Embracing Memories Times Picayune 02-05-1998 "Life After Death" 5 Of 6 Part Series ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ Under an overcast sky on a still and sticky summer afternoon, Beverly Williams made her way down the crunchy gravel road that runs through Mount Olivet Cemetery in Gentilly. She stopped at the mausoleum, second arch from the end, walked in and pointed at a vault near the top of the wall. It bears a simple inscription: Elton "Bookie" Williams December 4, 1971 November 13, 1994 A hummingbird, delicate and tiny and frantic in flight, darted from one corner of the room to another, then buzzed around the skylight, seemingly searching for an escape. The moment was fraught with metaphor, but Williams would have none of it. She hardly needed a symbol to drive the point home. "I can't accept it," she said in her rich, husky voice. "I can't accept that my child would be taken from me like that. Bookie stays on my mind. Stays on my mind twenty-four seven. Um hmm. "This is my life now," she said, gesturing at the pink-tinged marble slab. "It helps me to come here. Sometimes I'll stay an hour, two hours. I do my little talking to him. "Even if I just come out here and cry, I feel better. I can cry at home, sure, but I feel better when I come out here and cry." Elton Williams was killed on a Sunday afternoon in the St. Bernard housing complex, where he had gone to visit a friend and stop by a party. His assailants were a 14-year-old carrying two guns and a 13-year-old carrying one. He was, apparently, in the wrong place at the wrong time. The bullets that killed him went through his arm and his chest. And they tore a hole in his mother's heart. "I carried him for nine months," she said. "He is a part of me. And when I buried him, I went with him. I died with him, but I'm not dead. Um hmm." Williams has visited her son's grave nearly every day for three years. She comes sometimes in the morning, sometimes after church, sometimes in the middle of the night when he haunts her thoughts and she can't sleep. She keeps flowers in the vase that hangs on his vault. She brings wreaths and flags for the holidays. She brings balloons for his birthday. And sometimes she brings his daughter, Macquala McCormick, now 5. "Once in a while," Williams says, "I'll pick her up at school and she'll say, 'Mawmaw, let's go see my daddy.' "So we'll go to the mausoleum - she can tell you right where it is - and she'll look up and she'll say, 'Daddy, I've been to school today, I was good and I did all my lessons.' That's the way she talks at the mausoleum. Um hmm. "She remembers him well. Oh honey, yes, she remembers her daddy very well." If she's lucky, Macquala will hold on to her memories of her father. But memories grow brittle over time, photographs fade and stories turn hollow. And none could ever take the place anyway of a father's presence in the here and now, of a life shared. None of them could ever impart the sense of grounding and the feeling of connection he once provided. For Macquala, as for all fatherless children, the world must be a more precarious place. *** Daddy goes to heaven *** The day Williams announced he was about to become a father, he was 20 and giddy with excitement. He drove around town, stopping to visit one friend after another, handing out bubble-gum cigars that said, "Baby Under Construction." His enthusiasm never paled. For the two years they had together, the relationship between father and daughter was warm and close. "I loved my daddy," says Macquala, a petite child with a singsong voice and jet- black eyes that are frequently locked in a hard stare. "He read me a book. He danced with me. He made me laugh. Somebody killed him with a gun." Macquala's mother, Tracy McCormick, is savvy and subdued at 23, with close- cropped blond hair and a trendy sense of style. She has an air of repose about her, a slightly sullen manner and a touch of melancholy. She treasures the time Macquala had with her father. "He provided for his daughter," she says. "He provided everything. I never had to buy Pampers for her. I think I bought her maybe two pairs of tennis while he was alive and maybe a couple of outfits. Everything else he either gave me money for or he went to the store himself. "He's still supporting her. She gets Social Security for him. I have never had to take care of her myself." Williams was also generous with his time. "I had no complaints about him as a father," she says. "All I ever wanted was for him to spend time with her, and he did. Time is more important than anything. I feel that children need to know who their parents are." Although they never lived together - Williams lived with his family and McCormick lived with hers - he visited faithfully, at least once a week and sometimes daily. If his family's car was out of commission, he'd pedal his bike across the Industrial Canal to see her. A couple of times, he walked. He took Macquala to get snowballs, he took her to Macy's, he took her to the park, to the doctor, to family gatherings and out to eat. He changed her diapers, he dressed her, he even tried to braid her hair. And frequently he took her home to his mother's, where his family vied for the baby's attention. Reginald Williams, a close friend, sees him as a role model for the kind of father he tries to be. "They were picture-perfect together," he says. "I can say that 60 percent of men today, you can't find them with their children. But Bookie and Macquala, they did all sorts of stuff together. He didn't just pick her up, buy her Pampers and drop her off. "Most men today feel if they buy stuff for their children, that's enough. But that's not enough and Bookie knew that." Shortly after her father died, Macquala backtracked a bit. She began wetting her pants and sucking her bottle again. She has never stopped asking questions about him. "Who are those boys? Why did they do that to my daddy?" she asks her grandmother. She likes to hang out in her father's bedroom and be among his things when she visits her grandmother. Sometimes she likes to lie in his bed. "I think she understands what it means that her father is gone," McCormick says. "She understands what he meant to her. When she sees her cousins with their daddy, she'll mention her own daddy; she'll say he's in heaven. "When Elton died, I felt sorrier for Macquala than for myself. She'll never be able to spend time with him, go places with him. Nobody could ever take his place for her." Even for those closest to Macquala, it's hard to know how completely she understands her father's death. "I could never know the meaning it will have for her," McCormick says. Beverly Williams, who has remained close to Macquala and her mother, says her grandchild is a comfort to her, a connection to her dead son that she cherishes. "Sometimes that child walks in a room and I say lord, here comes Bookie," Williams says. "I can just see him in her. She looks just like him as a baby. "As long as Macquala lives, Bookie will never die." *** All the right moves *** When he was killed, at 22, Williams was holding down two jobs. During the day, he worked for the Postal Service as a letter carrier, and at night he worked for A&P as a warehouseman. In between, he found plenty of time for fun. A handsome young man with a sturdy build, a fade haircut and two gold teeth, Williams was animated and high-spirited. He had a ready smile, a cheerful manner and a sense of humor that made him good company. "He was a comedian," McCormick says. "He made everybody laugh. And everywhere we went, people knew him." One of his passions was dancing, in a style that was slick and smooth and idiosyncratic. He even had a signature dance of his own creation, a funny little shuffle he called The Bookie, which was much requested when he was out and about. And he was out and about a lot, a well-known presence at some of the clubs around town and a fixture at second-lines. "Ooh, he could dance!" his mother says. "It was in his blood. He was elegant. He was funky. He just had it." Williams dressed up a little more than others his age, in slacks and shirts that he sometimes had made from fabric he selected. And for every ensemble he put together, he had a pair of shoes - more than 100, his mother estimates. "Bookie was into it, baby," she says. "He had it going on. He HAD it going on. "I would fuss at him, tell him to save some of his money. He always said he would, but every time he came in, he came in with a bag. "But then I would figure, well, he's not out there selling drugs, he's working two jobs, I really can't complain." Beyond the typical mother-and-child bond, Williams and her son were uncommonly close. He cared for her when she was sick. He carted her around town. He showered her with gifts and affection. "We were like mama and son, sister and brother, husband and wife," she says. His friends admired their relationship. "Those two together," says Terrance Harrison, "I would describe it as a brick wall that could never be torn down." A natural psychologist, Elton Williams was talented at reading people. He had friendships of long standing that were intimate and trusting. Every Sunday evening he went bowling with his pals. Frequently they got together for basketball or football. At Mardi Gras and Halloween, they would costume and go out to be seen. Expansive and charitable, he did favors that haven't been forgotten. His car mechanic, for instance, reports that several times when he was hard up, Williams treated him to a carful of groceries from Schwegmann's. And he was comfortable playing by the rules. Williams is proud to say her son never had a police record; McCormick is proud to say he never seemed to be tempted by drugs or crime or fast money. A graduate of Nicholls High School, Williams was a decent if not stellar student. His teachers remember him as a straight-ahead guy, courteous and likable. They also remember their disbelief when they heard about his murder. "I hated to hear about it," says Alma Williams, who taught him biology. "He was a good example for some of the other children. I never knew him to keep bad company." For his friends, Williams' death was a serious blow. "I miss him. I really do," Harrison says. "I think about him every day. I put him in my prayers every night. Every time I see a mail truck, I get a chill. I don't go to second-lines like I used to. And bowling - I haven't gone bowling in a while either. Just doesn't seem right without him. "He was just like the brother I never had. The next day after his funeral, I went and got his name tattooed on my right arm: 'Rest In Peace, Bookie,' it says." *** A rocky relationship *** Tracy McCormick met Elton Williams when she was 14 and he had an eye on her sister. Their romance began when she was 17. By 18, she was pregnant. "It wasn't planned," she says. "It wasn't that I wanted it to happen. I just didn't do anything to prevent it. We both had the same feelings: If it happens, it happens; if it doesn't, it doesn't." For much of the three years they were together, things were rocky. They had gone their separate ways - temporarily, McCormick believes - by the time Williams was killed. "He liked to go out too much: parties, clubs, stuff," she says. "I liked to stay home. It would upset me when we would go out and too many females had conversations with him. I just didn't want to see it. If I wasn't there, if I didn't find out about it, I was OK." But as much as McCormick tried to squelch her jealousy, she couldn't. A canny observer, she picked up cues that Williams had other women in his life, and the thought of it prickled her constantly. Marriage was an issue between them, too. Williams' mother warned him that she would not take kindly to an out-of-wedlock grandchild, but when Macquala was born, her feelings transformed immediately. For McCormick, marriage was the commitment she was looking for. "I loved him. I wanted us to be together. I wanted to be a family," she says. "But he was stubborn. He said he was too young to get married. He said we'd get married when he turned 30, if we were still together. I kept pressuring him and he changed it to 25." Sometimes when things were rough between them, McCormick refused Williams access to his daughter. He took it hard, Reginald Williams says. "One day we went to pick Macquala up, me and Bookie, to take her to a kids' party at my cousin's," he remembers, "and she came to the door and she told him he wasn't taking Macquala anywhere. She brought Macquala out so she could see him, and that was it. After a certain amount of time asking her, begging her, we just left. He was mad, you know? He didn't even go to the party. "We talked about that a lot, on a lot of different days. He felt it was unfair. He would always say, 'Man, I hope nobody else is going through this with their children. I've always got to beg.' "It wasn't like he was a deadbeat dad. He felt he should be able to see her. Not because he did stuff for her, but simply because he was her daddy." But McCormick is uncomfortable with the notion of her children going off with anyone if she's not along. "You have to earn the right to take MY daughter," she says. At the height of her troubles with Williams, tortured by jealousy and prone to verbal threats, McCormick made a halfhearted attempt at suicide. "He said he didn't want to be by me anymore," she says. "He said it was over. So I said to myself, OK, I want to see if it's over: I'm going to take these pills." McCormick says now it was mostly a ploy. And she says it worked. "It brought us closer together," she says. "We became really close. It did exactly what I wanted it to. I needed attention and I got the attention I needed." *** Life goes on *** McCormick keeps a shrine of sorts to Williams in her home, a sunless apartment on Chef Menteur Highway reminiscent of a onetime motel. It includes a gold-and-black silk flower arrangement, studio portraits of him with Macquala and the blue dove from his casket. Although she was rocked by his death - she didn't eat for a week, she says - she has gotten on with her life. About a year ago, she gave birth to her second baby, Chadziminne. While she was still in the hospital, the baby's father came to visit with his parents. His mother took one look at Chadziminne and remarked how much she looked like his other child. It was the first McCormick knew that he had fathered another baby just a few months earlier. Shortly afterward, her relationship with the father went sour. Once again, McCormick invoked her power to withhold, refusing to let the baby out of the house without her, although she encouraged the father to visit. Meanwhile, an ex-boyfriend of McCormick's has come back into her life, offering to support her and her two children. "He knows Chadziminne isn't his, but he's telling me he could buy this and that for her, - for both my girls," McCormick says. She isn't inclined to accept his offer. A graduate of Warren Easton High School, McCormick did clerical work for her mother's business until recently. She is considering training to be a hairdresser or a nurse. Meanwhile, she spends her days mothering. She takes great pleasure in her daughters, smiling when they smile, tracking their eye movements. And she has patience with them, showing tolerance for their moods and antics, smiling quietly when Macquala squeals at the sight of an oncoming streetcar. In Miss Hutchinson's kindergarten class at Stewart Bradley School, Macquala is shy and quiet. Pretty in her plaid uniform, lacy socks and fringed shoes, she sits passively, only occasionally engaged by the classroom routine. She says she likes school, especially the toys. Although her children provide her with amusement and pleasure and an anchor, McCormick, in her 23 years, has grown used to trouble and violence. "Most of the males my age have been to jail before," she says. "Everybody is selling drugs." And she has grown used to death, too. There was her friend Teedy, who was killed in 1992. There was Meatball, shot to death by the police in 1993. "It's always the good ones that get killed," she says sadly. "Elton was good. The good ones die." *** Bookie remembered *** It is Nov. 13, 1997, the third anniversary of Williams' death. His vault at Mount Olivet Cemetery is festooned. There is a red carnation with a balloon attached, a single coral snapdragon, and potted mums in white, yellow, purple and brown. His mother has spent the day by his side. There have been visits from several of his friends. On the fall Sunday that Williams was killed, he had gone to a second-line with his friends in the afternoon. That evening they were planning to go bowling. In between, Williams went to visit a woman he was dating in the St. Bernard complex. Across the courtyard there was a block party going on, with dancing and a DJ. Williams could never resist a party. "When they have music like that in the projects, there's always a lot of people hanging out," says Reginald Williams. "Guys looking at girls, girls looking at guys. It's like a social gathering." As Williams and a coworker from A&P were walking toward the party, they were approached by the two teen-age gunmen. There were words between them and then there were shots. A witness said that after Williams was hit by the first bullet, one of the teens stood over him and fired several more times. Fatally wounded, Williams managed to run about a block, searching for help. Finally he collapsed. The time of his death was fixed at 4:59 p.m. The .38- caliber automatic pistol he often carried was still stuck in the back of his pants. "This generation, it's like they're lost," says his mother. "It's like a lost generation. Everybody's getting killed. "If they would just stop and think what they're doing. Think before you act. Think before you pull that trigger. Think before you kill somebody's child. You have a mother, too. "I can't make any sense of all this violence. No sense at all." There was a standing-room-only crowd at Williams' funeral. Macquala, wearing a blue velour dress and a T-shirt with her father's picture, walked up to the casket and put her Mickey Mouse doll inside. "I gave it to my daddy," she says. "Then I kissed him." After the service, the Rebirth Brass Band led a second-line through the 6th Ward, stopping at places where other young men have been killed. Then they snaked their way back to Williams' home on Elysian Fields Avenue and danced until midnight, several hundred strong, spilling out onto the sidewalk and eventually the neutral ground. Toward the end, the crowd began chanting: "Bookie! Bookie! Bookie! Bookie!"