led me on many of the adventures that fathers often have with sons. Granddaddy and I had gone on fishing trips up and down the Warrior River in his old green flat-bottomed boat. We went to Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa to see the Crimson Tide play football. Granddaddy seemed to know everybody in the stands, and he introduced me to Justice Lawson of the state Supreme Court and Dr. Carmichael of the University and Governor Persons and Mr. Martin of the Power Company. I had followed a safe five steps behind him on the dove hunts that the affable Sam Engelhardt, state head of the White Citizens’ Council, put on at his big plantation. And we went to the Dollarhide Hunting Club, where Granddaddy and I would wait all day in a deer stand hoping to get a clear shot or two, and then go back to the lodge and eat T-bone steaks grilled by old colored men who constantly answered “Yessuh!” Not until Duke did I realize I’d grown up the entitled prince of my small town, that people—especially black people—bowed and smiled at me because of who my Grandddady was, who my family was. Now I squirmed at the memories.
But I was grateful for Granddaddy because he was a man of the world and made sure I rubbed shoulders with the world, too, at least as he knew it. Mama and Daddy had showed me how to work, and Bebe had taught me to read good books and “elocute” properly when I spoke, but it was Granddaddy who had educated me about politics and history and sports, about business and the economy and foreign relations. Because I was so often sitting right beside Granddaddy when he had a serious conversation about the state of the world with some other man of high social rank, I heard complex opinions put forth that I later had to ask Granddaddy to explain. I realized from an early age that Granddaddy did love to explain to me how the world worked. And so he assessed for me why Eisenhower beat Stevenson in 1956, explained what the Suez crisis was about, told why Sputnik mattered, speculated on what had caused the recession of 1958, and analyzed why Bear Bryant was a good football coach and Ears Whitworth had been a lousy one.
Years later, long past the summer of 1965, I realized that from watching Granddaddy in social situations I learned how one man influenced the thinking of another. He smiled quickly but never so long as to make one think he was overly accommodating; spoke to people by name and remembered something personal about each one; interjected an old joke here and there and a witty remark frequently, but never made fun of anyone, at least not any white folks from Alabama; never openly contradicted a wrong opinion, even when he went on to demolish the very idea; and remembered any shrewd thing ever said by the person to whom he was talking.
“But, you know, Tommy,” Cathy went on, her eyes still on Marvin, “if Granddaddy had lived, he would have been just as upset as Daddy has been the past few months. He might not have showed anger like Daddy but he wouldn’t have liked it a bit.”
She bobbed her eyebrows. “You remember what he used to say all the time?” She tucked her chin, put a frown on her brow, and lowered her voice to sound like a man. “‘We let the little white chillun go to school with the nigguhs, they’ll grow up and wanta get married.’”
“Cathy!” I cringed and shot a look at Marvin.
“Cathy, please.” Mama was embarrassed too.
Marvin burst out laughing. He looked at me. “I’m interested in the one they called Big Tom.”
“That was our great-grandfather,” I said. “He was dead before Cathy and I were born. How’d you know about him?”
Marvin shrugged. “From William.”
I turned to Mama, who had a puzzled look on her face. Finally she spoke.
“He filled the room when he was in it. You should ask Brigid about Big Tom.”
Cathy sat down with Marvin and began quizzing him about Chicago. Marvin was responsive enough but kept it general and didn’t mention anything about prisons, mobsters, or pistols, which was fine with me. Cathy would have been even more dazzled if he had. Feeling unnecessary, I went outside with my basketball to the hoop beside our paved driveway and began shooting baskets, something I had often done when I needed to think through things or just get the hell away from the people inside my house.
Marvin followed me out and stood between the goal and the street, surveying up and down. I asked him if he wanted to shoot with me, but he shook his head as he was lighting a cigarette. Here was another strange thing about the guy—I’d never known a male who wouldn’t shoot basketball when the opportunity presented itself. Weren’t all black guys devoted to basketball?
In a few minutes Mama came out to tell me that it was time to get ready for church. I hadn’t even realized it was Sunday. “I’m not going.” Church was the last place I wanted to be.
Mama started to speak but stopped and gave me a skeptical look. I shook my head at her slowly. She nodded solemnly. I could see her deciding against making an issue of it. But Mama was a powerful believer. “Next week.”
I shrugged. If she pushed, I’d have to tell her just what a doubter I was these days. God didn’t save Jackie. Therefore God must not exist.
A familiar car stopped in front of our house, and I felt myself smile in relief. This Ford Falcon belonged to Bobby Ray Shoemaker. “Shoe” was my closest pal since the first grade. Short and wiry with a narrow mouth and a perennial buzz haircut, Shoe had been the best guard on all our school basketball teams—a good ball handler and passer with a deadly set shot if he was left wide open. We had been active in the Methodist Youth Fellowship and the Future Farmers together—his daddy was a part-time farmer and the town’s fire chief, indeed the only paid fireman in the county. We had double-dated to the prom both junior and senior years and spent lots of time just talking, and sometimes not talking, while we shot baskets on my driveway.
“Wha’ ya say, Tommy?”
I bounced him the ball and he stopped, took aim, and fired off a twenty-footer. Net. “Still the deadeye, Shoe.”
He laughed and we shook hands. He glanced over at Marvin, who stood a discreet ten yards closer to the street. Shoe looked back at me and frowned, asking silently who Marvin was. “Bodyguard,” I said very low.
“Fuckin’ A,” Shoe said.
“Didn’t you hear about somebody shooting up our house?”
He frowned again. “Well, I guess . . . I mean . . . I heard somethin’ but I don’t know if it was right.” The Shoemakers lived five houses down, and his daddy worked closely with the sheriff’s office. In a place the size of Eden Rise, everybody knew all there was to know about something like that. There was no way he didn’t know.
“You talked to Diane?” he said. Diane Maxwell had been my high school girl friend.
I shook my head. “She around?”
He said she wasn’t in Eden Rise.
I threw Shoe the ball and studied him a minute. Shoe wasn’t looking at me, even when he didn’t have the basketball. He was by nature a talkative guy and we were the best of friends. I asked about his first year at the University of Alabama, who he was dating, what his summer job was. He was friendly enough, but he didn’t ask any questions in return. I felt like an old-maid aunt extracting information from a nephew late for a hot date.
I bounced him the ball but he let it fall on the driveway. “Hey, Tommy, it was great to see you, but I gotta get on to church.” We shook hands again, and he finally looked me in the eye. “You okay, buddy?”
“Yeah, I’m all right, Shoe. Good to see you.”
He turned,
