Free Daddy Was a Number Runner by Louise Meriwether Page A

table and then played checkers afterward or sang around the piano with Daddy or caught a cool breeze up on the roof and Daddy had stopped slamming doors and cursing so much.
    He paid up the two months’ back rent and Mother hauled us all downtown to Klein’s and bought us some school clothes and two pairs of shoes each—one for Sunday and sneakers for every day—and I got that yellow ruffled dress from Woolworth’s basement, too.
    I even started back to music with Miss Jackson, but that only lasted two weeks ’cause by that time we was back to where we was before, just as if the big hit had never been. In fact, I think we were poorer than before. Having lived so high on the hog we naturally hated to go back to hard times. It wasn’t long before the explosion came.
    That Saturday Mother was at work and Daddy had already left on his rounds. I was in the kitchen cooking hominy grits and ten cents’ worth of dried herrings for breakfast, stretching it out with a fishy gravy. I hated herrings and decided then and there that when I was grown I would never look another herring in the face. Mother’s gravy was smooth but mine was pasty and the hominy had lumps in it. Junior ate his breakfast quietly but Sterling had to make some comment.
    â€œSlop ain’t fit for a pig,” he said, looking at me with a frown and pushing his plate away.
    â€œYou’re a pig,” I hollered at him.
    â€œCall me a pig again and your butt will hit this floor.”
    â€œYou’re a pig.”
    He slapped me.
    â€œLeave her alone,” James Junior said.
    â€œHe’s always hitting me for nothing.” I started to cry.
    Sterling banged out of the house with his shoeshine box. James Junior made me blow my nose and promised me a nickel if I would stop crying. I stopped, and he left. I knew I wouldn’t see him again for the rest of the day. Now that Mother was working, Junior stayed away from home more than ever.
    I was still in the kitchen, scorching the rice for dinner, when the two plainclothes cops pushed past that rotten lock Daddy had never fixed and walked right in.
    By the time I got to the dining room they were poking around as if they had been invited in. I knew instantly that they were cops. The oldest one was a beefy, huge man with loose jaws like a bulldog. The younger one was nervous and had quick movements like a bird.
    â€œWhere does your old man hide his numbers?” Mister Bulldog asked me, pulling open the buffet drawers.
    I was so scared I couldn’t speak, so I just shook my head.
    Bulldog pulled the drawer out and placed it on the table. The young one sorted through it, pushing aside Mother’s sewing bag and the old rags she was saving to sell to the rag man. He replaced the drawer and it jammed. I almost cried out loud. Then he gave it a shove and it closed.
    They went through the other drawers in the same manner, then Bulldog went into the kitchen and began banging the pots and pans around in the cupboard.
    I heard Daddy coming up the stairs and I ran toward the door, yelling: “Don’t come in, Daddy. It’s the cops.”
    Bulldog hollered: “Grab her.”
    The young cop swung me off my feet. I screamed and kicked, aiming for his private parts like Mother had told me to do if a man ever bothered me.
    Daddy came through the door. With one long stride he was at the young cop’s side. He grabbed me, at the same time pushing the cop backward.
    â€œYou all right?” Daddy asked.
    I nodded. He put me down and straightened up.
    â€œHold it right there,” Bulldog said. He was pointing a gun at Daddy’s chest.
    â€œYou all got a warrant to mess up my house like this?” Daddy asked. “And stop waving that gun around. I ain’t going nowhere. You’re scaring my little girl to death.”
    Bulldog put the gun back inside his shoulder holster. “Don’t need no warrant,” he said. “Now hand over