Diesel Heart Read online

  During Prohibition, Uncle Mac made considerable wealth while working on the railroad between St. Paul and Seattle—and Canada. The Empire Builder ran from Chicago through St. Paul to Seattle, then suddenly curled up north to Canada, where Uncle Mac and the fellas stockpiled boxes of whiskey and headed back south into the United States. On the return trip, at some prearranged clandestine location in North Dakota, the train slowed to about five miles per hour. Crates of whiskey were then tossed off the car to someone waiting for them. Uncle Mac was said to have been “Nigger Rich,” meaning well off or well to do for a Black person.

  Uncle Mac had no children, and Dad wasn’t close to his mother, father, sister, or brother. The two connected. At age twelve, my dad, already Uncle Mac’s confidante and heir, also became his driver. Uncle Mac actually started his own credit union, investing proceeds in several real estate properties up and down and along Rondo Avenue, labeled on the 1936 map of St. Paul as the “Negro Slums.” In 1946, Uncle Mac suddenly up and died of natural causes, leaving monies, jewelry, real estate, weapons, and secrets with my father. (Dad’s inheritance, although considerable, was by no means extravagant wealth.) In spite of the statute of limitations, my ninety-three-year-old father cautioned me just before he died not to get into too much detail about all this.

  And suddenly Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Dad enlisted and found himself stationed at the US Navy section base in San Diego. One day when he was in boot camp and marching in ranks, Dad noticed a sign on a building on the other side of the fence—USN MUSIC ACADEMY. At some point when the ranking officers were not looking, he snuck out of formation, jumped the fence, borrowed a trumpet, and auditioned. They put various charts of the most complicated and tricky sheet music before him to make sure he could read music—and of course he could. Immediately he was assigned to an all-Black navy band unit, where he picked up the nickname “Chick” (after a comic book character) from his fellow musicians.

  Dad’s job for the duration of the war was to play military marches for the troops coming in and shipping out, and to fuel submarines in the darkness of night. The all-Black musicians always wanted to stand near, or under, the tuba player and his tuba to shield themselves from flying bottles hurled at them by white sailors from the decks of the towering ships.

  At night they played the music that Black musicians called “swing,” which Blacks had originally created and performed. To them it was both a spiritual and a social act, as well as an expression of freedom. White male audiences typically interpreted this music as sexual and relabeled it “jazz,” which was their nickname for semen.

  By this time, Billie Dove, living with relatives in San Diego, was almost sixteen years old. Dad, now nineteen, playing a gig downtown somewhere, had noticed a nice pair of dancing legs across the dance floor. The rest of the story sounds like love at first sight.

  Melvin Carter Sr.—my dad—on the right, with other members of his navy band unit.

  Melvin Carter Sr. and Billie Dove Harris, early 1940s.

  Billie Dove was brilliant, quick witted, radiant by every definition. At the end of the war, they were married, and he brought her back to the Rondo community in St. Paul. The fallout was significant. She hit that tiny colored village like an explosion. Her flamboyance, life-of-the-party energy, and beauty were legendary. Although some local women didn’t appreciate the invasion, others just stared at her with admiration. Younger men would tell me, years later, how after they saw what a navy man had brought home, they hurried up and enlisted in the navy as fast as they could.

  Time passed. My parents had Teresina, me, Paris, Mark, Mathew, and Larry. I was between two girls and almost six before the next boy arrived. The complexion of our skin came in different hues, setting a peculiar stage. My father was dark brown. Mom’s complexion was much lighter. You could say, when it came to the kids, that she had powerful genes. Three of the first four were light-skinned, but I was significantly darker. And as the saying went in those days …

  If you are white, you are right!

  If you are yellow, you are mellow!

  If you are brown, stick around, but

  If you are black, GIT BACK!

  Momma told me that she craved collard greens when she was carrying me. She also said that she could feel my feet kicking at her heart during an already painful delivery. At least one nurse got kicked (and not by me!). But after a long and somewhat violent delivery, Momma proudly presented a very beautiful bronze-skinned dark baby boy to the world. And I had a birthmark on my belly that Momma said was the shape of a collard green leaf.

  My baby picture.

  But look, before I start revealing personal family issues, just remember that my ancestors had been born into slavery, back when hope unborn was already dead. Nobody knows the trouble they done seen. In fact, my grandfather Mym had been forced as a child to witness the lynching of a friend. This had haunted him for all the days of his life. So no matter what any of them had to do to get along, I am not mad at them. In fact, I wonder how they done so good.

  And this is what happened. When I was born, Ma and Pa Carter walked into the Miller Hospital room, took one look at me, turned around, and walked out, mumbling something about “ugly baby.” I couldn’t be my father’s son because I was too dark to be a Carter!

  The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice.

  But if you’re too black, it ain’t no use!!!!

  But to my mom, her mother, and mom’s sister Aunt Birdie, I, the man-child, was received as a special gift, perhaps a replacement for the father who disappeared, the grandfathers they never knew, and the brother they never had. Mother Reagans, Mom’s mother, always kissed me on the top of my head, just above my hairline. She’d say, “Billie Dove, that child is all boy!” After Mother Reagans and Aunt Birdie came to live with us, they always watched me with profound amazement. I’d look up from whatever I’d be doing at the time, and they’d be watching me like the RCA dog looking into the phonograph speaker. I couldn’t imagine why they looked at me like that.

  When Christmas, birthdays, and other holidays arrived during the first years, my siblings received nice gifts from my Carter grandparents, but I did not. Before long, Momma forbade them to bring any gifts to the other children if they didn’t bring me anything. Truth is, I had no idea of any of this because Momma shielded me. I would learn of it only later in life. What’s interesting is that once Momma got them straight, they couldn’t buy me enough stuff—shoes, boots, blue jeans, a leather jacket, and so on. But most significant was my first bicycle. For some reason or another, I had catapulted to become their favorite. I just dunno!

  So now here was sweet Billie Dove, from Texas by way of San Diego, isolated and secluded from her roots, family, and culture, in a narrow strip of St. Paul, Minnesota, called Rondo. Although not formally educated, she was well read, highly informed, extremely opinionated, and especially outspoken. Upon arrival, she was rejected by her in-laws, the only family available to her within thousands of miles. Long-distance phone calls were rare, visits home seldom possible, my dad gone way too much. Raising six children was brutal for her. The cloud of her father’s abandonment hung over her. This being said, I always understood her underlying volcanic temper, which she passed down to me. But given all that she had to deal with, she still did very well.

  3

  Deep Rondo

  I was born into Rondo—717 Rondo Avenue, on the odd-numbered side of the street, one of the properties left to Dad by Uncle Mac. It was a Victorian three-story, a blue and white, mostly wood house built back in the 1800s. It had towers, steeples, outdoor balconies, imported stained glass windows, hard redwood floors, and lots of rooms. Terrie and I thought it was haunted, but it was a good house for a growing family. Originally it had been a mansion, but now it was divided, with an apartment upstairs and a room for rent as well. Dad owned the double side-by-side business building next door, too, with a barber shop on one side and the Elks Club on the other.

  Our house at 717 Rondo. Dad own
ed the business at the right, too, and Skeeter ’n’ me played in the lot behind it. Courtesy Minnesota Department of Transportation

  Starting during World War I, Rondo Avenue was the big settlement for Black American refugees and migrants from the South. They were fleeing the horrors of southern Jim Crow laws, Black codes, sharecropping, and peonage, not to mention mass epidemics of lynch mobs. Out of shame, and perhaps even some levels of guilt, most Black folks preferred to forget those things and rarely talked about them.

  White America, still practicing racial injustices and benefitting from the proceeds, could not teach in such a way that would recognize the greatness of my Black ancestors, let alone the cruelty of dominant white oppression. Etched into every school curriculum was the idea that America had all this military might, technology, wealth, and global power, and Blacks had contributed nothing at all. After all, why teach the truth? In fact, why not take credit for the good stuff and blame Blacks for all the bad stuff? And never, ever, teach something that would make whites feel bad. An example: lynching happened in epidemic proportions all over America, but law enforcement and the courts hardly ever prosecuted members of lynch mobs, and lynchings continued to 1968 and later.

  So Negroes evacuated the South in a mass exodus, the Great Migration, in exchange for a different, more invisible form of segregation. In St. Paul most “Coloreds” accumulated on Rondo Avenue, a mixed neighborhood, living side by side with white neighbors. Others lived on the river flats and some near the capitol.

  St. Paul itself was an isolated and secluded island in relationship to other major Black communities, so a different, isolated culture was sort of organically cultivated. Everyone knew everyone and took care of each other, took care of and corrected each other’s children, borrowed loaves of bread, loaned vacuum cleaners, and fed one another. West of Dale Street, informally called Oatmeal Hill, was kind of an upper-class ghetto (ghetto as in a location in which a specific group or race is confined). Some called the side east of Dale Cornmeal Valley or Deep Rondo. However, that official St. Paul city map listed both sides as the “Negro Slums.”

  Most families lived either on one side of Dale or the other. The Carters, living and socializing on both sides, were both accepted and rejected, not uppity enough for one side and too uppity for the other. All the contradictions that were a part of Rondo created and ruled the nature of our lives there.

  As for me, my happiest earliest memories all had to do with running, jumping, wrestling, rock throwing, and climbing. My favorite family chore was to take the trash way out into the backyard, stack paper and cardboard as high as possible, and set everything on fire. Fire mesmerized me, always drew me to it. I was never satisfied with the last fire, always shoulda-woulda-coulda built a bigger fire. Will build a bigger fire next time. Always tryin’ to build the ultimate fire.

  Momma: Play with fire and you’ll wet the bed.

  Me: No, man, let it burn just a little bit higher!

  Momma: I can’t trust to leave you alone!

  Me: Yes, you can, Momma. I’ll put it out right away.

  Momma: I’ll be back in a couple of hours. No company while I’m gone. Don’t let anyone in! No one at all, do you understand?!

  I meant well. My mind was made up not to let anyone in. This time I was gonna be obedient.

  But every time, it seemed to happen just moments after she left. Knock knock—front door.

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s me!” said Skeeter Price, my superhero. He was the youngest of his family, and I—the oldest boy of six—needed a big brother. We had adopted one another, and he watched over me and protected me like a hawk.

  “Momma said I can’t have no company. I’ll get a whoopin’ if I let you in!”

  “No, no, no! She doesn’t mean me. She means people like Booger and Marty, people like that. I’m the only one you can let in. You won’t get no whoopin’ for letting me in!”

  “Skeeter, you promise?”

  “Of course I promise. Now hurry up and open the door!”

  Whenever Skeeter showed up, we’d have a ball, make a mess, smash or tear something up. Somehow, he’d be gone before Mom or Dad got home.

  “Didn’t I say no company, not to let anyone in?”

  “Yeah, but … Momma … but Skeeter said …”

  It didn’t matter that I got my ass whooped almost every time this happened. My older sister always warned me, but I’d open the door anyway.

  Another game was to light a pile of paper on the front porch floor, let the fire get as high as possible, then let it burn as long as we could. We took turns telling each other “Put it out!” or “No, let it burn some more!” We’d finally put it out just in the nick of time. Skeeter could stamp out even a big fire on the porch with his bare feet.

  Most of the time I knew I was busted from the get-go—getting caught red-handed, evidence being discovered, somebody snitching. But this obsessive-compulsive stuff had to be done, breathing becoming deep and shallow at the same time, eyes got big, felt so alive! Not getting an ass whoopin’ was an afterthought. “Uh-huh. You shoulda thought of that before you did it!”

  Pyromania was not my only moth-to-a-flame thing. I was obsessed with just about everything having to do with action, excitement, and drama. I loved to climb fences, climb the garage, climb other buildings, climb trees. I once got stuck on our garage roof, and Momma had to get me down.

  Back in them days, just about every backyard had some kind of produce—apple trees, plum trees, pears, raspberries, and rhubarb. I know I said something about watermelon being the sweetest taste, but wait a minute! Nothing, but nothing, no taste was so explosive with ripe juice to be savored as was the fruit from the plum tree in the backyard of 717 Rondo, me eating plums right off the limb while sitting in the treetop.

  Although no one ever gave permission, all the fruit trees were fair game for raiding, which was another rush. Me high in a tree, angry old-timer rushing out the back door yelling, me leaping and hitting the ground running, climbing a fence with my patented run-jump-hop maneuver, narrowly escaping on my bike is what I’m talkin’ ’bout!

  No one, not even Skeeter, could climb as high. I’d climb up into swaying treetops and remain in a state of relaxation for what seemed like hours. But I had to be careful not to doze off.

  All holidays and birthday celebrations were spent with my only cousins. Henry, Gregory, and Jeffrey lived around the corner with their parents, Uncle Buddy and Aunt Rhoda. (Buddy Moore, Aunt Toobie’s son, is my first cousin, but since he was an adult as I was a child, I always called him uncle, and they were my only local relatives.) Me ’n’ Henry automatically bonded and gravitated together at birth—we were each the firstborn male in our families, and we were born six months apart, to the day.

  For my first eight years, I knew myself only as “Brother” and “Baby Brother.” My mother braced herself for anything whenever Terrie approached her with, “Momma, better come look at Baby Brother!” I’d do stuff out of curiosity that just didn’t compute, even to my father. “Boy, you just ain’t got good sense!” was not a judgment but a sincere assessment. After an ass whoopin’, I’d be able to understand what was wrong with running through the house with a torch made by sticking the straw end of a broom over a hot stove, and then setting it on the mattress. Out of a desire to explore, I’d run away from home, get stuck on top of buildings, and rip apart my sister’s dolls to see the pee-pee. Rather frequently, my parents would rush me to the emergency room for stitches, as well as treatments for burns, abrasions, lacerations, and contusions. I’d catch my father watching me with an extreme look of affectionate confusion, trying to understand. Like always, he’d mumble more to himself than to me, “Boy, you just ain’t got good sense!” Good sense! Eventually I’d come to want some, whatever it was. I wondered how I could get some. How would I know if I got it?

  Whereas Dad led mostly by example, Momma was the one who talked, and she always saw strength, power, and even genius in me—no matter ho
w bad the school test scores were, how many times I flunked test after test, and even after I flunked second and third grades back-to-back. Idiot, retard, and dumb were acceptable terms in those days, but she never used them. Her quote was always, “If at first you don’t succeed …”

  The streets and playgrounds could also be tough. “Go to the corner store. Here’s the list and here’s the money. Come back with all the groceries and all the change. If somebody picks a fight, you better not run. If you lose the fight, you’re gonna get another whoopin’ when you get home!”

  That was what mothers taught sons back then. “A coward dies a thousand deaths, but a man dies only once.” Fistfighting among boys in the St. Paul Rondo neighborhood was to be expected.

  Julius, a tall, lean third grader, towered over me, bullying. As a six-year-old, I didn’t even understand what this was about. But I do recall my own internal anger building up, my energy escalating, and the sudden explosion of blood from his nose.

  His hands rushed to his face to stop the gushing blood as he attempted to hush his own screams. Other kids on the old Maxfield School playground rushed to his assistance, wondering what had happened. Horrified, more surprised than anyone, I tried to hide, but the other kids had seen me punch him in the face and looked at me in awe.

  “Baby Brother did it!” they exclaimed.

  I was scared and embarrassed. I started to cry, wanting my mommy.

  If I squinted my eyes and focused on the right sunbeam, I could see all the colors of the rainbow. I could shut out all the Christopher-Columbus-discovered-America and Spot-runs-with-Dick-and-Jane stuff. Oh, the beams! I could make Life Savers of any color, changing them into different shapes.

  Like in every other subject, the rest of the class seemed to get it. But I just didn’t understand how one man “discovered” millions of people the way they kept saying he did. “How did he discover them and didn’t know who they were or where he was at? Didn’t they discover him?” The classroom erupted and roared with laughter at me.