"Fire Infernal," fractal art by the author, Deeann D. Mathews
“So, I'd like to interview your grandfather,” nine-year-old Vertran Stepforth said to eleven-year-old Eleanor Ludlow, “about how he deals with the fact that so many of y'all's relatives are basically a crowd of monsters.”
Eleanor considered this and sighed.
“There's a reason nobody wants your side of American history taught, Vertran,” she said. “I'm a blue-blood, meaning that through my parents and grandparents, there are a lot of lords that had serfs and kept them poor, and then came here and bought slaves and treated them even worse. My great-great-grandfather likely would have slapped me and killed you for us even having this conversation, because you're a Black boy and I'm a White girl.
“But, see, what happens is, if you know Jesus for real, at some point you just gotta come out from among the monsters. There's really just monsters and people that came out from that, and Edwin Ludlow, my great-grandfather, started out kinda late and then Papa started out late but a little earlier than his dad, and here I am, talking to you. We gotta choose not to all be a crowd of monsters.”
“Well,” Vertran said, “that's not even a racial thing, that's a human thing, because I was talking to Cousin Velma about the moonshining and drug dealing that took out so much of her family too.”
“Yeah, she and I talk about that a lot with Andrew,” Eleanor said, “because Andrew and I and our siblings don't have parents or aunts and uncles that we know about, and Velma doesn't have any uncles or great-uncles. Sgt. Vincent Trent in his generation and his dad Mr. V.T. Trent in his generation were the only men to survive.”
“I've done my own research about this as far as the PG-13 filters on my social media that my parents have on will let me go, and even then, there's ways,” Vertran said, “so I think it goes wrong if we decide to get rich and important or just think we can't live except on other's people backs – like other people owe us their lives so we can live – like we get to eat them up.”
Eleanor considered this.
“I think that makes sense. Like, drug dealers and drug users – drug dealers are selling drugs and don't care about what happens, and drug users get to a point that they will steal and kill and orphan their own kids to be able to get and not give up their drugs.”
“And, like slave owners and slaves who turned in other slaves trying to be free,” Vertran said. “That made no sense to me until I realized why those two work together: both of them are worshiping what they think they get from slavery. I mean, it's crazy, but, it's the same thing with drugs: drug dealers and users are both stuck on what they get from drugs. Basically, it's all idolatry.”
“I'm just going to come into this conversation here,” Eleanor's brother ten-year-old Andrew said as he came over, “because it took me a minute to find it in Papa's Bible: 'keep yourselves from idols.'”
“That's it,” Vertran and Eleanor said.
Meanwhile, that same morning, the two grandfathers of these children were having coffee, and having a version of the same conversation.
“So much evil was done to keep us from sitting here together and talking about how we bless our generations,” Capt. R.E. Ludlow said, “so much evil on my side, and weakness, that we thought we could only be rich if men like you were enslaved … and yet I have humbly taken fruit and herbs and water, and built something that has exceeded all my ancestors.”
“Listen,” Mr. Thomas Stepforth said. “My father did not understand the money I was making long before he died, but he told me: 'Don't you get confused, Tom: you gettin' blessed just because you not doing it the slaving way – God will set you up to be rich His way, and He will cut you right down if you try it the devil's way. Mrs. Velma will tell you what happened when I forgot for a minute. I lost her and all of our children for a decade – I had to come back and humble down like everyone else in God's care to be a man you can work with today.”
“The Lord knows how he had to humble me,” Capt. Ludlow said. “It took every bit of it, too, coming from my background – coming out from my background, that is.”
“I know after yesterday you are thanking God you are not over there amongst them,” Mr. Stepforth said. “There but for the grace of God!”
“Oh, I would be awaiting trial and Astor would not have lived another day to enjoy the insane asylum,” Capt. Ludlow said. “I would never have known to get those patents in advance, and he would therefore have had to die. But see, Edwin my father set me up because he saw: the evil of men like himself was going to destroy their own generations. When my Slocum-Bolling uncles murdered three men in the street just because they were Black, while one of those uncles was holding me in his arms, that was the first turning point in my father's life. He knew then he had to come out, and before he died, he came all the way to Christ because he realized how he had participated so much evil and only cared when it came to his household. So, he set me up so when it occurred to me that I too would have to come out, I would not be hindered by any of our relatives, and now … .”
Mr. Stepforth gave the captain a moment to compose himself.
“Freedom is for you and your grandchildren as much as it is for mine,” the billionaire said.
“Yes,” Capt. Ludlow said. “My ancestors enslaved themselves to evil to hold your ancestors in the evil of slavery – the unnecessary evil, but they chose to worship it and sacrifice themselves, their children, their grandchildren, their great-grandchildren, along with all of yours – but not today. Not with you. Not with me. Not with our grandchildren. It ends with us.”
“Exactly,” Mr. Stepforth said. “Exactly. It's about freedom. We don't need to be on either end of slavery, because the Lord has set us free to live and work while honoring all people, and all Creation. I was blessed that He led me into solar technology so I could see what we could do with just His sunlight, which is free – and so I stayed in industries that majored on that. There's all kinds of room in freedom, Capt. Ludlow – plenty good room to welcome anyone who chooses it.”
“I sense that now, sir,” Capt. Ludlow said, and marveled in himself … he had recognized the billionaire as his elder, when he was raised to have called all Black men “boy” no matter how old they were.
Mr. Stepforth smiled as Capt. Ludlow's realization played out on his face.
“Freedom and mutual respect for all people takes a little getting used to, Captain,” he said, returning the respect, “but I do believe you and the family are going to like it over here, and you are catching on well!”
“Oh, look, my grandchildren can't thrive any other way, my second wife is like my mom and grandmom and just is not going to live the old way, and I just have to figure it out as I go!” the captain said. “I am not about to end my life as a pillar of salt – there's no turning back now!”
“Hey!” nine-year-old George Ludlow said as he ran over, all excited, to nine-year-old Milton Trent. “I finally found a patch of stinkhorn mushrooms – I wonder if we can use them in spaghetti like garlic?”
“NO,” the two grandfathers boomed in perfect baritone and basso profondo harmony.
“Y'all just go on back to voluntarily co-grounding real quick,” Mr. Stepforth said.
“Quick, fast, and in a hurry,” Capt. Ludlow added. “Get a book, and get out here and be reading it where we can see you.”
“Yes, sirs!” the two boys said, and swiftly reappeared with their books and started reading on the Ludlow porch.
“See, this right here,” Mr. Stepforth said to Capt. Ludlow.
“Yeah, we gotta keep our lives together,” Capt. Ludlow said. “The world is not prepared for stinkhorn spaghetti, although, quiet as we must keep it, immature stinkhorns in their egg stage are actually delicious, and I do actually have a recipe.”
“What other patents do you have, actualized or nascent?” Mr. Stepforth said.
“Nascent … that's a lot,” Capt. Ludlow said.
“Lofton County is known for its Plumpepper sauce, and now the Ludlow Bubbly – people know great foods come from here,” Mr. Stepforth said. “Since you have started leasing with the Ludlow Winery, you do know there are many more opportunities of that kind out here, right?”
“I had not thought about it,” Capt. Ludlow said, “but your grandson Vertran has a great interviewer's phrase: 'Tell us a little more about that.'”
Mr. Stepforth laughed.
“And that boy gets people telling all of their business – his father and I have to veto publishing four out of every five raw videos because -- my word!”
“He and Tom III are good at what they do,” Capt. Ludlow said. “Keeps me on my toes about remembering anybody not on a need-to-know basis just gets name, rank, and serial number over here.”
“Oh, yeah, stay on your toes, because Stepforth and Stepforth are coming for everything Woodward and Bernstein didn't get!” Mr. Stepforth said, and the two grandfathers had a good laugh about that.
The kids talking about monsters and freedom is very real. They get it better than most of us adults haha
My Sunday School students generally do ... they have not yet learned to lie to themselves to get what they want. My job? To help them choose that way.
hahahaha wish you luck on the job