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“Let's take a walk, grandson … it will help you clear your head.”
“I'm just so grateful to you, Pop-Pop, for making time to help me walk through this!”
66-year-old Thomas Stepforth Sr. looked into his grandson 21-year-old Melvin Trent's face, and saw himself looking again into his father's eyes, because Mr. Stepforth was his father's baby son, and the age gap was just about as wide – not quite, but close.
“It is a blessing to live to get old and God see fit to even let you be here to be of help,” he said, realizing his father had just come out of his mouth. “We'll just thank God together and keep walking.”
The two men went down into Fruitland Memorial Park, which was 12 square miles – not acres – but miles that Gen. J.J. Lofton made an orchard and personal residence. It was August, and the two ate their fill of plums and peaches and filled up bags for their family.
“I brought you down here for a reason,” Mr. Stepforth said. “I'm a billionaire, and you're not, yet, but notice God's trees don't care and will provide for us because He said so. Everything you need will be provided for you just like everyone else – you do not have to compete and compare with people that don't get it, and you don't need a billion dollars. I compromised my family doing that, and so I can't recommend that – but I didn't understand what I'm telling you then. I also put us through too much not to pass all this on so you never have to face my temptations.”
“But every man has to face his own temptations and decide whether he is going to stand and walk or fall and wallow, Melvin. I grieve for your generation because the comparison and competition isn't even real – folks are acting a fool trying to be who they see on social media, not even fighting the real batlles.”
“Yeah, it's bad, Pop-Pop,” Melvin said, “and most people your age are not even trying to understand. I mean, I get that the real battles defeating Jim Crow were hard, but literally, our own are killing each other over Instagram stunting and drug territory that none of us own with drugs we don't create and guns we don't manufacture – and when God leads you another way and you try to show your friends, they hate you for even knowing better.”
“Because your life convicts them, Melvin – it's not just that they envy you. It's also because your life convicts them. I go through this. I have friends I lost because your grandmother and I got back together – men my age trying to be Superfly, talking about how we gotta keep the witches with a B in line and how I am messing it up because I should have gotten the youngest woman I could find and rubbed in your grandmother's face to get my daughters and granddaughters in line because we worked too hard to be disrespected by witches with a B who don't have anything without us.”
“Wait, Pop-Pop, no!” Melvin said. “You're 66 – ain't no way.”
“Remember what your Big Pop-Pop used to say when men my age then were wilding out drunk in the neighborhood?”
Melvin thought back, and then shook his head.
“Ain't no fool like an old fool,” he said.
“People don't get upright with age,” Mr. Stepforth said. “They get worse if they do not seek to be upright. You letting go at 21 is a blessing to you, though a hard one – I am still coming to terms with men that look like me talking like Thomas Jefferson about women, their employees, their businesses. Greed and lust in a man, left unchecked for 66 years, is a truly ugly thing – you can rot before you die, and you can't hide the stink at this age, so all the friends you end up having are ones whose noses have gotten to like it and are mad at the people who still object because we should be able to buy their allegiance.”
“The way you talk, Pop-Pop,” Melvin said, “I'm glad this is all happening now.”
“Bingo,” Mr. Stepforth said. “Like your grandmother my once, present, again, and future wife says, 'I been tellin' y'all!' and like your Jubilee-of-the-mountain-born grandmother says, 'It saves you from having to shoot them later to defend yourself.'”
“She said that to me yesterday!” Melvin said.
“And when a Jubilee-of-the-mountain-born says that, she means it. Gladys understands how bad it is too for your age group, because in mountain communities in the South, a man will still kill another over honor – which really boils down to you getting in the way of somebody else pride.”
“That's the same thing on social media!” Melvin said.
“Never underestimate how human nature does the same dumb stuff in every generation,” Mr. Stepforth said, “trying to play God and ending up going back to dust.”
Mr. Stepforth pulled a folded green bag out of his pocket.
“Suppose we go crazy and cut this up and try to spend it as money.”
Melvin broke out laughing.
“Oh, is that what people look like, trying to play God in the world?”
“Now you get it, grandson. The difference is, we would know we would have to be crazy. The other difference is, they think we're crazy for not doing this. But no matter what, this is a paper bag, and it is green, but it is not ever going to be money. Men are never, no matter how much fame and fortune and status they attain, going to be God.
“So, they envy you, Melvin, because of what you have as you walk with God in the midst of your healed family doing the same, and they hate that you are succeeding with your own talent without compromising because it convicts them. You can't fix that. You can only block it and move on.”
“Got it,” Melvin said. “Getting it done at 21.”
“Right on, grandson. Right on.”
