30 Love, page 15
Standing outside of St. Peter C.M.E. Church with two months to go before our wedding, Lailah and I are cuddling while leaning against my Jeep Wrangler. I can’t help but to think about when we were much younger, possibly six or seven, and we used to run around this church (it was much smaller back then, without the add-on of a cavernous fellowship hall). We would chase each other after church, playing “Tag” and screaming at each other “You’re it!” like we had no good sense. All the while our parents stood around socializing with other adults from the church. We had to stay busy and active to keep from getting bored. Plus, we were hungry. Even on first Sundays when we had communion, and those small little crackers and packets of grape juice only further amplified our hunger. We had fun though, sneaking each other pieces of candy during the pastor’s sermon.
I wish I could say that when we entered high school we were much more focused, but we weren’t any more focused than when we were children, often passing notes to each other during the service, making our usual comments on the selections of our tone deaf choir. Now as we lean against the side of the church, it occurs to me that our getting married here is probably the only serious thing that we will have ever done here.
“Lots of memories here,” I say, stroking Lailah’s hair softly.
She chuckles under her breath. “I guess we had to grow up sooner or later.”
“Yeah,” I respond. “You are probably right.”
The parking lot is still gravel, after all of these years, and while the church looks different, it still feels the same.
“Remember Pastor Brown?”
“How could I forget?” I say, laughing. “He always called us frick and frack.”
“Yeah, and he would always mispronounce words in the Bible.”
“I remember that. I think I remember him reading out of the New Testament one time saying something like, ‘Jesus walked through the garden of Big Word, and he Big Word. Then the Big Word became the Big Word.’”
We laugh hard, remembering how Pastor Brown wrestled with pronouncing words that had more than six letters in them. It probably wasn’t supposed to be funny, but we couldn’t help but laugh. In a church where many of the members of the congregation had college degrees, it was expected that whichever pastor the bishops assigned us would be able to at least read publicly from the Bible without butchering the King’s English.
“Be serious now,” I say, trying to stop laughing. “Did you think that we would ever be here, getting married?”
“It might have crossed my mind when we were little, since we used to play like we were married all the time anyway. I guess there was a part of me that wondered if it would ever happen or even if it could happen.”
“I feel you. I knew from the first time that I put that Cracker Jack ring on your finger that I wanted to be with you.”
“You were only six then. You couldn’t have possibly known what you wanted back then.”
“Yes, I could. And I did. And I still do. With you, it has always been easy. Loving you has just come naturally for me.”
Lailah lifts her head to me and kisses me. As our lips touch, I feel a warmth come over me. Everything in this moment feels so right, and I find myself unable to stop wishing for our wedding day to come sooner.
“It is a good thing that you never stopped loving me,” Lailah says, nestling her head against my neck.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I would have hated to be alone on that one.”
I smile. “Never that, Lailah. Never that.”
“I guess we should go back inside and finish the last of our pre-marital counseling sessions.”
Our fingers interlock, and I glance at her left hand. The diamond on the ring glints in the afternoon sun.
As we enter the side of the church and head for Pastor Edwards’s office (he has now been at the church for two annual conferences), Lailah squeezes my hand excitedly.
Just two short months away from now, I tell myself, and I find myself unable to stop smiling.
Other Books By Ran Walker
B-Sides and Remixes
30 Love: A Novel
Mojo’s Guitar: A Novel/(Il était une fois Morris Jones)
Afro Nerd in Love: A Novella
The Keys of My Soul: A Novel
The Race of Races: A Novel
The Illest: A Novella
Bessie, Bop, or Bach: Collected Stories
Four Floors (with Sabin Prentis)
Black Hand Side: Stories
White Pages: A Novel
She Lives in My Lap
Reverb
Work-In-Progress
Daykeeper
Most of My Heroes Don’t Appear On No Stamps
Portable Black Magic
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my family (nuclear, extended, and in-laws) for their support. I would also like to thank Sabin Duncan, Kyr Mack, Phill Branch, Van G. Garrett, Nsayel Mputubwele, Kathryn DeShields, and The Whittington family for their encouragement of this project. Also, I would like to give a special thanks to a true friend and survivor, my “little sister,” Brandi Ray.
For all of you who have read and supported my work up to this point, thank you. Your feedback and enthusiastic word-of-mouth are truly appreciated, and I will be forever grateful.
Last, but by no means least, I would like to thank my beautiful wife, Lauren, for her love and encouragement, and my lovely daughter, Zoë, who continues to amaze and inspire me.
About the Author
Ran Walker is the author of seventeen books. He has written novels, novellas, short stories, flash fiction, microfiction, and poetry. His short stories, flash fiction, microfiction, and poetry have appeared in a variety of anthologies and journals. Prior to becoming a writer and educator, he worked in magazine publishing and practiced law in Mississippi.
He is the winner of the 2019 National Indie Author of the Year Award (selected by judges from Library Journal, Publisher's Weekly, IngramSpark, St. Martin's Press, and Writer's Digest), the 2019 Black Caucus of the American Library Association Best Fiction Ebook Award, and the 2018 Virginia Indie Author Project Award for Adult Fiction. He is also the recipient of both a 2005 Mississippi Arts Commission/NEA artist grant and a 2006 artist mini-grant. He served as an Artist-in-Residence with the Mississippi Arts Commission in 2006. Additionally, he is a past participant in the Hurston-Wright Writers Week Workshop and is the recipient of a fellowship from the Callaloo Writers Workshop.
His novel Mojo's Guitar was translated by renowned French translator Philippe Loubat-Delranc and published in April 2015 by Éditions Autrement as Il était une fois Morris Jones. The novel was recently republished in May of 2019 as a part of Éditions Autrement's "Les Grands Romans" collection.
His first collection of poetry, Most of My Heroes Don't Appear On No Stamps: Kwansabas, will be published in August of 2019 by The University of Hell Press, based out of Portland, Oregon.
Ran is a graduate of Morehouse College (BA in English), Pace University (MS in Publishing), and George Washington University Law School (JD). He also has a Certificate in Publishing from New York University and has done graduate work in English at Mississippi State University.
Ran is an Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Hampton University and lives in Virginia with his wife and much better half, Lauren, and his amazing little rockstar daughter, Zoë.
Ran Walker, 30 Love
