My mother sat expectantly, waiting for him to tell the rest of the story. I crouched down lower so that I wouldn’t be seen. I, too, waited on bated breath for him to continue.
“What happened, Rowe? Are you bloody because he attacked you? Are you hurt?” Mom prodded him gently, in a comforting tone that only she possessed.
“I—I thought…” My father’s voice drifted away into the echoes bouncing off the walls. “…he was go-gonna kill me. So, I—I killed him first.”
A solemnness filled the room. All of my senses were on high alert. I couldn’t think of my dad killing someone.
“My God.” Mom covered her mouth and let out a loud gasp. “Well, what happened, Rowe? He had to have attacked you first,” she said, expressing the same feeling I had. For my father to kill a man, that man must have been about to hurt him badly.
“When I confronted him about stealing a soda and chips, he tried to run. I ran him down. I—I caught ahold of his shirt to keep him in the store so that I could call the police. He swung at me and struck me in my face with so much force that I thought I was going to need medical help.”
A look of sorrow entered my father’s eyes. I will never forget the way he looked when he explained what he did next. Seeing the man, who I considered invincible, cry his heart out, and hurt real pain, did something to me. It showed me that he, my father, was able to lose at something. He never lost.
“He hit me again and knocked me back. Then, he came charging at me, and that’s when I shot him.” The strength remaining in my father’s voice evaporated with the utterance of that truth. Weakness entered his tone along with tears and loud sobs as he said, “I shot him, Nelly. He’s in critical condition, and he could die.”
Where his sobs ended, my mother’s began. She asked no more questions. She just embraced him. They sat in each other’s arms for what seemed like an eternity.
Later that night, my father came into my room to read me a bedtime story. He did this every night since I could remember. After he finished the story, he told me he loved me. He promised to always be there to protect me and my mother before he walked out.
As he was leaving my room, there was a knock at the door. My father quickly tracked down the stairs to open the door. It was the police. The officer, who had been a family friend, went on to explain that the community had pressured the department into pressing charges against my father. Since the young man
didn’t have a weapon on him, and my father carried one on him at all times, it appeared that my father was a vigilante with a preference toward profiling blacks who came into his store. Some people even surmised the young man was about to pay for the things he had in his pocket but that my father didn’t give him a chance to.
There were a lot of stories swirling around town, but I had no reason to believe my father didn’t fear for his life. He was a good man. He was good to others. He let people, black or white, run tabs at his store to get them through to payday. He gave back during the holidays. He tried to serve the community. But attempted murder was the charge.
The only saving grace was that the young man had pulled through surgery and pulled through the night. What didn’t help my father’s case was that he was friendly with the older Holloway men who were known racists in the community. Once the black people got their minds wrapped around that fact, there was nothing else anyone could say that would make them see that my father maybe, just maybe, defended himself during an attack that could have ended his life. They didn’t give him the benefit of the doubt of not being a racist, violence-prone attempted murderer. And that’s how it played out in court.
My friendship with Jeb and Channing Holloway began right after the shooting. It was during the six years my father was in prison for attempted murder that I ascribed to the idea that black people were inferior thinkers. In my opinion, they had to be if they would look at a man who had been stolen from, pummeled repeatedly and in fear of his life, and then want to see him hang for defending himself. I was bitter because of the way my father was treated in the media and crucified in the community, and I didn’t give a fuck who knew it.
After he went to prison, his mini-mart closed. My dad’s legal fees had mounted, and Mom had to go work in the mill just to keep our lights on. There wasn’t money for much more than sandwiches and hotdogs, and that was if we were lucky. Ramen noodles were a five-course meal at our house. No more family dinners filled with laughing, talking, and questions from dad about how school was. Work stressed my mother out, so I became accustomed to quick meals and spending little time with her. I missed our little family that was torn apart because of racism.
With everything going on during that time, it was easy to turn to the brotherhood to get the support I needed. My father was wrongfully imprisoned, and they resented it as much as I did. Rowland Cunningham’s name was infamous all over the country. His arrest ramped up the mission of the brothers, to not only be there for each other but to be there for my father.
Perfect strangers offered to help mama, though she wasn’t receptive to their gifts. I remember the men telling me things like, “If you need anything, little Rowe, don’t hesitate to give me a call,” while handing me a business card. When everyone else turned their backs on our family, the brotherhood was right there.
The first time I went to one of their meetings, I was ten. Chad Holloway had invited me to dinner. I went and had the best time hanging with his sons and nephew. I was back home before my mother got there, so she never knew I went. She would have scolded me for hanging out with them, but I snuck out and attended every meeting after that. They fed me well, but also their message of white unity resonated in me. I felt it in every part of me, and soon I started living it. By the time my father got out of prison, I was all in with the brotherhood. They had been my family. They were there for me when it counted.
All done.
I threw the wrench to the ground after I tightened the last bolt on Mom’s tire. I got up to put all the tools back in their place so that Dad and I could go inside and have a beer before I had to go. I was looking forward to talking to the old man for a little while.
“So, old Jeb is really tying the knot, huh?” my father asked as I fetched the toolbox and started packing everything away.
“Looks that way.”
“Well, both of them went and got themselves a wife, huh?” he asked curiously.
“Yep.” He was hinting at the women being black, but I wasn’t going to comment on it unless he came straight out and said it.
“They both have, uh, black women, eh?”
“Yeah, dad, they’re both black. And before you ask, I don’t know why they did it, so you would have to ask them.”
I had the same questions not long ago. Channing and Jeb once followed the creed of whites sticking together. How they went from that to marrying a black woman was a mystery.
Alise’s beautiful face entered my mind. Gorgeous dimples double-set on both the corners of her mouth and her cheeks. A beautiful smile with a tiny gap that steals a person’s breath. Caramel colored skin that even looks soft to the touch. Big oval eyes accented by carved dark brows. Add in her long, flowing natural hair, and yeah, those things would make a man break his creed. And that was just Alise’s exterior. She oozed of a gentle, giant spirit that loved passionately and tenderly, but also possessed the ability to be a badass that could defend her turf.
Even with all the beauty Alise possessed, I still believed our races needed to stick together, but I no longer held any hatred against anyone. Don’t get me wrong. It’s hard to remember the way my family was treated. The way Dad was crucified by every black person in town before he even had a chance to tell his story. Sometimes, it still made my blood boil. I just had come to accept the systemic reasons blacks react to racial issues. Bad race relations didn’t begin with my father, and they wouldn’t end with him.