On weekends, there were still chores that had to be done but not as many. Sunday mornings, we all went to church where I stuck out like a skunk at a virgin's wedding. I was always the only non African-American there.
My first Sunday at church, there were some curious people, but they were all nice to me, especially the minister. I didn't know that Mr. Abernathy had already told Pastor Jackson about me, so I was surprised when the pastor introduced me by name to the congregation. I really liked the choir's singing and found myself swaying with the congregation as we sang the hymns. On my way out of church that day, Pastor Jackson kneeled and hugged me. He said that he hoped to see me every Sunday because it would be a shame if I missed service at a church named after me. I never attended another church where the people made me feel as welcome as Pastor Jackson and the members of River Baptist did.
One of my favorite things to do was fishing with Mr. Abernathy. Almost every Saturday, he took me to the pond that bordered his property and patiently taught me how to bait a hook, cast a line, hook a fish, reel him in, unhook him, and string him. At home, he showed me how to clean the fish, and then Mrs. Abernathy taught me how to flour and fry it. I can remember thinking that the fish I caught tasted better than almost anything I had ever eaten, and when I seriously said the same thing to everyone at dinner, they smiled at me and agreed that I caught some tasty fish.
Although his senior season of football was over, and he would graduate high school soon, Marcus couldn't get enough of football, and he enjoyed coaching me. He taught me how to run low with the ball tucked safely away under my arm closest to our imaginary sideline, how to use a stiff arm on a tackler, how to take a snap from center, how to throw a spiral, and how to look the ball into my hands for a catch. I learned how to make a tackle, and we both laughed loudly when I wrapped my little arms around one of his thick legs in an attempt to bring him to the ground. If he hadn't fallen on his own, he would have dragged me for miles while I stubbornly held on to his leg.
I told Marcus that I wanted to be as strong as he was and run as fast as he did, so I could be a good football player one day. He didn't just tell me something to pacify me; he asked me how much I wanted it. I told him that I wanted to be just like him and that's when he set up an exercise routine for me.
Marcus taught me stretching exercises, pushups, sit ups, and gave me additional chores that amounted to light weight training suitable for a growing little kid. Marcus told me to increase the intensity of my workouts gradually, so that I would avoid injury while the exercises continued to challenge me. We added jogging together to my exercises, and I soon impressed him with how long I could hang with him. The routine I worked out with Marcus took about an hour each day, and I maintained a workout period every day I possibly could in all the years that followed.
Marcus, along with his mother, taught me how important good nutrition was to the health of a growing boy who desired to be an athlete. Everything they said stuck with me, and I became very particular about the food I ate. I focused on eating fresh fruits and vegetables, and when I ate red meat, it had to be lean. I avoided sweets and snacks, and I ate very little fast food, although I confess that for a while as a teenager, I had a weakness for Mickey Ds.
I'm not sure if I didn't understand or didn't want to understand that following his high school graduation, Marcus would be moving out of state. He had a summer job waiting on him in the town where he would be attending college on a football scholarship. When he wasn't working, he would be involved in a summer fitness program with other players from the football team. From what I understood, it was an ideal situation for him but certainly not for me. As it grew closer to the time he would leave, he spent as much time with me as he could. He promised that he would come back to visit on holidays and would call me on the phone. I tried to be tough like him, but the day he left, I cried for hours and moped for days afterwards. I didn't think that things could get any worse.
I was wrong.
The weather was unusually hot, even for summer in the South, when Mr. Abernathy took me fishing on a Saturday morning in early July. We had a long walk through the woods to the pond, and he stopped several times to wipe the sweat from his forehead.
When we reached our fishing spot, Mr. Abernathy grabbed some ice cubes out of the little cooler that held our cold water and rubbed it on his glistening black face and neck. I caught a fish before he ever wet his line, and I continued to move around to various points along that side of the pond while Mr. Abernathy stayed in his partially shaded area.
It was an hour or so after we arrived, and I was about twenty yards away from Mr. Abernathy, when I heard a loud splash come from his direction. I scanned the bank, seeing his tackle box and cooler first, then his fishing rod on the ground closer to the water. My eyes swept from the rod to the water where I saw the back of Mr. Abernathy's tee shirt and jeans. The man was motionless, floating face down in the pond.
A hot, tingling sensation spread through me, intensifying until I felt sweaty and sick. I fought the urge to vomit as I screamed Mr. Abernathy's name and ran towards him. I waded into the water, which was level with my neck by the time I reached the unconscious man. I managed to turn him onto his back, keep his head above the water, and float the upper half of his body onto the bank. I shook him and yelled at him, but he never responded to anything I did. In our area, cell phones were not common for the average family in 1993. The only way I could get help was to run back to the farm, and I ran as if a pack of zombies were chasing me.
The next few hours were a nightmare that just wouldn't end.
Mr. Abernathy never woke up. He had a massive heart attack and was probably dead before the emergency crew arrived. I was at the hospital when the doctor came into the waiting room and gave the bad news to Mrs. Abernathy and Tasha. I will never forget watching Mrs. Abernathy scream and cry, as Tasha held her mother and shed her own tears. I sat on a hard plastic chair, my feet dangling above the tile floor. I was excluded from their grief, and I had never hurt as badly as I did at that moment. I loved Mr. Abernathy, and I was crushed.
What I remember most from that scene in the emergency room waiting area is something Mrs. Abernathy said. When she broke her embrace with Tasha, she spoke to her daughter but looked me directly in the eyes. She said that her husband hadn't felt like fishing, and she had asked him to stay home, but he refused. According to her, Mr. Abernathy said, "I promised the boy I would take him, and you know he's been sad since Marcus left."
I was only a little boy, but I plainly understood that Mrs. Abernathy was blaming me for her husband's death. Even though she didn't speak those words, her eyes told me all I needed to know.
From that moment, everything was different. When we went home, the house had mysteriously changed to a cold place where happiness no longer lived. It was silent and depressingly empty as if no one had ever laughed, hugged, or loved within those walls.
More than Mr. Abernathy died that day at the pond because everything I loved about my life with my foster family died too. Even at my age, I knew that Mr. Abernathy's death had turned me into an outsider. I was no longer welcome. I was a stranger, intruding on a family's grief. It took only a few minutes after we arrived home from the hospital for me to realize that I needed to go to my room and stay out of the way. I remained there, without ever eating or talking to anyone, until Marcus arrived that night.
When I saw him, I burst into tears. I knew he hated me for making his father die.
"Marcus, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I didn't know it would hurt him."
He scooped me up into his arms. "It's not your fault. Where did you get that?"
Between sobs, I told him what his mother had said at the hospital.
"River, people say foolish things when they're hurting. She didn't mean it. Pop wouldn't have gone fishing if he hadn't wanted to go, and as sick as his heart was, he would have eventually had a heart attack no matter where he was. He had trouble before you lived here, and he didn't go to the doct
or for checkups when he should have. It wasn't your fault."
Before I went to sleep, Marcus brought me a sandwich and watched me while I ate. We didn't talk much more, but he did let me know that he cared about me and that he was sorry that I had to witness what I did. He thanked me for being a brave boy and doing my best to help his father. He added that I should never forget that his father loved me. After I ate, he placed me in his bed where he held me as I surrendered to sleep. Marcus was still holding me when I woke up the next morning.
The day after the funeral, Marcus was the one who told me.
I didn't cry. I was expecting it. I knew that nothing would ever be the same in that house. With Tasha being self-absorbed Tasha and Mrs. Abernathy spending almost every hour alone in her room, there would be no one to take care of me when Marcus returned to school. It still hurts when I remember the day Mrs. Glover took me away because even Marcus couldn't make his mother come out of her room to say goodbye to me.
I can't imagine how difficult that time was for Marcus, who lost his father, and in a way, lost his mother at the same time. He had the additional burden of telling me that I couldn't stay with his family in the home I had grown to love. In his kind voice, Marcus told me again that his father's death was in no way my fault, and that the best thing for me was to live with another family that could give me the attention I needed. He promised that we would always be friends, and that he would come to see me one day.
As people often do, Marcus meant what he said at the time, but I never heard from him again. Even so, my feelings for him never changed. I am still grateful to him and his family for some of the happiest moments of my childhood and for all that they taught me that became more important as I grew older.
Mrs. Glover took me back to the Bergeron County Junior Boys Home until she could place me with another foster family. I was grateful that Sean was still there and that my old bed in his room was open. After losing the Abernathy family, I needed his friendship more than ever.
CHAPTER THREE
Since I had accepted the fact that most white foster parents wanted only white foster kids, I was surprised when my caseworker found a white, middle-aged couple who were willing to take me. They weren't what most people would consider a couple because it was a man and his sister, and neither of them had ever been married. Mrs. Glover said they were good Christians who loved children and volunteered their time as youth leaders at their church. Looking back on it, I suppose it was odd for the state to approve a brother and sister as foster parents, but at the time, our state was desperate. It ranked number three in the country for highest number of foster kids per population.
Sean saw Mr. and Miss Carver talking to me in the reception lounge where the home held open house, and when I told him that the people wanted me to live with them, the news upset him. He was even more protective of me than he was the first time we roomed together, and he told me that I should be careful.
"Listen, River. I don't like them people. They coulda chose from all the white kids. So why would they pick you?"
Sean hurt my feelings again, and I didn't say anything, but he knew.
He sighed and sounded impatient. "Stop being so sensitive. I just want you to be careful. You know you're my little bro."
"Okay."
Sean wrote the phone number of the boys home on a slip of paper. "Don't lose this. Call me if anything goes wrong. Hell, call me anyway and tell me how you're doing."
Mr. and Miss Carver were good to me, and it took very little time for their actions to convince me that Sean was wrong and that I was again lucky to have a good home. I lived with them in a modest but clean brick house just inside the city limits of Ackers, which was less than an hour north of Harper Springs and still within Bergeron County.
Justin, who was also nine years old, was their married sister's son. He would often stay overnight with us when his parents needed a sitter. I had some good times playing football with Justin in the Carvers' fenced back yard that was covered with the thickest, greenest grass I had ever seen. When we tackled each other, it was like rolling around on a foam mattress.
When he stayed overnight, Justin would sleep with me in my double bed, and we would cut up, wrestle, and giggle until we knew we were on our last warning from the Carvers. Justin never mentioned that I was of mixed race or that I was a state kid. We liked each other and always had fun together.
Mr. Carver often took me to the park, and he always bought me a chocolate ice cream cone from the little truck that played music. Sometimes, on our way home for the day, he would stop at a store and let me pick out some small toy I wanted. There was no football at his house when I first came to live with them, but when I mentioned to Mr. Carver that I wished I had a football like Justin's, he drove me to sporting goods store and bought one for me. It was the first ball of any kind that I had ever owned.
When Mr. Carver was home, especially on the weekends, he would spend most of his time with me while Miss Carver stayed busy with housework or piddling with her flower garden. The one thing that all three of us did together each week was attend the First Baptist Church where both of the Carvers were very active church members.
During my stay with the Carvers, their church held a big revival that lasted six days, and we attended every single night to sing hymns, hear the guest minister preach, and see people saved by accepting Jesus Christ as their Savior. We sat under the biggest tent that I had ever seen, but even the huge tent wasn't big enough for all of the people. Some of the worshipers brought lawn chairs and made new rows outside the tent while many others had to stand.
Mr. Carver was disappointed when he was too sick with a stomach bug to go to the last night of the revival when a famous evangelist, William Henry Franklin, came to preach. Miss Carver took me, and we had to park far away because of all the people there to hear Reverend Franklin's message.
Reverend Franklin sounded almost angry when he loudly called all of us sinners and promised that we were going to hell if we didn't live by the words of the bible. By the end of his sermon, I was scared that he could send me to hell with a mere snap of his fingers, and I almost disobeyed Miss Carver when she told me to get in line with the people who were going to the front to speak to the evangelist. She said that I was to tell him that I accepted Jesus and wanted to dedicate my life to Him. I wasn't even sure what she meant, but I walked to the front and waited for my turn to speak to Reverend Franklin.
When my moment came, I was so nervous that I stuttered as I tried to get the words out of my mouth, but the man calmed me when he put his hand on my head and asked God to accept my show of faith. I looked up at Reverend Franklin, who was a very tall man, and saw him smile for the first time that night. He might have been happy about the line of people, he might have been trying to soothe my nerves, or he might have found it amusing that a nine-year old half-Mexican boy had joined a group of Baptists. In the following years, Reverend Franklin was often in the news, and I was proud to tell people that I had met him and that he was really a nice man.
I grew to like Mr. Carver because he spent a lot of time playing with me, bought me toys that I had only dreamed of having, and always made me feel important. He praised me for how well I played football, how fast I could run, completing some little chore, or bringing home a good note from my teacher. He told me not to believe any of the mean things other kids at school said to me because of my race or background. He told me that I was different from other boys and that made me special.
Each night when Mr. Carver tucked me in at bedtime, he would hug me and remind me again that I was a special boy. I loved the attention he gave me, and he really did make me feel special. He eventually asked me what I thought about him adopting me, and I was excited about the idea of having a permanent home. He said that we would take time to think about it and make sure that it was what we both wanted. He was offering my dream to me, and I knew that I had to try very hard to please him and his sister. Mr. Carver knew that too.
About fou
r months after I came to live with the Carvers, my school principal called Miss Carver at home to tell her that she needed to come to school right away to discuss my behavior. In the principal's office, I listened to Mr. Cobb tell Miss Carver that I had bloodied a boy's nose for accidently bumping into me. The truth was that Rob was a harmless goofball who thought it was funny to pinch a kid's butt in the lunch line. He had gotten some laughs when he pinched friends who took it as a joke, but he couldn't have picked a worse target than I was. I was no one's friend, and I was in no mood to be touched. He was lucky that our teacher was close enough to restrain me from throwing more punches.
Mr. Cobb added that I couldn't stay awake in class, my grades were falling, and I had a sullen attitude with my teacher and him. He was very concerned that I had changed so much in just the past two weeks. He asked if I was having problems at home, and Miss Carver responded that she didn't know of any, but she would make sure my behavior improved.
In our state, it was up to each school district to decide if corporal punishment was part of their disciplinary policy, and all of the schools in Bergeron County commonly used the paddle as an option within strict guidelines. If the rule violation or behavior warranted more than detention, most principals provided a choice of either suspension or paddling. Each student's parents or guardians made the choice for their kid.
Miss Carver had to choose my punishment, which was either three licks with the principal's paddle or suspension for three days. Since my grades had slipped so much, Mr. Cobb advised against the suspension. Miss Carver reluctantly agreed, but then she turned away rather than watch my punishment.
My Name Is River Blue Page 3