Out of the Madness

by Jerrold Ladd

  In the beginning of my days on Lenway, I was left alone, encouraged to look around the neighborhood and help myself to the plethora of food in the two refrigerators. Two refrigerators! My mother warned me, though, that I was expected to enroll in the local high school, James Madison. I was sixteen and had been missing many days of school, attending about one-quarter of each school year.

  Over the next few weeks, I explored south Dallas on the several buses assigned to this section of town. The 44 Oakland route continued past Lincoln High School, down Bexar Street to the rough Bonton projects. I rode the 14 Lagow and 12 Second routes, which both passed by the state fair of Texas, the east Dallas projects, the Dixon Circle hood and active Hatcher and Second streets. I saw Lincoln High School, from where the young students would walk down Bexar, Hatcher, and Oakland, curiously watching their people.

  South Dallas was a paradox to me, far from my expectations. It was where I would be forced past normal restraints, with my efforts for survival, where I would mature into a man.

  Among other things, south Dallas had a diverse mixture of people: neighborhoods full of elders who wanted nothing more than meager survival; young men who were a breed tougher, more violent, less tolerant; young ladies with children who desired only a basic, poverty-level home. South Dallas also had the others, the ones who were less satisfied, who were persistent in their attempts for the white American way of life, the security. They desired to live comparative with technology at that time. They felt swindled out of happiness, forced into lifetimes of sickening poverty. Their missions were those of redemption, extrication, using whatever tactics they saw fit—robbery, drug dealing, schemes. Unlike the ones who performed these acts for survival only, these people did so for other reasons. I would come to know many of them personally.

  I enrolled into school and into the job program, so I could leave school early and look for work. Although my mother had some excess money now, she still wouldn’t buy me school supplies. She felt I was old enough now to get things like that for myself—I kept my simple clothes washed and pressed.

  The routine at the house was fairly straightforward. Alvin would work all day, then spend the evening in his room with my mother or at the church. My sister worked all day doing housekeeping for a hotel and spent her leisure time visiting friends, her new boyfriend, Marcus Greer, and going to church also. And I mostly went to school and, afterward, would engage in teenage interests.

  On my first ventures into the neighborhood I met Eric, who attended Lincoln High School, where he played on the basketball team. He lived several streets away in a crowded apartment with his many brothers and sisters. He was about my age, sixteen, and still learning the streets like me.

  Eric piqued my interest in basketball. We would go to the Martin Luther King Center, or to Wheatley Park, to shoot hoops. Often, people from the neighborhood would have big jam festivals down at the park, loud stereo systems: the lusty young girls and the hardened young men, who would be relaxing and cooling in their reefer and forty-ounce high. Everyone played the emerging rap music. Tempers stayed short; tension stayed high.

  I was with Eric when I drank my first beer, more out of curiosity than anything else; I hated the taste. The drinking age was still eighteen, and we both looked eighteen, so he and I would buy forty-ounces in the morning before school and after we had played a hard afternoon of basketball. This was all too common among most of us young naive boys, who were venturing more, becoming more streetwise.

  Around then, too, my interest in girls was growing. I especially admired the dark girl with shoulder-length hair who walked past my house each evening after school. I would make sure I was in the front yard, raking leaves or trimming the bush near the window when school let out. She was really developed for her age, narrow waistline and shapely thighs and hips. She seemed shy, would swiftly walk down my street while being escorted by a young man.

  One day, my courage strong, I stopped her. I told her I had been watching her and wondering if she lived nearby. She said yeah, and that she had been watching me, too. She said she, as she passed with her brother, would ask him if I was watching her. We exchanged phone numbers, agreeing to call one another.

  We began to talk on the phone or in person after school, sometimes for several hours. Her name was Lisa*; and she and I had a lot in common. We both were quiet and not interested in more than one relationship. Neither of us had had any serious social experience. She was still a virgin.

  She lived with her aunt, one street over, who had a lot of relatives living there, because her mother had some psychological problems; and her dad didn’t come around. Lisa was required to do a lot of house chores, since her aunt was letting her and her brother stay there. This was common among black families, that a relative would be treated as a subordinate or constantly intimidated if he or she had nowhere else to live. The relative either took the unfair treatment or moved.

  Lisa was so sweet, flashing her beautiful, sincere smile all the time, humbly putting up with her problems. I visited her at her house all the time. Her family—cousins, uncles, and all—liked me, thought that she had made a good pick. So Lisa and I began a relationship.

  I met another person then, too, who, unknown to me, would become a close friend. We met after my reputation as a pretty fair rapper had spread through the neighborhood. I had begun doing things like that in my spare time, writing rap lyrics and poetry. I recited my lyrics one day at the park before a crowd of about fifty people. And the people really liked it.

  Vernon*, eighteen, also wrote prolific rap lyrics. He was a very serious person and also dangerous—he had shot people. He was so surprised that a new guy in town was impeding upon his unblemished rap fame that he came to my house and asked to hear my lyrics. Standing about my five feet ten, he listened, evaluated my lyrics, then recited some of his own. He was good. Later he told me he was forming a rap group, and once more details developed, he would get back with me. I liked him, so I told him to keep in touch. Who knew, maybe we could attract some serious attention.

  But one night Vernon came to my house nearly in tears. Men in Grand Prairie had shot his young female cousin to death, and he was trying to gather his friends to get revenge. I thought about going with him, was flattered he considered me his friend. But we were not that close, not yet, anyway.

  News of death poured in after I heard about Vernon’s cousin. First we received word about the tragedy of Ms. Ruthy Mae, the old junk lady from the projects. Her daughter, Sweet Baby*, had been bringing tricks over. After Sweet Baby ran off with one’s money, he bashed in Ms. Ruthy Mae’s head with a hammer while her granddaughter witnessed the whole horrible thing. The killer took and tied the little girl to a tree. After several hours, some guys noticed and untied her. She ran home screaming for her grandmother. Relatives later came and took her away.

  A week later we got the news of my uncle James’s death. He and his wife had separated but were living in the same neighborhood with each other. I was told that she had been dating a white man who also lived nearby. Uncle James, who was short and stocky, got into a scuffle with this man. When he slipped, the white man pounced on Uncle James and stabbed him once in the heart as he lay on the ground. I felt for my three little cousins, who now would be split up among the family.

  As Vernon and I grew closer, I visited him at his house more often. I soon found out that as a youth he had lived in the projects—the sections in the projects were so big that people could live there for years and never know each other. This gave Vernon and me a deep familiarity and respect for each other, even though he had spent most of his teenage developing years in south Dallas. Around his duplex house, I was surprised by how much his family shouted at one another, Vernon especially. They constantly, angrily debated everything. Even Vernon’s little sister, Yolanda*, a straight-A student and a pretty little girl about nine years old, would scream her lungs out.

  Vernon’s family was among the elite among the tough blacks of south Dallas. His father was
feared at the prominent prison he was held in. Both his two uncles—one small, one average-size, both in their early thirties—had been to prison several times, yet not for some hothead crime, the kind young, ignorant people committed. They were the kind of men who could put a gun into a man’s mouth and blow his brains out without the slightest remorse; men who had wrestled police officers about to murder one of them; men who were way above average intelligence, who understood this system and society better than most people. They were the type who would lay down their lives at the drop of a hat for what they believed in and who would remain loyal to a true friend until death. They reminded me of my older friend in the projects, the cool brother, in that they had a hidden knowledge and lore. Vernon had learned much from their settled, unflaunted wisdom. I would learn from them also.

  In another way, they reminded me of other people I knew. For Vernon’s uncles were both on dope real bad. One was an expert thief. He would go downtown and come home with sacks of clothes. His other uncle had been in prison over half his life. He also stole and sold, or traded, the merchandise for dope. For all their wisdom and common sense, they didn’t have the power to implement one thing. They had been silenced and snuffed out so thoroughly.

  I was spending all my time away from home, either with Lisa or with Vernon. Eric had become more occupied than I with his love of basketball. Things were looking up. I had buckled down at school, was gradually improving. My mother was doing fine. And my sister was working at a day care center.

  Lisa had begun to come over to my house. My mother realized I wasn’t very sexually active, so she would try to keep an eye on Lisa and me. But we managed to be alone several times when my mother was at church. Because of her responsibilities at home, though, Lisa and I spent more time at her house.

  In December 1986, the winter weather was still around, and everybody stayed bundled up. Lisa invited me to a Christmas party her family intended to throw. Word was around the neighborhood that she was my girl, with my always being on her street and all. And Lisa and I were growing closer, sharing deep secrets.

  For example, she had a very masculine uncle who really approved of me. He often wanted to take me aside for small conversations, which never aroused my suspicion. “Jerrold,” Lisa said, “I want you to be careful around him. I’m not going to tell you why. Just trust me.” I immediately figured he was gay, and Lisa admitted this. But he’s not exactly that, she said. He likes both men and women and, sometimes, children, she told me.

  Although I was too ashamed to let Lisa see, finding out he possibly had violated a child evoked the sad incident from my past. After Lisa’s revelation, I became uncomfortable when I visited her. So we would sit on her porch more, instead of inside the house. She was content with this, being the understanding person she was, but she made me promise to come inside during the Christmas party. She was all excited about some of her distant female cousins, whom she wanted to introduce to me during the party.

  The way a lot of blacks celebrated Christmas in the poorest, toughest sections was not how one might expect. Christmas carols were not sung, mistletoe was not hung. Instead, everybody would glow from strong liquor. Strong black tunes would be played, Johnnie Taylor, Bobby Bland, Latimore, and so on. In a smoke-filled dim room, the old heads (elders) would get on the floor, grinding each other with those old dance steps; the younger ones, in their early twenties, would be just as laid back and settled. A couple whispering to one another in a corner. A fat lady working her hips and big behind, dancing with somebody’s drunk daddy. Liquor bottles everywhere.

  On the night of the party, Lisa came to my house, looking all pretty in her makeup and tight jeans. I was looking forward to drinking with the older folks and maybe doing a rap for them. I had not been to many house parties, so I had that youthful excitement. I was so anxious to get rolling that I didn’t pay much attention to what was going on at my house. I had been staying away too much to notice the settled changes; yet when I left, my mother was sitting in the living room reading her Bible. Like an omen, her twisted worried look had returned. That was odd, I thought. There was no need to worry; everything was fine for her. I made a point to ask her about that later.

  At the party, Lisa’s family was cooling all the way when she and I arrived. She introduced me to her female cousins and their older boyfriends. Then she introduced me to her male cousins, who had brought their dates along also. After a short conversation with them, Lisa grabbed my hand and led me through the haze to meet one of her special cousins, who was sitting in a corner with his girl. At first I thought something was very familiar about his girl, her posture, her slim figure. But I could hardly see her in the dark, until she turned to greet us.

  It wasn’t too difficult. Some residue of her still remained. She was still kind and gentle, still greeted me with her soft, compassionate voice. But the rest of her was in terrible shape. She was filthy. Her hair was wild, her clothes dirty. Now on heroin, she had drug marks on her arms. And her eyes had changed, now had that same reflection of betrayal, the way she looked on the day I blackened her eye. Why had this happened to her, to the first girl I had ever kissed, who had shared my first small flame?

  Gloria recognized me but was too ashamed to keep looking, although she did murmur a wry hello and offer a spiritless smile. I spoke to her, wanted to pull her to the side and find out what had happened. But I didn’t because of her jealous boyfriend. I left the party early that night.

  Few things in life have shocked me more than seeing Gloria destroyed. During my stay on Lenway Street, I never shook the ill feeling, the dread, she gave me. She had been so sweet and wanted so badly to make it out, but, once again, she lacked self-reliance. So she had been forged and pounded into a dope addict by the circumstances of her life. Gloria had followed in the footsteps of her mother. A normal, natural thing to do.

  10

  MIND WILDERNESS

  When she began to leave the house at odd times, I knew my mother was back on drugs, that the snare of her past was reeling her in, by the same gradual pace in which it had freed her. Alvin was ignorant about this, and neither my sister nor I told him, thinking it was just a temporary setback. Why was she doing this? Alvin was treating her well, and everything had been going okay. As well as I knew my mother, the cause avoided me, until I came from outside one day and Big Mary was sitting in our living room.

  “Hey, there’s my handsome nephew,” she slithered.

  I stopped dead in my tracks and looked at her intensely for several moments. But there was nothing I could do. I knew my mother would defend her with a dope fiend’s loyalty. So Big Mary was the reason. She had moved to south Dallas and sniffed my mother out. She had hunted her down and caught her during her weak stages.

  And once everything was in the open, Big Mary kept coming around; so my mother kept slipping away. She was desperate now, praying all night, fasting for weeks at a time. But nothing worked for her. She had been on heroin so long that the slightest disruption threw her life in disarray. And Big Mary was a strange woman.

  I just stopped seeing Lisa. I couldn’t let her know what I was going through. I wanted and needed her kind support. But I wouldn’t return her phone calls and letters. She had enough problems. After several weeks she stopped inquiring, and later she moved away. Within two years Lisa married a young man, joined the minimum-wage work force, and had a son.

  Soon my sister moved away. Then the skeletons came out of the closet and chased my mother around the house. She sold everything except the kitchen sink. Alvin just couldn’t understand. Saddened, he would ask me what was going wrong, why my mother was in need for so much money. But I couldn’t tell him, couldn’t do that to her.

  He put things together and got my mother to confess her shortcomings. Now, I had been sympathetic of Alvin up to this point—after all, my mother had hid her past from him—but what he did next hurt her more than anything. He abandoned her, just packed his bags and moved away while she and I were gone. My mother must have
known that this was coming because she didn’t miss a step, getting back on dope after his departure. If he had given her some real support, I believe she could have pulled through. But he left and took all the resources with him.

  Sherrie had found a new job working at a day care center and was getting more serious with her new boyfriend. She knew, as I did, what my mother was up to, and she was also very disappointed. After Alvin left, my mother charged my sister rent and tried to squeeze all the money she could from her. As loyal as my sister was to our mother, she eventually became fed up and moved in with her good friend Pam.

  I left school again and returned to the industrial, factory streets of cheap labor. I had, after a week or so, luckily stumbled on a maintenance position for a carpet cleaning company, minimum wage, of course. It was two hours away on the city bus.

  I worked about twelve hours a day, then another four hours catching the bus, in the beginning. I would get up about four A.M. to get there around six-thirty. The company only had about ten employees. I had many responsibilities. I worked in the warehouse, cleaning and sorting the equipment, stacking big barrels of chemicals. In the offices, I cleaned, vacuumed, dusted, and took out trash. I also cleaned the four bathrooms, their all-around handyman.

  Yet there was no way to pay for all the bills—lights, water, rent, phone, food—in a house while making minimum wage. So I begged a foreman to let me try cleaning carpets. After I received several days’ training, I would work in the evenings after I had completed my day shift. We cleaned carpets at night, when most businesses were closed. I would go with the white men and let them assign me the undesired chores, scrubbing on my hands and knees for hours. I stayed quiet, never complaining. Sometimes I worked until after midnight and even later. The buses stopped running after midnight, so usually one of the employees would give me a ride as far as downtown, from where I would drag myself home. Later, the sympathetic owner gave me a key to the building and let me spend the night whenever I worked late. I would curl up near one of the desks and try to keep warm—they didn’t run the heat after hours.