Later, my father would come to realize New York City had always been his final destination. And it wasn’t just what Short Stack had told him about it being his favorite city—though perhaps that got the ball rolling. What New York City had at that time in history was people. A lot of people. And with the military hunting him, my father knew the city was his best bet to disappear.
But my father did not go straight to New York. It was almost exactly one hundred miles away, after all, and my father had no money, no transportation. He had been able to escape the mansion easily enough—once outside he had taken off into the trees and never looked back—but now he was a wanted man, and like any wanted man, he needed to be careful.
Could he have returned to Tennessee? Perhaps. But there was nothing there for him except his dead mother and an irate landlord who wanted several months’ back rent. That was it. My father had no other family, no friends. No one.
My father knew there was something wrong with him. At least that’s how he viewed it for the first couple days, as if he were abnormal. Yes, he could move extremely fast, and yes, he could hear and see things with more clarity than normal people typically could, but the fact that his body could heal itself so quickly from having been shot? It scared my father. He felt like a freak. The kind of thing God turns his back on.
My father found clothes hanging from a line in someone’s backyard. He felt bad about taking the clothes, but judging by the number of clothes on the line, he didn’t suspect the owners would care, or even notice. A new pair of underwear, slacks, and shirt later, my father kept moving. He needed shoes. These, he knew, he would have to steal. Besides the clothes, my father had never stolen a thing in his life, and he hated that he had now become a thief, but he had no choice.
For the first couple days, after having secured a pair of shoes, my father worked his way north. Through Doylestown, then toward the New Jersey state line. He kept looking over his shoulder until he realized he didn’t have to look over his shoulder. He allowed his heightened senses to take care of that. He was able to hear if someone was approaching. He was able to take in an entire space within a second to know whether or not there was any danger. My father had no weapon, and while at first he had worried that he needed one, he came to understand that he was himself a weapon.
In New Brunswick, New Jersey, my father performed his first heroic act.
It had been almost a week since he escaped the mansion. He knew the military was looking for him, but he hadn’t seen anything since that worried him. Several police cars on the streets and highways, yes, but they seemed to be just doing their job.
It was evening and my father was in the white part of the city. He had always known to stay out of the white part of the city, or else he would be arrested or beaten up. But the fear he’d always had toward white people was gone. He knew he should be afraid, but he wasn’t. Besides, my father needed something to eat. He still had no money, refusing to steal any—the clothes and shoes he’d found had been bad enough—but he had come to realize that some restaurants threw away their leftovers, and so he figured that if he timed it right, he might find something fresh in the trash cans out in the alleyways.
That was where he was now, hiding in an alleyway, waiting for the kitchen staff to throw away food, when he heard a woman scream.
He hurried to the end of the alley and saw an elderly white couple across the street. The man was picking himself up off the sidewalk where he’d been pushed down. The woman had a lot of fancy jewelry—on her ears, on her fingers, even a flashy piece of jewelry on her jacket—and she screamed again at two boys, about my father’s age, currently running away. One of the boys grasped a purse, the other a wallet.
My father gave chase at once. He didn’t think twice about it. He sprinted down the street while the woman screamed for someone to help. My father caught up with the boys in no time. It was almost like they were running in slow motion. My father tripped one and then pushed the other into the nearest building. My father made sure not to use too much force, mindful of what had happened to the doctor and the boy back at the mansion. My father’s intention was simply to stop these two, not kill them.
The boy who stole the wallet skidded across the sidewalk, his arms and face cut up from the concrete. He scrambled to his feet and came at my father, who easily deflected the punches. My father tossed him into the nearest building, where the boy fell in a heap next to his buddy, who still hadn’t gotten back to his feet. My father collected the wallet and purse and left the boys there. He jogged back down the sidewalk and turned the corner.
Only the woman was there. She sat on the curb, wiping at her eyes with a kerchief. She was alone.
My father approached, the wallet and purse in hand.
“Ma’am? I believe these are yours.”
The old woman looked up. Stared at my father for a second. And screamed.
For an instant, my father didn’t move. He wasn’t sure what to do. This wasn’t how he had expected this moment to go. He’d expected the woman to smile, be grateful. Not look at him with terror and disgust.
Farther up the street, the woman’s husband approached, along with two police officers. At the sound of the woman’s screaming, the two officers started running. Directly toward my father.
The woman shouted, “Help!”
One of the police officers pulled his gun.
My father knew he could easily defend himself against these two men. But they weren’t the enemy here, not like Colonel Strickland and his soldiers. The officers were simply doing their job. To them, my father was the enemy.
Tossing the purse and the wallet at the old woman’s feet, my father turned and ran.
My father’s second heroic act came in Newark, three days later. It was the middle of the night—two, three o’clock—and my father had begun to doze off to sleep when he heard a woman scream.
He opened his eyes. Didn’t move. Just listened. For a couple seconds, there was nothing but the ubiquitous city noises—traffic and a train off in the distance—and then the scream came again.
My father sat up. He was wrapped in a ratty blanket he’d found in the trash. He had gone from finding places to sleep on the ground to building roofs. He’d scale the fire escapes and then hunker down in a corner and sleep peacefully through the night, as there was never any reason for someone to come to the roof in the middle of the night.
The scream sounded once more.
My father flung the blanket aside and jumped to his feet. There was a slight wind that could have carried the scream, but my father was confident he knew from which direction it was coming. He jumped from one building to the next, the distance between the buildings more than ten feet, but it barely fazed him. As he ran, he listened past the city sounds to the origin of the screams, and he heard a woman’s voice, begging someone to stop, and he heard another voice—deep, slurred, guttural—telling her to shut up.
The next building was positioned farther away than the others, this one more than twenty feet. He realized this after he had jumped and was already sailing through the air. He came down short but grabbed hold of the fire escape and hung suspended, his feet dangling, before he pulled himself up and scrambled back to the roof.
He was almost there. Just another block away. He jumped to the next building and crept up to the edge and looked down into the alleyway five stories below.
Besides the young woman, who had been thrown to the ground, her jacket ripped open, there were three of them. Two of them stood off to the side while the third knelt in front of the woman, his hand to her throat, his other hand working the zipper of his pants.
All of them were white.
My father surveyed the alleyway. No fire escape here. But on the opposite building was a metal ladder that led to the roof.
The woman begged, sobbing.
“Please. Please stop.”
The man backhanded her across the face with the hand he had been using to free himself from his pants. He was clearly drunk, as were the other two. His coordination was off, forcing him to concentrate harder than normal to unzip his pants. His other hand still holding her around the throat, he worked at the zipper again.
My father backed away from the edge of the roof several feet, enough to give him a running start. He sprinted forward. He could have easily cleared the alleyway, but his intention was not to end up on the opposite building’s roof. He grabbed hold of the metal ladder, but unlike the previous building’s fire escape, my father headed down. He dropped one level, grabbed a rung, dropped another level, grabbed another rung, and then dropped the final two levels to land with his feet on the ground.
He didn’t say anything to the three men. The three men said nothing to him. There was nothing that needed to be said.
The closest man attacked first. He rushed at my father, cocking his fist back, and my father quickly sidestepped the punch and grabbed the man’s arm and threw him into the nearest wall. My father didn’t care whether these men lived or died. Not after it was clear what they’d intended to do to the woman.
As the first man bounced off the brick wall, the second man charged my father. A knife had suddenly appeared in his hand, and he directed the blade at my father’s face. My father ducked the knife easily enough, but the man kept coming, slicing the air back and forth, my father ducking here and there until he spun low and swept the man’s feet out from under him. The man hit the ground on his back with a heavy thud.
The third man had given up trying to free himself from his zipper. He let go of the woman’s throat and stood up straight. He was well over six feet, his face pocked with scars, his teeth crooked. The man glared at my father, snarling like a lion. Unlike his friends, however, the man didn’t charge my father. He stood his ground, placing his body between my father and the woman, as if my father was the threat.
Behind my father, the others were coming to. He was aware of this just as he was aware of the sporadic traffic out on the street and a baby crying in a building three blocks away.
“She’s ours.”
The man immediately belched. At any other time, it may have seemed comical. The man certainly thought so, chuckling and wiping at the drool from his mouth.
My father said nothing. Despite not seeing the two men behind him, he knew where they were based on the noises they made. He could almost see them in his mind. The second man—the one with the knife—having gotten back to his feet. The first man—the one who hit the building—slowly attempting to sit up.
The second man came at my father from behind, and my father—watching in his mind’s eye—stepped to the side. The second man stumbled forward. My father had expected the man to still be holding the knife, but both of his hands were free. Which meant—
The crunch of asphalt behind him as the first man stepped up close and plunged the blade into my father’s back.
“You like that, nigger?”
The man twisted the knife.
My father fell to his knees. The blade had gone deep. Already he could feel his body starting to heal itself, but with the knife still in his back, he doubted his body would be able to heal entirely.
A sudden rage filled my father.
What happened next happened within the space of five seconds.
My father reached up and grabbed the man’s throat and flung him over his head. The man sailed through the air just like before, only this time he wasn’t going to get back up. The man’s spine snapped on impact with the wall. Rising to his feet, my father pulled out the knife from his back and threw it at the third man, the one still standing between my father and the woman. The blade plunged deep into the man’s throat. As the man fell forward to his knees, his hands grasping for the knife, the final man turned to flee. My father was on his feet and running forward within an instant. He met up with the man several yards before the end of the alley, grabbed him by the arm, and threw him into the wall. The man’s skull cracked open.
My father turned back to the woman. She was breathing heavy, staring wide-eyed around the alley. Fear flashed in her eyes, and for an instant my father thought she was scared of him.
“They stabbed you.”
My father said nothing.
The woman climbed to her feet. She wore a white uniform that looked familiar to my father, though for a moment he couldn’t place it. She took a step toward him.
“Don’t.”
My father’s voice sounded strange to him.
“I’m … okay.”
“You were stabbed. You need to go to the hospital.”
Except my father didn’t. By then his body had already healed itself. The damage that the blade had done to my father’s body had all but disappeared, both internally and externally.
“I’m fine.”
The woman looked at him as if he was crazy.
“You can’t be fine. I saw him get you with the knife. You need help.”
“It’s okay.”
Understanding entered the woman’s eyes.
“I get it. You don’t think they’ll treat you at the hospital. But they will—I’m sure of it.”
“Please …”
My father wasn’t sure what to say.
“Please … I’m okay.”
The woman looked around the alley again. She didn’t seem concerned that the men were either dead or dying.
“I’m a nursing student. Let me at least treat you. Will you let me do that?”
My father wasn’t sure what to say. The idea of going somewhere with this woman was beyond his comprehension—was this really happening?—but he nodded anyway.
The woman said, “Good.”
She picked up her dropped purse and started toward the end of the alley.
“We better get out of here before the police show up.”
She grabbed his arm, spun him around, and winced at the blood on his back.
“Here.”
She took his hand and pressed his palm against his back on the spot in which the blade had pierced the skin.
“Keep pressure on it. My apartment’s only three blocks away.”
She lived on the fourth floor of an apartment building, and after she sneaked him up the four flights of stairs and got him inside, she directed him straight to the bathroom and had him sit down on the edge of the tub and told him to take off his shirt while she hurried around the apartment for anything she could use to disinfect the wound and help sew it up. When she returned to the bathroom, however, my father hadn’t moved.
“What are you doing? You need to take off your shirt. That’s the only way I’ll be able to treat you.”
My father said, “Why are you helping me?”
“Why did you help me?”
“Because you were in trouble.”
“Well, there’s your answer.”
“But I’m a …”
“What, you’re a Negro? That doesn’t bother me. Growing up we had a maid who was a Negro. She was sweet and smart and treated me so nicely, and I was devastated when my parents let her go. They said they had done it for me, because they feared I saw her as a friend. Now here, take off your shirt.”
She set the supplies on the sink—towels and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and needle and thread—and grabbed my father’s shirt and started to pull it up over his head.
My father stopped her.
“Please, no, I’m okay.”
She ignored him and kept tugging at his shirt. My father allowed her to slip the shirt up over his head. She tossed it in the tub and told him to stand up and move in front of the sink where the lighting was better. She used the towel to wipe the dried blood away. Then she stepped back, her mouth agape, her face was full of confusion.
“But … I … I saw them stab you.”
His back to the mirror, my father glanced over his shoulder to confirm what he already knew: there was no scar where the knife had stabbed him.
She took another step back, the confusion on her face morphing into fear.
“How did that happen?”
My father stared at her. He said nothing. He wasn’t sure what to say. Until, finally, he realized he had no choice. He had to tell somebody. Otherwise the secret would drive him insane.
“My name is Henry Temple. I’m seventeen years old. I’m from Friendsville, Tennessee. My mother died not too long ago …”
He told her everything. For her credit, she listened. Never interrupted. Her face stayed calm the entire time, even when he told her about being on the ship and what had happened to Tyrone and Etan and how later Colonel Strickland had shot the doctor that my father had hid behind. When he was finished, having told her about hearing her scream several blocks away and running to her rescue, she barely even blinked. She was quiet for a moment, taking this all in, and then pointed at the towels and told him to take a shower.
“I’ll make some soup.”
She left him there, closing the door behind her. My father stripped off his clothes, stepped into the tub, turned on the water and had the first real shower he’d had in several weeks.
She gave him one of her bathrobes to wear and made chicken soup.
My father thanked her for what may have been the twentieth time.
“Thank you. This is very good.”
She sat across from him at the small kitchen table. She had a bowl of soup in front of her but hadn’t touched it yet.
My father said, “I don’t know your name …”
This caused her to blink as if just waking up. Maybe she’d thought she was dreaming. She leaned forward, picked up her spoon, and began stirring the soup. And as she did, she told my father her story.
Her name was Vanessa Clark. She was nineteen years old. She attended Rutgers University as a nursing student and shared this apartment with a friend who also attended the university. Vanessa had stayed late at the hospital to cover another nursing student’s shift because that student had called out sick, and instead of calling for a cab, Vanessa had decided to walk home. And ended up being dragged into an alleyway by those three men.
Where was her roommate now? Visiting family in Connecticut. Her roommate’s brother had just come back from the war, missing one of his legs, and her roommate had gone straight up there to see him.
There was a silence, and then my father thanked Vanessa once again for her hospitality but said he should leave.
She shook her head.
“Nonsense. I need to at least wash your clothes. There’s blood on your shirt. Besides, where are you going to go? You said you’ve been sleeping in alleyways and on rooftops.”
My father said he would manage.
Vanessa shook her head again. No, she told him, she would get some blankets and he would sleep on the couch. It was the least she could do for him after he’d saved her life.
My father didn’t sleep well that night. He had become accustomed to sleeping outside. Suddenly the soft, warm comfort of a sofa and blanket seemed alien to him.
In the morning, Vanessa made breakfast.
“I’m not going to my classes today.”
She didn’t elaborate. My father didn’t say anything. They were quiet for a long time until finally Vanessa spoke again.
“Where will you go?”
My father said nothing.
“These people will hunt you wherever you go. You’ll never be safe.”
My father didn’t answer.
“What will you do?”
My father shrugged.
“There’s nothing to do. They’re the military. I’m just one person.”
Vanessa watched him for some time, studying his face.
“What do you want to do?”
My father answered immediately.
“I want to help people.”
He told her about the old couple in New Brunswick. How helping them and helping Vanessa gave him a sense of purpose.
Vanessa smiled.
“You sound like the people in the stories my little brother reads.”
“What stories?”
“The magazines with the pictures.”
It took her a moment, and then she snapped her fingers.
“Comic books! You sound like one of those heroes.”
My father thought of Short Stack.
“I’m not a hero.”
“No?”
She studied his face again.
“But why can’t you be?”
“I told you about trying to help that woman. She screamed when she saw me.”
Vanessa waved a hand.
“That’s because she doesn’t like Negros. She saw you as a threat, despite the fact you had just helped her.”
“There’s nothing I can do about my skin.”
Vanessa kept her gaze steady with his.
“No, but you can hide it.”
Vanessa told my father to stay where he was, and she grabbed her purse and said that she would be back within an hour.
She left before my father could say anything. It didn’t cross his mind until several minutes later that perhaps she had gone to get the police.
When she returned two hours later, she had two bags filled with clothes and fabric. Underwear, pants, undershirt, jacket. She had my father stand up tall and with a string measured the length of his legs and his arms and his waist. A Singer Sewing Machine was in the parlor room, that Vanessa said belonged to her roommate, and for the next several hours Vanessa cut and measured and sewed the fabric, often pausing to have my father try on one piece or another until evening came and she had completed what she said was a good prototype.
Vanessa had my father try on the outfit: black pants and shirt and a mask she had made to cover his entire head. She’d made eyeholes for the mask because obviously my father needed to see, but as she stood in front of him, taking it all in, she said his skin color could still be seen. She thought for a moment, then asked just how “heightened” his vision was.
“What do you mean?”
She raised a finger, told him to give her a moment, and disappeared into her bedroom. She emerged seconds later with a pair of sunglasses and told him to put them on, and as my father slipped them on—they were tight, which helped as his ears were hidden beneath the mask—Vanessa turned out all the lights and asked my father if he could see anything.
My father looked around the apartment. At first all he saw was darkness, but then, little by little, the room began to take on shape. Within seconds, he was able to make out everything in detail just as if the lights were on.
When my father told Vanessa this, she smiled and clapped her hands.
“You’re still going to need shoes. Boots, more likely. Black boots. And gloves, of course. Black gloves. Here, come see yourself.”
She led him into her bedroom where a full-length mirror leaned against the wall. My father stared at his reflection. Besides his feet and hands, no skin showed anywhere.
Vanessa said, “How does the fabric feel? We can always change it. It will probably get too hot for you during the summer. Again, it’s just a prototype. But I think it will work.”
“For what?”
She smiled at him.
“For you to be a hero. Isn’t that what you want?”
My father said nothing. He didn’t like to think of himself as a hero. He just wanted to help people.
Taking off the sunglasses, he handed them to Vanessa and then noticed a picture frame on the bedside table.
“What’s his name?”
“Who?”
He pointed at the picture frame that held a photograph of Vanessa and a young man. Both smiled brightly at the camera.
“Is that your brother?”
Vanessa didn’t answer. She’d gone all at once silent. Tears had begun to brim her eyes.
“That’s not my brother. That’s my fiancé. Was my fiancé. He … he was killed last week in action.”
And with that, she fell into a chair sobbing.
His name was Justin, Vanessa told my father once she had calmed down and was finally able to talk about it. He had proposed to her before he left for Europe and of course she had said yes and of course she had missed him every day since he had been gone, always thinking of him, and then she received word just two days ago of his death.
It would be many years later before my father understood the dangers of depression, and it would only be then that he suspected Vanessa’s careless walking home in the middle of the night might not have been entirely unintentional. She most certainly hadn’t wanted to end up in that alleyway, but part of her may not have cared what happened to her life right then. Justin was dead, so she didn’t feel like she had much to live for anymore.
My father said, “I’m sorry.”
Vanessa wiped at her eyes. It was late at night and raining outside.
“He was such a wonderful guy. He would have been a wonderful husband. He would have made such a wonderful father.”
They didn’t talk after that. They just sat there, silent, and listened to the rain pattering against the windows, until finally Vanessa got up and drifted into her bedroom, and my father lay back on the couch and stared at the ceiling and wondered what it truly meant to be a hero.
The next day Vanessa skipped her classes again, which gave her time to head back to the store for more material. When she returned to the apartment, she went straight to the Singer and got to work. She’d bought boots, too, black leather boots in my father’s size, as well as gloves and dark goggles she’d found at a hardware store.
Standing once again in Vanessa’s bedroom, right in front of the full-length mirror, my father stared at himself in the … was it a uniform? My father wasn’t sure exactly what to call it, but it fit perfectly.
“Thank you.”
“My pleasure. I told you I owed you. I think this will work. It’s sad, but you’ll be able to help more people this way.”
Yes, my father thought, now his skin would not be seen and people would not focus on the color of his skin but on his actions.
“My roommate comes back tomorrow morning. As much as I’d like for you to stay longer, it would be best if you leave.”
My father said he understood.
“But at least stay until it gets dark.”
She smiled at him.
“I can make you some of that chicken soup you like.”
My father stayed. He knew he should have left as soon as possible, but he stayed. He didn’t know when it had happened exactly, but he had fallen in love with Vanessa. Or was it love? Maybe it was just infatuation. Whatever the case, my father never wanted to leave her side. She was kind and loving and did not seem to care at all that their skin did not match in color.
They sat in the parlor and talked. She told him about growing up, how her parents were wealthy and powerful and hated the idea of their daughter being a nurse, but that she didn’t care because she wanted to help people. My father told her about growing up in Tennessee, how he had never known his own father and his mother had raised him until she got sick. He told her what segregation was like in the south. How the first time he was spit on he was four years old. How the white kids would throw rocks at him and his friends when they were walking to the Negro school.
Vanessa was quiet while he talked, her hand covering her mouth. Finally she shook her head and whispered.
“People can be so cruel.”
For dinner, Vanessa again made soup. They sat at the small table and stirred their spoons, neither saying anything.
My father was afraid if he spoke, he’d tell her how much he loved her. That since the moment he’d met her he couldn’t stop thinking about her. But again, was that love?
After they had cleaned up, my father announced that it was time for him to leave.
Vanessa packed the extra clothes she’d gotten him and the black uniform in a duffel bag, then dug twenty dollars from her purse.
My father shook his head.
“I can’t take that.”
She pressed the money into his hand.
“It’s not a lot, but I hope it helps you get to New York.”
She walked him to the door, opened it a crack, peeked out. When she turned back, whispering to him that it was clear, a tear rolled down her cheek.
My father watched the course of that tear. He wanted to reach out, wipe it away. He wanted to lean forward and place his lips on hers. He had never kissed a girl before. Part of him knew if he did that, however, Vanessa might shy away from him. The image of that old woman in New Brunswick kept flashing through his mind, the fear in her eyes, the disgust, and he couldn’t bear to live with the knowledge that Vanessa might feel the same way.
“Thank you.”
“Good luck.”
She leaned up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. It was brief, but it sent a flush through my father’s face.
“I hope you help a lot of people.”
“Goodbye.”
My father walked out of the apartment.
He never saw Vanessa Clark again.