Between Fathers and Sons: An African-American Story – by Eric V. Copage

RETURN (and The Talk)

I stayed at home for a couple of days to brace myself for the confrontation I knew awaited me when I returned to school. On Friday afternoon just as sixth- period gym class ended I walked onto campus towards the gym, the sizzling sound of showers growing louder as I approached the building. As soon as I entered the locker room, the stifling, malodorous humidity smacked me in the face like a dirty wet sock. J.J. was at the far end of the row of blue lockers. He was holding court joking around with our three friends from the cafeteria earlier in the week. They had just finished getting dressed and seemed like they were about to leave.

When J.J. saw me walking towards the group, he looked startled. But only for an unguarded instant.

“I thought you were suspended,” J.J. said evenly.

“I was,” I replied, “but Blackmun agreed to drop everything if I returned the money—so I did.”

J.J. eyed me leerily. “You gave him back five hundred dollars?!”

“It was either that or get expelled and end up in who knows what kind of mess,” I said matter-of-factly.

J.J. rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He seemed to have trouble putting this together. Other than that weird incident with the photograph at the Corner Store, it was the only time J.J. seemed genuinely flustered, at a loss for words. “Why’d you leave money behind?” J.J. finally asked.

“What are you talking about?” I said, narrowing my eyes to emphasize my question. “Like I said, I saw the money—and I took it.”

J.J. thought for a moment, then chuckled softly. “No, there was still five hundred left when I snuck in.” He dug his right hand into his inside jacket pocket and came out with a wad of folded bills, presumably a portion of his take. He waved the cash in the air, taunting me with it.

“What?” I asked, trying my best to look simultaneously surprised, angry, and disappointed.

“You must have been nervous or mixed-up envelopes or something because there was still five hundred bucks in that drawer when I got there. Too bad you got caught.”

The three friends looked at J.J. in disbelief. When I phoned them individually the previous evening and told them J.J. had stolen the money, they thought I was lying. They thought I was desperately and pathetically trying to get off the hook. One of them had ragged on me mercilessly for trying to blame someone else for the theft I had bragged about. They were all especially disappointed that I should try to blame it on a good friend. But when I told them they could witness J.J.’s confession from his own lips, curiosity got the better of them. They knew I would show up in the locker room after their sixth-period gym class, and they knew they would witness someone’s moment of truth – either mine or J.J.’s.

Now all of us stood in the narrow aisle of lockers looking at one another, speechless. Finally, the heavyset teen with reddish hair addressed J.J.

“Yo, that’s messed up, J.J.,” he said, a trace of uncertainty in his voice. “What’s messed up?” J.J. shot back, his voice dripping with intimidation. “Letting Miles take the rap for what you did,” asserted the tall boy.

Neither of them would have challenged J.J. individually, but together they seemed to find the courage to do it.

“OK,” J.J. said after a pause. “I took some of Blackmun’s money, but so did Miles. He bragged about it, and he got caught.”

“I never stole any money,” I told J.J.” Blackmun had only five hundred dollars in the drawer, and he will testify to that.”

“And you showed us the money,” the tall boy said to J.J. Another long period of silence followed.

“So what are you going to do, J.J.,” the heavyset boy said at last, a hint of hesitancy having crept into his voice.

When J.J. didn’t answer, the tall boy suggested half-heartedly: “Maybe you should go tell Blackmun and Washington the truth.”

“Or perhaps, “you want us to do it.,” the boy with the shaved head said tenuously

I could see J.J. had begun reasserting his dominance over our friends. He glared at the other three and they looked away from him. Then he looked at me. I could see J.J. grinding his jaw muscles. My eyes panned down to his hands. I’d learned from watching television shows to check your opponent’s hands to see if he had a ring on his finger or was clutching a set of keys, to inflict maximum damage with each punch. J.J.’s hands were empty, but he was inconspicuously balling them into steely fists. He leveled his eyes at me. I remembered J.J.’s boasts of “having served” a few guys in his old neighborhoods. I remembered the incident with the guard at the mall.  Perhaps I was about to find out if J.J. was as good as his boasts.

My heart raced, and I felt my feet go cold. This was real life. Based on my friends tepid defense of me about the crime, I didn’t feel I could count on them to bust up or referee if J.J. and I mixed it up. My breathing became shallow. I was on my own. I became light-headed. I could feel my blood tingling just under my skin and surging throughout my entire body. I hoped he couldn’t see that my lips quivered in fear. It wasn’t a fair match. He was noticeably bigger than me and an unexpected quick punch on his part would surely send me reeling back onto the metal lockers. It might knock me unconscious. I suddenly had an overwhelming urge to pee. Maybe I should throw the first punch.

Then a strange serenity descended over me. My belly began rising and falling with waves of expanding breaths. My heart slowed down. My feet warmed to a comforting heat that seemed to come from the center of my being. All the while, through my fear, readiness, and serenity, I had continued looking at J.J. I never broke my gaze—Not once.  I never flinched.

Finally, J.J. erupted, in answer to whether he’d confess to Blackmun, “I’ll think about it,” and stormed out of the locker room. Alone.

Several weeks went by, and I had seen neither hide nor hair of J.J. at school.

Clearly, he’d come clean to Blackmun, and they had reached some sort of agreement, but I was vaguely curious about the details. I had considered asking our pals whether any of them had talked to J.J., but the question would have reminded them of a very ugly predicament I was eager to put behind me. I made sure not to ask Blackmun the few times I’d seen him since the incident, and he behaved as if nothing had happened. I even considered calling J.J. himself to get a status report but thought better of it. At best, he’d think I was looking for his approval or regretted my actions in some way; at worst, that I wanted to gloat. So, questions about J.J.’s whereabouts, mood, or arrangements with Blackmun remained unanswered.

***

On a day when temperatures invited frostbite in minutes on bare skin, the twins and I sat in Grandma’s red Toyota Camry. Grandma was at the wheel. We’d just passed the packed parking lot of our church, our destination, and now searched for a spot as close to it as possible. We considered ourselves lucky to find one only a couple of blocks away. Grandma, expertly parallel parked between a blue minivan and a hillock of fresh snow. The day before, a blizzard had blanketed our area with over a foot of snow, but our county’s crack road crews had almost immediately cleared our town’s streets.

Temperatures hadn’t risen above freezing for over a week, but it was New Year’s Eve 2000 – the beginning of a new century and a new millennium. How often does that happen? So, Grandma decided we should brave the elements to experience this once-in-a-lifetime event in the actual physical presence of our community. She turned off the engine, and the soft whirr of the fan of the car’s heater faded to silence. She, the twins, and I pulled our woolen mufflers up to our nose – and our woolen watch caps down to cover our eyebrows. Finally, we zipped up our coats, donned our mittens, and, opening the car doors, tumbled out into the bracing night air.

We trudged over the icy sidewalks, enduring occasional sharp gusts of wind that bit into the few exposed parts of our face. As we made our way, ten, fifty, two hundred, eventually innumerable black people converged towards the church with us. They came from every terrestrial direction: north, north-east, east, south-east, south, south-south-west. . .and from above, also. They drifted slowly from the sky like paratroopers landing with a nimble running step. The quick, soft, crunching patter of their feet decelerated to a leisurely gait as they touched down on the iced- over snow. All of us headed towards the grey, rough-hewn stone bell tower of the 100-year-old church our congregation had purchased from another congregation during the Civil Rights era. The crowd narrowed into a single shivering stream moving in the general direction of the church doors. A large electric sign sat on the lawn to the right of the concrete walkway heading to the church steps.

Ordinarily, emblazoned with weekly affirmations or meditations from prominent black people, on this frigid night, the sign offered Harriet Tubman’s famous quote, “I freed thousands of slaves. I could have freed thousands more if they had known they were slaves.”

The crowd funneled towards the building’s pair of colossal black lacquered doors that led to the covered porch. Four distinguished-looking black men, who seemed to range in age from mid-twenties to mid-sixties, flanked the entrance to the church proper. Instead of the dark two-piece suit, dark tie, white shirt, and white gloves our church ushers usually wore, these men sported dark, brass- buttoned three-piece suits for tonight’s special service. Embroidered in gold thread on the left breast pocket of the coats: “Underground RR” A dark, brimmed pillbox hat bearing a narrow chrome nameplate reading “Conductor” crowned each of their heads. The caps also had a much larger metal plate, each etched with a different number – 1619, 1863, 1964, 1494. The ushers each held a pocket watch attached to a watch fob.

Grandma rummaged in her purse for our tickets as we approached the men. – She handed me mine while retaining those for her and the twins. She nudged me to look at my ticket, then talked to the twins about theirs. The tickets were about as firm as an index card and about the size and shape of a dollar bill. One side read “boarding pass,” illustrated with broken chains turning into airborne birds with today’s date and time (Dec. 31, 2000/Jan. 1, 2001); the other side included a brief paragraph about an event or person from the history of the African diaspora. Mine read: 1955 – Rosa Parks ignites the year-long Montgomery, Ala bus boycott when she refuses to give up her seat for a white passenger. It launched the modern-day civil rights movement. The local NAACP had been planning this action for years.

As we inched towards the door, I noticed the ushers looked at adults’ ticket, then at their watch, and then at the adult and said with a huge smile, “You’re right on time!” or “We’ve been expecting you!” before punching the ticket. The ushers chatted briefly with the younger audience members as they entered.

When Ida and Douglass reached the front of the line, one of the two middle- aged ushers, who wore the 1494 hat, knelt so that his face met theirs.

“Well, young man, what do you want to be when you grow up?” he asked.

“I want to play shooting guard on the Chicago Bulls like Michael Jordon,” Douglass replied without hesitation.

“Play with the team? I bet you can own the team!” the usher replied with equal gusto.

In her small but firm voice, Ida responded thoughtfully, “I want to be an artist, like Faith Ringgold.” The usher replied, “It’s a blessing to heal this world with beauty.”

The eldest usher, who had become a congregant only recently, locked eyes with Grandma when taking the ticket from her hand. It sounds weird to say, but he seemed to punch her ticket sensuously – meaning S-L-O-W-L-Y, and held it a shade longer than necessary when returning it to her hand.

“You’re right on time, Sistuh,” he said, his voice oozing across each syllable like butter melting on a hot biscuit. She giggled softly like a schoolgirl. The twins seemed to sense something was going on, but not sure what exactly. They tugged at her jacket, pulling her towards the pews, but her eyes lingered on the usher until the twins towed her deeper into the church.

When I gave one of the other conductors, the youngest one, my ticket, he looked at me, punched the ticket, and simply said, “Welcome,” before turning his attention to the person behind me.

I crossed over the inner doorway of the church and glimpsed something to my far left. I turned my head and saw a group of five young women rising at a 30-degree angle in thin air. Their clothes featured the colors salmon pink and apple green. They chatted among themselves nonchalantly as if floating upwards was normal, like riding an ascending escalator. As I gazed at them, I heard a rustling sound behind me. I turned around and saw what I took to be a family – mother, father, and two teenaged boys around my age. They were taking off their coats, gloves, and mufflers. Oddly, their clothes seemed decades out of fashion – like something I’d seen black people wearing in sepia-tinted photographs of the Great Migration. I watched the family lift off the floor, their feet dangling in the air as they rose towards the ceiling when my attention was diverted by a familiar voice.

“Watcha readin’ folks,” said Blackmun, walking towards us from one side of the church. He looked dapper in his black slacks and black turtleneck shirt, offset with a kente cloth-inspired vest of red, blue, and gold. A matching kente cloth stole draped his neck.

“Books on love,” Grandma said wistfully, stealing a glance at the elder usher who happened to take an approving sneak peek at Grandma as he punched another ticket at the doorway.

“I heard that!” said Blackmun, winking.

“You know, I never found out what happened to J.J.,” Grandma said as she bent down to help my siblings take off their coats. “Miles tells me he hasn’t been at school. Has he been expelled?”

“Not at all,” Blackmun said. “Everyone – his parents, the principal, his teachers, me, and even J.J. himself thought school might be a little too hectic for him right now. He’ll return in the new semester – at the beginning of the year. In the meantime, he’s been keeping up with his studies at home.

“J.J. owned up to what he did; I told him to return my money, and he did, except for the sixty dollars he’d spent,” Blackmun said. “J.J., his parents and I agreed that he would work on my rental property each day of Christmas break and one day every weekend until Rev. Adams and I launch our rite of passage program for young men, and J.J. will be obliged to participate in it.â€

Douglass’s eyes widened.

“That sounds like a big punishment, Blackmun,” he said. “I thought you got back most of your money.”

Blackmun bent down so that he was looking at Douglass eye-to-eye.

“It’s not a punishment,” Blackmun said deliberately but kindly. “And it’s not

about money. It’s about faith.”

“Some of our young men, no matter where or how they grow up, confuse being a thug with being a warrior.” Blackmun stood up. “You know the difference, don’t you, Miles.”

I was caught off guard. First, I couldn’t tell by his inflection whether he was asking a question, making a statement, or insinuating an accusation. Second, I wasn’t expecting an Afro “pop” quiz a few hours before an event that hasn’t happened in a thousand years. But mainly, I felt a reflexive panic at not knowing how to respond appropriately.

Douglass interrupted: “You even have faith in J.J.,” he asked.

“Yes, even J.J.,” Blackmun said. “I was well into adulthood before I learned the difference between thugs and warriors,” he said, laughing. “But our community never gave up on me, and I’m not giving up on J.J. All black people, especially young black men and women are our future. And I’m not about to give up on our future.”

“We should head to our neighbors over there who are saving a seat for us,” Grandma said, pointing to a woman standing and waving at us from the middle pew on the right.

“And I’ve got to change clothes to give my part of the presentation,” said Blackmun, and he turned to walk towards the altar.

I followed Grandma and my siblings through the crowd toward our neighbors. I had taken a few steps when I began to laugh. I laughed and laughed and laughed. Although I could barely catch my breath, I couldn’t stop laughing.

Grandma turned to me, with a concerned look in her eyes, and asked, “Miles, are you alright, pumpkin?”

“It’s so obvious, Grandma,” I told her. “Hold on.”

I spun around and called out to Blackmun several times as I pushed through the crowd towards him. He looked coolly in my direction.

“Blackmun,” I repeated when I reached him. “The difference between a thug and a warrior is this: a thug attacks his community; a warrior defends it.”

Blackmun made an ambiguous movement with his chin; the look in his eyes was noncommittal. After a long moment of silence infused with anticipation, he smiled slowly and said, “Welcome, Black Man. We’ve been expecting you.”

. . .The Talk

Blackmun began his presentation by explaining Kwanzaa, the African- American cultural holiday celebrated from Dec. 26^th to Jan 1^st. He described its origins, traditions, symbols, meaning, and variations around the U.S. and worldwide.

He then gave a stirring speech which the congregation punctuated with shouts of “amen,” “preach, brotha,” and “yes, yes! yes!” He talked about how African Americans, in particular, are beginning what he called “our third migration.”

“The first migration was a forced migration — the slave trade over the turbulent waves of the Atlantic Ocean,” he said. “The second began in the early 20^th century – the Great Migration when black families fled the poverty and violence of the southern states. Those families rode on trains past the heartland’s amber waves of grain to the promised land of Chicago, Detroit, New York, and other northern cities.

“Our latest migration is our Greatest Migration – and our greatest challenge, so far,” he said somberly. “This time we’re heading towards the future on our brain waves – the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, the priorities we set for ourselves as a people. . .

“This includes understanding that black people wherever we are or have been share the same goals – economic, political, and social empowerment. The rub comes when deciding how best to accomplish those goals. But we should applaud the diversity of our perspectives. Think about it as us being on the same sports team. We play different positions, but we have the same goal in mind.

And what kind of team would it be that put all their players in one position. Imagine a baseball team in which all nine players clustered at shortstop or a football team where everybody played center. Shucks, over the years, I’ve gone through my own phases – from fierce integrationist to fierce segregationist, from black nationalist to black assimilationist, and everything in-between and back again. Not to say we should make frivolous or ill-considered changes – but thoughtful re-evaluation of approaches makes sense. I’ve been around for a long – long – long time and noticed that different eras and different places and different circumstances demand different strategies; it’s important to be alert to that.

“Black Christians, black Moslems, black Jews and black Buddhists, the followers of the old gods of our motherland and those who believe in no god all travel together on our latest, greatest journey. Black Democrats and black Republicans, black Marxists, and black capitalists, also. We may fuss with one

another every so often – some say, too often – and get frustrated with some of us who seem to pull up the rear. But our most enlightened community members realize we’re all on the same side. To switch metaphors, our progress is not about finding “the key,” it’s about finding the right combination to unlock economic, political, and social power at any given moment in history, as long as we don’t take our frustrations out on one another. Remember, Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois were contemporaries. So were Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. . . .

“Let’s celebrate our resilience, strength and grit that has resulted in the advancement we’ve made so far. Let’s do that by paying homage to our past, which goes back eons before the slave trade. Take a moment now to think of at least one black person who has influenced you or meant something to you but who has departed from this world. Please rise and prepare to give thanks.”

As the packed church rose to its collective feet, I heard fluttering all around me – like flapping wings of hundreds of birds. I assumed the sound came from heavy garments swooshing from the laps of congregants as they deposited their winterwear on the wooden pews.

I looked around the church and was overcome by an unexpected surge of warmth. I saw my late father’s friends, Grandma’s friends, my brother’s and sister’s friends, and their parents, and my friends and their parents, and teachers and neighbors, too —while Blackmun, resplendent in the folds and geometry of his most regal African robe, presided from the pulpit. I felt surrounded by love—the love of my family, the love of my friends, and the love of my community. I felt as if I was returning to the welcoming caress of home. I embraced this solemn moment — the scores of bodies and minds pulsating with the souls of black folk everywhere in the world and throughout all time.

Each person in the crowded church began giving thanks in their unique way. To my left, a man the color of a brown paper bag stood with his forearms in front of him, his palms open and facing upward, as if he were preparing to catch or cradle something. He angled his head upward, closed his eyes, and thanked Marcus Garvey, Mary McLeod Bethune, Oscar Micheaux, Ella Baker, and a host of other black historical figures for “sharing the road maps that help guide us.”

To my right, a mother stood between her daughters, her arms outstretched, resting protectively on their shoulders. Unlike some of the other guests, they wore nothing that was overtly Afrocentric. However, as they bowed their head, I noticed each of them wore cowrie earrings, which hung discreetly from their pierced earlobes. The mother acknowledged John Coltrane and Romare Bearden, and the daughters Tupac Shakur and Jean-Michel Basquiat for bringing “so much truth into our lives.”

Murmurs of thanksgiving and appreciation rose and fell like gentle waves lapping against a rocky shore, as the lips of person after person formed the names of famous black people and loved ones who had passed away.

As I bowed my head, I clasped my hands together prayerfully in front of my chest and closed my eyes. I found myself mouthing the words “Mom” and “Dad.” I barely emitted a sound at first, but as I repeated their names, my voice became passionate in recalling my memory of them, I found myself fervently thanking them for giving me life and guidance. I repeated my prayer of appreciation to my parents over and over and over again, like a mantra, like a chant, like an incantation.

Officials in parks throughout the surrounding towns set off fireworks to celebrate the arrival of the new year, the new century, and the new millennium. The muffled pop, crackle, and pow of explosions seeped through the church walls, but none of the congregants noticed or at least they seemed to pay it no mind.

I lifted my head expecting to see the familiar cream-colored plaster ceiling of the church, but instead my eyes greeted a swirling vault that oscillated between indigo and electric blue. This inverted vortex spiraled infinitely upward and filled me with a boundless sense of awe. Clouds resembling cotton bolls shimmered with honey-colored light coming from an unknown source studded the growing, twirling cone of light.

Black people of all ages and genders revealed themselves. Some wore their hair in a lion’s mane Afro. Others kept their hair in dreadlocks, twists, or braids of various kinds. Still, others chemically straightened their hair. And some wore wigs. Some wore the armor of the Western business suit; others the relaxed look of sweatshirts and track pants and still others wore traditional African garb, with its lively colors and flowing curves and turns. A kaleidoscope of black miracles in every shade filled the firmament – chocolate, ebony, tan, chestnut, sepia, café ole, and everything in between — dipped, cartwheeled, and somersaulted in the widening enchantment of the inverted whirlpool.

Our church members began rising into the ever-growing vault – some ascended swiftly like bubbles in a carbonated drink, others rose inch by tentative inch.

In the pew in front of me, a family of five – a woman with two pre-teen girls and two preteen boys simultaneously bent their knees and launched into the air.

They stretched out their arms like jet wings and flew in a “V†formation, led by the woman, and joined flocks of other families soaring inside the uppermost regions of the vault.

I turned around and looked behind me. Two pews back sat an older man wearing a wool gray herringbone jacket. He stood and turned his expectant face upward. His expression turned to one of frustration and finally yearning as he failed to hover more than a few inches off the floor, and even then, he remained airborne only in fits and starts. He’d rise two inches or so, before falling back an inch, then he’d rise one inch and returned to the floor. He failed to take flight, or for that matter, remain floating more than a foot off the ground for more than a few seconds, no matter how aggressively he jumped, tugged at the air, or flapped his arms.

I looked up to my right and noticed a young man and woman bobbed like helium-filled birthday balloons against a side of the lower part of the dome. They each held one hand of a girl perhaps three years old. She wore polka dot peach and black socks, a black skirt and peach and polka dot shirt. When the adults let go of the toddler’s hands, she jetted around the dome in delightful corkscrew patterns then returned to the young couple, who laughed and applauded the toddler’s flight.

I spied an older woman in the lower part of the dome across from the young couple. She wore a raspberry-red church hat who’s wide undulating brim was trimmed with a plum-colored ribbon. The crown of her hat was decorated with a profusion of flame-colored feathers. Her matching wool pants and jacket echoed the colors of her hat – red, with purple satin lapels on the jacket. She didn’t flap her arms like a bird nor did she extend them and keep them in place like a jet or an airplane. Her flying technique consisted of doing a breaststroke – she propelled herself through the air sweeping her arms forward and back while her knees came in and around -frog-style. I was entranced by the blissful expression on her face before I was interrupted by a loud swoosh that passed near me on my right side. I looked up to see what it was. The older man who wore the gray jacket had just rippled past me. He was happily ping-ponging amongst the clouds in a superhero flying posture – one arm outstretched, the other straight by his side. His gray coat had become an iridescent black cape that flapped like a flag in a stiff wind behind him.

The church reverberated with the jubilant sounds of flight, conversation, and laughter of black people from the four corners of the world, from everywhere people of African descent live or have lived. It was a celebration of the power and joy of being black.

Something or someone tapped me behind my right shoulder. I turned and

saw Freedom Sommers floating horizontally in the air. She smiled at me and waved, “Hello.” There was no trace of the chilliness she displayed towards me during our introduction at The Corner Store. She beckoned me with her hand to follow her. I rose effortlessly into the air, and we made a couple of unhurried laps side by side around the edge of the deepening dome. But Freedom and I didn’t talk. The days and weeks and this very evening hand taken their toll on me. My mind, body, and spirit were exhausted, and she seemed to intuit that. She waved, “Goodbye,†and drifted up and away from me and eventually disappeared into the pinpoint center of the rising, gently whirling blue funnel. I remained hovering in the air as clouds converged towards me to support my legs, embrace my shoulders and provide a velvety pillow for my head. They lifted me beyond the confines of the church walls, passed the twinkling holiday lights decorating Oakwood homes, over the town’s snow-covered suburban lawns, through the towering maple trees festooned with icicles, and finally dropped me off at my front door, decorated with our homemade holiday wreath of holly berries, fir branches and pinecones.

I passed by the living room, which was still suffused with the holiday scent of our Norway spruce Christmas tree. On the mantle over the fireplace sat some symbols of our Kwanzaa celebration – the straw mat, seven-branched Kwanzaa candelabra – our kinara – with its red, green, and black candles, our wood Unity Cup and ears of dried corn.

I continued moving through the house, drifting up to the second floor. As I floated past the twin’s open door, I could see they were fast asleep, yet Grandma was finishing up reciting their special prayers to them.

I wafted into my room, changed into my pajamas, and sat on the bed. I reflected on the past year, the past season, and the events of the day. It was early morning Jan. 1, 2001, the beginning of a new century, the beginning of our next thousand years. And to kick them both off in the United States – a new president, George W. Bush.

I had recently celebrated my fourteenth birthday and had weathered the first semester of high school. I had lost my father, yet I often felt his presence next to me whispering in my ear.

I turned off my nightstand lamp and crawled into bed when I noticed something — a shadow in the shape of a human figure – dart across the room. My heartfelt as if it would burst out of my chest. I quickly sat up and scanned my room for the intruder. I quietly opened my nightstand drawer and pulled out the flashlight the size and circumference of my forearm that I kept there in case of electrical outages. Holding the flashlight like a club, I stealthily got out of bed and made my way to the closet, whose door was open a crack. I slowly put my left hand around the doorknob then flung the door wide, my right hand raised, ready to pound the heck out of anything that might be hiding in there. Nothing jumped out at me. I closed the closet door, making sure it clicked shut and returned to bed.

But I tucked the flashlight by my side under the covers, just in case.

As I lay on my belly and pulled the covers over my shoulders, random thoughts crossed my mind. Unexpectedly, I wondered what happened to that frayed stained strip of kente cloth Blackmun had given me. I seemed to remember the twins last had it. Oh, well, never mind. I will ask them about it tomorrow, in the new year. But as I turned on my back to readjust my covers, I caught sight of something – a faint glow at the foot of my bed. I sat up. The kente cloth. I grabbed it and examined it in the palm of my open hand. To my surprise, it was no longer frayed, singed, stained, or tattered. It looked as if it had been woven anew. The

eerily vivid colors blazed. The cloth’s jewel-like splendor blossomed towards me – a glittering sphere of light that became so unbearably bright that my eyes ached as if I were gazing directly at the sun. But I couldn’t turn away. I closed my eyes and felt pulsating waves of heat pass through me. When I opened my eyes, it was as if I had suddenly raised a curtain. The dazzling incandescence and I had become one.