Surprises
M. D. Williams
Author Bio
Born and raised on the North side of Tulsa, Oklahoma, M.D. Williams first discovered his literary talent after writing a short story called “Lost and Found” about an adopted guy who unintentionally finds his birth mother. The people who read the story liked it a lot, which motivated M.D. to go on a quest to write a full novel. From there his first book “Surprises” was conceived. An accountant by trade, M.D. is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma as well as Keller Graduate School of Management of DeVry University. He now lives in North Texas, where he’s working on his next book.
Description
Brains and the motivation to get his family out of the hood, helps land Mitchell Thomas in a career that enables him to fulfill his dreams by unimagined means. But for his own reasons he conceals this career and the resulting success from his family.
Jazelle Johnson is a teacher who has issues with men, money, and things from her past. When she encounters Mitchell in her classroom on a surprise visit to his li’l sister, bad vibes arise for both of them.
Although Mitchell’s professional life flourishes, he’s crippled emotionally and psychologically by a past tragedy, and a love life is completely eliminated. But when Jazelle goes on the warpath, trying to figure out how Mitchell makes his money, they unwittingly become the victims of space and opportunity, and the barriers against the opposite sex each has erected will weaken, promises broken, while the element of surprise does the unexpected to their lives.
Book excerpt
Mitchell wanted to floor it to feel what he was working with under the hood of the new Cadillac, but something from his past made him rebuke the reckless thought, and he realized the beauty he was rolling wasn’t for speed, but for cruising and looking distinguished like somebody who had money. As the wheels purred smoothly, the beaming pearl-beige SUV effortlessly exited highway 75 into North Tulsa. Mitchell bounced and rapped along to an old school cut called “Out North” by Big Bur-na, one of his favorite Tulsa rapper’s. He scanned familiar surroundings and frowned at shabby, rundown buildings, disregarded eye-sores of empty lots, and wished his dollars stacked sky high like Bill Gates’ so he could do a complete overhaul of the black side of town and make it look brand new. He knew some areas in the predominantly black north side were trying to develop for the better, but compared to the white side of town, the differences stood out like a black eye.
Damn, I wish North Tulsa could prosper like the Greenwood District did when it was dubbed the Black Wall Street before the 1921 race riot.
It was still home, and he felt good being at the crib. “T-Towwwn!” he yelled. “Guess who’s back in the hi-zouse?”
Rolling solo, Mitchell was in his hometown to see his family after his longest period without seeing them. The past eight months he’d been consumed with renovating and decorating his town house in Norman, and some important business matters. He could’ve easily made the trek home anytime, but he’d held out til today, both his mama’s and sister’s birthday.
Moments later he was near his destination, a pre-school program doing its best to enrich the lives of the young and carefree. He surveyed the playground. It was due for a facelift because the equipment was outdated by decades. He made a right turn and slowly rode down the street parallel with the front of the school. He was as excited as a kid on Christmas morning.
He parked a couple of car lengths behind the vacant school buses waiting in the loading zone, emerged with his eyes shaded in smoke-black sunglasses. He stuffed the keys in his pockets and palmed a cellular phone as he slightly gangsta-limped down the sidewalk leading to the entrance. He was a molecule under six feet tall, had on an extra-large crimson Oklahoma University T-shirt and baggy white denim shorts. True it was after Labor Day, but the heat seemed oblivious to that fact. On his head was a white OU baseball cap turned sideways, and hanging from his neck was a modest platinum chain with the letter M emblem.
Across the street, a sequence of houses began from the corner of the block and extended the length of the street. He imagined the kids who only had to make that brief hop, skip and jump to school loved that short trip.
Though the heat wasn’t bothering him, he felt it. It was dang near mid-September, and Tulsa, like most of the state, willfully lay under a stubborn sun spreading a blanket of miserable heat, without interference from an unblemished, far-as-the-eye-can-see blue sky. Carrying over from a smothering August, that big ass, angry ball of fire was up there raising hell like it was pissed off at the world.
He thought of his mama driving around the entire summer in such suffocating temperatures without air-conditioning in her car. He partially grinned, knowing she wouldn’t be subjected to that misery again if he had his way.
As he approached the entrance, he noticed the humming of laboring air-conditioners bracketed in every other window and was amazed that in the 21st century a school didn’t have central air.
Ain’t that a bitch? Only in the hood could a school be this neglected. He shook his head, hoping the overworked air conditioners were keeping the school cool. He greeted three bus drivers—black, and white females, and an older black gentleman talking on his cellular—as they stood off to the side of the stairway making use of the minimal shade while waiting for school to let out.
He smiled after entering the building as a jolt of nostalgia grasped him, because the walls of lockers rehashed memories of his childhood, walking similar halls. Presently hollow, soon bunches of four and five-year-olds would pervade with idle chatter and cheerful chaos, scrambling noisily to reach the buses, or waiting to be picked up. The floors shone, appearing to be freshly waxed and buffed, bringing back memories of when he’d cleaned school buildings one summer as a teenager. The water fountains were so low he would need to get his midget on to get a drink.
He entered the office, where a little butterscotch toned girl was sitting in one of four wooden chairs wearing a despondent expression, rubbing over what looked to be a recently applied band-aid on her left knee, while her swinging right foot almost brushed the bluish-gray carpet. A small backpack sat in a chair next to her. Her lips were stuck out so he didn’t speak to her.
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