THE AD AND P.R. world is volatile under the best of circumstances, but even when I behaved myself to the best of my abilities my loathing for that world would eventually out itself and I’d be pounding the pavement again looking for another job.
This certainly tried the patience of my rock steady wife, Katrina. Our marriage had settled into a comfort not unlike a favorite pair of broken-in house slippers. Romance was infrequent and not terribly exciting, but we traveled, we went every weekend to the cinema, we delighted in the new thing called cable TV and the HBO channel and MTV that came with it. We ate out at Memphis’ best restaurants and especially loved finding little holes in the wall that served great food. We were foodies long before I’d ever heard the term.
Katrina’s family was special to me as well. Her mother was one of those well-mannered and gracious Southern ladies who always had a hug, a big smile, and a wink for everyone. Oh my, was she a good cook. Katrina’s father was the child of Italian immigrants and was an Army Ranger who scaled the cliffs on Normandy Beach during D-Day. He was captured by the Germans and spent the rest of the war in Dresden, where Kurt Vonnegut also was imprisoned. Tudy, his nickname, was a wonderful character, a trove of great stories, most of which were played for laughs. I loved both of my in-laws.
Katrina’s older sister, Judy, was her best friend. She did not like to invite anyone else but her sister and a few old high school pals into her narrow circle. Even today, Katrina and Judy can be counted on to be out shopping together every weekend. They are never far apart. At family events and gatherings it is inevitable that the two will sit next to one another and chat amongst themselves virtually the whole time they are there.
I am the complete opposite when it comes to friends. I am wide open to let any interesting person into my life. It is not uncommon for me to meet someone at a party, exchange business cards, and bring them into my circle. This would be impossible with Katrina.
Her closeness to her sister Judy felt like a noose to me that kept getting tighter and tighter. Judy’s husband, a hard-drinking ne’er-do-well, after a long day of drinking and then driving home so drunk he had to be helped to bed, fell down a flight of stairs and hit his head, killing him instantly. With him gone, Judy and Katrina clung together all the more tightly. And so they remain.
The birth of Marie altered our universe. From birth Marie was beautiful, highly intelligent, and charming. She loved everyone and everyone loved her right back. Although Katrina and I did not go to church, we allowed my mother to take Marie to Sunday School when she was kindergarten age. We figured that exposing Marie to her grandmother’s religion would be educational for her and she could see what other people did on Sundays. Marie became a favorite of the seniors at my Mom’s church and she would come home with a pocket full of candy treats they had brought for her.
Marie was a self-disciplined child as she grew up. Other than an occasional mild scolding she didn’t need any correction. She was a delight to be around and said so many clever things about life and the world around her that I wish we had written them all down. Our family was full of hugs and kisses and bedtime stories and movie time. Marie was so well-behaved that she got constant invitations from other parents and grandparents for sleepovers with their children and grandchildren. They all thought Marie was a good influence.
Katrina was a deep sleeper who would not wake up even during storms or someone ringing our doorbell in the middle of the night. I wake up at the slightest noise. When Marie was about five years old I woke up one night with Marie standing in our bedroom like some sort of apparition looking at us silently. After jumping out of my skin I collected myself and demanded to know what was the matter. She answered by running back to her bed bawling. I had no idea what had prompted this. Was she sleepwalking? The next day I told Katrina what had happened. After quizzing Marie again, we still were no closer to what had happened.
Then a few nights later, it happened again. I told Marie to go back to bed. She ran crying again. This continued off and on for about a month until Katrina figured out the problem. We had decorated Marie’s room with all manner of childhood bric-a-brac from Beatrix Potter figurines to Mardi Gras masks hanging merrily on the wall. The masks were the problem. To Marie, when the lights were turned down those happy faces began to take on sinister and scary overtones. As she lay in bed she thought those distorted clown faces were staring at her, waiting, waiting to do evil things if she slipped into sleep.
Katrina took away all the masks and no human or animal figures were left in the room. Problem solved.
Marie got excellent grades, loved books, and was exceptionally good in math, my Achilles’ heel in school. Although she loved to play with other children and even today is about as social as a person can be, she never took much interest in extra-curricular activities. She had no interest in soccer, Brownie Scouts, softball, or sports of any kind. Katrina wanted Marie to learn ballet, and because at that time I was freelancing from our house, I was the one designated to take her to dance class. I was the only man there. The housewives would sit and gossip as I sat by myself, reading or doing work of one sort or another.
From down the hall I kept hearing the dance teacher: “Marie, join the rest of us.” “Marie, honey, let’s put the toys down and get in the group.” “Marie, please don’t climb up on the radiator. You might hurt yourself.”
After peeking in the classroom one day and seeing Marie staring out the window and not participating in the dance exercises at all I decided that I’d had enough of ballet and ended Marie’s only foray into the dance arts.
Marie knew I was a writer and later vaguely she understood I was the editor of a magazine (Rock & Roll Disc) and worked with lots of writers. She pretty much ignored my world of letters and my love of rock music and electric guitars, the latter of which she pretty much loathed. (Today her husband, like me, plays guitar and Marie still hates it.)
As unhappy as I was with parts of my marriage, day-to-day life was steady on and for the most part pleasant and comfortable. I placed a lot of value on comfort and do today. As Marie grew up life as a family unit was almost idyllic. We were close and worked out our problems together. One of her teachers in an early grade had gotten me off to the side one day and cautioned me that Marie was showing too much interest in the boys. Privately I scoffed at this; my Dad had been told the exact same thing about me with girls when I was in grade school and he dismissed it as an old maid’s ditherings.
When Marie was in middle school she came in one day and as usual I greeted her and asked, “How was school today?”
She had an odd look on her face and answered, “Not so good.”
I said, “Why, what happened?”
She sat down next to me, buried her face in my shoulder and cried.
“A black girl in my class was running track today with us during P.E. and she fell down and had a heart attack and died.”
Marie was very shaken about this and I did my best as a father to console her. Our family grieved over this little girl, who lived in a rural part of the county in a small shack-like house, and indeed the whole community mourned. The girl had a known heart condition but she was considered to be in good enough health to be able to join the other girls in the physical education class. No one tried to affix any blame to the school or school system; it was just one of those sad things in life that no one can predict and makes one question life and God when a young person with a life ahead of them is taken out with no warning.
As I worried about Marie during this time, I could not help but reflect on how little difference it made to my daughter that this little girl was black. Her race just didn’t matter. We sent a sympathy card to the family. They had a memorial service at her school for the girl. How different were things then compared to the day I saw the first black student who integrated Bethel Grove school. And as I write this I think about the wake I recently attended of a precious little black lady, Darlene Hicks, who worked at the college where I teach, LeMoyne-Owen, as a staff administrator who also took one of my adult classes that were held on Saturdays. She was such an eager learner and expressed such excitement over the material we covered. She had to drop out of my class due to health concerns, but occasionally she would visit and we would always hug and catch up on news with one another.
I had seen Darlene at another funeral only weeks before she passed. She was entering the building using a walker but she was glad to see me and as always we hugged and talked for a bit. Then she died. I do not like going to funerals or wakes and hers was to be held in the town of Millington on the far outskirts of Memphis, which made the trip even more onerous to me. But I felt I had to go.
Using my GPS, I drove down miles of winding country roads until I could see what appeared to be a long line of cars parked alongside the road. I could see a tiny church up a road grade and knew this had to be the place. Slotting my car between two others, I walked several hundred yards on the side of the road and slowly climbed a long gravel drive until I reached the front of the country church. Inside, the room was totally packed, most people in their Sunday best. Only a handful of whites were in attendance, but I have no doubt that everyone in the room knew instantly that I was a professor at LeMoyne-Owen College there to pay my respects. Her daughters knew me and walked to greet me. I do not like to view the deceased lying in their coffins. Since I was very young seeing dead people has thoroughly creeped me out. I go to great lengths to avoid it. But Darlene was lying in a white coffin right dead smack in the middle of the room and looking at her was unavoidable.
As I peered down through a white gauze spread over her, she looked like an angel, as lovely as I had ever seen her, and so at peace that I felt an instant calm, as if she and I were walking hand in hand in the spirit world.
I have mentioned that I am not a religious person. But I have learned from the black culture that I was raised in and my time in Africa not to ever dismiss the spirit world that virtually every black person I’ve ever known—whether in the U.S. or in Africa—believes in or to cynically laugh off the feelings I experience in such situations. I totally felt I connected in some spiritual way as I looked down at this precious student who made teaching so very real to me.
As I drove back home that night I felt an elation, as if my soul had been cleansed, that I had in some way been touched by the hand of God. The same God I sometimes have a hard time believing in.
When people ask me on occasion what I believe in I tell them, “I don’t know.”
Because I don’t.
My head tells me one thing and my heart tells me something else. I’ve learned to live with that and not question it.