“See, this is the thing: people are not garlic.”
Thomas Stepforth Sr., walking within earshot of the conversation of his three oldest grandchildren, 21-year-old Melvin and 17-year-old Vanna Trent with 16-year-old Thomas Stepforth III, turned around and walked away, having been defeated before he started because out of context, that had cracked him up. He needed to get that laugh done before he could offer wisdom, especially since eight-year-old Gracie Trent was doing what she usually did and was also eavesdropping close by and had quietly added, “Ain't it the truth.”
“See, garlic stinks but it's good for you,” Melvin was explaining, “but people will kill you, like, for real.”
“And the sad part of it is,” Vanna was saying, “evil is strong, and meanness is strong, and that's why so many people have this attraction to the worst people and situations – but the strength of evil is not even close to comparable to the strength of good. It just takes longer – but in the meantime, the consequences of evil just eat you up.”
“What I see as a journalist,” Tom said, “is really that people don't have patience with good taking so long – they are willing to take foolery for a shortcut not knowing it's a shortcut to a whole mess.”
“Yep,” Melvin said. “And the mess can include the grave, prison, and the asylum – like, when you sit down and talk to our parents about all the people that didn't make it to see their ages, and then you talk to our grandparents and realize the same thing, and then look at us – just look at us in our generation!”
“We gotta stay strong,” Tom said, “strong on good, because it is getting ridiculous out here.”
Mr. Stepforth had almost returned to join the conversation, but then what Tom was talking about sent him out again.
“I just can't believe the high school football team was having secret practices in the rain and forgot why you don't do that – and then everybody got Covid on top of it – and then it wasn't even the first-string guys who were in all that!”
“Well, if you are third and fourth string in high school, desperation does kinda set in, but then again, Covid and pneumonia and messing up your ACL kinda sets in too,” Melvin said.
“Ain't it the truth,” Vanna said, and her grandfather had to go lie down!
