James L Nelson

My mother shaped my life whether I liked it or not. I was her look alike, but I was more Gatrude’s than I knew or understood until later. She would try to control my life to have me avoid the mistakes that she made. It was futile and overzealous of her to think that fate could be so moved, but what mother wouldn’t try to save her daughter from the fresh hell that life can be? My father, on the other hand, was simply a soft place to land when the world hurled me to the ground. Sometimes, superheroes come in fleshy costumes that appear dull and ill-fitting. My father kept his legacy close to his chest and only let it shine on occasion–when he had to.

James L Nelson was maybe born November 22, 1941. Maybe. He was, for sure, born to Alice who was barely 15-16 and Peter who was not much older. They were from sharecropping families in rural, middle Mississippi. That part of the Nelson clan did not get caught up (yet) in the diaspora that would lead many black families up North for better jobs and conditions. I believe they live in Lexington right now, but my father was born in Pickens, a town small enough to see one end from the other end. The first, and only time, I visited, I was a teen ager and these boys came riding up on bikes to ask us where we’re from. I remember being horrified; people in Illinois didn’t just walk up to strangers and talk to them like that. I think we answered them, but I’m sure we appeared stand-offish and not a little rude. The South is very different.

My father is not the storyteller that my mother was, so some of what I know is extrapolated from facts or what my mother told me, or the few stories that my dad would tell over and over again with the same gusto. Perspective when it comes to storytelling is paramount, so my father would put his spin on things, and my mother would have her own. I’m sure the truth lay somewhere in there. The truth always does. I’m fairly sure that my father was not a planned pregnancy with such young parents that didn’t stay together too long. Alice would marry Peter and make things “legitimate” for all families involved, including little James. It wouldn’t last long. A daughter came quickly, and for reasons not fully disclosed but people didn’t talk about these kinds of things like they do now, Alice took Inez or “Sister” as she was called, and moved to Chicago. Maybe it was just that Alice was now older and able to go on her own. Perhaps Peter and she just weren’t getting along and she wanted a new start. There were the underground rumor mills (mostly my mother) that figured that Sister wasn’t Peter’s baby, and Alice hightailed it out of Mississippi to avoid a broken marriage. When Sister passed away many years later from cancer, Peter was still informed and treated as her father. I don’t think another father had ever been named or imagined–at least out loud.

By chance he just meant to praise his hardworking Grandmother, I don’t recall her name if it was ever said to me, and not necessarily present her as a model of womanhood. However, what I’ve learned is that what you state to young children is what they take to heart no matter their reaction. How confusing to a young girl who has a tiger for a mother and a responsible figure of a great-grandmother. My father didn’t just choose responsible, he picked strength. He saw his grandmother as that, maybe, not just a woman but a tower of strength that handled it all–the men, the cooking, the work, the children, etc. He may have coveted her lack of complaint and her willingness to stand up as needed, some of the same qualities my mother would show. As a child, I heard the woman’s work and the compliance. I didn’t hear the need and the fulfillment. The sacrifice for the role that was needed no matter how unfair it would be. A child sees the unfairness and hears the need, and the sacrifice is such a different world because children don’t have to be martyrs mostly.

This martyr handled not only her business, but the family’s business. When Alice took off without Peter and James, someone had to be responsible for the boy-child. Peter didn’t keep his son, so Alice’s mother stepped in. Not only did she do all of the housework, meals, and pick cotton, she took care of a grandchild. The only memory that my father really shared was being dragged on a burlap stack behind his grandmother while she worked the fields. He was too young to keep up and to walk on his own, so she would drag him along with her.

Great-grandmother only lived to her mid-40s, something else that my father seemed to say with pride. When I was old enough, I remember turning to him and exclaiming, “She worked herself to death? How is that good?” I don’t remember him answering. Perhaps he didn’t see it that way. Again, sacrifice can seem so sweet, especially when a child is involved. I’m not so sure. Something that happened in those formative years, before he went to Chicago and after he would reunite with Alice and have several more sisters, affected my father so tremendously that he would never outrun it. He lived with it, buried himself in it, until the day he was meant to be laid to rest literally. No one understood and to this day it’s hard to understand.

Somewhere along the line, my father was taught not to touch his own private parts. He never learned to clean himself or really wanted to clean himself. If one really thinks about it, children are not inclined to clean themselves. They have to be bathed and usually dragged into the tub. My father never felt he had to bathe or wear any type of deodorant. To him, it was not only frivolous, but almost sacrilege. I bought him some deodorant, not the first one to do this, when I was an adult and he was a senior, and asked him to bathe and put this on. He pretended to bathe and then sprayed the deodorant. Later, I would wonder why this wasn’t working and then I noticed that his shirts were staining white or yellow under the arms. The fabric was becoming ruined. I asked him how he was putting on the deodorant and he confessed that he was spraying it on the clothes and not his skin.

He would be like this his whole life; water was the enemy and soap wasn’t necessary. He didn’t feel the need to wash his clothes at all, change his sheets or bed spread, or wear any kind of deodorant or cologne. I can tell you so many things my father was: dedicated to those he loved, kind to a fault, the least greedy or materialistic person alive, and on and on. Still, he had the one unforgiveable trait that would keep him from being close to others and fully accepted: no hygiene. I can’t even say bad hygiene because he just had none. It wasn’t that he didn’t clean well or often enough; he just didn’t clean. His natural state was as he was without any intervention of any kind. Even when he became incontinent as a very sick person, he would fight those that tried to clean him up or clean the soiled clothes. How does this type of thing happen? The family has always wondered, especially since my mother was the complete and utter opposite of this. She was Mrs. Clean with a spotless home and at least one shower a day if not more. Moreover, Elfriede was European so she didn’t believe in deodorant, but she made sure she showered and she always had clean clothes and shoes.

I do believe that something happened when he was left with his grandmother. Not that she was neglectful or harmed him; I think there just was no time or the same amount of need for cleanliness on the farm. When I visited Mississippi as an adult, my father’s aunt had a person-sized hole in the side of her house. I would have been horrified to have such conditions, but they didn’t seem to mind that their house had an impromptu door on a random side of it. Several windows were missing. The level of acceptance was different than what I thought my mother or I would stand. This was where my father grew up. Wouldn’t he have dealt with the same standards? It just never changed.

Okay, he’s an extreme case and he was. Opposites do attract, but keep in mind that they repel just as hard. We’ll get to that fiasco later. Perhaps as a child he was taught that it was the ultimate sin to touch yourself and he just kept this sentiment. Whatever the case, he was with his family on the farm until he was about 7 years old when his grandmother died and there was no one else to care for the child. Alice had to accept him and now there were other children (and men) for James to deal with.

James always remembered a childhood friend, a cousin, named Nathan and thought fondly of this man till the day he died. Nathan was one of the few men in the family and a good friend to a childhood James. When we went to Mississippi later, I met Nathan, and my sisters and I were tickled pink that he looked like a robust, farmer version of our own father. He was very gracious and let us ride his horses. When my dad said he would go and visit Nathan when my father was sick and elderly, I asked if he had any contact with the man and he hadn’t. How did he even know he was still alive? He didn’t know. It was a great fantasy for James, going to the farm of his childhood and picking up where he left off. Even if it’s in his own mind.

By the way

My mother may have been the more lively storyteller, but my father had the best story ever! James joined his mother on the West side of Chicago in “no man’s land” or the projects. It got this moniker of feeling like a deserted island at the edge of the metropolis and blissful suburbs because no one was ever around when we visited, which was always during the day. Nighttime was even worse. At least some people hung around during the day, but at night, there was no one. The playground was always empty, the building looked dejected and rejected, but hundreds lived there, including my grandmother and her brood that wasn’t James. The young James, illiterate and keeping his southern twang, came “home” to this at the tender age of 7 or so. He would be reunited with Sister and more sisters. Alice enrolled James into school, the first experience he would have with it, and they put him in a “special” class with what they considered the helpless kids. My father wasn’t developmentally delayed, disabled, or handicapped in any way–he just had no education. In fact, James had a sharp analytical mind. He should have been college bound like Elfriede should have been, but they were both pushed aside for different reasons. The outcome was the same: a smart woman and a poor black son were overlooked and objectified.

An about 7 year-old walked into a basement classroom and took his seat behind the biggest kid he could find. There he hid for a while. The teacher didn’t much care anyway. He would prop his feet up and read the newspaper–a glorified babysitter to say the least, until these kids dropped out and became someone else’s problem. James liked his hiding place, but it could have been his demise because that humungous kid in front of him turned on him one day and glared down at the skinny, Southern boy. Horrified, James didn’t move as the monster in front of him, so recently a protective shield, reached for him unceremoniously. The large boy grabbed James’s bony hand and so easily swallowed it up in his bigger paw. Would he squeeze James’s fingers to smithereens? No, the larger boy jammed a pencil into the fist that he’d made with the younger boy and started sketching out letters and numbers. This would go on until James had grasped the concept of letters and numbers. The behemoth taught the Southern boy how to read and write. I always loved this story as a kid. It had the best twist.

Another great childhood story of my father’s was when he and the neighborhood kids were playing with a tattered ball on the West side streets of the projects. To their surprise and delight, a limo travelled down the street and observed them for a minute or two. This was unusual and the boys got a kick out of it, but didn’t think much of it as they continued to play ball when the limo pulled away. A short time later, the same limo rounded the corner and came towards the boys. Curiosity will always embolden children, so they sat and waited for it to roll up to them. The window rolled down in the back and Hugh Hefner, recognizable even to the boys, smiled at them as he threw a new ball their way. They exchanged pleasantries and the boys admired their new ball, until one of the neighborhood women who had seen the exchange punished them. James said he was “smacked upside the head” all the way home until his mother had her own turn. What was the problem? Mr. Playboy himself had dared interacted with their children. These days, Hefner may be considered tame by comparison to some others in the Adult industries, but back then he was a bad influence. It didn’t matter, as James got a chuckle out of it and a good story, if not a sore head.

James settled in with his sisters, his mother, and her boyfriends. His sisters would later describe him as “stingy” with his belongings. Growing up poor can certainly create this need to hoard what is yours, so this isn’t surprising. I always thought James loved his mother dearly because we visited so often and he talked as if he did. Now I’m not so sure, because my brother shared that the visits were “forced” by my mother. We didn’t go to church, we visited family on Sunday. Elfriede wanted that intimate relationship even if she didn’t like going to the projects to get it, or having her mother-in-law keep her children. James and Elfriede would have settled in sunny California, where they first landed in America, if not for Elfriede wanting to be closer to family, the way she would have been with her mother in Germany. So, they moved to Chicago and then to the suburbs. My father didn’t talk much on our visits to his mother, but he didn’t talk much period. When she passed away, he made me cry when I saw how he was close to the coffin that bore her remains, but he refused to look at her. My mother, on the other hand, looked close enough to realize that her wig was pinned to her flesh with safety clips. This would anger her and be fodder for stories for years, always disturbing me. James didn’t want to remember his mother as a corpse, but as a living woman. I liked that so much that I don’t care for funerals to this day, and both of my parents didn’t have one. That was Elfriede’s wishes and then mine for my father, who probably didn’t really feel that way.

What does a poor, black, 18 year-old from the projects do when he isn’t college material and he has no prospects on the West side of Chicago, and he has to find some place to live that isn’t with his mother? He goes to the armed forces, of course. The army was a good fit for my father’s team spirit nature and analytical mind. However, it did not seem a good fit for his no hygiene lifestyle. The army didn’t dismiss him because he was a good soldier and would become an MP, a good job for this charming Southern boy with all of the manners and kind essence, but they did put him in his own barracks. Even the army couldn’t change this trait, so what was anyone else to do? Nothing.

In Germany, he was an MP and had many gory stories to tell about stopping bar fights and horrible accidents that he had to attend. It was a dangerous job, but he seemed to thrive in it. Being a police officer might have suited him once he got home and landed in California. Things would be so different–or not–for this family. The inevitable was that Elfriede approached him on a bet from her friends and my father took one look at the stunning creature in front of him, exhilarating and terrifying in her power, and said, “I’m going to marry you.” Of course, this is Elfriede, who shot back at him, “Oh no you’re not!” She did, despite her mother’s pleading with her to not do it (or because of it, who knows). The Burgermeister of the town refused on different or less profound grounds than Gatrude. Gatrude knew James was not right for her lively daughter who was proudful and a clean freak. The Burgermeister (or mayor) just didn’t want to marry an interracial couple. James and Elfriede forced the issue and were married.

Erika was either prejudice and mean due to James being an American, according to my mother, or cordial and obliging, according to my father. Perspective does take a spin with reality. Elfriede noted that Gatrude did not like James, but she was nice to him and fed the young couple many times when they didn’t have much. My father loved Gatrude for her simple, loving nature. He also loved Elfriede’s nephew and younger brother, who would still be around. The others in the family didn’t come up much or seemed inclined to notice James.

James didn’t end up being a police officer in America, and started a career as an engineer in the days when training and experience were more important than college careers. When that industry moved to Mexico, he ended up getting a CDL and driving a truck. I’m not sure how suited he was for the job, but it lasted a while, too. When he was too old and most likely sick, he would be a security guard. That was the last job he would hold.