The Emancipation of Robert Sadler (22 page)

Luke Small, you dog!

I thought for sure Small would arrive any time, so I stayed in their home sitting in the bathtub scrubbing myself and eating their food for a whole week, but he didn't show up. When I heard they were hiring in Dayton, I said good-bye to Small's family and hopped a freight. I got a job there as a sandwich man in a country club. I kept in touch with Small's mother, who was a sweet and kind lady, and month after month rolled by without any word from her son. Finally, after six months had gone by, Small arrived home. I never did get a chance to see him. I wrote him to keep the stuff in my box.

The job at the country club lasted about seven months. I would have stayed longer if it hadn't been so lonely for me. I had a room at the club and had to spend most of my time there with hardly anyone to talk to. The most exciting thing that happened in those months was when the Ringling Bros. Circus came to town. I walked into Dayton every night to see it. I loved the circus so much that I tried to get a job with them. There were no openings, but that didn't discourage me. I'd wait. The days went by and still no openings. Finally it was time for the circus to move on to Detroit, and I hadn't gotten a job with them yet. I was so enamored of Ringling Bros., I left the country club and followed them to Detroit. I hoboed on the same train.

There was another hobo on the train with me, a white man from New York who told me he was a barber. He had all of his tools in a bag alongside him. I was very impressed and would probably have asked him for a haircut once we got to Detroit if three robbers hadn't jumped into the car with us. They stole everything from us they could. They took all his barber's tools, and though I didn't have much money, they took what I had. So I arrived in Detroit without a change of clothes, a penny to my name, or a haircut.

It was hot and the busy, noisy, crowded streets of Detroit were strange and frightening to me. This was up north now, and black people walked on the same side of the street with white people. They weren't in love with each other, but they walked next to each other, sat next to each other, and talked with each other. There were black and white bums in the park, too. They ate together, panhandled together, robbed together, and slept in the same park together under their respective newspaper coverings.

I arrived in Detroit in August of 1934, the year Hitler became führer of Germany. The Depression had hit America, and jobs and money were hard to come by. Ringling Bros. didn't need any more men, and so I had no choice but to sleep in the park and panhandle. I slept and hung around downtown in Grand Circus Park, a round little park with fountains, several statues, flower beds, and ten streets fanning out from it. There were so many people who stayed in that park that we called it the Grand Circus Hotel. Whole families slept on the benches and on the grass. It wasn't a safe place by any means. Night after night I heard screams for help. A person got used to it.

I learned how to beware and watch out for danger. I had to be careful which alley I entered because a person could get beat up and killed for as little as twenty-five cents or a pair of shoes.

Living in this hopelessness and seeing nothing but hunger and desperate people everywhere, the worst happened and I started drinking. At first it was just because there was nothing else to do. It wasn't many weeks before I was stealing to pay for my wine, just like the others. I stayed drunk much of the time and some nights I landed in the jail on Gratiot Street.

I am thankful that I never mugged anybody—and nobody ever mugged me. Those days in the city of Detroit were some of the loneliest of my life. I would walk the streets of downtown along Randolph to Cadillac Square, and I'd stand and stare at the City Hall Building with its tower reaching for the sky. I'd sit and look at the massive, looming Penobscot Building and the J. L. Hudson Building. I'd walk south of Michigan Avenue to the heart of the business center and I'd panhandle. I walked north of Michigan Avenue on either side of Woodward Avenue and panhandled where the shopper traffic was. I was falling fast and far from the Lord and everything sweet and lovely.

Nearly every day I went to one of the missions for a free bowl of soup. I had to sit through the meetings before I could get the soup, and I sat there with my head lowered, ashamed of myself and ashamed to look up. The white men and women in the missions were kind, and they seemed to genuinely care about the men who came there. When October and the cold weather began, I slept in the mission.

It seemed like there were hundreds of us panhandling and looking for a handout. The streets were lined with bums and derelicts. I looked and acted no different than the rest of them. At night in the mission meetings, I struggled not to cry, but the tears would slide down my unshaven, dirty cheeks as shame and self-disgust washed over me.

When I thought it couldn't get worse, it got worse. A couple of men had an apartment where they ran some gambling and other illegal things. But when they asked if I wanted to live there in exchange for keeping the place clean and acting as a bouncer, I agreed gladly. I was so eager to get off the streets, I didn't care where I went or what the job was.

It was like moving into the first floor of hell. The parties went on continually all day and all night. I saw things there that I never dreamed people could do—orgies, drunks, dope peddling, prostitution, and all forms of perversion went on in that place. Many nights I never got to bed because someone would be in my bed—often two men or two women.

Those days and nights have blurred together in my mind. The men who rented the apartment bought me new clothes, and I had a fancy cigarette case and lighter, a big, shiny ring on my finger, and polished shoes, and I grew a mustache. At the age of twenty-three, I was caught in a terrible trap, but I was fed, clothed, and too scared and dumb to get out.

One day when I was running an errand for my bosses, I stopped at a bar and ballroom nearby and discovered they needed a janitor. I begged the manager for the job and, surprisingly, got it. That night I sneaked out of the apartment and moved into a room in the house of a widow lady and her young, pretty niece, a college student. One look at her and I fell hard. Turned out she fell for me, too.

I was glad to be out of the apartment and away from the gambling and the parties, but my life didn't change much. Every cent I made went for liquor and foolishness. I stopped paying rent because the landlady had hopes I'd marry her niece, and she treated me like I was already her son.

I wrote a letter to Margie and begged her to come to Detroit. I hoped that if Margie came to Detroit, we could get a place together and I'd get my life straightened out. I told her that wages were better and how good things were up north.

In 1935 I managed to get a job on the WPA. I had to stand in line from midnight until 9:00 the next morning to get in. That's how it was. When I got to the front of the line they handed me a pick and shovel.

Lord, I didn't want to work with a pick and shovel! I had seen enough pick and shovel on the plantation. I could hear Thrasher's whip whistling through the air as we dug a ground so cold and hard that our hands bled. I went to work though—by day with a pick and shovel, and in the early morning hours cleaning at the bar and ballroom.

One day the foreman at WPA asked if any of us men were interested in learning cement finishing. I jumped at the chance to get rid of the pick and shovel. Soon I was working as a cement finisher, putting curbs in streets and driveways and earning ten dollars a day. I wrote to Margie again, begging her to come to Detroit.

Margie finally answered me and said she couldn't come and leave Dad, who was down sick. But she said Janey was making plans to come to Detroit.

Janey arrived all smiles and done up pretty, toting a lot of boxes and grips. She rented herself a house, which she later bought. She moved me into it with her, and then she moved some man in to pay her bills. Not only did she take this man for every dime he had, she used him to start a little business of her own. Her house became a house of prostitution and gambling. Again I was right in the middle of it all. I forgot all about the widow lady's pretty niece and started working on a gambling habit. It became a passion, and as Janey's brother I had my pick of the girls.

Janey was very pretty and had a way with men. She could win any man she set out to get, and once she won him, she was boss. She gave the orders, and he would hand over the paychecks to her.

I wanted to ask Janey what happened to her relationship to Jesus. I wanted to say, “You supposed to be a Christian, how come you runnin a bad house?” But how could I jump on her with accusations when I was just as guilty as she? It was the blind leading the blind—blind Janey leading blind me.

The months went by. I forgot all about Jesus. I was Janey's right-hand man. I hustled business for her, sold her liquor, ran a gambling table, roughed up anyone who wouldn't pay up, and kept a close eye over the whole operation. We pulled in more money than either one of us had ever imagined. It wasn't long before Janey bought a newer and bigger house. Her prices went up and so did the class of girls she had working for her. They were college girls, and they wore fur coats. They were white-skinned and black-skinned, although most of our customers were white. White men rarely asked for white girls.

I fell in love with one of the girls. I had dropped the widow's niece when I moved in with Janey, and Monica came into my life.

“Let's get married,” Monica would plead.

“Girl, you crazy.”

We would fight and she'd accuse me of not loving her. We raged and ranted and broke things, and many times someone else would have to come and break up our fights. Janey was afraid we'd bring the police down on us.

One Sunday night when I was dealing cards at one of the tables, Monica told me she had a headache and went upstairs to lie down. Later that night she still wasn't feeling any better, and I thought she was just faking it to get me to give her attention. She was that way. A couple of hours later one of the girls came down and told me I should take Monica to the hospital because she was acting peculiar. I was annoyed, said I wasn't going to no hospital. “Let her take herself,” which she did.

On Monday I broke down and went to see her. She said she felt much better and her stomachache and headache were almost gone. She was taking antinausea pills and pain killers and she looked pale. Her eyes didn't look right. I figured a good rest was what she needed. “Robert, let's not fight no more,” she said.

“No more fighting,” I agreed. “No more.” When I went back to see her later, she was dead. She had suffered a brain hemorrhage; an artery had burst in her brain causing bleeding. By the time they got to her she was gone.

I will never forget standing in that hospital room holding a bunch of flowers in my hand and staring at that empty bed. The sheets were pulled off, and the grey and white stripes of the mattress stared back at me where just yesterday a young, beautiful girl had lain waiting for her health to return.

Something broke in me as I stood there staring at that empty bed. It was as though my life spilled out of me onto the hospital floor. I saw the trap I was in, the hopelessness, and the tragedy of it. Monica was gone. She'd never have another chance for a better life. I stood there trembling, not knowing which way to turn. Then in the silence there came a voice. It was a powerful voice, distant and yet near.

“Robert,” the soft, gentle voice called, “will you not come to me now before it is too late?”

It was a sound as though all the oceans and seas of the world were locked inside it, and all hope and promise were sealed in those words.

I got down to my knees right there in the hospital room and begged the Lord to forgive me and take me back. After weeping and praying for a while I laid the flowers on the empty bed and left.

I didn't go back to Janey's that night. I walked the streets crying, feeling bad for Monica, and begging God to have mercy on me.

When I finally returned to Janey's I locked myself in my room, refusing to eat or drink. Janey knew I was crying over Monica so she left me alone. I wanted Jesus to take me back, and I was afraid I had gotten too far away to get back to Him. It was terrible. I worried whether Monica was in heaven or hell. Where was I headed?

The following Sunday I found a church nearby. I went up to the altar and the preacher asked me what I wanted. “I want you to pray for me,” I said with tears streaming down my face. He pointed to a side door and instructed me to go through it, and the elders would get me ready to be baptized.

“I don't want to be baptized, I want to be prayed for,” I said. The preacher sent me into the side room anyway, and there I was met by three stern-faced elders who handed me a robe to put on in order to get baptized.

“I am not going in that water a dry devil and come out a wet one!” I insisted, but they wouldn't hear of it. They wanted me to join the church. “I don't want to join your church; I want somebody to pray for me! I'm a sinner and a backslider, and I want to get right with God!” They didn't seem to know what I was talking about, and so I left there, frustrated and defeated.

I went back to Janey's, but I couldn't sleep. I kept seeing Monica's pale face and hearing her ask if we could quit fighting. The following Sunday I found a little storefront church with its door open so I walked in and sat down on a folding chair in the back. A young man was standing up near the altar praying, but there was nobody else there. He didn't know I had come in.

I sat quietly for a few moments, but then the young man's praying began to fill up the room. He was facing the front wall so he couldn't see me. He had his arms up in the air. As he prayed, I suddenly began to shake. I fell right off the chair and lay prostrate on the floor. When I looked up, there were about a half-dozen people praying over me. The young man had his hand on my forehead, and he was praying and weeping over me.

They helped me back onto the chair, and I tried to tell them what had happened and why I was there. “I know why you're here,” the young man said. “You're here because you've strayed a long way from the Lord, but now you want to come back to Him.” I looked at him, amazed. “How did you know?”

He smiled at me. “The Holy Spirit told me you were coming, so I got here early to pray for you.”