by Maya Angelou
“Well, and isn’t it the wonder of Maya?” The accent was unmistakable. I raised up and looked in the seat behind me. Mike Clancy was grinning over a glass of whiskey with Pat next to him. Liam and Tommy were seated across the aisle.
“You thought you could lose us, did you? Never, little darling. We have sworn to follow you to the ends of the earth. How’s about a tipple to cinch the agreement.”
I said I’d order something when the stewardess came around.
There was no need to wait. Mike had prepared against the eventuality of a stingy attendant or a plane run by teetotalers. He reached under the seat and when he straightened up, he was holding a bottle of whiskey. Pat pulled a glass from the pocket of the seat in front of him.
Mike said, “If you insist on frivolities such as ice and water, you’ll wait until the serving lady comes. If not, I’ll start pouring now and you tell me when to stop.”
I didn’t wait.
The trip was riotous. Many passengers were incensed that four white men and a black woman were laughing and drinking together, and their displeasure pushed us toward silliness. I asked Liam to translate a Gaelic song that I had heard him sing a cappella. He said he’d sing it first.
His clear tenor floated up over the heads of the already-irate passengers. The haunting beauty of the melody must have quelled some of the irritation, because no one asked Liam to shut up.
Mike tried in vain to start conversations with two stone-grey men who sat behind him, but they retained their granite aloofness.
As the plane landed in New York, we sang a rousing chorus of “The Wearing of the Green.”
The Clancys offered to share a taxi into the city, but I said I was going to Brooklyn.
Brooklyn and Guy. My heart dropped and I sobered. The company and the drink had erased Guy and the problem from my mind.
I thanked them and got into a taxi with my bags and a load of new guilt.
What a poor kind of mother I was. Drinking and laughing it up with a group of strangers, white men at that, while my son was in some kind of trouble.
When the taxi arrived at John’s house, I was abject as well as apprehensive.
Grace hugged me and smiled. “Welcome home, Maya.” Her smile told me things couldn’t be too bad. Mom Willie called from the dining room, “That her?” I answered and she walked into the foyer. She was looking serious and shaking her head. Her look and gesture said, “Well, boys will be boys, and that’s life.” That was a relief. I asked where Guy was. Grace said he was upstairs in Chuck’s room but John wanted to speak to me first.
Mom Willie gave me coffee as John explained what happened. A group of boys had threatened Guy and John heard about it and decided Guy would be safer at his house until I returned.
I nearly laughed aloud. Only a disagreement among kids.
John continued, “The boys are a gang called the Savages. They killed a boy last month, and as he lay in the funeral home, the Savages went in and stabbed the body thirty-five times.”
Oh my God.
“They terrorize everybody. Even the cops are scared of that bunch. When I heard that Guy had offered to fight them, I drove over to your house and got him. He didn’t want to go. He had stuck all your butcher knives in the curtain at your door and told me he was waiting for them to come back. I said, ‘Boy you’d better get your butt in this car.’ I told the woman downstairs to tell the gang, when they came back, that his uncle came to get him.”
Mom Willie spoke first. “Well, honey, raising boys in this world is more than a notion. Ask me about it. While they’re young, you pray you can feed them and keep them in school. They get up some size and you pray some crazy white woman don’t scream rape around them and get them lynched. They come of age and white men call them up to go fight, and you pray they don’t get killed over there fighting some white folks’ war. Naw. Raising a black boy makes you sit down and think.”
John had respectfully waited for his mother to finish her remembrances. “I’ll get Guy now.” He went to the stairs and called, “Guy, come down. Your mother’s here.”
I heard the heavy steps rushing down the stairs and I wanted to stand, but my body wouldn’t obey. Guy bounded into the kitchen and the sight of him brought tears to my eyes.
“Hi, Mom. How was the trip?” He bent down and kissed my cheek. “Gee, it’s great to have you home.” He read my face and stopped smiling. “Oh, I guess Mr. Killens told you about the little incident. Well, it wasn’t really serious, you know.” He patted my shoulder as if he were the reassuring parent, and I the upset child.
“What happened, Guy? How did you get involved with a gang like that? What—”
“I’ll discuss that with you. Privately, please.” He was back on his dignity, and I couldn’t deflate him. Whatever the story, I had to wait until we were alone.
John understood and said he’d drop us off at home. Guy shook his head. “Thanks, Mr. Killens. We’ll walk.” He turned to me. “Where are your bags, Mom?”
I nodded toward the entry and he walked away.
Grace said, “He wants to be a man so much, my God. It would be funny if it wasn’t so serious.”
John said, “Everything in this society is geared to keeping a black boy from growing to manhood. You’ve got to let him try for himself.”
I joined Guy at the door and we said good night to the Killens.
We walked through the dark streets, and as Guy asked about Oscar Brown and other Chicago friends, I saw phantoms of knife-wielding boys jumping from behind trees, hiding behind cars, waiting in gloomy doorways.
I asked Guy to tell me about the incident, adding that Brooklyn was more dangerous than New York City. He said, “Let’s wait till we get home. But I’ll tell you this, Mother.” A pronouncement was on its way. “I don’t want you to think about moving. I’m living here and I have to walk these streets. If we moved, the same thing could happen and then we’d move again. I’m not going to run. ’Cause once you do, you have to keep on running.”
We walked the rest of the way in silence.
He made a pot of coffee for me and I sat waiting until he was ready to talk.
We sat opposite each other in the living room and I tried to keep serenity on my face and my hand on the coffee cup.
It had all begun with the housekeeper. One day, the week before, Mrs. Tolman had brought her granddaughter to our house. Susie was fifteen, cute and eager. She and Guy talked while Mrs. Tolman cooked and cleaned. The next day Susie came back with her grandmother. Again the teenagers talked and this time they played records. On the third morning, Susie came alone. They played records and, this time, they danced together in the living room. Susie said she liked Guy, really liked him. Guy told her that he was already dating a girl but that he appreciated Susie’s honesty. She became angry and Guy explained that he and his girl friend didn’t cheat on each other. Susie said Guy was stuck-up and thought he was cute. They had an argument and Guy put her out of the house.
I wondered if he meant he had asked her to go. He said no. He walked to the door and opened it and told her to get out.
He continued explaining that today when the bell rang, he opened the door and a fellow about eighteen was standing there. He said his name was Jerry and he was Susie’s boyfriend. He said he was the chief of the Savages and he had just heard that Guy had hit Susie. Guy told him that was a lie. He balled up his fist and said, “If I ever hit anybody with this, no one has to ask if I hit them.” He went on to explain to Jerry that Susie was angry because of a little run-in they had. He told Jerry to remember the old line about a woman scorned. Jerry had never heard the phrase and told Guy that he and his friends would be back in the afternoon and Guy could explain it then.
As soon as Jerry left the doorstep, Guy called Chuck Killens and told him about his visitors and asked him to come over and bring his baseball bat. He then went to the kitchen and gathered all my knives and placed them strategically in the lace curtain at the front door. He figured that with Chuck
swinging the bat, and him parrying with a large knife and a cleaver, they could hold off at least eight of the Savages.
When I asked if he had heard of the gang before, he answered, “Everybody knows the Savages; a few of them even go to my school.”
“How large is the gang?”
“Only fifteen active members. But when they have a rumble, they can get about thirty together.”
And this crazy young army was threatening my son. He saw my concern.
“I’ll handle it, Mom. We’re going to live here and I’m going to walk the streets whenever I want to. Nobody’s going to make me run. I am a man.”
He kissed me good night and picked up the coffee cup. I heard him moving in the kitchen. In a few seconds, his bedroom door closed, and I remained, glued to my chair in the living room. After an hour or so, the bloody pictures of my son’s mutilated body began to disappear. I went to the kitchen and filled the ice bucket, got a pitcher of water and the Scotch bottle. I brought my collection to the living room and sat down.
First I had to understand the thinking of the Savages. They were young black men, preying on other young black men. They had been informed, successfully, that they were worthless, and everyone who looked like them was equally without worth. Each sunrise brought a day without hope and each evening the sun set on a day lacking in achievement. Whites, who ruled the world, owned the air and food and jobs and schools and fair play, had refused to share with them any of life’s necessities—and somewhere, deeper than their consciousness, they believed the whites were correct. They, the black youth, young lords of nothing, were born without value and would creep, like blinded moles, their lives long in the darkness, under the earth, chewing on roots, driven far from the light.
I understood the Savages. I understood and hated the system which molded them, but understanding in no wise licensed them to vent their frustration and anger on my son. Guy would not countenance a move to safer ground. And if I insisted, without his agreement, I could lose his friendship and thereby his love. I wouldn’t risk that; yet something had to be done to contain the lawless brood of alienated teenagers.
As the sun’s first soft light penetrated the curtains, I telephoned my musician lover in Manhattan. I told him quickly what had happened and what I needed. I had awakened him, but he heard my need and said he’d get up and be at my house in an hour or less.
He stood in the doorway, refusing my invitation to come in for coffee. He handed me a small box, a big grin, and wished me luck. Guy arose, showered, dressed, had a glass of milk, refusing breakfast. He ran out of the house, to warm up before a morning basketball game. He seemed to have forgotten that the Savages were out to get him. I calmed my fears by telling myself that fellows like the Savages were mostly night creatures, and that in the early mornings the streets were at their safest.
At nine o’clock, I telephoned Mrs. Tolman and told her I’d like to come over and pay her. She said she’d be waiting.
I took the pistol out of its fitted box and slipped it in my purse. The three blocks between our houses were peopled with workers en route to jobs, men washing cars and children running and screaming in such normal ways. I felt I had gone mad and was living in another dimension, removed totally from the textured world around me. I was invisible.
Mrs. Tolman introduced me to her buxom daughter, who was breast-nursing a baby. The woman said yes when I asked if she was also Susie’s mother.
I gave Mrs. Tolman cash, counting out the bills carefully, using the time to pacify my throat so that my voice would be natural.
“Mrs. Tolman, is Susie here?”
“Why, yes. They just got up. I heard them laughing in her room.”
Mrs. Tolman was happy to oblige.
Susie stood in the doorway leading to the kitchen. Her face was still sultry from sleep and she was pretty. If I had been lucky enough to have a second child, she could have been my daughter.
“Susie, I’ve heard about you, and I’m happy to meet you.”
“Yeah,” she mumbled, not too interested. “Nice to meet you too.” I caught her as she was turning to go.
“Susie, your boyfriend is Jerry?” She perked up a little. “Yeah, Jerry’s my boyfriend.”
Mrs. Tolman giggled. “I’ll tell the world.”
“Where does he live? Jerry.”
“He lives down the street. In the next block.” She was pouting again, uninterested.
I spoke again, fast, collecting her thoughts.
“I have something for him. Can we go together to his house?”
She smiled for the first time. “He’s not there. He’s in my room.”
Her mother chuckled. “Seem like that’s where he lives.”
“Could he come out? I’d like to have a few words with him.”
“O.K.” She was a sweet play pretty, in her baby-doll shortie nightgown and her hair brushed out around her face.
I sat with only a silly smile, looking at the nursing mother and the old woman who was pressing out the money in her lap.
“Here he is. This is Jerry.” A young man stood with Susie in the doorway. A too-small T-shirt strained its straps against his brown shoulders. His pants were unbuttoned and he was barefoot. I took in his total look in a second, but the details of his face stopped and held me beyond my mission. His eyes were too young for hate. They glinted with promise. When he smiled, a mouthful of teeth gleamed. I jerked myself away from enchantment.
“Jerry. I’m Miss Angelou. I’m Guy’s mother.” He closed his lips and the smile died.
“I understand that you are the head of the Savages and you have an arrangement with my son. I also understand that the police are afraid of you. Well, I came ’round to make you aware of something. If my son comes home with a black eye or a torn shirt, I won’t call the police.”
His attention followed my hand to my purse. “I will come over here and shoot Susie’s grandmother first, then her mother, then I’ll blow away that sweet little baby. You understand what I’m saying? If the Savages so much as touch my son, I will then find your house and kill everything that moves, including the rats and cockroaches.”
I showed the borrowed pistol, then slid it back into my purse.
For a second, none of the family moved and my plans had not gone beyond the speech, so I just kept my hand in the purse, fondling my security.
Jerry spoke, “O.K., I understand. But for a mother, I must say you’re a mean motherfucker. Come on, Susie.” They turned and, huddling together, walked toward the rear of the house.
I spent a few more minutes talking to Mrs. Tolman about the trip and the weather.
We parted without mentioning my son, her granddaughter or my trim Baretta, which lay docile at the bottom of my purse.
Guy brought afternoon heat into the house along with gym clothes for the laundry. He was grinning.
“We won the game. I made ten shots.” I acted interested. “I’m getting pretty good. Coach says I’m among his best athletes.” He feinted and jumped.
“Good, dear. Oh, by the way, did you see any of the Savages at school?”
He stopped dribbling an imaginary ball and looked at me, surprised, as if I had asked if he had seen an extraterrestrial.
“Yeah. Sure I saw the guys this morning. I walked to school with some of the members. We talked.” He started toward his room, protecting his masculine secrecy.
“Excuse me, but please tell me what you talked about. I’d really like to know.”
“Aw, Mom.” He was embarrassed. “Aw, I just made up something. I said my gang in California always fought to the death, but never on hearsay. And I said I’d meet him and one other person on neutral ground. With knives or fire or anything. I said I wasn’t about to run. I told you, Mom, that I’d handle it.” He grinned. “What’s for dinner?”
I had to laugh. He was definitely my son, and following my footsteps, bluffing all the way.
I had only threatened the young vultures hovering over my son;
G
uy had offered to literally fight fire with fire. Fortunately we were believed—because maybe neither of us was bluffing.
—
Revolución had accepted my short story. That it would appear only in Cuba, and probably in Spanish, did not dilute the fact that I was joining the elite group of published writers. The Harlem Writers Guild celebrated. Rosa Guy, a founding member, who had been in Trinidad when I joined the group, had returned and offered her house for the week’s reading and a party in my honor.
Rosa was tall, beautiful, dark-brown and fiery. She danced, argued, shouted, laughed with an exciting singleness of mind. We were alike in boldness and fell quickly into a close friendship. She had been born in Trinidad, and although she had lived in New York City since she was seven years old, her speech retained a soft Caribbean slur.
CHAPTER 6
I made my way through the busy streets of Harlem, dressed in my best and wearing just enough make-up. Along the way, I received approval from lounging men or passers-by.
“Hey, baby. Let me go with you.”
“Oowee, sugar. You look good to me.”
“Let me be your little dog, till your big dog come.”
I smiled and kept walking. The compliments helped to straighten my back and put a little swing to my hips, and I needed the approval.
I was en route to the SCLC to meet Bayard Rustin. I had seen him a few times at fund-raising parties since the closing of Cabaret for Freedom, but we had not had a private meeting since the first time in the organizational offices, and I imagined a thousand reasons why I had been asked to return.
The receptionist told me Mr. Rustin was waiting. He stood up and leaned over the crowded desk, offering me his hand.
“Maya, thank you for coming. Have a seat. I’ll call Stan and Jack.”
I sat and ran through my mind all the possibilities. There was a discrepancy in the figures from Cabaret for Freedom. They wanted me to produce another revue. They wanted me to write a play about Martin Luther King and the struggle. They didn’t know I couldn’t type, so they were going to offer me a job as secretary. They needed volunteers and …