Because of Kathy

By Sandra Archer Johnson

I saw a car in a driveway and I ducked under the car lying there, afraid to move. It was still in the middle of the day, about five or six o'clock. Every time someone would walk past, or I heard something my heart would start beating so fast because, I thought it might be the police! I started thinking about my life again, and how I let it get to this. I was thinking about Kahlil and what would happen to him if they caught me.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781640271166

Book preview

Author acknowledgment

First, I would like to thank God for allowing me to finish this book.

I would like to dedicate this book to my daughter Kathy.

Would like to acknowledge Beverly, without whom this book may never have been written.

Also like to thank my granddaughter Maya Williams whose hard work made mine so much easier. Love you, baby.

Acknowledgment also goes out to my granddaughter Phoenix Archer for the cover art.

To my parents Charlie and Alva Archer.

Author’s Note

It’s funny that I’m starting this book on my father’s birthday, February 7, 2012. I wish he were here to see how my life is now. My brother Raymond called me and asked me what was I doing today. I told him, I’m just starting to write a book about my life. He said, You know it’s Daddy’s birthday today. I said, Wow, isn’t that a coincidence? I guess I was meant to start the book on his birthday. I went on a long road trip in 1982 with my friend. After my girlfriend heard my story, she started bugging me, since around 2000 and for the next ten years, to write a book. Now I’m ready to share my story with the world!

1

When I was born, I was so big the doctor had to pull me out by my left arm. He messed it up, causing me to have to wear a cast for the first few years of my life. But my arm never grew right. I still can’t turn my left hand all the way around or lift my arm all the way up. Looks like I had a stroke on that side sometimes, and I’ve never gotten used to my arm being like that. Later, I couldn’t do modern dance in high school, which broke my heart. I couldn’t do lots of things—then or now.

My mom took me on the Detroit city bus back to the doctor a few times a week to look at my arm. I remember that bus ride because the whole thing was so traumatic. People felt sorry for me, and folks on the bus and some neighbors gave me pennies and nickels. I would eat the nickels. They tasted so good. I would suck on them for a while then swallow them. My brother Sonny told me they used to take turns taking me to the bathroom to get the nickels out of my poop—a nickel was a lot of money in the forties.

My parents could have sued Harper Hospital for negligence, but they were old- fashioned and didn’t believe in suing people. I had until I was twenty-six to sue the hospital—or the doctor—myself, but I never did.

We lived on Madison and Chene in what had been called the Black Bottom (that’s what they called that part of Detroit in the thirties and forties). I’ve only just learned the name comes from the dark topsoil of the land the original settlers of Detroit found waiting for them, not the color of my people. Still, it’s the neighborhood chosen by many of the poor blacks that migrated from the deep South. My parents were from Indianola, Mississippi, deep in the Delta. They didn’t know they were part of one of the great population shifts in American history; they just wanted work that didn’t involve dirt and hot sun. When they left Mississippi, they only took my second oldest brother, Joe; they left the other three boys with my grandma, Mama Leila. Three more of us would be born in Detroit: a sister, a brother, and me.

I asked my mother later why they had taken Joe and not Bill, the eldest. She said it was because Joe was very smart and did just what they told him to do and could think better than the other boys, so the three brothers stayed behind in Mississippi with Mama Leila until my parents got settled in Detroit.

We moved out of Black Bottom when I was around four to Marietta Street on the east side of Detroit. We were just the second black family on the block, and my father had lots of problems with white folks who didn’t want us there. Eventually, all the whites moved off the block, and we were happy about that.

I had a good childhood in the fifties. Both of my parents were always there. My mother didn’t smoke or drink. My father did both but only sociably. My father was light-skinned, six foot five, and very handsome. All my brothers were over six feet tall. They all looked good. The girls in the neighborhood thought so too. I guess I was a looker as well because my mother was tall and beautiful.

My sister, two years older than me, was over six feet tall and very pretty with long hair. I’m around five foot ten. Although my sister and I were never close, I wanted us to be. But it never worked out that way. Why, I don’t know. Maybe it was because she was the first girl after my parents had had four boys in a row or because my sister looked just like my father, tall and light-skinned, or maybe because I was born sick. Or all three reasons. Also, being light was really in then in the fifties, and my sister was so spoiled by everyone in the family and outside the family. I had brown skin like my mother, and I was very happy to look like my mom.

I remember when Mama or Daddy brought candy home for us, they let my sister always pick what she wanted first, which didn’t bother me as long as I got some. When I came along, she was still a baby at two years old, but all the attention was on me because I was sick, so I guess I understand how she came to feel the way she did about me.

In my teens, I hung out with my baby brother, Raymond. We went to parties and dances together, and it was an amazing time for music. The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, all of the Motown Sound! At twelve years old, I was able to get into the Grey Stone Ballroom and Twenty Grand Ballroom with Raymond. We bopped, we ballroomed, and we danced. We saw little Stevie Wonder as a kid do Fingertips at the Grey Stone and Mary Wells sing Two Lovers. Such a great time for music. We heard Dionne Warwick sing Walk on By so beautifully and Barbara Lewis sing Hello, Stranger. Etta James had come out with the hit At Last; everyone went crazy over that song! We went to the Arcadia, where we roller-skated to Junior Walker and the All-Stars doing Shotgun and Green Onions and to Shorty Long singing Function at the Junction. Afterward, we’d go to Top Hat or White Castle for twelve-cent hamburgers.

I used to go skating with my two girlfriends. They were sisters, Darnell and Eleanor, and their brother Chuck was Raymond’s friend. We were good kids and didn’t get into any trouble.

It was a wonderful, amazing time in my life.

My father worked at the Garwood factory in Wayne. My mother worked as a maid for the Kowalski sausage family at their home in Grosse Pointe. We had all the sausage we could eat. My mom also worked for their daughter Susan in Grosse Pointe; that’s where all the rich people lived. Still is.

The Kowalski daughter had three kids: Billy, Linda, and Barbara. We got their hand-me-down clothes. Linda was my age and size, and Barbara was my sister’s size. The clothes always looked new, and I loved them. But my sister would never wear them with her spoiled ass.

My mother was real close to the son, Billy. He told her things he didn’t tell his parents. I still have a picture of my mother and Billy. I went with my mom sometimes when she cleaned the houses, and we always used the side or the back door. I asked her why, and she just said, Do what you’re told. She also worked for Dr. Silevian and cleaned his house in Grosse Pointe and his office in downtown Detroit on Griswold. My mother made twenty dollars for an eight-hour day, and they all gave her a bonus at Christmas time.

My mother was a maid for about fifteen or so years until coming home from work one day, a little white boy in Grosse Pointe ran her down on his bike on purpose. Her leg was broken, and my father wouldn’t let her work for them anymore. He never liked her working there anyway, but it made ends meet, having seven kids to feed.

I had a very proud and wonderful father.

When I was about eleven or twelve years old, we were in the kitchen when we heard on the radio that a little black boy around my age had been hung in Mississippi. I knew that the killing and burning of black folks was still going on, but that someone my age would die that way scared me. I ran to my mother, who reassured me that I was safe. It was still a scary time for black folks.

I started babysitting for the three kids of friends of my parents, Ann and Eric. Ann worked as a meter maid, my dream job then. It looked so fascinating to me, like they were in full control. I used to tell everybody that’s what I wanted to be some day, but that dream went away.

At that same time, I used to hang around two sisters, Vera and Diane Hooker, who lived on the next block. Their father was John Lee Hooker, the famous blues singer. I remember that some now-famous blues singers, including B. B. King, would come over to their house. We loved to hear them sing and play guitar.

Mr. Hooker would come home from being on tour, and he would be tired and hungry. So I would go in their kitchen and cook Mr. Hooker some food. I was only a teenager, and I think Mrs. Hooker didn’t like that so much, so I stopped cooking for him. I really liked Mr. Hooker—he was a nice, sweet man—and I continued to hang around with the girls, but that is far as it went. No more cooking for Mr. Hooker.

My mother always made us go to church and bible school every Sunday, but my father never went. My mother didn’t bother him about going. He just didn’t like giving his money to them preachers. We went to Macedonia Baptist Church with my grandmother. Macedonia was in the old neighborhood in the Black Bottom on Chene Street.

Mr. Smith, one of the church members, used to take me and my brother Raymond home with him sometimes, when my brother was nine and I was eleven. Mr. Smith would send my brother to do something in another part of the house, and then he would start touching me in private places. That went on for some weeks. I really don’t know how long, but I was too scared to tell my mother. You didn’t talk about church people in those days. But finally, I told my father.

Mr. Smith never took us home anymore, and my mother never said anything about it. I don’t know what happened to Mr. Smith.

My grandmother stayed with Macedonia Baptist until she died, but my mother changed to another church. Of course, we went with our mother to the new church, Pure in Heart Baptist on Holcomb and Goethe. I liked the new church better; they didn’t just sing those sad Southern hymns.

It was about this time that my favorite cousin, Beatrice, a cousin on my mother’s side, moved in with us. My mother told us that Bee’s mother was real wild at the time, with lots of strange men around. We were not allowed at her house, so my parents brought Beatrice to live with us. I was so glad she was there, especially because of the distant nature of the relationship I had with my sister,

But after a couple of years, Bee’s mother came and took her away. That was a sad day for me. I cried and begged her not to go, but my mom said there was nothing she could do. They took Beatrice from me, and since we were forbidden to go her house, it was a while before I would see her again.

I was blessed with good parents. In all my years, I never heard my mother curse. She used to spell out the word s-h-i-t. I remember asking her what that meant, but she would never tell me.

My grandmother lived with us sometimes, and sometimes on her own. She was a real fan of the Detroit Tigers; when you went to Mama Lela’s house during baseball season, you had to watch the game with her or leave.

I wasn’t a bad kid; I was just naughty or strong-headed sometimes.

One time, my mother sent me and my friend to her best friend’s to pick up something. While Mrs. Mitchell went to the back of her house to get whatever it was for my mother, I saw a little change purse on the cocktail table in front of us. I picked it up, looked inside, and took some of the coins. My friend didn’t want me to do it, but I took it anyway. By the time we got back to my house, my mother was waiting on us. Mrs. Mitchell had already called and told her what I did. My mother stood us up against the wall and started asking me why I had embarrassed her like that, stealing her best friend’s money. I lied over and over again, saying I hadn’t taken it.

I used to stay at home watching cartoons or The Three Stooges with my father. We had a great time laughing together; my father loved the fat one, Curly.

I didn’t like school. Period. I got bad grades all the way through Southeastern High. I didn’t graduate. I didn’t get kicked out of school; I just hated it. My parents sent me to another school for a semester. I tried to do a little better, but I still didn’t like school.

Then the twenty-five-cent house parties started. My two childhood girlfriends and I would go. Just a quarter to get in, and they were always in the basement of someone’s house. The lights were low, and the music was smooth—nothing rowdy. We started drinking Silver Satin wine with some grape Kool-Aid in it.

It seemed like I always drank more than my girlfriends. I just had to get drunk for some reason; I just couldn’t stop until I was sloppy drunk. My girlfriends drank a normal amount but not me. I would have to go over to a friend’s house and sober up before I went home. My folks would have been very, very angry with me.

2

Beria was a girl on my street I would hang with sometime. She liked to get drunk like me, so we drank together and acted like fools. We would sneak past her mother, and we started taking pills together. We took black beauties and a lot of different kinds of other pills. It didn’t matter what they were; we tried them.

I remember we liked walking down Mack Avenue where everything was going on: the pimps, hoes, all kinds of street people. At that time in the sixties, the avenue was busy with shops, bars, barbershops, and restaurants. A favorite was Dot and Etta’s Shrimp Hut, the best shrimp around.

I was fascinated by the drug dealers, pimps, and hoes, but my girlfriend, Beria, didn’t like that kind of stuff.

I remember meeting my first boyfriend at the Greystone Ballroom. He was thirteen and I was fourteen. Stanley could dance so well. Me and my two girlfriends, Eleanor and Darnell, would sneak from the east side to the west side of Detroit to see him. When we were a little older, he came to my house. I was nineteen and he was eighteen. I remember sneaking him into my basement. The first time I had sex with him at nineteen, I got pregnant.

When I told Stanley that I was pregnant, he didn’t like that at all. I remember my mom taking me to his mom and dad to talk about us getting married. Stanley wasn’t having that. He would come over to see me during the nine months, but getting married? No way.

I had my first baby, born March 29, 1966. I named her Selena from that movie, Imitation of Life. That movie was a hit then. Selena was a big beautiful baby girl; she looked just like her father. I hated that. I wanted her to look like me.

Stanley lived with his mom and grandma. We called Stan’s mom Dear and his grandma Mommy. Dear was a schoolteacher, and I could tell she had a mental problem; Stanley did too. I guess they were on medication because they were functional. I didn’t notice the mental problem in Stanley until after I had Selena. Stanley’s mom was so sweet it never bothered me that she was not all there. I didn’t know it was hereditary. I was very young then; I didn’t see it in Stanley until I was older. They loved Selena so much and loved me too. I never had to worry about a babysitter. Stanley and I finally went our own ways. He met another girl, who would become his son’s mother.

I met this guy named Maurice when Selena was about five or six months old.

Maurice was a real square. He was crazy about Selena and me. He would buy her all kinds of things.

After a few months, he asked me to marry him, but when I quickly said no, he went and joined the army. And then I found out I was pregnant by him. Oh no, I was not going to have another baby this soon. There was a drugstore on the corner that I heard helped girls like me. I went there and begged for the one pill that you took one time. The pharmacist gave it to me. I had a miscarriage.

I saw Maurice years later. He still hung around my family. I guess my sister or brother told him I was having his baby but got rid of it. He told me he never got another girl pregnant. I did feel bad for him that I had aborted his only child, but I didn’t regret it. I wasn’t about to have another baby for anybody.

A few months later, my girlfriend Beria whom I took pills with heard about this party at the Twenty Grand Motel. She asked me if I wanted to go. I said oh yes, for sure I wanted to go.

It was 1967. My baby was about a year old, and I was ready to have fun.

I remember going to this room in the motel for the party. There were lots of strange-looking people, but I was intrigued and fascinated by it. I was twenty-one years old. I met this guy named Sonny. He was about 5’11", with light skin. He had a big mustache and a big smile, just like a pimp.

I knew he was much older than me, but that was one of the things I liked about him. It was love at first sight. He asked me to spend the night with him, He was living in a motel room. I didn’t even think about it and said yes and sent my girlfriend Beria home alone. She asked me why I was going to stay with that old man. You don’t even know him. I said, I’m staying with him, said bye to her, and she left. It would be years later before I would see her again.

That night, I told Sonny I had a baby, and he said that was okay. I moved in the next day. Selena stayed with my parents because they weren’t letting me bring her to live in a motel with a strange man, and I didn’t want my baby to stay there anyway. They didn’t want me to do this, but I was twenty-one. I was going to do what I wanted to do.

The Twenty Grand Motel was an exciting place; it had everything I liked. Sonny’s brother Crawford had a room there also; he lived with a couple of girls. Sonny had three other girls living in his room with him. I asked who they were; he said his hoes, and he was tired of pimping anyway, and he put them all out.

Sonny had a white hoe, a black hoe, and a Chinese hoe. His brother was pimping also; his girls were hoes. When his brother found out that Sonny put the hoes out, he stabbed Sonny in the back. I couldn’t believe he stabbed