“Tom, we Jubilees-of-the-mountain don't generally give interviews. You don't need your entire worldview about these disasters, in addition to the paper you work for, burned down. Jubilees-of-the-mountain get to be my age because we can back up anything we are saying with bullets from directions the enemy doesn't know even exist. You are 16, and a nice boy with a heart full of concern and compassion who can shoot because your father and uncle insist, but you'd rather have a camera in your hands and shoot with that. Stay just as you are, because people are called differently, and you don't have to be a Jubilee. But that also means you don't get to quote me until you are at least 21.”
Whereupon, in the background, Thomas Stepforth III's uncle, Sgt. Vincent Trent, fell out laughing at his nephew's interaction with his mother, Gladys Jubilee (-of-the-mountain) Trent, and the laughter was just beginning, because now to a second generation, the different sides of his family were discovering what it meant to have any last name, but still grow up Jubilee.
“You know how somebody answers you from a place and space you did not even know even existed?” Tom said to his cousin, 21-year-old Melvin Trent.
“Yeah, welcome to our lives with Grandma Jubilee,” Melvin said. “All of them are like that who grew up on the mountain, from here to the Adirondacks – and don't mess with the Jubilees still living on the homestead in Pennsylvania either. All of them believe what I have heard Dad and Grandma saying all my life when we come up against opposition: 'The mind is the best weapon.'”
“I mean, I didn't even have anything to say to get the quote and I know Grandma Jubilee has some great thoughts about this whole hurricane situation!” Tom said. “I mean, how do you take somebody who could have just said no, but then tells you all about yourself, the world, real Black history, and just leaves your head ringing like a bell?”
“You don't,” Melvin said. “Grandma Jubilee tells you no in a way that makes you think about all the things that are in the world around it – all the good reasons. But she also told you yes.”
“What?” Tom said.
“There's going to be a five-year retrospective on the hurricanes of this year,” Melvin said. “You'll be 21. If Grandma Jubilee is still on earth, turn right around and ask her, and you will still have the hottest take on this whole thing in Lofton County. You basically have been given the scoop. You just have to start going to the range regularly with us and get your self-defense life together, and you've got five years to do it.”
Tom considered this.
“See, I thought Stepforths were the most different Black folks on the planet, but y'all Jubilees and Jubilee-root folks may have to just hold the crown for a minute – y'all understand time and history in a completely different way, and the way you just translated that no and yes shows that you're one of them, too, Melvin.”
“Melvin Jubilee Trent,” Melvin said. “That is my name. The other one is my baby sister Gracie – Gracie Jubilee Trent.”
“That explains a lot of things,” Tom said. “Gracie is so much like y'all's grandmother … and her hot takes are already super hot, though hilarious because she's eight, but still!”
“Yeah, we didn't just get that middle name by accident,” Melvin said. “That was decided by the Jubilee elders – and they paid for the paperwork for the name change and everything after Grandma checked us out as little ones. Don't ever sleep on Gracie with a paint gun either. That little girl will mess your life up.”
“But let's go back to this part,” Tom said. “Your grandmother told me no in a way that didn't make me feel powerless or incapable of doing anything, and then you translated it in a way that has let me know that the no today has already set me up for success in 2025 in a bunch of different ways. How do y'all do that?”
Melvin considered this.
“Jubilees don't look at past, present, or future in the way most people trained in the Eurocentric way do – yes, we know that there are years in succession, and we are living in 2020. But what 2025 looks like is something we can already partially see and affect, so, we just do that from here, just like we know that what Hubert Jubilee did in becoming the Shooting Conductor in 1854 is still creating new consequences in 2020. Basically, you gotta understand quantum physics on a daily level, because that's how modern scientists caught up, or maybe just read and believe Acts 15:18.”
“What?” Tom said.
“Time is finished from beginning to end – we know that from quantum physics,” Melvin said. “We live it in one direction because we get older, but mentally, we can explore it from any direction, which is as close to we can actually get to looking at it from outside, like God does from eternity. That's why He knows literally everything that has happened and is ever going to happen, because 'known unto God are His works from the beginning of the world.' He can see it all. We can look back at what is behind us that throws some light onto the future – and since the future is finished, too, and because the same patterns repeat and He had Solomon write that 'there is nothing new under the sun,' we can pretty much explore a lot of that too, because –.”
“Timeout,” Tom said, and made the timeout signal with his hands. “I see why Grandma Jubilee said I wasn't ready. You're just 21, Melvin, and here you are Jubilee-ing as a quarter-Jubilee. How am I supposed to cope with your Jubilee grandmother's mind?”
“And that's the other thing,” Melvin said. “By the way the world, as it is, counts things, I am just a quarter-Jubilee, but that's not how any of this works. If you're Jubilee, you're Jubilee in full. Like … well, just listen to my Jubilee counterpart out there talking to one of the Ludlow girls.”
“All I'm saying is, Glendella, that we got problems in Lofton County because people your six-year-old brother Grayson could outbuild with Legos are pretending like they are running anything but their mouths, and God is just out here stunting on them until they sit down or get sat down.”
“That's deep, Gracie, but it makes so much sense because that's basically what happened to Pharoah in our Sunday School lesson.”
“Glennie, ain't nothing new out here but us. Same dumb type of people keep getting up to be knocked down. We just gotta not grow into that dumb type of people.”
“So, the thing is,” Melvin said as the two little girls walked on, “Gracie is eight. You could quote her and get a hotter take than that type of people she's talking about could stand to let you live and have.”
“I see that!” Tom said. “Folks love pretending to be the heroes of the Bible, but telling them God has them in Exodus and they are having their country destroyed for their sins against His actual people would be a major problem.”
“OK, so, Gracie is eight,” Melvin said. “Let me tell you about Jubilee mental math. How much is eight times eight?”
“64,” Tom said.
“Grandma is 64,” Melvin said.
“Oh, yikes!” Tom said.
“But that ain't it,” Melvin said. “Gracie has practically zero real-world experience: she's just Jubilee-processing what she hears. I've only been an adult for a few years, so, I'm still mostly Jubilee-processing and learning how to live it as I go. Grandma is 64, and married my grandfather at age 17, and so has lived as an adult for 47 years. What's eight to the power of eight, Tom?”
Tom jumped, stared, and then said, “I'm going to go look at the news scanner and find a regular story to pick up before my head explodes. I mean, I thought the Stepforths run some numbers, and we do, but quantum physics and stuff as a daily experience? Y'all can have that – I'm out here fighting for Bs in regular physics!”
“Well, you know,” Melvin said, “once you live it, it does get easier.”
“I'm gone, Melvin! Y'all are not safe for the average brain!”
“And that's what Grandma was also telling you,” Melvin said.