Chapter 86

Unwelcomed. Incriminated by their dark skin—the white residents charged the Elliotts with wretchedness. Without benefit of judge or jury, they were found guilty and condemned to years of harassment.

At night, while they slept, garbage was dumped onto their little porch, bags of feces (canine and human) set ablaze on their neatly cut lawn, house keys were used to mutilate their car.

Yes, Harlan had a heavy foot and had been known on occasion to push the Fleetmaster beyond the speed limit, but even on those days when he was perfectly law-abiding, the cops still harassed him. Following those incidents, Harlan would be despondent for days, having developed a fear of white men in uniform; police officers, firemen, the security guard at Woolworth’s, and the postman—all made him shudder.

As tough as it was on him—on all of them—Emma refused to leave. She had made that house a home, had a flourishing vegetable garden and rosebushes that were the envy of the block.

“Fuck them,” she snarled whenever Sam suggested they go back to Harlem. “I ain’t gonna let them crackers drive me out. They want me gone, they gonna have to kill me.”

That first year, they had to have the car repainted three times. Sam bought a Doberman pinscher and tied it up in the yard to deter those night-creeping predators. A month later, the dog was dead from cyanide-laced meatballs.

“It wasn’t even this bad down south,” Sam complained.

Emma wasn’t going to talk about it again. She smiled at her husband, patted his hand, and gently changed the subject. “Did you meet the new family that moved in across the street? Aww, they such a good-looking couple. They remind me of us when we were young. And they got a little boy who is sweet enough to eat!”

Shaking his head, Sam returned to the backyard to finish digging the dog’s grave.

It took a few years and two more murdered dogs, but white flight had swooped in and one day the brown and black residents of Trenton, New Jersey woke to find that there was nary a white person around.

Relieved that his property was now relatively safe from racist vandalism, Sam set to work renovating the basement. He moisture-sealed the stone walls, installed overhead lighting, and covered the dirt floor in hardwood.

On the weekends, if the weather was foul, friends crowded into the basement to play spades and dominoes, and bid whist. Emma and Mayemma cooked pots of food and John and Harlan accompanied Lucille, in town from Harlem, through her repertoire of songs.

The gatherings swelled, and by ’52 Emma was hosting a bimonthly fish fry, which quickly became the best place to be two Fridays a month that side of the Holland Tunnel.

Eventually, it was almost like old times in that new place across the Hudson River.