 |
|
 |
| A Season of Madness by © tequalelu If I remember correctly, it must have been the summer of '69. It was the summer I learned I had more fear and respect for my Mom than for a horde of angry men! It was when I learned that I was mortal, that one day I would die…but thank god it wasn't that day, in that summer! As I remember that summer it was hot. Blistering hot. As the heat rose so did the tension in the air. That days got longer and the people stayed outside later…milling, talking, getting each other angrier as the minutes, and hours and days wore on. The tension was racial, it was black vs. white, it was everyone against the `other'… meaning anyone who was different. I was a 19-year-old nursing school student and I had just gotten engaged to be married. What I did that day; I quickly decided was need to know only basis. My Mom was not to know. My fiancé was not to know. Only those who needed the information of what happened were to be told anything! What happened!?! Oh my…what a tale! One of my classmates was a little older, by a year or two. She had four kids, and a mom who lived on the "Hill" with her. The hill was were all the blacks lived in my town. That particular day was hotter than the one before it, and hotter than the one before that. She was telling me over lunch how afraid she was every day to take the bus home, to then walk the streets to her apartment. How afraid she was to even leave in the mornings…even though then everything was quiet and peaceful. She was afraid to leave her children, her mother to what was sure to happen at anytime! After spending an hour talking over lunch, we decided to leave school early for the day. She called her mom, told her to pack a bag for every member of her family…we were going to move them off the `Hill' for the duration. She found a place for all of them to stay, and we left for her neighborhood. When we got there everything was tense, the air was ungodly still, the birds were even quiet. We got the kids in the back seat of my little car, got their clothes and hers in the trunk…. and then her mom refused to budge, she refused to leave her home and everything she possessed to looters and rioters! We were forced to leave her behind! When we got out to the main road there were gangs of young men roaming the streets, screaming epitaphs at passersby. We must have looked a sight…a young black woman with four kids under 7, and a light skinned native woman (light enough I could pass for white and on occasion have!) The young men decided we looked like a likely target. They swarmed all around the car; on all sides were leering, jeering faces. As hot as it was we kept the windows closed to keep their hands and arms out of the car. Then suddenly the car was rocked to the left…then to the right. We were in fear of being overturned! What to do? How to react? I had little kids in the car! I had to protect them! I gunned it! I floored the accelerator! I ran over two men who were planted on my hood as they slid forward and under the car…I didn't care! I was out of there! The kids were going to be safe, so was I! This may sound brave…it wasn't, it was fear. I spent the rest of the day shaking. I learned that day that my Mother's wrath was more fearsome to me than all those rioting, angry men! I waited to hear from the police about the men I had run over, never a word! So therefore never had to tell her I had taken her car into that! Later that night we heard on the news that a house had burned during the riots that afternoon. My friend's mother was in the second floor walk up and couldn't get out. She had been overcome by smoke. Dead because things meant more to her than her own life! When that summer came to an end, and the weather cooled….you never saw anyone happier to see the cold, damp, inclement weather arrive! That was the summer I came to understand the need for seasons…they helped to clear the air, and the mind! |
 |
|
|
|