“OK, I'm done with this. Somebody has gotta do something, and if no one else will, it's gonna hafta be me.”
Six-year-old Grayson Ludlow was listening to the news on the radio, and packing up his red wagon with his best Legos. He was unhappy with news that Lofton County's financial troubles had it preparing to close the Mary Wilson Jones Clinic. He was talking with his grandmother, Mrs. Thalia Ludlow.
“When I was in foster care when I was young – about three or four,” Grayson said, “I went there because my foster parents were broke, but they still didn't want me to die, so, I gotta do this for the generation coming after me. If they are going to close the clinic, I'mma just build a new one.”
“Yes, I remember seeing that in your file, Grayson – that pair of foster parents actually cared about you a lot, and got you all better, and that's not easy when you are three-and-a-half and you have a big infection like that.”
“I'm just waiting for the adults in Lofton County to figure out that if you don't take care of the kids, you ain't gonna have a county in a few years,” Grayson said, his gray eyes flashing. “I mean, I don't yell like Edwina does about this stuff, but, yeah, I'm mad, and I'm gonna do something about it.”
“But maybe we should keep listening first,” Mrs. Ludlow suggested, so he climbed back up on her lap and listened until he heard that the Lofton Trust was going to meet all essential service needs for the county, including funding the Mary Wilson Jones Clinic.
“OK, so they are taking care of it,” he said to his grandmother.
“Yep, the clinic will stay open.”
“I need to get a job with the Lofton Trust, then,” he said as he got down. “I'mma go talk to Cousin Harry, because he's on the board.”
“Cousin Harry is probably going to tell you to finish first grade first,” Mrs. Ludlow said.
Grayson considered this, and then sighed.
“Well, OK, but, next year, though.”
Grayson wasn't the only person upset; this whole thing did not sit well at the Trent house.
“They would put something with Mary Wilson Jones' name on it first on the chopping block!” Mrs. Velma Stepforth was saying to her daughter, Mrs. Melissa Trent.
“I knew Lofton County still has issues about being forced into civil rights after holding out for nine extra years, but sheesh!” Mrs. Trent said. “Apparently, the county doesn't need a clinic for the poor named after a Black woman – never mind that Lofton Dynast Hospital is pushed to the limit right now and people who don't have Covid but also don't have money don't have anywhere else to go!”
“Uppity Foolery Watch and the Lofton County Free Voice both have receipts about this and heads are going to roll and I am here for it!” Mrs. Stepforth said.
“As if the election coming up in November needed any more hot messness applied, but, you know,” Mrs. Trent said, “when you hate other people getting credit for anything so bad that you cut your own throat, it just is what it is.”