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#MissouriIsMissing
by Dori Davis
All week I heard mama speak in whispers to daddy in the kitchen and on the phone to my Aunt Alberta about Missouri. Words floated in midair without meaning; visit, trouble, no choice, worried. I’d spent several summer vacations with Missouri during her extended visits with my family, visits filled with joy, laughter, and childhood adventure.
“Nouchi, betcha I can climb this tree faster than you,” she’d exclaim as she shimmied up the blossomed Jacaranda tree, its spray of purple blooms floating through the summer breeze. Then, there was the day she wrecked my friend’s bright red brand-new Schwinn bike and reduced it to a crumpled pile of metal and rubber. Showing off her bike riding skills, Missouri jumped on the bike and ran smack dab into a car driving through the intersection at the end of our block, as my friend, and I looked on, stunned, mouths open, eyes wide. Then, with the agility of a gymnast, she jumped off the bike and escaped the full impact of the wreckage unscathed.
Though I wouldn’t say I liked that she frequently got me into trouble with her reckless shenanigans, I loved that she was bold and fearless. Around her, I believed I could be bold and fearless too, though my actions were measured and deterred by mama’s voice in my head, “Nouchi, go get me a switch from that tree out front. Looks like you earned yourself a woopin’ today,” mom would say with a tinge of frustration and disappointment in her voice.
My life was neatly boxed and ribboned—few surprises, no tragedies. But soon, the ribbon would unravel, the inner workings of our tidy family untangled and exposed. Missouri would be at the center of the storm to come.
It’s the late 1950s, just after my seventh birthday. This day is imprinted in my memory, like footprints pressed into the damp soil in our backyard vegetable garden after a late autumn rain. I awoke on Saturday with a mixture of angst and excitement. It was a hot July morning, sky sparkling blue. Too excited to eat Mom’s breakfast of pan-fried pork sausage patties, scrambled eggs, fluffy biscuits, butter, and syrup mixed with bacon fat from the dented Hills Bros coffee can on the stove, I grabbed a sticky jelly donut leftover from the night before.
Mom called after me as I headed outside, “Nouchi, put that donut back in the box and come eat breakfast.” Mom had a lot of house rules. However, there were no clear rules when I visited Missouri at her grandmother’s house during her summer visits. Unlike me, Missouri was allowed to sleep until she decided to get out of bed, have friends over when she was home alone, and she most assuredly would have been allowed to enjoy a morning donut.
Fridays, on his route home after work as a janitor at Berg Metal, one of many scrap metal corporations on Alameda Street, daddy stopped at the shabby cafe next to the railroad tracks. Furnished with cracked red leather-covered stools and chipped wood tabletops, it boasted a handwritten cardboard window sign, “Sandwiches, Donuts, Coffee.” Daddy bought jelly donuts, sprinkled with powdered sugar, packed to the brim in a brown box for his girls—Gert, ten years my senior; Bun, ten years old, and me.
“I got donuts for my favorite girls,” daddy announced as he placed his black lunch pale and boxed donuts on the kitchen table. Daddy made the three of us feel special. Mama provided what we needed, and daddy managed to deliver beyond the basics. He surprised us with what we wanted. He kept track of our running wish lists. “Daddy, can we get a tetherball like the one at school?” Bun and I pleaded until one day the ball on a rope appeared—strung up on the clothesline post.
I have memories of our Friday evening tradition—the sweet fragrance of fresh donuts wafting throughout our dining room, replaced by the savory smell of fried catfish as the dinner hour approached, potato salad drenched in mayonnaise, or macaroni and gooey cheese. Corn on the cob completed the meal. Mom stands at the black and white checkered tile kitchen counter, flipping mildly scented moist pieces of fish, dusting them with yellow cornmeal. Their lifeless heads with bulging shiny eyes rest in the sink. “Nouchi, go out in the yard with Bun and pick ten ears of corn from the garden.”
“Mom, make Bun do it without me. There’re worms out there,” I whined.
My sister, Bun, the sibling who looked most like my mom—cute face, plump cheeks as a young child, and almond eyes—was terrified of worms. “Those skinny little worms won’t hurt you. I want you to love nature, not fear it. You take care of nature, and it will take care of you. Now go and get the corn from outback so I can boil it and get dinner on the table.” Bottom lip poked out, and eyes rolled; I sashayed out the door at a snail’s pace. “God don’t like ugly,” mom admonished, as she often did. Having picked cotton in sun-drenched fields as a child, mama had little patience for my whining about worms and gathering ears of corn from a well-tended garden.
Though I spotted Gert at the small patch of peanuts in the secluded corner of the garden she cultivated, she was too busy to help me combat worms. Instead, she was focused on the peanuts she would roast and sell for a dime a bag in the neighborhood. She cleverly used her pretty face and charm to win the hearts of her loyal customers. “Mr. Smith, I got some fresh peanuts I just roasted for you. How many bags do you want?”
The family elders had made the necessary arrangements. Missouri was coming from Chicago to live with us until school started in September, maybe longer. The reasons for her hastily arranged visit were cloaked in secrecy. “Mama, why is Missouri coming to live with us?
Mama was at the kitchen sink; daddy sat at the sturdy oak wood table in the corner, tabletop worn and covered with scratches. “No reason. You need to stay out of grown folks’ business.” They sheepishly glanced at each other, rolled their eyes. Mom nibbled on the corner of her lower lip as she grunted and half-cocked her head to one side.
I’d not seen Missouri since her visit with our family two summers ago. My fondness for her was inextricably linked to memories of my favorite season of the year we shared, summer. The moonlit picnics under the stars on our grassy lawn on warm summer nights are in my mind’s eye—tuna salad sandwiches, potato chips, mama’s teacake cookies, honey-sweetened lemonade. The feel of the cool breeze through my open curtained bedroom window is stored in my memory. The nightly sing-song chorus of chirping crickets float through midair, males attracting females, lullaby me to sleep. Then there’s a melodic reminder of summer fruit— the distinctive horn of the raggedy truck rumbling down the block, Stan, the Watermelon Man. “Watermelons. Watermelons. Come and get your watermelons.”
“Nouchi, get two bits from my purse to buy a melon and have Stan bring it to the door.” Mom didn’t buy melons from the market. She’d wait for Stan to show up. She trusted me to negotiate the melon selections and purchases. I beamed with pride when mama heaped praises on me—her responsible little helper—for the successful transaction. Her trust and recognition gave me confidence. “Hmm, sure is a good melon Nouchi got from Stan,” mama announced as she’d cut into its juicy red flesh.
My favorite summertime activity was riding to the beach in Mr. Clark’s truck with neighborhood kids and their parents; Missouri, Bun, and I squeezed together, air filled with giggles and chatter. We grilled hotdogs and marshmallows, grabbed chilled bottles of Coca Colas stored in washtubs filled with ice, watched the shimmering golden sun as the sky turned dark. Adults played Rummy; the card dealer shuffled cards with long nimble fingers, cigarette precariously resting between his lips, eyes squinted from airborne smoke. We played catch, tag, and built sandcastles.
Best of all, my July birthday guaranteed one of mama’s chocolate frosted three-layered cakes and vanilla ice cream. “Honey, don’t forget to buy dry ice so I can make ice cream for Nouchi’s birthday,” mom called out the window to daddy as he stood by his 1950 dingy gray Pontiac parked in front of the kitchen window that overlooked a patch of assorted flowers, and lit his cigar. Mama didn’t like the musty smell of cigars inside the house, so daddy’s first task was to light up once outdoors.
Though mom was under 5 feet in stature, more than a full head shorter than my dad, through the lens of my childhood, I saw her as a towering, self-confident and courageous woman, except when it came to God—she was a God-fearing woman and Gert, Bun and I spent much of our free time in church. We lived by the refrain, “Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound!” Mama’s faith and peaceful yet commanding presence was the glue that held our family together. She walked and talked with a serious demeanor and understated certainty, and when she spoke, we listened. Her voice rings in my ear as I think about her Sunday morning wake-up calls. “Everybody get up and get ready for Sunday School. I don’t want you to be late.” Though I liked dressing in Sunday’s Best—lace-trimmed dresses with petticoats underneath, patent-leather shoes, and ruffled socks—and playing with my church friends, Missouri dreaded everything related to the church, including Sunday School.
Crusaders Temple was on 103rd Street, named initially Main Street, the strip that was the commercial center of Watts. The gate at the rear of our lot opened into an alley, and across the path was our church, along with markets, clothing, drug, and liquor stores, movie theaters, cleaners, post office, hardware stores, and more. We’d dash through the parking lot of the Watts Savings and Loan, where Gert would land her first job and where she’d meet Louis, the charming and handsome well-dressed minister she’d marry. I trekked across this alley numerous times daily during my childhood. It felt safe and familiar. Then, two years after my family moved away from the neighborhood, the fires of the 1965 Watts Riots destroyed much of this commercial area—burned it to the ground. Though the fires spared our house at 1647 E. 103rd Place, it was demolished to redevelop the area—a part of my roots, destroyed.
In my naivete, I expected the Missouri who was about to return to our home to be the Missouri I’d last hugged when I was five. She was eight—when we climbed trees together, dashed through the alley to Tick Tock Liquor Store to trade soda water bottles for bubble gum and candy, cut out paper dolls, shared whispered childhood secrets, tickled each other unmercifully to tears, played dress-up together.
I knew nothing about Missouri’s mysterious existence outside of Los Angeles. Then, many years after I’d last laughed and played with her, Missouri’s mom, Lorraine, visited Los Angeles—her last trip to the City of Angels. In a quiet tone of resignation and teary eyes, she told me her story.
Lorraine, isolated and sheltered as a child, grew up on a farm in Shaw, Mississippi. She was 14 and in trouble. In her bedroom, as the darkness of night filled the room, Lorraine sat on her bed, consumed with shame, sobbing. My Aunt Alberta, Lorraine’s stern mother, had noticed Lorraine’s swollen belly poking out under her oversized sweater earlier that day.
“Lorraine, you got a baby in there?” her mom cried out as she gazed at Lorraine’s belly. Stunned. I done told you about being so boy-crazy!” That had been the extent of Lorraine’s sex education.
After dinner, Lorraine’s dad stormed into Lorraine’s bedroom, fuming. “I’d rather see you dead than have you dishonor this family with an illegitimate child.”
It was the 1930s, and options were few for unwed mothers. If a shotgun wedding was not available to the young girl, families often hid their pregnant daughters until they gave birth and had other family members claim and raise the child as their own.
The disappointment and sadness in mama and daddy’s eyes stung more than daddy’s knife-stabbing words of rejection. Lorraine would rather rely on the kindness of strangers than stay home under the heavy burden of disgrace with constant reminders of mama and daddy’s disapproval. So, Lorraine filled a pillowcase with necessities—clothing that no longer fitted her expanded waistline, a hot comb to tame her long wooly hair, a tattered-dog-eared book of poetry, $10 daddy gave her—and set out on foot, headed west. Six months pregnant.
The city lights and excitement of St. Louis allured her. She’d heard of the most fabled of all World’s Fairs—when the world came to St. Louis in 1904. Without a plan, Lorraine fantasized about living in St. Louis. With blurred memories of her journey—stayed with kind-hearted families along the way, helped with household chores wherever she stayed, gave birth to a beautiful baby girl in the basement of the home of strangers in St. Louis, Missouri, Missouri’s namesake.
“Mamma, I’m so sorry. can I come back home and leave Missouri with you until I get established in St. Louis? I got a room in a boarding house and a steady housekeeping job across town. I need you to watch Missouri until I get settled and save enough money to take care of her.”
“Of course, you can come home. Our home is the best place for your baby right now. You can work until you find yourself a husband.” Lorraine returned to her home for a brief stay and left Missouri in Mississippi with her mom. Restless and determined to make a life for her and her daughter, Lorraine returned to St. Louis and continued her migration until she reached Chicago, the Promised Land.
Bright and pretty, Lorraine figured she could charm her way into success and happiness, with a bit of luck, in the city, even though she was burdened with limited parenting skills and ill-prepared for adulthood. Life had been a struggle for her and Missouri in St. Louis, with a string of part-time menial jobs in nightclubs and cafes to add to her meager wages from housekeeping. So, thrilled when she landed a job in a Chicago factory, she sent for Missouri.
“Mama, I got a steady job. I want Missouri to come live with me so I can raise her in the city.”
She was a child raising a child and overwhelmed by the demands of adult life. Her days were long and exhausting. Missouri was cared for by neighbors haphazardly. “Missouri, I have to work late tonight, so I want you to go over to Miss Berdie’s after school.” Miss Birdie and her son lived down the street, so if Birdie weren’t home when Missouri came from school, Birdie’s son, Bobby, would be there.
By the time Missouri was ten, Lorraine, at 24, had come to understand Missouri needed stability and reliable adult supervision. Keenly aware of the mistakes she’d made, she wanted to shield Missouri from the pain of a life of regrets.
Missouri crawled into bed with Lorraine that sunny Sunday morning. They talk, laugh, and read. “Missouri, I want you to mind Granny in Los Angeles and stay out of trouble,”—the extent of Missouri’s sex education.
“I will, mama. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be a good girl.”
In Los Angeles, Lorraine felt Missouri would have the close supervision she’d missed most of her childhood years. I learned Lorraine suspected Missouri had been molested by a young boy who lived on their block in Chicago many years later.
Bun, the newsgirl of tabu news, was my connection to the adult world of shame. “Lorraine caught Missouri doing the nasty with a boy. I thought you knew why she came to live with us that summer.”
“Huh? Really? I wanted and needed more details, but Bun had said all she would say on the subject, and I understood too little to know what questions to ask. She couldn’t believe I didn’t know something so fundamental, and I couldn’t convince her to give me details. The truth is I was ignorant, and I needed time to absorb and understand slowly.
By noon, they emerged from bed, made breakfast together—pancakes, bacon, and eggs, soft scrambled. Then, that Sunday, before Missouri boarded the train for Los Angeles, together, they recited Lorraine’s favorite poem, Invictus. Lorraine wanted Missouri to remember the last stanza. So, together, they repeated the words, and Missouri printed them in her diary.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
In Los Angeles, Alberta, Missouri’s grandmother, my aunt, lived nearby in a tiny, rented house too small to accommodate visitors, so she asked mom if Missouri could live with us for a few months. “We always have room at the table for family in our home,” mom said with glee. So, whenever family and friends visited Los Angeles, mom and dad welcomed them to our spacious home with hugs and smiles, and my sisters and I enjoyed the novelty of the variety of friends and companions.
Alberta—good-natured and easy-going, with a lenient child-rearing attitude—my mom and her other three sisters, my grandmother, and many cousins formed a village to raise Missouri in Los Angeles. The family figured it would be a joy to have Missouri with us, to smother her with love and discipline.
My dad unfolded the rollaway bed, unused since the Holiday Season’s guests, a parade of cousins, uncles, and aunts, had long since returned to their homes, scattered across the country. My task was to retrieve the bedding—over washed, bleached white cotton sheets and one of grandmother’s hand-made quilts—a kaleidoscope of colors, patterns, and textures—made with grandmother’s age-worn hands, thin prune-like skin. I’d sit by her side and thread the needle to compensate for her failing eyesight. After all these years, I vividly imagine her as she sits at her Singer sewing machine. Her size 5-foot maneuvers the footplate, fingers spread on either side of the needle as she guides each seam. With patches of cloth, she creates works of art.
Mom wanted fresh flowers in Missouri’s room. “Nouchi, go out in the yard and get some blooms, yellow and red ones. I’ll get a jar from the cabinet.”
After I gathered the flowers and arranged them in a jelly jar filled with water, Gert, Bun, and I piled into dad’s old car. After what felt like an eternity, dad came out of the house. He stood by the car, removed a cigar from his shirt pocket, bit off the tip, and lit it—readied it to chew and smoke in the car, where the pungent fumes would hang over us. With daddy’s attention on the road, street signs, and other vehicles, we filled the air with giggles and chatter as we made our way to Union Station in our old jalopy.
Inside union station, seated on wooden benches while dad read the newspaper, we waited for the train to arrive. “Former Brooklyn Dodgers Play in Los Angeles for the First Time as the Los Angeles Dodgers.” “Daddy, can we go see the Dodgers.” Before he answered, Missouri, escorted by one of Lorraine’s neighbors from Chicago, saw us, ran to us with laughter, a picture of joy and childhood innocence. She was still cute, lighthearted, and spirited—an arresting smile, slight dimples—just as I’d remembered.
“She’s the spitting image of Lorraine,” mom always said. Adults described her as a child who lit up a room when she entered. She was dressed in a blue cotton dress, gathered at the waist, matched socks, and hair ribbons.
It was a season of many firsts—a magical summer of discovery and fun—a Red Car ride to Long Beach Pike, shrieks and shrills on the roller coaster, with its tight turns, steep slopes, turning us upside down on a railroad track; pink cotton candy and corn dogs on a stick, mustard covered; a night at the drive-in theater, under the stars. The Blob was playing on a gigantic outdoor screen. Wide-eyed, I peered at more cars parked in one place than I’d imagined existed in the whole world.
We brought food from home—baloney sandwiches with mayonnaise on Wonder bread, Laura Scudder’s potato chips, and Oreo cookies. Gert sent us to the concession stand soon after we parked. “You all go get some root beer sodas and take your time coming back.” Then startled at our slaps on the fogged window when we returned, Gert and her boyfriend, Louis, quickly pulled apart. Louis gave Gert a flirtatious smile and a wink as we settled into the back seat.
I reminisce about the first time mom took us to shop for the fabric to sew our school clothes. Missouri, in rose pink pedal pushers and a white cotton blouse, sleeveless. Her long hair was braided, adorned with blue barrettes. Mom hadn’t learned to drive, so we traveled downtown on the bus and exited the comfort of the conveyance into a different world—5th and Main Street—Skid Row. Men stood on the street in the middle of the day; sad looks on their faces. “Everybody take hold of each other’s hands and stay close to me,” mom said anxiously.
“Yes, ma’am,” said Missouri, and we quickly marched across the street when the traffic cop signaled with a loud whistle and beckoning hand.
We headed over to Broadway, a street lined with fancy shops, to search for J. J. Newberry’s, the five-and-dime store where we’d buy our back-to-school supplies. Mom allowed us to pick fabrics in our favorite colors—yards of cottons, corduroys, wools. “Mama, can I get a box of crayons and a Hula Hoop? Please?”
“Not today. Maybe next time.” After mom promised to take us to Grand Central Market, we settled down and allowed her to focus on the mission at hand—get her girls ready for school. We leave J. J. Newberry’s, shopping bags full to the brim with fabric, thread, and lace.
We snaked through the crowd and peered through windows, window shopped, as we made our way to May Company, where mom searched for the hat department. Women perched on stools, trying on their selections. Heads turned this way, and the other, hands adjusted feathers and nets, faces admired reflections in mirrors. Finally, mom paused at styles suitable for church.
A saleswoman, dressed in a suit, navy-blue, followed us as mom stopped at a hat she liked, blue pillbox, net with white rhinestones. “May I help you?” she says before mom could touch the merchandise, with a faint smile, suspicious.
‘Yes, how much is this one,” mom asked.
“$3.99,” said the saleswoman curtly.
Mom nodded, stated she wanted to buy the hat, and the saleswoman escorted our little squad to the cash register. With her purchase in hand, bagged, we headed for the exit, followed by another saleswoman.
Outside, Missouri asks, “Aunt Lenora, why didn’t you try on that hat?
“Because Negros aren’t allowed to try on hats in stores,” mom says, with equal parts embarrassment, humiliation, and shame. “You babies, I hope by the time you’re old enough to buy hats, you can sit down like all those women in the store and try on as many hats as your hearts desire.” This experience would be my first lesson in what it means to be Black and different in America. After that, I’d come to understand the pain of embarrassment, humiliation, and shame I saw in mama’s eyes.
After a dinner of chicken and dumplings, cabbage, and bread pudding, mom sat at the dining table, created, and cut patterns out of newspaper. “Mama, why were all those men standing on the street by the bus stop? Why weren’t they at work?”
“They’re down on their luck. Some people aren’t as lucky as we are. Your daddy got a good job, and we have a place to live, food to eat, everything we need.” She explained what it meant to live on Skid Row. “When a man can’t provide for himself and his family, it kills his spirit,” she exclaimed with sadness in her eyes. I’ve felt and carried the weight of that moment’s sadness throughout my life—an early lesson in compassion.
As summer ended, I was so full of excitement; I felt as if I would explode. Missouri moved away to live with Aunt Alberta after the season ended, and we seldom saw her as we drifted apart; our friendship faded with the miles between us. Mom wasn’t keen on visiting Missouri, and Aunt Alberta for reasons not understood until many years later.
I have memories of myself as I sit on Aunt Alberta’s sofa—doors slam, loud voices argue, music blast from the radio, visitors enter without a knock, Missouri’s friends grab Kool-Aid punch from the refrigerator without permission. Homelife at Aunt Alberta’s place, messy and erratic. I feel out of place, awkward, and uncomfortable.
One day, after my eleventh birthday, home from school, as I changed into my play clothes, “Missouri is missing,” mom said in disbelief. “Alberta says she didn’t come home from school yesterday.”
I sorted through the words in my mind, not understanding what it meant to be missing. I thought Missouri was off on an adventure, harmless and fun. “Maybe she’ll come over for dinner tonight. Can we have rice pudding for dessert?”
“Baby, we need to find Missouri. She may be in trouble, hurt. Then we can worry about dinner.”
Over the next weeks, the ghost of Missouri hung over our home like a dark cloud, weighty and gloomy. Mom, in worried whispers, constantly on the kitchen phone with Alberta and her other sisters, spoke of possible scenarios. “Maybe she’s shacked up somewhere with that no-good boy, Ricky?” I heard mom whisper. I tried to piece together the details of the Missouri mystery from these one-sided conversations, sometimes coded to shield our family’s predicament from snooping party-line listeners. Bewildered and frightened, I’d say a prayer for Missouri every night at bedtime.
“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven . . . God bless Missouri and keep her safe.”
Missouri seemed to have vanished into thin air without a trace. Lorraine came from Chicago to search for her baby girl. Not wanting to lose her job, she returned to Chicago, heartbroken, riddled with guilt. Months went by; the Missouri mystery was no longer an endless dialogue in our home; mom’s telephone conversations with her sisters became less frequent, not as much urgency in tone.
Then, one afternoon a few months after her disappearance, Bun and I had the first of several sightings of Missouri. We’d saved enough money to go to Frank’s, a popular hamburger joint across the alley on 103rd Street. We ordered chili dogs with extra mustard, then moved on to the main attraction—the jukebox. Since we weren’t allowed to blast worldly music at home when mama was around, popular songs booming from a jukebox was a luxury for us. I debated in my mind which numbers and letters to select while Bun snapped her fingers to Fats Domino’s Blueberry Hill. “Hey, there’s Missouri, Bun exclaimed. I whirled around as we watched Missouri get in an old car with another young girl chatting and laughing. The young man at the wheel pulled away from the curb as Bun and I yelled, “Missouri, Missouri, Missouri!”
We skipped the jukebox selections and gobbled up our hotdogs; we could hardly wait to get home and report the news. We would crack the case. “Remember the license plate number so we can tell the police.” We knew the drill since we tuned in every Tuesday night, eyes glued to our black and white TV screen, to see Dragnet’s Sgt. Joe Friday. “All we want are the facts, ma’am.”
“Mama, we saw Missouri,” we spoke simultaneously. Out of breath after running down the street, through the alley, and crashing through our back door, the details of our detective work tumbled out—bright yellow on black metal license plate number, blue car, Missouri’s rose-pink skirt and white blouse . . .
“What did she look like,” mama asked? “Huh? She looked like Missouri,” surprised at the question. It hadn’t occurred to us that she looked perfectly normal. And happy. Though mom called Aunt Alberta to tell her about our Missouri sighting, to our disappointment, the police didn’t show up at our door to question us about the facts.
One Saturday later that year, Gert, Bun, and I stood in line at the Largo Theater as we waited to see To Kill a Mockingbird with Gregory Peck. Though mama only allowed us to go to the Largo when Gert chaperoned, to my dismay, Aunt Alberta allowed Missouri to go to the Largo with her friends, sans supervision. Just as we get to the front of the line, ready to enter the theater, “Is that Missouri?” Gert pointed in the direction of a handsome couple about to enter a car. Indeed, it was Missouri. Alive and well. We silently agreed to let Missouri be.
After my sister, Gert, married, she moved across the street from us. One day, home from school, after completing my chores, like most days, I visited Gert to play with my niece, Rosilyn, and nephew, Laythan, cute toddlers. It was a cold winter day; I rushed through the door, the blistering shhh of wind at my back. Missouri, self-renamed Evelyn, sat on the brown and green floral sofa with her five-month-old baby, Pamela—pretty in pink and wrapped in a soft cotton blanket, white. Missouri’s reappearance was no less mysterious than her disappearance. Gert fried pork chops with mashed potatoes and gravy for dinner as Little Richard’s Tutti Fruitti played on the record player. Music, chatter, and laughter filled the air; fingers snapped, and feet patted the floor to the beat of the tunes. After dinner, we climbed into Gert’s dilapidated brown Chevrolet and drove Evelyn to the bus stop. There was lots of joking, chitchat, smiles, and gagas over adorable Pamela—a surprisingly ordinary evening with my long-lost cousin.
This visit would be Evelyn’s first of several visits after long inexplicable absences, always with a new baby in tow. Then, one evening mom came home with 4-month-old Chris, Missouri’s youngest child. “He was crawling around on the floor at Alberta’s, looking for something to eat. I couldn’t leave him there,” mom said with tears in her eyes and a lump in her throat. He was cute, clever, and a bundle of love.
Late one evening, the phone rang, and mom answered. It was Aunt Alberta. “Lenora, they found my grandbaby. In an alley. Dead.”
I was sad and heartbroken when mom told me this with tears in her eyes. I worried that I might die of a broken heart. Years later, I’d learn Evelyn died of a drug overdose—found alone, slumped over with a needle in her arm. I’d not spent much time with Missouri since that windy winter day at Gert’s house. Yet, through tears of sadness, that’s the Missouri I see in my mind’s eye when I think about her— a pretty girlchild pretending to be an adult, a mother with baby Pamela in her arms—repeating the pattern. She was a child raising a child. Though I’d heard about her life through Aunt Alberta’s tales of frustration and angst, I had no context to understand Missouri’s tormented life of pain and suffering.
“Missouri dropped off those young’uns of hers for me to watch a couple of hours, and I ain’t seen hide nor hair of her in a week.” or “Missouri called me from jail and wants me to get her kids and take care of them until she gets out.”
Evelyn’s primary supplier, Pops, sold drugs out of Pop’s Hamburgers, a popular hangout on 103rd Street a few blocks from our home. Although Pop’s was one of the few local hangouts mom would not allow us to patronize, she never said why.
Evelyn’s backup dealer, Bobby—a young man who used a wheelchair, moved with determination, propelled forward, maneuvered the wheels of his chair with sturdy arms—lived on our block. His appearance impeccable—stripe pressed shirt and slacks, sometimes a tie and jacket—the look of a well-groomed gentleman. Yet, incredulously, no one wondered aloud about his presence on the street. How did he support himself? Did he live alone? What did he carry in those bags on his lap? What was the destination and purpose of his travels throughout the day?
Chris would live with us until he was seven years old. Then, when his brokenhearted grandmother, Lorraine, came to Los Angeles to bury her beloved daughter, Evelyn, she took Chris back to Chicago to live with her. He continued to thrive in Chicago, where he’d graduate from the University of Chicago. Evelyn’s other four children—drugs, prostitution, ill-cared for babies, poverty, school drop-outs—struggled with a trail of tragedy. The pattern, deeply rooted, continued to repeat. Breaking generational cycles requires determination and hard work.
In the early 1970s, I worked at May Company—which merged to form Robinsons-May many years later—as a salesperson in various departments. Though not one to wear hats, occasionally, I’d visit the Hat department to “sit down like all those women in the store and try on as many hats as [my] heart desired.” It was moments like these that I reflected on my gratitude to my mom and dad for providing me with the stable family structure and discipline that Evelyn never had.
Often, I think of Evelyn—her seductive, dimpled smile and twinkled eyes—the words of her favorite poem, and mine, have informed many of my life choices.
Invictus
By William Ernest Henley
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods maybe
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.