When Ghosts Come Home

by Wiley Cash

“I tried telling him how hard it is in this country to raise a Black boy into a man.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “Don’t ever be sorry. You needed me, and I came. I’ll always come when you need me.”

What he didn’t possess in inherent brilliance or revolutionary zeal he made up for in his simple understanding of people: their motivations, fears, and frustrations.

She did not feel like she belonged anywhere or to anyone, and in that moment a glimmer of freedom slashed through her like a knife.

“That’s what it feels like to be a Black man in America, Winston. I’ve been on my belly for years, looking up from the ground, getting stepped on while I keep on crawling forward. The only difference between then and now is that I don’t have that one shot to look forward to.”

He was the kind of man who scared her, a man who acted like he had nothing to lose because he lived in a world without consequences.

All people, no matter their race, were motivated by fear and power more than they were motivated by money or pride,