The Book of Harlan. Bernice L. McFadden
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cream Ford Model T. Is that right?”
“Yeah,” Bill said.
“License plate 15 32 44?”
“Yeah.”
The officer chuckled. “Well, we towed that car from the scene.”
Bill narrowed his eyes. “Towed?”
“The scene? The scene of what?” Lucille asked.
“Well,” the officer started, folding has arms across his chest and leaning way back in his chair, “the driver rammed it right into a police cruiser.”
“What?” Bill blurted, wide-eyed.
“Yep, we got ’im locked up in the back.”
“Well, I wanna see the thieving son of a bitch,” Bill bellowed.
The officer rose from his chair, hitched his pants beneath the swell of his belly, and said, “Sure, follow me.”
Harlan was sitting on the floor with his back against the brick wall of the tiny holding cell. From his tearstained cheeks, it appeared as though he’d cried himself to sleep.
“Aw, shit,” Bill sighed.
Lucky for Harlan, Bill and Lucille weren’t your regular Negroes, but well-known celebrities—well, at least Lucille was. The police chief himself held a standing invitation to their weekly Sunday dinners, of which he took full advantage.
Needless to say, the officer waived Harlan’s bail, the incident report was destroyed, and Harlan was released into Bill and Lucille’s custody.
Lucille thanked the officer, caught Harlan by the ear, and tugged him screaming toward the exit. Bill followed, biting his lip, pulling his belt free from his trousers. They damn near ran right into Sam and Emma who had just dashed into the station.
“Harlan!” Emma cried, rushing to her son and crushing him to her chest.
Relieved to see his son, Sam dragged his hands over his wet face and shook the perspiration to the floor. The episode had left his eyes red and face etched with deep worry lines.
Bill snaked the belt back through the loops of his trousers and stepped hastily to Sam. “Look here, can I have a word?”
Sam looked at Bill’s pinched face. “Yeah, yeah.”
Lucille watched the men walk off to a quiet corner before turning her attention back to Emma, who was blubbering and fussing over Harlan.
“You know he tore up the car?” Lucille said, tapping Emma on her shoulder.
Emma’s head snapped up. “What you say?”
“I said he tore up the car. He stole it and crashed into a police car.”
Emma’s eyes fluttered and she folded her lips into her mouth. For a moment, she thought she was going to pass out again.
Off to the left, Sam’s angry voice bounced off the police station walls: “He did what?”
Chapter 23
They walked all the way home. Sam’s anger reached a state he hadn’t even known existed. Walking helped relieve some of that rage. Had it not, Harlan would still have stood a chance out in the open, where witnesses were plentiful and he had space to run.
They trudged home in tense silence. When they reached the house, Sam sat down on the stoop and dropped his head into his hands. “I’ll just stay here for a while,” he mumbled through splayed fingers.
Emma nodded understandingly, unlocked the door, and followed Harlan into the house.
Once inside, the boy scurried up to his bedroom without a word. Emma closed the parlor drapes, switched on a lamp, and slowly climbed the stairs. In her room, she opened the closet door, rested her chin on the back of her hand, and stood pondering Sam’s belts.
Harlan figured his parents’ smoldering, disapproving silence was the worst it was going to get. So it took him by surprise when a wild-eyed Emma burst into his room whipping a belt through the air.
Thwack!
The stinging lash sent him running for his life.
Emma beat Harlan around the room, up and down the hallways, into the parlor, and around the piano.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
Outside, the crack of the belt and Harlan’s terrified squeals raised a satisfied smile to Sam’s lips. Later on, he’d feel sorry for his son, but for now, it was all he could do to keep from cheering.
Harlan managed to keep a length ahead of Emma, but he couldn’t escape the reach of the belt. Like a sprinter hurtling toward the finish line, Harlan summoned all of his speed and exploded down the hallway into the bathroom, where he shut and locked the door.
Emma pummeled the door with her fists and feet. She threatened and cussed and demanded, but Harlan refused to let her in.
And then, just as suddenly as the madness had seized her, it slipped away. Out of breath and drenched in sweat, Emma flung the belt down to the floor and collapsed backward into the wall.
Harlan’s wounded howls pierced her heart, nearly splitting it in half. Soon, she was bawling too.
That was the first and last time she ever beat that boy.
Chapter 24
“The problem is,” Lucille complained to her husband, “they treat Harlan like a man, not a boy.”
“A friend, not a son,” Bill grunted in agreement.
“They let him listen to all that grown-ass music. Mine included. He knows all the words. You hear him, don’t you? Singing ’bout moochers, rolling lemons, and warming wieners!”
“Yep.”
“That boy needs some religion in his life, ’cause the devil’s watching and waiting.”
Church had not been a staple in Sam and Emma’s lives since they’d left Macon. Once they’d settled in Harlem, their religion became swing, jazz, and bebop, ministered by Satchmo, Calloway, and Gillespie.
“What that boy needs is more Our Father who art in Heaven and a little less Hi-dee-hi-dee-ho! and Hep! Hep! Hep!”
“A-yuh.”
“Of course he’s going to do and say as he pleases. There ain’t no consequences to his behavior.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What parents you know don’t beat their kids? Even white folks beat their damn kids!”
“Uh-huh.”
“If they don’t make that boy mind his manners, you know who will, right?”
“The po-lice.”
“Say it again.
“The PO-LICE.”
“You got that shit right.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And you can’t tell him nothing. You notice that? Any good advice you try to sling his way, before you can get it out your mouth, he hollering, I know, I know!”
“I got a nephew just like him,” Bill huffed, “know everything and don’t know shit.”
Well, that wasn’t an entirely true statement. Harlan did know how to con his mama out of money—it only took a smile and a, Aww, Mama, please! As he grew older, he would use the same formula to coax women out of their drawers: Aww, baby, please!
The other thing that he would become proficient in was playing the guitar.