Mr Johnson and Billie Holiday

Clinton County, Indiana.

Mr Johnson is a morning person. A kind, handsome-was a womanizer in his twenties- black giant. Used to be the town’s postman. Now he’s retired happily ever after. Got himself an acre of land in Clinton County with his life’s savings, right where his route for the letters was. His missus always wanted a barn and a small animal farm. It’s coming in handy. They get fresh eggs with their bacon every morning.

Again, the grandchildren love the chickens, the dogs, the bunnies of the farm. Puts a big smile on their faces. Yet, for pop-pop, there is so much work to be done. Day by day, piece by piece. The old barn would take forever to refurbish, paint but now his life has got a meaning again. Running like the hamster keeps the retirement blues away, he often thought to himself.

It’s Friday and Mrs Johnson is preparing a nice, zesty pork roast for the grandchildren. Melinda and Ray, ages nine and four, are staying with grandpa for the weekend. Their parents are attending a wedding in Chicago and they took the chance for some “them” time. They deserve it. Both of them are hard-working so the grandparents gladly offered to cut them slack a bit.

Mr Johnson’s daughter has got him one of these devils that you ask them questions. This google thing-he got used to it now. Can keep him company while working the barn. He plays his music and keeps notes and orders materials and tools.

He had been nostalgic. He asked that thingy to play some Billie Holiday. It is as if her singing was made for hot summer days like this. Her singing makes the world melt and infuses it with the waters of goddamn time. A time passed, a harsh, difficult time.

He thought , “I have some spare boards that are already sanded and polished and a lot of rope from fixing the goddamn door of the barn.”

After about an hour of honest work, he got his ladder and went on to put the swing he made on the poplar tree. All this time, Melinda was fooling around with the family’s lapdog. They were an inexhaustible source of energy, them two. They say that only a puppy can get a child tired and vice versa.

As soon as the swing was done, Mr Johnson and Melinda helped little Ray sit and took turns pushing him. It was as if fate wanted it, that afternoon, in front of the barn. The song “Strange Fruit” started playing. The world stopped. Feeling like only the swing existed and every other parallel and meridian were erased, there was an abyss spreading its tentacles below him.

Mr Johnson felt a sharp pain between his eyebrows. A thought that was planted there about forty years ago and stirred the cauldron with the most sinister materials of his soul. His expression was noticed by Melinda who asked him if he was alright. Regaining his calm, he replied that it’s just that the song is quite heavy.

"I don’t understand it. It makes no sense. I like to listen to Arianna Grande, pop-pop! Her songs make much more sense".

Mr Johnson cracked a smile. She is too young to know. Maybe she will live in a future where there is no need to know what “Strange Fruit” is about.

But he knows it. The song makes a horrifying analogy. “Black bodies swinging from the poplar tree.” The strange fruit are the victims of the Ku Klux Klan which had swept the state of Indiana and had invaded every aspect of civilian life, organization and office. He was the postman for many of his good friends and neighbours and for many others he was just a N*****. He wished that his grandson would never be called that. He wanted his grandson to be Ray.

Still, he knew his America a little too well. The Jim Crow separatists and the murderous supremacists of the KKK. The two faces of American racism in tandem. Many times he had felt threatened. He had seen the eyes. The eyes of the snake that don’t allow you to be the person you are.

But he became the person he wanted to be. He became that guy who has a barn now and an amazing wife. They still have sex like teenagers once in a while. He also has an amazing daughter and two bright grandchildren. Because of his heros, Rosa Parks, Langston Hughes, Casius Clay, Martin Luther King Jr and so many people who wanted black folk like him to have a goddamn barn in the goddamn heart of the Ku Klux Klan, in the goddamn state of Indiana.

Crosses burnt and they will burn again but the poplar tree has a whole new meaning now , Billie Holiday.