Wednesday, October 12, 2022

Things That Go Bump In The Night - And The Day

I don't like horror books, horror movies, horror anything. I'm one of those people who don't need horror fiction because we know there are actual things to fear, and some of those are all too human.

Some years ago, January, February, I'm not sure which, I just remember the blizzard. I was slogging home and, while it was daytime, it might as well have been night because I could see practically nothing.  Barely made out my hand in front of my face.  The snow that had been a bare trickle when I left home had accumulated and was now up to my knees and still falling. The temperature was so cold no coat, hat or gloves could have kept it out.  The occasional car inched its way down the road beside me. Fortunately, I knew the route well, and I was only a few blocks from home, but I was in pain.

Then, one of those cars slowed from a crawl to a complete stop beside me. The window rolled down, and the white driver behind the wheel offered me a ride. Now, I know what happens to women who let themselves be picked up by strange men. I've seen and read true crime stories, and I can't tell you how many times I have warned my daughter against hitchhiking.   But I wasn't hitchhiking, I was miserable and I climbed inside that car.  I didn't care about stranger danger, or serial killers, if this man ends up slicing and dicing me and they don't find my body until summer, it beats freezing.

Obviously, he did not leave my body in a ditch. He was just a nice guy who took me safely to my door. But there was no real way to tell.  Fast forward to summer, and I am walking down that same street, happy, under the sun, with that old life is good feeling. Another car comes by and slows, and another white driver leans out the window. This one yells,  calling me a black - expletive before laughing and driving off. I know, this is mild, but it shows my dilemma. I live among monsters disguised as human beings, and I have no way to tell the difference between them and real human beings.

The 2016 K-horror zombie film, Train to Busan, is a classic for a reason. (Why is it no surprise that my favorite horror film was not made in Hollywood?) The Korean film industry was willing to show us a few truths about human nature and the reality of evil. With all the horrific looking zombies swarming the last survivors, the real villain turns out to be  an ordinary looking businessman who is psychopathic enough to believe his survival is more important than anything or anyone else. It show us how one human monster with a loud voice can feed on fear turn otherwise rational people into villains too. 

Over the years, the news has shown ordinary looking people, some looking like businessmen or even wearing badges, acting like brutal monsters.  That is something many black men and women know, both from first-hand experience, and from the experience of others on our family trees. We don't need to be fascinated by things that go bump in the night.  Some of us meet monsters inside human skin every day. That makes the world today its own special kind of horror reality. It's one reason why I take my dose of horror in the form of true crime stories. At least the monsters on those pages have been caught, and punished.

My work in progress begins with the true story of a seven year old hiding in the darkness under his bed, praying that his baby sister will not wake up and cry out, alerting the men outside that the place is not empty.  They have come to kill his father for the sin of defending himself against the unprovoked attack of a white co-worker. The kid lived into his sixties, but never forgot that night.


Unlawful Orders (available October 18 in hardcover, ebook and audio book from Scholastic) begins with a black doctor also hiding in the dark so  the mob outside torturing and killing another black man will not decide to enter his office and grab him too.  

"Huddled behind the locked doors of his nearby medical office, Dr. Aaron Nixon could only listen in horror as Johnson cried while being tortured. Meanwhile, white spectators pulled out chairs and sat on the balconies of surrounding buildings to watch their victim being led across the courtyard to a large oak tree and lynched. The newspapers deemed the crowd 'orderly.'"  


Seymour Tribune Article on Unlawful Orders

Unlawful Orders, the true story of black physician and activist James Buchanan Williams and the life he endured from his childhood in a small town in New Mexico, to earning the title of chief of surgery at a major Chicago hospital, is filled with stories like that, including the Freeman Field mutiny in Seymour Indiana. These horrific events are 100% truth even though they rarely appear in history books. 

3 comments:

Judith Ashley said...

Barbara, I'm glad you were safe...guardian angels abound. And I would surmise that you also have a fairly good internal warning system about who/what is safe or safer than other options. My internal warning system has saved me boundless times and I've ignored it at my own peril...or before I figured out the message.

Deb N said...

You are so right about all the villains in human form. Exactly why I don't watch or read horror. I worked in a rape crisis center. At the same time, I worked on the front lines in a store. For every male who walked up to my counter, all I could think is what evil are they hiding from the world. It took me a long time after leaving the rape crisis center, to look at anyone as normal again. I hated thinking that about another person, despite the fact they were being perfectly polite and congenial. Long story short, it is so sad that there seem to be more and more evil people in this world. I'm glad you made it home safely that night.

Sarah Raplee said...

The true stories in Unlawful Orders deserve to be told, Barbara. As do your own stories of life as a black woman in Chicago. In books, we walk another's path and learn what life is like from their perspective. That helps to create common ground, which leads to respect and understanding.

Can't wait to read about Dr. Williams' extraordinary life!