July 19, 2021
“But I have a black friend, I can’t be racist.”
This notion of course is absurd. Furthermore, it has been my position now for a long time that a person cannot grow up in a country with institutional, systemic racism and not be racist to some extent. Becoming unbrainwashed in the very system that has done the brainwashing is not an easy thing.
Still, I’ve always hated that quote (but I have a black friend) being thrown back in the faces of people who use it. Certainly it is naive, but I guess it’s because friendship is such a sacred thing I believe it should not be denigrated. Friendships are what we need.
One of the friends that read my post yesterday was a little stunned that I had not had a sleep over until 11th grade with Sande. I just want to clarify that for the sake of this travel project, race is one of my subjects and for that reason I chose to focus only on my friendships with those that are other-than-white during my nuclear family years. I’ll break from that a little today.
I have been blessed to have friends at many ages and accompanying sleep overs—including a deep though brief friendship with Mike in the 5th grade, Jeff in the 8th grade, and a longer friendship with the Davis brothers in 8th through 10th grade until a fist fight with the younger brother ended things. Funnily enough, it was a fist fight with the older brother in 8th grade math class that had begun our friendship.
There were other boys I had meaningful friendships with but without sleep overs—the same with girls. In fact, I did not see girls outside of school except at parties or school engagements. The fact that I didn’t have a friendship with a girl outside of school feels like something I could do a whole other travel log around. Certainly, gender would be a worthy topic.
But before I get too far afield of the far field I am already in, I want to go back to the Davis brothers—the ones whose friendship started with a fight and ended with one as well.
I drove by their old homestead when I was in Hattiesburg and cried. It appeared to be abandoned. The windows were boarded up and the front porch was missing a whole wall. A blue plastic tarp on part of the roof was weighted down with bricks. Seeing it in such disrepair tore something loose in me.
I’d spent many hours there with those brothers after school and sleeping over. Their dad often took us to buy a dozen glazed donuts on weekend mornings.
As I looked at the home I remembered the last time I was in it. I had been standing in the room just inside the door facing my friend whose face I suddenly resented and hated for reasons I won’t go into. Others were at home in the den watching tv. There was a smug expression on his face that made me sick and I snapped a fist into his mouth. He’d taken a moment to dab his fingers in the blood and then delicately lick his lip to taste it before pummeling me into blindness. The first few punches had me seeing stars before I managed to feel my way to a nearby lazyboy chair and stick my head into it while he continued to throw haymakers at the sides of my head. Soon the oldest of the four brothers pulled him off me.
Months later he came to my house trying to sell me an old coin of his mother’s. I couldn’t tell if it was a peace offering or if he was up to no good. I declined it and that was the end.
Seeing the house in such bad shape was so emotional I think because it was a visual representation of how our friendship had been left.
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If you have been following these semi-daily posts you may have noticed that there is one childhood home still left on the inventory. I’m not saving it for any particular reason other than it is the last home I visited during these travels. It also represents the most magical place I lived. If I’ve ever seemed to have a sense of entitlement, surely Sewanee, TN and the castellated and castled stone world of the University of the South has something to do with it.
I may have made promises to you that these entries would end when I had visited all my childhood homes, but I feel this story is still backlogged a bit. It may be that it doesn’t feel complete until I roll back into my driveway in Concord, CA toward the end of the first week of August. If you stick with me I will feel honored, but of course, there is no rush. It will all be available for later reading if you like or to throw in your email trash. It is what it is.
What it was in Corryton this morning was foggy and I’d like to share some pictures of the landscape surrounding this 55 and older condominium community. Sometimes I ask myself, “Do I have to go back?”
Spotty West Goes East 