Burn Down the Ground

by Kambri Crews

  Burn Down the Ground is a work of nonfiction. Nonetheless, some of the names and personal characteristics of the individuals involved have been changed in order to disguise their identities. Any resulting resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and unintentional.

  Copyright © 2012 by Workshop Creations LLC

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Villard Books,

  an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group,

  a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  VILLARD BOOKS and VILLARD & “V” CIRCLED Design are

  registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Crews, Kambri.

  Burn down the ground : a memoir / Kambri Crews.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-345-53220-6

  1. Crews, Kambri. 2. Children of deaf parents—Biography.

  3. Texas—Biography. I. Title.

  HQ759.912.C74 2011

  306.874092—dc23 [B] 2011040828

  www.villard.com

  Cover design: Daniel Rembert

  Cover photograph: courtesy of the author

  v3.1

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Boars Head, 1978–1986

  Chapter 1: Kingpin

  Chapter 2: Montgomery Hillbillies

  Chapter 3: You’re the One That I Want (Oooh, Oooh, Oooh)

  Chapter 4: The Man of Steel

  Chapter 5: Half Baked

  Chapter 6: Showcase Showdown

  Chapter 7: Oklahoma!

  Chapter 8: Workin’ for a Livin’

  Chapter 9: Hellcat Under a Hot Tin Roof

  Chapter 10: Repo Man

  Grove Street, 1986–1987

  Chapter 11: The Miracle Worker

  Weyland Drive, 1987–1989

  Chapter 12: Sixteen Candles

  Chapter 13: A Petty Officer and a Gentleman

  Chapter 14: Excessive Noise Disturbance

  Chapter 15: Come Sail Away

  New York City, 2002–2008

  Chapter 16: Overboard

  Chapter 17: Witness for the Prosecution

  Chapter 18: Nothing but the Truth

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  It doesn’t matter who my father was;

  it matters who I remember he was.

  —ANNE SEXTON

  Dear Kambri,

  Thank you so much for the “USA Today” and for more money in Trust Fund. I wish you were rich so you can send more.

  I am in solitary for 30 days. What I did was insult the interpreter Mrs. Heath. Called her “Bitch Whore” after we argued. Anyway I don’t care if I stay in cell, and I don’t have money for the Commissary anyway.

  Will you visit me? Don’t forget to sneak a pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit from the Free World. Prison rules say don’t dress sexy or short skirt. I bet you know how to do it right. Wear big, loose shirt for hiding a Dairy Queen hamburger.

  Love, Daddy

  Daddy is Theodore R. Crews, Jr., or Inmate #13A46B7 to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. He lives in Huntsville—a city of thirty-five thousand located sixty-seven miles from Houston on Interstate 45 toward Dallas. It’s a nondescript Texas city, known for decent barbecue, Sam Houston State University, and Huntsville Prison—the former home of “Old Sparky,” a wooden electric chair handcrafted by inmates that was used to execute 361 men between 1924 and 1964.

  The prison is a lot less ominous than I expected. Except for the barbed wire, it reminds me of a school. It is a large, drab institution devoid of any color but with armed guards instead of hall monitors and a warden instead of a principal.

  I have never been to a prison before, so as I drive up to the gate my stomach is in knots. An overstuffed officer wearing cowboy boots, a ten-gallon hat, and a white handlebar mustache approaches my car and rattles off orders in a thick Texan drawl.

  “Pop the hood, open the trunk, and show me your ID.”

  I fumble with my wallet and hand him my driver’s license. He takes a glance and declares with a mischievous glint, “New York City? Get a rope!”

  I let out a nervous laugh but question his judgment. Is it really wise to joke about hangings at a prison famous for executions?

  He must figure that a woman in high heels from New York City would not be hiding a jumbo pack of gum in the waistband of her neatly pressed Banana Republic slacks. When his metal-detecting wand shrieks where the pack of gum is hidden, he dismisses it. “Don’t you worry, honey, it’s just your belt buckle.” I am not wearing a belt. Juicy Fruit, however, is wrapped in foil.

  I venture into the visiting area, a large open room that resembles a cafeteria with vending machines along the wall. There are two long tables with prisoners lined up on one side and visitors on the other. This is the contact visiting area, available only to immediate family members of inmates. What you see on television, with thick glass separating inmates from their visitors, is a non-contact visit. Those are for convicts on restriction for misbehaving, or non-relatives.

  Dad isn’t supposed to be allowed to see visitors here—he is serving a punishment of a year in segregation for striking a guard—but the warden is letting us have a contact visit because I traveled so far.

  Always one for small talk, I am surprised at how friendly the guards are. I imagined they would be stoic, with close-cropped hair and hands resting on their weapons.

  They give me warm smiles and polite nods and say things like “How’re you doing today, ma’am?” and “Sure is a beautiful day, isn’t it?” If I just look past their uniforms and guns, we could be anywhere.

  I wonder if they know Dad. Will they treat me differently when they see whom I’m here to visit? Should I apologize to them in advance?

  My father comes out of the caged holding area. I expect to see him wearing a fluorescent orange jumpsuit or bold prison stripes. Instead, he’s clad in all white, from the short-sleeved shirt over long johns down to his cotton pants and Chuck Taylors. He looks more like an orderly at a hospital than a hardened criminal.

  My delight at seeing Dad quickly turns to shock. The last time I saw him he was perfectly fit, but now he is hunched over, slowly shuffling his feet.

  Did he break something? Was he in another fight? Has he just aged? Has it been that long? Yes, it has been that long. Christmas 1997, nine years ago, when he spent the holidays with me and I bought him a VCR for that dilapidated trailer of his.

  I glance away and try to pull myself together. I look back and flash the biggest smile I can muster. With extra enthusiasm, I wave “I love you” in sign language. He weakly waves back but doesn’t answer, choosing instead to concentrate on his pained walk.

  I have let Dad rot in here alone.

  My eyes well up with tears just as my father kicks up his heels and dances a jig. He signs, “Ha ha! See what could happen? You should visit me more! I’m an old man!”

  I stand stunned for a second, my mouth literally falling open before I rouse myself to sign with big, sweeping gestures and a huge smile, “You J-E-R-K!” Dad gives me a hug—not a long one. A guard is standing close, hand ready at my father’s elbow, waiting to lead him to his designated chair across the long wooden table from me.

  But the strongest steel bars can’t cage charisma. Dad resumes walking with his trademark strut—cockiness dripping from every pore.

  There’s nothing to cry about. He is totally fine.

  I maintain my composure and act like every woman spends Christmas sneaking Juicy Fru
it to her father in prison.

  BOARS HEAD

  1978–1986

  KINGPIN

  I tugged on the belt loop of Mom’s skintight jeans, and waited for her to look down and acknowledge me. I wanted money to play Space Invaders in the bowling alley arcade, but she was concentrating on reading the lips of a balding deaf man who had two hooks for hands. Despite having no fingers, he tried to communicate with American Sign Language (ASL), scraping the curved metal claws against each other as if he were giving a Ginsu knife demonstration. My mother was an expert lip reader and kept her eyes focused on his mouth to make sense of the flurried flashes of metal; she bobbed her head up and down to let him know that she understood.

  I stared at the beige plastic attachments that encased each wrist and wondered how they stayed connected to his fleshy stubs. Did he take them off at night? Were they suction cups or drilled into his arms? I shuddered at the thought and watched how he made the hooks open and close.

  Was he born that way or did he have an accident? After contemplating both scenarios, I decided it would be better if he were born without hands. That way he wouldn’t know the difference. I couldn’t imagine that the world would be so cruel as to take the hands of a grown deaf man.

  As I stared at his signing, his hooks brushed perilously close to my face, causing me to reel back in fear. I had a brief horrifying image of running for my life being chased by him, with his grunts and wheezing breath hot on my neck. But Mom, who made fast friends with everyone she met, was perfectly at ease.

  I yanked harder and smacked her round bottom. “MAAAAMMMMAA!!!”

  “What?” Mom signed by waving her hand with the palm side up, exasperated at my persistence. “Can’t you see I’m talking?”

  “Need quarter,” I signed back.

  Mom could partially hear when she wore powerful hearing aids—one of which was always on the fritz, in need of a battery or screeching like brakes crying for new pads—but they were useless in the din of crashing bowling pins. For all practical purposes, she was as deaf as every other grown-up gathered in the dingy Tulsa bowling alley smelling of fried food, cigarettes, and beer. They had traveled here from all parts of the country to compete in the 1978 National Deaf Bowling Tournament, where Mom was scheduled to defend her title as women’s singles champion.

  This event was the type of activity the Deaf community created so that members could mingle. In the days before the Internet and mobile gadgets, the best way for the Deaf to socialize was old-fashioned face-to-face time through clubs, travel groups, cruises, and sporting events like fishing and bowling tournaments. While some fathers may have gravitated toward fishing and hunting, mine liked bowling because he could smoke, drink, and carouse between rounds. Mom liked it because she was damned good, with a 164 average. Usually her winnings were enough to pay for our trips with a little profit to boot.

  The National Deaf Bowling Association was founded in 1964, but the women’s singles had only been around for four years and Mom was already a force to be reckoned with. She loved to brag about how she was knocking down pins while knocked up with me. She’d bowled three days prior to my birth and was back in the alley three days later.

  The wooden lanes and alley lights may as well have been the stage and footlights of Broadway. She was a star and I was proud to say she was my mother.

  Mom answered my plea for a quarter by pantomiming empty front pockets and signing, “I’m out. Go ask your daddy.”

  Without hesitation, I turned on my heels and skipped to the bowling alley lounge, where I found my father leaning against the pool table holding court among a small gathering of onlookers.

  He held a cold can of Coors Light and a lit Kool in one hand and was signing with his free hand.

  “Two deaf people get married. The first week of living together they find it hard to talk in the bedroom after they turn off the lights.”

  I caught Dad’s eye and he gave me a quick wink as he gave the ASL sign for “wait” by wiggling his slim fingers palm side up, revealing the calluses from his years as a construction worker. Unlike my mother, Dad didn’t speak at all other than an occasional shout of a name or profanity aimed at a Dallas Cowboys game. When he did, his voice came out in an oddly high pitch with too much air behind it. He couldn’t read lips as well as Mom and didn’t move his mouth much when he signed.

  I let him finish the joke that he didn’t bother censoring, even though I was nearby. I had watched him tell it at least a dozen times. As he signed, the ash on his cigarette grew longer.

  “After several nights of misunderstandings, the wife comes up with a solution. ‘Honey, we need simple signals in the bedroom at night. If you want to have sex, just reach over and squeeze my breast once; and if you don’t want to have sex, squeeze it twice.’

  “The husband replies, ‘Great idea. If you want to have sex, pull my dick once. If you don’t want to have sex, pull it a hundred and fifty times.’ ”

  His audience erupted into a variety of loud grunts and squeals of laughter. One waved his hands, while another signed ASL letters, “H-A-H-A-H-A.” Dad chuckled at himself with a slight curl of his upper lip, making a dimple appear in his right cheek. He took a drag of his cigarette and the long, crooked ash finally broke off, landing on the worn, booze-stained carpet. A few flakes floated onto his dark blue jeans and he sent them flying with one forceful burst of breath. He inspected his appearance and brushed off the remaining ashes before he asked, “What’s wrong?”

  I signed back, “Need money.”

  “Okay, but don’t waste,” he warned before making a big production out of retrieving his wallet and fishing through its contents. I’d always thought of my father like a deaf Elvis. Tall, muscular, and handsome with dark hair combed back into a modern pompadour, he could charm the skin off a snake. His friends were caught in his magnetic spell and kept their eyes trained on our exchange. Dad seized the opportunity to remain in the spotlight. He grabbed my shoulder and whisked me around to face his fans.

  “Do you know my daughter? Her name K-A-M-B-R-I.” In ASL, it is customary to introduce someone by first spelling out the name letter by letter followed up with a shorthand sign, a “Name Sign,” to refer to that person. A person’s Name Sign often uses the first letter of their name in ASL incorporated with the sign that indicates a physical or personal characteristic, such as a big smile or a goatee or, in my case, my temperament as a baby.

  Dad signed each letter slowly so they had time to soak in my unusual name. He then drew a tear on each of his cheeks using the middle finger of the ASL letter “K” to show them the sign he and Mom had created for me.

  “Why tears with a ‘K’? Because when she was a baby she never cried. No. Never. Always laugh, laugh, laugh.”

  He patted my head and smiled. I looked back at the adult faces staring at me and forced my lips into a smile—not quite the hyena Dad was describing—as I waited for the money. As was always the case when I was introduced to deaf people, the first question was, “Hearing?”

  Dad signed, “Yes, hearing.”

  I sensed a twinge of disappointment in their expressions, a typical reaction when deaf friends learned I wasn’t one of them. I understand it now, but as a seven-year-old kid I found myself wishing I had been born deaf, too. Then I would belong to the tight-knit Deaf community instead of being just an honorary member.

  “Very smart,” Dad bragged. “Good girl. Nickname ‘Motor Mouth.’ ”

  You know you talk a lot when your deaf family nicknames you Motor Mouth.

  Dad passed me a crisp bill, and my eyes widened when I saw it was a five. Five bucks would get me an icy Dr Pepper, greasy crinkle fries, and plenty of games in the arcade.

  “Share with your brother,” he signed with a warning raise of his brow.

  David could fend for himself. Besides, I reasoned, he was three and a half years older than me and better at most video games. One quarter lasted him a hell of a long time; surely he didn’t need any more money. After a
quick thank-you to Dad and a half-assed wave to his friends, I left the dark, smoky hideaway and headed straight for the snack bar.

  In the game room, I found David dominating Space Invaders, as usual. He swayed and ducked, jerked the joystick, and repeatedly bashed the fire button as a crowd of admiring onlookers grew around him. He must have been within reach of the machine’s high score, a feat I’d witnessed him achieve once before.

  “Totally rad!” a kid shouted, giving David a slap on the back.

  “Yeah, totally!” said another with a high-five. My brother accepted the accolades from his minions, who always flitted behind him, with a smug smirk.

  “That was so neat, man!”

  A freckle-faced kid challenged, “Yeah, but can you reach the end?”

  “Video games don’t end,” another kid stated with certainty.

  “Oh yeah? Well then how far does it go?”

  We weren’t totally sure. Each round became progressively harder so it was difficult imagining a game lasting forever. But if you were winning, why would a game just quit? David seemed in line to be our exploratory leader, a twentieth-century Christopher Columbus.

  I smacked down a quarter on the glass screen with a crack, claiming my place as the next player in line, and waited for him to lose.

  “Go away,” he demanded. “You’re gonna fuck me up.”

  David was skinnier than a dried stick of spaghetti and, at ten years old, already as tall as many adults. Like me, his hair was as white as hotel sheets with skin browned from frolicking every day in the blazing South Texas heat without a drop of sunscreen. David returned to concentrating on his game, so I ignored his command and lingered long enough to see him lose a turn.

  “See!” he yelled as he gave a quick jab to my arm. “Look at what you made me do!”

  I yelped in pain and poked the lump where he had knuckle-punched me.

  “I told you to go away,” he hissed. “Stop watching me.”

  The End was apparently not in sight as long as I was present. David’s cronies sneered at me. I was jeopardizing my brother’s attempt at immortality, so I retreated to the Pong machine. When I ran out of quarters, I sprinted back to the lanes, where the hook-handed man was stepping up to bowl. He had replaced his right hook with a special contraption that gripped his bowling ball. As he charged down the alley, he used his left hook to whack some lever or button that sent his ball barreling toward the pins. I had no idea how many he knocked down or if his aim was any good. Did it matter? A deaf man with hooks for hands was bowling.