Crossing the Line, page 19
I whisper back. “I will, Mary. I’ll protect you.” I find her hand with my empty one and give it a quick squeeze.
“I know you vill,” she says, pronouncing “will” just like Mr. Weinstein, and we both tilt our mouths up in little smiles.
“Billy,” Ma says over her shoulder. “Carry Da’s uniform. Don’t let it drag.”
I get to the bottom of the stairs and I stop. I look around. My heart is breaking. This is my home and I’m leaving. I’m stealing away in the middle of the night like a no-count weasel. I get a lump the size of a baseball in my throat and water in my eyes.
And then that baseball lump gives me an idea. I throw Da’s uniform over the stair railing, put my suitcase down on the ground, and rustle around under the Chicago Defender newspapers.
“Billy, saints alive, what’re you doing?” Ma says in as loud a voice as she dares.
Everybody is scrambling into the car. I find my glove, my da’s lucky glove, and my baseball, and I run over to our secret hiding spot.
“Come on, Billy, come on,” Mary hisses.
I pull the stone from the secret hiding space and carefully put my baseball into the center of my glove. I take my knife from my pocket and poke the point into my finger, then press the dot of blood onto the ball. I shove it as far down in the hole as it will go. I whisper, “Take care of my glove, Foster,” and kiss the stone before I slide it back—for luck, just like we do the paver at Comiskey Park.
When I stand up, Mr. Weinstein is right behind me and I jump about a mile.
“For your friend, no?” he asks in his Russian accent.
I nod. “For my friend.”
“I watch. If he no come. I take to him,” he says.
“But you don’t—” I start to say.
Mr. Weinstein is already heading to the car, but he turns and gives me a look that sees straight to my heart. “You not only spy in this house.” And he winks. “We are the same, no? We have secrets. We have stories to tell. If we are brave to tell them.”
And I sure don’t expect Mr. Weinstein to be on my side, but then, ain’t I been saying that life is unpredictable?
“Tell him his blood brother will come back someday,” I say. “We’ll make it better together.”
And we walk to the car side by side.
Author’s Note
WHILE RIDING BIKES ALONG CHICAGO’S lakefront, my husband and I stopped to read a memorial marker dedicated to Eugene Williams. Eugene was killed by a rock thrown from the breakwater because his raft crossed the invisible racial color line between beaches on July 27, 1919. Chicago’s worst race riot started with that incident, although trouble had been simmering long before that. Visit my website, BibiBelford.com, for some historical facts from this time period.
Billy is just a character in a book. But his battle with racism is something every person wrestles with, in one way or another. The monster of prejudice still hasn’t been crushed despite our many laws of protection, continued protests and speeches, and heartbreaking sacrifices. Technology allows us to witness its ugliness. And as witnesses, what should be our response?
One of the beta readers for this manuscript believes dialogue brings understanding. Writing this book opened doors to dialogue for me, challenging me to confront my perspectives.
My heart breaks for people who experience discrimination and prejudice. Our cultures, backgrounds, and circumstances may be different, but we are all capable of showing our respect for human life with kindness and tolerance.
In the end I believe Micah 6:8 gives me guidance: “You must act with justice. You must love to show mercy. And you must be humble as you live in the sight of your God.” (NIrV)
This is a work of fiction based on a historical event, and to the best of my ability, I’ve tried to accurately research the time period while still being sensitive to the vocabulary that is considered kind today.
My only goals in writing this book are to honor the memory of Eugene Williams, and to challenge readers to cross the line and live under the shelter of each other.
Acknowledgments
ALAKE FRONT BIKE PATH. A stone memorial. A moment in history. The intersection of these three things inspired me to write the novel Crossing the Line.
Eugene Williams lost his life in 1919 from a violent act born out of racism, but even as I began to write the story in 2015, violence continued to escalate in our country, with over 12,500 hate crimes, 57 percent racially motivated, and most of those against African Americans, specifically males under twenty-four years old. My more privileged experience as a white person hadn’t prepared me to agonize about the lifespan of young black lives, and I worried for those I knew and loved.
I decided I wasn’t qualified to write a novel about racism at such a time, but encouragement came from some amazing women who prayed for me and cheered me on. You know who you are: MC, AN, SP, CF, AM, AV, LR, EO.
During the process of writing Crossing the Line, I read two eye-opening books: Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult, and Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. I thank those authors for their craft and for educating my ignorance.
It’s not possible to get first person accounts of what happened in 1919, but while researching, I hired a motorboat driver, Sean Biggins, and we searched the river until we found waterways that might have existed back then. I also attended a Chicago Loop Bridges Tour, http://chicagoloopbridges.com, and Jim Phillips shared his expertise on the historic bridges over the Chicago River. On a Chicago Ghost Tour, freetoursbyfoot.com, Andy Meholick enlightened me with some little-known Chicago ghost history as we explored the sites of Chicago’s historic disasters. All of these experiences helped my imagination recreate what may have happened during the summer of 1919.
The final stages of editing my manuscript into book shape happened because of revision decisions, proposed by my editor Rachel Stark, whose keen eye and tenacious questioning hopefully ferreted out most inaccuracies. And who knew that words like babysit and stink-eye weren’t used in 1919? Thank goodness author Randall Platt knew, and I owe a huge heap of gratitude for her generous application of historical accuracy to my phrasing and word choice.
And then I sought feedback before publication from generous readers, willing to critique and comment. Beta readers: Elizabeth Eisenman, fifth grade teacher at Allen School, and her fifth grade students, Nick Byrnes, Jayda Hughlett, David Marek, Ricardo Millan, Kaya Paetzold, and Jalen Sims. Sensitivity readers: Donnell Collins, Juanita L. Henry, Robbie Booth, and Ray Hull. And of course, Shaw Belford, my husband.
Thank you all for everything. I truly do live in the shelter of you.
Bibi Belford, Crossing the Line
