Here is the story I promised to post.This is a true story that my mother experienced. I heard her tell this many times with great honesty and emotion. For privacy, I have changed the names of everyone involved. I have always thought this was one of the most fantastic stories I have ever heard. For a while now I have wanted to share it with you all, but I was concerned about the family.I am not sure if they have ever heard this story. After carefully thinking this over and with a lot of advice, I have kept the story just as my mother told me without any other details about what happened. Please let me know what you think. Nancy ************************************************************* In the early 1960s a newlywed couple, Elaine and John moved into a modest, brick duplex in the Dilworth neighborhood of Charlotte. It was a simple place. Their unit was on the left side of the house with all of the rooms anchored on the right and a long hallway to the left with a bedroom capping off the hall. This apartment was the place the couple would start their lives. They were excited to be married and living in the big city; only 126 miles from home, but a world away from their shared rural roots and Lumbee Indian heritage. Their lives were fresh and filled with opportunity. Things were so good in fact, that their thoughts had turned idealistic; with never a straying thought that anything could go wrong. Like most Lumbee’s who left home, Elaine and John opened their home to one of their mutual Lumbee friends, Nathan who needed a place to stay. Nathan was recently separated from his wife; the separation was tumultuous at best. He found himself back at square one in life and John offered his friend a fresh start in Charlotte. John was a crane operator for a company that built skyscrapers in the city. He managed to get Nathan a job and offered him the room at the end of the hall until he saved enough money to get his own place. Nathan thankfully accepted the generous offer and moved in with couple. Soon, Nathan settled into his new routine. He was pleased with the amount of money he was making and the comfort of old friends who cared for him made things a little easier. Life started to look up. Nathan loved the pace and attitude of the city. He admired the sharp dressed men he saw walking the uptown streets of Charlotte. One Friday afternoon, Nathan decided he wanted one of those sharp suits for himself and went out and bought the perfect one. It was the suit every man wanted to own. It fit him like a glove. It made him feel like someone important. After the store tailor made a few minor alterations, he wore it out of the store. Nathan strolled the sidewalks of Charlotte’s uptown streets confident, smoking a cigarette feeling very cosmopolitan; it was a very different environment from the farms and swamps of Robeson County. He made his way home and walked in the front door. Elaine and John were sitting in the living room watching T.V. Nathan grandly opened the door and the two whistled and carried on about how good he looked. He enjoyed the compliments. He declared to the couple that his was the suit that he was going to be buried in as he turned around for them to take in every detail. He said it was the best suit he or any man in his family had ever owned. Later that evening he went out on the town wearing his new suit and lavished in all the attention it brought to him. A couple of days later he had the suit dry cleaned. Protected in a garment bag made of thin brown paper, he hung the suit in the far corner of the closet for safekeeping. After a few weeks Nathan began to miss his children. One morning while he and John were getting ready to go to work he announced out of the blue that he was going to drive down to Robeson County to spend the day with his kids. John urged him not to skip out on work. He reminded him that he had put in a good word for Nathan and that skipping work didn’t reflect well on either of them, but worse, Nathan could lose his job. Aside from work issues, John was concerned about how Nathan’s wife would react to his visit. They were not on the best of terms. Every time the couple came together there was usually an argument. John didn’t voice his concerns about those issues. Nathan was known to be hot-tempered and strong-willed. Once he had made up his mind, nothing or no one could sway him. John left for work upset about his friend’s decision and the potential consequences that were sure to follow. John; however, had no idea what a dreadful decision it would be for Nathan. Nathan’s wife, Claire was a strong woman who, like Nathan, was picking up the pieces of her life and starting over. The couple had two small children: a boy and a girl, both under the age of ten that she had full-time custody of. Claire had a steady job working at a local grocery store. Her mother was a great help to her and watched the kids while she was at work. Claire had gotten use to staying by herself and taking care of her kids. Before Nathan left he bought her a gun for protection. He even taught her how to use it. She was a very good shot, which made Nathan feel better about her and the kids being on their own. Nathan went directly to Claire’s mother’s house where he knew his kids would be. Claire’s mother was alarmed that he had showed up unannounced in the middle of the week. He told her that he wanted to spend the day with the kids and that he was going to take them to see his family. He also mentioned that he would stop by the grocery store to let Claire know that he had the children. Reluctantly, she got the children ready and they left with their father. She watched Nathan drive the car away with deep concern. Nathan arrived at the grocery store with the kids in toe and found their mother. Claire greeted him with a stern look – which he was not happy about. He told her that he missed seeing his kids and that he wanted to spend the day with them. Claire replied that taking the children without talking with her first was unacceptable. He didn’t want to argue with her and abruptly changed the subject to borrowing money. He explained that because it was the middle of the week, he was short on cash and asked for a few dollars until he got paid. She replied, “Let me get my purse.”Claire left her register and went to the back to get her purse. As she returned from the back of the store she walked down the aisle to where Nathan and her children stood waiting. He watched her come toward him. His eyes widened as he saw Claire raise her arm with a gun pointed directly at him. Instinctually, Nathan reached for his back where he had tucked his own gun in his waist band. In an instant both husband and wife fired a single shot that fatally wounded each other – right in front of their children. Both parents collapsed dead on the floor just feet apart from each other and their children. Chaos ensued in the store. It was the middle of the day in a small quiet community where nothing like this ever happened. It would take hours before Elaine and John heard anything about the tragic event that took the lives of both of their friends. John and Elaine came home from work and sat down to dinner. They discussed Nathan’s decision to go see his children. They both hoped that the visit had been uneventful and, perhaps the couple even had a chance to talk about their marriage. After dinner they watched T.V. for an hour or so and went to bed. Not long after they laid down and had just drifted off to sleep Elaine was startled by a noise in Nathan’s bedroom. She quietly reached over to John and nudged his shoulder and asked if he heard something. Before the words got out of her mouth a louder noise came from the bedroom. It sounded like someone was knocking into furniture and shuffling through drawers. Knowing that Nathan had not come home, the couple was sure that someone had broken in through the bedroom window. John pulled his gun from his top dresser drawer. He slowly opened their bedroom door. By this time the noise had gotten so loud it sounded like all of the furniture was being turned over and that the room was being torn apart. John eased to the bedroom door. He leaned his back against the door with the gun drawn up next to his body. Terrified, Elaine watched from their partially opened bedroom door. John quickly swung open the door, reached over to the wall light and flipped the switch. He immediately pointed the gun in front of him with a two-handed grip ready to confront whoever was in the room. John’s eyes quickly scanned the room in disbelief nothing was out of place, not even a dresser drawer was open. Elaine opened the door and stepped forward into the hallway. John lowered his arms, his eyes widened and his mouth fell open. Elaine covered her mouth with her hand as her eyes welled with tears. Neither could make sense of what they were witnessing. Floating and falling all around the room were tiny pieces of brown paper; it was as if John was standing in the middle of a snow globe that had been sternly shaken. He stepped further into the room and stared down at the bed. Jane entered the room behind him looking around the room in disbelief. Purposefully placed across the bed was Nathan’s new suit. The couple looked over to the closet to see the door was wide open with all of the other clothes had been pushed to one side and empty wire hangers swung widely on the rack. They stood there, looking all around them as the paper snowflakes gently fell to the floor and cover their bedclothes. They were in shock. John and Elaine knew that something terrible had happened. They didn’t have a phone in the apartment and no way of getting word about what happened. The couple shut the door and returned to their bedroom; neither of the slept for the rest of the night. Their thoughts pondered the unimaginable as they held each other close. The next morning, while at work Elaine called her family back home who told her of the tragic shooting the day before. She was heartbroken. John couldn’t believe the news. In all of the sorrow and confusion of why this happened, one thing made sense: the suit. The next day the couple drove to Robeson County and delivered Nathan’s new suit that he wanted to be buried in.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Feb 2014 22:42:45 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015