The Return of Cotton
by
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This was the first time in my life I was ashamed of what I was
actually thinking. The thought of
suicide kept ringing like bells in my head.
This was one thing I knew I couldn't tell anybody. I thought it was because of my sisters and
brothers had always pick on me. I remember whenever they pick on or teased me
they would sometime call me crazy. But
since that time I have got married and have a beautiful family. Now my mother-in-law and other in-laws have
the pleasure calling me crazy. I know if
I told them what I was thinking that would just do it. Instead of just thinking I was crazy, They would
know I was crazy.
What was worst than telling
anyone, I was
worried that I was going crazy. At least, I knew I was
somehow going out of my mind. But for
some reasons I wasn't worried for myself, I was worried about my wife and
child.
The problem was, I had been fired from my job the day
before. I really didn't know how to tell
Mary, my wife. I didn't want anyone to
know I had been fired from yet another job.
What bother me even more than my wife founding out was our friends and
relatives finding out.
After going to bed worried, I eventually
worried myself to sleep. When the alarm
clock went off the next morning I jumped up to go to work. I went into the bathroom to get dressed for
work but I Suddenly realized that I didn't have a job to go to anymore. I just kept on dressing. Trying to figure out
just what was I going to do. How was I going to explain this to my wife
that I had been fired. Thoughts were going through my mind a thousand
miles per hour. The worst thought and
the one I was most afraid of was the one I feared my wife would listen to the
most was what her people were going to say.
I could just hear them saying, "That lazy Jack, he wont even work in a bank if they were
giving him the money he was counting."
That thought was bad enough. What
was more frightening was being called and classified as a dead beat dad.
Not knowing what to do I just
stopped dressing and sat on the commode.
After minutes of just sitting there with my head dropped in my hand, I was lost. Holding my hands together with my face in
them, I began
to make two fists. Now I was doing more
than just worrying. I was feeling sorry
for myself. That was one thing I had
always promised myself I would never do.
I knew this was not me. I also
knew I had to pull myself together. Besize,
just sitting there was too painful. Therefore I quickly jumped
up! But the only thing I could do was
pace back and forth in the bathroom. I
had to think fast. It was time for me to
leave as though I was going to work. I
knew I had to leave or tell Mary I was out of work again.
After pacing all over the
bathroom floor for so long I stopped right in front of the mirror. I began to talk to myself. I kept asking myself, what is wrong? Why is everyone talking about me and calling
me crazy? Now I was really thinking that
I was crazy. The more I looked in the mirror
the more questions I had for myself.
There was more questions that I had time to
answer.
As I walked out of the bathroom, I told Mary good
bye. I left the house as if I was going to work. The thought of having a family and being out
of work again was too much. I tried to
block it out of my mind but I couldn't. The more I thought about it, the angrier I
got. I was angry because I felt someone
had done me wrong. Then I was angry with
myself because I felt as though I had done something wrong. I didn't know what to believe anymore.
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About the Book
When I began
writing, "The Return of Cotton." The only thing I wanted to do
was tell a true account of things that affected my life. With low self esteem I knew it would be
difficult. Therefore the only thing I
prayed for was for God to just let me attain my freedom and my senses by the
time I finished.
As I was telling I saw than I
wasn't going to tell it without the help of God. I wanted to tell it in a way that was so
simple that even a fool will understand.
Yet it would entertain the intellectual mind any great educator.
I have tried to the best of my
ability draw you the reader a picture of my soul. I tried to touch every emotion of your
being. Even though I have tried to make
you laugh from time to time, so that your soul don't get stolen right here on
earth I want you to see just what it is like for a soul to be in tormented.
In order to paint such a picture,
through fasting and praying many time a day it was as if God took over every
word, line and paragraph. I knew that
God was using me just like he use the prophets in the
Holy Bible to carry his message.
Every now and then God will send
someone or something to soothe the souls of his people. I believe that this is what he has done with
"The Return of Cotton.”
Since the time when I was about
ten tears old when I had to be dip in the water two
times People have been telling me that it was something wrong with me. When I went to school only about forty-five
days in the fourth grade, or spent two years in the
fifth grade and three years in the six grades other students told me that
something was wrong with me.
Even my own sisters and brothers
constantly told me that some was wrong with me
For as long as
I can remember. At the age of
fourth teen one of my sisters predicted that I would end up in an asylum before
I reach the age of eighteen. She also
predicted that I would end up in prison before I reach the age of
twenty-one. Therefore for years as I
grew up, because of the name calling and people telling me that something was
with me,
I was convinced that something
was wrong with me.
When I became a man the questions
of what was wrong with me changed for the
worse. Only the questions changed from what's wrong
with me as a individual to what's wrong with me as a
Black man. Then the question changed to
what's wrong with me as a Black race.
As I set out to find out what was
wrong with me I found more than I was looking for.
What found was neither an
accident nor incident. What was wrong
with me was the same thing with all of my Black Brothers all across
About the Author
Jack E. Reddick
was born in
His articles have been published
in three Southern States, Georgia,