A Reason to Believe_ Lessons From an Improbable Life - Deval Patrick [5]
Only on rare occasions would emotion break through his stoicism. After President John F. Kennedy was killed in 1963, when the Chicago schools closed out of respect, I watched the black-and-white broadcast of the national grieving and absorbed those powerful images: the flag-draped coffin on the caisson, the young widow in a black veil with her two small children, the riderless horse with the boots facing backward in the stirrups. The procession seemed to move in slow motion. All was quiet save the clippity-clop of the hoofs against the pavement. In our living room, no one spoke. When I looked back from my seat on the floor, I saw my grandfather riveted by the images and crying silently. I realized then that being a strong man does not preclude showing emotion. I was seven years old.
Gram and Poppy wanted us to see more than the South Side. They took us on road trips to Michigan, where we picked apples and brought them home in big baskets for pies, applesauce, and fried apples at Sunday breakfast. One weekend each month, while my great-grandparents were still alive, we made the long drive to Louisville to visit my family. My grandmother would pack a lunch of fried chicken or juicy hamburgers, cooked rare early in the morning, then wrapped tightly in aluminum foil to finish cooking until lunchtime. We would set off just before sunrise in Poppy’s Buick, the smell of lunch so intoxicating that we would beg for it until we were fed around eleven.
While I thought those trips were exposing me to a much wider world, I now realize how blissfully unaware I was. We would attend the Kentucky Derby every year and watch from the infield. I had no idea that black folks weren’t allowed in the stands; I just assumed Gram and Poppy thought the infield was better. I never really thought about why we stopped to pee at the side of the road instead of at a restaurant or motel or why there was so much anxiety over where we’d stop to eat or why we filled coolers or shoeboxes with food for the trip. Only later did I recognize that my grandparents wanted to avoid exposing us to the harsh realities of Jim Crow, to travel safely, and to broaden our horizon. They did not want me trapped by bitterness but liberated to believe that the wider world could be a special place.
My expectations—my sense of the possible—also expanded while visiting my father in New York. One summer in the early 1960s, I took my first train ride with my mother and Rhonda to see him. He had a tiny studio apartment in Lower Manhattan, and we all crowded in with him. We toured the sights, including a Circle Line boat trip and a memorable visit to the top of the Empire State Building, soured only when my father lifted me to see the view and accidentally speared my head on the sharp railing. On the train ride home, my mother had enough money for only one breakfast in the dining car, so the three of us shared a plate of pancakes. I thought it was elegant. In 1964, Rhonda and I flew alone to visit our father during the New York World’s Fair, where he performed with the Babatunde Olatunji band at the African Pavilion. We met the people, listened to the music, watched the dances, and ate food from all around Africa. We also spent a good deal of time wandering through the rest of the Fair, imagining ourselves in other parts of the world. I wanted it.
Those experiences often made my home life feel claustrophobic. In addition to my immediate family, my grandparents also accommodated Uncle Sonny and his daughter, Renae, as well as other short-term boarders. The environment was perpetually tense, with Uncle Sonny often serving as the flashpoint. He was older than my mother, a handsome, charming, but irresponsible character addicted to heroin who careened between drug binges, jail, and his parents’ apartment. Renae’s mother was also an addict.
Uncle Sonny was also Gram’s favorite, which embittered my mother even more. When I was about nine, Grandma and Poppy were away on a trip, and I walked in on Uncle Sonny shooting up in the living room. I went back to the