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

Eyeless

I was relieved to start high school a week after the burial. Amid the confusion and grief of the summer’s end, I had forgotten most of my worries about my status at school. One of the first new people I got to know was J.J. – Jaxon Jackson.

J.J. had grown up a military brat until recently. His father, a colonel in the air force, had moved the family throughout the country and around the world. J.J.’s parents divorced three years ago, and J.J. lived with his mother, a paralegal. She began dating an insurance executive and eventually married him. When J.J.’s stepdad was transferred to The City a year and a half ago, the family moved to Oakwood.

On our first day in high school, the teacher asked us to take down some information in homeroom. When I opened my Trapper Keeper, I noticed I had forgotten to bring pencils or pens. I leaned over to J.J., who sat across the aisle to my left, and asked in a whisper whether he had an extra pencil I could use.

“Sure, no problem,” he said, then stood up and called out to the class, “Anybody have a pencil I can borrow?” Half the students raised their hands. J.J. took one from the girl sitting behind him and thanked her.

“Here you go,” he said with a generous smile while handing me the pencil, and our friendship was off and running.

J.J. was tall for his age, a beanpole nearing six feet tall, and his voice was deeper than the rest of us in ninth grade, who still squeaked at unexpected moments timed for maximum embarrassment – like when trying to impress a girl with our swagger. J.J.’s voice was not just relatively deep but velvety smooth, like Barry White with a little more treble. He was also a bit ungainly and seemed less to walk than to lope from place to place. You couldn’t say he was attractive in any conventional way. Dark circles under his eyes and a discolored front tooth conspired to make him look almost sickly. Perhaps to compensate for his homely appearance, J.J. had developed a distinctive personality that impressed many, including our teachers, as charismatic. He had a feline alertness and playfulness; listening to him during conversations was like watching a cat batting about a mouse, not out of hunger or malice but for sheer amusement.

J.J. was also something of a troublemaker. Word was he had been a “character” throughout his school career. At any rate, in these first few days of high school, he seemed intent on using his formidable personality to provoke attention even more than before. Where our other friends and I were at least a little awed and humbled by our new place in the pecking order, J.J. grabbed the opportunity to make his mark on this clean slate. During the first week of school, our English teacher described a job he had had in Hollywood, working on a movie set. J.J. raised his hand. ‘Yes, J.J.,” the teacher said. “What you’re saying is you were a flunky,” J.J. quipped. The class tittered as the teacher stammered, “Well, yes, that’s essentially correct.” There was no hostility in J.J.’s remark, just a simple statement of fact he alone dared voice. But his boldness did not go unnoticed nor unadmired.

I liked the way J.J. and his crowd defied the rules; I began to defy those rules with them. I started cutting classes as they did—checking in at homeroom,

then leaving school and returning unnoticed during the lunchtime chaos. When I skipped morning classes, I would ride my Cannondale Raven bicycle in one of the town’s four large parks, play the latest NBA Live video game at one of my new friends’ houses, or toss pebbles at buses to see the startled, angry expressions of the passengers. J.J. always accompanied us on such excursions. Indeed, it was J.J. who seemed to initiate almost everything among our posse.

Once, when J.J. suggested missing a whole day of school, I balked. I already had a couple of close calls with cops who wondered what we were doing out and about during school hours. (J.J. had too, but he didn’t seem to mind.) What if I should get caught? I thought. Missing a class or two was on a different scale of misbehavior than getting detention or even suspended for missing a whole day.

And what if Grandma found out?

“Aw, man, don’t be soft,” J.J. said, trying to goad me into coming with him on his daylong adventure. J.J. and I were standing in the hall as school activity swirled around us, students rushing to first-period class. With J.J. and I were three of our regular running pals. “What chu trippin’ ’bout, dawg?” J.J. continued contemptuously. “You think you gonna get arrested? You scared of going to jail? They don’t put you in jail for that!”

“Look,” J.J. said, switching tactics, “If cops stop us, they won’t do nothin’.

They’ll just ask for our address and what school we go to. Don’t give them the right answers. They don’t care.”

I was about to defend my position when suddenly J.J. gave me a look that seemed to preclude further discussion. His dismissive sneer made me want to change my mind and go with J.J., But before I could get my thoughts together and figure out what to say without seeming like a chump, J.J. had turned on his heels. “Peace, I’m out,” he said coldly and disappeared down the hall, followed by the other guys.

The loneliness I felt was unlike any loneliness I had ever felt. What made it hurt more was that I felt humiliated. I was sure J.J. and our friends would think of me forever as a coward. But most of all, I felt like a child left with the babysitter while the adults went out having fun.

The next day, first thing after homeroom, I pulled J.J. aside. “Let’s go to the mall,” I eagerly suggested.

J.J. thought a moment and then shook his head, dismissing the idea.

I persisted with an intensity I myself found disconcerting yet couldn’t control. First period was about to start. We had to decide right then if we would escape for the whole day. I enumerated names of stores we could visit, how much fun we could have.

Again there was, for me, a terrible silence as J.J. mulled over the proposition. “Alright,” J.J. drawled and then mentioned a couple of things he’d like to do at the mall. We slipped out of school amid the confusion of changing classes, hopped a bus, and made for the mall.

We went to department stores and tried on oversized Phat Farm jackets popular at the time. Next, to shoe stores to admire the newest Jordan and FUBU kicks. We were thrown out of a sports equipment shop for playing catch with the footballs there. In the preview section of each of the mall’s three music stores, we put on earphones and listened to samples of the latest releases from Common, OutKast, and anything produced by The Neptunes. We both mimed performances of the songs, me pretending to work the computer, sampler, and turntable, J.J. doing a precision job of lip-synching.

By the early afternoon, we got hungry and decided to get something to eat. It was a cool, late-September day, and we needed some hot food before stepping back outside. On our way to the fast-food restaurant, I noticed a jewelry store. A thick gold pendant and a bracelet were displayed in the shop’s window.

“Hey, check that out,” I said. “I wonder how much it costs?”

Each of us tried to open the door, but it was locked. A cardboard sign at eye level in the window near the entrance read RING FOR ENTRY. Inside the store, behind the counter, stood a white woman, dressed simply and elegantly in black, a single strand of pearls hung around her neck. She wore her dark hair in a severe bun. Her chic black clothes were young and hip, but the half-glasses she peered over made her look like a priggish old schoolteacher. She was talking with another woman, who wore a large dark overcoat and stood on the counter’s opposite side. I figured the woman in the coat was a customer. But when I pushed the buzzer, the woman behind the counter peered over her reading glasses, shook her head, and mouthed to me and J.J. that the store was closed.

J.J. took a concentrated look at the store’s RING FOR ENTRY sign, which included other information. “Follow me,” he said, and we walked around the corner to a payphone. He slipped a quarter into the coin slot, and it made a series of musical pings, like miniature chimes, as it dropped. When the dial tone came on, he punched a melody of seven digits.

A muffled woman’s voice on the other end of the line: Hello?

In his “whitetest” voice, J.J. said, “Yes, what are your hours, please.” A muffled reply.

“So, I can come over right now?” J.J. asked. “OK. Great. I’m heading there.

Cheers!”

Thirty seconds later, when the saleswoman saw us again at the store’s glass door, her expression told us she understood we’d outwitted her. After being buzzed in, I immediately confronted the woman and asked why she had not let us in the first time. But I could tell she wasn’t listening to me; she had riveted her attention on J.J., who was wandering along the display cases that ringed the small shop.

Ignoring me, she shadowed him from her side of the displays. I quieted down and tried to keep up. J.J. would occasionally stop in front of a case and ask the saleswoman for the price of this item or that, and the woman would give him an icy reply. Then the doorbell rang again. The saleswoman returned to the cash register and buzzed in a mall security guard, a paunchy, balding, upper middle- aged black man of average height.      Perhaps he had been some kind of athlete in his younger days, but over the subsequent 20 or 30 years, he had let his body go to pot. His eager seriousness announced he was only too glad to be of service. The guard nodded to the saleswoman, folded his arms over his chest, and planted himself by the door. He glowered at me and J.J. I did my best to glower back but noticed out of the corner of my eye that J.J. ignored the man and continued exploring items in the shop, calmly asking for the price of items as they seemed to interest him, apparently unflustered by the saleswoman who remained on his heels.

When J.J. finished, he and I left the store. We wandered around for a couple of minutes, then stopped to figure out the best way to get to the mall’s McDonald’s. I was about to tell J.J. I couldn’t shake the feeling we were being watched when the guard strolled up to us. He had apparently been following us from the time we left the jewelry store.

“Are you lost,” he asked unhelpfully.

That was it for me. I let loose with a cataract of curses that was Straight Outta Compton. I tightened my throat to contain the volume of my voice but didn’t spare the ferocity. I felt a prickly sensation pass over my skin; the tips of my ears got hot. I leaned towards that idiot as if I was going to knock him out – although I had no intention of doing so. I called him every name in the book, including some I didn’t even know I knew. I told him we hadn’t stolen anything and defended our right to be there. I never use the “N” word, but I flung it at that guard more than once, and not in a brotherly way.

Yet, oddly, I recall thinking during my rant that I felt I had done something wrong. In fact, that unwarranted feeling of guilt seemed to fuel my rage.

J.J. waited until I finished, then answered the guard’s questions coolly and succinctly.

“No, we ain’t lost,” he said evenly, “and where we headin’ ain’t none of yo business, with yo fake-ass badge. Betcha got it from a cereal box.”

“Look,” J.J. continued, “you want to call the real po-lice, go right on ahead.” He then folded his arms over his chest, lowered his head slightly, and stared hard at the guard, a gesture that conveyed defiance rather than menace.

When the guard remained still, J.J. released a couple of disdainful snorts, and the guard stepped back from us, awkwardly turned, and walked away muttering curses at us under his breath.

But J.J. wasn’t finished with him. He waved his right hand demurely in a fake farewell and sang out, “Bye, Felicia!’ as the guard disappeared around a corner.

I was impressed by how J.J. stood up to the guard as if he had every right to be in that mall. There wasn’t a hint of his being intimidated. As I thought about it, my admiration for J.J. deepened.

On our way home from school, J.J. and I would regularly drop by Blackmun’s store to pick up a candy bar or a bag of corn chips. That day, even in the wake of our mall adventure, was no exception. As usual, we hooked up with a couple of our buddies along the way.

For as long as anyone could remember, Blackmun’s store had been located at the corner of Walnut and Chestnut, a half block from the trestle over which the commuter trains ran to and from The City. Blackmun’s shop had no sign or awning announcing its name. It was just known as the Corner Store, a nondescript brick- and-concrete storefront with a nondescript wood trim painted a nondescript forest green. The store’s entrance was located at the corner where the two quiet streets met. Looking at it from outside facing the entrance, one of the store’s two windows fanned off to the left along Walnut St., the other fanned off to the right along Chestnut St. The window on the busier Walnut St. was chockablock with advertising signage typical for a small convenience store – cold soda, candy, ice, commuter bus tickets, lottery tickets, but noticeably absent were ads for booze and cigarettes.

The window on the quieter Chestnut St. side provided a view into the store, but Blackmun had constructed a shelf at window level inside where he mounted displays comprised of artifacts relating to black culture and history – a Barbie-style doll of “Julia,” the title character of the landmark television show from the late 1960s; goggles worn by Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., when he was a member of the Tuskegee airmen; a large reproduction of A Great Day in Harlem, a photograph of dozens of the biggest of the big dogs of jazz gathered on a brownstone stoop in 1958. Blackmun’s modest presentations, which changed every month, included one or two short paragraphs about the object, posed a question, imparted information, or issued a challenge. For instance, Blackmun invited viewers to see how many of the musicians in the picture they could identify in the Harlem photograph.

A similar mix of black history celebration and convenience store congestion greeted customers when they stepped inside the store.

Straight ahead: shelves of toilet paper, laundry detergent, dishwashing liquid, loaves of bread, cupcakes, potato chips, and various other single-serving desserts and snack foods crammed the interior’s two or three narrow aisles.

Beyond them, in a far corner, sat a Street Fighters II video arcade game near a refrigerator embedded in a wall; its two large glass doors revealed sodas, sports drinks, teas, and bottled water.

To the immediate right inside the entrance, occupying a couple of shelves under the window facing Chestnut St. stood a pocket-sized “library” – a rotating selection of books Blackmun would lend out, and samples from his collection of signed photographs of celebrities he had amassed over the years; To the left, on a shelf under that window, periodicals including Time, Newsweek, copies of The City’s three daily papers, the Oakwood Herald, the town’s weekly paper, plus The Chicago Defender, Ebony, Jet, the Final Call, and other black publications.

The glass-topped counter ran from near the refrigerator to a few feet shy of the entrance. Underneath the counter were several rows of candies and other sweet treats – a colorful riot of packaging for Pop Rocks, Life Saver holes, Razzles, Hubba Bubbas, and more met the eye and promised a bounty of unnatural flavors designed explicitly by the manufacturers to appeal to the eyes and palates of children and adolescents.

J.J., our friends, and I entered the store – the bell that would have announced our presence had fallen off years ago, and Blackmun had not seen the need to fix it.   Blackmun emerged from behind the counter from stairs that led to his basement. He scanned the room, ignoring us, and found what he was looking for on the far end of the counter, near the refrigerator – a kid who looked like he was not much older than my siblings.

“For three A’s, it will be three dollars,” Blackmun said to the child whose mother stood nearby. Blackmun continued explaining the possible rewards children could receive from him depending on the grades on their tests and report cards. “But a dollar for an A is nothing compared to what you’ll get later in life if you study hard and study smart,” he said as he counted out three one-dollar bills. It was a line every school-aged child in the neighborhood knew by heart, for they were obliged to listen to it if they wanted their prize.

Some parents took a cynical view of Blackmun’s offer, saying derisively, “That Blackmun, I bet he gets his dollar back, and more.” Others objected to the idea of rewarding their children for something they should do just on principle. Still, for the most part, the adults made a point of dropping by on their way to or from the train station, buying their kitchen matches, juice, and sodas at Blackmun’s store, or on Sundays purchasing the paper there, even though for many the local supermarket was more convenient.

When the boy and his mother left the store, Blackmun turned his attention to me, and I walked to where he was standing, where my favorite candy happened to be located. (By now, J.J. and our friends had immersed their attention in the photographs on the shelf.)

“My man, watcha readin’?” Blackmun asked me, using his trademark greeting adopted by what seemed like half of Oakwood. While fishing in my pocket for money to buy some candy, I shrugged and mumbled, “Knowledge,” in standard response to Blackmun’s query.

“I saw the twins at the skating rink yesterday,” Blackmun continued. “I’ve never seen two kids have such a good time falling down. They had everyone laughing, trying to avoid them. They’re getting so big! It seems like just the other day your grandmother was showing me pictures of them getting baptized.”

I saw that Blackmun, out of the corner of his eye, noticed J.J. and our friends. They were pointing at different photographs on the shelf underneath the window and laughing hysterically.

“What will it be today, Miles?” Blackmun asked.

“Just these,” I said, grabbing four Jolly Rancher lollipops from their container on top of the counter, then handing him the money.

Blackmun was about to give me my change when we heard something crash inside the store. One of Blackmun’s framed photos of black artists had plummeted to the floor, face-up, but the glass had shattered completely. It was a glossy 8×10, black and white photo of Jimi Hendrix, standing alone on stage, playing a white Stratocaster guitar. Beneath the photo, in the same frame, was a white paper cocktail napkin on which Hendrix had written “Stay Groovy” and autographed. I remembered Blackmun once telling me it was one of his most cherished pieces of memorabilia.

Our friends shuffled their feet and looked embarrassed. They avoided Blackmun’s eyes, and through subtle body language – a glance, a barely noticeable tilt of the head – indicated it was J.J. who had dropped the frame. But J.J. stood firm and returned Blackmun’s gaze. He was unbowed. He looked Blackmun in the eye for what seemed like a long while. Finally, J.J. said, “Yo, sorry,†shrugged and turned as if to leave the store.

“Pick it up, Son,” said Blackmun, the sound of clattering wheels growing louder as a train approached the nearby trestle.

The frosty edge to Blackmun’s voice seemed menacing. I’d never heard Blackmun speak to anyone like that before. I sensed a palpable tension in the air. Blackmun and J.J. stared at each other. While I had never seen J.J. fight, he had bragged about his toughness and about “having served” a few guys in previous neighborhoods in which he’d lived. (But only when he had to, he always added, smiling.). Oakwood was not the kind of place where J.J. would have to make good on his boasts. Still, J.J. didn’t seem the type to talk smack unless he could back it up, so the other guys at school and I took him at his word. And the confrontation I witnessed a few hours earlier with the mall security guard was added reason to do so.

Blackmun never talked about fights he may have had growing up or as an adult. When discussing boxing matches he had seen, he would focus on the wit and intelligence of the movements and the cast-iron will it takes withstand brutal, potentially lethal blows. He laughed when talking about World Wrestling Federation stars like The Rock, The Undertaker, or Stone Cold Steve Austin, but noted with approval their resilience and athleticism, even if the violence was cartoonish. But there were rumors in our neighborhood that Blackmun had been a member of a special forces unit – whether in Viet Nam, Iraq, or the Gulf War was unclear. Others whispered that Blackmun had once been a member of a street gang ominously called The Jolly Stompers. Dad had mentioned to me more than once, without elaborating, that Blackmun had “come up hard, real hard.”

As J.J. and Blackmun faced off, I thought J.J. had the advantage of youth, but Blackmun is bigger, if only slightly. And who knows what moves he might have learned from the military.

Although I couldn’t imagine Blackmun coming to blows with a thirteen- year-old, even one tall for his age, I nonetheless girded myself to jump between them to stop a brawl.

Then something strange happened. . .

Time seemed to stop

. . .Not suddenly like someone flipping a switch, but a slow, steady diminution of sound and motion as if spectral fingers on a dial gradually, very gradually reduced the speed of reality until life was suspended motionless before my senses. In that expanding moment, the crescendo of an approaching train grew slower and deeper until all that remained of the noise of clattering wheels was a low, barely audible hum. A tan plastic shopping bag kicked up by a gust of wind just outside the shop stuttered while soaring through the air, then stopped altogether, as if caught in mid- flight in a snapshot. A ladybug wandering about on the store’s glass countertop became more and more sluggish in its loopy tracks until it ceased to move at all.

I looked in J.J.’s direction and was startled to see that he and our crew were as motionless as stone statues, locked in mid-gesture and mid-sentence. As I somehow zoomed in on J.J., however, I saw that the irises of his eyes darted around erratically, like the rapid micro-movements of a blind man’s eyes behind a pair of sunglasses. Then an unexpected warmth came over me, enveloped me, comforted me as it pulsated through me. It moved with the persistence and effortlessness of ripples caused by a breeze moving over a body of water. I shifted my attention to Blackmun, from whom the warmth seemed to emanate. What I saw was both alien and familiar, terrifying, and soothing, ancient, and imminent.

Blackmun’s face – or what I took to be his face, or at least where his face should have been – was an expanding mass of cloudy darkness, like black ink swirling in clear liquid. Where his eyes would have been shone two steely shafts of amber light that by turns cut towards me, then J.J., then to our friends then back to me, over and over and over, as Blackmun’s entire body transformed into a stormy concentration of shadows. The spectacle transfixed me, for I don’t know how long when something searing shot up like a solar flare from my tailbone to the base of my skull and radiated out like a supernova throughout the rest of my body. But I wasn’t in pain. I wasn’t afraid. And I was serene as I observed an explosion erupt with otherworldly silence from the center of Blackmun’s roiling silhouette, instantly saturating the store with a boundless blue-white flash that drained all color and eventually all substance from our surroundings, blanketing us finally in a heaving disembodied brilliance.

And then it was over.

Color, substance, sound, and motion returned to life. The low hum became faster and higher until it was again the recognizable clattering of train wheels. The bag landed on the sidewalk, scooted along by the breeze for a few feet, and then rose with another gust of wind. The ladybug continued its loopy journey, then spread its wings and flew away. J.J. blinked a few times and shook his head slightly as if awakening from a trance. Once he was again in the moment, he spoke—his defiance curtailed, but by no means absent. “Sure,” he said after a beat before complying with Blackmun’s demand. He picked up the broken frame from the floor. He started to toss it insolently on the nearby counter but caught himself mid-movement and placed it there, in what I took to be an involuntary sign of respect for whatever whammy Blackmun had just laid on us. As J.J. and our crew turned to leave the store, I heard the guys snickering and saw them slapping J.J. on the back, saying in an audible whisper, “You owned him, dawg!” But J.J., who still seemed somewhat wobbly, received their admiration with uncharacteristic silence. I noticed he quickly and discretely raised his thumb to his upper lip and wiped away the trickle of blood that ran from one of his nostrils.

As I began to regain my composure, I automatically turned to follow them out when Blackmun, holding something in his left hand, called to me, “Miles, you forgot your change.” When I reached for it, Blackmun grabbed my forearm with his other hand and held me in its vice-like grip. “If you run with people like that, be careful of what you do. You and you alone will be held accountable for your actions. Choose wisely.”

I jerked away with all my might from Blackmun’s grasp. “I know what I’m doing,” I snapped.