by Till-Mobley, Mamie; Benson, Christopher; Jackson, Jesse Rev (FRW)
Gene helped me with Emmett’s gifts. We coordinated. He was always helping to dress Bo. Gene was sharp. He always was a very good dresser and Bo always wanted to be one. I can’t recall how many times I heard Bo compliment Gene on something he was wearing and then I would find it in Bo’s closet. For this Christmas, I bought Bo a black suit, white shirt, and some dress shoes. Gene bought him a wide-brim hat, a beautiful tie, and a gray coat. They picked out that coat together at Carson Pirie Scott. And I hated that coat. I wanted a coat that would conform more to his body, but this was just a big, old loose coat. No belt, no nothing. It made him look big to me. But Emmett assured me that he’d gotten the coat he wanted. It was pretty expensive. I think it cost over a hundred dollars.
Emmett bought Gene some socks and handkerchiefs. He bought just about each woman on his list a box of candy. A Whitman’s Sampler. On every occasion, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, every special day, I could always count on him buying me a box of these chocolates, and I always thought it was the sweetest thing. Every now and then, he would try something different. I remember once he bought me a bottle of Evening in Paris, a drugstore fragrance. I let him know how much I appreciated the thought, and how he didn’t have to spend all his money on me. Really. The box of candy would be just fine. But this Christmas, he didn’t think that would be enough. Oh, I got my Whitman’s Sampler, all right, but Emmett also gave me a beautiful scarf he had shopped several stores to find.
When we got the tree all decorated and the presents spread out around it, I stood back and I looked at it all and thought about how blessed we were, how far we had come. I called Mama and shared the moment with her. I told her we had never seen a Christmas like that one. It was then I realized my Christmas that year was revolving around Emmett. It really was. At that blessed moment, he was the center of everything for me, and I wanted him to feel that way.
As people came in on Christmas Day, most rushed to the tree and grabbed whatever gifts they saw with their name tags. Mama and Papa Spearman spent a long time moving around that tree. It really was something to behold.
“You’ve been very foolish,” Mama finally said to me, all the while looking for her gift. And checking out the other ones along the way. “You’ll be paying for this the rest of your life.”
Maybe. But at that moment, my whole life was right there in my home with my family. It was all that mattered and I was going to enjoy it, no matter what.
Christmas dinner was a feast at my place that year, truly fit for the kind of day I had hoped it would be. Mama prepared part of the dinner at my apartment, and Aunt Magnolia cooked some of it downstairs at her place. Mama made the turkey, the dressing, the gravy, and the yeast rolls. Aunt Mag made the greens—because nobody could make greens like Aunt Magnolia—and she had potatoes and chits and sweet potato pies. Aunt Mamie made a white potato pie. Now, I had never had one of those before, but it was good. I baked a cake. But that turkey Mama made was a masterpiece, and the centerpiece, so pretty and brown. Oh, my mother could cook.
She could bless a table, too. I mean, she blessed that table that night. My mother was the prayer warrior. And she was moved by the spirit of Christmas. Everybody was hungry, but they were just going to have to wait. Mama did not let us forget what was most important. She talked to the Lord that night, thanking Him for His bountiful blessings, for bringing us all together, for the love that went from heart to heart and breast to breast. Oh, she went on and on like that until I felt Gene nudging me. I tried not to react. I mean, I wanted to respect this solemn moment. I really did. But I knew what he was trying to tell me, and I didn’t want it to distract me. It was what I had told him once, the story about my grandfather, who had gone out to dinner way out in the country at Sister So-and-So’s house. The preacher at Sister So-and-So’s house was called on to bless the table. Well, that preacher prayed, and he prayed, and he prayed, and he prayed! When the preacher finally said “Amen,” Grandpa said, “I was wiping my mouth.”
Mama was in the “looking ahead” part of her prayer, seeking the Lord’s blessings for all our endeavors in the coming year, keeping our family and our friends close and in the light of God’s love and grace. We listened and we listened and we listened to Mama’s prayer.
When she said “Amen,” Gene was the first to respond. “I was just about ready to start wiping my mouth!”
Everybody laughed, even Mama. That set the tone for the rest of the dinner. We were all happy for the blessings we had enjoyed and just for being together. And it seemed like everybody was there. So many people, they were eating at the dining table, at a card table, and in the kitchen. Oh, it was nonstop “Pass me this” and “Pass me that” and “Pass me something else.”
Finally, Uncle Mack had his fill. “Every time I go to put some food in my mouth, somebody’s saying ‘pass me something,’ ” he said. “If you want it, you better get up and get it.” We all laughed, and promptly got up to serve ourselves, practically turning the dining table into a buffet. It was the best Christmas ever.
It was followed by a great New Year’s celebration. Aunt Mag cooked again for everybody who had to have Aunt Mag’s greens and black-eyed peas. Greens for money. Black-eyed peas for good fortune. Even so, we weren’t about to leave anything to chance. Mama led us all in asking God’s blessing.
If Norman Rockwell had ever wanted to do a black family Christmas portrait, he could have turned to us that holiday season, picture perfect and ready to be framed on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. If Rockwell had ever had a mind to do such a thing. If the editors of the Saturday Evening Post had ever had a mind to feature such a thing. It occurred to me that maybe I could arrange for my own Rockwell moment, or something like it. I could arrange to have photographs made. Since I had gone all out that season, I figured I should at least have some kind of remembrance.
I happened to tell a coworker about our wonderful Christmas and how I wanted to have pictures made to remember it. That’s when I found out that he took pictures. He said that he would be happy to take some for me. He never told me how much this was going to cost me, but I figured, with all the money I had already spent, this couldn’t be that bad. So we had the pictures taken of all the gifts and the tree and of Bo in all the clothes we had bought him, the coat, the hat, the shirt and tie, leaning on his Philco television, lying across the little bed in the room we had redecorated, and, of course, posed next to me. Our mother-and-son portrait. Eventually, I came around to asking what all this was going to cost me and the man told me I owed him nothing. Nothing? Oh, my goodness. Yet another blessing of that special season. And for that, I was grateful.
I adored the pictures he produced, the giddy moments captured on film, full of the excitement of our holiday. They captured something more than just a moment in time. They caught that perfect light that you see sometimes just before darkness falls. Oh, my, there was a sweetness about them, the sweetness of innocence. There was so much love. That most special gift, which really is Christmas. I held the pictures. I held that moment. I wanted to hold it much longer than I knew I ever could. It was a time of such joy. It was a time that I would one day come to think of only with longing.
CHAPTER 10
Our year began the way every year should. We were happy about our holiday celebrations, we were hopeful about what was in store during the year ahead, and we were very well fed. It wasn’t long after the start of the year that I had even worked out how I was going to pay off all the Christmas bills, and I was feeling good about the plan. The only problem was working out the payments. I mean, actually making them, delivering them. I didn’t have a checking account, which meant I would have to pay cash each month to all those stores, which meant I would have to make the payments in person, which meant I had a problem. I was working so many hours by this time. Sometimes I didn’t get off until eight, nine, ten o’clock at night. Even when I got off in time to make it to the stores before they closed, I would be so tired that walking around from one store to the next payi
ng a bunch of bills—well, that was just the last thing I wanted to do. But I also wanted those bills paid, and I didn’t want them paid one day beyond the due date. I was sorting it all out and talking to Emmett one day, half thinking out loud, half looking for his advice. After all, he was the answer man, the problem solver.
He listened to me set out the problem and, without even taking time to think about it, he saw how to handle it. “I can pay those bills for you.”
What? Trust him with my money? Well, he might not have had to think about it, but I did. I really did. He was only thirteen years old. Sure, he had been taking on a lot of responsibility around the house, and doing a great job. But this was different. This was very, very important. I mean, this was my money. I couldn’t take a chance on him running into a baseball game down the street or something with my money in his pocket. Besides, even though he had been riding the streetcar out to Argo for some time, I had never let him go downtown alone. Sure, he had gone with me, but I had to be certain he knew how to handle this on his own. So I asked him and, once again, he spoke without hesitating.
“I would just go up to Sixty-third,” he explained, “catch the El, get off at Adams, walk over to the Fair Store. When I get to the Fair Store, Sears is right across the street. I’ll come out of Sears, turn right, and keep on up to Wieboldt’s. After Wieboldt’s, then I work my way up to Carson’s.”
I had to look at him for a minute. I mean, just like that, he had laid it out for me. The look in his eye showed there was no question in his mind, no anxiety in his heart. “We can do it” was written all over his face. He believed in himself. There was nothing he couldn’t do. It was time for me to show, to prove, that I believed in him, too. All I could do was take a deep breath and say, “Okay.” I gave him a hundred dollars, gave him the bills for each store, and then I thought for a moment. I pulled out the light bill and gave him that to pay, too.
All the next day at work I was jumpy about what my son would be dealing with. A hundred dollars of my money, a walk through the hustle and bustle, but mostly hustle, of Sixty-third Street, a train ride downtown, and then five stops to make in the Loop. I wondered, at different points in the afternoon, Where is that child with my hundred dollars? What if he loses that money? What if somebody sticks him up? What was I thinking? I had all kinds of nightmares. I might as well have just taken the afternoon off and paid the bills myself. It was a very long ride home for me that night. When I got home, Bo wasn’t there. Well, that didn’t make me feel any better. I walked into my bedroom and there, on my dresser, was a note. It was sitting on top of the stack of bills. I looked at the bills first. Each one was stamped “Paid.” Next to the stack was the change from my hundred dollars. I knew right then and there that Bo and I had reached a very important point in our relationship. It was that critical point where a mother begins to see a boy taking shape as a man. It was the point of no return. I knew then that I could trust my son with everything. I knew he would do what he set out to do. And I knew he’d be paying those bills every month from then on. Then there was the note. Bo wrote that he had taken care of everything and indicated what I had already confirmed, that the bills were paid and he had left the change. And one more thing. Aunt Mag downstairs had given him permission to visit a friend in the neighborhood. I’ll be home before dark, he wrote. Don’t worry.
Gene and I were seeing quite a bit of each other by this time. We would go out to clubs like the Blue Note and Joe’s at Sixty-third and South Parkway. We saw all kinds of entertainment, including Redd Foxx and Moms Mabley. Oh, we were having a great time going out. But Gene also enjoyed spending time at my place. I knew he was trying to get his foot in my door, but he had a good reason to do it. Lots of them, really. For one, his aunt had talked to him.
“Now, boy,” she said, “that’s a pretty girl. Don’t you let her get away.”
All of his friends were pushing for me, too. So he had everybody’s approval. For a man, that makes a difference. When a man sees how much other people appreciate a woman, it makes him appreciate her even more. But there was so much more than that. Gene and Bo adored each other and seemed to really enjoy the time they spent together. My mother loved Gene, too. And, oh, he was just crazy about Mama. That boy loved my mother, and treated her like she was a mother to him. For a woman, for me, all of that was important. And, well, what can I say? We were falling in love.
Someone once said something that someone once told them, so by now it’s officially an adage or something that just makes a whole lot of sense. What they said was that men and women look at their relationships in different ways at the beginning. Men look at their women hoping they’ll never change and women size up their men hoping they will. I got to work on Gene right away. The first order of business was that conk. But I have to say that almost as soon as he took it out, I was sorry I had asked him to do it. He looked like such a little boy without that look of his. Then there was that walk. I had to think about that one. I mean, I just couldn’t have other women looking at Gene the way I was looking at him. But there are some things, some down-to-the-bone things about a man that make him what he is. Things you can’t change. Things you probably shouldn’t even try to change. It would be easier just to find another man.
As it turns out, Bo and I weren’t the only attraction Gene had when he’d want to come over. He was also drawn to Aunt Mag’s cooking. He would say all the time, “Aunt Mag can burn.” Now, Aunt Mag was the greatest greens cooker of all time. She cooked greens like nobody’s business. In addition to her meat, she put in garlic, onion, green pepper, and celery. Oh-h-h, those greens had such a distinctive flavor. And then she filled them with hot peppers, which I could not tolerate. I would be eating and drinking and crying and drinking. But those greens were too good to pass up. If Aunt Mag was cooking greens, Gene was coming by. He’d want to know if he could have some.
She was only too happy to oblige: “Yeah, come on here, boy.”
So, that’s what started me cooking them. I mean, I was not going to let Aunt Mag outdo me. First thing, of course, was to get her recipe. Once I got it, I would come home on Fridays with the makings for greens and fish. And I was one happy cook in that kitchen. I would just sing and cook and cook and sing. I think I did a pretty good job of imitating what Aunt Mag was doing with those greens. Gene and Bo were eating them up, that’s all I knew. I never could make Aunt Mag’s hot-water cornbread, though. I just couldn’t make that bread. But I could make regular cornbread, and I would fry that fish. Now Gene Mobley would swallow some fish. Oh, he would eat white buffalo like he was eating a pork chop. But I’d always have to try to get a bone out of his throat. Eventually I stopped making white buffalo and switched to catfish. It wasn’t as hard to swallow.
On one of these visits, Gene was complimenting me on the meal and we were playing around and he said he was going to marry me. Just like that. I wasn’t sure whether it was his stomach or his heart talking at the time. But then he turned to Bo and told him the same thing, that he wanted to marry me.
Bo shook his head and smiled. “No,” he said. “We’re not ready.”
Well, I thought, I was starting to feel ready myself, but we just left it there. Until it came up again, and then again. Mostly, Gene would bring it up in a joking way. He would come over to eat. At some point in the evening he would tell me, “I’m gonna marry you.”
Bo would clear his throat, as if to say, “Now, children.”
We never talked about it, but I was beginning to believe that Bo was building up his defenses. He thought the world of Gene. But to think of sharing the house and his mother with Gene—well, that was something else. He was the man of the house and wanted it to stay that way. At least, that’s what I thought.
Gene was no quitter, though. He brought it up yet again.
Bo said the same thing. “We’re not ready yet.”
Finally Gene had to know. He asked Bo why he seemed to disapprove of the two of us getting married.
Bo spoke up right aw
ay. He didn’t have a problem explaining it at all. He told Gene that he was concerned that he might shout at me or hit me. If he did, then Bo would have to take sides, and you know whose side he was going to take. He just liked Gene too much to want to even consider something like that. Because he liked Gene, he didn’t want Gene to marry his mama. “We’re not ready yet.”
So that was it. Emmett had promised to look out for me, to protect me, and this was how he was doing it. That incident with Pink Bradley had left an ugly mark that Gene would have to wipe away. Gene had the warmest and most generous spirit of any man I ever knew. I had no doubt that he would be able to put Bo’s mind at ease.
—
By February of fifty-five, things seemed to be going so well for us. I mean, I was on a roll. I was doing a good job at work, my bills were being paid, and we seemed to have every reason to look forward. I figured, what better way to be on a roll than in a new car? A brand-new car. Now, I had owned several cars before. There was a forty-six Oldsmobile that was about two or three years old when I bought it. I had also bought a Studebaker. And, of course, while I was in Detroit in 1950, my mother sent me the money for that forty-seven Plymouth. They were all good cars that went the way of all cars.
In addition to wanting a new car, I needed one. This would be the first one I would buy completely on my own. But Emmett was going with me to pick it out. He was very, very excited. So was his mama. After all, this was going to be a new experience for me.
The car was a fifty-five Plymouth. Red, with a white top and white interior. I worked out the deal and set up my payments. And when the salesman made the papers out, I looked them over, looked at Emmett, and turned back to the salesman. I told him that I wanted my son to be included as my cosigner. Well, you could just see Emmett straightening up in his chair, preparing to take on this new responsibility.