NYU Black Renaissance Noire Spring/Summer 2014 | Page 10

Now, all of this was true. No
exaggerations. And later I would
discover that many people my parents’
age from Texas and Louisiana shared a
similar plight. Some by necessity, like
Father. Others as an excessive summer
camp hosted by family members who
still practiced the ancient art of cotton
farming. Something about saying that
you picked cotton carried a sense
of history, strength, and perseverance.
And these people from that generation
downright bragged about that shit.
I had to pick cotton. I had to pick
cotton every summer. I had to pick
cotton every summer or my uncle
wouldna’ gave us nuthin’ to eat.
Since I associated picking cotton with
slavery, I’d ask, “Did they whip you
real hard?”
“What?” Father would ask.
“The white guy on the horse with the
whip. Did he hit you real hard?” I’d
inquire innocently, lamenting poor
Kunta Kinte trying to escape a color
twenty-inch Zenith plantation with
foil paper on the antennas. Mother
made me watch it, but Father wasn’t
interested in reliving the past. I mean
he really had a problem with Roots,
which was really a show for white folks
anyway. Why we gotta keep reminding
ourselves about that shit? he’d say in
his nonpolitical way. But keep in mind,
Mother was the one who bragged
about picking cotton, so a tv show that
highlighted the labor was right up her
child-rearing alley.

8

“If you was lazy out there, my uncle
would get that belt,” both of them
would say. Always an uncle who whips
your ass extra special.

I continued with the questions about
the crops, and Father was more than
happy to identify them. In some ways,
it was a reminder of Basile and the toils
of being a sharecropper, but what I
didn’t know was that he was an expert
at things that grew from the ground.

We waited in a line of trucks pulling
horse trailers. Father scanned the large
crowd. Some recognized his truck and
would hoop and holler. Father casually
nodded at his fans, hiding his glee.
It took so long to become somebody.
But he earned it—the good and the bad.

He grinned and hummed Charley
Pride in between sips of beer, puffs of
tobacco, and my questions. But as we
got closer to Angleton his mood began
to shift and he quieted. It would soon
be time for him to perform and he had
to get in the zone.

“John Frenchy!”

We turned off of fm 521 onto a gravel
road that led into a desolate rough.
Trucks and cars lined the sides of the
road leading to an aluminum gate
where an elderly black man in cowboy
attire sold tickets for entry. Six dollars
for adults. Three dollars for kids. Small,
rectangular tickets were exchanged and
we’d put those tickets in our hatbands.
The rodeo arenas all looked the same,
some larger or smaller than others. But
always the same design, very functional
and only the necessities.
A dirt road would lead to a large,
usually 100 yards, clearing in the
middle of nowhere with a small
arena built of rotting wood. Wooden
bleachers sided the arena. Rotting
wood, of course, with chutes and a
wooden tower, where the announcer
rambled from a scratchy pa system.
Outside the arena, wooden, yes, rotting,
outhouses were placed. And a shack
with a huge bbq pit in the rear served
food and refreshments, and almost
always hosted a jukebox and pool table.
This was the black rodeo circuit in Texas
during the early 1980s. No sponsors.
No telecast. Just hard-living rural
black folks, mostly, who wagered their
entrance fees on their ability to lasso
or ride a large animal. Dangerous?
Hell yes. Both the event and the people.

That’s what they called him after he
returned to the South following the
incident in Los Angeles, but he would
say that he preferred the pseudonym
rather than his given name because
“them cowboy niggas is a rough bunch.
They don’t need to know nothing about
me.” But they did. They knew where
he lived, where he kept his horses,
where he worked, all the info. But then
again, they admired him because he
was deadly accurate with the lasso, the
bullwhip, knives, pistols, arrows, spit,
and every other thing he learned from
those years in Basile, Louisiana, and
from film sets in Agua Dulce Canyon,
California. A regular Wild Bill Hickok
with the charm and grace of a screen
actor. He was smooth, a fact that
didn’t go unnoticed by the women in
attendance, married or unmarried.
But they also knew that he was tough
and would fight at the drop of a dime.
Nobody fucked with John Frenchy.
Nobody.
Our horses snorted as they shuffled
backward out of the trailer. TJ, carved
from cream marble with a golden mane,
made a stately exit. A proud animal
indeed. Father grabbed the reins and
huffed a command. The golden horse
extended his front hooves, then dipped
into a bow. Many looked at the spectacle
as Father mounted the prostrating
animal. Show-off. I put one foot in the
stirrup of my skittish bastard, Black
Jack, and he started moving, avoiding
my mount, denying my glory.