Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 145746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
FOUR
Monk
November
“We need you here, man.”
“Yeah, I know.” I press the phone to my ear and glance up the street before crossing. If I’m lucky, I can make it through this call without getting run over. “I told you I’ll be there by ten. I got this thing on campus for my Af-Am art class. I have to go see this sculpture exhibit, get credit, and I’m out.”
“You taking art, nigga?” Mazey, the producer I’m playing for in tonight’s session, sounds amused.
“Shut up.” I chuckle and pull my coat collar up around my ears against the autumn chill. “It’s the last elective I need for graduation.”
“Well, thanks for stepping in at the last minute on this session. I been wanting to get you on a project for a minute.”
“’Preciate it.” I enter Finley’s fine arts building and follow signs for the exhibit hall. “Look, I’m here. I gotta go.”
“Don’t be late. This studio time burning through all my coins.”
“Ten o’clock. See you then.”
After we disconnect, I rub my hands together to generate some warmth. My mother’s voice in my head from when I was a kid makes me smile.
Out in the cold with no hat and no gloves.
The smile dies as more recent memories intrude. Mama staring at the photo album filled with past holidays. When we were still a family and my father hadn’t…
“Shit.” I curl my hands into fists and shove them into my pockets. All I seem to have for my father are curses these days. He ruined our lives and kept going, a bulldozer rolling over dandelions without a second thought. The fact that he seems happier than ever, while my mom…
I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth to tamp down the fury threatening to choke me. He won’t ruin my life with his selfishness. In a few months, I’ll graduate with my bachelor’s in music and go straight to New York for my master’s at Juilliard. No looking back to the small town outside of Richmond, Virginia, where I grew up. The only thing left there for me is my mother, and I’ll get her out as soon as I can. If she’ll let me. She still loves the community that sprouted up around the church she and my father spent two decades building. My siblings… well, they’ve made their own choices and can stay there with them.
I enter the exhibit hall and spot my professor. Nearly as tall as I am, Dr. Sonya Garrison is a dark-skinned woman who wears her hair slicked back in an elegant knot. I’m sure she’s well into her fifties, but she’s still lissome and trim, with smooth, flawless skin. Always impeccably dressed, tonight she wears a close-fitting ribbed turtleneck and wide-legged slacks—winter white, head to toe. She looks like a queen and the newly renovated fine arts building is her domain. Dr. Garrison personally oversaw the much-needed modernization, making this building Finley’s new crown jewel.
“Mr. Bellamy,” she says, her smile widening when she sees me. “Glad you decided to join us.”
“Didn’t leave me much choice, did you?” I tease.
This elective is a waste of my time, but Dr. Garrison is one of Finley’s finest. If I were an art major, I’m sure I’d appreciate what a qualified and excellent instructor she is, but I’m not, so this “arts outing,” as she called it, stands between me and the thousand bucks I’ll earn for tonight’s studio session.
“You’re young, gifted, and Black.” She chuckles, unfazed by my frankness. “You can never have too much culture.”
“If you say so.” I fake a scowl and peer over her shoulder to inspect the pad in her hand. “Just make sure you check me off your little list, Dr. G. I better get credit for coming to this shi—um… show… this art show on a Friday night.”
“It’s a limited-time exhibit by Chap Brody, one of the most famous Black sculptors in the world.” When my expression remains unimpressed, she drawls, “There’s food inside.”
“Now see, you shoulda led with that.” My grin is as playful as her scowl is harmless. “You burying the lead.”
“Boy, go look at some art. Music isn’t everything.”
I stop and frown at her, genuinely offended because music absolutely is every-fucking-thing. At least to me and she knows it.
“Music is not the only thing,” she amends, giving me a light tap upside the head like one of my aunties would do. “Get in there and don’t eat all the canapés.”
Chuckling, I kiss her cheek before she can stop me.
“Inappropriate, Mr. Bellamy,” she says, eyes narrowed, but brimming with laughter.
Offering Dr. Garrison a farewell salute, I make my way through the French doors leading to the exhibit. The faculty and staff at Finley College are one of the main things that drew me here. I had scholarship offers from all over, but my choice was about more than my education. Not only did I respect Finley’s music department, but I needed the smaller setting and the community I knew existed here. After all the shit that went down with my parents, I could have easily gotten lost. It was my mom who encouraged me to consider her alma mater because it was a place where I wouldn’t get lost, but might instead find myself. I’m headed to New York, to Juilliard, when I graduate, but you can’t beat an HBCU. I needed this place, these people to ground me, before I soar.