12 Lincoln Court 1st edition

Over a century ago, the poet Longfellow wrote, 'A boy's will is the wind's will and the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. In this story line, the thoughts of this youth of about seven or eight, would make Longfellow's word pale into insignificance or at the least somewhat obsolete. This little African-American boy growing up in the Jim Crow era in Southwest Florida was acutely aware of what was going on all around him --in and outside his own family. This little fellow lived between two households, in Lincoln court with his mother and much older brothers and sisters and in Sullivan court with his godparents. Both courts consisted of rows of 'shotgun houses,' (called such because you could stand outside and look through most of them). Someone said, 'You could shoot right through them with a shotgun,' thus the name 'shotgun houses.'During those years, for the most part, people underestimated the understanding of young children, so this little black boy being all over both neighborhoods went largely unnoticed, and he heard and saw many things he probably shouldn't have . . . maybe. But the clincher is -- he understood everything he saw and heard with the grown-ups having no knowledge of his keen awareness and that he was a child prodigy with skill in perceiving, discriminating and judging the actions and discussions of the grown-ups surrounding him. Later he would face and handle things of a sexual nature, neighborhood feuds and finally supernatural terror from the unknown.