Life in Pieces

By Dwayne O'Keith Burns

A story of struggle, triumph, and tragedy told with honesty and passion. Life in Pieces is a collection of vignettes from the life of the author who tells of an idyllic childhood impacted by the racism and bigotry of the 1960s. His teen and early adult years was marred by drugs, promiscuity, and violence. He is able to find redemption in military service and eventually finds the love of his life. Throughout, the reader is pulled into this compelling story as the author rises to the heights of success while experiencing and explaining in heart-wrenching detail the greatest tragedy of his life. This is a story of a life of experiences—a life well lived. Photos from Dwayne's most recent event:

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 14, 2017
• ISBN: 9781640270626

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Life in Pieces

Vignettes of an Ordinary Life

Dwayne O’Keith Burns

Copyright © 2017 Dwayne O’Keith Burns

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc. 2017

ISBN 978-1-64027-061-9 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64027-062-6 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Chapter One

Troup

405 Troup, that’s where you live, and that’s what you tell an adult if you ever get lost. Those words were drilled into me at a very early age by my mother. It was a typical instruction given to a five-year-old in those days, circa 1963. It wouldn’t be long before I would run off with Pam, my six-year-old cousin, to visit an aunt some eight blocks away without anyone’s knowledge. But I’ll say more about that later. My story begins in the little house, at the top of a hill, on Troup Street in Kansas City, Kansas. It is here that my earliest memories and perceptions were formed.

My mother, brother, and I lived with my grandfather, grandmother, and aunt Mildred in a small six-room house. It was a crowded existence because the house had only two bedrooms. My brother and I slept on a sofa in the living room. The most memorable feature of this house was that you could stand outside looking into the front door and see right through the house from the living room to the dining room through the kitchen and out the back door. It was like a trailer home without wheels. All the houses were very close to one another in so much that a fire could destroy the whole row of homes.

The neighborhood was a lower-middle-class community made up of older African American families. Most were World War II veterans and their families and retirees who were able to enjoy some of the American dream of home ownership. It was a tight-knit community, where everyone knew and looked out for everyone else. Our next-door neighbors were the Harrises on one side and the widow Ms. Horton on the other. Two doors down were the Wendoms. These families developed close personal relationships with our family and treated my brother and me as if we were their grandchildren. I remember, many times, walking over to the Wendoms carrying plates full of scraps and leftovers to give to Ms. Lena for her dog, Fahbus, which was her huge German shepherd. She would pay me a nickel or dime each time I brought the scraps over. Mrs. Harris often babysat my brother and I when my grandparents were unavailable. She would give us what she called tea cakes, which were freshly baked shortbread cookies. Her house always smelled like cinnamon. She and my grandmother had a warm personal relationship and would sit on their respective porches and talk for hours.

My grandmother, Versia, was one of the easiest people to talk to. She was a warm, genteel Southern woman. She had a smooth brown complexion with high cheekbones and long straight black hair, which gave away the one-fourth Blackfoot Indian blood in her veins. Born near Orange Texas in 1898 and the eldest of three children, she was obligated to raise her younger brother and sister after their mother died at a young age. She was a proud woman with an easy manner who could exhibit a powerful temper if angered. The circumstances of her upbringing helped form the strength and firmness of character in her personality. Everyone respected and cherished their relationship with her. She was, by all accounts, the center of our family unit.

My grandfather, Warren Burns, was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, in the 1880s. He was the second eldest of seven siblings and, at age twenty-five, moved to Memphis, Tennessee, with his older brother to begin working with the railroad. It is here that he met and married my grandmother. They had five children, all girls. Before long, his job took him to Kansas City, and the family had to relocate. Memories of my grandfather are fleeting, as I was only six years old when he died. But what I do remember is that the love and pride he had for his grandsons were immense and unconditional. He used to pull us around the neighborhood in our Radio Flyer wagon, and being kids, we would jump out and run from him, which would of course frustrate and agitate him given that he was at the time in his seventies. He would round us up and get us back into the wagon, wipe his forehead with his ever-present white handkerchief, and proceed with our journey. My grandfather always had candy (peppermints) in his pockets and spare change to give if we would perform for him. Simply sing a song or do a dance, and you would get the reward.

He was a small man, only five feet 7 inches tall, with a light-brown complexion and penetrating hazel eyes. He had a great and kind personality but could also be quick to anger if confronted with ignorance and foolishness, for which he had little patience. He loved laughing, and he had a big, loud laugh that matched his personality. What I didn’t know, while we lived with him, was that he was dying from bone cancer. My grandfather had suffered courageously for several years with this disease but began to weaken severely at the beginning of 1965. The last time I would ever see him was as he was being put into an ambulance for the last time. He had been vomiting blood all night, and the family knew that he didn’t have long. He hung on for a few more days. I remember going to the VA hospital to see him, but children were not allowed in the intensive care, so we stayed in the car with my aunt, who pointed out the window of the room my grandfather was in. Soon he came to the window and waived his trademark white handkerchief to us. He died the next day. My grandfather was a WWI veteran and was buried in the Veteran’s Memorial Cemetery at Leavenworth, Kansas.

BETTY

My mother, Betty, was the youngest of my grandparents’ five daughters. She is a small woman with a broad face and a beautiful light-skinned complexion, what we in the African American community call red, and fine straight hair, which she would occasionally color. She was a single mother who had her children young but worked hard to take care of us. In fact, I never knew my father, who had apparently walked away early on. And I never had the desire to seek out or locate him because he has been so inconsequential to my life. It has been my mother that has been the great positive influence on my life, and I credit her for making me the person that I am. She would eventually marry a man named Will Tatum, who would become a caring, compassionate, father figure to me and my brother. As children, we never wanted for anything, and we didn’t realize what we were lacking due to the protective bubble my mother produced around us. She would make incredible sacrifices for us.

One afternoon, I was riding home from the doctor’s office with my mother. Dr. Bass was the family pediatrician, and he was undoubtedly treating me for one of the frequent ear or throat infections I would get. She was driving my grandfather’s Ford, which had no seatbelts. In those days, few cars had seatbelts because there were no laws or safety requirements that forced auto manufacturers to install them. I was sitting on the front bench seat across from my mother, near the door, as we rounded the curve of Parallel Parkway, when suddenly, the passenger door swung open . . . at thirty miles an hour. I fell out onto the street and rolled over to a drainage sewer. I heard my mother scream, and in an instant, she was standing over me trying to pick me up. She had jumped from the car as it was still moving, for fear that I would be hit and possibly killed by oncoming traffic. The car rolled into a concrete embankment and rested against the curb. Onlookers and passersby began to gather to offer help to my mother. I don’t recall the police ever showing up. I had only received some minor scratches, so before long we were back in the car and on our way, this time with me sitting very close to her on the seat.

BUTCH

Kelvin was two years younger and was the best little brother I could ask for. To this day, we share an extraordinary closeness. My grandfather, who had a penchant for giving nicknames, called him Butch because of the heavy coarse voice that he had as a toddler. He was unusually tough as a baby and never cried if he fell, scratched, or cut himself. I remember playing with him on the couch one day, when he fell into the table and cut his lip deeply, requiring two stitches . . . He was two years old! He was a beautiful baby with a light-brown complexion, large hazel eyes, and huge cheeks, which everyone kissed and pinched. He referred to our grandfather as Gang-gang, and my grandfather loved him desperately. My mother made sure that we were close growing up. Sometimes she would go so far as to dress us alike. People referred to us as if we were a team—Dwayne and Butch or Butch and Dwayne. As young boys, we enjoyed making capes out of towels and playing Superman and catching grasshoppers and butterflies in jars and pouring sugar on ant trails. My brother was my best friend and closest confidant and remains so even today. Butch had a very special relationship with our mother. When she would leave, he would cry uncontrollably. When he started school, we would walk the five or six blocks together, but before we would arrive, he would turn around and run all the way back home. I would then have to chase after him to get him to come back to the school. I guess the anxiety of the separation was too great.

I began my early education at the Keiling Formal School, which was located about three hundred yards from our house. The school taught kindergarten through second grade and was run by a dignified older African American woman named Helen Krump. She served as principal and headmistress of the school. Ms. Krump was a heavyset woman with a commanding presence, a