IBO - Brian R. Lundin (100 books to read in a lifetime .txt) 📗

Because of his knowledge of drug dealers in the city, in another year, the police department assigned him to the elite Vice Control Division-Narcotic Unit. What the Police Department did not know was that Pacman was a long-time member of the State Street Boys and most of the drug dealers he was arresting were rival drug dealers referred to him by Pops. Pacman was short and slight of built.
Growing up in Robert Taylor Homes, he knew the street and drug lingo and he was able to infiltrate the gangs that were competing with his gang.
While waiting for the traffic to move, Pacman asked Malik, “I hear you're trying to get into Harvard. That’s great what are you going to major in?” Pacman asked.
“I’m thinking business administration,” Malik answered.
Pops say, “Yeah, you can be our business manager,” they all laughed.
“Let me tell you what’s sup, Pops said, getting serious. Pacman is Five-O, but we grew up and were Pee-Wees together. His family moved out the jets, but he remained a loyal brother even after joining the police department, he’s one of us,” Pops said proudly.
Malik was surprised, “He’s the man and a brother?”
“Yeah man, now listen, what we got in mind is taking off some drug dealers not ours of course, but the other ones,” Pop’s said,
“This how we're going to work it, Pops said. “Pacman and his “Jump out boys” know most of the dealers in the hood; I’ll arrange a buy for five kilos of crack and set up a meeting spot. When we come to the spot to cop, Pacman and his “Jump out boys” will be there. They will act as if they are making a bust. You know the dealers will try to cop a plea with Pacman, so he'll let them go but keep the goods; the money, and the dope, How that sounds?” Pops asked Malik.
“Actually pretty good,” Malik says.
“The dope man is happy because he didn't go to the slammer and we got the dough and the free dope. Pacman and his boys will act like they are arresting us, so everything will look legit to the dope man.”
“What about my spot?” Malik asked.
“Fuck that spot you are about to make ten times more money,” Pop said to Malik.
Pops and Pacman dropped Malik at home. As he got out of the car he thought that the deal sounded almost too good to be true and that he did not trust the police. When Malik entered into the apartment he was met by Joyce, who ran up and hugged Malik,
“So how was it?” did you have a good time?” she asked excitedly.
“Yes I did, it was very interesting, Where’s ma?”
“She went grocery shopping; she got her food stamps today.”
“Did you eat?” Malik asked Joyce.
“Yes, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”
“What about some pizza?” Malik asked.
Joyce answered excitedly, “Oh yes, yes that would be good.”
“Ok, call the pizza joint and order an extra large, we will surprise moms when she gets in.”
“Ok,” Joyce said.
Barbara arrived a few minutes before the pizza. Malik was surprised she was not high and she looked good. She had on clean clothes and must have bathed recently because she did not smell. Malik and Joyce helped her with the groceries.
“Hi baby, how you doing?” Barbara asked, hugging him.
“I’m fine ma, how you doing?”
Before Malik and his mother could finish their conversation the phone ranged, it was the pizza man downstairs. Most businesses would not delivery to Robert Taylor Homes because of the robberies and fear of the gangs. In addition, they had to pay the gang members to use the elevators. The customer had to come downstairs.
“Here Joyce,” Malik said, giving Joyce a twenty-dollar bill.
“Take this downstairs to the pizza guy and tell him to keep the change.”
Joyce returned shortly with the pizza and the three of them sat down at the table and ate.
“This reminds me of the way my mother said the family was when Fatmama was alive, all the kids had to be home for dinner and it was always at five o’clock because Fatmama had to be at work at six at Theresa’s Lounge, “Barbara said.”
“Tell us about Fatmama” Joyce said, putting a slice of pizza in her mouth.
Tears started to form in Barbara’s eyes.
“Lill loved, Fatmama” Barbara said quietly, as the tears started to flow.
She thought about her childhood, and her grandmother.

Chapter 19

“Moms told me that Fatmama, Naomi Caldwell was born in Gulfport, Mississippi to Ethel and William Caldwell in 1929, and never attended school. The Caldwell sharecropped ten acres of cotton bottomland and she had two younger sisters, Sissie and Willa Mae, and two younger brothers, Claude and Alex who were twins. The farm provided the family with the basics, nothing else. There were chickens that furnished the family with eggs and meat and they had a vegetable garden. Sugar, flour and other items they could not grow on the farm they purchased on credit at the white owned general store. After harvesting the cotton crops with the little money they received, they paid their inflated bill, at the store, leaving the family again with nothing.
Her husband supplemented his meager income with a corn whisky still he operated in the back woods. By the late 1930’s, the boll weevil was devastating the crops in the south and it destroyed the family’s cotton crop. To make things worse, a customer who claimed that William’s corn whisky had made his wife go blind knifed him to death. After William’s death and no income or support the family lost the farm. A year later Ethel contracted tuberculosis or what the locals called the “coughing sickness.” Reluctantly, Ethel sent Sissie and Willa Mae to live with her sister Jean who lived in Jackson, Mississippi and the twin boys went to live with her brother Will Smith in Meridian, Mississippi.
Few people in Gulfport did not attend church; the blacks had their church and the whites theirs. There were no Catholics, Episcopalians or Protestants, the city was heavily Baptist. Johnny Smith, the white pastor of True Light Baptist Church was in his late 50’s. He was tall and had a full face and a diabolical smile. He had a slightly receding hair- line and had the look of a man exposed to sin and liked it. He always wore tinted glasses that he said was to protect his weak eyes, but they were worn mainly to cover bloodshot eyes that came not from lack of sleep but too much moonshine. During the services, he always wore a white suit, starched navy blue shirt, and white tie. His wife, Ester Mae, always neatly cut his mingled grey hair.
Johnny agreed to let Ethel and Naomi live in a rear room of the church. The room contained two wooden cots and a bathroom. There were no windows or fans and in the summer, the room was stifling and freezing in the winter. Naomi was to keep the church clean and cook for the Sunday service. The church was located in an abandon garage on a gravel road three miles from town and his congregation consisted of poor white farmers. According to what moms was told the pathetic little church needed painting and the weeds covered the grounds. One of the five steps leading to the door of the church needed repairing and the solid oak door hung lopsided on its hinges. A tattered purple drape covered the one opened window. The church consisted of six rows of pews, each able to hold ten people and a pulpit made of a converted desk rested prominently on the raised wooded floor. There were two plain lawn chairs behind the pulpit; where Deacon Jones and Deacon Morris sat and they always were dressed in dark suits, and white shirts and wearing white cotton gloves. They were rough men who helped Johnny with his moonshine business. Their clothes satisfied the appearance for church, but a closer look revealed the fabric was cheap and the coats were ill fitting. These were men who had been on the side of the Devil and pretended to be on the side of God, but they were still willing to venture on the wrong side of holiness if the situation demanded it.
It was Sunday morning and Johnny’s wife, Ester, a semiliterate woman that fancied herself as the right hand of her husband stood next to him as he welcomed the worshippers to services. Recorded organ music issued through the open door and the eight-person choir was singing. The hot mid-May air made walking or breathing difficult, but Johnny’s twenty-member congregation braved the heat. The congregation consisted of mainly older white women, who were either divorced or widowed, and many attended church only because they thought the pastor was good looking. The choir always opened the services with a hymn and his congregation waved their hands in the air and shook their heads when Doreen, the gifted young black soloist began to sing. Johnny had paid Doreen for sex on numerous occasions and he paid her $5.00 for the solo. After the solo, Doreen left and went to her own church.
When Johnny started to preach the congregation would stomp their feet and the old window would shake as the spirit overtook them. Johnny’s sermons were usually racial in nature and focused on the differences between the black man and the white man. According to Johnny, God had made the white man more intelligent and better than the black; man and God demanded that the white man keep the black man in their place. As the pastor preached some of the woman cried and waived their arms, other with eyes closed, raised their heads towards the ceiling.
Mom said an old white woman overcome with emotion would stand and started speaking in tongue. No one, not even Johnny knew what she was saying. The services ended with Johnny closing his eyes tightly and placing his hands on the head of members who had varying illnesses and saying a prayer. “Repent your sins!” Johnny would yell out and the congregation would lower their head in prayer.
Mom said that Fatmama had heard that Johnny had come from old money. In the south, old money was not to be confused with wealth. Old money did not mean the person had a lot of cash, property or other assets. Old money could not be earned it had to be inherited at birth. Old money was a status term and it generally applied to a white person who was somewhat educated maybe graduated from high school and was born into a family that had century old roots in the community and could trace their family tree back for generations. Everyone in the small town knew that Johnny‘s great grand parents had been slave owners and owned a small cotton plantation with six slaves.
After the Civil War, the slaves moved North and the cotton fields eventually turned into a patch of weeds and over-grown