Who was Sylvester Brown Sr.? I wish I knew Sonny better
By Sylvester Brown Jr.
Originally published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch / Sunday, 6/20/2004
Left: My father, Sylvester Brown, Sr., with some of his kids. That's me with the sunglasses on the right
"Evelena, I just hit somebody!"
My
mother moved with the swiftness of a paramedic. She grabbed blankets,
instructed her two oldest boys to fetch their coats and follow her. My older
sister was told to watch the little ones.
It
was winter 1968. I remember fat, fluffy snowflakes floating from the sky as we
ran like athletes toward the car. I was 11. My brother was just a year older. I
can still hear the rapid-fire questions Mama shot at my father as we ran.
"What
happened?" "Was he still breathing when you left?" "Have
you been drinking?"
The
car, still idling, was parked at an odd angle. The headlights magnified the
steady falling snow as it landed on the moaning figure in front of the bumper.
My
mother knelt by the man. He was semiconscious and very old. She looked up with
tears in her eyes. My father looked down with fear in his.
"Oh,
Sylvester…He's white," she whispered.
I
was too young to understand the consequences of a poor, drunken black man
running over a white man in the late 1960s. As police sirens echoed in the
distance, Mama told my brother and I to run back to the house. We didn't see
our father for years after that night. I later learned, he was sent to prison.
Sylvester
Brown Sr. was my father. Everyone, including his children, called him Sonny.
When
I think about Sonny, memories like the wintry night so many years ago come to
mind. He's been dead for nearly 20 years, but I've been thinking about him
lately. I guess it started in January when Joe Corrigan, a member of the
Ethical Society of St. Louis, asked about him.
"You've
written a lot about your mother, but who was Sylvester Brown Sr.?"
Corrigan asked.
I
wish I knew. When I think about Sonny, I think of drama, like the accident. I
think of feelings. I think how sad and angry he made my mother. His battle with
the bottle brought him in and out of our lives. We missed him when he was gone
and rejoiced when he was home.
Sonny
was an alcoholic, that much I knew. As an adult, I've come to understand that
his disease brought grief into our lives. As a child, though, his drinking
didn't bother me. In fact, I liked him better when he drank. He laughed and
hugged us more.
My
father looked like actor/dancer Sammy Davis Jr. He held and lost many jobs. He
was a truck driver, a construction worker and he worked in scrap yards. He
laughed long and hard at Bugs Bunny cartoons. He made intricate toy cars out of
cardboard boxes and string.
I
fondly remember him staggering home some nights and heading straight for the
refrigerator. He'd grab a carton of eggs, an onion, and a bell pepper and make
wild concoctions with whatever meat was available. My mouth still waters
thinking of the eggs and mackerel, eggs and chicken or eggs and hot dogs he
shared with his kids.
But
I can't honestly answer who Sonny was. I never knew the source of his
addiction. Were his parents alcoholics? Did it have something to do with low
self-esteem? He had attended only a few years of grade school and couldn't read
or write.
Who
was Sonny? I know he gambled and was fond of the ladies. I know my mother loved
him dearly. I also know he suffered from seizures.
I
remember the seizures.
My
older brother Daniel, Sonny and I were watching a western on TV one night,
probably 1969. There was a climactic point in the movie. The good guy was
shooting it out with bad guys. My brother and I laughed at the funny gagging
sound Sonny made. We stopped when his eyes rolled upward. We stood frozen as
his arms and legs went rigid, as he shook violently and blood trickled down his
cheek.
My
mother rushed into the room, wrapped her arms around him, shoved a spoon in his
mouth and talked him through the episode. There were many, many more.
Mama
later explained that drinking brought on the seizures. They increased as he got
older. After my parents' divorce, when I was in my teens, Sonny had a
debilitating seizure. He lay in the snow for hours before an ambulance was
called. He never regained his full mental or physical capacities. He spent the
last years of his life in a convalescent home.
I
received a call from the facility one day in 1987. My father had suffered a
stroke. He was dead, the voice informed me. I was asked to come sign the death
certificate. Sonny lay on a bed, wrapped in a white sheet when I arrived.
It
had been years since we talked. I guess I harbored the grudge of a son raised
without a father. I touched his soft gray and black speckled hair. The texture
was the same as my mother's and mine today. I said goodbye.
Who
was Sylvester Brown Sr.? I wish I knew. Sure, when I think of him, I think of
his alcoholism, wasted talent and missed conversations. I think of the lessons
he taught me without meaning to. Like the fact that I've never been much of a
drinker or that I make a point to hug my 18-year-old son often.
When
I think of my father, I think of cardboard cars tied up with string, Bugs Bunny,
laughter, old westerns and the smell of eggs, mackerel and green peppers.
That
was Sylvester Brown Sr. My father. The man everyone called Sonny.
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