Boaz Brown (38 page)

“Well, it wasn’t hard for the police to find them, ‘cause Ellerson was so small at that time. They arrested Frederick, your daddy, and the rest of ‘em ‘cause that white woman said your daddy, a black man, had showed her his privates to her through the window.

“Your daddy already knowed they was gonna beat him, but when Sheriff Lipscomb got wind that Jonathan was the uppity black boy that had been in the papers and was goin’ off to college, they almost beat your daddy to death in that jail cell. Tried to beat him till he couldn’t think straight. You know that scar your daddy has right behind his ear?”

I nodded.

“That’s just one of ‘em. He’s got a lot more scars, but most of ‘em you can’t see, ‘cause they’re in his mind. The beatin’ the family took in the papers was almost worse than what your daddy took behind bars. Everybody had heard that Bessie Jean and Clyde’s son was in jail for showing hisself to a white woman. Even though most of the black folks knew better than to believe what they read in the papers, the white peoples around town started treating the blacks worse off than before; it got so ‘til the black people wanted the Smiths out of there ‘cause it made such a ruckus in the community.

“When your daddy got out, Grandmomma Smith and your grandfather moved the family to Dallas. Wasn’t far, but it was far enough to at least get out of town. But by that time your daddy had stayed in jail so long, they went ahead and filled his work detail slot at Harley College with somebody else.”

Stunned, I searched for something to say. “But couldn’t he go back the next year?” I asked finally.

“He was so sick and disgusted with everything, he just decided not to try anymore. He gave up. And that anger, that disappointment, that injustice has been with him ever since. That’s the way it was back then, LaShondra. You could lose
everything
over something as simple as peeing on the side of the road.
Everything,
just like that.” She snapped her fingers.

“But he didn’t lose everything. He still has you; he still has us and his family. Don’t we mean something to him?” I asked. “I mean, so he didn’t go to college. A lot of people didn’t go to college, especially back then.”

“It’s not so much about college as it is about his life being stolen from him, all on the word of a white woman.

“Now, I married your father ‘cause I could see that underneath all the rough-and-tough stuff, he’s still got a heart. He acted all mean around everybody, but I’d catch him stopping to smell a flower or making a car halt so that a child could fetch a ball that had rolled out in the middle of the street. But sometimes I hear him over in the night, grinding his teeth in his sleep. Just mad. Just angry.”

I shrugged my shoulders and asked, “Why didn’t he tell me this before?” I couldn’t help but feel betrayed. My father had a dream that died, almost literally, on the side of a country road—and I knew nothing about it? I was an educator. I could have helped him some kind of way.

“He doesn’t talk about it.” Her face was blank, as was her point.

“That’s it? He just doesn’t talk about it? What’s it supposed to do—go away?”

“No, it’s here. It’s in the way he talks, the way he thinks, the way he feels about white folks. You know, a lot of us don’t fool with white people ‘cause we never have and don’t have a desire to. But people like your father, the ones with the stories they do or don’t tell . . . it’s different for them. Everything’s different when it happens to
you
.”

I couldn’t deny that, but I couldn’t conceive of being at odds with my father about Stelson—for however long or short we might be together. My father and I wouldn’t have won any father-daughter awards for our relationship, but it worked for me. I had a father I could depend on, and I valued him.

“Momma, I’ve already lost Grandmomma Smith. I don’t want to lose Daddy, too.”

“Well, there ain’t but One that can fix this mess,” she said. Momma lifted herself up from the table.

“I know. Will you agree with me and Stelson and pray that God will come in and change this whole thing around?”

“We ain’t got no choice but to pray.”

“You’re right. We don’t,” I agreed with her. “We cannot let the enemy come in here and tear this family apart.”

“You got that right, baby.” She gave me that old-folks wise smile. “I taught you well. Let’s get in here and pray.”

We prayed until the power of the Holy Spirit fell upon us. Momma began praying in her heavenly language, and I suddenly felt relieved, knowing that the Spirit was uttering the right words, communicating precisely what needed to be said—more than either of us knew to pray.

We decided that I’d tell my father myself. When the time was right.

After cleaning up the kitchen, we got our purses and carried on with the rest of the day, stopping first at the grocery store. You would have thought we were getting ready for Thanksgiving, the way that list looked. Greens, sweet potatoes, cornmeal. Down one aisle and up the next, tossing things into the cart.

It felt good to be at her side and to have someone else, for once, be in charge of things. For as much as I loathed Momma’s pestering and nosiness, I took comfort in her authority, the sureness of her role in my life. They say a girl isn’t a woman until she loses her mother. I believed it that day.

We ran all over the store for about an hour. When we got back in the car, Momma picked me for more information about Stelson. “What kind of church does he belong to?”

“I guess you could say,” I said, still trying to keep the tone light, “that he goes to a nondenominational church.” I knew how Momma felt about nondenominational churches. She said they were all a bunch of renegades and cults. “But he was raised in the Assemblies of God,” I quickly added what I hoped would be redeeming information.

She was silent for a moment. I briefly glanced at her to read her expression. She looked at me real crazy, then turned her head away from me. “Humph. I heard our church and theirs used to be tied up a long time ago.”

“That’s right, Momma. We were.”

“And I hear you’ve been taking him to True Way with you,” she said.

My mouth dropped. “Who told you that?”

“Word gets around. ‘Specially when it’s got church folk to spread it. I heard about your friend already. They say he’s respectful. Gives a good offerin’, too.” She held her purse tightly to her stomach.

“Somebody is talkin’ way too much,” I said.

“Aw, girl, please. They don’t mean no harm by it. Just lookin’ out for you.”

“I doubt they would have done that if Stelson were black.”

“Well, he ain’t. And you’re wrong—they would do it if he was black. Saints always look out for each other’s kids. You’d be surprised what I know.” She patted her purse and looked away from me.

It was almost ten o’clock by the time Daddy got back from Grandmomma Smith’s house. They’d been working on the funeral arrangements all day long. Momma and I were almost finished with the evening’s cooking. When he walked through the door, Momma grabbed his light jacket and kissed him on the cheek. “Let me hang up your coat.”

Daddy came and sat in the kitchen. He looked drained. Empty. Not himself. “Hi, Daddy.”

“Hey, Shondra. What you doin’ over here?” He took off his shoes and placed them together beside the refrigerator.

“Just helpin’ Momma out. How is everybody?”

“Fine.” He tried to give me a little grin but failed pathetically. He took off his shirt and placed it on the back of his chair before sitting to join me at the table. Any other time, Momma would have fussed at him for leaving his stuff all over the kitchen. But not this time.

“The family needs to meet at Grandmomma Smith’s house at ten so we can go over to the church.”

“Which church?” I asked.

“My mother’s church,” he barked at me.

Momma looked at me like, go
along with it.

“My mother was a member of New Zion Baptist Church. She’d been a member there since we moved here in 1959.” He folded his hands and began with a sketchy outline of how Grandmomma Smith had been involved in the church, obviously intermittently. Still, he’d said that the church was sorry to hear of her passing and was more than happy to host services for one of its own.

“That’s great to know, Daddy.”

“Did you get in touch with Jonathan? I tried calling him, but I couldn’t get through.”

“Yes, Daddy. I called him. He’ll be here Wednesday afternoon.”

“Yeah, Jonathan loved Grandmomma Smith. And she sure loved him. My momma was so proud of him going off into the service. She was proud of all y’all, you know.”

He looked up and gave a real beam this time. “I mean, your cousins are okay and all, but she always said that you and Jonathan would grow up and make something of yourselves, no matter what the world brings. People like you and Jonathan make black folks proud.” Daddy smiled to himself.

Chapter 19

We
,
the jury in the above-entitled action, find the defendant, Orenja—Orenthal James Simpson, not guilty in..
.“

My heart almost stopped.

“Yeah! Yeah!” Daddy took off running with his hands in the air. He ran through the house like a mad man, screaming, “Yeah! Yeah! Not guilty! Not guilty!”

“Jonathan Smith Senior, if you don’t stop all this clownin’ and sit down somewhere,” Momma called to him after several minutes of his rampage. “The doctor told you to take it easy these next few days—don’t, you gonna end up having a heart attack!”

“Yeah!” He ignored her and ran another circle through the living room, kitchen, and dining room.

“Daddy!” I caught him by the arm. “I’m not taking off another day of work to come see about you again.”

He acquiesced and sat down, panting, at the kitchen table. “Aw, girl
,
hush. You didn’t want to go to work today anyway. Whoo! Good God almighty. I don’t believe you understand what just happened. This is one small step for black mankind.”

“Jon, you know good and well O.J.
killed that girl and her man friend,” Momma said. “Two people are dead. Even if he didn’t kill them, he certainly had something to do with it.”

Daddy shook his head and motioned for me to get him some water. I pulled a glass from the top shelf of the cabinet, rinsed it out, and filled it with ice and water from the refrigerator door.

“Whoo!” He wiped perspiration from his forehead. “It doesn’t matter whether he did it or not. The courts never have cared whether or not a black man was truly guilty. We’ve been saying that since we got off the boat. Now they finally get to see what it feels like to have a jury overlook all the evidence and find somebody not guilty. I believe Malcolm X called it ‘Chickens coming home to roost.’ Whoo! I can die now. I’ve seen it all.”

“You
will
be dead, you keep up this whoopin’ and hollerin’,” Momma said. She took the empty glass from his hands and refilled it. “It really don’t matter what color the people are, Jon. If he did it, he should have been found guilty.”

“Well, the law says he didn’t do it, so as far as I’m concerned, O.J. Simpson is innocent.’ Daddy put his fret up on the chair in front of him and raised his pinky while he sipped the water. “Not guilty. Boy, I can’t
wait
to go to work tomorrow with a big smile on my face.”

Daddy skipped into the living room and picked up the remote control. He turned up the volume. He switched channels three or four times, laughing at the astonished looks on the faces of the white people as they heard the verdict time and time again. Not guilty.

“Ha!” he screamed. “Look at ‘em! Serves ‘em right, after they let them cops who beat Rodney King go. Whoo! You wait till I get to work tomorrow!”

“So, do you think O.J. did it?” I asked Daddy.

“It doesn’t matter what I think.” He shook his head. “The book says he’s innocent. But that’s beside the point.”