Truth is in the House

By Michael J. Coffino

As a young boy in the late 1950s, Jimmy O'Farrell emigrates with his family from Ireland to Manhattan to bask in the dawn of a new life. Thousands of miles away, the family of Jaylen Jackson seeks to build a life amid Jim Crow culture in Mississippi. As teenagers, both boys struggle to come of age in a racially divisive world, s

• Language: English
• Publisher: Koehler Books
• Release date: Jul 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9781646633494

Michael J. Coffino

Michael Coffino has authored or co-authored nine books (memoir and sports) since 2015, after he downshifted from almost four decades as a trial attorney and twenty-five years as a high school basketball coach, two dynamic careers he pursued in parallel. He also was a legal writing coach while practicing law. He still dabbles in the law and has a private investigation business as well, but mostly devotes himself to writing. Michael grew up in the Bronx, in its Mott Haven and Highbridge neighborhoods. He served in the US Army from 1968 to 1970 and earned a BS in education from the City University of New York and a JD from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. Michael plays guitar, holds a black belt in karate, is a workout junkie, plays pickle ball, and hikes regularly in the hills and mountains of California and Colorado. Truth Is in the House is his debut work of fiction.

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PRAISE FOR

TRUTH IS IN THE HOUSE

Coffino masterfully portrays Jimmy and Jaylen’s thinking, exposing different takes on the same events. He skillfully laces the past with haunting clarity and unflinching honesty that resonates with truth, not merely of the experiences of the youthful protagonists but of the broader, more significant facts about present-day American society. The prose is clean, direct, and mature, and Coffino uses rhetorical devices to vivid effect. He also has a way of creating moments that generate conflicting and unpredictable emotions as he imparts a distinctive voice to each of the protagonists, leading readers to a more profound interpretation of the social and political mood in the USA during that era.

—Norm Goldman, Reviewer, Bookpleasures.com

"Michael J. Coffino is skilled at presenting a contrast in different forms of prejudice (the Irish immigrant and the American black son) in the course of a story that comes to life. He is skilled at positioning his characters to make the most of this disparity, creating a story that is winning in its contrasts and encounters.

"As the tale unfolds, fear, shame, and the impact of new decisions and challenging opportunities invite both characters to find alternate paths to redemption and peace.

"Coffino’s ability to bring to life and contrast these incongruent yet connected lives creates a vivid story that is hard to put down. Its central theme, rooted in real-world events, gives Truth Is in the House an edge over most fictional stories of prejudice, struggle, and missed opportunities. This personalizes historical events and social environments, lending depth to a story that should be on the reading lists of any interested in the history and evolution of Jim Crow–era thinking as it leads into modern times and events."

—D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

"Truth is in the House is a timeless and riveting exposé of modern racial history, masterfully woven through a series of fictionalized actual events and told compellingly through the intersecting lives of two endearing characters of different races. From start to finish, it incites examination of how we each deal with race in our everyday lives and what human values we in truth hold dear. A must-read."

—Steven H. Sadow, High-Profile White Collar Criminal Defense Attorney

This is an expertly written story of race and culture as experienced in the 1950s through the Vietnam era, told with keen insight and great sensitivity. The book engages the reader in a moving and important saga of struggle and courage to do what is right when faced with racial prejudice. Coffino has produced a triumph in what illuminates our country’s ongoing struggles with the realities of racial strife, flaring emotions, determination, and heartache.

—Josie Olsvig, Author of Gullah Tears

"It is refreshing to have a novel that tackles the weighty and divisive social issues of our day not only with unabashed courage but with unflinching authenticity. Truth Is in the House is at once raw, delicate, entertaining, and relentless, a deft piece of storytelling."

—Edward A. McDonald, Former Federal Prosecutor, Head of the Federal Organized Crime Strike Force in New York

"Transportive and immersive, Coffino guides us through dueling stories, both uniquely American, which intersect, then join, then separate, only to collide again. Both of his main characters, suffering from the traumatic and sudden loss of innocence in youth, embark on journeys which carry them from the streets of Manhattan and dusty roads of Jim Crow–dominated Mississippi respectively to the jungles of Vietnam. Back home again, the drama continues to crackle and unfold with both men seeking a form of redemption that perhaps might be on offer only through the other. Just as Coffino’s memorable characters discover, the readers of Truth Is in the House will get a kick out of how life has so many twists and turns, always with meaning to be uncovered."

—Greg Funderburk, Author of The Mourning Wave

In this exciting work of fiction, the reader is treated to a story that compares the struggles of two diverse families who suffer the effects of ethnic and racial bias that spans the lifetimes of each. It further demonstrates that through conscientious effort, a lifetime of bad decisions, as well as determination to understand failures and benefit from them, help to create a successful lifestyle. A job well done.

—Harry Rubin, US Army Airborne Infantry, Vietnam, Author of Traitor’s Revenge

"Through the plot and the narration, the author’s views on the racial divide come shining through, and were very much appreciated. I kept thinking of Caste by Isabel Wilkerson that I am currently reading, and Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates that I read several years ago. These books plus Truth Is in The House have given me a new perspective on the world of racial differences in which we live. What really shines in Truth Is in The House is the humanity we share, no matter our origins or our life circumstances."

—Miriam Downy, The Cyberlibrarian

"If Michael Coffino were a master chef, Truth Is in The House would be a signature dish, spiced with rich nuances sure to stimulate and sate any literary palate. This debut novel resonates with a sagacity in delivering a captivating story that will ripple through the reader’s mind well past its satisfying ending."

—John Busbee, The Culture Buzz

. . . a powerful narrative about the perils of segregation . . . [that] captures a neighborhood and a nation in a time of transition . . .

—Book Life Reviews

"A coming of age story of two vastly different lives colliding, Truth Is in The House: A Novel Inspired by Actual Events by Michael J. Coffino is an intense drama with an acute sense of time and place. Based on factual events, it is a magnified look at the lives of Jimmy O’Farrell and Jaylen Jackson. O’Farrell is of Irish descent, his family settling in Manhattan in search of a better life. Jackson is from Dublin, Mississippi, and he has had his share of battles with prejudice and seeks a better future for himself. These two lives will intersect as they both try to escape the social animosities that hold them back from fulfilling the kind of lives they dream of having. From an inner-city basketball court that serves as a neutral ground for skin color, the two men will forge a friendship tested by time and the same social evils they have been contending with alone.

"More than any other novel I’ve read, Truth Is in The House flows with the current of race relations in America and presents a harrowing story based on actual events. This novel is a gritty racial drama, fragile and passionate, with heartwarming moments in the friendship of two young men from different backgrounds united by a common struggle. Michael J. Coffino deviates from the theatrical. Instead, he uses realism to illustrate how society can make or break its citizens and what happens when you forget to stand up for yourself and for those that you love. This novel evokes more clearly than anything else that the lessons and horrors of the past are bound to be repeated and how sparks of racial tension still happen in many parts of the world. Truth Is in The House is one of the best contemporary novels to tackle an evergreen social problem with such depth. It unequivocally earns a rightful place on your reading list."

—Vincent Dublado for Reader's Favorite

TRUTH

IS IN THE HOUSE

A NOVEL INSPIRED BY ACTUAL EVENTS

MICHAEL J. COFFINO

Truth Is in the House

by Michael J. Coffino

© Copyright 2021 Michael J. Coffino

ISBN 978-1-64663-349-4

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The names, incidents, dialogue, and opinions expressed are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

Published by

3705 Shore Drive

Virginia Beach, VA 23455

800-435-4811

www.koehlerbooks.com

CONTENTS

PART I

Chapter 1: The O’Farrells

Chapter 2: The Jacksons

Chapter 3: Jimmy

Chapter 4: Jaylen

Chapter 5: Hospital Messengers

Chapter 6: The Checkout Counter

Chapter 7: Witness

Chapter 8: The Sedge

Chapter 9: Dear Jack

Chapter 10: Fear

Chapter 11: Highbridge

Chapter 12: Missing

Chapter 13: Rebirth

Chapter 14: Run, Jaylen

Chapter 15: Memories

Chapter 16: Migration

PART II

Chapter 17 : Memories Redux

Chapter 18: Daddy?

Chapter 19: The Game

Chapter 20 : The Body Don’t Forget

Chapter 21: Words to the Wise

Chapter 22: Mama Tucker’s

PART III

Chapter 23: Boot

Chapter 24: Afraid Eyes

Chapter 25: To-Do List

Chapter 26 : Cake

Chapter 27: Asked For

PART IV

Chapter 28: Noble Mission

Chapter 29: Mirror, mirror . . .

Chapter 30: O’Grady

Chapter 31: Public Phone

Chapter 32: Midnight

Chapter 33: Best Laid Plans

Chapter 34: Witness Redux

Chapter 35: Legacy

Chapter 36: Moira

Chapter 37: Rescue

Chapter 38: Intra Vires

Chapter 39: Clace an Lá (Carpe Diem)

Chapter 40: Connection

Chapter 41: ManyYears Later

Chapter 42: Empty Seat

Chapter 43: The Between

Acknowledgments

About the Author

DEDICATION

To Thomas Paul Coffino, my brother, Bronx native son, and compassionate medic, who left the building in 1970 one dark unsuspecting night in Lai Khe, Vietnam

—and—

To Highbridge, the Bronx, where I made my bones, as did many fellow urban compatriots, shoulder to shoulder

In a time of universal deceit,

telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

—George Orwell

PART I

CHAPTER 1

THE O’FARRELLS

The last time Matthew O’Farrell witnessed his wife welling up was a meld of happy and sad tears years earlier when the family uprooted from native turf to replant in the United States.

This time, after a hot, cramped subway ride and steep climb up three flights to their East Harlem tenement, Matthew has forewarning. There’s no customary, Hi honey, and welcoming whiff of home-cooking wafting down the hallway when he enters the apartment.

Filling the kitchen doorjamb with his six-foot-one, 175-pound, broad-shouldered frame, Matthew sees the petite Bettina waiting at the round Formica kitchen table, her blue eyes glistening with moisture, her cheeks stained with dried tears, her black, wavy hair mussed. One thing he knows straight off is that his day-end routine of enjoying a beer and breather before transitioning to family is about to suffer a hiccup.

What’s wrong honey? asks Matthew. His eyes drop to the New York Daily News on the table, open to the article he’d read at work during lunch. Oh boy.

Guess, she answers.

Matthew nods, and with sequential precision grabs a Ballantine’s from the fridge, lowers himself into a chair across from his wife, and as quietly as the pop-top design permits, opens the brew. He caresses the cold can but doesn’t raise it to his mouth. He takes a furtive peek over Bettina’s shoulder for evidence of meal preparation. Not a trace.

Where’s Jimmy?

His room, doing homework.

His door shut?

Bettina nods, and Matthew starts to raise the beer.

"She was ten years old for God sake. Ten! What kind of a place is this?" She throws her hands up.

Matthew feels her strain to control her voice and gently returns the beer to the table without taking a pull. He stays mum, avoiding the rhetorical question.

I assume you’ve read the paper.

Matthew nods solemnly.

Brutally beaten . . . raped! Left dead under a staircase . . . almost unrecognizable. Two blocks from here! She bows her head. Jesus, my Jesus . . . ten years old. Bettina releases the torrent of tears, shoulders heaving.

Matthew wants to console his wife, but when the crying abruptly subsides, instead leans back and draws deep from the beer can, holding the chilled liquid against the roof of the mouth longer than usual before releasing it. Bettina straightens her back and raises her head. She looks at Matthew with pleading eyes.

What will become of that poor family? Bettina asks, choking back a sob. I mean . . . what kind of life can they have here now?

Those rhetorical questions clue Matthew to what’s coming next.

Do you realize what it’s like for me? Afraid to go out at night for milk. When Jimmy’s late from school, even five minutes, my mind’s about to explode. When our son comes home safe, I’m disgusted I feel relieved. Bettina takes a deep breath. This is the life we sacrificed for?

Matthew is drawn to the plastic ebony-colored crucifix on the wall behind Bettina. It strikes him for the first time that but for the Son of God’s display of dutiful sacrifice, the kitchen walls are barren. His stares at the blood-stained, nailed hands of the dead Jesus, an image that will haunt him for a couple of days.

As Bettina’s heartfelt words hang in the kitchen air, details of the newspaper article flood back to Matthew. A neighbor discovered the body of the little girl, Katie Alice O’Malley, early yesterday afternoon in a pool of blood underneath the ground floor staircase at 563 West 140 Street, a building the three O’Farrells have walked by countless times. According to police, a thirty-one-year-old local delivery man under psychiatric care named Josef Heitman laid in wait before swarming little Katie as she returned home from a food shopping errand on which her disabled and unemployed father had sent her. Mrs. O’Malley was at work in downtown Manhattan, and their second child, six-year-old Rose Charlotte—eerily the same name combo he and Bettina planned to give their second child if a girl—was in kindergarten class. The O’Malley family, like theirs, emigrated from Ireland, an association Matthew knows is a combustible trigger for his wife.

Emblazoned in his mind is the vivid newspaper description—Katie’s cotton pink blouse, red sneakers with red polka-dot laces, and floppy white socks, found in a garbage can outside the building, stuffed in a shopping bag containing the food items she had brought home.

Matthew tries to imagine what it was like for the father, waiting for his girl to return from a harmless routine errand, sitting upstairs, hearing a knock, hobbling to open the apartment door, expecting to see his sweet little darling, and instead getting grim-reaper news.

The voice of his wife interrupts his soul-searching.

"This isn’t what we expected, not what I expected. I can’t do this." She puts a hand to her mouth, suppressing tears.

Those last words reverberate in Matthew’s head like a ricocheting racquetball. The last time Bettina bemoaned creeping changes in the neighborhood, Matthew turned the tide, opening her to see things with a longer lens. This time she isn’t venting daily frustration. This time, with the sweltering summer of 1959 looming, Matthew knows she’s reached her boiling point. He continues to yield.

This isn’t the life I want. Nor . . . should . . . you.

The slight backward tilt of her head and steady glare signal to Matthew his turn has come. Matthew rocks his head back and forth looking down. The cold perspiration on the beer can in his hand beckons another gulp, a temptation he resists.

B, look, sweetie, I understand. I do. It upsets me to see you like this. But—Bettina’s jaw muscles visibly tighten at the discounting word—this is our home, where we have put down stakes. It took helluva lot to get here.

Matthew is mindful she’s heard the speech before. He has been consistent in wanting to stay in the game. He wants to be a good neighbor, a proud American, to blend in and make it work, be part of the great American immigration legacy. A quintessential blue-collar guy, Matthew understands the long game and bumpy roads families like theirs must sometimes navigate to reap the long-term prize of an enriched life.

Remember the first time we saw the Statue of Liberty?

His reference is to their voyage in 1957 on the RMS Mauretania II from Dublin to Liverpool to Southampton, England before undertaking their steerage journey to New York. As the ship approached New York Harbor, countless cackling gulls had announced the ship’s arrival, brewing a surge of energy they shared with fellow passengers, as the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and the budding Manhattan skyline sprung into full view. Matthew and Bettina each rested an arm around Jimmy, nestled between them. As the miraculous sight of new beginnings beamed before them, Matthew swept his other arm out in dramatic flair as if presenting the next stage performer, and in his poetic style said, Son, behold the dawn of a new life.

The engraved memory, while once heartwarming, is old news to Bettina. She has told him time and again that what matters now to her is the life they have, not the life romantic visions dangled in front of them back when.

"Of course, I remember, Matthew. But that was then, and this is now; the winds have shifted."

When he hears the emphasized poetic reference, soaked in sarcasm, a taste of his own medicine, the left side of his face winces. He thinks, touché my love, and takes a long pull of the beer.

Matthew feels deeply conflicted. While concerned Bettina is overacting, as she is wont to do, he doesn’t want to diminish her feelings.

I mean, realistically, where’d we go?

The raised and stretched forehead and plaintive eyes he gets in response imply an answer he’d prefer not to hear. For him, coming to America was not only adventurous, but personally affirming. Retreating would ding his honor. Still, he knows not to hide from the implication in her gaze. He fiddles with the beer can, exhales deeply, and meets her gaze.

B, returning to Ireland isn’t a serious option. It’s too complicated and, to be honest, I couldn’t face it. Remember the sendoff, so many family and friends . . . the community . . . the praise for blazing the way?

Matthew knows he is gambling with house money, playing the hand of honor and pride. He hasn’t forgotten that despite the rousing sendoff they got, a few skeptics, stuck-in-the-mud doubting-Thomas types, thought the idea of trading Ireland for America a downgrade, and evidence of minds taking leave of senses. He can see that small ensemble of critics champing at the bit on the news of their return for the chance to rejoice in a pub chorus of I told you so.

But that scenario, he is sure, wouldn’t bother his beloved wife, Bettina O’Farrell, nee Kiernan. She never aspired to become an American, or even an Irish American. She is Irish, no more, no less, inside and out, full stop. No surprise to Matthew, she raises him one.

"You’ll forgive me if all I care about is my family. If you won’t, I know God will."

Matthew receives that below the belt. He again looks at the plastic crucifix, this time seeking reassurance, but instead envisions the crucified Jesus glaring at him. You’re no help.

Matthew has stayed ever-mindful of what drove the family sojourn to New York City from County Longford, Ireland, with only-child Jimmy in tow. After suffering the pangs of three miscarriages trying for a second child, they left behind toiling in a steel mill-centric community that held the promise of more of the same. Matthew couldn’t bear any longer the prospect of a mill existence. And the miscarriages left a public stain—some would say curse—he yearned to eradicate. Matthew harbored the unexpressed hope that an American life over time would resurrect the parts of Bettina that died with each failed pregnancy.

He’s now willing to admit that Bettina never embraced the move in her heart but went along as expected. When they arrived, he was enraptured with the freshness and charm of New York, and its promised possibilities. But looking back he sees it didn’t take long for Bettina to become weary of it. About a year after they arrived in the US, banking on a better life, she began muted protest, often mumbling how New York is dangerous and the only truly safe place for a child is the womb. And then she zeroed in, grumbling about the increased presence of those ruffians, a disparaging tag with which she tarred Blacks and Hispanics.

Matthew is plenty aware that many New York neighborhoods, including theirs, have been in the throes of ethnic transformation, the new residents mainly Blacks from the Deep South, Hispanics emigrating from Puerto Rico, and a smattering of Dominican immigrants. Matthew’s reaction has been to shrug. To him, the new residents are like them, hopeful people vying for their fair slice of that same delectable American pie.

Matthew can easily push aside what happened two blocks away as irrelevant to their future. But he knows his wife well enough that it matters not a whit to her the assailant is a mentally deranged White man and the tragedy fairly branded an isolated act lacking racial animus. She will be unable to look past the sheer cruelty of what happened to that poor little girl, no matter how aberrant a neighborhood occurrence. For her, the jury is in. The neighborhood isn’t safe, and they must leave.

As he nods to himself, Bettina grabs the newspaper and reads aloud a sentence near the end of the article. NYPD Sergeant Joseph McMahon of the 25th precinct said it was, quote, ‘The most gruesome and revolting sight I have seen in over thirty years on the force.’ She returns the paper, still open to the article, to the table, and flashes wide, steely eyes.

"This—jabbing her right index finger at the paper—would never happen in Longford."

Perhaps, thinks Matthew, and perhaps not, bobbing his head in a blended nod and shake. But he knows pushback is unwise, the domestic equivalent of releasing the pin of a hand grenade. His wife is at once unnerved and resolute.

Later that evening, after getting some fresh air alone outside, Matthew takes stock of the cards he holds. Okay, I need to fix this. He is later firm with Bettina, however, that returning to the mothership is not an option—not now at least—and after she flushes requisite handwringing from her system, she assents, for the short term. Okay, let’s see first. The concession means Matthew is tasked with finding an affordable unit in a perceived safe location that doesn’t disrupt the underpinnings of their life, meaning the practicalities of Matthew’s job, and school for twelve-year-old Jimmy.

• •

The next day, co-worker Pat Sullivan refers Matthew to Logan Walsh, a building superintendent in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan, thirty-plus city blocks to the north, bordering the Inwood section. Together, Washington Heights and Inwood form the narrow northern tip of Manhattan.

Two days later, Matthew and Walsh meet over tea at a local café. Matthew can see Walsh has logged some miles. Substantially older, he is white-haired with a grizzled face.

Summoning his best brogue, Matthew says, Can you help us, Mr. Walsh?

Dunno. Tough market this neighborhood lad.

Matthew can feel Walsh sizing him up. What can you tell me about the area? Matthew asks.

Lots of Irish, others too.

Matthew smiles, knowing that will be salve to Bettina. Safe?

I live here, son. Walsh jerks his head slightly back. Of course it is.

Of course, of course. You have anything at all for us?

"Well, had you called last week, ya could’ve had a gem of a place. Promised it though to a young I-Talian couple."

Oh. Have they moved in?

No, no, still need to satisfy paperwork.

Matthew’s eyes widen slightly. I see. Where is it?

Fifth floor walk-up on 170th Street, between Audubon and St. Nicholas, near the Highbridge Pool. Prime.

Matthew can tell the accompanying grin is purposeful. He reaches into his right pants pocket for a fifty-dollar bill, and without comment pushes it smoothly across the table surface.

Walsh lowers his eyes to the proffered tender, watching it slide across the table, nods approval, and slips the bill into his pocket below the table, like a smooth pass of the baton in a relay race.

When can you move in? Walsh asks.

Immediately.

Good answer.

• •

On July 1, 1959, the O’Farrells corral their meager possessions and become residents of Washington Heights in upper Manhattan. The best news for Matthew is his happy wife. She is big on the fifth-floor location. Her parental perch is safer and well worth the daily trek up and down the many flights of stairs, even during hot summers when youthful mischief tends to flow in natural waves at ground level. Matthew jokes that the elevation is our urban moat. As a bonus, the new location adds only a few minutes to Matthew’s commute to Pennsylvania Station in Midtown, Monday through Friday, where he helps man a busy newsstand. It also allows Jimmy to stay in PS 87, where he is approaching eighth grade.

At the first opportunity, Matthew gives the family a tour of neighboring Highbridge Park, a substantial piece of public real estate on the banks of the Harlem River between 155th and Dyckman streets and between Amsterdam Avenue and the Harlem River Drive.

Acting like a proud new father, Matthew shows off the jewel of the park, the Highbridge Play Center, with its Moderne-style design, pointing out the nearby hiking and horseback-riding paths, baseball field, basketball court, dance room, and a game room with table tennis and pool table. He brings them to the property ridge where they take in an impressive vista of Harlem River Valley and the three bridges spanning the Harlem River—the Washington Heights Bridge farthest to the south, the Alexander Hamilton Bridge to the north, and in between them the High Bridge, the oldest standing bridge in New York City. He boasts how the High Bridge, a walking bridge that connects Manhattan on the west and the Bronx on the east, was built with Irish hands, and brings them midway across the bridge for a penetrating view of downtown Manhattan and its dramatic skyline.

He saves for last the popular Highbridge Pool that Logan Walsh mentioned, an immense outdoor facility that includes wading pools, a diving pool, and a bath house with locker room sections that double as a gymnasium in non-swimming months. The three of them peer through the exterior fence to see a pool jammed with kids and families, splashing and frolicking about. Matthew describes the scene as a community within a community.

• •

Over the following weeks, Matthew watches his wife slowly integrate into the neighborhood social circle of housewives, mostly Irish American women with whom she is happy to share stories of the old country. The casual social relationships give her a sense of belonging, unlike what East Harlem provided.

As before, Matthew loves his work at the Penn Station newsstand. While not glamorous by any stretch, the newsstand puts him within the dynamic flurry of the commuter hub of local subway trains and the Long Island Railroad. He thrives off the frenetic energy during rush hour, with its periodic surges of mass human electricity, and is thrilled to engage with a wide range of people of all social strata. When the rippling waves of people pouring through the station abate, as happens in clusters throughout the day, he engages fellow workers on subjects far and wide. The newsstand gives him his sense of belonging.

A few days later during a work lull, Matthew revisits recent events. He knows the move, needed to ease his wife’s fears, won’t change her worrisome ways. She has a flair for teasing anxiety out of life’s moments. For the first time, he wonders whether planting long-term roots in this metropolis may be a fool’s errand, with the family in the thick of a residential shell game. The local rape and murder of that young Irish girl and his wife’s full-throated reaction have sensitized him to the socio-economic forces in motion. He hears the increasing complaints people make at work. He reads the papers. Those voices seem louder, demanding more of the oxygen around him.

The late-afternoon stampede rumble of Long Island Railroad seekers interrupts his private meanderings. He raises his eyes expecting to see the familiar sight, but instead fixes on a swell of hundreds of faceless bodies, meshed like a multi-headed amoebic blob, a single force barreling toward him like a tsunami. He imagines being absorbed into its enormous mass, never to be seen again.

The only safe place is the womb.

CHAPTER 2

THE JACKSONS

A world away, on the dusty outskirts of the sleepy town of Dublin, Mississippi, at 6:00 AM this toasty summer day, Tyra (nee Lewis) Jackson feels a warm kiss on her cheek followed by the familiar words, Rise and shine beautiful. Sleepy-eyed, Tyra nods to her awake husband, Jeremiah, tumbles out of bed, and after a bathroom stop stirs her two sleeping sons, fourteen-year-old Jamani and twelve-year-old Jaylen. She then tenderly makes her way to the kitchen.

As the rest of the family readies for the day, Jeremiah swivels to sit on the edge of the bed, and as he does most mornings, grabs reading material from the side table. He flicks on the bedside table lamp, adjusting it to toss light his way. Reading first thing is his mode of choice to disentangle sleep-induced cobwebs.

Before cracking open the book, he closes his eyes to take a few moments to quiet his mind. Today he’ll read an epic tome, couched in seventy provocative poetic verses, The Tragedy of White Injustice, a 1927 work of the late Marcus Garvey, a work he’s read several times.

After reading the entire piece, he returns to read one verse softly aloud to himself:

Out in this heartless, bitter oasis

There’s now very little of human bliss;

The cold capitalists and money sharks

Have made life unsafe, like ocean barks.

The once dear, lovely Garden of Eden

Has become the sphere of men uneven;

The good God created but an equal pair,

Now man has robbed others of their share.

Jeremiah puts the book down and dresses in the clothes he’d laid out the night before. He then walks to the bathroom, and as he does each morning, places his razor and shaving cream on the left side of the sink, and toothpaste and toothbrush on the other side. After brushing his teeth and shaving, he joins the family in the kitchen, taking a seat at the table.

Jeremiah smiles to himself thinking how much he treasures these mornings with family, when energy is low, when everyone surrenders to grogginess. It is a window in the day without complexity, tension, or rough spots and, above all, no Jim Crow. It is a snapshot of tranquility and innocence he wishes could last forever.

He watches his boys eat, heads down, eyes still finding their way from sleep, and is filled with pride about how beautiful they are, how grown they have become, and how ready they are to blaze their own paths outside the front door. He watches his wife watch the boys as they fiddle with their food. He can see in her eyes the pure love that she has for them. She is the perfect mother and the perfect wife. He knows he is blessed.

Breakfast concluded, Jeremiah bids farewell to his family. He gives strong shoulder squeezes to his two boys and Tyra a warm embrace and the second peck on the cheek of the day. He is out the door at 7:00 AM, as he is each morning, without fail, Monday to Friday.

Jeremiah hoofs the fifteen-minute jaunt on a dirt road to a rickety but reliable colored-only bus that takes him to the White-owned Belmont Furniture, a manufacturing facility outside Clarksdale, Mississippi. There, Jeremiah oversees a crew of Black men who assemble furniture for customer delivery. Leaving the house at 7:00 AM gives him ample wiggle room to arrive to punch the clock at 8:15 AM, when his presence is required. He arrives home each day at 6:00 PM to family and the final meal of the day.

After Jeremiah is out the door, Tyra and the boys begin to clear the table. Dish in hand, Jaylen turns to his mother.

Daddy trying to set a record Mom?

What do you mean?

He is never late and never misses work.

Ha, yes, son. That’s so true, even though he’s been sick sometimes.

Why is that? asks Jaylen.

Well, son, your father believes in being punctual . . . and loyal. He also wants to be careful. Colored folk don’t get treated the same as White folk on the job. For people like your daddy, being late can cost him his job and taking sick days means less pay. Besides, your father is trying to get promoted, get a better position. Not so easy for a colored man in Mississippi.

Jaylen nods and looks pensive. Jamani has a blank look that Tyra cannot interpret.

Okay, you two, time to get ready for school.

Thirty minutes later the boys shuffle out the door. Leaning against a column on the house porch, Tyra delights in watching them bound down the road, marking time on the same path their dad took a little while ago, harmlessly messing with each other, like loving brothers do. As they fade into the distance, she beams with love and pride—my beautiful boys—before turning to the domestic chores of the day.

Tyra loves their home, a single shotgun house with a narrow wood-frame rectangular structure and wood siding in which each room lines up in a row. The rooms don’t open to each other. Access to each is via the common hallway, which runs the length. Three wooden steps lead to a front porch and entry to the home. Two rocking chairs rest on the porch, one on each side of the front door. Inside, is a small living room off the porch, followed by two bedrooms and a kitchen in the back. The ceilings are high, allowing decent ventilation, helpful in Mississippi. When the Jacksons moved in, the home didn’t have a bathroom—only a rudimentary outhouse—but Jeremiah fixed that soon enough. Nor was there indoor plumbing. That too he added. The back of the house opens to a tiny backyard where off to the side stands the rectangular wooden outhouse and