by Patrick Rowlee
The first Tuesday of summer vacation in 1966, I headed aimlessly down Maureen Street. Since my new best friend was nowhere to be found, I was bored beyond words. A third of the way to the corner I saw a five-foot-tall figure on the porch of a house three doors away I hadn’t noticed before. To try and identify the form I squinted my eyes so hard my head hurt. The arrival of twilight and layers of fabric covering up the mass kept me from knowing what it was. I first mistook it for a much-too-early Halloween decoration that resembled a scarecrow or a Grim Reaper without his scythe.
The first Tuesday of summer vacation in 1966, I headed aimlessly down Maureen Street. Since my new best friend was nowhere to be found, I was bored beyond words. A third of the way to the corner I saw a five-foot-tall figure on the porch of a house three doors away I hadn’t noticed before. To try and identify the form I squinted my eyes so hard my head hurt. The arrival of twilight and layers of fabric covering up the mass kept me from knowing what it was. I first mistook it for a much-too-early Halloween decoration that resembled a scarecrow or a Grim Reaper without his scythe.
The sun had set behind Linda and Evelyn Clark’s house, and
the figure standing on the concrete platform continued facing Palmdale
Boulevard. Despite those challenges and because I drew closer, I suspected the ‘it’
might be a ‘she’ – not due to shape but attitude and posture. I sensed both
serenity and readiness in the pose, a combination I had yet to witness in a man,
so I guessed it was female. Layers of different fabric covered its form top to
bottom. Despite the hour, the mercury stood tall at 98 degrees, so I began
doubting the mass’s humanity. After all, who in their right mind would wear all
that on a hot Mojave Desert night?
As I went from seventy to sixty feet away, the assembly of fabrics
crystallized in my sight. Starting from the cement floor, I noticed white
tennies resembling the type my mother had purchased from Shopping Bag for her housecleaning
and other chores. Covering the tops of the canvas shoes was a pair of white
pants I call “old-lady slacks” because of the zipper in back. A white cardigan
hid the slacks’ waistband, covering most of the matching white t-shirt with
what I had heard women call a scooped collar. On the top sat a pointed,
cone-shaped straw hat secured by a string, like the ones I’d seen nightly on
the news or in another context I couldn’t put my finger on. I later asked my
expert on practically anything - Mr. Murphy, our next-door neighbor - what it was
called. After hearing my description, he declared it a “coolie hat,” the kind Chinese
laborers wore when building our transcontinental railroad and the type
Vietnamese farmers wore for protection from the sun as they labored in fields I
learned last year are called ‘rice paddies.’
When I reached the gutter in front of the house, I called out
my customary and courteous “Good evening!” After a bit of a lull, the figure’s top
half swiveled slowly, followed by the large straw cone. “It” now faced my
general direction supported by shoes twice the size of my mother’s only inches
from the edge of the grayish-white slab. I still didn’t see a face, but I
noticed angles I figured were shoulders and elbows poking beneath the all-white
casual outfit. I then saw an older woman with a formless face whose clothes seemed
to slide off her slight shoulders. As she tilted her head back enough for the
coolie hat to not shade her face, I saw she was a woman of color. Instead of a
mask or veil blocking her face, dark skin flattened her features, mostly masking
them. As we exchanged pleasantries, I realized the woman appeared older than I
first thought – perhaps by fifty years. Her voice is what gave the impression of
age. She didn’t sound sick from a cold or laryngitis but spoke in a gruff,
gravelly growl.
“Good evening,
young man. And how are you this fine Tuesday night?”
As I responded with one of my stock answers, she crooked an
index finger signaling me to step into her yard so we could speak more easily.
“Wherever you wish to stand or sit, young man, is certainly fine with me.” As
she spoke in a deliberate, measured cadence, I heard a refined woman; refined
by what I had no idea, but she did command my attention. So mannered and polite
was she, I assumed she had been well educated.
“I am well,
ma’am. Thank you for asking. My name is Timothy Roslee and I deliver both local
newspapers – the morning Antelope Valley Press and the evening Lancaster
Ledger-Gazette.”
Instead of responding
to my sales pitch, she replied sweetly, “It is a pleasure to meet you, Mister Timothy
Roslee. May I call you ‘Timothy’?”
“Ma’am, you
may call me Timothy, Tim, Roslee, or ‘Hey, Kid’ if you like.”
A sound sourced from the woman’s midriff projected decibels sharp
as quills. I recognized the projection as a laugh embedded inside a cackle. Sounding
like no human, my closest comparison is the famous cartoon woodpecker, but without
the staccato. After repeating my “Timothy, Tim, Roslee, or ‘Hey, Kid’ if you
like,” she brightened the dark around us. “My my, young man, you are as fun
as a barrelful of monkeys.” A pearly smile shone forth and could probably be seen
at the corner six doors away. Seeing her straighten and extend her right arm, I
stepped to the lawn’s edge and extended my tanned and freckled right hand in
return. After an awkward silence, she exclaimed: “Oh, no child. Please climb the
stairs, so we get a better idea of each other. Don’t you agree, Mister Tim?”
I had no idea what the lady meant exactly, but in 1966 kids
did what adults told them to do. As I climbed the three steps, I looked over and
began studying the woman’s movement. While she continued sweeping her hand
sideways back and forth, I realized something odd or amiss about her. Her
timing wasn’t just off, but double off: like the slow motion I had recently seen
in sports replays.
Reaching the top, I pivoted and approached her as though
stepping down a set of stairs. Staying put, she extended both hands in my
direction. Assuming she wanted to join hands, I gave her both of mine. “Tim
Roslee, I am so honored and glad to finally meet you. And now, young man
- if I may - I have a proposal for you.”
After gazing
upon her dark, elegant hands, I answered, “Oh, yes ma’am, I’d like to hear your
proposal. Fire away; uh - please.”
Tipping her head back completely, my acquaintance unloosed a
laugh huge in every category but one – sound. Not a single peep proceeded from her
mouth while the rest of her - from the top of her forehead to the soles of her ‘mom
shoes’ - shook, rattled, and rolled… not once, but many times. After her medley
of shakes, rattles, and rolls gave way to an occasional twitch here or hand gesture
there, she inhaled as gustily as a sailor at the start of a voyage. Finishing
her dance, she straightened as stiff as a board. “Okay, Tim. I will gladly tell
you my name……… but only on condition you guess it correctly.”
“But, ma’am.”
I looked around. “The sun has set, and we don’t have enough daylight left for
me to guess it.”
Giving up
her proposal, she relented. “Okay, Timothy. I will let you off easy. You only
have to guess my middle name.”
Without
thinking, I blurted out my second choice, dismissing the first for racial reasons.
“Mae”.
The lady
opened her lips wide and laughed. “Correct! ‘Mae’ is correct!” And then, her face
fell. “How did you ever guess a name I never use and so lickety-split, Tim?”
“Well,” I felt
myself relax and loosen up, “I could tell you, but then—”
“But then
you’d have to kill me?” An unspellable sound burst forth. But instead of a single
sound, it was a symphony - of inhales, exhales, sighs, giggles, snorts, and
even a gargle in the middle. “Is that what you were about to say, Tim?”
“No ma’am. I
was about to say, ‘I could tell you, but you might not like it.’”
Silence followed for half a minute while my companion’s
arched black eyebrows reminded me of Gloria Swanson’s pointing to the darkening
sky. The break in conversation, coupled with a lack of movement and sound,
became my chance to study up close a blind person’s movements and demeanor without
being caught or thought rude. The tableaux was as artful and intriguing as any
painting hanging in the Louvre Museum.
My discovery of the lady’s blindness did not deter us from
communicating. Laughing lightly this time without a single contortion, she
declared: “Well, since you so quickly learned my middle name and have already noticed
my blindness, I will tell my proper name. You Mr. Timothy Roslee - my new
acquaintance and hopefully friend - may call me ‘Effie,’ but my complete name
is Effa Mae Seraph.”
And that is how I met Effie, who later allowed me to call her
by the nickname I created for her, “Effie Mae.” She soon insisted I call her only
that, roaring with delight every time I did.
Although Effie-Mae bought two two-year subscriptions, she
refused to accept delivery of either paper. She insisted both subscriptions be
given to whomever I believed could benefit from reading them. Someone not able
to afford even a single subscription but would be “greatly blessed” by them – especially
the thick Sunday edition of the VP with its stack of store coupons.
My only scheduled time spent with Ms. Seraph was the time I
collected on the two subscriptions, but she was always on her porch when I looked
down the street to see if I could speak with her. In the months I knew her, I
never had to knock on her door nor did I ever see her anywhere but on that porch.
But none of that registered in my twelve-year-old brain then. However, whenever
I felt a shade lonely, a bit restless, or the heavy burden of depression, I found
myself walking four doors north to Effie Mae’s.
Part 2
During the fall of 1966, my life took
off like a rocket at NASA’s Edwards Air Force Base. After my launch, the
missile of my young life accelerated exponentially and soon achieved maximum
thrust, heading higher than ever before, collecting enough momentum for me to reach
my personal-record altitude when I wondered what might happen next. I reminded
myself that what will happen depended on three factors: my trajectory,
how smoothly I enter the next phase of the mission and attaining a perfect attitude
for landing on my dream destination with hardly a splash. I hoped the mixture
of teamwork and coaching would fuel my mission that would pave the rest of my life’s
mission. I was that hopeful of reaching the star of success on which I had
always hoped to land.
I looked backward seven months to
pinpoint when my life’s promise began to resemble the U.S. space program. The
National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s third-most vital installation –
the rocket facility at Edwards – sat just forty miles northeast of Palmdale. I
could brag that the reason for my life’s sharp trajectory up was my rapid maturation,
but I’d be lying. No, my new success had little to do with me and everything to
do with certain people I met in 1966, beginning with a kid named Larry Jackson.
On Monday morning, Valentine’s Day, after
morning announcements, Mrs. Schwitzer summoned me to her desk. Looking through
me as she always had, my plump, always stern seventh-grade core teacher raised
her fleshy club of an arm and shook a green square of paper I recognized as a
pass to the office. “Timothy Roslee, the office requests your presence.”
Leaning toward me, she continued: “Take care of your business, sir, and return
to Room 19 without delay, detour, or ditching school.” (She made that speech to
every boy in our class who ever received a pass.) She either thought herself
clever or distrusted boys altogether. (I bet my savings on the latter
possibility, although she did consider herself clever and never missed a chance
to demonstrate her wit to anyone within the sound of her brassy voice.)
Fighting the compelling desire to
dive over her desk and see how much damage I could inflict on Mrs. S’s
turkey-waddled neck with my twelve-year-old hands, I managed a smile instead. I
wished not to deprive the old bag of her life, but I hoped against hope that if
I did throttle her neck, she’d take my attack as a sign to retire from the
career she clearly hated. Instead, I smiled my usual compliant grin and thanked
‘Schwitzy’ for the pass before exiting Room 19 without displaying the
slightest hint of glee or joy. Not until I turned the brick wing’s corner and passed
by both restrooms did I celebrate by taking in a huge breath. My inner parent
reminded me: “Don’t get sloppy. You could be in some sort of trouble.
Behave yourself or miss today’s tryout.”
After leaving the junior high portion of Sage School and
crossing the blacktopped primary grade playground, I hopped through three
hopscotch courts before giving the lone tetherball the best whack of my school
career, dodging its approach that nearly grazed me.
I felt so good about the universe right then I balled my right
hand into a fist and raised it triumphantly the way Rafer Johnson had when
winning the Olympic gold decathlon medal for the U.S. in Tokyo. It was my way
of pumping myself up for tryouts for next year’s eighth-grade flag-football squad.
I thought my best chance was to make second-string quarterback for the fall
because Randal Kaiser, last season’s backup to me, had added fifteen pounds of
muscle and three inches of height since Thanksgiving. However, I replayed in my
mind the contests Randy and I had throwing footballs at targets from varying
distances the past three months. The montage of memories provided an extra surge
of confidence that injected a spring in my step and improved the chance of Mrs.
Schwitzer nagging me when I returned to her classroom, the one always smelling
of talcum powder and Vick’s VapoRub.
The only nice office worker besides our nurse sat at the student
check-in station when I arrived. “Oh, good, Tim is here. Thank you for being so
prompt. I would like you to meet our newest student to Sage School.” She (Mrs.
Sayles or maybe Shales?) did something no other adult besides my mother ever had:
She walked up to me, cupped a hand to her pink lips, and whispered in my ear,
“Timothy, hon. I- uh – thought you would be perfect for guiding this boy around
campus, plus he’s scheduled in all your classes, including Mrs. Schwitzer’s homeroom.”
Clearing her throat, Mrs. Sayles-or-Shales
called out to someone behind me. “Oh, young man! Hi. I have Timothy Roslee here
who can give you a tour around campus, help get you a lunch card, and then find
and help you open your hall locker. Tim, I’d like you to meet Larry; Larry
Jackson.” Turning around I saw a strapping, manly guy standing there as though
about to press his weight - 175 pounds - over his head. I realized not only
might I be acquiring a new friend, but he would likely need one at Sage since
he would be the first black student to attend the twelve-year-old school.
As you can imagine, Larry Jackson and
I drew lots of looks, some good and some not, from others that day. (Okay, I
lied about us getting any good looks.) In fact, in the two and a half years
spent as friends, we never received a single approving glance from anyone … not
another kid in our neighborhood or around town, not a single classmate, and nary
an adult. This time period taught me about racism, sort of first-hand. By ‘sort
of,’ I mean I was present whenever racism was slung Larry’s way like so much
dog excrement. And, yes, I witnessed incidents of other Palmdale people being
hated and discriminated against because of the shade of their skin or another
factor. We never overtly discussed the matter, but had a tacit agreement that haters
are in all groups regardless of their color, religion, or ethnicity. Haters in
our town hailed from all races, with plenty of tension between not just black
and white folks, but a wide variety of people of different shades consciously embroiled
themselves in the practice of racism.
Notice, I did not say skin color.
Why not? Because humans are not different colors. All humans have different gradations
of the colorless hues of black and white. All humans have white and black pigment
in them. It is just a matter of which % of dark or light you or I have that supposedly
defined us then. I dislike wording something so mean-spirited and harshly, but here’s
the clearest way I know to address the subject: “Who the hell gives a flying
f*^k how much of this or that color each of us has?” At the end
of the day, human beings know that every one of us – royalty or serf, rich or
poor, black or white – are mixed breeds. And to keep it 100% real, I will
divulge that those of us in the species of homo sapiens are all mutts.
None of us is a purebred. No, not one.
Back to Larry and me. Whenever we
were by ourselves, we had a great time of fellowship along with plenty of
shenanigans and hijinks. (What self-respecting boys do not?) But, the negative
attitudes and angry actions of so many people around us in public caused us to refrain
eventually from being seen together in public. We were as big of friends as
ever, but we knew how to avoid confrontation and possible victimization, so we only
hung out at school or in Larry’s yard and, when we were lucky, inside Larry’s
house.
But Larry’s home soon became a problem,
too. Larry’s foster mother Mrs. Deets became more and more overbearing toward
Larry and more distant from me so hanging out together there became less and
less desirable. And then, he went missing.
Larry disappeared for half the summer
until one August night. I had almost fallen asleep in my room when I heard a
light tap on the window near my fold-out couch. Shaking with fear and
excitement, I stared out my window till I saw Larry. Placing an index finger to
my lips, I motioned we should meet outside. After throwing on a bathrobe and
pair of slippers, I tiptoed to the kitchen and out the back door. Motioning for
us to hide around the corner, I met my friend behind a row of bushes.
Larry’s news tumbled out of his mouth
so matter-of-factly I found myself nodding in agreement even though his
situation seemed dire. The day school ended, Mrs. Deets threatened to cut Larry
with a kitchen knife - why, I had no idea. He saw no viable option but to run
away from the situation. Proving his resourcefulness, my friend found a small,
abandoned cabin a hundred yards from our neighborhood.
His new residence had remained
unoccupied since the restaurant in front had closed. Luckily, the fridge in the
kitchenette had some items and canned goods lined an entire shelf. Larry had
hidden for six weeks there and had cleaned it thoroughly. How my friend
occupied himself during that time we never discussed, but I assumed he had
stayed there continuously. As we sat on my back lawn and caught up, I felt extreme
sadness for Larry. Of all my friends, he was the nicest, most decent, and most
upstanding. The thought of a twelve-year-old kid forced to run away and fend
for himself in an abandoned, rundown cabin bothered me beyond words.
As we prepared to part, Larry
answered me about the future. “I have no idea what I’m gonna do but I have a
relative who stays in L.A.”
“Oh? Where in L.A.?” When Larry said
Watts, I really started worrying about what would happen to him. After
all, only a year ago the infamous Watts Riots happened, when most of that historic
area’s buildings were either burned or emptied of their contents. Millions of
dollars had been lost and there had been no hurry for owners to return and
resume their businesses or for new ones to take their places. I could not bring
myself to encourage or discourage Larry in this situation. He certainly could
not return to his foster home and Larry worried Mrs. Deets would convince the
authorities that he rather than she had pulled the knife. This was a situation
only an adult could manage, I thought. So, I asked myself, which adult in my
life could assist me in helping Larry? I answered myself with the name of the
only possibility.
I told Larry
to stay put and wait to hear from me, that I had someone who might help us.
“Okay, Tim. I will trust you because, well, you haven’t ever let me down.”
* * *
The next
morning, three hours after Larry left at 2:45, I put on some dark clothes and
stole down the street to see if I could talk with Effie Mae. I saw her on the
big porch sitting on its edge and facing skyward. As I approached, I saw but could
not hear her speak, even though her mouth worked as her body rocked forth and
back. Having no clue how to get her attention, I sat on the curb and waited for
her to finish whatever she was doing. I began to zero in on her monologue and
heard “Timothy” and “Tim” twice. It dawned on me Effie Mae might be praying but
not the way I had overheard fellow Catholics pray. She seemed to be conversing
about me, but I wasn’t sure. I continued sitting there for maybe fifteen
minutes because I did not want to startle or distract her during this quiet, intimate
time. After standing and beginning my walk back home, I heard a “psssst!”
behind me. Turning, I saw Effie Mae stand and beckon me with both her arms.
Obeying, I
half ran to her and waited for her to address me. Instead, she held out one
hand for me to grasp and the other she raised upward while speaking in a
language I did not understand. The more I listened to her, the more I decided
she was not speaking a human language. Then, Effie rested both hands on my head
and said: “King, I lift Tim up to you, to receive Your grace and direction
during this trial of his. Amen.” Having
never had someone pray on and for me like that, I took it slow opening my eyes.
When I had, she was no longer in my midst.
Since it was
still dark outside, I ran home, got my bike, and pedaled over to Larry’s
hideaway. When I arrived, I tapped on a window to hopefully get my friend’s
attention. No answer. Where in the heck could he be and why would he leave
now?
I looked
around, saw no one in the vicinity, and went around to the only door. After
knocking three times and not receiving an answer, I tried the door. It opened
and I went inside. What I saw troubled me to no end. Instead of finding the
bungalow clean and tidy, I saw practically all its contents had been disrupted
in some way. A couple chairs lay on the floor, the shelf once holding all those
cans lay flat and face down. I began to get super nervous and wondered if I
should report my findings to the police. Mrs. Deets, if she hadn’t already,
would file a missing person’s report and then I’d be questioned by a cop and
maybe a detective.
My whole
body broke out in goosebumps and feeling faint, I sank into the only still
upright chair and mused about what to do. But, being twelve years old, I had no
clue what to do. So, I said a prayer almost like the one Effie Mae had said just
minutes before. But instead of praying for me, I inserted Larry’s name. When I
finished my prayer and opened my eyes, I saw a note setting on the kitchen
table just three feet away. Because it had my name printed on the outside, I
unfolded it and set it down on the table so my shaking hands wouldn’t prevent
me from reading it. This is what it said:
Dear Timmy Tim,
I am sorry I was not here when you came back. A lady knocked
on the door and said she would take me to my social worker. I explained that I
needed to wait for you, but she said you would be fine. I had no choice but to
go with her. She said you would understand. Her name was strange, so I had her
spell it for me: Effie Mae Seraph. Here’s my social worker’s number if you want
to make sure I am all right. Thank you for all your help, Tim.
Your friend, Larry
* * *
That was the last time I saw Larry Jackson, my best friend in
seventh grade, and the first time I received help from an angel.
Copyright Patrick Rowlee - All Rights Reserved
