Ant Colony

  “Beyond the Dream – Part Two”             Two days later, at a gas station near a Kroger store in St. Louis, James Earl Ray’s sanity was in a rapid state of decline. What was supposed to have been a simple abduction, followed by a lynch party, turned into something out of The Twilight Zone . He drove all the way from Montgomery in his Ford pickup, which he had loaned to his brothers in the Klan for one crazy night. That St. Louis gas station was the first place where he stopped once the tank ran empty.             But James did more than fill up the tank. He noticed a phone booth beside a highway signpost. He had to call someone – anyone – to tell about what he had seen. The only ones he trusted were his parents in Illinois. As soon as the operator connected him to his mother, he said in a shaky voice, “M-Ma? Listen, I…I don’t know…I don’t know how else to explain th...

  “Beyond the Dream”             Some of the events of this installment of “Ant Colony” are based on true events surrounding the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The details of these events have been slightly altered to tell a new story and are in no way meant to reflect on Dr. King’s real-life character.             One late night on a rural Alabama road in 1959, Martin Luther King, Jr. rode in the backseat of a 1958 Lincoln Continental that belonged to his dear friend, Andrew Young. It was quite the fancy car for a colored man – some white folks wouldn’t think twice to assume he might have stolen it. But Andrew wasn’t that kind of man. Outside the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Andrew worked hard to earn his living, and he earned his place behind the wheel of his Lincoln.             Tagging along ...