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

CROSSROADS

An autumnal crispness sheared the early November air. Rich shadows and the deep golden light of sunrise laid its long fingers across the town. The remaining leaves on Oakwood’s tree-canopied streets trembled, flew off their branches, and, once fallen, formed a carpet of red, gold, brown, and yellow that rustled and rippled in the wind.

It had been six weeks since my first trip to the mall with J.J. During those six weeks, we had managed to become the two most popular guys in school, or at least in our grade. Admirers and hangers-on crowded our lunch table, and we were on everyone’s party invitation lists.

Just when the fall party season had kicked into high gear, Grandma told me that she had found temporary work in the hospital where she had been volunteering. Since Dad’s estate wouldn’t be settled until some time in the new year, we could use the money.

“Miles, I’m going to have to work afternoons and evenings, Tuesday through Saturday, so you’ll have to come straight home after school,” Grandma announced one morning in the kitchen while fussing over the twins as she rushed to prepare them for their school bus. “‘Unfortunately, that means your Friday and Saturday nights will be spoken for, also.”

My heart sank. It’s not that this was unexpected. I knew Grandma had been planning to get a job. And I knew that would mean I’d have additional responsibilities. But I hadn’t figured my new duties would annihilate my social life.

She pulled a paper napkin from its holder on the kitchen table, walked to the sink, and dampened two corners of the napkin in water streaming from the faucet.

“You’ve babysat for the twin’s plenty of times before, so I know you can handle it,” Grandma said, as she cleaned the corner of one of Ida’s eyes with one wet part of the napkin and used the other corner to wipe Douglass’s mouth.

Checking the twins’ Mutant Ninja Turtle backpacks for their lunch and field trip permission slips, she added, “Besides, they’re practically old enough now to take care of themselves.”

I knew Grandma had no other choice, yet I still felt put-upon. I had finally become a big deal at school, and now, just as parties were getting underway, I would have to babysit for the twins every single night.

One Saturday morning, a week after Grandma had started her new job, I was walking around the neighborhood, letting off steam, when I found myself standing outside Blackmun’s store. It was the first time I’d been there in quite a while. Under J.J.’s influence, I had avoided Blackmun after the photograph incident. “Who needs that crazy jerk telling me what to do,” J.J. had snapped. I was about to move on when I heard Blackmun call out to me.

“Whatcha readin’,” said Blackmun, who was wearing a Hampton University sweatshirt. He wore Historically Black College and University sweatshirts during the fall and winter because wearing dashikis was impractical in cold temperatures. “What’s been goin’ on?

While I felt empowered by my new status at school, the things that made me popular were not things I wanted to share with Blackmun. I avoided the question and explained in garbled tones that I hadn’t been around because I felt uncomfortable about coming by after the incident with the photograph.

“Oh, I didn’t mind the photo, but I did mind the disrespect,” Blackmun said. “But long long – long ago, much longer than you can imagine, I was a teenager, also, believe it or not, soooooooo. . .”—he punctuated his sentence with a smile and a knowing wink—-“you and your friends are always welcome here.” Then he added with a laugh, “Of course, I’m still not going to take no mess from y’all.”

Moments of awkward silence followed as I nervously shifted my eyes around the store. I was about to speak. I wanted to talk about Grandma’s new job and how I resented her telling me to stay home and look after the twins—as if I were a child myself. But I said nothing. Blackmun seemed to sense my anger at the injustice of my situation

“What’s bothering you, Son?” Blackmun gently asked. I wanted to talk but still said nothing. I wanted to tell Blackmun about the overwhelming power I now felt at school, especially when I was next to J.J. My classmates had always tolerated, even respected me as a nerd, especially since I had some athletic ability. But now they admired me. I was one of the cool kids. I wanted to tell Blackmun how mad I was at Grandma—who expected me to accept so many responsibilities without complaint. Finally, I blurted out that I felt Grandma treated me like a kid. Blackmun let my resentful words subside, then, leaning over the counter with exaggerated confidentiality, said, “I wasn’t always a black man, you know.” His eyes seemed to dance with delight as he peered at me, a smile playing on his lips.

I studied Blackmun’s face, his 4-C hair, dark brown skin, and full lips. I wondered if my new friends weren’t right after all—maybe Blackmun was demented, or senile or crazy, or just a fool.

For his part, Blackmun seemed to be enjoying my confusion. He rolled up the sleeves of the olive drab sweatshirt he wore up to his elbows. He passed each hand up and down over the opposite arm’s expanse of exposed skin, then opened his hands wide, directly in front of my face, like a magician about to perform a miraculous trick.

“This,” Blackmun said, glancing at his exposed skin, “is not what makes me a black man.” He paused dramatically. “This is,” he said, tapping the fingers of his right hand to his heart. “And this,” he said, tapping those fingers to his temple. “My skin color just gives me a head start,” he said playfully.

Blackmun then pulled his sleeves down and looked at me, and suddenly he was no longer playful.

“There comes a time in every black person’s life when he or she arrives at a crossroads,” Blackmun said, staring at me to gauge the effect of his words. “There comes a time in black people’s lives when they have to decide what they mean when they say they are black when they say that they are of African heritage. Is it merely a matter of skin color and hair texture? What will they make that skin color and hair texture—-that heritage—mean? Is it something to live up to or something to live down? When they arrive at that crossroads, most people aren’t even aware of it, but that doesn’t make it any less real. You, Miles, are now at that crossroads.”

I clenched my jaw in anger. It sounded to me like Blackmun was challenging my racial pride. Dad had always made a point of teaching the twins and me about

black history — and not just during black history month. Blackmun, who had had countless conversations with my father, should know that, I reasoned. I could feel myself getting angrier by the second. No, I hadn’t grown up “hard” in the “‘hood,” but I was no stranger to anger and injustice. As I continued to reflect on what Blackmun might be driving at, I felt anger rise from deep within me, and my hands balled into hard, tight fists. After all, I could tick off a list of black “firsts” without even trying – first black astronaut in space, Guy Bluford, Jr.; first black member of the U.S. Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall; first black millionaire, Madame C.J. Walker.

I had several T-shirts with images of the Motherland on them and wore them often and proudly. I could count to ten in Swahili, and last semester at the school talent show, I even recited by heart all of Gil Scott-Heron’s acerbic “Whitety on the Moon” and accompanied myself on bongos!

“Nobody tells me what it means to be black,” I fumed with an intensity that surprised even me.

“What you mean is that nobody but you should tell you what it means to be black,” Blackmun corrected patiently. “You already have millions of people telling you. They’re coming at you from all sides all the time and have been doing so since before you drew your first breath and will continue long after you’ve drawn your last. They come at you from radio and television programs, from magazine and newspaper articles, and from movies. No matter how many black anchors you see on news shows, no matter how many black men and women appear on the covers of magazines on newsstands, the behavior of clerks towards you in stores and from casual comments and attitudes from oblivious teachers, administrators, classmates, and staff at school are telling you what it means to be black.

“The cop with a crew cut who stops you on a bone-chilling winter’s day because a black person walking with his bare hands in his pockets looks ‘sus-pi-ci-ous’; the East Indian restaurant owner who walks over to your table and “shushes†you and your family for “laughing too loudlyâ€; the Asian woman who reflexively clutches her blond boyfriend’s arm for dear life when you sit next to them at a movie theater, all of them are telling you what it means to be black. As a race – as an ethnic group – we’re basically on our own. Our hair, our lips, our gums, the melanin in the lines of our palms, our skin color are often the butt of “didn’t mean to be offensive” jokes. Even now, only weeks before the dawn of the 21^st century, the efforts by others to define our blackness – and to diminish us with that definition – remain relentless.

“Look, Miles, I’m not telling you what it means to be black,” Blackmun continued. “I’m not telling you that you are two shades too light or that you are two shades too dark.” He walked around from behind the counter and ushered me the few steps to the front door of his shop. Then, as he put his comforting hand on my shoulder, he said, “I’m not telling you what to be or to do anything in particular.

I’m simply trying to jog your memory by making an observation. You are at a crossroads. It’s a crossroads we all come to.

“Think about what I said, about coming to this crossroads. We all need support when we reach it. In the kente cloth, I have given you a device – a tool. But remember: The menu is not the meal, the reflection is not the object reflected, and the symbol is not the thing symbolized. And continue to remember,” Blackmun said, “that my door is always open to you. If you need my help, just call. Anytime. Because we’re in this together.”

The intoxicating and noxious mixture of fumes from spray paint, felt-tipped markers, and glue filled the basement of our house. Assembled there were me, J.J., and the twins, whose school art project was the source of the fumes. Grandma wouldn’t return until much later. I climbed the few steps to the closed, metal double doors that led to the backyard and pushed them open.                                                                            A rush of cold November night air swept in, clearing everyone’s head.

I propped open the doors a crack with a nearby metal rod, then returned down the stairs. The extra refrigerator stood directly across from me. I opened its door, revealing a colorful trove of canned and bottled sodas, juices, and carbonated water. I took out a couple of cans of cola and walked over to J.J., who was sitting on one of two folding chairs in front of the washer and dryer on one side of the room. I handed him a can and plopped down beside him on the second folding chair. We popped the tabs of our cans, which hissed open, and looked in the general direction of my siblings at the opposite side of the room.

The twins’ had laid out their school project on a card table they were sharing.

Their task was to research the traditional meaning of the colors and patterns used in kente-cloth designs. Next, they were to create a design out of paint, construction paper, and wrapping paper that would express something they wanted to say about themselves, their family, or their culture.

Douglass knew that he was looking for something that spoke about power, like the comic book superheroes such as Falcon and Black Panther he enjoyed reading. Ida, with Halloween still on her mind, was thinking of ghosts. And so, the twins’ designs would look very different as they progressed. But both patterns were going to be laced with gold, which Ida and Douglass had learned represented prosperity, royalty, and the influence of God in human life. They also personalized the meaning as a reminder of our late parents. But right now, any higher meaning – personal, traditional, or cultural – was obscured by their squabbling with each other over who would get to use the measly foot-square sheet of gold wrapping paper. I snapped at them to shut up, then stomped over to the table and snatched away the source of the conflict.

I am embarrassed to say I had been curt with the twins throughout the afternoon, especially when they asked me for help with their project. When Ida asked me what a particular word in the book she was using to research her design meant, I’m ashamed to say I gruffly replied, “Look it up yourself.” When Douglass told me he and Ida had borrowed the kente cloth Blackmun had given me to copy one of its patterns, I barely listened. Instead, I cut him off and brusquely ordered him to “Be quiet and finish your project!” By the time J.J. dropped by in the early evening, I was in a foul mood and had let him know why.

When I walked back from the refrigerator to J.J., he whispered, “My man, don’t let nobody, even your grandma, clown you, tell you what to do, who to be, where you’re at. As long as you let everybody push you around, they’re going to push you around some more.” He punctuated this revelation by taking a glug of his soda.

I thought about what he said for a second; It seemed to make sense.

“Stand up for yourself, dawg,” J.J. continued. “Stop acting like a kid, and they’ll stop treating you like one.” J.J. took another swig, then leaned closer to me and said in a hushed tone, “I wouldn’t be your boy if I didn’t tell you this, but people are laughing at you behind your back.”

J.J. didn’t say which people. His beeper went off with its piercing rhythmic trill. He pulled it from his waistband, took a quick look at it, then returned it to the waistband.

“Listen, LaShawn’s parents are out of town, and in about an hour, some of us are getting together at his crib. You gotta be there, Son. Talk to some honeys, get your swerve on. Just put the twins to bed and swing by. They won’t miss you because they’ll be asleep, and you’ll be back before your grandmother comes home. It’ll be butter.” He paused dramatically, then added. “On the real, man, you’ve got to hang! People are starting to forget that you’re alive!”

A party sounded like a great idea to me. After the past few weeks that I had been stuck babysitting evenings, I wanted excitement. And I wouldn’t mind basking in the newfound admiration from my classmates beyond the walls of our school.

J.J.’s beeper went off again. He glanced down at it without pulling it out of his waistband this time. He stood up and put his soda on the seat.

“Look, I gotta jet,” he said, grabbing his jacket, draped on the back of his chair. As he slipped it on, I stood up and put my soda on the seat of my chair. I led

J.J. to the heavy basement doors, pushed them open, and we emerged outside. “Holla at me,” he said as we dapped. He turned to his lime-green Haro Master BMX bike, which he had laid on its side next to the basement doors.

“Yeah, later,” I replied. J.J. reached down, righted his bike, and jumped onto it. He pedaled a couple of strokes, popped his front tire into a quick wheelie before making a crunching , crackling sound that diminished as he rolled over our gravel driveway off our property. I went back down the steps into the basement, closed the doors so they remained open a crack, then returned to my seat by the washer and dryer. I swooped my half-empty soda can up from the seat of the folding chair, drained it with a few aggressive chugs, then slammed my butt down on the chair and glared at my siblings, who were glumly absorbed in their projects. The muffled sound of crinkling aluminum rose from my lap as my hands tightened around the now empty soda can.

I stared a hole in the clock on the wall behind my brother and sister. The clock’s thin brass hands were attached to a foot-and-a-half-long piece of mahogany carved in the shape of Africa. Watching those hands move was like watching icicles melt on the coldest February day – in other words, the hands seemed not to move forward at all.        At times, they seemed to click backward.

Finally, after an interminable half-hour, the hands read eight o’clock. I sprang from my chair and sped across the basement to lock the outside basement door when they did. I then turned to Ida and Douglass, who were still working on their project, and crisply ordered them to get ready for bed.

“Why do we have to go to bed now?” said Douglass incredulously. “It’s Friday. We never go to bed this early on Fridays and Saturdays.”

“Just do what I say,” I growled, and they both reluctantly rose to their feet.

“But it’s too early for us to go to sleep,” Ida said, using all her effort to assert herself. “Why do we have to go to bed now!? We’ll just end up staying awake playing or talking.”

She shrank away, a little fearful, it seemed to me, when I suddenly moved toward her and her twin brother. I swung around behind them and put a firm hand on each of their backs.

“No, you won’t,” I said impatiently while guiding them, none too gently, away from their crafts table, through the basement, up its steps, and through the house to their bedroom on the second floor.

“You guys have been cranky all day,” I continued. “You need your rest. I’m sure you’ll both go to sleep right away.

“So please,” I added, irritated, “go and get ready for bed and stop giving me a hard time.” Hearing no hint of compromise in my voice, the twins trudged the rest of the way to their bedroom without me nudging them forward with my hands.

After the twins were brushed, washed, in their pajamas, and in bed, I decided to close their bedroom door, which was usually left open. I wanted to make sure they wouldn’t hear the back door shut when I left the house or hear my footsteps and the wheels of my bike as I walked it over our gravel driveway. But when I gently pulled the door closed, Douglass and Ida panicked.

“Don’t shut our door!” Douglass pleaded.

I swung the door open and clomped back into the room. “I have to,” I barked. “I’m going to listen to my music on the stereo, and I don’t want to keep you up.”

“Use your Walkman; put on your earphones,” Ida implored, pointing to my neck, where the earphones rested as usual.

“I don’t want to,” I said, with no attempt to hide my annoyance. “But I’m scared,” Ida persisted.

“Look,” I said, impatiently, “there’s nothing to be scared of, but if you need some comfort, get one of your dolls and snuggle with it. Really. It will be all right. I’m going to shut the door. I want to listen to music on the stereo. You’ll be all right. Now – Go! To! Sleep! Pleeeease!” I walked out of the room, pulling the door behind me just short of slamming it shut. I was about to run down the stairs but abruptly stopped for a long moment. I thought I had forgotten something, but I couldn’t figure out what. I continued down the stairs, assuming that it would eventually come to me if it were something important. I slipped out the back door, hopped on my bicycle, and pedaled the ten minutes to the party.

I skidded to a stop in LaShawn’s driveway near about a half dozen other bikes. I hopped off and lifted my right foot to push down my kickstand when my heart skipped a beat. I now remembered – I hadn’t said our family’s special prayers for my brother and sister. That had never happened before. Dad had recited that prayer, which ended, “Thank you for giving my son, Miles, a strong mind and a strong, healthy body,” to me every night without fail until I was at least ten years old, even over the phone when Dad was away on business. Every night I had babysat my siblings, I had remembered to say the same prayer to them, ending it, “Thank you for giving my brother, Douglass, and sister, Ida, strong minds and strong, healthy bodies.” And I knew Grandma never forgot the twin’s special prayers when she was in charge. My little sister and brother must have been so panicked when I shut the door that they failed to remind me. I hopped off my bike and walked as if I were in a trance towards LaShawn’s house, stopping just short of its closed front door.

I raised my index finger. It hovered an indecisive inch or two from the doorbell button. I flirted with the idea of going back home. But the twins were probably asleep by now. No matter. It would be all right. My finger slowly moved towards the button. It paused again. What if they were still awake and calling out for me? What if they got out of bed and were wandering alone around the house looking for me? What if, fearing something terrible had happened to me, they picked up the phone and called the police? What if they called Grandma at work? Perhaps I should rethink this situation. Maybe I should bag this adventure and head back home. Then my index finger traveled with the irreversible direction and speed of a bullet blasting from the barrel of a pistol. Its target – the beckoning dim light of the doorbell button; upon contact, a disconcertingly loud “ding dong” like the chimes of Big Ben resonated throughout the front porch. A few moments later, the front door swung open, and a smiling LaShawn greeted me. He wore overalls he had died green and on which he had silk-screened scores of images of hundred- dollar bills, with multitudinous faces of Ben Franklin gazing out with an enigmatic expression. Beneath the overalls, LaShawn wore a Henley shirt he had tie-dyed lavender and yellow.

“Yo, dawg!” said LaShawn, whose thin box braids dangled to his shoulders. Ever the rebel, LaShawn, decided to decorate his locks with safety pins rather than beads one would have expected. I should say here that LaShawn was white – specifically, a mixture of Irish and Italian American. But he seemed to have an affinity for black people, at least at that time. He was up on the most current black music, style, and lingo. In middle school, he had given himself what he called a “soul” name that he said fit his personality better than Brad, the name his parents had given him.      However, by his junior year of high school, he had reverted to his given name and capitalized on his idealized frat boy looks – square jaw, perfect teeth, blue-gray eyes, sandy-brown hair – with a body destined for the lacrosse field. But as a freshman in high school, he had continued to remedy his pasty complexion by exposing as much skin as possible to the sun playing pickup basketball games outdoors in the warmer months. Even now, November, he retained enough of his tan to pass as a light-skinned “brotha.” At our school, he was one of several non-black “Afro-wannabes,” but my black friends froze them out of conversations when they sat at our lunch table; for some reason they welcomed LaShawn as “one of us.” If this evening’s invitation list echoed those of his previous parties, he would be the only white person there. I never figured out what to make of that. . .

LaShawn gave me a hearty dap and shoulder-bang hug, then gushed, “Come on in!” I hesitated again. I felt another pang of guilt about the twins, but it was fainter this time. Barely noticeable. My feet rose a millimeter or two off the ground, and I floated over the front door threshold towards LaShawn. We drifted through the house’s short portal into the living room, through a door into LaShawn’s family’s den, where I landed, ready to plunge into the party.

Well, it wasn’t really a party. It was a bunch of kids standing around looking uncomfortable in the yellowish-brown half-light cast by a pair of lamps. The lamps sat on coffee tables at either end of a wall to the right of where we entered. Ten or so girls stood on one side of the room and about the same number of boys on the other side. Everybody seemed to cast their gaze at the floor, the walls, the ceiling – just about anything so long as it didn’t have a pulse. No doubt, they were all trying to figure out how to make their first move. A couple of the guys noticed me when I entered and nodded but did no more than that. One of the girls saw me and giggled.

A stereo system, located between the two lamps, was tuned to a radio station playing a commercial for a tire company. When I didn’t see J.J., I turned to tell LaShawn I had to roll when J.J. came striding through the swinging door that led from the kitchen to the den. He shouted, “Yo, let’s get it started.†His mere arrival seemed to electrify the atmosphere. He headed straight to the stereo, turned off the radio, and popped in a cassette of what I assumed was a mixtape he had created.

Whoever made it or wherever it came from, the mixtape kicked off with the bangin’ Humpty Dance by Digital Underground with its P-Funk bass that immediately got everybody’s body cranking. In a matter of minutes, after he had shown up, J.J. had lit up the party.

After three hours, I figured I’d better head back home. I didn’t want to push my luck about when Grandma would return. I looked around the den to tell J.J. I was leaving. When I didn’t see him there, I went through the swinging door into the kitchen, which was illuminated only by the range light over the stove. I spotted J.J. and a girl. They both leaned with their backs against the counter across from the oven. She was svelte and nearly as tall as J.J. She wore a simple headwrap of indeterminate color in the low light. One of his arms gently fell over her shoulders. Their faces were inches from one another. She punctuated her shy smiles with sips of soda from a straw stuck into a can, hoping to camouflage her evident excitement, I assumed. He didn’t return her smile but maintained steady eye contact.

“Yo, J.J.,†I said softly; I didn’t want to break the romantic spell it looked like he was weaving. “I’ve gotta bounce,†I said. “Thanks for inviting me.â€

He looked at me briefly, offered a perfunctory nod, and returned his attention to the girl. “No problem; Catch ya later,†he said mechanically.

As I headed out of the kitchen, I heard J.J. call out: “Yo, Miles.†I turned around. “I’m glad you made it,†he said with a sincere smile.

When I got home, I looked at the microwave’s clock in the kitchen. Just before midnight, a cool half-hour before Grandma usually returned home. I buttered a slice of bread, poured myself a glass of milk, and carried them as I made my way toward the stairs to my bedroom. Things had gone so smoothly, I thought; perhaps I would make a habit of going out while my brother and sister were asleep. As I climbed the stairs, I smelled something. Breadcrumbs had gotten stuck in the toaster oven again, I figured until I realized I hadn’t toasted my bread. I looked up to my left. The twins’ door was ajar. Hadn’t I shut it when I left? I noticed a ghostly tongue of smoke rising from under the door to their room. I dropped my food and bounded up the remaining steps to the landing.

I flung open the door to my sibling’s bedroom. Smoke billowed towards me. My brother and sister lay motionless in their separate beds. A smattering of embers smoldered at the foot of Douglass’s goose-down duvet. When I tore the cover off Douglass, a mesmerizing chaos of glowing cinders swirled into the air around me like hundreds of fireflies. Douglass didn’t move. I looked at his bed and saw smoke rising from an electric blanket near the foot of the bed. It had shorted. I ripped it off the bed and saw a circle of orange embers where the hot metal wires had begun to burn into the mattress.

One at a time, I lifted my siblings from their respective beds. I felt as if I was lifting 50-pound sacks of potatoes. Neither stirred. My heart pounded as I carried them into the hall and set them on the floor against the wall near the stair landing.

They gradually came around. Groggy from smoke and sleep, a series of hacking coughs poured out of them as they gasped for air. They were alive! I dashed back into the room, checked quickly to ensure nothing was on fire, unplugged the blanket, then grabbed their coats from their closet. When I returned to the landing, the twins were sobbing. Douglass repeatedly said, â€I’m sorry, Miles.†I had told my brother on a previous occasion not to plug in the old electric blanket. Tonight, I knelt beside him and held his hand to reassure him that I wasn’t angry. I helped my siblings stand up, gathered their coats under one of my arms, and guided them down the stairs away from the smoke, which had swelled out of the room like fog into the entire second floor. I told them to put their coats on over their pajamas and wait for me on the front porch. I went to the kitchen and called the fire department. I also tried to reach Grandma at her job. When the operator said she had left for the night, I tried Grandma’s cell phone. No answer, so I left a message, trying to sound calm but asking her to call me right away.

When I rushed to the front door, I saw Ida was still inside, struggling to put on her coat. She was having trouble threading one of her hands through her sleeve; that hand clutched the kente cloth Blackmun had given me at Dad’s funeral. It was singed. I gently pried the fabric from my sister’s hand and tossed it back into the house, where it landed in a corner of the entrance hallway. I then helped my sister put on her coat and ushered her into the cold, where we all waited for the firefighters to arrive.

***

Whatcha readin’, brothas?” asked Blackmun the next day. “I heard you were a hero last night.” Blackmun raised his hand to give me five. It was Saturday mid- afternoon, and Blackmun had been sweeping the sidewalk in front of his store when he saw me and J.J. walk by. We were so involved in our conversation that Blackmun had taken us by surprise. We both fidgeted with discomfort—me because I knew not only was I not a hero, I almost caused my brother’s and sister’s deaths; J.J. because he had told me many times since his last encounter with Blackmun, that he hated having to listen to “that crazy jerk.”

I unenthusiastically extended my hand, palm-up, to receive Blackmun’s five and responded that I was not a hero. “Everyone in the family was just lucky last night.”

“Well, your grandmother dropped by to pick up a paper earlier, and she called you a hero,” Blackmun said, giving me a congratulatory smile. I remembered the conversation with Grandma the night before, how she had come home to find me with the twins safely outside, the ambulance and fire truck arriving roughly when she did. I remembered how relieved Grandma was that everybody was safe. (It turned out that Douglass had been cold. After calling out for me many times, he went to the linen closet, retrieved the old electric blanket, and plugged it in even though he knew he wasn’t supposed to. I lied to Grandma and told her I was in the basement, not out of the house, and that was why I hadn’t heard Douglass calling for an extra blanket. I didn’t share those details with Blackmun.)

But as Blackmun continued to look at me, his smile dimmed. He cocked his head a bit to his right and squinted as if trying to bring a distant object into focus. He held that pose for a quiet moment. As he did, I had the strange sensation of something moving around inside me, near my belly button – as if billiard balls were scattering and clacking around after a break shot. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling, but it wasn’t unpleasant, either. Mostly, it was unsettling.

“Anyway,” Blackmun said at last, “it’s a good thing you were there and woke them up in time.” Then he invited us into his store for a free juice or soda.

“Come on, it’ll be on me. Think of it as a reward,” Blackmun said.

J.J. seemed to relax after seeing Blackmun was not going to pick up where their previous encounter left off. He explained that we had to catch a bus to The City to check out sound equipment for the music group we planned to form. The twins had spent the night in the hospital for observation. Grandma decided to take the day off to make sure they rested at home, which meant she didn’t need to take a nap before going to work that evening, and I was free to join J.J. for the whole day.

“Well, come on inside, grab something to drink, and take it with you, Blackmun insisted. “About when will the bus arrive?”

“In about twenty-five minutes,” I said.

“Well then, you have plenty of time. It’s only a five-minute walk to the bus stop. Come on in,” said Blackmun, leading the way.

Inside the shop, Blackmun handed us the apple juice and grape soda we had requested. “Tell me about this group. Do you have a name?”

“Not yet, but we’re working on it. Miles wants to come up with the beats,”

J.J. said.

“Beatmaster J, kickin’ it old school,” I said, laughing because I knew how corny I sounded.

“And I like to rap,” J.J. added. “But we thought we might get another rapper, possibly a girl.”

“I’ve already got a pretty good twelve-inch collection and one turntable,” I volunteered. “I just need to get a laptop and some software for more beats and effects. There are a couple of stores in The City that are supposed to have pretty good deals.”

“Before you get yourself on the cover of Vibe magazine, you’ll need to find out how much the equipment costs,” Blackmun said. “And once you figure that out, where are you going to get the money?”

The question took me by surprise. In the initial rush of wanting to start a group, I had overlooked that fundamental question. “W-w-well,” I stuttered, “I-I have some savings.” But even as I said it, I knew that the meager amount I had wouldn’t begin to cover the cost of the equipment I needed. I began to wonder if maybe I turned up my nose at that lemonade stand money too soon.

“Listen,” Blackmun said, reading the confusion on my face. “If you need work, let’s talk. I don’t need help around the store right now, but if you’re good with a lawnmower, maybe we can work out something. You know,” Blackmun mused out loud, picking up steam, “I don’t suppose there’s any harm in letting a thirteen-year-old get a little entrepreneurial experience. I own a two-family house on Appleton Place. Since it’s near Thanksgiving, you can rake the remaining leaves, clean gutters, and help me with the odd maintenance on the property. Come spring, there’ll be grass in need of mowing, weeds to pull, hedges to trim. I can pay you… eight dollars an hour for a few hours over the weekends. That’s more than minimum wage. In a couple of months, you can save enough to help you launch your music career.

Upon hearing that, J.J. doubled over with laughter. “Man, that’s chump change.”

Blackmun pursed his lips in disapproval and was about to say something when a woman in her early twenties entered the store. A Lauryn Hill lookalike, she had twisted her hair into dark tendrils that cascaded down either side of her face.      She wore a black leotard top, layered with an untucked black and red checkered flannel shirt, and a shearling bomber jacket. Slouchy dungarees and a pair of Timbs 6-inch work boots completed the look. Upon seeing Blackmun, she lit up with delight.

“Qué estás leyendo?” she said before kissing him on the cheek. He gave her          an avuncular hug and said, “I’m peepin’ fierce knowledge, baby. Fierce!”                                 

Releasing her from his gentle embrace, he said, “Yo, baby girl, let me introduce you to these young men. Miles, J.J. – Freedom. Freedom – Miles and J.J.”

She looked at me and J.J., and her smile subtly but perceptibly faded. She extended her hand to shake ours but leaned back ever so slightly as if distancing herself from an unpleasant odor.

“Freedom Sommers,” she said with a chilliness that contrasted with the warmth she showed Blackmun, “Good to meet you,” she added unconvincingly.

Either ignoring or unaware of Freedom’s reaction to me and J.J., Blackmun interjected, “Freedom, these young men just told me they want to start a music group. Guys, Freedom is in law school and studying to specialize in entertainment law when she graduates. You all should get together – have coffee, hang out in a park. . . Get to know each other.”

Freedom gave J.J. and me a wan smile and abruptly turned her attention back to Blackmun. She said she had a lot of errands to run that day, led Blackmun to a far corner of the shop, leaned in close to him, and began speaking rapidly in Spanish.

J.J. stealthily motioned for me to join him near the magazines, where he was standing, and pulled out a copy of Ebony with Queen Latifah on the cover. He opened it to some random article, which we gazed at blindly,

“What’s she saying,’ he whispered urgently.

I understood some Spanish because my mother and her side of the family were Afro-Latinos from Colombia. My middle name is my mother’s maiden name – de la Esperanza. After Mom died, my father continued our annual two-week visits to Bogota during the Christmas or Easter holidays, or my maternal grandparents, who didn’t speak English, would visit the U.S. There were also regular phone calls. But my last visit was three years ago, shortly before my maternal grandmother died.

My maternal grandfather was too frail to travel and beset by severe dementia, making it difficult for him to speak or understand any language. So, my Spanish was pretty rusty.

Freedom spoke quickly and in a murmur. She drew an envelope from her jacket. From what I could gather, Freedom’s great-grandaunt was one of Blackmun’s tenants. I found out later that as a child of the Great Depression, she didn’t trust banks and paid her rent – and just about everything else – in cash. Today she had to attend a can’t miss church meeting, Freedom said, but because the rent was due, she had asked her great-grandniece to bring it. Freedom added with a laugh: It was also an excellent opportunity for a quick visit. She broke into English, saying she aced all her law courses. “Donde esta mi dinero, eh, Poppi!?” she said, rubbing her thumb and forefinger together in a money-grubbing gesture, and they both broke out laughing.

After Freedom left, I said to Blackmun, “I never knew before today that you’re a landlord.” Blackmun smiled broadly. Putting the envelope in a drawer under the counter, he said proudly, “It was a good investment.” He glanced at J.J. but directed his comment to me. “You should never be afraid to start small. It helped me get to where I am today.”

“Blackmun, you own a two-bit candy store and a small, old, two-family house—biiiig freakin’ deal,” said J.J., who had either lost his mind or forgotten that Blackmun could unleash a world of hurt.

But Blackmun just shook his head. “The trouble is, J.J., it’s your thinking

that’s small.”

J.J. joked, “Hey, I’m all about the Benjamin’s. Money’s cool, yo. Just don’t act like no Bill Gates.”

Blackmun’s cell phone rang. He took his Motorola StarTAC out of its case, that he had clamped to his belt, and flipped it open like a crew member from the

T.V. show, Star Trek. After glancing at the number, he said, “Whatcha readin’, lady?” and after a couple of seconds, he put the caller on hold. “If anyone comes in, tell them I’ll be right back,” Blackmun said, then continued the phone conversation as he disappeared down the steps behind the counter into the basement.

J.J. leaned over to me and pointed with his chin in the direction of the envelope.

“I’ve got the answer to your money worries, Miles,” he said in a hoarse whisper. I couldn’t believe J.J. was talking about stealing from Blackmun. After my narrow escape from the night before, I felt I had courted enough danger for the time being. Besides, Blackmun was my friend. And beyond that, I knew it was just plain wrong. I glanced over to the stairs where Blackmun had disappeared, then back at J.J., who broke into a smile. He seemed to be able to read the signs of anxiety on my face. I looked towards the stairs again

“I wouldn’t steer you wrong,” J.J. said reassuringly. “There are no lives at stake here. It’s just some easy cash, probably more than you’d get in a month of pulling weeds and shoveling snow! The money in that drawer there—it will help you get to where you want to go.”

My fear of catastrophe lessened, but a solid wall of conscience kept me from seriously entertaining the idea.

J.J. seemed to intuit his partial victory. “Listen,” J.J. whispered intently, accelerating his momentum, “Blackmun just lives off black people the way white people do. What’s the big deal? That he gives you a buck for your ‘good’ grades?” Those lame black pride displays he puts in his windows?”

I had never considered this before, but my friend seemed to have thought it all out. J.J. took another swig of his soda and made a disdainful face. “He’s just a crazy old man— he’ll probably never even miss it.”

Clearly, I remember thinking, this was a test. J.J. could easily steal the money himself, but he was prodding me to take it.

“Blackmun trusts you, Miles,” J.J. pointed out. “He’ll never even come looking in your direction.

“Or maybe,” J.J. continued, “you just don’t have the guts.” He chugged his remaining soda and crushed the can. “Maybe I had you all wrong. Maybe you are still a kid.” He said no more, just rotated the crushed soda can in his hand and stared at me.

“OK,” I said

J.J. smiled and nodded. “You down, then,” he stated. “I’m down,” I confirmed.

Blackmun returned from the basement as he was finishing his call. He flipped his phone shut and returned it to its case on his hip, then suddenly snapped his fingers in irritation and muttered to himself, “I forgot to give her a receipt.”

He pulled out the envelope with the rent money from the drawer under the counter and started to put it in his back pocket. I felt a wave of relief. How could I make off with the money if he had it on him and took it to who knows where? But just then, his phone rang again, and he absent-mindedly returned the money to the drawer and took the call. “Whatcha readin’, baby!” he said, and while the person on the end of the line responded, Blackmun mouthed, “Catch you later,” and waved goodbye to me and J.J. as we headed off towards the bus stop. But after walking a ways from the store, J.J. stopped and looked at me. “We have to come up with a plan,” he said.

We decided we would pretend to go to the bus. J.J. would go home and stay there. I would circle back to the store and establish a spot to scope out the store out without arousing suspicion. When Blackmun went down to the basement, as he often did, I could sneak in and take the money from the drawer. The only thing that could go wrong would be if he caught me with my hand in the till, so to speak, but I could reduce the chances of that by listening for his footsteps coming up the basement stairs and by being quick. After all, I knew where the money should be located. If Blackmun caught me in the store, no problem, I’d just say there was a change of plans, and I decided to return to buy some chips. And as J.J. said, once he noticed the money was gone, he’d never suspect me. Besides, Blackmun had a reputation in town for occasionally being absent-minded or at least seeming to be that way. Who knows, he might not even notice the money was missing or think it was all a figment of one of his “spells.” That was our thinking, anyway.

***

Later that day, Grandma, the twins, and I were in our kitchen. Eerily, Dad’s outgoing message was still on the answering machine, and we decided to replace it with a new message. Grandma and I were trying to help the twins craft it. But every time I pointed my finger, meaning “Start now,” Ida became tongue-tied, no matter how well she had rehearsed. And Douglass, who switched words in his part of the greeting— changing “residence” to “home” to “domicile” — did not help her.

The doorbell rang, and I volunteered to get it. When I opened the front door,

J.J. was standing there.

“Well? Did you get the money?” J.J. asked. I shushed him, but he persisted.

“Yeah, yeah,” I finally said. “Now get out of here. It’s a bad time,” and I started to shut the door.

J.J. put his foot out, where it met the closing door with a soft thump. “So, where is it?” J.J. said.

“Who is it, Miles?” Grandma called out from the kitchen.

I ignored her and spoke to J.J. from the narrow opening between the door and the doorframe. “Upstairs,” I hissed. “I hid it.”

J.J. looked at his foot caught between the door and the doorframe and then at me. “That’s cold blooded, Bro,” he quietly deadpanned before smiling sarcastically and withdrawing his foot.

The next day was Sunday, and as usual, I went to church with Grandma, Douglass, and Ida. After the service, huddled figures scurried down the church steps, making their way along the sidewalk and into their cars to escape the late November chill. As my family and I left the warmth and the sweet smell of frankincense of the church, I noticed there was a still figure leaning against a utility pole directly in front of us. When I recognized the figure as J.J., I averted my eyes and quickened my pace down the steps.

“Isn’t that your friend J.J.?” Grandma asked as I tugged her so we would meet the sidewalk several feet away from the motionless figure.

“Yeah,” I replied crossly, scrunching up my shoulders as if protecting myself from the cold. I turned away from J.J. as much as possible without being too obvious. But I could sense J.J. following me with his eyes. I glanced back at him, and he gave me a reptilian smile.

That Monday at noon, I sat at the corner of a lunch table by myself, but I was soon joined by J.J., who gave me a robust slap on the back before sliding down next to me on the bench.

“Which laptop are you going to buy?” he asked me. At this point, three of our friends joined us: one was light-skinned and heavyset with reddish hair; one was gaunt, tall, and dark; and the third, a boy of medium color and build who had a shaved head.

“I’m not so sure that I’m going to buy one,” I said.

J.J. looked surprised. “Why not? That’s why you took the money, isn’t it?” His eyes narrowed. “You did take the money, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did,” I said curtly. “I just don’t know what I want to buy with it.”

“What money are you talking about?” asked the heavyset boy with the café ole complexion and reddish hair. J.J. filled everybody in.

“Yo, how much did you get?” the teen with the shaved head asked.

“Five hundred dollars,” J.J. volunteered for me. Of course, neither he nor I knew how much money was there. I figured J.J. chose a random number as a test – to see how I’d react. I decided to roll with it.

“Man, that’s a good take,” the tall, dark boy said with admiration. “Yeah, but homey here got scared and almost punked out,” J.J. said.

I immediately refuted J.J.; I felt my manhood was being attacked: “I wasn’t scared, and I didn’t almost punk out,” I asserted vehemently, and then found myself bragging about how clever the theft had been: How I waited patiently for the right moment for Blackmun to disappear into his basement and for the store to be free of customers. How I darted into the store, alert to passersby on the street who might see me entering or leaving. How I rehearsed in my head what I would say if he caught me in the store, and even what I’d say if he caught me red-handed. How I debated whether to take only the rent money or clear out the cash register to make sure the crime seemed random. (I told my friends I decided to take only the rent money. He’d surely notice an empty till, but knowing he was prone to “spells,” I thought he might forget that he had even received the rent.)

On Wednesday, two days later, shortly after the beginning my last-period class, my teacher told me to see the principal. When I arrived at his office, the secretary nodded towards an inner door with a rectangle of frosted glass with gold decal letters reading– James P. Washington – and his title under it. I knocked on the door, opened it, and entered. Mr. Washington, half sitting on the front edge of his large standard-issue wooden principal’s desk, pointed to one of two tan plastic chairs in front of it. “Have a seat,” he said.

Mr. Washington was imposing, especially when he stood – not because of his height, however, which was average, but because of the physicality he radiated. Perhaps this force came from him being a former athlete, a wide receiver for Grambling State. But his college career was cut short, and dreams of playing for the NFL were crushed when a car hit him in the crosswalk as he made his way across the street. He still limped slightly, and it was more pronounced when it rained.

He could be pretentious, with the pompous bearing of a bureaucrat.

Teachers and students alike ridiculed him behind his back for his ridiculously precise “dic-tion” and his showy and seemingly unnecessary use of “big words,” for instance, saying “cacophonous” when “noisy,” would do. But everyone

acknowledged that he was an effective and tireless champion on behalf of all his students. He used his parliamentary demeanor and keen grant-writing skills to get money for our school’s countless extra programs and equipment.

Mr. Washington looked at me as if sizing me up before deciding what to say first. Finally, he simply said, “There’s been a robbery. Somebody stole hundreds of dollars over the weekend from the convenience store, the one on Walnut and Chestnut.” I felt my heart pound. “Do you know anything about this?”

I shook my head. Principal Washington explained that on Monday, there were rumors that someone burglarized Blackmun. After confirming it with Blackmun, the town’s school superintendent asked the principals of the high school and the two junior high schools to discretely ask around to see if any students had information about the crime. He went on to say that three freshmen boys at our school – friends of mine – had been individually questioned, and each claimed I had bragged that I had stolen the money.

I stuttered, “I-I-I didn’t do it.”

He leaned towards me, a stern look on his face.

“You know, of course, that if you did steal the money, you are in serious trouble,” he said, “In all likelihood, this will go to the police, and then to the courts, where prosecutors will try you as a juvenile offender. You’ll certainly be expelled from this school. You’ll save yourself a lot of unpleasantness if you cooperate.” Washington did not usually talk so bluntly. In retrospect, I imagine he consciously employed a “Scared Straight” approach to frighten the holy bejesus out of me. If so, mission accomplished.

“But I didn’t do it!” I practically shouted.

Mr. Washington leaned back slightly, eyeing me. “Do you remember telling three students at this school that you did?” He might as well have added, “Checkmate.”

My shoulders slumped; I looked down at my sneakers and gazed glassy-eyed at my fidgeting feet.

Mr. Washington informed me that he had no choice but to suspend me until authorities resolved the matter. He added that he had called my grandmother, who was on her way to school.

When I heard that, I became dizzy. All my blood seemed to rush away from my arms and legs. The world around me began to spin. Some people might think I was soft, that I overreacted. Compared to being accused of mugging, carjacking, dope peddling, or sexual assault – stealing, even from a friend, might seem like small potatoes, even if nobody believed I was innocent. But for as long as I could remember, I had been haunted by a feeling difficult to describe.                                                                                    Even in Oakwood, a town of 40,000, thirty percent of whom were black. Although we were “integrated” into the community, evenly spread throughout the town’s economic spectrum, from Section 8 housing to mansions, I always felt in some way inauthentic. Despite my trophies, report cards, and test scores, I never quite trusted, nor did I feel entirely trusted by my surroundings. I felt a nagging discomfort like an illness that never entirely presents itself but that never entirely goes away.

Could that feeling be what Dad meant when he talked about being a black man – or did white men have that feeling, also?

Wood and glass rattled as somebody rapped on the door. Mr. Washington got up and walked three or four steps to open it, revealing Blackmun. He stood still for a long moment, expressionless. His face resembled those I had known from the photographs in the many books of African art Dad had purchased over the years. Specifically, it resembled the West African dance mask Dad had hung with pride on a wall in his home office. A contemporary copy of a famous nineteenth-century mask from the Dan people, it was made of ebony and flawlessly smooth. As a child, I had sat in Dad’s home office in his leather chair many times—elbows on the desk, left hand cradling my jaw and chin, neck crooked slightly to the right in the direction of the mask. I would sit there for hours, lost in the graceful curves of the eyebrows, the lightly parted lips (which seemed to me to be whispering a secret), and the eyes. While I couldn’t conceptualize it when I was a child, the eyes—simple rectangular slits—seemed to offer a glimpse into worlds parallel to ours that were full of promise. And for a second in the principal’s office, my memory of the mask and Blackmun’s face in front of me were one: Black. Steady. Indomitable.

The principal said, “I’ll leave so you men can talk,” and left the room.

Blackmun walked in and shut the door. Now it was just us. Two legs of the other tan chair made a rasping sound as Blackmun grabbed it by the back and briskly dragged it across the floor nearer to me.

“You know, it crossed my mind that you or J.J. might have taken the money,” Blackmun said as he sat down, our knees practically touching. “But I dismissed the thought. It just didn’t make sense.”

“I didn’t do it, Blackmun!” I exclaimed.

Blackmun frowned. “Don’t you think it’s curious that three kids—friends of yours—individually said you claimed you did?” I felt miserable and ashamed.

Although I didn’t take the money, I lied and said I did it to impress my friends.

When I confessed this to Blackmun, he slowly shook his head. “Stealing? Is that what your friends find impressive?” he said wearily. In the silence that followed, I became aware of a thin buzzing, like the sound of a mosquito, but it came from inside my head.

Blackmun took a deep breath. With a mixture of confusion and sorrow, he said, “Let me get this straight: You did this – you claimed to do this – not for diapers for a child or food for your family or to keep the lights on, but. . . but for what? “

I thought about how I was disgracing the memory of my father and mother.

There was another rap at the door, and Grandma swung it wide. Standing in the doorway, she said, “Is this true what I hear, that you have been stealing! And from Blackmun, yet!” Her eyes were on fire. She walked over to where I was sitting and swooped down on me. Though she was midway through her seventh decade, she gripped one of my upper arms with a ferocity that hurt. She was about to pull me to my feet so that she could confront me face to face. But I noticed Blackmun caught her eye and made a subtle gesture with his hands, indicating that he and I were in the middle of something.

Grandma released my arm. In a tone more sad than angry, she asked, “Is this true, baby?”

No one talked for at least a full minute. Finally, Blackmun spoke to Grandma. “Look, I don’t believe he stole this money.” Then he looked at me. “It just isn’t like you. But what I don’t understand is, why you’d boast that you were a thief?”

“It was a big deal with J.J.,” I explained. “J.J. tried to talk me into stealing the money, but I couldn’t do it.”

I felt I was done for. I winced as I remembered what Blackmun had told me at the store: If you run with people like that, be careful of what you do. You and you alone will be held accountable for your actions.

I was about to ask Blackmun if he would vouch for me and help me get out of this mess when the principal reentered the room. Grandma asked Mr.

Washington what the next move would be. I felt lightheaded again. “I’ll wait until tomorrow before I call the police. . . ,” Mr. Washington began.

“I don’t think the police will be necessary,” Blackmun interrupted.

The principal responded using excessively formal language, even for him.

With the benefit of hindsight, I think he did this less to present a calm and collected argument and more to rein in, or perhaps disguise, the worry that he must have known his face betrayed.

“Blackmun, with all due respect, we must contact the police – the sooner, the better,” he said. “Five hundred dollars is no mean sum, and I doubt you’ll see it again without the assistance of the law. But I’m mainly concerned about the future of our young man here. Now is the time to check this kind of behavior before it becomes a habit, or worse, a tributary to more serious transgressions. Intervening now could save his life.”

Blackmun sat silently for a long time, his eyes downcast in thought. When he raised them, he looked at Mr. Washington and said softly, “How are you doing, Jim?”

The office became unexpectedly quiet        – the sounds of birds outside Mr. Washington’s window and the murmur of his secretary talking on the phone just beyond the closed door were suddenly vacuumed into silence. The atmosphere became one of melancholy and exhaustion.                         Underneath the harsh glare of the fluorescent lights, Mr. Washington’s eyes locked on something that seemed light years in the distance. He placed his right index finger pensively to his closed lips and tapped them several times.

“I’m OK, Charles,” he finally replied quietly and with an informality I found disorienting. “But you know, every day is a struggle.”

What I didn’t know until years later was that Mr. Washington’s nephew, Darius, had been tricked into confessing to an offense he didn’t commit. One night in the middle of a crime wave in Chicago, police searched for the perpetrators of a particularly heinous attack. While trawling for young black men, most of whom didn’t even fit the description of the assailants, Mr. Washington’s nephew got caught in the net while innocently hanging out with friends on a street corner. The cops told Darius while he was in custody that he could go home if he said he committed the crime. Darius signed the confession the cops had written for him, then threw him in jail. He was 13 when arrested and 14 when convicted. A couple of high-profile attorneys took up the case, and the family did all they could to free him with their own detective work and tried to sustain media interest in the case over the years – all to no avail. A week before our present conversation in Mr.Washington’s office, correctional officers found Darius, an apparent suicide in his cell. He had just turned 18 years old.

“I see where you’re coming from, Jim,” Blackmun said compassionately. “Under our protection, a rap on the knuckles now in the form of a brief encounter with cops might prevent him from really getting hurt later. But getting the police involved unnecessarily may have unintended consequences. It’s unpredictable.

“But the larger issue here is that, despite Miles’s uncoerced confession – or rather his bragging,” Blackmun stopped and gave me a sharp look, “I simply don’t believe he did it.”

Blackmun turned and spoke sternly: “OK, Miles, you say you are innocent. I believe you. But now, you have to prove it to all of us.”

It had never occurred to me that J.J. would steal the money if I didn’t. That explained where J.J. had come up with the five hundred dollar figure. But I knew he would never confess to the theft. I admit it – I was scared. I had to prove my innocence, and I hadn’t the slightest idea how.