by Wes Moore
She worked at Bayview Medical Center as a unit secretary in order to supplement the grant that was helping her pay for school. The $6.50 an hour she was making at Bayview was enough to keep the balance of her tuition paid, the lights on, and the kids fed, as long as her Pell Grant was in place. But with that grant now eliminated, it wouldn't be enough. The next day she called Johns Hopkins and let them know she was dropping out. That part-time job at Bayview would become permanent.
Wes got himself ready and went to check on his mother again. He felt he had to take care of her: his father had been a ghost since his birth. His older half brother, Tony, spent most of his time with his maternal grandparents or with his father in the Murphy Homes Projects in West Baltimore. Wes was the man of the house.
As Mary wiped her still-damp face, she told herself she was down but not out. She just had to quickly recalibrate her ambitions. She still had big dreams--maybe she could become an entrepreneur, open a beauty salon or her own fashion company. Growing up, she'd worked at a grocery store in West Baltimore owned by an older black couple, Herb and Puddin Johnson. She remembered looking up to them and wanting to own something the way they did. The Johnsons had achieved a level of independence that others in the neighborhood didn't know existed, let alone understood how to obtain. And their example had long driven her. But she couldn't deny it: without schooling she was worried.
She gazed out the window, down the same streets she'd been staring out at her whole life. The same streets she'd walked down when she began her first days at Carver High School. The same streets that had cared for her family, taught her family, looked out for her family for so many years. She wondered how long she would have to call these streets home.
This section of Baltimore had never fully recovered from the riots of the 1960s. After the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Baltimore burned. No street saw more destruction than Pennsylvania Avenue. Mary could remember the days after the assassination when her parents forbade her and her seven siblings from leaving the house because just outside their windows a war was unfolding. The bitter riots were sparked by King's assassination, but the fuels that kept them burning were the preexisting conditions: illegal but strictly enforced racial segregation, economic contraction, and an unresponsive political system. Looters ran free as the city exploded with anger. White neighborhoods in Baltimore blockaded their streets, attempting to confine the damage of the Riots to its poorer, darker jurisdictions. National Guard troops patrolled the communities, but their presence created more resentment, not to mention fresh targets for rock-toting kids. Soon it became clear that the Riots were about more than the tragic death of Dr. King. They were about anger and hurt so extreme that rational thought was thrown out the window--these were people so deranged by frustration that they were burning down their own neighborhood. The Riots in Baltimore, particularly West Baltimore, got so bad that "Little" Melvin Williams, a legendary drug dealer and one of the most powerful men in the city at the time, was recruited by the mayor to help quell the violence. Tellingly, his influence had considerably more effect than the efforts of any politician or soldier.
By the end of the Riots, Baltimore stood eerily quiet. Almost $14 million in damage was recorded, and nearly five thousand men, women, and children were arrested, injured, or dead.
Mary was only a kid, but she made a pact with herself at that moment: she would get her education and leave the neighborhood no matter what it took.
Wes watched his mother as she moved from the window to her closet to look for a pair of shoes to wear with her white dress. She yanked the already stretched telephone cord a few feet farther so she could keep talking while digging through her closet. Mary was planning on doing what she always did to celebrate, commiserate, blow off steam, or just kill boredom. She and a couple of her friends would head out to Thirty-second Street Plaza, a popular nightclub where Mary knew the owner. She was only twenty-seven years old, and despite having two sons, Tony, who was eleven, and Wes, she was still young enough to enjoy partying, dancing, and being noticed by men--and noticing them back--much to the chagrin of her family and friends who ended up watching the boys so many nights. She noticed Wes walk back in her room. She sighed and told her sister she would call her back.
"Wes, didn't I tell you to go get ready?"
Wes stood undeterred and again asked her what was wrong. Being the man of the house, he wanted answers, and he wasn't leaving until he got them.
"Mommy got some bad news about school, and I want to go see some friends and talk about it."
Wes gave her an unsatisfied look, as if he knew that the story didn't end there. Finally, she sat him down at the edge of the bed and shared with him, in language he could understand, why school was so important. He listened intently as she explained to him the significance of being the first one in the family to go to college. She told him how much it meant to her parents that she finish. Then she explained why she had to quit.
Mary and her family had spent the years after the Riots in a house on McCulloh Street, one of the central arteries in West Baltimore. The home was a large, three-story, five-bedroom row house with a jagged gray brick facade. It sat on a relatively quiet block lined with similarly well-appointed houses, each by trees and grass. But, like so much in Baltimore, even this beautiful house was bloodstained.
After the Riots, Kenneth and Alma, Mary's parents, decided they wanted to move to a larger home with their ever-expanding family--they'd had eight children in eleven years. One night Alma said to Kenneth, "Did you hear about what happened on McCulloh Street?" He asked her to explain.
"A man killed his wife in their home. Chopped her up. She was there for a few days, and when the cops came looking for him, he decided to try to hide in the chimney. That's where they found him." Kenneth got the point. "I wonder if they are renting it out now." After a bit of inquiry, the landlord placed the home on the rental market with a severe discount to account for the sensational circumstances of the prior tenant's eviction. Kenneth and Alma proudly moved their family into their new home.
After their move, Alma's kidneys failed, and she began dialysis treatments three days a week. The painful and tiring treatments took their toll on her physically and emotionally. She maintained a cheery outlook, her hair pulled back into a bun that revealed her smooth, dark skin and bright smile. She was always a small woman, but her dialysis was forcing her to lose weight fast, and soon her short, gaunt frame was an almost comical mismatch with her husband's bulk.
When Mary told her mother that she was pregnant, at age sixteen, Alma said, "I don't care! You are going to finish school and go to college." Alma had never been to college, the great regret of her life, and like Mary, she became a mother well before she entered her twenties. As tears rolled down Mary's face, her mother told her she would be there to support her no matter what happened. Always the optimist, Alma kissed her daughter's forehead and gave her a reassuring smile.
One morning soon after, Alma got news: it looked like they had found the matching kidney she had been waiting for, praying for. Kenneth was elated. Alma was his heart. He needed her. But Alma seemed disturbed.
Alma called her mother before she went to the hospital and for the first time opened up: "I don't trust them, Mommy. They have never really given very good treatment, so I just don't feel like I will get it now." Her mother told her not to worry and launched into a diatribe about the medical technologies of the seventies until Alma interrupted her. "Mommy, I need to know that if something happens to me you will take care of my babies. I really need to know that." Without hesitation, her mother replied, "You know I will, baby."
Alma went to the hospital for the transplant, and the family did its best to maintain their routines. Mary longed for her mom's return. Learning the basics of child rearing is difficult at any time. When you are only three years past the start of puberty, the challenge is exceptionally daunting. Tony cried too much. He required so much attention. He was awake when she was trying to sleep, and he sl
ept when she was awake. She could no longer see her friends, and her father wasn't much help. The baby's father was a neighborhood boy who had no interest in helping out with his son. Mary needed her mom back.
Three days later, Kenneth received the news that Alma's body had rejected the new kidney and she had died earlier that morning. Kenneth had to tell his children what had happened. But how do you share something with kids that you have not fully absorbed yourself yet? Kenneth, usually a gregarious and fun-loving person, also fought the demons of alcoholism. He would spend Thursday through Sunday getting drunk. Then he would spend the rest of the week recovering from a monster hangover, waiting for Thursday to arrive again. He was a "weekend alcoholic"--in his case, a long-weekend alcoholic--who battled over which version of himself he preferred, the drunk one or the sober one. He drank especially heavily when he needed drunk Kenneth to engage in conversations that sober Kenneth wouldn't dare.
He took one final swig of rum before calling the kids together.
"Sorry, guys, Mom's dead," he finally blurted out, blunt to the point of absurdity.
The silence that sat over the room wasn't broken until Mary ran out with Tony, tears streaming down her face. Weezy went over to hug their father, and the rest of the children simply sat in their places, still not sure if they fully understood what they had just heard, and not knowing how to react.
The morning of the funeral, Kenneth did an admirable job of trying to comb the girls' hair. He made sure all of the kids were dressed and ready to go on time, and he cooked breakfast, all jobs normally reserved for Alma. A few pieces of burnt toast later, the family was ready to pay their final respects.
Kenneth held everything together until he saw the casket at the altar. It was the first time he had seen his wife's body since he viewed her at the morgue. Something had changed, but not what he had expected. Now she looked more like his Alma. The makeup made her cheeks rosier, her skin more even, more alive. It looked almost as if she was flashing her trademark smile as she lay in the brilliantly polished wooden casket.
When he saw his partner of sixteen years stretched out in the coffin, Kenneth's eyes welled up. All of his strength evaporated. The weight that sat on his shoulders--the burden of losing his partner and raising this family without her--became unbearable. He wept, choking for air. He reached into the casket and grabbed her shoulders. He yanked Alma up and, supporting her head with one arm, tried to pull her body out of the casket. Some of the other mourners ran over to him, trying to loosen his grip from his wife's lifeless body. After a struggle, Kenneth was pulled from his wife's small frame and she was laid back down in her casket. He screamed as he was escorted out of the church. The congregation began to sing "Blessed Assurance."
Alma's parents soon moved into the home Alma and Kenneth shared, and they didn't leave until the last child was out of the house.
Mary was the first of the kids to leave home. Education was her escape in more ways than one.
After listening to his mother describe her letter, Wes quickly volunteered to get a job and help out. Mary laughed. "You can work later and make money. Right now I just need you to go get your bag so I can drop you off." Wes, finally satisfied, moved from his mother's bed so he could put the last of his toys in his backpack. Mary watched as he walked out of her room. Tall for his age--he was over four feet tall at six years old--and muscularly defined, he looked amazingly like his father. They were the same shade of dark brown and even wore the same short, even haircut. Like his father's, Wes's grin stretched across his entire face and had a way of putting everyone at ease. Where they differed was in personality. Wes carried himself with a reserved, quiet dignity, while his father was always loud and rude. At least he was like that when he was drinking, which seemed to be all the time.
Mary met Bernard, Wes's father, at her job after he showed up to visit one of her co-workers at Bayview. Bernard was struck by Mary's figure. She had that new-mother thickness and still-young-enough-to-flaunt-it confidence. Her smoky voice and welcoming smile all enticed Bernard. Within minutes of meeting her, he asked if she would see him again. She agreed.
It turned out that for most of their lives they'd lived only a few blocks apart. Bernard's parents lived on McMechen Street, which ran adjacent to McCulloh. A few months later Mary was pregnant with her second child. In 1975, Wes came into the world.
But the relationship between Mary and Bernard didn't even make it to their child's birth. Since leaving high school years prior, Bernard hadn't found a steady job. He spent most of his time searching for himself at the bottoms of liquor bottles. Mary was left with two alcoholic, abusive men who shared the DNA of her two children but no husband or dad for her boys.
Once, Bernard tried to be involved in his child's life. About eight months after Wes's birth, Mary was awakened by a loud banging on the front door of the home she shared with her sister on Pennsylvania Avenue.
"Mary, what the hell is going on?" her sister asked.
"It's Bernard's crazy ass out there. I ain't going out to talk to him. He's drunk and crazy."
Bernard continued to bang and scream. He stood on the other side of the door in faded jeans and a plain white T-shirt, his beard scruffy and his eyes bloodshot. He was slurring out demands to see his son. Mary simply sat on her bed, peeking through the blinds at the father of her younger child. All the noise woke Tony up, but when he arrived at Mary's bedroom door asking what was going on, she snapped her fingers and hushed him, telling him to go back to bed. Wes, not even a year old yet, slept on peacefully. Bernard kept up his racket for another twenty minutes, while Mary just peered out at him, disgusted. Finally, admitting defeat, he stumbled back home. That was the last time he tried to see his son.
Wes waited downstairs for his mother to take him to his grandmother's house. It was already late, almost six in the evening, so he wondered how long he would have to stay there. Mamie, Wes's grandmother, liked Mary, but she loved her grandson. Wes always felt true love when he went to her house. Despite the fact that her son had nothing to do with Wes, Mamie didn't want Wes punished for the circumstances through which he was brought into the world.
Wes sat in the front seat of the car for the short drive to Mamie's. Mary ran down the rules of the house, as she did every time Wes visited. No running indoors, no talking back, don't eat too much. Wes nodded at each commandment.
Minutes later, they arrived at McMechen Street. Wes ran up the three white marble stairs that led to the front door. He got on his toes and reached up to push the doorbell. Mamie's scintillating eyes met Wes's as she opened the door and her arms for a big hug. Wes loved the house. It was large, three stories, which gave him plenty of things to get into and out of. He sprinted inside the house and made a beeline for the kitchen. The smell of fried chicken cooking and the excitement of playing with the pet rabbit under the sink increased his pace.
He was running through the living room when he saw someone he had never seen before. A man sat on the couch leaning precariously to the side, his right elbow supporting his body and his head nearly flat against his shoulder. The strong smell of whiskey wafted from his clothes and his pores. Wes and the man returned each other's quizzical looks.
Mary entered the room and stopped in her tracks. She would have recognized that "hangover lean" anywhere. The man looked through his partially opened eyes and saw Mary.
A wide smile appeared on his face. "Hey, Mary. Damn, you look good," he loudly announced.
"Hey," she responded, her voice as emotionless as she could make it.
Wes looked at his mother, hoping she would explain who this man was. He moved closer to his mother's hip. Not only did he feel safer there than in the middle of the room but also because the smell coming off the man was beginning to bother him. The man on the couch looked up at Mary and asked, "Who's this?" Mary smirked and rolled her eyes. She could not believe his audacity.
Wes didn't understand why, but he felt a tension in the room. Mary looked down at her son and uttered the
words she had never said before and never thought she would have to say.
"Wes, meet your father."
In Search of Home
1984
The phone was up to its eighth ring. It was nine in the morning, and Wes hadn't seen nine in the morning since his summer break started. He climbed out of bed slowly, irritable, his eyes still half-masted when he picked up the phone in his family's narrow hallway.
"Hello?"
"Where's Mom at?" Tony asked.
"Probably at work already. Try her there." Their mom was usually out of the house by 8:30 and didn't come back until well into the evening. Wes, now eight years old, was free from any adult supervision till then. His brother, six years older, was the closest thing Wes had to a caretaker during the daylight hours and was fiercely protective of the little brother who idolized him. But lately even Tony hadn't been around much. Tony was spending most of his time in the Murphy Homes Projects, where his father lived.
The Murphy Homes were built in 1962 and named after George Murphy, a legend in Baltimore for his work as a groundbreaking educator, but just as often they went by a self-explanatory nickname, Murder Homes. The seventeen-story monoliths were among the most dangerous projects in all of Baltimore. The walls and floors were coated with filth and graffiti. Flickering fluorescent tubes (the ones that weren't completely broken) dimly lit the cinder-block hallways. The constantly broken-down elevators forced residents to climb claustrophobic, urine-scented stairways. And the drug game was everywhere, with a gun handle protruding from the top of every tenth teenager's waistline. People who lived in Murphy Homes felt like prisoners, kept in check by roving bands of gun-strapped kids and a nightmare army of drug fiends. This was where Tony chose to spend his days.