Free There's Blood on the Moon Tonight by Bryn Roar Page A

that takes more courage than throwin’ down with some fool who wasn’t raised right!
    ‘So, tell me, mister loud talkin’ man! Do you really think your daddy’s a coward?”
    Ham blushed right down to his boots. He had made his old man angrier than he’d ever seen him before. And yet despite what Jessie said, Ham couldn’t let it go. “ Then why’d you let that fat man kick our shrimp bucket off the dock? Had to be close to fifty dollars worth in there!”
    Jessie nodded glumly. “ I know how that must have looked, son. But let me ask you this…if’n I did step up to that fat fool, what you think happen next?”
    Ham looked down at his work boots, refusing to reply, despite knowing full well the answer. He’d been in enough playground scrapes to know how bullies worked.
    “ That’s right, boy!” Jessie exclaimed, smiling. “That there battle wouldn’t have been between Mr. Heifer and ol’ Jess Huggins. No sir! I would have had to fight mos’ every white man on that dock! And to what end, pray tell? Just so my son could see me stand tall to a stupid jackass that don’t mean nothing to me, no how? Sam… do I have to prove I’m a Man to you?”
    “No, sir!” Ham had sobbed. He’d thrown himself into his father’s arms and hugged him tight. The smell of the sea infused every fiber in his father’s flannel work shirt. “ But why those white men treat you like that, Daddy? Like you’s the dirt on they shoes?”
    “It all comes down to that word you so thoughtlessly tossed about, boy. Hate.”
    “But why they hate us?” Ham had insisted on knowing. “What’d we do to them?”
    “Because it’s what they’ve been taught, and it goes back a ways, too. That redneck mos’ likely learned his hate from his daddy, his daddy from his daddy, and so on and so on. And if he has a son of his own, you can bet that poor child hates us too. That’s their loss, Sam. Not ours. A man can’t get to Heaven with that kind of spite in his soul. They’ll spend eternity twistin’ on the devil’s pitchfork, while we bask in the glory of God. Praise Jesus !
    Jessie laughed and rubbed his son’s head. Just remember, Sammy. The only victory a hateful man gets is teaching his hate to others…
    “Be they his sons or his enemies.”
    “So, when I hate them…”
    “Then they win . And the hate…it goes on and on…”
     
    And so life had continued peacefully on Moon. Ham, now that he knew how the real world worked, avoided the mainland for as long as he could. But he knew his self-imposed exile was only temporary. For he couldn’t step into his daddy’s shoes until he’d found the courage to stand tall in them. Someday he’d have to brave that ugly world over there again. Until then, he was content on just being a boy—living on an island he considered his very own playground. Eventually Ham made that trip back to the mainland, and to his great surprise, the world had indeed changed. Oh, racism was still alive and well—Jessie had told him it was one of the devil’s favorite tools, and therefore would never go out of style—but it wasn’t nearly as overt anymore. And for a short time, Jessie and Son sold their wares side-by-side on the Beaufort docks.
    And oh boy, life was good .
    But like Ham’s childhood on Moon, this idyllic period with his father ended much too soon.
    The same sea that had given Jessie so much over the years finally called its marker due. After getting no response on the radio one blustery spring morning, Reva Huggins called on her son and his best friend, both of whom had recently gone into business together on Ham’s new boat, to go out and look for Jessie.
    One hour later, nineteen-year old Rusty O’Hara called back with the bad news. They’d found the Moon Maiden idling some three hundred yards off Crater Cove, with no sign of Jessie…on board or off.
    In the background, Reva could hear the anguished cries of her only child, calling out to his father:
    “Daddy! Daddy!!