Chapter 1

 

Day One - The Morning of September 20, 1974

Wedding Day Blues

​

The ringing sound in my ear was not wedding bells as you would expect to hear on your wedding day. It was not the carillon from the Presbyterian church signaling the noon hour, as it was not yet twelve o'clock. It was not a melodious sound at all. It was discordant. One that vibrated throughout my being with its epicenter at the left side of my face, extending to my left ear and the left side of my head. I didn’t know why it was, or what it was, I just knew all of a sudden, there it was. 

       As a college student of biology with aspirations of going to medical school, I instantly thought, bad reaction to the medical tests just run.   Then, I said to myself, No, they only drew blood.  Then, I thought, maybe the needle was contaminated. No, I need to calm down. Maybe, I have become too excited by the stress of my wedding day.  I'm having a stroke, or maybe a heart attack, or an epileptic seizure. Maybe, I thought,  I’m dying.

     In that expansive millisecond of time, I turned to my one true love, Henry Henderson, opening my eyes to seek help from him as I was sure he saw me, his beloved, becoming ill. It was in that instant I saw the hand that touched me ever so gently, that soothed me always so smoothly, and that brought me to peaks higher than Pikes become this large, square, menacing hand, like a boxer’s glove, recoil from my face.  Henry, my beloved, had slapped me! This bastard had hit me in my face! 

       The distorted swirling and ringing in my ear alternated between high pitch and low pitch, shrill and dull, piercing and pulsating. The left side of my face, which had stung like a colony of buzzing bees taking revenge on me for disturbing their hive, now felt numb. Lightning bolts of sharp pain zigzagged thunderously through my head. In another moment, I thought I would pass out; but I did not. In the warm autumn sun, the skin of my face felt singed by the friction of Henry’s hot hand. My face seemed to sizzle as it felt like it was slipping from its pinning at the side edge of my Afro, melting like the clock faces in Dali’s Persistence of Memory painting, bringing with it the eye of which he was the apple of, the ear in which he had whispered “marry me”, and the cheek Henry had so sweetly kissed only a few minutes earlier. The cacophony was deafening. It was all so very unreal I thought I was hallucinating. 

       Knowing Henry had slapped me took on the mask of the surreal, but surreal refused to shield this egregious act passing this mantle back to reality. I came to myself, knowing without a doubt Henry had slapped me! The pain and the shock of the slap catapulted me into a new reality--Henry Earl Henderson slapped me! It was our wedding day . . . and he slapped me!

       Up to now, I had been an “I'm not gonna take no shit off no man” kind of Black woman; so, in the same instant, I was ready to do something!  What? I did not know, but I was surely going to scratch, claw, hit, or kick something, namely, Henry Henderson! But Henry grabbed my wrists with such strength I was totally immobilized. One thing wasn't, though, my mouth!  I hollered, and screamed, and cursed him from thee to thou!

      I was sure passersby were wondering what was going on with the young couple inside of the metallic navy, almost royal blue, sporty vehicle parked beside the Woolworth. Shoppers came and went into and out of Woolworth, the restaurant, the bank, and the Courthouse across the street and the bus stops on both sides of the street--looking; seeing, but not seeing.  No one stopped; no one questioned us; no one called the police; no one intervened. 

       “What the hell is wrong with you hitting me in my fucking face?  Have you lost your fucking mind?” I said, struggling, trying to free myself from hands that seemed like a vise grip.  

       Henry was not a tall man or a large man, but he sure as hell was a strong one! I had never experienced this kind of strength in my life. I sure had not experienced this kind of strength from Henry before.  I knew he was what I called a “powerful lover”, but, I was just talking. What the hell did I know then about making love except what I had experienced the few times I had been with him?”

“Take your damn hands off me, motherfucker!”

“Sh-h-h! Be quiet,” he said trying to quieten me down. “Somebody might hear you!” 

“Hear Me! I Hope The Hell Somebody Does Hear Me!” I said even louder!

Many people passed by still pretending not to see. They saw; yet they said nothing, they did nothing.

“Be quiet and be still, you are making me hurt you by moving like you're doing!”

“OH, SO I’M MAKING YOU HURT ME?” I hollered louder.

​

By now, I am fuming. I am crying and screaming.  I could tell Henry was starting to relax his grip when I realized I did have a weapon with which to fight back.  Again, my mouth came to the rescue when I chomped down as hard as I could on the drumstick part of his forearm! He finally let go because I suppose he had the nerve to think I had hurt him.  I quickly opened the car door planning to run into Woolworth hollering and screaming for safety and protection. Imagine my Black ass running into Woolworth, of all places, for safety, and for some protection, of all things.  

       He stopped licking his wounds when he noticed I was about to get out of the car ready to make a run for it.  He grabbed my arm pulling me back inside causing me to hit my head on the top thing of the door. I saw a woman walking down the street who witnessed this display of Henry’s brute strength against me; but, she looked away, too, when I looked to her, hurrying on her way. I don’t even know that I was looking for her to intervene, to rescue me; nevertheless, she and others passed us by saying nothing, doing nothing.

“Leave me alone; let me go!” I said, “I'm not going anywhere with you, and I’m sure as hell not going to marry you tonight! Hell! You can forget that shit!”  I was furious at Henry as I continued my angry tirade, “Hitting me in my motherfucking face! You must have lost your gotdamn mind!”

      Henry was still holding on to me, but not as tightly as before.  I sat looking out of my window, when I heard this loud, “Ah-Huh, Ah-Huh!”

      I looked around.  There Henry was slumped over the steering wheel of his car bawling like a baby.  I just sat there seething, staring at him; then, I turned my gaze away from him looking out of the window.  I just let him cry. Hell, he needed to cry.

      Peripherally, I saw shoppers and business people carrying on their Friday morning activities. My view of them was partly blocked by Henry’s spasmodic shoulders. The place where I once used to find solace and strength, were now hunching up uncontrollably as he continued to cry even harder.  But still, I did nothing, and I said nothing. My face was finally starting to regain some feeling. And my wrists, I realized, were hurting. When I looked down at them, they were red and puffy. As I looked closer at them, I noticed they had what looked like a system of peaks and valleys forming on them.  Because they were now hurting so badly, I kept looking at them trying to figure out what this was and why it was happening.  

      My face felt like what a porcupine looks like with its quills raised! I pulled down the car visor to look in the mirror at the left side of my face.  Well, it didn't look like one; at least no quills were sticking out from it. However, the pores seemed open, large enough that I could have easily stuck one in each hole.  As I continued to inspect my face, I saw those same peaks and valleys on my face that I saw on my wrists. They were still on my wrists as well as my face.

       The scientist in me had to figure this thing out. I looked at one, then, the other; I looked back and forth at my face and then at my wrist several times. Each valley was about three-quarters of an inch on both my face and my wrists.  The depth of each of these unknown distorted depressions was about the same between these elusive peaks that had thrust upwardly from my wrists and outwardly from my face. There were four distinct depressions, and seemingly, another one forming and about five peaks.  

Now, both my wrists and my face just plain hurt!

       I looked in the mirror outside the car door thinking, perhaps, the sunshine would give me more clues.  It was 11:19 on the clock of the bank marquee. Eternity past, present, or future, could not have been longer than the last four or five minutes I had just experienced.  Henry was still crying, though not as hard now. Again, I looked in the mirror. I was wearing my hair in a short Afro, so there was no way I would be able to cover--

“This is your fucking handprint in my face and on my wrists,” I hollered at Henry when I realized what these peaks and valleys were, pointing to my face and holding out my wrists for Henry to see his handiwork! My proclamation apparently startled Henry because he finally sat up and looked at me.

“Look at what you have done to me, you fucking bastard!”

Through blood-red eyes, he reluctantly looked at my wrists, then he looked at the side of my face; but, Henry never looked me directly in the face or into my eyes.  He hung his head down, as I tried to move away from him, then he buried his face in my lap at my knees sobbing uncontrollably again.

“Stephanie, oh, no! I'm sorry!  I'm so sorry, Baby! I don't know what got into me! I am so sorry, Stephanie!  Please forgive me,” he begged. “Please, please, forgive me, Stephanie!  

“Get off of me, dammit!” I spew out in anger.

“You know I love you, Stephanie! And I would never do anything to hurt you.” 

“But you hit me, Henry! Why the hell did you hit me? Tell me, Henry, why did you hit me, what did I do to you?” I earnestly pleaded. I never, ever expected to be saying these words to Henry, or anyone else for that matter in my life. 

“I don’t know, Stephanie, I don’t know! Stephanie, I beg you, please, please,” he cried some more. “Please, Stephanie, I don’t know what came over me.” 

“What the hell do you mean ‘you don’t know what came over you’? You fucking hit me, dammit! Something came over you to make you hit me!”

“Please, you've got to believe me; you’ve got to forgive me,” he pleaded. “You know I would never do anything to hurt you intentionally,” he cried and begged more intensely. 

“Move! Take your damn hands off of me and leave me the hell alone!”

I try to push him off me in the small space of the car but he kept holding on to me not letting me go. There were still people passing us by on this ordinary, but busy, Friday morning.

 “Please, Stephanie, please, I love you! Baby, please, please,” he cried sounding like James Brown, “Baby, please, don’t leave me! I have always loved you, even from the moment I first laid eyes on you!”

“Well, you have a fine frigging way of showing it!”

“Stephanie, oh, Baby, please, I love you. I don’t know what else to do or what to say, Stephanie, other than I am so sorry, Baby, please forgive me! I will never, ever, do that again!”

       I don’t respond. I am planning my escape in my hurting head. Do I make a run for it? Do I catch a bus, any of the buses parked in front of Woolworth or the Courthouse? The bus in front of the Courthouse will take me home, but Henry will be able to catch me if I try to cross the street. I don’t want to make a public scene. The buses in front of Woolworth will take me to the other side of town. Where is a pay phone? Who do I call?  Everybody I know is at work or preparing for my evening nuptials. I can’t call Mother. I know I had better not call Daddy unless I want a massacre downtown . . . No! Daddy killing Henry on Court Square is out! I do not want Daddy in prison for the rest of his life for killing Henry . . . and I DON’T want Henry dead either! 

​

       I was about to make a run for it, though Henry was still laying in my lap. He apparently felt me moving under him because he captured me again in an awkward embrace that rendered me unable to move. He was not trying to hurt me then, but he held me tightly in his arms. He gently stroked my arms, my back, my sides, wherever he could reach with hands, hands that now felt more familiar.  Here was the man I loved with all his flaws. Here was the man who less than five minutes earlier, I breathed. Here was the man that when the sun set on this day, I was to pledge myself to, join myself with, and with whom I would become my best self until the Lord closed my eyes for good. I loved Henry Earl Henderson, I did. But he had hit me! 

       “I am begging you, Stephanie, please listen to me.  I love you. I'll never do anything like this again. I promise you Stephni,” he said trying to turn my face toward him. “I don’t know what happened. I would hurt myself before ever hurting you again! I’m sorry, I am so sorry! Oh, Baby,” he said as I turned looking away from him. “I love you so much, Stephanie. I love you--too much! I can't lose you, Steph!”

      With my head leaning back on the headrest, I sat quietly as my warm tears rolled down my cheeks and across the peaks through the valleys of my slapped face forming a pool of tears in my ear. My briny tears were just as disrespectful as Henry’s hand had been in slapping my face. They deposited salt in the wounds planted by my betrothed intensifying the pain of this my wedding day. I expected tears on this day, lots of them; but tears of joy. There was no joy in any of the tears I shed on this sunshiny, blue sky day. I had the sho’ nuff Wedding Day Blues.  

“Please, please don't leave me! Please don’t leave me, Stephanie. Please, I beg you, Stephanie, don’t leave me,” he continued to say as his voice became softer sounding surrendered. “Stephanie, please, please, Stephanie, I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you! Just don’t leave me, please; please, Stephanie, don’t leave me. I don’t know what I would do without you. I’ll be nothing but good to you. Come on, Stephanie, Baby, you have got to give me another chance; please, Baby, don’t leave; don’t leave me, please.”

​

I loved him . . . Still. 

​

       My once rigid, unyielding body acquiesced to his emotional pleadings becoming pliant in his arms. I don’t know why he slapped me. I don’t know if any reason he could have given me would have satisfied the hurt, the anguish, the distress I endured on my wedding day. I picked up the pieces of what had been my heart, my self-respect, my innocence, my womanhood, my love. I dismissed my immediate need for safety and security in my man, in my soon-to-be husband, opting instead for the pass he issued me filled with promises of future happiness beyond these damnable moments. I forgave him . . . I loved him because . . .  Love never gives up, it never loses faith, it is always hopeful, and it endures through every circumstance.  It keeps no record of being wronged.

       Henry raised his head looking me straight in my eyes now, saying so sincerely, “Stephanie, please, let’s pray. Pray with me please, Stephanie. I just can’t lose you, not again, Stephanie,” he said quietly in a near, desperate whisper. “Father, God, forgive me, I know not what I have done to the one I love so much. Help us, Lord, to get through this. Father God, I ask that Stephanie will find it within herself, within her heart to forgive me, and that she will still marry me, Father, even after what I did. I’m so sorry, Lord.”

​

       My memory persisted as my mind went back to when I awakened earlier this morning with Henry on my mind and in my heart. The night before, after the rehearsal dinner, I walked my husband-to-be to his car which he had parked on the street in front of the house.  Our arms were around each other's waist as we strolled slowly to the car. Had it not been for the control we practiced the month before our marriage, the sparks running from our embrace could have set the whole neighborhood afire! At the car, Henry took me into a full embrace and kissed my lips. His kisses were always good with just the right amount of lips covering mine with just enough tongue to jump start every electrolyte in my body!  

But on this night, when he said, ‘I love you so much, too much’ and he kissed me, I thought I would faint!  I melted in his arms like butter on a hot knife. I knew I could feel like this for the rest of my life.

       But, we controlled our passions as we kissed each other again politely on the cheek.  After all, I wasn't so grown that I could stand in front of my parents’ home giving my man, albeit my husband-to-be--tomorrow, the kind of kiss I wanted to give him.  I didn't have a license for that kind of carrying on at Susann and Sweeney, Jr.’s home. No governing body had yet to authorize such a license!

​

       This day had finally come. It was to be the happiest day of my life. It was my birthday, too. I was not “free, white and twenty-one” as the saying was; but I was free-spirited, liberated, and Black (with a capital “B”) and all of nineteen years old!  Today was the day I was leaving Mother and Daddy, and their strict rules, to live in my own little two-bedroom house with its own front and backyard, clothesline, driveway, and hedges to be trimmed. But most of all, I was going to live with the man who loved me and whom I cared for so deeply. I knew what love was; I had found it in Henry Earl Henderson. After a year of an odd, but good friendship, love had blossomed; and now, two years later, almost to the date of our first meeting, we were going to be married.

       As soon as I dressed, I headed out of the door with newspaper and scissors in hand headed for the Brown’s flower garden. The Browns were already up, too.  Mr. and Mrs. Brown had just recently moved back home from “up the country”, Chicago, I believe, to live out their retirement years in Elgin. They were my neighbors, but they were the couple you would want as your grandparents if you had the chance to choose your grandparents. Mrs. Brown was a beautiful milk chocolate color with fluffy, coconut white hair. She had the most beautiful lilies of the valley blooming in her yard that I was going to use for my bridesmaids’ stems and bouquets.  I had to cut them early while the dew was still on them. Mrs. Brown waved to me from her big picture window facing the garden. She was not only a great neighbor, but she was an even greater cook. Since her retirement, she catered wedding receptions and other elegant events in Elgin. I knew she was now preparing for my reception later that night because the smell of food was indeed at war with the fragrance of the flower garden.

      Mr. Brown came outside smiling, heading in my direction.  He was carrying what looked like four pearly white ionic columns but in miniature.

“Morning, little lady, what are you doing up so early today of all days?”

I just smiled returning his greeting.

 “Good morning,” I said because I knew he knew why I was up.

He saw me looking at these things he was toting, so he held them up, so I could get a better look at them.  I still didn't know what they were, though.

“What are those?” I asked, as his white mustache spread so gracefully across his Hershey-brown face.  

“Remember the wedding cake with the fountain you wanted so badly?”

“Yes, Sir, don't remind me; but I'm sure Mrs. Brown will fix it up to my liking without the fountain.”

“Well, I saw how disappointed you were when the other fountain wouldn't fit, so I told Honeybun to go on and make the cake you wanted, and I would make the stands to hold the fountain!”

“Is that what those are?”   I was so excited I grabbed Mr. Brown and the columns giving him a big hug!  

Mr. Brown smiled. He was beaming actually because he was so proud that he had come through for me.  Talking about a “Be-Man”, he was a real “Be-Man”. Be-there in the morning; Be-there in the evening; Be-there whenever you needed him to be there!

“My wedding day is going to be perfect!” I said to Mr. Brown as he headed back inside.

I waved “bye” to the Browns through the picture window then headed home with my bounty of lilies.  Mother didn't go to school on this day, of course, and was up preparing breakfast when she asked if Henry and I had gotten our marriage license yet. 

I almost stabbed myself with the floral wire I was winding around one of my lilies when I naively said, “Oh, shoot, I knew we had forgotten something!” 

 Well, so much for being grown and knowing it all.

“Mother, what are we going to do?  The wedding is at six, and we haven't had our blood tests done, either!”

“Well, if you go downtown to Dr. Baker's office, you can get your blood test done, then go to the courthouse to get your marriage license.  You need to get moving before the better part of the day is gone, though.”

      Mother hugged me, and I hugged her back.  I was getting teary, but I didn't want her to see me crying, so I left the kitchen going to my room to change clothes.

“Have you talked to Henry this morning?” she called out to me.

“I thought it was supposed to be bad luck to talk to the groom on the wedding day?”

“Well, it's really supposed to be if you see him before the wedding; but it's not going to be any kind of luck, good or bad, if you two don't get to the doctor's office before noon because that's when he closes.  And if you don't get the license, then what?”

No sooner had Mother said that, we heard the engine of Henry's car as he turned the corner, then pull into the driveway. Even though it was supposed to be bad luck to see each other before the wedding, I was glad to see Henry this morning because I didn't think I could make it through an entire day without seeing him. When Henry entered the house, he sweetly kissed me on the cheek, so as not to get too aroused before our special night.  

I told Henry about the blood test and the marriage license we needed to still get. He threw his hands up in the air in utter dismay, eyebrows raised with his eyes opened wide. 

“Oh, no,” he exclaimed!

       In the excitement of getting married, Henry had also let blood tests and a marriage license slip his mind, too. So, off we went to the doctor’s office. Luck, I guess, was with us. Dr. Baker was able to see us almost at once to perform our needed blood tests. He was a long, lean man with white hair but a salt and pepper beard who looked like he could be kin to Abraham Lincoln. He looked to be a very serious man when Henry and I first saw him go past our room. But he came back quickly with paperwork in hand humming a lively, Here Comes The Bride! 

“Good Morning! When is the big day?” He asked looking down at what we had written on the testing forms. 

“Tonight,” Henry said raising his eyebrows.

“At 6:00,” I added with a concerned smile.

 He looked at us over his glasses. I know we had to be looking young and nervous to him, so he set us at ease as he talked and joked with us.

 “You know this happens all the time,” Dr. Baker said as he drew blood from Henry’s arm first. 

“What is that, Sir?” Henry asked as he winced from the needle.

“Couples make all these plans and arrangements and forget about the blood tests! And if there is no blood tests, then they have forgotten about the marriage license, too,” he chuckled. “But not to worry; this only takes a few minutes and you will be on you way,” he said as he reached for my arm. “Your turn, young lady!”

“Oh! Good! Thank you,” we both said. 

“Aw, that’s what I’m here for. You are my third couple today!”

Henry smiled at me as he held the cotton ball over his vein pumping his arm back and forth. 

“You are young. What’s in your future?” he asked wanting to know.

“We are both students at Hailey College. I am a music major,” Henry said, “and my wife, to be, is majoring in biology. She plans to go to medical school.”

“I knew I liked you two. Hailey College is a fine school. Some good folks have gone through there.”

       Though he was done with our tests; he sat talking for a while longer as his nurse took our blood sample to the lab for the pre-marriage testing to be done. He asked how we met; how long we had dated; where we were from, and if we were having a big wedding. The nurse came back quickly with our results. The primary thing they were screening for was VD exposure and PKU (Phenylketonuria). Neither of us had any exposure to any venereal diseases, and there was no history of PKU in our families. Besides, that's primarily a disease Europeans carry, and both of us were far removed from any significant European influence in our bloodline, I postulated in my nineteen-year-old mind. They should have been screening for Sickle Cell Anemia (as it was called in the seventies) for Black folks, anyhow.

“Well, everything checks out! You are good to go!”

Dr. Baker shook Henry’s hand and gave me a quick side-hug. He walked us to the front of the office to check out with his receptionist.

“Don’t charge them for this visit; this is my wedding present to them!”

He winked at us and waved ‘Goodbye!’

“Thank you, Dr. Baker!” We smiled as we left his office holding hands.

​

The marriage license bureau was in the Courthouse just down the street from Dr. Baker's office, so we still had plenty of time to get there. I had heard the 11 o'clock Civil Defense whistle blow just before we left the doctor's office, so it had to be only about 11:15, now.   We were still in good time when we parked beside Woolworth which was across the street from the Courthouse. Henry reached across me kissing me tenderly on the lips as he opened the glove compartment of his car. He took out a slightly antique-looking envelope that had “Birth Certificate” written on it. 

“Uh-huh!  I knew I had forgotten something, Henry.  I just need to go back and get it; we can still be done by noon!”

“You forgot what?”

“My birth certificate!” I said smiling and gesturing in the direction of home which was about five minutes away. 

 “I guess I was so excited,” I said smiling a big smile at Henry, "about getting to the doctor, that I laid my birth certificate envelope down on the bar in the den and just forgot to pick it back up on the way out.  Come on, Henry, it'll only take about ten minutes to get there and back.”

“I Can't Believe You Left Your Birth Certificate,” Henry barked at me! 

I had never heard Henry address me in such a harsh manner. When I turned to look at him, he had a menacing look on his face that I also had never before seen. Henry was becoming angry at me, his bride; the woman he loved more than anything, he had said just minutes earlier on our wedding day morn.  But now, Henry was no longer just angry; he was furious, outraged, and quite mad at me. Was this our good luck now going bad?  I soon found out. 

WHOP!