Would you love your father if he had been abusive to you when you were a child? Could you forgive him?

LOVE POUR OVER ME'S PRELUDE:
It's the 1980s. Pork chops smothered in sweet onions are frying in the kitchen. PacMac is the rave. Outside sirens blare their way down the street. Not much has changed in Dayton, Ohio. Miles away, in Philadelphia, the University of Pemberton awaits the arrival of a high school track and field phenom, a local celebrity who is eager to escape home. But trouble has a way of following a man, especially one who's on the run.

Relax and stay awhile . . . Come closer . . . .

Chapter One

It was Friday afternoon, June 15, 1984. Raymond Clarke lay across his bed. An empty bowl of popcorn was on the floor. Snacking did little to ease his excitement. In less than three hours his year round efforts to prove himself deserving of unwavering acclaim would be validated in front of hundreds of his classmates. Tonight was his high school graduation, the day he had dreamed about for weeks. He knew his grades were high enough to earn him academic honors. Even more than his grades were his athletic achievements. He hadn't been beaten in a track race in three years; he won the state half mile and mile runs for the last six years, since he was in middle school. People would cheer wildly for him tonight.

The television was turned up loud. "Carl Lewis threatens to break Bob Beamon's historic long jump record at the Olympic Trials in Los Angeles this weekend," an ESPN sportscaster announced. "Beamon's record has stood for sixteen years. Lewis . . . "

Raymond got so caught up in the mention of the upcoming Olympic Games that he didn't hear the front door open.

"Ray," his father Malcolm shouted as soon as he entered the house.

"What?" Raymond leaped off his bed and hurried into the living room. "Dad?"

"What? Boy, if you don't get your junk--"

Raymond watched his father wave his hand over the sofa, the place where he'd thrown his sports bag as soon as he got home from graduation practice at school.

"Get this sports crap up," Malcolm growled.

Silence filled the house.

Raymond grabbed his sports bag, carried it into his bedroom and tossed it across his bed.

His father exited the living room and entered the kitchen. Like a dark shadow, frustrations from spending ten hours working at a drab automobile plant where he drilled leather seats into one Ford Mustang after another while his line supervisor stood at his shoulder and barked, "Focus, Malcolm. Get your production up," followed him there. It was in the furrow of his brow and in the pinch of his lip. "Ray."

Raymond cursed beneath his breath before he left his bedroom and hurried into the living room. Seconds later he stood in the kitchen's open doorway.

He watched his father toss an envelope on the table. "Letter from Baker came in the mail. Something about you getting some awards when-" He reached to the center of the kitchen table for a bottle of Steel Fervor. He'd stopped hiding the alcohol when Raymond turned five. The alcohol looked like liquid gold. Felt that way to Malcolm too. "-you graduate tonight."

Malcolm took a long swig of the whiskey and squinted against the burn. He tried to laugh but only coughed up spleen. "You're probably the only kid in the whole school who got a letter like this. Everybody up at Baker knows nobody cares about you. Letter said they thought I'd want to let all your relatives know you're getting some awards so they'd come out and support you."

Again Malcolm worked at laughter, but instead coughed a dry, scratchy cough that went long and raw through his throat. "We both know ain't nobody going to be there but me and your sorry ass. Don't mean nothing anyhow. They're just giving these diplomas and awards away now days." On his way out of the kitchen, bottle in hand, he shoved the letter against Raymond's chest.

Raymond listened to his father's footsteps go heavy up the back stairs while he stood alone in the kitchen. When the footsteps became a whisper, he looked down at the letter. It was printed on good stationery, the kind Baker High School only used for special occasions. Didn't matter though. Raymond took the letter and ripped it once, twice, three times --- over and over again --- until it was only shreds of paper, then he walked to the tall kitchen wastebasket next to the gas stove and dropped the bits inside.

"Ray."

He froze. From the sound of his father's voice, he knew he was at the top of the stairs.

"Give me that letter, so I'll remember to go to your graduation tonight."

Raymond twisted his mouth at the foulness of the request, the absolute absurdity of it. He didn't answer. Instead he turned and walked back inside his bedroom. He grabbed his house keys and headed outside. At the edge of the walkway, he heard his father shout, "Ray."

Raymond didn't turn around. He walked down the tree lined sidewalk the way he'd learned to walk since Kindergarten -- with his head down. He stepped over raised cracks in the worn sidewalk, turned away from boarded windows of two empty dilapidated buildings and told himself the neighborhood was just like his father -- old, useless, unforgiving and hard.

A second floor window back at the house went up. Malcolm stuck his head all the way out the window. "Get your ass back here," he hollered down the street.Raymond sprang to his toes and started to run. His muscular arms and legs went back and forth through the cooling air like propellers, like they were devices he used to try to take off, leave the places in his life he wished had never been. It was what he was good at. All his running had earned him high honors in track and field. He was Ohio's top miler. He'd made Sports Illustrated four times since middle school.

"Ray."

"Yo, man, you better go back," Joey chuckled as Raymond slowed to a stop. Joey, a troubled eighteen-year-old neighbor who dropped out of school in the tenth grade, leaned across a Pontiac Sunbird waxing its hood. "If you don't, your old man's gonna beat your ass good."

"Aw, Ray's cool," Stanley, an equally troubled twenty-one-year-old who pissed on school and failed to get a diploma, a man who couldn't read beyond the third grade level, said. He stood next to Joey. His hands were shoved to the bottoms of his pants pockets. "And we know the Brother can run. Damn. We all can run," Stanley laughed.

"Ray, remember the night we ran away from that Texaco station, our wallets all fat?" Joey laughed. He talked so loudly, Raymond worried he'd be overheard."Thought we agreed to let that go," Raymond said. He looked hard at Joey then he looked hard at Stanley and the nine-month old deal was resealed, another secret for Raymond to keep.

One glance back at his father's house and Raymond started running again. He ran passed Gruder's an old upholstery company and Truder Albright, a small, worn convenience store, all the way to the Trotwood Recreation Center six miles farther into the city.

 

 

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Excerpt One

When Mulukan's people arrived at the plain in Geladi, Ethiopia, Africa's oldest independent country, all of the adults bore a deep tribal marking at the center of their forehead, a marking made with the searing edge of a sharp knife. When they first arrived at the plain, the grass was green and leaves on the trees were full. The land, though flat for miles except for one steep, lone hill, danced with Achaia trees, yellow daisies, purple dolichos, and pink orchards. Since the men were herdsmen, cattle, camel and sheep huddled at the edges of the plain. Occasionally a few chickens clucked their way into the area.

Within hours of arriving to the plain the men erected the grass, stick and mud huts which the women filled with cooking utensils and floor mats for sleeping. The river was clean. It gurgled while it moved over the rocks decorating its bed. Wattled Ibis, Abyssinian long-claw, and yellow throated seed-eaters flew across the sky, the sound of their loud, beckoning calls echoing throughout the area. At that time, in the plain, a thing called malaria, a disease that, globally, claims one child every thirty seconds, did not exist. Babies laughed and cooed. Men came over the hill, deer, hen and a rare buffalo hoisted on their strong shoulders, carrying enough food for the community to feast on for days. All the mothers' breasts gifted their children with milk. Then suddenly the rainfall ceased, temperatures escalated, water muddied and flies and mosquitoes swarmed the stilled water and trees.

"Dead ancestors coming back to settle the score," women said, blaming the brutal weather change on angry ancestral spirits called forth by meanness crafted in the hearts of a few unforgiving men in their community, men who struck their wives and children until they bled, men who kept their brows furrowed and tight. As if spooked by the mosquitoes the cattle, camel and sheep moved in herds across the plain. The last time Mulukan saw the animals, they were ascending a steep hill that seemed to go on forever. Mulukan stood gape-eyed and watched the animals go over the hill. She wanted to go with them. Even now, away from the people who sat beneath the acacia trees, Mulukan stood at the edge of the plain staring at the hill.

"What are you doing?" Bikila, dreams of his father fading, his brown eyes dreary, his body yelping for food that could not be found, called out to her. Moving beyond his four wives, he leaned forward and examined Mulukan. She upset his peace. Yesterday when her mother died he expected her to fall into another mother's arms and weep. She didn't. He watched her. She didn't cry once. This morning she smiled and played with the other children. It was as if she didn't know her father died nine months earlier, crumpling in a ball after he returned from hunting, his liver and kidneys surrendering to a heatstroke, or that her mother died just the previous afternoon.

Mulukan wasn't like her mother, a woman who had been inconsolable for several days after her husband's death. The day her husband died, Mulukan's mother refused comfort. Three weeks later two of Mulukan's brothers were mauled by hungry male lions. It was then Bikila instructed the people to gather their belongings and prepare to move. Grass was being eaten up by the sun. It hadn't rained in three weeks. Having seen this cycle of lack Bikila knew waiting to see what would come of the land would insure doom. The community covered ten miles before they located an area populated with lush trees. They remained a month, until swarms of mosquitoes chased them out. Before they left, Mulukan's mother, melancholy beginning to attach to her with each departing kin, buried her remaining sons and two eldest daughters, malaria snatching them from her, taking them, one by one, back to the earth. The women searched for roots in the underbrush, but nothing but death took the fever away from Mulukan's four siblings. Two weeks later, the community settled in the plain where yesterday Mulukan stood next to bare-breasted women, her head brushing their knees, while she watched her mother's body go back to the earth.

Bikila wondered what would come of Mulukan. He regarded her as if she were a book that, if he studied enough, would bring him wisdom. He made note of her conversation, ill-timed laughter and body language. He measured her responses to life events against those of the other children. The way she dealt with the loss of her family intrigued - frightened him. He began to think there was something sinister about her. It was as if she welcomed suffering, played and laughed with it, made it one of her invisible playmates.

"What are you doing over here by yourself?"

Just as Mulukan went to turn, Bikila was upon her. She felt the heat from his body hovering against her back.

"What are you doing over here?"

Mulukan knew she could be punished, sharp blows coming down upon her shoulders like heavy logs, if she didn't turn and face him. Yet she kept her back to him. "Watching the hill."

He followed her pointing finger then laughed. "Silly girl," he said then he turned and walked away from her.

She didn't move except to lower her arm.

"Come on," he demanded.

She stood with her back to him. He responded by rushing to her side and grabbing her arm. She grimaced while his long, dirty fingernails dug like thick, sharp pins into her skin. She didn't move.

"Mulukan's hunger for Africa's restoration worked like a magnet and pulled people like Kokumuo Kenyatta into her days."

 

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He seemed born with the wisdom to know what it took to please a woman.

Portia looked at Dennis and wondered how he would react if it was his mother telling him she had breast cancer -- his mother instead of her. She knew how close he was to his mother, a fighter for unity amongst black families and single African Americans in Chicago, Illinois. Dennis telephoned his mother three to four times a week. He talked about her what seemed to Portia like every day.

Unlike his father, who hadn't telephoned, written or visited since he stomped out of the house when Dennis was only three years old, Dennis told her that his mother never hurt him, never let him down, not once betrayed his trust. She guessed his love for his mother was the reason he paid so much attention to her. He seemed born with the wisdom to know what it took to please a woman. He always gave her a back rub and ran her a tub of hot, bubble bath when she told him she was tired from spending ten grueling hours in court. When his friends rang his house and asked him to go to a game, a concert or to watch a big boxing match on TV with them, if Portia and he already had a scheduled date, he told his friends he'd catch them later. Although not an avid church-goer, he respected Portia's beliefs and spiritual principles. "I believe in God. Don't doubt that for a minute," He assured her. "Guess I'm going through a period where I don't agree with a lot that I see happening in churches. I know I have to deal with it, and I am. I'm dealing with it. I'm trusting God about this."

In the dead of winter, he shoveled Portia's BMW out of her side driveway and warmed the engine before she came outside to drive herself to church. When they socialized in large crowds and he sensed that she was feeling uncomfortable and shy, he moved close to her and told her jokes and funny stories until she laughed hard. He was warm and sincere. Clearly, she knew that he loved her even though he wasn't a man given to saying, "I love you" often.

In so many ways he was like her. He didn't wear his emotions on his sleeve. Until today, she regarded his cagd emotions as a show of strength. He was nothing like Darryl, a man she thought she would never miss . . . until today.

She was the woman who stood in front of her bedroom mirror before the start of her menstrual cycle and vowed, "I'm gonna change.

**********

She was the woman who stood in front of her bedroom mirror before the start of her menstrual cycle and vowed, "I'm gonna change. This spring, I'm gonna grow up." She had much to learn about womens health. She was a growing child in one of Chicago, Illinois' strongest black families.

Denny was walking by. He was carrying his work boots from a corner of the living room to his bedroom closet. His pace slowed when he heard her talking to her reflection in the mirror. He smiled at her back while he entered her bedroom.

When he neared her side, he asked her, "Who are you talking to, Miss?" Then he told her, "You're a good girl. Don't be so serious. Have a little fun. It's okay to be mischievous every now and then. Your mama and I don't make a big deal out of the playful things you do." He grinned. "Although we would appreciate it if you would stop picking those apples off of mean ol' Miss Barnes' tree." Though he tried not to, when he imagined Miss Barnes banging on the front door to tell him, "Portia's done gone and done it again! In a week, she done went and picked my tree clean!" he laughed.

"Don't be in such a hurry to grow up."

He backed away from Portia. "Don't be in such a hurry to grow up," was the last thing he said to her before he crossed the hall and entered his own bedroom.

Portia was ten years old then. That spring, she did change.

She raced to the bathroom to pee one day after school. When she looked inside her panties, she saw sprinkles of blood. She stuck her head out the bathroom door and called for her mother. Two minutes later, her mother called Denny and sent him to the store. It wasn't long before Portia went into her dresser and pulled out a clean pair of cotton panties. She opened the bag Denny brought home from the store and slid a thick sanitary napkin onto the crotch of her underwear.

Four years later, when her hips started spreading and thickening and swinging, she chewed on her bottom lip and told her father, "Just because I'm getting fat doesn't mean I like boys. I never liked a boy, and I never will. I don't need anybody. I'm strong. I can take care of myself." Two years passed before she stopped telling her father that. It was the same day she kissed Jerome Poindexter after he drove her home. They'd gone to a movie. She was a sophomore in high school.

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Encouraging those who have faced challenges and -- like a champion -- have overcome

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Chapter One

The summer of 1934 was an unusual summer in Louisville, Kentucky. It was the summer children became scared to go outside and play. Although they never said a word, not even amongst each other, the children knew through the many warnings their parents gave them something more fierce, dreadful and evil than ghosts, goblins and imaginary monsters was outside . . . maybe at the park, just around the corner from their family home, perhaps at the edge of the school yard. . . .

"Come 'ere, little girl," a wiry, middle-aged man said while he curled his finger. "Come on, now. I ain't gonna hurt you. I know you're going home from school. It's a long way. Come on with me. I'll give you a ride home so you don't have to walk all that long way."

The freckle-faced girl grinned shyly at the man who was leaning out of the side of a rusty, old pick-up truck smiling and winking at her. A moment later, the little girl sat on the passenger seat with the man. She giggled each time he reached over and tickled her. In between a burst of laughter, the girl looked up at the man and asked, "What's your name?"

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