Foxy

by Pam Grier

  This was about a year before the assassination of JFK. Though on the surface there seemed to be calm, underneath, politics and civil rights were reaching a boiling point. For example, that year a riot occurred on the campus of the University of Mississippi in Oxford because of desegregation. Two people were killed and at least seventy-five were injured. Hundreds of troops were brought in to join federal forces already stationed in Oxford as the violence spread to its streets.

  As a result of this and other desegregation efforts, many neighborhoods across the country became victims of “white flight,” including our little neighborhood. Whites left in droves when blacks started purchasing the houses next door. Remember the old expression “There goes the neighborhood”? White people who previously loved their neighborhoods were selling their homes at rock-bottom prices and moving elsewhere, which allowed us to move in. Add to that the case of Brown v. Board of Education, in which segregation in schools was made illegal, and now we were also facing the controversial issue of busing, as it was being implemented for the first time. The foundation that we had hoped to build in our peaceful little neighborhood was now a bubbling well of political unrest.

  Although Dad sent us money each month, sometimes the envelope contained as little as five dollars. Mom never complained. She was a real Buddhist in that way, accepting things as they were, rejecting the idea that if the man of the house didn’t bring home the bacon, the whole family would starve. Rather, she embraced a new school of thought, the women’s movement, where you earned the bacon yourself if need be, you protected your family, covered for your husband any way you could, and you did your best never to flaunt that in his face. Mom wanted Dad to have the luxury of retiring to a lovely new home with his family all around him. She didn’t care that she had to work the graveyard shift in the hospital ER at the University of Colorado in Denver to keep up the payments.

  When Dad finally retired and arrived in Denver, he had never seen our new home before. Mom had told him it was gorgeous, brick, tri-level, with lots of bedrooms and land, but he was stunned. I don’t know what he was expecting when the taxi pulled up, but he told the driver, “Please wait here. This can’t be the right place.”

  The taxi idled while Dad rang the bell. He knew how little money he’d been sending home and that we could never afford a house this nice. But sure enough, there we all were, throwing our arms around him as we welcomed him to his new life. Mom never asked why he had sent so little money. She avoided battling with him or reprimanding him. Instead, she greeted him with open arms and proudly showed him the big, beautiful kitchen, the brand-new carpeting, the new glass table in the dining room, and the stereo system, with everything freshly cleaned and painted. It was our dream home, and we were ecstatic when Marky told Mom she didn’t have to pay back the loan. She and Daddy Ray had not sent Mom to college like they did her sister (who drank her way through school) because they had had no money at the time, so this was how they intended to make up for it.

  Dad slowly tried to adjust to his retirement, working the land with his friend, gardener-landscaper Hank. The grass in front of our home was like a soft green carpet, and I loved lying down on it and staring up at the clouds. Quite a few Korean families had moved into the neighborhood, since they were worldly and accustomed to living around people who were different. Their homes and yards were magnificent and so were those of the Japanese families who owned the landscaping companies. In this way, our block reminded me of our life in Swindon, where people from diverse ethnic backgrounds were living harmoniously and helping each other.

  While Mom continued to work the night shift at the ER, Dad was like a lost soul. If he could have passed a simple test, he could have worked for good money in a nearby military finance center as an administrator, a common job for a retiree. But Dad didn’t follow through, since he was so ill-prepared to be a civilian. I tried not to judge him. Mom said, “People are who they are, and I guess being a financial administrator is not right for your father.”

  Mom wanted Dad to be the best man he could be and to find his way, no matter how long it took. But the reality of life made her goad him gently. “I don’t mean to push,” she said, “but we have three growing children now who all get hungry. We have a home where we can settle and get them ready for college. That was our dream for our kids. Remember? All these opportunities are opening for people with better educations these days. Getting an education is the only way our children will ever earn the respect they deserve. You really need to work now so we can give them what they need.”

  A long time passed in this way, while Dad considered going to work for the post office. Government jobs paid well, and many military retirees took those jobs. But he was not drawn to that, either. As he tried to build a new life for himself and floundered, the guilt was eating him alive. It didn’t help when his friends said, “Hey, man, that’s some house you bought your family.”

  “I didn’t buy it,” he said. It was a bitter pill to swallow and to talk about. A military man through and through, Dad couldn’t accept his wife making more money than he did. Mom had encouraged him to take the officer training course so he could get that finance job, even if it was only for a little while, but he had no confidence in himself.

  “Clarence,” Mom said, “you’re very intelligent. No one ever tells you that, but I know you are. You can do anything you want if you put your mind to it.” Dad loved aeronautics more than anything, and he desperately wanted to remain working in that field, but his racial identity, once again, was making it impossible.

  Mom did not get through to him, partly due to his stubbornness and partly because she had no skills to communicate such sensitive issues with the right kind of tact and gentleness. She must have scared him and made him feel inferior because she was so scared herself. Soon, their bickering escalated into full-blown shouting matches, which they tried to confine to times when we kids were in school. But when their rage and resentments got out of hand, we often took my little sister, Gina, next door so she wouldn’t have to hear their screaming and name-calling.

  One afternoon when I was about thirteen, I came home from school to hear my parents going at each other inside their bedroom. I was tiptoeing down the hall, trying to get to my room before they saw me, when Mom ran into the hallway, a look of deep pain contorting her face. I stepped close to their bedroom door and looked in. Dad was packing a suitcase.

  “Where you goin’, Dad?” I asked, suddenly frightened.

  He looked at me with rage in his eyes. “I’m moving,” he said, “and you’re never gonna see me again.”

  I fell to the floor, sobbing, as Mom tried to calm me. “He doesn’t mean it,” she said, holding me. “He loves you. Of course you’ll see him again.”

  “He just said I wouldn’t,” I said through my sobs. “Where is he going? Why is he leaving us? What did I do?”

  About twenty minutes later, Dad stomped out of the house, carrying his suitcase. I remember sitting on the bed with Mom and two-year-old Gina, all three of us crying. Although they still loved each other, Mom and Dad could not resolve their issues because of the terrible things they had said to each other in the heat of anger.

  Dad never moved back home again. He went to live with a roommate in an apartment, and he finally took a job working at the post office. We kids hoped Mom and Dad would make up and at least become friends, but that didn’t happen. There was very little family therapy available back then and no books or TV shows with advice on how to communicate with the opposite sex. Mom and Dad had no idea how to mend their wounds enough to get back together and start over. Or to be friends. And so we all chipped in as best we could to make ends meet and deal with the sudden blow of losing our hero: our father.

  CHAPTER 7

  Going Gospel

  We were on our own now, and when we needed help, Mom had to call on our neighbor Hank. Or we went to the hardware store and tried to fix things ourselves. Mom had let Dad go without demanding much money from him. She figured
she was making more money than he was and we kids could chip in as well. But the less Mom called on him, the less he showed up, until we rarely saw him, if ever. Maybe he couldn’t face us. Maybe he was ashamed and embarrassed. Whatever the reason, he was moving on, dating other women, and making himself scarce among us kids.

  It was disappointing that my years at school in Denver were laden with the same old prejudice and judgments from the past, and sometimes I got into fights with the other kids. I never provoked anyone or started the fights myself, but my deep silence scared people, and sometimes they became aggressive to get a rise out of me. One particular fight stands out. The irony of it was that I’d never met the girl named Christine who supposedly sent a message through a friend, Gail, that she would “see” me in the school yard when class was over.

  “Who?” I said. I was feeling tense and anxious.

  “Christine.”

  “I never even heard of her. What does she think I did?” I asked.

  “Well, you must have done something,” Gail said. “She’s really upset.”

  When I arrived at the school yard to see what was going on, sure enough, there stood a tall, big-boned blonde girl I’d never met, waiting for me. Apparently, it was Christine, and she looked mad as hell. This had to be some kind of mistake, so I tried to nip it in the bud. I walked right up to her and said, “I don’t know what I did, but I apologize. I don’t know you, and I have no idea what’s going on.”

  In response, she shoved me hard, knocking my books out of my hands. She wanted to fight. I couldn’t believe it. Who the hell was she, and what did she have against me? The other kids pushed us toward each other and egged us on, forming a circle around us as we began to exchange blows. Suddenly, it was white against black, and Christine, completely deranged and angry, started circling her arms round and round like a windmill. The principal and a few teachers heard the sounds, but they couldn’t get through the tight circle of kids that was keeping us barricaded.

  I had studied karate and jiujitsu at one of our military bases, so when I saw that she was mentally losing it, I used my training to put an end to the fight with one shot to Christine’s side. I took her down, and for a moment I thought I’d killed her. I guess there had been plenty of rage behind my punch. But she began to stir as the crowd dispersed and the adults came running in. We both got into trouble, but everyone had seen her start the fight by shoving me.

  Later, Christine and I realized that we both had been victims of our peers, who had manipulated and provoked us so they could watch us fight. We had nothing against each other, and we became friends for a while, based on the fact that someone had wanted to see me beat her up, aware that she had no fighting skills at all. Unfortunately, these were the mean pranks that junior high school kids liked to play on each other. But I refused to act in ways that were destructive to my own race. I was trying to remember the things that many of us had forgotten along the way: Everyone deserves respect, and fighting is not the way to achieve it.

  As if Mom were not being tested enough as sole head of a growing family, shortly after Dad and Mom separated, Aunt Mennon’s three kids moved in. Mennon was drinking and partying so hard her kids had no supervision, and they came over to our house one day in tears. Mom would’ve been justified in explaining to them that she was in over her head already, that her husband had left her and she was working overtime. But that was not her way.

  “You move in with us,” she told my cousins. “I have a big house, and I can do this. I know I can. You’re my nieces and nephews, and if everyone does their share, we can get through this together.”

  We got bunk beds to accommodate three more kids, and I happily moved my cousin Krista into my room. From that day on, she was my sister, not my cousin. I also began to do some lawn jobs with some of my other cousins and my brother. Or I would babysit. I did anything I could to be able to contribute to the family bills. My oldest cousin, Raymond, became man of the house. He did the repairs my father used to do, and we all kept the place immaculate and cooked great meals for Mom when she got home from work. She didn’t have to lift a finger around the house, and we always had a flourishing garden of fresh vegetables and a ton of love. More than enough to go around.

  It was a good thing that Mom could rest when she got home, because she was completely torn apart by the divorce. I know she had some sleepless nights, and so did I. But my cousins moving in with us helped to distract us both. Mom had never been one to sit around and feel sorry for herself. She said soon after the cousins moved in, “I don’t have any more time or energy to cry every night over my husband. I have to feed and clothe all these kids.”

  Sometimes there were eight of us (including a few friends) gathered around our dining room table, eating spaghetti and venison. When my mom would take Krista to buy a new sweater, in the spirit of cooperation, Krista would ask me what color I liked so we could share it. During this time, Mom worked her butt off at the hospital and raising us kids. I can see now that she was the role model I used for the industrious nurse in my movie Coffy.

  In the meantime, Aunt Mennon was my character in Foxy Brown, a wild and uncontrollable woman with a lot of rage. Mennon resented the fact that her kids were safer and happier in our house than in hers, and one night, when she was drunk out of her mind, she tried to tear the front door of our house off the hinges. A few days later, when I got home from school, I heard Mennon and Krista in the bedroom that we shared, shouting at each other. Apparently Mennon had staggered over to our house, full of gin, and tried to get her kids to come home. She had only her daughter Becky, who was still young, left with her. “Who’s going to watch Becky for me when I need to go out?” was Mennon’s argument—not a very alluring or convincing one for her kids.

  When I rushed upstairs and opened the bedroom door, Krista and Mennon were physically duking it out. The room was in shambles, the closet was torn apart, clothing was strewn everywhere, and blood was dripping down Krista’s blouse. I ran to alert Raymond, who had just gotten home from his road construction job. He flew into the room and pulled them apart like they were wild dogs. Then he guided his own intoxicated mother down the stairs and out the door, and he locked it behind her. She shrieked obscenities before she staggered away, and that was the last time Mennon was ever allowed in our home.

  I tried not to be angry at my dad for leaving us with so much trouble, but the longer he was gone, the more shy I became. Mom hoped that involving me in music and dance would help—that is, until racial prejudice reared its ugly head once again. It didn’t take long for me to realize that strangers in a foreign country had treated me better than my fellow Americans did.

  For example, I tried to take riding lessons, but the equestrian center treated us like the hired help. Literally. When Mom and I entered the front door of the riding school, the barn director thought we were there to clean out the stables, and he directed us to a back entrance.

  “No, no. I’m here to sign up my daughter for riding lessons,” said Mom, trying to stay calm.

  The barn director looked amused. “The class is completely filled up,” he said out of the corner of his mouth.

  We walked away discouraged. We knew that he was lying. There was always room for one more student in the equestrian world.

  Mom and I continued our uphill battle against racial rigidity to find some diversions for me. It was more of the same. When I tried to take dancing lessons, the teacher discriminated against us and refused to let me join the dance academy. The same thing happened with the music academy. I already knew more about music than all the other kids my age. At seven years old, I’d studied the fundamentals of classical music in England, and we’d compared the excellence of top jazz musicians like John Coltrane to the sounds of contemporary classical artists.

  Still, the music teacher told my mother in hushed tones that she’d love to teach me, but the other parents would withdraw their kids. We were discouraged and might have given up if one amazing woman had not stepped forward on
my behalf. A German piano teacher from school, Mrs. Heinemann, approached my mom when she heard I’d been turned away. “I’ll give your daughter private lessons at home if you can get hold of a piano,” she offered.

  Mom and I smiled ear to ear. My grandfather had a piano in his house because he moonlighted as a drummer and bassist with a popular Polynesian band to supplement his income. The group met at his place to practice, so he had all the instruments there.

  “When can I start?” I asked excitedly.

  A few afternoons later, Mrs. Heinemann, her long, soft gray hair pulled back in a bun, arrived at my grandfather’s house with a stack of sheet music in her wonderful, beaten-up, leather briefcase. She placed her cane against the wall and we got to work. After I’d done my exercises, she played for me, and the neighbors would all sit out on their front porches to listen. It seemed that she’d dreamed of joining a symphony orchestra—she was a superior musician—but her husband had prevented it. Maybe between Germany suffering its own share of prejudice and her husband keeping her on a tight rein, Mrs. Heinemann understood how it felt to be judged and left out.

  For whatever reason, once a week like clockwork, cane in hand, she took the bus from the white side of town to the black side to teach me. When it started to get dark early, my grandfather drove her home so she didn’t have to take public transportation at night in an all-black neighborhood.

  In June, when the kids from school were having their end-of-the-year recital, Mrs. Heinemann talked to the school principal about letting me take part. “She’s a really good student,” she coaxed. She had her personal motives for wanting me to participate because she was so proud of my progress around so many obstacles. But he wouldn’t budge, afraid of angering and distancing the other parents.