Wealth Pt. 03

"I want to," Anita lied, rubbing Toni's flat chest. "But remember how little work got done we weren't there?"

In Dean Robert Sims' outer office, Dudley Hamilton smirked at Penny, the Dean's Administrative Assistant, as the woman clearly tried her best not to stare at the lump in Dudley's jeans. Dudley had, of course, jettisoned the hoody into the trunk of his car and pulled his jeans up, securely cinching the belt when the student courier had given him the note that Dean Sims wanted to see him at twelve thirty that afternoon.

Dudley also smirked; there was some horrible music being played; it almost sounded like Country, but was a lot more nasal, whiney.

"So, you listen to that too?" Dudley asked the woman who again averted her eyes.

So he thrust his crotch toward her, imagining sliding his black meat in between her white ass cheeks. Dudley did not like white people, blonde white women in particular, and loved hearing them whine and complain as he brutally pounded into their tight little asses.

"Bluegrass?" Penny asked, looking up into his arrogant face, avoiding looking at his crotch, even though he was thrusting it close to her face. "

"Bluegrass? Is that what that is?" Dudley asked, sneering.

"No not really," Penny said. "I get home, I put on old Motown."

"Aw yeah, you my girl," Dudley said.

"Yes sir," Penny said into the telephone, then hung up.

"He'll see you now," Penny said and again averted her eyes from his crotch.

"Cracker bitch, come on, look at it, you know you want it," Dudley thought to himself as he entered Dean Sims' office.

"Had an interesting conversation with some of your students this morning, Robert Sims said, getting straight to the point, not offering Dudley a seat.

Dudley sat down anyway, slouching back in the chair.

"And since it's a waste of time teaching us ignorant coon asses business principles anyway," Robert said, pushing a button on his cell phone and playing Dudley's words out loud. "This university will not waste one more moment of your time. Thank you; that will be all."

It took a few moments for Dean Robert Sims' words to sink in. Finally, Dudley pushed himself into a proper sitting position.

"You shitting me, right?" he finally blurted out.

"That's kind of what I thought when I heard this recording of you ; you are shitting me, this is a college educated man?" Dean Robert Sims said.

"By the way," Robert said as a numb Dudley got to his feet. "It may interest you to know that there are quite a few multi-million dollar industries within a twenty mile radius of this campus and only one of those has anything to do with crawfish or alligators."

"Uh huh," Dudley said, leaving the office.

Penny smirked; at least Dean Sims was no longer playing that horrible music.

At Side By Side, Barry opened the door for Johnny.

"That's not the same girl," Johnny whispered as Laci took them immediately to a table.

"Hey Dad," BJ said and kissed his father on the lips.

"And that's not the same manager," Johnny said.

"Well, hopefully we'll get the same great service, and the same great food," Barry smiled.

"You, uh, you kiss your son on the mouth, huh?" Johnny asked.

"Yeah, way I was raised," Barry shrugged. "Kiss all three of them; kiss my daughter too. Just the way we are."

"Yeah, me too," Johnny agreed.

"Hi; I remember you," Polly smiled as she placed the basket of rolls on the table. "No cucumber, right?"

"Know a lot about cars; know anything about trucks?" Johnny asked as Polly put their iced tea on the table.

"I know very little about cars," Barry admitted, smiling in satisfaction as he tasted the tea. "That's why I hired Bob and Jack; they know quite a bit about them."

"And the other guy?" Johnny asked.

"He knows even less about cars but he knows everything about money," Barry said.

"And you?" Johnny asked, amused.

"Me? I know luck," Barry said. "I heard they were building a hospital and I said 'doctors like fancy schmancy sports cars. Now, they could go to Baton Rouge or Lafayette to buy one, or I could open a showroom right here.'"

"And this?" Johnny asked, indicating the restaurant.

"My wife, you saw my wife today, my wife and I were on our way to Ruth's Chris Steak House in Lafayette and I said it was a shame we had to go that far for a decent piece of meat and she says to me 'well open your own.' Another one of those lucky moments."

"That boy, the manager?" Johnny said, pointing as BJ spoke with some guests at a table. "That red head I saw this morning; that's not his momma."

"No, his momma and I are divorced," Barry admitted.

"Because of that cute little red head?" Johnny asked.

"No, oh no, no, don't even think like that," Barry protested. "Darlene and I got divorced five, almost six years ago; she found some big college professor and said she didn't mean to but they just fell in love. No, no, Caitlin's completely innocent in all this; that sweet girl did not cause my divorce."

"I like that," Johnny said. "No, no, not that your wife left you, but that you come to your Caitlin's defense straight away."

In the foyer, Stacy Falgout and her AA sponsor, Precious Jones waited.

"Falgout, table of two?" Laci called out.

"Oh boy; been smelling all that good food," Stacy said as they followed the hostess.

"Better be good," Precious teased Stacy. "I don't put my teeth in for just nothing, you know."

"Miss Falgout! How are you?" BJ greeted his father's former girlfriend.

"Well hello BJ," Stacy said, feeling a slight tension in her belly.

"Ooh, love them rolls," Precious enthused as a basket of hot rolls was placed on the table.

"I am glad to see you and I hope you enjoy your meal; please let me know if you need anything," BJ said and continued his round of the restaurant.

"Oh, Momma!" Precious whispered to Stacy as she watched BJ walk away. "I'd love to thirteenth step that boy!"

"Precious!" Stacy gasped and laughed.

"Oh, Miss Falgout, you still have that poodle, it is a poodle, right?" BJ asked, returning to their table.

"Sadie? Yes, I still have that miserable little beast," Stacy said, smiling.

"Ah, animals, huh?" BJ said. "Drive you crazy but can't help but love them."

"Ooh Girl, you sure?" Precious asked, looking at nothing but the prices on the menu.

"Girl, come on, let's live a little," Stacy encouraged. "I told you, I got a bit check for making two phone calls. Don't worry about it. And like you said, you don't put your teeth in just for nothing."

At Johnson's Furniture and Appliances, Nine stopped Ed just before he opened the Repo Fridge.

"Nuh uh, your boy Graham didn't even take none of the food out. Said he could handle up on it; leave it for him," Nine said.

"Oh, okay, if he wants it, whatever," Ed shrugged.

He opened the washing machine that Nine had pulled out of the same house.

"Oh!" Ed gagged.

"What? Oh!" Nine also gagged on the smell of mildewed clothing.

"Whew! Well, let's see," Ed said and, with a grimace, reached in and pulled out some clothing and dropped them into a garbage bag. "Good God, how long these been in there? They're dry!"

Then he grabbed a box of baking soda and a bottle of vinegar and made a strong smelling paste and smeared it around the tub of the washing machine.

"Damn that do stink," Nine complained.

"Yeah, but it takes the smell right out. And it don't mess up the insides," Ed said and closed the lid.

Ed grabbed the bag of clothes and carried them outside.

"He even bother looking at this fridge?" Graham barked.

"Nope, told him you said you'd handle up on it," Nine said and left the warehouse.

Graham yanked the door of the refrigerator open and was immediately engulfed in a ball of flame.**

Ed heard the screams and raced back inside.

"Oh my God," Ed screamed, seeing Graham staggering around, on fire.

He grabbed one of the blankets Nine used to pad furniture, tackled Graham to the ground and smothered the flames.

"Nine one one, what is your emergency please?" a pleasant sounding female intoned.

"Got a burn victim, looks like most of his body got burned," Ed said, trying to shut out the sound of Graham's screams.

"What in God's, oh my God," Brett Johnson said, barging into the warehouse from the showroom.

"Ambulance on it's way, sir," the pleasant sounding voice said.

"Ambulance is on its way, Graham," Ed yelled.

A few minutes later, the ambulance screamed to the front of the store and Ed directed them to the rear of the store.

It may have taken them only six minutes to arrive, but it was a very long six minutes to Graham

"Oh good God," one of the paramedics said as he saw the severely burned skin falling off of Graham's hand.

"Don't think about it, just grab him and let's go," the other paramedic ordered; he had seen combat injuries in Afghanistan.

At Side By Side, Precious Jones gave a final suck on her teeth and smiled in satisfaction.

"Damn girl I could eat that every day, feel me?" she said.

"Here, Miss Falgout, for Sadie," BJ said, placing a Styrofoam box on the table.

"What's all..." Stacy asked.

"It's a couple of bones; I'm sure the little brat will just love you when you give them to her," he smiled.

"Girl, you get the V.I.P. treatment like this all the time?" Precious asked.

"Well, we try to give all of our guests the V.I.P. treatment," BJ smiled. "But Miss Falgout has been a friend of the family for a while now."

He turned and smiled at Stacy.

"Toni and Anita just love their condo and I got to tell you, I checked out their store; that is the perfect building for them; you did a great job," BJ complimented. "Dad's right; you really know your real estate."

"Thank you," Stacy said, blushing from the compliment.

"Thank you, please come again," their waitress smiled.

"Thank you; may we have the check now?" Stacy asked.

"Oh, Mr. Barry already paid and gave me the tip," the waitress said and turned to check on her other guests.

"Ooh, Girl, I'm hanging with you, feel me?" Precious said as they left the restaurant.

Stacy looked across the street at Superior Motors, just in time to see a familiar figure dash into the building.

"Hey, it's right out front, got a full tank of gas," Bob said, holding out the keys.

"Know anything about trucks?" Johnny asked.

"What kind?" Bob asked.

Jack walked over, interested.

"Need a couple; I'm using pick up trucks right now; bought me a couple of egg beaters but had to admit, looks like shit customer buys twenty, thirty thousand and we show up in a couple of beat up trucks," Johnny said.

"So, looking for pick ups or..." Jack asked.

"And that's the other thing; it's raining?" Johnny went on. "Now, you and I know, it's cast iron, what's it matter it gets wet? But customer's looking at you like it's your fault their stuff's getting all wet."

"So, a couple of box trucks, huh?" Bob asked Jack.

"With company logo on the sides," Jack agreed.

"Lease," Henry said, then turned to Johnny. "See, what you do is you form a Limited Liability company, call it John Flowers LLC, then you buy those trucks and lease them to Flowers Ironworks. Your LLC gets the tax write off for purchasing the new equipment and your Ironworks writes off the business expense of leasing the vehicles. Win-win and it's all perfectly legal and above board."

"Buy more than you need and you can lease the others out; there's a few companies around that need one or two trucks but just can't afford to buy them," Barry offered.

"Damn, y'all wouldn't happen to know where I can fine them box trucks, huh?" Johnny asked, smiling.

"Mercedes-Benz makes a great one, low maintenance and parts readily accessible," Jack said, pulling up the web site.

"Get me five of them," Johnny ordered. "Let me know when I can pick them up."

Good luck, Daddy," Johnny smiled and left the building.

Barry smiled as Caitlin's car pulled back up. The smile faded as a dejected Caitlin got out, followed by a dejected looking Shirley.

"Babbage's sucks and Abdul's sucks," Caitlin announced.

"They had some cute things," Shirley defended.

"Cute yes, but I don't want cute," Caitlin said.

"Well, my new best friend says he's got the perfect stuff," Barry said, looking around on his desk for Johnny's business card.

In their condo, Toni sat at their table, still nude, and lazily rubbed her pussy lips and clitoris while Anita finished preparing their salad.

Anita did not bother to hide her sigh of impatience. They'd made love three times; Toni's had at least four orgasms, but she just seemed insatiable.

"Come on, like let's just not go in," Toni pleaded.

"No, Toni," Anita said, kissing her bare shoulder as she placed the salad in front of her. "We have eight 'Next Day' orders that need to get out and you know unless we're there, they won't . Maybe tomorrow, but not right now."

"God damn," Toni yelled, jumping to her feet and stomping away. "I mean, like who's the one that was all like 'Oh, we don't even have a life anymore' and now shit! You're all like got to be all about the business, huh?"

"You like eating?" Anita yelled at her. "Huh? You like eating? Well I do! So you God damned right I'm all like it's all about the business!"

"Oh fuck you, like my Daddy would let us like starve to death," Toni shrilled, stomping up the stairs.

"God damned bitch, take your fucking medication, huh?" Anita muttered to herself as she sat at the table, the ugly marble top table Toni just had to have, hurriedly ate her salad, then put the dish into the dishwasher and put Toni's salad into the refrigerator. It had ham in it, and Pumpkin would certainly help himself to the ham if Anita left it out.

She stomped up the stairs to their bedroom.

"Come on; you coming?" Anita asked the bundle that hid under the blanket in their bed.

"Fuck you, fucking bitch, Toni screamed from under the blanket.

"We already fucked," Anita said as she pulled on a pair of jeans, pulled on her bra and her tee shirt. "Now, you coming?"

"Eat me," Toni screamed.

"Did that too," Anita said.

She pulled the blanket and kissed Toni.

"Come on, like please stay home," Toni begged, clutching to her and kissing her hotly.

"No, Toni, no, all right, no," Anita said, forcing Toni's arms off of her.

"Fine," Toni screamed and pulled the blanket over her again.

"God damn, please take your medication," Anita said, stomping out of the bedroom.

"you're the one like needs to be on medication," Toni screamed. "God damn, like super O.C.D. about work, huh?"

Toni jerked the drawer of their bedside table open, almost dropping it onto the floor.

"Like so in love with you and you're all like 'no, we got to go to work' and..." Toni muttered and rifled around

She located the Big Boy. Anita had told her they didn't need anything that size, but Toni had been intrigued with the sheer size of it

"Well, you're not fucking me with that thing," Anita had said, shuddering.

She had repeated that when it arrive. Toni could barely get both hands around the girth of it. Both had shrieked with laughter when Toni chased Anita around the condo with the over-sized dildo.

Now, Toni gripped the large phallus and brought the head of it to her pussy lips. Years of being a cheerleader had made doing a split quite easy for her and she did so now and tried to jam the monster into herself.

"Oh fuck!" she groaned through the waves of pain. "Fucking bitch! I hate you! You hear me? I like fucking hate you!"

The pain seemed to intensify and she finally pulled the dildo out of her stretched pussy. She let out a little yelp when she saw a smear of blood on the latex instrument.

Wincing, Toni gingerly got out of the bed, leaving the dildo on the bed, and wobbled down the stair.

"Oh like fucking great, fucking bitch!" Toni yelled when she saw the bare table. "Like couldn't leave me something to eat?"

Jerking open the door of the refrigerator, she immediately felt guilty when she saw the salad on the top shelf.

"Oh!" she yelped when her pussy throbbed from just the simple act of sitting at the table.

Chapter 30

With the death of Graham Johnson, Brett and Michelle Johnson seemed to lose any ambition. Ed, Estelle, and Nine ran the store while Brett and Michelle sat by their son's bedside until, nine weeks after that horrible day, Graham just let out a breath and died.

Star and Luna did cry at the funeral. They were not crying because their father was dead; all they knew of Graham was that he was angry all the time and did not love their mother, and didn't seem to love them very much either.

They were crying simply because others were crying.

Father Dave must not have known Graham David Johnson; he spoke of a loving and compassionate man. No one corrected the good priest, prayers were said, hymns were sung and then the service was over.

"Thank you for coming; means a lot," Brett mumbled to Brooke Robertson.

"Of course," she said, smiling softly. "He was the girls' daddy."

But Brett was already talking with someone else, thanking them for coming.

"Can I go to school now? Jennica's there," Star asked.

"Can I go play on the merry go round?" Luna asked.

In Room 217 of the McMillan Building, Anita, Toni, and Honey were presenting their group project. Toni and Anita found that Honey, besides being a walking disaster, was a talented cartoonist, absolutely loved scribbling amusing little panels. So, she drew the artwork and Toni used her digital camera and lap top to make a slide show. Anita did do the bulk of the research and wrote out the speech, so it was she that stood at the podium while Toni ran the projector.

"Haircuts," Anita said. "Most of us get them..."

Toni hit the button and it showed a man with very long hair smiling. The next photograph showed the same man, hair much shorter.

"Some of us don't need them at all..." Anita said and the next slide showed Mr. Loughton, the teacher of the class, bald head shining from the Photoshop work Toni had done.

"Hey!" Mr. Loughton complained lightheartedly.

"So where do we go to get our haircuts?" Anita asked and the next slide showed a cartoon of a barber pole smiling and waving.

"Some of us even go to our mommas," Anita said and the class laughed at Honey's drawing of an obese woman, hair in curlers, using an oversized pair of hedge clippers to trim the hair of a terrified looking young man.

"In the greater DeGarde area, there are twenty nine places one can go to for the basic service of hair cutting," Anita said. "And their prices range from nine dollars to one hundred and twenty dollars."

"How much?" a young man asked, incredulous.

"We all know why some would pay for the nine dollar hair cut," Anita said and a picture popped up of the word 'CHEAP' and an old fashioned roller skate.

"But why would someone pay one hundred and twenty dollars for a hair cut?" Anita asked and Toni pressed another button and a five minute video, one done by Chelsea Guidry of Performance 12 News, on T. Dayton's Hair Salon began to play, volume turned down as Anita continued to speak.

Ten minutes later, Mr. Loughton applauded as he got to his feet.

"Damn!" he said. "Almost makes me wish I had hair!"

He smiled at the laughter.

"Oh. And a hundred and twenty bucks," he threw in.

"Thank you Toni, Honey, and Anita; very good. It is obvious that you did your homework," he complimented. "I asked you to give us five principles that a place of business follows and you certainly did do that. In fact, I can name twelve business principles we have discussed; can anyone name one?"

After the twelve had been named, plus another one that a student thought might be applicable, Mr. Loughton called on Ahkmed Ansoilye, Chinique Williams, and Leland Kilgore. Leland and Chinique each pounded on a drum while Ahkmed recited poetry that gave praise to Allah.