The reckoning, p.5
The Reckoning, page 5
“Yep. You got it. Check you later.”
As soon as Lamar got off the phone, he heard T.C.
“Let’s go, Junior. We’re waiting for you.”
“That knucklehead,” Lamar mumbled to himself. “I’ve told him not to call me that.”
Lamar grabbed his video camcorder and hurried out the door, where T.C. and two friends waited for him in the yard. As soon as he reached T.C., he hit him with a gentle punch.
“What you do that for?”
“I’ve told you ’bout that Junior.”
“Man, that hurt!” T.C. complained, massaging the aching spot.
“You know that didn’t hurt, T.C.,” Lamar said.
“You gonna take that?” one of the friends asked T.C.
“We just funning, Ray,” T.C. said. “It ain’t nothing.”
Lamar and T.C. had known Ray since first grade. He lived in the same neighborhood. But lately Lamar and T.C. had noticed a change. Ray didn’t seem to enjoy the things the three friends used to do together, and he had begun hanging out with Frankie Pierce and Jimmy Clay.
“It ain’t no big deal, Ray. We’re all friends,” the fourth member of the group said.
Little John had moved to Morton when they were in the fourth grade. His family called him Little John, and so everyone else did, too. But he wasn’t really little. In fact, he was heavier than his three friends.
“Nobody asked you anything,” Ray shot back.
As the quartet walked down Clay Street, the road that Lamar’s grandfather lived on, Lamar remembered how Gramps had talked about the unpaved roads. He hadn’t really given them much thought before. Like everyone else, he was just used to the streets being the way they were.
As Lamar and his friends got closer to Lamar’s grandfather’s house, he thought about the old oak tree in the yard that he used to climb. Sometimes he would lay on his back underneath the big branches and look up through the leaves at the clouds above as they floated past. He remembered the old car tire Gramps hung on one of the tree’s large branches that became a swing for the children. Gramps’s house was one of the oldest ones on Clay Street. He and Grandma Ella had built it just after they were married. It was where Lamar’s father, his father’s two brothers and his sister were born and raised.
When the four boys reached the yard, Lamar saw that the old tire was still there, and a warm feeling filled him. They mounted the steps of the white-framed house. After Lamar knocked on the door, Gramps opened it right away.
“Come on in, fellas,” he invited them.
Lamar was drawn to the photograph on the wall across the room. It was Gramps and Grandma Ella on their wedding day. He had seen it before but rarely paid attention to it. This time, he stared at the photograph, amazed at how young Gramps and Grandma Ella looked. Gramps had a long Afro and a short goatee like some Black men wore back in the day. Grandma Ella wore an Afro, too. As Lamar looked closer, he thought Grandma Ella looked like Kyra, or rather, Kyra looked like Grandma Ella. She had the same tan skin color as her grandmother. Their eyes were similar, too: brown, bright and radiant.
“I got everything all set up,” Gramps told his young visitors. “I got snacks, too.”
“What kind of snacks?” Lamar asked, ready to dive in.
“They’re on that table over there,” Gramps answered, pointing to a big tray of finger food.
The four boys rushed over, expecting delicious treats like popcorn and potato chips they could chow down on. But what they saw was not what they expected.
“I don’t see any snacks,” Ray blurted out dejectedly. “There ain’t nothing here but carrots, broccoli, celery and junk like that.”
“That’s healthy food,” Gramps replied as he walked over, grabbed a carrot stick and bit down on it. “It’s good for you.”
“I love carrots,” Little John declared, snatching a carrot stick from the tray and holding it up in his hand. “I love broccoli, too. My mom fix this kind of stuff all the time.”
“You’re a pig,” Ray belted out to Little John. “Man, this ain’t cool. Mr. Phillips, you a vegan?”
“Well, not quite. But I watch what I eat. Most of the processed foods we eat ain’t good for us. You boys should watch what you put into your bodies, too.”
“You mean, we ain’t gonna have popcorn, potato chips and soda while we watch this movie?” Ray complained.
“Come on, Ray,” Lamar told him. “We don’t have to have all that to watch the documentary.”
“Speak for yourself,” Ray shot back.
Gramps ignored all the fuss. He was focused on the movie he had planned to show.
“Y’all sit down so I can start the documentary,” he directed. “You guys are gonna learn some important stuff today.”
Ray shook his head, still agitated that the food he wanted wasn’t being served. He grabbed a seat in front of the large-screen television along with the others.
“Do any of you know much about Ida B. Wells-Barnett?” Gramps asked. “Not just her name. But who she really was?”
“Yeah, I know she was a civil rights leader back in the day,” Lamar answered proudly.
“Well, that’s partly right,” Gramps said. “But not the civil rights period of the 1950s and 1960s. Ida. B. Wells came decades before that. She started her work for freedom in the late 1800s. She led a campaign against the lynching of Black folks in the 1890s and helped to establish the NAACP. She was awesome.”
“Is this what we came here for?” Ray asked pointedly, rising from his seat. “I thought we were gonna see a real movie, like the ones they show in the theater at the mall. I don’t wanna see nothing ’bout no civil rights.”
“Come on, Ray,” T.C. admonished. “You’ll enjoy it. Sit down.”
“I ain’t gonna enjoy nothing.” Ray hurried toward the door. “Y’all fooled me over here.”
“Before you go, Ray,” Gramps said, rushing to intercept him, “can you tell me why you don’t wanna know more about your people, about those who helped to make things better for you?”
“All that stuff don’t mean nothing to me, Mr. Phillips,” Ray answered rudely. “What good’s it gonna do me to know what people did before I was even born?”
“If you stay here, I’ll tell you why,” Gramps answered, looking Ray directly in the eye, hoping he could find a way to convince him not to leave.
“Naw. I got better things to do with my time,” Ray spouted off. “I mean, I appreciate you, Mr. Phillips. But this ain’t me. I don’t care about all that Black stuff.”
“It makes me sad to hear you say that, Ray. It makes me real sad.”
Gramps turned away, but then, not giving up, he faced Ray again.
“Don’t you watch the news? Don’t you see what’s happening in the country? We got a lot of work to do to make things right. People like me, the old heads? We’ll be gone. But it’s your generation that’s got to continue the fight.”
“I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, Mr. Phillips,” Ray said in a firm voice. “You being an elder and all. But I don’t see what all that stuff got to do with me. You know what I mean? I appreciate you, though. But I’m trying to get ahead. That stuff ain’t gonna help me do that.”
“Let him go, Gramps,” Lamar told his grandfather. “We shouldn’t have asked him to come in the first place.”
“Y’all should’ve told me what this was about,” Ray yelled. “It would of saved my time and yours, too. Check y’all later.”
Ray dashed out the door, leaving it slightly open. Gramps watched him bound down the steps. After Ray left the yard, Gramps closed the door gently and returned to the room.
“I shouldn’t have brought Ray here, Gramps,” Lamar apologized after seeing the look of dejection on his grandfather’s face. He knew how excited Gramps had been about sharing the movie with him and his friends.
“Don’t worry about it, Lamar,” Gramps answered. “You can’t win over everybody.”
Lamar knew that Ray’s attitude had upset his grandfather. But as soon as the documentary started, Gramps perked up. He was his old self again.
“Lamar! Gramps is blowing for you,” Lamar’s mom yelled from the kitchen.
Lamar rushed outside, where his grandfather’s old blue Chevrolet was parked. His grandfather wore that big smile, so Lamar knew he had something up his sleeve.
“Hi, Gramps. What’s up?”
“What ya doing?”
“Working on something for school. But I’m finished now.”
“You wanna go for a ride?”
“A ride?” Lamar asked quizzically.
“Yeah. It won’t take long.”
“I guess so.”
Lamar rushed to his room and picked up his video camcorder.
“I’m going with Gramps,” he told his mother as he ran past her to his grandfather’s car. Lamar’s mom nodded her approval.
Lamar had no idea where his grandfather was going. He was curious but didn’t want to ask. Maybe Gramps wanna surprise me, he thought.
After driving through town, they reached a long, narrow, two-lane highway, miles away. There were no commercial buildings. No houses. For the first few miles, there were only tall green pine trees that stretched as far as Lamar could see. He eyed them closely. Look like they’re reaching for the sky, he thought.
As they continued down the highway, the scene changed quickly. Stalks of corn, their green leaves waving in the air, dominated the fertile land on both sides of the highway. Gramps didn’t say a word. He continued to drive slowly, looking straight ahead. That all changed when small green scrubs replaced the corn.
“That’s cotton,” Gramps told Lamar. “By July or August, you’ll see white cotton bolls all over the place. When I was your age, I picked cotton in fields like that. Me and my whole family and almost everybody else I knew. Now they got machines to do that work.”
“I don’t think I could’ve done that, Gramps,” Lamar told his grandfather defiantly. “No cotton picking for me.”
“All young people say what they wouldn’t have done if they lived in those days,” Gramps declared. “It’s easy to say that after so many people done fought and died to change things,” he added in a gentler voice.
“I don’t know, Gramps. Young Black people today are brave. Look at the Bloods and Crips. I don’t wanna be a member. But they don’t take nothing from nobody.”
“You don’t think Black people were brave during those times?” Gramps asked, raising his voice. “You say young Black people are brave now,” he continued without waiting for a response. “You know what? Black people were brave then, too. They had to be. If they weren’t, you wouldn’t be here. You can be brave today, as you say, because Black people were strong back in the day, too.
“Do you think you just became brave all of a sudden? Lamar, you young people are standing on the shoulders of some real brave and strong people. They gave their lives to make life better for you and other young people like you.”
Gramps went quiet again, focusing on the road before him.
As Lamar looked out the window, he thought about the conversation he and his grandfather had just had. He had never really thought about Black people being strong during slavery or during the civil rights days. Maybe a few, like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass and Dr. Martin Luther King, the ones everyone talked about during Black History Month. Now he knew more about Ida B. Wells-Barnett from Gramps’s documentary. But Lamar thought, if Black people were strong, why were they enslaved so long and treated as second-class citizens for so many years?
“Gramps, what do you mean Black people were strong back then? I mean back in the day?”
“Lamar, you don’t think Black people fought back during slavery and Jim Crow? There were thousands of revolts all over the country during slavery led by enslaved Black people. Thousands and thousands were killed fighting back. Black people have been fighting for their freedom ever since we been in this country, even when the challenges were almost insurmountable.
“It’s our fault,” he said softly to his grandson, a look of guilt now visible on his face. “Me, your dad, your mom, the school. None of us have done a good enough job sharing the real history of Black people. We dropped the ball. Knowing your history, who you really are, helps prepare you for most anything.
“So much has happened that you don’t know. Why, you weren’t even born when Barack Obama was elected the first Black president. You didn’t experience the excitement and joy of that historic event. And you were only two years old when he was elected for the second time. Time sho’ does pass so quickly.”
Lamar rolled down the window and felt the wind blow against his face. His grandfather’s eyes were fixed on the road ahead. Gramps pulled over to the side, got out of the car and looked around as if searching for something.
“That road gotta be somewhere around here,” he said to himself.
After getting back into the car, he drove another hundred feet or so and stopped once more.
“This looks like it,” he mumbled as he got out of the car.
He stood before an old dirt road that was bordered by rows of trees. The road was filled with holes, and grass covered much of it. Gramps got back into the car and drove slowly down the old road. Tree branches struck the car as it passed them. Lamar rolled up the window so they wouldn’t hit him.
After a while, the road ended, and before them was an open area covered with green grass, assorted bushes and other vegetation. Gramps stared at it for a while, then got out of the car and walked over. Lamar didn’t know whether he should join him.
Is this something special? he thought. Would Gramps appreciate being disturbed?
“Lamar, come here. I wanna show you something,” Gramps called.
Lamar grabbed his video camcorder and ran to where his grandfather stood.
“You see this stretch of land right there?” Gramps asked him, pointing to an area a few yards away. “The house I grew up in was right in the middle of that. Yep. Sure was. It’s gone now. But that’s where it was.”
Gramps stood motionless, his eyes glued to the area he had pointed out to Lamar. Although only a few moments passed, it seemed more like an hour to Lamar. He wondered again what his grandfather was thinking. But he didn’t say anything.
“It wasn’t much, but it was home,” Gramps said again. “My mama and daddy raised four boys and two girls in that house.”
Lamar followed him as he walked farther toward the plot that once held his family home, kicking grass away with his feet as he went.
“That house was right about here.” He stopped and pointed with his finger.
Lamar began videotaping, alternating between his grandfather and the patch of land that had captured his grandfather’s attention.
“We had a well about thirty yards over there where we got our water,” Gramps continued. “Didn’t have no plumbing then. And an outdoor toilet was way over there. Sometimes, when it got cold, we didn’t want to go outside. And see where those big bushes are? That’s the area where we used to play. We had good times. We sure did.”
Lamar listened and videotaped. Videotaped and listened.
“A White man named Claude Turner owned this land. And the house, too. In fact, he owned much of the land in this area. Mama and Daddy paid him to rent the house. Of course, we had to work the crops Old Man Claude grew, like cotton and sugarcane. He let us grow crops on the land in back of the house. Things like collard greens, corn, cabbage, beans, peas and watermelon. Daddy and Mama would scrape up enough money to buy other things we needed, sugar, flour and such. We raised pigs and chickens, too. We never had much money. But we got by.”
Lamar followed as his grandfather walked farther ahead. It seemed to Lamar that his Gramps wasn’t with him now. He was in another time, another place.
“As soon as the sun came up in the morning,” Gramps went on, his eyes transfixed on the ground in front of him, “we had to be out in that cotton field, either hoeing the grass away when it was growing or picking the cotton when it was ready. We didn’t stop working until it was too dark to see. As soon as we were old enough, ’bout six or seven, we were in those fields. Some of those cotton fields were so big, you couldn’t see the end. It was like standing on a beach looking for the end of the ocean.”
Lamar was now full of questions. The world Gramps described was foreign to him.
“You didn’t go to school, Gramps?” Lamar asked.
“School?” Gramps let out a haunting laugh and threw up his hands at the thought. “No. Very seldom did we go to school. School wasn’t as important as working in those fields. Anyway, we had to walk for miles to get there when we could go. I was twelve when I was able to go to school on a regular basis. That was after we moved, when Daddy and Mama found a small house in Morton.”
“So, you lived here for twelve years?”
Gramps let in a deep breath of air and released it.
“Yes, twelve long years. But they weren’t all bad. We had fun. We loved each other. Daddy and Mama did all they could for us. We were a happy family.”
“What happened to the house?”
“Lamar, you’re talking ’bout a long time ago. That ole house probably rotted away. I’m surprised this area hasn’t been overtaken by trees like everything else round here.”
As Gramps walked slowly back to the car, Lamar stopped videotaping and followed, watching his grandfather closely. The shoulders of his grandfather’s long, lean, six-feet, two-inch frame had begun to droop. Lamar paid close attention to his long arms and big hands.
Could Gramps have been a great baseball player when he was much younger? Lamar thought. Or maybe an all-star football player like Dad? One thing was sure, Gramps was a good man.
“I’m glad you took me to see the place where you were born and where you grew up,” Lamar told Gramps on the way home. “I’m learning a lot.”
