It was some time after we ate that most of us were sitting around on the deck I'd built out back. I told you I got handy that summer. We had a good shade tree in the back of the house and it was much cooler sitting out there listening to the radio for news. Theresa and Jesse were corralling the younger kids allowing the rest of us to just sit and sip some iced tea, lemonade and cold beer. It was about then a thought occurred to me.
"Emma, you can't go back home," I said. "The violence is moving closer and closer and I did make a promise to your husband."
"There's plenty of room here, James," Joanie spoke up. "For Al and Rachel too. It's too scary to think of family being that close to the worst of things. Especially when we can all be together."
"I wouldn't want to be a bother," Emma began to protest but I cut her off.
"Everything I put you through…it'll take more than a night or two in my guest room to be a bother. Much more."
"Jimmy," Emma started talking with a warning in her voice. I had heard that warning before. That tone said that it wasn't my place to tell her what she should do. She was a grown woman and could take care of herself. I agreed mostly but this was an extreme circumstance.
"Emma, I love you," I said and I chose my words very carefully. It was one of the times when I felt the most grateful for Joanie inspiring me to get an education. "You know I love you. A lot of people love you and count on you. If anything happened to you while I could do something so small as hauling out some sheets for the beds in the guest rooms for you and Jesse…I just don't think I could live with myself. Please. Stay."
She relented and we turned our attention to the rest of the assembled family. That's what we were after all. Our house was real big but that's still a lot of people and I knew Emma didn't want to be wherever Lou was if only to avoid having Theresa and Jesse spending the night under the same roof.
I looked around. Ike's house was farther from where the riots seemed to be centered. He was living near to Dearborn then to be closer to work so he piped up and suggested that Buck and Carol and the kids come and stay with him and Annie until things settled down some.
I could see Lou was dead set on going home. And I could see her fear at doing it too. She was one tough lady and could handle almost anything but being the only grown up and taking care of three kids when there's the kind of things going on that was going on then is still a scary thing.
"Al, maybe you and Rachel could go and stay with Lou," I offered. "I'm sure Bobby and Jack would love having the two of you around."
Al saw what I was doing. I know he wanted to go home too but then he didn't want Rachel in danger. This was a good solution and also took care of our Jesse and Theresa dilemma.
I ain't sure how I didn't think of this but I am so grateful for what Joanie did next.
"Sherry," she said. "You'll stay here. Bill already knows you're here. He'll feel better if he knows you're with us. And you should probably call your parents too. They're like to be worried half to death."
I felt terrible that I had overlooked Sherry. She was like a sister to me and she had looked out for my girl at times when I couldn't. But Joanie was right. She was safe there and her husband would know where she was. And I didn't want to be shuffling her and that baby she was carrying around anymore than we had to.
We were finally feeling settled or at least like we had a plan and could keep everyone safe. Everyone knew that if anything came toward them to hightail it for the suburbs. Uncle Eli would take people in. Mr. and Mrs. Cohen would take people in. Uncle Saul too. There were plenty of options if we all had to retreat as far as the U.P. to get safe.
It was just as Buck and Ike was getting their respective bunches ready to go and Lou was getting her kids ready to go and Al and Rachel were getting ready to go and Jesse and Theresa were saying their goodbyes that a knock came at the door. I went and answered and I was pretty surprised to see Noah there with Michael on his hip. Noah didn't live in the city so I figured he'd hunker down at home.
I pulled him into the house and closed the door behind him. I must've been giving him a strange look.
"I had to go to meet with Rosemary today," he said in explanation. "She's entitled to see him sometimes."
He nodded to Michael as he spoke and put the child on the floor so that he could wander around to everyone and collect his hugs and kisses.
"All hell is breaking loose out there. Wasn't sure how good an idea it was to be so dark and on a street right now. Not everyone with a badge is Sam Cain. I was closest to here and I saw the cars. I hope it's okay."
I couldn't help pulling him into a hug. Yeah, it was okay alright. I know I hadn't known Noah as long as I'd known the others but we'd gotten awful close in the few years we'd known each other. I will easily say he was as much a brother to me as Ike or Buck or Billy. Almost as close as Kid. He knew what we'd been through. I never told him. He just knew. There was a reason he was raised by his Aunt. His mother was a drunk and drug user with a string of men who were as cruel to him as she was.
I don't think there was any court involvement or anything. Just his Aunt Helen came in one day and shook her head at how he was living. She took him by the hand and told him he would be coming with her and he'd be safe from then on.
He was young so if there was a fight from his mom, he didn't remember it but he knew when someone else carried those same scars. He knew the wounded look and he knew how we tried to hide it.
It felt good to have him there with us. Michael too. That boy may have come from a train wreck of a marriage but he was beautiful. I always thought if anything represented race relations in this country it was that boy. He came from people who had some good intentions but really just proved how far apart we still were. But he was pure and perfect and better than anything that came before. The walking illustration of what love and coming together can be.
"We've got plenty of room for you two," I said smiling at him. "Don't we, Joanie?"
"Always," she said smiling and hugging Michael tight to her. "I think Jesse might need to move to the couch or the fold out in the study."
"I don't mind," Jesse piped up. I honestly didn't think he'd even noticed Noah past Theresa's starry eyes.
"You sure? I don't want to…"
"Be a bother?" I finished for him. "Family ain't a bother, Noah. Thought you'd know that…you know, since you're so smart and all."
He laughed then. That's the way it is with good friends, the people who really know you. You can always make each other laugh. I'm not saying things wasn't serious but sometimes you got to find something to laugh about. Tension will kill you otherwise.
So we set to getting everyone where they needed to be. Lou called once she got home and had Al and Rachel settled as well as her boys. And then Ike called saying they were all fine and safe and getting the kids to bed. So all that was left was the bunch in my house. Emma took one room with Sarah Jean and Noah took another with Michael. Jesse decided the fold out couch in the study was the best plan and got himself settled in and that just left Sherry. There was another room left for her. I know she said over and over that she could just go home but her voice and her eyes begged us not to take her up on it. I wouldn't have anyway.
Me and Joanie gave her some privacy while she called her folks in Midland. They'd been worried sick getting the news reports and not being able to get a hold of her. But she assured them that she was safe and Billy was as safe as he could be.
We convinced her to go to bed after her phone call. She needed her rest after all. It was shortly after that when Billy knocked on the door. He looked like he'd been drug behind a horse but he was there. I hugged him tight and Joanie fixed him a plate. Once he ate I told him which room Sherry was in. I worried she wasn't sleeping. I think at least she probably got some sleep once she had her husband with her.
Finally it was just me and Joanie and we didn't even say anything to each other then. We just dragged ourselves up the stairs and got ready for bed. It was still hot as Hell and I'll say the benefit to that is a whole lot less clothes between us. Most nights it was that hot, we wouldn't be even touching each other but it was a weird day and we needed to connect.
She curled around me and I held her tight and we ignored how the sweat was building up between us. I took a deep breath and tried to remind myself that we'd done all we could to make sure everyone was safe. Lou was being looked after even though she'd hate me saying it like that. Buck and Ike were together and everyone else was under my roof. And my Joanie was in my arms. I held her tighter to me.
"James," she whispered against my chest. "I'm frightened."
"I know, sweetheart," I said softly. "I am too."
I felt her tears fall on my skin.
"Shh," I whispered stroking her unruly hair and kissing the top of her head. "We're going to get through this."
"You don't know that, James. You can't."
"Maybe I can't know it for sure but I have faith that we can work hard enough to look after our family. I have faith that Sam isn't the only police officer seeing a bigger picture. I have faith that there are more people with hearts like yours than any other sort. If all this had happened before I met you, I wouldn't think a single thing could ever be good. As long as I have you, I think I can see something good still happening."
"How can any good come of all this, James?" she asked me and if I didn't know better than most what a fully grown woman she was, I would have thought that I had a small child in my arms. She sounded so frail and pleading.
"It can't while the ugliness is going on. But when it's over and people see the damage and the hurt…we can heal, we can see how we hurt everyone, and we can work together."
She nuzzled into my neck. And I was brought back to the way she talked to me when we flew to Miami for our honeymoon.
"We're going to keep our family safe," I said softly. "And when this is over, we'll all help clean it up. We'll keep working to build a world worthy of Michael and Sarah Jean and that little one in Sherry's belly and Rachel's too. And then…we'll get to making one of them ourselves. It's the children that will do it, Joanie. See how Sarah and Karen and Timmy and Bobby and the rest don't even notice what color Noah's skin is? And how they play the same with Michael as with anyone else? We overrun the world with children who don't care about things like brown or white skin. And someday we'll see our children playing with all of the others. And Noah will find a nice girl…a really nice girl. And he'll have more children that will be family the same as Michael. You'll see, Joanie. I promise…you'll see."
"I love you," she whispered between sniffles.
"I love you too, beautiful."
The next morning I scarcely recognized my kitchen. For starters, Joanie was wearing the ruffly apron and cooking which she wasn't one to do as much of as maybe some women. But she was not alone. Emma was in there as well and Sherry too.
Billy was stuffing his face with pancakes. I think at another time something so heavy wouldn't have been what anyone wanted on such a hot day but I was glad Billy was eating good. He'd be covering this thing all day and I didn't know when he'd find time to eat again. Sherry was all but spoon feeding him. I know part of that was the hormones from pregnancy making her feel she needed to take care of someone.
More if it though was how different she was with him than anyone else. She was never the kind of girl to dote on a guy. It just wasn't her. But Billy was a different story. She babied him like I know she wouldn't anyone else. Of course he fussed over her too. I don't know if she'd've taken that from anyone else either but that man could all but cut her meat for her and all he'd get in response was a sweet smile and a "thank you, Will." It was really sort of wonderful they found each other.
Well, that was Monday the 24th. It was mostly more of the same. I know the rioting spread out more that day. And things escalated that day. Hundreds of fires were reported. Our police got back up from the State Police. They were getting help from anywhere they could. I guess some people being arrested weren't giving their real names so every single person had to have their fingerprints checked. Nowadays there is a computer data base for them all and police can scan a fingerprint on their phones and get a result in minutes. But this was 1967 and we didn't have those computers and smart phones and such then. Anyway, the police department over in Windsor even sent some people to help with the fingerprint checking.
I didn't know all that at the time. But I knew it sooner than most. I got it from Sam that night when he called. I also found out that Governor Romney wanted federal troops to help out. They didn't come that day though. See, in order for federal troops to be deployed the governor needed to declare a State of Insurrection and then the President had to agree and President Johnson wasn't sure the situation warranted that classification or something. So that Monday was just the Detroit police and State Police trying to get things under control.
We kept everyone where they had been the night before. It seemed good and people stayed pretty safe. Noah and Joanie both got calls from people wanting them to be their lawyers. There was a lot of accusations of police brutality and lots of people needed lawyers like Joanie and Noah. They still told those clients they couldn't come to them until things died down. People wasn't even being arraigned. They was just being brought in and locked up. Nothing was running quite right while the rioting was going on.
Emma tried to act like she wasn't worried sick. I wasn't buying it for a second though. For however independent she'd gotten after her husband had died, Sam Cain was her world and she was terrified he was going to be taken from her. To be honest, I was plenty worried for him too. He was a good man and I didn't like to think how any of us could move on if something happened to him.
When he called that night, he sounded terrible. I don't know if he'd been able to get any sleep since he'd gotten called in on Sunday morning and I doubted he was eating or anything either. He was typically a man who seemed in charge and mostly unflappable. I had seen him worried and I had seen him upset but I had never heard anything like this in his voice. There was something akin to panic in his tone and that was more frightening than the images behind Billy when he did his reports. I tried not to show how bad he rattled me as I handed the phone off to Emma. She didn't need the added worry. Besides, she'd hear it herself no matter how he tried to hide it.
I saw Noah and Joanie make sure Michael and Sarah were playing happily with Jesse before they came over to me. I was already close to Sherry.
"Any news?" Noah asked.
I shook my head.
"Not the kind that says when this is going to be over at any rate," I told him and the girls as well. "Over four hundred fires today alone. The cops are so busy chasing their tales they can't get ahead of anything."
"That's really about the size of it," chimed in a voice from behind me. I hadn't even heard Billy come in. "We've been careful about what we report. We sure don't want to make this any worse than it already is. But, yeah, the police are just overwhelmed. Even with the staties on board they can't make a dent in this mess."
At that point it finally registered to Sherry that her husband was there and she launched herself at him. I ain't sure how he stayed upright really. She was mighty big by then. But he kept his footing and set to calming her down.
"I'm fine, Sherry. You should sit back down. You need your rest."
"I should get you something to eat," she began but I cut her off.
"I'll get him a plate," I said. "I think the grill's still hot enough I can even manage a burger or two."
"Sounds perfect," Billy said as he navigated his wife back into a chair and made her put her feet up.
"Emma even made some potato salad," I called to him. "I know it's one of your favorites."
"Right about now, I think I could eat my shoes and call them my favorites," he joked back at me.
Noah and Joanie made to follow me. It wasn't so much they thought I needed that much help with filling a plate for Billy as it was that they wanted to give Billy and Sherry some space. I turned to them.
"Joanie, I appreciate the help but Emma's going to need you when she gets off the phone. I can see the color draining from her face right now."
Joanie nodded and went to hang close to Emma and help Jesse with the little ones. Noah looked at me like he wasn't sure what to do all of a sudden.
"You," I began. "Grab a couple beers and come on out on the deck and keep me company while I cook up a couple burgers for Lois Lane in there."
"Don't you mean Clark Kent?"
"He look like Superman to you?"
So...yeah...I finally got back to this one...I thought I knew what came next but now I wonder if I was right so it may be another good long while before I have anything on this...does everyone remember when I used to post updates almost daily?
I think this will flow much more once I get past the riots. There's so much research and so many moving pieces to keep track of. But I think it's coming together now.-J