All the kids had their real mamas and one or two “play mamas.” When Mama was really struggling and our refrigerator was empty, I could stop by the house of any of my play mamas: Miss Barnes, Miss Clark, or Miss Benson. When I got real lucky, someone had made a tub of greens or cornbread in a skillet or a pot of neck bones.
Mama hated being poor and being dependent on government assistance. She was a proud woman active in the church and community. Mama was a den mother for the Boy Scouts and even got involved in politics. She served as an election judge during the 1950s.
She was ambitious for herself and for us kids. Shortly after I was born, she got job training and soon secured employment as a certified nursing attendant. When I was one, she found a job at St. Louis County Hospital, where she worked until it closed in 1982.
Even though Mama supplemented her hospital job by occasionally cleaning homes in the white suburbs, eight mouths is a lot and we were still very poor. When I was a toddler, we were forced to move into an old, abandoned Baptist church on Jefferson Street to avoid homelessness. About nine or ten of Grandma Small’s sixteen children were already living there. My family was in the basement, only two windowless rooms for Mama and the seven of us kids. Mama strung a towel on a rod to separate our space from Aunt Louise’s and her three kids. We shared a kitchen with them and, oh, you can imagine the drama, especially when there wasn’t enough to eat for one family, let alone two.
The church basement was dark and cramped, but my mother was an immaculate housekeeper. We slept three and four to a bed and even though we had no windows, Mama hung curtains on the brick wall to make the place look as nice as she could. She kept our hair pressed, our clothes ironed, and made us use that milky-white shoe polish on our tennis shoes every week. The Lewis children were always well groomed.
We were happy to move from the church to a creaky house on Wesley Street that had no hot water. Now that I was older, I had to use the outhouse. My ass froze on that seat in those subzero Missouri winters. The alternative was to do your business in a bucket in the house—which somebody had to carry out later.
A coal stove in the middle room heated the entire small house. We’d huddle in front of the small black-and-white television to watch Godzilla, Abbott and Costello Meet the Wolfman, or Frankenstein (with one of my favorites, Boris Karloff) on the one channel we could get. Good reception depended on adjusting a wad of aluminum foil around the antenna and giving the console a few shakes.
Being the baby of the family was a drag. Everything I got was a hand-me-down—even bath water. After we heated pots of water on the stove, Vertrella and Wilatrel would share the first tubful. Then the boys, Edward and Larry, would do the same. Then Jackie and Robin would have a fresh tub to share. I used the same water after them, lukewarm and dirty from two kids. I felt like an afterthought.
The struggle was real, economically, physically, and emotionally. Our house was oppressive—not a happy place. There was always a sense of pressure—from unseen outside forces that prevented us from having a nice house, new clothes, and plenty of toys to the very identifiable fear that we would incur our mother’s wrath. She was volatile and seemed to be angry about something or other most of the time. There were few hugs or kisses; she did not act as though she cherished us. She criticized us and ordered us around. If you disobeyed or gave Mama sass, a beating was the consequence.
But don’t get it twisted! Mama was a great woman. She instilled values in her children that served us well throughout our lives. She was a model of hard work, civic involvement, and of making the best with what you got. She learned from life’s hard knocks and wanted us to succeed. She would call us together, sit us down, and tell us of the dangers of the world. Education was the only defense: “You will go to college and you will finish college. Land in jail, and you will stay in jail.”
I was considered a “bad” child. Quite unruly. I lied, tattled, teased, and yelled, making myself a general nuisance. I’d hit my siblings on their backs and then run and climb onto Mama’s lap, thumb firmly planted in my mouth. I lacked companionship. My six brothers and sisters paired up into three couples and avoided me. I felt left out. More than once, I heard one of them introduce our family and end with “and then there’s Jenny.”
There was little or no discussion about why I behaved poorly, no “time out.” Our parents, our village, grabbed a switch and beat your ass when you were bad, and Mama did not spare the rod.
One memorable beating took place when I ruined my freshly pressed hair. On Saturdays, Mama straightened her five girls’ hair and neatly rolled it around brown paper strips so we’d look our best the next morning in church. Mama finished my hair and sent me to sit quietly on the front porch. But it was so hot, I couldn’t resist running through a lawn sprinkler. When I heard Mama looking for me, I crawled into the doghouse and sobbed as my hair went back to the nap. I stayed there until dark. When I emerged and tried to sneak into the house, Mama was waiting with a switch. She whupped me in the street.
Now calm down, y’all, it wasn’t terrible all the time or I wouldn’t be here, for goodness’ sake! I do have some wonderful memories of my childhood. I always loved our family reunions, the excursions up and down the Mississippi River on the S.S. Admiral steamboat, and marching with my siblings in the May Day parade. I can still almost feel the sun on my face through the grapevines behind the old church when my sisters and I hid amongst the vines, laughing and shrieking hysterically as Ba’y Bro and Larry chased after us riding their hobbyhorses. I remember Mama had a real fox shawl, with a head and paws that fascinated me. When I was very little and Mama wore the stole to church, I’d sit next to her in the pew, toying with the fox’s hard little mouth. It was so nice when Mama would break out in her clear soprano, “This is my story, this is my song.”
A very special memory is of Daddy coming around on payday; that is, when he had a job. He’d arrive and call out, “Where’s my baby?” He was there every Friday with that money because he knew the mountain of anger he would face from my mother if he didn’t show up. There was a story that she had put him out once and when he tried to sneak back in through a window, she bloodied his poor head with a cast-iron skillet.
One of my cherished recollections is of tending to my mother when she was sick. I made her a bowl of cornflakes with six tablespoons of C&H Pure Cane Sugar from Hawaii and powdered government milk. She said, “Mmmm. This is really good, Jenny, a little sweet but it’s really good.” I was so proud of my li’l ol’ self!
Looking back, I see how hard my mother worked to provide for us. But throughout my childhood, she was either emotionally absent or swinging her feelings around like a hammer, figuratively and literally. Sometimes she struck people, especially those who were closest to her. And sometimes she drew blood. Her rage had no end, but then neither did the obstacles she faced.
Dorothy Mae Lewis was never the one to mess with. One day, when I was about six, I held Mama’s hand as we walked from Miss Woods’s store where Mama had bought a bottle of Coca-Cola. If I had been a good girl, I knew she would give me the last swallow, careful not to let me have too much sugar. Well, out of nowhere, her boyfriend, whose name was Jelly Bean, pulled up in his station wagon and called out for my mother, “Hey, Dorothy! C’mere.”
Now, my mother was pretty much the queen of Kinloch, and the one thing you didn’t do was summon her to do anything (and y’all wanna know where I got it from). My mother ignored Jelly Bean.
He said, “Dorothy, you hear me talkin’ to you?”
She stopped. I stopped. I squeezed her hand a little tighter, because I knew Jelly Bean was in trouble.
She said, “Go on somewhere else, Jelly. Cain’t you see I’m with my baby?”
Jelly Bean then made the biggest mistake of his life. He pulled the car over to where my mother and I stood, reached out of the window, grabbed Mama’s right arm, and said, “You gonna talk to me right now, Dorothy.”
I was still holding her left hand tightly, aware of t
he time bomb that was about to explode.
It was all over in five seconds with five moves on my mother’s part:
Move one: Push Jenny back to safety with the left hand.
Move two: Pull the right hand holding the Coke bottle away from Jelly Bean’s grip.
Move three: Grab the Coke bottle out of the right hand with the left hand.
Move four: Swing the Coke bottle downward and break it against the curb.
Move five: Swing the broken Coke bottle upward and damn near slice Jelly Bean’s arm off.
Jelly Bean sped away as I peeped around Mama. I saw a trail of blood leading to the corner from where the station wagon had been parked. And in a town as small as Kinloch, we never saw Jelly Bean again. Mama looked down at me and said, “C’mon.” Eyes crossed, I grabbed Mama’s hand, plugged my mouth with my thumb, and we continued to walk in silence down the rocky road. All I could think was, Where the fuck is my last swallow of Coke?
Mama changed my birth certificate so she could enroll me a year early; hence, I was always a year younger than my classmates. My teachers loved me and validated me. I was often called to stand and come forward in class. I was far from a great student, but I was Miss Personality, the class clown, and a natural leader. I was a shining light at school most of the time. Whenever I would bring a sad mood into the classroom, my teachers would notice and listen to me. That’s all I really needed.
I joined the Brownies and every after-school activity available. It kept me out of the house where my mom was often on the war path. She’d be bone-tired from cleaning two or three houses on the weekend, or working eight hours at the hospital, and then taking a long bus ride home, only to have to feed us, wash, iron, and sort out how to pay the bills. She was not in the mood for childish foolishness, and I was an overactive, needy kid.
My poor siblings bore the brunt of my hyperactive, mischievous ass. Like when they’d sit on the floor playing Monopoly. I was left out ’cause I didn’t have the attention span for anything as boring as a board game. So, I’d make sure Mama wasn’t around, and then, ever on a search-and-destroy mission, I’d run across the board, howling “I hate y’all!” as the pieces scattered.
Fortunately, my energy was channeled into sports and I was a pretty good athlete. Still, I often cheated, even going so far as to steal the blue ribbon from the judges’ table at a track meet. I felt being number one would gain more attention from my mother. But even when I brought home a blue ribbon, her praise felt short-lived. Mama might smile at our achievements, but she always had other fish to fry.
When I was nine, Mama moved us to a house on Jackson Street. It was certainly a step up; we were overjoyed to have hot water and indoor plumbing. Life seemed to finally settle in for my family, especially because Mama’s scrimping and saving meant she came home more often with bags full of groceries, giving us a welcome break from the powdered milk, lard, and blocks of government cheese.
The Jackson house is where I began impersonating movie stars and re-creating the dance moves I saw done by the Supremes and the Temptations on TV shows like American Bandstand and The Ed Sullivan Show. I learned to curse in the house on Jackson, too. But I was careful; I knew a bad word could get a severe beating from Mama. The house on Jackson is also where I first found myself overcome by sadness at night. I didn’t think about where the sadness came from or tell anyone. I just would cry into my pillow or while I sat alone in the bathroom. To try to gain control, sometimes I would sing the mournful Mahalia Jackson songs that I loved so much.
The evening before my tenth birthday, we were hosting a meeting of the church’s youth group. Mama sent me to the kitchen to wash dishes. As I turned on the faucet, a siren pierced the air, and seconds later every church bell in town began to ring. We Midwesterners knew what was coming. The lights flickered. I looked out the kitchen window, and the sky turned black. Then the biggest flash of lightning I’d ever seen illuminated the magnificent funnel itself. I felt suspended in a dead, quiet calm until the tornado, sounding like a roaring locomotive, snapped me into action. I ran through the short hallway toward the group in the living room as we were overtaken by an unforgettable whooshing noise. The house lifted off its foundation, dumping the youth group kids out of their chairs, and onto the floor. In the darkness Mama shouted, “get to the basement!” We started to run through the kitchen to the basement stairs, but stopped when a lightning flash showed us the glasses and dishes I had been washing swirling around in mid-air, then shattering against the walls. We huddled in the hallway, praying, crying and screaming as hail as large as grapefruit pounded the roof and spears of wood pierced the walls as if God were using our house for target practice. Finally, silence—that horrifying calm after the storm.
The transistor radio told us we had survived a record-setting winter F4 tornado. Three people were killed in the St. Louis area.
The next morning, Kinloch was in shambles. Our house and our neighbor Miss Wood got the worst of it. It was the wood from her roof that had splintered, and pierced our house. It looked like a porcupine! But I wasn’t about to let a tornado get in the way of my birthday. I trailed Mama through the mess, humming, whistling, and singing so she would remember this was my special day. It worked, and I took my five dollars straight to Miss Bubbles’s Chinese restaurant. The owner, whose real name was Maddie Sue, had lived in far-away Chicago, and when she came back, she came back with the fried rice. You had to go down a cobblestone alley to the back of her house to order through the kitchen window. I used to love hopping from stone to stone to get a quart-size cardboard carton of egg foo young and fried rice, Chinese soul food–style.
Ultimately, our house was condemned. We moved to a house on School Way, into another basement that we again shared. It was sort of a step backward, because once again we had to use an outhouse or the tin bucket. We kids rushed to get out of the house every day because the last one out had to dump the bucket in the outhouse. Mama left for work before us and she’d say, “I don’t care who does it, but that bucket better be clean when I get home.” The task was especially humiliating because we were in full view of Kinloch High School across the street. To this day, my siblings tease me with, “Jenny, you never took out the bucket!” And to this day, I still respond with, “But I’m the baby!”
One good thing about the house on School Way was Wilatrel lived upstairs with her husband and children, and I began to experience the joys of being an aunt to little “Peppy” and “Wally Bear.” But the best thing was there were no trees and bushes around. Mama couldn’t easily go out and pull a switch. She took to beating us with a fly swatter. At least it didn’t hurt as much.
By sixth grade, I had acquired a reputation as a charmer and a fighter, much in the tradition of my mother. With the kids on my block and at school, I was large and in charge. I had authority. When Sheila Williams damn near split open her head ’cause she tripped on the double Dutch rope, they brought her to me to see what should be done.
I had no sway in Mama’s house, but in the street, I was determined to be the boss. People in Kinloch survived by being strong. Sometimes that strength creates a culture where the response to every challenge is “Let’s take this shit outside.” You step to people before they step to you: “Jump in my chest, and make a bird’s nest” was what we said when we were about to fuck somebody up. It meant Bring it, bitch, I’m ready.
I was often quite the bully, but really I had little to back up my sharp tongue and controlling behavior. Sometimes I got in over my head. I teased Evette about a rash on the back of her neck. The next day I carried a kitchen knife, anticipating an after-school fight. I didn’t know how to use it, but I was going to try if I had to. A bunch of girls followed me home, with Evette leading the pack and determined to kick my ass. Just so happened that my dad was riding by in his friend’s car when he saw the crowd of kids. He looked a little closer and saw that it was his baby about to get a beat down, despite swinging a knife at her would-be attackers. He stepped right in and carri
ed me out of there. To hear me tell the story the next day at school, I kicked butt and took names. I had the personality to convince everyone that I had won the fight.
Through my involvement with the YWCA and the Girl Scouts, I entered talent shows in Kinloch and the greater St. Louis area and usually won. I was gaining a reputation as a singer and when our choir visited other churches, I became the most requested soloist. These experiences were proof for me that I actually had the talent to become a star.
Around this time, I started to sneak out of the house to go to the movie theater in nearby Ferguson. My siblings and friends warned me not to go to Ferguson. It just wasn’t safe for black folks. But Ferguson had a movie theater and Kinloch did not. I would save a couple of dollars, get on the bus, and spend hours alone in the dark watching movies like Hello, Dolly! and Sweet Charity, which left a lasting impression on me. I could see my future self, and she was on-screen and she was glamorous, just like Barbra Streisand and Paula Kelly.
During my adolescence, we moved into a new house, where I finally had my own room, sort of; it was also the bathroom for the whole household. But I did have a curtain to separate me from the toilet.
Our household always had an undercurrent of tension, fear, and rage. There were mornings when Mama entered my room, pulled the bedclothes off me, and beat me for some infraction the night before. I was often miserable at home. When I wasn’t crying alone at night, I prayed hard for Jesus to come and make everything right.
The Mother of Black Hollywood Page 14