Louisiana Loco-Motive

Chapter 10

Meet the family

Sugar, as folks called her, couldn't wait to spill all the details about the Brown family history. Her husband Reggie's great great granddaddy, Roger Brown had been the only colored man in the town back in 1884. He was a bold man who dared to marry Eugene's daughter, Abigail, and of course, Eugene had been a white man. Roger Brown and his wife Abigail had a son later that same year they named Ranger. Although, it wasn't long after that when other colored folks started inhabiting Butterville, as far as Sugar knew, Roger Brown was the only colored man ever in the history of the confederacy to ever dare to establish his roots in the segregated South. The Brown family history was rather remarkable, and Sugar was eager to share it with the quirky little man named Marvin sitting in her kitchen; and, so she began her tale....

    Ronaldo

Ronaldo William Brown was a bad man. Not bad in the sense of a troublemaker, but bad like you couldn't put anything over on him. He was just innately built like that and he was smart too. Too smart in fact, for his own damn good. That's what almost got him hung from the ol' Oak tree out on his family's land back in 1949 when he was but forty-five years old. That tree is the tallest and thickest tree out there, but it didn't start out like that. Originally, it used to be a hangman's tree in the town square before being uprooted and transplanted to the Brown family's property. Nobody in the Brown family was ever hung from the tree, but something else pretty sinister happened involving that tree.

"You don't say?" the quirky little man asked.

"Oh yes. That's why its become a sanctuary of sorts for the Brown family. First told by Ranger, the legend was continued by his son Ronaldo, who passed it down to HIS son Rufus."

Rufus

Rufus James Brown adored his granddaughter Remi, but his son Reggie he didn't admire that much. Reggie Ray was hard headed and didn't want to do right. His way of doing things was sure to break the magic of the family legacy started by Rufus' granddaddy Ranger. Rufus' son Reggie Ray was wild and didn't seem to care about keeping things the way they were meant to be, at least in Rufus eyes. Reggie would often tell his daddy Rufus how things were not always black and white, and that one ought to be able to see the shades in between, too.

Rufus saw his son Reggie as a lost cause, but something about Reggie's dark skinned wife, Diane, and their little tan skinned baby Remington, assured him all was not lost. It actually seemed to be the remedy to everything that'd happened through the generations.

Reggie

Reggie Ray was a bit of a spoiled man. Born in 1944, he was spoiled AND lazy, to be matter of fact. The last male child to be born in a generational line of the Brown family, 'bout the only thing he did right to please his daddy Rufus was marry Diane. Diane bore the first and only girl in the long line of Brown family men before she died, which brings us back to Remi.

"Oh yes. I really want to hear all about the baby Remi. Don't you have her now?" the man interrupted her story to say.

"Now, I promise to tell you how it came 'bout that Remi ended up with me, Sarah Anne, her momma's best friend, as her stepmother; but first, patience Marvin; let me tell you 'bout how the Brown family legend truly began."

And so she started again,

Remington was named for the auto loading shotgun her granddaddy Rufus used to protect the land. It was his most prized possession. The land,
not the shotgun. That was, of course, until Remington was born in 1964. Her grandaddy Rufus was thrilled a woman child had been born into the Brown lineage. One that was strong and fierce. One that would carry on the heritage of the family. He swore he would see to it. He would mold her mind and shape her existence into the baddest thing in town since Ronaldo Brown.