The Ties That Bind

By Rudy Kofi Cain

In the 1940s, Douglas Ward is a black boy in the American South. He is not only terrorized by the countrys segregation laws, but also by troubles within a family of mixed values. Outside, the world is in tumult, but within the walls of his childhood home, Ward finds pandemonium orchestrated by his belligerent, uncompromising grandfather, Tobias.

Throughout his early years, young Ward is consumed by fear, distrust, and self-doubt. Rather than bury his head in the sand, he discovers ways to free himself from the disheartening chaos at home as well as the pervasive negative impact of segregation. The challenge to overcome adversity and take charge of his life seems insurmountable, but he does not give up.

Fortunately for Ward, there are several safety nets in his life, like the unwavering support of his maternal grandmother, and his school, which creates a safe haven and foundation for the realization of his dreams. It takes the death of a loved one, though, to trigger Wards appreciation for his family life and to remind him that home is so much more than just a house.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781532016608

Rudy Kofi Cain

Dr. Rudy Kofi Cain is a professor emeritus and former college administrator who has published extensively in professional and trade journals. Cain received his bachelors degree in sociology/psychology from Hampton University, a masters degree in rehabilitation counseling from New York University, and an M.A./ Ed.D. in Adult Education/Administration, with a secondary concentration in psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University. He is a longtime resident of the Fort Greene/Clinton Hill area of Brooklyn, New York. Cain’s seminal book, “Alain Leroy Locke: Race, Culture, and the Education of African American Adults(2003) received the “Publisher’s Best Book Award.” This is his first novel.

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Copyright © 2017 Rudolph A. Cain.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-1659-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-1660-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017901620

iUniverse rev. date: 02/28/2017

Contents

1 The Loss

2 Tobias

3 A House Is Not Home

4 Coming of Age

5 Family Tapestry

6 Stepping Out

7 Trials and Triumphs

8 Halls of Ivy

9 In Search of Father

10 Planting Roots and Realizing the American Dream

11 Returning to the Source

F irst and foremost, this book is for my late maternal grandparents, who taught me lifelong lessons of survival and forgiveness. Not to be forgotten is the tremendous influence of the late Ethel Gladys Horseley, my fourth- and fifth-grade teacher, on my life. She not only instilled a passion for learning but also helped me believe in myself and the unlimited opportunities and possibilities for achieving and succeeding. Kudos to my niece, Robin Terry, who shares my profound appreciation of the value of laughter in confronting adversity. Lastly, this book is for the late Curtis Lyles, a longtime devoted friend whose garden was a sanctuary for quiet reflection and solitude.

When I think of home, I think of a place where there’s love overflowing.

—The Wiz

Acknowledgments

T his writing project was a labor of love and posed the challenge of transitioning from scholarly academic research and writing to fiction. The unwavering support of numerous individuals kept me grounded. Foremost, I am eternally grateful to Joyce Hansen Nelson, a friend and former colleague and an award-winning children’s literature writer. She provided both copyediting feedback and unlimited encouragement and emotional anchoring, remaining steadfast throughout this journey. Though my involvement with the Brooklyn-based John O. Killens Writing Group was short-lived, I learned much about the craft of fiction writing. I am especially indebted to two members of that group: Denise Bell’s encouragement was indeed motivational, and Carol Dixon’s consummate constructive criticisms and invaluable instructive suggestions enabled me to release untapped avenues of creative expression. The insightful comments of readers Dr. Nadine Bryce, Rosemary Kennedy, Dr. Juollie Carroll, and Dr. Brett Truitt were instructive and affirming. Not to be overlooked is the assistance Dr. Emil Moxey provided with the English language and dialect exchanges that occurred in the story. Lastly, the savvy technical expertise and computer support of Erin Samples were crucial to the completion of this literary journey.

1

The Loss

And Death heard the summons / And he leaped on his fastest horse, Pale as a sheet in the moonlight. / Up the golden street Death galloped.

—James Weldon Johnson,

Go Down Death—A Funeral Sermon

T he telephone in Douglass Ward’s apartment had never rung so early in the morning. It was six o’clock. He panicked, feeling his heart palpitating and racing for dear life. He jumped out of bed as though awakening from a bad dream. Unfortunately, it was not a dream but a shocking call from his mama, Bertha, telling him that his grandma Henrietta had died.

With mournful tears streaming down his face and his hands nervously shaking, he felt helpless, alone, abandoned, and consumed with gnawing pangs of guilt. The turn of events that followed that untimely call would catapult Ward across the landscape of his life in search of an enlightened understanding of the complex nature of family relationships.

During their conversation, Bertha recounted the series of events that had preceded Henrietta’s death. Henrietta was rushed to the hospital following several days of excruciating pain associated with a long history of kidney problems. Miraculously, at eighty-five years old, this was her first hospitalization in more than twenty-five years. Though she had previously suffered a series of chronic illnesses, including a major heart attack, she had managed to weather the storm through a combination of medication, ambulatory care, and the vigilant support of her family. It was to be dramatically different this time.

Henrietta died in a hospital, yet ironically, she had always mistrusted the medical profession. When Douglass was a young child, she would capture his imagination and illuminate his fears as she intensely lashed out at doctors and hospitals for their maltreatment of black people. With a look of defiance and objection, she would yell out, Theys always want to cut! His grandma had never been comfortable with the idea of being in a hospital, in spite of the fact that she had been a home-care attendant of sorts for years, taking care of old, infirm, well-to-do white people. She would sometimes tell gruesome stories about the medical profession and human experimentation, noting the appalling incidence of missing bodies, specifically black bodies. Her face would flush red as she recounted the horror of deres dem poor black sharecropper men in Alabama who got no treatment for syphilis as part of some ole concocted experiment and ventually died of a slow death.

Douglass was petrified after hearing Henrietta’s startling accounts of what she called man’s inhumanity to man. Hearing those stories caused every muscle in Douglass’s body to stiffen as though he were paralyzed, and his bulging eyes widely lit up with a look of fear. His sister, Gloria, would cast a fixated look of disbelief, and his brother, Ezekiel, would mutter to himself, Dares goes Gramma again.

In spite of her outrage about the medical mistreatment of blacks and the plight and horrors of segregation and Jim Crow, Henrietta always told the children they could become whatever they wanted to become if they believed in themselves and followed the examples set by Booker T. Washington and Mary McCloud Bethune. ’Tis goin’ be a better day for you chirren, she assured them. Then she would caution them not to think or believe that all white people were bad, though black people had been lynched and slaughtered like animals and encountered other personal atrocities. All white people ain’t bad, she’d say, invoking the names of Harriet Beecher Stowe and William Lloyd Garrison, vigilant abolitionists. ’Tis dem white trash that always causin’ the problem for colored people.

Well-to-do whites were not spared the rod. We take care of deres chirren and cooks dares meals, and then des choke at the thought of us drinking out the same water fountain and using the same toilet. Shaking her head in disgust, she would say, I’s jest don’t understand white folks sometimes.

As her storytelling reached a crescendo, Henrietta would burst out with a trembling explosion of anger, her face reddening with fiery intensity, as though blood were rushing to her head. Yes, too many of our people go to the hospital, and we don’ see dem till theys in a casket. The life of a colored person ain’t worth a dime in a country that was built on the blood, sweat, and backs of colored people. I cried tears when I learnt that dat young boy Emmett Till had been killed in cole blood by a white mob because he dared to look at a white woman. It’s a damn shame. She would capture the imagination of the children whenever she talked about the deplorable conditions and treatment of black people in the hospitals. The colored people were cramped into smelly and unclean wards and treated like animals.

For the next few days following Henrietta’s hospitalization, Douglass was in constant touch with his mama, Bertha, and his sister, Gloria, maintaining a solemn vigil of concern. His anxiety level intensified when he thought about what Gloria had said during one of their telephone conversations: Gramma had told Mama and me that she would not be coming home when she was rushed to the hospital. This haunting refrain reverberated in Douglass’s mind throughout the initial crisis period. For days, he didn’t sleep well, and his appetite was not good. He pondered the question Did Gramma have a premonition that she was going to die in the very place she criticized?

On Tuesday evening, the third day of Henrietta’s stay in the hospital, Douglass’s telephone rang. It frightened the hell out of him. Momentarily frozen in his tracks, refusing to answer, thinking the worst and not wanting to hear any bad news, he let the phone ring longer than usual, only to nervously pick up the receiver on the fifth or sixth ring. Not surprisingly, Gloria was on the other end. She told him the attending physician had called and informed the family that without surgery, Henrietta’s condition would get worse. Even more jolting to Douglass was the revelation that Henrietta would have a fifty-fifty chance of survival following surgery. Then came the most profound dilemma for Douglass: Gloria told him she and Bertha wanted him to make the decision since Henrietta was in no mental state to do so, noting, She even asked us to talk to you.

Douglass was stunned and speechless at the thought of making such a life-and-death decision for someone he loved unconditionally. Initially, he resented the idea of having the burden placed on his shoulders, since he had long been absent from the family. He told Gloria, Let me think about it, and I will call you back tomorrow.

Following their conversation, Douglass agonized over what his family had put on his plate and decided he had no choice but to honor his grandma’s wishes, for they had a strong bond and had often talked about the endless and difficult challenges that people faced in their lives. Also, Henrietta was aware of the demons in Bertha’s and Gloria’s lives. Bertha was struggling with chronic alcoholism, and Gloria was distraught over her son’s constant brushes with the law. Yet Douglass repeatedly asked himself, Why me? He ultimately agreed to speak to the doctor, who was black and had trained at Meharry College, the premiere black medical school. Douglass had been relieved to learn of his background, since Henrietta had harbored reservations about the historical treatment of black people by white doctors. Douglass felt that having a black doctor removed one of the possible hurdles to the proper care of his grandma.

Approximately eight hours following his conversation with Gloria, Dr. Aaron Henry called Douglass. He reiterated the information that Gloria had shared, and he assured Douglass that her vital signs were good, though there had been one troubling incident in which she had hallucinated. According to the doctor, she had called the police department from her hospital bed, reporting that someone was burglarizing her house. No such incident had occurred. Knowing his grandma as he did, he was sure the odds of a fifty-fifty chance of surviving surgery would not be troubling for her. She had managed to avoid surgery for almost twenty years and, he thought, was prepared to let the chips fall where they may. That was her nature. Furthermore, she was likely exhausted from having fought a good fight. She would welcome and embrace any source of relief from years of pain and suffering. So Douglass gave his consent for the surgery.

As fate would have it, Henrietta survived the five-hour operation. Family members who had assembled at the hospital were given the good news. They jumped for joy like a family celebrating the birth of a first child. Unfortunately, when they returned home, Bertha received a call informing her that Henrietta had died from complications postsurgery. The news was shocking and devastating for Douglass. He cried tears of guilt and loss but was relieved that Henrietta was out of her misery.

Douglass decided to take the nine-hour Greyhound bus ride home because he needed time to absorb the shock of Henrietta’s death, privately wallow in his loss, and think about the smooth and bumpy contours of his life. Taking the bus would also delay the unpredictable consequences of facing his family following a long absence. Would they warmly embrace him or treat him like an outsider? He was gripped by uncertainty and remorseful that he had not been there for Henrietta, yet he felt abandoned and cursed God for taking away the pivotal person in his life, who, by example, had inspired his hopes and aspirations. As he thought more deeply and intensely, the unpredictability of his trip home mounted; he became weary, experiencing pounding intermittent headaches. He was also returning to the scene of the crime—a home environment that had provided him with, on the one hand, the basic needs of life, such as shelter and food, yet, on the other hand, constant turmoil. He hoped this untimely trip home would be the beginning of a healing process for him.

Now the prodigal son, a renowned African American studies scholar and highly sought-after lecturer in the United States and abroad, was returning to his roots, not for a royal welcome but to pay homage to a queen, who had been more of a surrogate mother than simply a grandmother. Deeply engrossed in recapturing the memorable, engaging relationship between the two, Douglass did not expect that his journey home would be overshadowed by haunting memories of Tobias Lancaster, his grandpa, and open the wounds of family discord.

2

Tobias

My grandfather was the most influential person in my life.

He affected the lives of many.

—Bill Lee in Spike Lee’s Mo’ Better Blues

T wo days after he learned about Henrietta’s death, Douglass took the subway from the Bronx, New York, to Port Authority in Manhattan for the bus trip home. He purchased a round-trip ticket and patiently waited for the boarding time.

When the announcement was made for the 9:00 a.m. Greyhound bus to Salfa, Virginia, with stops in Newark, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC, he feverishly gathered his belongings and headed to gate thirteen. Why gate thirteen? he thought. Is this to be an omen? With some initial trepidation, he was nevertheless propelled to the gate by the rush and force of other passengers boarding the same bus, in search of their desired seating. As he boarded the bus, he immediately searched for a secluded spot that was not too close to the front, in order to avoid the oncoming pedestrian traffic of boarding passengers along the way. He also did not want to sit too close to the rear of the bus, where the toilet was located, which led to possible congestion caused by lines of impatient passengers waiting to use the bathroom. Needless to say, another concern was the likelihood of escaping odors of pee and shit from the toilet.

Douglass—a tall, slender, strikingly handsome man of dark hue with a thick, perfectly shaped two-inch mustache, a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard of moderate length, and a shaved head—could not forget how he had been ridiculed as a child because of his appearance. He’d felt like an ugly duckling in the family. It was strange that just the thought of going home flooded his mind with hurtful memories. Some family members’ preoccupation with skin color and looks, notably Tobias and his uncles Donald and Henry, conjured up deep-seated feelings of rejection he had felt back then.

He clumsily navigated his way down the aisle with one piece of carry-on luggage and a knapsack on his back, and he noticed two empty seats, only to be told by another passenger that the seats were occupied by others who had gone to the bathroom. As he moved at snail’s pace down the aisle, occasionally bumping into a passenger who was blocking the aisle in an effort to place luggage on the upper rack, he noticed an empty aisle seat across from two rambunctious young boys. They were jumping up and down on the seats as though they were competing in a trampoline contest. However, it beat sitting adjacent to the toilet, where there appeared to be numerous empty seats, so he took the aisle seat across from the boys. He placed his carry-on on the above luggage rack. Slowly and cautiously, he removed his backpack and bent over to place it under his seat. He nodded to the old man in the window seat. The man nodded in return, casting a placid look of wanting to be left alone. They exchanged no words.

As he settled in his seat, surrounded by the clamoring invasion of noise and physical movements on the bus, Douglass noticed that the old man became increasingly agitated and troubled, contorting his face with frowns of disapproval and intermittently gritting his teeth with annoyance and disdain. Suddenly, the man’s astonishing resemblance, in both physical appearance and emotional demeanor to Tobias struck Douglass, triggering a stream of endless memories of him.

One such memorable event stuck in Douglass’s mind was the traffic incident. Though most of Tobias’s antics were predictable, some were unpredictable yet not surprising, such as the time when he was as drunk as a skunk one Saturday evening and went out into the moving traffic parallel to the house and began directing traffic, calling out that he was the Road Man. Henrietta told the children, Git that fool back in des house ’fore he gits run over. And you chirren be careful, ’cause I don’ want y’all to be run over wid dat fool. As an eleven-year-old at the time, Douglass was utterly embarrassed by Tobias’s outrageous behavior, because all the neighbors and especially his friends had front-row seats to the mad drama, prompting Madeline Golden, Henrietta’s Eastern Star sister, to label him Tobias the Terrible. It dawned on Douglass to just leave him out there. Noticing his inclination to do so, Gloria cautioned, Gramma will kill us if we don’t git Grandpa back in the house.

"Come on, y’all. Let’s git him in the house so we can watch the Superman movie," Ezekiel said.

By the time they reached Tobias, he was lying on his back in the middle of traffic, so the children had the monumental task of standing him up in an upright walking position, holding him by the arms and back, and guiding him to the sidewalk and then up the three steps in front of the house. Because of his drunkenness, they felt as if they were pulling a ton of bricks as they darted between slow-moving traffic, hounded by impatient drivers yelling obscenities, such as Git that crazy, drunken ass’ole man out the street! To add insult to injury, Alice Chandler, the local neighborhood tabloid, made sure everybody on the block knew that darn Tobias is at his old tricks again. Once Tobias was in the house, Henrietta lambasted him, telling him, You gots no shame, actin’ like a hoodlum or a wild baboon.

Throughout his childhood and adolescence, Douglass feared his grandpa because of his constant tendency to create turmoil in the house. He was dictatorial, ruthless, and tyrannical and disruptively interfered with any moments of calm and serenity, yelling obscenities, such as Gotdamn! and roaring like a tiger before attacking anyone in his path. He would nitpick about the slightest imperfection, such as a glass with leftover stains after washing or a visible speck of dirt around the bathtub following a laborious cleaning by one of the children. Yet for good or bad, Tobias would inevitably have a tremendous impact