It is the spring of 1980, and Waynesville State University students Jeremy McCutchin and Rodney Blake have just spent two glorious weeks in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. They are returning to New York and to school when the unthinkable happens. The two best friends-one white and one black-are nearing the end of their prescribed 600-miles-per-day driving limit when they feel the new 1980 black convertible hit something on the dark stretch of county road. They investigate, see nothing, and decide the best course of action is to report the incident to the authorities. In this small town of 595 people, Jeremy and Rodney report the incident to Sheriff Relliford. He tells them there is probably nothing to worry about, but impounds their car for good measure. But the sheriff is mistaken. The boys are charged with vehicular homicide and must defend themselves in court. In this time of racial turmoil in the United States, Jeremy and Rodney fight for their freedom and come of age in a very difficult way.

The Gilded Web

By J. R. Glover

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2011 J. R. Glover
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4620-2153-6

Contents

Chapter One The Event.............................1Chapter Two Circumstance..........................10Chapter Three Second Thoughts.....................24Chapter Four Relationships........................61Chapter Five Searchings...........................110Chapter Six A Call for Help.......................162Chapter Seven Quest of Truth......................193Chapter Eight Continuations.......................248

Chapter One

The Event

Life is full of truisms, such as "honesty is the best policy; the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence" and things of this sort. Life also consists of placates which make no logical sense like, "The trip back is always shorter than going," which is a vain attempt to appease one's sense of impatience. Jeremy was hoping that the latter would prove to be accurate in spite of what common sense dictates. After all, juniors in college should be rational, right?

But man ... I was tired—dead tired. And, right now the drive home was about as appealing as a mustard sandwich. Still I hoped and drove. The brand new black 1980 convertible roadster given to him as a graduation gift by his father, sped through the ink velvet night.

Jeremy was so preoccupied with his own musings, that he forgot about Rod in the seat next to me until he snored, or more like snorted. I knew that he was knocked out after driving over 300 hundred miles. What a pal! I don't think any two friends could be any closer than Rod and me. I didn't even think about his being black, although we did nothing to pretend that we weren't different. We just kind of accepted that as a given. Aren't all people different anyway? Jeremy smiled as he remembered that this was not always the case between them.

At 21 years of age, Jeremy was a rather ordinary looking guy with a rugged handsomeness about him. His heavy dark brown eyebrows were framed by a wrinkled brow and thick locks of sandy colored hair, bleached even lighter after two weeks of Florida sunshine. His thin and wiry six-foot frame was slightly slumped at the shoulders as he battled a little driving fatigue.

He had been at the wheel for over five hours and knew that pretty soon he would have to rest for a while. Jeremy is a rather easy-going person prone to quick laughter and mild-mannered ways. He knew that these laid-back characteristics, so natural to him, would soon be challenged in the dog-eat-dog world of investments on Wall Street following graduation. This warning had come from his dad, himself a well-respected and successful broker in upstate New York. The lines in his brow deepened ever so slightly with resentment at the thought of this. As much as he disliked the thought, he knew his father was probably right.

Different occupations often call for certain kinds of demeanor and personalities. He hated the thought of a professional "Game Face." Ministers should be cordial and smiling; school teachers, like surrogate parents; lawyers, trusting enough to even be lied to if necessary. All so phony. So artificial. He didn't relish his childhood ways being changed by a society which often lacks authenticity. Why can't people just be real? Be themselves? His dad was nicknamed "bulldog" on the Market, but at home he was as placid a person as you could find. A Jekyl and Hyde of sorts.

"Hey dude," a voice shattered through my thoughts.

"This ain't finals week, you know," Rod was saying.

"What's the serious look about?" Rod was awake.

"Aw, nothing really," Jeremy replied, "Just thinking about the rest of my life after school." Rod sat up straight for an instant, changed positions and relaxed again.

"Yeah, but don't let it depress you. You'll be okay," he said. "It's gonna be tough, though, meeting all of those middle-class expectations laid on you. Me? I'm the first person in my family who'd have a college degree. Man, I'm a celebrity in my neighborhood!" Jeremy smiled. Rod was good at helping me to keep things in perspective. Here I was troubled by the thought of an adult role, while my friend would face an uphill battle for the rest of his life overcoming the disadvantage of being black in a white culture. My concerns pale by comparison.

The boys lapsed again into the easy silence that comes when two people are truly comfortable with each other. In his own way, Rodney thought, Jeremy was as trapped as he was. While their situations were different, both would have something to prove after graduation.

Rodney was not always this open-minded. When he first enrolled at Waynesville State University three years ago as an engineering major, he brought with him some disillusionments and bitterness that a life of poverty instills. He had thought that all whites were blessed and all blacks were cursed. Even his high school counselor, Mrs. Vernor, encouraged him to attend a trade school or a vocational school because he had to take the ACT twice before passing. Man, I'll never forget her icy look and casual matter-of-fact advice. Now, he was a Junior in college!

At five feet nine and 185 pounds, Rod was built like the athlete he was. Barrel-chested and bronze, he was a striking figure. His short haircut was neatly cropped. After his freshman year in college, Rod had to give up football in favor of academics because he refused to opt for a less challenging degree. Since he wasn't on an athletic scholarship anyway, the decision was not that difficult. Since neither of his parents were college graduates, he was determined to give Mom and Dad something to rejoice about as well as to prove to himself that he could do it, in spite of Mrs. Vernor!

Strangely enough, the boys' friendship grew out of a fight they had in their second month of school. Having been made roommates in the dorm at Halverson Hall, the result of an intentional cross-racial dorm policy at the school, they were polar opposites.

Jeremy was raised in a bed chamber suburb with its insulated and elite community school system, while Rod came from an inner city school system replete with truancy and discipline problems. There were no blacks in Jeremy's hometown, so he had no experience relating to African Americans. All he knew of blacks was what he had heard, tales that were related by friends or by what he saw on television or read in the papers.

Unfortunately, what he saw and read in suburbia was largely biased and sensational types of news. Always something negative. You couldn't trust blacks as far as you could throw a Volkswagen! The unfortunate thing about this was that Jeremy had no other frame of reference by which to judge the trueness of falseness of these perceptions.

Rodney, on the other hand, lived in a poor black neighborhood in the inner city. Although he went to school with some white students, they were mostly poor inner-city whites who were bussed in as part of the longstanding desegregation plan for the city. These whites, however, were very different from Jeremy. In many ways, poor whites who go to school with blacks, are discriminated against themselves. So, in some cases there were similarities.

But like Rod once told one of his white classmates, "The difference is that you can go on to college, get an education, put on a suit, move on the other side of the tracks and Bang! You're in. Me? My color follows me wherever I go."

Away from school, however, black and rival white gangs fought continuously. One thing that Rod...