When Ghosts Come Home

by Wiley Cash

Winston agreed with the stances Bellamy had taken over the years. But he also knew the importance, especially in a place like Brunswick County, of walking that fine line of legal authority and cultural memory. Ed Bellamy understood it too, meaning he understood that what people like Winston believed in private and what they were willing to say in public were not always the same thing. Ed Bellamy was bold and outspoken because he believed he had to be to get things done. Winston was deliberate and careful for the exact same reason.

she thought vaguely but powerfully of time and change and tragedy and life and all the ways we hang on to these things, store them, and then take them out over the years to leaf through the memories in their pages.

“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.

“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,