“Boy, don’t come to my table with that negative energy,” Senior glared.
Junior’s fake stare diminished immediately, but he decided he wasn’t yet done with his new look. After dinner, he went back to the bathroom mirror to work on his face.
One day, while at the grocery store with Sandy, an old friend of hers from Crawford spotted them in the lot and ran over for a chat. Junior decided to put his new face to the test. He gave the elderly woman the gloomiest look he could, eyeballing her the way Joe Frazier would his opponents before the start of the bell. For all of his hard work on his new look, the woman was hardly phased by him. She reached through the window of Sandy’s car for Junior’s face and gave him a quick tickle to his neck. Junior broke character instantly, breaking into the cheesiest Jell-O Pudding smile, ever.
The Robinsons’ ex-neighbor, Mrs. O’Neal, said that another shooting had happened on Joseph Boulevard where the Robinsons used to live. A girl, fifteen-years-old, was hit in the neck but expected to survive. Another ex-neighbor, Mrs. Walters, was in the hospital with a concussion after getting mugged for her purse after coming from the liquor store. The vandals knocked her to the ground, robbed her of her wedding ring, gold watch, and ripped the earrings from both ears.
“It’s good y’all got out when y’all did,” said Mrs. O’Neal. “Child, I’m tellin’ ya. Nothin’ but them little bad-ass niggas ‘round there. Make no sense! Robbin’ folks in broad daylight.”
As Mrs. O’Neal carried on, Junior looked over at Sandy and could see the wheels inside his mother’s head-turning. He knew she was wondering if the precinct near Crawford had ever built any leads around Lawrence’s case.
On a hunch, Junior and his mother rode to Philly’s Eleventh District Precinct to inquire about Lawrence’s case. A full year had passed since the shooting. Riding through his old neighborhood, Junior reminisced about the aftermath of his brother’s death. Detectives treated Lawrence’s case as just another black person senselessly gunned down over gang ties, drugs, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yet, when Karen or Susanne is robbed at a gas station in Marlborough or Prescott Hill, it made news all week.
When Junior and Sandy walked into the police station, the desk sergeant made them both wait on a stiff wooden bench for nearly two hours. The stench inside the police station was a mix of foggy cigarette air and brewing coffee beans. Officers bypassed Junior and his mother as though they were no different than the deceased mouse lying next to the water machine in the hallway. Meanwhile, a blonde-haired woman named Emma came in howling after her dog was mowed down by a cab and was offered fresh coffee and expedited to the nearest lieutenant’s office.
After fidgeting in their chairs with sore bums, an investigator finally approached Junior and Sandy carrying a clipboard in his hand. He was a young black detective, no older than thirty.
“Robinson?” the man said without fully introducing himself.
“Detective?” Sandy sassed back before following him into the nearest interrogation room.
In the room on the table was a huge white box with Lawrence’s full name written on the side. The top of the box was caved in as if it was used for a footstool or a table. Next to Lawrence’s name, the date of his death was written: August 25, 1994. Flashes of the grim day rewound in Junior’s head like a cassette tape. The detective thumbed through a folder inside Lawrence’s box. On the side of his brother’s box was a large hole, big enough for Junior to see the stained shirt paramedics had removed from his brother’s body the day he was killed. With his hand, Junior turned the side with the hole toward the detective.
“You OK with all this?” Sandy asked him. “It’s OK if you don’t want to be in here, Junior.”
“I’m good,” replied Junior. “Let’s just get it over with.”
After watching the detective thumb through Lawrence’s file and mumbling to himself, he’d found what he was looking for.
“Ah, here it is!” said the detective. “So, we matched the bullet found in your boy’s neck to a gun found in a separate shooting that happened earlier this year. One of our guys from the vice unit thinks we were on the verge of tracking your son’s killer, but he died in Baltimore before we could bring in him for questioning. So, the investigator assigned to your son’s case closed it out. Sorry for keeping y’all waiting. We’ve been busy.”
Then, like it was no big deal, the detective placed Lawrence’s file back into the box.
“Well, from what I remember,” said Sandy, “there were a few boys out there shooting that day, Detective. Any leads on them?”
Irritated, the detective pulled out Lawrence’s file and whisked through his folder again, shaking his head.
“Nope,” he closed the folder, placing it back into the box. “Unfortunately, these kinds of cases are hard to solve. I’m sure you understand.”
“No, I don’t understand. Why are these cases harder than any other?” asked Sandy.
“C’mon, you know how it is, Mrs. Robinson; black people don’t speak up when shootings like this occur. Nobody sees anything. That’s the way it usually goes – it’s the code of the streets. Folks get amnesia. Frustrating for me as a detective. As soon as black people start caring about their community, we can get more of these kinds of cases solved faster. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”
Annoyed, Sandy cut her eyes at the detective.
“Well, seems to me y’all solve whatever cases y’all want to solve,” she said. “Anytime a damn dog can get more justice than my son, I think that’s a problem, sir.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” the detective claimed.
“For what?” Sandy shot back. “The dog gettin’ more justice or that piece-of-shit statement you said about black people not caring about their community?”
“Look, Mrs. Robinson…”
“Mrs. Robinson my ass,” Sandy cut in. “Let me tell you something, young man. You can be as blue as you wanna be, black man. But after your shift, you can take that stupid uniform off – but you can’t take the black off of your coon ass! Let’s go, Junior, we’re leaving!”
Without hesitation, Junior and his mother stormed out of the Eleventh District Station.
On the way back to Brooke’s Rowe, Junior went off in the car about the treatment his mother had received over at the station. He fussed enough for both he and Sandy as his mother sat, soaking it all in, barely saying a word.
In front of the house, Junior carried on about everything from institutional racism to being tired of being the fall guy around Brooke’s Rowe. Sandy unbuckled her seatbelt, listening to everything Junior said about police, crime, being black, and how he planned to live his life going forward. Tired of being victimized by the city and its drudgery, Junior vowed to take matters into his own hands.
“Is that so?” Sandy said to him, unmoved by his rebelliousness.
“I’m serious, Ma!” he claimed. “That’s why as soon as I get older, I’m buying myself a gun! Ain’t nobody gonna mess with us anymore! If other people can shoot, so can I!”
Sandy coiled her head toward Junior and slapped him across his juvenile mouth.
“Look here, dammit! Don’t you be goin’ ‘round talkin’ stupid like that! I lost one son already, and I ain’t gonna lose another! You are not some goddamn hoodlum in the street. I raised y’all better than that! You hear me?”
Junior didn’t answer Sandy, but his eyes did.
“Now, what happened back there was just…I’m mad, too,” said Sandy. “I’m pissed off. But you can’t be stupid out here, Junior. You judge a person by what’s in their heart, not what uniform they’re in. Otherwise, you ain’t no better than everyone else! Character first. Then take it from there. Do you understand me?”
“Yeah, but the cops around here are messed up,” argued Junior. “You saw how the detective treated Lawrence, Ma. Like it wasn’t any big deal at all – it never is to them when it comes to our people! What good are they if we can’t rely on them to help us out
?”
“A lot of cops are bad, but not all of them,” Sandy told him. “And that goes to say, if you get stopped by one – you are to be respectful. Nothing else! If something goes wrong, we’ll deal with it later, Junior. Now, I don’t want to hear this… filth coming from your mouth about ‘taking matters into your own hands’. We are not street people! Is that clear, Leonard Gerard Robinson, Jr.?”
“Yeah, but Ma…”
“JUNIOR!” Sandy interrupted, raising her voice loud enough for the world to hear. “Boy, I am not playing with you right now!” She jabbed him in the chest. “Th’fuck you think you’re gonna tell me about some raggedy-ass police that I don’t already know? I was born in 1954 – not in 1995. I know what goes on out here in the street because I lived it! And your daddy lived it.” She mushed his face twice. “Now, get out of my car before I break your fuckin’ neck! Go!”
Careful not to further anger his mother, Junior climbed out of Sandy’s Buick and slowly walked into the house. Once inside, Senior greeted him in the living room.
“Where’s your mother?” he asked.
“She’s uh… out in the car,” said Junior. “She’ll be in soon.”
Senior lowered his eyes at Junior as he went out the door.
From the bedroom window, Junior watched as his six-foot-five daddy lowered his head to climb into Sandy’s car. He couldn’t hear what was being said but could see his daddy put his arm around his mother and thought to himself: Lawrence. Ashamed that he had scared his mother by his “by any means necessary” rhetoric, he reclused to his journal to stay out of his parents’ way. Inside his numbered journal, he completed a poem entitled, “Zip Code”.
Reside in Heart
and not on some secluded island
inside the fortress of your mind.
Live for others.
Drink harmony. Smoke tranquility.
Become a fertile soul capable of birthing peace,
prosperity, and positivity.
LEONARD G. ROBINSON JR.
Afterward, he penned “Freedom”, concerning his discussion with Sandy from earlier.
I am free but not dom.
LEONARD G. ROBINSON JR.
Later, as Junior opened his bedroom door to go brush his teeth for the night, he was surprised to see Sandy on the other side of his door. She stood against the wall as if she was contemplating saying goodnight or leaving Junior to marinate on her slap from earlier.
Junior backed onto his bed without greeting her as he lowered his eyes down to the floor. Sandy took a seat next to him. As she stared at him, Junior kept his eyes on the floor. On his bed next to him was his journal, still turned to his latest poem, “Freedom”. A light grin grew on Sandy’s face as she looked down at the number in Junior’s book to see that he’d nearly reached the 4,000 mark. Junior looked up at his mother, and back down at the floor.
“Sorry,” she apologized. “But dammit, Junior, you scare me when you talk stupid the way you did earlier. I’m still serious about what I said. I’m not having no bullshit happen to you out here. I need you to use your head to think your way out of problems – not create ‘em. You’re our little investment, OK? I’m countin’ on you.”
Sandy then held Junior by his soft face, attempting to force him to look at her. He tried to hide the fact that he was smiling behind his failed mask. As he looked away, fake angry, Sandy stuck her finger into Junior’s ear, causing him to jerk away. Even upset, he was still a cute kid.
“I’m sorry, too,” he laughed. “You’re right, I shouldn’t talk like that. I feel bad.”
“Don’t.” She held his face. “I know your heart. I know you’re not mean or malicious. I know you didn’t mean those things. You were just angry. I get it, Junior. I do.”
As Sandy got up to leave her son’s room. She turned back to face him.
“I talked to your daddy earlier. We both think it’d be a good idea for you to help out with his handyman business. Just for a little while. Until a school comes along.”
“Oh God!” said Junior as his mother laughed. “Ma, no! Daddy is gonna go postal! Remember the last time I helped him change Mr. Lewis’s radiator? He tried to kill me.”
Sandy chuckled again.
“Well, you ain’t stayin’ home doin’ nothin’. Besides, it’ll be fun. You can learn a lot from him out there in the field. I know he can be surly at times, but he’s a brilliant man and he’s still your daddy. Just stay out of his way and you’ll be fine.”
“How in the world do I do that if I have to work next to him all day?”
“You’ll think of something. Now, you may want to get to bed. Leonard gets up at 4 a.m. just about every morning. So, I’d turn that lamp off and put away that journal if I was you.”
As Junior’s door closed for the night, he plopped down onto his bed and watched as the blades of his ceiling fan circled his bedroom. Tomorrow would be a new day filled with much uncertainty.
Fathers, let your world revolve around the son.
LEONARD G. ROBINSON JR.
The Grind
As expected, at 4 a.m. sharp, Junior awoke to the bright UFO light blinding him from his ceiling and Senior barking down orders like an army sergeant. His eyes slowly adjusted to the large, almighty figure hovering over him. Leonard Robinson Sr. was already fully dressed and equipped with his list of clientele for the workday. Without warning, he ripped the covers off Junior and tossed his pillow down onto the floor.
“Let’s go, Junior. Get on up from there!” he said. “C’mon, I wanna leave by 4:30.”
Junior was always a slow mover in the morning. He did everything slowly, from putting on his clothes to washing his face and brushing his teeth. In the bathroom, he stood in front of his reflection like a zombie, tossing a palm-full of ice-cold water in his face. Across the hall in his parents’ bedroom, Sandy was still sound asleep while Senior loudly organized his work tools for the day down in the living room. With ten minutes left to spare, he hollered at Junior from the bottom staircase up to the bathroom.
“Junior?” he shouted, “Boy, hurry the hell up! We’re late!”
Not a single person in Philly was late at 4 a.m. except for Senior. Out in his truck, he laid on the horn, nonchalant of the neighbors on Kennedy Street; he had a business to run.
Without as much as a piece of scrapple or a cup of orange juice to start his day, Junior scaled into his daddy’s shabby ’81 Ford truck at 4:36 a.m. Already, Junior had committed his first mistake. Once inside, he turned to look over at Senior, noticing his daddy was fed up with him already.
“I said I wanted to leave well ahead of five o’clock, not at nig-o-clock,” he said.
“It’s 4:36!” said Junior.
“I said 4:30! Next time, I’m gonna leave without you!”
Junior caught himself before sassing off at his daddy. When Senior threatened to leave him the next time he was late, “good!” nearly slipped off his tongue. Had he said that Senior would’ve knocked him into a new school year.
For the next two weeks, or until Sandy could find Junior a suitable school, he’d work next to his daddy hustling toolboxes throughout Philly and New Jersey. On the center console of Senior’s truck was an account ledger with phone numbers, oddly shaped drawings, and a plethora of misspelled client names. It looked like something a first-grader had written while sleepwalking across the Sahara Desert. Without his daddy’s permission, Junior reached for his father’s ledger and nearly became an amputee.
“Can I at least see where we’re going and what we’re doing for today?” asked Junior.
Eyeballing him with distrust, Senior allowed Junior to look into his ledger.
Despite being a mediocre speller, the ledger which Senior owned turned out to be a complex spreadsheet of old and existing clients. Next to their names were the dates, times, and costs for Senior’s labor. A closer look revealed that, when it came to spelling, Senior had barely finished grade school. For instance, the name Elizabeth was spelled “Elsibet”, Harry
was spelled “Hary,” and they lived in “Nuarc, No Jursay”. The page thereafter was a diagram for the braking system of an eighteen-wheeler. Though the nomenclature was difficult for Junior to digest, the drawing was illustrated perfectly.
In one immaculate concept, Junior’s daddy had secured a concrete job. Detailed in the diagram were rows of trees, lamp posts, fire hydrants, and every other inanimate object found on a city street. Within the illustration, the sidewalk which Senior would pour the concrete contained detailed measurements with mathematical formulas used to calculate the value amount of concrete mix needed to complete the job. Senior had also taken the initiative to illustrate objects near the street zone where he worked and the distance from his working site. Then, almost as a gaffe, in the top corner of his works was a colorful sun along with a stream of clouds or whatever precipitation made it to his work that day: rain, sleet, snow or ice. For windy pictures, Senior’s drawings were leaned in the direction of the wind that day. As Junior awed over his daddy’s artistic talents, Senior took back his ledger and placed it in the visor above him.
“Man, you never told me you could draw, Daddy!” said Junior. “Yo, that’s dope! Does Mom know you draw like that?”
“Nope, and don’t you go shootin’ your mouth off, neither. Besides, who gives a shit about an old man that can draw, anyway? As long as the work gets done.”
“I give a shit – I mean – I care, Daddy.” Junior straightened. “I ain’t never seen nothin’ like this. It’s incredible! You can’t just sit on your talent like this. Man, do you know what kind of work you could find drawing pictures like that?”
Beyond Poetry Page 6
