TOO THROUGH
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https://vimeo.com/1048028470/bd5e722b76
Say I'm Dead: A Family Memoir of Race, Secrets, and Love (2020) by E. Dolores Johnson
Our film uses the basis of Dolores’ intense story about what her experience was in Baton Rouge as a Black woman alone. We use this story and add our own comedic but also serious tone to it and create our film
Several helmeted men raced up on my front lawn on roaring motorcycles that night. They leaned side to side until the smooth carpet of our mowed and edged grass was ripped up. I called the police to come right then, to catch them in the act. "We can't make it over there," the officer said. "There's a football game at LSU. Everything in town and everybody is tied up." I walked in circles in the living room, peeping out from behind the drapes at the vandals nobody would stop. They must have known I was alone in the house. Luther's car hadn't moved from the carport while he was hospitalized. What was I going to do when the evildoers came back? Next time they might do their worst. Beat me. Rape me. Kill me. I could call Mama and Daddy again, fifteen hundred miles away up in Buffalo, and give them another sanitized version of what was happening. All Daddy would say is to run, like he and Grandma did when they escaped from Georgia in the 1930s. But I had to stay to keep our medical insurance, so why tell them anything? With nobody to help me, I had to do something to take care of myself. I had Larry take me shopping for a gun. The one-story building stood alone on a nearly deserted street with a large GuNs sign across the front. Inside, we were the only customers. A hefty white clerk smiled; the glasses set on top of his head glinting in the very bright lights. Larry said we needed some protection for the lady. Why sure," the clerk said, sweeping his arm across a mind-boggling array of weaponry. Behind him, long rifles and shotguns were mounted on the wall in rows. Farther down were more elaborate automatics that I associated with soldiers and criminals. And in front of me were locked glass display cases, the type you'd find in a jewelry store. There, black handguns lay on their sides, with barrel lengths ranging from snub-nosed to arm's length. Their handles were black, with a few fancier ones in brown wood or what looked like mo-ther-of-pearl. Was I supposed to pick one I liked, like a piece of jewelry? "Let's see a lady's handgun," Larry said. "It's her first." The clerk put a few guns on top of the case. "Ma'am, let's find one that fits your hand so you can handle it. See, the right fit gives less recoil and a more enjoyable shoot."
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