Growing up Colored

Chapter 11 ? William C. Taylor High

	Photo/Coutesy www.Google.com Tommy waited for me everyday by my third period math class..

Tommy Chichester was standing in the doorway of Mrs. Ford's 3rd period Math class blocking my way. This was the fifth day in a row he'd been waiting for me there and it wasn't even his class. He had a serious look on his face and as I approach he leaned over me and grabbed me by my shirt sleeve, "Somebody said you called me a nigger". I pulled away from him, "I didn't call you nothing". But he wasn't phased, "I'm gonna turn you upside down and stuff you in that trashcan", I already knew it had happened to others so it wasn't surprising to hear I may be next. "You called me a nigger and I'm goinna kick your butt!" I was trying to get by but he wasn't having it. This was quite a turn of events, just last year our class had been king of the castle at Southeastern Elementary. We ruled the hallways, even substituting for teachers when they were absent (I'll bet they'd never allow that now). I had been in charge of the copier machine and the audio / visual projector. Now I was a rookie, the first day of high school we were all lost in this huge building, not knowing where to go or who we could trust. That's when Tommy Chichester latched onto me as his next project. Even though his name was ChiChester, everyone pronounced it incorrectly. We pronounced it Chit-is-ter, so from whenceforth he will be so called. Just as Tommy Chitister was about to drag me to the trashcan, another student, Tommy Marshall walked up behind him with a big grin on his face and asked him what he was doing, I had seen Tommy Marshall around and knew he was a friend of my brother, he was also the drum major for the school marching band. He told him his plan to dump me upside down in the dumpster. Tommy grabbed him and said, "Don't you know who this is?", he asked. "I don't give a damn who he is, he's getting stuffed, he called me a nigger". Of course, I'd never called him anything, didn't know who he was and definitely wasn't out looking for trouble. "Wait a minute man, this is Raymond's little brother". Tommy Chitister turned around and looked at me with shock on his face, "You're Raymond's brother? Naw man, are you really?" He brushed me off and steadied me, "Hey man, I was just bull shitting with you. I wasn't gonna do anything to you, Raymond's my man and you're his brother and Barbara Brown is your sister? She's fine." He let me go, straightened up my tussled clothes and told me from now on if anyone bothered me to come see him and he'd take care of it. It was starting to dawn on me that being Raymond's little brother may have some perks after all...Believe it or not, that very same day I went down to the cafeteria for lunch and ran into Tommy Chitister again, I had my tray in hand and he was sitting surrounded by his gang of friends. He called me over to his table and told me to sit down as he introduced me to others at the table. There were books in the only free spot and he told me to just sit them on the floor and go ahead and sit down, so I did. It never occured to me that those books weren't his. I soon found out who they belonged to. From behind me I heard, "Who moved my books, who moved my F---ing books!?" I turned around to see Barbara French standing there holding her lunch tray and looking like she was going to kill me . "Did you put my books on the floor? Pick'em up now!" I have to tell you that on the first day of school we were warned to stay away from Barbara French, it may have been in freshman orientation. But her reputation preceded her immensely. She was more feared than the toughest boys in school and there she was standing over me, ready to kick my butt. I got up and picked up her books, placed them on the table, gathered my tray and was about to slowly slink away when Tommy Chitister spoke up, "Wait a minute Barbara, don't you know who this is?"
"I don't care who he is, he's about to find out who I am".
"Naw, naw, this is Raymond's brother, Raymond Brown's brother, he's okay" - But barbara wasn't quite ready to cool down, because by then a small crowd had gathered around to watch me get beat to a pulp. Tommy finally got her to calm down and she asked me to pull up a chair (she took her chair back). From then on I was riding on the coat tails of my older brother and taking full advantage of his popularity. Now, you may think that I'm exaggerating about just how popular Raymond was in High School. But you must realize that while I was an eighth grade freshman, he was a senior, played lead trumpet for the marching band, concert band and bass guitar player for "The Swingin' Knights", the soul band that played at all the school dances, they even had gigs at non school functions like th eNational Guard Armory and juke joints in the area. You will find that Raymond is mentioned quite frequently in his senior class year book, now let's see... voted "Most Likely to Succeed", "Most Popular", "Best Dressed", with his girlfriend and present wife, Shirley, "Best Couple" and other popularity sundries that elude me right now. Raymond also ran a lucrative business at school. Before drugs came on the scene the only fix kids needed during the day was a sugar fix and that's where Raymond came in. He carried a gym bag full of candy, Charm Pops, Chico Sticks, candy bars, gum, cookies, you name it, he had it.. He would stop by Haught's store before getting on the school bus each morning and purchase his day's supply and from the time he stepped on the bus til he ran out in mid-afternoon, he was open for business. The bus driver even allowed him to get off the bus at Southeastern and buy cookies from the cafeteria lady and he got off again to sell candy at Central Elementary each morning in front of the school, in plain view of the principal. The candy business kept him dressed in the latest styles. While all the other kids had to resort to shoplifting to get the clothes they wanted, Raymond was able to pay cash for his Converse All Stars, Peter's jackets, Nehru shirts, Gaberdine pantss, blazers, two tone Bucks, wingtips and all the other 'must have' clothes of the time. Long before name brand itemswas in, you had to own a Peter's jacket to be anybody, Peters had the trademark 'silk' sleeves and to prove you were wearing an original Peters, guys would turn the jackets inside- out to show the silk sleeves and expose the Peters name on the label. I owned an immitation Peters, just like the immitation Chuck Taylor Tennis shoes I wore, mine weren't Converse All Stars, I wore Bob Coozy's, which were throw off of the Chuck's that everyone else wore. Now when you walked into school with anything immitation, you knew you'd be challenged to prove you were wearing the real thing. So when I came to school with my Sears and Roebuck jacket that closely resembled a Peters, I knew that sometime during the day, someone was going to pull back the collar to check the label or check the back of the jacket to count the trademark creases, stitches, elastic or sleeves, that's why when you had a Peters original, you just wore it inside out to rebuff anyone who might try to call it a fake. I took full advantage of my brother's popularity and it began to go to my head after a time. My friends started treating me differently. Henry Jefferson concocted a scheme to find a girlfriend for me by using Raymond as bate. He gathered ten of the prettiest girls in the eighth grade together and lined them up on the front steps of the school, he then announced me and told them who my brother was. He brought me out and told me to choose whoever I wanted from the group. Fortunately for me, my "King for a Day" crown only lasted seconds. I chose Alicia Jones out of the group, as far as I was concerned she was the prettiest girl in school. "I'll take that one" and pointed to Alicia, before I could get all the words out of my mouth she had already turned her back on the proceedings and started making her way back into the school. As she left I heard her mutter, "That's okay, I'll pass. " That ended my rein as King Sh-t, as they say.I joined band in the eighth grade, Barbara Jean and Raymond had long been members and I wanted to march along-side them in parades. Taylor High School was renowned for their great marching band. We even got to the point to where fireman's carnivals paid us to appear in their parades, the payment was to assure that we attended, but at the same time precluded us from competing for trophies. They wanted us there, but we always won and no one else got a chance to get the top trophy so when bands in the area heard we would be there, they wouldn't show up. They had to keep us from competing for an award, so they paid us not to, this also meant we had to put on a special show at the carnival grounds after the parade, we were the only band that was asked to do this. Our drum majors at the time were legendary for the dazzle and finese, Tommy Marshall, Duke Walker come to mind.Our dance routines were crisp and uniform in their delivery.

	Photo/Coutesy www.Google.com By the time I got back to where the bus was parked, it was too late. I had been left behind..

The remainder of my first year at Taylor High was quite uneventful. I got into several fights, most often due to my not being able to keep my mouth closed. I saw several really good fights, one in particular comes to mind. I had a friend, 'Bodine'. Bodine was a really good basketball player and everyday during lunch there was a pickup game in the gym. Bodine being as good a player as he was always was picked up to play. I, on the other hand, was always a spectator. On this day, Petey Murray was on the opposite team as Bodine. Now, you'd have to know that Petey had somewhat of a reputation as a tough guy, someone you would not want to mess with. So when Petey had the ball, most folks kind of backed off a bit and let him do just about whatever he wanted. Their defense was lowered a notch when they guarded him. Bodine, for some reason, had not yet caught on to this practice and guarded Petey as tightly as he guarded anyone else, this was unfortunate. Petey got the ball and drove toward the basket. He bogarded his way past Bodine, elbowed him as he jumped and scored over him. The very next time down the court, Bodine was determined to not allow the same thing to happen, so when Petey drove toward the basket, Bodine jumped and swatted the ball completely across the court. There were u-u-u-hs and a-a-a-ahs from the bleachers, people sat in shock waiting for the next shoe to drop and it did not take long. Now you have to consider Petey's reputation, he was reputed to carry a gun to school, he was reputed to have used it before, so by reputation, your best bet was to stay away from this guy and do absolutely nothing to upset him. Bodine was aware of this, so when Petey turned to him in the middle of the basketball court and began to pummel him to the ground, both fists smashing him in his face, all Bodine could do was lie there defensely with his hands in the air in a surrendering jesture lying on his back. As Petey Punched and kicked him, everyone just sat and watched helpless to do anything, because they knew if they did, their lives would be in jeopardy. I jumped up to put a stop to this terrible beating but Henry Jeferson grabbed me by the arm and told me to sit my butt down and stay out of it. All I could do was watch it happen. Petey moved away from him, left the gym and left school. We all expected his next move was to get his gun. Bodine got up, we ushered him out of the gym and he kept hiddened for the rest of the day. The next day when word got out that Petey was in school with is gun looking for Bodine, he didn't find him because Bodine was smart enough not to come to school that day. I never went back to the gym to watch any basketball games after that. I must say that no one actually saw Petey with a gun, but the rumors ran rampant and were enough to make you stay clear of him and speak only when spoken to. Henry saved my butt many times, even when I wasn't even aware that I was in danger. He kept his nephew from beating me to a pulp after I had gone to a party over the weekend and stolen his girlfriend from him. This next Monday on the bus, Henry sat by Horace and kept him from pounding senseless and I didn't even know about it until the next day. But I did get dumped by his girl the same Monday and she and Horace got back together. I was probably just used as a wakeup call for him to get his act together, she had no intention of going steady with me. 

This takee us to the tenth grade. This was my last year at Taylor and Taylor's last year as a High School. The last year it was segregated, it was made into a middle school the following year. I remember that year quite well. I was in Mr. Byrd's Civics class when I got the news, wait, I need to go back a bit. Juan sat behind me in Civics, we spent most of our time laughing at Mr. Byrd, we liked the guy, Mr. Byrd was cool, he just didn't seem to care if we learned anything or not. So, Juan, Leroy and I would sit at the back of the class laughing and joking the entire period, waiting for the bell. Juan was a pretty popular guy, he was a star basketball player. In fact, I remember when Mr. Campbell, the principal of Fauquier High (the white county high school) came by just to watch Juan play basketball and try to recruit him to transfer to Fauquier. He told him of the advantages of attending a white school, the possibilities of getting a scholarship, better education and such. Juan listened to all this, but decided to stay at Taylor. There were rumors that only the light-skinned kids were being sought out to transfer to Fauquier. At that time, segregation was on its way out and the inevitable was staring us in the face. Taylor High would be no more and we'd all soon be transferring to Fauquier. But for now, Juan wanted no part of it. Like I said, Juan was a popular guy and always surrounded by other guys laughing, joking and cutting class. So, it was no surprise to see him one Saturday night at the Center (Neighborhood Youth Center). He was with one of his buddies, so I walked over to him and noticed a long bulge protuding through his jacket from his chest all the way down past his belt buckle, and went under his pants and partway down his leg. I asked what it was, he tapped it with his knuckle and it made a metallic thud sound like a lead pipe and he said, "It's my d*ck, wanna see?" I laughed, he laughed, everyone got a big laugh. I said, "It looks like a pipe to me", I turned back to the band playing, turn around again and he was gone. I never saw him again. The fact that he was walking around with a lead pipe under his clothes didn't seem odd to me. I never gave it a second thought. That Monday in Civics class, I got the news from Leroy Williams that a man had been killed uptown over the weekend, bludgeoned to death with an axe or pipe and that the police were looking for Juan. We all sat nervously wondering if he would be in school, he never showed up. I've been sitting in front of a would-be murderer all year. Juan was caught, convicted and punished and as far as I know, was rehabilitated and now lives a quiet life somewhere in the area. But, I sometimes wonder how his life would have turned out differently had he accepted Mr. Campbell's offered to transfer to Fauquier High. He may have ended up a star basketball player with a scholarship to a preppy college somewhere. There were many success stories that came out of Taylor High school, they still hold reunions to celebrate those successes.

But as I look back over what I have written thus far, it makes me wonder why these stories and these incidents stick out so much in my mind. Expecially when I notice that I have not mentioned very many teachers or things that I feel were a positive influence in my life, so I will do that now. When I think of teachers, there is a short list that comes to mind that have been positive role models to me.
1) Mr. T. J. Berry - Industrial Arts, Wm. C. Taylor High (He was also my elementary school teacher from 1st thru 4th grades)
2) Mr. Addison Lightfoot - Band Instructor - Wm. C. Taylor High
3) Mr. Clifford Hazzard - Principal - W.C. Taylor High
4) Mrs. Harris - 28 year old, 7th grade teacher -Southeastern Elem. - the boys loved her, the girls hated her. For some reason, she never sat behind her desk, she sat directly in front of the class with her desk pushed to the side.
There are many more who influenced me, Mr. Wilson, who still teaches History at Fauquier. All of the teachers who pushed me to do better, who expected more from me arethe teachers I remember.

In closing, there are about a half-dozen more stories I can write about growing up in Remington, Virginia. Unfortunately, even though the statute of limitations has legally expired, I'm not quite sure if it has expired parentally speaking. I may still face the raft of friends and family if some of the other escapades I got into or know about were revealed in these passages. The problem is, they are some of the most entertaining of my childhood memories, but I have to consider the other people who may or may not have been involved and what the implications could be for them. So, Terry, Keenan, Smootie, Fernando, Michael Price and just about everybody who grew up on the ridge... What I know will remain in the vault (but what I know is only about one percent of what went on)...
"Remember the time we...?"