-Eugene Baldwin's – The Genehouse Chronicles

They were in the downstairs church bathroom, the five girls, preparing to don their choir robes. They all had walked to the church that September 15 Sunday morning, and the weather was hot, so they “freshened up.” And you just know they gossiped. Denise, 11, and new teens Addie and her sister Sarah, Cynthia, and Carol.

Sarah was standing to the side of the sink as Denise asked Addie to tie the sash on her dress. Sarah said recently, “When Addie reached out to tie it, that’s when I heard this sound, boom, the bomb went off.”

A dozen or more sticks of dynamite had been planted underneath the church outside stairs, the blast destroying the bathroom wall, killing four of the girls and leaving Sarah standing upright in the rubble, her right eye blasted from her head and glass shards in her left eye. Leaving Sarah, who had dreamed of being a nurse, alone and blinded, standing in the gore that was left of her sister and friends.

Somewhere that day, four white man, members of the Ku Klux Klan laughed and joshed one another and crowed that they had struck a blow for the white people of Birmingham, Alabama, for the cause of white supremacy across the land. The FBI quickly identified the suspects, but J. Edgar Hoover quashed the files. Hoover then, is the fifth murderer.

It was the George Wallace era in the South, Wallace vowing “segregation forever” and encouraging white people to be violent. He got his wish. Years later, Wallace, paralyzed from a would-be assassin’s bullet, was wheeled into Martin Luther King’s Montgomery church and asked the congregation for forgiveness.

One of the Klansmen was tried in the 70s and convicted. After Bill Clinton became president, the FBI files were reopened, and U.S. Attorney Doug Jones, now senator, successfully convicted two more of the men, the last survivor dying in jail at age 82.

Sarah’s lawyer has petitioned the State of Alabama to grant her reparations for her stolen life. Republican Governor Kay Ivey—after receiving a petition from Sarah’s lawyers, citing the fact that while the State of Alabama did not kill four girls and maim a fifth, its governor (Wallace) had played a role in the deaths—is considering whether or not to grant the request. Ivey is not known for racial sensitivity. She failed to attend the recent openings of the museums dedicated to the histories of lynching and slavery, saying she hadn’t been invited.

I visited those museums two years ago. Knowing about horror, about man’s inhumanity to man (and the planet), does not prepare one for the emotional experience of walking through acres of sculptures and photographs commemorating the lynched (46 from Illinois). Nor does it prepare one walking the downtown streets, with every block featuring a plaque telling visitors of slave auctions held in those places, for beating hearts and wobbly legs. And then there is the shocking statue at the top of the state capitol steps honoring Dr. J. Marion Sims, the “father of modern gynecology,” who did his research on slave women, operating without anesthesia. The Nazis were fixated with white supremacy. It is said that Dr. Mengele was influenced by Dr. Sims.

The photos. The two men who murdered Emmet Till, arms around each other, laughing, knowing they will never pay a price for their crime. Till’s mangled body in his casket. The “strange fruit” of thousands of lynching victims. The white women and girls spitting on little Ruby Bridges as she enters a desegregated school. Martin Luther King lying on the motel balcony. The charred cross on the Rock springs golf course, across the street from the Conley family’s house, Elijah Conley having had the temerity to file a lawsuit to get his kid into a desegregated Alton school. George Floyd in the last moment of his life.

It is all coming back around. I saw it—the future—a few years back. I had struck up a Facebook friendship with a columnist for a Northern California newspaper. We shared a love of the Southern Gothic novelist William Gay. The Californian pissed off a lot of people in his area, and I’d like to think I’ve stirred the Alton pot (I’m proud to say that a prominent local artist attacked me for commenting on racism in Alton). But then he fell in love with Trump. He suddenly looked at himself in the mirror and decided he was an endangered species. White men were going to be destroyed. I called him and gave him the courtesy of telling him why we were through. He hung up the phone.

Sarah Collins Rudolph, the fifth little girl of Birmingham, deserves all the bags of money in the Alabama coffers. It won’t bring Addie Mae back; it won’t replace Sarah’s eyes. It will, it will, it will be a step toward justice.

The pensive woman walks

With a butterfly on her palm,

She says the orange-spotted

Beauty is dead

But I see no torn wings,

The great spangled fritillary

Rests, waiting for the sun

To pump fluid into its wings,

And the smiling woman sets it

On the earth, and a wing stretches.

A yellow orb spider injects its

Poison, the speckled butterfly

Shocked, painted lady frozen

In death (its last frantic breath

Blaming me for not saving it),

Its dazzling beauty drained–

Body of Chrysalis, orb baby

Feast served with cricket parts–

Its afterlife skyward and in tales

Told by mourning painted lady cousins.

The photo tells it all. A smiling mom posing with her teenager who is dressed in a police uniform like it was Halloween. And, for him, it may have felt like Halloween.  Next, he strutted through Kenosha streets with his long rifle at the ready, pretend, you know.

And heck, his friends the police say, we appreciate you being here, callow youth-baby-virgin, and oh, have some water.

And then the kid gets scared and, inured to real violence because he undoubtedly performs pretend violence and masturbates while playing some wet dream video game, he fires. And once he pulls the trigger, like the game, he loses all perspective and: “So people are getting injured, and our job is to protect this business. And part of my job is to also help people. If there is somebody hurt, I’m running into harm’s way,” said the doughy, effeminate, no doubt bullied teenager from Antioch, Illinois. And then: “I just killed somebody.”

I have a friend who killed a man in the line of duty. He quit the police force and became an itinerant laborer, because he could not deal with the fact that he shot a man who first shot and hit him. His life is eating, sleeping, taking care of his kids…and nightly dreaming of killing one man.

So, as I am furious over this kid’s murder of innocents, I am not surprised. Look at his proud Trump-loving mom, who drove her teenager to Kenosha with an assault weapon at his side and let him out of the car to play Junior G-Man. Hell, she might be a featured speaker tonight at the Republican convention. She should be in jail for life without parole.

I haven’t yet mentioned the inciting incident, the shooting of an unarmed Black man seven times by feral police officers. No, George Floyd’s death did not set off the new age of reason and brotherhood. Yes, more Black people will be maimed or murdered, more-more-more. To satisfy white lust for racial hatred.

Tempting as it is, one cannot solely blame the dumbest president in the history of the world. He is feeding off the white tit of hatred, a political move. What do we expect? He is a mobster, a rapist, a racist, a serial liar, a misogynist, a man who wants to fuck his own daughter—Ivanka, not the ugly one, Tiffany with the deformed teeth, he has standards after all. And his evangelical pals, well, they like threesomes and closeted porn and unborn fetuses.

We have everything, yet we want more everything, more, and in the pursuit of everything (whites only, of course), we have bought our kids everything. Except love. Except decency. Except empathy.

If you haven’t heard or if you’re not a sports fan, take notice: The National Basketball Association, the National Soccer League, and even that old conservative, Major League Baseball have suspended their games, citing “Black Lives Matter.” Many millions of dollars were lost by advertisers yesterday, and millions of cooped-up white fans were furious. To top off the evening, former basketball great Kenny Smith, on live television and sitting between Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal, took off his microphone and walked off the set, citing “Black Lives Matter.” This, friends, is power. Sheer economic power. The kind of power that ravenous billionaires wield against us and don’t give a shit. This is “Lysistrata” power. Black and yes, even white, athletes are making their stand. To Americans, real Americans, Sports is God.

Perhaps some white mothers will arm their kids and send them out to assassinate basketball players, like that lippy Lebron James. How dare he turn on us?

Defund the police is the wrong slogan. Disarm the police is the deal. Have weapons stored somewhere where they can be doled out for emergencies, a sniper, say. Otherwise, chase black men with your bare hands, and THEN you will be brave cops. Like every other civilized country in the world. And then Little Johnny Doughboy Police Auxiliary can be a wannabe cop because he cares about people. What a world that would be.

“The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees a ‘right of the people to keep and bear arms.’ However, the meaning of this clause cannot be understood apart from the purpose, the setting, and the objectives of the draftsmen.” Nixon appointee, Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger

You who carry weapons into our streets, you, white people who carry guns: You fear Black people. A least come out and admit it.

Meantime enjoy the new sport, the NSA-BO, the National Slaughter Association (of Blacks Only).

The doe steps out of the woods

Sees me then stops

And watches

I stop and wave her forward

As if deer knew “go” signs

And I watch

The doe steps across the path

Stares me down

And waits

I think—You are safe—

(As if deer can read minds)

And I wait

The doe’s white tail twitches

And out steps her fawn

And I watch the spotted child

Play-prance on the path

Nuzzle its tender mother

Their shuddery bodies wed

And they vanish

Entrant #1. Furled Yellow Leaf

launches,

four reverse

inward twists

in the river’s breeze,

a record for the ages

with a soft, balletic

landing:

9.5

Entrant #2. Wizened Orange Leaf

swan-dives—

but tangles in a

single strand

of spider web

stretched tree-to-

ground, waving

flag-style—

no landing:

3.3

Entrant #3: Unregistered,

cannonballs

like a falling

star,

bouncing

on the path with a

smack, revealing

its acorn identity:

Disqualified (pseudo leaf, faux leaf, leaf envy, nut—not a leaf).

My great-great grandfather’s

(of the Underground Railroad)

Grave is on fire

His bones feeding fire

Pinnacles

Where giant condors nest

And set sail for the Pacific

Are on fire

Their homes feeding fire

And the fire next time

The human fire of James

Baldwin hero of the awakening

His words feeding fire

The fire starters

Are us lighting and laughing

And dancing on graves

On slaves on birds

Our crimes feeding fires

I tell my father, there is a cricket

In the basement

And he says it is cricket season, son

I descend the basement stairs

Stepping into chest-high water

The washer and dryer drowned

Electric humming

I slosh around the perimeter, listening.

And there one cricket is

Floating on the water

Its antennae dot-dot-dashing

As though it were a day at the beach

I wade to within reach

Grab it with my hand

Hold it underwater in my fist

And drown it

its life exiting fast

A gust a breeze dot-dot-dash

All the while I think of epic battles

Of the Great White Whale.

I wake up perpendicular to the bed

Feet pressed onto the wall

My father watching me

The beacon of his cigarette an ember

And then I wake up again

And then I wake up again

And one day I will not awaken

My boy’s bird voice whimpering

Drowned by sorrow

Helpless as a cricket and as soft

Antennae flailing in smoke-filled light

My friend Tom Ragin has died. I met him seven years ago, almost as soon as I moved back to Alton, at a YWCA Legacy celebration, at the Jacoby Arts Center. I was proud to have written parts of the program and direct it. I interviewed civil rights pioneer Josephine Beckwith for the event, which would lead to me writing a book, and also that night I met the affable Mr. Raglin, who was sitting in the front row.

Jim Killion, when I interviewed him for my book, told me there were “bricklayers and brick throwers” in the Alton civil rights days. His father, James Killion, and Mr. Raglin, among others, were definitely “brick layers,” calm forces for change in a time when most Alton stores and restaurants refused to serve Blacks, and the KKK (one of their first headquarters was the now Main Street Methodist Church) was active in anti-Black activities, including cross burnings.

Tom Raglin was born in Danville. He held a BA in Industrial Education and an MA in School Administration. He was obsessed with flight, and he became the first African American aircraft mechanic for the 126^th Refueling group at Chicago’s O’Hare Field. In his own words: “The U. S. Army introduced me to Aircraft Mechanics through their Helicopter Maintenance Program… I became employed with McDonnell Aircraft Company in S. Louis… I helped build the following aircraft: F-N2, F-101A and B, F-4 Phantom II and the Gemini Space Capsule.” He also was director of maintenance for the Chicago Suburban Transit Authority.

In Alton, Tom worked in the school district as an instructor in vocational training—engine repair, aviation flying and sketch drafting among other subjects. In 1997, he brought the Air Force ROTC program to Alton High School.

Mr. Raglin’s flight obsession led him to become an adjunct member of the Illinois Dodo chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen, the very same chapter which dubbed me an ‘honorary Black man,’ for my decade of work. In Alton, Mr. Raglin heard about Jerseyville’s “Cisco Kids,” George and Arnold Cisco, brother pilots in the Tuskegee Airmen in World War II, and he wrote an essay about them. He learned that I had been a researcher/interviewer for the National Tuskegee Airmen Oral History Project, and he read my pieces about the Cisco boys in The Telegraph, and a friendship was born.

It was Tom who came up with the idea of having a statue of the great Miles Davis placed in Alton, organizing a committee at the Museum of History & Art. A separate committee followed through on Tom’s idea, causing some bad feelings among African Americans which linger to this day. He became the first chairman of the Miles Davis Jazz Festival, an event at which I saw him for several years.

I have told you what the man did. I have not mentioned his character. Tom was loving, generous, respectful of his students, a Renaissance man and curious to a fault, a friend and, dare I say it, a father figure to me. Sadly, the past two years, Tom’s memory faded. It was hard to watch such a vibrant man in decline.

Tom, pardon my metaphor, you are flying free and you are with your Cisco kids in the Wild Blue Yonder, and I imagine all you guys are talking about plane engines, as my Tuskegee Airmen brothers would do when I attempted to mine the facts of their lives. And like those fierce men, you acted as an American and expected and received your rights, race be damned. (TA Colonel “Wild Bill” Thompson to me: “Do not talk about civil rights; we are officers and gentlemen.”) Alton is the better for your service, and I am so lucky and honored to have known you.

With love.

His wife hugged and kissed me, then he led me upstairs to the guestroom. It was long and had windows at both ends. To the right was a bathtub that ran the length of the room. I had been invited to visit. And to consider moving in permanently because I was running out of money. I told myself I could be happy here, back in the Chicago area.

While unpacking, I heard a commotion coming from downstairs. The wife and her grizzled father were arguing with the husband, a giant, who was holding a cane below the handle. They stopped when I entered the room.

“Is everything okay?”

He turned and walked to me, raising the cane above his head and striking me in the chest. I fell to the ground, and he kicked me repeatedly. I looked over to his wife and mouthed, “Help me, help me.” She mouthed back “you have to do it; you have to do it.”

I got up and went back upstairs. I started running a bath. There was a hammer resting on the toilet tank. I picked it up, heard footsteps behind me and turned. He was standing there, the size of him dwarfing me. I raised the hammer and swung, but he grabbed it and stabbed the claw of the hammer into my left eye, the skull bones around the eye cracking. He smiled and, carrying the hammer, went back downstairs.

I looked in the mirror and saw bone fragments around my left blind eye. I screamed, racked with headache and fear.

I was lying on my side, having tilted over and hit something, my body wedged upside down between the bed and the wall, about to crash face first onto the floor.

And woke up. The pain in my eye was excruciating. I waited for him to come back. I cried. And woke up. I was in my house, my body wedged upside down between the bed and the wall. I was not in Chicago, not in the home of the husband and wife and grandfather who had invited me to come for a visit. And woke up.

I arose and walked into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. No smash, no broken bones, no blood, just a flaming face. I felt my pulse—resting rate. Sobbing, I walked into living room. The cat was cowering, her fur fluffed out. I knew she had heard my screaming. My voice was hoarse.

I called the emergency number for my psychologist, and he talked me down.

I feel guilty. I know my time has passed, I am white, I have no right to expect anything—I know this. Just please let me tell you, the man who writes about birds and the river and black lives matter and justice… is a man who was raped as a boy…who was beaten by his father…whose eardrums were ruptured by his father so his ears ring and scream to this day…who was speared with words of disgust and hate and rage and maniacal loathing…who was told he was worthless and believes it… who only knew literature for comfort, and thus came to know, as friends, Saint James Baldwin and Malcom X and Flannery O’Connor and James Joyce and Doris Lessing and John Steinbeck and Eudora Welty and Ralph Ellison and Owen Wister and Howard Zinn. Without those friends hidden in books hidden under my mattress, me hidden inside my skull and waiting for the next war, I would have perished in 1964.

I just ask you to listen. I just ask you to comfort me, to love me—even if I don’t deserve it.