Two Stories written by Kevin

"Robert Lewis Stevenson Sampson

 

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My people on my father’s side were from down south

Cuthbert Georgia

I remember when I was about 8 years old, my family went south, to see our

Cousins and grand parents.

The Deep South it was about 1962 we drove down in our Chryslers station wagon.

My cousin Willie bee, williby, bee I can’t even spell it

He was my father’s nephew, and he talked quicker than any one I ever heard before

I couldn’t understand a thing he would say, and he was always talking.

My father always brought along a cousin or some one else when we went down south

Looking back, I used think that it was because my father didn’t like to drive long distances

I now realized that it was the south.

We stopped at a gas station and

Yes I saw white only signs

And my father to his credit

Went right into one and used the bathroom

Right on power to the people

My father was some thing else, Stephen Sampson didn’t play

And he had a temper, one in which he controlled

But if you really pissed him off

Run………………….He was one of those quiet men………….

Un like his son…..quiet

Quiet is scary……………..

Anyway

This was before the voting rights act, their were still lynching’s in the south

Justice did not rule in those days

Anyway

I will cut this short and maybe ad much more lately

Anyway

We get to the center of town and some of my cousins greet ed us

They lean up close

To my father and whisper in his ear

Now this little town at first glance looks like Mayberry

I expect to see Andy opie and Aunt Bea

Instead I see a whole lot of black folks, looking uncomfortable

And a whole lot of white looking just as weird

Anyway I was a nosy child

I listened,

Bat man ears on………….

All those years of being nosy paid off

These strange dark men in coveralls, and staw hats

Whisper in his ear that

The sheriff is locking up people that want to vote

Some folks have been killed

Oh lord lord

My cousin Willie gets angry right away

And starts talking in that strange tongue of his

What the hell is it gechie

It’s like a machine gun

He is distracting me

He is stopping me from obtaining my prize

My father stills him with a glance

And my mother and Aunt Allie who was also in the car

Looked alarmed

My father looked angry but calm

He was outwardly calm

And later I would find out inwardly

Like a raging sea

That’s where I get it from

I get it honest

All of this energy

All of this drives

Ok where was I

I got what I asked for

Yup the man was telling my father horrible stories

About injustice

Images of the clan and lynching’s

Abounded in my head

Lions and tigers and bears oh my

I don’t know if my brother Ronny, Sister Donna even heard

And I don’t think my brother Robbie was even born yet

We went to my grandparent’s farm

A bleached house some thing out of little house on the prairie

Meets roots

Tin roof, corn fields on the side

Out house

With spiders

I will hold my due for ever before I go in that thing

Out house…yuck

Anyway

My uncle boy

His real name was press

But he was called boy

Was the tallest blackest man I have ever seen?

He looked like my father

But tall and reed thin

About six feet 6 inches tall

Why the hell am I so short and fat?

Ok enough about me

Anyway he had the nicest smile

My father didn’t get a cavity until he was

Well into his seventies

He could open bottle caps

With his teeth they were so strong

Uncle Boy

I loved him right away

And I wouldn’t stop following him

He just picked me up and tickled me

And made me feel loved right away

I felt like I knew him forever

Even though I only saw

Him about five times in my life

He was so tall and high up

That when he put me up on his shoulders

I swear I was close to heaven

He wanted to give my father some thing

I told you I was nosey

And I wouldn’t leave,

Now normally my father

Did the deacon look

And I would be deterred

The look that he was giving me now

Would have normally made me

Run like hell

But Uncle Boy said

Bob Leave that boy be

Let him come

I loved the way these southern folks talked

Boy was the oldest

And my father was the youngest of nine children

I was always safe around my father’s side of the family

Because I was a bad child

And they loved my badness

Laughed at my antics

And protected me from a father,

Who didn’t play

My father liked kids being kids

But his sisters, who were all at least six feet tall,

Except for Aunt Suzie

Were just as firm with him

They all raised him and treated him like the baby

Aunt Suzie had a deep deep voice

She was the oldest girl

And when she told my father to do some thing he did it

I could tell immediately that she was the one who was in charge of him as a child

And like his other mother

I loved to hear her laugh

I loved the way she laughed at me and with me

Aunt Inell was 6 feet tall at least

Red brown like an Indian

I loved her so

God I can still taste her cooking

Her lemon cake

Anyway Uncle Boy

Takes my father

With me on his shoulders

Around the back of the house

Near a shed

He reaches under neath it

And brings out a gun

An old but beautiful gun

He hands it to my father

And stuff is said

My uncle boy

Takes a bottle out and places it

On a stump

My father aims the gun

And shoots it

Hitting the bottle

Oh god here I go

Let me shoot it

Let me shoot the gun please

Kevin, no………

Uncle boy looks at my father

And says let him shoot the gun

Bob how old were you when you first shot a gun

Bob

Did I tell you that for years

When they called my father bob

I was to dumb to ask why they called

My father whose name I thought

Was Stephen

Bob

Because he was born

Robert Louis Stevenson Sampson

When he came up north

He changed his name to Stephen

And family legend has it

That my Aunt Vernell

My mother’s sister

Told him that if he was to be Steve

Make it Stephen

It’s more sophisticated

Where was I

Oh so……………

Uncle boy took that gun

\and kneeled down behind me

Grabbing the gun with me

He told me ready

Aim and he squeezed the trigger

Along with me

It was so loud

It was so scary

It was so wonderful

I’m in heaven

Bad boy heaven

Good boy heaven

Heaven

We went back to the house and I was quiet

Watching my grandmother bertha

Snap green beans into a pot

I walked around the kitchen

Of this large used to be sharecroppers shack

I don’t know they might still have been share croppers

Anyway

Dorothy knew she was not in Oz

Any more

I was home but not home

The south scared the hell out of me

I could always feel the south in unnatural ways

I still can

I could feel it in the air

And in the trees……………..

And in my blood

My father got that gun

Because he was a northern boy

He was a leader

And Uncle Boy knew my father

Was a northern agitator

Knew he wouldn’t take any guff

And knew he would go down with a fight

Knew that the sheriff would find out that he was here

And who knows…………….

Anyway

No one was taking my father any where

That he didn’t want to go with out a fight

My father was so cool

I knew that no one could hurt me with him around

No one could touch us

I climbed up in my grandfather’s lap

Press,

Black as coal with white white hair and light eyes

I think………..

And ate the peanuts that he fed me

I loved them

He looked at me;

I was so little so skinny with a big head

And said here peanut

And they called me peanut the whole time I was there

Yea peanut head

So what

I still love peanuts

And shooting a gun

The clock

Snippets

I couldn’t sit still as a child. I was always running around climbing things

And generally being a pain in the ass. My poor mother, who had the patience of a saint.

Was at wits end with me, I could ask a hundred questions an hour.

Was often told to go and look it up……………I did. But some times my mother just had enough.

Then I would be punished. The most horrible of punishments, was …………..

My mother was always in the kitchen and I was always hovering about. I loved my mother

She would finally say, enough. Look at the clock.

We had a clock right above the stove. I hated and loved that clock. It meant bed time, or food time

Or punishment time

Punishment, sit and look at the clock for five minutes. No talking no moving, no nothing.

Oh my God this was the worst punishment of all, to sit still was nearly impossible for me.

I would fidget and twitch and invent games in my head. Any thing to make this five minute punishment

Which seemed like a two hour one……..pass faster?

Help I am losing it, my mother isn’t paying attention, until I try to move

2 more minutes

Oh my god I can’t take it they will get me, if I stay still for this long

Who them

The things that come to me at night

My night mares

Oh god

One more minutes

I think I can

I think I can

I did it

I am nearly insane, out of breath

My heart is beating loudly

I tell my mother I am going out side

And run like hell

I turn around and see her Mona Lisa smile

Run run

Freedom

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