your husband finished. Never had a chance. Nothing a colored soldier can do about it. Nothing, Mrs. Till. Not until God rises up off His throne and stomps down those golden stairs and stops the lies.
Mamie Till wrote an autobiography. Didn’t give Louis Till much space in it. According to Mrs. Till, Louis was often brutal with her. Put his hands on her. Then absent. Then dead. Then he turned up ten years later at a very inconvenient time, an embarrassing boogeyman from Mamie’s past to haunt the trial of their son’s murderers. Mamie wrote that Emmett was Louis Till’s only accomplishment and in the end his only reason for being on earth. Must have been a bit more to her relationship with Louis than that, I believe. Probably adored the cute, mischievous little boy inside her handsome, mean man Louis. Maybe a tough guy was attractive to her. Maybe she thought she could stick her head in the lion’s jaws without getting hurt. Mamie also a down home, practical country girl. What sorts of men available in Argo, Illinois. What choices did she have. Most colored men and women newly arrived immigrants from the south, people marginalized economically, socially, in segregated enclaves. Mamie Carthan took a chance with Louis Till. Hoped she could tame him, mother him into a decent, dependable man. A project that was failing, she wrote. Then the army took Louis. Mamie Till probably lavished all her love on Emmett while she waited for Louis to return. After a telegram from the army said Louis Till dead, she could fall in love with him again in the person of his son. And this time love him without the worry of getting mauled.
Of course Mamie Till a lion, too. Like my mother she did not derive her sense of self-worth solely from her relationship with a son, though she would do anything in her power to protect him and demonstrate her love. If the Till offspring had been a daughter, Mamie Till would have loved her as much as she loved a Louis Till son. Like my mom, Mamie Till worked hard to maintain her integrity, dignity, honesty, her consistency in how she viewed herself, how she treated other people and expected them to treat her. Once I grew smart enough to appreciate my mother’s example, I attempted to emulate her but fell far short of her standards.
Mamie Till, a lion and a warrior. She risked her life in September of 1955 when she traveled from Chicago to Mississippi. Her son Emmett’s blood still fresh on the hands of the murderers she confronted at the trial in Sumner. Threats, harassment, disrespect did not chase her back to Chicago, though she admitted in her memoir she was deeply frightened each day by the ordeal of the trial, by cars that trailed the car she rode in from the courtroom to her motel, by bullets she lay in bed at night waiting to hear crash through the windows of her room. Soon after she returned home from Mississippi, she became a public spokesperson, a relentless witness who told her story to anyone willing to listen. First with NAACP officials sharing the podium as her sponsors, then alone, on her own two feet, traveling to welcoming cities or hostile cities across the country. She persisted in this work, until her death—speaker, writer, activist, dedicated crusader for civil rights, determined not to allow her fellow Americans to forget the terror, the injustice inflicted upon her son Emmett. Upon many, many other colored children of colored mothers.
Mamie Till remembers fixing Louis a sandwich. She wraps it in waxed paper, folds the edges like you gift wrap so edges even and neat. She’s out of rubber bands. Rubber bands not around like before the war. Hopes the sandwich will hold together. Tucks it into a brown paper bag, adds an apple, creases the bag’s top tightly shut. What kind damn sammich dat. She does not respond What the hell damn kind do you think, Louis Till. A T-bone steak sammich, hands ready to fly up to protect her face. No. Don’t start. She is Louis Till’s wife. Her mother’s good daughter. Her daddy’s sweet girl. Raised in Argo Temple Church of God in Christ. Baloney, she answers. A baloney sandwich for your lunch today, Louis. Thank goodness Louis not listening for an answer, not looking for a fight this morning. Brown bag in hand he’s out the door. Slams it behind him. She can allow her arms to relax, her fists to drop to her sides. Wipe her fingers on her apron. Finish her thought. A baloney sandwich for your lunch break at Argo Corn Products, Louis, with my daddy and all the other colored men carrying sammiches fixed by wives, mothers, women who buy cold cuts from the A & P with money from Corn Products paychecks.
Baloney. Three paper-thin, pink slices between four slices of white bread. I wish like you wish Louis it could be country ham or turkey or roast beef or half a fried chicken with potato salad, greens and biscuits Louis but you know good and well Louis you only give me baloney money and plenty of times I don’t even see baloney money. Do my best. Spread margarine on bread then mustard and mayonnaise, some ketchup if we have ketchup in the house. When I press the slices together, careful not to press too hard, and get the crusts messy. Wipe stuff from the knife back inside the bread so I don’t waste. It’s baloney today Louis not one of those mustard and mayonnaise days, so consider yourself lucky today, man, and yes I know you work hard Louis and I know you want more and I truly believe you deserve more and I know you think the only way you can get more is card playing and shooting dice Louis and you lose the little bit we have and you don’t bother to come home at night like there’s nothing here to come home to I guess you think Louis with the cupboard bare and my tired, bare face up in your face, my tears, my mouth all twisted up to holler at you when you come in here empty-handed and maybe you’re shamed, maybe my tired body not enough for you, just good for scrubbing floors, washing your clothes, and even with everything I do around here to make a decent home Louis sometimes I believe it means nothing to you, home no place special in your mind, slinking in here with your hands empty when the money’s gone and you can’t even give me the little bit I need to feed you and feed myself so my body can feed my child, your child, Louis, our baby I carry every day God sends here and when you’re not home I’m here day and night carrying your child Louis and today it’s a baloney and bread sammich Louis and roll your big eyes at me if you need to but what else you think it’s going to be.
I can hear you mock me down at Corn Products, see you ball up the paper I take my time to fold to make nice for you and hear you fuss at the sandwich I made and I wish wish maybe just once Louis you could try not to tear the wax paper, not crumple it up and toss it in the trash at work. I wish one day you would save wax paper I wrap your sandwich in. Why can’t you for once just fold the wax paper up neatly like a person folds a nice letter to slip in an envelope and bring it back home in the bag and I could use bag and paper again and it would save a little money, Louis, but that’s not the only reason why.
Little Mississippi. Mamie Till say it like she proud. Argo, Illinois, but we call it Little Mississippi, she say. So many of us from down there come up here to live. On Mama’s street lots of family. Aunt Marie. Uncle Kid. June Bug. Uncle Crosby. Then next block it’s Aunt Babe and Uncle Emmett and Great-Uncle Lee Greene. Mama and them started up Argo Temple Church of God in Christ and Sunday morning it’s Webb, Mississippi, all over again right here in Argo.
Louis Till shuts his eyes to hide from her, hide what he’s thinking. He ain’t no country ass Webb ass Mississippi ass goddamn Negro. He shadowboxes. Speed bag blippety-blip-blip. Fists a blur. He’s from Missouri not no goddamn lynch niggers Mississippi. Ain’t no damn cotton fields out where he come from. Day he leaves New Madrid he looks through a dirty bus window at fields of something growing and truth is he don’t know what the fuck it supposed to be. Maybe corn for Corn Products. Alagra syrup and Mazola cooking oil and margarine. Argo starch with that green and yellow Indian man on the box look like he a ear of corn. They make every damned thing from corn. Corn they grow out west and he sees flying green fields, flying Indian man boxes, flying speed bag. Opens his eyes, nods at this Mamie and hopes she’s done talking that dumb country ass shit she’s talking. Asks his self why Mississippi Negroes never get enough of other Mississippi Negroes night or day. Sure won’t ask her.
Everybody white as snow out in Missouri, Louis Till would like to say to Mamie if he could. But there are some Negroes out there because here he is black in Argo, Illinois, so got to be some black like me back in Missouri. She know the name of her people come up here, names of her people down there, all her people names and he don’t know one, not one of his people. No names. Only Louis Till. Orphan. No middle initial. No people. What I’m spozed to do, girl, with all those names you saying. Not my names. Not my church. Not my people.
