Silver Currents of Change

Chapter 1

The seventeen-year-old owner of a beige, 1995 Impala managed to pull it all the way to the right side of the road after the automobile's engine simply stopped running. And—as the last of the chilled air from the air conditioner dissipated, the two occupants of the broken down car knew the heat was going to surround and submerge them, plunging them straight into the fires of hell. They knew they had to get help, and they had to get it sooner rather than later.

With dusk setting in, it wasn't feeling like a good time of day—not for a car to break down. It was Sunday, and although the month had just changed from August to September, it was unbearably hot and rain clouds were gathering. The intolerable mugginess of the atmosphere promised rain, and the best thing about that was it would cool the sticky, stifling air. 

"I keep tellin' you to get yourself a ride," Yvette said, arms crossed and unable to keep a frown from forming on the smooth and creamy chocolate skin of her twenty-year-old forehead. "I don't know why you never listen to me. I keep sayin' you need a car. Not a new car. Just a car. Cause I don't know what this is."

Zarah eased her dark shades down from her eyes. "Shut up Vette. I'm doing the best I can. Let's just be positive. Maybe some nice, kind ... black ... man will stop to help us. Let's believe. Pray with me, okay?" She pushed the shades back up, pushed back hard against her seat, and then let out a hard, exasperated sigh.

"I can't believe this clunker just stopped going in the middle of the highway. We went to church today, so why is God punishing us?"

"God is not punishing us. Cars break down."

"Good cars don't break down in the sticks where nothing but snooty rich white people live. The kind that can't tolerate being too close to Negroes like us, in Jackson. We're on I-55 South, Zarah. Ten good miles from Jackson, on a hellacious hot day when neither one of us charged our phones."

"I can't believe I forgot to do that before leaving Mama's house."

"I can't believe we both forgot to do it knowing we had to drive almost eighty miles from Silver Water. That's why we deserve this. We really do. Whatever kind of horror story happens out here in these sticks ... we deserve it." Yvette crossed her arms, frowning.

"We do not deserve a horror story. Don't even say that. We use our phones to call our folks, so we don't use them much when we're home for the weekend. You were visiting your dad and brother, and I was visiting my mom and my sister. So we forgot to charge our phones. So what? Don't worry. We'll be okay."

"Don't make me have to say it again. Z. You have to get out. You look good in those jeans, and you look white from a distance. With all that light brown, curly hair, you can get us some help. But you have to get out the car."

"Stop sayin' that. I do not look white."

"Okay, so you got full lips and a round badunkadunk. I'll give you that. But these white folk have to stop and walk over here to see your little pieces of black. They can see mine from a distance. So, go on. Get out and get us some help. I'm a little too chocolate, but you? You look like one of them. You can pass. So ... get out."

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After standing outside in the sweltering heat for ten minutes, leaning against the front door as directed by her only passenger, a sleek, dark blue town car pulled up behind the Impala and stopped a full car length away. A black man was driving the car, and another man was sitting in the back seat as his only passenger.

"See. I told you," Yvette whispered loudly. "You didn't just get us some help. You got us a rich white man with a black chauffeur. Maybe we won't be murdered tonight, and we might even be ridin' home in style."

The tall town car passenger, Also wearing dark shades, had to lean downto exit from the back seat. Out of the car, the well-built man had a head full of dark, curly hair that didn't end before connecting to a full, bushy dark beard and mustache. He waved a confident stop sign at the black driver, then he scratched at his hairy, angular jawline before checking his iPhone. Dressed in sloppy black sweatpants, a faded black T-shirt, and grungy, white high-top Converse All Stars, as the stranger approached the young women, it looked like he could have been smiling. His face was so completely masked with hair, neither the Impala's owner nor its passenger could be sure.

"I don't know," Yvette mumbled. "I ... think ... I changed my mind. Maybe you should get back in the car. Now. Before he gets here."

Zarah leaned down and stuck her head into the driver-side window. "I know I prayed him up, but ... he looks a little ... scary. Like a rich ... white, hobo. A bum. In a town car, with a chauffeur. But Vette. It's getting dark and we need help. I don't know if we should ... but at least we have a witness. A black one."

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Two hours later, with all her windows rolled down, rain started tapping a steady beat against Zarah's bare arms as thousands of tiny fluid balls, miracles of nature, cooled her skin on the hot Mississippi day. As she pulled into the parking lot of their apartment complex, Yvette reminded her the car wasn't fixed. It was just rigged to run a while so she could get it to a shop and leave it a few days.

"You know I don't have the money, right? To pay for a new engine. So."

"Call your rich brothers. EZ and Danny. They would rather you ask them for the money than have you stranded on the highway again, praying for the kindness of strangers."

Yvette's roommate breathed a loud sigh of exasperation. Earlier that evening, the stranger invited them to sit in the back seat next to him, inside the air-conditioned comfort of the town car. It took a man whose truck said he was "The Mighty Mobile Mechanic" two hours to get the Impala running, and that was right before he told Zarah she needed a new engine. After that, he warned her not to run the air conditioner because it would put too much stress on the old engine, and that was why they needed the rain shower that was cooling them down and refreshing their senses. 

"We lucked out though, huh? With that strange, masked man? He was a lifesaver." 

"Oh yeah. The bearded man. Well. He was ... 'aloof,' but ... I guess cordial and kind."

"He gave us bottled water and let us sit in his air-conditioned car. He spent most of the time on his phone, texting, but he said he was working with his partner to finish a project for work. Work always comes first with rich folk. So. Made sense to me."

Zarah rolled her eyes. "He was definitely a strange one. Kept his face turned away from us the whole time. Weird. Didn't say much more than his excuse. Guess it's how you help while still being mean." 

"Stop it. See. That's why I keep tellin' you to stop putting all white people in one basket. They're not all mean old racist assholes. You ask me? That guy was a superhero."

"I wouldn't call him a superhero just because he called a mechanic to come get my car going. Or even because he wouldn't let me pay the guy. Probably has more money than God. Besides. We don't even know he was white. Under all that hair ... who could tell? His skin wasn't pink, at least the little bit of it I saw wasn't pink. It was more of a light, golden color. Darker than mine."

"News flash. That ain't sayin' much. A person could be two shades darker than you and still be in the white race."

"Shut up. I'm just sayin' he might not be white. I'm not white. And my skin is lighter than his."

"All I know is ... whoever he was—black, white, Arab, or Puerto Rican, he was a superhero tonight for two scared little black college students. Still. I can't help but wonder."

"What?"

"He didn't tell us his name. And he was ... mysterious. That makes me wonder who he was."

"He was the man who helped us. The man who didn't kill us."

"Hey ... you're the journalist. You should be more curious than I am. You should want to know more than I do. Who was that masked man?"

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