by Tom Blair
But that all changed. First or second week of August we bombed the Japs real good. Dropped two A-bombs. Didn’t know what hit ’em. Threw in the towel real quick after that. At the time I was sorta thinking we should’ve dropped some more before we let ’em say uncle.
Two weeks later it was official, the army was kicking me out on September 30. I had to sign a bunch of papers and agree that they didn’t owe me anything after I got my discharge money. And I had to promise I didn’t have any of their stuff, like maybe I had a Sherman tank parked out in front of Emory’s apartment.
So by September of ’45 I was a retired GI and Emory was a freshman in college. Liked to have died when I saw this beanie cap he had to wear. If we’d worn those through France and Germany we coulda killed the Germans by making them laugh themselves to death. I was okay not working, I had my army discharge pay and a couple of hundred dollars in the bank from the money orders Pa had saved. But after a spell I started to think maybe I was getting rich-guy lazy. So’s I went to some interviews, most of them for inside jobs, sweeping floors or standing behind a counter. I figured I’d better get something quick, ’cause more and more guys were gonna be hanging up their uniforms and needing a paycheck. Just couldn’t see myself working inside. Couldn’t see myself picking cotton either.
Being a policeman seemed to make a whole lot of sense. It was a good job with a for-certain paycheck. You got paid whether it rained or didn’t rain, whether bugs came or didn’t. And I figured that unless all the bad guys quit their jobs, the police would always have theirs. ’Course, some asshole crook might try to shoot me, but I figured the Krauts had done their best and didn’t kill me, so I’d probably be all right.
I called Mr. Combs, the old fella I met on the train. Seemed really happy to hear from me, and he took me to lunch with three fellas in police uniforms. Two weeks later I became a Birmingham policeman. Right after that Emory moved out, got himself in a dorm. Think he liked being closer to the parties. I took over his lease, $35 a month, but I was making $125 a month as a new policeman, so it wasn’t a problem.
First thing my sergeant did was have me ride around with an officer who was gonna retire in a few months. His name was Brady. Other than not having a beard, he could’ve been Santa Claus. Our squad car was parked in front of a lotta diners. But it wasn’t bad, sorta like going to school. After spending most of the morning looking for stolen property at the pawn shops on Third Avenue, we’d kill a big hunk of time sitting in booths or at lunch counters with coffee and pie. Brady told me what to do and what not to do. Told me how to get ahead and how I could get into trouble. All pretty simple stuff.
Big thing he told me was to always be in charge. Be like a machine in bad situations, said emotion could get a cop killed. You shouldn’t pause, shouldn’t negotiate, you had to be firm. Brady was a thirty-five-year veteran, but had never made sergeant. He told me that he didn’t kiss ass. Said that if I wanted to make sergeant, I had to pass all the right tests and play up to the right people. He figured that I had a good head start, somebody already liked me ’cause I’d gotten hired. Most guys that got hired were relatives of men on the force or a judge or the mayor.
By the end of my first year as a Birmingham policeman I was feeling good about things. I had my own cruiser, I’d made friends with the other guys, and I figured maybe I could make sergeant in ten or fifteen years. No matter what Brady said, I thought working hard and playing things by the book would get me ahead. ’Course, I did spend some time kissing ass.
As a new guy, I got the bad shifts. A lotta four-to-midnights and a lotta midnight-to-eights. It was on the beginning of a night shift when I met Brenda. I’d gotten a call about a robbery at Randy’s Diner on Graymont Avenue, hadn’t been there since my schooling ended with Brady. Anyway, two fellas had robbed the place right before midnight. Said they had guns in their pockets. There was only a cook and a waitress in the diner and the cook was in the back and didn’t even know they’d been robbed. When I got there the waitress was sitting on a counter stool, shaking. Sorta thin, blonde hair, almost blue eyes, and later I figured out she had a real nice smile. Since the cook didn’t know anything, she and I had to fill out the crime sheet. She couldn’t really remember too much. Guessed they got fifteen to twenty dollars. Whole time we was talking she kept shaking like to make her teeth rattle. Shouldn’t’ve, but I did, when I was getting all sorts of information, I asked for her phone number. She gave it to me, thinking it was something I needed for my report.
After a week or so I called the diner and asked for Brenda. I could tell she was busy so I kept it short. Told her that I just wanted to let her know we were still working the case and there was nothing new. ’Course, truth be told, we’d stopped working the case when we handed in the crime sheet the morning after the diner was robbed.
Driving around in my squad car at night, I’d be thinking about Brenda, trying to get up the nerve to ask her for a date. Thinking to myself, I’ve run up Kraut beaches, blown things up, shot people and been shot, but I’m scared to ask her out. Finally gave her a call at home early one morning. Someone answered that wasn’t her. Sounded like an older woman, told me Brenda was working the morning shift. So I had all day to wait before calling her in the late afternoon. All day to lose my nerve.
Right before my shift started at 4:00 p.m. I dialed her up. Brenda answered, and would you believe this, she thanked me for calling. I started to float above the chair. Real quick, I asked her to a movie on Sunday night. That was my day off. She said fine and I hung up quick. Had to call her right back to get her address. I still remember the movie, The Best Years of Our Lives. I remember ’cause it was about some guys just like me coming home after the war.
It was June of ’47 when I asked Brenda to marry me. I had a regular paycheck coming in, my sergeant seemed to be okay with me, and I had my own apartment over on Wylam Street. Brenda didn’t answer right off. Finally she said yes. I’m not sure what was more important to her—marrying me, or moving out of her parents’ home. Considered getting married right away, but Brenda thought we should have a church wedding, with people all dressed up in their good clothes it made sense to wait till the Alabama sun took a rest, so that people wouldn’t be all sweat-wet sitting in the pews. My sergeant scheduled me for three days off in September, so September 15 was the date.
Brenda had three or four platoons of family and friends filling the church. I didn’t have any family, and not too many friends. A handful of my buddies from the force came. And I was surprised happy when Richard Combs accepted our invitation. He brought his wife, a real lady. Emory was my best man. By then he’d quit college, he liked everything but the education part. Wangled himself a job distributing beer, bragged that it kept him drinking on a regular basis.
The wedding went pretty smooth. I wore a blue suit that Brenda picked out at Loveman’s. Wearing her mother’s wedding dress Brenda looked pretty as a peach blossom walking down the aisle.
After the church wedding we had a real fancy reception. Brenda’s father spent more than he should’ve, a real sit-down dinner and free drinks. Only hiccups were on my side. When Emory stood up to give a toast, he was holding the glass out in front of everybody with his claw hand. I’m looking at the wide eyes of the wedding guests, thinking he shoulda used the other hand. And some of my buddies on the force gulped too much of the free liquor. Toward the end they made some pretty loud comments about what was gonna happen on the honeymoon. Brenda pretended not to hear.
Our first year of marriage was a happy time. Brenda and her ma fixed up the apartment. Everything got painted and all of my furniture that I really liked went someplace else to live. Brenda quit her waitressing job and took a job with the Birmingham Library, putting books back on shelves.
Brenda gave up her library job when John Junior was born in December of ’48. He had the same problem I did with birthdays and Christmases. I wanted to name him after my pa, but Brenda never warmed up to the name Calvin. Couldn’t blame her, but I’m sur
e if she’d known Pa, she would’ve liked the name. Anyway, we named him after me, giving him a different middle name so he wouldn’t be a junior. We called him Junior anyway. By the time he got to walking, John Junior got boiled down to JJ. Went through his life answering to JJ. Sarah came along in ’51. Sarah was Brenda’s ma’s name. I guess Brenda forgot she didn’t like my Pa’s name, but I never said nothing about her picking her ma’s name.
When JJ was born we moved down the street to a two-bedroom apartment. By the time JJ and Sarah were off to school we signed a lease for a three-bedroom. It was $65 a month, but I was making close to $200, so it wasn’t a problem. Brenda kept busy with the kids, washing, cooking, and all that stuff. But she always took time to read. I don’t mean magazines and things, I mean books. Books on history and books on how to do things.
When the kids were in bed, and if I wasn’t on the night shift, sometimes Brenda and me would sit on the sofa and talk quiet like about the future. We imagined some hard-to-get good stuff. Maybe buying a house or maybe taking a real get-on-a-train kind of vacation. And we talked about some easier-to-get good stuff. Maybe buying a TV or an air conditioner. But we talked mostly about real-life important things. I wanted to make sergeant in a few years. Pay would be better and I wouldn’t have to work so many night shifts. Brenda hoped to be a librarian, and not just putting books back on the shelves. If she made librarian she’d have people working for her, sort of like she was the lieutenant at the library. But neither me making sergeant or Brenda becoming a librarian were jump-off-the-fence easy. In the police department every time a sergeant retired there was probably close to ten guys elbowing for the job. It wasn’t any easier for Brenda. A librarian needed a college degree.
By the middle of the fifties I was starting to think I could maybe make sergeant. Hadn’t shot myself in the foot and I always showed up on time. Well, that’s not fair to me. I was working hard. I passed all the tests, and they weren’t easy. I had to learn a bunch of law and police science. Got a big break when I was assigned to drive for Jimmy Morgan, the Birmingham mayor. If he had official business or just wanted to impress people, I would drive him in his black Oldsmobile 88 with one of my guys leading in a cruiser with the sirens and lights going. Gotta say, every time I saw the chrome 88 emblem on the trunk of his Oldsmobile I thought of those Kraut 88s. Whoosh.
Anyway, the mayor seemed to like me. We talked quite a few times. His nephew had dragged his ass through Guadalcanal as an army private. The mayor kept complaining that the marines got all the credit for beating the Japs. Once I drove the mayor and our police chief all the way to New Orleans. Spent two nights there. Real happy nights for them after they found a couple young friends. I sorta figured they’d take care of me after that. Funny thing, in New Orleans we passed the Higgins boatyard. They made the boat that took Tom and me to Omaha Beach back in ’44.
In ’57, there was good news for me, but bad news for Sergeant Billy Bob Livingston—a heart attack, fell over dead wearing his police uniform. Billy Bob was only in his forties. Good news for me was that he’d just made sergeant a couple years before, so instead of waiting twenty years for the guy to retire for an open slot, there it was. I couldn’t hardly believe it when they told me I’d made sergeant. I like to think the mayor put in a good word for me. Other than being alive when the sun was setting on June 6, 1944, I don’t think I’ve ever been happier. My pay went to $250 a month. Plus, and this was real important, I would only have the night shift one week a month.
I needed to stop working so many night shifts because of JJ. I wasn’t spending much time with him. It’s not like I needed to, he was a good kid. Both he and Sarah were good kids, and we made sure they always had chores to do. ’Course, living in an apartment, there weren’t too many chores to hand out. JJ had been delivering the Post-Herald since he was ten. Got fifteen cents a day for doing it. In the summers he cut grass, plus some Saturdays he worked in the back of Morey’s Hardware. Morey’s son had gotten skunk drunk and ran over some colored kid, and his pa was real grateful when I let him go.
Gotta be fair. I wouldn’t’ve made sergeant without Brenda. The department gave me two books to study, one on criminal law, another on municipal codes. I would’ve never learned them on my own. Brenda studied each chapter and wrote down an outline, then made up ten or twenty questions for each chapter. Made ’em up with the answers so’s I got maybe two hundred questions and answers to study. Each night I’d read ’em over once. After a few weeks they were like the Pledge of Allegiance, I knew ’em by heart. When I took the test most of the questions looked familiar and friendly, just like the ones Brenda made up. I passed the first time. Most guys never passed. My buddies at the station figured I was smart. Brenda was the smart one.
With my sergeant’s pay we could afford a mortgage. For $9,500 you got yourself a brand-new house with three bedrooms, two baths, a carport, and a yard. ’Course, not a yard you could plant corn or peanuts in, but a yard for a vegetable garden. But we decided to hide our acorns and put away fifty dollars a month. Figured in a couple years Brenda could start some college classes. Figured maybe JJ would want to go to college, so we saved some money for him too.
After I made sergeant we did live a little higher on the hog. Bought ourselves an air conditioner at Sears & Roebuck. Me and a buddy slid it into the living-room window. It cooled the living room real good. In each bedroom we put in a window fan that blew the air out, not in. The fans were turned off during the day so the bedrooms were real hot during the daytime, while the living room was cool like a movie theater. At night you just turned on the fans and they blew out, pulling the cold air from the air conditioner through the bedrooms. Worked real good.
Police work wasn’t all that hard in Birmingham. It’s not like we had a bunch of Al Capones shooting people with tommy guns. Most stuff was pretty simple. Directing traffic downtown, handing out speeding tickets, and a lot of just walking around. It made the shop owners feel good and let the bad guys know we was watching. One or two robberies each week, nothing big like banks. Maybe a TV from somebody’s house or money from a shop owner. Each year five or six murders, mostly a colored fella stabbing his sister’s boyfriend, that kind of stuff. Nothing for Perry Mason.
Moving through the fifties to the sixties was like watching a bad movie. Russians were putting up satellites, made us look as dumb as Mississippi mules. I’d turn on the TV and there’d be this pencil-shaped rocket down in Florida blowing up with our satellite burnt black like a marshmallow that fell in the fire. When I was growing up we had Hitler. Now Khrushchev was flying into New York on a plane twice as big as anything we got, telling us the Commies are gonna bury us.
Then the election. We got a Catholic president. Me and the other guys at the station were thinking we were gonna have to learn to talk Latin, eat fish on Fridays, and pray to the Pope. But that wasn’t the worst of it. I couldn’t believe the trouble the coloreds stirred up. We had always treated them good. They had schools and jobs. Anytime they didn’t like something, our coloreds could get on a bus and leave. Wasn’t like they was slaves and would get whipped if they tried to run. Then this Reverend Shuttlesworth guy started to stir up all the Birmingham coloreds. Coloreds that were real happy till he told ’em they shouldn’t be. All of a sudden things that everybody was okay with for a hundred years was a corncob-up-your-ass problem.
By the spring of ’63 Birmingham was going crazy, our coloreds standing at lunch counters wanting a seat right next to the white folks, complaining about all sorts of crap. Commissioner Conner ordered paddy wagons and billy clubs. And this is what really got me all-fired mad, a swarm of reporters from the North taking pictures—not taking pictures of anything good, just trying to make us look bad.
When things were really starting to heat up, King showed up. That’s Martin Luther King. Martin Luther Coon was what we called him. Everything I heard about him told me he was a troublemaker. Figured he was sorta like a colored Hitler or Khrushchev.
Then the colored
s brought out their kids, a thousand colored kids marching, chanting that they needed better schools and wanted to be treated just like whites. Commissioner Conner called out the fire department and they hosed ’em down with high-pressure hoses that could peel bricks off a building. That’s not everything they used. A lotta German shepherds learned to eat dark meat. I’m not saying it made me feel good to see a sharp-toothed dog ripping skin off, but I figured if the coloreds didn’t like our town, they shoulda just got the hell out.
By August we had used up most of our overtime budget for the whole year. My guys weren’t working day shifts or night shifts, they were working day-and-night shifts. Just about the time we were getting things quieted down the KKK showed up and stirred the pot to a boil.
Right in the middle of all this commotion was Brenda’s and my fifteenth anniversary. September 15, 1963, was the day. We’d never had a storybook kind of honeymoon. We hardly ever had a vacation. Twice we drove over to Holiday Beach with the kids for a week, laid on the beach, doing nothing. So we planned a get-it-right honeymoon in New York City for our anniversary. Other than one trip to Macon, Brenda had never been out of Alabama. I’d told her about New York, told her she wouldn’t believe how big the buildings were, and what it was like to stand on top of the Empire State Building. Everything was planned just right. On Sunday we were taking the train to New York and would be up there for three days, then back. The kids were staying with the Brown family down the street. Johnny Brown was looking to make sergeant someday.
On Saturday night before the Sunday we were jumping on a train for New York we had an anniversary party at the VFW. Rented a room, had barbecue brought in, and even had a guy with an electric guitar playing and singing. It being a VFW, there was plenty to drink. ’Course, the VFW only had beer. Emory brought two bottles of scotch. Said one was for him and the other for me and my friends. He wasn’t kidding. Sarah and JJ were with us, dressed in their Sunday best. Pretended not to see, but JJ was sipping a beer that Emory snuck him. All our close-by neighbors came and a lot of the guys under me showed up. They were doing their bit to become sergeants by kissing ass. I felt real proud that I could have a fancy party and pay for everything with no trouble. I’m not sure Brenda had a good time, but I knew she was real bubbly about New York. Guess she was tired of my stories and wanted to have a few of her own.