Chariot Burn L u c a s D u r a n D Chariot Burn Jacksonville in June didn’t ask permission, it arrived. Loud and alive and aching with memory. Lucas Durand Ovi ebooks are available in Ovi/Ovi eBookshelves pages and they are for free. If somebody tries to sell you an Ovi book please contact us immediately. For details, contact: ovimagazine@yahoo.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the writer or the above publisher of this book An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi eBookPublications - All material is copyright of the Ovi eBooks Publications & the writer C Chariot Burn Chariot Burn Lucas Durand Lucas Durand An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi eBookPublications - All material is copyright of the Ovi eBooks Publications & the writer C Chariot Burn T he air outside was aching with heat , the kind that didn’t just sit on your skin but sunk in through your pores and settled in your bones. Jacksonville in June didn’t ask permission, it arrived. Loud and alive and aching with memory. The sun had dipped behind the pine trees and buildings that leaned like tired shoulders, but the heat stayed. Heat didn’t care what time it was. It remembered. And this heat remembered it was Juneteenth. The street outside 203B was loud with bodies, with rhythm, with the kind of joy that comes from fight- ing to feel it. Men in straw hats with sweaty necks slung barbecue over paper plates; women with silver curls laughed so hard their glasses slid down their Lucas Durand noses. Children were chalking liberty into the side- walk, in pinks and purples and careless squiggles, and the boys had made bottle rocket launchers out of beer cans. The music that rose from the pavement had grit in it. Bass too loud for the speakers it came from, voices raised too long to stay in tune, horns blowing glory into a sky still stitched with daylight. Someone’s ste- reo blared Chaka Khan , and two blocks down a boy beat a snare drum like it owed him something. Inside 203B, it was still. Not quiet. No, not that. But still. The kind of still that clings. The kind that stays with you long after the room empties. It was in the sigh of the rust-colored fan wobbling on the ceiling, the hum of the fridge that hiccupped when the mo- tor kicked in, the stretch of floorboard beneath the fridge where Mavis kept a tin of extra coins and her grandmother’s folded church fan. The walls were yellow once. Now they were the col- or of teeth that have lived too long. Mavis Delaney stood barefoot at the sink, the cuffs of her jeans wet from where they brushed the mop Chariot Burn earlier. Her hands were deep in dishwater, scrubbing a frying pan with more force than it needed. It had already been clean, mostly. The celebration outside pressed through the thin windows. She did not move to open them. “Fireworks comin’, Mama,” Isaiah said from the couch. His voice carried the weight of a question and the light of a hope not yet extinguished. She glanced back. His shirt was on inside out. That boy never noticed such things. “Can we go see?” he asked, sitting up now. “Miss Glory said they got a real band this time. Said they got ribs, too.” Mavis dried her hands slow, careful not to let the towel touch her shirt, it was clean, and she didn’t want to wash it twice this week. “No, baby,” she said. “But why not? Ain’t they celebrating freedom?” That twitch at her mouth came again, half-smile, half-grimace. She didn’t turn around when she said, “Ain’t no freedom behind on rent.” Lucas Durand She watched the sky split open with a firework, blue first, then gold. It flickered across the walls of the apartment, lighting the chipped paint for a heartbeat. Her hand rested on the curtain. Then, as if catching herself wanting, she let it fall again. Isaiah slouched. His voice carried more hurt than tantrum. “We always miss things.” She turned to him. “We don’t miss nothin’ that matters,” she said. Then nodded at the book on the table. “Sit up straight. Read me from your book.” He hesitated. The book was heavy in his hands, a school reader gone soft at the spine. “But...” “Read.” So he read. Voice soft, stumbling, sweet in its at- tempt at power. “ Harriet Tubman... was born... in... ” “Stop.” She held up a hand. “Start from the top. With your whole voice this time. Harriet ain’t whis- perin’ in no grave.” He tried again, and this time the words came from the chest. He stumbled on “emancipation” and turned “proclamation” into something like proclamatation , but Mavis didn’t correct him. She nodded, just once, Chariot Burn her fingers pressed against her temple, as if steadying herself against the ache behind her eyes. Then... three knocks. Sharp. Unapologetic. Whelan. She didn’t even blink. “Mavis!” The voice was thick with smugness. “Rent’s overdue, and you already know it!” Isaiah looked at her. Wide-eyed. “You hear me? I got someone ready to take this unit now. Don’t test me!” She sat still, hands folded in her lap, eyes shut now. The kind of still that said: I will not dance for you. I will not perform worry, or shame. I been through worse than you with a clipboard and a tie too short for your gut. Isaiah whispered, “Mama?” She didn’t open her eyes. “This land was never free,” she said. Lucas Durand * * * * * When the knocks stopped, and silence settled like dust again, she stood up. She went to the closet and pulled out the shoebox marked “IF.” Inside, forty-six dollars in crumpled bills, a Pola- roid of her and Isaiah from Christmas ’84, her old factory ID, a pawn ticket for a necklace she hadn’t picked up yet and a bus schedule to Daytona Beach, worn soft at the corners. She stared at it all for a long time. Not thinking, really. Just... remembering. Feeling. Counting things you couldn’t add with numbers. “Go put your shoes on,” she told Isaiah. “For what?” “Just do it.” * * * * * They walked through the streets with their backs straight. Mavis didn’t hold his hand—she walked with her hands in her pockets, like a man might, shoulders forward. Isaiah stayed close, wide-eyed. Chariot Burn A woman at a folding table called out, “Mavis! Come eat! Ain’t no use starving on a holiday.” She nodded. Took a plate. Sat. Ate standing up, ribs falling off bone, sauce sweet and angry on her tongue. She licked her fingers slow. A man approached, old head named Reggie, beard like cotton gone gray. “We takin’ donations, Mavis. You know the boys gettin’ ready for that new center.” She raised her eyebrows at him. “Donation from what? You know Mr. Whelan still want his coins.” Reggie chuckled. “Yeah, he always did got a special place in hell waitin’.” “Mmmhmm,” she muttered. “Maybe hell look a lot like Jacksonville. Just without the fireworks.” And still the sky cracked open again, purple this time. The children shouted. Isaiah grinned. “That one looked like a star, Mama.” She nodded. “That’s all they ever was... stars fallin’, not risin’.” A pause. Then: Lucas Durand “You ever gonna tell me why we ain’t free?” She looked down at him. Her voice was low but didn’t shake. “Because we still beggin’ to be seen.” He thought on that. Then whispered, “But you see me, right?” She pulled him close. “Always.” * * * * * The celebration carried on, but they slipped away into the night. Past the lot where Miss Thelma used to sell sweet tea and dreams. Past the church where the roof still leaked. Past Mr. Whelan’s car parked crooked outside the bar. They walked until the music was a hum and the laughter was memory. At the corner of Division Street, Mavis stopped. Lit a cigarette. Looked out toward nothing. Isaiah sat on the curb. “Mama, if we don’t go back... where we gonna go?” She didn’t answer. Just looked up. Smoke curled like questions above her. Chariot Burn And above them, one last firework. Late, and alone. A flicker of gold against the night. She didn’t look away. She said, so quiet the sky might’ve missed it: “I don’t want freedom if it don’t come with dignity.” Then she dropped the cigarette and crushed it. And they kept walking. * * * * * The sun came up angry. Not in hue, but in intent. It rose not to warm, but to remind. As if the light itself needed Mavis to know she could run but not hide, not from the rent, not from the stares, not from the fingerprints history had left on her. They hadn’t gone far. Just far enough to disappear. A shelter run by old sisters with patience in their hands and hard rules in their eyes. Mavis signed Isa- iah in under a false last name, “Thompson” a name from a man long gone and better left buried. “Mothers stay in the back,” said a woman with skin like soil and eyes that didn’t blink. “Boys sleep up Lucas Durand front. Curfew’s 8. No men after dusk. You work, you eat. You don’t, you move on.” Mavis nodded. Didn’t blink either. In the corner, a child coughed like dust. On a cot, a woman nursed a baby with eyes full of water. None of them smiled. This was a place of waiting. Not heal- ing. * * * * * It was a Tuesday when it all shifted. Isaiah had left for the library with a satchel full of dreams and a pencil tucked behind his ear. He liked to read in corners, under stacks of books, where no one asked him questions he didn’t have answers for. Mavis, meanwhile, stood outside the shelter with a paper bag and an apron, waiting for the city bus that smelled of rust and hot vinyl. She worked now at Marla’s Diner. Not as a waitress, Marla didn’t trust “certain kinds of folks” to carry plates but as a cleaner. Toilets, grease traps, kitchen floors. She worked with her back bent and her words swallowed. Chariot Burn The head cook, a Cuban man named Ramón, sometimes passed her half a sandwich from his break plate, whispering, “Para ti. No digas nada.” For you. Don’t say nothing. She never did. Not to him. Not to anyone. Silence had become her shield. But that day, as she scrubbed egg yolk off the floor, she heard the bell on the door jingle. Looked up and saw him. Whelan. Leaning against the counter like he belonged to the place, like he owned every tile beneath him. She froze. He saw her. Smirked. “Well, well,” he said. “Ain’t this a small, sorry world.” Ramón caught the look in her eyes. “Todo bien?” he asked, uncertain. Mavis didn’t answer. Just stood up. Slow. Whelan walked over, too casual. Too loud. “Couldn’t leave no address, huh? You think you slick, Mavis?” Lucas Durand “I think you lost your way,” she said, wiping her hands on the apron. But Whelan wasn’t here for her words. “You stole from me,” he said. “Skipped out like some rat in a flood. That room was still under your name. I could’ve had you hauled.” “And yet you didn’t.” Whelan leaned in close, breath thick with nicotine and spite. “You forget, I still know where your boy go to school.” Ramón stepped forward then. “You got problem, take it outside.” Whelan looked at him, then back at her. Chuckled. “You always find somebody dumb enough to protect you, huh?” He left. Mavis stood shaking. Not from fear. Not exactly. But from the knowing, the knowing that a man like Whelan only ever paused long enough to reload. Chariot Burn * * * * * That night, Mavis waited until the shelter was asleep. She wrote a note for Isaiah on the back of an overdue bill. “If I’m not there when you wake up, I’m okay. Keep your head low. Don’t talk to nobody unless they say the word Chariot . You hear that? Chariot. Keep your book bag ready. I love you more than sunlight. I’ll be back.” Then she walked out into the heat-soaked dark with fire in her belly and a plan that wasn’t one. * * * * * She found Whelan in his car behind Gilroy’s Pub, smoking and counting cash. She didn’t knock. She opened the door, got in. He didn’t flinch. “Well now,” he said. “You come to turn yourself in?” “I come to make a trade.” He looked amused. “You got nothing I want.” “I got silence. And silence is power.” Lucas Durand He scoffed. “Please.” “I also got proof.” She tapped her bag. “You forget I seen you take money that wasn’t yours. From your tenants. From the county. You think I didn’t notice when you raised rent but never fixed a thing? You ain’t just a slumlord... you a thief.” He shifted. “You got no evidence.” “I got copies. Signed names. I may not know law, but I know leverage.” Now he sat forward. “You threatening me?” “No. I’m offering a deal. You forget me. You forget my son. Or the city gets a package.” A long pause. He studied her. “You think people like me get scared of people like you?” “I think people like you been scared of people like me since the day we stopped picking your cotton.” His hand moved fast. Slapped her hard. Her head jerked. Blood touched her lip. Chariot Burn But she didn’t cry. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t move. She just turned back to him, mouth bleeding, and said— “You done now?” * * * * * They found her body the next morning by the riv- er. No wallet. No bag. No witness. Just bruises. Just silence. Police didn’t ask many questions. Just another Black woman in the wrong part of town. The shelter got the news secondhand. Isaiah sat on his cot, unread book in lap, staring into a hole only he could see. * * * * * At the funeral, six people showed up. Lucas Durand Ramón came. Said nothing. Just dropped a folded napkin in the coffin: it had a heart drawn on it in blue ink and the word Fuerza , Strength. Reggie was there, and he played a sad version of A Change Is Gonna Come on his bent saxophone. The sound cracked halfway through. The sisters from the shelter dressed Isaiah in a shirt too big, and combed his hair too flat. He didn’t cry. But when the coffin lowered, he whispered, “Char- iot.” No one heard it but the sky. * * * * * Later, when they cleaned out her cot, they found her note. Isaiah folded it into his shoe. He would run. Not now. But soon. He would run, and keep running, until he found a place where fireworks didn’t fall on silence, and mothers didn’t have to trade their lives for rent. Until then he walked quiet.