One time Old Folks was in an auto parts
store, buying a part to keep the old pre-wrecked Mustang Brenda bought that had to
be towed up into the yard going, and the parts man answered the phone, "Haitian
Capital."
"New York is the capital of Puerto Rico," he explained,
"Miami is the capital of Cuba, and Delray Beach is the capital of Haiti."
* * *
In 1950, Delray Beach had a population of 8,000 people.
When Old
Folks moved back to Delray Beach, in 1980, there were 28,000 Haitians living in Delray
Beach.
Every one an illegal immigrant and most of them without jobs.
They were a net drain on the community.
They were a proud people, arrogant
even, and not in the least ashamed to be as beat down as they appeared to be. It
was someone else's fault, after all. They didn't beat themselves down.
Not
wanting to hurt their feelings, the newspapers called them the Haitian-American community,
rather than 28,000 illegal aliens acting as a net social drain on the law enforcement,
public heath, and public education resources of working white Americans.
Also, they ululated, performed animal sacrifice, and disinterred the dead, to use
their bones in voodoo ceremonies.
The newspapers called them "believers
in animism."
They believed in animism, all right. They worshipped snakes.
They fucked mud puddles, in their native Haiti. Old Folks saw it in a Jacques Costeau
special on TV.
Haitians fucking mud puddles, a disembodied voice saying,
"They are a very religious people."
Old Folks didn't care if they
fucked mud puddles in Haiti. He didn't care if they were a drain on the community.
But he did draw the line at calling them the Haitian-American community, as if they
applied for permission to come here and had a job lined up before they came.
Well, they were refugees. From political persecution. They were fleeing a repressive
regime. They sought asylum.
Oh. That's different.
Let's open the
world to people who are oppressed. Let's put them all in Delray Beach. That way,
Boynton and Boca Raton won't have a Haitian problem. Just send them to Delray.
* * *
In The Way We Die Now, when Hoke Moseley liberated the Haitian prisoners,
at Immokalee, he gave them some money and told them to go to Delray Beach.
Of course, that's where Hoke would have sent them, but I always thought Willeford
meant that as a private joke only Old Folks would catch.
And whenever Old
Folks talked about Haitians some place like Ellensburg, Washington, his hosts, or
whoever had to listen to him rave, were appalled at what a twisted-up hatemonger
he was.
The lessons of Margaret Mead were lost on Old Folks.
And
he had studied anthropology when cultural relativism was holy writ.
What
had soured Old Folks on Margaret Mead? Aside from graduate studies in anthropology,
of course.
Having a rap on race with Jimmy Baldwin in Redbook magazine.
What had soured Old Folks on Jimmy Baldwin?
* * *
As Nelson Algren said, "I, Mr. Baldwin? I brought you over here
in chains?"
He might have said, "It seems to me that you're up
there and I'm down here, Mr. Baldwin."