A Death in the Family

JAMES RANDOLPH JORDAN

I was nine years old in June 1965. School had just let out for the season and in little more than a month, I would be ten. On Sundays we might feast on pieces of fried bologna, tomato gravy and kale—with a salad plate to the right of each place setting with a piece of lettuce and half of a canned pear resting on top. Alighting the pear would be a dollop of mayonnaise. When it was served, the meat was placed on top of a slice of white bread and then crowned with something Mom called tomato gravy—which was nothing more than canned tomatoes heated together with flour and milk. The men in our house—my father, my brothers and I—particularly liked to grab whatever bread was left in the center of the table so as to sop up the gravy that remained on our plates. 
After dinner, it was always a bath and in bed by 7:00. That was one of the things that made me realize our family was different from others. No matter what time of year it was—fall, winter, spring or summer—we always had to be in bed by 7:00. Even though daylight-savings had already had plenty of time to kick in—and the summer sun was still pretty high in the sky—the Jordan boys were in bed and lights out by 7:00. 
Our bedroom was small. Ronnie’s bed was against a wall on one side of the room while Ricky and I shared bunk beds against the other side. As we lay in our beds, we could hear Buck and Gladys Perkins starting to argue from the house next door. The summer heat not only meant that we anxiously awaited a breeze making its way into our room—but on a regular basis, we also waited for Buck to come home and begin his drunken tirade. My brothers and I would laugh quietly at the words that came from the house next door—words we were forbidden to say—but it sure was entertaining to hear them from the house next door. As we lay there wondering what kinds of obscenities Buck would say next, our laughter slowly faded away … because our father had already finished off a six-pack of Schlitz before we had even gotten into bed.
Daddy was a man filled with rage. He hated his own father who had beaten him and his mother. He was angry at those who said he wasn’t good enough to be the husband of their daughter and sister. He was angry at a mother who said that he was too much like his father. And this night, he brought that anger home to my mother, my brothers and me.

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