Cadillac Chronicles by Brett Hartman

Author:Brett Hartman [Hartman, Brett]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Cinco Puntos Press

AFTER CHECK-OUT they headed west and north through Georgia back country. Lester drove, taking occasional sips of coffee. Alex ate a complimentary motel banana.

The trees lining the highway were animated by a steady headwind, but there were only a few clouds. Alex’s eyes settled on a field of white dots on black limbs. Orphaned white stuff had blown off and gathered into clumps along the shoulders of the highway. A few clumps skittered across the road.

“Is that cotton?” he asked.

“It is,” Lester said, slowing the car and pulling over. “Grab yourself a piece.”

Alex got out and tracked a small wad that was whiter and puffier than the surrounding pieces. Back in the car, he examined it. There were a couple of hard seeds, but the rest was like a miniature pillow. Lester pointed to the piece and said, “There’s a dark side to what you’re holding.”

“Okay,” Alex said, bracing himself for the upcoming lecture.

“Aren’t many cotton farms around here these days, but for generations that was our money crop.” He cast an open hand across the windshield. “Hundreds of thousands of acres of cotton, hundreds of thousands of slaves to tend it. Entire Southern economy was based on cotton production. And for a long time the South was the world leader. King of the crop.”

Alex rubbed the puffy wad between his thumb and forefinger.

“Meanwhile,” Lester went on, raising a professorial finger, “the North was becoming an industrial power. Slaves weren’t needed for the northern economy to thrive. Fact, slavery was becoming a worldwide embarrassment. That’s how you had such a split in this country—cotton-farming, slave-dependent South, industrial North. They could’ve been on different planets.”

“I thought the war was because people in the north had better values than the people down south.”

“You thought wrong,” Lester said. “One thing you ought to know—north, south, black or white—economics trumps values. Remember that next time you open a history book.”

Alex said, “Will do.” He was grateful not to be talking about death or undersized penises.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.