MILWAUKEE BLUES.

Since he composed the nine one one, the manager

Pakistani from the convenience store in Franklin Heights, a neighborhood north of
Milwaukee, no longer sleeps: its nightmares are inhabited by black faces
screaming "I can't breathe anymore". He should never have called the number
emergency for a suspicious banknote. But it's too late, and the
media around the world keep reminding him of the appalling death of his
passing customer, suffocated by the knee of a policeman.
The murder of George Floyd in May 2020 inspired Louis-Philippe
Dalembert the writing of this ample and moving novel. But that's life
of its hero, an imaginary figure named Emmett – like Emmett
Till, a teenager murdered by Southern racists in 1955 – that he will
stage, the life of a kid from the black ghettos that his talent for
American football promised a rich future.
His former teacher and his childhood friends remember a good
little raised alone by a very pious mother, and who went straight, all in her passion
for the oval ball. Later, his coach at the university where he obtained a
purse, as well as his fiancée at the time, are struck by the lack
assurance of this tall, shy boy, who has nevertheless become the star of the campus.
Everything smiles on him, until an accident that immobilizes him for a few months...
coach, who treats him like a son, advises him to repeat a grade, but Emmett
prefers to try the Draft, the selection by a professional franchise.
Failure then changes his destiny, and he is a man dedicated to
collecting odd jobs, always harassed, who years later
will return to his hometown, until the drama with which the novel opens.
The strength of this book is to brush in a poignant way and to tender the
portrait of an ordinary man whose terrifying death made him stand out. With the
the verve and humor that are customary for him, the writer makes him lovable and
familiar, while affirming, through the voice of Ma Robinson, the former guardian of
prison turned pastor, her faith in a better humanity.
LOUIS-PHILIPPE DALEMBERT was born in Port-au-Prince and lives in Paris.
Visiting professor at many universities, especially in the United States
(he taught in 2013 in Wisconsin-Milwaukee), he has published since 2017 with
Sabine Wespieser editor: Mur Méditerranée (2019) won the prize
of the French language, the Goncourt prizes of Switzerland and Poland and
finalist of the Goncourt prize for high school students..
LOUIS-PHILIPPE DALEMBERT
NINE-ONE-ONE
I NEVER SHOULD have dialed that damn number. If I could, I
I would permanently delete the 9 and the 1 from the dial of my smartphone.
Like a cyclone, or a flood, scratches overnight a
whole village of the world map. I would have a special application with
a keypad without these numbers. I am ready to pay her an arm, if necessary. That
said, if it were possible, it would be everywhere else, except here. For residents
of this country, the "nine-one-one" is an essential reference. a little to
the image of our convenience store for the inhabitants of this end of Franklin Heights.
The natural extension of the fingers, at the slightest crooked fart: a grip
beak between spouses, a kid who is fed up with his parents, a passerby
stranger who walks with his head down or skims the walls too much, a tramp who
confuses a fire hydrant with a pissotière, the bodybuilder type who has
forgot to pick up the poop of his poodle… without mentioning any problems
much more serious, like the drunk or "cracked" guy who beats up his
chick – sometimes it’s the other way around, but it’s rarer – before she
starts shouting his pain in the ears of the neighbors; or the perverse predator who
race a child in broad daylight… All those things we talk about at length
day on TV or on the Net. Who force you to spy on your kids, to
rummaging through their phones, to be on their backs 24 hours a day, lest they
rape and then massacre, or vice versa. In short, to pump their air and
make them the neurotics of tomorrow, a large part of whose salary will land
in cash and without a bill in the pocket of a shrink.
Only God knows if there are any problems in this city. She has
Although she is the largest in the state, she is no less lost. Even if
those who have a bit of money go crazy with their private clubs, their opera...
and their damn Wisconsin accent, which they struggle to hide from the ears of the
rest of the country. It is enough that they are tired or that they have a little blow of
champagne in the nose, and they lose their grand airs, eat you a
vowel in one word, "M'waukee", drag too much on another, "baygel"
instead of "baggle". I should have walked away a long time ago.
When my friends, after high school, wanted to ride in Chicago, the metropolis
the nearest one, to continue their studies there. The universities there are
much better than those here, in any case better rated on the market
work. For most friends, it was just a pretext because, at the end of the
account, they never put even the tip of a toe in
the university. Lack of money, perhaps. In this damn country of America,
even when it's a public university, it never has a "public" except in name.
When you leave, you can find yourself in debt for one or even two generations.
Like you bought a fucking house.
According to the latest news, all these friends, or almost, live from job to
job. What's the point of leaving if it's to go and do the same job elsewhere?
crap than staying at home? Like this cousin who ended up setting up a
convenience store in Evanston, a suburb north of Chicago, where a resident of
three is Haitian, well almost, when it would have sufficed to take that of
his parents here. Basically, these guys just wanted to change horizons.
Breathe another air, where everything seems possible. Where the wildest dreams
are permitted and even encouraged. This is the great strength of this country. It's not
like in Pakistan where, as a child then as a teenager, I spent two summers with my
old. Here, there is always a place to go and pitch your tent to try to
turn his dream into reality. Even if, on arrival, you get corroded by more
clever than you, that you die with your mouth open, without ever succeeding. At
less, you die with hope as a standard. There is nothing worse than dying without
hope.
Of course, I should have set sail with my friends. push even
a head to New York, like the most enterprising of the group.
History of digging the distance with all that, leaving things behind
self. It can be salutary, sometimes, to draw a frank cross on the past.
Well, so to speak, because the crosses and us, you know. In the end I am
remained buried in this hole. Without a diploma in hand, I failed the
my uncle's convenience store, instead of my cousin's gone to Chicago. What is
could I have done something else? Apart from breaking the slab, or living on the hooks of
my old folks, with this girl who immediately knocked up and didn't
nothing better than to lay me two brats in quick succession. She
refuses to take the pill, like all those women unable to align
two words without starting to talk about religion. So, at night, in bed,
You may have a boner, well, you're afraid to approach him. when you finally
take your courage in hand, you go there trembling. Sometimes she falls
pregnant. That would be one more mouth to feed, and all the expense
that means until the end of high school, if the kid hasn't lost his way.
Uncle Sam does not give gifts. I don't want a bunch of kids
me, as seen in blacks and Hispanics. It multiplies the
problems for people like us, who do not have unlimited credit at home.
bank.
I should have listened to my cousin, rode to Chicago with him and our
bunch of friends. I wouldn't have had to dial that damn nine-one-one. I
wouldn't have spent all those sleepless nights. After the premiere, I
I thought I wouldn't think about it again. At least, it would have faded, quit
to come back once in a while; and I would have slept eight hours
in a row, even if it means being woken up by my own snoring, like this
could happen to me before. But no. It's even quite the opposite. That
worsens over the nights. I have come to the point of not being able to close my eyes
All. I can bust my ass at work all day, come night, I don't
I don't collapse in bed though. The few times I get there, it's for me
rush into a bottomless hole, without any protrusion in the wall where
grab me. In fact, it takes a few minutes. In sleep, it seems
an eternity. And all the way a pack of dark faces accompany my
fall, screaming, "I can't breathe! I can not breathe ! I do not
can't…” I wake up with a start and a sweat. I'm running out of air.
I'm suffocating too. I rush to the window, I throw it open
without being able to breathe. It takes several minutes before my
heart finds a more or less bearable rhythm for someone
regular like me.
The imam I spoke to about it, seeking some comfort, told me that
I had made the right choice. “The right thing. It's the law. " You have to
to call the police when you suspect a customer of having sold you a ticket
counterfeit. Otherwise, you're the one who's toast. It can bring you home
prison. He said it with other words, precious and controlled, which are those of
men of faith, but it amounts to the same thing. Nevertheless, it is I who have
dialed that damn number. By reflex. The extension of our fingers, I
tell you. A bit out of cowardice too. These days, he doesn't
good for a muslim to deal with the cops. Even for a story of
fake tickets. They will quickly accuse you of laundering money to
finance terrorist activities, Daesh and other organizations not in odor
of holiness, the very name of which you did not know before they yelled at you,
or worse, in police custody and scare the hell out of you. So I have
dialed "nine-one-one". Besides, I still don't know if this damn thing
ticket was fake for real, or not. The cops took him away with the guy.
As evidence, they said. And no one paid for the package
cigarettes that the other has bought.
When I dialed that damn number, I didn't immediately chat that
the guy was black. I just said he was tall and beefy. With a start of
baldness at the top of the head. I realized this when he
bent down to pick up the note that had fallen on the floor. He would have been white, or
like us, he might have camouflaged it with a wick flap. It is
the type of baldness that can be easily hidden, unless you have your hair in
kinky wool like him. I also mentioned the color of the clothes. A black T-shirt, which he wore loose,
and faded jeans. Not the fashionable ones, that we
sells you a blind, with holes everywhere. This one, it was obvious, was
faded over time. He must have had some wars. Or its owner y
held a lot. Or he couldn't afford new pants.
Who knows. He also wore beige mastoc boots, similar to those
that workers wear on construction sites, with a reinforced toe cap to
protect the toes from falling heavy objects. He must have been between forty
and fifty pins. It's hard for me to be more specific. I never know
telling the age for blacks and Asians. White people are easy:
barely past their thirties, they look fifty. The guy would have been
Pakistani, it would have been easier. I grew up with it, you know?
The lady on the other end of the line had a more stressful voice than
reassuring. She insisted. What type was the man? I have very well
understood what she wanted to know, but I pretended not to
to understand. I instinctively picked up the Paki accent. I am unbeatable at this game.
With the friends, we often carried the parents, who came from there like the
mine, to avenge their punishments. So I took the paki accent, so
that I was born here. It's so you don't get in trouble, if you see what I'm
means. Neither with the cops, nor with the guys in the neighborhood, who would have treated me
balance and rewarded, afterwards, with the treatment that goes with it. It was a door
exit. You can never be too careful. I could always say that I had
not well understood. However, I had captured, and how. But I did
pretend not. I gave him further details. Height, build.
The type and color of clothes, stuff like that. I even believe him
having passed on the mark of the jeans. Construction worker shoes. But
she insisted, rushing me. She didn't care. With my
accent, she no longer took gloves. She started threatening me and everything. He
It was a serious offence, punishable by law. I was risking
minimum a heavy fine for inopportune disturbance of the police, it
there are other citizens in danger who really need help, whatever
something like that, you know?
As an Oriental, a Muslim who is worse, we are not fooled by what is
passes between the police and the blacks. When you see your boyfriend's beard in
fire, it is better to take the lead and put yours to the test. It's a
proverb that I brought back from the mouths of the Haitians of Chicago, the time
that I stayed there, in their neighborhood. But as long as it doesn't touch you,
you close it, so as not to get into trouble. you see what i want
say ? I wasn't going to deliver the guy hand and foot to them. It is the law of
neighborhood: never swing at the cops. This one, for once, she is not
written. So when the lady insisted on the other end of the line, yelling at me
almost, with this shrill intonation of speaking from here that leads you to yell
without even realizing it, I took the tangent again. I have
said the guy seemed a little tipsy, but he wasn't aggressive. He
was even smiling. He had exchanged a few words with a client
present at the convenience store, as if they had known each other forever.
Personally, this is the first time I have seen it. I know
yet most of the customers, they all live in the neighborhood. As
no one ventures here, unless you are a tourist, there are none
others. By force, I ended up knowing most of them, and also the
family: the mother, the father, when there are any, the children… We comment
often the weather and sports news: the Bucks, the Brewers, even the
Green Bay Packers. We sometimes laugh together. The one that makes me
funniest thing is Ma Robinson, an ex-matonne who became a pastor, at the
retirement. She has one of those quickdraws. What I like, but serious, is when
the former prison guard regains the upper hand over the reverend. she
then comes out of these salty words, which must not figure much in the
Bible. Finally, I imagine. Because I have not read any other sacred books, apart from the
Koran. And again, a few passages when, as a teenager, it was necessary to please
to the imam and my old people. In short, she had to learn some good things in jail. AT
About prison, I also chatted a few times with Stokely, another
historical figure of the district, with Ma Robinson and Authie. ten years of
hut behind him. Since then, he has settled down and tries to teach young people
how to escape it. With Authie, it is better not that they cross, these
two there. They pull the face permanently; it's been going on for a while, at this
it seems. If one is already in the convenience store, the other remains at
outside as long as he has not left, before returning in turn.
All that to say that the guy, I had never seen him. I do not even have
makes the connection with his mother, whom I must have met once or twice. He didn't have
not set foot in the convenience store before. I would have remembered otherwise. It is
maybe because of the two years I spent with the Haitians, in
Chicago. I ended up leaving, actually. With my wife and the two kids.
It was too tempting, since the time that the others broke my ears.
I had even made a trip before, a weekend, just to know where I
I put my feet. The others, well, they offered me the tour of the
grand dukes, and all. But, me, I need time. I'm not the type
to launch myself on a whim. I have to chew, ruminate, digest the idea.
Then one day, I came home, I said to my wife: "Do the
suitcases, we go up to Chicago. “I had waited for the summer and the end of the year
academic so as not to disturb children with school. that is how
we were gone...
Two years ! I lasted two years. After, I returned to the country, I mean
here in Milwaukee. I should have gotten out much earlier, out of high school,
with the others. After a certain age, it is more difficult. We have our habits there
where are we, do you understand? It's like with your wife. You may have
longing for the open sea; sometimes you even go there. The grass is always more
green elsewhere, right? “Aina? as they say in Wisconsin,
instead of "ain't it". Afterwards, it's stronger than you, you come back. The warmth of his
skin reassures you. That said, time had passed too. The friends had
exchange. We weren't the same bunch of friends who messed around about
everything and nothing. Everyone had responsibilities too heavy for their
shoulders. So, I came home.
The guy had come back to live in Franklin Heights during this absence.
two years, if I understood correctly. That's why I didn't recognize him,
when he showed up with his wooden ticket. I would have known him before,
I would have been cash with him. I would have said to him: "Where did you get that?
monopoly, dude? In order not to accuse him head-on, and run the risk of
lose a customer. It was when this whole thing happened that I heard
talk about him. Like what, he had been a local glory, he had played the
college football league. What did I know about it? AT
the time people talk about, I was a kid. Not to mention that the family of
my uncle and mine have never lived here. We have always crèche at Wilson
Park, the neighborhood where I was born and where I grew up. My uncle bought this
convenience store in Franklin Heights because he set out to prosper.
He already had two in our neighborhood and another on the South Side, among the
Hispanics. His dream was to have them all over Wisconsin, and then
throughout the Midwest and ultimately throughout the United States. To create a
empire, after the manner of the Asiatics; not us, the others.
When I started working at Franklin - the family held a council
to make me do it, because I couldn't decide what to do after the
high school – the guy had already left to try his luck elsewhere. And it wasn't
not to chase little hares like me, when I climbed to
Chicago. He was aiming for big game. In the end, he didn't catch anything at all.
Afterwards, he preferred to struggle rather than come back to drag the devil by the tail
his home. Out of pride, or out of shame. A mistake that many people
commit. Me, I understood very quickly, that's why I turned back
path after two years. The tail between the legs, it's true, but I'm
returned on time. If you insist too much, you run from one failure to another. That's what it says
the imam: “Pride is never a good adviser. "Afterwards, you find yourself
without anything, you are neither pope at home, nor mufti in Chicago. Dragged him, before
to return to the fold when he really had nowhere to go. like a stone
who has rolled down a slope; arrived at the bottom, she is forced to stop. So
why I hadn't met him before and didn't recognize him.
Of course, I did not unpack all that to the lady of the "nine-one-one", for
not that she gets more angry. But I was less and less convincing
in my answers. Sensing my hesitation, she unsheathed her story
fines and hassles for a lifetime. I then ended up spitting it out.
piece and tell him the guy was black. I will have lasted a while
all the same. I only threw it when I felt in danger.
The imam assured me that I could be proud of myself. I did not understand very well
whether it was because I had done my duty as a citizen, or because I did not
am in no rush to play collaborators. I didn't dare ask him. There
lady added if i couldn't tell sooner it would have saved some
time to everyone. After asking me again to confirm my name and
the address of the convenience store, she told me that she was going to forward the
report the suspect to the police. It would be here any minute.
To believe that she would not have moved if the guy had been Caucasian. I do not
will never know.
The patrol didn't take long. Ten minutes to break everything,
screaming siren. They were four, came in two different cars. THE
guy had already left the convenience store. He moved by rolling the
mechanical, as Blacks often do. Just watch it walk
Barack Obama, or Denzel Washington at the beginning of his films, and you
understand what I mean. The guy was heading for his car, a
gleaming burgundy bass drum, with the blurred silhouette of a headstock
the front. Seeing the car – I had gone out on the steps of the convenience store to
follow the course of the operation – I wondered if I hadn’t
does a bullshit. Either the guy had put all his savings into it, before
go into debt up to your neck to pay the rest. Either he was a drug dealer. In
general, the cops prefer the second hypothesis. Basically, when you have a
box like that, you're not trying to pass on such a small cut. Unless
that it was a test, before selling bigger ones.
In the end, I reassured myself, because one of the cops was African-American as they say here, to
avoid designating the color of the skin.
Of skin precisely, he was very fair, but it was obvious that he was not all
white, all white. There was also a little beefy who was Chinese, well
Asian from there, I can't say from which country exactly. It's like
us when we are confused with the Indians, when we have nothing to do with it. Whether
it turns out, he was born here, like me. This is why I prefer to specify. I
told myself that there was no risk of a slippage, their presence
would prevent the other two from changing type to smudge. Well I
am deceived. I still hurt to admit it. If I hadn't composed this
damn number...
The rest, the whole planet knows it down to the smallest detail. All is
on the Net. How they belly tackled the guy, passed him
the bracelets while he was on the ground. And as if that weren't enough, the
Caucasian with the Kojak ball – this is the name of the actor of a soap opera that
I was watching, child – held his knee between the shoulder blades, looking like
nothing, like we do with the Eid sheep so that it stops fidgeting and
to bawl before the throat was cut, while his colleagues took care of
keep onlookers away. He too was looking towards the small group of
people huddled around them, not caring much about the guy under his
knee… Did he feel the guy’s last jerky breath? As
when you touch an electrified person and they throw a
discharge in turn. I'm not even talking about the words, which we will no doubt make
titles of books or films around the world. With words, people
can cheat. But the breath! Unless you're fit for an Oscar, like
Denzel, we're not pretending. How can we not feel it? And leave despite
all the other give up the ghost without flinching?
For my part, I will regret all my life to have composed this annoying
number. I was coming back from the bathroom when the cashier gave me the agreed sign.
I walked away to make the call discreetly. It's me who
should have been sitting behind the cash register, as a manager, to which I give
entitled my status as the boss's nephew, in the absence of my cousin. That
I would have done better to follow, or join much sooner in Chicago.
I've said it before, I know. Today, the guy would be alive, and his three daughters
would not be orphans.
"It's the law," the imam said. What happened next is not
your spring. You just obeyed the law.
"The men's," I replied. And that of Allah? »
For once, I cut the quid to the imam. He put even more
time to answer, before telling me something stupid, like: "His ways
are impenetrable. " " It's the law. That's what I tell myself when the
remorse takes too much of my head. In the meantime, I keep not finding the
sleep, and the rare times I do, not being able to breathe in my
nightmares. The fact that my uncle, as the boss of the convenience store, has
declared wanting to participate in the funeral costs did not change much in the case. Screaming black
faces persist in piercing my
sleep: "I can't breathe! I can not breathe ! I can not
not… "
THE TEACHER
“WILL IT NEVER STOP? This is the first thought that strikes me.
came to mind when the continuous information banner started to
flash at the bottom of the television screen, signaling the death of yet another
black man in the hands of the police. Since the death of this father of
family, suffocated to death under the weight of several white police officers from
the city of New York, a few years ago, for a banal story of
resale of cigarettes on the sly, one has the impression of a real
epidemic. Not to mention all the other victims of systemic violence
which plagues this country. “So it will never end? " These words
in fact reflected a great weariness. Partly due to age, I
agree, who nibbles at me with small strokes of reckless incisors, assured
to have the last word. Anyway, I'm tired of holding this
unhealthy count. To repeat ad nauseam the same refrain, as in
this song where Gregory Porter pays homage to Reverend D
r Martin
Luther King Jr., repeating relentlessly: “1960 what? 1960 who? " This
is never easy to say that we have fought all these years for
ministrations, or even for nothing at all.
“So it will never end? “However, I was not at the end of
my sadness. When the name and photo appeared in the middle of
the screen, the face came back to me right away, clear, precise. Like a violent
stab in the heart. Oh my God ! That was thirty-five years ago.
Maybe a little more. My heart started beating at an unbearable rate
for a woman my age. The time flies ! Do my
yesterday's lovers would recognize me in this fragile three-quarter-length lady
wrinkled, whose pace continues to slow down and the skeleton, to creak at the
slightest gesture, larding the flesh with recurrent and multiple pains?
Would they recognize the dashing and beautiful young woman – let’s dare
immodesty – which made them turn their heads, pure product of the generation of
those who today are called boomers? And my little
Emmett, whose sweet face has just been dumped on consumers
frantic images from the four corners of the planet, would he have recognized his
former schoolteacher in this shriveled cast-off that looks like a
besides empty and worn? Funny times, indeed.
Quite the opposite of this distant period when dreams flourished so
flamboyant. We were in the middle of the Cold War. A few years
only after the peoples of Africa and Asia had risen to
put an end to centuries of European colonization. Young Westerners
did not end in their turn to do – to dream, for the most part – the
revolution. In Europe, it set the streets of the capitals ablaze on both sides.
other side of the Iron Curtain: Rome, Berlin, Belfast, Warsaw, Belgrade, with
culminating in the Prague Spring and May 68 in Paris. Here in the United States, we are reinventing it
against the Vietnam War, singing the
lyrics from Vietnam Blues by J. B. Lenoir, which put the government and the
society in the face of their contradictions. We invited him into the mores to
Woodstock, indulging in all sorts of excesses on the acid notes of a
black guitarist with a Cherokee Indian background, who went through life like a meteor.
Young among hundreds of thousands of others, I dreamed of change.
And for me, its starting point had to be equal rights. Between
men and women, that goes without saying. Even more, in a country
like ours where human relationships remain tainted by slavery,
between whites and blacks. It was at this level that I wanted to change, not the
world, but the United States. Along with tens of thousands of others, I
was singing Sweet Black Angel by the Rolling Stones, or Angela by John
Lennon and Yoko Ono, in the demonstrations in favor of the release of
the icon Angela Davis. Her stunning beauty touched the hearts of more than one
man of my generation. Her perfect features under the Afro cut embodied,
in their eyes, the absolute face of the Revolution.
I was coming out of the neat white East Side neighborhood in Milwaukee, one
of the most segregated metropolises in the United States. For those of
my social condition, Franklin Heights, a ghetto located north of the city,
was on another planet, in a word, much further than Florida,
even Cancún, Mexico, where they vacationed. We were at
mid-seventies when, with a bachelor's degree in literature from
the private Jesuit Marquette University, obtained at the age when others were already
parents and established in working life, I was recruited as a teacher at
Franklin Heights Public School. It was my way of putting my hand
in the dough, after long years spent hanging out on the side of my dreams
theories of societal change, in the fumes of discussion
until no time, smoke of all kinds, alcohol and mixed bodies.
My close entourage cried foul. The parents of my friends, who
had always seen in me the bad seed of influence for their
offspring, spoke of mental illness. It didn't surprise them.
they argued, the illicit substances I was using had fried my
neurons. In the opinion of these right-thinking bourgeois, except on the question of
color, I was an eccentric cameo, when I barely smoked
a few joints of marie-jeanne here and there, like many young people from
this generation. No doubt I had ventured one night, led by
atmosphere, towards more harmful consumption, but I had the reflex
salutary to stop the experiment. For their part, if my parents did not go
not so far as to disown me, the cold war invited itself into our relationship. She does not
ended only with the birth of their first grandson, conceived with a good
White, well in all respects, when I had largely exceeded the
thirties and had more or less put a cross on motherhood.
Before him, my previous lover had proved incapable of assuming
my positions, too clear-cut for his taste. He was barely supporting
my relationships, some of which dated from this period of transgression;
although most had already returned to the ranks, after their brief
escape to the other side of the wall. He did not understand that in addition I go
wasting the best years of my life in a fight that was neither the
mine, nor that of my community. Especially since, he judged, I had no
need to work, he earned enough for two, even for the family that
we would not have been long in founding. The idea of ​a single community
human, above ethnic groups, classes and sexes, went beyond him. Ultimately,
he put me on notice to choose. Between my ideal and him, I did not hesitate a moment.
single second: I choose my ideal.
It was in this context that I was hired in primary school
Benjamin-Franklin, a large red brick building, typical of
early 20th century architecture
It is
century, and where I would have, about ten years
later to know Emmett. I am not ashamed today to say that, at the
Over time it became one of my favorites. In principle, teachers
are not supposed to discriminate between students. Ethics issue.
We are no less human beings. The main thing is to be
fair to everyone, especially when it comes to children. At this age, we don't have
not the words to say what we feel in an almost animal way. All
feeling of injustice can lead to irreversible damage, in particular
in toddlers who, because of their social condition, are already victims
in everyday life. I would be unable to explain this strong
affection for little Emmett. Why him, and not one or another? This
Surely it wasn't because of his grades. Far from there ! From this
aside, he tended to get on my nerves. I accept, at my age,
that we cannot understand everything, nor explain everything. my love
for little Emmett was of that order.
It was his name that first caught my attention. call your child
Emmett, twenty years after the teenager whose murder by racists
Southern whites had hit the headlines, said a lot about the parents. They
had to be activists from the start, in situations
much more dangerous than those I had fought with
slogans before entering Benjamin-Franklin. This is, at the very least, what he
pleased me to believe. I was a little girl when the heinous lynching was perpetrated
and, thanks to television already, moved the whole world. The killers were
nevertheless acquitted, after a travesty of trial which contributed to worsen
already abysmal relations with the police, the justice system and, worse
again, between our communities. Emmett's classmates don't
hardly moved, who chose, because of his overweight, to dress him up
of the ungraceful nickname of Fats Domino, without knowing that this appellation
in reference to the fatty and thick pizza slices of the same name, of which
their fellow student was fond of, referred well before him to one of the precursors
rhythm and blues. Very clever who would have seen then, in this plump urchin,
a bit clumsy, the big fellow he was about to become.
The man already had character. He wouldn't let himself be walked on
feet when others called him Fats Domino. However, it does not
settled their accounts himself only as a last resort. He willingly let
do the dirty work by the two comrades he was flanked by at length
day, so much so that I end up calling them "the three
musketeers", despite the absence of a fourth thief who would have given
makes sense to my comparison. The others saw in these two friends
relatives of the Cerberus barring access to Emmett, and nicknamed them, one,
“Bodyguard”, the other, “Gorilla”. As if, with its build of a pillar of
football, Emmett would have been unable to defend himself. But I
understood. It's good to see friends standing up for you, without
you have to intervene yourself. It is soft. It's a way of hearing you say
"I love you", without the words. Probably the reason why Emmett
let Stokely and Autherine put the insolent in their place. Surrounded by
Gorilla and Bodyguard, he enjoyed a royal peace in the halls of
the establishment as under the courtyard.
In class, it was necessary to separate the three to cut short the
unwanted whispers and prevent them from copying each other.
The same nonsense moreover, because none of the three was very smart with a
strictly from an academic point of view. When we had managed to get him away from his two
sidekicks, Autherine, the daughter, was the most diligent, without being a thunderbolt of
war anyway. Stokely was the least gifted, while being more daredevil,
a little prank always ready to plot dirty tricks. This
I wouldn't be surprised if he ended badly, that one. Whether he was the subject of a
police blunder, too; or, in a less macabre scenario, let it be
went to inflate the statistics of black men behind bars in
UNITED STATES. Emmett had great potential, but the school didn't seem
not his priority. Which pissed me off the most. One would have said that there
didn't believe. God only knows if he had the ability to do much
better. With a little effort and a modicum of consistency on his part, he
would have been among the best in class. It was too much to ask of him. He
was always waiting for the last minute to raise the level and pass with the
just average. That was the type of student Emmett was.
I had it in two different classes during primary school. There
management had instituted a rotation system, which made us change
teaching class every three years. The second time was in 4
th
Grade. Emmett used to come to class with a soccer ball
that literally had to be ripped out of his hands. Otherwise, he kept it on
his desk or his knees, and fiddled with it all day long. How to
concentrate with this thing in hand? This was the year he started
refine a bit. It was not due to his growth alone, as I believed at the time.
beginning. A colleague, Mahalia, who I was close to, lived in Franklin Heights.
She was the only one, in fact. The others had moved to the side of
Halyard Park, where the black middle classes of Milwaukee had
started to regroup. But she refused to leave. This bachelor
hardened had made her profession a priesthood, she wanted to serve as an example
to the kids in the neighborhood.
Mahalia knew the family well. It was she who told me that the father
Emmett had left home. The information was confirmed to me by the
followed by the mother, a woman of strong build, affable and with a smile
contagious. She didn't go into detail; she was a lady of great
dignity. She was so keen for her only son to succeed in his studies that she
regularly visited the teachers – we were all
women – to demand more severity from them towards him. Otherwise, he
would become a lazy man like his father, who recoiled from the slightest
difficulty, she said, before running away when the situation became
dramatic.
She was referring to the recession of the early Reagan years, which
hit the country hard, relentless, even after the resumption, on the
Midwest and Greater Milwaukee. Like these cyclones that crash down
every year from now on in Florida and as far as the interior of the United States.
In my time, we did not deplore so much. The A. O. Smith plant, which
employed most of Benjamin-Franklin's relatives, nearly put the key
under the doormat, before being bought by other shareholders. There
new management slimmed down by the hundreds and relocated a good part of
production in countries where labor was even cheaper
than here.
Emmett's father was part of the big cart that stayed on the
tile. After a while, no doubt tired of his research
fruitless, unless it is under the influence of laziness that he
reproached his wife, he finally got it into his head that there was nothing
for people like them in Milwaukee. It was better to go back to the South,
where he had family. According to Mahalia, he persuaded his wife to leave him
scout for Alabama. She would join him with their boy
in three, four months, a year at most, when he would have found
work and a home where they can be decently welcomed. Because sooner or later the
bad luck would get tired of anchoring in their lives and would drop anchor in
deeper waters, said the entangler. Once he was gone from
Franklin Heights, the brave lady heard no more of him. His son no
plus.
It was during this period that little Emmett's figure began to
refine. This was the result of growth, of course, but also and above all of the
sudden disappearance of the father, to whom he was very close, and the fact that he
did not eat enough. As he was not the only one
concerned, with my colleague, we encouraged the school management to
institute a free canteen system that offered breakfast and,
sometimes, the snack to those who were in difficulty. The initiative was very quickly
Victim of his own success. In those lean years, they were
many frequent the canteen. Even if my memory fails, I'd say
more than half of the school, without risk of being wrong. The headmistress scraped
the bottoms of drawers, without that being enough. It was necessary to involve the
surrounding temples, even beyond, all denominations combined. THE
supermarkets cooperated and left us the products at cost price
close to the expiration date, when they did not offer them to us. THE
Rotary Club also, through my parents, who were
members and saw no inconvenience in financing my fads,
harmless now that I was married and a mother.
At first, Emmett didn't set foot there. He already had that pride close
of pride, which modest people sometimes show, traces without any
doubt of the education received at home. The absence of the father must have
closer to his mother. “You have to go through her,” suggested Mahalia, who
attended the same parish as this lady. Otherwise, we do not risk
to see him so soon. The friendship of this colleague, younger but more
integrated into the neighborhood, was for me a real school of life. Without her,
I would have missed a lot of things. I would have built up so many false
evidences. One morning, in the teachers' room, she announced to me that she
had spoken to Emmett's mom. He was therefore able to attend
the canteen, like Gorilla, Bodyguard and other little comrades. And he does
was not the least greedy. Far from there !
In spite of that, I sometimes surprised him apart from the others, even from
his two companions, a veil of sadness in their eyes. Oh, barely
noticeable to his little comrades, because the man was proud and knew
hide their emotions. Supporter of the lesser effort in progress, but proud. It was
of the style never to denounce a fellow student, never to cheat, as they
said in their flowery language. And the day I heard him hum
Alabama Blues by J. B. Lenoir strolling through the halls of the school,
I had to force myself not to run towards him and hug him very tightly.
my arms. He would have thought I was crazy, at best, and the
others with him. Worse, he might have felt attacked by this momentum
of unwelcome affection.
It was too heavy a song for a child. How can we, at this
age, sing a blues about a white policeman who killed a
black sister and brother in Alabama? To swear, by the voice of the bluesman, not to
no longer return there because of the unjust release of the murderer? The words of this
lament written in the sixties, during the harsh period of the
segregation, which we resume in demonstrations after each
homicide of a black man by a white policeman, still come back to me
times. They resonate so strongly with me today and make my heart bleed
already exhausted.
I never will go back to Alabama,
that is not the place for me
You know they killed
my sister and my brother
And the whole world let them
peoples go down there free
After hearing Emmett sing that funny song, I don't
I worried about Mahalia, who had a ready-made explanation. According to
neighborhood gossip, it was one of the party father's favorite blues, a
year earlier, somewhere in Alabama. The grandparents were
from there, from a town called Selma. It is, moreover, he who
had chosen the first name of his son, against the will of his fervent wife.
This one would have preferred Matthew, Paul, Andrew, Zechariah… a first name more
basically a Christian. I accepted the very plausible interpretation of Mahalia
without ceasing for all that, for days on end, to ask myself why the hell
the boy had memorized the words.
The following year, in 5
th Grade, Emmett left my class for my
colleague. Having understood that I had a weakness for him, Mahalia was the
duty to give me regular updates. At the end of the year
academic, when only the director and two or three
teachers on site to send the last administrative paperwork
before leaving on vacation, what was my surprise to see him arrive at
school with his mother. They brought me a bouquet of flowers and
cornbread, wrapped in foil, that mom had
took care to slip into a Tupperware. It was his way of thanking me
to have accompanied Emmett a little during his schooling in primary school,
to have been both lenient and severe enough with him to shake off his
laziness and help him to double this first course on the path of life.
Mahalia must have told Emmett's mom that I loved bread.
corn, a cute sin brought back from childhood and my nanny from the
South East. It was my own Proust madeleine. My emotion was such that
I couldn't hold back my tears. Fortunately, the colleagues do not
weren't around and that ridicule doesn't kill. The lady did not
neither one nor two and welcomed me on his generous chest. For a bit, she
would have cried with me. Wrapped in her arms, I swear I found
the smell of my nanny. I took the opportunity to invite them home on Sunday
following. Faced with the mother's hesitation, I took both her hands and told her
that in addition to honoring me it would fill me with pleasure. My two boys
would be just as happy to meet Emmett, while we
would talk between adults.
Three days later, they came home dressed as if
go to Sunday service. And when the blacks here go to the temple,
it's something. I never understood why we white people,
we do not take the seed of it. It's not like we go out
shopping at the supermarket, for God's sake! Or that we were going to a damn
baseball game. Despite the differences with my parents, who lived there
until the end – may God welcome them into His kingdom –, after my
marriage, I had returned to live in the East Side neighborhood, where I had
grew up and had my bearings. I wanted my children to live there during the day
Also. It reassured me. A bit like female sea turtles
travel thousands of kilometers to lay their eggs on the
beach where they were born.
It was summer. In the street, the residents took the air on their veranda.
They were talking among neighbors, their eyes fixed on the children who were playing on the meadow
attached to their house. The arrival of Emmett and his mother, in this neighborhood
exclusively white, did not go unnoticed. Adults stopped
talk, the children, to play, to watch them go by. Emmett and his mother
were not dressed like the service staff accustomed to crossing the threshold
from their rich mansions on weekdays. The silence that accompanied their steps
was as heavy as the air of July. Going out with my husband
waiting on the veranda, I imagined their discomfort. I then measured
the incongruity of my invitation, especially on this day and at this time of
the year. The distance also that separated us from each other. Everything that
I managed to do that afternoon, it was to walk to meet them and
walk together the last few meters to the house.
Once inside, my husband did his best to lighten the atmosphere,
put mom at ease. He told her he was from Chicago where,
as a child, he went to school with a Haitian, his best friend. The mother loved
invite him to their home and served him dishes including certain ingredients
reminiscent of southern cuisine. These very spicy dishes made it turn red
poppy. He was sweating up to his ears, but it was so
tasty ; greedy as he was, he never refused. At this
evocation, the lady laughed heartily. The first moment of floating
past, the kids had dragged Emmett into the backyard of the house.
I had told them that he was a football fan, the only information that
I had thought it useful to give them before his coming. Thank God there was no
no misplaced curiosity in their eyes. Shortly after, we
came their heckling and the thud of the soccer ball
bounced from time to time on the band of glaze arranged in a bridge at the
middle of the lawn to prevent us, in the fall, from bringing mud into the
House.
After that summer Sunday, I never saw Emmett again, who had gone to
The secondary. We exchanged for a time two or three letters in
which he briefly gave me his news and informed me of
his studies in high school. If he had made some progress in spelling,
his handwriting was still just as difficult to decipher. My work had no
not bear fruit on that side. I encouraged him by return mail,
reminded him that he had to persevere and believe in his lucky star: “Work
always pays, my little Emmett. It was funny to me to give him
of the "little one", out of affection, when he was surely already a fellow almost
as big as the one whose photo the journalists showed to the
television. Above all, he should not hesitate to approach me if, for some reason
or another, he needed my services. I would be happy to be able
to come for help. He never did, nor did his mother. Pride? Or don't
was it not necessary? It is now too late to know.
In the meantime, under the combined pressure of the children and my
husband, I had asked to be transferred to another district. Franklin Heights
was becoming a more dangerous place every day. One of the deadliest
Milwaukee. Closing in on himself and only opening up to others to
specific reasons, not necessarily good ones. The presence of
the “stranger” that I continued to be in the eyes of the caïds disturbed.
Those of whom I had the benevolence - among them, former students,
their parents and a prison guard of my age, very active in
associations – were not able to impose my company on them. So
how I left, with a heavy heart, from the neighborhood and from the school where
I would have worked for more than fifteen years. It hurt my heart to
no longer return there on a daily basis in order to offer my help to mothers who
wanted a less miserable life for their children.
The last letter I received from Emmett brought a very good
news: he announced to me that he had received a scholarship from I don't know what
Catholic University of the South West to pursue studies that he would not have
could never afford otherwise. Computer studies, if my
memory does not betray me. The university probably needed his talent
footballer, and he had to accept to try to turn professional.
It was give and take. He himself must not have believed too much in these
computer studies, having never been good in arithmetic. Who knows,
perhaps, in secondary school, he had come across a teacher who was quite
competent and patient to interest him in mathematics. Sometimes a beautiful
human encounter with a teacher can serve as a trigger for a student.
Reveal it to himself. The most touching thing about this story is that he would have
remembered me and wanted to let me know of his success. There is no more
rewarding for a teacher.
I lost track of him afterwards. At times, I thought to myself that
I would learn from him by following the television news. He would have become
a huge sports star who would even be talked about in the news
general. Like one of those people who distribute their money on sight and
known by all to show off in the eyes of others. Didn't Christ
not say: "When you give alms, let your left hand ignore what your
right hand " ? That being the case, I am not blaming them. If what they give
can reduce poverty in the world, it is already that for these
unfortunate. So one day, turning on the television, I would hear about
my little Emmett.
I didn't expect it to be like this at all. I was not
not ready for it. Will it ever end? I see it again, toddler,
in the halls of the school, humming the lyrics of Alabama Blues.
Despite the weariness that grips my being, the sinner that I am asks
God preserve my heart from all anger, from all desire for revenge, which
belongs to Him alone, as He himself says: "Mine the
revenge and recompense, when their feet stumble. Because the day of
their calamity is near, and what is prepared for them hastens. So be patient,
before seeing this new world where justice will be served and where we can
all, whites, blacks, Asians, natives and Hispanics, live
together. In the meantime, may He guide me on the path to peace.
I knew by Mahalia, that I had lost sight of and that I was able to join by
telephone, that the funeral would take place in a temple where
the former prison guard, who has since become a pastor. She has me
learned that the burial would be followed by a peaceful march in honor of
Emmett, to seek justice on his behalf. I will go discreetly. For
salute his memory. Also for the pleasure of seeing Mahalia again after all these
years. Will I be able to recognize her? I will have, it is a foregone conclusion, the heart
bitter and the painful impression of going back in time; not like i
would have liked, but to the tune of an old blues hummed by a young
boy named Emmett. In the meantime, I cannot, as it says in the
song, that I sit and cry, thinking of the sad and revolting
conditions under which poor Emmett lost his life.
My brother was taken up for my mother,
and a police officer shot him down
I can’t help but to sit down and cry sometime
Think about how my poor brother lost his life
THE CHILDHOOD FRIEND
I MET HIM ON THE MORNING of that tragic day, and that was the last time. With
Emmett, we've known each other – I have a hard time talking about him in the past tense – since
always. We were born in the same hospital, the Saint Michael, the
same month, the same year: that of the end of the Vietnam War, where
so many of our boys have shed their blood for the Uncle who, during the same
period, yet treated them as second-class citizens. We did
come a long way since then, it would be in bad faith to say the opposite, but the
account is still not there. Emmett and I, we've grown our whole lives, me
at least, on the same street in the same neighborhood in North Milwaukee,
Franklin Heights. Here, when you say you come from the northern districts, people
look askance at you, while standing on their guard, ready to take the
powder of escampette, to compose the "nine-one-one", of the times that you would have
behaving oddly, committing an illegal act. Emmett and I, we
We learned very early on to detect this suspicion in the eyes of others. THE
Sunday, our parents took us together to the temple, in search of a
hope, which I still await the realization. I keep going and going
believing is a way of maintaining the flame that has been bequeathed to us. Otherwise,
what meaning would life have?
Apart from that, there is a big difference between us: I am more
small, it's true, but I was born a week before him. Child, Emmett
supported him all the less because, very quickly, he overtook me by a head, then
two, three. Even at the time of my supposed growth, I did not have
a lot off the ground. So I always looked at it from below. Nature
had offered him his little revenge, and he did not hesitate to add to it by
giving me “Shorty” all the way. What had the gift, at the time, of
put in all my states. Whatever he did, I told him, I would always be
his eldest. He could even push, if he wanted, like most
high tower of Chicago, where I had not yet set foot. But this,
everyone knows it: when it comes to skyscrapers, Chicago has nothing to envy to New
York.
"It's like that, you can never do anything about it. By the way, sit down when
I'm talking to you, you give me a stiff neck. Luckily, I'm not your little one
friend, it would have been a hassle to snog you. »
We bickered like this. The others called us “the Siamese”. And
an institute, "the three musketeers", if we put the other glandu of Stokely there.
At Benjamin-Franklin Elementary School, in each class, the teacher had to
We change places so that we don't stay glued to each other all the time.
the other. We caught up in the playground, on the road, which we did
on foot, then on the school bus when we passed through the
secondary, the school was quite a distance away from Franklin
Heights. We were in 8
th Grade, I remember it very well, when he
started to walk away from me. Because of the girls, who pinched
crazy for him. With its large carcass, its feline gait and its mouth
of thug – there was however no nicer or more serious – he made them
all crack, these little bitches. When we met again in the neighborhood –
we were always stuck in each other's house - he told me his stories of
heart, he couldn't help it. With the success he reaped despite
he had become a real heartthrob. The more he told me, the more it annoyed me.
One day when I was fed up, I ended up asking him if I was not
a girl, me too.
"What do they have more than me, your bitches? »
It came out on its own. It's true, apart from my low profile, I was
pretty well rolled for my fourteen years. And then, suddenly, he took
aware that I existed. Other than a friend, I mean. With a
hoe and a body that would have made many others drool in its place. Even
eighteen, twenty year olds. My reaction, however, made him giggle.
laugh: “My word! you are jealous. He then tried to catch up: “You,
This is not the same. You are my sis. My little sister,” he added, believing me
cheer up with his two-ball joke. But that pissed me off more.
“Little sister, my ass, yes. “That day, if I had been at his house, I would have
barred by slamming the door. But we were sitting on the porch stairs
from my house. I still planted it so dry and left fissa
join the others who were chatting a few meters away. In the long run, I
made up my mind, I accepted the role of confidante. The one he doesn't
would never let go, who would always be by his side through thick and thin. And
reciprocally.
Adolescence passed very quickly, before we even had time to
to notice. We definitely lost sight of each other when he left
try your luck at college. Far from Milwaukee anyway, so far that he
passed very little here. Over time, less and less. This time has me
seemed so long without my big brother. The one to whom I could tell everything, everything
tell, to try to identify men a little bit, if indeed it is
there is something to understand, because I was – and I still am –
completely dropped with the guys. I would have liked to confide my rage to him and
my disgust, when one of them took me for his doormat or, in the
case of the guy I lived with, didn't jerk one off at home, before
that I don't throw him out with loss and noise.
Don't look for me long. If I learned one thing in the street,
with Emmett and the others, it's not to be stepped on.
Otherwise, the reaction is not long in coming. On the other hand, how to retain a
dude, a good one, home? That, I never knew how to do. I have no blood
tolerant, as we say around here. Even when I'm crazy about the guy. I will have
liked that he was there to explain to me why I persist in picking up
slackers and losers. The guys are not lacking though. I would have liked
simply a shoulder, fraternal arms where to snuggle up, without misunderstanding
none. With their "wise" advice, girlfriends too often settle the
accounts with their own guy through you, while keeping him warm
in their bed, for the winter nights, when the cold of Wisconsin penetrates you
bones.
When he came back to settle in our neighborhood, after years
spent on the roads singing Ain't Got No Home - if that's the case, he has
slept in the street like a homeless person, when besides his mother, I would have
been ready to harbor her all her life – those moments of tender complicity that
I dreamed of were no longer possible. Not because we had all become adults
both ; he must, in addition, face heavy responsibilities. No.
It had been quite simply changed to me, the experience of elsewhere had broken
something in him. He had traded in his natural good humor, no doubt
to protect himself, against a fake, mechanical smile. as if he were playing
his own role in a show written by someone else. In fact, he
pretended to be the same as before. The one to
who, at the first light of dusk, the mother cried from the veranda:
"Emmett, bring your black ass home, if you don't want me to
flattens it like that of a chimpanzee. »
She was so afraid of Franklin's bad company to
his only son. And she wasn't wrong. It's like that, by starting
dealer, that the other asshole from Stokely ended up in prison, after seeing his
own father to enter. He had even imagined dragging Emmett into his
business. So there he picked it up. It was a titanic shouting match between
We. The Seven Thunders of the Apocalypse on the side, it's gnognotte. All
Franklin, including the new generation, still talks about it. He knows well that,
despite my half-portion size, I don't back down from anyone. Again
less when you touch my big little brother. Since then, with Stoke, we
hadn't spoken before I heard the news on TV.
Emmett's mom was therefore right to be afraid that he was going to swell
the statistics of black people behind bars. The highest percentage
of all the communities of the country, contrary to its representation by
compared to the whole population. The same ratio more or less as for
Vietnam, from where my future father had returned next to his pumps,
hallucinations in his head, which made him more and more violent towards the
family, except when, drunk as a pig, he began to cry
tears of a kid who hasn't eaten for a week, before stopping
net and start yelling: “Vietnam, Vietnam, everybody cryin’
about Vietnam…” He could run like that for a whole morning. All that for
end up in a psychiatric hospital.
Emmett, he had returned not as one returns to a port
home, to recharge your batteries, to replenish your energy before perhaps
go elsewhere. Or, why not, live the rest of the time that God will have you
granted on this earth. He had come back to wash up in the street of his childhood,
because he must have been tired of wandering and above all had nowhere
where to go.
He had gone far though. Farther than all of us. His athletic talent
had opened the doors of the university to him, where most of us
started working at sixteen; at best were struggling, like me, to
finish high school. Where he had carved out star status, brooded over by
the girls of the school, then, on the occasion of the regional championship, by those
of Wisconsin and all of the Midwest, including Wasps. These little
white females, Protestant or not, were ready to challenge the prejudices of
their environment to have it. A risky bet, where there was a lot to lose,
but where they could also win the kettledrum. The challenge: an entrance
into adulthood by the royal road and, whatever happens after – divorce,
child of whom they would have sole custody – a “meal ticket” for life. In
case of recruitment of Emmett by a large franchise, the chosen one would have been there
from the beginning, you understand? The faithful among the faithful, family and
friends included. The one on whom we rely, when we arrive so quickly in the
high spheres, in order to nourish the illusion, which we all need, of being loved
for oneself and to protect oneself from the vultures in permanent approach.
Getting a scholarship is a panacea, the only way for young people in the
neighborhood, girls and boys alike, to set foot in university. That
God, or nature, endows you with a talent superior to that of others in a
of the four major sports that showcase these temples of knowledge. Whether
you were born under a very lucky star, you can obtain the grail: to be spotted by
a university that has a storefront. They have headhunters present in everything
the country, in search of the young prodigies who will come to help them attract their
customer base. Overnight, you are projected ambassador of a
university, including none of your family, even after five generations,
hadn't heard of. Except perhaps the inevitable Yale, Harvard or
MIT, without knowing to locate them on the East Coast, the West Coast or inland
lands.
Emmett, it's always been football. Its height and weight in
made a natural tackler for the first curtain of the defensive line.
Small, and until he left the neighborhood, I never knew him without a
oval ball in his hand, which he hit against the first wall he came across,
bouncing off the ground, pretending to throw to a fictional teammate on the other end
from an equally imaginary terrain, the body leaning almost at ground level,
opposite side to where he intended to throw the ball, before straightening up and
to project the arm with force, to the point sometimes of finding oneself flat on the stomach,
hand still clutching the ball. At the same time, he accompanied
his gestures of commentary in the manner of sports journalists, praising
his prowess in a stadium standing to applaud him.
If by chance he found a vacant lot where some
tufts of wild grass, he let loose like a puppy on a lead
whole day, which finally has the opportunity to stretch its legs. He was jumping,
jumped in all directions, threw the ball in the air, caught it in midair.
He let it bounce again, the better to grab hold of it and roll on the floor,
before freezing, its large frame braced in a gesture of protection.
Even when he was hanging out with us, he had it in his hand; seated, he kept her
between the legs, while continuing to caress her. My word, he cherished it
more than a chick. According to his mother, he took her in the evening in his bed.
Impossible to separate them. As if he had always known that his future
depended on it. I never understood how he could love this sport of
raw. As long as it made him happy, I was happy for him.
That's how, thanks to that damn oval ball, he left for
university, in a medium-sized city in the Southwest, which I do not remember
no longer the name. We all saw him drafted by a big team, become a
NFL star. Then there was this damn accident in senior year. That, I
I learned it years later, I don't know from whom. If it's him, when he comes back,
or his mother, with whom I had kept in touch, to hear from her. In
left, because he was also a good person. The coach would have liked him to
doubles. You can't say he was working stiff off the pitch. In
course, it seems, he was far from an arrow. At school already, he did not shine
not on that side. But his advisers in a hurry to make money on his
back, including him, got it into their heads that the university wanted to exploit
gratis his talent one more year. So he didn't listen to the coach.
Result of the races: he failed to enter the NFL, like many others
before him. Either way, the university in question had managed to place few
young people in orbit. Whether in football, basketball, baseball or
hockey. The big four, what. But that, at the time, he did not know. We didn't know
all. It's not like today, where you just have to go on the Internet, and
one click we know everything about everything and everyone. Twenty-five, thirty years ago, it was
not like this.
In Franklin, he was already seen lifting his family out of poverty, that is to say
from the neighborhood, where he would have returned only for charitable works,
help those who had remained on the side of the road to also get out of the
foam. He just wanted to get out of there. Not because he had
ashamed of his roots, of where he came from. From U.S. No way. There
truth ? This district is linked, for all of us, to too many bad memories,
lacks, deprivations. In the evening, also during the day sometimes, it's downright
Baghdad here. Too much hassle, what. At the same time, these rotten streets
reassure. As soon as we move away from it a little, we feel in danger, uncertain,
with all those eyes on us like thirty-round M16s, which,
even at the hands of Christendom's worst shooter, never miss.
That said, Emmett's mom couldn't stand them all shooting each other
the two, like thieves in the night, ignoring the others. Only the
Christ, He himself says, has a right to come like a thief in the night.
And that's to make us stay awake and pray. "We have no right to
go up alone”, which she threw at him all the time. As if the
others, those with whom we ate rabid cow, not to say
something else, a whole lifetime had never been. " We do not have the right. »
Don't believe it, sometimes you go up alone, it's so you don't have to drag your
others like a cannonball, or being pulled down, back to square one.
For this woman of faith and prayer, we have no right. Point. Otherwise, he
there would always have been the same eye that was already looking at Cain in the
tomb where he was buried alive, thinking he could escape the wrath of God,
after killing his brother Abel.
The Reverend – at the time, Ma Robinson had not yet taken over
by starting his own church - often spoke, in his Sunday sermons,
the need to stick together; for the strongest, to reach out
to the most fragile. It is basic Christian charity, solidarity well
calculated too, which restores you to your humanity. Without that, if God can
show compassion towards you, your people will see you as an upstart and will not
won't forgive you. The others will take advantage of your distance from
your roots to abuse your fragility, strip you and send you back naked,
as on the first day of Creation, where you started from. Kinda
the stunned lamb finds himself alone in the middle of nowhere, before getting
devoured by wolves. From his pulpit, the reverend pointed a finger
whistleblower on the assistance to make sure that if one of us
took off, for example by means of the bingo in which the whole neighborhood was
major, and even minor, because the Pakistani in the convenience store knew how to close
eye on this type of purchase, well, that one wouldn't let the others, yet
less the temple, to pick it up.
And Emmett's mom, although busty, to start hopping
like a hummingbird from his native South from the first notes of gospel, the
eyes rolled back, already imagining himself among the saints called up there for the
solemn encounter with the Almighty. Singing, "To heaven, to heaven,
I'll go see Him someday. On the way home, my big little brother had
right to a diluted version of the sermon, like the too strong coffee that we cut
hot water to give to children wishing to imitate the adults. THE
revisited sermon would accompany him the rest of the day, until the meal
evening, when there was. Even in his sleep, according to what he tells me
was saying. In the end, he had nightmares about it. He saw himself crossing, by
miracle, the turbulent waters of a river and walk straight ahead, without
turn around, without listening to the cries that reached him from the other side,
until he no longer hears them. So he woke up in a sweat, his heart
pounding with the fire of God.
There are times, preached the mother, when one can, when one even has the
duty to look back without being changed into a pillar of salt.
Reach out to the less fortunate, when you've made it through, actually
part. So this lady had already drawn up her list of proteges that Emmett
would have to come out of their low condition, once he signed for a
big NFL franchise. On pain of being denied by her and by all her people.
First, there were the neighborhood brats, before they followed
traces of their fathers, sometimes of their mothers, in sin and
perdition. These little angels had not asked to be born, but God and the
misguidances of their mothers placed them on our way in order to probe our
soul. They were his top priority.
“Evil must be attacked by the roots,” she said. There is only this
way that we can break the ancient curse of the daughters and sons of
Cham. »
Curse, my eye! You can have faith without believing all the
calembredaines. It's like that story of Abishag, the Shulamite of
Song of Songs. The Whites gave you a "but" out of nowhere
part in the translation, when Solomon didn't sing any of it. It is
a pastor who explained it on TV. As if being black and beautiful was not
naturally compatible. That we had to justify it, almost apologize for it.
In any case, for this pious woman, we had to cut ties with the
practices of slavery, when Negro males were used as
stallions to multiply the master's livestock, their descendants sold to
the other end of the country without them having a say, and the niggers, that they
coveted, a fountain by the side of the road, where people came to drink
satiety all white predators who wanted it. It castrates you a man,
That. The black males collected the inheritance without asking any questions.
Treating his mate like a rag, still okay, but abandoning his
own offspring! It pissed her off, Emmett's mom. Only one
unwavering solidarity, she advocated, will help us create a new
generation, far from our wounds. Far from the stigma that accompanies
ever since we set foot on this cursed land
of America, the common march. She firmly believed in his theory.
No need to have studied in a big university for the
understand, right?
After these little angels came the mothers, often single. Who the
had very young, sometimes even before their sexual majority. Because
no one taught them to protect themselves from fine talkers in the verb
honeyed. Just to protect yourself. She spoke knowingly, because
she had let herself be bamboozled by the progenitor of Emmett, who had the mouth
sweet, as they say around here. And here you are, at the age when you just left
childhood, where you still dream of prince charming, having to change the
celluloid doll against a doll of flesh and blood, to change a small
being who had not asked to disembark in this vale of tears. AT
improvise a semblance of married life with a gus – in a room
at the parents-in-law, better at one of the mothers-in-law of these families
often single parents – who will take the trunk at the first shouting match,
on the pretext that you would be unliveable, when he is the irresponsible.
Afterwards, the scholars will not hesitate to lock you up in the image of the woman
angry black. “Angry Black Woman”, which they call this category of
women you find hard to identify with. But that, they don't care about.
In a nutshell, you very quickly find yourself babying all
alone, because the bastard in the meantime has set sail; alone or with another,
never mind. Without leaving a trace. Without giving any sign of life, again
less alimony. So you go looking for
someone else to help you carry the burden, that's human. THE
loads, boiling the pot every day, the obligatory side dishes, everything
that is not given. You also tell yourself that the little angel will need a
father figure. And you, from “body heat” – that too, it’s human – the
nights when the midwestern winter calls your bones to account and you turned off
heating to reduce bills. Apologies like this. And the other
take the opportunity to plant one or two other seeds in your belly, before
also get away, leaving you as the only alternative to go and point to the food
stamps, the food stamp program for people like mums
of Emmett, including a good part of women from Franklin and new
newcomers, who have come in search of their share of the American dream.
Fortunately, they are not all like that, our men. But a
black woman of our condition has to get up early to get her hands on the
Good. Often you are preceded by a sis who studied and left
exit. Sometimes it's a little Latina - they're trendy, those, the
black athletes have made it their trophy, I don't know what's wrong with them
more -, even a white, half stamped, because you have to be cracked to come
pick up a dude in this ghetto. It's normal to be angry, right? Already
that there isn't enough for us, the others have to tumble out of I don't know
where to steal the best from us. Finally, the least worst. Like the
bats from their caves to come and gorge themselves on the most beautiful fruits
of a tree, and leave only the immature or damaged ones on their feet for the
premises.
Anyway, I ran into him that morning, Emmett. Since the start of this
Angela's roll - there's no other word for it - we saw each other less. Say that
it was I who, thinking well, put her in her bed. On his return to the
district, after all these years of absence of which he has not said much,
not even to me, I saw him so badly with his two kids that nobody
knew the mother, or mothers. I thought to myself that I had to do something
thing. Mind you, I could have served as their mother-in-law. But Emmett
had assigned me my role since our adolescence, and I stuck to it. I have
then thought of Angela, a longtime friend, who lived in Madison. AT
failing to have it for me, might as well share it with a sis.
It's true, she had her reputation as a girl who couldn't stand still,
did not disdain a man's smile, even when she was already in the
arm of another. That's why I always kept them away from each other
the other. But then she knew Emmett was my brother, she
would behave properly with him. And even for her. It was time for her
stop fluttering, let her settle down. She barely pretended to
resist when I presented it to him. Soon she moved to Franklin.
Emmett, who had been living with his mother and the kids since his return, had rented
a house to better welcome him, and everything. Time to make him one
third, she took advantage of a slump, where he had a bit of the blues and
not to work, to go away with another and leave the brat on his arms.
Since then, with Emmett, we saw each other less. Not because he was mad at me
it was not his type. Or maybe a little, go figure. It's just that he
had his life, and I mine. To fight together to hold on until the end
end of the month. By remaining upright, without damaging our human dignity and
woman. But, as soon as we met, we told each other our little stories,
even in the wind. A habit that we had found, brought back intact
from childhood. That morning, I left my house like every morning
where I had to work, which is six days a week. I help the Wasps, the
brothers and sisters of the middle class, to wrap their purchases in a
supermarket, at the other end of the city, with these organic products which they made
their religion and cost the skin of the buttocks. As long as you're there, you put them away
for them in the shopping cart. And if there are not too many people, you accompany them
to the car and the helpers to deposit the bags in the trunk. Some slip you
then a dollar bill or two, not counting the twenty-five piece
cents from the shopping cart, recovered on the way, which will allow you to improve
the ordinary.
These days, with all this filthy virus, we see less of these
clients. They prefer to buy on the Internet and have them delivered to their homes. When
I went out, the weather forecast announced a radiant sun for the whole day of
this early spring. That was already it, because the winter had been harsh, like
often in Wisconsin. I didn't take ten steps that I came across
Emmett.
"How are you, sweetheart?" he told me. He always had a word
kind to everyone. At this level, he hadn't changed too much.
"The cows are thin," I told him. You kick me
or are you giving me a hand? I knew that would have made him laugh. They are
actually guffawed at hearing me repeat word for word his own
expression.
“You are lucky to have cows, Shorty. I don't even have one
Kentucky chicken wing. »
He had always had repartee, when he wanted it. Otherwise, he knew
to hush up. Oh that, yes. He could stay a whole day without saying a word, without
let him have it, for once, after whoever it is. It was happening in his
noggin, up there. There he was referring to his recent dismissal because of
this bitch that everyone thought was going to stay with the
Chinese there. For them, three, four million deaths is a drop
of water in Lake Michigan, you can't see it. In the worst case, she
would have stayed in Europe, without crossing the Atlantic. It seems that they have everything there:
free social security, unemployment insurance, paid holidays at
extend paternity leave for guys who don't jerk off, because
it is we, the women, who bring children into the world, we raise
middle of the night to breastfeed them and wipe them and everything. At
In the end, this filth arrived here, sowing mourning in the families.
Here too, it was people like us who toasted the most. The mother
of Emmett, a holy woman – God welcome her into His Kingdom –, almost
stay there, before dying of an embolism three months earlier. He hadn't finished
to mourn that the dismissal had fallen on him.
Despite everything, when he talked to you, he was always in a good mood. Of
least he tried, even when the heart was not in it. He was part of – I
difficult to talk about him in the past tense – of those people who always take care
to give a smile to others. That's why he told me his joke on
cows and chicken. Except it was no joke, he had all three
dependent kids. All alone. Both brought back from his long absence. And the
third, which he had with Angela. But there was no question that I missed the
bus, that I am late for my work, at the risk of being fired at my
round. With this filth, the bosses take advantage of the slightest deviation to get you
put on the sidelines. And at my age, it's the cross and the banner before
find a job. So I didn't let the conversation drag on. Without this,
between the galleys of ours, the other crazy one that we sat on a gilded armchair at
the White House, childhood memories, our lifelong worries, we
would have been for hours… I had to run to catch the bus, which I immediately
even almost missed, because of the extra pounds that have been with me since
very small. My spleen was exploding when I put my fat ass down
negress on the seat. Luckily, the driver had seen me arrive in the
mirror and waited for me.
When I heard about Emmett again, it was in the
“Breaking News” in the evening, back home. I recognized the street, the
convenience store, and all. There was no doubt. To say that I had crossed him
morning, my big little brother. That he had carried me away and that because of
I almost missed the bus. If I hadn't been sitting, I would surely be
fell on the ground, my legs were so sawn off. Luckily I had a
glass of water and my high blood pressure medicine handy. THE
time to pull myself together, I called Ma Robinson, a long-time friend of the
family, so devastated at the news that she left it to
Marie-Hélène, a small Haitian from Chicago close to her and very active
in the association, to give me the phone number of Stokely. I had
needed to talk to someone who knew him as well as I did. Maybe
to believe a little that he was still in this world, that I would meet his
large carcass at the bend of a street in Franklin. For that, there was no
better than that bacon head from Stoke, to whom I had never spoken
even before Emmett left for college. I took on me, swallowed
my pride and dialed his number.
THE FRIEND DEALER
EMMETT AND I, we've known each other since primary school
Benjamin-Franklin, a large red brick building, located between the
23
e Street and Nash Street, where several generations of neighborhood kids have
learned to read and write. It wasn't just a matter of proximity. Or of
teaching quality; for that, it would have been necessary to go in private. gold very
few are those whose parents had the money to send them there, and themselves enough character to
support a condition of black sheep
in these schools of "whities", so far from their natural environment. the coming,
sixty years ago, from the first members of the community to
Franklin Heights scared the whites away in droves. In this country, even more
In the Midwest, we don't mix dogs and cats. As soon as a family
black arrives in a white district, if it succeeds, the antennas
panic, like the heads of disoriented meerkats, ready to sound the alarm. A
second, we pack up and dislodge at high speed, one after
the others, to end up abandoning the land to the newcomers.
This is what happened in Franklin. When we were born, Emmett and I,
around the mid-seventies, me a little before, there was already
almost no more pale faces in the neighborhood. The few whites who
live today are so lost that they have become color blind.
Note, I don't know if it's a good or bad thing not to
see the color of people. If it's to stick you a whole bunch of clichés on the
back, it is better that the other is blind. Otherwise, I don't see where the
evil. In short, apart from these drags, the others are either cops who came
inflate their stats and bounty, or a stranger who has lost his way.
And they're still in the car, ready to drive off at full speed on the first
knock. White natives never venture into the area.
From a very young age, they are taught to pass away from Northside. Or if
really they have no choice, the foot to the floor, even if it means picking up a
prune for speeding. From time to time, we can see junkies
looking for their dose. Those are poor guys
completely dropped, who have nothing more to lose, apart from a life that serves
even more to their own person. The most affluent get their supplies
neutral ground, around the trendy bars of the city center, where
home delivery.
This is the neighborhood, half abandoned at the northern exit of the city, where we
grew up with my buddy. A little by the grace of God, a little rough, like
weeds that would grow anywhere, against all odds.
Emerging from the years of carefree childhood, our lives have taken on paths
different. Report to his mother, who forbade Emmett to frequent the streets,
to use his words. In truth, it was our reel that did not come back to him.
As if misery had made plague victims of us. She had beautiful
farting, she could tell no one. Not to us
neighborhood. At the height of what has been called the crisis, when the other cowboy
was rampant at the White House, she paid for her shopping with food stamps
provided by the state, got their supplies from the food banks of the
Protestant temples… Like all single heads of families in
Franklin. That's right, she made sure her Emmett was always dressed
like going to Sunday service. Result, our mothers did not stop
don't bother us that we had to follow his son's example: "Emmett, he
is nice ; Emmett, he's serious. He does not tear the knee of his pants
dragging himself on the ground. Emmett this, Emmett that…” To make you want to
bang if he hadn't been your friend, and above all also hefty.
Other than that, we were all in the same boat. That is to say in
rotten shacks, which were falling to ruins batten by batten. Infested with
cockroaches and rats. Surrounded by other equally dilapidated shacks, with
condemned windows, which junkies sometimes squatted, as long as large
Franklin's arms decided, for one reason or another, to dislodge them,
because the police do not intervene in these stories of niggers and degenerates.
After all, they have only to exterminate each other! It's always that
less problem for the community. The first thing we do here, as soon as
that we have earned a little money or found a more or less decent job,
it's out of the woods. Anywhere, as long as it's out of Franklin.
Just to savor the feeling of having reached a milestone in life. Without
that, we stay there to vegetate, like a tree that would wither on its foot. In
waiting to sink into the ground. Following a stroke, the heart that fails,
hypertension, diabetes… or a stray bullet.
For us children, there was not much for not
to be bored. With Emmett, if we couldn't escape the vigilance of the
parents to go to the four hundred blows with the zombies of the cemetery
of the Union, we had to make do with the basketball hoop installed three blocks
further away. There was worse: the boring games, which brought together girls and boys
of all ages, organized in the backyard of the temple by a lady
patroness. On auspicious days, a good-willed adult took us for
a game of football on the vacant lot alongside the factory. Then,
Emmett was having a blast, it was his favorite sport. In the absence of a
adult, his mother would not have let him come, that's clear. And then the father
hadn't left yet. She could count on him to catch up.
The parents made us live thanks to jobs paid with slingshots.
Note, we cannot say that much has changed. The mothers
did the housework in the hotels or the big shacks in the suburbs
upscale with views of Lake Michigan. The lucky ones were spinning
the A. O. Smith plant, which adjoins Franklin Heights for more than 40
of hectares. Or that of Harley-Davidson, at Menomonee Falls Village, at
the other end of Milwaukee. As long as the Smith factory was standing, it was not
Peru, but it was okay. It lasted until the mid-eighties...
We must have been eight, ten, Emmett and I, when the
deindustrialization, as we call this scourge that has befallen greenhouses
deployed in the neighborhood, has settled. The factory, following the logic of
owners, has become less competitive. New cars had no
no need for the parts that were made there. We were doing more
modern elsewhere, outside the United States, and for less. She had
its time, what. Something like that. Result: The Smiths have it all
sold to another capitalist who hastened to relocate production
in South America and Asia. Without wondering how fathers and
mothers who had been working on the line there for a while, multiplying the three-eight, well how they
were going to go about feeding their kids. THE
capital does not bother with these feelings. It was the beginning of the end for
the Franklin families. All were affected, and very closely. From one day to
the other, the parents found themselves at home twiddling their thumbs,
then, over time, to booze, for the fathers. To get violent
helplessness, before crashing.
The crack epidemic landed in stride. A plague even more
stiffer than unemployment, which was going to explode the already wobbly families. When
you have dependent children, you're not too fussy anymore, aren't you? must fill
the fridge. There is nothing more unbearable than the gaze of a hungry kid.
In these cases, you would do anything to give him the opportunity to
throw with his little pognes, like a hungry dog, on the food and
smile again. Trouble is, that crack bitch ain't got no
spared the community. Many of those who had lost their jobs, and
nothing found elsewhere, got down to it. On arrival, between the sellers and the
consumers, unemployment and alcohol, the neighborhood has taken on the appearance of
Baghdad after the boys, sent there to blast Saddam Hussein,
were called back like dogs being whistled, leaving the Iraqis in
the trap.
It was at this time that the father, he launched into the business. He
didn't brag about it, but he didn't hide too much either. And one day he
found having to stick a knife in the guts of a junkie. To
defend, I promise. I saw everything, I was in the front row of the
stage. But the cops and the white judge couldn't find him a circumstance
mitigating, like self-defense or that stuff. Especially since the
junkie was also white. He picked it up for fifteen years of living in the shade
all expenses paid… Well, so to speak. When I went there myself, I
realized that you have to helmet for a lot of things in there, everything
which, in the eyes of the guards and the administration, represents superfluity:
soap, toothpaste, toothbrush, shampoo… So fifteen years, like
balance of any account for the business and for having played the dagger with
the guts of the other poor guy, who came close to an interview
directly with Lucifer.
From this story and the old Emmett that set sail more
or less at the same time, his mother no longer wanted him to hang around
with us. Neither me nor those whose parents and brothers she suspected
to dabble in the business, or the sisters in activities that she
called it an abomination. Already she did not carry us in her heart.
Bad seeds, she said of us. As if her son had been
a saint. I can tell you, me, he wasn't all white, so to speak,
REMARK. It's not to say anything bad, it was my friend; even less than he
is no longer there to defend himself. His daronne could afford to do the
precious, she had only one mouth to fill, in addition to her own. But
us, when the dad, he received his long stay in the shade, he had to
ensure behind.
We were a sibling of three, not counting the mom, who had never
really worked on the outside. Apart from cleaning lady in black and
asks, as much to say at the good whim of her bosses, upstarts for the
most, including a former neighbor who had managed to rise and went
live a few blocks further, on the border of the “Latino” quarter,
story of throwing his meager and fragile success in his face, and which, while
putting distance between Franklin and her, wanted to keep a link for
not get completely lost. Other than that, she was doing a crazy job at home.
House. Thanks to her, we never lacked anything, well, of what
account. For the superfluous, it was necessary to iron. Here she is from one day to the next with
rent to pay, because the shack was not ours, and three kids on the
arms, to feed, to clothe, and all the rest, you can well imagine. She tried to
make an honest living, but it was not the right time. nowhere to
Milwaukee. Moreover, some single mothers have dropped everything and are
climbs to seek life in Chicago. Others had to defend themselves
discreetly so that their kids don't die.
To make matters worse, the father had left debts behind; his
wholesalers wanted their money back; otherwise, the
merchandise, but he had already dispatched it. Retailers took advantage of it
either in a cabin to disappear into the wild. It was his problem if he
got screwed, he just had to be smarter, they said. remained more
that we to face. The guys, they didn't hesitate to threaten the
daronne on the phone, and everything. If she wasn't home, no big deal, they
left us creepy messages for her. They made no effort
to spare us, like they're kids from the neighborhood, don't mix them with
That. Nothing to plug. They went there frankly. As I am the eldest, I had to go up
first line, if you know what I mean.
I started by doing the watchman, at the very beginning of the evening and on weekends,
at the corner of 24
e Street and Auer Avenue, not too far from Moody Park and the
Union Cemetery. A brat attracts less attention, you
understand? Unless, of course, he's black and the cop is white. It's like that,
here. In the eyes of the cops, before being a kid, you're black. They can kill you
if they see you playing with a dummy gun. Then they just have to tell the
judges that they felt threatened. All in all, I delivered. Even very
GOOD. So much so that those above me began to pass me on
a few grams to sell. I kept clocking in at school, to give
changes it. Otherwise, social services and the reverend will fall on you.
back. I managed to lead all these little people in boat until the beginning of the
high school, which is a feat in itself, because many here quit after college.
That said, I didn't give a shit in class. Never been very good at all these
exercises that take your head.
The mom closed one eye, then two when I brought back reports,
that were already not terrible, more and more execrable… and races at the
House. She had no choice, you have to understand her. She was not posing
questions, probably for fear of hearing from my mouth what she knew
Already. It was also a way to protect the other two. She had to tell herself
that if they had to eat, a roof over their heads to stay warm in winter, eh
well, they wouldn't hang out in the street and escape the bad
influences. Hopefully and with hard work at school, they
get a scholarship to go to college and become someone. Whether
such is the will of God, she said; she didn't pray as much as the
mom to Emmett, but she wasn't the last to enter the temple and
sing the gospels. Somehow she sacrificed the eldest to save
the two smaller ones.
This is where Emmett, he comes into the story. With him and Authie – we have it
always called Authie. In truth, her name is Autherine, but we found
it's too corny and too long to pronounce – we were an inseparable trio
throughout our schooling. I remember well the day when we
sealed our pact of eternal friendship. We were supposed to be in 3
th Grade, I believe. He
there was no class, we hung out on the vacant lot next to the factory. Authie,
she said: “And if we swore friendship to life and death in the manner of
pirates? The day before, we had seen Swashbuckler on TV, an old film by
Pirates of the Caribbean of the Seventies, in which played the
Trinidadian Geoffrey Holder, the only one who looked like us in history.
Authie had drawn the razor blade she kept in her pocket, to
defend she did. At the mere sight of the blade, and at the thought of the blood that
would squirt from our forearms, Emmett started rolling his eyes like a
mourner. He has always been afraid of blood, despite his Frankenstein size.
I proposed another solution to make everyone agree.
I unzipped my fly and, after turning my back on them, I unpacked
my engine and pissed in the sunburnt grass, which foamed and made
steam. Then I spat in my urine, before inviting them to do the same.
They came forward and took turns spitting in my pissat. After,
Emmett unzipped his futal, he pulled his cock, peed and we spat
all three inside. Then it was the turn of Authie, who deflated. She
didn't want us to watch his zézette. Emmett told her she had to turn
the back, like us. But she was just as scared of people ogling her firecracker. Whether
she didn't want to, I said, you just have to do the boy: you lift your skirt on a
side, you open your legs like a cowboy, you spread your panties with your index finger
and you jump up. She replied that I was too dumb. She was not a guy,
nor a giraffe. I never caught this giraffe story. So maybe for
to impose on us, she cut herself with her blade. We don't even have
seen coming. I had to hold Emmett back so he wouldn't pass out.
Authie, she asked us to take turns sucking her forearm,
werewolf. She had acrid blood, like the wild berries we went to
pick up at the cemetery. That's how we became lifelong friends.
dead.
When I started in the business, I didn't tell them right away.
Note, it was to protect them, like with my brothers. I wanted to
not that they take my cabbage either. Yeah, what are you doing, man?
Stop messing around. You are playing with fire, you are going to follow your daron in the shade,
finish between four boards. These guys are not fucking children of
chorus… Emmett was the first to perform. Maybe because his mother,
that had antennas of Empire State Building, asked him bluntly
to stop practicing, I was bad seed, which dogs do
not cats. No matter how much you leave a piece of wood in a backwater, it
won't change into a crocodile. Bullshit like this, for him
explain why and how you shouldn't be around me. She had to
freaking out, his old.
Emmett's father had just walked out of the house, more or less
same period when mine spent fifteen years at the fortress. The guy
got away without warning or leaving a trace. As many
others, that have not assured. Better run away, right? In his case, the
it was rumored in the neighborhood that the crisis had a good back. In truth, he had
carapated with a neighbour. Even that this one had planted her boyfriend and
his two kids to follow him. That they would be having fun
sweet in a backwater in Alabama. These things we say, without knowing that
the kids, they listen. For a good half of Franklin Heights, it was
not surprising. Emmett's mom was a stuck up and blessed ass in a single
butt, who swore only by the Bible and other knick-knacks. when you know
not take care of your man, there is always one who is too happy to
do for you, said the women of the neighborhood. anyhow,
What truth there must be in all this gossip. Emmett, he
spent his time singing an old blues that none of us knew. There
song was about a guy who didn't want to set foot in Alabama anymore,
because a cop had turned his brother off, and we let him go free.
Stories that we have always known in this country, what.
Anyway, he took the same tiles as us, Emmett, except that his
daronne had fewer difficulties for the pot, he was an only child. AT
two is easier than four, right? However, his mom, who
was showing off, well, she was having a hard time like everyone else in this corner of
Franklin. Even if she worked more regularly than mine. See you
ask how she was doing anyway, because the jobs didn't run
streets to knock on your door. And if you ever saw one pass by, it was
always far away, fleeing from you. She was playing her saint-nitouche, who knows what
what was behind. In the end, she worked at Harley-Davidson
until she was fired too, because of the crisis that had
empire. First kneeling, the neighborhood found itself nose in the slush.
Like a planted arrived at the last drop of his blood. And there it was
end of beans for my mate.
How many times have I helped him out with a Domino's menu or
a Fried Chicken, just to be stalled for sometimes a whole day. Without
that, we were totally breaking the slab. There was no good Lord for us
cast manna from heaven, as they say in the Bible. It was days
where we could have killed for a slice or a chicken wing. People, they
don't believe when you say that. They tell you that you're in the States, it's a
big country. If you don't have hair in your hand, well, you can achieve your
dreams of wealth and all. But we were fucking brats.
What could we do? Return to the bottom of the mines, as in
previous century? Or go shine white shoes on the street to
half a dollar, like in the days of segregation, saying yes missié,
me, missie?
That's when Emmett, he got into business with me.
Despite himself, I must say. We were coming out of 6
th ou du 7
th Grade, I remember
more. Back then, it was Biafra for good in Franklin Heights.
Fortunately, there were already the many temples of all
Protestant denominations that abound in the neighborhood, and their networks
of mutual aid. Thanks to them, we were able to eat once or twice a day. Before that,
there was the free canteen, with breakfast and snacks, which we had set up in
the end of primary school, at Benjamin-Franklin. At the initiative of two institutes:
ma’am Mahalia, who was from the neighborhood, and a white woman who had gotten lost in
the corner and seemed to have made it his mission to save the little blacks in order
to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. In truth, I was wrong to see things
like that. Because she did a hell of a job, that one. With her colleague, she
is for a lot if you haven't starved. If we didn't dive sooner
in business.
But hey, we have our dignity. Anyway, it was not enough to stop all
the holes in the roof of our life. Like Emmett, he carried around
still with a soccer ball, I gave him an old-fashioned laced one.
I never understood where this passion came from. The city does not have
team in the NFL, while in basketball we have the Bucks, who defend themselves super
well for some time, play the playoffs and everything. At the time,
"Jesus" - that's what we called Ray Allen, because of his
ease in stacking three-point shots, which made him the best shooter
of all Christendom – and, before him, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, those guys,
their exploits spoke to everyone. In baseball, we had the Brewers,
of which we could be proud, before they went down to brew in Division
central. To find a team that makes football dream, you have to go
look for the Packers to Green Bay, a two-hour drive from here. It is
Wisconsin, there is no denying it, but it is not our city.
Anyway, he was too proud, Emmett, the day I gave him the ball.
Note, at first I didn't tell him what was inside. But after
that he had it "stolen" two or three times, and that he found it as if by
by chance, I ended up coffing. He was my friend, I couldn't go on with him
lying all this time. I explained to him that there was no risk. He ... not
Would any cop think of coming to rummage through a football.
And then, he had absolutely nothing to do, he just had to “forget it”
somewhere, and voila. Neither seen nor known. It would put butter
peanut on the bread and relieve his daronne. At thirteen, if your father
is not there, it is up to you to assume.
As he was the youngest of the band, he was keen, I believe, to
show that he had it. In truth, he had none at all, because he stopped at the
after two or three months. By telling myself that I had to stop too, that
it could end badly. Maybe he was afraid of a thrashing or
his mother's tears, he has always been a mother's boy. Maybe Authie
also set him up the donkey. She's tough at this little game, Authie.
Besides, from the day Emmett stopped, she no longer spoke to me.
Him, kept talking to me, but from afar, if Shorty and the mom was hanging out
not around. That is to say not much, because it was always stuffed
in the skirts of one or the other.
We remained during those years in the Cold War, as we used to say in
the time. Until he got the scholarship and went off to college. In the meantime, I had quit school,
before being bullied. Detention center
for minor delinquents, I had not yet sixteen years. At the exit, I am
fallen for a brawl between dealers, in which I was not even involved. I was
income from two years of reformatory with good intentions.
In there, I had come across a teacher, a lay boy scout, a rare species here,
which fit me well. He gave me back my self-confidence, explained that he
had to make their statistics lie. That if I continued like this, I was going
straight to where, from the start, they had planned to send me. In a word,
I gave them reason. It would be stupid, because they would have won twice, and me,
lost everything. It spoke to me, his speech. But not one happened
week that I got beat up.
It was the week of my eighteenth birthday. I was older than both
others, two years, I believe. I couldn't even talk to Emmett in
the interval; he was getting ready like a dog to try to dig up his
sotck exchange. I also suspect Authie and his mother of having blocked. To their
eyes, I had become the example to flee. I can imagine the scenario very well:
Emmett, head down, and the two harpies arguing over him.
Authie: “Little bro, don’t be stupid. You have a golden opportunity ahead
You. You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. And the rotten ones, even one
alone, we throw them away, if we don't want them to spoil the taste of the whole. You go
can't help but come and applaud you at the stadium? In a VIP seat, of course. »
The daronne, Ma Robinson preaches: “You better keep
Stokely at a distance, if you want to achieve the goal that the Almighty has given you
assigned in life: to be the beacon of Franklin Heights. It is written in
Matthew 5:29-30: “If your right eye causes you to stumble,
tear it out and throw it away from you […]. And if your right hand is for you
opportunity to fall, cut it off and throw it away from you; because it is advantageous for
let one of your members perish, and your whole body not go
in Gehenna.” For a bit, she quoted him all the New Testament.
She used to talk like that, Emmett's mother, with lots of proverbs and
parables that one would believe Christ as a good woman. To make it short, the
two cops, two whites, the same ones who had already sent me to prison
correction, did not miss me. This time they were flanked by an underling
black. One of them, his face covered with pox scars, jubilantly: “I
you said we would meet again. I know you people. We can not
get a lot out of you. And he tightened the handcuffs to the last notch.
As I was on probation, the judge, also white, did not miss me. Ten
years for settlement of any account. I don't want to find excuses, I played,
I lost. But I ask the question: is it fair, all that?
I hear people say, "Yeah, he's victimizing and all, like it's
not happened to others. Me, I answer: “The justice of the dominant is
the reason of the strongest. Better not deal with her. »
When I came out, the neighborhood hadn't changed, or maybe for the worse.
Everything has become more expensive, because of the constantly galloping inflation,
repeated financial crises, the yoyo of the stock market which disrupts until the
nature, the virtual economy…, all these things that the experts talk about at
TV. Emmett, who had failed to integrate the NFL, would put much more
time to come back. With two kids in the haversack. After rolling his
hump to the four corners of the country, from California to North Carolina, in
passing through Louisiana, perhaps looking for his father. In truth, he
never spoke to me about it, but I know that he suffered a lot from his absence. He
had returned, like me, to square one. At her mother's, who had no
not left the neighborhood. She would have had the means… From time to time, we
greeted, we had a bit of a chat. Once we even had two beers
together. He understood that I was clean now. I became
mediator between the cops, social services and young people in the neighborhood, to
try to stop them from doing the same bullshit as me. A job at
constantly playing the balance. Sometimes it works. Sometimes not. THE
brothers accuse you of betrayal. The cops suspect you of having not really
off hook. Always caught in the crossfire, trying to convince each other
the others for your good faith. That's life, mind you.
Emmett was always so outgoing, a nice guy. But
that something had broken in him, it was obvious. He no longer had the flame. THE
system had reduced him to a zombie, which a friend of Authie finished
laminate. He did a lot of odd jobs, to feed the three children who
had stuck to his paw, after he had been dumped by the mother
of the youngest, gone to see if the grass was greener elsewhere. He him
would have needed a mission, like mine, that would have given meaning to his life.
He tried to interest young people in Franklin Heights in football, but the
graft did not take. These kids grew up in Sam's glory years
Cassell, aka the "Chinese", of "Big dog" Robinson and other stars of the
Milwaukee Bucks. For them, there is only basketball... or business. THE
only means, in their eyes, to get out of it. He was disappointed not to be able to
pass on his passion.
On the other hand, with Authie, we never spoke again, not even greeted each other.
far away. As if she didn't believe that I had moved on. She has the
nagging grudge, Shorty. Only Emmett could call him by the name he gave him.
had given. If someone else ventured there, she would go into mode
cyclone. She must have imagined that I was going to train her Emmett again
on the wrong path. She's always been in love with him, ever since.
small. Even though nothing ever happened between them, Emmett swore it to me on the
his mother's head. She would have liked. She must think that it was me who
stopped Emmett from letting her play the spare mother for the girls…
The rest, everyone knows, well almost. The homicide filmed in
live and broadcast in mondovision. His long agony that held back the
entire planet out of breath. This is how we patched things up, with
Authie. She called me the same evening. His phone call surprised me, but I
Understood. She needed to talk about Emmett. The one we were the only ones to
to have known, her and me. With which we formed "the three musketeers".
It did him good, I think. To me too.
Afterwards, there was the march in tribute to Emmett, which we had organized in
leaving the funeral. Men, women, children of all
colors had tumbled from everywhere to take part. Among them, two
former Benjamin-Franklin institutes, whom I had not seen since,
others I was discovering: Emmett's ex-college football coach,
his fiancée during this period, an NFL star… In the end, we were not
not far from the municipal palace, someone launched the idea, I don't remember
who exactly. And for good reason. In fact, despite the good will of Ma
Robinson and his two collaborators, a little Haitian-American from
Chicago and her white Rasta fiancé, there was no real leader in this
history. Like in the days of the Reverend, Malcolm X, Angela Davis or
by Stokely Carmichael. Today, with social networks, it takes
everywhere and in every way. There is not a single speech, an action
unique. Which could bend the system for good. Everyone
improvise himself as a leader, says everything and its opposite. Note, there is good faith. But
it's not enough. Need a unit, a command, right? Otherwise, it goes
in balls.
The idea was launched at the end of the march, we were not too far from the
municipal palace. I can't say who threw it. Maybe someone from
another movement, which had infiltrated among us. One of Black's chicks
Lives Matter – I'm not sure, because they don't look violent, those ones – or
from another association? It was a woman's voice. Yes, I don't
remember well. A clear voice, full of tiredness returned, which carries and knows
to be heard. She didn't need to talk much. All the same,
everyone wanted it. Had to go and fight with the
supremacists opposite, those of the Aryan Nation and the others, who were arrested
not warm us up. To shove their arrogance and their
prejudice, damn it. Make them understand that we weren't screwed
sheep that walk to the slaughterhouse without saying a word. If they wanted
fight, they would have some. Especially since there were a hundred times more of us. And
the others in front, who advanced towards us, gesticulating like
monkeys. That's how it farted, that's what.
II
THE UNIVERSITY OF FOOTBALL AND LIFE
Millions of stars separate us
Millions of trees and animals.
Millions of human faces
Are strangers to you and me.
What frontiers, my beloved!
How many borders for a love!
RÉNÉ DEPESTRE,
"Borders", Diary of a marine animal
THE COACH
ARRIVED IN OUR UNIVERSITY by means of a sports-study scholarship,
Emmett experienced this opportunity as the school's last chance. He
put a sick pressure on himself from the start, even more than others
student-athletes who came under the same conditions. Unheard of at all
my career as a coach, and yet I am approaching retirement. The fear of
failure has been its main adversary from the start, if not its worst
enemy. The more time passed, the more it took up space. In comparison
– I am hardly exaggerating – a professional player is far less stressed the
eve of playing the Super Bowl, the grand final broadcast around the world
world, which everyone who has set foot in football dreams of.
The hypermediatization of this sport, the stake on arrival, the entourage have
contributed a lot.
In a way, I understood him, even if my role was to
put in the best possible conditions for success. Like all young people
in his situation, Emmett has known the pressure since high school, right from the
when he got it into his head to get a scholarship to join a
college football team. By the way, fierce competition will have
left more than nine out of ten candidates on the floor. This step completed, the
ultra-competitive system has added an even more distressing layer because,
at the end of the sacrifices made, less than 2% will manage to pass
professionals.
Emmett had another major handicap to overcome in order to hope
be among the lucky ones. In addition to being angry with the studies
purely academic, he came from a more than modest black family,
Single parent as well. I know what I'm talking about, I've had a journey
similar ; I could have retraced his itinerary without even having had access to his
case. He was not lucky enough to have a father at home. From day to
next day, here is the little guy from a black ghetto in Milwaukee, raised in the
Pentecostal faith by his mother, catapulted into a universe of white Catholics
from the wealthy middle classes. It was obvious that he was dropped. He ... not
didn't know the codes, he always seemed on the alert, like
of an animal released into a hostile environment.
Many others in his place would have chosen aggressiveness to defend themselves.
In life as on the field, the best defense is attack, right?
He did the complete opposite. For the first few days, he withdrew into himself. He ... not
took no initiative. He was content to respond to his teammates
when they spoke to him. He was trying to compensate with a
extreme kindness, even too much. As if he did not feel legitimate, that he
apologized for being there. The impostor syndrome, what. And his game goes away
felt. He was borrowed, he brought no aggressiveness in the
impacts. Which is a shame for a linebacker, whose role is to
dismantle the opposing attacks with well-felt tackles. He was far from
the nugget whose talent the scouts had praised to me and whose
videocassettes. We had to find a way to release all this energy.
How to get there without loading it frontally, at the risk of seeing it
to rob?
Given the guy's potential, I decided to take him under my wing. As
he didn't know anyone in town and didn't come home during the
cuts, I invited him home on the weekends, in order to relax him a little.
With my wife and my two daughters, we were one of the three families
exclusively black on campus. We lived in a strong family home
pleasant, without vis-à-vis, away from university buildings, with veranda
open and lawn on the front, surrounded on the back and on the facades
sides of a hedge of shrubs that I maintained, under the rule of my
wife, summer and winter. As a good native of the South, she has a warm side
and maternal, in addition to being an outstanding cook. For me, the rare
time I venture there, I can say, in all modesty, that I do not
defend well.
The whole thing immediately put Emmett at ease. The guy was not doing
not pray to honor the table and the mistress of the house. I have seen some,
big eater athletes – you have to recover the energy spent on the
terrain – but rarely of his ilk. He also fell in love with
girls, seven and nine years old, veritable chatterboxes, who quickly made it
their mascot. He complied willingly. The only son he was had found
two little sisters for the price of one. You had to see them, the three, rolling around
like puppies in the backyard, before coming home covered in
dust, mud sometimes, inside.
My wife, who hated cleaning up after them, didn't take the tweezers
to pull up his suspenders. “Emmett, you are the eldest; it's up to you
show them a good example. If it weighs on you, the vacuum cleaner and mop are
in the storage room to the right of the toilets. His mother had to do something about it.
same way with him. He then replied, sheepishly: “Yes, ma’am. " And
my wife to take it up tit for tat: “Stop calling me madam, I
am not your grandmother. She couldn't stand this "madam" too much.
solemn, which aged her more than she really was, when he
only testified to Emmett's good upbringing.
This family atmosphere will have been at the origin of very
enriching between us. The guy had an encyclopedic culture of
football in general, and his position in particular. Very surprising, at a
when the consumer Internet was in its infancy, when young people
weren't walking with their heads down yet, their noses glued to their smartphones. He had me
confessed to having spent a lot of time in the high school library, and listening to
adults passionate about football in his neighborhood, who could remain
hours talking about it at the local hairdresser, where his father took him and where,
after his disappearance, he continued to surrender, unbeknownst to his mother.
His knowledge did not stop, as often happens, at the only
players who marked his generation, like a Lawrence Taylor, who
made the heyday of the New York Giants, or Mike Singletary, those of the
Chicago Bears. Once launched, he was unbeatable on guys like
Willie Lanier or Bobby Bell, whose prowess nevertheless went back well
before he came into the world. He talked about it with so much passion that even
the less fond of football sometimes stopped their current activity to
listen to it.
For my part, without playing the veterans, I told him my
history. I wanted him to know how I came to be a coach in
a private catholic institution, of which the team was about to be part
of a “Big Conference” and to compete in the university championship, the
famous NCAA. I did not hide from him that I would have gladly exchanged this
position against a career as a professional player, before becoming
NFL coach or TV consultant for game broadcasts.
That being so, I would have bad grace to complain. Upon arrival, I picked up
this job, very well paid, all things considered. And it didn't happen to me
sky. “Hell no! “I was not offered it for my beautiful eyes or my
Colgate smile. “Hell no! punctuated my wife each time, like
in a gospel response, of which she was a member of a choir in the New
Jersey, before following me to work. I explained to him how much,
even at this level, I had to fight like a starving man, be serious,
have a healthy lifestyle. " Oh yeah ! added my wife.
To tell the truth, I wanted to offer him a model to identify with, without
lead him with Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks,
Mary Louise Smith or Angela Davis. I wanted to show him that he could
happen if he gave himself the means. In the meantime, he had to know one thing:
if he was where he was, he deserved it. Life never makes
gifts, “Hell no! Neither did Uncle Sam. “Hell no! » The fate of
each of us is in his hands. " Oh yeah ! “Simple words that he
could self-understand and appropriate. One evening when we were together
all five at home, I arranged for the girls to
claim their favorite poem. A poem by Langston Hughes, "The mother to
his son”, which my wife recited to them before they fell asleep. AT
force, they knew it by heart and recited it with us. That night,
they wanted to impress Emmett's eyes and ears, they
did it with heart. Standing in front of their big "brother", they declaimed the
poem, barely had my wife launched the first line: "Eh bien mon
Son, I'm going to tell you something:
Life has not been a glass staircase for me.
There were nails,
splinters,
And smashed boards,
And places without carpets,
No.
But still,
I was still climbing
I passed the landings,
I took the turns,
And sometimes I went in the dark
When there was no light.
So my boy must not go back.
Do not sit on the steps
Because you find it a bit harsh.
And don't go falling now...
Because, my son, I always go,
I always climb,
And life for me has not been a glass staircase.
That evening, I saw tears rolling down the cheeks of this fellow who
had drooled though in the otherwise warmer streets of Franklin
Heights. A simple poem had laid bare the sensibility buried under the
shell. He tried to hide them from our sight by opening his arms to
welcome the girls, their heads buried in their united shoulders. Maybe
he thought of his mother, whom he had not seen since his arrival, here we are soon
two months. Perhaps the warm atmosphere of this early autumn made him think of the family he
would have wished for, but that life did not give him.
not allowed to have. Never mind. It nevertheless participated in the click that
was going to help him to confirm the hope placed in him.
The following week, I no longer recognized him on the pitch. I
I finally discovered the pearl that the supervisors had told me about. He didn't hesitate
more to get into the bacon of his comrades, whites for the most part,
but without any personal animosity. In his eyes, they were
opponents identifiable only by the color of their t-shirts. Day after day,
he managed to release the negative energy accumulated as a result of his coming to the
world in a Milwaukee ghetto, father abandonment, discrimination
which he had suffered along the way. I never broached the question with him,
It was not necessary. I knew, and he knew that I knew. All this
injustice of fate hindering the progress of those who were not
well-born, that more than one turned against themselves through the consumption of
drugs, violence, the self-destruction so common to the young people of our
quarters, and which, at home, took the form of excessive shyness, Emmett
was going to succeed in transforming it into positive energy.
Be careful, it wasn't just a thick brute who was content to
get into the cabbage of the dancers, as we like to carry the attackers
slender, fast and slippery like eels. Or a 1.92 m mountain
for 110 kilos of muscles, against which came to break the attacks
opponents, and that his teammates quickly dubbed "The
Steel Mountain”. In addition to his large size and weight, he was
both very skillful and agile. His versatility allowed him to go beyond his role
and to transform the tests at short notice, in the event of failure of the player
attendant. He pushed sprints worthy of the best quarterbacks. He would have
embraced athletics, he would have had, with less muscle mass, the
the same success over a hundred or two hundred meters, so much nature had spoiled him. He
confirmed to me that he hesitated for a moment between football and basketball, that he
practiced with equal ease in high school. He was even approached by
Marquette Catholic University in Milwaukee, whose team played in
NCAA, before deciding on football. To complete the whole, there
would add the determination that he would draw from his social origins, and the
discipline acquired day after day under my direction. Nothing now
could stop him, I was sure of it.
However, after reaching a certain peak, it began to plateau,
as if he had reached his limits. It was predictable. It was necessary
now prevent him from doubting his ability to cross a
cap. To accept the role of eternal promise, unable to step up
superior. As long as it was a question of technical or athletic progress, I
knew I could overcome the obstacle with him. The task turned out to be
difficult, especially as a player from the public university team,
our old rival, had been drafted at the end of the second year. There
news has, of course, reached our ears. The campus lived it
as an affront, made it his cabbage and raves. Would we take up the challenge?
This put more pressure on Emmett's shoulders. All in all, these
rivalries, my faith, stimulating, allow to see what an athlete has
actually under the hood.
There is much more difficult for a coach. As much as Emmett was shy
in its infancy, as much over the weeks, then months, it slipped into the
charismatic player skin. The natural captain to whom turned
teammates who were in the team sometimes one or even two years
before him. His notoriety began to exceed the photos plastered on the
campus. Local radios and television solicited him for
interviews. They saw in him the rising star of the university, whose
the rise would certainly open the doors to the professional league.
This did not fail to whet the appetite of the agents I was trying to hold on to.
distance until he was in fourth grade, history of him
allow, in the event of non-recruitment in the NFL, to get out of there with a
diploma. These sharks now landed on campus to
come and supervise his training. Made him dangle mountains and
wonders, when he was barely standing at the foot of the rock.
The worries didn't end there. I saw him sometimes, even in
outside of match days, followed by a slew of little Whites –
normal, I will be told, since the university had less than 4% blacks
of both sexes. I was afraid that he was already imagining himself at the top and that his
performance in the field does not suffer. The urge was strong, like
it had happened to others before him, to waste his energy in
one-night stands. In either case, there was a risk of
take the melon and miss out on his dream. I have to admit however
that I was wrong: it was not the style of the house. Despite the
temptations, the man remained with his eyes riveted on his objectives, solid
like a rock, better, like a linebacker.
I was nonetheless relieved when, at the end of the sophomore year or
at the beginning of junior, I can't remember very well, he started to
diligent dating a girl who was a year ahead of him.
As a coach, failing to prohibit any report – it was the pipe dream
fashionable for a while – I have always encouraged this type of relationship
regular. It brings stability to the man and prevents the athlete from
scatter. It is also a way to have inexpensive childcare.
body capable of controlling its comings and goings. In the event of a problem with the
guys, i know where to turn. That being the case, without being cynical, I do not
had no illusions about the real feelings of these little white geese at
who we learn very young to go on the hunt for the "meal ticket", as we
refers here to student-athletes. And who better than a potential player of
professional football to offer them spinach, butter and
caviar, in silver dishes to boot? In Emmett's case, wealth
and notoriety could compensate for many flaws, erase so many flaws
in the eyes of future in-laws.
The girls were the first to alert me. I
very reminiscent of the day. My wife and I invited him to
Thanksgiving, knowing he wouldn't be returning to Milwaukee for reasons
of distance, money and infrastructure at his disposal on the spot, which
would have made it possible to continue training during the cut. Turkey, golden
and stuffed to perfection, was served with corn bread, sweet potatoes and
lots of other yummy things. For my part, I had acquitted myself of the
task that the mistress of the house had entrusted to me, namely to bring back, the
the day before, the turkey and the wine from the supermarket, the day says to set the table, to ensure
get the girls ready on time, stuff like that. Has a
moment, we were towards the end of the meal, the girls began to whisper
between them. Then the little one turned to Emmett and asked him to aim
in white if he had a fiancée. The poor guy was embarrassed. Black people
could have blushed that he would have turned all crimson. unable to lie
to his little "sisters", he ended up stammering:
"She's not really a bride.
- What is it then ? retorted the youngest, the most brazen of the two.
– Uh! let's say she's a good friend.
- Is she in your class? asked the eldest.
- No way.
– Do you kiss on the mouth?
- That's enough, girls. Stop with your questions. “My wife was
intervened to relieve him of the embarrassment. “Think instead of getting rid of the
table. »
She cooked it no less in turn, when Emmett joined her for
help her rinse the plates and put them in the dishwasher. This is how
I learned about the "fiancée", who was studying anthropology in
our university. I nevertheless carried out my little investigation in complete discretion.
with two colleagues, a couple of practicing Catholics, to
know more about her. Without, of course, saying a word to Emmett.
He could have, if he had come to know, reproached me for interfering in his
private life. These colleagues wanted, like me, that the boys have
irreproachable behavior on campus and that they can, at the same time
time, give the best of themselves on the field. Like many
Catholic universities, our institution, more accustomed to shining on the
basketball playgrounds, intended, for a few years, to also make a
name in football. There was no question of a sex scandal
hinders efforts in this direction.
Personally, I was torn about this relationship. Even if I
admit it, she brought an emotional balance to Emmett. Oh ! not because the
daughter was white, let's face it. I find it rather auspicious that this
society, with the past, even the present which is ours, can give itself the
chance of a bit of mixing. It will take time, I know. A lot of
same time. The human being rarely rushes to run away from his bullshit,
or his fears if you prefer. What bothered me about the story was
to learn that she was planning to major in Black Studies or Afro-American Studies, I don't know. I don't
see the difference either. On that, I was torn. This interest in our community certainly demonstrated
that she was not just a fiancé hunter with high potential
financial. On the other hand, that she took us as an object of study, it had to be
hard to pass. I have never seen a black person go to white or Euro-American studies. I'm not even
sure such disciplines exist. I
consoled myself by saying, “After all, this is about Emmett. " It was
big enough to know what he wanted. Ultimately, this relationship
would perhaps help him to build himself as a human. And as the girl had
the reputation of being serious, it would always be taken.
The following months would confirm this, when Emmett had to deal with
his first big injury: three broken ribs and a cracked collarbone, if I have
good memory. All athletes live with this obsession and do their
better to exorcise the eventuality. But the day she shows up, you
realize that you weren't really prepared to face it. Shock
past, the intervention carried out – in case you have undergone one –, the only
question that runs through your head is: if and when you will be able to
replay? The doctor may reassure you, as he did with Emmett, so
that you have not put your feet back on the ground, rediscovered the sensations that you
thought you had lost, you are not sure of anything. The close environment plays a role
considerable in these moments when you gamberge, when you stir up the most
darker.
Far from Milwaukee, from her mother, from her friends, this girl turned out to be a
true guardian angel for Emmett. From what I understand, she has it.
obliged to spend the period of convalescence in his studio in the city center,
where she was able to mother him at will, simmer him her dietetic menus at
daily. Otherwise, he would have stayed brooding – no pun intended –
in his room in the university residence, surrounded by people coming and going
loud from other students. The times when she was able to be present at her
sides, because she had to follow her own courses, will have helped her through
the test without too much damage. To overcome the obsessive fear that everything
stops, which was already ravaging him from within.
The first few days, I went to see him in the hospital. Once I took it to
dinner at home, without his girlfriend. He had arranged for me to pick him up at
the residence. No doubt he had deemed it premature for us to meet her.
Or did he want me to believe in a convalescence of the most
innocent, without any dispersion. When we arrived home, my wife
had to step in to prevent the girls from throwing themselves on him and hugging him
in their arms, so much they were dying to see their brother, whose
had heard of the accident. However, he did not escape the obligation to
lift his T-shirt to reveal his "war wound". The girls in
took the opportunity to initial their first name in red marker on the bandage, with
a slew of hearts around. It was their way of marking their territory.
Until his return to the field, I was content to take his
news over the phone and through attending physician reports, in order to
do not leave the impression of favoring it to the detriment of others. In all
In any case, it would have been difficult for me to leave it aside. His three
accomplices at home would not have allowed it.
We all felt an immense pleasure to see him, after his
recovery, treading the ground again. His teammates welcomed him
the Messiah his disciples, the day after the resurrection. They wanted the
touching everywhere, as if to make sure he was alive and well, among them,
ready to go back to the coal. During the recovery workouts, they
tried to protect it, avoiding too rough contacts. I had to intervene
to ask them not to hesitate to run into him. Doctor
certified me that they could go there, after the period he had spent in
train alone, then with other injury income. Himself
provoked others, made contact, no doubt with the aim of reassuring himself.
And then the big day arrived. It was during a meeting
official. He didn't have a whole match in his legs, he had to
convince him to stay on the bench among the substitutes. When he
finally got up to warm up at the edge of the field, an immense clamor
sprang from the stadium full to bursting, as the public awaited his return. More than
eighty thousand people, including opposing supporters, fair play, se
are chanted: "We want Em-mett!" We want Em-mett! " THE
spectators were in a trance. Without exaggerating, the only time I attended a
such popular fervor, it was at a meeting of Barack Obama before his
first election, when people realized he had a chance
to oust John McCain. The stands trembled in a debauchery of
sounds and colors. I still have goose bumps. That day, he didn't tell us
not disappointed. When he entered for the last quarter, he offered a real
show with a festival of blockages, knock-and-court, Ave Maria, captured
ball, changes of direction… the whole panoply of gestures
techniques. It was the Emmett show, which made the press say, that day,
that he was heading straight for the NFL.
Unlike other athletes, Emmett did not imagine a future in
outside of soccer. The question "What would I do if tomorrow everything stopped?" »
seemed miles away from his thoughts. As if there was no salvation
outside of professional league recruiting. This option go
simple can be the lever to press in order to achieve your goal.
But beware of the crank return. It was my duty to get him to
ask the question. This is the difficulty of the coaching profession, especially
at this level, when it is necessary to slip into the shoes of the educator. How
make the player aware of this possibility while encouraging him to continue
to believe it? After the first accident, at the end of the junior year,
I tried more than once to broach the subject with him. Maybe I'm there
badly caught, over-emphasizing the need for an emergency exit
in case of non-selection in the NFL. Each time, it closed like a
lemon-scented oyster. I felt like I was preaching in the desert;
worse, to talk to a wall that rejected you with cold indifference your
own words to the figure.
The last time we had this conversation, at least, that I
told him about it, he let me get stuck in a monologue, unwanted
the origin. I had to remind him that I came from there too. I had dreamed of it,
like thousands of others, without succeeding in integrating the NFL. Happily,
I had anticipated the hypothesis and created a way out. Otherwise, God
only knows where I could have ended up: in delinquency? behind bars ? To
the morgue ? In this country, men like us, more than the others, him
I said in essence, have to constantly deal with these threats.
You should never lose sight of it. " That's what I did. Today, I
am a coach, I have a family for whom I can ensure a future. " I expected
until he spits in my face: “I am not you, I have more talent. I
I don't need to realize my dreams through others. " Like a
angry and vindictive teenager would have done it with his father. For all
response, he blurted out:
“You don't believe in me, Coach Larry. »
It was the first time he mentioned my name. Usually he called me
short “coach”. It wasn't a question, just out of spite. Of the
pure and simple disappointment, mixed with a deep sadness, that
returned her eyes first, then her head lowered in a long silence, before
until he gets up and leaves my office, his footsteps heavy. That day, I
am wanted. The feeling of not having been up to it. Worse, to have betrayed his
trust, after welcoming him if not like a son, at least like a
member of my family. That's probably why he didn't tell me
listened to after his second injury, when I advised him to redouble the
last year of bachelor in order to take the necessary time to come back.
He would try the draft the following year. He had to tell himself that I wanted to take advantage of
his talent in my interest as a coach and that of the university. But I don't
I was only warning him, as a wise educator, as a black man who knew all the
difficulty that this implied for ours to succeed in fields
other than sports and music in this damn country, as a man who had
traveled the same path without having reached the end. I had been through the
disease, I knew the remedy to prevent him from missing a good career
professional.
In my opinion, he had cut the cord the day he came out of my
desk, silent, head down. I didn't know at the time that he was in
advanced contact with an agent, who kept pushing him to
present for the draft, even before finishing the bachelor's cycle. He is coming
sometimes only the most talented, or the luckiest – it depends on the
crus –, be drafted in the third or even second year. But it's
rare. And once you've made the choice to show up, you can't
go back if you were not selected. It also implies that you
give up the scholarship and therefore the studies through it. It's over, game over.
Even today, I blame myself for not having realized this
breakup. Even when the girls complained that they didn't see him anymore. My wife
had insisted however, she had asked me if nothing had happened between
us, a shouting match, a misunderstanding.
“I know you males with your testosterone and your
great airs of fighting roosters. I hope you didn't take it
crest for nonsense. If ever, you are the adult, it is up to you to do the
first step. »
I reassured her that day, told her everything is fine, honey. Between the last
senior year, the college championship in full swing and the
relationship with his girlfriend, poor Emmett had a lot to do. I did not have
lied to my wife, I was convinced of it. Some time later, the second
accident happened: a double fibula tibia fracture in several places,
quite spectacular. Planted at the edge of the lawn, I heard the creak
bones at the time of impact. This is the second time I have seen him cry. In
no more pain, deep inside him, he must already be wondering if he was going to
can come back or not. All because of this damn agent, who saw in him
a hen with golden eggs. Also because of the pressure he put on himself
since coming to college. For fear of ending up at the factory, as
lots of young people from Franklin Heights. To be forced to accumulate
shitty jobs to make ends meet. To live in
clocking in at Welfare or begging for food stamps. In a word, of
depend on public charity.
For once, I did not let go for a moment. I was there from start to finish.
END. My wife and daughters have visited him three times in the hospital,
bringing him sweet potato cake, which he loved. The day I have
understood that he wanted to come back quickly, too quickly, I tried to dissuade him. I
almost begged him. I tried everything to warn him against a return
hasty. Other athletes before him made the same mistake and ruined
thus an opportunity that does not come again twice in a lifetime. I have it
suggested to repeat in order to put all the chances on his side.
“What is a year in the life of a young person your age? " I did
intervene the surgeon who had operated on him, the physiotherapist who took care of his
re-education. Maybe he would listen to them. He didn't want to hear anything. I
went so far as to make an appointment with his girlfriend to explain the
situation. My words seemed to convince her, she followed me in my
crusade. It was my last asset. I played it. We played her and
Me. We have lost.
In the meantime, I had approached the administration of the university, the
president, the dean, the provost, the athletic director, all who
could tip the scales in his favor for a renewal of
the scholarship for an additional year. They had heard my argument. Except
that Emmett, pushed by the agent, had already made up his mind.
Determined and head of mule, as he could be sometimes. I the
suspects, a posteriori, of having used doping products in order to control the
pain and deceiving. For him, there was no other solution, no
plan B. He went against all advice, wise or not, after having
signed a release to clear the doctors and the university of any
responsibility. We were three months away from the draft. It didn't happen. And this
is not all. By working too hard and forcing the leg, it
came out with a limp that rendered him permanently unfit for
practice of high-level sport.
And since he had dropped everything for the lark mirror of the draft,
with which worse is poor academic results, the administration could not
or not wanted to renew the scholarship, which would have allowed him to leave with a
diploma. I made a point of informing him myself, before he received the letter
who told him. He greeted the news with an ominous distance,
as if it concerned someone else. Or that he was already somewhere else.
On the side of the crushed ones of the big illusion machine, the losers of the dream
American. When I wanted to know what he intended to do, if he had any
projects, he hinted to me that he would return to Milwaukee or that he would go to see
on the Alabama side, where he also had family. He had not yet
decided. I didn't dare ask him what would happen to his girlfriend. Of all
way, he didn't give me the chance. He hastened to tell me not to
don't worry, he would let us know, the girls, my wife and
moi.
"Why don't you come over for dinner before you leave?" You
so say goodbye to them.
- Good idea, coach. I'm calling to tell you. »
It was a sentence thrown in the air to get rid of me, because I don't
Didn't see him again after the last interview in my office. Finally Yes ; a
times, maybe. I was about to walk into Whole Foods downtown,
when I saw a tall, limping figure rising in the distance. THE
By the time he had reached him, he had disappeared. At the time, I believed in a
hallucination. It was three months after he had promised to come to us
Saying goodbye. I still thought about him regularly. The girls wouldn't stop
to ask me why he no longer came to the house, without my being able to
give them a satisfactory answer. That night, in bed, I failed to
fall asleep before very late. If it was him, I said to myself, maybe
Didn't he want to see us, reconnect with everything that reminded him of
near or far his broken dream. Maybe it would take some time before
turn the page.
I didn't hear from Emmett again after that "hallucination." GOOD
years have passed since, i quit my job at the university to go back
live with family in New Jersey…before I got a call
of a lady who said her name was Nancy. It took me a while to find
that adult female voice that of his girlfriend at the time. I don't know
besides how she was able to get my phone number. I do not
don't hang out on social media. When I finally managed to make the connection, she
asked me if I hadn't followed the information. I replied that
No. I only watch sports on TV. Too many bad
news. All the hate in the world that explodes in your face. As if
the planet was nothing but a huge valley of catastrophes. I
I am approaching retirement, I want to protect myself so that I can enjoy it
fully.
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. After a while she told me
announced in a contained sob the death of Emmett, "in
more than revolting circumstances,” she added. She wanted to make sure
that I was aware of and share my pain. Or his with me, this
amounted to the same. She knew how much Emmett had meant to my
family, who had welcomed him as one of their own. He too had a lot
esteem and affection for us, and me in particular, whom he saw as
a model, he confessed to his girlfriend. The father that somehow
he hadn't had. He has long regretted not having given any news.
But it was the only way for him to elaborate the mourning of his dream. " Me
also, I paid the price, ”she added.
I learned during the conversation that she lived in Manhattan and
taught in the Department of Africana Studies at the New York
University. She also informed me that she would be attending the funeral which
would be sung in Milwaukee the following Sunday, in the neighborhood of
Franklin Heights. These would be followed by a demonstration in
tribute to Emmett. She did not know who was behind it: a movement
spontaneous of ordinary citizens who had had enough of all this
hate ? Black Lives Matter? Another association? Policies that
were trying to capitalize on the tragedy in this election year? To be
quite sincere, he didn't care. The main thing was to demand justice
for Emmett. In the name of the three daughters he left orphaned. I told him
that we would gladly accompany her, my wife and I, if she wanted to
GOOD. I would tell my eldest, who also lived in New York State. There
youngest was abroad and would not have time to return. Despite
circumstances, it would be a pleasure to see her again. To discuss with her the
memory of Emmett.
THE BRIDE
I CANNOT SAY when the story with Emmett really started.
All I know is that she was very beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful
I have never lived before. Beautiful, but not simple at all. Far from there.
We met at the end of the last century, in the middle of the years
ninety, to be precise, in a university town in the Southwest where I was studying anthropology.
"Studies that do not serve
nothing," teased my math-savvy little brother. Many children dream
to become a doctor, paleontologist, firefighter, adventurer… For my part,
from a very young age, the cultural evolution of human groups has always
fascinated. Even more so in our country, where so many communities rub shoulders
without seeing each other outside their place of work. The rare times they
do, it is often in difficulty, even in pain. It was the case
also for Emmett and me.
To be honest, I "knew" him long before I was introduced to him.
His reputation had preceded him in our private Catholic university, 90%
white, stronghold of the wealthy middle classes of the region, and even beyond.
Months before he arrived, the whole campus was reminiscing with excitement and
mixed hope, the nugget that the football coach had spotted on the side of
Milwaukee, the largest city in the state of Wisconsin, known
around the world to be the home of Harley-Davidson motorcycles and,
for lovers of gangster stories, the rear base of Al Capone
and his acolytes when they had to take shelter from the police of
Chicago. Even I had heard of Emmett. I was not however
not the ones who rushed to the stadium to go and play the groupies
when our university team was receiving an opposing formation. The city
then rustled with the heckling of groups of supporters; bars, restaurants,
hotels and bed and breakfasts were overflowing with customers throughout the weekend.
My best friend, Courtney, with whom I was part of the same
sorority, had pushed the cork until becoming a cheerleader. His goal,
by integrating the cheerleaders, was to get noticed by the boys, to be
among the first guests of the fifth quarter, that is to say in the
bars after the matches, in order to indulge in his favorite sport: hunting
contenders, with the best targets in sight. Often she
dragged me in spite of myself following him, without me meeting the same
hit. Without being Cindy Crawford, I wasn't an ape either,
whose men looked away at first glance. Petite, the
light brown hair loose at shoulder height, rather graceful for whom
bothers to see. I did not, however, have the facilities of Courtney to
pack, to use his word. In other words, to simper, play
the pupil or take matters into their own hands, depending on the situation. All
this with disconcerting speed and ease.
It was in this context that Emmett set foot in our institution.
I was in second grade, without a boyfriend since a failed first try, to
resume the football lexicon. He entered it as a rookie,
for two reasons: at university and on the football team. Or vice versa, because
only sport counted for him. The early days – in a way
until he left – he didn’t seem too on his plate. Without a doubt
wasn't he used to having so many white people around him. Black, original
modest and of Protestant faith in a Catholic establishment frequented by
the gratin of the Caucasian middle class, Emmett accumulated handicaps. He
ignored the language of the environment: gestures, dress code, vocabulary,
intonation, humor and other specific signs of belonging. Her
working-class Wisconsin accent, which he tried to mask by
reinforcing his silent character, seemed to bother him as much as his
large carcass. Like the poet's albatross, its giant wings.
On the pitch, however, he was a completely different man. Even a
uneducated in the matter like me - I'm not sure Courtney was
more knowledgeable – could see that he was the one dictating the tempo.
The others were constantly looking for him. He exuded such charisma.
The year of his arrival, we beat the public university of the city which had
got into the habit of giving us one beating after another. In addition to
block the opposing offensive surges almost single-handedly – ​I don't
I may not be objective – he was responsible for two touchdowns and
achieves a transformation. That day, he entered the pantheon of rookies
of the university, with the popularity and "glory" that implied.
The following year, flanked by three other talented reinforcements, he allowed
the team to take a step and integrate the very closed club, as I
would explain it, of a “Big Conference”.
That was the year we started dating. Emmett
was already a star on campus and attracted girls like bears around
from a hive. He offered an embarrassed smile to everyone, without, however, granting his
favors to none in particular. With his status, it would have been known very quickly.
Someone would have seen them holding hands, kissing in the thickets,
intercepted languorous glances between them, and he would have hastened to
spread the news. Or else the girl would have confided in her most
talkative in order to mark, in a roundabout way, its territory. This update
inflexible distance, was it so as not to be distracted from his objective?
Or because the girls were white? One of them, no doubt
spurned, for a time spread the rumor that he was gay; for the biggest
disappointment to many of us. Emmett was a tall, handsome man,
with an afro curly mini-cut, shaved on the sides – her only fantasy –, and
whose stunning smile finished consuming girls already under the
charm.
"It's a waste," said an annoyed Courtney, when she was warned of
the rumor. The thing did not concern me more than that, before it happened.
took me into a club to celebrate the qualification of the team
for the playoffs. Despite the cold, which was exceptional that year, the girls
were dressed like sex workers, without a jacket or pantyhose,
hoisted so high on heels that they moved around clutching
others, or in the arms of the boys, themselves encased in costumes
which deprived them of all naturalness and made them walk as stiff as
soldiers of the Queen of England. After an hour and a number
of shots to give heart to the work, the atmosphere is
relaxed, and everyone was kissing each other on the lips.
Courtney was bubbling with excitement, ready to embark on her hunt for the
evening, when Emmett came to pass, followed by a horde of female students
exhilarated. Perhaps these practicing Catholics had made up their minds
to “cure” him with ardor of his supposed homosexuality, the space of a
night or two, in the bushes or in the secrecy of their room, to
those who had one in town. I couldn't see them taking her home
them on the weekend and say, "Mom, Dad, guess who's coming to dinner? " For
short, Courtney did not hesitate, that evening, to grab Emmett, as
if they had known each other for a long time, thus snatching him from the puffs of
fantasy of these saucy little ones. He looked up gratefully at my
"sister" and friend when she grabbed her by the arm and pulled her towards
We :
“Hey, Emmett, come over here. Have I already introduced you to my girlfriend Nancy? »
Taken aback, the girls following him didn't seem to want
release their prey. But Courtney faced them, fearless, until they
understood that they were dealing with a stronger head and rid
the floor themselves. Let them go hunting elsewhere! Girls
parties, Courtney withdrew in turn, in search of a willing victim
with whom to end, not the evening as usual, at least the rest of
the academic year. Her reputation as an easy girl, who did not hesitate, after a
drink or two, rolling in the thickets with the boys, was beginning to
harm him. We were in third year, and she had sworn to
finish the bachelor's degree with a regular fiancé.
We were left alone, Emmett and I, not knowing what to say or
what to do, as borrowed under our shell of timid as turtles of
moving sea on the sand. The atmosphere thawed a little when he
thought fit to introduce himself, after a long moment of silence which seemed to have
lasted for hours. I couldn't help but burst out laughing. my laugh
impetuous, emerging from such a frail morphology, has always impressed the
unknown. Poor Emmett looked at me in amazement.
“What did I say that was so funny? he stammered, with his face
sheepish of someone who would have committed a monumental mistake.
– Stop being modest. Everyone knows who you are, even me.
"Why even you?" he pulled himself together.
“Because my friend Courtney, the one who took you from your pack of
fans in petticoats, thinks I'm only interested in my books
of anthropology. I must admit that she is not entirely wrong.
– You’re exaggerating, there were also guys.
- More like girls, right?
- Never mind. Fans, I would gladly do without. But it is necessary,
it seems, if you want to be noticed. It's part of the price to pay for
reach its goal.
– Who would be? asked the silly girl that I still was.
“To be drafted in the NFL,” he replied, taken aback. The more attention you attract
the more recruiters are interested in you. »
After a short silence, he added:
"If it's true that all this is not your cup of tea, how do you know who
am I then?
– Because you would have to be blind not to see your photos on the
campus, or deaf so as not to hear about the immense,
monumental Emmett, the savior of our football team (my irony
helped me to compensate for the stage fright). You are everywhere, even when you are not there. »
My remark drew a smile from him, which had the gift of relaxing me. THE
first moments of embarrassment passed, the conversation took place with a
natural that delights me. He, too, seemed to enjoy my company in
this crowded place, he who hated, unlike the other students,
move in band. We quickly took refuge in our bubble, impervious to
ambient hubbub. Our physical proximity seemed to make him uncomfortable.
– sometimes we brushed against each other, sometimes we rubbed against each other in spite of
ourselves, heckled by the crowd.
Luckily I didn't have Courtney's sassy breasts; this us
both would have been embarrassed. After half an hour, maybe more
– I do not see the time pass – we inherited two stools and we
settled back to the wall, in a less populated corner where I had the leisure to
observe it at will, in all discretion.
In addition to her smile and the harmony of her features to damn a
holy, he had eyes with a lively gaze which, when he did not lower them under
the blow of shyness or by pure reflex of protection of its intimacy,
moved about things, people, with a greed in stark contrast to
his delivery slow enough to make a dog cry. He tells me to come from
Milwaukee. This Wisconsin town had the reputation of not being a
champion of racial diversity. Throughout the conversation, feeling
my self-control abandoning me, I asked myself a thousand questions. Was he already
went out with a white girl? If not, had he not had the opportunity, or
did he forbid it? No doubt the rumors that circulated about his sexuality
were they proven.
However, this is not the impression I got when we
parted late at night, when the bar was closing, while the others
had already deserted the premises, that I had lost all trace of Courtney and
he fixed his burning gaze on me. It was my turn to feel myself in
my little shoes. I was sweating all over. Except in the face, imagine the
shame otherwise. Sweat trickled under my armpits, between my breasts,
turned my pubis into a tingling swamp of dampness… It would have been
more enterprising that night, I would gladly have kissed him back. And
even more. But he dared not. Afraid of being refused? to show off
cheeky? Want to avoid inconvenience? It was his antiphon, for
designate the complexity of interracial relations, even more so Black/White,
in our country, and the ongoing need for black men to
to protect, until being reduced to live certain situations in apnea. What
Either way, my frustration that night was the same.
Nevertheless, we got into the habit of meeting outside our
respective course hours, its many long sessions
training. For a drink in one of the many bars in the city,
preferably not too popular with other students in order to enjoy a minimum of
tranquility, a walk or a jog in the bordering park, without
overstep the bounds of growing curiosity about each other. At
over the weeks, I felt like a soft slip in a relationship
in black and white, from another century to be honest, when Courtney, she,
weighed and packed in one evening a story that she would have already forgotten at the
Morning. I became a regular at football matches, the rules of which
persisted in escaping me, under the mocking gaze of my girlfriend, who
refused to believe that nothing had happened between us. Not even the draft
with a caress, a touch of our lips.
“Do you realize that you managed to convert a gay to straight?
Hallelujah!
– Stop your blasphemy.
– You, the agnostic, who say that?
– That does not prevent respect for the faith of the other. »
Basically, despite the obvious pleasure of meeting again, these hesitant beginnings
reflected a deeper malaise that prevented Emmett, failing to
declare, to catch my clumsy attempts at seduction. And the
discomfort was due to this damn question of color, invisible border which
bounded human relations in the United States, prohibited us from living
together and not side by side. The country has gradually been built on
compartmentalized, fragmented reports, which we transmitted to each other
memory from generation to generation. We've all gotten so used to it
that it has become natural.
I grew up in a family of liberals, in an environment
privileged, where the only blacks we approached were the staff of
service, that of the delivery companies… or those that we saw at the
television. For his part, in his neighborhood of Franklin Heights in Milwaukee,
Emmett had never been around white people, except the principal of his school
primary, one or two teachers who had to ask for their transfer
in this hazardous place by idealism, some shattered of the life which is there
were found prisoners with nowhere to go, and police officers.
Hence perhaps his sarcastic reaction the day he finally understood how
consisted of my studies and my wish to specialize in African-American Studies. That day, I saw his
face turn into a mask
mistrust and disappointment. “You then approach your object
studies? he swung at me. You'll have to learn to speak nigger. »
I received this tasteless provocation like a thick jet of spit
in the face. It hurt me all the more because our relationship seemed to take
a favorable turn.
We had finally kissed, on my initiative, one evening when he had
escorted to the entrance of the girls' residence. That night, without putting it on
back to the wall, I left him no choice. When we parted, I
took his hands, which I kept in mine for a while, then kissed him
supposed to be on the cheek inadvertently lands at the corner of his lips… The
everything in a scholarly ambiguity that left the door open to him, and to me,
an honorable escape route. In case he declined my advance, I
I could always hide behind a mistake on his part. I applied there
coaching Courtney who, if she had come to believe the side quite
platonic of our flirtation, refused to admit that it could not go
further :
"That's just not nor-mal, Nan-cy," she said, picking up the syllables.
We must conclude now. If necessary, you put your hand on his fly.
That way, you will know once and for all if he is gay or not.
- Do you think it's easy? The guy is closed like an oyster. I him
I've shown my interest enough, haven't I?
“From what you tell me, not enough.
– If he didn’t catch the ball on the leap, it’s because I don’t interest him. Point,
at the line.
- If you want, I'll give him an appointment, and I'll show you how to do it...
"Uh, I'd rather not, you know? However, if you have any advice
sensible, I'm a taker. »
That first evening, we kissed until our lips were worn out. We
we did just that anyway. Neither he nor I dared touch any other part
of his partner's body. A bolder man would have dared a hand to
my breasts, let the other stray, casually, towards my buttocks. He didn't go
no further. There was a mixture of awe and respect on his side,
unpreparedness on my part. I had only had one experience, when I left
of a very drunk evening in the first year. The only memory that I
kept, it was that it had gone very badly. Since then, I was content
of a more or less innocent flirtation, which lasted the space of a month, without knowing
which of the two had got tired of it before the other.
Thinking back, I can see Emmett and me being so ingenuous. This
first step taken, we were only looking forward to seeing each other again on
next day, then the next day, the day after again. meetings where
our bodies felt the urgent need for something other than touching
endlessly. But our hunger for each other ran into a hurdle of
size. The dormitories of this Catholic institution, in addition to being strictly
single-sex, were at two opposite ends of campus. All
offender was punished with a sanction that could go as far as the dismissal of
the university. With such dispositions, being straight, difficult, at night
coming, to sneak discreetly into a partner bed. Emmit don't
wouldn't have followed me. In addition to expulsion, he risked pure burial and
simple of his dream: his reputation would have preceded him in the others
universities, which surely would not have been in a hurry to offer him a
new scholarship.
If I didn't envision our first time in some dark corner of
library, I didn't see us imitating certain couples from the
campus which, in the absence of a nest to accommodate their antics, slipped away,
nightfall, in a classroom that remained open, even if it means being
lock the whole night inside. Such audacity did not resemble us
hardly. The solution to our logistical problem could only come from
Courtney, who had taken a room in town as early as second grade, in order to
be able to bring your one-night stands there, without having to ask
permission for anyone, not even a roommate, to point
away for an hour or two. However, I was hesitant to seek his help, so as not to
not having to undergo his “So? Recount. How did that happen ? ", and his
entitled to a detailed account in exchange for the favor granted. I turned the
question for several days in my head before deciding.
Throughout this period, Emmett, who had no solution
alternative, showed no signs of impatience. In the end I
took advantage of Courtney leaving a weekend with his family for him
ask, at the very last minute and putting on my most ingenuous air,
to leave me his keys; right as she was about to climb into the
bus that took him to the bus station. She burst out laughing. She foraged in
her purse, finally took them out and kept them for a few seconds after
his arm held horizontally before handing them to me, accompanied
with a peremptory note:
“You will tell me when you get back.
- It's not what you think.
- Of course not. You want a quiet place to crawl,
Campus libraries are not open on weekends. Take me for a pumpkin. »
So we had already come a long way together when he
threw those harsh words in my face, to learn to speak Negro. I believed in
the end of our relationship. The end also of my project to barter, at the start of the school year
next, my pad in the university residence against a studio in town
to accommodate our intimacy. Such a choice without him would have made no sense.
That evening, I left him planted on the doorstep of the building of the
daughters and returned to my room, hurt and bruised with anger. Je ne voulais PAS: I did not want to
not that he sees me, moreover, crying all the tears in my body.
I made him hang around for a long week before moving on. I had
need to score. Even if our daily meetings, the
I missed the complicity of our gazes. That I suffered from not
hear the enveloping warmth of his voice, his hesitant speech, when he
was on a serious subject. I wanted him to understand with his mule head and
feel with the heart what could have hurt me in his words. To favor
of our reunion, which we sealed with an unfulfilled night of love –
there too, he had such an appetite – we swore to each other to move forward in total
transparency in this story whose intertwining already consumed us
our knowledge. To tell us things in their bare truth, to avoid
nurture harmful resentments towards each other. We believed in it all
the strength and naivety of our youth.
It was from this night of an almost solemn pact that our discussions dated
endless rounds around questions of color and class, which
extended in the fairly functional studio in the city center where
I moved in at the end of the holidays, and where Emmett would join me at the
slightest opportunity, while officially continuing to live on the
campus. The next three to six months were a real fairy tale.
I do not have, even today, love memories more beautiful; in
despite the passing clouds that accumulated here and there above our
couple, conducive to sunny reconciliations.
Then Emmett suffers his first serious accident. This happened during
of a friendly match, where, present in the stands close to the field, I
heard him scream at the moment of shock, before seeing him writhing in pain,
his hand clutching his mask, as if he wanted to stop himself from crying
in front of so many people, he, the warrior of difficult neighborhoods, who had
known to others, the mountain of steel that showed the way to his
teammates. His worst nightmare was coming true before my eyes: "Imagine
an accident happen to me,” he kept repeating, as if to
ward off the possibility. That day he harvested from a cracked collarbone
right and three broken ribs. Luckily, the ribs had not perforated
lungs ; which, according to the attending physician, would have complicated the
things.
Three days later, when I welcomed him home for his
recovery, he finally let himself cry in my arms. He had had so
fear of the violence of the impact, fear of seeing the dream of a lifetime reduced to
ashes. For my part, I was so upset to feel him so helpless and
weakened. I would have given anything, that day when I cradled her grief in flood on
my chest, to see him back into his fearless knight's armor and
blameless. Fortunately, the university had a center
very high standard of hospitality. The doctors were able to put him back on his feet very
quickly and give him hope.
On the other hand, it would have been difficult to find one capable of exorcising the
evil spirits that colonized his mind more and more and rose
slyly attacking our couple. Like a spider
weaving thread after thread the web in which she was going to catch her
prey. More than once, he evoked the resting looks of the others on us, a
much like those people who swear they hear voices, audible to them
alone and not at all around them. At first, I confess, I did not believe it
not too much. To reassure him, I put it down to his notoriety
growing. By the way, I took the opportunity to establish my position. Others,
I pleaded with a trick new to me, were curious to know
more about the exact nature of our relationship: a flirtation? a love affair without
the following day ? a passing fancy as they say, a friendship with benefits? one of
trophies of the star of our football team? a couple called to
last? And since he refused to hold my hand in public, I figured,
with a hint of jealousy, that his refusal to appear with me was a
way to leave the door open to other stories. To come back to his
fears, I continued, I had not heard of any nasty rumors at our
subject. Courtney, whose ears were hanging everywhere, would have told me.
He assured me that he had captured, one evening in a bar, snippets of an exchange between
two black students, half tipsy, half jealous:
“That one, he can’t stick to siss? As soon as they have a
little success, they need their little Wasp…”
It was a new experience for me, unlike Emmett
who hadn't needed to learn it from books. From my birth to
When I entered university, I had never found myself in a situation
with unfriendly eyes fixed on my person, except in the
student parties where boys, usually timorous, having lost all
inhibition under the influence of alcohol, undressed you with their eyes
lustful predator in search of flesh to eat. Also the first
times it left a strange taste. It was shortly after his
recovery. As a birthday present, I had offered her a romantic weekend in a leisure park, which had a
splendid
hotel complex, after having renounced despite myself the idea of
take him to a mountain resort for a first ski lesson;
an offer he had vehemently declined.
“Hell no! he had cursed. You will never make me practice this white sport.
At the risk, in addition, of breaking my leg and seeing my dream fly away in
smoke. Have you ever seen a black ski champion where you come from? The only ones
Blacks who had ever taken part in winter games, it was the team
Jamaican bobsleigh race, and we made a movie out of it. I love you so much,
sweetie, but you're going alone. »
In the end, after making sure he had no
scheduled training that weekend, I opted for the amusement park. I
knew for sure that he would like it, he had never had the chance to go.
As children, my parents often took us there, my brother and me. At
phone, everything went very well. Upon arrival, after a five-hour bus ride,
exhausted but happy at the idea of ​finding ourselves alone far from campus, in
a place where Emmett was going to be able to take my hand without
concerned about his star status, the white employee asked us in pairs
once, scrutinizing in support, if we had indeed reserved a single kingsize bed, especially since the
reservation was in my name and the credit card, the
mine.
"It's the minimum to welcome a guy like me, isn't it? »
Emmett slipped deftly.
The other fool nevertheless took a long time to complete
check-in, before giving us the room with the most view
rotten of the whole hotel. I was so ulcerated that I wanted to retrace my steps
require another room; otherwise, speak to the supervisor. Emmett
managed to convince me not to go.
“If it happens, there is no room available at our rate, he argued, or even no free room at all. Either
way, it's not worth it.
worth ruining our weekend.
– No, but did you see how he looked at us? Just if he doesn't have me
not taken for a prostitute.
- Forget it, sweetie. You realize, it's the first time
I'm offered such a beautiful birthday cake, I'm not going to let the guy
prevent me from enjoying the cherry that goes with it.
– And what would the cherry be? »
I was so beside myself that I didn't take the hint.
" Who ? you mean,” he said, bending down to lift me off the ground –
I was a feather in his hands. He gave me a kiss that was all,
except chaste.
“One must not have a misplaced mind and see evil everywhere, Madame
the anthropologist,” he added defiantly. It was his way of
defuse the tension.
“What should we see then?
– Maybe the guy had a fight with his bourgeoise this morning before
to come to work, and he's in a bad mood.
– The woman has a good back.
– Let’s say he was surprised to see a guy of my size with an if
little piece of a woman. What he doesn't know is that you're the one leading the way
dance. »
He himself did not believe in his nonsense, but he had preferred to adopt
low profile, as often I would see him do. In this specific case, its
main concern was to protect myself from the muted aggression of
the other head of bacon. In his eyes, the little White girl from the residential neighborhoods
ultra-privileged, full of good feelings, did not know much
of the reality of the world. Even less to the racial hatred which plagued the
country, persistent sequel of centuries of slavery, this original sin of which
spoke President Obama. This paternalistic side in him irritated me to the highest
point. At the same time, so much maturity at an age when we are bubbling
of anger against the slightest injustice never ceased to amaze me. AT
unless it is the sign of a conditioning coming from much further.
"It's better to avoid inconvenience," he concludes as if to justify himself.
Luckily, the other moron wasn't working the rest of the weekend. I could
so relax and enjoy the stay.
From the moment our couple began to settle in the
duration, reactions like the one experienced at the amusement park multiplied.
My close entourage was not the most understanding, starting with
Courtney the frivolous, who changed lover like panties. One night,
in the absence of Emmett gone to play a match in another city and where I
wanted to find her again to make me forgive for having neglected her a little, too
taken by my love and my studies, she asked me point-blank if I
never expected to find me a fiancé one day. As if I wasn't already
engaged in a relationship.
“Time flies, girl. If you don't do your shopping in college, she insisted, you don't know what twist or
what loser you can run into outside. »
It's true, the tall, the handsome, the charismatic Emmett had helped me to
overcome the failure of the first time with the other node head. NOW,
we had to get down to business. To hear it, our history could not
to be just a whim of a well-to-do little white girl. Courtney had unpacked it all at
her ingenuous way of a girl whose political conscience stopped at her
survival instinct, to his thirst for success in his original social environment.
In front of my bewildered air, which smoldered with latent nervousness – she had
the experience reluctantly – she tried to smooth things over.
“It’s good that your anthropology studies pushed you to join the
theory to practice. But, in this country, that is not done, my little Nancy.
In any case, it is very complicated at our level. Those who have
tried to burn their wings.
“Maybe they just weren’t meant to be together.
Mixed couples also have the right to fail, like the others.
"It's not just that, you know that very well.
– And you stop at that, you? No desire to bring down the walls?
– What do you think? Are you the only one who made the wall? I started well
before you, girl. As you know, I have no prejudice when it comes to
send me in the air. But the pleasures of campus stay on campus. I
I don't have the soul of a heroine.
“Unless the guy is rich, right? Money has no color
is known.
– Note, it can be an investment, she retorted with her
cynical naivety. We can hope that the guy wins the timpani in
integrating a large franchise. Lots of girls do it in college.
But it's a risky bet. Imagine that it doesn't. You will have everything
lost. »
That at the dawn of the XXI
It is
century a girl our age, my best friend from
moreover, thinking in this way made me desperate. And as if she hadn't
Seizing the irony of my remark, Courtney added a layer.
“No but, what crime did you commit, girl? You are not responsible for
what happened in the last century. Neither of segregation, disappeared there is
thirty years. You weren't even born. You and your need for redemption,
she mocked. For someone who says they are not Catholic, I find that you
whip you a little too much.
- You're kidding, aren't you?
“Stop with your repentance, girl, or the guy will take advantage of it. Is it
that you would have had the same attitude if he had been white? I am convinced
that you would have been more realistic and more attentive to your interests. »
The disappointment was even greater when I finally broached the subject with
my parents. Very good rhetorician, my father found weighty arguments
to avoid attacking me head-on, at the risk of turning me on more. He
couldn't have threatened to cut me off. I was about to get
a very good scholarship for the master, and the little money that the family
would continue to pay me could be compensated by a student job. Also
he tried to explain to me the interest of targeting an institution among the most
view of the country, where it would be possible to combine master and doctorate. " With the
studies you are doing, you will need a doctorate in an excellent university
hope to apply for a post in higher education and pursue
your research. Which would effectively be pushing me away from Emmett.
To understand the extent of my disappointment, you have to know that my father
was the first to have awakened in me this egalitarian consciousness and
humanist. I was between thirteen and fifteen when we watched
Cry Freedom family, a film whose story takes place in South Africa
during the long white and dry season of apartheid, and of which my father
brought the tape home. Denzel Washington plays the role of
activist Steve Biko, imprisoned, then tortured before being assassinated by the
Pretoria regime. My parents were as outraged as I was. Strong of
these memories, I was convinced they would have no trouble understanding.
Themselves would say to me: “There is nothing to understand, Nancy. You have the right
to be in love with whoever you want. It's your life. “To my great despair,
it did not happen that way.
That day, I left my childhood home as grieved as the
evening when that stupid Emmett advised me to learn to speak Negro.
With, inside my being, the feeling of an excruciating laceration and
the desire, in the absence of a decision, not to set foot there again. I was
as if stunned, I had grown ten years all of a sudden. I
didn't tell Emmett about it when I got back to campus, to avoid
to feed the demon that gnawed at him from within. He wouldn't have missed
to point out, almost jubilantly: "You see, I knew that your parents didn't
would disagree. “I had great need, however, to open my heart to
someone, and he couldn't be that person. I never felt
also alone.
The second accident happened at the beginning of the fall semester. He came
deliver the final blow to our history; even if it would take two years
more to give up the ghost. The team was playing yet another derby against
that of the public university. The old rivalry between our two institutions
divided the city once again into two camps, which spent the week
bickering in a rather good-natured atmosphere; despite some
skids here and there, in the evening in bars, under the influence of alcohol. D-Day, the
cheerleaders show was at the height of the event. The two formations
presented themselves on the field to a wild ovation, encouraged by
the animator who contrived to light up the stadium filled to the brim.
When the match finally started, I only had eyes for my fiancé –
I had the weakness to consider it as such. I found him handsome
powerful, swift. A god of the stadium full of muscles and intelligence of the game.
We were nearing the end of the first quarter when the
the accident. Emmett suffered a double tibia fibula fracture. Seen from
stands, the shock, of incredible violence, was even more spectacular than the
previous. The stadium let out a startled “oooh”. Had it not been
Courtney, who had the presence of mind to throw her glass of soda at me
face, I was fainting. Emmett was dropped off in tears – this
this time he couldn't help it - on a stretcher, then brought into
the ambulance in the direction of the hospital where he would remain no less than a
week.
At his execution, after a long period of immobilization of three months, he
had not started his rehabilitation that he was already thinking of returning to the field.
Because of all the pressure he had been putting on himself since he arrived. The coach
had been conciliatory, however, who advised him to take his time. He
received me to almost beg me to support him in this regard. He would intervene
with the president, the dean, the provost, the vice-provost, all those who
count in the hierarchy of the university, so that they are renewed
scholarship for the following year, if my fiancé agreed to repeat. Emmett
didn't want to hear anything. He was convinced, against the advice of specialists,
that by doubling down, it would accelerate rehabilitation and
would be back in time for the draft. How to dissuade him? He could
show so stubborn, when he insisted on going in a given direction and that
someone was getting in his way. And I loved her so much
that I was ready to follow him to the end of the world, by any means. He
pariah… and he lost. He emerged with a limp that rendered him unfit to
the practice of high-level sport.
As expected, the university did not renew his scholarship. He
no longer had any income other than the few hundred dollars he had
managed to save. In addition to our relationship, with which it was necessary
now count, he would have experienced a return to Milwaukee as a failure
in these conditions. Her natural modesty prevented her from formulating it in
such clear terms. Since he had nowhere to go, I offered to
come and live in the studio with me. A decision that I made without the knowledge of my
parents, I had no desire to confront them at a time when Emmett
needed me so much. He accepted not without reluctance; on condition, he establishes, that he can
share the cost of food, while waiting to find
work and take responsibility for all of it. This prerequisite was not explained
not only by his ogre appetite. It was typical, I would learn it with
age, people who had suffered from hunger in childhood and
hated to see the fridge empty.
After this disappointment, we made our one and only trip to
Milwaukee, the second after the weekend at the amusement park. He dreamed of
take me to the Caribbean and Europe. It was his whim. He had continued to
talk about it even after missing the draft and therefore the opportunity to join the NFL.
With him, the hope of falling asleep poor and waking up rich in the morning
was never far away, like a tenacious dream from which he would not manage to escape.
to do. I saw him sneaking his luck at the lottery, as if wealth,
at least material wealth, could not come from regular work
well paid and savings. A legacy no doubt of the conditions in
which he had entered into life, from the place from which he had left, where he had seen
families struggling all their lives without succeeding in going further than
corner convenience store.
His mother welcomed me with extreme kindness. It was a
very tactile woman, she often took me on her strong chest. I was not
not used to so many outpourings. Once I grew up, my mother
granted me more than brief hugs on specific occasions,
when I leave for university or when I return during the vacation period. With
Emmett's mom, it was open-bar, all-you-can-eat buffet, at all hours of the
day and night. She called me "my daughter", "sweetheart". she
left the impression of having always been part of the family.
"If that pickaxe head of Emmett gives you trouble," she told me, "you
wave, okay? I can correct it for you. Above all, let him not notice
not to behave like his bastard father. »
In the evening, in the beautiful rose-draped bed that her mother had prepared for our
intention – his actually because, in Emmett’s room, there was still the
single bed of his adolescence – I wanted to know more about this father,
of which he had spoken so little to me. Instead, the grand master of dodging
whom he knew to be explained to me the origin of his first name: "If you want everything
know, it was my father's idea. That didn't stop him from pulling out and
leave us alone, mom and me, once things started to
to feel depressed. The worst part is that she still loves that bastard. " I do not
don't know more. He had immediately locked himself in his modesty before I
do not engulf me in the parenthesis thus opened.
Initially, given the distance, we had come to Milwaukee to
one week. We had rented a car for the occasion, Emmett having
refused the Greyhound bus ride, as I had suggested. This us
would have cost less, we were not rolling in gold. But he insisted on
take a car, defending tooth and nail his arguments: winning
time, possibility of stopping at our leisure, ease of movement once
on the spot, his mother would not have a car to lend us and he wanted to
show around Milwaukee etc. Arrival by vehicle
rental served him, in truth, to deceive him. I understood it when I
I realized that he had not touched a word of his dismissal from
college to his mother.
To be honest, it was the first time I set foot in
a black neighborhood, and not just any neighborhood. The poverty seen in the streets,
on the dilapidated facades of abandoned houses, in the setting of
people, whom I observed on the sly… disturbed me even more. There was, by
places, a certain electricity on my passage, of the style "What is
What is she doing there, the White? ". The tension then rose a notch at
Emmett, I felt like he was ready to jump at the throat of the first person who
would have addressed an inappropriate remark to me. No doubt this is the reason for
whom, apart from her mother, we visited no one in the neighborhood
where, however, he was born and had lived all his life before coming to
the university. Stokely, the childhood friend, was serving a long prison sentence,
the mother confided to me, during the tete-a-tete she insisted on having with me,
without Emmett present. She had always warned her son against
the frequentation of this brood, according to his word. For some reason that
I don't know, Emmett didn't want me to meet his big girl either.
friend Authie, of whom he had often spoken to me. Maybe she had moved.
But I preferred not to raise the matter with him. Her mother seemed
soar above all this dilapidation. She planned to take me
to the temple on Sunday morning, to introduce her daughter-in-law to the community.
But circumstances and Emmett didn't give him time.
Two days after our arrival, we were out in town on the
car. Night was beginning to fall. Emmett, driving, was driving
quietly in the Whitefish Bay area so that I can
to admire the sun glowing on the lake, the facade of the houses
opulent houses that dominated the view, when the siren sounded from a patrol of
police. Emmett pulled up to the curb and immediately put his hands to
flat on the dashboard. A reflex to which I was not accustomed and that
I repeated by mimicry. Two white policemen showed up, one of them
shone the lit flashlight in his face, while the other kept the
hand on the butt of his pistol. They asked him to dismount,
on the pretext that he had driven fifty miles in an area where the limitation
of speed was forty-five. He was entitled to a full body search.
and due form, while the other officer held him at gunpoint.
I was so paralyzed that I couldn't put in a treacherous word. THE
police wanted to check the car papers, the rental contract,
his identity documents, but not mine. Throughout the scene,
Emmett maintained a composure that commanded admiration. When finally they
set off again, he had trouble restarting the car, he was shaking so much. Of fear
surely later. Also angry. He felt humiliated in front of me,
as he would confess to me the next day. At the time, he didn't want to
talk. Maybe if I hadn't been there, it would have gone wrong. THE
police would have pushed the provocation further, until he came out of
its hinges. And only God knows what could have happened. The next morning early,
after a restless night's sleep, we left Milwaukee, without his
mother had the opportunity to introduce me to the temple the following Sunday.
On the way back, Emmett drove for a good hour without opening the
mouth for a moment. I felt, on my side, that it was necessary to leave it in
his inner world and not be too intrusive. He was driving the
eyes riveted on the asphalt in front of him, hands clenched on the steering wheel, looking
limit of the maximum authorized speed, a sign that he kept control of his
nerves. I felt safe. So I did not offer him to take the
flying in his place. After an hour, he finally spoke. Police control
of the day before had come to rekindle an old wound. The story that he
recounted dated from the end of primary school.
He and his mother had accepted an invitation from a teacher who had
gave a lot of his time and energy to push him in his
studies. The lady lived in the white East Side neighborhood. They had given him
visit on a summer Sunday, dressed in their best clothes. Dressed for
all their money, as he put it. When they got off the bus, they still had
another good mile to walk. They had not walked a
hundred meters that a police patrol approached them and asked them,
treacherously, if they had gone astray, if they needed information to
find their way. His mother had thanked the two agents for their
kindness, God bless you, before telling them the address where they
returned. Whereupon they let them go. At the moment, his
mother had not commented on the arrest with him, and they had continued
Their path. But that was nothing compared to what awaited them at
the arrival. He still remembered the silence that accompanied their steps and the
burning eyes behind their backs, when they showed up in the street, under
the eyes of the residents outside, enjoying the good weather.
“Have you ever lived, even for a moment, being forced to shave
the walls ? he told me. Not because others command you with
words, but by their gaze. At every glance, they make you feel like you've got
not allowed to be there. So, to avoid those murderous looks, you shave your
walls. You demand nothing, you demand nothing. You get used to being
transparent, to be a shadow. To not make waves to not be
noticed, because you are not in your place. »
This is the lesson his mother taught him at the end of the afternoon, back in
home: "Don't make waves, to avoid inconvenience. " What
whatever you do, you will be wrong. The old story of the earthen pot versus the pot of
iron. Subsequently, he would suffer further unjustified police checks.
As a teenager, with Authie and Stokely, if by chance their steps carried them
mop in the upscale neighborhoods of Fox Point or Whitefish Bay, they
were systematically checked under any pretext. Here
even, in this university town where his status as star of the team of
football was supposed to entitle him to a few respects, he was checked two
time. No particular reason. As if the police were bored that day, or that they wanted to measure their
power.
But all this was nothing compared to this first humiliation, which he
told me the clenched jaw, eyes blurred with tears. The child he
was would have liked to avenge the affront to his mother. Never, he confessed to me, he
had never felt so much the absence of a father, who could have explained to him,
say the attitude to adopt. How to restore his honor and that of his mother.
To defend oneself other than by the maternal gospel: the low profile. He was thinking
having forgotten this story, until the arrest the day before.
Since the trip to Milwaukee, the slightest tension, as it happens
in all the couples, gave rise to endless discussions, which drifted
fatally on the little chance for our history to hold in the long term
in such a toxic environment. In those moments he was so tense
that no caress could loosen him up. My lack of experience
life as a couple did not make our task any easier either. Sometimes I think to myself
that with a little more maturity I would have handled it better. And today,
we would be together, as a family. In New York, Chicago, Los Angeles;
a big city, in any case, likely to shelter a story like the
OUR. Were we sated with love, curled up in each other's arms,
fantasizing about everything and nothing, about where we would like
build our nest, of the first names of our children, which he answered as dryly:
“And where will we raise them, these children? You are not unaware
that, to rent or buy in some places, it is the whole community
who decides whether we will welcome you or not.
- So what ? We will find one who wants us...
– … which we would surely not have chosen if we had the choice. And if by
chance we were accepted in a white neighborhood, our children will
control at every street corner. In addition to being stigmatized, they will always be
the black girlfriend or boyfriend that their mates parents will flaunt
to show that they are progressive.
"We don't have to go live in a white neighborhood, you know.
"And you don't know what you're talking about. Our couple will have already exploded
before we have the means to go and live in a class district
medium black, which are not found in all cities. In
meanwhile, you wouldn't last six months in a place like Franklin Heights.
"Do you see me as fragile as that?"
– For my part, I have no desire to train you there, nor to raise my
children. »
As he was no longer bound by a strict lifestyle and long
sleep slots, the discussions lasted whole nights, about
everything and nothing. To avoid offending him at such times, I do not
didn't remember that I had to work the next day. It would have sent him back to his
own precariousness, in addition to implying that I was breaking our pact of
tell us things, that our story no longer mattered to me. By dint of
talking about imaginary problems even before living them, we knew, without
realizing it, the branch on which our couple was sitting. It is
maybe that, the deleterious force of the system: preventing you from living your life
as you wish, with whom you wish; but he does it in such a way that
it seems like a choice on your part.
To depend on my purse, which is worse in the city of its failure,
did not help the situation. On that side, however, Emmett was doing his
better. He brought home what he could, for small
jobs that he took care to choose outside the city so as not to fall
on students who had known him during his short-lived glory. He
compensated by taking care of the housework, the food – he didn’t
came out quite well in the kitchen, with a rather crisp mother hen side –, for
allow me to devote time to my thesis. He still had the
feeling of living on my hooks. We had to find a solution, but
which ? He doubted his ability to return to the benches of a
university to learn anything theoretically. Of his
By his own admission, he hadn't done much the previous three years.
Still, we didn't have the means, neither of us, to
fund these studies. And no serious bank would have lent us the money.
Despite our increasingly frequent arguments, we held on so well
how badly. A year, then two. Every week, then every hour spent without
arguing made me very proud. But the rope was fraying at my
unknowing. One day, on my way home from the library, I found an envelope on the
table where we ate our meals. At first I believed in a word of apology from her.
go. The day before, we had once again heckled, and he had shown himself
particularly unfair to me. He would have liked to be forgiven,
I thought. I had no apprehension before opening the envelope. There
letter began with "Dear Nancy", instead of "Sweetie". which was a
first sign. After two lines, I felt my legs falter; I
had to lean against the table for a moment, before finding the strength to make three
step towards the chair, where I let myself fall with all my weight. I understood that he
put an end to four years of love, which had brought me so much. Inasmuch as
women. As a human being.
He said he loved me a lot, but our story was unbearable. It was worth
better stop there so as not to hurt us more. And keep a memory
wonderful of our meeting. After him, I would often hear this
refrain from men who would not have the courage to face
two the difficulties of life. He asked me not to try to
to regain. Without having thought of it perhaps, he reproduced with me the same
attitude that his father had had with his mother and himself: he disappeared without leaving
of traces. For months, I called his mother to have news. Or
this lady, who kept calling me her daughter, was lying very well – which
I doubt – or he knowingly gave no sign of life to her either,
so I can't trace it. Anyway, I never had one. I
years of not thinking about him every day.
After the defense of my thesis, I was assistant professor, then
associate professor in several universities in the country, before becoming
Professor of African-American Studies at New York University. In
this cosmopolitan city, where live women and men from
world, I dated a Haitian diplomat for a while, then a
Trinidadian musician. I was the mistress of a white colleague from a
private Catholic University of Chicago, met during a symposium,
before moving on: he didn't want to leave the cozy comfort of
his hearth and saw in me only an ordinary pleasure. Is it because of
impossible love with Emmett that I never married and that I
didn't have a child? Who knows.
The day I learned the information on the television news, I could not
prevent me from contacting his ex-coach, through our former
university, who had kept his contact details. His mother's old number,
which I had ended up losing track of, had echoed for a long time in the void.
I needed to talk to him. To discuss it with someone who had it
known. The conversation was very trying for me. Coach Larry had it
maybe felt. Before hanging up, he suggested that we go together to the
funeral, for a last tribute to one of the most
promises he had under his direction, and with which he and his family
had maintained a very affectionate relationship.
I spent the days between my return to Milwaukee crying...
It was probably my way of elaborating the mourning that I had not been able to do
the first time. I can still hear him say to me: "Let's avoid them.
inconveniences. For my part, I remain convinced that women and men,
all of us can rise above our
social and ethnic condition to assume a full and whole humanity,
that goes beyond these criteria. Otherwise, what meaning would existence have?
Especially for someone who, like me, far from breaking with his education
agnostic, is moving more and more towards an atheism which does not say its
name.
L’EX
IT IS NOT WITH A MAN that I was in the household during these three years
of my life, but with a draught. Emmett was never home.
Let's be clear, he was not absent to chase after the girls. I do not have
never had that feeling. Otherwise, he would have been an excellent actor,
trempe des Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, Samuel Jackson et
the other one there, the hunk who starred in Twelve Years A Slave. He is so cute,
that one, that every time I talk to someone about it, emotion overwhelms me and
makes me forget his name. It will come back to me. Anyway, if Emmett had been so good
comedian, I would not have left with another. Today we would be
Living the good life in Hollywood, in a pool villa, drowned
in the dry California vegetation, filled with the cries of children, his
and ours. Like a real blended family. We would have all our facts and
gestures displayed on social networks: the mourning and sadness of the family at
the death of our yorkshire, my stretch marks after the diet that would have made me
lose ten kilos – except for the buttocks, men like it –, the first
heartaches of girls… The things that these people post to
get bored.
You have to understand me. With a guy like that, who was always gone to
right and left, after jobs that paid a quarter and a half dollar, and
came home in the evening slammed like it's not allowed, until leaving my youth
wither in bed, life hasn't been a big slice of pecan pie and
maple syrup, the ones my mother used to make and that make me salivate nothing
than to mention it. It's true, without these odd jobs, we would never have been able to
make ends meet. But I deserved better. I was young and, in all
objectivity, rather well bodied. I'm still told that by the way, and not that
men. These are flatterers. They know how to tell you exactly what
that you want to hear just to get in their bed and do
their small business. In short, women also tell me that I am good
gaulée. Even if we feel that it costs them. For a girl not LGBT you
say such a thing, it means that you are hovering well above the
mean. Because we women don't always give each other gifts. There
feminine solidarity, it is those who have an image to defend which
speak: politicians, activists, artists, intellectuals… In the
reality, sister, my ass, yes. Excuse the expression. It slips as much
banana skins under the feet than men. At the bottom of the scale, the
sorority, we do it, without all that talk. And when it has to be done
a trip, we go free. We get into the bacon without taking
gloves.
What I mean is that at my age I needed to dream. No
stay at home, in this creepy neighborhood, wiping out kids whose
two eldest were not even from my stomach. Before going to live together,
for lack of money, with a mother-in-law who only cared about Jesus and his father.
That was one too many women under one roof. You can't say that I
didn't show understanding. No chick, climb like I
was, would not have embarked on a story with a single father of
two children. Unless it's to have a good time,
expecting better. Or that the guy is armored from armored. He didn't have
not a radish. Nada de nada. So I have nothing to reproach myself for in that regard.
Nor anyone else.
The truth is, I had a crush on him. Crazy, really. Of
less, at first. I'm a lover, I can't help it. I need
to love to feel alive. When he came with his great carcass
lanky, and that he added his smile not chic for a penny,
impossible to resist. Except not to be a woman of flesh and blood. Or
to be one of those puffy silicone dolls everywhere. Which is not
my case. I have everything I need, where I need it. Nature. And I'm far from
insensitive to handsome men, who also know how to talk to women. Him,
he was a smooth talker. How not to melt when the type, the
first time Authie introduced us to each other, look at you like
if he had Naomi Campbell in the splendor of her thirty years in front of him and you
said, "Blessed be the mother who gave birth to you, baby"? He seemed sincere
in addition. He had inherited that from his father, it seems. Watch out, I have it.
said, he did not spend his time slipping sweet words into the ear of
all the women who crossed his path. But when there was one
that interested him, like me, he knew how to find the words. So there, I put
challenge any normal woman not to crack. And
however, I had seen some, even if for a woman, today
again, it is not good to shout it from the rooftops, at the risk of being
suspected of more volatile habits than hydrogen. To get shot
by the Saintes-nitouches, or solicited by the first badger that thinks
have a chance with you, because of the get-lay-there etiquette that we
stuck you on your back. In short, I had my little experience before
meet. Like what…
On the other hand, I was not ready to manage a family with three kids,
what's worse is by trading dust for jumble on a daily basis to get to them
to feed. I saw my youth wither away, pass me by, without my
can do nothing. And he who was always up and down hill, running
crack-the-slab jobs. It had started with beautiful promises, however…
Even if he had forgotten to tell me that he had two dependent kids, whose
mother had left him to go and rebuild his life in Georgia. It makes me laugh yellow
to think of it, he angrily turned off the radio as soon as Ray Charles attacked with his
crooner voice the first notes of the song of the same name. It's for
that made it difficult for me to leave it under these conditions. But in life
everyone has their karma, as they say. His was to get dumped by the
women. Maybe because he was too close to his mother.
We had met at my friend Authie's, where I had come to spend the
Thanksgiving weekend. Authie knew about Emmett and his two
kids. But she was careful not to tell me about it. Basically, she has
still pinched for his childhood friend. As a teenager, she could remain a
whole night talking about it, without getting up even once to go to
bathroom. When she finally admitted that she wouldn't have it, that the other saw
in her more a sister than a lover, she preferred to put us together. AT
good look, what could be associated with generosity on his part was
a strategy to prevent a bitch from coming out of nowhere and coming to them
to separate. Forbid them to meet in his absence, if at all.
Worse, take him away from her. When I realized that, I hesitated a bit.
beginning. Oh, not long, he was so cute. With me she had
crabs and trap for the same price. It was a double blow, what. She
had the friend and kept her Emmett handy. Except I wasn't
current for children.
Originally I'm from Madison, two hours away, rolling
cushy, from Milwaukee. It doesn't seem like that far away, but it's two
different worlds. They may boast of being the metropolis of Wisconsin,
we are the state capital. It changes a lot of things: the air is not
not the same. It is as if carried by the sea wind and makes you want
Besides. You are, despite yourself, open to the world. Milwaukee, even more
populated, is closed in on itself and locks you in with it. Our friendship, Authie
and I got it from our parents. My dad is from Franklin Heights
Also. He originally came to Madison for work, at a time when, from
that side, it was not going at all in his hometown. It must have been at the end
Seventies, I believe. He said to himself, "We'll see. " Maybe
that after six months, a year, he would get bored and go back to Milwaukee. He
just needed a change of scenery.
That, he told me when I was old enough to have a real conversation
with him ; I was about to turn twelve, maybe thirteen. He was probably answering
one of my so many questions that he must have had enough. In addition to
wanting to understand, it was also a way to have it all to myself,
without my brother and sister, and without mom. Even today it is still beautiful
man, dad. He came back on the subject with me when he saw me
Embark on the story with Emmett for good. Always, there no
more, without going into details. He knew about my whims. He had to
feeling powerless to reason with me, so he let Mommy play motherhood. With Emmett, he felt it was
serious, and he went up to the
niche. He told me to be careful. That it did not come down to a black man, who
more market for civil rights in the hard years of the
segregation, to tell his daughter not to date another black man. " But
Franklin Heights is special. Places sometimes rub off on the people who
inhabit them. A paternal warning. Nothing more. When I saw
Franklin closer, I understood. But it was too late.
So, when he came to work in Madison, my father met my mother there.
And he decided to stay, to start a family there. Trapped like me
with Emmett. This is how I came into the world, then my brothers and
sister. But he hadn't cut ties there. Authie's parents
visited us several times a year, at Thanksgiving, Christmas or
Easter. They even came once in the summer, it was a change from Milwaukee.
In Madison, we lived in a rather quiet neighborhood, without all these
problems plaguing Franklin. Conversely, we had to go two or
three times there, in all and for all. Over the years, I have forged strong ties
with Authie, even though she was older than me. I welcomed him into my
room each time they visit. It forced my little sister to share
that of our brother and put them both in a bad mood. On those days, Authie could stay up all night
talking about Emmett, even if it meant me
wake up sometimes to force me to listen to him. She is my eldest by four,
five years old, I don't know anymore, and always considered me his little sister.
Well, until the breakup with Emmett.
It had been a while since we had seen each other, when she
decided that I would come and spend Thanksgiving at her house. It wasn't fair
that it is always her who makes the move. “Friendship is like
love is not a one way highway. Otherwise, we are frustrated, and
we will look elsewhere. By the way, she would take the opportunity to introduce me
someone. I was used to friends trying to set me up. They
did not find God normal that, in my thirties, I have not yet
founded a family. Or they envied my freedom. Or they saw in
the beautiful shoot that I was a threat to their relationship. In short, I went
to stop blaming me. When she got down to it, that one! And
there she introduced me to her Emmett. Paradoxical as it may seem, I
had never met him before. She told me it was her brother
adored, the apple of his eye, I had better take care of it. "If you
hurt, Angela, I'm gouging out your eyes," she added, when the story
began to take flesh, to go beyond flirting, what.
At first, he said nothing about the kids, whom he had left that evening at his
mother, who lived two blocks away. I never imagined for a moment that
his age he can be a son to his mother. Thanksgiving had fallen one
Friday. We had the whole weekend to get to know each other. He took out the big one
game: stroll in the city center, which I didn't know much about, to tell the truth; ride
on the shores of the lake, before inviting me to a restaurant where they serve the best
spare ribs from all over town, with mashed potatoes and a good beer,
like they do in Milwaukee. They learned that from German immigrants,
arrived in continuous stream from the middle of the XIX
It is
century. It's the first time
that I drank, it took me a while to appreciate. He took me to a game
of the Bucks, without being a basketball fan. He had taken the places to take me out. He
was very proud to show me around the Harley-Davidson museum. We would have said
that he was one of the majority shareholders. I learned from Authie that his
mom had worked there.
This first dream weekend made me want to come back. Everytime,
he left the children to his mother, with whom he lived. Well, I didn't know that.
that time. We saw each other at Authie's, who lived alone and managed to
leave us alone. He waited three months before telling me about
existence of girls. In front of my doubtful gaze, he told me that this
didn't change anything for us. "We love each other, that's the main thing, baby. I see myself
ill spend the rest of my life without you by my side. It would have no flavor.
A bit like a barbecue without meat. He knew how to talk, the bugger. And
like, on the other hand, everyone, Authie in the lead, put the
pressure because of my age, I finally gave in and came to live in
Franklin. But not so much, I told him, that he wouldn't have found us a home.
“I am not a woman to go and live under someone else's roof. even less to
my age. He then unearthed a three-room apartment for us halfway between his
mother and Authie.
It shocked me, I must admit, when I started seeing the
area in broad daylight, except for weekend honeymoons. After,
I got used to it. Human beings adapt to anything and everything.
Even more so when, a year and a half later, our daughter showed up. I do not have
didn't want to get pregnant right away, in order to see it coming a bit. That said,
it's not like Emmett has energy for all these things
the nights. Washed out like he was when he got home. But go to
God what belongs to God: when he got down to it, he made you familiar with the sky; That
made you want to do it again as soon as you approached the bed. And then,
Authie and the others kept hinting. Even this
his mother's clam frog. Not once do we meet without them
tell you:
“You would make beautiful babies together. »
In the end, when it happened, those around us seemed happier than
Me. That makes the fifth member of the household, no one seemed to
worry about it. The large families in the area, they know. A
more or less mouth to feed, this is not what would prevent them from
sleep. The mother had there the ready-made excuse to impose her
presence ; relieve me a little with the three little girls on my arms, she said, while her son played the
drafts.
Strangely, Emmett did not jump to the ceiling. We can not say
that he didn't love me. Maybe he measured at that time what was going
represent financially. (Men sometimes have trouble imagining the
reality of a child as long as they do not hold it in their arms.) In addition, I
was one of the 40% unemployed black people in Milwaukee and couldn't
not be of much help to him in this respect. However, he told me:
"Don't worry, baby. We'll find a way. I will put the bites
doubles. I didn't know then that that meant not seeing him at all, or very
little. And finding myself alone at home, with the three kids and the mother-in-law hanging around
more, especially since we lived three blocks away
one from the other. Stay-at-home mom, then. I who loved nothing so much as
take care of me, never the last to party, I saw my youth
pass to the other side of the street, go adrift, without my being able to
nothing to hold it back, let alone catch it.
Needless to say, he made sure we didn't miss anything. He was working
like crazy, three jobs at the same time: two in the week, and one on
weekend. He only came home to come out straight away. A
real draft, I said to his friend Authie who, instead of me
complain, reproached me for being my princess. “There are women who
would pay to be in your place. But his "brother" left me more and more
no longer alone in this neighborhood which is not a place to raise children.
Fortunately, there are support networks, temples, the mother-in-law,
NGOs… which provide valuable material support, sometimes listening.
Without it, I would have cracked sooner. That said, all that remained a cautery on a
wooden leg. Too many problems. It's like a thousand-headed hydra.
The more you cut, the more it regrows. We don't know which way
confront it to eliminate it definitively from the face of the world. When
Emmett lost a first job, I thought to myself: this will always be
won, the time we were going to be able to spend together will compensate. Then he
lost a second, only to keep a lousy job as a security guard.
So the world collapsed.
Since he had more free time, instead of spending it with me,
to catch up a bit, he got it into his head to help young people in the neighborhood get away with it.
to go out. It was his expression: “Get out of it. He put it on every
sauces. As if he, me, the inhabitants of the neighborhood, we were stuck in
a damned bayou, from which we had to extricate ourselves at all costs. No doubt it was
influenced by Stokely, his other damned soul from the time of his
childhood, who had been in jail for ten years and had come out of it with a mentality
and Boy Scout goals. One of the rare cases, I must admit, where
imprisonment did not make the person any more cracked. Everything was an excuse
this one to try to redeem himself. Emmett would have done better to
look for work, because the young people did not seem more interested than that
football he wanted to teach them. When they weren't in the
business, directly or through their parents, only the NBA
made them dream. And a guy we called "Jesus", a former player of the
Bucks, who was stringing three-point shots like he was peeing, while
mâchonnant son chewing-gum.
The rest of the time, when Emmett was home, he no longer had the
same light in him. He was off. As when he returned to the neighborhood,
after failing to be recruited in the NFL and struggled for years before
return to the starting point. I didn't know this moment, Authie and Stoke
told me. It seems it was the same. there was something broken
in him. He could stay up all night telling you how he
lifted the stadiums during the matches of the university championship.
That, if he hadn't had that nasty injury, for sure, today he would have
had better to offer us, the children and me. He didn't say we wouldn't
surely not known, that he would have been spreading his fins in
wider and deeper waters where we would not have met.
The other part of the night, he stood with his eyes open in the dark,
replay the cinema of its failure, so close to the goal. I knew he wasn't sleeping
not, because as soon as I got up to go to the bathroom, he said: "I'm fine,
baby? In the morning, he dragged himself like a zombie before going to plant his
large vigilante carcass in front of Whole Foods on Prospect Avenue, a
supermarket for trendy middle classes, and where no inhabitant of
Franklin could never have shopped.
The last straw came when we used up every last penny
of his savings and that we had to move in with his mother, who
was waiting for this, since the time she invited us to live with her,
“there is room, it will save you money”. No more
privacy. Finished. It was more than I could bear. Note, in
In the meantime, I helped as best I could. I took it upon myself. I do not
I wasn't complaining, whatever Authie thinks. Many women do not
would not be private. Especially when they are as good as me.
Despite pregnancy and childbirth, I had remained a beautiful plant. AT
strength, I had become a specialist in supermarket promotions and
sales in clothing stores. In addition to Emmett's hair, I
I myself cut the tips of the hair of the girls, who were reluctant to
not go to the hairdresser to get those weird trendy braids done. All
that to save the price of the cut and allocate it to something else more
essential. I who had never experienced this with my parents, I was going to point
for food stamps among the city's many poor, so
to improve on the ordinary. I avoided, on the other hand, the support networks managed
by the lady patronesses of the neighborhood: too showy and too much gossip.
Having, in addition, to move to the mother-in-law, who had only for her
big baby and her granddaughters, it was more than I could bear.
One day I went back to see my parents in Madison. Fortunately
that I had gone there alone, I came across an old flame that
hadn't forgotten me. He was over forty, and I saw her
approach with concern. He was unmarried and had never even
housed. That immediately caught my eye. past a certain
age, if a man is still alone, there is no need to look far: or there is
a manufacturing defect, or it's a pain that no woman wants, or
he is a gay man who does not assume himself. In all three cases, it smells like shit
full nose. Otherwise, the sisters wouldn't have let him walk around like that,
alone, in nature. And me, question of tribulations, I had already given.
But you should never insult fate.
I went back two or three times to make sure and to probe his
feelings, in case it doesn't fit into one of the categories
mentioned. He had just landed a job as a construction foreman in
the building in South Carolina. He asked me to come with him. It was
too tempting. I couldn't stand there watching my youth go away
worth it. For us women, it passes quickly. Then it's not easy
at all. Men are starting to look at you like an expired product,
just good to be consumed so as not to die of abstinence, if they have not
nothing else to put under the fly. I had to enjoy it while it
was still time. Especially since the other one wasn't bad at all. my weakness
for beautiful kids, that's what will lose me.
In truth, it hurt my heart to go away like a thief,
leaving our daughter with Emmett. But I knew he would take care of it. It was
a good guy. I promised myself to get her back once I was
installed somewhere. I quickly understood, with my new companion,
that there was no possible stability. He could stay one year on one
construction site, six months on the next one. We went from one state to another, in the
wake of work. And then, the mouflets, it was not his thing, he did not have
paternal fiber. I could not see him, moreover, taking care of the child of a
other. I must admit that I liked, too, not having mustard
in the legs. To be able to come and go without hindrance. Freely. Then
time passed, I fell in love with another man. I am at
third since leaving Franklin Heights. All this without me
realize that. It's not my fault if I'm a serial lover...
Then I came across the news on TV. It pissed me off, I
have to confess. Not just because I had experienced it, Emmett. A being
human should never meet death this way, period. I have
called Authie to offer him my condolences. Luckily she kept
the same phone number. I hadn't heard her for all
these years. She had written me a nasty letter through my
parents, in which she sided with her Emmett. And it was said my
sister. I asked her about my daughter, like that. History of
to make her understand that I had not forgotten her. Like a dog
side of the highway, to go on vacation. I knew that the grandmother
would take care of it. She then told me that she had died three months later.
early. That I had better get my butt right back if I didn't want to
have social services pick up my daughter. That you shouldn't count on
her to play the surrogate mother. Poor Emmett didn't deserve
That. I didn't quite understand if she was talking about the meeting with me, which she herself had
engineered, or what had happened to her. I told him to
allow some time to turn around. I was on the other side of the country. He
I also had to talk to my man about it, so he wouldn't be taken aback, poor thing.
Either way, Authie would never leave Emmett's daughter on the street.
III
THE WALK
Not everything that is faced can be changed.
But nothing can be changed until it is faced
We don't change everything we fight.
But nothing can be changed until it is faced.
JAMES BALDWIN
True peace is apolitical, it consists in having the other in his
skin, without reciprocity.
EMMANUEL LEVINAS
THE PRODIGAL SON
THE KILLING OF EMMETT live on social media, then picked up by
all the television channels on the planet, triggered a tidal wave
of unprecedented indignation in a country that one would have thought tired of a
situation which, if not getting worse, had continued to get bogged down since the struggles
sixties to end segregation. Of the
spontaneous demonstrations, others decided in a hurry through the
social media, wired or wireless phone and word of mouth,
threw millions of women and men into the streets. Abroad, the
employees of the United States embassies barricaded themselves in shame under the
boos from furious demonstrators, brandishing denunciatory placards
before the clenched jaws of the Marines entrenched behind the railings of
their delegation, finger on the trigger of their submachine gun, ready to
defend the country's image as a superpower.
Milwaukee, and the neighborhood of Franklin Heights in particular, was not
remains. The ideal, thinks Ma Robinson, ex-prison guard, now
reverend of his state, would be to channel this indignation towards some
something constructive, instilling optimism where there was only
anger, without giving a hold to detractors and demagogues of all persuasions
policies. The largest city in Wisconsin, since that's where everything
had left, had to lead by example. To be the star in the darkness
hatred, by organizing in the wake of the funeral a march of one
large scale which would mark the spirits and would be both a signal
of hope, of brotherhood. How to go about it ? Which energies to federate
and in what sense, when the country was even more divided since the arrival
the other toupee puppet at the White House?
She knew she could count on goodwill, dynamism without
flaw and the technological expertise of its digital arms: Marie-Hélène,
a young Haitian from Chicago, and her boyfriend Dan, a Milwaukeen
pure wool, both students of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Grace
on social networks, they reached an audience to which the pastor had not
ordinary access. Maybe they would even manage to move the journalists
to give a wider echo to the march and obtain justice on behalf of the
Emmett's daughters. She could also lean on the help of Stokely and
d’Authie, the two childhood friends of the deceased, who had had the elegance of
put aside their old quarrels, to shake off the weariness of
inhabitants of Franklin, crushed under the weight of everyday life, and that she had these
last years struggling to mobilize. All that thrill she felt
for two days had not displeased him. things seemed
move in good stead. Babylon would finally wipe out the divine wrath. Even if the
price to pay, the death of poor Emmett, whose death she was very close to.
mother, tasted more like gall. This scent of fighting for rights
civics reinvigorated her. The proof, his rheumatism had not
manifested for forty-eight hours.
My Robinson still had in mind the intervention, the day before, of an elected
Republican on television, during a debate where he was challenged by a
young woman seated in the front row of the audience. With tattoos and
from facial piercings to knuckles, neck and arms, her
interlocutor wanted to know what the senator had already done, or intended
undertake, in favor of the rights of minorities, too often trampled upon
feet in this country which prided itself on being that of freedom. "Words
no longer suffice. We want action. My generation wants deeds”, had it
shouted the girl, whose soft voice, which clashed with her appearance
provocative, tried hard to be virulent. Instead of answering the question,
the chosen one had seized the opportunity to settle accounts with a whole series of
citizen movements, harmful in his eyes, and to address rather those whom he
considered its electoral base.
“Minority rights, you say. I imagine you mean by
there the rights of blacks, women, LGBTQQIAAP, this acronym that has no
fear of ridicule, of drags, of queers, of trans people, of little macaques, of
great apes, big cats, elephants, dolphins, birds,
ants, preferably black, from the Amazon rainforest, from the sun that goes
soon to die out… and I forget some. I have nothing against, but who will care
the rights of straight white children in our country? Tell me, their own life
does not count ? he slipped in, perfidiously, in a double allusion to the
#MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements. Or else, it goes after
all the ones I mentioned? »
The lively exchange had come to remind Ma Robinson of the need for her,
if she wanted to carry out her ministry, to get closer to young people through
their mode of virtual communication. An unknown universe for the old
guard, accustomed to direct contact. With the frank gaze planted in the eyes of
the other, which made any escape impossible. How many crises did she have
managed to defuse this way, both behind the walls of the prison
than in the streets of Franklin Heights! More than adrenaline, it's what
physical contact that he lacked with the so-called social networks. Observe
each of the gestures, even involuntary, of the other. Smell its scent, know
if he exuded fear, defiance, as in hand-to-hand combat. There
distrust or trust, in the middle of a negotiation. Hence his preference
for street activism, word of mouth, actual words exchanged between
four-z-eyes, even accompanied by sparks.
Young people today claimed to save the world behind the screen
of their smartphone, the manufacture of which, moreover, never ceased to exhaust
the resources of the planet. The few who were even remotely interested in
sacred demanded the Sunday service, sprawled in their sofa, even
in their bed, their bodies still stained with the smell of the sin of the night before, barely
covered with pajamas or jogging. The weekly meeting with
the Most High required a minimum of decorum all the same. But OK,
we had to evolve with the times, as they say, in order to give a chance
to succeed in the cause, the defense of which took up all his energy. And then,
she should pass the baton one day. She dragged three quarters of a century
behind her, much more than her dead parents put together – than the Eternal
welcomes them into His Kingdom. From this point of view, Marie-Hélène and her
fiancé a bit crazy were more than precious to him. They were giving him a hell of a
help with a lot of things, including those damn technologies
news that Ma Robinson couldn't understand. It's the
Sauveur who had sent them to him, those two.
Gone were the days when, with Mary Louise, Emmett's mother -
God rest his soul – they took hours to get ready, with a touch
finally the fascinator worn on one side so as not to shade the bun,
before going to the temple. Dressing up so much for the Sunday office,
it was not just a habit brought back from childhood. Neither for
go hunting for the pretender, if possible serious, that Mary Louise was
persuaded to find at the temple. What she was wrong about. " Do not
believe, the Philistines always manage to slip in even in the middle of the
most pious of assemblies", said his holy mother to him. evil genius
could take a thousand faces to deceive the young women they
were, which however did not require much. They just yearned,
like any good Christian, to a life worthy of the name, with a husband
worker who loves and esteems them, under the benevolent eye of the Lord and
in accordance with His laws.
My Robinson would never make it. "Because of your damn character",
told her at the time Mary Louise, with whom she had made friends with her
arrived in Franklin Heights in the mid-sixties, fleeing the
too virulent segregation of the Deep South. She knew, strong from her network
of friends and members of the extended family of Baton Rouge, being able to
find work. She was just twenty years old, and the future opened her eyes.
arm. From her life in the South, she had inherited a desire to exist and a
character cast in the strongest steel. So she never knew
coo, as most women do, accept small and large
humiliations, when it wasn't outright donuts, to try to
hold a man. Either way, they always ended up listening
evil spirit in their heads, advising them to pack up, as soon as
often on the sly, without assuming their act, abandoning you with two, even
three children on the arms; before one of their fellows arrives,
come out of the den of the Evil One, that he does not plant a new seed in you
belly and disappear without even giving you time to find him a
nickname: honey, sweetheart, or dummy to tease him… Of course, people
would say that Ma Robinson was exaggerating, that she was bringing grist to the mill
slanderers, but that was the lot of many Franklin women,
that she had to patch up on a daily basis, with her only word, the same as the
Providence had placed in the stuttering mouth of Moses to release the
Hebrews of slavery.
Also, when Sunday came and you had to go to the temple, she
was not preparing to please a possible suitor. Nor even to Christ, who,
by the way, was a male too – may the good Lord
forgive! His faith, at the time, was not so strong. If she pampered herself
as much, it was to get rid of the tenacious smell of prison, which had
escorted during the week. This job, which she had found shortly
after his arrival, had become a true priesthood; the way that the
Lord had taught her to try to bring her back to the right path
some of the thousands of young women who had strayed into
the sin. She hadn't entered this profession just for the salary, or the
job guarantee. Far from there ! Despite her young age, she was strong
to save these sinners. This is where she drew the energy to get up on
morning, even at -20° in winter. The Midwestern climate was the worst enemy
of a native of Baton Rouge, at the risk of passing the scum
segregationist and other Klan cronies for altar boys… A
fisher of souls! This is what it was like before founding, in retirement, its
own church, which Emmett's mom would attend until her death there
was just three months old; an untimely demise, for it was five
years his junior.
Mary Louise was over the moon when her Emmett left for the
“college”, with the help of a purse that the Supreme Being, in His infinite
goodness, had kindly sent to him. They had prayed night and morning for it,
both. No longer able to wait for the answer, Emmett's mother
had come to issue an ultimatum to the Creator. “Three weeks, not one
moreover. Far be it from me to be cheeky. You alone are God, and he
there is no other. All my life, I gave you glory without anything to you
ask and as long as I live I will continue to do so. But here it is
my only son, you know something about it. So I implore You, put an end to this
torture, I can't wait any longer. Three weeks, not one more. »
When the postman finally gave her the envelope and she opened it, in the absence
Emmett gone who knows where, she burst into tears before phoning Ma
Robinson to tell him the good news. She had proof that the
good God was a man. Like all men, he had to
shake from time to time to get something out of it. Like what, she
had done well. The two girlfriends, accomplices, had burst out laughing.
After four years, having had no news of his entry into the NFL
by the young people of the district, who would have certainly drawn a reason for pride from it,
Ma Robinson deduced that Mary Louise's son had failed in his
quest for fame and money. Despite their complicity, her friend does not
would never say a treacherous word. For her part, she did not speak to him about it either
more. It wasn't hypocrisy. There are subjects that are too painful for
to approach the person concerned without having been invited to do so amounts to stirring
unnecessarily
the knife in the wound. Then the years passed, like time on
everything, with their share of problems and small joys when you go there
provided some solution. The years passed, with the creaks
more and more frequent of our carcass, strange machine indeed. And the
memory that took malicious pleasure in driving us crazy.
Emmett, the lost sheep with the shattered dream, had not yet returned to the
home. He gave signs of life from time to time. As if he wanted to put
his steps in those, dissolute, of his progenitor. At least that's what I thought
the mother, who thought she had educated him away from such petty cowardice. She in
spoke from time to time with Ma Robinson – you have to confide in
someone to ease his soul – trying to convince himself of the news
that she transmitted to him, and that she sometimes invented at the time. There
Reverend for her part pretended to believe it, out of Christian charity.
Only God knows if Ma Robinson had warned her against this beautiful
talker who, on Sundays, presented himself at the temple decked out in Don Cornelius, the
presenter of "Soul Train", a popular television show. THE
rest of the week, to walk backwards to the car factory where he
worked, he dressed even more extravagantly: shirt
unbuttoned up to the navel, summer and winter, flared trousers
in black and white stripes, which hugged her slender thighs. He was beautiful
eating junk food, like the others, he didn't gain a gram. THE
everything was topped with a huge afro hairstyle that ate a face
bony with an indelible smile. He spent his time putting things in order with
a forked comb with metal teeth, which he carried in his back pocket
right of the pants, and whose horn handle ended in a fist
tight, the peace and love symbol planted in the middle of the wrist. That is what
had finished embarrassing Mary Louise. He moved on his boots
varnished with wedge soles of at least ten centimeters, the bust carried
forward, as if his spine had been unable to hold him straight;
the head took in a permanent movement the advance on the body; This
which made people say behind his back that he was pecking as he walked.
Having been dumped overnight by the other good for nothing, Mary
Louise lived only for her son, even after his departure for the
"college" and more when it evaporated in turn, without leaving
of a fixed address, gone to chase the mirages of the American dream. This woman
rather plump in normal times floated in her clothes when she had
no word from her Emmett for too long. What could
last for months or even a year at a time. Until, tired of
vagrancy and obviously not knowing where to go, he returns to settle in
the little house that the mother had been renting since the mid-eighties. A good decade and a half had
passed.
She had welcomed him like the prodigal son, covered with kisses, sacrificed
for him the fatted calf that she did not have had reopened its door and its
heart. He had presented himself with his own descendants, two little girls of a
previous bed, which Ma Robinson could not swear had touched a traitor
word to his mother beforehand. Later, he would also take her the other minx
who was going to give him a third, before disappearing in nature. A
abandonment that sounded like a curse on mother and son… Mary
Louise could not bear to see this death live, under the eyes of the
whole world. She wouldn't have survived it. She would have followed him with a bitter heart. He
had to understand her, she had devoted her whole life to her only son. God
thank you, she had left earlier. At the moment, everyone, Ma
Robinson included, had found this death unjust, because brutal and premature.
But the Almighty always works wisely, even when His
purpose seems obscure to us mortals.
In a way, the so-called modern means of communication
were good. It is thanks to them if today we could hope to obtain
justice for Emmett. Of course, after Providence, which had placed
witnesses on the scene to film the atrocious crime. Who knows, if not, what
false report these villainous police officers would have concocted to justify
their mischief. We also had to salute the vigilance of Marie-Hélène and her
fiance. My Robinson could see that the boy didn't really believe in his
religion. Not because he was Jewish, far from it. He didn't seem to believe in any
religion. Neither in God, nor in the devil for that matter. He came, in truth, for the
beautiful almond-shaped eyes and the prominent cheekbones of Marie-Hélène, for
secure a special place in his heart. She would have been a Buddhist,
Muslim or disbeliever, it would have made no difference. But it was
good like that. His joie de vivre was a pleasure to see. Above all, he
spared neither his strength nor his time for the support network. of a
formidable efficiency with that. It was the most important in the eyes of Ma
Robinson.
When they found out about Emmett's murder, the two had, in the
minute, relayed the information on their multiple accounts in the names
of birds. The news had spread like wildfire in the
countries, spontaneous demonstrations began to take place a little
everywhere. My Robinson had insisted a lot with her two
"deputies" on the need to temper the ardor of their followers. She
would do the same in the streets of Franklin, with each parishioner,
each resident of the neighborhood that the Nazarene would place in his path. She
would also pray to draw upon them all the protection of the Most High, for those
opposite did not have feelings. They were just waiting for this. That the
situation escalates to beat them up, even scratch them one by one from the face
of the earth. Let the situation escalate to discredit their right to
outrage. Let the situation escalate to nip legitimacy in the bud
of their fight. “Of our fight, she insisted on specifying. Because there is none
only one, of combat, and it is common. There are no whites on one side,
blacks on the other. Asians on one side, Latinos on another.
Be smarter than your enemies. Be smart and careful.
You are the future of the cause, like others the salt of the earth. Better,
you are the future of humanity. »
That's what she basically told them, Ma Robinson. In his
henceforth long life, from her native South which she had fled to here in
Milwaukee, she had seen too many young people, carried away by their enthusiasm,
go to the profit and loss department of history. She wouldn't forgive herself
if anything happened to them. “And then,” she added, “if you are not
no longer there, who will make the link with your generation? Who will serve as an interface,
as you say ? Thanks to the temple site, which they cared for, the
two lovers had contributed, failing to round up the young people of the
district, to attract foreign tourists passing through Milwaukee. We
saw them arriving in clusters on Sunday mornings in Franklin Heights,
attracted by the gospel choir, which had a rich repertoire of classics
that all took up with fervor, in moments of communion
collective : Go Down Moses, When The Saints Go Marching In, Swing Low,
Sweet Chariot… Without forgetting Oh Happy Day to conclude the service and
send all these beautiful people back in a good mood.
She was not fooled, Ma Robinson, by the presence of these tourists from the
faith. They came for the show? Well, they would. She added one
max during the sermon. As he still had a little energy left - if
she ran out of it, because her capricious carcass took malicious pleasure
to play tricks on him, the Almighty brought him in dews of grace -,
she skipped here and there, passed in front of the lectern, paced up and down the stage.
trance, modulated her voice, apostrophized the conquered assistance, sisters and
beloved brothers, raising "Amen", "Yes, Lord", "Hallelujah" in
feedback. She gave them their money's worth, which she was careful not to claim from
the entrance, as practiced by colleagues from Harlem, nor parked them
in a wing of the temple arranged strictly for them. To do it, that him
would have recalled the dark times of segregation, when "Colored" and
"White" had to walk in two separate corridors of the
life. Two parallel paths, without any intersection where to meet and
share a piece of humanity. At her place in Franklin, everyone
mixed: faithful and visitors, haves and peasants, gentiles and pagans, the evil
bundled up like those who wore good looks. Never mind.
However, it was not a show, even if it looked like one. She
demanded respect for the place, that people be dressed with decency.
No question of entering this sacred place with flip flops and tank tops
for men ; the breasts in the air and the shorts ras the sin for the girls.
None of that in his temple. At the time of the quest, which was done at the pace
of a gospel that could have been described as frenzied, were it not for the context, the
voyeurs understood for themselves that it was necessary to bring their share to the
cause of the Lord. The greenbacks then rained down in abundance, like the
manna for the children of Israel prisoners of the desert. The money raised
served, among other things, to help families in difficulty, women left behind
by their companion, the children whose father was behind the
bars or had, without warning, taken to their heels; to mop up a
part of the hospital costs of those who, for lack of social security,
tended to give up on medical care… By the way, thought Ma
Robinson, if she could also bring back some lost sheep among the
flock of Christ, that would always be a win.
Marie-Hélène and her crazy fiancé had a lot to do with it if the
fame of the retired matron, nevertheless a pastor, had crossed the
borders of Franklin Heights first, then of Milwaukee, reached the United States, and even the clouds,
as they said. It is thanks to them that
journalists had landed, the day of Emmett's death, from New York, Los
Angeles, even from the end of the world, the next day, to question him,
asking if she knew him and everything. And how did she know him!
She had wiped it, swaddled it, the little one who had become, in adolescence, a giant up close
two meters tall, looking down on her. With her late mother, they had
made the four hundred blows, built dozens of castles in Spain,
shared the bread and lots of laughs. But of his lazy father, for
who the mother had for a time sacrificed their friendship, she had been careful not to say what
she thought. It would not have been in her role as a woman of the Church.
As a child, Emmett hung out with two other thieves, a boy and a girl.
neighborhood, from which he separated only to go back to sleep, because in the homes
from here, when there was food for one child, there was enough for everyone; of
Suddenly, the little devils did not take off from the place where they were.
When his father left, Emmett grew closer to him. The boy,
Stokely, was a real black sheep, the evil genius of Mary's son
Louisa. He had ended up diving, ten years of sheet metal for having soaked in the
business in the footsteps of his own father. Like many young people from
Franklin. It was not for lack, however, of having alerted the parents. When everything
it happened, Emmett was already, thank God, possessed by the demon of the
football, and frequented it less and less. That's what saved him. During
a time, Stokely was incarcerated in the prison where Ma Robinson raged
as a guardian, before she was transferred, at her request, to the
correctional center for women on the other side of Wisconsin. At the exit, he
packed up and resumed his place in Franklin Heights without ever
dive back. From time to time, he gave a hand to the young people, the
encouraged people to seek an alternative to business in sport. It was not
obvious every day, but he held his own, even if he rarely frequented
the Sunday service.
Authie, the daughter, had never had a problem with the law. THE
temptations were not lacking in the neighborhood, however, especially for a
single woman, who had always dragged the devil by the tail. She too had
held on. She came to the temple intermittently. Sometimes she helped
collect and distribute foodstuffs to the poorest, of which it was not
far from being part of it, because of a job paid below par.
But Ma Robinson had a flair for these things. The days when she felt it
in bad shape, she encouraged him to leave with a full shopping bag and a ticket, which
brought him some respite for a week or two. Despite everything,
it had not sunk, praise the name of the Lord!
When the news broke, the two survivors of the trio were devastated.
From the first meeting on the initiative of the Reverend, the same day,
Stokely, very reactive, had suggested the creation of an online kitty in order to
fund the funeral and provide for the future needs of Emmett's daughters
who, for lack of means, had not taken out any life insurance. He knew it for
sure, his childhood friend had spoken to him about it, when they had not seen each other
often since Emmett's return. It is as if he had wanted him
convey a message, namely: "I am counting on you to take care of
of them, if ever something happened to me. That's how he had it
feeling. The idea appealed to the pastor, as well as to her "assistants", who
agreed with the rest of the group to refuse the donations of personalities
policies. This was to avoid any recovery of their gait and
signify to potential donors its humanist character, above the
gone.
These are examples like these, miracles if you want, count
given the social context, which Ma Robinson presented to the journalists
flocked from everywhere, who wanted to see Franklin Heights as a place of
perdition, a kind of Sodom and Gomorrah where there would not be a single
resident to save the other. Yet that is where justice would come from
for Emmett. From there would come the salvation of the city, of the country. From this neighborhood
forsaken by the powerful, but not of God, where the humble languished
among the humble. The more the hours passed, the more Ma Robinson was
convinced. She dreamed of a major event that would mark the
spirits. It had been three days since Mary Louise's son returned
the soul under the cop's evil knee. Asphyxiated, as one kills a
goret, under the impassive gaze of his acolytes, more occupied with holding the anger
latent of onlookers at a distance.
It was time to strike a blow. It was in this sense that she had
talked to his two webmasters, also in Stoke and Authie, who must have been thirsty
justice for their friend. She had begun to set in motion the good
old word of mouth. It remained to be photocopied and posted throughout the
city ​posters written with his own hand. Each would bring his little
rock. She was already imagining the route of the march, which would start from here
even, in Franklin Heights, would cross other less affected neighborhoods
by this type of problem, would pick up all the goodwill,
like a tree feeds on the vital energy of each of its roots
to push high and solid towards the sky, before ending its race in front
City Hall. "Milwaukee will be the light in the midst of darkness", jubilant
a Ma Robinson who thought she had gone back fifty years. At the time
great marches for equality.
SLOW TO HEAL WOUNDS
MARIE-HÉLÈNE HAD FAILED in the city of Wisconsin, coming from Chicago,
thanks to a master's scholarship from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. THE
reverse route was more frequent. Usually it is the students of
Milwaukee who joined the prestigious universities of the metropolis of
Illinois, the largest city in the Midwest and the third largest in the United States. THE
choice, to be honest, was not very difficult. Among the different
institutions to which she had applied, UWM was the most
quick to react. His profile and his excellent academic results had
caught the attention of the scholarship service of the main organizations
partners. Once the registration process has begun, she
could hardly go back on his decision, except for a miracle, that is to say in the event of an offer
of an elite university, of the caliber of the Ivy League, whose ultra-selective image had dissuaded her
from applying there.
In addition, the proximity of the two cities, an hour and a half from
road, had a major advantage: it reassured her Haitian parents,
who had trouble cutting the cord. “Why go so far? " is silent
worried the mother, when she herself had traveled a whole day in
bus, slept one night in Port-au-Prince and chained, the next day, more than six
hours by plane to come from Jérémie, a city in the south of Haiti, to Chicago.
"Can't you do the same studies here?" “After having accompanied her
in his taxi for the installation in Milwaukee, the father had proposed, in
passer-by, to pick it up every weekend, then to bring it back the
Sunday, if he felt like going home to see his brother and sister,
before adding: “They will miss you a lot, you know. "What was a
manner of emotional blackmail. Marie-Hélène was aware of this, but she
preferred not to answer. Deep down, she understood them, she didn't live
with them only since she was thirteen.
To find her bearings in the city, where she knew no one,
Marie-Hélène had turned to the associative networks, on which she
had obtained valuable information via Twitter, TikTok and Instagram.
Militant at heart, she was recruited, as soon as she arrived, for courses in
tutoring in Franklin Heights. This neighborhood considered difficult
was located half an hour's walk from Lindsay, where she lived in
roommate with three other students: a Frenchwoman of North African origin,
practicing Muslim, a lively flay with which every detail of the
cohabitation was a daily tribulation, every word – if we had
inadvertently started a discussion with her – exhaustingly acrobatic;
an Ivorian son of a good family and a white New Yorker, LGBT activist and
French-speaking, who had dragged his gaiters a little outside the country's borders,
especially in Canada and Europe.
For the first remedial lessons in Franklin Heights, MarieHélène had landed in the family of a single
father of three little girls, who
would turn out to be Emmett, and where she first heard of,
the mouth of their grandmother still alive at that time, from Ma
Robinson, a historical figure in the neighborhood. A week had not passed
elapsed that the two women met. The Reverend used to
to drop by unexpectedly at his lifelong friend to talk about time
lost now, complaining about their carcasses creaking with every step.
"But they won't get us, will they, sister?" she hastened to
underline, without it being known to what ancient complicity this
" they ". And the two old ladies clapped their hands, laughing
like college girls. Marie-Hélène was impressed by the former prison guard, who had founded her own
church in order, among other things, to
to help the most vulnerable get out of the street and its dangers. She reminded him
the grandmother who, in the absence of her parents, had watched over her childhood:
the same mixture of harshness and gentleness, generosity and
perseverance. The pastor, for her part, took her under her wing, seduced by the
dedication to others and the keen political awareness of the young
Haitian-American.
Even more than Ma Robinson, the other person who was going to count for
Marie-Hélène in Milwaukee, he was a young history student met
about a year after his arrival, at the Golda-Meir library in
the university. Dan found Marie-Hélène's life extraordinary, when, at
to believe the latter, it was no different from that of hundreds of
thousands of children of immigrant origin. Parents who illegally entered the
United States, or arrived on a tourist visa. They live there for years
underground before obtaining a work permit, then their green card at
the favor of an administrative or political decision, and finally to be able
submit an application for family reunification for their sons and
girls they hadn't, sometimes, held in their arms for more than a
decade. Just as it had been ten years since Marie-Hélène
had not seen his grandmother again.
His story, it is true, had a touch a little more incredible.
His father had boarded a boat to reach Port-au-Prince from
Jérémie, when he was hijacked by five armed men who forced
the captain to set sail for Florida. This is how the father was
found, in spite of himself, on his way to the United States, without having been able to warn or his
partner, who had just given birth to Marie-Hélène at Jérémie, nor a
family member or even a friend. At the time, the epidemic of
cell phone had not yet reached the planet. Emigrate to the land of
Uncle Sam or elsewhere, was not part of his immediate plans.
As he was living in Haiti, he said to himself: one day, maybe, why not?
He was far from expecting it to happen in such conditions.
Stuck in the middle of the other makeshift passengers, he had come to the
following conclusion: if we accepted them on arrival, why refuse what
fate had brought him on a platter?
Way of talking. Because, between the boat loaded to the brim, by no means
cast off for such a long journey, the fear aroused by the presence of
pirates, the hunger that twisted the guts, the trial and error of the captain whose
the mental compass, strong from few years of sight navigation, had remained
blocked on the round trip Port-au-Prince/ Jérémie, without any other
maritime knowledge, and the vehement mood swings of
the Caribbean Sea, the crossing was anything but a cruise. They even had
right to run out of gas, followed by three days of drift during
from which supplications to heaven, to saints and to angels burst forth from all
chests until the voices die out, before the boat is finally
towed by a US Coast Guard patrol. nobody, not
even the captain did not dare to denounce the pirates. In Florida, MarieHélène's father had ended up,
like all the others, in the refugee camp of
Krome, on the Miami side.
He waited several months before human rights activists
take him out of the camp. They had obtained a "protected status" for him.
temporary", which allowed him to stay and work in the country
during a long period of uncertainty, depending on the goodwill of the
successive administrations. However, this statute did not authorize the
family reunification, especially since he was not married to MarieHélène's mother. After five years,
through hard work and tenacity, he was going to
come to the mother, sending her money every month that she deposited
on an account, thanks to which she was able to apply for and obtain a visa
tourist. Marie-Hélène had to stay with her maternal grandmother until
that the parents, who had married in the meantime, had managed to obtain
the green card. A year and a half later, with a good lawyer, who
had cost the eye of the head, Marie-Hélène finally joined them. She had
thirteen years old, she had been entrusted to a good soul who was traveling that day to
on the same plane. Upon arrival, a ghost was waiting for her: her mother, and
three strangers: his father, his two younger children aged seven and five.
The most painful thing, his father later confessed to him, was not
not having seen her grow up. All those years that had been stolen from them and
that they would never find again. The photos he had kept of her and that he
sometimes looked at eyes misted with tears would never make up for what
missing, neither for one nor for the other. Maybe he should have given up
nudge of destiny and join them in Haiti, her mother and her. " Pardon,
my daughter, sorry. Each time, Marie-Hélène, who had become a courageous
young woman, aware of social inequalities in the world and around
of her, reassured him: “You did it for our good, dad, and you were right.
We are together now. And she took him in her arms. Dan
couldn't believe she had spent more than half her life away from her
parents.
"I can't imagine how I would have made it all this time without my old people,
he said.
– You would have survived, like all those who had to.
do,” answered Marie-Hélène.
When she landed in Chicago, in the northern suburb of Evanston,
apart from the brick buildings of the main thoroughfares, the streets paved with
everywhere, unlike Jérémie, the Latino neighbors whose garish Spanish him
arrived all day long, she hadn't felt too out of place. Of
many Haitians and descendants of Haitians had lived there for years
seventy. She never set foot in the street without hearing, at a
time or another, speak Creole. It had helped her adapt to the place,
to her father whom she had come to know, the mother whom she was rediscovering
after eight years away from her, her brother and sister whom she saw differently
only in photos, and which she had to deal with very quickly. The father, a taxi driver,
and the mother, caregiver, did not spare their efforts in order to
offer the best.
"Otherwise," said the father, "we would have made all this sacrifice, left
our country for nothing. I wouldn't have seen you grow up for nothing, he repeated.
– There is no question, added the mother, that you end up in the
delinquency. This country does not give gifts, even less to blacks. It's necessary
work and go straight. Marie-Hélène, you are the eldest, it's up to you to show
example to children. »
She worked very hard at school, while keeping a close eye on her
cadets. She helped them with their homework, made sure they were always
clean and well dressed, that they eat properly and go to bed on time
the days, that is to say often, when the parents came home late at night. It doesn't
hadn't prevented her, in class, from getting A's in all the
materials. A B, and she was freaking out. After high school, parents,
who already imagined him with a doctor's coat, had a hard time
understand what meant and what concrete outlets could
complete these studies of letters in which she decided to embark. All
in fact, she was going to university, that they themselves had not had the
chance to attend, thought the father. That was enough to reassure him. “She goes away
will come out better than us, with the help of God and the lwa,” said the mother, who
took the children to the Haitian temple on Elmwood Avenue every
Sundays, but never forgot, on Halloween, to pour a little water and
of rum in honor of the saints, when the father chose to survey
the streets of Chicago in his taxi, so that the family does not run out of
nothing, before picking them up at the end of the service.
At first, Marie-Hélène had not made much of this zebra which
wore pigtails gathered in a rasta cap. It had to be one of those
Whites in serious identity crisis, who seek to make blacker than Blacks
and who, without realizing it, carry the worst faults. So flee.
Besides, she couldn't see how she could have brought a guy with
dreads at home. In the eyes of his parents, it could only be a
dope. She was aware of drawing plans on the comet, because it
Nothing had happened between them, she had no idea of ​the guy's intentions. And at
if so, it was up to him to declare himself.
"No way," her mother had told her, the day she turned eighteen,
to show your feelings, like that, to a boy. He will take what he was
come looking for you and after that he won't respect you anymore. »
It had started very badly, however, between the two. taking advantage of their
presence in the library queue to pick up books
on loan, Dan had asked her point-blank if she was going to attend the
screening of the documentary I Am Not Your Negro by Haitian filmmaker Raoul
Peck. Without a hello, without introducing himself. "Hi, I'm Dan Bronstein, I'm
history student, how about you? “, something like that. Nothing ! To
Last I heard, they hadn't kept the pigs together. Maybe
that, in his mind, a black woman had to be interested in these
movies. She would understand later, after practicing a little
good man, that it was quite simply a question of awkwardness on his part, one of
her primary qualities, would never cease to ironize the young woman. This way
to look cool had shocked Marie-Hélène as much as possible, who chooses, on the
moment, not to say anything.
“The session, he engaged, will be followed by a debate with the director. He
is even a question that he exchanges, that day, with a former Minister of
French justice. It's not confirmed yet, but it would be great in
a city like Milwaukee. Can you imagine! She is the first black woman
Minister of Justice in France, you are not going to miss this.
– You would have specified its pigmentation if it had been white? she replied curtly. She would have
wanted to let pass such a
ineptitude.
“You may not be wrong, sister. But I found out, he said.
raising his index finger knowingly. If there have been other women Ministers of
Justice before her in France, none, and none for that matter, was black.
– Still, you would have said the first woman, period.
"You're probably right, sis. White's old reflex, which I'll end up
erase. I'm working on it.
- I didn't ask you anything.
- Anyway, I think it's great, he concludes, with a smile that ends
to illuminate her baby face.
- While we're at it, stop calling me sis to be cool. Do I
you call me bro »
Dan's enthusiasm was unmistakable. Her gentle gaze and her smile
shy were going to succeed at first in softening, then disturbing
Marie-Hélène, who allowed herself to be persuaded and thus began to meet him from
from time to time to the library, then to go out for a tea or a juice
carrot with him between courses. She was starting the second year of a master's degree
in comparative literature, a discipline she had chosen because of the
credits in French-language literature, where she discovered authors
like Jacques Roumain, Marie Vieux-Chauvet, Jacques Stephen Alexis.
Dan was in his first year of a doctorate in contemporary history and
was researching “Intersectionality and Post-Colonialism”. When
he knew that Marie-Hélène came from Chicago and that she was also from
of Haiti – “a country of shit”, quoted the young woman in reference to the puppet
to toupee – he asked her if she knew that the City of the Winds had been
founded by a Haitian mestizo named Jean-Baptiste Point du Sable. It is
the first time she heard the word "Métis" in the mouth of a
American. And that surprised her.
As she did not have her tongue in her pocket, Marie-Hélène
asked in turn what a petty bourgeois from the East Side, in addition to doing
studies on a subject that concerned him neither as a white person nor as a
that male, combined with these rags on the head. Suddenly, Dan left
with a frank laugh, before explaining to him the meaning of all this. He was a vegetarian
like many true Rastas, and of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. His Ukrainian grandparents had fled Nazi
Europe with their respective families,
before landing in the East Side neighborhood of Milwaukee after a short
move to Chicago. The metropolis of Illinois had seemed too big to them. They
were looking for a city on a human scale, where to lick their wounds and
go back to life. If his own parents had in the meantime
gentrified, the grandparents had remained fierce militants
of civil rights, early members of the local chapter of the
NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. They
were of all the demonstrations during the virulent years of the struggle
against segregation. They had not stopped marching, in the name of the
human dignity, repeating in chorus the words of Bob's song
Dylan :
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man ?
"We Jews," the maternal grandfather had told him shortly
before his death – Dan must have been eleven years old – we have known too many
discrimination during our history as a people not to be
in solidarity with all anti-discrimination struggles. Never forget it, my
big. This is one of my problems with the State of Israel. I will have
been in South Africa, I would have done the same and joined the ranks of the ANC,
like Ruth First and her husband Joe Slovo, or even Harold Wolpe, who
experienced prison in the name of their egalitarian ideals. Since then, Dan was
of all struggles for equality, at the risk of sometimes getting lost.
The gradual entry of Marie-Hélène into his life gradually contributed to
able to put his feet back on the ground, without however castrating him from this
energy that deep down they both had in common. For the young
woman, “to want to be different too much, we end up shutting ourselves up,
community all to oneself, one forgets the collective struggles from which one derives
our strength. And the system takes advantage of it. Divide and conquer is old
like Herod. However, everyone has the right to respect for who they are.
If it is advisable to seek this tolerance for all and all, it is not necessary
lose sight of their place in the greater human community. She
shared this same vision with Ma Robinson, whom she devoured, in her
free time, words and experience. That's what she was fighting for
since her adolescence, since she had set foot in this country and
became aware of the enormous distance that separated people from each other
others. At the age of eighteen, she joined the ranks of the association of
Haitian-Americans of the Midwest, whose mission was to fight for
“the inalienable rights of women and affirming their contribution through
active presence in society.
Over the course of their interminable discussions, Dan had swapped the sister of the
beginning against babe to address Marie-Hélène, who was there more than
sensitive. She came from a country where even the street vendor, whom you don't
know neither Eve nor Adam, gives you "darling". In Dan's mind,
this passage from one word to another meant much more, than he ended up admitting to
Marie-Hélène, one evening on the telephone. She answered with a long silence – her
favorite weapon when she was taken aback –, before claiming a
emergency and hang up. To tell the truth, she didn't know how to react, she
stopped answering his calls for a whole week. He left her some
texting rivers, then long messages on his voicemail in which
sometimes he apologized, he didn't want to offend her, he was sorry if that had been the
case ; sometimes he told her that he could not live without his presence, without their
endless discussions, that he missed all that, “phew”.
She had seen it coming, however, despite her inexperience in matters
of man. She had even dreamed of it. Only, she was going on her twenty-fourth birthday and had never
kissed a boy in her life. During the ten
years past, she had been too busy with her studies and kicking
of hand at home to be interested in these things. What if the relationship took
flesh, how would Dan's parents, who voted Republican and
dreamed for their son, he confided to her later, of a Jewish princess
spoiled rotten American or, failing that, a Wasp well under all
reports ? And her parents, what would they say when they saw
disembark this greenhorn with "a pile of rags on his head"? This is how
that her mother was pointing to the dreads of a neighbor whom, for that, she believed to be hard
as iron to be Jamaican and who, after investigation by Marie-Hélène, had
revealed Trinidadian.
"They don't have the same accent, Mom.
"Never mind," replied the mother, who did not intend to lose face.
one of those Caribbeans who speak English. »
Two days before the screening of the film, Marie-Hélène decided to attend.
return, knowing full well that she would meet Dan there. So
how their relationship started. A native of Milwaukee, Dan knew the
city ​to its smallest corners. He was educated from primary to
terminale, at the Golda-Meir school. His grandparents had played feet and
hands so that he integrates this public institution, instead of the private school
that parents dreamed of to cultivate their class self-esteem. Inasmuch as
Jews, they argued, it must be a source of pride for them that
to send their son to such a school, which, even public, had a level
among the highest in the city.
“Besides the Golda, had argued the grandfather, it was a
sacred good woman of conviction. Nothing to do with the schemer fachos
who run the State of Israel today. »
The parents had ended up giving in without making any other concessions by the
following. In short, the city had no secrets for Dan, except Franklin Heights,
where he had never set foot and which he was going to get to know under the
conduct of Marie-Helene. The latter did not hesitate to make him
notice that he wasn't that cool, actually.
"No, but it's because of the dreads. The local bosses can believe
that I carry the Blacks, and the Whites, that I go there to get my fix.
– So for you, this is what Franklin Heights is? The majority
aren't ordinary citizens living there earning an honest living?
- I did not say that.
"I don't see what else you can understand. »
Marie-Hélène was not a woman to drop the case, always pushing him
in its last entrenchments. Do not leave an escape for the other,
to always be in conflict, consciously or not, was basically a
way to reassure yourself. As Dan tended to feel guilty, she was
well fallen. Besides this penchant for controversy, she willingly let herself
guide in the city by the native on duty. Big lover of jazz and
blues, Dan took advantage of the slightest opportunity to train him in
unlikely places, where she would never have ventured alone, yet
less at night. She had a hard time with jazz, which she called music
for intellectuals.
"Complain," Dan said ironically. My mother only listens to classical. THE
other music, she says snobbishly, gives her headaches. »
Marie-Hélène's preference was for country redneck, more
exotic to his ears and more catchy. To affirm it, she began to
leaping like a kid from the mountains, laughing, to the frenzied sounds of
Cotton Eye Joe or Milwaukee Blues, sometimes mimicking the violin, sometimes the
banjo. She started to change her mind the night Dan took her to Jazz.
Estate, a small cramped place located in the East Side district, where customers,
huddled together, literally stepping on each other's toes, a
glass of beer in their hands, which they spilled on it intermittently,
coming out of yet another stampede. That evening, Dan asked the quartet, whose
the drummer seemed to be part of his acquaintance, playing Sweet Home
Chicago, in homage to Marie-Hélène. The young woman, whom Dan had never
not let go of the hand during the performance of the piece, wept with emotion.
Over time, Dan had become a Franklin figure too.
Heights, recognizable from a hundred meters around. Those who did not greet him
did not leave him a royal peace, knowing that he benefited from the protection
sacredness of Ma Robinson and that in addition he was not a snitch. He was everything
happy when a young person from the neighborhood gave him "brother", without
seem to pay attention to the color of her skin, or that an elderly lady
called him "my son". That's how he was going to end up too
heart of the big protest at the exit of Emmett's funeral,
intended to demand justice for black victims of the police. We weren't
not halfway through the year, and there were already a hundred of them.
In their one-on-one moments, without the presence of Ma Robinson,
Stokely and d'Authie, Marie-Hélène insisted that Dan "decolorise" the
project. It was necessary to say “victims”, period. Otherwise, it could bring
water in the mill of those who wanted to make people believe, in bad faith, that
was only for blacks, to the detriment of others. too happy to
ask in a voice full of innuendo if the lives of Asians,
Whites, Latinos, policemen didn't count. Like this politician
that an LGBT activist, whom she had met several times on campus and
which left the impression of being at university more for the political fight
only to study, had recently been arrested during a TV show.
How many times had they had this discussion until no time, in the
Marie-Hélène's room, where Dan joined her at the weekend. Him
still lived with his parents, the mother not seeing the need for him
pay rent, when there was plenty of room at home. What,
according to Dan, was a way, as a good Jewish mother, to keep him near
from her. The young Milwaukean often insisted on the historical roots of the
problem in the United States, and the fairly recent, at least official, end of the
segregation had left wounds that would take time to heal.
"A parameter that must be taken into account," he pleaded vehemently.
This is what explains the excessive racialization of our society,
difficult to understand sometimes, seen from the outside. All this does not fade away
not overnight. Unless you are in denial, as may be
move to other countries. Here we are used to, for the better
as if for the worst, to take the problems head-on. »
When Dan was launched like this, he put all his passion into it, all his
kindness too. As if he were able to find, on his own, a
cure for evil. He had nevertheless listened to Marie-Hélène – had he
choice ? –, who insisted on the need not to make others feel guilty if he
wanted to rally them to the cause. “Most people are part of what we
calls the silent majority, they harbor no feelings of hostility
towards anyone. They just want their peace of mind, that's all. AT
rush them too much, you alienate them. Dan did not fail to apply the
advice from his girlfriend when it was a question of inviting to the march in
tribute to Emmett his childhood and teenage friends, who were not
especially involved in this type of struggle. Far from it.
THE BALL OF SHAME
AMONG THE STUDENTS to whom Marie-Hélène provided academic support at
Franklin Heights, there was a thirteen-year-old girl, who answered the
very beautiful name of Abigail. Her slender face, very gentle in the
look, stands out with his robust physique and a height of about one meter
seventy-two. It didn't take Marie-Hélène long to meet the grandmother, Granny Mary Louise, as she
would call her out of respect, and
who was none other than Emmett's mother. Friendly and always well dressed
her person, the lady was approaching seventy-two years of age. She was doing more
still dapper to go to the Sunday morning service, not hesitating
not, in spite of his age and his strong corpulence, to pull himself up on pumps with
five centimeter heel, all embellished with a hat the color of
the dress, placed askew on her head carried by a very straight neck. Since the
first day, she spoke to Marie-Hélène about the reverend of her temple, a
certain Ma Robinson, who was also a childhood friend.
"I'm sure you'll have things to say to each other and to do.
together”, she slipped in a pleasant voice, unlike the one,
rocky, former smoker of his old girlfriend.
The three generations: the grandmother, Emmett, the father, and the three daughters
lived under the same roof, on the floor of a decrepit house located a few
blocks of the A. O. Smith factory, at least what was left of it, specialized
now in the manufacture of residential water heaters. Passed the door
entrance, one came across a wooden wall staircase, delimiting, on the right side, a
corridor leading to the ground floor apartment occupied by another
family. At the top of the stairs, a new door opened into a vestibule
all-in-one that served as kitchen, dining room and living room; we
found a faded leather sofa leaning against the wall, just below the
window overlooking the street, and a television wedged into an angle on a
mini coffee table on wheels. Around it stood three gates, two of which
kept the privacy of the bedrooms and the last corresponded to the
bathroom and toilet.
When Marie-Hélène started remedial classes, some eighteen
months before the tragedy that was going to shake the country, she had to put up with
space: the dining table, planted in the middle of the room, served
office incidentally to Abigail, who was struggling to concentrate because of the
constant coming and going of her sisters, one seven years old and the other three, to whom
you had to remind them all the time to go and play in their room. THE
The girl's difficulty concentrating must have had other causes than
the bustle of her younger sisters and the cramped space. Maybe it should
also look for a mother registered with absent subscribers, whose name
was never pronounced in the presence of Marie-Hélène, neither for good nor for bad.
As if Abigail had been adopted at birth, or conceived by GPA; what
seemed unlikely, given the family's financial situation.
In any event, she showed goodwill, and Marie-Hélène
had high hopes of bringing it to a decent level.
The young woman did not have time to get to know the grandmother very well, whom her
granddaughters simply nicknamed Granny. It was not
a lack of interest. Apart from the first day, when they took the time to
get acquainted, when Marie-Hélène arrived, Granny Mary Louise was
already out, sometimes for a few hours of cleaning paid black on the side
from the East Side, in order to supplement his meager pension, sometimes give a helping hand
hand to his old friend Ma Robinson. She didn't know how to remain inactive,
always in search of a job to keep busy or to make oneself useful. so
that the two women hardly saw each other, or very little, in a gust of wind.
However, Granny Mary Louise never failed to thank MarieHélène at each of their rare encounters, at
home or at the temple. She
always did so in her own name and in the name of the son, whom Marie-Hélène
had to meet, in all and for all, three times.
He too was not often at home, having to share his time
between two jobs, one as precarious as the other, according to what the
reverend had reported to Marie-Hélène during one of their long
discussions where she retraced the history of the district, as if for a
handover. My Robinson had told her about Emmett, but also about his
two lifelong friends, Stokely and Autherine, aka Stoke and Authie. MarieHélène had run into Emmett
on a Saturday afternoon when Dan had dragged her to the
Whole Foods in spite of itself, because this supermarket for the middle classes, with
several well-stocked organic departments, cost the skin of the buttocks and the
young woman, in addition to her lack of means, was reluctant to "feed the
capital's new fad to get our hands in our pockets. That day, she was in a good mood and had followed
her boyfriend, grumbling nevertheless,
story to mark the occasion and to avoid that the boho vegan rasta imposes on him
bad habits.
She had fallen on Emmett, huddled in his security guard uniform.
quilted blue, which made its silhouette even more imposing. It was there
second time they saw each other. Emmett had recognized her and had
greeted with a broad smile. He had opened the door for her, stepping aside
before her with a pronounced bow, as for a character
important, before throwing her: “How are you doing today, Miss MarieHélène? Abigail keeps telling me
about you. Thank you again for her, for
All. The conversation did not extend beyond a simple
exchange of courtesies. The young woman had kept a memory of it as much
more moved that Emmett had the same sweetness in his daughter's eyes.
A week after this meeting, Granny Mary Louise took the plunge,
swept away by a devastating pulmonary embolism. The funeral was
grandiose, celebrated by a Ma Robinson of the great days, who knew how to find
exhilarating words to tell about her childhood friend, make her laugh and cry
in turn the assistance, commending his soul to the Eternal, while waiting for the
return in grace of Christ, as described by the apostle John in the Book of
Revelation. Almost all of Franklin Heights crowded into the small
temple. Stoke and Authie, in their best of looks, stood on either side
of Emmett and the three girls, not speaking to each other at any time.
Marie-Hélène remembered it very well. It was the third time she
crossed paths with Emmett, three months or so before his tragic death.
During the ceremony, the son of Granny Mary Louise remained as
absent, not from that shock that inhabits us at the sudden death of a
close. He seemed unmoved by Ma Robinson's stirring sermon. At
grieving world around him. Even when Marie-Hélène approached
and, for lack of words to comfort him, had promised to continue to bring
her tutoring to Abigail, whose tears seemed to never have to
dry up, just like those of its younger sisters who cried, no doubt, to see
so many people cry around them. According to Franklin residents,
who had to cross him, Emmett would keep on his face and even in his
gestures this feeling of being elsewhere during the last three months of his
life.
Despite the mother's disappearance, Marie-Hélène no longer had to
see you at home, where Ma Robinson and other temple “sisters”
relayed to help the girls mourn their granny and bring them
logistical support, oh so essential on a daily basis. It was necessary
compensate for the absence of the father, who continued to float, according to the word of the
Reverend, who nevertheless made sure that he came home to sleep well at night, so that
not to leave the girls alone at home. For her part, Marie-Hélène
made it his duty to come by two or three times a week. The days when she
could not be present, she exchanged text messages, shared stories
with Abigail on Instagram. Yet his schedule was rather
loaded: an undergraduate French course to be provided at the university, its
research for the thesis – after the master, she had decided, in favor
a fairly generous, albeit insufficient, scholarship to pursue his
doctoral studies on the Haitian writer Marie Vieux-Chauvet…
Without forgetting Dan, who complained of not seeing her enough, whereas, apart from
the weekends when she returned to her family in Chicago, they spent
rarely a weekend without each other. What, of course, his
parents, his brother and his sister reproached him, who would have liked them
also, having it more often at home.
The three months following the death of Emmett's mother, Ma Robinson
had the opportunity to admire the young Haitian-American more. If God,
in His infinite mercy, had seen fit to give her a child, she
would have loved for him to have his generosity, his strength of character, his ardor for
work, his faith in life as in the Lord. But the time had passed,
she was older to be Marie-Hélène's grandmother than Marie-Hélène's mother.
Although... had not the Almighty allowed Sarah to give birth to
ninety years struck? Fool's nonsense! She had never
supported the whims of a man. She wasn't going to start now.
In the meantime, she was under the spell of Marie-Hélène. The young lady
was overflowing with initiatives, including the creation of the website to which Ma Robinson
never would have thought. She was also involved, as much as her studies made her
allowed, in the mutual aid network which unfortunately continued to expand. There
pastor would have preferred the opposite, even if this activity benefited the
influence of his ministry. Lately she had seen a
population that did not live in Franklin Heights, such as the Hispanics of
South Side, for example, for the first time pushing the door of
association. We recognized the newcomers, or rather the new ones,
because they were mostly women, mostly single mothers,
to the embarrassment they put in entering and leaving with bags in hand, as
if the whole world was watching them or knowing where they had shopped.
Emmett had never been there, even when his mother was alive.
A mixture of pride and shame prevented him from doing so. Yet he knew Ma
Robinson since birth, she was a mom way of
substitute for him. He had difficulty, well into his forties, having to
resort to popular relief to feed his family. It was not however
a slacker, he did his best to try to improve on the ordinary. But
for him, as for millions of others, the reality was there, solid,
disturbing. The salary of the first fortnight went into the payment of the
rent ; that of the second was barely enough to pay the compulsory charges
and provisions for, at most, two weeks. Not to mention the costs
occasional. However, we had to hold out for the rest of the month. The loss of his mother
had plunged him into a gentle depression, which made him even less inclined
to accept the situation. My Robinson had to take advantage of his absence to
bring the girls food prepared by the “sisters” of the temple,
fill the fridge a little, in order to spare this pride which devoured it
inside.
He also dragged the shame of having failed to achieve his footballing dream
professional, who would have set him up as a model for millions of young people in the
country. In particular, those of the neighborhood where he had to return, the queue between the
legs, living in the old shack where he was born and raised. And this
wasn't finished. After leaving home to found a home with a
friend of Authie, the time to make the third daughter, he had returned there a
second time, being forced, which is worse, to rely on the chick
his mother's pension. He had failed all along; if only to
show the youngest a path other than that of the street, business,
the violence that plagued Franklin Heights and so many comparable neighborhoods
in the country. He dragged this failure like a ball and chain, while no one left
didn't talk about it. People had turned the page. Subscribers to a life of
disappointments, they used to chase one chimera by another
to last until the end of life. It was called the American Dream.
Shortly after the death of her old friend, Ma Robinson had insisted
to meet Emmett, under the pretense of telling him about the girls, whom she
knew for sure that he loved them beyond reason. Mary's son
Louise had listened to her with an absent gaze, even when she had mentioned
the memory of her mother, her fighter temperament, which she had rediscovered
a bit at Abigail's. She did not let go, the little one, thanks in part to the
devotion of the young Marie-Hélène. But in order for her to continue to
hang on, show the example to her younger sisters, she needed a model,
her too, that of a more lively father – that was the term she had used,
My Robinson. That was education, the role model. Not the words to which we
can say the opposite of our deep being. Exemplary
don't be mistaken. It would also be a way to honor the memory of the deceased
Mary Louise.
"You're right, Reverend," Emmett conceded. You have
surely right. Your word is golden, as usual. Oh yes. As
usually. But what do you want? When we are chased by the
scoumoune… »
He had allowed a long silence to pass, which Ma Robinson, knowing him,
chooses to respect. He had always been a boy of few words. Maybe, he ended up confessing in a
rare surge of confidence, maybe
shouldn't he have come back, if it was to offer this lousy spectacle to the
neighborhood. Not only to those who had seen him leave, to the young
also who had no doubt heard his name mentioned.
“We should not retrace our steps when we failed to hang on
his dreams matched his ambitions at the time of departure. »
The sentence sounded like a universal truth, a way of
absolute theorem whose evidence admitted no discussion. Emmett
remained with his mouth half open for a moment, as if he wanted to continue
talk. But he hadn't added anything else. Instead, he was gone,
without waiting for an answer from old Ma Robinson. This is where the
Reverend understood that in truth he had never returned. Or rather that he was
shattered income. Like the migrant forced to return to the starting point,
between two foreign policemen, a thin bundle on the shoulder with
inside the shreds of his dreams. These are the exact words he had
entrusted that day to the reverend and which she brought back to her little troop:
Marie-Hélène, Dan, Stoke and Authie, shortly before the funeral
of Emmett and the big march they were about to organize in his
honor.
The small group was all the more determined to mark the spirits than to
nasty rumors circulated on the Net, relayed by the chains
continuous information. According to these, in addition to suffering, one did not know
what serious pathology, Emmett would have been, at the time of the arrest,
under the influence of an illicit substance which would have made him aggressive towards
of the policeman. It is this cocktail disease + drug which would have been at the origin of
his death. Not the agent, who had only defended himself by applying the
techniques learned at the police academy. Those who spoke through and through
murder, assassination, intentional homicide, police violence
systemic attacks against part of the population, jeopardized
the unity of one of the greatest – if not the greatest – democracies
of the world. “I cannot endorse these words”, had launched a politician,
whose opinion evolved according to the tweets of the moment.
Hearing these arguments, Dan, who had never met Emmett,
apart from the only time in front of the supermarket, could not hold back a sound: “the
son of a bitch “, before apologizing to the reverend, under the eye
lightning of Marie-Helene. Ma Robinson told him to calm down. Of
Obviously, she said, it was the line of defense of the lawyer for the
policeman, who was launching a trial balloon with public opinion, in the
anticipated attempt to influence the members of a possible popular jury,
media addict. False information repeated until nausea
eventually become truth. Hence the importance of keeping a cool head for
better organize the counter-attack. In the meantime, we had to focus on
the essentials, namely the funeral – that, she took care of – the march and
some elements of response to broadcast on the Internet: Emmett did not suffer
of any serious pathology likely to lead to his death. No, he does not
did not do drugs. And even so, did that make him without rights?
Did he deserve to have his life taken away in these circumstances?
PREPARATIONS
AFTER CONSULTING with Emmett's eldest daughter, Ma Robinson stopped the
funeral on the following Sunday, with the hope of bringing together the greatest
possible number of people in view of the march which would take place just
After. “We have a week to organize everything,” she announced to
his staff, including obtaining assembly authorization from
competent bodies. That way, no one would have anything to their
blame neither the police nor the white supremacists, even if the latter
would always find lice for them. Recently, they
felt growing wings, encouraged by the irresponsible tweets of the
President. As for the authorities, in particular the town hall, they would do well
poor figure by prohibiting a planned march in accordance with the laws,
called to take place in calm and tranquility, at the risk of encouraging
uncontrolled, less peaceful demonstrations, as had
started to be the case in the country, and to expose themselves to criticism from
all around. The timing worked in their favour.
Since the last meeting with the pastor and the others, Dan was not holding back
more his joy. He lived in permanent excitement, which would have brought the
heart attack to anyone other than him. He barely allowed himself a few hours
sleep. But the guy had a strong heart and a cool head
when needed. His mind was bubbling with ideas to prevent the demonstration,
even planned at the exit of the funeral, does not turn into a parade
funeral, with slogans launched from a voice from beyond the grave and
placards brandished without realizing it, at the end of tired arms. He wanted
certainly that it is something alive, an appointment of fraternity and
of solidarity, as summarized by Ma Robinson, but carried by a
thundering music which, in addition to notes of hope, would spread good
mood. As one inoculates a serum of life to a society in the process of
To die.
That said, choosing music that was unanimous was far from being
obvious. Between Ma Robinson who only had it for the gospel, and the two
Emmett's childhood friends, fans of nineties R&B,
everyone had their own idea about the musical entertainment of the march. From Review
of Marie-Hélène, rap was only aimed at young people and could seem too
aggressive, with regard to the discourse they wanted to convey. With the
risk, for older demonstrators, to feel excluded. It was not
the vibe, for example, of a Ma Robinson whom she saw badly, in her capacity as
pastor, endorse the dirty words, as she said, that were found there so
often. A lexicon that shocked the young woman tucked inside her just as much,
brought up with respect for propriety, even more so in a country which,
originally, was not his.
Never mind ! Dan knew the notes that would put everyone
world in tune. For him, Bob's music was the most unifying.
The idea thrilled Marie-Hélène, who thought, at first, that he
it was Bob Dylan. She had a crush on the composer and performer of
Just Like A Woman, discovered the day the Nobel Prize was awarded.
Since then, the comparative literature student swore only by Dylan: “His
texts are just sublime. True sung poems. And the young woman,
believing to convince his friend, launched into a delirium both inspired and
abstruse, as only academic literary critics know.
Dan, the historian accustomed to dealing with tangible facts, restrained himself not to
giggle and offend her at the same time – she knew how to be so
susceptible sometimes. He could not, however, refrain from objecting:
"It's not the sixties anymore, honey. The texts are good
it's true, but it lacks life. Listening to these songs and seeing the face of
Dylan, it feels like going to his mother's funeral. It is exactly
what I want to avoid. Me, I'm talking about the one and only Bob, Mr Marley.
– The drug addict with the pothole on his head?
– It’s much more alive, isn’t it? In addition to making people dance, its
music conveys an appropriate message. »
Dan imagined the loudspeakers cranked up, and the demonstration
come alive like a long serpent in a spree, to the fiery rhythm of: Get Up,
Stand Up, Redemption Song, Buffalo Soldier… Tracks that sound like
fiery slogans, the words of which he knew by heart. He started to
shake his head from right to left, after taking off his cap to
leave her dark brown dreads, which contrasted with her almost
fluffy, fluttering on either side of his shoulders, jumping from one foot to
the other, repeating in his pot voice the words of War, true
declaration of war against all forms of racial and social discrimination, whether
the mixed-race Jamaican singer wanted to eradicate from the face of the Earth:
Until the philosophy which hold one race superior
And another inferior
Is finally and permanently
Discredited and abandoned
Everywhere is war
Me say war
That until there no longer
First class and second class citizens of any nation
Until the colour of a man’s skin
Is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes
Me say war
Like Bob, he too did not want a philosophy that
advocated the superiority of one race over another, of a society with
first- and second-class citizens, where skin color had
more important than the eyes. Before he could go any further,
Marie-Hélène stopped him in his tracks and said to him, her gaze fixed on his: "You don't
won't put I Shot The Sheriff. We agree ? In the face of his hesitation, his
girlfriend repeated: “Do we agree? Dan had to nod in spite of himself.
The question of the music solved, it was now necessary to think of the words
of order and the general message that the organizers of the march heard
pass. “Brotherhood and solidarity, be it, but also justice”, was agitated a
Stubborn authie. That was first and foremost why they would pound the pavement
Sunday: “Justice for Emmett and his daughters. My Robinson had made a point of
associate with the movement Stokely and Authie, who had not addressed the
floor for ages and that events had contributed to
mend. In addition to wanting to strengthen the links between the two
remaining musketeers, in honor of the missing friend, it was also a
way to ensure that the residents of Franklin Heights do not feel
dispossessed of their fight by people who are certainly benevolent, but who came
Besides.
Too happy to have been associated with the tribute to his childhood friend,
Stokely had struggled with young people in the neighborhood, to try to get them there.
interest in turn. For these young people, whose relationship to time was part of
in the immediate term, the delay was fundamental. So he insisted on the idea of ​a
short-term objective: the march for incarceration, then the judgment of the
murderer of Emmett and his accomplices. His commitment seemed to carry
its fruits, given the unusual bubbling that reigned in Franklin.
Some young people, at the start of spring, wore black T-shirts
flocked, on their own initiative, in white letters: "Justice for
Emmett. The same watchword they repeated after greeting each other according to
a ritual of their own; we toss each other in the hands, a brief hug and we
raises his left fist at forehead height:
« Justice pour Emmett, bro.
– Justice pour Emmett, sis. »
More significantly still, the kitty which Stokely had suggested the
creation had collected in three days more than one hundred and fifty thousand dollars,
including donations from well-known artists and athletes. A Packers player,
the Green Bay football team, had paid twenty-five thousand dollars to the
his family name. No doubt he had learned that Emmett was a veteran of the
college football league. And it kept falling. " A
real godsend, rejoices Ma Robinson. Blessed be the Lord! Stoke was
so proud when he was informed that he sketched a few dance steps, under
the delighted eyes of Marie-Hélène and Dan, and the friendly mockery of Authie;
sign that the two had reconciled for good: “Stop puffing yourself up
like a turkey, otherwise you'll explode. »
However, this success should not overshadow the preparations. For the
full success of the demonstration, of which they had already obtained the green light
with the competent authorities, they would still have to fight over at least
least two fronts: the watchwords and the making of the placards of a
go ; each other's stories to be broadcast on the web. The days before,
Stokely, Authie, Marie-Hélène and Dan met in the back room of the
temple for regular brainstorming. The small group quickly agreed on
essential: short, well-felt messages were needed to denounce the
police violence. Without amalgam however, underlined Marie-Hélène. Born
if only for the purpose, among other things, of rallying the moderates to the cause
among law enforcement. It was his mantra. The objective was to make
so that the greatest number of participants feel concerned at the
first chief. As if, in Emmett's place, there had been a friend, a
cousin, a brother, or even oneself.
These brainstorming sessions resulted in more slogans
evocative of each other. “I am a man”, proposed by
Stokely, was refuted by Authie, who asked him if women mattered
for plums. “Just look around, man. who raises your
kids, right here in Franklin, when you go chasing the mirages of
the Uncle or the ass of your mistresses? Stokely tried to justify himself by
arguing that Emmett was a man, not a good woman. " So what ? That
does not make him less of a human being,” retorted Authie, who suggested “I am
a human being,” putting the other two on his side. "1-0", welcomed
Authie. Not to be outdone, Stoke then offered:
"I choke", "Let my people breathe", that the demonstrators could
chanting to the gospel tune Let My People Go, Ma Robinson would appreciate.
“We die, brother”, an idea of ​Marie-Hélène, who parodied the title of a
novel by Haitian Edwidge Danticat. Then came: "Dead for ten
balls”, “I had a dream”, “Hands up! Don’t shoot”…
Rose water watchwords for Dan, who came out a whole lot
far more muscular panoply: "It's fed up", "The white silence is
violence”, “We are already dead, we might as well die for the good cause”, “Not
justice, no peace”, “Next time, fire”, title of an essay by
James Baldwin, “Burn, Baby, Burn”, that of a journalistic account at
about the uprising of the people of Watts in 1965 against the
police violence, "By any means necessary", slogan falsely
attributed to Malcolm X, he reported, and who was actually from Martiniquais
Frantz Fanon…
During his long hours of insomnia, he had plenty of time to
throw on his mobile phone the ideas that came to his mind in bulk.
He wanted to go further. In his eyes, the police were none other than the
watchdogs of a brutal capitalism which, in the long run, we would have to
get rid of in order to achieve a fairer and more rational society.
“Occupying Wall Street would serve no purpose, but burning it as a symbol
of the system, yes. And the sooner the better. If it were up to him, he
would have set up a people's tribunal to try the perpetrators of these crimes and
execute the sentences rendered. Shorten in the name of the people, like the
French had done it during their Revolution, all those who would put themselves
through. The motto of the court: “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The maid
old law of retaliation, what. Or better, he flared up: “Who strikes by
sword shall perish by sword, this attribute of righteousness speaks to all. MarieHélène found him so
exalted, too much for her taste, that she called him Ogou Feray.
with kosher sauce.
“Who is this Ogou Feray? he asked.
“The voodoo spirit of war,” she replied flatly.
- It's great, I'm fine. »
The next day, he arrived at the meeting with a watercolor representing
a warrior dressed all in red perched on a white horse galloping and
brandishing a flag on which appeared the vèvè of Ogou, surmounted by a
David's star. The character's eyes flashed with anger. He
had drawn it himself, after doing research on the Internet for
identify the symbolic attributes of the lwa. From a very young age he had
always sought an outlet in drawing; this activity had the virtue of
calm him down when he was pissed off at someone or something. It was
arrived all smiles, thinking to please Marie-Hélène; the watercolor had
rather shocked the young woman, whose religion did not go well together
with voodoo, which she took for vulgar superstition.
After this misunderstanding, the two lovers plunged body and soul back into
the preparation of the demonstration. For stories to be broadcast on the web, Dan
proposed to Marie-Hélène to stage the poem "Sales Nègres" by
the Haitian Jacques Roumain, found in a prestigious bilingual edition of the
collection Bois-d’ébène, which his girlfriend had given him for his birthday.
This proposal did not come out of nowhere. Marie-Helene herself
told him of an event that was comical to say the least, which had taken place
at his previous university in Chicago, where 90% of professors and above
two-thirds of the students were white. The presidency had initiated a
workshop on the best way to approach “the black question” in
the university. After all why not ? Ridicule had arrived when she proposed to open the workshop with
a collective meditation to find
the courage and serenity to tackle such a thorny subject.
“The worst thing,” raged Marie-Hélène, “is that the participants played the
game. "
Ma Robinson's two lieutenants split the poem into
several stanzas, which they considered posting on the temple site and
social networks, one per day until the celebration of the funeral and the
course of the event. In this country where the term nigger was
taboo, even blasphemous pronounced by a white man who, even taking up
quote from a black person, had to make sure to say “the N-word”, otherwise
end up at the stake, and feign emotional turmoil bordering on
fainting, if by chance someone were to do it in his
presence, they were forced to admit that letting Dan read the poem would be
perceived as a provocation. "So counterproductive," concludes MarieHélène, who once again had to
temper her boyfriend's ardor, decided to
throw his hypocrisy in the face of this small world.
Well, there it is :
us
the niggers
les niggers
the dirty niggers
we no longer accept
it's simple
ends…
From there, they agreed that the text would be read in
canon by Marie-Hélène and her Ivorian roommate. Dan paid himself in
on the other hand the pleasure of a short appearance in the story to chant the verse
“dirty Jews”. Mischievous, Marie-Hélène suggested that she also say "dirty
proletarians”. “With your boho face from the East Side, you will be very
convincing in the role, ”she slipped, tongue-in-cheek. "Dirty Arabs"
was entrusted to the Frenchwoman of North African origin, who was difficult to
convince: she claimed to be Berber. To call it Arab, from the name of the
invaders of the land of his ancestors, was reductive and discriminating,
before finally accepting at the request of the Ivorian, for which she
hid a big weakness badly.
… it will be too late I tell you
because until the tom-toms will have learned the language
of the International
because we will have chosen our day
the day of the dirty niggers
dirty indians
dirty hindus
dirty Indo-Chinese
Dirty Arabs
dirty Malays
dirty jews
filthy proletarians
In the days leading up to the event, followers of their various
networks fired the four students from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
slam the poem by the Haitian author, whose masterpiece Gouverneurs de
the dew constitutes at this date one of the greatest novels of the language
French:
And here we are standing
All the damned of the earth
all the vigilantes
marching to attack your barracks
and your banks
like a forest of funeral torches
to finish
a
time
For
all
with this world...
Since it was up to everyone to manage their own network, Dan ruled out
from the outset his parents, who had voted for the puppet show, without
never show the slightest sign of regret. No need, he thought, to waste his
energy trying to convince them. In any case, he needed people
who were in contact with others, who in turn had a network
quite extensive, and so on. At more than fifty years old, in addition to their ideas
policies that horrified him, his parents were not connected enough.
Hence his decision to concentrate his efforts on the friends and acquaintances of
his generation.
His strategy was well decided: he would start from the closest, the friends
first, then the acquaintances with whom he had a regular relationship,
before widening the circle gradually. He should thus be able to rally
without too much difficulty his former bachelor comrades from the university
Marquette, brave Catholics filled with good feelings for the
mostly. At the master, he had preferred to join the public, just to stay
consistent with himself, to the great displeasure of the parents, who wondered that
what the hell was he going to do in what they called a jobless factory. Garlic
would go back to his little classmates from the Golda-Meir high school. Most
had already entered working life, they had even begun to
a name in good Milwaukee society. Luckily he had the
reflex to stay in virtual contact with them. Some accumulated not far from
five thousand “friends” on social networks. As far as he could tell, they
hadn't forgotten him. They never failed to "like" his stories or
his comments. Oh ! he was not fooled by these friendships. But if he
managed to convert to the cause even half of them for
three, four hours, the time of the demonstration, it would always be a win.
As the hours passed, Dan had the pleasant impression of putting the steps
in those of his grandparents, his maternal grandpa in particular. Destiny
had thrown them far from their roots, brought them as far as Milwaukee without them
have lost their memory or interest in others, their sisters and brothers
humans. It was from this inherited memory that his interest was born.
for contemporary history, whose living witnesses could still
report their own version of events, before these are
transformed into a national novel, which too often tended to exclude the other.
He would do anything to keep the march in the annals of Milwaukee.
She would make him worthy of his grandparents. Also worthy of Marie-Hélène,
who, in a year and a half, had taken a considerable place in his life. He
kept putting off talking about her to her parents, even though
his mother yearned to know where he spent most of his weekends. A day,
tired of not seeing him for a whole week – she was leaving
work early in the morning, and he came home late at night – she had thrown him,
provocative: "You can move to where you sleep if you want, you
know. But Dan had not fallen into the trap. It is he, and he alone, who
would choose the moment to tell them about it.
With the help of distance, Marie-Hélène's position was more comfortable.
If necessary, all she had to do was tell her parents that she was not coming home.
Chicago on the weekend because she had work, or she had to
do with the Reverend. And the case was over. Although there are three
weeks, after receiving a phone call from her family, she had dropped him at the
last minute, when they had planned to leave for the weekend to celebrate
the beginning of spring in Madison, a city where students had more
places at their disposal to meet and party. His juniors
complained that they hadn't seen her in a long time, they needed
for his help in solving problems with the high school. " Certainly
a blow from the parents", had regretted Marie-Hélène, but she had gone there, the
leaving alone with his desire for a romantic weekend. The organization of the
march was presenting itself as a baptism of fire for their
couple, called to weld them together for years to come. It was, at least, the
secret wish of Dan, who was already seeing them, with children then grandchildren,
make regular pilgrimages to Haiti.
GENDER AND COLOR
THE DAY AFTER the black man died, police officer Gordon had found
refuge in its pretty pavilion of Cudahy, in the south-east of the city, with a view
diving on Lake Michigan. The house, bordered by a lawn mowed
millimeter, was located close to Sheridan Park where, in all seasons,
he indulged in his jogging to maintain a physical condition which he
took great pride and where he did his duty, spring and summer alike,
to bring his family, often without taking the car, unlike a
deep-rooted local habit. It gave them a little ride that ended
with the crossing – exciting for the girls, because of the very busy traffic
dense in both directions – from South Lake Drive, which the park backed onto.
The only downside to this white middle-class suburb where it
had chosen to plant his family happiness was the proximity of the airport
General-Mitchell and the regular noise of planes taking off and
landing. Over time, he got used to it. Especially since, despite the adjective
"international" that the municipality had attached to it to give itself airs,
in practice, it was Chicago airport that handled the bulk of the traffic
airline in the region and almost all long-haul flights. " And then,
c’est la vie, he liked to repeat, the most beautiful roses have their thorns. »
Since the day before, the house had been surrounded by a pack of journalists,
willing to do anything in exchange for a word from him or a member of his
family. A fake platinum blonde from a high-profile TV channel
popular audience - Gordon had recognized her - held at arm's length, above her head, a white sign on
which was written in marker
black: “$10,000 for an exclusive. This sum would have helped him
repay part of the mortgage loan. So far, none of them
failed to obtain his cell phone number, nor that of his
women. It won't be long, he thought fatalistically. These scavengers
always achieved their ends. Luckily, he had terminated here is a lease
the landline subscription, which would have been easier to trace, even
when we were on the red list. All wanted to feed their
viewers the monster behind the death of the Black, organize
debates with sometimes the general public, sometimes so-called experts, professors
university professors, sociologists, shrinks, ready to burn themselves out to make their
valuable opinion. As if it was the first time it happened in the
country, that a black person succumbs following the arrest of a police officer.
At the police academy, they were taught to draw faster than their
shadow, shoot first and discuss afterwards, if the other, in the meantime, had not
landed ad patres. Besides, it was not uncommon for the policeman to be black.
Also. And there was no asshole or no newspaper slut there.
my two to go and brandish his microphone in his face and ask him for
accounts by taking himself for the Attorney General, with the sentence of
condemnation already written, voted unanimously by a people's court whose
the members remained well hidden behind the anonymity of the networks
social. Oh no! they could shoot each other with impunity. Him,
he had no right to carry out his work in peace, for which he was
paid from public funds; namely, upholding the law, that he had no
incidentally neither written nor voted, without a bunch of hyenas
fall on it.
What they didn't say either, these jackals, is that white people
also were the expense of smudges. To a lesser extent, he wanted
well admit it, but it is because, on the whole, these
broke the law less, period. “There is no need to look for twelve to fourteen
hours. In any case, when it happened, no one said a word about it; of
less, not as much. It didn't give rise to all this fuss. The agent of
police was not harassed, hunted down, vilified, his honor dragged into the
mire, as his had been for two days. Concretely, that he
reproached these zealots of well-thought, who only dream of
tearing down the statues of great men like President Thomas
Jefferson or General Robert Lee to appease their bad conscience
privileged? These techniques of neutralization, he did not have them
invented himself. He had learned them at the police academy. Those are the
the same that were practiced throughout the country to subdue a suspect
recalcitrant during their arrests, like these colleagues from New
York a handful of years earlier in the case of the other one there, Garnier,
something like that. Placing the individual face down on the road
in order to put on the bracelets, one knee on the back and the other on the side
to hold him down and stop him wriggling. Afterwards, is it his fault if
the other ran out of air because he was under the influence of drugs and he
had a respiratory illness? If it is, he simulated in order to make himself
remove the handcuffs. He would have liked to see all those who accuse him at his
place. “How the hell do you do it when the guy starts gesticulating and
that he weighs a ton, like most of these people, who have no
lifestyle and spend their time stuffing themselves with fried chicken and potatoes
sweet? Some of them, who had been integrated en masse into the
ranks of the police since the riots that followed the Rodney affair
King in order to calm their community, well, they were unable to
walk three hundred meters at a brisk pace without running out of
breath.
Besides, he was not alone in the story, there were also his three
colleagues, including two in training with him. Among them, a "colored",
even if it was not visible at first sight. It took a keen eye like
his to note it down. He was different from the others, he didn't spend his
time lamenting his fate, playing the victim all day long,
when there was only one for them, on TV, on the Web, everywhere. Even
for hiring in certain jobs where they had priority, their quota which
waiting for them warm. As for women; parity, whether they
were saying. Despite that, they were not damned to find a job. And if they
took their destiny into their own hands for once, rather than sitting on
their big ass waiting for the Welfare payment, or for the State to settle their
bills instead? “We are not in a damn communist country. »
What did they think, those shirkers? That he was born with a spoon
silver in the mouth? That he didn't put up a fight, like everyone
world, in order to pay off the bills for the house and the car, pay the
bills, take care of your family? Often, outside his working hours
work, he helped out in the private sector to make ends meet. With a
housewife wife – it was her honor – and two daughters who had
all kinds of fashionable needs, it had to be.
There was also the Asian at the time of the arrest. He liked her,
that one. Of Cambodian origin, like his wife. He was a hard worker, a
true, who was not reluctant to work, piled on overtime
without complaining. Not just to put butter in the spinach. He
was driven by the same sense of duty as him. With guys like that
Constable Gordon had never had a problem. On the contrary of
others who, for a yes for a no, spoke to you of cotton fields,
that this era was over, that everyone had the same
rights. Besides, they had arrived on the same boat, at the same time
that we. Although he could have answered them, if he had wanted, that his
ancestors had traveled on the bridge, they, while theirs were piled up
in the hold like fucking sardines, to macerate in their
excrement, their vomit and their damn lamentations. But that, he didn't have them
never said, out of Christian charity. Nor that he had ever heard
in no TV documentary that people like them were part of
Mayflower passengers. Yet they insisted, they only had the
word of equality in the mouth, instead of rolling up their sleeves, working
like the others. But no, they had rights, and patati and patata, that if
precedence there was, only the natives, the true owners of this land
of America, could have claimed it, but that they had been subjugated,
genocidated, robbed of their property and left them the Gospel in exchange, and
more bullshit from the same barrel. All this, to justify their laziness
dirt.
In this they matched the women of this country, white and
confused blacks. Always pissed off, always claiming something
thing. The type to tell you: "It's been centuries that women have suffered the
white patriarchy, it's our turn now. “It was nature that had created
colors and genders, right? He had not called loud and clear for
come to earth in the skin of a man. No one had asked him for his
notice, he was just assuming. Those, they would have liked to castrate the
men that they would not have done it otherwise. Reason why
he had moved in with one whose neurons had taken a detour
through Cambodia before stopping here. At least she remembered that
the country had welcomed its own and did not come before you with
nutty claims, requests for authorization for everything and everything
end of the field, even when we were already together: to roll a shovel,
caressing a small piece of tit, the position and duration of coitus… And when
even if they had given their written consent, they reserved
the right to draw the lethal weapon at any time: they were under the influence
when they had signed, because "you are a predator, a narcissistic pervert,
an aggressive passive, a manipulator" who had pushed them to no longer love
their periods, refused them a little hug in those moments when they had
so much desire for tenderness.
This is what Constable Gordon was thinking, cloistered in his pavilion
than a pack of reporters, attracted by the smell of his blood that they imagined
already clotting in his veins after the lethal injection, had literally taken
by storm, without however daring to come and camp on his lawn. A breach of
private property which would have given him the right to shoot on sight, the law
“Defend your territory” allowed it. He was so angry that he walked away.
didn't care to make it worse. He had to take care of his family's privacy. AT
because of them, Dylan, their dog, had to let off steam and relieve himself in
the backyard, which the hedges and oak kept safe from cameras and
microphones. He knew he would have to face them sooner or later, he would have to get out
go shopping. Fortunately, their two cars were parked in the
garage that he had built with his own hands, and not outside,
rows along the sidewalk like those of the neighbours. When the time comes, a
Once installed in the car, doors locked and windows rolled up, he
would only have to open the motorized barrier of the garage and go straight ahead
him. He knew how to sow them. He would go shopping outside the
city, where these jackals were not likely to wait for him.
He grabbed the TV remote control that had been turned off since the
day before, to spare his family the outpouring of hatred from journalists and
so-called witnesses. Black and dependent, coincidentally. Or something
White who ate political correctness morning and evening, on TV, on the
Net, at the temple, at work, because everyone was suspicious of everyone
in this country and wanted to buy a good conscience at a low price. For the
For the same reasons, he had confiscated tablets and telephones from his daughters. Their
mother had not brought them to class in the morning in order to avoid
harassment of coyotes when leaving, or when leaving school. Even worse,
that they are not attacked within the school itself. He
imagined the other kids, influenced by social networks, television
or their own parents, calling them daughters of assassins, racists, all
those nasty things that children could say to each other. It was his duty to
father to protect them, they, the flesh of his flesh. His family was the rock
to which he clung in times of great storm. As long as she
would hold, he would also hold. The day before, however, he had felt his wife
stiffen as he approached her in bed. He wanted a little
comfort, but she had pretended to be asleep. It was his stiffening that had him
betrayed. As if she was trying to protect herself from a monster. Provided that she
don't flinch. Not her, not now. Otherwise, everything would fall apart.
his.
So he had taken advantage of the absence of the girls, who had gone to play in the
eldest's room, to turn on the television. It was then that he came across
the announcement of his layoff that was looped on a channel
of continuous information: his superiors had laid him off. From day to
the following day. By having accelerated the procedure to protect their backs. These
leather circles had acted like all the leaders of today, who
were in their pants at the slightest crooked fart on social networks. They
hadn't even had the courage to summon him to tell him right in the
the eyes ; at worst, to call him to inform him. “Officer Gordon,
we are sorry to bring to your attention that…” He would have
took the shock like a guy, but appreciated above all to be informed before the
scavengers gathered outside his door. If the protests continue to
swell in the country, he expected at all times that his superiors
go further. Simply fire him. If it's like
that, he wouldn't give them presents either. It was bad to know him. He
was going to contact his lawyer in this regard.
Police Officer Gordon just lives. Three days had not passed
that the news of his dismissal fell. The vox populi and the cowards
head of his service had had his skin, after having blackmailed barely
veiled to the union representative to get him to dissociate himself from his case,
as he would later learn, "it's about the image of the profession", and
all the fuss. He had lost the job of a lifetime, in addition to having become a
pariah, whose trombine was displayed on all the screens of the world. To spice up
the case, the same day, his wife decided to go and take cover in
his family with the girls, she told him. To believe that she had agreed
with his superiors to finish him off. He had neither the desire nor the courage to
ask to stay. She could have, she should have figured it out on her own.
Understand that, in the midst of the tornado, he needed them. He wasn't
not a man to implore anyone. Except God.
Even without screens and despite their young age, five and seven years old, the
girls understood that something serious was happening. The day before, their
mother had picked them up from school before school was over, and they were
hastily departed. Since then, one like the other did not stop
ask why. Why they had not returned to class this
Morning ? Why there were all these people and these vans with cameras
planted in front of the house? Which forced them to keep the curtains closed,
even during the day. Were they going to be on TV?
“No, quite the contrary, my treasures. "And if, by any chance
unhappy, they were faced with these bad people, they did not
should answer any questions from them, but quickly call the
parents. We had to find the words to explain to them that it was linked to the
dad's work, without being able to tell them more. When she realized that they
were going to go to the maternal grandparents, the eldest wanted to know
why their father did not come with them. Even if it means leaving the house,
why didn't they all do it together?
Difficult to admit to them that their mother had left him no choice.
She had booked the plane tickets, without having had the elegance to discuss it
with him before, as it happened in a tight-knit couple, with respect
one for the other. When the storm had passed, he would recover the car in
the Chicago airport parking lot, she told him. The Milwaukee one
risked being invaded by cockroaches on guard, ready to give the alert to their
congeners. True to form, his wife had considered the question in
his corner, all planned in the smallest particularity, before making him
go. She had presented him with a fait accompli, similar in that to the balls
weak who had revoked him. She had done it in her own way, without raising the
your. As she was a housewife, she had no employer to notify,
with whom to negotiate an extended work stoppage. She had told him that this
would be better for the girls – the unstoppable argument – ​to go and live with the
grandparents for a certain period of time, without specifying the duration or the date
possible reunions. She would accompany them, of course. All
what he had remembered was that she preferred it to be without him. She didn't want
not that her children are hunted down like criminals. She had said
“his” children, as if they were not also his. As a result, she
took them to California, on the other side of the country, where no one
knew. "Well, not as much as you," she added, without him being able to
grasp the exact meaning of the allusion. He had to carry the big suitcases himself
in the trunk of the car, like the condemned man obliged to dig the
pit where he was to be buried. Then they were gone, the vehicle
chased for tens of meters by a pack of scavengers.
Police Officer Gordon found himself alone in their large house,
empty of the rowdiness of the girls, of the hushed smile of his wife, of the smell of his
kitchen, which he had learned to love and, in many ways, to prefer to all
other. She was much healthier than the one he was used to
before meeting her. How was he going to spend these days, these weeks,
without his three Graces? Holed up in dark rooms, with a horde of
dogs crawling outside. Without being able to take advantage of
beautiful spring sunshine, at this time of year when Milwaukee
shone with greenery. Exhaled a multitude of perfumes of trees in
flowers, especially at nightfall, of various and varied bird calls in the
Sunrise. As if all nature was reborn. He could almost
feel the nauseating breath of these hyenas on his neck, their fangs of beasts
filthy creatures eager to shred his calves.
One thing was sure, he wouldn't starve. proof that she had
matured his decision without talking to him about it, before leaving, his wife had
filled the fridge and freezer with a ton of food, which she had
cooked during these three days. His favorite dishes. He was so immersed
in his thoughts that he hadn't even noticed. He had enough to
hold a seat, he only had to reheat the dishes in the microwave
stored per food portion in aluminum trays,
labeled with characteristic meticulousness. A last
attention, sign, if need be, that she still loved him. He shouldn't
crack…
The ringing of the telephone brought him out of his thoughts: a colleague
warned him that they were coming for him. The investigating judge had
decided on his indictment for manslaughter and ordered his detention
preventive. One of his superiors had even declared to the press that it was
better so, he would be protected in prison; outside, he would risk getting
lynched by an angry population. Police Officer Gordon lit
new television: the information was already passing through “breaking news”,
with his face displayed large on the screen. His colleagues present at
time of the facts would also be imprisoned, for complicity in murder.
He could, if he wished, be released on parole.
against a bond of one million dollars.
THE LORD'S CHOICE
ON THE SUNDAY OF Emmett's FUNERAL, it rained much of the
early morning, whereas, the previous days, the weather had been
downright summery, the mercury brushing in the middle of the day the twenty-six
degrees, so much so that the men wandered around Franklin in T-shirts, flip-flops and shorts below
the knee, the young women in shorts
tight, navel piercing, belly exposed; boys, for fun,
had opened a fire hydrant, as they saw him do every summer
on television, generating a powerful geyser that nearly sent one of them to the
emergencies without discouraging them in their reckless enterprise, because
they had started to deviate the jets of water to shower and snipe the
cars which, inadvertently, ventured into their path.
The tropical-looking storm had started with a bang at the exit of
dawn, throwing hailstones the size of large agate balls against the
windows, waking Ma Robinson, who, from her past as a matron,
had inherited a light sleep, before continuing with
heavy, heavy and uninterrupted rainfall. Unheard of in the
Milwaukee weather records, according to the oldest. Dan and
Marie-Hélène, who had joined the reverend very early in the temple in order to
help him in the final preparations, feared that these long and
unusual conditions deter people from leaving their homes. Temperature
had also fallen during the night, returning to values ​more
in line with spring normals. And the weather forecast did not announce
nothing exciting for the rest of the day. Marie-Hélène and Dan had,
one like the other, eyes riveted on their smartphone, in search of a
last-minute announcement that would come to disavow the previous ones and make
silence their worries.
While his two young collaborators were not far from evoking,
without any metaphorical shortcut, a new Deluge, the pastor, of her
side, put the finishing touches to her sermon as if, around her, everything
was going for the best in the best of all worlds. During his seven decades
and a half of life, she had seen so much, experienced so many mysteries;
she knew that the Creator had a plan for everything and everyone.
If it were His will, it would rain all day, and the Milwaukeans
would sit in their living room watching reruns of "Jerry Springer
Show” or other dumb shows on their various screens; to drink
soda and stuffing themselves with junk food, ordered by phone, for those
and those who could afford it. Unless it's a bright sun,
in which case they would opt for a barbecue with great blows of decibels on
the shores of Lake Michigan. But if He, up there, had decided it, these same
people would not hesitate to brave the elements: storm, flood,
late snow…to come and bid a final farewell to Emmett. The Lord of
Armies would judge for Himself whether He would bring them another victory
in this endless battle that was all human existence. As for her,
she had fought the good fight, finished the race, as proclaimed
the apostle Paul; in a word, she had done her part and had put her soul at ease.
She left the rest in the hands of the Almighty. Everyone has their job.
While Marie-Hélène and Dan stirred around her, Ma Robinson
told herself that she had other fish to fry, much more essential things
just a whim of nature to think about. As it happens,
should she bring Abigail into the pulpit or not, to trumpet at the
face of the world all the love she had for her late father? It was very
fashionable. And social media would rush to make it an icon
international whose remarks would be dissected in sterile debates
so-called developed countries, taken over by heads of state anxious at the idea
to be stranded in the polls, the time to find a new more
glamorous, more in line with the times. In Stokely's opinion, in addition
to move people, it would push them to loosen the strings of
purse for the online kitty. Who knows, the funeral would go to the
TV or YouTube. Bill, Mark, Jeff or Oprah would perhaps be moved by it and would agree to offload a
small part of their overflow of
billion, “a drop in the ocean for them, Ma”. Some
elite university would also take advantage of it to advertise itself at little
costs and would announce that they have reserved a scholarship for the girls at the end of the
high school. Their future would thus be assured.
"That's the only thing that works, Ma. We live in a fucking
show business, said the ex-con.
“No bad words in my temple, Stoke. No bad words", the
scolded the ex-prisoner.
Media coverage of the funeral would also contribute to putting the
pressure on the judicial authorities and force them to incarcerate the murderer
if only so as not to see him walking around with impunity while waiting
his trial, which would take place God knows when, while his fellow
would continue to commit other crimes of the same caliber across the
country. Although it would not be surprising if it could be released under
deposit the same day. We understand why, with such a system, there was
so many poor people languishing behind bars. At least this
would already be that, thought the former matron. This son of Satan would be struck where
it hurts.
Should Emmett's eldest be invited to the pulpit? The reverend had
already decided in his soul and conscience. She remained convinced that it was not
not the role of a thirteen-year-old girl to come and play the learned monkeys at the
platform, reading with tremolos in the voice a speech that an adult
would have prepared for her. We had to let her work out her mourning at her
rhythm, with his own words, when the time comes, instead of moving at his
places the still warm ashes of his father's remains. It risked
disturb her further. That's what she thought, Ma Robinson. It may have been old fashioned, but you
couldn't get used to your age. However, somewhere
inside her, the pastor still hesitated. As time pressed, she had finished
by rendering a Solomonic judgment.
Before the sermon, she would have him read a passage from the Epistle to the
Thessalonians, where it is said that "the dead in Christ shall be raised". THE
Abigail's father had been raised in the faith by her holy mother and deserved the
paradise, even if it was not for her, miserable mortal, to interfere
in the purposes of the Lord. Emmett's ex-fiancée, a lady who
seemed of great humanity, would precede the teenager in the exercise.
Nancy, that was her name, had contacted Marie-Hélène by private message on
Facebook, had explained who she was and insisted on speaking with the
pastor. The exchange was very warm. She had told him of the years
of Emmett University, which no one in Franklin knew much about, their
meeting by turns beautiful and eventful, the feeling of not having been
up to the expectations placed on him, information that Ma Robinson
could, if she deemed it necessary, use for her homily. Both
women had evoked with great emotion the mother of the deceased,
died three months earlier. When the news broke, Nancy was more
than pained. She had cherished memories of her only visit to
Milwaukee, of the one who almost became his stepmother. Really, a lady
heart than this Nancy. Hence the pastor's decision to entrust him with the
first lecture.
Authie would close this first part of the ceremony. the kid
would be well framed. My Robinson refused once and for all
feed the sensational media, who would no doubt be present, to
visible or incognito, during the funeral. She had to
protect from this unscrupulous brood. Today, with the
smartphones, everyone was photographing all the time, filming
everything and anything, voluntarily exhibited or resold to the media the
most intimate images, swayed on the Web photos and videos of a corpse
in his coffin without the permission of relatives or any respect for the
death… This is the message, before making the final decision, that she
had transmitted to others; which she had asked Stokely to send to the
young people in the neighborhood: unite around Abigail and her sisters. To prevent
the vultures from falling on them and tearing them into small pieces
bloody, to swing at a clientele addicted to voyeurism by screens
interposed.
It was about half past nine when the rain suddenly stopped. THE
the sun chased away the dark, low clouds all at once to leave the
place to a gigantic rainbow which unfolded, majestic, its colors above Michigan, defying the weather
forecasts that Dan and
Marie-Hélène constantly consulted, as if the destiny of humanity
depended on it. They opened their eyes amazed at the sight of the sun, for they
found no rational explanation for this sudden change
meteorological on the Internet.
The reverend saw them, out of the corner of her eye, throw themselves into each other's arms.
the other in such an explosion of joy: “Yes! Yes! Yes! » that we
thought he was indulging in prohibited games. " Hope it lasts,
prayed, hands clasped, a Marie-Hélène mad with happiness and mistrust
mixed up. Jesus, make it last. My Robinson, she knew that the God
of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was not nearly a miracle. Old
lady smiled and returned to her sermon.
In the meantime, Emmett's ex-fiancée in the distant days of
university, the coach who had trained him during the same period, his
wife and their youngest, who has become a splendid thirty-year-old, were finishing
have breakfast at the restaurant of the Hyatt Place hotel where they
were staying in downtown Milwaukee. They had arrived the day before to
avoid getting up at dawn to catch the plane running, be on time
at the funeral, participate in part of the walk, before jumping into the
return flight. That would have been a lot for one day. But it wasn't
not the only reason for their decision. The Bucks, the basketball team of the
city, which had been on the rise for some time, met the Chicago Bulls that evening. Led by a fiery
Antetokoúnmpo, the formation
of Milwaukee should be able to walk on that of Chicago, which was no longer
only the shadow of itself, without a real star in its ranks. Even if at his
eyes basketball would never equal football, coach Larry would not have wanted,
for nothing in the world, to miss this regional shock. He had taken care of booking himself the hotel
not far from the Fiserv, the sports hall where the Bucks
received their opponents.
Nancy had taken care of everything else. Upon landing in the city of
Wisconsin, her heart was filled with bittersweet emotion. She stops talking
apologized to coach Larry and his family, who went to the game alone
for which she had nevertheless paid her place, and had taken refuge in her
hotel room with a meal tray, which she barely touched, and a
bottle of American Chardonnay, which she emptied to the last drop.
Memories had swept in waves too powerful for his mind to
can handle the spotlight and the howls of a basketball stadium.
This is how, on the morning of the funeral, the four had met at the
Hyatt Place restaurant. Breakfast over, they were getting ready to go
ask the switchboard operator if he had an umbrella to put
disposal, determined to face the bad weather, because it was not said that they
would have come all this way in vain, when the rain had stopped at
unexpectedly, giving way to a clear sky and very quickly sunny. Of the
bay window of the fifth and last floor of the building, they glimpsed the
tail of the rainbow that unfurled its splendor over the lake. They don't
rejoiced, walking towards the hall, while Nancy ordered a
Uber which was scheduled to arrive in front of the hotel within five minutes, the
time for a round trip to their respective rooms to rinse their
mouth, and a quick swipe of makeup pencil for these ladies before
to come back down.
A little further, north of the city, in the district of Franklin
Heights where they had always lived two blocks apart, Authie and
Stokely, surprised by the storm, had given up their plan to visit a
hour in advance to the temple in order to help Ma Robinson get her hands on the
final preparations. They had to wait, death in the soul, the end of the
precipitation to avoid damaging their dashing clothing
circumstance and to arrive soaked like penguins at the ceremony.
Stokely had pulled out his dark formal suit, which was tight
enough at the level of the abdominal belt and made him appear more coated
than he actually was. The rebellious love handles refused to melt
despite the habit of participating, twice a week, in the warm-up of
football matches with the young people for whom he was responsible. He was at
two steps from the fifties and at this age, unless you are a fakir or a
Tibetan monk, the silhouette felt it every time. His approach,
whom his two other companions described as sweet because of his manner
to barely place the feet on the ground while walking, was less feline, more
heavy.
Authie fared no better. But her curves, she, she could
claim to have always had them. “It is to fight against the winter of
Milwaukee, it keeps you warm, ”she defended herself, a teenager, in the face of
sarcasm from the other two musketeers. That didn't stop her from
also put on her thirty-one, a bright blue dress in which
she struggled to slip her rolls off. Luckily, the butter-fresh jacket,
looser, which she put on over, came to serve as a hide-sin, except for
her imposing hindquarters which would not fail to make fun of, she
knew, that bastard from Stoke, once the solemnity of the ceremony was
behind them. He was the style to let her pass, not out of gallantry,
but to admire the view of his Appalachia at ground level, as he said.
The rain stopped, the two friends, reconciled after three decades of
annoyance, left their house more or less at the same time for, without
having given each other the word, finding each other along the way. They sketched a slight
smile noting the coincidence and decided to walk the path together.
"You're going to stop harassing me," said Authie, who had reconnected with the
floodgates of their bygone childhood. Perched on the heels of seven good
centimeters high, which made her advance with measured steps, the "sister"
accepted the arm extended to him by his friend to avoid tripping and going
splashing around in a puddle of water, the four irons in the air. In addition to being
badly, she would have disgusted her outfit and given herself all this
trouble for nothing, she said by way of thanks to Stoke. They walked
thus, with a more assured step, supporting each other. Someone who
would have seen, without knowing them, would have taken them for an old couple advancing
chugging along the path of life.
THE MA ROBINSON SHOW
A QUARTER OF AN HOUR before the beginning of the ceremony, the temple was crowded, and
a dull hubbub, like a prayer made of a thousand whispers, rose
rows. If the majority of the assembly were made up of residents of
Franklin Heights, the Reverend's discerning eye had noticed right away
among them unknown faces, the number of which continued to increase over the
as the minutes passed and the atmosphere
was heating up in the room. There were whites, Latinos,
Pakistanis, probably family members or friends of the
owner of the grocery store, whose nephew's call to "nine-one-one" had
cost Emmett his life and who, in addition to sending a wreath, had insisted on
contribute to funeral costs. However, when he expressed the wish
to attend, Ma Robinson advised him firmly against it:
“It's better not,” she whispered. For the solemnity of the service, it is worth
better not. »
She had stipulated it twice, to be sure of having been heard,
without having to raise your voice. On the contrary, she had taken on a voice
syrupy which was unusual for him. Those who knew her knew
that it was precisely at such times that it was necessary to obey him, at the risk of
see her turn into a tornado, the spirit of the ex-matonne supplanting that,
compassionate, of the woman of the Church, and of wiping out waves of
remonstrances of rare vehemence.
Nancy, coach Larry and his family were seated in the front row on the left,
not far from the gleaming beige coffin with golden handles, surrounded by
wreaths of natural flowers, from everywhere and even from the mayor
Democrat of the city, who cared about caring for his electorate. (The emotion
in the community, in the country, even in the world, was such that
would have been a political mistake to proceed otherwise.) Right next to
found two of Emmett's teachers at Benjamin-Franklin School.
They had not told anyone about their attendance at the funeral. At
departure, they thought they would attend without being noticed, telling themselves that
no one – if ever a former student still lived in the neighborhood –
would recognize them in the two little old women, one black, the other white,
who got out of the taxi long before the office opened in order to
make sure to be on time, before walking, arm in arm, towards
the courtyard of the temple. They were convinced to go unnoticed even
of those brigands of Autherine, alias Bodyguard, and of Stokely-Gorilla, if that
last had not also known an Emmett-like end.
It was counting without the gift of physiognomist of Authie, able
to identify someone thirty years away and after having seen them
one time. She had asked Stoke to meet them, before
to go and tell the Reverend, who had them placed to the left of Abigail and her
cadets, Emmett's only blood family, present at the funeral; her
mother had arrived from the South more than half a century ago, without any
close relative, and his father had disappeared into the wild without leaving any
trace, neither of life nor of death. As often in these migration stories,
family ties with those left behind had frayed over the course of the
time. Very clever who could have unearthed a cousin, a cousin or an old
aunt on the Louisiana side to come and bow over her remains on time
where they were about to bury it.
To the right of the girls stood, both stiff-necked, in an attempt to
put on a countenance, and the devastated face of pain returned, "aunt"
Authie, who had dated the mother of the youngest for a while, before
this one does not volatilize in its turn. Go find out where she was stuffed, that one,
she wondered, at a time when her daughter needed her so much. Without a doubt
did she pursue chimeras of love in the wake of a prince charming
who would soon dump her for a younger and more beautiful one,
as she herself had done with poor Emmett. The two teachers
installed, Authie had deemed it more prudent to sit down too, the height
of her pumps would not have allowed her to remain standing for long
of Dan, Marie-Hélène and his roommates requisitioned with good heart
to try to squeeze in the latest arrivals in a room which, at so many
crammed with people, had ended up filling up beyond the reasonable and the
regulation, balcony and ground floor included.
So much so that it was necessary to place folding chairs on the forecourt of the
temple. Very quickly, the fifty additional seats were not enough.
By the middle of the ceremony, hundreds of people were standing
outdoors, spilling out of the yard onto the sidewalk. Fortunately, the
day before, under the influence of a sudden inspiration, Stokely had proposed to Ma
Robinson to bring two huge speakers that an electrician friend
offered to make available to them.
“What do you want us to do with it, Stoke?
“You never know, Ma.
– Why break your back with such heavy stuff that might not
useless ?
– If it is, Ma, the faithful will multiply like the little ones
loaves and fishes of the Nazarene.
“Stop blaspheming, old bastard.
– Better to be prepared for any eventuality, Ma. Afterwards, if it’s no use,
it doesn't matter.
“Well, if it pleases you and your friend. But I warn you, I don't
don't want to have them in the paws tomorrow, at the time of the service.
– Don’t worry, Ma. We take care of everything. »
In the afternoon, Stokely's friend had come with the speakers
perched on the back of a pick-up, that four sturdy guys helped them to
unload. In no time, he unrolled the cables, slipped them under the
carpet, along the wall – he wanted to do things the right way
art – before hooking up the speakers to the temple audio system. By
Fortunately, they had the good idea to put them inside for the night.
Otherwise, the storm of the early morning would have put them out of use. After
the stopping of the rain, as if appearing out of nowhere, the same types of the day before,
followed closely by Stokely, had placed the loudspeakers on the forecourt, from
either side of the front door, facing the street. Also the
hundreds of people, deprived of space inside, were able to follow
the religious service and the sermon that would see Ma Robinson surpass herself.
In the meantime, the choir, whose members wore a toga
purple satin with a white V-neck and puffed sleeves, had given the
best of itself, culminating in an interpretation
of Amazing Grace which shocked the congregation, those who believed in heaven
like those who did not believe in it. Immediately after, Abigail read a passage from
the Gospel, where it was a question of the resurrection of the dead in union with the
Christ. "Since death [came] from a man," she recited, the voice
slightly quivering, it is also by a man that [comes] the
resurrection of the dead. This was done in all sobriety, just as
the pastor had wished for it and orchestrated it, but none the less moved
the audience, especially Emmett's two former teachers, and
Nancy, who found herself thinking that Abigail might have been her daughter, the eldest
three children she had dreamed of having with the love of her life.
On arrival, the highlight of the readings was the declamation of the "Élégie à
Emmett Till”, a poem by the Cuban Nicolás Guillén, which a colleague
Marie-Hélène's Hispanic had suggested to him. “The teenager he is
question in the poem was also from Chicago,” he told her.
Down to spend the summer holidays with his uncle, in Mississippi, in
1955, he was kidnapped by armed whites, tortured and murdered. His body
mutilated was found three days later in a river. He was fourteen
years, and his murderers were acquitted by the white jurors, with the complicity
of the sheriff. Marie-Hélène had to do her best to convince the reverend, who
was reluctant to associate the reading of pagan texts with the sacred word. She
was aware that this was the trend of the moment. We saw people
slamming elatedly from the pulpit. As if it were natural to mix the
dogs and cats, and that the holy place could be changed to a new
ecumenical quilt. But, there, it had a meaning, she had been told.
Besides the Emmett reference, she owed it to the kid.
In Yankees America,
the wind rose
has its southern petal splattered with blood.
The poem was about "an eternal burning nigger, / a holding nigger /
enveloped in smoke its torn belly, / its moist viscera / and its
hunted sex”. He described the protagonist as an angel "who bore / to
barely closed / on the shoulders / the scars of his wings”. It was a
child with […] his portrait of Lincoln / and his American flag, a
black child. / A black child, murdered and lonely, / who threw a rose
/ of love in the footsteps of a white girl”. At these words, Nancy could not
to prevent himself from wiping with his index finger a fleeting tear from the corner of his eye. There
coach's wife noticed this and discreetly slipped a hand into the
his own, while keeping his eyes fixed on Marie-Hélène's comrade who
read from the pulpit the text in Spanish and English. After the reading, the choir
performed two other gospels, including I Just Wanna Live, in which a young
soloist, who might have been Emmett Till's age, fervently pleaded with God to
stay by his side and protect him, because, despite his best efforts, he could not
not to find a place to feel safe.
Then came the Ma Robinson show. Three months earlier, for
funeral of Emmett's mom, his lifelong friend, the pastor
had already outdone herself, her preaching had more than thrilled the audience.
Even the youngest were talking about it… until that spring Sunday. Of
the opinion of the elders of the temple, his brothers and sisters in Christ, we had not
heard such preaching since the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and his
famous I Have A Dream. No doubt she had in mind the glaring injustice
of Emmett's homicide. No doubt she improvised at the time, inspired
by the presence of television, of these hundreds of men and women
rushed from the four corners of the country, in this rotten neighborhood of Franklin
Heights ravaged by the thousand evils of society, for a final farewell to a
son of Milwaukee. Some would say the comparison was overstated, because
the sermon of D
r King had remained in history, better, had made history.
But, that Sunday, even the unbelievers had to admit that the former prison guard who had become a
pastor was familiar with the divine.
My Robinson spoke enthusiastically, and for a long time stopped by.
moments, seeking the approval of the assembly, which did not lack
surge with “Amen!” », « Yes, Lord », « Hallelujah ». She mixed the
anecdotes with biblical quotations, unwound the verses as if she
unrolled the thread of a skein, abandoned the sermon prepared to the comma
to venture into a rapprochement between a parable of Christ and such
recent news item. From time to time, she mopped her forehead with a
immaculate handkerchief before leaving more inflamed than ever. She
looked thirty years younger. The audience was hanging on his words, his
mimics, his gestures, his silences too, as if running out of inspiration or
that she would have liked the participants to soak up a sentence barely
pronounced, like long wine on the palate. The assistance, serious most of the
time, sometimes laughed out loud, the former matron knew how to captivate her
world. The sermon that spring Sunday was the testament that she
bequeathed to his family as well as to visitors, at a time when it was appropriate to
weld together an increasingly fragmented country. For, she quoted, "if a kingdom is
divided against itself, this kingdom cannot stand; what if a house
is divided against itself, this house will not be able to stand".
“I remember, recalled the reverend, the sign brandished with rage by
a young white woman during the march to denounce the acquittal
of the police officer responsible for the death of Eric Garner, the first, before our
sorry Emmett, for uttering those words we all repeat
today: “I can’t breathe.” That was five years ago,
December 2014. On the sign, she had written: “It is not enough not to
be racist. You have to be anti-racist.” The same words she was screaming in
parading, his face twisted in anger. I still have tears in my eyes.
It was seeing this little white girl advancing determinedly in the middle of the
crowd that I tell myself that all is not lost. There is hope. There is more of
fifty years, during the marches of 1963 and 1965, perhaps she would have
barricaded at home to watch those pass by those that her parents or the
society had taught him to regard as a pack of savages
enraged.
"Of course," said Ma Robinson, addressing the non-blacks directly.
assistance, certain members of your respective families, your loved ones,
will tell you: this is not your fight. You are not responsible for
deeds of your great-grandparents. You have not enslaved anyone.
Some of you weren't born when the war officially ended.
segregation which treated part of the population of this country as
citizens at a discount. You have never been a member
of no association of hatred, great profaner of the cross of Christ.
You have not shot any unarmed black teenager, nor taken the life of anyone,
in any way. You are not responsible for anything. YOU
are white as snow. Innocent like the lamb that has just been born. It is
TRUE. From that side, at least. For other sins…” She paused,
before letting out a naughty chuckle quickly muffled in a
prolonged sigh. Which made the assembly laugh. “Know that God sees all and
hear everything. It is up to each and everyone to make accounts with Him. " And she
went on.
“Of course, bad apples will be quick to accuse you of
want to buy a good conscience cheaply. They will tell you without
gently: “You are here because you feel guilty. YOU
closed your eyes and covered your ears all your life. Or
were you when they killed Michael Brown? Where were you when they are
entered Breonna Taylor's apartment in the middle of the night and riddled her
bullets under the eyes of his companion? Where were you when they
executed in cold blood Ahmaud Arbery?” I could give you a list
long as hunger, until the return in grace of Christ. You go
hear these harsh words, which will doubt your good faith, you may have heard them before. I can very
well imagine how you felt, what
what you will feel in those moments. It hurts, very badly, to know
that we doubt our sincerity.
"It's true, we must not veil our faces," confessed the reverend. We
live in a country where those like me have been from the start of the
side of the dominated. From the hold of the slave ship until today, in
passing through the cotton fields and the bitter time of segregation. " She
seemed to hesitate for a moment, before continuing. "You are, by the strength of the
things, on the side of the privileged. Do not take it badly, please, this word of
“privileged”. Among those who will go with us presently to fight
this asphalt on which the police officer crushed Emmett's face, without
give him room to breathe, I know many of you have
sometimes it's hard to make ends meet. I know it, oh yes. I know that
you wonder with anguish if you will be able to register your sons and
your daughters if only in the local public college. If they don't go
having to go into debt all their lives to be able to access it, when the children of
many others are spoiled for choice. But in this country of ours, strictly
point of view of the racial barrier which will soon lead us to descend
in the street, we are not housed in the same boat. You don't have to
veil the face. Oh no, Lord. Amen?
– Amen! replied the congregation.
– This is precisely why I want to tell you, from the bottom of my heart,
THANKS. Thank you for them, thank you for us humans. You don't owe us
nothing, oh no, Lord, you owe us nothing. You could have, like
millions of others, look away and go your way. But you have
understood, better, you felt from the depths of yourselves that we
we need solidarity to stop this, and you have given us the
hand. You felt you won't be well if your neighbors aren't
not. That you won't be safe unless your brothers and sisters are
not. If they are hunted down day and night, humiliated, bludgeoned, executed as
wild beasts at the corner of the street. By doing so, you acknowledge that there is no
has one and only one community. And she is human. This is what I
I used to say to the girls in prison, when they were slashing themselves on the basis of a
fake identity invented by the dominants of this world, while they
were behind the same bars, in the same seedy cells.
Victims of the same rejection from society which had forgotten them there like the
scum of mankind. You reacted as human beings. And this you
honored. In the name of this great human community, the only one
I accept and recognize, I say thank you. It doesn't matter who you are, from where
you come. THANKS.
"Often, it's true, people prefer to see the glass half empty.
They are those who say: “Where were you before? you buy yourself
cheap peace of mind,” all those awful things. those
forget to see the glass half full. A few years ago, you sister,
you brother, said the reverend, pointing to the room, you would have stayed
at home, warm, to avoid inconvenience. Or because you
weren't concerned. Today you are here with us. Among us.
That alone counts. And nothing else. Those who accuse without knowing, well,
they are wrong. Those who accuse you of being part of the
problem, well, they are wrong. Short pause, and she added: “Serious,
as they say today, as if we had not been young we
Also. The room chuckled, hand over mouth. “Emmett was also talking about
this way, to make people forget that he had largely entered his quarantine. »
The audience indulged this time in a frank laugh. "To these
skeptics, I answer: you are part of the solution. If you are thirsty and
someone gives you half a glass of water, you do not say: “What a stingy!
The glass is not full.” You drink, you regain some energy to
move forward, to keep fighting for more. "I was hungry," she said.
citing Christ, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you
gave me a drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in.”
“Beloved brothers and sisters, in this fight that we have been fighting for
so long, how sweet it is to find men and women at our
sides to help us win the battle. Presently, in the middle of the
march in tribute to our late Emmett, there will be people from all
horizons. Beware, I beg you, of lapsing into gratuitous provocation;
even worse, counterproductive. Be careful not to apostrophize our sisters and
white brothers with watchwords: “Thank you for coming, but you are
all racist privileged people.” As if it was necessary at all costs that these men
and these women present at our side feel uncomfortable in turn, for
that they feel in their own flesh what we, we feel too much
often in this society. I have heard this speech before. I know where it comes from
come.
“With each new humiliation, with each brutal loss of a father, a
brother, of a sister, you have the hopeless impression of an eternal
restart. The feeling that it will never end, as it has to me
confided just before the sermon the former teacher of the unfortunate Emmett,
who, with her colleague, was already present at our side in the 1980s; and today they both took their
old walking sticks.
activist to climb with us the mountain at the foot of which we
hold. The impression persists, dismaying, that things are not really progressing.
From the dark times of segregation. Since the horrific lynching of
Tulsa. Since the assassination of Emmet Till. Since the murder of Rodney King
and the riots that followed. I know the origin of your distrust speech,
even hatred sometimes. It has its roots in the old law of retaliation whose
Messiah taught us to discard as a worn garment for the
replaced by the love of our neighbour.
“I understand the origin of your speech, but allow me not to
not share it. Evil cannot be cured by evil. Failing to put
aside your resentments, at least be pragmatic. This type of speech
is not the most useful in front of an audience that is already acquired by you.
Of course, we are not minors, we are able to
fight on our own to defend our rights. But if, in this
fight, there are men and women of good faith ready to support us,
why refuse the outstretched hand? If there are women and men ready
to help us carry the burden, why tell them no?
“Beloved brothers and sisters, be proud of who you are, but do not
Don't make the mistake of locking yourself in. Don't let yourself either
lock up. Not even in this beautiful term of African-American with which,
I admit, sometimes I have a hard time. Besides, why “African”? Others
are they called “European-Americans”? I'll tell you: beware
of what can be just as sneaky, stigmatizing. Oh, we're proud of our
African heritage. Do not believe. The truth is that behind this
qualifier, some still think of the good old negro, that they no longer dare
appoint. Or segregation-era “people of color” sweetener,
which sometimes still eludes them. As if they themselves were colorless, or
were light color. There is worse. By defining oneself from this
way, we bring water to the mill of those who want to hold us
away from the march of the world. Of the beauty of the world. From light to
shine under the footsteps of every human being. Afterwards, they will have a good time saying:
“See, they are the ones called that. To stand apart. To
separate from the group that we are trying somehow to hold together here
centuries already. We are only respecting their own way of referring to themselves.
We cannot go against their will.” But who are they? When they
speak for themselves, in their books, their media? Who are they ? Of the
men, women, children. Human being. And nothing else. "Me
so I am the United States,” said good old Brother Langston Hughes.
“As for the rest, whoever we are, present in this place today
to pay a last tribute to our brother Emmett, who died in the
odious circumstances that you know, all of us as long as we are: Blacks,
Whites, Latinos, Asians… all and all, let the piss and vinegar say.
Let the hate mongers speak. Let them say and let's walk. Let them, beloved brothers and sisters in
the Lord, and go forward. let's build
footbridges. Let's build bridges, strong bridges between us, where
evil spirits and killjoys seek to divide us. We
we are on the good side, that of the human. We are “neither Jew nor Greek”,
as the apostle Paul writes in the Epistle to the Galatians, “neither bond nor free,
neither male nor female”. I would add: neither black nor white. Neither Latin nor Asian.
For “all [we are] one in Christ Jesus”.
In this struggle as long as humanity, we will certainly suffer
defeats, as we have already suffered. We may experience some
heavier. Perhaps we will even have to drink the chalice to the dregs. At
point of giving way sometimes to discouragement. To have low morale
like an old tire patched a thousand times, where there would be no room even
for a single patch. To believe that we took three steps back after
advanced two. But we will be able to recover, I am sure.
With the help of the Most High. We will be able to draw deep within ourselves the strength necessary
to continue to move forward. Because we are from
good side of history. Who will end up triumphing, whether we like it or not. Who
will eventually triumph, I tell you the truth. In fifty years. In a hundred
years. In a thousand years. Never mind. The day will come, and she will triumph. Oh
yes, Lord. »
And the reverend intoned in a voice whose strings seemed to end
race We Shall Overcome, taken up in chorus by the vocal ensemble and
audience, who swayed hand in hand, eyes closed,
tears streaming down the cheeks of some without their trying to
to wipe.
GOD'S VIEWPOINT
AT NOON, while the faithful, to the rhythm of an ultimate gospel,
finished leaving the temple, still overwhelmed by the preaching of the
reverend, and that the coffin was carried on the strong shoulders of six
lads (hefty as he was, the gus, it took six of them for the
raise, including Stokely who had insisted on being part of it), deposited, pushed then
wedged with dexterity inside the hearse, the relatives of the deceased took
place, all business ceasing, aboard their car before heading
towards the Union cemetery for a burial at the step of the charge. Ultimate
reverend's blessing, a rose on the beer, a handful of soil
poured out with a heavy hand at the time of burial by those
who had been invited there, and mass was said. The purpose of all this
haste was to catch up as quickly as possible with the march, which would soon
set off under the temporary leadership of Marie-Hélène.
While her boyfriend was already busy brightening up the atmosphere with the
music by Robert Nesta Marley, spit out by a nomadic loudspeaker with
rasta colors worn over the shoulder, the young Haitian girl from Chicago
distributed the placards prepared the day before; very little to the truth because, slogans
and slogans having been shared on social networks, more than one had
brought his own poster, made at home. Time to remember
last instructions to the demonstrators: “No amalgamation, the police
are not all killers, no provocation, this is a gathering
peaceful, stay inside the security cordon…”, the procession rushed,
under sunny skies, on the streets of Franklin Heights cleared of
visible traces of the deluge in the early morning, apart from the drops which
clinging, persistent, to the leaves in full bloom. A gigantic
bust portrait of Emmett, offered by a local artist, whose stroke of
brush recalled the dazzling and vivid colors of certain canvases of
Basquiat, led the way, installed in the back of the pick-up of the friends of
Stokely. The son of the late Mary Louise was pictured with his bonhomie
habitual, the soft look and the hint of a smile clinging to his lips.
Dan had gone out of his way to concoct the itinerary, which dreamed
of a burst of this Midwestern city asleep on its laurels
nauseous about the race question. He must have argued dryly, first
with a Marie-Hélène torn between her passion as an activist in
the soul and the syndrome of the immigrant, inclined to shave the walls in a country
whose citizenship she nevertheless had; then with Ma Robinson,
fearing to make waves that might harm the cause. For
to tell the truth, the former prison guard was a real control freak,
she liked to have everything under control, from the beginning to the end of the chain of
decision. His motto: “You are never better served than by yourself. »
The idea that unidentified elements rob him of "his" manifestation and
come and file the mess was unbearable to him. However, Dan had
reinforced concrete arguments, borrowed among others from the speech of D
r King, I
Have A Dream, which he knew inside out and knew how to handle
wisely, which finally convinced the old pastor.
“Go for your twisted route, young man. Tell your
rasta friends, no matter their color, not to risk smoking their
ganja in my demo, if they don't want me to kick their ass",
she concludes half matron, half reverend.
Barely half an hour after the launch of the procession, a Ma
Determined Robinson took the lead, flanked by the three orphans,
Authie and Stokely; not to mention Nancy, coach Larry and his family who,
come from so far, had deserved to take part in the burial, according to the word
of the reverend. The two teachers were also part of the expedition to
cemetery before returning to rest, encouraged by Ma Robinson, whose
insistent thoughtfulness could lead one to believe that she was much less
old, while the three were of the same generation, at two, three years old
close. She couldn't stop thanking them for coming to pay tribute
to their former student.
"It's not in the natural order of things. We would have preferred that this
or vice versa, said old Mahalia.
“Or in a happier circumstance,” added her colleague, before
the two only slip in slowly and cautiously, helped by Stoke and
Authie, in two separate taxis heading home.
Upon arrival at the march, Authie had swapped her high shoes
perched against more comfortable sneakers pulled out of her backpack.
Despite her plumpness, she advanced with an equally determined step, laughing at
good heart with her old Stoke, to which she enjoined for the umpteenth time
to say a prayer of thanksgiving for the repose of the soul of the deceased who
allowed him to regain his friendship. “Otherwise you would have waited until
so that we throw you six feet under the ground too. Yes, I would have come
make sure I finally got rid of you. It's not like
you had another family besides me,” she joked gruffly. The laughter was
her way of warding off pain when burying the one she
considered a part of itself. A pain that tormented her
chest since she attended the stage live, like millions
of people around the world.
Alongside them walked a well-known player from the Green Bay Packers –
no doubt the one who had paid the twenty-five thousand dollars for the
kitty, but he had the elegance not to reveal it. He contacted the
organizers the same morning through the event's Twitter account
to announce their participation. The news had made MarieHélène and Dan jump for joy, “Wow!
Awesome ! It's going to bring a lot of people," and
left unmoved Ma Robinson, who did not spit on the
presence of the athlete:
“It’s good, he takes his responsibilities”, she had soberly
commented.
It had arisen like a revelation, in the morning on waking, told the star
of the Packers in an interview with CBS Sports. No games or training
was not scheduled that day. It seemed obvious to him that his place, in this
spring Sunday, must have been in the street, with the others. Did he
contractually the right to be there? There were so many constraints in
this damn contract that he no longer knew what he had the right to do or not
as an individual. If even it were not necessary to ask the authorization of his
employer to take a piss. He was paid accordingly, he didn't complain
not. He could have called his agent to make sure. At the time, it does not
hadn't come to mind. After all, he didn't care. “There are times
in the life of a man, he explained to the journalist who came to interview him
during walking, where you have to be consistent with yourself. Where this
coherence comes before the rest: his image, his employer, the money…” De
anyway, at thirty, he had enough money to offer a living
comfortable to his family and his descendants until the end of their days,
he thought, matching his stride to that of the others around him.
For sure, he had in mind the Colin Kaepernick case, football player
like him, whom he had faced on two or three occasions. This
half-breed quarterback, a native of Milwaukee, had paid a high price for having
planted one knee on the ground during the performance of the national anthem, in order to
to denounce police violence against blacks and minorities in
United States: he was sacked by his team and immediately blacklisted by
all NFL franchises.
"Sport is not about politics," says franchise spokesperson
San Francisco, Kaepernick's employer.
– And the black-gloved raised fist of Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the
Mexico Olympics in 1968? asked a reporter.
- They were wrong. »
This is the message that Kaepernick's employer wanted to convey,
probably for fear of seeing the show boycotted by the spectators and
majority white viewers. Here, more than anywhere else, the customer
is king. Also, whatever happens, the show must go on. In addition to having
lost his job, the Milwaukeen player was called a "son of a bitch"
in his usual vocabulary chastised by the current occupant of the White House, when candidate for the
presidency. Other hate messages had
swept the Net, accusing him at the very least of spitting in the soup, of
bite the hand that feeds it...
All this had not prevented the star of the Packers from deciding, in the morning at the
awakening, to take part in the demonstration. After receiving the response
enthusiastic about the organizers, he had telephoned a white teammate, who
lived a few houses away in the same gated community as
him and was waiting for him for a family brunch. When the quarterback had him
learned the reason why he wanted to cancel, his friend thought about it a
moment before answering: "Stay still. Give me five minutes, I
remember. A quarter of an hour later, he rang at his door with his wife and
children in walking gear: "Let's go? This is how the two players
and their families had found themselves in the front row of the rally that had left
Franklin Heights, a neighborhood in Milwaukee which they had vaguely
heard about in the various facts, alongside a former prison guard
accustomed to subduing the strong heads and become fisher of souls.
Cordons of police were ostentatiously placed at
strategic places along the course in order, at best, to dissuade any
skid, if necessary, to be able to quickly put it down. The municipality had
requisitioned all available black officers, recalled those who were in
leave, in an effort to appease the outraged townspeople, without being accused by
the Republican opposition to favor a part of the population over
detriment of others, while also making concessions to thugs and
to thugs. The image of Milwaukee, not far from winning the dunce cap
when it comes to discrimination, depended on it – “the most segregated and
racist that I have ever known in my life”, had denounced the president,
white, the Bucks, the city basketball team.
The route had been planned and negotiated step by step with the town hall and the
chief of police. Coming out of Franklin Heights, it was planned to go through
Keefe Avenue to reach 20th Street, along the Union Cemetery, then
turn left at avenue Fond Du Lac before turning on the
head for the City Hall, the seat of the city's government, a beautiful building
neo-Renaissance built at the end of the 19th century
It is
century, across the bridge
Kilbourn cast on the Milwaukee River. “A whole symbol”, had jubilee
Dan thinking of the Edmund-Pettus Bridge, which has become a place of pilgrimage
since that Sunday in March 1965 which saw the Selma police, allied with
members of the Ku Klux Klan, repress in blood the march of D
r Martin
Luther King Jr. His enthusiasm and knowledge of the history of
civil rights movement delighted Ma Robinson every time.
To tell the truth, the old lady hadn't given it a second thought. When the
young rasta had discussed the route with her, which had seduced her,
it was rather the fact of taking the main arteries to avoid getting
trap in the event of a scuffle with the police or, worse, militias
far-right, fierce defenders of the Aryan race and other cultists
of the great replacement theory. Seen the turmoil that the homicide of Emmett
had aroused and the media coverage of the march, the police should stand
quiet for an afternoon. On the other hand, these henchmen of Satan
sought light at all costs, and walking provided them with an opportunity
unexpected. So far, thank God, they had not appeared. “Provided
may it last,” the reverend prayed inwardly, moving forward without
weaken. Events had decidedly reinvigorated her. Upon arrival, she
would deliver a short speech on the esplanade in front of the town hall,
followed by Stokely - who was going backwards, the fellow being frightened at
the idea of ​speaking in public – and Authie, designated mother of
substitution by Ma Robinson, the mothers of the girls having not given a sign
of life. The three would say Emmett's fight, his faith in the human and in the
american dream, before the dissolution of the rally on the tune of gospel
Free At Last – the choir had made the trip – so that the
participants leave in peace and joy.
Journalists were swarming everywhere, posted on the roof of a number
countless of vans; even the 4th of July parade did not attract as many
in the town of Vel Phillips, the first woman, human rights activist
civics, jurist and secretary of state of Milwaukee. We saw them leaning
to apartment windows in tall buildings, which they had to
negotiate at a high price the use with the inhabitants, in search of the best
possible angle for a photo or a shot, walking being
broadcast live on television and on social media. Some
sneaked inside the crowd, microphone in hand, looking for a “good
customer” likely to offer them a shocking, controversial phrase if
possible, which would be repeated in a loop on television, would make the buzz on the
networks. Nancy, identified somehow as the ex-fiancée,
was asked to give her testimony on her experience as a mixed couple with the
victim, in a country where communities rubbed shoulders without mixing,
exercise to which the professor of Afro-American studies refused to
lend. The sparkling blue sky above Milwaukee welcomed a
whirring ballet of police helicopters and news channels
continues, generating a cacophony that was added to the slogans and words
orders prepared in advance or improvised in the heat of the moment; to
diverse and varied music, which saw rap stealing the limelight from them
like in Dan's reggae; to folk and country of the nostalgic years
sixty… ; and with the grumpy look of someone who was looking in vain for a corner of silence
to collect.
“This is about honoring the memory of a human being, damn it, protested
the grumpiest. We're not in a fucking marching band. »
About three quarters of an hour after she had joined the march, he
produced what Ma Robinson would not hesitate to call a miracle, and that
the numerous presence of the press gave a foreboding. Indeed, gradually
measure of the progression of the procession, clusters of demonstrators
engulfed, coming from the four corners of the city, metropolitan areas
closest and even, for some, to Madison. Social networks ?
The local radio and television stations which, the day before, had announced the event on
their waves? Word of mouth ? The Lord of Hosts chooses the
reverend. He had taken His side in the matter He had weighed in His
balance, He had found it very unjust. The little band of
a few hundred people part of Franklin Heights was in the process of
changing before his eyes into an army of thousands, then tens of
thousands of resolute citizens, who were fed up with the direction that
the country, fed up with the incompetence, cynicism and vulgarity of the President
for whom some of them had nevertheless voted, fed up with the governor of
the state that had supported it and done much worse. Whites, Latinos,
blacks, Asians, women and men of different
communities of which the United States was composed, took the
demonstration en route, as passengers boarded a passing bus
in their neighborhood or traveled a few hundred meters for the
catch up at the nearest stop. All this composite world advanced with faith,
as wanting to make a single humanity in favor of walking, the same
hope in a more fraternal tomorrow anchored in the heart.
THE DAY WILL COME…
HALFWAY, at the intersection of West North Avenue and Fond Avenue
Du Lac, activists from the Black Lives Matter movement began to
infiltrate the march. We should rather say "militants", because
the bulk of the battalion was made up of women, mostly young and
seasoned, who had embarked on the fight seven years earlier, shocked, then
revolted by the acquittal, against all common sense, of the murderer of Trayvon
Martin. But “the law has its own logic, which has nothing to do with morality.
nor sentimentality”, had jubilant the supporters of the author of the shot
deadly. Which had not less ulcerated and thrown them on the pavement, adorned with
fight whenever an equally unfair case came to upset the balance
already precarious way of living together in this damn country. In no time,
they had taken over the demonstration, taken control of the middle at the back of the
procession, unrolled their own black banners with slogans written in
white letters, screaming “Black Lives Matter”, until covering
any voice other than their own. This was evidently the result of skill
acquired in the field and an action planned down to the smallest detail.
Between their considerable intrusion – they had rounded up a maximum
of indignants in a closed network – and the people who gradually joined the
walk, after an hour and a half, the procession was not far from
bring together fifty thousand participants, or even more. Subsequently, the forces
of order and the opposition would play down the numbers – “a handful of
demonstrators” – to retain only the excesses that followed, whether they
blamed the irresponsibility of an old communist,
refugee – what blasphemy! – behind the pastor's garb, and
professional activists, troublemakers whose place would have
been better in prison than on the street at preventing honest people from
enjoy a well-deserved day of rest, the hard workers of the
Sunday to indulge in their activity. Not a little proud of a success to which they
were far from expecting, Marie-Hélène and Dan brandished all three
minutes their smartphone under the eyes of Ma Robinson, as the
figures and images were falling, as the multitude, carried by an almost
mystical, progressed towards the town hall, under a beautiful sun
come to deny once and for all the forecasts
morning weather.
As the parade progressed, in three quarters of an hour, the City Hall
would be in sight. We were near Walnut Street when a rumor
walked through the crowd, suddenly on the alert, heads in periscope and
ears alert, looking for an emergency exit in case of
general jostling. Out of nowhere three water cannons came
take place two streets before the bridge, at the intersection between the avenues
Kilbourn and Vel R. Phillips. At the same time, policemen on horseback,
discreet until then, had stood up in front of the walkers, their long
truncheon beating the imposing flanks of the animals, whose muscles
twitched jerkily, as if traversed by electric shocks and the
feeling of having to defend themselves against a human mass that
seemed hostile. The impassive gaze under their helmet, the cops had the
eyes fixed on the demonstrators without really seeing them. their unique
preoccupation seemed, at the slightest skid, to have to prevent the crowd
to arrive at the municipal palace.
At the sight of the horses and the police, Ma Robinson smelled the girls
of Emmett stiffening under his arms, which wrapped around the shoulders of the two older
small. The youngest began to cry. She couldn't move on,
paralyzed by fear; his feet had remained planted in the asphalt,
refusing to obey him. The Reverend leaned towards her and whispered to her.
ear: "Don't be afraid, darling. Do you remember the story of Daniel
in the lion's den? When God sent the angel..." She didn't have the
time to say more. Young whites came spontaneously
surround them, making a rampart with their bodies to protect them from the charge they
thought imminent. Their eyes were shot with anger, they looked in a trance,
a trance nourished by the repetition of the slogans they proclaimed from all over
strength of their lungs: “Black Lives Matter! Black Lives Matter! »
Others, on the other hand, did not say a word; they had black tape in
cross on the mouth, and both hands brought to their necks to simulate
strangulation.
They were from the social media generation, from Instagram, from TikTok.
They had barely skimmed over the history of the struggles against slavery and
segregation at school, but had become impregnated with it through films
like Twelve Years A Slave, The Hate U Give, old series like
Roots, rebroadcast on television or viewed in streaming. They dreamed
of another world, necessarily fairer, where everyone would leave from
footing, that of equality, would have the same chances, regardless of their
ethnicity, social origin, or sexual orientation. where there would be no
reducing amalgam, definitively exclusive to a whole
minority of which only one of the members had sinned. Where we would be entitled to a
Second chance. They put all the ardor, all the generosity of their
youth in the quest for this better world, in which they wanted to believe.
Their determination that more than one, perhaps even among the demonstrators,
was ready to associate with ingenuity, even angelism, warmed the old
heart of Ma Robinson.
What you couldn't see from this side of the bridge were the
a few thousand hostile white activists hidden behind the trucks and
the police deployed behind their shields and helmets with visors. They
had landed in front of the seat of the city government, here is a small
fifteen minutes. Despite the tendency of these small groups to boast,
the operation was planned in the greatest secrecy, by text message or on the circuit
private on the networks, lest the information be leaked before they are
arrival on site. They seemed determined to prevent the demonstrators
to access the surroundings of the City Hall.
Some wore their guns conspicuously, like the
required the law of the State of Wisconsin, which was very timely, because it
allowed them to impose on the opposing camp. Others exhibited
jackets flocked with a white fist, a skull or a cross
Celtic cropped, crossed hammer tattoos on their biceps
bodybuilders or on the back of the neck, so many symbols of their belonging to
factions that advocated white supremacy. Still others, the air more
debonair than menacing, were perched astride their Harley-Davidsons and gave the Nazi salute while
taking selfies that they posted
with a click on their Twitter or Facebook accounts. There were very few
women among them, apart from a few platinum blondes and two or three
brunettes in studded jackets, who looked like alibis to escape the
tenacious criticisms of misogyny that these militias dragged in their wake.
From the back, a massive guy, whose muscles stood out under a black T-shirt,
harangued into a megaphone, vociferating the beginnings of slogans that the
others ended up in a call-and-response game that seemed inspired by
negro spirituals :
“Better shoot first…
“…and then apologize.
– When the looting begins…
– … the shooting begins.
– White lives…
– … matter.
– Blue lives…
– … matter”…
As soon as they heard of the presence of the Aryan Nation small groups,
Caucasian blood and others, the journalists rushed in their direction, they
had sniffed out the provocations that were going to make the ratings jump. The vans
set off at top speed, creating the beginnings of panic among the
crowd, that the leaders had the reflex to reassure: “Stay calm! This
is nothing. Keep calm! » When representatives of the press from
On the other side of the bridge, declarations rang out, bellicose, hateful. THE
counter-demonstrators took full advantage of the platform thus offered; they
unsheathed, like proud boys, the first amendment and his freedom of speech
to justify their abject remarks, the same as claimed by the
interviewers to clear themselves. Opposite, alerted by social networks, we
retaliated by the same way and by interposed journalists. We had to show
that we also had. That we weren't docile sheep that we led to
the slaughterhouse. Slaves that can be cut and drudged at will. paid workers
a few cents an hour harvesting cotton on the large estate of a
white patriarch. That time was over.
The more the minutes passed, the more the spirits and the hearts warmed up.
on either side of the flowing Milwaukee, indifferent and impetuous, his life as
river, big snowmelt. Jaws clenched behind their visor,
the police were preparing for the worst-case scenario: an all-out fight,
who would see the extremists of the march return blow for blow to those of
the other edge. The tension kept mounting, filling the atmosphere with
cries, invectives, climbed to its climax, until it became palpable...
before suddenly falling back. An eerie silence ensued. In just one time,
not a single slogan was heard, not a single watchword. Nor even the
crowd breathe. Time stood still. We no longer heard the river rolling
its unbridled course. Nor the ducks, accustomed to its banks, throw their flight
noisy in the air and silence the songs of the birds, drunk with the
presence of spring. A silence of a few seconds, but absolute, which
seemed an eternity to the ears, to the minds and, later, to the memory of the
protesters. A bit like the calm that precedes a force 10 storm, where
the winds arrive, brutal, and bend, break, uproot, explode everything
on their way.
My Robinson had the reflex to ask Marie-Hélène and Dan
to exfiltrate the little girls. They wouldn't be too many to do it. " All
straight away,” she ordered, faced with the procrastination of the two lovers who
looked surprised, as if to say that they had not made all these efforts
to be deprived of the finish. But the ex-matron, whose antennas were
on red alert, left them no choice but to obey. Some
would call it “flair”, or “experience”, that in any case of a woman
who had lived, as a teenager, the civil rights marches of the years
sixty and had too often seen them degenerate into dozens of deaths,
hundreds of wounded, in massive imprisonment, in traumas that we
transmitted, often unwittingly, to his own descendants. By his side
only Stokely and Authie remained, to whom the reverend handed a
megaphone and asked to pass among the demonstrators to tell them to
do not give in to provocations.
“Our quest is a quest for justice. Our approach, an approach
of peace and reconciliation. Love, not hate. »
After walking for an hour, the two football players
had deserted the crowd, no doubt called back to reality by their young
children, who must have been hungry and above all had their boots full. Nancy,
coach Larry and his family had slipped away earlier to get the
time to pick up their luggage at the hotel, jump in a taxi and
leave for the airport, so as not to miss the plane that would take them back to New
York. Also they did not live the disastrous consequence of the peaceful march in
tribute to Emmett, who died of asphyxiation under the knee of a police officer with a ball
by Kojak. They would become aware of it on landing, thanks first to the
smartphone of coach Larry's daughter, then to television screens present
inside the airport.
At the end of the deafening silence, the voices were gone in all the
sense :
“Against police violence, peaceful demonstrations are not enough
not. The money they're gonna have to spend to fix all this, that's okay
hurt them. That’s what will get their attention: lost money. »
"Don't waste this moment!" The world is watching us, you must have
power ; now it all depends on what you do with it. »
“You will not dispossess us of our values. We don't
never apologize for bringing civilization to the world. »
“Anger is what you get when you oppress people
for so long and nothing is being done to channel it. If everything is so
explosive at the moment, it is because it is far from the first time that
it happens. The police perpetuate this violence against black people. We have
we've all seen this video, we've all been forced to watch this execution. If we don't
says nothing, then the injustice continues. And we've had enough. »
“Look, today there are a lot of young white people who
understand the situation and demonstrate. They are the ones who will allow
to achieve real change. »
“We are proud men, a credible alternative to the right
timid. We will never accept that our values ​are trampled on, that we are
step on it. »
Those opposite accused the black, Jewish and Muslim "scum" of
to aim for the extinction of the Aryans, to want to "unify the peoples",
angrily warning her that she would always find them on their way to
defend the values ​of the Christian West, before sounding the charge.
Others, probably anarchists and Anti-Racist Action activists,
invited the demonstrators to smash everything to touch capitalism at
wallet. Still others, including Ma Robinson, Authie and Stoke,
called in vain for reason amidst this outpouring of hatred, while
that the police were backing away, caught in the crossfire, waiting for the
reinforcements requested by radio.
“The Milwaukee Events,” as the press would call the
ensuing outburst not unlike Watts' rebellion,
lasted no less than three days and three nights. They hit the headlines
a long week, during which the vans of the television channels
bivouaced in Franklin Heights, on the lookout for the least word of the
reverend, who would never come, at least not by interview like these
gentlemen and ladies of the press would have liked it. She continued
nevertheless to go about his ministry, eying, dignified and proud, the journalists
who harassed her before continuing on her way, sometimes in the direction of the
temple, sometimes Emmett's house, where the little girls, forced to give up
their classes, lived barricaded, under the protection of Authie Authie and
Uncle Stoke, both badly battered during the scuffles, but
ready to do battle with the first intruder who approached the
hut.
Throughout this period, Marie-Hélène fed the site of the temple
from Chicago, where she had found refuge, welcomed by her parents,
torn between the pride of seeing their daughter appear on television and their
eternal concern of immigrants wishing to keep a low profile. She was doing it
liaising remotely with Dan, who remained in Milwaukee for the greatest pleasure
of his mother, who did not fail to reproach him for having mixed up in any
this story, until being forced to hole up at home to escape
to journalists. Between them, they were the spokespersons of the pastor at
through social networks, where she had chosen to express herself, delivering her
thanks, on behalf of Emmett's daughters and on his own behalf, "to
all those who had taken part in this march called to
remain in the annals of history", and his appeals for calm to avoid
to see opprobrium poured out on their cordial understanding that Sunday and their
dream of a better humanity. Before time does its work,
journalists don't pack up their equipment until life resumes its
rights, Abigail and her sisters the way to school, Marie-Hélène the way to
Milwaukee from which, after an absence of three weeks, she began to
have the blues.
Long after, when Ma Robinson was no longer in this world,
Stoke and Authie also would have gone and that the name would have been given
from Emmett to a block in this Midwestern city; that Dan, professor emeritus
at the public university Wisconsin-Milwaukee – true to his principles, he
would have shunned the very private and Catholic Marquette –, would talk about it to her
students as both witness and historian; that Marie-Hélène, writer
multi-award winning alongside her elders Edwidge Danticat and Toni Morrison,
would have decided, out of love, not to return to live in Chicago; when the
two would tell their grandchildren about it, who would first be human beings
humans, before being Americans, Jews, Haitians, blacks, whites... perhaps they would evoke the
events of Milwaukee together as a
truly bygone days.