Colored students, I thought. I couldn’t believe what I’d heard. I was shocked by the use of the word colored from a man whom I had known to be fair and had been a popular figure with black students at West Side.
But I knew he was right about one thing: I would win if he allowed the students who rode the bus to vote. I remained silent and stared at him in disbelief as he once again congratulated me on my efforts and assured me that there would be other opportunities for me during my junior and senior years.
I left the principal’s office and headed to my fourth-period World History class. When I walked into the room, everyone was smiling at me. Several white girls who sat near me whispered that they had voted for me and they thought I was going to win. I gave them a half-smile, but their enthusiasm didn’t make me feel any better. Before taking my seat, I realized I had left my books in my previous class. As I was getting ready to ask Mrs. Crosby, our teacher, if I could be excused, a frail female voice came over the intercom: “The results of the election of sophomore class representative are as follows: Lynn Harris, 323 votes, and Brian Sudderth, 326 votes. Your new sophomore class representative is Brian Sudderth.”
The room fell silent. Don’t cry, I told myself. But I could feel warm tears streaming down my face. Mrs. Crosby noticed this and asked me if I wanted to be excused. I didn’t need to answer. I raced out of the room, down the hallway, and out the door into the student parking lot. The dam of anger and sorrow broke, and the tears rushed down my face with a cleansing freedom. My career as a politician looked as if it was going to end as quickly as it had begun.
THE WEEKS FOLLOWING THE ELECTION, I began to understand that I’d lost only a small battle. Running for sophomore class representative won me a lot of new friends and admirers, so I wasn’t disappointed very long, since popularity was what I really wanted and craved. Sure I wanted to win, but losing gave me the time to capitalize on my newfound popularity. I felt that my white classmates viewed me as their equal, and I had never enjoyed this type of popularity at Booker or West Side, even when I was acting a fool. But did these people like me for me, or for the impostor I was slowly becoming?
Two beautiful white girls, Becka Henry and Karen Krenz, offered me friendship by inviting me to dinner at the newly opened Farrell’s Ice Cream parlor in McCain Mall. I went even though I was a little bit concerned riding in a car with two white girls. But Becka and Karen never seemed uncomfortable around me and became my first white female friends.
Most of my white classmates and some of my black ones naturally assumed that I lived in University Park, since they knew I didn’t ride the school bus. I refused rides home by making up excuses, like I was waiting for my mother to pick me up. Once their cars were out of sight, I would start my trek down the hill to the public bus stop.
When my classmates asked what my parents did for a living, I lied. I told them my mother was a supervisor at Teletype, a respected Little Rock company where she actually worked but wasn’t in management. The stories about my father were grander, because since I didn’t know anything about him, making him a family court judge in Michigan didn’t seem like a stretch. How could anyone prove it wasn’t the truth?
Sometimes my deception caused problems. During the spring semester one of our basketball games went into double overtime. I accepted a ride from a white classmate, since I knew the last public bus had left the area minutes earlier. The young lady drove me straight to University Park, and I didn’t bother to correct her. Once we arrived at the fashionable neighborhood, I asked her to let me out on the corner of Sherry Drive, pointing to a huge brick house at the top of the cul-de-sac as the place where I lived.
When she asked me if I wanted her to drive me all the way home, I told her I was going to stop and visit a neighbor. She smiled at me, and I thanked her for the ride. After her royal blue Camaro faded from sight, I waited a few more minutes and then started my twelve-mile walk home. My mother and sisters were sound asleep when I finally got home around 2:00 A.M., tired and drenched in my own sweat.
CHAPTER 5
At the end my sophomore year, Mama sent me to Flint, Michigan, for the summer, to stay with my Uncle Clarence and his five children. I think she thought it would be good for me to be around boys my own age and experience the fatherly influence my uncle could provide.
Uncle Clarence really wasn’t my uncle but my mother’s first cousin. We always called him uncle because all adult male relatives were uncles and he was too old to be a cousin. He had three brothers, Lawrence, Roy, and Jesse, whom I called uncle as well.
This was not my first time visiting Flint during the summer, but it would be the first time I would spend the entire summer. I had never been away from my mother and sisters for such a long time, and I was excited. After the last day of school, I boarded a Greyhound bus and took the twenty-six-hour bus trip, armed with a yellow vinyl suitcase full of new summer clothes and the money I had saved from after-school jobs pinned on the inside of my pants. I couldn’t wait to see Uncle Clarence and his children, Clarence Jr., Carolyn, Rickey, Wayne, and Janette.
Uncle Clarence was a widower who never seemed to lack female company. A big, bearlike, high-yellow man with a bald head and hearty laugh, he always seemed to have a cigar or pipe hanging from his mouth. He worked for one of the big automobile companies, like almost everyone else in Flint. He was also a part-time mechanic, so it wasn’t unusual for him to have strangers visit his two-story house, which sat on the corner of Thirty-fifth and Alexander.
I seemed to fit right in with the Allen household. With an attic and a basement, the place was big enough so that you could have some privacy if you wanted. Two of my cousins, Rickey and Wayne, were close in age to me and treated me like a real brother and introduced me to all their friends, both male and female.
Rickey was light-skinned, smart, and was only a couple of months older. Rickey had just completed his sophomore year at Flint Northern High School. Wayne was a year younger than I was. He was chocolate brown and handsome, with thick curly black hair, thick eyelashes, and hair over the majority of his body, even though he was only fourteen years old.
I loved hanging out with Wayne, who already had a large female fan club. Wayne carried himself like he was older, always telling me what we were going to do, whether it was swimming or playing stickball. I think he got a big kick out of the fact that I enjoyed spending more time with him than my other cousins. The truth of the matter was that some of my other cousins teased me about being so skinny and “talking country,” but Wayne rarely teased me.
One day I was alone in the normally busy house washing dishes. The house was quiet, with the exception of my hands going in and out of the soapy dish water. It was a rule in the Allen household that everyone had to wash dishes and help out with the cleaning. This was different for me, because my mother had never assigned me chores that were considered women’s work. At home I was responsible for taking out the garbage and cutting the grass. But I didn’t complain, since none of the Allen boys seemed to think there was anything wrong with doing housework.
Just as I was rinsing out one of the last glasses, I glanced out of the kitchen window and saw my uncle get out of the passenger side of a blue car. At first, I thought that maybe the driver was my Uncle Lawrence or Uncle Roy, but when I saw him get out, I immediately knew he wasn’t one of them. The stranger locked his car door and started to walk across the street toward the house with my uncle. As the two got closer, an eerie feeling washed over me. I couldn’t take my eyes off the stranger. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place where I knew him from.
Before the two of them reached the garage, I noticed how much the stranger looked like me. I immediately thought, Could this man be my father? When I dreamed of him, I never had a physical image of him; I just prayed he wouldn’t treat me like Ben had. My fantasy for my real father was that he was somebody important, like a judge or a lawyer, or at the very least a teacher, preferably a college professor. I hoped that he was loving and stern. I
dreamed he would take me to football games and play catch with me in the backyard of his mansion.
When I heard the back screen door open, I had a sudden urge to hide. I wanted to run upstairs to my bedroom or downstairs to the always dimly lit basement. But I was frozen harder than my Grandma’s homemade ice cream. The position of the kitchen prevented me from leaving without being in full view of the back screen door or the front porch. Maybe if I didn’t say anything they wouldn’t know I was in the house. I heard my uncle’s footsteps coming up the small flight of stairs as he called out my name: “Lynn? Is Lynn here?”
I didn’t answer as I rubbed my damp hands on my khaki shorts.
“Lynn,” Uncle Clarence’s booming voice called out again. My heart was pounding, and I felt sweat form on my nose and forehead. I moved slowly to the hallway and was suddenly standing face-to-face with my uncle and the stranger. When I looked at him, it was like looking into a mirror. His skin was the same caramel color as mine, his nose and lips larger versions of my own. The only noticeable difference was that his hair was black and curly like Wayne’s. Maybe he wasn’t my father, I thought. Not with such beautiful hair.
“I got somebody I want you to meet,” my uncle said.
“How are you doing, young man?” the stranger asked.
“Fine,” I muttered.
“Lynn, this is James,” Uncle Clarence said. James. That was the name on my birth certificate.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked.
“No, sir,” I lied.
“I’m your daddy,” he said. “Didn’t your mama tell you ’bout me?”
“No, sir,” I said. As far as I knew, my mother didn’t know that I knew the secret she kept hidden in the gray box. Maybe she had planned this meeting so we would talk about it once I returned home. I knew my Aunt Gee had to know about my father, but I never asked her direct questions about him. Maybe I was afraid if I ever met my father, I would have to give up my fantasies.
For a moment, the three of us stood close together in the small hallway. Then, without warning, I suddenly darted between them like an elusive running back and bolted down the short flight of stairs and burst through the screen door. Once I got outside I was running so fast that I slipped and fell, scraping my arms and knees. I quickly got up and ran toward Pasadena Street and the community basketball court and playground in search of my cousin Wayne.
Once I reached the playground, I didn’t see him or anyone else I knew. I was heading toward the swimming pool inside Northern High gym when I noticed an empty set of swings, which looked inviting and safe.
I had dreamed so many nights about my father and what it would be like to meet him. I fantasized that he would take me away from Little Rock and allow me to live with him, that he would teach me how to be a man. Now that the time had come, it wasn’t at all like my dreams. I wanted to be happy, but I felt a sadness shadowing me. Why had I run away from him? What was I afraid of?
I don’t know how long I sat on the swings. The summer sun set peacefully. My mind was eased by the incredible evening colors—yellow, orange, and a hazy purple, the type of colors that made you believe in the mystical power of nature. I swayed in the swing until the playground became pitch black. I didn’t return home until I was certain the stranger was no longer there.
AFTER HAVING GONE SO MANY YEARS without my father ever seeing me, I would have been disappointed if he had given up so easily. But I was still afraid of him. I feared that he couldn’t live up to my dreams and that he wouldn’t like me. Maybe he would think I was a sissy, as Ben had. So I was a bit surprised by the flash of joy I experienced the next day when my father returned with a look of determination on his handsome face. He was leaning against his car when I came out of the house headed for the grocery store.
The night before I had been unable to sleep, consumed with thoughts of how my life would change now that I had met my father. Wayne and Rickey thought it was exciting to meet a father I never knew. They filled my head with thoughts of all the gifts I could expect. “Think of all the holidays and birthdays he missed,” Wayne had pointed out.
“How are you doing, young man?” he asked.
“Fine,” I whispered.
“Where you headed?”
“Nowhere,” I lied.
He walked toward me and asked if we could talk. My heart was pounding with fear and excitement: I feared that I would say something dumb, but I was excited that my father wanted to talk to me.
He told me he was sorry he didn’t get to talk to me that much the night before. He then told me some very exciting news. I had some brothers and sisters anxious to meet me. Brothers? Had he said brothers? This was too good to be true. I had always wanted a brother. Were they older? What were they like? Suddenly I wanted to know more. Suddenly I wasn’t afraid.
“Where are they?” I asked.
He told me they were at home and they wanted me to come and spend the night. I told him I couldn’t do that without my Uncle Clarence’s permission, and he was at work. But I told him I really wanted to meet them.
My father suggested I ride home with him and he would bring me back whenever I was ready. That sounded fair to me. I had already made up my mind that I wasn’t going to spend the night. In Flint, the Allen household was the only place I really felt safe. I just wanted to meet my brothers. I wasn’t that concerned about my new sisters, since I had three perfectly good ones back in Little Rock.
As I got into my father’s car, I was still a little uneasy. After all, I had just met the man. What if he didn’t bring me back? I would never see my mother and sisters again. I remained silent as he turned off Saginaw Street and drove through downtown Flint. Once on the freeway, my father turned down the radio, rolled up his window, and turned on the air conditioner.
“Roll your window up,” my father ordered. Without hesitation, I complied. He started asking me questions about my mother. I told him she was fine. Then he asked me about school, and I told him I had just finished the tenth grade. He told me James Jr. was going into the seventh grade. That meant he was younger than I was. I wondered why he had my father’s name. For a moment I wished I had been named after him, since I was his firstborn. At least I assumed I was his first child. Maybe it was he who had named me Everette Lynn. Maybe, unlike Ben, he liked my name and didn’t think I had a sissy name.
I couldn’t believe what was happening. Occasionally we spied each other from the corners of our almost identical eyes. I think he was as nervous as I was.
A few minutes later his car exited from the freeway, and after a few stoplights he pulled into a nice-looking neighborhood of neat two-story homes with brick fronts. Black children scurried from the streets at the sight of my father’s car, while others rode bicycles on the sidewalks in front of manicured lawns. Most of the houses looked brand-new. They all looked the same, but they were better-looking than any house I had seen black folks living in in my neighborhood. I was impressed.
A couple of blocks later, we turned into the driveway of one of the identical homes and out ran two boys and two young girls. They were smiling and seemed excited to see my father and me.
“This is Lynn, your big brother,” my father said proudly. I liked the way he said my name.
“I’m glad to meet you,” the younger of the two boys said. He hugged me at my waist.
“I’m James Jr.,” he said.
“I’m David,” the older one said quietly.
The two girls, Tamela and Pamela, came over to introduce themselves. They were identical twins. I didn’t have twin sisters back home!
“I’m Lynn,” I said. I felt like I was coming out of a trance. My littlest brother was holding my hand tight.
My father instructed him to let me go and suggested we go inside. James Jr. ignored my father’s order and held tightly to my hand as we went through the screen door into a large living area. I noticed a petite, attractive woman come from a dining area, smiling as she approached me.
“You must be Lynn,” s
he said. “I’m Jean Jeter, your daddy’s wife.” Her smile was warm and engaging.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
“Come over here and give me a hug. James Jr., let his hands go,” she said. As we hugged, she whispered in my ear, “I’m glad you came.”
I was glad I had come also. The fear and tension suddenly left my body while my littlest brother looked at me with a comforting smile. They all made me feel welcome, like I belonged. David seemed a little distant and ill at ease. Maybe he was upset because he was no longer the big brother.
One of the twins came downstairs carrying a small infant.
“This is your other little brother,” she said, handing me a beautiful copper-colored baby.
“What’s his name?” I asked as I took him in my arms carefully.
“Andre.”
I looked down at him, and his big brown eyes stared up at me. With the exception of my little sister Jan, Andre was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. His head was covered with dark curly hair. He looked like a combination of my father and Jean. I smiled at him, and his small mouth released tiny bubbles.
“I think he likes you,” Jean said.
Andre fell asleep in my arms, and James Jr. encouraged me to put him down so that he could take me outside where a group of neighborhood children had gathered. I felt like a celebrity.
James Jr. introduced me to everyone in sight as his “big brother from down south.” While we were walking back, I asked James Jr. why David was so quiet and he told me he wasn’t my father’s blood son and he might be a little bit jealous of me. He told me David’s father lived in Saginaw. Now his silence made sense.
James Jr. suggested I ask our father to take us to the drive-in. When I asked him why, he replied, “I know he’ll take us if you ask.” Sure enough, after a fried chicken dinner, my father asked me what I wanted to do. James Jr.’s instinct had been right, and I even scored points with David, who seemed to loosen up while we were at the drive-in.
What Becomes of the Brokenhearted Page 7