Sweet Paradise by Gene Desrochers (most read books in the world of all time .txt) 📕

as the label states.” He pointed at the bottom of one of the bottles that had just come off the conveyor and was being placed in a cardboard box by another woman. This woman wore a mask over her face.

“Why the mask?” I whispered.

“She has a cold. That’s why she’s not pouring today. We don’t want any contamination. Bottles are already sealed at this point, so we’re safe. She needs the hours, right, Yarey?”

“Hello, Dad.”

“This is your daughter?”

“Yes. The next generation. We are proud of our association with this fine distillery and getting prouder all the time. We built this place.” He raised his hands like a preacher in his pulpit on Sunday morning. Light filtered through a ventilation opening high above. “I want to keep it going for the future. I am teaching Yarey each of the jobs so someday she can oversee things.”

“Oversee,” I muttered. “Interesting term.”

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing, nothing. You never answered me, Gilroy. May I call you Roy?”

“No, you may not. I don’t like that moniker.”

Touchy. This guy was going along, but I wasn’t sure why at this point.

“Are you receiving reparations from the Bacons?”

We were now headed upstairs to his office. “Before we go any further with this interrogation, I have a phone call to return. If you’ll excuse me.”

“No problem here. Do you have a vending machine?”

He directed me to a room with cheap cafeteria-style tables and three machines. Peanut butter crackers and a bag of Cheetos, the cornerstone of any nutritious meal. Back in the office, Gilroy was finishing up his call. The place smelled like a banana factory, but I saw no fruit anywhere.

“Harold says I should tell you whatever you want to know.” He took a swig from a gold flask, then capped it and dropped it back in a desk drawer. Next, he pulled an e-cigarette out of his shirt pocket and puffed away. The vapor smelled of banana. He blew the smoke directly toward me. No regard. Passive-aggressive. All right.

I’d go along to get along, but I couldn’t help a tone of annoyance entering my voice. “Yeah, so what about your ancestors and the reparations I asked about?”

He sighed and pondered the mess of papers tacked to a corkboard. To the left was a large window that looked down on the floor below where the workers milled about; ants on an anthill. A laminated card specifying workers’ rights and the current year’s minimum hourly wage was tacked to the wall adjacent to the corkboard. One of those motivational posters showing a breaking wave hung above his desk.

On the opposite wall, behind me, was a giant canvas of what appeared to be an original painting. A landscape of a plantation. In the center bottom of the vast, green expanse of sugar cane stood a white woman wearing a sun hat tied around her chin. Next to her a black man, no doubt a slave, shirtless in pants held up with rope. He on bended knee holding something, perhaps a piece of sugar cane, up to her as an offering. While the background of the painting gave one a sense of oneness with nature, like the feeling from William Wordsworth, the foreground snatched that away, forcing you to face the grim reality of human relations. I suspect that was not the painter’s intent, but there it was.

Some of the articles I’d happened across while researching the years of slavery in the Caribbean alluded to this idealized world that the wealthy landowners tried to propagate through art and literature of the mid-1800s when abolitionists attacked with fervor the sale and torturous nature of the slave trade in gory detail through leaflets and other propaganda. Eventually, the public outcry back in France, England, and other European nations could no longer be ignored.

“Yes, I come from slaves. I do not enjoy discussing this with people outside those close to me. My tribe as it were. What are you, Polynesian?”

Here we go again. “No, I’m white and African.”

He threw me a skeptical look, then continued. “Fine. Yes, I’m from slaves, but my family was always keen to maintain their pride and quickly rose out of that life once given a chance. It was difficult as those of African heritage were always kept down by the Europeans, but intelligence eventually won out and we rose to managerial positions. We have passed along our knowledge. I am lucky my offspring wish to continue to learn what turned out to be the family business. It was destiny. A long, slow bend to justice. I intend to own my own distillery. Rum from the Caribe region will always be sought after and small distilleries are becoming more and more fashionable with the wealthy tech-savvy crowd. I have already been doing small batches in my yard and selling much to Silicon Beach.”

Silicon Beach was a region along the coast of West Los Angeles that had grown in recent years into a smaller version of Silicon Valley. Many wealthy, young men and women with technology backgrounds had moved there, frequented the watering holes and had so much disposable income, even with the sky-rocketing housing costs, they could spend freely on luxury items like craft beers and aged cheeses from around the world. Spirits would apparently join the fray.

“Sounds like you have a conflict of interest here,” I said.

“No,” he said with a smirk. “I am insignificant when compared to the commercial prowess of Bacon Rum. See, what Francine and the Bacon family have are deep pockets. I have no such luxury. My business loses money every month and probably will for years. It is for my children and grandchildren, so they have access to the means of production. So they do not have to rely on others for work. That is my dream.”

A dream can get you into trouble. He had a determined look. The face of a man on a mission to better his station. Sometimes, the cost could be one’s soul.

“You still haven’t answered my other question. Are you part