Death of Innocence : The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America (9781588363244) (17 page)

 O
ur year began the way every year should. We were happy about our holiday celebrations, we were hopeful about what was in store during the year ahead, and we were very well fed. It wasn’t long after the start of the year that I had even worked out how I was going to pay off all the Christmas bills, and I was feeling good about the plan. The only problem was working out the payments. I mean, actually making them, delivering them. I didn’t have a checking account, which meant I would have to pay cash each month to all those stores, which meant I would have to make the payments in person, which meant I had a problem. I was working so many hours by this time. Sometimes I didn’t get off until eight, nine, ten o’clock at night. Even when I got off in time to make it to the stores before they closed, I would be so tired that walking around from one store to the next paying a bunch of bills—well, that was just the last thing I wanted to do. But I also wanted those bills paid, and I didn’t want them paid one day beyond the due date. I was sorting it all out and talking to Emmett one day, half thinking out loud, half looking for his advice. After all, he was the answer man, the problem solver.

He listened to me set out the problem and, without even taking time to think about it, he saw how to handle it. “I can pay those bills for you.”

What? Trust him with my money? Well, he might not have had to think about it, but I did. I
really
did. He was only thirteen years old. Sure, he had been taking on a lot of responsibility around the house, and doing a great job. But this was different. This was very, very important. I mean, this was my money. I couldn’t take a chance on him running into a baseball game down the street or something with my money in his pocket. Besides, even though he had been riding the streetcar out to Argo for some time, I had
never let him go downtown alone. Sure, he had gone with me, but I had to be certain he knew how to handle this on his own. So I asked him and, once again, he spoke without hesitating.

“I would just go up to Sixty-third,” he explained, “catch the El, get off at Adams, walk over to the Fair Store. When I get to the Fair Store, Sears is right across the street. I’ll come out of Sears, turn right, and keep on up to Wieboldt’s. After Wieboldt’s, then I work my way up to Carson’s.”

I had to look at him for a minute. I mean, just like that, he had laid it out for me. The look in his eye showed there was no question in his mind, no anxiety in his heart. “We can do it” was written all over his face. He believed in himself. There was nothing he couldn’t do. It was time for me to show, to prove, that I believed in him, too. All I could do was take a deep breath and say, “Okay.” I gave him a hundred dollars, gave him the bills for each store, and then I thought for a moment. I pulled out the light bill and gave him that to pay, too.

All the next day at work I was jumpy about what my son would be dealing with. A hundred dollars of my money, a walk through the hustle and bustle, but mostly hustle, of Sixty-third Street, a train ride downtown, and then five stops to make in the Loop. I wondered, at different points in the afternoon, Where is that child with my hundred dollars? What if he loses that money? What if somebody sticks him up? What was I thinking? I had all kinds of nightmares. I might as well have just taken the afternoon off and paid the bills myself. It was a very long ride home for me that night. When I got home, Bo wasn’t there. Well, that didn’t make me feel any better. I walked into my bedroom and there, on my dresser, was a note. It was sitting on top of the stack of bills. I looked at the bills first. Each one was stamped “Paid.” Next to the stack was the change from my hundred dollars. I knew right then and there that Bo and I had reached a very important point in our relationship. It was that critical point where a mother begins to see a boy taking shape as a man. It was the point of no return. I knew then that I could trust my son with everything. I knew he would do what he set out to do. And I knew he’d be paying those bills every month from then on. Then there was the note. Bo wrote that he had taken care of everything and indicated what I had already confirmed, that the bills were paid and he had left the change. And one more thing. Aunt Mag downstairs had given him permission to visit a friend in the neighborhood.
I’ll be home before dark
, he wrote.
Don’t worry
.

Gene and I were seeing quite a bit of each other by this time. We would go out to clubs like the Blue Note and Joe’s at Sixty-third and South Parkway. We saw all kinds of entertainment, including Redd Foxx and Moms Mabley.
Oh, we were having a great time going out. But Gene also enjoyed spending time at my place. I knew he was trying to get his foot in my door, but he had a good reason to do it. Lots of them, really. For one, his aunt had talked to him.

“Now, boy,” she said, “that’s a pretty girl. Don’t you let her get away.”

All of his friends were pushing for me, too. So he had everybody’s approval. For a man, that makes a difference. When a man sees how much other people appreciate a woman, it makes him appreciate her even more. But there was so much more than that. Gene and Bo adored each other and seemed to really enjoy the time they spent together. My mother loved Gene, too. And, oh, he was just crazy about Mama. That boy
loved
my mother, and treated her like she was a mother to him. For a woman, for me, all of that was important. And, well, what can I say? We were falling in love.

Someone once said something that someone once told them, so by now it’s officially an adage or something that just makes a whole lot of sense. What they said was that men and women look at their relationships in different ways at the beginning. Men look at their women hoping they’ll never change and women size up their men hoping they will. I got to work on Gene right away. The first order of business was that conk. But I have to say that almost as soon as he took it out, I was sorry I had asked him to do it. He looked like such a little boy without that look of his. Then there was that walk. I had to think about that one. I mean, I just couldn’t have other women looking at Gene the way I was looking at him. But there are some things, some down-to-the-bone things about a man that make him what he is. Things you can’t change. Things you probably shouldn’t even try to change. It would be easier just to find another man.

As it turns out, Bo and I weren’t the only attraction Gene had when he’d want to come over. He was also drawn to Aunt Mag’s cooking. He would say all the time, “Aunt Mag can burn.” Now, Aunt Mag was the greatest greens cooker of all time. She cooked greens like nobody’s business. In addition to her meat, she put in garlic, onion, green pepper, and celery. Oh-h-h, those greens had such a distinctive flavor. And then she filled them with hot peppers, which I could not tolerate. I would be eating and drinking and crying and drinking. But those greens were too good to pass up. If Aunt Mag was cooking greens, Gene was coming by. He’d want to know if he could have some.

She was only too happy to oblige: “Yeah, come on here, boy.”

So, that’s what started me cooking them. I mean, I was not going to let Aunt Mag outdo me. First thing, of course, was to get her recipe. Once I got it, I would come home on Fridays with the makings for greens and
fish. And I was one happy cook in that kitchen. I would just sing and cook and cook and sing. I think I did a pretty good job of imitating what Aunt Mag was doing with those greens. Gene and Bo were eating them up, that’s all I knew. I never could make Aunt Mag’s hot-water cornbread, though. I just couldn’t make that bread. But I could make regular cornbread, and I would fry that fish. Now Gene Mobley would swallow some fish. Oh, he would eat white buffalo like he was eating a pork chop. But I’d always have to try to get a bone out of his throat. Eventually I stopped making white buffalo and switched to catfish. It wasn’t as hard to swallow.

On one of these visits, Gene was complimenting me on the meal and we were playing around and he said he was going to marry me. Just like that. I wasn’t sure whether it was his stomach or his heart talking at the time. But then he turned to Bo and told him the same thing, that he wanted to marry me.

Bo shook his head and smiled. “No,” he said. “We’re not ready.”

Well, I thought, I was starting to feel ready
myself
, but we just left it there. Until it came up again, and then again. Mostly, Gene would bring it up in a joking way. He would come over to eat. At some point in the evening he would tell me, “I’m gonna marry you.”

Bo would clear his throat, as if to say, “Now, children.”

We never talked about it, but I was beginning to believe that Bo was building up his defenses. He thought the world of Gene. But to think of sharing the house and his mother with Gene—well, that was something else. He was the man of the house and wanted it to stay that way. At least, that’s what I thought.

Gene was no quitter, though. He brought it up yet again.

Bo said the same thing. “We’re not ready yet.”

Finally Gene had to know. He asked Bo why he seemed to disapprove of the two of us getting married.

Bo spoke up right away. He didn’t have a problem explaining it at all. He told Gene that he was concerned that he might shout at me or hit me. If he did, then Bo would have to take sides, and you know whose side he was going to take. He just liked Gene too much to want to even consider something like that. Because he liked Gene, he didn’t want Gene to marry his mama. “We’re not ready yet.”

So that was it. Emmett had promised to look out for me, to protect me, and this was how he was doing it. That incident with Pink Bradley had left an ugly mark that Gene would have to wipe away. Gene had the warmest and most generous spirit of any man I ever knew. I had no doubt that he would be able to put Bo’s mind at ease.

—

By February of fifty-five, things seemed to be going so well for us. I mean, I was on a roll. I was doing a good job at work, my bills were being paid, and we seemed to have every reason to look forward. I figured, what better way to be on a roll than in a new car? A brand-new car. Now, I had owned several cars before. There was a forty-six Oldsmobile that was about two or three years old when I bought it. I had also bought a Studebaker. And, of course, while I was in Detroit in 1950, my mother sent me the money for that forty-seven Plymouth. They were all good cars that went the way of all cars.

In addition to wanting a new car, I needed one. This would be the first one I would buy completely on my own. But Emmett was going with me to pick it out. He was very, very excited. So was his mama. After all, this was going to be a new experience for me.

The car was a fifty-five Plymouth. Red, with a white top and white interior. I worked out the deal and set up my payments. And when the salesman made the papers out, I looked them over, looked at Emmett, and turned back to the salesman. I told him that I wanted my son to be included as my cosigner. Well, you could just see Emmett straightening up in his chair, preparing to take on this new responsibility.

The salesman looked a little puzzled. “Well, you don’t need a cosigner.”

I knew he was going to say Emmett was too young, anyway, but I overrode him before he could go on. “My son and I are buying this car together,” I told the man. “And he is going to see to it that I’m always able to make these notes.” I looked at Emmett again. “Even if he has to go out and do extra work.”

Bo was nodding in agreement. That was all right with him. But I knew what he was really thinking. He was thinking that he was going to be the first thirteen-year-old on the block with his own car. Like I was just going to turn the car keys over to him. That was the farthest thing from my mind. But we set everything up just that way, in my name and his. We were traveling down a new road together now. And we’d be traveling it in a brand-new car. Our car.

On one of his streetcar rides home from Argo one Sunday, Emmett saw his cousin Thelma standing outside, waiting for her own streetcar, and they waved at each other as they often did on these weekend trips. Thelma and her sister Loretha still traveled out to Argo for service at the Argo Temple Church of God in Christ. They both sang in the choir. But Thelma recalled this particular encounter, because of what she would learn later. Riding that same streetcar with Emmett was Bennie Goodwin,
Jr., the son of the pastor of Argo Temple who had baptized me. Bennie, Junior, was a student at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and the choir director at Argo Temple. He also ministered to boys in the neighborhood through a church-sponsored boys’ club. So he knew Thelma and he had seen Emmett around the church, which he attended every Sunday when he was in Argo. Bennie didn’t know at the time that Thelma and Bo were related. But he saw them waving. Some time later, he told Thelma about his encounter with Bo on that streetcar. Bennie was reading, studying for upcoming exams, but something kept pulling at him. It was pulling his attention in Emmett’s direction, because he recognized him from church. At least he thought that was the reason. Finally, when he realized he was not going to be able to concentrate on his studies, he struck up a conversation with Emmett. At a certain point, he asked if Emmett wanted to pray with him. Emmett said he would and they prayed together on the streetcar. Bennie says that when Emmett raised his head, he looked transformed. It was that moment, Bennie told Thelma, when Emmett accepted Jesus Christ. Bennie would remember that experience for years to come, because he realized that the reason he had not been able to concentrate on his studies was because he was being interrupted by something much more important. It was, as he recalls, the voice of God.

One day, I was standing on my porch talking to Aunt Magnolia and Uncle Mack when I saw my car coming down the street. I knew Gene and Emmett had been out running some errands, so the car coming down the street wasn’t a big surprise to me. But what I saw as it came closer was not what I ever expected to see. Gene was on the passenger’s side. Bo was on the driver’s side. I was beside myself. Apparently, Gene had been teaching Bo how to drive
our
Plymouth. And there was Gene’s star pupil, driving with his right hand on the wheel, resting his left hand outside, holding the top of the car, and waving with whichever hand he had left. I had lost count, couldn’t tell anymore, because by this time, my God, I was just scared half to death.