Growing Up King (12 page)

But now I heard him asking the murderer of his wife, this Marcus Wayne Chenault, a question. Looked him right in his face
and said, “Why did you shoot my wife, son?” Called him “son.”

That stunned me. I looked at Granddaddy, usually so stern. A lot had gone out of him.

Chenault said, “I came to get you, and when I get out of here, I’m going to get you.”

My grandfather said, “Son, I’m going to pray for you. You need help.” He forgave him. I witnessed this. And this began then
to work on me, set a subconscious tone for things later in my life. I believe this moment was the culmination of the non-violent
influence of our father on Granddaddy’s life, his conduct, his sensibility.

My feelings then were in direct conflict with the way I was brought up by my parents. When my father was killed, my mother
said, “You know, Dexter, you shouldn’t hate people. The man who did this was sick. And this is a sick society. But you must
learn to forgive. Not to forget, but to forgive. You must. Or you will become bitter.”

My father forgave Izola Ware Curry, who stabbed him with a letter opener in the chest and almost took his life in a Harlem
department store while he sat autographing books. The stabbing weapon was a quarter inch away from his aorta; had it pierced
the aorta, he would have drowned in his own blood. My grandfather didn’t know his wife was dead, not at that moment with Marcus
Wayne Chenault. Only that it didn’t look good. Chenault turned his head to the wall.

We all walked back to the OR. They told us they couldn’t do any more.

The pain made him grimace, wince, moan, and wheeze. He aged a decade in one afternoon. I saw him do it. I was thirteen. This
traumatic experience helped shape my future—to see my grandfather this way, to have heard him say what he said to Chenault.
At the moment he said it I didn’t understand it at all. I didn’t understand what was so bad about bitterness. Sometimes bitterness
might leave a good taste. I wasn’t alone in my confusion. Isaac lost it emotionally. He began questioning the doctors.

“Y’all didn’t do all you could do! Y’all know y’all didn’t…”

I tried to calm Isaac. No good. He looked at me. “What’s wrong with you, Dexter? He killed Big Mama!” He tore away from me.
We went to where her body was on the table and said our good-byes. It was sad. But I didn’t cry. People said something was
wrong with me because I never cried in those moments. Only Bunny never questioned it. Isaac was crying, Vernon was crying,
Derek was crying, Martin was crying. I understood what was going on in terms of what death meant. I had been in close proximity
to this latest murder, yet I was just kind of… detached.

Was I feeling guilt, anger, sadness, fear? Guilt. And later, even more guilt. I kept thinking, “If only I had been there.
So stupid! If only we hadn’t gone to Carter’s between Sunday school and Morning Worship, if only I’d been more like my father,
or even more like Derek… If I’d been there, maybe I could have done something.” I lapsed into the dream state again, where
I was there, and I saw Marcus Wayne Chenault pulling out the .38 pistol, and I leaped through the air and caught the bullet
meant for Big Mama. I caught it in the chest… but there was no pain…

A short time later we gathered in my grandmother’s house, the family gathering place there in Collier Heights. We were all
there—those that were left. M.L. Sr.’s and Big Mama’s progeny, the families of their sons, M.L. Jr. and A.D., and their daughter.
Christine. There were Alveda, Alfred Daniel, Jr., Derek Barber, Esther Darlene, and Vernon Christopher—my Uncle A.D.’s and
Aunt Naomi’s children; Isaac Newton Farris, Jr., and Angela Christine Farris—the children of Aunt Christine and Uncle Isaac;
then us— Yolanda, Martin III, me, and Bernice Albertine, children of Martin Jr. and Coretta. Uncle Andy Young was looking
at Granddaddy in shock. How could he not be broken? We gathered at the river, the home of my father’s parents. I stared at
photos—Granddaddy, Big Mama, Aunt Christine, Uncle A.D., and “Uncle M.L.,” as my cousins called my daddy. Three of five were
gone violently. What kind of man wouldn’t ask God, “Why?”

Later I said this to Mother, but instead of the shock and revulsion I expected from her about this blasphemy, she merely nodded
and said, “Your father went through it.”

Went through what? I asked. Questioning God? Yes, she answered.

She told me that when my father’s grandmother died of a heart attack at the family home where he’d been born, 501 Auburn,
he had experienced the same guilt, because he’d sneaked away to watch a parade, and he felt maybe if he had not done that,
if he’d stayed at home, he might have been able to help her.

“She was the epitome of a Baptist preacher’s wife,” Grand-daddy said of Big Mama. The question I asked was, “Why would a loving
God allow this? Why would God, if God was good, take a woman everybody loved? She threatened nobody’s way of life, harmed
no one.” We knew Daddy had enemies. Even if my grandfather had been shot—I would have been more prepared.

What really set it off was when my little sister Bernice said what I was thinking: “If you’re not safe in the church, where
else are you safe? If you can’t go to church and not worry about getting killed, where can you go?” The experience was horrific
for my family, particularly, as I recall, for Bunny, who was already in a shell. Damage had been done to me; my grandmother
had been the glue of my life.

We went into the master bedroom, the family and Uncle Andy, for three or four hours. There we fleshed it out, our emotions,
fears, frustrations. It wasn’t heated—no confrontation between anybody in the room. It was purely emotional. Just wave upon
wave of it. And so many tears. A river of tears, for it wasn’t just Big Mama being mourned. Uncle A.D. and my father too.
I can still hear the wailing, still feel the heat rising up in my throat choking me, taking my breath.

But no tears came from me. Not from Dexter. I couldn’t figure out how this could happen to such a sweet person, how she could
die such a violent death. Her faith was strong, and her belief in us was as strong, and her fellowship was strongest. The
abrupt loss made us all question ourselves most of all. Near the end of the four-hour session, my grandfather said, “I think—
I think that I have to—we have to—forgive this, and forgive this man. Even this. Do you all follow me?”

I thought, “No sir, I don’t.” But I said nothing.

There was uncomfortable silence around me, then a soft “Yes” and “Yes sir, Daddy” and “Amen, Granddaddy.” As he prayed, you
could feel trembling, hear wracking sobs—but also feel the bond. When he’d finished, Granddaddy looked up, beyond us, and
said, “Now I want you all to leave. Leave me now. But remember, don’t let anybody make you hate.”

In time, my grandfather’s way and words that evening helped us overcome useless feelings of vengeance. Even though I didn’t
realize it at the time, hearing him say, “I cannot hate this man,” moved me. I had to honor that. Uncle Andy was there for
support, advice, and consent; the sentiment from them both was, “You can’t let him bring you down to the point of hatred.
I can’t hate this man. You can’t either.” This was more like my father than my grandfather. My father had a profound impact
even upon his own father. Even long dead, Daddy was still our Rock of Ages.

I felt for my granddaddy because he had lost two sons. First-born son and namesake: gone. Second-born son: gone. Wife: gone.
All gone, within a six-year period.

He said, “I’m here for y’all.” Then he switched, was talking like he wanted to go “to his reward,” as he termed it. “Maybe
my work is done and I need to go on home.” Then, a reversal again: “But now I’ve thought on it. I still have you. I have my
daughter, my grandchildren to live for.” And so he did live on for us, for ten more years. One of his sisters, Woodie Clara,
came and lived with him the next year and cared for him. As we were leaving that night, he said, “Keep the faith, and keep
looking up. Also be thankful for what you have left.” If he could say that—I can’t measure his suffering, and if he, an elderly
person, not as physically strong as he once was, could endure this, have it taken out of him like that and still have faith
and move on, then the least I could do was move on too. But as what? To what?

F
or the next several months, Bernice would stare at pictures in our family photo albums, then tilt her head toward me birdlike
and ask, “I wonder who’s next?” She also developed these notions in her mind that she was supposed to be this perfect person
now. Which you cannot ever be. It was like a setup, really. My father was the standard for all of us to live by and live up
to. He became the standard because he was so exceptional in so many ways. But how can you live up to the standard that by
definition is so rare, so exceptional, that it is only met by a once-in-a-lifetime human being?

My mother says that when Bernice was born, my father said Bernice would be the most well-adjusted. Bernice articulated for
me these unspeakable feelings of dread. I couldn’t get mad at her or impatient with her, for I’d had the same feelings. First
Daddy. Then Uncle A.D., who had taught Bernice to swim. Then Big Mama. Bunny said she started to think that death was after
my family. She’d sit there on the living room couch, look at pictures, and try to figure out who was next.

I myself was preoccupied with death for a long time. And Bunny’s preoccupation helped drive mine; I thought about her when
I took a job at the Hanley’s Bell Street Funeral Home.

I ended up working there, in 1977—at the funeral home that had buried my father. I was afraid of death, so maybe I needed
to get closer to it, put myself in an environment where I could better understand it. Instead of running from it, run to it.
And that was my way of addressing my fear of death, getting a job working in the funeral home. My Uncle A.D. had conducted
services with the same funeral home once upon a time; I didn’t know that until I got the job.

At that time, Hanley’s buried many members of Ebenezer. The proprietors were members of Ebenezer, and my grandfather encouraged
patronizing them when the time came. They’d buried members of our family back to Granddaddy’s father-in-law. It was a big
deal for me to drive the hearse. I was a mortician’s apprentice. I was afraid at first but kept reminding myself I was doing
it to overcome my fear of death, and to explore my interest in mortuary science, so I handled the corpses and watched as my
bosses filled them with fluids and dressed them so that their families would say they “looked good.” Seeing them in the pre-embalmed
state, I knew better. Death was ugly. And noisy. Gases would build up in the corpses, and escape through every orifice. Sometimes
through the mouth. You haven’t lived until you’ve been alone in a mortuary with a corpse sounding like it wants to breathe
again. Once there was a ripping thunderstorm, dark as night in the middle of the day, and the other employees were out on
call. I was alone, having a sandwich for lunch, with the squeaky ceiling fan my only company. I heard a boom from behind the
door leading back to the embalming room. A tree limb banging against the shutters, or shutters slamming against the building,
I thought. I took another bite of my sandwich.
Boom-bam… creeeeak.
For all I know, that sandwich is still on the counter. Unless whatever made that sound came out and ate it. I’m kidding,
but it was serious then. I was standing outside under the awning in the rain when the hearses returned. My bosses at Hanley’s
had a good laugh. The experience of working in the mortuary did help me overcome my fear of death.

Jimmy Carter, the governor of Georgia, was part of our survival. I think we were part of his too—in a political sense. Traditionally,
members of the King family went to every Democratic National Convention. Democratic honchos hadn’t forgotten the presidential
election in 1960, after my father’s arrest and imprisonment, and the hand my grandfather played in the election of Senator
John F. Kennedy as president. So we were invited, on the off chance that something funny might wind up happening again one
day. We were invited in ’72 in Miami and ’76 in New York. So we went. He never took any credit for it, but Granddaddy was
also helpful to Jimmy Carter’s being elected president in 1976.

Governor Carter, in the run-up to the campaign, had made a public statement that almost destroyed his candidacy before it
began. In Atlanta’s Central City Park, he made an innocuous statement about ethnic purity that some interpreted as racist.
It’s not what he meant, but it came across that way. My grandfather bailed him out. Granddaddy stood up at a rally, supported
him, and said, “This is a good man, so don’t hold that misunderstanding against him. Don’t try to repeat what he said, he
had a different context.” He repeated his confidence in Mr. Carter from the pulpit at Ebenezer, and the rest is history. Some
inside the African-American and Jewish communities were getting ready to blister Mr. Carter behind the “ethnic purity” statement
taken out of context. If those two communities hadn’t voted for Carter in numbers, he wouldn’t have won the 1976 presidential
election.