It's Good to Be Black

8. When the Black Spider Crawled

B. when the black spider crawled Death is a black spider that creeps into every home no matter how strongly built. At first we heard only a vague rumor as the east coast of the country staggered, gasped, and died like flies from a strange sickness called Spanish Influenza. Suspicion pushed along the report that the Ger~ mans, though defeated on the battle fields of France and forced into a reluctant armistice, had retaliated by loosing a bomb filled with deadly disease germs. As the spider moved on long legs down city streets and country lanes, mothers interrupted snow fights and the mak~ ing of rotund snow men to snatch their children into the safety of a warm house. Youthfnl skaters, spelling their names and making figure eights on the frozen pond by Blakesleis Foundry, heeded the shrill calls of frightened parents. With keen-edged skates thrown over their shoulders or dangling at their sides, they went homeward sullenly, furious at the older generation that was worn out and frightened with life. The billboards went unchanged in front of the Lyric Theatre. The bright lights in the marquee were winked out by order of Charlie Layman, chief of police. Schools were closed and the people who ventured on the streets were grotesquely masked with protective coverings of medicated gauze tied over their noses. We were an-island unto ourselves, but even though every 8o when tlte bluek spider crawled family barricaded itself behind its weather-beaten doors, old death kept creeping in. The slate-colored hearse of Charlie Weinberg was a familiar sight, and each family had to meet its Gethsemane alone. There were no wakes where friends sat throughout the night, drinking strong coffee and raking through the ashes of a dimly remembered past to retell a story of the kindness, humor, or bravery of the departed. There were no church services with doleful songs and long eulogies. We would have been more easily reconciled to the passing of Freeman Sampson if he had been one of the many victims of the flu. His death in a mine accident, however, was a backhanded lick that shocked the town. No matter how long you live in a mining town, no matter how many times you hear of slides of slate or cave-ins, or the viciousness of the blind mules that pull the dwarf cars of coal to the main entries, you are never ready for the sudden death that strikes a man down in the bowels of the earth. The last time I saw Freeman Sampson alive he was clutching the little Sunday school bell in his hands and walking aimlessly through the crowd that watched the burning church. The next time I saw him he was lying straight and stiff in a gray velours casket, his dark features overcast by the shadow of death. Freeman had been crushed by a hanging ledge of coal that he was going to prop up as soon as he finished loading his fifth car. But the coal wouldn't wait. As Freeman was placing the last chunk on top of the car, the hanging ledge tore itself impatiently from the ceiling with a splitting, rum~ bling noise. Miners from the adjoining rooms rushed in, heaving and pulling at the jagged pieces of coal until their hands oozed blood. Their black dusty clothing, wet with perspiration and 81 it's good to be black the "bleeding" of the coal, clung damp and soggy to their straining bodies. The flicker of the carbide lamps, fastened to their caps, filled the room with dancing shadows. They knew as they lifted the huge pieces of coal that there could be no life in the body pinned beneath it. They worked furi~ ously, cursing the coal for its wanton destruction and cursing themselves for being fools enough to work at such a dangerous job. Yet each knew that tomorrow would find him back in the narrow entry going gaily to his little under~ ground room that was as familiar to him as his own house. We stood about in the Sampson yard, not close together as people huddle in the face of a great sorrow. We stood a few feet apart, as the law required. Lizzie Sampson sat quiet and stunned. Her full lips quivered as she held her four-year-old son, Harold, and gently patted his slight shoulder. Harold was a queer child...