Culture shock rattles a white family moving to a black neighborhood.
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Making the Move
A loud shout of "Oh shit!" echoed through the Budget rental truck, backed into the gravel driveway of a modest 50-year-old house. The outburst caused Stanley Winfield to scold his teenage daughter, responsible for the profanity.
"Erica!" Stan bellowed, "You know that we don't use that kind of language in this family! You might have turned 18 last week, but that doesn't mean that you're going to have a potty mouth around here!"
Erica was apologetic. "I'm sorry, Daddy, but somebody didn't tape the bottom of this box and now there's kitchen shi-, I mean stuff, all over the truck."
"Okay," Stan said, softening his tone, "I'll help you pick it up."
"Daddy, why couldn't we just hire a moving company?"
Stan shook his head and sighed. "Because, Erica, we couldn't afford to hire movers. We could barely afford to rent this truck."
Stan and Erica gathered the forks, spoons, and kitchen gadgets strewn across the floor of the truck while their wife and mother, respectively, carried more of their belongings into the house.
Mrs. Stan Winfield was otherwise known as Alexa. Even covered with sweat and grime from helping with the move, Alexa still exuded natural grace and beauty as she trod from the truck to the house and back again. She looked 10 years younger than her 38 years, thanks in no small part to the spa regimen that she had followed since Erica's birth. Her breasts were the envy of other women and the eye candy of men everywhere. For $15-thousand, one of the top plastic surgeons in North America had crafted Alexa's stunning rack two years earlier after the image-conscious beauty noticed the first sign of sagging.
"Let's take a 10-minute break," Stan suggested as he sat down on the back of the truck. Wife Alexa joined him while daughter Erica went inside the old house that was to be their new home.
While he and his wife sat together, Stan pondered the current situation. To say that the Winfield family had experienced a recent "reversal of fortune" would be a gross understatement.
After a minute, Alexa asked Stan, straight out, why he had decided to move them into that particular neighborhood.
"It's where I grew up. I know the area, or I thought I did, and it's affordable. It's a place for us to make a new start, Honey. Plus, my cousin is giving me a job here."
Alexa quickly inserted, "But it's a black neighborhood! For the past two hours, everybody that I've seen on this street has been black, except for one white woman, and she was with a black man."
Stan became defensive. "When I was growing up here, it was a white neighborhood with a few blacks. Now, I guess it's become a black neighborhood with a few whites. I didn't know it changed. The real estate lady didn't mention it either, but I don't think they're allowed to."
Stan continued. "You know my probation officer wouldn't let us move here unless we had a place to stay, so I had to rent the first thing I could find. And I'm lucky that my cousin is letting me work at his used car lot downtown. I couldn't get a job anywhere else."
The couple sat quietly, then Stan wrapped an arm around Alexa and he spoke more.
"A year ago, we had that big beach house on the ocean and a two-story cabin in the mountains," Stan nostalgically recalled. "We had almost $20 million in the bank, with more rolling in every day. My job was to make money and yours was to spend it. Who would have ever guessed? First the raid at our house, when those U.S. Marshals woke us up with their guns in our faces..."
Alexa interrupted. "And I was sleeping naked and those feds wouldn't let me get dressed because they wanted to gawk at my big boobs with my hands cuffed behind my back!"
Stan and Alexa shared a quick laugh, then turned serious again. Stan continued, "When they did let us get dressed, they threw us both in jail."
Stan went on to tell his wife, for about the hundredth time, how stupid he felt for partnering with a conman who promised to make him far wealthier than he already was. Stan did not realize that his new partner was running an illegal Ponzi scheme, stealing all of his money and millions more from other victims of the scam. Because Alexa was listed as a principal in the enterprise she was arrested along with her husband. But federal prosecutors dropped the charges against Alexa when they realized she was innocent, and she only spent a week in jail. Stan was locked up behind bars for three months, until he agreed to testify against his former partner, and to serve 10 years' probation, essentially prohibiting him from running his own business again for the next decade.
On top of all that, Stan had to make financial restitution and forfeit everything that he owned, except for his family's clothes and some other personal possessions of no great value.
"Well, no point crying over spilled milk," Stan declared as he stepped down from the truck and offered his wife a hand. "We've done enough crying. Now we have to suck it up and make the best of it. I know we're not in a good place right now, but maybe God, or fate, or karma, or whatever, has put us here for a reason."
Alexa gave her husband a hug and tried to keep a stiff upper lip. "You're right -- we will make the best of it. I'm sure we'll be okay, but I'm a little concerned about Erica. She's lived a sheltered life, so far. I've heard that black boys like to go after white girls and I don't know how she would handle that."
Alexa had just given Stan something new to worry about. It was obvious in his expression, but he put on a happy face and enthusiastically announced, "Well, this truck won't unload itself, so let's finish up and get it over to the rental yard before we have to pay a late penalty."
Christening the new bedroom
Stan, Alexa and Erica all wanted to take showers as soon as they finished unloading and returning the truck. In the mansion they had previously occupied, each of them had their own luxurious bathroom, but the little crackerbox that was now their home had only one bath, and the water heater was small. Stan let his wife and daughter get their showers first and found no hot water when his turn came.
Because it was an unnecessary expense, the family had no cable TV. Stan twisted two wire coat hangers together to create a makeshift antenna and did manage to pull in two nearby broadcast stations. Sitting on the couch,