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

/> As the men and women complied, the tall man approached the men holding a shopping bag and told them to put their money, wallets and jewelry into the bag. The man with the handgun demanded the same from the women; the short robber turned to Fatmama pointing the shotgun and said,
“Give me all the money out of the fuckin’ register, and be fuckin’ quick about it.”
As Fatmama was giving the man the money, the short gunmen told the men and women, “Take off all of their clothes, strip naked and lay on the floor.”
Without warning, one of the male patrons whom were standing in front of Fatmama lunged at the short stickup man. The stickup man fired his weapon; the force of the shotgun blast stopped the man in mid-motion and he felled hard on the hardwood floor, blood flowing out of the four wounds in his chest. Fatmama let out a weak gasped as she felled to the floor, she was also bleeding from chest wounds.
After the shooting, the robbers bolted out of the door, without the money from the cash register. The patrons tried to help Fatmama and the injured man, but they both were dead when the police and ambulance arrived. The police never caught the stickup men, although Theresa had posted a $5,000 reward.
After Fatmama's death, Mom became the head of the family. She was fifteen years old and determined to keep the family together despite the suggestions from the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) that she let them place the twins in foster homes, but she was determined to keep the family together. She made sure that the kids went to school and did their homework.
A year after Fatmama’s death Moms got pregnant with me it was the result of her first encounter with sex. She told me the encounter was less than pleasurable. My father denied the baby was his and Moms never saw him again. She thought about getting an abortion but she thought of Fatmama who was deeply religious and was against abortions and had often told her girls “If you get pregnant don’t break God’s law by getting rid of the baby, just add more water to the soup.”
She said I was wonderment to her; she was constantly counting my fingers and toes and watching me.
Financially the family was not too bad off, Fatmama had burial insurance of about one thousand dollars, but Therese paid for her funeral so that money went to Moms. Friends of Fatmama and Therese had a fundraiser at the lounge for the family and raised about five hundred dollars and Fatmama church, New Philadelphia Baptist Church, where Fatmama had been a member since coming to Chicago added another one thousand dollars. The rent on the apartment was fifteen dollars a month paid by the welfare agency. She also received fifty dollars a month for each of her brothers, sisters, and daughter in addition to the $200 in food stamps from the agency.
Moms set up a daily routine; she was up at 6:30 am and fed me while the oatmeal was cooking. After feeding me she woke up Billy and Johnny who sat the table, while Dianne would dress and comb Elizabeth’s hair. At 8:00 am, they would all sit down for breakfast and prayer, just like when Fatmama was alive. After the kids got off to school, moms cleaned up the dishes and straighten out the apartment. She would then feed me again while watching, Days of Our Lives, and a soap opera on television. Around 9:30 am, moms and me would lie down for a nap.
At times, moms said she got very lonely, most of her girlfriends were in school and she did not know the other two families on her floor. Around 11:00 am, she started lunch for the kids who came home around noon together. After lunch and the kids went back to school, if it was a nice day she would take me out for a walk, usually just around the building or to the playground. Around 3:30 pm, the children got home from school and mom usually had soup and sandwiches for them. After changing their school clothes and eating, they could go outside and play after completing their chores. The twins took the garbage to the incinerator and cleaned the table after each meal, Diana helped moms prepare dinner, and after dinner she and Elizabeth washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen. After dinner there was homework and bedtime was at 9:00 pm. Moms was protective of her family, she made sure the kids went to school, did their homework, and went to bed on time.
With the welfare checks and food stamps and the rent and utilities paid by welfare, they were doing ok. The years went quickly; moms lost her youth being a mother to me and her siblings. Many evenings after the children had gone to bed; moms said she would pull a chair out on the balcony, outside her apartment door and talk to Fatmama.
She missed her mother, she missed the talks they would have and how she could always go to Fatmama when things when wrong. Now she was Fatmama, and she had to be strong for her family.”


Chapter 20

Willis Warren was born a slave in 1860; he was born in Stuttgart, Arkansas, a small farming town, and thirty-five miles from Little Rock. Stuttgart was a tired little small southern town. When it rained or snowed the streets turn to mud, too thick for even the horse drawn wagon to use. There were only two buildings in the town one of which was the general store, owned by Mr. August Washburn, who claimed he founded the town, the other building was vacant.
Willis’s master was Samuel L. Warren, “Sam,” to his friends, Sam’s wife Cindy, had died years before and he ran his small farm with the help of his slaves and his two sons, Joseph and Samuel, Jr., Candy his oldest daughter was responsible for running the house and supervising the “House Niggers.”
Master Warren was a plump, paleface man in his late fifties. Only his eyebrows retained their original dark-brown coloring; the rest of his full hair of head was white. Master Warren was a hard taskmaster and required his slaves and his sons to work hard, but he was not a brutal or mean master and he treated his slaves decent. He was kind and took a benevolent interest in his slaves and their families. He made sure they had enough to eat and decent clothing. Sam’s farm was small compared to some of the wealthy southern plantations that had thousands of acres and hundreds of slaves. Samuel farm was only about two thousand acres, the farm’s main crop was cotton, and the supplemental crop was soybean. He also raised chicken, hogs and cows that he used mainly as food for the slaves and his family. He owned twenty slaves, fifteen men, and five women, three of which were pregnant with his seed.
Every now and then he would wander into the slave quarters to get his ease from one of his young slave women, but that was to be expected, it was no big deal, none of the slaves could ever remember him whipping or abusing his slaves.
After the civil war ended the price of cotton increased dramatically as demand increased around the world. Many of the newly freed slaves fled the south where their ancestors toiled as slaves for better jobs and certainly better living conditions north. Samuel decided that he would let Willis and other ex-slaves stay and sharecrop on his land. The living conditions were no better than when they were slaves but at least, they thought they were working their own land. When Willis harvested and sold his cotton crop, Sam and his sharecroppers split the money received. However, Warren and the other sharecroppers had to borrow money from Sam during the year at scandalous rates so most of their share of the cotton money went to Sam or to the general store for food and supplies they had purchased on credit.
In 1882, Willis married Lissie Warren, who was also one of Samuel ex-slaves. Lissie was a big-boned woman with broad hips and a nice gapped-tooth smile, she was still a virgin when they married and was proud of it. The farm was self-sufficient and the land produced everything the family needed accept maybe wheat, flour, sugar, and coffee. These items they purchased from old man Washburn general store in town on credit.
Lissie and Willis had five children; three boys, Robert the youngest was born in 1887, Esau was born in 1883, and Moses was born 1884, and had two girls, Sara born 1885, and Mary born 1886. In 1910, Esau and Moses left the farm and went to the big city, Robert, and the girls stayed. After the death of Samuel Warren, his grand children agreed to sell 200 acres of land to Willis. Willis, Robert, and the girls worked the land and during planting and harvest season, all of the black sharecroppers took turns working each other’s land.
In 1915 Robert Warren, married a local girl named Mae Jones who sharecropped on a farm with her family about three miles away, their marriage was arranged by the families. Willis and Robert built a large house on the land where the family lived and in 1916 Robert and Mae first son Victor was born, they had five other sons in five years. Their youngest son Henry was born in 1920 and Willis Warren died in 1923. Robert’s other son's, except Henry left Stuttgart to find their fortunes in the North.
Henry helped his father on the farm until he died in 1937 and his mother died the following year. In 1940, Henry married Ruby Scott who family lived in Stuttgart. None of the Warren family ever went to school or learned how to read or write. Ruby, Henry’s wife went to the 7th grade and could read and write a little and what she knew she shared with her husband. Ruby and Henry had three sons, Scott, Peter and Reginald who was born in 1945, and three girls, Dianna, Ethel and Cynthia. The Warrens family farmed the land and Ruby did laundry for the white folks who lived in the town, and she baked and sold sweet potato pies, to supplement the family’s income. The family was poor, but not as improvised as were some of the other black families in the area.
The family had a vegetable garden where they grew greens, corn and tomatoes and they had three pigs, a milk cow and dozens of chickens, which fed the family. Ruby and the girls made their clothes and Henry and his sons worked the land. Ruby and Henry believed in education and they constantly told their children that the only way to survive in this “White Folk’s World” was to be educated, to be able to read and write. Henry would not pull his children out of school to help on the farm as many other farmers did. They got up early, did their chores, and went to school, after dinner, it was schoolwork.
Reginald Warren, who everyone called Reggie, grew into a tall very handsome young man with light brown riveting eyes and a deep baritone voice. He had a reddish