Death of Innocence : The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America (9781588363244) (14 page)

It had been so different for me coming up. My mother didn’t let me take on any real responsibilities as a child, except a few routine chores like washing the dishes as I grew older. I guess it was because, early on, I tried to do things and would always wind up right there in the way. I remember when I was a toddler, not long before we left Mississippi, and I was walking all over the place, always underfoot. Mama went out to milk the cow. I followed. Of course I wanted to help. But she pushed me back in the front door and closed it. Even then, she must have known what my help would have cost her. Only a moment later, as she made her way to the cow, she saw it lunge in the opposite direction. She’d never really liked that cow, mostly because it would act out just like that. But this time it was worse. She saw something that horrified her. It was me. I had made it out the back door and was headed for the cow. Actually, the cow was headed for me—headfirst. Mama was holding the bucket she was going to use to milk the cow, but she wound up putting it to much better use. She beat that cow over the head. Must have been doing a pretty good job, too, because the cow finally moved away. Just in time. Not that I was in danger. No, once Mama stepped in, I was okay. Whenever Mama was around, I was okay. But that poor cow was about to get killed. I kind of moved into the background after that and Mama handled most things around the house. She was quite comfortable with the arrangement. Handling things was what Mama did best.

That wasn’t the case with Bo and me. Now, I’m not saying that he was perfect. I admit there were those times when Emmett would get—well, he would get a little distracted. He might be in a hurry to get outside and shove some things under the couch or under a bed, hoping he could get back in time to put it all away before I’d find out. Like any young person, he loved to play and sometimes he would forget what he was supposed to remember.

There was one night when I asked him to go to the store for a loaf of bread. Now, he made it to the store just fine. It was the trip back that
seemed to create a problem for him. He ran into some friends playing a little game of baseball. There was no way Emmett could pass up a baseball game, even when he was supposed to be doing something for me. So, I guess he just put down the bread and got in that game. And that’s exactly where I found Bo. Bo and that loaf of bread. Of course, by that time, the bread kind of looked like the kids had been using it for second base. I was not happy. And I let him know that I was not happy. I let him know that all the way home. Oh, I fussed so. He just took it, never said a word as we walked. But when we got to the house he said his piece, trying to turn it all around on me.

He was so excited that he began stuttering. But he did manage to get the words out. “How do you feel making a show of yourself out there on the street?”

He was not trying to fast-talk me. No, at that moment, with his excitement and the stutter and all, well, fast talk was not going to happen. And I can’t say my son was a smooth talker, necessarily. But that boy was a talker. Like the time he came home late one Sunday night after one of his weekends in Argo. Before I could even get started on him, he began talking about the bus ride home and how he felt women were taking advantage of him, like they could tell he was the kind of boy who would give up his seat, and how they would stand near him until he did, and that it made no difference whether they were black or white, because he would give up his seat to whichever one had the most packages or a child or something like that and … I tell you. He just went on and on and I was drawn into it, because he could make conversation like that into something so interesting. By the time we finished talking about all those things, I forgot that I was annoyed with him. And I guess that was the point of it all.

Emmett was confident, and felt he could talk his way out of anything. Even the thing with the baseball game and the loaf of bread. What he had to say at that moment on that night made me stop and think. Emmett was two hundred percent boy. He was always trying to squeeze in twice as much life, twice as much challenge. Now, going to the store and coming straight home with my bread was not quite enough of a challenge for him. But going to the store, then getting into a baseball game and making it home before I ever noticed,
that
was a challenge.

When I think about that kid and the responsibilities that I let him take on, I have to admit that it wasn’t hard to overlook a lapse every now and then. As a matter of fact, I appreciated each part of his personality.

“I really like you,” I told him once. I couldn’t help myself. As I looked at him and saw the way he approached every aspect of his life, I just had to say that. No holding back.

He gave me a puzzled look. “Shouldn’t you have said ‘I
love
you’?”

I laughed. “Now look,” I said, “I can’t help but love you. I’m going to love you whether you’re good, bad, or indifferent. But to
like
you, now that really
is
something special.”

He nodded with a slight smile, as if to show that he accepted my explanation and, at the same time, recognized that this was just how he might try to talk his way out of a corner. But it wasn’t fast talk. I meant it. I really did. I mean it still.

I needed to get my nails done. We were having a club meeting, Les Petite Femmes. They were friends of mine, mostly from Argo. That’s where it had started, really, about ten years earlier, in 1943. There were around sixteen of us altogether, including my dearest friend, Ollie Colbert. Les Petite Femmes, “the little women,” even though some of us were outgrowing that name by this time. We would rotate the club meetings once a month and have dinner at different homes, talking and playing cards well into the night. We would host baby showers for our members and we even held a huge annual ball, a spectacular event that would attract people from all over town. One of our regular meetings was coming up and I just had to get my nails done. I was a Chicago girl now, had a good job, and I knew I should look the part. Chicago girls had their hair done, their nails, too. So, I went out looking for someone to do my nails. To make me look like a Chicago girl.

Somebody told me about a neighborhood shop. It was up at Sixty-fifth and Cottage Grove, right on the corner. When I went in, though, I found out that the manicurist was off for the day. People in that shop pointed out another one across the street, Polk’s Barbershop, where Polk’s wife was a manicurist. When I walked in, Mr. and Mrs. Polk were there, and had only one customer. Mr. Polk was taking care of him. So I was able to get a walk-in slot just like that. There was another barber sitting high up on the shoe-shine bench, reading a newspaper. His legs were crossed, one foot on the footrest, killing time, I guess, waiting for a walk-in of his own. He kind of looked over the paper at me as I took off my jacket and took a seat with my back to him. I really wasn’t paying too much attention to him, because, you see, I was just happy that I was going to get my nails done.

Mrs. Polk and I were having a good old time chatting away as she worked on me. I liked the way she was shaping up my nails, and polishing them, giving me all that attention. We talked about my job and where I lived—right around the corner—and all sorts of things, general chitchat, the way ladies do when they’re getting done.

Then, at one point, she slowed down a little and leaned in. “You know
that man over there … no, don’t look,” she said, “that other barber over there. You know, he’s only pretending to read that paper.”

Really? Now why would somebody do something like that?

“He’s really looking around that paper,” she went on to say. “He’s watching you.”

O-h-h, my goodness, that just gave me the creepy crawlies all up and down my back. That didn’t feel good at all. Not one bit. But I tried to ignore it, just put it out of my head, and I chatted some more with Mrs. Polk until she finished. When she did, I thought my nails looked beautiful. But I needed her to help me with my jacket. I was not about to mess up all that work, especially after working so hard to find somebody to do the work.

Even before I could ask her to help, she spoke up. “Um, Mr. Mobley, can you help this lady with her jacket?”

Oh, my, that boy nearly fell off that bench climbing down. Looking back on it, I’m sure that Mrs. Polk was just messing with him. Messing with me, too, for that matter. But he made his way over to help me out and, as he did, I guess he figured this was going to be his big opportunity.

“I like what I see,” he said.

Well, I’m sure I blushed a little. I thought he was being fresh, and I wasn’t sure exactly how to respond. But he kept going. He told me his name. Gene. Gennie Mobley. Then he wanted to know my name, my address, my telephone number, and … Wait a minute, now. I was not impressed with all this. He wasn’t my type. For one thing, I just did not like that conk.

Finally, I had to make it clear to him. “Well, maybe there’ll be a time for all that,” I said, “but this is not that time.”

I didn’t see why we should be getting all that familiar. I didn’t know anything about this man, except that he was a barber waiting for a customer and giving me the creepy crawlies watching me. I wasn’t sure, right then and there, that I wanted to know any more about him than that. But I loved the way the woman in that shop had done my nails. So I went back another time to have her do them again.

Gene was there again. Looking at me again. “You need a line,” he said, after I was finished. “Why don’t you let me edge your hair?”

I wasn’t wearing my hair short then. But a new look kind of got my attention. I touched at my hair. “How much will that cost?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said.

Well, what can I say? The price was right. I wasn’t going to walk away from a deal like that. And he wound up doing a good job. He really did. I was impressed, but I knew what he was up to and I decided that was as far
as I was going to let this relationship go. I mean, he could cut my hair, but I wasn’t ready to let him arch my eyebrows.

Then, at home, I started thinking. Bo needed a haircut. On his regular trips out to Argo, he had been letting one of the neighbors there cut his hair. The man had sort of a barbershop business on his front porch. It seemed like a lot of trouble to go way out there. So I told Emmett that I had met a young man who was a barber, and I thought we should try him out. I guess I was also figuring that Gene might even give me a break on the price. Well, Emmett tried him out and he was just crazy about his haircut. After that first time in Gene’s chair, he never went out to Argo for a haircut again.

I kept going back to Polk’s, too. On one trip, Gene was about to go out to eat. He asked if I wanted to go with him. I was very hungry that day. So, I accepted the invitation and he waited until Mrs. Polk had finished with me. Gene and I walked about a block and a half to a very special place. I ordered steak. Gene ordered the same thing. When the food came I began to eat. And I ate
everything
on my plate. Like I said, I was very hungry. But Gene hadn’t even started. He was sitting there, watching me eat.

I looked over for a moment, and I thought about it. “Are you going to eat your steak?”

He shook his head. “No.”

I don’t know if he was nervous or what. Maybe he saw this as a date. But I saw it as dinner. So, I just pulled his plate over and ate both steaks. His and mine. He had come with a hankering, I had come with a hunger. And, obviously, I was
not
trying to make an impression. Somewhere with all this eating going on, I finally let my guard down and we were able to talk. I talked about my job, what little bit I could talk about, and the challenges of being a single mother. Gene talked about himself and I found out we had more in common than I had ever imagined. Our paths had been crossing for years, even though we had never met. He was from Mississippi, not far from where I was born. He had been in and out of Argo. He was separated and so was I. And now there was this new connection. The barbershop, nail-salon connection.

Gene worked at the Ford Motor Company. He unloaded heavy parts, half-sides of cars, and got them going through the factory. He would get off from his Ford job about three o’clock in the afternoon, go home, shower, and put on his starched white barber coat and pants, then head to Polk’s shop. My goodness, that coat and those pants were crisp and creased. And he looked very nice in that outfit. I had to admit that. Well, I found myself taking a closer look. He was tall, dark as molasses, and had a
kind of sweetness about him. Rough around the edges, but smooth at his core, his heart. Not pretty, but fine in other ways that counted. And he had a walk. Oh, he had a walk. It was a confident way he moved that showed you he was in charge. Whatever the situation was.

After we finished our meal, or, I should say, after
I
finished our meal, we walked together back to the barbershop where I had parked my car. On the way we passed some guy Gene must have known and, all of a sudden, Gene put his arm around my shoulder. I guess he was trying to make some point or other, but I was not a point to be made. I took his hand and I flung it off my shoulder.

“You don’t know me
that
well,” I said, not caring whether the other guy heard me or not. We might have had some things in common, and he was nice and all, but I still didn’t think Gene was my type.

Gene did not give up easily. Not at all. I would come home sometimes and find a note from Bo on the dresser, or get a message from Aunt Magnolia or Uncle Mack, who lived downstairs from us in our two-flat building. Bo would have gone to the barbershop and he wanted me to know that he would be home after Gene cut his hair. So that was becoming a routine, and I figured Gene was encouraging it. Then I came home one day to find something else. Hats. Men’s hats. On my bed.

“What’s this?” I asked Bo.

“Oh,” he said, “those are GeGe’s hats.”

GeGe?
“Well,” I asked, “what are they doing here?”

He explained that he was running errands, like picking up hats and clothes from the cleaners for “GeGe,” and getting tips.