E. C.’S Finest

By Fat Mack

In the early 70s in Cleveland, Ohio, I was told that suburbs were beautiful where the high societies and rich folks had lived, such as Shaker Heights, Garfield Heights, Warrensville Heights, and others. But mostly white citizens of these communities had kept their lawns and home up to par like they were in a contest to see whose yards and gardens were the prettiest. And the heights police had made sure that these places had stayed this way by keeping lower-standard living people and crooks out, making sure that their communities where they lived stayed colorless. You may have seen a few blacks here and there in Shaker Heights or any of the heights, but you best believe that they were either lawyers, doctors, or professionals with degrees; most of these blacks probably had a white spouse who had produced mixed children.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 19, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514433348

Fat Mack

Fat Mack is a native of Cleveland, Ohio where most of his immediate family still resides. When he is not writing, Fat Mack enjoys fishing, watching sports especially the Cleveland Cavaliers and Cleveland Browns, and spending time with his family. To help him get a clear mind for writing, he loves to ride in his cars listen to music. Fat Mack hopes to one day open a homeless shelter. Today Fat Mack resides in South Carolina. He is married and has four children.

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CHAPTER 1

Streets

In the early ’70s in Cleveland, Ohio, I was told that suburbs were beautiful where the high societies and rich folks had lived, such as Shaker Heights, Garfield Heights, Warrensville Heights, and others. But mostly white citizens of these communities had kept their lawns and home up to par like they were in a contest to see whose yards and gardens were the prettiest. And the heights police had made sure that these places had stayed this way by keeping lower-standard living people and crooks out, making sure that their communities where they lived stayed colorless. You may have seen a few blacks here and there in Shaker Heights or any of the heights, but you best believe that they were either lawyers, doctors, or professionals with degrees; most of these blacks probably had a white spouse who had produced mixed children.

But even where I was born and raised, it may have not been the heights, but it was middle class. You know how some people try to pump their lives up about being from some war zone of a place where everyone had a bullet wound or a stitching on their body. Well, not me, because living in East Cleveland, my mother had told me before I got here that people could walk the streets and leave their front doors open, and you could trust your neighbors. You even had a few upscale white people who owned homes on our street Chapman and on other streets throughout the middle-class community that had very nice big homes, and the streets were well taken care of by the city. It may have not been the heights, but you can say it was the next step down where kids had played outside more and where some people did a little more hustling and bustling.

To make a long story short, you had people like my grandfather who had worked for the railroad. But when he was out, he had used his other skills to work for rich white businessmen who had given him contracts—maybe painting, hanging drywall, or even laying carpet. Some of my uncles who were coming to manhood would cut neighbors’ and other people’s grass with a lawn mower that didn’t have an engine on it. And when the winter hit, a lot of guys in my community were happy because that meant work. You could charge a person ten dollars back then to shovel their driveway. And if you did ten driveways that day, that was a cool honest hundred-dollar pay; sometimes more, depending on tips from generous people. But depending on how much snow it was—sometimes if more than a foot of snow—your back will tell you about it, whether you’re a young man or older.

Some people say that they can’t remember when they were three or four years old, but not me. In like 1974, my young mother was in college, so she had to leave me with my grandparents who I must say were the coolest grandparents in the world. My grandparents had produced nine healthy children, four boys and five girls. So in the morning while my grandmother was braiding the girls’ pigtails and hot combing their bangs, my granddaddy was always in the kitchen making a breakfast dinner. The breakfasts were either pork chops, hash browns, grits, or eggs. And on hotcake mornings, along with the Alaga syrup game, you would have thick jowl bacon with onion sausage and hash browns. Oh yeah, can’t forget the buttermilk biscuits that were made from scratch.

I can remember sitting on my granddaddy’s lap, chumping down pancakes with Alaga syrup at the big dining room table with all of my other uncles and aunts who were already in school or were either going to work or college. And this would go on for weeks and weeks while my mom stayed busy with school and work, until after a while my grandfather Odell would take me under his wing and spoil me rotten. He would take me on jobs with him, even taking me around his vodka-drinking friends, bragging that I would be the next heavyweight champion of the world, and he would be my trainer. And the way he had bragged about me to different people had given me the fatherly love that I didn’t have in my biological father, because I didn’t know him.

During those beautiful times I had shared with my family on Chapman Street, the events, cookouts, and especially the holidays—such as Christmas and Thanksgiving—were my favorites because of my grandmother’s candied yams and grandfather’s peach cobbler. I would think that they were trying to win my love with their sweet dishes.

But on numerous occasions I would see my grandfather chastise a few of my uncles, who were big teenagers and were almost eighteen. I didn’t know at the time why my granddad had maybe two or three of them down there in the basement. But as a curious four-year-old child, I would walk down the squenching steps as my uncles cried and hollered from the lashes; I would peek around the corner and watch in amazement while my grandfather had one of his kids hold on to the pole. He would give them one lash after the next with a belt until he thought that they wouldn’t do whatever they did to get a whipping again.

I didn’t want to be on that pole, so when I saw them coming back up the steps—my uncles crying and rubbing their bun and my grandfather looking angry while gripping that ironing cord like he wanted to whip them again—I fled to my grandmother’s lap back into the living room where she was watching the Young and the Restless. And she had told me, Don’t be no bad boy like them because you see what happens when you go to that basement. And then she would go to start giving details on what their crime was by showing me what she had called a funny cigarette. See this? If you see one of these in the ashtray, do not touch because that is why them boys got their butts warmed, you understand, Bee? said my grandmother. All I could do at four years old is shake my head and be scared to death of that big black leather belt and of even doing anything in that basement. I didn’t even want to play hide-and-seek in that basement again.

The Rat Ate the Watermelon

While my much older uncles were smoking funny cigarettes with their friends and were chasing girls, I was mischievous in other ways. My grandfather had brought a gigantic watermelon home and gave everyone in the house a nice piece. So as everyone sat on the porch and ate the sweet and cold watermelon which cooled us off in the hot summer of 1977, Odell told all of us not to bother the rest of the watermelon he had in the refrigerator. But after I had eaten all of mine, I was in love with watermelon just as must as I was in love with peach cobbler and candied yams. So after I saw my grandparents creep into their room which was by the kitchen, I knew that they would be busy for a while when they shut the door. My younger aunt who was still in elementary school was on the couch sleeping, and all of the others were either in the attic watching Big Chuck and Little John or in the backyard playing basketball.

So now that I was alone with no one to see, I snuck to that huge refrigerator and opened it up, grinning ear to ear and licking my lips. I could clearly see the watermelon far toward the back of the bottom part of the refrigerator, but there is one problem: I was too short to reach the temptingly sweet and cold feast. So I had to climb in there, placing my whole little body in the refrigerator and leaving the door just a little ajar.

Knowing that I needed a spoon that my smart four-year-old mind had forgotten, I used my hands instead as I ate piece after piece after piece. I probably was in the refrigerator—breaking the law and eating my grandfather’s watermelon—for about ten minutes when I heard their bedroom door open, and some heavy feet walk into the kitchen to get a glass of water for their efforts. All of a sudden my grandfather saw that the refrigerator door partially open.

That is when I stopped snacking and tried to stay calm and very still until the old man went back to his room. But instead my granddad tried to save energy by closing the refrigerator; however, when he pushed it, the door couldn’t close because my little body wouldn’t let it. When Odell saw my little body inside the refrigerator, I thought right then and there, Damn, I’m busted, and he is taking me to the basement for a whipping that I would never forget.

But as he took me out and stood me up in the front of him, he could clearly see watermelon juice and seeds all over my face and t-shirt. This was when he called my grandmother, who had rushed in to join the conversation about why I was in that refrigerator and what I was doing. My grandfather asked me sternly, but he tried to not laugh in any way because both of my grandparents were pretty tickled. And the answer I gave them at only four years of age was, I was watching that rat eat that watermelon.

When I said that, my grandparents had laughed so hard in the kitchen. It made me happy because with the way they were laughing, it didn’t seem like I was about to get a beaten in the basement. They thought that telling them it was a rat eating the watermelon was funny and cute, but I must have been the rat because the evidence was all over me. After everybody found out about me being the rat in the refrigerator, all of our family and friends thought that that was the cutest moment so far in my life. But by this small incident of a crime being the cutest thing to my family, what would be the next one? And will that cute little white lie be cute as well? Only time will tell.

The Candy Lady

Words can’t express the way my family and I cared about an older white lady named Ms. Eastwood. To everybody who had lived on Chapman, Grassmere, Northfield, or any other street in East Cleveland, Ms. Eastwood was the Candy Lady. But the kindhearted older lady who stayed only two houses up the street from us was one of us. During summertime while we were either playing street football or even hide-and-go-seek, as soon as Ms. Eastwood had opened her front door and said Come and get it, kids, every kid on Chapman Street would rush to her back door, trying to be first in line to receive the best treats before she ran out. While other kids just got candies and pops, my cousins and I would be able to sit in her house and eat freshly baked frosted icing cakes and fruits; and besides having more access to more candies than the other children, Ms. Eastwood even made her own sweet cereal in the oven. She would let me and my uncle Gabe try it out while watching Transformers in her living room. My uncle Gabe was just two years older than me, so really we were like brothers instead of Gabe being my mother’s baby brother.

I can remember the times when my grandfather was at work, and my grandmother had to run to doctor appointments but had no way to do so. And there was her buddy Ms. Eastwood to save the day. She would take my grandmother places; she would even take one of my older uncles to work time after time. One day, my uncle even drove Ms. Eastwood around because she wasn’t feeling good; her legs were aching. I can remember when she turned seventy-five years old, and my uncle Gabe walked her to our house; as soon as she came in she got the surprise of her life.

See, Ms. Eastwood thought that she was going to watch some soaps with my grandmother, but she ended up running into a house full of Macks screaming Surprise! Happy birthday, Ms. Eastwood! When she saw her big cake and all of the love on our faces just for her, her cheeks had turned into red roses, and her eyes were watering. Ms. Eastwood was a tough cookie, and she had lived alone for years without having a lot of her own family, who were from other states, come to see her often. However, you could tell that the love we showed her clearly made up for what she was missing with her own family. Even my uncle Miles, the oldest boy, showed up to give his hug to Ms. Eastwood; he even gifted her with a nice eighteen-inch silver chain which he put on her neck.

But you know while some of us were amazed that Miles would have it like that, others had known that it was hot off the street. But it didn’t matter at that second, because we all were happy that Ms. Eastwood wasn’t just the Candy Lady; she was a part of this family. And my uncle Gabe made sure that Ms. Eastwood would never be alone again. Even though he was just thirteen years old, Gabe knew how to help Ms. Eastwood around her house—I guess through my helping his own mom, Doris.

So when Ms. Eastwood let him ride with her to different places and allow him to be an adopted son, it had bothered me big time because I loved her to. So yeah, there was a little jealousy. But after a while I had gotten used to it and had to find something else to do with my friends to hide my pain. Sometimes I would find myself stealing out of convenient stores with Smoke and Slim just for fun. It was crazy because we would always stuff the goodies in Juan’s clothes since he was big in size. And even though we had gotten away with small petty crimes, at the end of the day at eleven years old, all that I really wanted was for my mother and father to be together and for us to live in our own house; I wanted to have a dog and a basketball goal in the backyard, so that my friends and I could play ball.

When we played hide-and-seek with girls on Chapman Street, and it would turn in to hide-and-go-get-it, I knew that touching a girl in such a bad manner was wrong. But it made me feel good, like a man. And by continuing to do these kinds of things, I would soon have a love for it. And I would not think about the consequences of my wicked deed growing as a boy into a young man.

When my mother told me one particular day that I would be going to stay with my other grandfather—my biological father’s dad who had stayed in Shaker Heights—I didn’t know what to think; I didn’t know that side of the family the way I had known my mom’s family my whole life. But when Harold came to pick me up in his big gold Lincoln town car, I really enjoyed the power leather seats and power windows. My granddaddy was into the blues while he drove, but all the old men who made this music seemed sad—every song was either about their woman leaving them or about partying and getting drunk in the hole in the wall.

But after only a day of hanging out with my granddaddy, I instantly thought that he was one of the coolest cats in the world. It wasn’t because he bought me all of my school clothes and shoes. It wasn’t about the money he had given me and the extravagant house in which he lived. To tell you the truth, Mr. Gibbs would end up being one of my idols—someone whom I wanted to be like. And boy did he make some of the best hotcakes ever in the morning.

With my father, David, being off in the military, I was now starting bonds with my father’s other siblings—Missy, who was an attorney, and Uncle Mike, who was a police officer. Missy had a son who was maybe three years younger than me, and we played like we were brothers from the same mother. Uncle Mike would take us to see the Cleveland Cavs play ball in the Richfield Coliseum. We had even traveled as a family to my grandfather’s birthplace, and Mr. Gibbs would always say, Baby, one day it will be your turn to drive me to Meridian Mississippi because your granddaddy is getting old. I would trip out on the fact that my grandfather Mr. Gibbs would call me baby, but I was a big boy. But the reason was that he loved me like I was his own. I never would forget what he told me each and every time he had dropped me off my on Chapman in East Cleveland. And he would say, Stay in school so that you can be somebody, so you won’t have to hustle for crumbs. And never ever be a bomb because you will never have nothing, and nobody will want to deal with you. It was kind of weird—him telling me this, as he would watch my uncles on my mother’s side hustling pot—but one day, I would totally understand what the old man was trying to teach me.

CHAPTER 2

The Hustle 1984

Walking with my best friend Dave to Prospect Elementary School was always pretty cool, especially in the wintertime because of all of the snow Cleveland usually had. Dave and I had come from good homes, so we both did great in school. Sometimes, though, I would laugh at a joke or two from one of my funny classmates, and I would end up in the principal’s office. I would be standing in line, nervously waiting on a swat for my punishment from the long red-hot paddle that Mr. Long had held. And he was a big and tall black man who seemed to love his job.

But besides recess, I couldn’t wait until after school so that I could get to my homework and then get to the spot where a couple of my boys and I made our money hustling buggies. It was a grocery store maybe two blocks from our street named Pick ’n’ Pay. It was me, Smoke, and Slim, and we all were born and raised on Chapman Street. And our families had loved each other, so it was like family on top of family.

Anyway, we would stand outside of the grocery store and approach customers, like older ladies or women who had lot of bags in their buggies, and we would ask if we could push the carts to their car and unload them. Some of the customers would say no, but most of them didn’t mind because they were just glad to see us making an honest living rather than steal. Some days were slower than others, but when the tips were rolling, I mean the dough [money] was rolling. I sometimes would make about fifty bucks in just a few hours, with tips ranging from two dollars all the way up to sometimes a rich nice customer giving me a whole five dollars, just for placing their bags neatly in their carts.

Juan and Smoke did pretty good too because we were a team who realized that there was enough money out here for all of us. And we made a bond at the end of the day that nothing would change this for life. If one of us had made it, we all had made it. And to think the manager who was a white younger man for Pick ’n’ Pay didn’t even mind us hustling on the premises. I mean, the guy would see us working and sweating and would give us a pop of our choice just to cool off in the hot summertime, which had given us permission to hustle through rain, sleet, or snow. And I mean, our parents didn’t even have to buy us Levi’s or Puma tennis shoes for school.

I can remember my hardworking mother coming home from school and work. And I told her to get dressed; we were going downtown to see the new movie by Prince, Purple Rain. She complained by saying, Boy, I don’t have no money for a movie, and then I pulled out a stash out of both pockets of my Levi jeans—fives, tens, and a bunch of ones that had added up to nearly two hundred dollars. My mother was so shocked in amazement until she got scared that I was doing bad things to get that money; I took her to the spot that paid me, Pick ’n’ Pay.

After my mother talked to the white manager and thanked him for allowing me to push customers’ buggies, we were on our way downtown to watch Purple Rain. I must say, while my mom and I were riding the bus, I felt so good. And I could tell my mom was proud too, because of the smile on her lovely face. After all, how many ten-year-olds in the world was taking their mother out on the town this second? None that I knew.

The next day I hooked up with Slim and Smoke to show them the boom box I bought downtown after my mom and I watched Purple Rain. And boy, were my boys happy to see my new big boom box because now, all that Smoke could say was now we could break-dance against other streets. Yeah, we were also poppers and break-dancers who could backspin and windmill better than most kids our age. Except for Juan—he was a big one, so he was more of the rapper-slash-beatboxer type, but he was my brother.

So the boys started talking about wanting to go down to our spot and making some loot [money]. So I said, Cool, let me put up my boom box and we’re out. As we were walking down Chapman and then taking a right on Euclid Avenue, we all heard police sirens and saw police cars going to our spot, Pick ’n’ Pay. So we ran and crossed the street in a hurry to get there and see what going on. All we could see were lots of people and commotion. Police were pushing customers away from the business, and now the news van was setting up shop to make a story. As we got closer, I was the first one of my crew to see a woman lying on the ground, not moving. I could tell that the lady was an older lady—the same lady who tips me very well for carrying her groceries to her car. And when I saw the police cover her up, I still was punch-drunk; I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand until Smoke had told me and Juan that the rich old black lady was dead. Bee, somebody done got her!

Later on that evening while my family and I watched the news, we learned that Mrs. Sade was stabbed during a robbery when a young teenage drug addict who was on sherm sticks [wet] had tried to snatch her purse. And by Mrs. Sade, a mother of ten children and almost twenty grandchildren, tried to fight off the robber. She lost her life in the end, trying to defend the possessions she had in that big black purse—which only contains her wallet with her IDs, car keys, black checkbooks, a measly forty dollars, and some change.

That night my mother and grandmother, who both knew I was so hurt over this matter, had tucked me into bed. They both prayed with me and for a woman the whole community had known for decades. And as much as I blamed myself for not being there to protect Mrs. Sade from that robber, I also knew