Death of Innocence : The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America (9781588363244) (16 page)

They all had a good laugh over that one, too. After making a run for it.

In Argo, there was always an adventure, something that touched deep inside a kid who had energy to burn. Oh, goodness, there was so much space there, room to expand, places to explore. It was just that kind of adventurous spirit that carried these boys forward through some of their best times. Naturally, over the years they had their bikes and their wagons and their balls and bats, but they seemed to have just as much fun with the stuff they found or threw together. For boys who knew how to improvise, invention was the game and Argo was one big playground. Their favorite swimming hole was more of a mud hole, a deep pit dug for an expressway bridge and then left to fill up with rainwater. Just enough to entice a group of young explorers. The same spirit of adventure carried them to the top of a nearby hill where they would slide down in oversized cartons, refrigerator boxes that had been thrown out by a local furniture store. It was the kind of daring that could move Bo out on a limb.
Somebody
had to go for it. A terrified cat had been chased up a tree by Miss Haynes’s dog. Bo and his cousin Milton worked it all out: Bo would do the climbing and the coaxing, while Milton would wait down below to do the catching. As it turned out, Bo had the easier job. He had seen the lessons in school, the demonstrations showing how cats always land on their feet, lightly. So he wasn’t too concerned about the cat’s safety once he got it in his arms. But somewhere between the drop from the tree and the landing, well, that little cat got nervous all over again. Very nervous. Poor Milton caught the cat, and he caught the worst of it: the cat’s claws.

Those boys would squeeze every last drop out of a day. As hard as they might have wanted to hold on to those moments, though, their days would always end much too soon. Many times they would wind up out in front of the house where Bo had spent so much of his childhood, the house where his cousin Ty now lived, and where Ty’s stepfather, Tillman
Mallory, might be coming out to call his boy in as it got dark. Or they might be in front of the house next door to Ty’s, where Bo’s cousins Wheeler, William, and Milton still lived. So often, the boys would all stand under a lamppost “doo-wopping.” Everybody wanted to sing. Everybody wanted to sing lead. Nobody could get it just right. It was the only time they were not in harmony. But this was the fifties, and music was in the air. It was everywhere. For this group of boys standing under a curbside spotlight, the music was off-key, it was out of sync, it was perfect. The grace note of their young lives. And around 8:59 at night, the group would have to take their last bow. The rule of every single black household on that block was that kids had to be on the front porch by nine o’clock sharp. That’s what life was like for a bunch of happy-go-lucky boys who knew how to improvise. A championship game that nobody took too seriously, all-day jokes, an adventure in a mud hole or on a hilltop or up a tree, a song under a streetlight where nobody could carry a tune. And nobody seemed to care. For them, it was just right. All of it.

Emmett might have been doing most of the housework—the sweeping, the mopping, the waxing, a lot of the cooking and the laundry—but we took on the big jobs together. Ever since he laid that linoleum so perfectly in the dining room, I kept thinking of more and more redecorating projects we could do. We had already done the tiling and Bo had handled some paint jobs for me. At the time, people were painting their walls navy blue, dark red, dark green. I mean, they were coming up with the craziest colors. And I was following the trend. We had used all those colors in the front room and dining room and in the bedrooms. Bo and I had a great time, moving furniture, covering the floors, taping up the woodwork. As we got closer to Christmas 1954, though, I decided I wanted a new look for the little room across from my bedroom. Bo spent a lot of time there and, even though he had his own bedroom farther back, he liked to sleep up there from time to time. Near me. So I decided on something special. We were going to paper that room. And, oh, the paper I chose, something I picked out on the way home one night. It was red. When I say “red,” I mean
red, red, red
. And it had a Japanese theme. There was a lady, a fan, a bridge, all kinds of cultural symbols that repeated in patterns.

Since Emmett had pretty much handled the linoleum single-handedly, I was going to take the credit for this one. I’d never had any lessons in hanging wallpaper, but I figured everything out, and showed Emmett as I was going through it. Well, actually, we figured it out together as we went along. He was so excited about this project. We had to be careful to make sure everything matched up perfectly. I knew Mama would notice if it
didn’t, anywhere on that wall. There was a little mark on every piece of paper to help you line up each strip with the last, and you had to cut with care to make sure it all came out right. We did a great job, and this time I was the one puffing out my chest when Mama came by for the inspection.

“My Lord,” Mama said while she looked over our handiwork, stressing each word she spoke. “What a room.”

Now, of course, I thought she was saying how beautiful it was. What she was saying was “Of all the loud, busy patterns …” She warned me that I would be sorry about the choice once I came to my senses and decided to choose all over again. “Baby, you can’t even cover this stuff up,” she said.

I didn’t care. Bo and I were very happy with the job we had done. A perfect job, really. And I liked the idea of having something new and trendy, no matter how obnoxious it might have been.

The redecorating was just the beginning. I was determined that this would be a Christmas to remember. The best ever. I had no idea why I would make that decision at that time. I certainly didn’t need to be going too deeply into debt. But something just came over me. Call it the Christmas spirit. The first thing I did was to make sure we had a beautiful spruce Christmas tree. We had always bought the cheaper ones and I wanted a nice, fluffy spruce tree. Gennie and Bo took care of that part. It was pretty tall, too, taller than Gene: six, maybe seven feet tall. And I bought everything I could think of to fill up that great big tree. The prettiest decorations.

Since I wanted Bo to get as much enjoyment out of this as I was having, I gave him a hundred dollars. “This is part of my Christmas present to you,” I told him. “And you can use it any way you choose.”

He chose to spend it on gifts for everybody else. I can’t remember a single thing he bought for himself. Now, a hundred dollars could have easily been our entire Christmas. But this year was going to be different. I was feeling good about my job. In fact, it had never been this good for me before. And I wanted to share that good feeling with the people I loved. And I was very generous. I was buying a lot of gifts for Mama and my stepfather, Aunt Magnolia and Uncle Mack, Emmett and Gene, and others. I had accounts at several stores and wound up charging my way into about five hundred dollars of debt. That was a lot of money back then. I just threw caution to the wind.

Gene helped me with Emmett’s gifts. We coordinated. He was always helping to dress Bo. Gene was sharp. He always was a very good dresser and Bo always wanted to be one. I can’t recall how many times I heard Bo compliment Gene on something he was wearing and then I would find it
in Bo’s closet. For this Christmas, I bought Bo a black suit, white shirt, and some dress shoes. Gene bought him a wide-brim hat, a beautiful tie, and a gray coat. They picked out that coat together at Carson Pirie Scott. And I hated that coat. I wanted a coat that would conform more to his body, but this was just a big, old loose coat. No belt, no nothing. It made him look big to me. But Emmett assured me that he’d gotten the coat he wanted. It was pretty expensive. I think it cost over a hundred dollars.

Emmett bought Gene some socks and handkerchiefs. He bought just about each woman on his list a box of candy. A Whitman’s Sampler. On every occasion, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, every special day, I could always count on him buying me a box of these chocolates, and I always thought it was the sweetest thing. Every now and then, he would try something different. I remember once he bought me a bottle of Evening in Paris, a drugstore fragrance. I let him know how much I appreciated the thought, and how he didn’t have to spend all his money on me. Really. The box of candy would be just fine. But this Christmas, he didn’t think that would be enough. Oh, I got my Whitman’s Sampler, all right, but Emmett also gave me a beautiful scarf he had shopped several stores to find.

When we got the tree all decorated and the presents spread out around it, I stood back and I looked at it all and thought about how blessed we were, how far we had come. I called Mama and shared the moment with her. I told her we had never seen a Christmas like that one. It was then I realized my Christmas that year was revolving around Emmett. It really was. At that blessed moment, he was the center of everything for me, and I wanted him to feel that way.

As people came in on Christmas Day, most rushed to the tree and grabbed whatever gifts they saw with their name tags. Mama and Papa Spearman spent a long time moving around that tree. It really was something to behold.

“You’ve been very foolish,” Mama finally said to me, all the while looking for her gift. And checking out the other ones along the way. “You’ll be paying for this the rest of your life.”

Maybe. But at that moment, my whole life was right there in my home with my family. It was all that mattered and I was going to enjoy it, no matter what.

Christmas dinner was a feast at my place that year, truly fit for the kind of day I had hoped it would be. Mama prepared part of the dinner at my apartment, and Aunt Magnolia cooked some of it downstairs at her place. Mama made the turkey, the dressing, the gravy, and the yeast rolls. Aunt
Mag made the greens—because
nobody
could make greens like Aunt Magnolia—and she had potatoes and chits and sweet potato pies. Aunt Mamie made a white potato pie. Now, I had never had one of those before, but it was good. I baked a cake. But that turkey Mama made was a masterpiece, and the centerpiece, so pretty and brown. Oh, my mother could cook.

She could bless a table, too. I mean, she
blessed
that table that night. My mother was the prayer warrior. And she was moved by the spirit of Christmas. Everybody was hungry, but they were just going to have to wait. Mama did not let us forget what was most important. She
talked
to the Lord that night, thanking Him for His bountiful blessings, for bringing us all together, for the love that went from heart to heart and breast to breast. Oh, she went on and on like that until I felt Gene nudging me. I tried not to react. I mean, I wanted to respect this solemn moment. I really did. But I knew what he was trying to tell me, and I didn’t want it to distract me. It was what I had told him once, the story about my grandfather, who had gone out to dinner way out in the country at Sister So-and-So’s house. The preacher at Sister So-and-So’s house was called on to bless the table. Well, that preacher prayed, and he prayed, and he prayed, and he prayed! When the preacher finally said “Amen,” Grandpa said, “I was wiping my mouth.”

Mama was in the “looking ahead” part of her prayer, seeking the Lord’s blessings for all our endeavors in the coming year, keeping our family and our friends close and in the light of God’s love and grace. We listened and we listened and we listened to Mama’s prayer.

When she said “Amen,” Gene was the first to respond. “I was just about ready to start wiping my mouth!”

Everybody laughed, even Mama. That set the tone for the rest of the dinner. We were all happy for the blessings we had enjoyed and just for being together. And it seemed like everybody was there. So many people, they were eating at the dining table, at a card table, and in the kitchen. Oh, it was nonstop “Pass me this” and “Pass me that” and “Pass me something else.”

Finally, Uncle Mack had his fill. “Every time I go to put some food in my mouth, somebody’s saying ‘pass me something,’ ” he said. “If you want it, you better get up and get it.” We all laughed, and promptly got up to serve ourselves, practically turning the dining table into a buffet. It was the best Christmas ever.

It was followed by a great New Year’s celebration. Aunt Mag cooked again for everybody who had to have Aunt Mag’s greens and black-eyed peas. Greens for money. Black-eyed peas for good fortune. Even so, we
weren’t about to leave anything to chance. Mama led us all in asking God’s blessing.

If Norman Rockwell had ever wanted to do a black family Christmas portrait, he could have turned to us that holiday season, picture perfect and ready to be framed on the cover of the
Saturday Evening Post. If
Rockwell had ever had a mind to do such a thing.
If
the editors of the
Saturday Evening Post
had ever had a mind to feature such a thing. It occurred to me that maybe I could arrange for my own Rockwell moment, or something like it. I could arrange to have photographs made. Since I had gone all out that season, I figured I should at least have some kind of remembrance.

I happened to tell a coworker about our wonderful Christmas and how I wanted to have pictures made to remember it. That’s when I found out that he took pictures. He said that he would be happy to take some for me. He never told me how much this was going to cost me, but I figured, with all the money I had already spent, this couldn’t be that bad. So we had the pictures taken of all the gifts and the tree and of Bo in all the clothes we had bought him, the coat, the hat, the shirt and tie, leaning on his Philco television, lying across the little bed in the room we had redecorated, and, of course, posed next to me. Our mother-and-son portrait. Eventually, I came around to asking what all this was going to cost me and the man told me I owed him nothing. Nothing? Oh, my goodness. Yet another blessing of that special season. And for that, I was grateful.

I adored the pictures he produced, the giddy moments captured on film, full of the excitement of our holiday. They captured something more than just a moment in time. They caught that perfect light that you see sometimes just before darkness falls. Oh, my, there was a sweetness about them, the sweetness of innocence. There was so much love. That most special gift, which really is Christmas. I held the pictures. I held that moment. I wanted to hold it much longer than I knew I ever could. It was a time of such joy. It was a time that I would one day come to think of only with longing.