Timothy Edmond was a year older than me, but during our childhood, it seemed that he was ten years wiser than me. For just about every milestone of my childhood, Timmy was there. We were the kickball and dodgeball champions of our street. Couldn’t nobody mess with us during a game of Red Rover. Moreover, he was a wiz at Hide-N-Go-Seek. And, he was the all-time champion of Tag or Not It, which was the last game we played right after the streetlights came on and it was time to go inside. As we got older, Timmy helped me to overcome my fear of heights to learn how to climb a tree. I had to learn because Timmy said the best plums were at the top of the tree, and Timmy would know. (An unpruned or wild plum tree can grow as tall as twenty to twenty-five feet. And, because it has a strong trunk but fragile branches, one must learn how to balance oneself properly the higher one climbs.) The moment my feet would get off the ground, the tree would start shaking, and I’d lose my nerve. When I was about to cry and go home, Timmy said, “No, yo’ ass learning to climb this tree today!” And, I did because I knew Timmy wouldn’t let me fall. And, once we got back to the ground, those were the best plums I’ve ever had. Timmy had salt packets in his pocket to sprinkle on the plums for added flavor. That set those plums off just right! I told y’all he was wise. Even today, it’s not the same eating plums that weren’t stolen from a neighbor’s tree.
Timmy knew I had a big mouth and couldn’t fight. So, while he couldn’t stop me from talkin’ too much, he could stop the fights before I got demolished, which was damn near every day and twice a day during the summer. After one particular beatdown,
Timmy looked pleadingly at me and said, “Maybe you should talk noise to people you can beat?”To which, I replied, “Ain’t really nobody I can beat.” Then, after a pause, I continued, “But, I ain’t finna let nobody talk noise to me!”
Timmy just shook his head and said, “Let’s go get some plums.”
……….
I had a dog because of Timmy. One day while walking by Immaculate Conception aka I. C., the private K – 12 Catholic school for black children, there was a puppy that couldn’t have been more than eight weeks old with its head caught in the fence. Timmy had a dog, and I didn’t want a dog. But, we couldn’t leave the little thing stuck in the fence. So, without saying a word to each other, Timmy raised the fence, and I lightly pulled the little pup from the fence. It looked at us with its eight-week-old eyes like it had just experienced a miracle. But, Timmy and I didn’t have time to pontificate no miracle. We had to get home to watch the weekday afternoon shows of Batman and Spider-Man with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the side. As we walked home, we happened to turn around and realize that the little pup was following us. That’s when Timmy spoke. “We don’t need another dog.”
I replied, “I don’t want a dog.”
Then, Timmy rationalized, “When we get to where we separate, whoever it follows, that’s the new owner.”
That made sense to me so I agreed. We arrived at my house first. I walked into my driveway, Timmy kept walking straight, and damned if that dog didn’t follow me. With a smile as wide as Moon Lake, Timmy declared, “That’s your dog now!” And, that’s how
I ended up with a half shepherd that we named Lady.”
Timmy had the first real job of anyone I knew. He had a paper route, and I thought that was the coolest shit ever. It wasn’t that he was making money. It was that he had responsibility like a grown person. He had to get the papers from the newspaper office, roll and bind them with a red rubber band, store them neatly in his sack, and then distribute them along his route. I don’t remember how old we were, but I know that I was playing little league baseball. Some mornings, I would ride my bike along his route with him. He would even let me throw some of the papers. Now, that’s a good friend! He had a senior citizen complex on his route that consisted of several one-story units occupied by three or four tenants. The days when Timmy most looked grown were when he was collecting the monthly subscription fee from his customers. One of the ladies in the senior citizen home never actually paid Timmy but always gave him a cake or a pie instead. Timmy did not want dessert; he wanted his money! Even at that age, I knew that it would have been cheaper to pay Timmy rather than bake a whole cake or pie. But, at that time, grown people were strange to us so we never tried to rationalize it, and we knew better than to get smart with that old lady. Oh, let me be clear; Timmy didn’t like the pies and cakes, but my greedy ass loved them. I couldn’t wait until Timmy took a break and we sat under the tree and ate, with me doing most of the eating. Timmy was a good friend! Yet, Timmy never complained to that old lady and never stopped giving her a paper. I knew that her not paying would make Timmy’s count come up short. So, I asked, “Mane, what you gon’ do if she don’t pay you again?”
“Ain’t nothing I can do,” Timmy replied.
“So, you gon’ jus’ keep givin’ her a paper even though she ain’t paid?”
“That lady needs the paper. I can’t not give her a paper.”
With that, we never again discussed her not paying, and I learned a valuable lesson from my friend. Money is not more important than people, and making money is never more important than helping people. My friend taught me that with his actions.
……….
In late August of 1984, Timmy borrowed his father’s car so that he could drop me and my little girlfriend off at the movies to see Purple Rain. I was fourteen and couldn’t drive, but at fifteen Timmy had his learner’s permit. (If y’all are wondering, when you lived in the South during the 80s, no adult was required to ride in the car once you got your learner’s permit. That learner’s permit meant that you became the Uber and Uber Eats for the grown people in the family. ‘Nuff said—now, let’s move on.) I had already seen the film a few weeks earlier in Jackson when my pops took my cousin, John, and me. (To the day he died, my pops never wavered that “Y’all know that The Time kicked The Revolution’s ass,” but I digress.) So, when I returned to Clarksdale, my little girlfriend wanted to go. I could afford her ticket, but a brother didn’t have a ride. Cue Timmy to the rescue. We were supposed to double date, but Timmy and his little girlfriend broke up or something. Yet, he was still willing to give us a ride. With all of my Prince scholarship, 2024 was the first time I spoke or lectured publicly about Purple Rain other than the chapter in my book. It’s a great album and movie, but I’m not interested in limiting Prince to one album or moment in time, especially when he has equal if not better work in his catalog. However, returning to that late August of ‘84, what I remember most is how packed that theatre was. This was the blackest and coolest place to be. And, I was there in a theatre filled with high school and college students having the time of their lives—dancing in their seats, exploding with laughter, and cheering and talking to the screen. In the midst of it all, I was right there with my chocolate beauty snuggled up next to me, making me feel like I was the mane, forgetting that I was jus’ a fourteen-year-old whose best friend had to give me and my girlfriend a ride. That was a monumental moment in my life that couldn’t have happened without Timmy.
When Timmy’s brother, Anthony, emailed me Thursday morning with the news, my day stopped. (He emailed because I don’t text.) I wake at 5:00 a.m. four weekday mornings to exercise. Thursday is the only morning I don’t exercise. I still wake at 5:00 a.m., but I mow the yard and wash the cars. While mowing and washing, I’m usually jamming to the music blasting in my earbuds. But, that morning, I was complaining to myself about something that seemed critically important at the time. When I checked my email between mowing the yard and washing the car, that “something” became completely insignificant. I knew that Timmy had been ill for a few months, but he seemed to be getting better. No one expected this, but, then again, we never expect this, which is why it’s important to love on people every chance you get because you never know when it’ll be the last chance.
I’mma go get me some plums with salt and find me a real newspaper to read. And, I’mma think about my wonderful Clarksdale, Mississippi, childhood and all the people who gave me the goodness that they had so that I could be something in this world. Then, I’mma think about Timmy and probably listen to“Sometimes It Snows in April”because Timmy was my friend. “I guess he’s better off than he was before/ A whole lot better off than the fools he left here/ …Those kind of cars don’t pass you every day.”