Those Bones Are Not My Child (102 page)

In 1981 and 1982, I set the project aside several times, once when Lawrence Schiller and Penny Bloch, of Lawrence Schiller Associates and ABC, respectively, offered me a crack at a script that didn’t pan out. Each time Pomoja got me back on the track, as did Billy Jean Young and Monica Walker while they were in Atlanta; and while I was in London, Siva, Gail, the Huntleys, and most especially Menelik Shabazz (in both London and Atlanta); while I was in St. Croix, Gloria I. Joseph, who offered a gig and sanctuary and who times her support cards and calls over the years in an uncanny manner, Roseann Bell, Audre Lorde, and Winnie Oyoka; in New York, the late Gerri Wilson, the best person I ever knew to talk with about children; in Ibaden, Nigeria, Esi Kinni-Olasunyin, who lost a lot of sleep during my talking jags; and in my neighborhood at the time, Ernie “Tech” Pilot, who clued me in to the fact that if he could tap in on “redneck” transmissions, maybe the APD, GBI, and FBI were doing it too.

A special thanks to all the elders who ever told me to learn to be still. Research need not be running around in an effort to apprehend information. It can sometimes be accomplished by being still and comprehending. By climbing into my chair and working, a lot of things came my way via the phone, the mail, drop-ins, and what some people would call intuition and others would call history.

In 1983–84 I was into the third draft thanks to Camille Bell, whom I’ve never met, and Sondra O’Neale and James Baldwin, whom I’ve known for years; all three were working on books, a fact which made me
feel a lot less alone in my obsession. The work was going well, thanks to Susan Ross and Andrea Young, whose growing-up-in-Atlanta stories, which they’d shared with me two years prior, filled out Marzala’s past; Kwame Penn, an old pal from my daughter’s Pan African preschool days, who steered me to the latest in comic books so I’d know what Kofi might be reading; Sue Houchins and Lynda Sexton at the Djerassi Ranch and Cheryl Gilkes of Boston, who gave me a way to read the Bible that was more to my liking; and especially Madame Chin for a lot of good talks and support; the late great Anna Grant and Edie Ross, who discussed the trial from a particular angle in a conversation at Joanne Rhone’s house in the winter of ’81, I think it was; my good sister friend Cheryll Chisholm, the best person for talking about the detective genre and cinematic structures; and while on the road, Gwendolyn Brooks and Nikky Giovanni and Guadaloupan writer Maryse Conde.

In 1985–86 I was continually bolstered by Gloria Joseph, Hailie Gerima, Tom Dent, Sonia Sanchez, my family, the Poindexters and Sandra Swans, Terri Doke, Ishmael Reed, and my hearts of hearts Eleanor Traylor and Toni Morrison. And Kristin Hunter, who saved me once, and my mom several times when funds were zero.

I bow forehead to the floor to the typists for their patient eye-detecting and speed: Tracy D. Bonds, Medina Holloway, and Eileen Ahearn.

Thanks to numerous people who forgave me the broken appointments, missed deadlines, and unanswered communications. Especially Gloria Hull and Maryse Conde.

Warm thanks to my agent Joan Daves and my Vintage editor Anne Freedgood for their quiet notes. I cannot thank enough my former Random House editor and ever sisterfriend Toni Morrison for the git-up phone calls and the git-down cards and the genius strokes in the margins.

Many people from all over the place sent or gave me tapes, documents, photos, posters, drawings, tips, maps, flyers, banners, newspapers, records, books, poems, stories, questions, and contact people’s numbers. Many packets bore no names; other names were in quotes or were struck through. Many names I’ve lost; please pardon. Some of the anonymous senders identified themselves as hotel chambermaids, office workers, garbage collectors, prisoners, waiters, barmaids, librarians,
former and active police persons, media persons, and Klan defectors. Also while I’m at it, I’d like to thank several crank callers, threat-makers, hecklers, and writers of poison-pen letters, et al., without whose fierce opposition I might not have been so damn dogged. Special thanks to Grace Paley for handling one heckler at our reading at the museum in Houston on March 12, 1982, and to the Brother in rimless glasses who took the other heckler out and introduced his head to the fire extinguisher.

Of the namable suppliers:

I
N THE
S
OUTH
:

And to my former Rutgers student. I hope that session in front of Wicker Store was as valuable to you as it was to me. Many, many thanks.

And to my orisha, who has many names and forms, imagination her dominant disguise, mother of Mnemosyne born in
Meno
, who is memory, midwife to all muses, and who offers anecdotes, antidotes and anodynes against agnosia, the loss of pictured memory; aphasia, the inability to recall verbal usage; and amnesia, the inability or unwillingness to recall due to trauma or enforced taboo; and she speaks sometimes in the voice of the grandma with auburn hair piled on her head who visits with the aroma of sassafras, witch hazel, and linseed oil to say, “Don’t forget.”

For financial support:

A National Endowment for the Arts Individual Literature Grant in 1983 funded most of the third draft.

A Djerassi Foundation Artist-in-Residence Grant in August 1984 enabled me to complete the third draft.

A Kristin Hunter Hey-Girl-I-Know-How-It-Is Check in the miserable winter of 1986–87 put food on the table.

And Helen Brehon shared hard-earned wages in her seventy-fifth year.