Finally, in the dead of night that same winter after the two-by-four incident, Moms enlisted me and the rest of us in a full-scale rebellion. After Freddie unleashed on her, for the umpteenth time, and left the house to go drink in one of several local watering holes in the neighborhood, Momma got up from the floor, put ice on her swelling face, and began packing, urging us to help.
“We have to move,” she said simply as Ophelia and I helped pack, throwing our clothes and stuff into bags, gathering up whatever we could because we knew, without being told, that time was of the essence. Instead of going to stay with relatives, we were moving to a place that Momma had rented on Sixth Street, just two blocks over from the back house on Eighth and Wright. After we piled everything into a shopping cart that we wheeled together over to the new place, all four of us in tow, I watched her face fall as she frantically rummaged in her pockets and purse. Looking up at the second-floor apartment, she shook her head mournfully, saying, “The key . . . I don’t have the key.” She looked shell-shocked, completely defeated.
Studying the building, I pointed to a pole, telling Momma, “I can climb up there, jump down on the porch, come through the window, and then open the door from inside.” Being a scrappy, skinny kid at the time—used to climbing up tall trees for the fun of it—I not only thought I could do it, it was imperative that I succeed at opening up that door to our new life, free of Freddie. It was having a job to do, something concrete, and it was also a battle between him and me. I had to win. As proposed, I executed my plan—scaling the pole to the roof, jumping down from the roof to the porch, thankfully raising the window on the porch level, and sliding inside. From there, I opened the apartment door and flew downstairs, where the relieved look on my mother’s face was all I needed to see. As we all settled in that night, I couldn’t have felt more proud of myself.
Over the next few days Moms caught me looking worried and knew that I was scared Freddie would show up and try to conquer our new land.
“He ain’t coming back,” she reassured me in words. “No more. He ain’t never coming back.”
One evening I was summoned to the living room in the new place by the sound of a man’s voice that seemed to be threatening. The conversation was about money or rent. Instead of belonging to Freddie, the voice turned out to be that of a white man I’d never seen before. A nondescript fellow in layers of winter clothes appropriate for the season, he was speaking in a disrespectful way that caused my mother to tremble.
Almost by reflex, I ran to the kitchen and returned with a butcher knife, pointing it at the white man. “You can’t talk to my momma like that,” I interrupted.
