POVERTY IS A RELATIVE THING. WHEN WE MOVED FROM Hanover Street to Pine Manor Apartments in Kings Mountain, North Carolina, it was the first time I had ever lived in an apartment. I couldn’t believe the luxury! We had heat and air conditioning, running water, and electricity, and the apartment complex had its own Laundromat that also served as the school bus stop during the winter.
I was afraid to go inside the Laundromat, and I didn’t most of the time unless it was freezing cold outside. Then I would go inside and stand in a corner, where I could remain inconspicuous, staring through the window toward our apartment door, down the hill.
One morning a few of the bigger kids wrestled a smaller boy into one of the dryers and held the door closed while one of the bullies put a quarter in the slot and turned the machine on. Everyone laughed as the boy rotated around inside that hot tumbler as he tried hard to brace himself with his feet and hands. But the dryer eventually turned hot, and he lost his grip, bouncing around like a Ping-Pong ball, the dryer fins beating up the kid something awful with every rotation. When the bullies finally pulled him out, the young boy was burned and bruised. Being of small stature myself, I decided to wait for the school bus outside in the cold from then on.
In warmer weather one apartment became a canteen store, where the kids could buy ice cream and other snacks. The African-American woman who lived there would answer the door and invite us in, then lead us to the kitchen, where she had an assortment of snacks for sale. The price for each item was more expensive than what the local convenience store charged, but that’s how the old lady made a profit. I didn’t have much spare change to spend, but when I did, I liked helping the canteen woman.
We also had an openly gay guy who lived at Pine Manor. He, too, was African-American and had long, painted red fingernails. He never spoke; he just danced like a robot, and all the kids in the apartment complex loved to watch him.
Despite growing up in a racially charged section of the Carolinas, I never thought twice about someone’s skin color, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t an issue. The “N” word was a common term among both blacks and whites, and although our schools had been integrated since the mid-1960s, there was a lot of leftover racial animosity. My best friend George was an African-American kid, much bigger and taller than me. When George’s parents realized that we had become buddies, they told him he couldn’t hang around with me anymore. I thought it was because I had begged George to ask his parents if I could have a piece of his birthday cake. “No, Jimmy,” he told me sadly. “It’s because you are white.” I tried making new friends in the complex, but none of the new kids were as cool as George.
One day a group of kids and I were walking through the pine trees, getting ready to cross over a barbed wire fence, when I heard sirens. I turned and saw a fire truck stopping in front of our apartment.
I ran as fast as I could, past the firemen who were just arriving, and into our apartment, where I saw Mama sitting on the couch crying. Both her arms were severely burned. A young black man had pulled both empty vegetable drawers out from the bottom of the refrigerator and ran to the neighbor’s to fill the drawers with ice. He quickly brought them back and then filled the remaining space in the drawers with water. He carried each drawer over to the couch and placed a drawer on both sides of Mama. By then the fire company’s paramedic was in the house, and he told Mama to place her forearms inside the drawers. Mama sat there crying as the paramedics prepared to take her to the hospital.
When she calmed down enough, Mama explained what had happened. The grease had caught fire on the oven range when she was frying potatoes for Patricia. She tried putting the fire out with a towel but to no avail, so she grabbed the handle on the pan and rushed to the back door, holding the pan of burning grease. When she opened the back door and attempted to toss the grease out and away from her, the grease apparently flew upward and came back down on her arms.
About that time the young black man, who was in the neighbor’s yard, looked up, saw what was happening, and came running to her rescue. I didn’t know him, but it was another reminder that when someone is in trouble and needs help, skin color or other external circumstances are irrelevant.
MAYBE THE FIRE WAS A WAKE-UP CALL. MAMA TRIED HARD to get her life on the right track after that. She even got a job, working the third shift at the Mauney Hosiery Mill, a textile mill that produced stockings. She began dating Joel, a security guard who monitored the mill, but that relationship ended as soon as Mack, a former lover of Mama’s, came back into the picture.
I’d heard that Mack waited on Joel to get off work one morning and attacked him as he walked across the parking lot. The last time I saw Joel, he had a broken arm and was wearing a sling.
Mack didn’t hang around too long this time—probably because he didn’t want to frequent our apartment complex. A large number of African-Americans lived in the Pine Manor Apartments, and Mack was extremely racist.
SINCE MAMA WAS WORKING NOW, THAT RAISED THE ISSUE of childcare at night. Patricia and I were too young to be left alone, so Mama asked the Chesters, a family who lived in a house near Kings Mountain battleground, to babysit my sister and me while she worked.
Mr. Chester was a quiet man who worked outside in his yard a lot. Mrs. Chester was an old-fashioned Baptist woman who always wore a dress and kept her hair up in a bun. She cooked over a woodstove in the kitchen, and her chicken and dumplings were some of the best I had ever eaten. I was always glad when Mama dropped Patricia and me off at the Chesters’ home before their dinnertime. No matter how much or how little food they had, Mrs. Chester made it stretch to fill two more mouths.
The Chesters had an adult son, Karl, living at home. Mama said Karl was a bit slow, and that’s why he still lived there. But Karl had a lot of people fooled; he was smarter than most people realized.
He and his mother shared an unusual ghost story. I didn’t know all the details, but the gist of the story was this: if three lightning bugs get inside the house, it means you’ll see a ghost that night. Most likely this story was part of Mrs. Chester’s strategy to make us do our best to keep the front screen door closed. Nevertheless, I was always thinking about ghosts whenever Patricia and I stayed with them overnight, which we did often when Mama worked the third shift.
One night I was lying in Karl’s bed. It smelled of firewood and dirty socks. The quilts were old and heavy, and the sheets were stained with perspiration. I was nearly asleep when I heard a creaking sound and saw the wooden bedroom door slowly open. The moonlight was shining through the windows, creating strange shadows on the bare walls and antique furniture.
I was thinking about the ghost tale when I saw a silhouette of a large person standing in the doorway. The figure crept toward the bed, and when it passed the window, I could clearly make out that it was Karl.
I was scared and wanted to say something, but I didn’t; instead, I pretended I was asleep. Peeking out from under the covers, I saw Karl stand beside the bed and take off his pants, carefully making sure they didn’t hit the floor with a thud that might awaken me. It wasn’t all that unusual that Karl would get undressed; it was, after all, his bedroom in which I was sleeping. But then he braced himself with both hands on the bed and sat down. He lifted his legs and eased back onto the bed, apparently trying not to wake me. He lay there for what seemed like forever and didn’t move. Nor did I. In fact, I barely allowed myself to breathe.
After a while Karl repositioned himself as if he was trying to get comfortable. He remained in that position a little longer, then rolled over on his left side, facing me. He was so close I could smell his breath and his dirty body. I tried hard to pretend I was asleep.
Karl reached over with his right hand and took my right hand, then slowly pulled it back toward him, placing my hand on his privates.
I flinched in horror, but I was so afraid, I dared not move. Instead, I continued to pretend I was asleep. Karl tried to manipulate my hand, so I jerked it away and rolled over to my left side, up against the wall, tucking both of my hands under my body. I laid awake like that the rest of the night, doing my best to give no indication that I was aware of what had just happened.
Karl finally sat up in bed, then stood, grabbed his pants, and walked out of the room. The following morning I was terribly sleepy from being awake all night, but I had to get up and go to school.
Mama met Patricia and me at our apartment when the school bus let us off later that afternoon. As soon as I saw Mama, I told her what Karl had done and urged her to confront him or at least tell Mrs. Chester. I just knew Mama was going to believe me and take us to another babysitter from then on—but she didn’t.
When Mama told Mrs. Chester about my accusations, Mrs. Chester simply smiled and said, “I think Jimmy’s imagining things. He must have dreamed he saw a ghost in the bedroom.” She looked at Mama, waiting for her to agree.
Mama nodded, and that was that.
I begged Mama not to take us back to the Chesters’ house, but she did anyway. “Jimmy Wayne Barber, you shut your mouth and stop lying about Karl.”
“I’m not lying, Mama,” I said through my tears. “I’m not.”
“Well, we need the Chesters to babysit, so just shut up your mouth.”
My sister and I went back to the Chesters’ house that evening. When we walked in the kitchen, Mrs. Chester was cooking, as always, and Mama immediately started bragging on what a great cook she was. It was as though nothing had ever happened.
Karl was in the living room watching The Incredible Hulk. He had taken off his shirt and was growling and flexing his muscles in front of the television, along with the Hulk. I sat down in a wooden chair at the kitchen table and glared at him. I couldn’t believe what this pervert had done to me. I looked at Mrs. Chester and then at Mama as she was going out the door, leaving for work.
As she did every day, Mama said, “Jimmy, you behave.”
Me behave? What about this guy? I wanted to say. Of course, I didn’t. I merely smiled a fake smile and waved good-bye.
That night I lay there in Karl’s bed, staring up at the ceiling. Every so often I saw the flickering of a lightning bug in the corner of the room. I counted, “One . . . two.” I lay there and waited until my eyes refused to remain open any longer, and I eventually fell asleep.
Mama never said whether she believed me or not, but I was thankful when she found another sitter in the neighborhood who volunteered to watch Patricia and me; we never had to go back to the Chesters’ house again. I missed the dumplings, but not the ghost tale.