“Why?” The rain was coming down so hard we had to raise our voices to be heard over it.

“ ’Cause,” she said, “our mailman’s over at Luke’s with Freddie.” Luke’s House of Joy, one of Freddie’s favorite watering holes, was right across the street from the Big House at Eighth and Wright. We were pretty sure that’s where he was this night, too drunk to remember or care to come pick us up. Ophelia reported that the adults in the neighborhood said that if you wanted to get your mail on time, you’d have to go to Luke’s and find the mailman at his regular bar stool, sort through his bag, and take out what belonged to you. If you wanted to get your welfare check, said Ophelia, you’d have to go to Luke’s and tell the mailman, “Nigger, you give me my check!”

The rain didn’t let up for the whole hour and a half it took to walk home from the lake, but her stories and commentary made the ordeal much more bearable. When we arrived at home, nobody was there, so I managed to break in by squeezing through the milk chute.

That, in a nutshell, was how we survived as a team, cheering each other up, complaining to each other, distracting ourselves from thinking about the troublesome stuff that was too painful to discuss. With Momma gone and without Ophelia close at hand to be my ally, I couldn’t imagine anyone filling the void.

But apparently, as the saying goes, nature abhors a vacuum, and by the time I blinked once more, my mother’s three brothers had stepped in to occupy that empty place and make sure I wasn’t left entirely unattended. They were father figures, teachers, entertainers, and preachers, each in his own way. The perfect antidote to the no-daddy, no-momma, no-sister blues, they collectively helped me to realize, just when I had started to feel sorry for myself, how lucky I was to be a Gardner.

Whenever I went to visit or stay with Uncle Archie, I took away lasting lessons about the value of hard work, goal setting, focus, and self-education. A union man in his blood, Uncle Archie eventually ascended the ladder to become president of his union, all the while reading, studying, and familiarizing himself with issues of concern to the community.

Then there was Uncle Willie, a character of the highest order who could turn a humdrum afternoon into an adventure full of international intrigue and espionage. Ever since he had come back from the Korean War, so I heard, Uncle Willie hadn’t been quite right in the head. That was one of the euphemisms used for mental illness, which ran strong in different branches of our extended family, it turned out, as well as in the rest of the ’hood—where, besides not being able to afford help, most folks would go to a snake charmer before they’d seek out psychotherapy.