By Brian K. Johnson
My parents were both in the service of the United States Army. My mom, Loretta V. M. Johnson, was a young student teacher who had just graduated from school. She found a job teaching the enlisted men in the US Army to read and write. There is a black-and-white picture showing my mom, looking young with dark, shiny skin, sitting on a fence in the sun, wearing a scarf to wrap her hair, a button-down shirt with cuffs rolled up, and khaki or light color pants.
My dad, Harold E. Johnson, appears in another photograph I have, standing tall, light skinned, smiling, smoking in a doorway that looks like a kitchen back door. He wore some kind of paper cap on his head, dressed in his army uniform covered with an apron. Dad was a cook and a master of fixing things with his hands, especially food.
Me? I went to school, education classes for reading, writing, and math. I had trouble with reading and pronunciation. My first years of education weren’t normal. My mom, a teacher herself, had the school keep me back one year. Loretta and Harold showed me extra attention, with puzzles and construction kits I had to put together. Harold was heavy on keeping me busy.
Both of my parents smoked cigarettes. It was the ’70s when lots of adults did. When they were not minding me, they would go off to another part of the house and smoke. As much as Denice, Beverly, Olivia—my sisters—and I tried, we could not get them to stop the cigarettes.
So we worked on my mom first by hiding her smokes, wetting the matches, and flushing her smokes down the toilet. Loretta was smart, and onto what was happening, so as much as the family tried, we were losing with our efforts. As time went on mom would hide the smokes from us. It is not easy for parents to listen to you when you’re young. During those years, parents expected children to sit and not speak unless spoken to. Those were only some of the rules. There was a whole dictionary of rules.
Finally Loretta admitted defeat and gave up her smokes. On a day when the whole family was happy, my mom brought us together at dinner, after we had returned from church, to give us the news that she was making up her own mind. “I decided to stop smoking,” she said, like she had made that up all by herself.
Now Harold, however, was not going to be easy; he was hard to move. I remember another family member asking when it would be his turn to quit smoking. He replied, “It’s like taking one of my children. You won’t be getting my smokes.” Dad, standing six foot six and more in height, smiled a lot, but he also had a very serious side that could stop a bus in its tracks.
My dad would come and go, while keeping me busy; he would buy me Erector sets and other things so I could keep busy and put things together with my hands. He always kept his smokes out of view, not smoking in the house. It sure was not going to be easy getting him to quit his other child, smoking, without making him upset. I would search and search, but all I could find were ashes and ashtrays. So I hid the ashtrays, though that was risky too, if he caught me. Our campaign to get Harold to stop smoking went on for a while. I searched the spare room that was used because my parents were foster parents. They had a desk and a daybed for guests, and so when the room was not being used, my dad made it his office. I found lots of things he hid in that room, like beer and alcohol, but I did not find smokes. At times I drove my dad crazy by searching and not giving up. While looking for the smokes I got into everything else he had. I made an adventure of it all as a child. The search was both fun and dangerous.
Harold loved his children (the other one was his smokes). For me, he could express how he felt by giving gifts and paying attention, showing love as much as a man could during that time, when men were supposed to keep their emotions to themselves. Men were men, and in the ’70s could only express minimal feelings, except with family and real close friends. Until this day, men, especially Black men and men of color, still face this issue.
Time went on. I was always looking for the cigarettes. My dad was at the top of his game. He never smoked in the house. I got into trouble a few times for tinkering and taking apart his things, but the other child (smokes) remained, was the smell of smoke.
In my ESL class we read Highlight magazines, Dr. Seuss books, and lots of math practice sheets. My mom taught at the Joseph Hurley School in Boston, and Dad went to work doing maintenance in downtown Boston at the JFK building. We were happy, but Mom and Dad were quiet. Dad started to be home more. A child never knows the weight an adult carries. Mom and Dad worked hard in the ’70s to provide for their family, always trying to do better in life.
One day when I was eleven years old, I came home from school doing my usual—getting into things, bouncing around the house, watching TV, doing homework. Then the phone rang loudly. That old thing had never sounded so clear. I ignored the first few rings of the phone. I was the only one home, so eventually I had to answer it. A voice on the other end asked for my mother.
“Is Loretta there?” the voice asked.
I replied, “No, she is not home now. Can I take a message?” At eleven, I knew that being polite on the phone was a good idea. I never knew if it was a relative on the other end who would tell my mom or dad. The person on the phone said the message was that Harold, her husband, requires her attention at the hospital as soon as she can get there. I was like, a hospital?
The next day I stayed home from school. I was having fun running around, never thinking about a thing, till mom came in the door looking sad and upset. “What’s wrong, Mom?” I asked her.
“He’s gone!”
“Who?” I replied.
Mom exclaimed, “Your dad has died in the hospital from cancer with complications of pneumonia. Now you’re the man of the house. You need to grow up,” mom said. “You’re the man of the house,” she said again, with tears. The thought sank in slowly. Many meanings rushed through my head, as to a child back then, death was unusual, strange, different.
The disconnect comes from adults not knowing how to explain things to children clearly so they can grasp the meaning of big events like death, even though it might take a while for them to understand fully. I don’t remember much of the funeral. Being young at that time did not mean I could not have understood death. Young humans can understand bigger things. It’s the concept of explaining it as an adult to a child so they can clearly hear what is being said, even though it may take a while, that matters. I have blocked out some things about that encounter until this day. What I do have is a memory of him, Harold, and the things and people he left behind—my mom, sisters, extended family, and me, his son. But I’m not the one who killed him. The other child—smoking—did.
