The Big House on the Prairie.

[Soapy]

The Big House on the Prairie
Chapter Four :: Truth in the Devil, Part Three

I might have forgiven my father—if one thing had happened and another hadn’t.

First, there was no punishment, no real reckoning for his alleged actions. Within the town limits, the article and its aftermath were mostly cosmetic. In the weeks and months leading up to the election, there were protests and vocal critics calling for him to drop out of the race. But Little Book did what Little Book always does: he ignored the noise. And the longer time passed, the more people forgot—or worse, simply stopped caring.

What my father’s opponents never seemed to understand was that he, and the Gurley name, had become an institution—bigger than any single man or his sins. On paper, no one should’ve voted for a man accused of misappropriating city funds, shadowed by a decade of rumored corruption, and entangled in scandals involving drug use, affairs, and abortions. Those kinds of things shouldn’t resonate with a voting base made up mostly of rural, church-going African Americans. But they weren’t voting for that. They weren’t even voting for him. They were voting for the Gurley name and everything it represented within our town’s borders.

My grandfather’s greatest legacy isn’t that he got himself—an unimpressive student, by all accounts—through law school. It isn’t the reputable law firm he built or his decades as a town judge. His legacy is that name: forged, polished, and made untouchable. A name that could survive anything. And did.

The other name on the ballot was Johnny Wilks—my father’s longtime rival, and likely the reason my father refused to step down. Wilks had always polled well with Prairie View’s college-educated crowd and came within a handful of votes of ending my father’s reign. According to post-election research, many voters who supported my father either didn’t read the article, didn’t believe it, or didn’t care—even if it was true.

Royce wrote the piece, and while it garnered attention, its tone rubbed people the wrong way. It leaned heavily on scandal—highlighting my father’s cocaine use and extramarital affairs in graphic detail—yet barely touched on matters that directly impacted the town. And it didn’t attempt to make a case for Wilks or any other alternative. It wasn’t investigative journalism; it was sensationalism.

“We went with the devil we knew,” one voter said.

My resentment toward my father only deepened after the election. It was one thing for him to carry on like nothing had happened after the article came out. But the fact that nothing happened—that no one held him accountable—made it so much worse.

And then came the final straw. It wasn’t his fault, not really, though he did little to help his case.

My mother’s health took a sudden turn for the worse the week before Election Tuesday. She spent it in the hospital. Her cancer wasn’t in remission—it was spreading. No one told me explicitly, but I knew. I felt it. She didn’t have long.

I stopped going to school that week and missed the last home game of our season—Senior Night. It was supposed to be a moment where both my parents walked me onto the field for the final time. Instead, I spent my days dropping my siblings off at school, then heading straight to the hospital to sit by my mother’s side. Sometimes she wanted to see them, and I’d bring them back. We’d laugh or sit quietly, watching TV while she drifted in and out of sleep. Other times, she didn’t want them to see her like that. I’d take them home, cook whatever I could—usually Kraft Mac and Cheese or Hamburger Helper. Evan loved the Hamburger Helper. Marianne, not so much.

On Monday, November 11, 2024—the week after my father was reelected—I dropped my siblings off and got ready to return to school for the first time in nearly two weeks. I’d already missed the final three games of our season. Just as I was leaving, I got a call from a nurse I’d given my number to. My mother had passed away that morning. She was in good spirits when I visited her that morning, but not long after I left, she was gone. She was forty-two.

After that, I barely spoke to my father. I spent most of my time at Keiyana’s house. In the days after the funeral—which was elegant yet subdued, something I’ve always credited my father for—I made a point to visit Marianne and Evan regularly. But over time, and I’m ashamed to admit this, those visits became less and less frequent. Marianne looked too much like my mother. Evan looked too much like my father. It's one of my biggest regrets—letting our relationship splinter like that.

The other was not realizing how much space my mother had occupied in my life until she was no longer in it.

For so long, I was focused on living up to my father’s and grandfather’s legacy. But my true north star was always her. She was the one screaming on the sidelines at every game. She was the one who checked my grades—not monthly, not weekly, but every single day. She’d text me when I did poorly on a quiz, often before I even knew my own score. She’d sit with me as I wrote every paper. We’d talk—about her life, about my father, about mine. She told me what to want from life, what to watch out for, and the mistakes I’d inevitably make. She warned me of the pressures—being a “Book,” being a star athlete.

The one thing we never talked about was how I would live without her.
Next release: 7/23/2025

[redsox907]

No mom, Dad he hates. Baby Book about to get as far away from Texas as possible

[The JZA]

[Chillcavern]

Fuck man. As someone who’s been there… it really fucking sucks to watch your mom waste away from cancer. Got me tearing up a bit here Soap.

The other was not realizing how much space my mother had occupied in my life until she was no longer in it.

[Captain Canada]

Damn, that was a devastating update. Intrigued to see what happens next

[Soapy]

No mom, Dad he hates. Baby Book about to get as far away from Texas as possible

I don't know why but "dad he hates" got me dead

Fuck man. As someone who’s been there… it really fucking sucks to watch your mom waste away from cancer. Got me tearing up a bit here Soap.

The other was not realizing how much space my mother had occupied in my life until she was no longer in it.

I had to tap into some real shit for that final paragraph

Damn, that was a devastating update. Intrigued to see what happens next

Thankfully, it's Wednesday. Time for another update

[Soapy]

The Big House on the Prairie
Chapter Five :: Exodus, Part One

Truth be told, I don’t remember how the idea of spending Thanksgiving away from home came about, but once it began materializing in my conversations with Keiyana, it was a welcome distraction. I had checked out of the football season with my mother’s worsening health, missing the last four games of the year—and with it, so went our chances to make the playoffs. I had spent so much of my time and focus in the summer leading up to my senior year on winning state, but when it all came crashing down, I couldn’t have cared less. About football, about making the playoffs, about really anything.

Those first few days after my mother’s funeral were a bit of a blur—just going through the motions of this thing called life without registering any of it. At Uncle Sam’s request, I had moved back into the house, but my father and I barely spoke, barely acknowledged each other’s existence. I was there in body only, mainly out of a sense of obligation to Marianne and Evan—a feeling that was fleeting as the days went on.

Keiyana’s best friend, Sara, had an older sister, Irene, who lived in Las Vegas. Irene, who was in the nightlife industry, had moved to Atlanta and then settled in Vegas. She was a few years older than us, but we had hung out with her a few times back when she lived in Houston, usually sneaking us some liquor when we were hanging out at Sara’s. I wasn’t much of a drinker, never bordering on more than a buzz—the gene apparently skipping a generation.

Cheryl didn’t give my father much besides her penchant for drinking. She drank—a lot. If it was a social gathering, she was known to pass out at the dining table before the main course even arrived. She drank by herself too, which is when things started to get really bad, going from a functioning alcoholic to just an alcoholic. She’d start drinking in the morning, as soon as my grandfather would leave for work. If my father had school that day, she’d normally get it going just as she was getting him dressed, catching a buzz by the time she dropped him off at the school’s front steps, reeking of alcohol already. She’d stagger her way back to the house, finish the bottle she had opened that morning, and sleep the rest of the day off. She’d wake up in time to pick him up from school—some of the time—grab takeout from the nearby chicken place for dinner, and begin working on finishing her second bottle of the day by the time my grandfather got home.

If you ask anyone old enough in Prairie View about my grandmother, the first thing they’d bring up is her beauty. Her father, part Cherokee, passed down his striking eyes and high cheekbones. She was a tall woman—a feature she shared with her mother—with brown, curly hair that reached her waist. Cheryl never met her mother, who died during childbirth, perhaps why she didn’t know how to be a mother herself.

She was raised by a series of midwives and maids, eventually being sent to boarding school in her early teens. Bossman Hussey had a growing real estate empire that had turned him into a millionaire by his forties, and raising a child wasn’t exactly at the top of his priority list—nor did he likely have the skills required to foster a young woman. She’d return to the area for college, opting to attend Prairie View A&M despite having opportunities to attend more prestigious colleges throughout the South, including Spelman College. Why she chose Prairie View, I do not know. The impact and the legacy she would help create, we do know.

If you ask anyone old enough in Prairie View about my grandmother and they were to be truthful, the second thing they’d bring up is her drinking—and how bad it had gotten. Once my father was old enough to walk himself to and from school, the drinking only worsened. She was rarely not drunk, and when she wasn’t, she was just as likely nursing a hangover, biding her time until she felt well enough to crack open another bottle. She was a whiskey woman, eventually switching to gin in an effort to keep her figure, and then settling on vodka in an effort to mask the smell of alcohol that was habitual on her breath. It didn’t help much, as she’d usually be slumped over, slurring her words on a park bench by the time the police showed up.

She was detained several times during her last year in Prairie View—never once arrested, likely a courtesy to my grandfather. They would allow her to sober up in a holding cell until my grandfather picked her up and dropped her off at one of her boyfriend’s houses. By that time, they were married in name only. My grandfather had his array of young women—usually clients and a rotating secretary desk—and she had her cohort of young men as well, as she was still a very wealthy woman in her own right. The marriage would officially end when my father graduated high school and went to Texas A&M, the poorly veiled charade no longer needed.

She’d move back in with her father in Houston for a few years before he passed away. Liver failure. My grandfather attended the funeral. My father did not. It was the last time anyone would hear from—or lay eyes on—Cheryl.
Next release: 7/25/2025

[Captain Canada]

Won't lie, I got a little lost about whether we flashing forward, backward, or still in the present.

Overall good, but I think I have some research to do to better ground myself as a reader.

[Soapy]

Won't lie, I got a little lost about whether we flashing forward, backward, or still in the present.

Overall good, but I think I have some research to do to better ground myself as a reader.

It's all past tense but different time periods so I get the confusion. I'm going back and forth to draw the parallels between each generation of Papa Book, Little Book and Baby Book. Cheryl was Papa Book's wife so this last section went back in time to discuss her story, which ties into why Little Book likely struggles with substance and perhaps an insight into this next chapter (literally) of Baby Book's life (Exodus)

[djp73]

the flash back and forward is a little tricky to follow at times but i see the vision