by Robert Coles
I did eventually get to know two such wandering families, and in a sense my efforts to follow them from place to place reminded me of my work among migrant farm workers. I had to attach myself to the children and their parents, and I had to ask them to promise me that when they moved, I would be allowed to follow. They would leave word for me through a mutual friend, however suddenly they decided to depart. And so, we kept up our meetings over three years of time, and I had a chance to get some sense of why it is and how it is that particular families persist in so extraordinarily mobile a life — in the very shadow of slums which can appear to be so solid and impenetrable and unyielding, so static, so unchanging, so there. Perhaps I should claim only that I learned what such people say about their urban moves, their inner-city travels. For the fact is, a man like James Hudson and his wife Josie Hudson ask the same questions I do, and maybe those questions tell as much as any explanations I can come up with.
“I get to wondering,” says Mr. Hudson. Then he stops; indeed, he stops for such a long time that I think to myself that he is confused or troubled. Is he in a daze, in a “state” of some kind? Is he suffering from some injury to his head, some degree of “retardation,” some “psychotic process”? Then he brings me up short, and perhaps reveals to me how impatient and how slyly, brazenly condescending one like me can get when he is faced with a person who is different from himself and simply being himself: “I wonder why I brought myself and my wife and my little ones all the way up here. I wonder if there will ever be an end to it, the jobs that don’t last. I got a job; they said I should come there at seven in the morning and I’d be washing dishes in the back of the restaurant. They said that in between I could mop the floor. They said I looked strong, and they would pay me fifty-five dollars a week, and I’d go up to sixty if I could prove myself. They said I’d have to come in every day but one, and they’d tell me which day to stay home, and each week it would be different, because they’re open all the time. I said good, and I started working. I had to leave way before sunlight to be there at seven. The place is all the way on the other side of the city. If I miss one bus, I’m late. But I never did miss the bus. The bus kept coming late; it was the fault of the bus company. The man who runs the place, he told me I was late three times in a row and I was through, fired. I’d been there on time for two weeks. I was trying to do the best I could. I near cried. I said to him please. He said to get out. I tried to tell him about the bus, and he said that everyone always has an excuse, and he wasn’t one to be fooled by me or anyone else. Then I came home and I did cry, and so did Josie. My boy asked me why, and I told him not to ask, and soon enough he’d find out.
“I didn’t know what to do. I got to wondering. I had the rent to pay, and it’s eighty dollars a month, and that’s so much money. They collect it, too. They’re after you the first day of the month. A man comes and says you’ve got to pay. If you tell him you can’t get heat from the pipes and the rats are all over, he tells you to go find some other place. Well, that’s why we moved the first time. I couldn’t have two people talk like that to me, not on the same day: the man in the eating place and then the man who works for the landlord, collects his rent. I told the people who live next door that I wish I had a one-way bus ticket back to Echo, Alabama; it’s bad there, but it’s bad here, and maybe worse if you’re me and you grew up down there and not up here. But Josie said she wouldn’t go back, even if she had to die up here. She said she missed being down there, but we had nothing down there, nothing, and if he hadn’t given us some food, the bossman, we would have starved to death every winter.
“I guess you only starve to death once. I guess somehow we made it from year to year back South. But Josie said that the bossman could take a disliking to us, because he has bad digestion one day, and that would be the end of our eating, and we’d all perish. Yes sir, we’d perish, and that’s the story. That’s why we’re here, up here. I had an uncle who said he’d never go North, no matter what. He left Echo a long time ago and went to Birmingham. He said it’s better to be in the South, if you have to live in a city. Now he wishes he’d never left Echo. It’s worse in Birmingham than here, though. It can’t be too much worse, I guess. If I took off, my family could get some help from the city. In Birmingham they’d get a lot less than up here. I’m staying here. Why should we move back there? We’ll keep moving up here, if we have to, until I find a job that’s going to last. You see, Josie has won, and I believe everything she says. We’ll never go back, not with things as they are down there.
“I was telling you something. I know: I was telling you how we moved. We just did. I told the people down the hall I was thinking of going back South, and they said I was as crazy as I could be. I told them, just like I did you, about my uncle in Birmingham, and they said they could suggest something a lot better than going to Birmingham and that way I wouldn’t end up in Alabama all over again. And the next thing I knew they were showing us a building where we’d be living more or less like we already were; only there’d be no rent, and no one would know where we were, so they couldn’t come and collect on us. So when night came we just slipped out, real fast. It was the same when we left Echo and headed up North to Birmingham and then further up North until we came here, and I guess we can’t be any further North than Roxbury.
“We have tried going to other cities. We tried Springfield, Massachusetts, because someone knew people there, and they said you might get a job if you looked real hard. We tried Hartford. I knew enough not to go to Harlem — no sir! I got a job in Springfield, waxing floors. The only thing was, the place closed down. All of a sudden they said we were fired, each one of us. They gave me the cash and said good-bye. I went to three or four eating places and tried to sign up, but they had all they needed; one man said, ‘There are plenty of you guys around, and we only need one at a time.’ Then he said, ‘They come and go, so try again in a few weeks.’ I told Josie I was going to ask him if he’d feed us while we waited, but I couldn’t say what was on my mind. It’s not easy to find yourself work, no sir. Anyway, we left Springfield and came back to Boston. There was nothing else to do. We knew a place to stay — with people, and they were the ones who told us to try Hartford. So, we did. And that was real bad there. I stood in some lines and each time they stopped picking men just a little ahead of me. It was worse on Josie than me. She’d be hoping; then I’d come back and I wouldn’t have to say a word, because she could tell on my face what happened. It was good we knew people, and they helped us out. People will do that, you know. It was the same way back in Echo, Alabama.”
Eventually he got and held on to a job. He works in a warehouse. He packs boxes of greeting cards and takes what he has done to the post office. He likes his work and likes the money — though it is no great sum in view of the rent he must pay and the price of food and clothing. Still, he has been able to stop wandering, to settle down and stay put. He can now talk about that year of movement, constant movement, as if it were thoroughly a thing of the past. He is a steady worker, and he will stay right where he is and never leave if he can help it. Indeed, one senses again and again the man’s strong wish to avoid the unstable, migrant life he lived for those months before he was fortunate enough to find his present job. Yet, one also senses in him a conviction that nothing is to be taken for granted, that anything might happen — which means at some point in the future he and his family may again have to disappear from view: “You lose your job, and they still want your money, and you don’t have it, and they say they’re going to throw you out of your place anyway, and you owe at the store, and they won’t sell to you, so you go away. You find a place where there’s no one always trying to collect, collect. When you’re living like that — I guess it’s hiding — you meet some good people. I never knew that there could be so many real good, nice people. They’ll go and take some food from a store, and they’ll divide what they got with you. They’ll go and take shoes for your kid, not only theirs. I’ve never done that; I just couldn’t ge
t myself to. I’m sure if I had to, I would. I was lucky to know people who would, and then I got myself this job. But if a man sees his kids needing food, is it wrong to steal? I don’t believe those store people starve. They drive up in their big cars, I notice. I don’t know how we would have eaten if a few of the guys over in those buildings didn’t go and get the food — take it. And when I hear they’re going to condemn some building, it always makes me feel good, because I say to myself: some people will go and find a rest for themselves in that building, and it won’t be the best place in the world, but they’ll be able to come there and stay there for a while. Of course, you always hope they’ll get a good break and find a place to remain in, and not leave. It’s a bad life, always packing up and unpacking, don’t you think?”
I told him yes. I also told him how impressed I was with the informal network of friends and relatives and comrades-in-distress he had found all over New England. He said yes, it is true that black men will help other black men, that people in trouble will help other people in trouble. Then he added another “don’t you think” — a characteristic flourish of his meant to make his point stronger rather than get a reaction from me. I told him yes again; but I found myself wondering, too, how the kind of “helping” spirit he described might become more widely present in those “better” communities he unquestionably envies and no doubt wishes his children would one day be able to join.
My Room
At least there I have a little home, you know. I have my room. I just stay there. I don’t have to do anything else but be in that room. I hate the street. I used to be on the street. I’d stand there and wait. I’d give the man a look. If he looked like he had money and he was shy a little, I’d even follow him a block or so. I’d never do that again. I can’t explain to myself how I lasted. I’d rather stand around, but I wanted to run. Once I did. I started running and I didn’t stop until I was out of breath. Then I went home. But I didn’t have any money the next day, and I said: sister, is it better to eat or to starve? Is it better to have good clothes or be dressed in rags? Do you want to be a washwoman like your mother? She had no hands left after her bosses got through with her. She had no money, either. I put away money. I go to the savings bank every week, and I put in the cash there, and they give me the book with the numbers in it. I have it with me, and it reminds me when I look at it that I’m somebody — because money talks.
I feel sorry for my sisters. There are three of them, and they’re all poor as can be. I give them some money every once in a while. They come to me and they say, Jeanne, you’ve got to help me out. I say, sure I will. Blood is blood. Then they kiss me. They say I’m wonderful. My sister Ann told me once I was a gift from Heaven. Me! I say yes, Ann. I told her I hoped she was right, but I wasn’t sure. But she was.
I try to live a quiet life. I don’t drink. I never have liked the taste of liquor. I smoke, but I could stop if I wanted. It’s a habit. My favorite way to spend a day is go looking for a new dress. I love my clothes. I love to buy shoes. I love to buy a pocketbook that goes with a pair of shoes. I have my shoes in the closet, and they’re all there when I open it up. I look at them and say, it’s a good life if you have the money to own what you like. I counted up fifteen pair. Maybe the day will come when I have a hundred pair. And I could have a different pocketbook to go with each of the shoes.
It used to be I’d take a pocketbook. I’d go into a store and lift one. But I’ve stopped. Why should you steal if you can afford to pay? I could get caught. I don’t want to go to jail. What can you do in jail but sit there? You can’t dress up. They push you around. You don’t have a penny to your name. It’s as bad as the grave, jail is.
My mother is dead. I never saw much of my father. He left when I was little. I remember some men, all right, but none of them was my father. I’m twenty-four. I hope I’ll live longer than my mother. She dropped dead right before my eyes. What do you think of that! I was standing in the kitchen and doing the cooking for her because she said she had a headache, a real bad one. I said, Momma, sit down. She did, but the headache didn’t go away, so I said, Momma go lie down. She got up to lie down and she fell down, and I heard a big sigh come from her, and her eyes went moving all over the place, and that was the end. She was gone. I didn’t know, not then. I ran and got the woman across the hall. She ran and got a policeman, and he came and he was the one who said she wasn’t unconscious, she was dead. You know what he asked me, the first thing? Was I fighting with her? He checked her over to see if I cut her up, and he checked me over, and he looked all through the apartment. That’s the police for you.
I could tell you a lot about the police. I know them. I know more about the police than anyone does. They collect, you know. They take a cut of everything. The lady I work for, they get money from her. My friend Bill, he always pays the police. Then they get on their high horse and play minister. They preach to you with one hand and take your money with the other. That’s the way it is. I know my way around. I know how you go and do your business and how you get in trouble. The secret is money. If you have money, you’re doing fine. If you don’t, brother, you’re in trouble, no matter if you did anything or not, no matter if you’re in the right or in the wrong. When I was a little kid my mother would shout at us to be good, be good. A lot of good it does you to be good. And our minister, he’d be shouting at my mother and all the mothers, to make sure we were God-fearing. That’s all he ever told us: fear God, fear Him plenty, or you’ll sure enough be in a lot of trouble. And he said we should never do anything bad, and we should always obey the Commandments. Well, you know what I found out about him? It took me until I was twenty years old to do it, but I did. I saw him. I saw where he goes. He’s no different than me. He’s full of talk about God, but he’s a man, and he’s the same kind of animal he used to tell us we never, never should be. And my poor old momma, she’d listen to him and nod her head and say yes, yes, and believe every word that came out of him, the minister.
I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. A teacher once asked me what I’d be doing later, and I felt like sticking my tongue out at her, but I didn’t. I had on the tip of my tongue the words: I won’t end up being like you, sister. I didn’t do that, though — tell her off. I used to dream that maybe one day I’d be rich and I’d have a big house and servants and all the clothes and shoes I wanted, closets full of them. I’d even picture the maid being white, and I’d be good to her, real good. I’d give her days off, and I’d slip her money, and I’d buy her things, a convertible and some nice clothes. No white woman ever did that for my mother, or my grandmother. White people are stingy. The white men that come here to my room, I’ll tell you I’ve had to pull a knife on some of them. They tell me they don’t have the money, after they’ve already agreed to pay it. They want to give less, and I tell them they won’t get out of the building alive if they don’t give me the money, all of it we agreed was the price. Then I reach for my knife. And then every time they come up with the money, every time. What does that show you about white men?
Look, the black man is no angel, either. I’m not standing up for black men. I know them. I know them better than anyone else in the world. Do I know them! They’re lazy, a lot of them are. It’s their wives and their sisters and their mothers and their grandmothers and their aunts, it’s the black women who keep the men going. Our men are no good. They’ve never been any good. But no men are good; that’s what I believe. I know them all. I see them, and I can tell you: they’re all out for themselves and no one else. A man, he’s full of himself. He wants to be satisfied, but he doesn’t really care about a woman. They’ll say they do, some of them. But I give them a look-over, and I can tell. One guy, he was white, and he was crazy; he talked all the time, and he said he wanted to make me happy, that’s all he wanted. I told him, finally, go ahead, go and see what he could do. Well, he couldn’t do a thing, not a goddam thing. I said to him — since he was talking so much, I thought I’d join in and talk — that he had
the white skin and his hair was so yellow and his eyes were so blue, so why in Hell couldn’t he do anything he wanted to do. I wasn’t kidding. They think they’re so wonderful. They’re little babies, spoiled children. They don’t know what’s going on in the world. They don’t know so much that it would take a year for me to tell what they don’t know.
I feel sorry for them, though, the white men. They’re scared, and they’re no good, most of them. They’ll tell you how excited they get, on account of my skin being black, and then they don’t get excited at all. It’s all talk, a lot of talk. That’s the white people: talk and more talk, until they put you to sleep with their talk. The black men don’t talk much, but some of them are as mean as can be. They’re like a German police dog: their teeth and their noises. I heard a white woman say that black people are like animals; I was in a shoe store and she didn’t know I was behind her, and I heard her say it to her friend. I had to think to myself: maybe she’s right. Those niggers, I call them, that come knocking on my door, I hate to let them into the room. But a man’s money is a man’s money; and they don’t stay too long. I know how to get rid of them. I give them a look and they leave. I can stare them down. I can get them so worried that they will go fast, rather than keep on trying to bother me. Sometimes I will say: mister, you have had it, and it’s time to go — hear! They leave.
I’d like to leave myself one day — and never come back. I’m saving up. I’m putting some cash away, every week I am. I don’t put everything away. I have to live. I like to look nice. And I like to have flowers near me. They’re enough to get me through a night. I go into town and I buy them, then I bring them back to the room. They’re all I have to look at. I need them so bad! In between customers I look at the flowers — roses, red roses — and I picture where they were before someone cut them. They were in a field, don’t you know. There must have been a fence, so the rosebush could lean on it. Sometimes in my mind I see the sun shining on the roses, and sometimes it’s cloudy, and it’s raining, and there’s a wind blowing. I take the roses home with me in the morning and I give them to the kids on the street the next day.