Growing Up Mormon - Apartheid Billy - Part Four

I worked nearly every day at my dad's Television Shop.  My duties included cleaning the store, answering the phone, calling customers, and delivering televisions, both new and used.

The television deliveries were often very difficult and almost always a long drive.  The sets were big, bulky wooden consoles.  Remember, back then televisions were pieces of furniture that you placed vases on and that you matched your couch to.  Some of the sets were triple consoles - a television in the middle, a stereo record player on one side, and an eight track player on the other. 

Since it was a small shop and we couldn't afford to take the technicians, William, Billy, or my dad away from their work, I'd recruit a friend to help me on deliveries.  Sometimes it was Kelly, my rock-solid red-headed classmate who resembled a tank more than a boy.  Sometimes it was Blaine or Shane, twin brothers who were always anxious to make some cash but rarely capable of actually carrying something bulky and heavy without dropping it.  Sometimes it was Alma, my troubled Native American friend.  He almost never wanted the money and wasn't excited about the work, but getting out of the house and away from his adoptive parents was motivation enough.  We also talked a lot on the long drives.  All the other kids told me that Alma was quiet and reserved, but in that delivery truck he was animated and talkative.  I don't know if he was like that with anyone else, but I feel like I got to see a side of Alma no one else saw. 

I think y'all can see where this disaster is heading, so I'll skip a lot of the niceties.

One day I called Alma to come over and help with three deliveries.  The standing rate for my friends was five bucks a delivery, so that was going to be fifteen dollars to drive around for an hour and carry three large, bulky sets up horrible, small staircases.  I just now realized that all of my friends were saints or masochists. 

We had a couple of bells on the door and I heard them jingle at four in the afternoon.  It was Alma.  I looked up and motioned for him to hang out for a few minutes.  I was on the phone lying to some customer about how long it would take for us to get her television repaired.

"We've ordered what we need and it'll be fixed on . . . hang on."  I'd pause for a few minutes while I doodled on the desk calendar.  "Looks like we're expecting the parts next Tuesday."

Alma smiled.  I rolled my eyes. 

"Yes, ma'am.  We'll call you as soon as it's ready.  Yes, I know that you don't want to miss another week of the Love Boat.  Yes, we watch that show also.  And Fantasy Island.  Yes, I do think the midget's great." 

Truth is I hated midgets.  It comes from being beaten by one every wrestling practice for three months.  You haven't been embarrassed until you've been pinned by a midget . . . again and again.

That's when Billy came walking out of the back room.  I was still on the phone appeasing the customer and Billy sees Alma standing in the dinky showroom. 

"Out, Out," he shouted in his South African accent. 

Alma looked up surprised.  There was no one else in the shop except me and I was on the phone.

"There's nothing here you can afford and nothing small enough to steal," Billy said. 

"Yes, ma'am.   I promise."  I hung up as fast as I could. 

"Billy, he's my friend." 

It was too late.  Alma had already walked out the door. 

"Your friend?  Why would you be friends with a savage?  Rick, you're a white man.  You need to befriend other whites."

"No, that's not how things are done here in America, Billy."

"That's how things are done in the eyes of God.  You don't think any brownies are going to be worthy enough to live with God, do you?  The prophets have said," he said.  His arms were folded across his chest in righteous victory.

"I don't care what you think God wants.  Alma is my friend."  I took off out the door to chase Alma down. 

"I'll talk to your father about that when he returns," Billy called after me.

Yes, it's true.  Billy the South African racist chased Alma the Lamanite out of the television repair shop with his racist screed.  And then I chased Alma all the way to Dan's Mighty Market.  I bought him a coke and some nachos and we talked for thirty minutes until I convinced him to come back with me to help with the deliveries.

"You don't even have to go inside.  I'll drive the van around front.  The T.V.'s are already loaded and strapped down."

"Okay, Rick.  But I don't want to see that guy.  I hear that shit enough already at home."  Alma seemed hard and tough, but his eyes glistened.  I knew Billy had hurt him.

When I returned to the shop Billy wasn't there and William was out front answering the phones.  William was a five foot six inch firecracker.  He was stocky, a former marine with over-sized forearms like Pop-Eye.

"Where's Billy?" I asked. 

"I sent him home."

"Can you do that?"

"He didn't like the alternative."  William gave me a deadly look.  Whatever had happened after I left hadn't been pleasant.

"How's this going to turn out?"

William pounded his fist on a veneer console.  "Your dad's going to have to make a choice.  It's him or it's me.  If he chooses that pompous bigot, he's never going to get another television fixed in this shop because together they aren't qualified to change the channels." 

He was exaggerating, but his point was valid.  He was a real technician who could fix anything that came through the doors.  My dad struggled.  Funny thing about televisions, they look nothing like the bombers my dad had spent the last twenty-five years maintaining. 

I went to get the paperwork and William walked outside and apologized to Alma for what Billy had said.  I'm glad he did that.  Alma never got that apology from Billy or from my father for that matter. 

Comments

[a rose is a rose]

i like william

i don't like people who believe their god thinks one skin color is better than another. billy is a giant dick

[Success Warrior]

What color of skin do they think Jesus had?

[Cele]

What SW said, it amazes me how whites never think about the color of skin of Jesus, Moses, Aaron. Amazing.

[Cherise]

Yeah, what Rose said!

[CV Rick]

Oh, they were white - Jesus, Moses, Aaron . . . cause see there was this big war in heaven and all the heroes were blessed with white skin when they were sent to earth to get bodies and all the cowards were cursed with dark skin, descending from Cain (who must've been a hero in heaven but pissed God off when he gatt'd his brother).

[Cele]

So I am really wondering how they explain away the whole "Aaron's wife hated Moses' wife because she was black, so he afflicted her with ?leperosy?"

[Sugar]

The Lutheran Jesus was white, but with a healthy, glowing tan.

http://www.htlc-ch.org/images/Jesus%20at%20the%20door%20sm.jpg