Little Preston sat upright between his mother and grandmother. He needed to understand exactly the difference between his little brother asleep on his mother’s lap and Butch asleep in that box they called a coffin. If Butch was just sleeping, why was everyone crying and why were the men so angry? And why, after helping carry the coffin, had his daddy come over and knelt before him and Gussie and promised that what had happened to Butch would never happen to them?
Just then, the church doors swung open and in walked a very tall, elegantly dressed, glamorously made-up woman that some of them recognized right away as Thelma Theron, the Negro opera star who was more popular in Europe than she was in the United States. It was the woman who was sometimes in Butch’s house. She held a wreath fringed with African violets and she walked right down and knelt in front of Butch’s father. “I’m very sorry I’m so late, Clifton,” she said as he wept on her shoulder. She went over and laid the wreath in front of Butch’s coffin. As she looked down at him she weakened and wobbled. A couple of deaconesses got up, but she motioned them away. Then she raised her eyes upwards, closed them and started singing: “Whoa, there was a woman in the Bible days, she had been sick, sick so very long, but she heard ’bout Jesus was passin’ by . . .” Little Preston knew that song. His grandma had the Sam Cooke record. “If I could just touch the hem of His garment I know I’ll be made whole.”
12
Washington, D.C., late July 1953
After Butch was gone, the neighborhood just wasn’t the same anymore for Little Preston, James, and Anthony. They still ran all over the place, racing and playing tag. They still played ball and marbles in the lot where Butch’s “Thank you all” graffiti remained on the wall. And whenever they would venture down the laneway under Paula Pervis’s bathroom window they’d stand still for a moment, look up, and salute. Then they’d immediately go and sit on the front steps of Butch’s empty apartment.
But they stopped whatever they were doing when police cars drove by. The eyes of the cops seemed to be aimed at them like those ray-guns they saw on TV shows.
And then there was that afternoon when the police came to their lot and chased them away. The police whitewashed over Butch’s “Thank you all.”
“My lord,” exclaimed Lois to Mattie and to James’s mother, Mrs. Moorehouse, “why on earth would the police come out here just to paint over what Butch wrote?”
“I’ll tell you why, honey,” said Mrs. Moorehouse, “guilt! They know they killed Butch in cold blood so they want us to forget all about him. They want us to go on as if that boy never lived!”
By nightfall practically everyone in the neighborhood had seen the whitewashed wall. The next morning, when daylight broke, someone had drawn a pair of lavender wings on the walls and written between the wings, “Butch Lives.”
It took a few days for the police to show up and whitewash over that. But the very next morning, the “Butch Lives” graffiti reappeared. This clash captured the imagination of the whole neighborhood. No one seemed to know the identity of the graffiti writer, or writers; or, if they did, no one was talking. Eventually, the graffiti evolved into a simple capital B with wings—the Flyin’ B.
In the blocks surrounding Girard Street, bigger, older, boys lived. It had long been practically impossible for them to peacefully experience those tranquil summer hours when twilight shepherds in the night. For simply standing around on street corners, sitting on steps, or leaning against the trees talking, laughing, and singing they would be beaten, bloodied, and even locked up at the station. But Butch’s murder had shaken them and they took the Flyin’ B as their emblem. They painted it all over the place, even on the walls of Precinct Number Thirteen.
The boys believed they and their neighborhood were under siege. They devised a scheme to fight back and called it “cop-running.” A decoy group of boys would be stationed on a given corner. When the cops gave chase, this group of boys would lead the cops into an alley ambush of stones, rocks, and bottles. Soon, the police hesitated before giving chase and instead would simply stop the police car on the other side of the street and use a bullhorn to order them to move on. If ever there was a hate-filled relation borne of the very nature of the origins of the United States of America, this was it: white cops against black youth.
The boys considered their new treatment at the hands of the police a victory. They weren’t being chased any longer, and were not fearful of the police, though they still realized who had the guns. And no one would ever forget Butch. Some of them had Flyin’ B tattoos applied to their arms. Every kid wanted to be a B-Boy.
13
Washington, D.C., August 1953
August came along and blew its hot, funky breath on a black populace already suffering under severe psycho-emotional discord brought on by Butch’s shooting. While the neighborhood struggled to right itself, plans were afoot to upend their lives in a devastating manner.
Little Preston first saw the calamity that would traumatize and haunt him for the rest of his life while looking out the back window of his daddy’s car on a Sunday drive downtown.
He and Gussie always rode looking out the back window. They loved watching the people, the yards, and the trees whiz by as their father drove down Sherman Avenue. Though their neighborhood contained poor and working-class black families, it was a tree-filled neighborhood of low-rises and row houses; it was far from being just another ghetto or “concrete jungle.”
Some blocks, like Little Preston’s, had trees so lush that the branches seemed to sweep the ground. The houses had long front lawns, were pushed further away from the street, and never went higher than two stories.
Other blocks had trees with whole sections of branches lopped off facing traffic. This was done so that the branches would not interfere with streetcar cables. Preston Sr. hated driving along these streets because he didn’t want the streetcar tracks to “mess up my whitewalls.” Little Preston hated these streets because the lopped-off branches made the trees look ugly and deformed.
Then there were the blocks that had three- and four-story buildings closer to the sidewalk and to each other. Here the trees were bare more than halfway up their trunks. But at the top, above the roofs, they were thicker and greener than any trees Little Preston had ever seen. At the tops of the trees, flocks of wrens, sparrows, robins, cardinals, blue jays and little birds with yellow breasts whose names Little Preston never did learn would flutter from one treetop to the next, causing a commotion as the top of one tree, gushing out birds, bent toward another.
But on this particular otherwise balmy, lazy, playful Sunday afternoon, with children playing hopscotch, tag, hide-and-seek, rope-skipping, and baseball-in-the-middle-of-the-street; with folks washing their cars, cutting their grass, or just sitting in the shade under a tree, or on their porches . . . On this particular otherwise calm and peaceful Sunday afternoon with the drive not marred by too much traffic, nor too many streetcars, nor even the intrusion of a single police cruiser interloping with police eyes ever leering . . . On this particular Sunday afternoon . . .
Screeech! Little Preston and Gussie had to hold on tight to the top of the back seat to keep from falling backward. Their father’s powder-blue-and-white 1953 Chevrolet Bel Air came to an abrupt stop at the corner of Barrie Place and Sherman Avenue.
“Look at what they’re doing, Mattie! Remember those big oak trees that used to be in the lot over there?” Preston pointed to the southeast corner. “I used to play down here with Rolando and Cadge in the fall when there would be so many leaves on the ground you could hide all day and not be found. And over there used to be Ole Man Gaye’s yard. What a garden he had there.” Preston reached across Mattie to point through the passenger-side window to the destruction on the southwest corner. “People used to come from all over just to see his sunflowers, and watermelon patch. Look at it, Mattie! That man’s yard is all gone. For Christ’s sake, Mattie. Those white folks downtown are th
e dumbest-assed people alive.”
Little Preston’s eyes got wide and he quickly turned himself around to look out the back window. His daddy had just used angry language that he was not accustomed to hearing his daddy use. Usually when his daddy—or anybody else for that matter—used that kind of language around him and Gussie, his mama was quick to get after them. But not this time.
“I know, Preston, it’s a shame. But what can you do?”
There was a deep sadness in his mother’s voice that Little Preston hadn’t heard before. She took his father’s arm that had been pointing out the window and put it around her shoulder. Then she slid over until she was resting her head on Preston’s chest. His father bent over and kissed her forehead.
“What can you do?” she asked again to no one in particular, while looking over at Ole Man Gaye’s yard, or what was left of it.
Little Preston scrambled up to his knees so that he could peer out the side window to see what had brought on this strange interlude between his parents. He knew Ole Man Gaye’s yard. He had seen the big sunflowers, watermelons, and assorted other plant life. They had actually walked up to the edge of the garden one Sunday afternoon, and Little Preston remembered all the sounds of things buzzing and chirping about there. But he was not ready for what he saw. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped. He rubbed his eyes in disbelief.
Except for a patch of grass between Ole Man Gaye’s house and his neighbor’s to the south, all of Ole Man Gaye’s big corner lot was gone. Even part of his front porch. There was just a big hole and dirt all over the place. There was a big yellow machine with a huge scooper on it sitting in front of the house. Little Preston looked around and saw more yellow machines of different sizes, some with scoopers, and some not. And it wasn’t just Ole Man Gaye’s yard that had been destroyed. It was his neighbors’ yards, too. It was the whole block.
“Gussie, move!” Little Preston scrambled to the other window and looked out to see the same destruction on the other side of the street. Then he turned to look behind them again, to the north of Barry Place, and it was his world: still trees and yards, with no big ugly yellow machines about. He continued to go from window to window—“Gussie, move!”—trying to absorb the contrast between the ugliness on the south side of Barry Place and the beauty on the north side. He did not understand what was happening. But he knew that what was happening to Ole Man Gaye and his neighborhood to the south of Barry Place was not good.
“Daddy, where’d all the flowers and the watermelons go?”
“It’s those white folks downtown, son. They want to destroy anything nice we have just to make things better for themselves.”
Mattie interjected. “Preston Junior, the city wants more cars to be able to drive up and down Sherman Avenue, so they’re widening the street. It’s going to be four lanes instead of two. But for them to make it wider they have to make more space, so that’s why they’re cutting people’s yards and porches away. And cutting down all the trees.”
Little Preston thought for a moment. “Does that mean we’ll be able to see more cars when we sit on the porch, Daddy?”
“Son, that means we won’t have a front porch to sit on.” Preston was angry. It was a deep, seething anger. It was in his belly. And his head didn’t know what to do with it. “Goddammit, Mattie, they’re gonna destroy the neighborhood!”
That Saturday afternoon, Old Mr. Mack next door turned on the sprinklers in his front yard as he had done so many times before. With an up-and-down pumping of his crutch held high above his head, he beckoned all the neighborhood kids to put on their swimsuits and come play in his yard. He had done that every summer since he returned from the Great War as a member of the Black Rattlers, the storied 369th Infantry of the Ninety-third Division, US Army. If his little black angels couldn’t swim in the public pool on Georgia Avenue just because they were Negro children, they could run freely in his yard. And he still had his bolo knife with traces of German blood caked on it to protect those children. He would sit rocking his huge shadow back and forth with his cane across his lap as if he were on guard duty. His little doll-sized French wife would sit on the steps with her face cupped in her palms and her elbows on her knees, always smiling, especially her eyes. This was a farewell, thought Little Preston. This would obviously be the last time he and his friends could romp under Mr. Mack’s sprinklers because the big machines were going to destroy his yard on Monday, just as his own yard would be destroyed.
Sure enough, Monday came and so did the destruction. Little Preston watched from his living room window. Big ugly yellow machines belched dirty, sooty exhaust smoke while ripping up the ground. Hordes of grimy white men blowing cigarette smoke and speaking in strange tongues dug up their yards and demolished their front porches. He was not allowed to go out of the house. Summer was brought to an abrupt and premature end. In many ways, so was his childhood.
As he looked out at all the commotion and destruction, he wondered if this was what war looked like. He resolved to ask old Mr. Mack next door. But well after he and Gussie had been put to bed, sirens and flashing red emergency lights continued well into the night. Little Preston got up and rushed down the hall. His front door was wide open. His parents and grandmother were standing outside. He rushed over to the window and saw two big white men putting a big stretcher into the ambulance. Little Preston knew it was Old Mr. Mack. He watched Mr. Mack’s little French wife get into the ambulance, her head high, her body smiling. His father walked back inside, very sad, holding an old dented army helmet with a rattlesnake emblem on the front. “She gave it to me,” was all his father could manage to say.
14
Washington, D.C., September 1953
“He must’a been a light-skinned Negro.”
Any hopes that Preston had of a quiet Sunday dinner with his wife and mother at the same table went up in a mushroom cloud of smoke with that remark from his mother. They had all been sitting amiably enough around the tiny table set up in what should have been a dining room, but which had served as Denie’s bedroom since she had moved with her three boys (Preston came along later) into that flat, almost thirty years prior. This was after her Dominican husband ran off with a mestiza and started another family.
They had been discussing pleasantries such as the weather:
“Oooowhee! It’s been a hot one this year. Can you remember a hotter one, Mumma?”
“I surely can’t, son. What about you, Mattie?”
“Oh, I tell you, it can get awfully hot and muggy down home, but it’s different than this. The air doesn’t get as heavy.”
And family:
“I saw Matilda while I was waiting for Preston to pick me up from work the other day. That girl looks good for eight months. She is carrying a little low. She sends her love, Denie.”
“Oh, what a sweet girl. She just can’t sit still long enough to carry any other way. That Rolando’s so lazy lately? Seen your brother lately, Preston?”
“No, Mumma, I haven’t.”
And the neighborhood:
“Hey Mama, me and Mattie ran into Bale Turner the other day when we went to register Little Preston for elementary school. He and Gail were there signing up Brenda. They got themselves a new car, a white Caddy!”
“Well, ain’t that nice. That’s practical for him.”
“What do you mean practical, Denie?” asked a bait-biting Mattie. “When can buying a Cadillac ever be practical?”
“When you got a butt as big as he got, honey!” Denie laughed.
And, yes, Little Preston entering first grade:
“Don’t they grow fast!” exclaimed Denie. “You must be excited about starting school, boy.”
“Yeah, Grandma.”
“Principal Carruthers told us that this year Monroe was going to teach the children Negro history starting right from first grade. I think it’s about time.”
“Yeah, Mama
. Did you know that Banneker Junior High, where Little Preston did kindergarten last year, is named after a Negro man? He helped build Washington.”
Denie scowled. “I’m sure a lot of colored people helped build Washington, Preston. After all, the city was full of slaves.”
“No, Mama, I mean he helped draw the city. And Mr. Carruthers said he was a free black.”
“He was a mathematician and draftsman, Denie,” said Mattie. “He actually drew up the blueprints for Washington. Where the streets were going to be, where the buildings were going to be, which way they should face; that sort of thing.”
“Well, do tell!” said a duly impressed Denie who had actually stopped chewing to listen to this amazing piece of information. “He must’a been a light-skinned Negro.”
Little Preston felt how heavy the weight of a dead silence could be. He felt it pushing against his face as he looked at his father with a forkful of food suspended just in front of his mouth and at his mother and grandmother who stared hostilely at each other.
“Denie, I’m so sick and tired of hearing you put down dark-skinned Negroes. You are a sick, hate-filled woman. You’re even worse than racist white people. No matter how light your skin is, you’re still a Negro. Just like me. Just like every dark-skinned Negro you see. No better! I’ve had it! Preston, I swear, I’ve had enough.”
Mattie got up from the table. Her rapid footsteps down the hall were followed by the slamming of the front door. No one had to look out the window to know that she was headed across the street to Lois’s place.
Preston Sr. was not known for letting anything stand between him and a meal. But his appetite was gone. He helped his sons finish eating, then cleaned them and put them in front of the television. He cleared the table and washed dishes. Then he went to sit out on the concrete slab that had replaced their front porch. He looked up and down Sherman Avenue. It was now a treeless, four-lane thoroughfare, not the boulevard that anchored his sense of home. His life was at a critical juncture, because he knew that the time had come for him to choose between a future with Mattie or a life without her.
Exile Blues Page 8