Later that year, the movie “Superfly” came out and the few friends of daddy’s who still called my mom told her that the character Scatter was based on the real Scatter, my dad.
Writer’s note: A 57 year old woman who was born (2/12/1955) and lives in Detroit, Mich. said that Scatter is her father and she has a birth certificate to prove it . Bob Ferguson writer of the series on Scatter received this letter from her on 9/27/2012.
My father was bigger than life. I don’t just mean in size. He was loud with a big voice and he could walk into a room and the entire room would stand still.
Scatter had a presence like no one I had ever seen.
My earliest memories of him were from around the age of five. I remember my mother dressing my sister and me in our Sunday’s best. We looked as though we were going to an Easter parade – black patent leather shoes, white lacy anklets, and the most beautiful dresses. My mother looked more beautiful than I ever remember seeing her.
She was clad in a red suit with a three quarter length jacket and a real mink collar, long black leather gloves, and a hat. We looked like we were on our way to church but we were really on our way to the airport to go to Cleveland to see daddy.
We all were clad in clothes he had sent us. I don’t remember a lot about the plane ride. I just remember daddy picking us up from the airport and riding in his Cadillac that had a phone inside! I had never seen a car with a phone. We then drove to daddy’s “mansion” in Shaker Heights. I remember later going to the shop, as he called the infamous “Scatters Bar-B-Que.” Our entire vacation was spent at the restaurant, other bars, and after-hour places where the men and women who worked for him were our babysitters. We so loved going with them on their “runs,” meeting the most colorful characters in the neighborhood. When they were told that we were “the boss’ kids,” there was always an orange pop or a piece of cake offered to us. Daddy always seemed to travel with an entourage, even before I knew what that word meant. There was always an Uncle Jimmy and Uncle George or Uncle Sunny or Aunt Eula around.
On the occasions that my father came to Detroit to visit us, my sister and I would always try to talk to him about what we were doing in school or the play we were in at church. And from my young memory, he was detached from all that. He was more interested in buying us toys (I remember my easy bake oven) and clothes and asking us how much we loved our daddy.
I was very sad that he was not around to take me to school or see me in the Christmas play but he always explained that he had businesses to take care of and one day we’d all go to Paris or Hawaii on a his plane. He would be the pilot.
Unfortunately, none of my friends believed me when I told them the story. Daddy was always around important characters. Larry Doby and Nighttrain Lane were his good friends. He knew lots of boxers like Sugar Ray Robinson as well as all the important entertainers of the day such as Dinah Washington, Hazel Scott, and Jackie Wilson.
He also helped a lot of politicians of that era. I remember him being vocal about supporting Carl Stokes even before he ran for mayor. He spoke of the money he gave to civil rights causes and to local churches. I remember as a child him taking us into a private room at Sonny Stinson’s Funeral Home. I remember riding in his Lincoln (again with a telephone) as he loaded up vending machines and collected money.
He would always have a wad of cash, would peel of hundred dollar bills and give them to my sister and I. My mother would take them and put them in her bra. They would look at each other and smile - and it was the tenderest moment I remember between my parents.
I often wondered if daddy missed us when we were not around.
I remember vividly that September when daddy died. He had come to Detroit after the riots of 1967 to assure that we were alright. He bought my mother a new Hi-fi, the kind that looked like a piece of furniture. It was mahogany, really big, and had a television and record player and radio. All of our neighbors came by to see it. In early September, as he had every year, a big box arrived for my sister and me — filled with back to school clothes, winter coats, boots, and shoes from the best store in Cleveland at that time, Halle Brothers over on Euclid.
There were clothes for my mother as well. I often wondered how he knew what size to get and then we realized that he and my mother talked often on the phone. They would even meet at times without my sister and me (while we were in school) and sometimes he would pick us up in his big car.
The next day, kids at school would say, “Whose car is that?” I would answer that it was my father’s car and they would say, “You’re telling a story, you don’t have a father.”
Remember, divorce was not that common thing in 1960’s so, because they never saw my dad, they assumed I didn’t have one. That would make me very sad.
In 1972, I remember calling my dad’s mother in Cleveland to tell her that I had graduated from high school with honors and would be attending the University of Detroit (where I would eventually graduate cum laude). She asked me not to call her anymore. She said her son was dead and we meant nothing to her and would get nothing from her. I was devastated, angry, hurt, and depressed.
Later that year, the movie “Superfly” came out and the few friends of daddy’s who still called my mom told her that the character Scatter was based on the real Scatter, my dad.
Living in the inner city of Detroit, I had seen the devastation of drugs in my community. We had school friends who had overdosed and we knew of or heard about the death of so many young Black men and women. I was embarrassed, ashamed, and angry that my father could have been like this character-selling drugs and using women.
