Free Death of Innocence : The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America (9781588363244) by Jesse Rev (FRW) Christopher; Jackson Mamie; Benson Till-Mobley Page A

wrote to Mama and asked her whether she could help them with the move. Wheeler Senior had already come up to scout around. Of course Mama would help. In fact, there was a place right next door to us that had been available for some time. It was the house where my uncle Crosby Smith had lived with his family. For some reason we never really understood, Uncle Crosby had decided to move back to Mississippi a couple of years earlier. Everybody else was coming the other way about that time, but he wanted to go back. Anyway, an elderly couple had occupied the place for a while, but it had been vacant since they died. It was empty so long, in fact, that people had time to start inventing stories about the place. They declared they could see the elderly couple walking around at night, and nobody wanted to run into those ghosts. So the place stayed vacant for a while. But my mother brushed all that off, and the Parkers didn’t know about it, so they moved in.
    They never saw a single ghost. But, with three boys, Wheeler Junior, William, and Milton, the Parkers began to see as many kids hanging out at their house as we did next door. Bo became friends with all the Parker boys, but he and Wheeler developed a special relationship. Wheeler was seven at the time, two years older than Emmett, but they had the greatest time playing together. Even though I didn’t always approve of their games. Their relationship started out as a sort of back porch kind of thing. It was one porch to the other. Ours was high with a railing and Wheeler’s porch was much lower. I couldn’t believe it when I saw those boys standing up on my railing and jumping down and across the way to Wheeler’s porch. I guess they figured it was a shortcut, but that was so frightening to me. They could have fallen and broken something. An arm, a leg, anything.
    When I called out to them to stop, Emmett tried to make me feel more comfortable. I guess that’s what he thought he was doing. “Aw, Mama, nothing to it,” he said. “Look.”
    Then, to my amazement, he did it again. Finally, I got tired of looking. I got tired of talking. I got me a switch and tanned his little legs. That broke up the jumping for both of them, since Wheeler also learned a lot from Bo’s lesson.
    There was another time I had to get after Bo for taking chances. I had told him not to play around an abandoned garage in our neighborhood.But boys always have a sense of adventure about such things. They seem to be drawn to them. Word got back to me that he was playing around that place again. Word got to him that I was on my way, to give him a spanking. He rushed and made it home down the back way while I was headed for that garage the front way, down our street. By the time I realized what had happened and made it back home, he was already there, acting like he had been there all along. Except that he was breathing hard from running all the way home.
    Bo loved to fish with Mama. Wheeler would go along with them sometimes to a spot along the Des Plaines River nearby. The boys would set up their poles at a bend where Mama could keep an eye on them. But, while she could still see their poles set up there, lines in the water, the boys were slipping just out of sight around that bend, where they could splash at the water’s edge. Scaring away all the fish. One time, though, Emmett managed to catch one. Mama had shown him how to reel it in and yank it out of the water. But he hadn’t quite worked the whole thing out yet. He was beside himself with excitement, and maybe his coordination was a little off to begin with. He managed to yank the fish out of the water, all right, just as he had been taught. But he couldn’t hold on to it. The fish fell to the ground and got dirty. Well, Bo could not stand dirt on anything. So, he picked up his prize catch with his chest all puffed up, so proud of what he had done. He walked right up to the edge of the river and dipped the fish to wash it off. Well, in the