30
I spent the summer of 1933 painting houses and doing handyman jobs around town. I rented a room from a family three blocks from campus. I was able to save over fifty dollars, which I put in an envelope and took home to Anderson for Margie at the end of the summer.
It was wonderful to see Margie again. She seemed more worn and tired than the last time I had seen her but her spirit was high. I asked her how she learned to write. She told me that after I went off to school, she had prayed and asked the Lord to make it possible for her to learn how to read and write, too.
“Chile, it wasn’t two days later but they was a knock on the door and a lady standin there tellin me about free classes in readin and writin jes two blocks yonder. I thought she was a white angel. You think they’s any white angels, Robert? Hee! Hee! Praise the Lord!”
The vacation ended all too soon, and before I knew it I was getting ready to catch the bus back to Seneca. Margie watched me pull the strap closed on my grip. “Honey,” she said with a shaky voice, “yoll take care of yoself and don’t get into any trouble, hear?” From the look on her face, I knew she meant more than what she had said.
“Now what you tryin to tell me, girl?” I asked.
Margie’s chin quivered. “And another thing, don’t forgit me.”
“Hunh?”
“Now thassall. Gimme a kiss.”
Sitting on the bus with the dry, pungent smells of upholstery and cigar smoke, I thought of Margie’s face. Even though she was tough, fearless, and strong as an ox, her thirty-one years seemed more like sixty. She acted like maybe I was never coming back. I leaned my head against the window. Only dying could keep me from her, I thought. And Lord, I sure didn’t want to die yet.
———
Back at school, I found a new interest in extracurricular activities. Luke Small was a big influence on me. “I’m fed up with this place,” he would grumble. “I’s leavin this here place.” I didn’t pay any attention to him at first, but as the weeks went by, I found myself agreeing with him. “Yeah,” I grumbled along with him, “this place is strifling.”
Late night hours and a poor attitude caused me to get behind in my schoolwork. Soon I began cutting classes and piling up unexcused absences.
In late October, after I had been at school for more than three years, I was coming from the small log cabin library and walking toward the men’s dorm when Small came running from across the lawn toward me.
“Sadler,” he said with a large grin, “you and me is leavin this here place tomorrow.”
“Hunh?”
“Thas right, man. We is leavin.”
“What you mean—we?”
“You and me, brother. You and me. We is hoppin the ole freight and goin on to Ohio!”
“O-Ohio?”
“We’ll hobo to my house in Bellaire. Howzat sound?”
“Well—I—”
I thought of Margie and the money she had worked overtime to send to me so I could get an education, and the promise I made to myself to honor Bo’s memory. “Uh, I donno—”
Before I had a chance to say anything more, Luke Small was waving and jitterbugging down the path toward the dining hall.
That afternoon, instead of doing my studying, I left the campus and walked along the dirt path which led through the wooded area onto the winding dirt road I knew well. Tiny houses and shanties were scattered along the edge of the road, and I walked slowly, kicking pebbles and looking at the shacks. How many of the blacks in those houses can read? I wondered. How many of them can write numbers and figure out if they are being cheated or not on their groceries or their rent receipts?
I could read and write pretty well now, and I was proud of my book learning. If I stayed at Seneca, I could graduate and go on to college. Maybe even be a lawyer—somebody to help my people.
A little black child about three years old ran to the edge of the road. “Hi,” I called. She gave me a shy smile. I looked beyond her to her mother hanging wash on the line. Wearing an old cotton dress, wet with perspiration, barefoot, her hair covered in a rag, she paused for a second to look at me and then continued her work.
She lived over here in a shack, sweating and struggling to make enough food for her family, and I lived over there across the road up in the big school being educated so someday I wouldn’t have to live like her. And maybe if I made it through I’d be able to do something so others wouldn’t have to live like her either.
But the love of learning was wearing off, and I was becoming critical and restless. Oh Lord, what’ll I do?
When I arrived back at school later that afternoon, I was met by the dorm counselor. “Sadler,” he said, taking me by the shoulder, “you already been on probation once; you ain’t going to get much mercy if you keep skipping classes.”
“Oh . . . yeah . . .”
“By the way, how you doing in your classes?”
“I uh—OK, I guess. Jes fine.”
“In other words, you’re failing.”
“Yessuh.”
“Man, Sadler, you gonna get yourself the title of First Man of the Year to Be Expelled.”
I sucked in my breath. Expelled! Out of the corner of my eye I saw Small leave the building. I left the dorm counselor standing there shaking his head and chased after Small.
“Small! Listen, Small, you still fixin to leave tomorrow?”
“Sure enough.”
“OK, it’s a deal.”
He smiled, pulling his shoulders back. “OK, Sadler. I’ll tell you when.”
I went back to my room and began packing my things. I could still hear the voice of the dorm counselor, “First Man of the Year to Be Expelled.” I had no choice. I had to leave before they kicked me out.
When I had a few belongings packed in boxes, Small insisted we send it to his house in Bellaire, Ohio. “Why your place?” I asked him.
“Cause that’s where we goin!”
I didn’t like the idea, but we carried the boxes to the post office, addressed to his house in Bellaire. I paid for the postage because Small had no money.
We carried nothing with us—no change of clothes, no hair brush, nothing. By the time we got to the railroad tracks that night, I was so scared my knees trembled. Small started educating me on how to hitch a train.
“When you grabs on, you throws your body out like this here,” he told me. “You got to be careful, but once you gits holt of that handhold and you swings your feets on up on the rung, you’re OK. Got it?”
“Small, I never done this before. What if—”
“Listen! Here she come! Now watch how I do it, and then you grab on right after me! Git ready!”
The train was moving slowly out of the station toward us. We would jump on just before it picked up speed. My Lord! I didn’t realize how loud a train could be up close! Jesus, help me! The wheels were like death, powerful crashing steel against the rails. There went Small! I saw his body fly out exactly as he had told me, then his knees curled under him, and he was safe on the metal ladder. Here it came. The swaying boxcars rumbled past, loud as howling wolves. I took to running alongside, grabbed the cold metal handhold, and threw my body out like Small had instructed, hanging on with all my strength. When I felt my feet underneath me on the rung and the cool night air whipping at my face, I knew I had made it. I was leaving the solid South and on my way to Ohio.
Small crawled along the top of the car to me, and we rode in the blind. “This here is the passenger train,” he shouted. “We’ll take it to Atlanta, Georgie, and then we’ll take a freight!”
I nodded without knowing what he was talking about. “Then we take the freight to Knoxville! We gets into a coal car and covers ourselves with coal. That way the cops won’t find us.”
“Cops?”
“Sure. These trains is loaded with them. Each stop they inspect the cars, lookin for hobos.”
When the train began to slow down, Small explained that we were stopping for water. “Now listen, hang on right wher
e you is until you see a cop comin. When you see the cop, cross over to the other side of the car and hang on till he pass. That way he won’t catch you.”
I didn’t know what he meant. When the train stopped, I hopped down and landed smack into a cop. Before I could say anything or do anything, he grabbed me.
“That’s far enough, bub!”
“But I got to get on the train,” I tried to explain, as if he were listening. The train pulled out without me, and the cop ordered me to git or he’d put me behind bars. I watched the train rumble into the distance, and when its sounds were gone I crossed the tracks and began walking in the silent countryside. I didn’t have any idea where I was so I followed the tracks hoping another train would come along before the day was up. When it grew dark, I slept in the weeds with the crickets. I awoke when I heard the whistle of a train. It was going north so I knew I had to get on it.
Remembering Small’s instructions, I ran alongside the cars, but they were going a lot faster than the other time. Groaning, I grabbed the handhold, threw my body out and hung on for dear life. Finally, I got my legs under me, and my feet touched the rungs of the ladder. I had made it. I climbed up to the top of the ladder and got on the roof of the boxcar and sat down. I didn’t know what was shaking more—me or the train. After a while, though, I began to feel pretty good up there, and I began to sing and clap as the train clacked along. It wasn’t long before I heard someone shout and, startled, I looked down into a white man’s face. “Hey you!” he called. “Git offa the roof!”
I must have looked horrified because the man shouted, “I ain’t no cop!”
He waved his arms at me. “Git offa the roof!” He beckoned me down and I crawled onto the ladder on the side of the car and made my way to the empty coal car in front of us.
“Look!” the man pointed. We were entering a tunnel. I would have been killed if I had been sitting on the roof. There was no headroom. “Got a rag or somethin?” the mysterious man asked. “Yeah,” I answered, pulling a handkerchief Margie had sent me from my pocket. “Cover your face. You’ll strangle to death in the smoke if you don’t.”
At Atlanta I jumped out of the coal car and my new friend pointed out the next train I needed to hop. “It’ll take you to Knoxville. From there, catch the train to Cincinnati. Then you’re on your own.” I was grateful to him, but before I got a chance to thank him, he was gone.
I made it to Knoxville—cold, exhausted, dirty, and hungry, and without a penny to my name.
I got confused at the train yard and couldn’t find the train to Cincinnati. I walked up and down the tracks ducking behind cars every time I saw someone coming. It soon became clear to me that I wasn’t going to find the train to Cincinnati, and there was nothing to do but find something to eat and somewhere to sleep in Knoxville.
Tumble-down shacks and heaps of old junk spread along the train yard edge. I looked beyond at the Smoky Mountains in the distance, beautiful and blue in the grey sky. The downtown district was hilly with narrow streets and low buildings. As I climbed and dipped with the hills, I could see church spires reaching upward behind the hills and along the building tops. I found a small park and stretched out on the grass. It was two weeks before I got back to the train yard.
Panhandling, bumming, cooking outside over an open fire, sleeping on the grass in the park until the police kicked me out, and then dropping to sleep in doorways, back alleys, and empty lots was the way I spent those two weeks.
Then one rainy afternoon I met a fuzzy-faced old hobo huddled under a tree in the park. We got to talking. “Yeah-suh,” he drawled, “ah reckon ah’m goin’ to take me a trip to Cincie.”
I was overjoyed. “If yoll wouldn’t be mindin, I’d like to tarry along with yoll.” We headed for the train yard in the rain and hopped the right train with no trouble. The ride was smooth going all the way. I slept that night in some wet weeds on a bank of the Ohio River and the next morning hopped the freight to Bellaire.
When I arrived in Bellaire, I didn’t know where to go to find Small, but I did remember he lived on Noble Street, where we sent our boxes. That was all I knew. I began to walk. I asked directions from several people, and I wearied myself trying to figure them out. “Lord, show me the place,” I prayed. Finally, I found myself standing in front of a two-story brick house with tall hedges around it. I stared up at it. This was Noble Street. I might as well start here. I walked up the stairs and rang the bell. A middle-aged, brown-skinned woman, grey hair smoothed into two buns on either side of her face, answered.
“Afternoon, Ma’am, I’m coming from Seneca Junior College, and I’m a friend of Luke Small—”
“A friend of Luke’s!” the woman exclaimed. “Come in! Come in!” The Lord had answered my prayer. The woman took my arm and ushered me into a small, cozy living room. “Nancy! Come on in here.” A young, pretty woman hurried into the room, her eyes wide, a little smile on her lips.
“How is Luke? Is he with you?” the older woman asked.
I stared back dumbly. “He ain’t here yet? We left school together nearly three weeks ago. I lost him before we got to Atlanta.”
A little boy about three years old bounced into the hallway and stood grinning at me from the door. The older woman smiled. “This is Eddie,” she said. “Luke’s son. Eddie will be so happy to see his daddy again.” Then, indicating the young woman, she said, “This is Nancy, Luke’s wife. I’m sure Luke has told you all about her.” Then laughing she added, “And I’m Luke’s mother.”
I stared at Luke’s wife, my mouth hanging open dumbly. “I’m uh—Robert. Robert Sadler, Ma’am.”
Luke, you dog!
They fluttered around me asking questions about their Luke, and I just kept staring at his lovely little wife in amazement. Small’s son pulled at my pant leg and grinned up at me, wanting to play.
Luke Small, you dog!
I thought for sure Small would arrive any time, so I stayed in their home sitting in the bathtub scrubbing myself and eating their food for a whole week, but he didn’t show up. When I heard they were hiring in Dayton, I said good-bye to Small’s family and hopped a freight. I got a job there as a sandwich man in a country club. I kept in touch with Small’s mother, who was a sweet and kind lady, and month after month rolled by without any word from her son. Finally, after six months had gone by, Small arrived home. I never did get a chance to see him. I wrote him to keep the stuff in my box.
The job at the country club lasted about seven months. I would have stayed longer if it hadn’t been so lonely for me. I had a room at the club and had to spend most of my time there with hardly anyone to talk to. The most exciting thing that happened in those months was when the Ringling Bros. Circus came to town. I walked into Dayton every night to see it. I loved the circus so much that I tried to get a job with them. There were no openings, but that didn’t discourage me. I’d wait. The days went by and still no openings. Finally it was time for the circus to move on to Detroit, and I hadn’t gotten a job with them yet. I was so enamored of Ringling Bros., I left the country club and followed them to Detroit. I hoboed on the same train.
There was another hobo on the train with me, a white man from New York who told me he was a barber. He had all of his tools in a bag alongside him. I was very impressed and would probably have asked him for a haircut once we got to Detroit if three robbers hadn’t jumped into the car with us. They stole everything from us they could. They took all his barber’s tools, and though I didn’t have much money, they took what I had. So I arrived in Detroit without a change of clothes, a penny to my name, or a haircut.
31
It was hot and the busy, noisy, crowded streets of Detroit were strange and frightening to me. This was up north now, and black people walked on the same side of the street with white people. They weren’t in love with each other, but they walked next to each other, sat next to each other, and talked with each other. There were black and white bums in the park, too. They ate together, panhandled together, robbed
together, and slept in the same park together under their respective newspaper coverings.
I arrived in Detroit in August of 1934, the year Hitler became führer of Germany. The Depression had hit America, and jobs and money were hard to come by. Ringling Bros. didn’t need any more men, and so I had no choice but to sleep in the park and panhandle. I slept and hung around downtown in Grand Circus Park, a round little park with fountains, several statues, flower beds, and ten streets fanning out from it. There were so many people who stayed in that park that we called it the Grand Circus Hotel. Whole families slept on the benches and on the grass. It wasn’t a safe place by any means. Night after night I heard screams for help. A person got used to it.
I learned how to beware and watch out for danger. I had to be careful which alley I entered because a person could get beat up and killed for as little as twenty-five cents or a pair of shoes.
Living in this hopelessness and seeing nothing but hunger and desperate people everywhere, the worst happened and I started drinking. At first it was just because there was nothing else to do. It wasn’t many weeks before I was stealing to pay for my wine, just like the others. I stayed drunk much of the time and some nights I landed in the jail on Gratiot Street.
I am thankful that I never mugged anybody—and nobody ever mugged me. Those days in the city of Detroit were some of the loneliest of my life. I would walk the streets of downtown along Randolph to Cadillac Square, and I’d stand and stare at the City Hall Building with its tower reaching for the sky. I’d sit and look at the massive, looming Penobscot Building and the J. L. Hudson Building. I’d walk south of Michigan Avenue to the heart of the business center and I’d panhandle. I walked north of Michigan Avenue on either side of Woodward Avenue and panhandled where the shopper traffic was. I was falling fast and far from the Lord and everything sweet and lovely.
The Emancipation of Robert Sadler Page 20
