He appeared uncomfortable by our gazing. “Why y’all lookin’ at me like that?”
We just giggled.
With my mother in the center, we take the walk together, hand in hand. There were several dozen people on the grounds; it was just before noon and the masses hadn’t shown up yet (it gets very crowded). Many of them were veterans, dressed in their respective uniforms (all four branches of the military were represented). Family units of all colors and generations were present (one little girl, probably no more than three, was sitting on the lap of a man in a wheelchair who had to be almost a century old). There were red, white, and yellow roses, violets, tulips, daffodils, sunflowers, and daisies inside the plot holes along the Wall’s base, as well as American flags of various sizes. And, of course, there was a soundtrack of muffled sobs and prayers.
By the time we reached my father, we were also in tears (which wasn’t unusual). We clung to each other for a few minutes, swapping hankies and hugs.
My mother arranged the gardenias. Then I took a blue colored pencil and a piece of light gray granite paper from my knapsack and did what has become a rite of passage here: I bent down, placed the paper over his name—he’s in the fourth panel, sixth row from the bottom—and “shaded” it. I gave it to my mother, who will date and place it in her Bible later tonight. She collects them as a memento of each trip; she must have six by now.
We each spend time with him alone. Clutching his photo and the Bronze Medal he received posthumously, my mother usually sings him a few tunes like she used to back in the day. I remember her lullabying me to sleep; I inherited my voice from her (she stopped singing after he was killed and didn’t start again until we began visiting him here). “At Last” by Etta James was his favorite song and that’s always on her playlist. Adam just sits in silence, with his head in his lap. He doesn’t remember him—and not having any memories has to be worse than trying not to forget the few you do.
I always write him a letter. When my mother and Adam took their walk, I bent down on both knees and read it out loud (but not so loud that I attracted or disturbed others):
Hi, Dad,
Happy birthday. Hope the past year has been a blessed one. I’ve been in very jood health and spirits.
Let’s see, there’s so much to tell you since our last meeting. Probably the most important news: I found a job. I’m teaching at a school just blocks from my apartment. No more racing out of the house to catch a train or bus. I’m teaching creative writing for the sixth through eighth grades. It’s a challenge, to say the least. But I am realizing one of my dreams. I don’t think I ever told you that. Being a teacher was one of my goals. Somehow I let it get away from me. But now it’s got ahold of me and I am enjoying it so much. You’ve got two sons who are shaping the minds and bodies of tomorrow.
Speaking of that other son: you should see Adam, Dad. He is the spitting image of you. He’s a lot thicker than you were; I tell him all the time he should seriously consider becoming a professional bodybuilder. I know he feels cheated that you were taken from us before he had the chance to know you. I didn’t really know you, either, but at least I can replay some of those moments we had. He doesn’t like to talk about his feelings, but the fact that he is literally changing into you before our eyes tells me that your spirit lives on in him. You’d be so proud of the man he has become.
Pooquie and I are still together. He’s in Hollywood right now making his first film. He’s going to be a star. It leaves me wondering where I’ll fit in when that happens, though. He hasn’t tried to hide me, but he hasn’t told the world about us—not that I expect him to. But I know that the bigger he gets, the harder it will be for and on us. No matter how many strides gay people have made, people just aren’t ready for a man like him declaring who he is and publicly acknowledging his beaufriend. And Pooquie isn’t at that point himself. But I love him and I know he loves me. He makes me so happy, and so does his son, Junior. Junior came to visit me on Friday. We had so much fun together.
Pooquie’s father reappeared last spring. Pooquie is suspicious of him and I guess he should be—the man walked out on him and his mother when Pooquie was five. I don’t know why he came back, but I told Pooquie that he has a chance I don’t. I have to remind him how lucky he is. How I wish I could really talk to you, really laugh with you, really hug you—not as a little boy but as a man. He can have that if he works through the anger. I’m kind of jealous but happy for him.
Say hi to Grandma Ada, Grand Pop, and Uncle Russ. I love and miss them. And I love and miss you,
MC-20
That’s what he called me. When he came home from work, I’d fly into his arms and he’d carry me through the house. He was my sky as I puttered and whizzed with delight, my body erect and arms extended.
“That DC-10 has nothin’ on my MC-20!”
“No, it don’t, Daddy!”
In that one playful moment, he made me feel like I could do anything.
After my mother, Adam, and I said a final good-bye and prayer, we got something to eat at a diner. We all had salads. They both quizzed me about Pooquie’s adventure in L.A. so far, while my mother filled us in on some of the family gossip (my father’s very youthful-looking seventy-eight-year-old aunt, Cecile, got married to a fifty-two-year-old man last weekend; u go girl!).
“And, while we’re on that subject: Did your brother tell you the jood news?” my mother sang as the waitress took away our dishes.
I chuckled. “What jood news?” Our attention turned to him.
“Lynette. I asked her to marry me.”
“And?”
“And she said yes.”
“That’s terrific!” I bellowed, slapping his hand. “When’s the date?”
“We haven’t set one yet. But we’re leaning toward June next year.”
“Great. I know Lynette can’t wait …”
“And I can’t wait to be a grandmother,” my mother squealed. “It’ll be nice to hear the pitter-patter of little feet around the house again—and know that, at the end of the day, those little feet will be going home to Mommy and Daddy. “Hmm … I guess she’s not counting on me in that department. She’s accepted who I am—her concern for Pooquie and our relationship is proof—but I’m sure that deep down inside, she wishes I were heterosexual (not that I would have to be to give her a grandchild).
She rose. “Ah, excuse me. I have to go to the ladies’ room.” She headed off, pinching Adam’s cheek as she walked by him.
I studied him with a smirk.
“What?”
“I’m just picturing you as a married man. And a father.”
“Are they hard to picture?”
“Not at all. You’ll make a jood father and husband. And I’m sure Lynette will be a jood wife and mother. I really like her.” And I did: she’s an incredibly smart (physics professor at Columbia), sexy sister. At thirty-six, she’s a decade older than him (you can’t tell), but that’s not an issue for either of them (the age-ain’t-nothin’-but-a-number credo is a family thing—my mother and I are both roughly seven years older than the men in our lives).
“Seems like she’s the only woman I dated you ever liked.”
“No, I liked quite a few of your lady friends. Simone was really sweet. So was Theresa. And the model from St. Thomas, what was her name?”
“Roshamba.”
“She was a living doll.” And she was: Barbie dipped in chocolate with black hair straighter than a horse’s tail (it probably was a horse’s tail).
“I don’t recall you kidnapping any of them the first time you met and keeping them on your arm the whole night, like Lynette.”
“That’s because they were all nice but—if I may be so bold—just a little too high maintenance.”
“Huh?”
“Like … they were contestants at a beauty pageant, all gussied and glamoured up. Stunning to look at. But just a little too … tight. You try to cut up with them and they’d look at you in horror. Just a little too pr
im and proper.”
“And Lynette?”
“Lynette’s a homegirl with class, not to mention beauty and brains. The right mix. And when you two are together … I can clearly see that you are into her. I didn’t see that with any of the others.”
“You didn’t?”
“Nope. Especially Jayne.”
Jayne. A white high-school dropout from Sheepshead Bay working in her uncle’s air-conditioner business as a cashier. No, I didn’t like my brother dating a white woman—but not because she was white. It was because she’s wasn’t Black. Not two weeks after he testified that sisters were “too demanding and difficult” (and how many times have we heard brothers say that?), he shows up at my mother’s July Fourth barbecue with Jayne. And Jayne was plain—skin as white as typing paper, her dark brown hair done in a sloppy short bob, and a nonexistent chest and backside. I took one look at her and thought: He’s not dating her because she’s a white girl but because she is the white girl. I’ve seen the syndrome before: it don’t matter what they look like, so long as they’re white. Present a brother with a sister with the same body and bio as Jayne and he’d most certainly balk. Black gay men aren’t the only ones who can be snow queens; their hetero and bi brethren participate in that pathology on an even larger scale (you can count on just a few hands the number of pro-sports players and entertainers who have Black wives/girlfriends). So, while I was more than hospitable toward her (she was a pleasant woman, just not very bright), I was more than cool toward him. He knew I could see right through the masquerade. We never saw and he never mentioned Jayne again—and, lo and behold, one month later he met the woman who apparently restored his faith in sisters: Lynette.
“You never gonna let me live that one down, are you?”
“I just call them as I see ’em.”
We sipped our hot chocolate.
“Mitch?”
“Yeah?”
“I want you to be my best man.”
I beamed. “I’d be honored, little brother.”
“Will you cut that little-brother noise.”
“Well, you are—”
“My little brother,” he finished with me, then continued, “Yeah, I know.”
“Well … I guess it would be kind of silly to continue calling you little and you’re practically a married man. And Little Adam Junior will be running around soon. No sense in confusing him.” I winked.
He nodded. “You think Rah will be one of my groomsmen?”
“Of course. I’m sure he’d love that. I would, too.” Funny how he and Pooquie immediately hit off when they first met, like Lynette and I. Hmm …
My mother returned. “So, you two ready?”
“Yeah,” we replied.
“Okay, then. Let’s hit the road.”
I was about to climb into the front seat when my mother cleared her throat. “Uh, aren’t you forgetting something?”
“Huh?”
“Your luggage?”
It hit me. “Oh.” I walked around to the trunk, took off my knapsack, and dropped it inside. Why? That would be revealed when we were back on the road, just outside of north Philadelphia.
“Do you two see what I see?” my mother asked, looking through the rearview mirror.
We both looked back. A New Jersey State Police vehicle was a couple of car lengths behind us.
“Damn. We haven’t even officially gotten into Jersey yet,” Adam grunted.
I turned around. I sighed. “Here we go again …”
It never fails. You’re driving along a highway, freeway, expressway, city street, or country road, minding your own business, and suddenly you’re tagged by a trooper or cop for no reason. Oh, sure, they try to come up with one—you made an illegal lane change, you made a lane change without signaling, you were driving over the speed limit, one of your taillights is cracked, your headlights weren’t on, your license plate appeared obstructed, your gas tank is leaking—but you know and they know it’s a bogus charge. And you don’t fit the description of a suspect they received an APB on—you fit the description of the criminal they know you are.
After all … you’re Black.
I’m sure the Driving While Black daymare my stepfather, Anderson, experienced with my mother is one of the reasons why he doesn’t take the trip with us. Eight years ago, he and my mother visited his relatives in Richmond. They usually took Amtrak, but decided to drive that time—a decision they would both regret. Just outside of Trenton, they were flagged down by a trooper.
“Is there a problem, Officer?” Anderson innocently asked. My mother knew that that was the wrong question to ask—you don’t challenge someone who, by the authority of the government, can take your life with impunity—and that if the officer had any mischief in mind when he stopped them, it would be carried out with much more glee now that, in his mind, Anderson had given him a reason to fuck with them.
And that’s exactly what happened. Because he had the nerve to inquire as to why he was pulled over, Anderson was ordered out of the car (which he initially protested, but my mother urged him to), handcuffed, and forced to sit on the side of the highway. My mother was escorted to and placed in a police vehicle while drug-sniffing Dobermans canvassed every inch of the vehicle. It didn’t matter that Anderson owned the car he was driving. It didn’t matter that he was current on his insurance. It didn’t matter that the car hadn’t received a single citation, not even a traffic ticket. It didn’t matter that he was a federal employee (he’s a mailman). And it certainly didn’t matter that he didn’t have a criminal record, for we all know that any Black man without a criminal record is just a Black man who hasn’t been caught yet, right?
The only “drugs” they found was a bottle of Tylenol (which happened to be empty) and my mother’s vitamin supplements in the glove compartment. After being detained for ninety minutes (much of that time was spent waiting for the illegal search squad to arrive), they were allowed to leave. No sorry-for-the-inconvenience, no explanation, no apology, not even a good-bye (at least they didn’t tear out the seats or junk the trunk, leaving it all sitting on the road for them to put back together; I understand that has happened to many). To add insult to this injury, Anderson was issued a ticket for “driving erratically.” Neither one of them said a word during the rest of that drive back home. My mother just held his hand and wiped his tears as they poured down his face. It was the first time she had ever seen him cry.
And that was the last time he drove on I-95.
The “War on Drugs” (which is nothing but a war on and against Black and Brown people), as well as the already widely accepted misbelief that most crime is committed by us, has given law enforcement the perfect excuse to harass and humiliate citizens whose only “crime” is riding down the road in the wrong skin. The only racial profiling that should exist is the kind that weeds out white cops who believe niggers have no rights.
After they blipped their siren and lights, my mother pulled over. She didn’t have to tell us to be cool and let her do the talking; she had already schooled us on the do’s and don’ts when interacting with cops (any Black parent who hasn’t/doesn’t is committing child abuse). Having come across more than a few Bull Connors in her time (including being shot at by one Nazi-like country bumpkin who didn’t appreciate her and other “colored rabble-rousers” coming into the Deep South to help register voters in the late sixties), she doesn’t trust them—even if they are Black (as she argues, “You can change the complexion, but you can’t change the culture”). So she gave us both, at the age of eight, the ten-commandments-for-survival lecture on what to do if we’re approached or stopped by police: don’t run; stay calm; keep your hands in view at all times; do not exhibit body language that could be construed as “threatening”; don’t resist or struggle with them; only speak when you’re asked a question; be polite and respectful—even if they aren’t; if you’re arrested, call her; don’t make any statements until she’s arrived with an attorney (she’s kept Henry Kleghorne’s numbe
r right beside her phone and in her purse the past twenty-plus years); and if we are lost or need help and see a police officer, go in the other direction.
Two troopers—both white, in their early forties—approached the car on either side. One stopped just in front of Adam’s door. He had that unattractive handlebar mustache and looked as if he were about to drop twins. He stood with his arms folded over his kangaroo pouch, a toothpick in his mouth. He reminded me of Sheriff Buford T. Justice in Smokey & the Bandit I and II.
“Could I see your license and registration?” the other one asked my mother, minus the please. He was thin, shorter, dorky (very Barney Fife–ish) and, like his partner, was wearing tinted glasses. He took them off and peered at my brother and me (we sat up right with our hands folded on our laps, as if we were in grammar school) as she retrieved the requested documents from her overhead pocket. She handed them to him.
He looked them over. “Uh, Mrs. Walker, where you comin’ from, Florida?”
Translation: Are you transporting drugs from the Sunshine State up north?
“No. We’re coming from D.C.,” she answered.
“And what type of business did you have there?”
“We were visiting my first husband, their father, at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.”
His eyes bugged. “Uh, the Wall?”
“Yes. Today would’ve been his fiftieth birthday.” I was truly loving this; she was going to make him feel like shit for pulling us over when he knew he had no right to. I held back a chuckle.
But he had to try to save himself, so he turned his attention to my brother and me. “So, these are your sons? Uh, do they have ID?”
Mind you, he asked her if we had ID. We were certainly one of the reasons—if not the primary one—why he stopped us (if there’s more than one Black man in a car, they gotta be on their way to or from trouble), but not important enough to address directly.
She nodded. “Yes, they do.”
Instead of going into our pants or jackets, we both reached into our shirt pockets and drew them out. Of course we waited until he was at our respective windows before we did (his partner didn’t budge). You cannot rely on a cop (especially a white one) to warn a Black man not to reach for something. How many times have we heard in cases where a Black man has been shot, “He made a suspicious move and I thought he was going for a gun”?
Love the One You're With Page 18