Writing to Save a Life. John Edgar Wideman
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Emmett Till, Malcolm, Martin, Mandela et cetera, that some of us are absolutely not satisfied by the prospect of remaining forever in the dark. Darkness as deep and sinister as the dark in which many colored soldiers, executed like Till and McMurray and James Hendricks, lie buried.
All stories are true. As far as I’ve been able to glean, Louis Till possessed no knowledge of that particular Igbo proverb, nor a general familiarity with the customs and folklore of the Igbo, a West African ethnic group whose homeland is southeastern Nigeria (a.k.a. Biafra). Even if Till had been a prolific reader, he would not have come across all stories are true in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, where I first read the proverb. Achebe’s novel, set in a traditional Igbo village at the beginning of the twentieth century, was not published until 1958, thirteen years after Louis Till’s death. Yet it seems that Till was privy to the wisdom of all stories are true. In the only direct quote attributed to him by army officers in the entire Till file, Louis Till articulates a very Igbo understanding of the predicament in which he found himself.
According to report #41 (Criminal Investigation Division/ Rome Allied Army Command, United States Army—7 August, 1944) filed by CID/RAAC agents I. H. Rousseau and J. J. Herlihy and included in the Till documents I received, Louis Till didn’t open up to any extent when Herlihy, posing as a fellow prisoner, confined himself (10 July 1944) in the brig with Till to gain information about the crimes—assault, rape, murder—of June 27–28 in Civitavecchia, Italy. Another attempt to secure a statement from Till on 23 July 1944, the report continues, also met with negative results. Till remained adamantly silent, offering no information about the crimes being investigated nor providing an alibi to establish his whereabouts on the night of June 27. A stubborn silence that must have puzzled and frustrated his army interrogators since all the other accused colored soldiers were busy accusing one another. Breaking his silence once in response to the agents’ repeated demands for a statement, Louis Till allegedly said to Rousseau, “There’s no use in me telling you one lie and then getting up in court and telling another one,” a remark that clearly conveys to me and should have conveyed to Rousseau, Till’s Igbo sophistication, his resignation, his Old World, ironic sense of humor about truth’s status in a universe where all truths are equal until power chooses one truth to serve its needs.
If not in Achebe’s book, where did Louis Till learn the proverb’s wisdom. Louis Till was probably not good at reading. Not a devourer of paperback westerns like my father. Different as they were, both men were the same deep brown color, I believe, and both boxed. Both men, like traditional Igbo wrestlers, honed their bodies to school their minds. Both were good enough with their fists to try amateur boxing. My father in Pittsburgh, Till in Chicago, according to Mamie Till’s autobiography.
I see Louis Till in a gym—bobbing, weaving, feinting, throwing punches. Hear him training as I turn pages of the Till file. Heavy bag—whomp, whomp. Speed bag—blippidity—blip—blippidity—blip—blip. Sugar Ray fast hands flick out quick, quicker. Till up on his toes, leans in, dips back, circling—blip—blip—blip—blippidity—the bag can’t get away quick enough. Till tags it. Stings it. Snaps his punches. Sweat flicks off his dark shoulders. Then hop-hop-hop-hop he’s skipping rope—arc of jump rope cuts slices of air, tongue-shaped, round-shouldered tombstone slices inscribed a thousand perfect times. They hiss over him, behind him, portals of frozen air which frame a snapshot of Louis Till each time the rope whips by. Only inches to spare. Top of Till’s head sliced clean off if he doesn’t duck, step, lean, hip-hop through the whizzing rope.
Been there, done a little boxing myself. Recall how a jump rope dies a split-second whap as each arc strikes the floor. Whap-whap-whap under Till’s feet. In canvas shoes, quick hop after little quick hop seems like the boy don’t hardly touch the ground—he’s flying—the spinning rope whaps the gym’s wood floor—whap—whap—like slaps in the face. Wooden handles of jump rope gripped in taped fists, Louis Till carves the shape—tombstone, tongue—one last time. Ducks under, ducks through. He’s winded. Sweat drips. He freezes. Still as stone a couple counts, then attacks the speed bag again, relentless until he’s finished and lets the bag wobble to a stop. Walks away wet head to toes. Skinny calves, thick thighs, thick torso, a pigeon-toed walk like they say the fastest runners walk. Till heavyset, but light on his feet, sneaky quick, a silent Indian kind of walk and isn’t that why she’s so quiet, Mamie Till so still, holding her breath, waiting for Louis to return.
Mamie Till is difficult to pick out in the apartment’s deepest shadowed corner where she’s slumped. She doesn’t want Louis Till to see her before she sees him. Quiet as a mouse so he won’t hear her before she hears him and launches her attack or counterattack, she tells herself, hiding from her husband in the darkness with a butcher knife and pot of boiled water with a lid to stay hot, scald his sorry ass, his mean soul. He hurt her first. Louis Till hurt her bad and she’s still hurting an hour later, back pushed against the wall, knees pulled up, chin resting on her swollen breasts, breasts resting on her big belly, the poor little child inside her made to go through all this ugly shit, too. Not even born yet but here’s her baby, his baby in the dark crying and hurting like she is, her poor baby inside her moaning like she’d moan out loud if the noise wouldn’t give away her hiding place. Mamie Till is all drawn up inside herself, quiet-quiet, hard-soft ball of herself, round and crowded up with the scared baby inside, she waits. Mamie righteous, fierce, because to save her child she must save herself. She must counterattack and drive Louis Till out the door.
Mamie Till told an interviewer Emmett almost missed his train to Mississippi. She said they had to hurry to get to the Twelfth Street Station on time. I believe I’ve seen that station, that it’s in the documentary I watched, Say Amen, Somebody, about the origins of gospel music, featuring Willie Mae Ford, legendary Chicago singer. I replay a scene in which the middle-aged daughter and son of Willie Mae Ford drive down a ramp into a train station’s underground parking lot. Stroll with them up to street level. Peer with them into a window near an unused entrance to the station. Our faces press close to the glass. With tissues from her purse, the daughter scrubs at a thick coat of grime. Boy, oh boy. Look at that. The camera meanwhile previews the station’s dark interior—an old-fashioned passenger coach abandoned on the tracks where it was uncoupled last, giant cylindrical metal containers stacked against a wall, unrecognizable debris scattered everywhere, gathering dust and rust in the gloom. Coming down here and seeing this decay, based on what it used to be, my, my, puts it all in one package, the man says to his sister, both of them standing inside the station now, eyes panning like the camera. My, my, the man sighs, close to tears. He recalls for his sister the station’s better days, a busy hub of activity when their mother was a star on the gospel music circuit, funny how every time those redcaps be knocking each other out the way to pick up Mama’s luggage. Not about tips. No, no. You know Daddy. Daddy didn’t believe in tips. Huh-uh. A dime sometimes maybe, most they gon get, if they got that.
Grainy clips earlier in the documentary had shown Willie Mae Ford, gospel queen in furs and feathered hats, departing or returning home to Chicago. Freedom trains full of colored emigrants from the south used to land many times a day in Chicago, trains whose sounds are embodied in the old, new music Willie Mae Ford sings, music baptized “gospel” by Reverend Thomas Dorsey, a.k.a. Georgia Tom, a blues troubadour in his younger days. Dorsey’s gospel music too bluesy for some folks. Too much Bessie Smith, Mamie Smith, Ida Smith hip-shaking, home-breaking in it, explains Say Amen, Somebody, and not everybody ready to hear it inside their churches. I remember when lots of them wouldn’t have Mama to sing let alone preach, the sister says to her brother.
The train station in the video could be the same one where September 2, 1955, Mamie Till, dead Louis Till’s wife, dead Emmett Louis Till’s mother, accompanied by her father, an uncle, cousins, an undertaker, two preachers, one named Louis Henry Ford (the father of Willie Mae Ford?) wait for the train from Mississippi bringing her murdered son back home to Chicago. Same train, the City of New Orleans, Emmett had boarded alive to leave Chicago less than two weeks before. A large crowd congregated at the station on September 2 to support Mrs. Till and witness the terrible truth of a story read in the papers, passed by word of mouth, concerning one of theirs, a fourteen-year-old Chicago black boy on a summer visit to relatives