Will the Circle Be Unbroken?

by Studs Terkel

  Helen Sclair

  She is sixty-nine. She is a cemetery familiar. She had been a public school teacher for twenty-seven years. “Now, I spend my time visiting and tracking cemeteries. It is my full-time occupation.” She arrives with bags full of pins, ribbons, cards, jewelry, and other funeral artifacts.

  I WAS BORN into death. My mother died a few days after my birth. I grew up in a foster home out in Lake County, Illinois. The first thing my foster family did was take me to visit my mother’s grave down in southern Missouri. It was a Sunday afternoon. I remember very distinctly that visit. I had baking-soda poultices on my two-and-a-half-year-old knees—I’d been bitten peeking into a beehive . . .

  My grandparents began dying. This was back in the days when funerals were at home. I remember one of my grandfathers laid out in the living room. I tried to crawl into the coffin with him to pat him, to wake him up. “Grandpa, I want to be read to.” He’s the person who introduced me to reading. Every Sunday morning he’d read the comics to me.

  I lived for Saturdays because my mother’s sister-in-law would pick me up and we’d go to the cemetery. With scissors, on my little knees, I would trim around every one of the grave markers of the family. It wasn’t even my family—it was my foster family. It didn’t make any difference. This was my job and I loved doing it, because you could see what you had done. All those little weeds or leaves or whatever were cleaned away. I was probably about four when I first did that. When I got a little bit older, I’d go down to the spring and bring up buckets of water to water the flowers. Those were my jobs.

  There was no movie theater in the town that I grew up in, so you went to funerals. That was the thing to do. My goodness, you had to get the paper because it would be terrible if you missed a funeral. My foster mother would read all the obituaries and she’d take me. The cemetery was my thing. [She begins to open the bags and display the artifacts.] See these medallions? Ribbons—red, white, and blue on one side, black and silver on the other side. It was of the Grange Society, a rural group. The red, white, and blue side was worn at the regular meetings, the black and silver at the funerals. There were various fraternal orders. Everybody belonged to something.

  All would have worn something like this or variations when some comrade or relative died. It was communicating, “I feel lousy, I feel terrible, I’ve lost somebody.” It was stipulated that you wear this for X number of years, months, however long. The community knew how to respond to you. They knew you lost somebody of importance to you. Here’s a black-bordered hankie and all these envelopes, edged in black.*

  Here’s a size-fourteen ring: a black cameo with a woman’s face.

  [She displays her necklace.] It’s onyx, with my aunt’s hair woven in the locket. This jar lid on a chain was made by somebody who had little money—see, it’s brass with human hair inside. The chain was made with four-penny nails. It was a laborious job. It’s a souvenir having more to do with memory than death itself. Today we go to the funeral home and we get little-bitty cards. They used to have cards intended to be put in scrapbooks or framed on walls. Here’s a card in black: “In loving remembrance”—and see that circle?—“Kinsey Drake, Died March 19th, 1914, age seventy-eight years. Gone but not forgotten.” See this poem beneath:

  A precious one from us is gone

  A voice we loved is stilled

  And though the body slumbers here, the soul is safe in Heaven.

  These cards were possessions. People collected them. These are what I call the accoutrements of death. Wearing one of these ribbons or medallions, people understood that you were grieving. Today we have grief counselors because people don’t know how to express themselves. They have to go to somebody to tell them that, yes, it’s OK to feel terrible . . .

  In the nineteenth century, everybody knew about death. In the twentieth century, nobody knows about death. People die in hospitals now. In the nineteenth century, nobody knew about sex. In the twentieth century, everybody knows about sex. Death has become the new pornography. We don’t talk about it.

  I would describe myself as an advocate for the dead. I don’t see anyone else worrying about where cemeteries are, where people are buried. I can’t separate death from life. It’s just as much part of life as anything we might do.

  My mother and father were Presbyterian missionaries—they brought back Bushman.* I grew up in a Methodist home and finally became an Episcopalian. My husband was Jewish. I claim myself to be absolutely nothing now. No, I don’t believe in the hereafter. When you die, you die. It’s not something that bothers me. I’m not afraid of death. Oh, heavens, no. I’ve got so much to do, I don’t have time for it today. But when it happens, it happens.

  *“The Letter Edged in Black” was a familiar sentimental song at the turn of the century; others were “Put My Little Shoes Away” and “The Baggage Coach Ahead.” In Eugene O’Neill’s play Moon for the Misbegotten, Jamie Tyrone’s guilt-ridden soliloquy, as he rides the train, about his mother’s death refers to the baggage coach ahead. Other such dirges as “Flee as a Bird” were parlor songs, offered by art singers. This one was often played by African-American marching bands on the way to the cemetery, along with the hymn “Just a Little Walk with Thee.” On the way back, as a tribute to the living, they’d play something upbeat like “Didn’t He Ramble.” A popular Southern hymn was “O Lovely Appearance of Death.”

  *Bushman was the celebrated gorilla her parents bequeathed to the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.

  The Other Son

  Steve Young

  He and his wife, Maurine, raised four sons. In June 1996, in Chicago, their eldest, Andrew, was shot and killed by Mario Ramos, eighteen.

  I HAVE TROUBLE SLEEPING at night because I have just too much energy running through my veins. I was a piano technician for many years, I was a speed-skating coach for my son and his friends. Back in the days when they were skating in the national championships, we used to travel in a station wagon to god-awful, distant frozen ponds all over the northern woods.

  After my son Andrew died, I decided to get involved in the issue of gun violence, because it was an illegally trafficked gun that took his life. I knew that the industry bore some responsibility for his death. That led me to a life of advocacy.

  We have four children. Andrew’s a twin. He was the oldest by ten minutes. His twin is Sam. We have Philip, who’s probably still downstairs sleeping—he’s in bad shape these days. I’m on his case. And Clinton, who’s twelve, who’s off at school right now.

  It happened in June of 1996. Andrew and Sam and two friends went out to cash a check and some kids in a gang started throwing gang signs at them and they took offense and words were exchanged. Andrew drove off about two blocks north of this grocery store. And these two kids in the gang were on a bicycle—two kids, one bike—and they chased after the car and one of them had a gun and Andrew was caught in rush-hour traffic. It was about five-thirty on a Monday night in June—bright daylight. And this kid just walked up to Andrew and shot him in the shoulder from about point-blank range. And he later admitted to a Catholic priest that he was only trying to scare Andrew and shoot him in the shoulder. This is what I’m finding out now is that these kids, they don’t understand how powerful and lethal these weapons are. He shot Andrew in the shoulder and it went clear through his body, right through his heart. And Andrew basically passed out in Sam’s arms inside the car. The damage to his heart was too severe. The doctors could not save him.

  Everything’s been different since then.

  The shooter had never been in trouble with the police before. He received forty years. The other kid who handed him the gun and said, “Do it”—the one who instigated the whole series of events, throwing the insults and the gang signs—he got fifty-five years because he already had thirteen priors. He was fifteen. Mario Ramos was eighteen, he was the shooter. The other kid was Roberto Lazcano. Andrew was nineteen. A couple days later, Maurine and I were leaving the funeral home. I’d just chosen a casket and I w
as in a complete state of bewilderment. My knees buckled. I was there on the sidewalk, on my knees, crying, and I knew if they’d let me inside the cell with Ramos I just would have walked in there and snapped his neck. I was just so filled with grief and anger . . . I’d lost my son. He was my best friend in many ways. Andrew. He was the one that loved to skate, and I’ve loved to skate ever since I’ve been a little boy. I probably would have, at the very minimum, if they’d let me into a room with Mario Ramos, beat the living crap out of him.

  We’ve usually gone to church most of our married life. I was raised an Episcopalian. I grew up, I moved away from that. Christian or non-Christian, I don’t differentiate that much. My wife wanted me to come to some of these Bible churches, and some of the people there were kind of extreme. I always felt a little uncomfortable, especially when people started rolling on the floor and speaking in tongues. My spirituality is an internal dialogue with myself and with my God.

  I was self-employed at the time as a piano technician and I couldn’t work—I was just too devastated. So the bills continued coming in: I still had to pay for the mortgage, I still had to pay for the lights and everything else. I didn’t care. I just started tossing bills into the corner. I just didn’t give a damn. I couldn’t work. I’d wake up in the morning and I’d have a few appointments and I’d just say, “Screw it.” My income was probably cut by about two-thirds at the time. The people at this church, they passed the hat for my family and they came over with a couple of checks. I remember one was around eight hundred dollars, another around nine hundred, and it really helped. The bills really started adding up, and after about six or eight months I owed a lot of money. I had a customer up in Glencoe, this sweet little old lady. Whenever I worked on her piano, it would be like seventy-five dollars, but she’d always want to pay me twice as much. I’m not going to take advantage of some old lady just ’cause she’s too generous, so I’d charge her the regular price.

  About six months after Andrew died, there was an incident in one of the courtrooms with one of the boys that shot Andrew—the one who handed the gun to Mario. We went to the sentencing hearing and the judge said fifty-five years. The boy’s father was this very short Mexican immigrant man, and I heard somebody repeat to him fifty-five in Spanish. He had a cousin with him who was interpreting. And the man put his head in his hands and he started sobbing. And I really felt sorry for the guy because his son was going to prison for basically the rest of his life, fifty-five years. He had just lost his son. I know a tiny bit of Spanish, so I went over to him and I said, “Yo siempre su niño”—I think that means I’m sorry for your son. I put my arm around him. He literally came up to my shoulder, he was so short. I really felt sorry for him in my heart because I knew this man, he was an immigrant, and he never came to this country to raise children to be murderers. My picture was on the front page of the Sun-Times the next day, the front of the Tribune as well. The TV stations called me. It was my first exposure to being in the media. This little old lady I was talking about read this story and realized that I was the same person. She sat me down and said, “How are you doing?” I said, “It’s very, very difficult. It’s not just me—it’s pulling my family out of this, getting my other sons to get back on track with their lives.” And so she gave me the money I needed to cover all my bills.

  In my mind, my son is in his grave, and I believe in the afterlife. We’re Christians, and we believe that when this body dies, it doesn’t end. Your spirit goes on. I believe my son is out there, might even be aware of what we’re all doing down here. And to me that’s a better situation than if I had a son who was sitting in the belly of the beast down in some god-awful prison where unspeakable acts are happening all the time. I looked at this guy who was just silently weeping. I felt like he needed to be comforted. It’s not complicated. I just felt sorry for him.

  One night I had a dream about Andrew. I was standing on a footbridge over a frozen lake and Andrew was skating under the bridge. I was afraid the ice was so thin that he was going to fall through in the middle and drown. I ran down to the end of the bridge and motioned for Andrew to come over. And I said, “If you just hear me out on this, you won’t have to die, you won’t go through the ice.” It was all nonverbal communication: he could tell what I was thinking, and I could tell what he was thinking. It was like: You don’t have to die, you won’t fall through the ice and drown. And Andrew just said, “I’m OK, I’m fine, I’m in a good place. Don’t worry about me. I’m safe. Take care of my brothers, take care of Mom.” That’s the message I got out of the dream.

  I’ve quit my job as a piano technician. Now I’m in advocacy. The Million Mom March. It’s a national organization working for sensible gun laws to protect our kids from guns. The church that raised a little bit of money for us, they were very sympathetic right after Andrew died. But when I started getting involved in advocacy, I noticed that all of a sudden I was dealing with some pretty conservative, right-wing people. I go to church one Sunday and here’s a Christian Coalition voting guide sitting there on the information table. I go to the pastor: “What the hell is this? This guy’s NRA. This is blood money.” The pastor got very uncomfortable. A couple of the women in church said to Maurine, “We don’t talk about gun control in this church.” I found myself drifting further and further away from the church at the same time as I was being approached by Father Oldershaw—Mario Ramos’s family went to his church. When Father Oldershaw found out about Andrew’s death, he said, “A member of our parish has murdered a member of our community—we’ve got to do something.” He had written a letter in the parish newsletter when he heard about this kid who just walked up to a car and shot point-blank. He said, “Lock him up, throw away the key. Worthless individual has no value to society.” But then he found out it was Mario, a kid who had been an altar boy in his church and somebody he had known since he was a small boy. It just completely bewildered him. Mario, in his memory, was a pretty gentle kid, but he’d been sucked into this gang lifestyle. And he got pushed over the edge so that one day there was a gun in his hand and it cost my son his life. The parish started praying for the family of Mario Ramos. The family was so ashamed they went back to Mexico for a couple of months. The parish started praying for my family, too.

  One day, Father Oldershaw ran into my wife and talked to her for a few minutes. He left his phone number. She said, “Who’s this guy? Should I trust him?” I was just so black and angry and depressed that I probably would have bit his head off if I had seen him. In my mind, I would have held him responsible in some way because it was his kid from his parish. I called him a couple of nights later, about ten-thirty at night. We talked until one in the morning. About a week later, I was over at the rectory. I tried to tell him about who Andrew was and about my family. And it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. I belong to that church now.

  I’m not overtly devout, but I am inwardly. I say a little prayer every day. A prayer that my mother taught me when I was a little boy. I can say it for you: “Jesus dear, my friend and guide, please be always at my side. In my work or rest or play, Lord be never far away. Tell me what I ought to do, let me often think of you. So shall I be safe from wrong, happy as the day is long.” I’ve been saying it ever since I was a little boy. I say that prayer, and I say the Lord’s prayer, every day.

  Clinton, my little one—he’s twelve. He was eight at the time. He used to stand in the street and wait for cars to hit him. He’d start fires on the stove. He’d start fights with kids twice his size, hoping he’d get beat up. He’d say, “I’d rather be with Andrew.” He’d scare the hell out of us. We didn’t know what he was going to do to himself. I remember one of his teachers at school called me up—she was so concerned about him. He was living in a netherworld. I was in such shock myself that I wasn’t noticing everything that was going on. Maurine was at a grocery store and all of a sudden she became disoriented—and she didn’t know where she was. Fortunately, P.J., my middle son, was with her and he was able
to get her home. P.J. went into abject depression. He was fourteen at the time. He shut down for quite a long time. I noticed that everybody grieves on different schedules. Sam, he quit school, he quit his job, he basically holed up in his room. Sam has got artistic talents, and so he sat in his room and drew a lot of bizarre, dark, very demonic type of images.

  Everybody’s doing better now. They’re not out of the woods, but everybody’s still feeling the aftereffects. Maurine’s liberated because of her act of forgiveness. I’m liberated because of my activism. I think Sam’s doing okay. P.J. was the last to crash, and he went into an abject depression through most of his high school years. He’s starting to come out of it. Clinton has got some emotional disorders, and so that compounds the situation. He sees therapists. He’s getting a little better. He’ll be thirteen next month, and so all these adolescent hormones are kicking in and that makes the situation more complicated. But he’s getting better—the whole family’s getting a little better.