The Death of an Inner City Icon

"Shaft was a bad mother, but he was a good father."

A single tear trickled down the withered cheek of the old, brown-skinned woman in the front pew of the First AME Church in Los Angeles. LA is hazy this early in the day, but the haze broke to let in one single ray of sun. That thin white beam lit the woman's face from one side, outlining her furrowed brow and silver halo of hair, reflecting an explosion of light from that one teardrop. It was the face of Ruth Elizabeth Shaft, mother of one of culture's most venerable icons: John Shaft.

People don't have to try very hard to remember "the man that would risk his neck for the brother man." John Shaft was best known as a reliable ally who wouldn't cop out when the danger was all about. He was the first of his kind… a Black Private Dick, who paved the way for all the Dicks who followed, both public and private.

Shaft began his life in Gary, Indiana. The son of iron worker Lester Jerome Shaft and mother Daisy Rae Shaft wasn't interested in passing the sweaty summers in the mills. Instead, he chose to model a future more in the flamboyant style of his uncle Reggie Shaft, a Semiprivate Dick and up-and-coming part time pimp. John shrugged off thoughts of pimping for profit, though, when Uncle Reggie was shot in a dispute with a client in front of bar on a hot June night in 1962. Left with a limping right leg, Uncle Reggie implored young John to find another line of work. "Pimping is too high-maintenance a profession," Said Uncle Reggie. With vitriolic, undependable prostitutes on one side and gun toting, hard to satisfy customers on the other, one could never know when trouble would erupt. Even less tolerant of the life style was Reggie's wife Eunice, who had no appetite for Reggie's late night business meetings and unexpected dinnertime phone calls from desperate Johns and strung out hoes.

By the time he was 15, John already had a reputation as a gifted sleuth when he tracked down his mother Ruth's car after it had been stolen from the driveway on a dark early morning. Using skill, cunning and an uncanny ability to read the criminal mind, John found the vehicle in Hobart, a town south of Gary, being driven by a retired policeman's wife. That discovery led to a massive, sweeping inquiry into local police corruption in the Gary, Indiana area. John was lauded as the cracker of a code of silence that ultimately would bring him fame, fortune... and a meeting with fate.

John Shaft enjoyed his celebrity status among the Gary super-elite. Cocktail parties, golfing and ice fishing with the Philharmonic Society members and museum benefactors were a part of living the large life for "Big John." Then one day, the ice melted underneath him. John's son, Darren, was mysteriously kidnapped while visiting a Toys R Us with his Aunt in Calumet City, just west of Gary.

A massive manhunt ensued as John led his own search for the missing boy. He enlisted the help of the entire Private Dick community of the Greater Gary area to find little Darren. After days of painstaking work, thankfully, Darren was found unharmed. It is still unknown who the actual kidnappers were, but rumors waft over the city, like the scent of the coke oven smokestacks, that it was an act of revenge for the car theft incident years ago.

In the wake of the kidnapping, the tone of Gary, Indiana was never quite the same. "How could this happen to our most beloved citizen?" some wondered, likening it to the horrible tragedy of the loss of Charles Lindberg's son decades before.

But people eventually healed. They would all nod in agreement as they passed one another in the street in the days that followed, that even though Shaft was a bad mother, he was a good father.

Painful memories, more threats, fear of retribution and nearly nonstop media attention eventually forced John and Darren to move west to settle in Los Angeles in the early '80s.

Now, on this cloudy California day, Ruth Elizabeth sits in the front pew of the First AME. She remembers her little boy, John: Bad to the bone, but good to his family.

John Shaft died in Pacific Palisades, California on Tuesday from natural causes.

(Frame-able reprints of this article are available at www.johnshaft.org/badmother.goodfather/blackprivatedick/@#$%^&*/archive.html. Donations may be made to the Shaft Foundation.)