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Thursday, January 22, 2020: Three weeks into the change of ownership at Lofton National Bank, the rest of Big Loft's major bankers began to realize something was up … like noticing a little patch in the snow where a young spring plant was about to push up … just the littlest bump in an otherwise smooth white landscape.

Of course it was January, and no such thing was expected until at least February.

Fitting all around, since nobody actually expected that the Black community of Lofton County, considered including its most successful historical offshoots, could have ever pulled off buying Lofton National Bank before the close of 2019.

The banking class knew the previous owner – Mrs. Selene Slocum-Lofton – well.  She had picked the bank up for a song after the Ridgeline Fire in October, merged three banks with it, recapitalized it, and stabilized it – and profited handily from doing it.

Rarely did the county's only female tycoon sell an asset so soon, and if she had, there had to be a tiny profit.  

Everybody knew – or thought they know – the full list of potential local buyers, and none of them had budged.  So, no one yet had checked the available records.

But, still, that fine Thursday morning in January, there was something different.

“What do you think?”  said Mr. John Ludwell-Lofton to Mr. Thomas Bolling.  “I mean, I understand how the behavior of the Maximalist Club and poor old Robert [Lee Braxton]'s attempts to buy off the Black families who had sons he had killed would backfire, and so the Black community might move its money.  I can even see how the city's failure to recognize the deaths of Black folks in an accurate count in the Ridgeline Fire back in September might cause money to move, but still!”

Mr. Bolling thought about the question for a long time.

“It's just January, John.  It hasn't been all that long since any of that happened.”

“Yes, but usually they settle down pretty quickly, Thomas.  However, the rate of Black people closing accounts at my bank is picking up – it's slow, but increasing!”

“Same thing at my bank, John.  It is picking up.”

“What are they up to now?”

“Like I said, John, some of this may be delayed reaction – but just from September and December, so not delayed long.  Get through Christmas, make your big purchases, then make your move – that sort of thing.  But there's also something else from an old poem by one of their poets … I think it is Langston Hughes.  He described his people as generally forgiving, meek, and kind – 'but beware the day they change their mind.'  Between the police brutality and the fire bungling and old Braxton's madness, we may have hit that tipping point.”

“They don't have a lot of money,” said Mr. Ludwell-Lofton, “but in the coming climate, if they all pull it out of the local banks, we are going to be hurt, because we haven't gotten over last year and this year isn't looking good.”

“That coronavirus thing,” Mr. Bolling said.  “That's already causing trouble in international markets because China is being affected so severely.”

Mr. Ludwell-Lofton was quiet a long time.

“You think … you think they know something we don't know, John?  I know the whole thought is heretical, but … .”

“And my great-grandfather would have killed you for uttering it,” Mr. Bolling said, “and been wrong, because murder is wrong, and also because there is no lie in it.  Clearly, Black people are making financial moves in Lofton County.  We don't know why and they do.  If things get bad and we mean to save our banks, we had better find out what is going on.”

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