Hero

Chapter One

Adelle Smith watched quietly as North Philadelphia whizzed by the limousine window as if her life were flashing by. These were the same streets she was born on, the same streets where she’d lived her entire life. She watched the landscape morph from one of emaciated crackwhores and teenaged murderers and drug pushers strutting brazenly along the sidewalk, glaring defiantly into her window, to one of quaint shops and cafes and businessmen and women in wrinkled suits scurrying home after a long day at the office. Young couples dressed up for an early dinner and a night on the town. Many of the professionals dashing about in suits and ties were the same age and color as the ones she’d passed further up Broad Street in sagging jeans with pistols in their waistbands. The world had changed so much since she was young.

Even the couples walking arm and arm with ear to ear smiles and love sparkling in their eyes were a mixed bag of White, Black, Asian, and Puerto Rican, in various combinations. She saw as many Black men, young and old, with White women on their arms as she did with their own kind, and that was certainly a change. In her day a mixed couple couldn’t go anywhere without being harassed by both Blacks and Whites. Lynchings may have been before her time, but beatings, stabbings, and even shootings were still pretty common. No one would have said a thing about killing a Black man for corrupting the virtues of a young White girl. She’d seen many brothers killed for less. A Black man’s life wasn’t worth an ounce of spit back when she was a young girl.

A Black police officer drove by laughing out loud with his Italian partner. Adelle smiled.

I guess this is progress, she thought.

There were Black police officers here and there back when she was young too. But only in the ghettoes, and they were never that comfortable with their White partners. They were most often quicker to crack a Black skull to impress their buddies in blue than the White cops were. They overdid it trying to fit in, which made them an even bigger menace.

She watched a mixed couple cross the street, the overweight White girl dressed as if she’d stepped right out of one of those hip-hop videos, cornrows, baggy jeans, FUBU shirt and all, with her African American boyfriend clinging to her as if he were afraid someone would try to steal her from him.

“I guess.” She sighed, shaking her head. She wasn’t sure this was exactly what Dr. King had in mind. Then again, she was never a huge fan of King. She always thought he was too soft. She preferred Malcolm X and, later, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, and Stokely Carmicheal, men who didn’t wait around begging for their freedom and equality but were prepared to take it at any cost. There weren’t any men like that around any more. Even Farrakhan was soft in her opinion. A whole lot of talk, but not one bill passed or law ratified by anything he’d done or inspired. In her day they made changes. They made laws and changed laws. There weren’t any Black leaders like that nowadays.

They approached City Hall and Adelle remembered when she’d gone on field trips there when she was a kid. One of the boys in her class had told her that you could walk all the way up to the top of William Penn’s hat just like the statue of liberty and she’d been disappointed when she hadn’t been allowed up there. Even back then she was sure it had something to do with her being Black. To this day she still wasn’t sure whether or not you could really walk all the way up there. One day she’d have to find out.

The driver rolled the partition down that separated the passenger seats from the front seat and smiled back at her.

“We’re almost there. I have to tell you it is an honor to have you in my car. You have always been one of my heroes.”

“Why thank you, young man.”

She was still not used to being looked at as a hero. Back in the sixties when she was out there marching and protesting for her rights she was called a great many names and hero was definitely not one of them.

“Let me ask you something, did you really try to kidnap a judge?”

“That was a long time ago,” Adelle said. The memories flashed by, both good and bad. Reliving them, talking about them with this young White man who was so obviously interested in hearing about it was certainly something she never thought would happen. “You know how stories get exaggerated, ‘specially when they’s that old. We were young and crazy and desperate for our freedom back then. As I recall, we were just staging a sit-in, but a few of the brothers had pistols so things got a little misinterpreted. It wound up being one of the longest police stand-offs in Philadelphia history. All because we wanted someone to listen to our complaints about the way police were beating up and killing everybody.”

“Were you scared?”

“I tell you, I was scared to death! I was only twenty-two years old. I hadn’t even graduated from college yet. All I could think about was that if the police didn’t kill me, my daddy would. It’s hard to believe that was over forty-five years ago.”

“Is that how you got started with the Civil Rights movement?”

“That was my first protest. I didn’t think then that it would be the start of a lifelong crusade. Just between you and I, I was really just going along to get out of classes for a day. I never really was fond of schooling. I only went to college to make my daddy happy. I was going for a Business degree. I never graduated, though. After spending two years in jail fighting those kidnapping charges I sort of lost interest in becoming anybody’s typist or secretary. I was too pissed off.”

The driver laughed. Adelle smiled. The driver hadn’t even been born when all of that took place, yet he still considered her his hero. But that didn’t surprise her nearly as much as the fact that he was White. She had to admit, this was definitely a better world. She made a note to add a little comment about what it felt like to be driven here in a limousine by a White chauffer to her acceptance speech. She thought it might be best to leave out anything about all the Black men she saw with White girls on their arms. White people might still be a little upset about that, as well as a few Black women.

“Congratulations on receiving the NAACP award tonight. It’s about time.”

“Well, there were a lot of people who did a lot more than I did. I knew they’d get around to me eventually.”

They rounded City Hall and cruised down the parkway. The sun was setting and the city lights looked to Adelle like Christmas lights. It had been so long since she’d been in Center City. She couldn’t remember it having so many tall buildings and so many lights. She felt like a kid as she pressed her face against the car window and craned her neck to see to the top of the buildings. Last time she’d been in Center City, City Hall had been the tallest building and you could see the top of Bill Penn’s hat no matter where you were. Now the Rouse towers completely blotted old Bill from view.

The limousine pulled up outside the Four Seasons Hotel. As it slowed to a stop, Adelle gathered her purse and coat. The limousine driver exited the vehicle and opened the door for her. As Adelle stepped out she was greeted by a sea of eager faces. Cameras flashed. She was a little taken aback at first, and for a moment the headache she started experiencing earlier that afternoon came back full force, then dwindled back to a dull ache. A familiar face and voice was at her side instantly. “Come on, momma, this way.”

“Tonya,” Adelle smiled as she grasped her daughter’s hand. “I didn’t think you’d be able to get off work.”

“And miss this? You gotta be kidding?” Tonya Brown smiled at her mother as she led her through the crowd. One of those smiling faces belonged to Ernie Grover, an old friend from the days she’d just been talking about to that young limo driver. Ernie had been involved with the NAACP for over thirty years now.

He stepped forward and took her elbow. “Let’s get you through this crowd,” he said.

As Ernie and Tonya ushered Adelle through the crowd and into the lobby of the Four Seasons she asked her daughter how things were going. “Oh, you know. Same ‘ol same ‘ol. I’m overworked and underpaid, same as everybody else.”

“Least you have a job,” Adelle said. Tonya worked as an administrator for a banking firm and held a degree in finance.

“Oh, I know,” Tonya said as they escorted Adelle down the hall. “And I’m not complaining…it’s just tough to get away from the office sometimes.”

The hallway in the lower floor of the hotel was filled with people. They were all dressed to the nines in smoothly tailored suits and dresses. The men looked handsome, the women were beautiful. Some of them began applauding her as she was led past. Ernie nodded at some of the people they passed by, his grip on her elbow protective yet loving. “CNN sent a crew to tape the awards ceremony,” he murmured softly. “Local news is here, too.”

Tonya gave her a quick hug. “This is so exciting! I’m so proud of you, momma!”

They were at the double doors to the banquet hall now. Adelle felt a slight flutter in her stomach as Ernie opened the door. She’d given dozens—no, hundreds—of speeches since the 1960’s, and she still got a little nervous before facing an audience. It was something that would probably never completely go away.

As Ernie led Adelle and Tonya to their table he said, “We’ve got twenty minutes before the ceremony starts. You doing okay, Adelle?”

“I’m as good as I’ll ever be,” Adelle answered.

Ernie held her chair out for her like the gentleman he was and sat down beside her. Brian Swanson, head of the local NAACP chapter in Philadelphia was already seated at their table and he flashed Adelle a warm smile. “So good to see you, Adelle!”

Adelle smiled.

The rest of the evening flew by in a whirlwind.

It was very late when Adelle Smith arrived home.

She let herself in her simple two-bedroom apartment, locked the door behind her, threw the deadbolt in place, set the award she’d received a few hours ago down on the end table and took her coat off. She sighed as she slipped out of her shoes. She’d left the living room light on as she always did to give the appearance she was home, but in this neighborhood that no longer mattered. She’d heard of a few home invasions occurring in this area and she’d taken the necessary steps to protect herself. She kept a loaded Bulldog .45 semi-automatic handgun in the upper drawer of her nightstand and a Sig Sauer 9 millimeter handgun in the magazine rack in the living room. The firearms were a necessity. Thirty years ago she wouldn’t have dreamed of using them. Back then, she had the physical capability for self defense and had done so when put in the situation. Now she was old and tired, but she was still a crack shot. Thankfully, she never had to use the weapons. Besides, she was very well known in the neighborhood. Even the gangbangers who hung out on the corner of Broad Street and Columbia Avenue showed her respect.

Still, these days, you could never be too sure.

Adelle crossed the living room and sank down into the couch, groaning softly. Damn, but she was tired. The ceremony was both nerve-wracking and exhilarating. She hated being the center of attention, always had, but tonight she’d cast those feelings aside and listened as various speakers stood at the podium and praised Adelle for her work. It was mind-boggling—there were politicians, high-ranking businessmen, celebrities, current Civil Rights activists, many of them people she admired. When Brian gave his introductory speech Adelle listened, trying to put her mind around why she was here. She recalled the young limo driver’s words to her on the drive over. You’re my hero, he’d said. And as Brian recounted the long list of accomplishments she’d achieved, the great sacrifices she’d made to the cause, she put the entire Civil Rights movement in perspective and finally saw why people looked at her in that way. Yes, to them she was a hero. But to her she’d never had a choice. She’d had no other option but to fight for her rights and those of her people. It wasn’t in her to sit by and let people walk all over her and mistreat her. She and others who marched and protested with her and staged that sit in at City Hall (which resulted in those bullshit kidnapping charges) were sending a simple message: they were human beings and they were no longer going to stand by and watch their brothers and sisters be beaten, killed, made to feel like second class citizens. They were no longer going to stand for it. They demanded their rights—they weren’t begging for it. In her mind, she couldn’t have done any differently if she’d wanted to. This was simply the way God had made her—a fighter.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the early sixties wasn’t the Jim Crow South, but it was too close for comfort with the Mason Dixon line a mere sixty miles away. There’d been segregation in her neighborhood growing up; there’d been police killings and back in the fifties, when she was just a child, there had even been a few lynchings. It wasn’t as prevalent as it was down South, but it existed nonetheless. Hatred like that still existed, although thankfully today it was rare. You still had the occasional idiot like that Michael Richards asshole who went off on some racist tirade that would then spin everything back thirty years, bringing the awful memories of those days back like it was still happening and she sometimes wondered if all she’d fought for was still worth it. But when she saw her daughter, Tonya, and her son-in-law Gerald and granddaughter Tess, she realized that, yes, her struggle had been worth it.

Tonya and Gerald lived in a good neighborhood, had good, professional jobs and sent Tess to a good school. They had friends of all races—Black, Latino, Asian, White—and Adelle liked them; they were good kids. She loved the fact that the younger generations had learned something from the struggles of the past. Maybe that was the result of her work.

Adelle picked up the remote control and turned on the TV. She turned on the news, hoping to get a replay of the ceremony tonight. Tonya told her Gerald was going to tape it and would send her a copy, but Adelle wanted to see if she could catch a glimpse of herself on TV. It’s not everyday one got their fifteen minutes of fame broadcast on CNN!

Sure enough, the segment on the NAACP awards ceremony was just starting and Adelle sat on the edge of the sofa, watching with a smile on her face. She thought she looked pretty good on TV. Maybe a little too heavy, but photos always made her look that way. And she looked nowhere near as old as she felt. Hell, she was only sixty-seven. By today’s standards, that was young.

Adelle sighed and stood up. She looked at the award she’d received that evening. She smiled and walked over to pick it up. She held it reverently in her hands, admiring its beauty. Yes, she was proud alright. She’d made a difference. Of that, she was certain.

She set the award down and headed down the hallway to her bedroom. She was just crossing the room when the headache she’d experienced earlier in the evening came back full force. She stopped in the entryway and blinked several times. Her vision blurred. She reached inside the room and turned on the light.

The room swam.

Adelle took a step toward the bed and it felt like she was walking on a boat in a roiling sea. She almost fell over. She reached for the doorway for support. Her stomach lurched in her belly, her headache worsened. What’s going on? she thought as her vision went blurry.

She waited for it to pass.

She took a step toward her four-poster bed.

And fell onto the floor, her right side already numb and not registering the pain as she hit the floor and blacked out.

Tears blurred Tonya Brown’s vision as she raced through the parking lot of Philadelphia Memorial Hospital. She’d received the phone call on her morning commute to work and had almost gotten into an accident getting to the hospital. She hadn’t even called her husband yet; the phone call had come fifteen minutes ago, and what she heard had shattered her.

Your mother has been admitted to Philadelphia General in critical condition, the voice on the other end of the phone said. It looks like she’s suffered either a heart attack or a stroke.

That single phone call had sent Tonya racing in the opposite direction, speeding toward Center City. And now, as she entered the hospital lobby, she searched for the directions that would tell her where Intensive Care was.

“Can I help you?”

The young African-American nurse behind the check-in counter was looking at Tonya with concern.

“My mother was just brought here,” Tonya said. “Adelle Smith…they told me she was…”

“She’s on four,” the nurse said. “Intensive care. I’ll have somebody escort you.” And with that another nurse, a middle-aged White woman, came around the check-in counter and escorted Tonya to the elevator.

When Tonya reached the room her mother was in she had to hold back the tears.

Momma was in bed, IVs attached to her, machines monitoring her breathing and heart rate. She looked like she was asleep except for her ashen complexion, which had gone from chocolate to a waxy gray. Tonya approached the side of the bed and looked down at her mother, wanting to cry but knowing she had to be strong.

A doctor entered the room. He was in his fifties, White, with thinning black hair. He was holding a medical chart.

“Ms. Smith?” He asked Tonya politely.

“I’m her daughter, yes,” Tonya said. “How is she? What happened, is she—”

“Your mother’s suffered a stroke,” the doctor said. “Several, in fact. She underwent a CAT scan very early this morning and it was discerned that the first one was very small. She probably wasn’t aware of it.”

“When? How?” Tonya was confused and scared. Momma had been fine last night!

“The first one occurred yesterday afternoon,” the doctor said. “The second one very early that evening, and the third one shortly after she arrived home last night. That was the one that caused her first blackout. When she regained consciousness she was able to crawl to her phone and dial 911. She was experiencing a fourth stroke when rescue units arrived.”

“Oh my God!” Tonya buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

The doctor was genuine, caring, sympathetic. He led her gently toward a chair and she sat down. “Your mother suffered what is called an ischemic stroke, when a blockage occurs in the blood vessels supplying blood to the brain. We immediately put her through Acute Stroke Therapy to dissolve the clots.”

“Will she be okay?”

“Your mother will live through this, yes. We won’t know what kind of neurological damage might have been done until we run some more tests.”

A wave of emotion threatened to overwhelm Tonya, but she fought it down. If there was one thing momma taught her, it was to be strong in the face of adversity. Now was not the time to cry.

She drew herself up, composed herself. “Okay,” she said. She glanced at the clock on the wall; it was eight-thirty. “How long was she unconscious last night?”

“Approximately three hours,” the doctor said. “Paramedics brought her in just before four this morning.”

“And it took four hours for you to call me?”

“When she arrived she came without identification. The police didn’t get that to us until an hour ago.”

“My God,” Tonya said. Now she was growing angry. “What the hell took them so long? What, did they think they were just packing up another poor black woman in an ambulance and sending her on her way to the hospital so she could die?”

“I couldn’t guess, Miss. I can’t presume to understand why the police acted the way they did,” the doctor said. “Needless to say, your mother has received the very best treatment since arriving here and our administrators worked diligently with the police to obtain her identity. I’m sorry we didn’t learn who she was until just a little while ago, but I assure you we treated your mother with the same high level of care we strive to maintain for all of our patients.”

His words sounded as if he were reading from a script. They did nothing to assuage Tonya’s growing concern.

“I appreciate that,” Tonya said. Yes, she was getting slowly pissed off now. She looked at her mother across the room, who slept on. “What’s her prognosis?”

“We’ll find out when she regains consciousness,” the doctor said. “From the preliminary CAT scans, we were able to ascertain that there was minimal neurological damage. It’s possible that her speech may be affected.”

“What about her vision? Her mind?”

“Again, we won’t know until she comes out of it.”

“How long will that be?”

The doctor shrugged. “Later today, perhaps.”

Tonya stood up and approached her mother’s bedside. The doctor accompanied her, noted momma’s heart rate and pulse. His tone was so matter-of-fact that Tonya could feel her anger vibrating through her again like a revving engine. She tried to remind herself that she couldn’t expect everyone to be as emotional about her mother’s health as she was. Still, it bothered her that he didn’t at least make eye contact with her when he was talking about her mother’s health. He acted as if she were an annoyance keeping him from more important things.

“Don’t worry. Your mother is receiving the very best care possible.”

His back was to her when he spoke, writing notes on her mother’s charts as he checked her vitals. Despite his over-rehearsed words of assurance, his mannerisms and expression were more that of a mechanic checking engine oil than someone with her mother’s life in his hands. It took a great effort for her to dispel the impression that he would have shown greater concern had his patient been White. She didn’t want to start thinking that way. That was how her mother thought and she wasn’t like her mother.

Adelle Smith was still stuck in the past. She saw racism in every shadow. Tonya considered herself open-minded. She’d even dated a few White men before she’d met her husband. She reached out and took her mother’s hand. Tonya gasped and choked back tears, startled by how cold and delicate it was for such a large, robust woman. The skin was as thin as parchment and she could feel the tiny bones beneath. Her mother had always been such a force of nature that it was heartbreaking to see her look so helpless.

Tonya dabbed at the corner of her eyes with her coat sleeve and looked back at the doctor for some type of reassurance. He was whistling to himself as he continued filling out the chart.

Tonya told herself that she should take confidence from the doctor’s lack of alarm. She watched as he opened her mother’s eyelids with his fingers and shined a light on her pupils. They remained fully dilated. The doctor’s expression was impassive.

It couldn’t be that serious or else he wouldn’t look so nonchalant, she hoped.

He smiled at her and patted her on her shoulder as he exited the room. Tonya looked back over at her mother, laboring to breathe despite the oxygen tubes in her nose, her complexion turning grayer by the second. She sat down on the edge of the hospital bed still holding her mother’s tiny hand.

Tonya adjusted her mother’s pillow and bent over and kissed her on the forehead. When the tears finally came they didn’t stop until she fell asleep, curled up beside her mother, listening to her labored breathing.