This is a Summer Lovin' Contest Entry
All characters portrayed in this story are over the age of 18-years-old.
Please vote for my story.
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A hot summer day in Detroit versus a warm summer day in the Hamptons, this story is an abbreviated parody, a scaled down, modern-day version, and a stretch of Charles Dicken's A Tale of Two Cities.
Depending if you were born a man or a woman, or white or black, or rich or poor, it was the worst of times for some and the best of times for others. Assessing no blame and/or making no judgments, much like a dog, humans fall into habits of learned behavior. Whether their learned habits of behavior are good or bad, or right or wrong, that's what they know and all that they know. No matter if it's gender, a man versus a woman, or race, black versus white, or money, rich versus poor, it is what it is and what it will always be.
Seemingly, especially when it comes to race and to women, especially to women of color, nothing ever changes and everything remains the same. Suffice to say that women of color have a much harder time than white women, yet not as hard of a time as some black men. This summertime story is as much about race as it is about women, and as it is about me, Violet Christine. Yet, as do all my stories, unlike Toni Morrison's novel, The Bluest Eye, my story has a happy ending.
If anything, because so few have so much and so many have so little, hard times today are much worse than they ever were before. Even with all our technology, living life today is comparable to living life in the mid-19th century. Again, it is what it is with everything remaining the same and nothing ever changing.
Much by example, you do what you were taught to do and what you know to do. Accepting the good with the bad by taking one day at a time, you do what you need to do to survive. Most times, hopelessly fruitless to rebel, argue, challenge, and/or fight, either you conform to your surrounding conditions or you perish. Sadly, making lemonade when all you have are lemons, sometimes making the most of bad situations that have continually plagued your life is that simple and what you need to do to succeed. Don't think about it, quit complaining, take a chance, and as the Nike slogan encourages you to do, "Just do it."
"Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, then it's not the end," is attributed to an unknown writer.
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: "Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."
So true. Sometimes, most times, when you think about what you must do every day, life is nothing more than utter nonsense. Since your life is ridiculous anyway, best you make the most of your time here on Earth. The best advice is to forget yesterday, concentrate on today, and don't worry about tomorrow. Che sera sera? Whatever will be will be? What you may think and believe is in your control, is out of your control. You have no control over anything, not even yourself.
Nonetheless your positive outlook, even when chasing your destiny, especially when going after your calling and your purpose in life, Murphy's Law always applies. "If anything can go wrong it will."
Ginsberg's doomsday theorems are sad realities of today, especially for minorities and people of color. "You can't win. You can't break even. You can't even quit the game."
Then, if that's not enough doom, Forsyth's Second Corollary to Murphy's Laws is this. "Just when you see the light at the end of the tunnel, the roof caves in."
What will we do if North Korea launches a nuclear missile at the United States? What they told school children in the fifties and sixties as our civil defense protection strategy didn't cut it then and won't cut it now. Duck and cover is the same as close your eyes and kiss your ass goodbye.
Only, the realities of a nuclear war are as much out of our control as the realities of our unimportant, little lives are and have always been. We are all pawns in a much bigger game of church versus state and God versus Aliens. Not even knowing where we fit in the scheme of things, all of us are doomed and are nothing more than collateral damage for those who mistakenly think that they're in control of us. Truth be told, unless they're God or a superior lifeform, no one is in control of anything and/or anyone in this cosmic universe.
The one, true absurdity of life that we know with certainty, sad but true, is that we're all going to die one day. Even then, we have no idea when we'll die and how we'll die. We have no idea what happens when we die. Is there Heaven and Hell, life after death, or are we just dead? Best we make the most of a bad situation and instead of ducking and covering, we go forth to find our way, our happiness, and our destiny. That's what Violet Christine did in this story. She found her way, her happiness, and her destiny.
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Away from the built-up waterfront of downtown Detroit where all the monied, white folk go when not in the ritzy part of Grosse Pointe, it was another murderous, drug infested, crime riddled, hot, summer day in Forest Park, Detroit.
"911. What's your emergency?"
On the flip of the coin, whether you were born a man or woman, white or black, or rich or poor, who cares? It's done and it's all out of your control. What does it matter? Deal with whatever cards you were dealt. Boo the fuck who, we all have a sad story to tell. Except, sometimes perhaps, for rich, white people, no one leaves this Earth without pain and suffering.
As your mother would say, you must take the good with the bad. With everything so ridiculous, all you can do is to laugh. All you can do is to be happy. Yet, without a doubt, some folk have it easier than others. Every day, they laugh all the way to the bank. Whoever said that money doesn't make you happy is a liar.
If judging a book by its cover, if one look could sum up someone's life, this vision was it. Instead of kids playing in front of an opened fire hydrant hoping to cool off, the rich had their very own slice of paradise while sunning themselves on their private beach. On the other side of the country in La La Land, as far from Los Angeles as it was from Detroit, it was another carefree, beautiful, warm, summer day by the water in the Hamptons.
"More champagne, Tiffany?"
Tiffany smiled her cosmetically altered, puffy lips at her boyfriend.
"Yes, thank you, Chad. More champagne would be divine."
Just by the happenchance of birth, it's not fair how some can have so much while others have so little. A crying shame, it's not fair that some have such a promising future while others are doomed to have more of the same. No matter if a man or a woman, white or black, rich or poor, we all want the same things. We all want money enough to feed our children, pay our bills, and keep a roof over our heads.
With us all living on the same planet and in the same galaxy, we're all much the same. The one thing that we all have in common, whether man or woman, white or black, or rich or poor, we're all human. Are we not? I dare say that they'll never be an end to racial prejudice until an alien lifeform invades us. Then, it won't be white against black but humans against aliens.
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A little more than seven-hundred miles and eleven-hours away by car, going to the Hamptons from Detroit was like going to another world, an adult playground for the rich. As long as you had money, you were welcome to visit. If you had a lot of money, you were invited to stay and buy a nice house overlooking the ocean.
Yet, even if you had money, you weren't spared the indignities of being born black and/or a woman and being made to feel that you are a second-class citizen. Forget about being born black and/or a woman, even a mixed-race woman visiting a mostly white, affluent part of the country wasn't free from receiving curious stares, hateful looks, and ill-informed, racial judgments about her past. Just as no one appreciates a black person taking the job of a white person, more than one-hundred-fifty-years since President Lincoln with his Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves, ignorance and prejudice is still alive and well in America. Is it not?