Saying goodbye to an old friend
By Justin Hayes
Published in News on April 3, 2016 1:45 AM
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News-Argus/ALAN CAMPBELL
W.A. Foster Recreation Center Director Gladys McClary, right, with good friend James Exum on Friday in front of the center on South Leslie Street.
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News-Argus/ALAN CAMPBELL
Tray Hooker, 10, right, and Quameere Best, 9, laugh on Friday while playing the video game Mortal Kombat II at the W.A. Foster Recreation Center on South Leslie Street.
The W.A. Foster Center postures on the corner of Leslie and Corney streets, a jazz eighth swinging in the fold of barrel maples and public works concrete.
Most days, the building is lively. It is voiced over by fast-breaking school children, or passers-by or the tall tales of old heads with wobbly gaits.
This is the place, their spot -- because until now, there has been no other place.
Outside, an orange street lamp burns regardless of the hour, its smirk bouncing off green glass shards and flattened juice boxes. A dumpster spills over with trash and dated office supplies.
On Monday, this chapter of the center will close, leaving behind nearly eight decades of Webbtown community history.
And further behind, two saints of Leslie Street.
*
Gladys McClary remembers the gospel.
It's stitched in the tapestry of her every success, from her days as a dual-sport athlete to the time she picked up her own whistle.
Looking back, the lessons were everywhere.
There was Fannie Gutheridge.
Charles Lane.
Mr. Christian, who arranged for students' dental screenings, and Mr. Perry Dog, as the students called him, who cruised Herman Park each day in a stretch white sedan, scowling for truants.
"He knew everybody," McClary recalls with a laugh, "your mama, your daddy, aunts and uncles."
Together, they worked to reinforce her mother's Harrell Street scripture. It was simple, with just a single directive, but one that needed community backbone to take root and deliver its promise of quality people.
"This your life," she said, "don't miss it."
But for the first part of her schooling, she did.
Because before playing center in Lee Gymnasium or running the anchor spot of every Lady Cougar track medley, McClary was a grade school girly-girl.
And for a lot of teens, finding help to manage changes can be an irksome, complicated process. Luckily, she had help.
"It really did take a village to raise all of us," she said, "they (teachers) kept telling me, 'You have the opportunity to serve your community, so understand who you are.'"
"If you have to reach back for it, you've already missed it."
It was pay-it-now as opposed to paying it forward.
And for a young woman growing wise in the ways of the world, it was a lesson she needed -- and one she would never forget.
*
Every day, she looks for him.
The house is caddy corner from the center, a hundred yards away, staked solid in Wayne County dirt and honestly kept. Most days, a yellow 10-speed sags against a privacy fence.
For over the last decade, it's where James Eddie Exum has lived.
And seeing him there, shuffling to and fro in the familiar trimmings of an old jacket, is how Gladys McClary prefers to start her mornings.
Sometimes, they wave. Other days, a nod. They speak in a hushed code, these two -- like relatives.
"Mr. Exum has been like a dad to me," McClary said, "and I'm going to really miss that."
Because whether it was the sunflowers, which just wouldn't grow in 2008, or the garden, which needed saving the following spring, there was Mr. Exum.
"He would tell me, 'Don't worry about what the books say, (or) what they say on TV -- just do what I say.' And it worked."
But it's been more than flowers and fruit. More than helping pick up chip bags or clearing the sidewalk of leaves and grass clippings.
It's personal, because the center isn't a bedtime story.
Some of the children are hungry. Sick. Angry at the world because the people who were supposed to lead them through it aren't around to wipe their tears. Many are hostages of reputations they did nothing to acquire.
And the good fight wears on McClary. Her life -- not missing it, as she was taught -- is a revolving, gladiator-inspired prize fight.
Sometimes, even she needs a good corner man.
"Being the center leader here, and a female, (there's) a certain persona that I have to carry," she said.
"But when I just want to be Gladys, I go to Mr. Exum."
He offers assurances, not promises. Life has taught him as much. Promises, he will tell you, are fools' gold, and what is shiny spends quickly.
Stay the course, he tells her.
Do your job.
Everything will be OK. He's proof of such -- after all, he went to the jungle and walked out alive. Twice.
*
Da Nang Province, Vietnam. 1972.
The trucks were named by company men, like assault pets.
Pandemonium.
Canned Heat. Wild Honey.
They were jungle escorts, mobile units armed with grenade launchers and American boys two years removed from varsity balls and strikes.
Their task was to prevent Viet Cong snipers from picking clean the heads of Staff Sgt. James Eddie Exum, of Goldsboro, and his crew of convoy officers. The order, which called for the delivery of C rations and ammo to American troops on the map dot of Hue, lasted a full year.
It also placed his team in the heart of a daily, round-trip kill zone. So, against an enemy he couldn't see - much less exterminate - Exum fearlessly began his second tour of hell's playground.
He developed hypersensitivity.
He counted days.
He prayed constantly for his men.
"Charlie (Viet Cong) would hit you here and here, and you wouldn't see 'em until the next day," he said, "maybe two miles away."
"They never stayed in one place."
Not that it mattered. With death and dying everywhere, Exum was becoming numb to man's base-level savagery.
Perhaps that began in '65, when he and 12 boys from the 173rd jumped from a stripped-down C-130 to dance with death in the jungle of Pleiku.
It was death and madness and searing rage personified.
That mission, a search and destroy directive, was ultimately cut short. The team was extracted by units from the Marines and Air Force, but not before Exum left his mark in the mountains.
"I wasn't going to die for nothing," he said.
The farmer's son was a natural leader, strong and silent, with a knack for keeping baby faces out of the dead pile.
People leaned on him. Years later, they still do.
*
They are how grass grows through concrete.
Together, the athlete and the soldier made the W. A. Foster Center work anew, patching relationships between generations and strengthening the foundation of a community through long-forgotten values.
Yes, ma'am. No, sir.
Please and thank you, kindly.
These are the new commandments of Leslie Street.
And in the process, McClary often looked across the street for guidance and strength. It seems her gaze was always met with affirmation, if not admiration, from an old soldier who just happened to be there.
"She's always done a good job, looking after those hard-headed youngins," Exum said, "and all around, I don't think they can find nobody to beat her."
Probably not.
On Monday, McClary and the W.A. Foster center will finish relocating to their splashy new agenda at Mina Weil Park. Complete with Wayne County's signature cupola-styled roof, the building is more rocket ship and less bicycle, more wi-fi and less W.P. A. dust allergies.
As for Exum, things will be quiet. His corner lot will no longer buzz the scurrying hymn of hoops-crazed children and old men eager to howl familiar punchlines.
He'll have to find another company. McClary, too.
"Every morning, we wave at each other, and we look forward to that," she said, "to not have that, it's going to be lonely."