Family

#BlackMamaBurden: A Short Story

Published

10 years ago

May 7, 2015

By: Douglas Williams

An explosion of thunder spit veins of lightning through splatters of gray clouds from which torrential rain hammered down upon the aged roof of a tiny brick abode. Shirley Chisholm had proclaimed her presidential candidacy when Jolene and her late husband Johnny Sr., a machinist, had pinched pennies to purchase the abode in the soul section of St. Louis. After 56 years of life, 32 years of loving Jolene, and too many years of tiptoeing through the social minefield that had become the new Jim Crow; Johnny Sr. had clutched his chest and toppled over while sitting in front of a news report that warned of President Reagan’s war on drugs.

On this gloomy evening, Jolene sat on the sofa in the living room sliding a highlighter across a wrinkled page in a well-worn Bible. A sudden banging on the door turned her head—she pushed her aching new hips up from the sofa, and then she hobbled her diminutive frame over to the door for a peek into the peephole. There stood her portly son, Johnny Jr., wearing a grimace that she identified as his dominant gene. According to her, the boy was a belly tyrant who had stirred her awake for nine months back when Johnny Sr. had stepped out to pool halls and hole-in-the-walls.

She opened the door. Johnny Jr. stomped past her pitching a fit and cradling what appeared to be a large cake box. She hadn’t seen him this way since the day he had gone upside a suitor’s head with a patent-leather loafer during a spat over an ingénue for whom Johnny Jr. had wiggled into a prom suit. After a few months of the boy sobbing over the ingénue, Jolene worked her maternal magic on his battered heart, and then he had climbed out of bed, picked his Afro and begged his father for an Earth, Wind and Fire ticket.

Johnny Jr. set the cake box on the coffee table, and then he ranted: “THEY PULLED GUNS ON ME, TALKED TO ME ANY OL’ KINDA WAY. I’M FIDNA TURN FIFTY. I’M A GROWN MAN—”

“Hold your horses, I need to hear it good,” Jolene said, hobbling over to lead him to the sofa, “sit down, calm down, and tell me what happened.” She sat beside him as he settled down.

“I’m driving down the street, next thing I know, police lights in the mirror. I pulled over right away. They hopped out yelling for me to get out with my hands up. Guns pointed at me, Mama. I just knew I was fidna be a hashtag.”

Jolene pursed her lips and leaned back with recall of the night when Johnny Sr. had burst into the door in a rage after taking Billy Club swats to the head. “It’s all behind you and in front of the Lord now,” she said.

“I don’t wanna end up a hashtag like Walter Scott, Eric Garner, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, Akai Gurley, Kajieme Powell, Ezell Ford, Dante Parker, John Crawford, Tyree Woodson, or Yvette Smith. Something’s gotta give,” Johnny Jr. said.

“What’s a hashtag?” she asked.

“It’s the number sign they put in front of your name on the internet—Twitter—after you’ve been killed—or to let the law tell it, killed yourself. I’m better than a hashtag—greater than an algorithm, Mama. I breathe and feel, and fuss and fight the urge to go Negro Rambo. These people are spirit molesters—soul snipers.”

Jolene pushed up from the sofa. “The Lord saw to it that you were able to walk away from them, but they’ll never be able to walk away from who they are. Come get some of these neck bones and turnips for your family. What’s in the box?”

He arose from the sofa and presented her with the box. She opened the box, and there inside was a “church lady’s hat,” as Johnny Sr. called it when he urged a young Jolene to “save something for later in life.” The ocean-blue, wavy-brimmed hat was exquisitely appointed with floral adornments and glistening pins. She pulled the hat over her silver, shoulder-length mane, and then she unleashed a smile that illuminated the room.

“I apologize for bringing the drama over here. Happy mother’s day,” Johnny Jr. said.

She hobbled over with the hat on her head, pulled him into a maternal embrace, turned him loose peering into his eyes, and then she said: “All I care about is that you live long enough to lay flowers on top of me. I love you, son.”

Johnny Jr. gave her youthful eyes that never grow old: “I love you too, Mama.”