I packed my bag for my trip to Jackson, Andrew was staying back as he was still getting settled into his new job. I stopped by the bookstore to see if they had any of the books written by H.R. Walters, they did not have them, so I had them order the last one he had written.
I got to Jackson by noon and had lunch with mom, I spent the rest of the day reading some of the articles written by Mr. Walters. I did like the way he wrote and the subjects that he wrote about. I prepared my list of questions for the interview that I would be conducting the following morning.
I arrived at the address Chuck had given me about 5 minutes before the scheduled time. I was greeted at the front door by a white-haired man using a cane to steady himself, I introduced myself as he invited me into the house. We sat at the kitchen table, he handed me a cup of coffee and told me to call him Hank. As we settled in for our talk, I thought to myself, that Hank must have been a very handsome man in his younger days, he still had beautiful blue eyes that sparkled as he smiled.
It was one of the easiest interviews that I ever had conducted, I would ask one question and he would just talk for minutes without being prompted. I of course asked him about the big stories that he covered and the famous people he had talked to. He told me about the awards he won for his writing and showed me several scrap books that he kept with highlights of his 60-year career. I moved on to asking him about his books. He told me the two dealing with civil rights were written about a friend of his that experienced it firsthand, the two true crime stories were from actual cases that he had worked. He went on for hours and I was enjoying every one of his tales, I was glad the I decided to bring my recorder instead of trying to take notes. Before I knew it, we had talked for over three hours, I felt he was winding down on his career highlights.
“Where did you grow up?” I asked.
Hank’s mood changed, “I moved a lot when I was a kid, my parents died when I was young, so I just sort of drifted between aunts and uncles.”
He didn’t offer any additional information as he had with every other question I had asked, I found that strange.
“What about school, did you attend high school or college?”
“Just a little high school, I needed to work so college wasn’t an option.” Again, he kept his answer short, not elaborating. I could tell he was starting to get a bit uncomfortable, I tried to put him more at ease by starting to tell him a little bit about myself.
I said, “I was a little bit more fortunate, I had the chance to go to college, even though I grew up in a very small town full of small minded people.”
He perked back up a little, “Where was that?”
“It was a small town in the northwest corner of the state, Westburg, I lived outside of town in a house on Mulberry Road.”
I thought I saw him flinch a bit, he turned a little pale.
He stood and put his coffee cup in the sink, “well we have been at this a while, you probably need to get going. You should have enough for your story.”
I took the hint, “Yes sir, I think I do, I want to thank you for all your time, and I wish you a long and happy retirement.” He walked me to the door.
I sat in my car for a minute, that ended quickly, what did I say? I backed out onto the street and headed back to my mom’s house, I drove past a car just sitting about a block away. I saw the driver watch me drive away and when I was down the street, I watched in my mirror as the car started and pulled into the driveway that I had just left. My mind was racing, what was going on, there seemed to be something that Hank was hiding from me.
I drove back to Memphis the next day, after catching up with Andrew, I started to write my article about Hank. He was a great writer and had a long career and I think I wrote a story that I felt honored him in the appropriate fashion. I was still bothered by how our meeting had ended, it just seemed unfinished.
I finished saving my story to my disk so that I could print it off at the office in the morning. Andrew had also been working on some paperwork for school, he was finishing about the same time. He came up behind me, put his arms around my shoulders and kissed my cheek.
“Hey sexy, how is your article coming?”
“I just finished it, I will give to Chuck in the morning. How about you, how is your work going?”
“I am finished too, what would you like to do now?”
I raised my eyebrow, “well, I have a couple ideas.”
“Do any of your ideas involve either of us being on our knees?”
“As a matter of fact, they do.”
“Well then, I suggest we go to the bedroom, the carpet is softer in there.”
We left a trail of clothes to our bedroom, kissing each other the entire way, I threw Andrew down on the bed and engulfed his already hard dick. He moaned and squirmed until he maneuvered us into a sixty-nine position. He rolled over and spread his cheeks, giving me access to his sweet hole, I ran my tongue across his pucker as he raised his ass further in the air. Once I got him good and wet, I aimed my cock and drove it deep inside Andrew. He sighed and began to push up driving me deeper, until my swollen nuts were slapping his ass cheeks. With both of being busy at our jobs, it had been about 2 weeks since we had made love.
I whispered in his ear, “if you keep that up, I am not going to last very long.”
“You feel so good inside me, I want your load, God Mike, fuck me.”
A few stokes later, I was unloading my seed inside Andrew. I fell off and rolled onto my back catching my breath. Andrew pushed my legs up and said, “now it is my turn,”
“I was hoping you would say that.”
He fed his cock into my hole and leaned forward so we could kiss while he fucked me. He lasted about as long as I did. We were soon snuggled in each other’s arms and fell into a deep sleep.
I arrived at the office the next morning at the same time as Chuck, he asked how the interview went as we walked in.
I said, “It went well for the most part.”
“What does that mean?”
“It went good while we were talking about his writing, but as soon as I asked about the years before he started working, he just quit talking.”
“Did you get enough for the article?”
“I think so, I will print the first draft out for you, and you can let me know what you think.”
While Chuck was reading my article, I got a phone call from the bookstore letting me know that my book was in. I told Chuck I was going to run downtown to pick it up, he had finished reading my article and had made his notes by the time I returned.
He said, “I think you have enough to run the article, don't worry about all the early years stuff, it was just supposed to be about his career not a complete biography.”
“I know but I feel like I haven’t finished the story, there is something missing. It just doesn’t seem complete.”
“Well, I am going to run the article, if you find anything else, we can always print a follow up.”
I started reading the book as soon as I got home. The writing style seemed very familiar to me, I just assumed that it was because I had just read all of Hank’s articles. Hank’s other books were true story, documentary type books, this one was more of a novel set in an earlier period. The further I read the more it seemed that I had read it before. It was set in the 1920’s and followed two teen boys as they navigated there way into adulthood in a small rural town. I was about 1/3 of the way into the book when Andrew got home, I put the book down for a few minutes so we could tell each other about our day.
Andrew asked, “what are you reading, a new book?”
“No, it was actually written about twenty years ago, by the guy that I just interviewed last weekend.”
“Is it any good?”
“Yes, it is.”
“What is it about?”
“It’s about two teens in the twenties.” I told Andrew all about the characters and where they lived.
Andrew chuckled, “gee, if you tell me that one of them was black and on was white, then I would ask you if you were reading the journal again.”
I was stunned, “Jesus Christ Andrew, how the hell did I not see that?”
I ran to the bedroom and found the journal and started to compare the two books. They were very similar to each other, the only exception being the sex scenes were left out of the published book. Hank had toned down the feelings between Wilber and Elmer, the main characters in the novel, but you could tell it was a special friendship. Andrew and I kept reading the book looking for what happened after the point that the journal stopped. Just like in the journal, Wilber’s father died, but it was in a work accident, not a fire and Wilber and Elmer ran away together. The book continued with all the events that the two endured, mostly having to do with the discrimination toward blacks that was prevalent at the time.
Andrew asked, “Mike, what did you say the name of the guy who wrote the book was?”
“Hank Walters, why?
“Look at the receipt you got with the book.”
The receipt listed the author by last name first, Walters, Hank N.
I looked at Andrew and said, “Walter Hankins, damn Andrew, I was talking to Walter.”
“Shit Mike, what are you going to do now?”
“I am going to go back to Jackson, I have to talk to him again.”
I called Chuck and told him what I had found out and told him I was taking tomorrow off so I could go see Walter.
“Yeah, go ahead kid, it doesn't sound like I could stop you if I wanted to.”
“I guess I am telling you and not asking, huh?”
“That’s ok kid, go ahead and get your answers.”
I hung up the phone, “Andrew, will you go with me?”
“Sure, I can do that, I have a couple of days off coming to me, I will just call my boss to make sure it is ok.”
I barely slept that night, my mind was racing, If I knew that Walter would be awake, I would have driven to Jackson right then. We left shortly after 6 am and were pulling into Walter’s driveway by midmorning.
I rang the doorbell, Walter answered the door, “Mike? What are you doing here, didn’t I give you all the information that you needed?”
I said, “yes, I have finished the article, I just have a few questions I want to ask you, Walter.”
“I told you Mike, call me by first name.”
“I did Walter, you are Walter Hankins right?”
“What would make you think that?” he snapped.
I reached into my bag and pulled out the journal, “mostly this.”
Walter stared at the journal, “where the hell did you find that?”
