches shorter." Shavonda continued her description. "We all grew up together, except for Tamika. She's ten years younger than me, but she's been with me in the store since I first opened. She's been there for me through some tough times. Patty and Edie were two of my best friends growing up, and still are. Shaunice, well she's my big sister and I love her to pieces, but she IS a bit of a diva. She can be a bit demanding at times. But we still get along."

"Y'all certainly have a different way of putting things," Jamie laughed, "but I like it. Maybe Shaunice will give me a diva name too."

"Maybe," Shavonda said. "I guess you'll have to come visit us to find out. Hang out with us. We could have a ladies night out, and show you around the city. Jason wouldn't mind sitting with the kids, would you boo?"

"Not at all. Go ahead, I don't mind. I got the kids. Maybe we'll have a camp out in the treehouse."

"One thing you'll find about my family is that they will welcome you with open arms unless you give them a reason not to. Mama loves people, and if she likes you she'll give you the shirt off her back. But if she doesn't like you, watch out! She'll tell you about yourself in a heartbeat. But she likes you, Jamie. Your mother, she'd get an earful. Jason got an earful the first time he met her, but he stood up to her and earned her respect. She's loved him ever since."

With the dishes done, we joined the others on the porch. We talked into the evening, watching the sun set behind the horseshoe shaped mountain that loomed over the town, which sat just below the apex of the horseshoe. We left when Nora came home. The mood in the house had changed as soon as she walked in the door, so we thought it best to head home. I hoped eventually Nora and Shavonda would find a way to get along, but I wasn't going to hold my breath. If Nora didn't want to accept Shavonda it didn't really matter anyway, because everybody else already had.

I let Shavonda drive back to the farmhouse. She did well, considering the road was unfamiliar and winding in places. She drove carefully, alert for the deer we both knew were around. The kids were fast asleep in the back, and I held her hand on the straighter portions of the road. Arriving back at the farmhouse, we carried the kids upstairs and tucked them in, then returned for Miracle in her carrier. Mom had arrived in the meantime, and I helped Grandma up the steps as Shavonda took the baby upstairs. Dad was sitting on the couch watching tv.

"How'd it go?" he asked.

"Very well," Shavonda replied. "I think he likes me. We talked about music. I never knew he was that much into jazz."

"I'm glad. You're as much a part of this family as anybody else. Now that he's invited you to his home, he's accepted you as well." Dad explained. "He's a quiet, dignified man. He doesn't let just anybody into his home."

That night, we lay in bed naked as usual. We'd both liked to sleep in the buff before we met, and we'd continued the habit. Often, we couldn't keep our hand off each other, but sometimes we just lay there, talking in the dark. Her head was on my shoulder, arm over me, breasts pressed up against my side. I ran my fingers through her coarse, straightened hair, enjoying its texture.

"I love it here," Shavonda whispered. "I wish we didn't have to go back." I found myself surprised. Shavonda had the huge responsibility of running her business, yet she'd never complained about it until now.

"We have to go back," I said gently. "Powerball won't cooperate with us and draw our numbers."

Shavonda giggled in the dark. "I know that, silly. It's just that, when I started the stores I spent most of my time making things. I was doing what I loved best. Now, I'm so bogged down with running the stores and the online store I rarely get to create anything anymore. I haven't made a candle since before the baby was born. I miss that."

"Why don't you let somebody else handle the books for you?" I replied, concerned. "That way you can spend more time making things."

"I had hoped Velma would do that, but she seems content to run just one store. She always was good with keeping things straight, but she doesn't want more than she has right now. Besides, we're kinda at odds over Kenny."

I was surprised. This was news to me. "What about Kenny?" I asked. "Did he do something wrong?"

"No, he didn't do anything wrong, but she resents him taking those days off to come down here. I told her he had my permission, and that she could get a family day off any time she wanted. But she still is upset. I may have to move him to the Carson Street store under Tamika instead of using him wherever he is needed most. I don't want either of them to quit, even though I know Kenny will when he finds a regular job. He's been a good worker so far."