While their father sat on the porch pondering the deep complexity of his family problems, Little Preston and Gussie sat in front of the television. Amos ’n’ Andy was on and Gussie laughed hysterically at “Kingfish” Stevens and the other characters, especially when Kingfish, with his exaggerated, wide-eyed, thick pouty-lipped look would address his TV wife. “Sapphire, Sapphire! Ooh, Sapphire!”
Little Preston thought they were all stupid, especially Kingfish. He didn’t know anyone who acted like those Negroes on that show. And if there were such people, he was sure his family would have nothing to do with them.
After Amos ’n’ Andy an animated story came on: John Henry.
John Henry was not like the other cartoons he was accustomed to seeing. The animated characters in John Henry looked as if they had been made from Play-Doh. And John Henry was dark brown. Little Preston had never seen a Negro cartoon character before. He was transfixed.
“John Henry was a steel-driving man,” the cartoon began.
A big strong Negro man who could outwork a machine. Imagine. That cartoon gave little Preston a lot to think about. After watching the John Henry cartoon, it was hard for him to sit through other cartoons. They all seemed so dumb to him.
15
Washington, D.C., Beginning of Summer 1955
What a glorious June day it was. Little Preston stood beaming at the front entrance of Monroe Elementary School clutching his straight-A report card. His teacher told him that he was skipping third grade and going straight to fourth the next school year. He was hoping that Lucinda Davis would come by. Today, for sure, he would say more than just hello. He would even show her his straight-A report card.
Little Preston thought back to how his first-grade year had started. On the very first day, he got punched in the face by Brian “Brickhead” Brown. “You got a baby face,” Brickhead had yelled at Little Preston before hitting him. “And yo’ mama gotta hold yo’ hand ’n bring you ta school ’cause you a sissy!” Little Preston had just stood there. He didn’t even blink. He looked at Brickhead, who bullied boys the previous year in kindergarten, too, and didn’t even blink. “Wha’s a matter, sissy, you don’t know how ta fight?” Frankly, Little Preston didn’t.
Weeks later, during a lunch period on the school yard, he was watching Lucinda skip double-dutch with her friends when Brickhead came up to him and pushed him.
“Hey, punk! Ya lookin’ at my girlfriend o’ sumthin’, wid yo’ sissy, baby face?”
Little Preston froze. Not because he was scared, but because he felt an anger welling up in his stomach that he’d never felt before.
“I said, ya lookin’ at my girl, ya punk?”
The next thing he knew, Mr. Gray and Miss Beverly were pulling him off of Brickhead, who was under him on the ground, crying and bloody around the nose. The girls who had been skipping rope were screaming. As he was led away to the office, he noticed the initial look of horror on Lucinda’s face change into a sly grin.
It was his Uncle Cadgie who came over that night after school and talked to his parents and grandma and seemed to make them not so mad at Little Preston. It was also the night he learned a lot about his father.
“Hey, Little Press, how ya doin’, kid? You alright, little man?”
Cadgie was Little Preston’s favorite uncle. In some ways that he didn’t understand, his Uncle Cadgie was his favorite person in the whole wide world.
“Mama and Daddy are real mad at me, Uncle Cadgie. I didn’t start it. I was just there in the yard looking at the leaves and the girls jumpin’ rope. Then Brian, he just come up and start pickin’ on me like he’s always pickin’ on everybody. I didn’t start it!”
Little Preston started to cry. His uncle put his arms around him and hugged him.
“It’s okay, kid. It’s okay. But I hear you busted the boy up pretty good. He’ll probably think twice before he bullies anybody else. That’s if you didn’t scramble his brains up so bad he can’t think no more.”
Cadgie laughed hard. It made little Preston start to laugh through his tears.
“Where’d you learn to punch like that? You have any idea?”
“Uh-uh,” replied little Preston.
“Well, kid, all us Williams boys got good hands. We’re all fighters, especially your daddy. Out of all of us, your daddy is really the best fighter. Did you know he was a real boxer in the ring? A prizefighter?”
Little Preston pushed his head away from his uncle’s chest and looked up at Cadgie, totally incredulous.
“My daddy? You talkin’ about my daddy, Uncle Cadgie?” Little Preston couldn’t imagine his daddy hurting a fly.
“That’s right, Little Press. Your daddy was the best at his weight class.”
“What?”
“Okay. Forget that part.”
“But, what did you mean, Uncle Cadgie?”
“Okay. Listen. You look at your daddy, and me, and your Uncle Troy. You see that we’re all different sizes. Well, in prizefighting, the rules say that only men who are about the same size can fight each other. That’s to make sure someone who’s too big don’t fight somebody who’s way too small. Do you understand?”
“I think so.”
“Well, your daddy was the best of any man his size. He was an amateur champion, then he—”
“But, what’s an amateur champion, Uncle Cadgie?”
“What? Boy, you ask too many questions. Listen, your daddy was the best fighter. Your daddy was a champion. But he hurt somebody real bad one time. He knocked a guy down and the guy never got up again. Your daddy wouldn’t fight no more after that, little man. Your daddy is afraid that he’s going to hurt somebody else like that and he doesn’t want to. And he don’t want you and Gussie fightin’, because he don’t want you and Gussie to get hurt, or hurt nobody. But, let me tell you, and your daddy is going to tell you this one day, too. You can’t just stand by and let somebody pick on you or hurt you. You have to defend yourself. This is the Williams brothers’ code of honor, and your daddy, you and Gussie, me, all your uncles, we’re all Williams boys. We don’t go lookin’ for trouble, but if it come lookin’ for us, we deal with it, we take care of it. But, remember, son. Never go lookin’ for trouble. You don’t have to. In this world, little Press, trouble will find you.”
*
Little Preston heard a car horn toot-toot. He looked up to see his mother waving at him across the roof of their car from the passenger side. He wondered why his father was home so early. His little brother was in the back seat. There was a trailer attached to the back of the car. It was full of furniture. Behind his daddy’s car was his Uncle Troy in a pickup truck with more stuff, and behind him his Uncle Rolando in his taxicab with even more stuff. Bringing up the rear of this rather awkward-looking grand parade was his Uncle Cadgie. He had the top down on his convertible Mercury, which was loaded down as well.
“Hi, Daddy! Hi Mama! Wow! Do we have a house? Are we moving?” He waved at his uncles. “Where is it? Do we have our own bedroom? Do we have a real kitchen to eat in? Do we have a yard again? Are we gonna get a puppy? Daddy, you promised!” Little Preston had talked himself into near-hyperventilation.
“Shut up and get in,” said his mother. “Here . . .” She gave him a book with a ribbon tied around it. “This is from me and your father.” Little Preston and Gussie excitedly looked out the rear window. As they pulled away from the curb, little Preston looked over to the school and remembered something.
“Mama, does this mean I won’t come back to Monroe next year?”
Just as he said that he saw Lucinda coming down the school steps with Brickhead, whose arm was hooked around her neck as he was talking up a storm. She looked over and saw little Preston in the back of his father’s car. Then she looked at all the stuff in the trailer and the other cars following. She looked back at little Preston, and with a sad smile on her face, gave a littl
e wave with the fingers of her hand that clutched her school books in front of her chest. Brickhead was so busy being Mr. Boyfriend that he didn’t notice a thing. She turned to look again as she and Brickhead walked down the street.
Little Preston turned around and sat down on the back seat. He decided that he was now too big to be looking out the back window of his family’s car like his little brother. Besides, he wanted to start reading his new book, John Henry, The Steel-Driving Man.
16
Southeast Washington, D.C., 1957
Even though it was little Preston’s second summer in Southeast, he still had not adjusted to the absence of a proper front lawn. There was just a small square of grass in front of their new row house. It wasn’t large enough to do anything on. But everyone on his Fourth Street block and throughout this new housing project seemed to have the same idea. They planted colorful flowers around the edges of their little squares of green.
The rest of the area in front of the townhouses was all sidewalk, from the front door to the curb. Thus, it was on the sidewalk that all neighborhood activity took place, such as the men in their fold-up chairs sitting in front of their fold-up tables playing games and drinking, anything from a tall glass of lemonade to other stuff that remained hidden in brown paper bags. Or, the girls playing hopscotch or skipping double-dutch in pairs. The women were often together talking, whether standing in front of someone’s home or walking casually about the neighborhood. The casualness in their gait belied their maternal vigilance. One eye was always on the kids.
This was a new neighborhood made possible in post-Brown-versus-Board of Education Washington, D.C. when the congressional committee that oversaw all financial expenditures for the city suddenly found some extra money. Little Preston’s ears perked up whenever the grownups discussed such things like, “it’s an election year, they want us to vote for them.” And “to continue to pay taxes without Congressional representation.” And “to serve in the military which was ‘still de facto segregated’.” Like Sergeant White next door, who left his young wife at home alone with the children for months on end.
*
“Hi, Daddy. Hi, Ma. Can we have some water?” Little Preston burst through the back door with Gussie, his cousin Anthony who was spending the weekend with them, and his newfound crew in tow. “They’re building a sports field one block over where Putt-Putt lives. We’ll be able to play real baseball and football, then. It’s gonna be ready maybe in two weeks, huh, Putt-Putt?”
“Well, how’re you boys doin’?”
In unison, “Fine, Mr. Downs.”
“And you’re all staying out of trouble, I hope?”
In unison, again, “Yes, Mrs. Downs.”
“Well, you tell your parents I said hello.”
In unison, “Yes, ma’am.”
“So, Putney, is that true? Will there be a park behind your house soon?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am. They’re almost finished.”
Putney “Putt-Putt” Cleveland was the shortest of Little Preston’s new crew. He was almost as short as Gussie. But he was older than Little Preston by almost a whole year. His skin was so dark that his eyes looked yellow. And his short bow legs were already rippling with muscles. He was a roller-skating wizard who carried his skates with him everywhere. He could skate almost as fast as the streetcars could run, and keep going for blocks without getting tired. It was as if he had a motor in his butt that would make him “putt-putt” along.
Then there was Stephen “Shaggie” Ferguson, from one of the neighborhood’s few white families. He spoke with a lisp, had a shock of thick light-brown hair that almost covered his eyes, giving him a shaggy-dog look, and pants that always looked as if they were going to fall down.
And Fat Head. Jeremy “Fat Head” Jenkins was a tall, handsome, well-proportioned, brown-skinned boy who was born with a rare scalp disorder that prevented him from growing any hair. He was a large baby at birth, and as babies sometimes do, he looked as though he was all head when he was born. It was his father, a very large man, who took one look at him and said, “Just look at that fat-head baby boy. The boy comes out weighing ten pounds, eleven ounces, and ten pounds of it is all his fat head! Ha!” Then he scooped up his son with one huge hand and gave him such a long hug that the nurses were afraid the baby would be smothered. “Hey, that’s my fat-head baby boy.” The “Fat Head” tag stuck, even though now his head was quite slender and perfectly shaped. All the older girls had a thing for Fat Head, to the great consternation of Putt-Putt, who at the tender age of almost ten, knew something about what was under a girl’s dress, and wanted all the attention himself.
“Okay, y’all stand in line if you want some water. Everybody has to wait their turn. We’ll do it by how tall you are. The shortest go first. Don’t y’all be messing up my mama’s new kitchen, now. Anthony, you go after Shaggie. Okay, I’ll pour. C’mon Gussie, you the shortest.”
“Okay, when you finish, rinse the glass and put it upside down on this towel here.”
“Press, I’m gonna need more water after all this work, man,” bristled Putt-Putt.
“I know, man,” offered Fat Head, giggling while he tried to drink and spilling water on the floor.
“Look what you did, Fat Head!” yelled Little Preston.
“You in trouble, now,” chided Shaggie. “The president just may put you in jail for that.”
Fat Head giggled more, and of course spilled more water on the floor.
“Look! What you doing, Fat Head?”
“Don’t presidents get voted on?” inquired a quite serious Putt-Putt. This made Fat Head giggle even more. By this time Preston Sr. had to leave the kitchen because he was finding it hard not to burst out laughing himself and he wasn’t sure if that would get him in trouble with Mattie.
“I’d vote for Press any day,” said Shaggie.
“Me, too,” said Anthony. “What about you, Gussie?” Gussie nodded.
“Not me,” said Putt-Putt. “He’s too bossy.”
Fat Head was now spilling water all over his T-shirt. Once Fat Head started laughing about something, he couldn’t stop.
“Fat Head!” said Little Preston, rushing over towards him.
Mattie got in the way. “It’s only water, Preston Junior. I’ll clean it up. If you all are finished drinking, go on out and play. But don’t go far, Preston Junior, we’ll be having dinner soon. Make sure you keep an eye on Gussie.”
They all raced out the door and when they got around the corner, they stopped to catch their breath. They had stopped right in front of the house of a very pretty little mocha-colored girl, with long wavy hair, doe eyes, and a perpetual sad smile on her lips. Her name was Romaine. Romaine Farrow.
“Why you still laughing, Fat Head?” asked a sneering Putt-Putt, thinking that the same thing couldn’t be funny that long.
“Can’t say,” came the reply from Fat Head, now leaning up against one of the little trees and holding his belly.
“What you mean, you can’t say?” asked a bewildered Putt-Putt.
“I mean, the president might really put me in jail if I say.”
Fat Head looked so funny leaning up against the tree laughing that both Gussie and Anthony started giggling.
“What’s so funny, Fat Head?” asked Anthony.
“Didn’t you hear, back in the kitchen?” said Fat Head before changing his voice over to a whiny-sounding falsetto voice, “Preston Junior, Preston Junior—what a sissy-sounding name.”
“You makin’ fun ’o my mama, Fat Head!” Whack-whack. Thump-thump!
“Hey, Press. I’m just playin’, man. Stop it! That hurts, man! Ow!”
Both Putt-Putt and Anthony tried to pull him off Fat Head. Gussie started crying. Shaggie ran to get Little Preston’s father. By the time Preston arrived Fat Head had managed to crawl under a parked pickup truck, and Little Preston was on
his hands and knees trying to punch at him. His father hoisted him up by the seat of his pants. Little Preston thrashed about in mid-air.
“Preston Junior! Stop it! Stop it now!”
His father had never called him just “Preston” before. There was also an edge in his father’s voice that he hadn’t heard before.
“Okay, boys,” said Preston. “This is not good.” He put Little Preston down. “Preston, Gussie, Anthony, let’s go. You too, Jeremy, Stephen, Putney. Follow me.” Off they all marched, Preston taking long, forceful, angry steps, Little Preston hopping as he tried to match him stride for stride, Gussie not even trying to walk but trotting along, and Anthony, Jeremy, Stephen and Putney all trotting and wishing they could disappear for a while, at least until Little Preston’s dad cooled off. They had never seen him so angry.
Coming through the front door, Preston said, “You boys sit down in the living room. Not you, Preston Junior. Come into the kitchen. Mattie,” said Preston as he went over by the stove where his wife was busy cooking dinner, “it seems our first-born has problems controlling his temper. He was beating up on his friend Jeremy. It was not nice to see.”
Mattie turned to give her son a look that confirmed the awful seriousness of the moment. Then she turned back to her work at the stove without saying a word. Little Preston could swear, though, that her ears actually perked up and turned backward a little.
“I just wanted you to know what was happening,” Preston continued, still speaking to Mattie, “in case Preston Junior doesn’t have a good explanation for his behavior, which will mean he’ll be going to bed without his dinner tonight, and you won’t have to cook so much.”
Exile Blues Page 9