Footloose in America: Dixie to New England (15 page)

When she flipped in the air the rope broke at her hobbles. So Della was loose. But when she whirled around to run away she was face to face with me.

“It’s okay, Big Sis.”

I threw my arms around her neck and tried to control her. But it didn’t work. With me still holding onto her, Della spun back around to look for the dogs on the levee. My feet scrambled for footing like a marionette dancing across a stage.

Now there were two boys with the dogs on top of the levee. The dogs continued to bark, while the boys stood and looked dumbfounded at us. I yelled, “Get those dogs out of here!”

Della whirled around again to run away from the levee. But this time, she also had Patricia’s arms around her neck. “It’s okay, Sissy Belle!”

With both of us embracing her, Della began to settle down. I looked back up at the top of the levee. The boys and their dogs were gone. The event was over.

When we examined Della, all we could find was a cut gum in her mouth and a small tear inside one nostril. Aside from that, she was all right. A couple of hours later we had her hitched to the cart and on a residential street headed for the highway out of Uniontown.

We were a block from Third Street when I heard a clicking sound from the left rear tire. At first I thought it was a rock or a bottle cap stuck in the treads. But what I found was a huge tack. When I pulled it out air hissed. Our first flat tire of this trip would be in Uniontown.

It was a slow leak, so I was able to plug it before it went flat. Someone said there was an open gas station on the road out of town. On the way there, I began to smell something that I had smelled when we first arrived in Margaret’s yard two days earlier. It wasn’t the burnt building. This was different. When I asked Willie what it was he said, “You smell something? I don’t. Oh, maybe it’s the oil tanks. I’m so used to it I don’t smell it anymore.”

It did smell like oil, and when we got to the gas station the stink was really strong. The station was closed because it was Sunday. That meant the air compressor was turned off. So I got our hand pump out and went to work.

I was putting the pump back in the cart, when I remembered the coal miner in Sturgis who said, “My buddy’s girl friend asked him to kiss her where it stinks. So he took her to Uniontown and kissed her.”

So, there in the middle of all that Uniontown stink, I walked up to my wife, wrapped my arms around her and said, “I love ya’ baby.”

Then I kissed her.

On the road to Union Town
.

CHAPTER 6

M
ISTER
P
ARAGRAPH
18

“Y
OU WANT TO KNOW WHAT
happened to this neighborhood? I’ll tell ya. Niggers!”

I’m repulsed when someone uses that word–nigger. It ripples up my spine and makes me want to spit at the person who spoke it. I’ve never done that, and this man was not the one to start with. Don was six inches shorter than me and probably outweighed me by fifty pounds–and it was not fat. He looked like he could have been a wrestler. The Jessie Ventura type, but Don was shorter. His voice had that same gruffness that most of those guys have. He was not someone to mess with. Besides, I asked him about the neighborhood in his driveway. He had his right to free speech–especially in his driveway.

With more than 120,000 people, Evansville, Indiana was the largest town we had walked into. When we met Don, we were just east of downtown on Washington Avenue. From our camp on the east edge of the city, Patricia and I had bicycled in to explore the heart of Evansville. Della stayed in camp to graze on lush grass.

“It’s a damn dirty shame,” said Don. “There’s some fine old homes here. But when the niggers started moving in, everybody else moved out.”

Washington Avenue was a shaded thoroughfare with huge old oaks and elms in their early shades of autumn. Behind those trees were houses built between the 1920’s and 40’s–homes for the families of coal miners, mill workers and other middle-class types. Folks who could afford a two story house with a small front yard, neighborly porch and a driveway that
led back to a detached garage. We also pedaled past some houses that were more like mansions–not the multi-millionaire type–but houses for people who were better off than most. The kind who didn’t have to wear work-gloves on the job.

The closer we got to downtown, the more unkempt the houses and other buildings were. We saw people living in places with boarded up windows, busted front doors and peeling paint. It was about 1 p.m., the first Thursday in October. The sky was clear and temperature perfect for being outside. So, lots of those residents were on their porches, or hanging out on front steps and sidewalks. All sorts of folks, but mostly African-American.

We had stopped to look at an old church, when Don pulled into his driveway across the street. It was a simple buff brick Catholic church with weeds growing out of its cracks and crannies. Patricia and I were wondering if it was still being used. So I pushed my bicycle across the street to ask him. That’s when I asked, “What happened to this neighborhood?”

After he told me, “Niggers!” Don said, “I know that makes me sound prejudiced, but I’m not. I’ve got black friends and they ain’t the problem. It’s the niggers!”

The house that Don’s truck was parked at, and the ones on either side of it, were in good repair. “We lived in this house when I was a teenager. My dad moved us all over this town buying and selling houses. He’d get a good deal on one, and we’d live there a couple years. Then he’d sell it, make some money and we’d move into another one. We lived in this house the longest–probably four or five years. It was my favorite, and back then this was a great neighborhood.”

Don was a Vietnam Veteran who did two tours–1967 and 1969. “My job was to get the body bags out of the field. Sometimes they were bagged and sometimes they weren’t. Didn’t make much difference. It was always a raw deal. I dodged a lot of bullets getting a bunch of dead guys home.”

Between his tours in Vietnam, Don spent a few months on the streets of Evansville playing the part of a blind vet. “I had this Doberman I was real close to, and I took him everywhere. The only way I could get him in a bar was if he was a service dog. So I acted like I was blind. Wore dark
glasses, got the harness for the dog, carried a stick–the whole bit. Told them it happened in ‘Nam.” He leaned against the tailgate of the pickup and folded his arms across his chest. A grin grew across his white-bearded face as he chuckled. “That sure was fun, and it got me a lot of free drinks.”

Shortly after Don got home from his second tour, he was driving up Washington Avenue and saw a For Sale sign in the yard of the house we were standing in front of. “I thought,
Wouldn’t that be sweet? I’ve got my GI Bill, hell, buy it!
So I went to the front door to find out what they wanted for it. When I knocked, a bunch of niggers came flying out and started wacking at me with straight razors.”

When Don turned around to face the house, I spotted bits of several scars that disappeared into his beard. Then when he propped his forearms on the tailgate, and laced his distorted fingers together, it was obvious that they got him on his arms as well.

Don shook his curly white head and said, “I don’t know why they did that. Just being niggers I guess. They didn’t hurt me too bad, but it sure pissed me off. So I found the owner and bought the house. Then I came back with a tire tool and busted the windows out of the nigger’s car. When they came out I chased them back in with my tire tool. They thought I was crazy. And they were right!”

Slapping the tailgate with his right hand, Don laughed as he put his foot on the back bumper. “After I got done busting the windows, I pushed the car into the street. Then I sat down on the curb and laid the tire tool next to me. When the cops showed up, they asked who I was. I told them I owned the house. Then they asked if I knew anything about the busted windows in the car. I told them no. Then they asked why I had a tire tool. Told them I found it laying in the street. Then I said I just got back from Nam and I was thinking about buying a car. I figured if I got one a tire tool might come in handy.”

Obviously, Don had told this story many times, but it still cracked him up. “I couldn’t believe it. The cops bought it. They told the niggers to get their car out of the street. Then they got back in the police car and drove off.

“The niggers were going berserk They were yelling at the cops, telling them I was crazy and stuff like that. When the cops were out of sight I told those niggers they was right. ‘I am crazy. I’ve been to ‘Nam twice and I’m as crazy as they come. And I’ve got guns–lots of guns and I love to use them!’”

Don stopped laughing and got real serious. “Then I told them that I now owned the house and I wanted all of them out by sundown tomorrow. One of them said they had thirty days. But I knew they’d already been evicted by the previous owner long ago. Just no one had come around to kick them out yet. I told them what I knew, then I said, ‘It’s up to you. But it’s my house now and I’m going to start cleaning it tomorrow night. The first thing I’ve got to do is get rid of the rats. So I’m coming over with my guns and gonna clean house.’ The next night this place was empty.”

Don went on to buy more real-estate and at one time owned more than 200 rental properties. “I had some real dumps. So I’ve had to deal with lots of low-life scum. It seemed like I was always having to straighten out some smart ass. You know, show them what the program was. I learned early on, that if you let those bums know up front you won’t take any shit, you have a lot less trouble.”

All of Don’s tenants signed a rental agreement in which paragraph eighteen stated, “If you can whip my ass, I’ll sign the house over to you.”

“A few years ago a judge asked me about paragraph eighteen. Said he never saw anything like that. I told him I put it in there so everyone knew I meant business. He asked me if I ever lost a house that way. I told him yes, a couple of times. But that was a lie.”

“Why did you lie to him?”

“If I’d said no, he would have thought I was bragging. Nobody likes a braggart.”

Don turned around, leaned his back against the tail gate, crossed his arms and said, “See, the thing is, I like to fight. I’ve done it enough that I’m good at it. That doesn’t mean I always win. I’ve lost some.”

Over the years, Don’s fights had netted him more than one thousand stitches, and he couldn’t remember how many broken bones. In one lost
battle, all of his fingers were broken against a curb by his opponent stomping on them. “The thing is, if you’re going to be a good fighter, you can’t be afraid to lose. You don’t never fight to lose. But hey, if you lose that’s okay, too. I kind of like to lose. Because when you do, you get lots of attention. Sometimes they send you to the hospital, where you lay around and do nothing but get better. And you have pretty young nurses taking care of you. Then, they send you home where your wife waits on you, and brings you soup and stuff to make you feel better. A good fighter has got to have a good woman.”

Don was married six times and had six children. “I never cheated on any of them. Don’t mess around on my wife and I didn’t dodge the draft. Who would ever think I’d be over qualified to be president.”

Slowly, he walked along the driver’s side of the pickup as he said. “Problem is, when you get my age it takes a lot longer to heal. So these days I bring a little extra help.”

With that he yanked open the door and folded the back of the seat forward. Strapped into place was an assortment of firearms that would be the envy of any SWAT team. “Things are different these days. Punks don’t carry razors and brass knuckles any more. These days, they’ve all got guns. And every punk in town knows I got more guns than them.”

Don no longer owned 200 properties. “I got rid of the dumps. It wasn’t worth the trouble. I was always on the run–hardly ever home.”

Home for Don was a four level house on fourteen acres in rural Evansville. “So now I’m down to eighty-six places. I’d like to cut that in half. Just keep the nice ones–like these.”

His mother-in-law lived in his boyhood home. “She’s never had much of nothing. When her old man died, it looked like she was going to end up in the street. So I moved her in here. She gets enough social security to feed her. I take care of the utilities.