Beyond Poetry

by Nathan Jarelle

  “Mmmhmm,” Senior grunted as he sparked a cigarette and fanned away the smoke.

  “Mmmhmm?” Junior mocked him. “I can take this down to the library where I get my books. I’m sure they could post it up. It’s a part of Philly! Have you ever thought about going into business as an artist? A lot of money in that.”

  Senior took a drag of his cigarette and placed it in his ashtray.

  “With a talent like that, Junior, it comes down to politics, and your daddy ain’t the savviest at talkin’ to people or handling them kind of affairs.” He blew out of a cloud of smoke. “That’s why I drive this old truck here. I’m comfortable where I’m at, right here in my little box. You got me?”

  Disappointed, Junior turned back in his seat.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I got it, alright.”

  Senior then glanced over at Junior and realized his seatbelt was off.

  “Nigga, you crazy?” he said. “Put your seatbelt on. Save a life why don’t you, Junior.”

  Making his daddy angry was not at all in Junior’s best interest. On the way to their first assignment, Senior stopped in at a gas station to get a pack of cigarettes before remembering he’d forgotten to sketch for a job later in the week. To save time, he sent Junior in to pick up his favorite brand of Newport cigarettes. When Junior returned without the cigarettes and told his daddy the attendant wouldn’t sell them to him, Senior told him to go back inside and have the attendant look over at his truck. When the attendant looked over, Senior put up his middle finger, and the attendant gave Junior two packs of Newports and a free honeybun for himself. Back in the car, Junior looked over at his daddy as if he was God.

  “You know him or something?”

  “Know him?” asked Senior. “Bastard owes me ten bucks.”

  For their first assignment together since the expulsion, Junior and his father drove down to Tom’s River, New Jersey. In the back of Senior’s raggedy pickup was a grey toolbox with an assortment of his tools. He was always picky and snappy when it came to his tools and gave them each special names, Junior noticed. He had an old worn wrench he called “Betty Mae” since it was rusty but reliable. In his pocket was a folding-knife he nicknamed “Cut Ya” since it was razor-sharp. All of his tools were wiped down before and after every job he worked. And despite his coldness at times, Senior was quite the prankster. Before beginning their job, Junior’s daddy asked him to grab his grey toolbox from out the back. When Junior went to lift it, he went down fast to the ground as Senior laughed at him.

  “Here, let me get that for you.” Senior flexed as he hoisted the box into the air and tossed it onto one shoulder. “Stick with me, Junior.” He winked. “I’ll show you how to work.”

  The boat in Tom’s River didn’t have shit on Senior’s toolbox. With his hat cocked down to the side, he whistled and hummed old-school R&B hymns as he repaired the motor on a small boat. He was also friendlier than he usually was at home during the evening hours when Junior came in from school. Not only was Senior brilliant at restoring small engines and a variety of other things most couldn’t fathom, but he was also quite the teacher. With the engine fully apart and disassembled, he called Junior in to watch as he carefully reassembled the motor to the boat, showing his son each working part. He guided Junior’s small hands as he carefully reunited the engine with the boat’s blade. Senior then reattached the motor to the boat.

  “Go’on,” he said. “Give her a tug. Let’s pray this works.”

  Junior cranked on the motor cord as the boat fired up instantly. The blade then powered on, kicking up suds from beneath as Senior high-fived Junior.

  “Goddammit, Junior!” he shouted. “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ bout! Gimme some!”

  Junior gave it all to his daddy. He slapped his father’s huge hand and cheesed from ear-to-ear as Senior celebrated with a stumped cigarette he found inside his pants pocket.

  Despite being off to a good start, Junior was hardly the handyman. Later, at a job on the northside of Philly, Junior dropped Betty Mae down into the sewer. He didn’t say that he’d lost his daddy’s favorite wrench, but it put Senior into a mood when his tools suddenly went missing. While fixing the brakes on a Cadillac Coup de Ville, Senior asked if he could bring him a 5/16 size wrench, and Junior bought a ¾ size instead. Senior looked down at the wrench and back up Junior.

  “Something wrong?” asked Junior.

  Senior then flipped over the wrench so Junior could see it was the wrong size.

  “We wouldn’t have this problem if you hadn’t dropped good ol’ Betty Mae down the damn sewer, now would we?”

  Junior was stunned.

  Days later, while the two were on a landscaping job in Cherry Hill, Senior sent Junior up the ladder to unclog a client’s gutters. Somehow, Junior forgot to tell his father that he was afraid of heights. As the ladder swayed amidst the summer winds, his chicken legs fluttered nervously as he looked down at Senior for validation.

  “Th’hell you lookin’ at me for?” he said. “Pay attention to what you’re doin’.”

  After a few minutes, Senior left Junior up on the ladder to get his cigarettes from the car. Worried, Junior wrapped one arm around the ladder and used his free arm to remove a section of cluttered leaves from the top of the downspout. As he went to remove a patch, a wasp whisked by his head, scaring him. He dropped the patch of leaves back into the gutter and hurried down the ladder, shaking.

  “Lord have mercy. What is it now?” asked Senior.

  “Man, it’s bees up there!” Junior complained.

  “Bees gotta eat, right? Go’on! Finish up.”

  It took Junior nearly half the day to finish the client’s gutters with Senior glaring at him most of the day. But, by the end of that week, Junior had earned his share of eighty dollars. Junior reflected that it was the same amount that had gone missing from Senior’s nightstand the summer before. Junior looked down at the cash in his hand and thought of Lawrence as Senior counted his money next to Sandy downstairs in the kitchen. Junior looked over at his nightstand at a picture of him and his brother taken outside of Veterans Stadium in September of 1992. That year, Sandy had taken the boys to watch Randall Cunningham and the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Phoenix Cardinals 31 to 14. Junior remembered then that five dollars had gone missing from Sandy’s wallet the night before. She never questioned the boys, believing they both knew better than to steal. Afterward, he remembered Lawrence showing up at the park with the biggest candy bar and slice of pizza he’d ever seen. Suddenly, it dawned on him. Junior then took the eighty dollars he received from his daddy for a week’s worth of work and headed downstairs to return the money. Senior looked at him as if he was a brand new fool.

  “So, what’s this?” Senior looked down at the money on the table. “Oh, I get it,” he laughed, jabbing Junior on the shoulder. “All of a sudden, you too good for eighty bucks, now?”

  Senior laughed, but Junior didn’t.

  “Maybe you ought to keep it, Daddy,” said Junior. “Use it for bills or something.”

  Senior then scooped the money from the table and placed it back into Junior’s hand.

  “I said you did good for the week,” he said. “Now, scram. I ain’t takin’ it back, Junior.”

  Disregarding Senior, Junior then offered the money to his mother which angered Senior. He threw his money down onto the table and stepped into Junior’s face.

  “Hey!” he barked. “Did you hear what I just said? Now, put the goddamn money away!”

  “I don’t want it!” Junior threw it onto the floor. “You keep it!”

  “Th’hell has gotten into you, Junior?” Senior picked up the cash.

  “Ain’t nothin’ got into me! I just don’t want it!” Junior raised his voice before bolting to the door. “Why can’t you just listen to me sometime when I tell you stuff, man? I said I don’t want it!”

  Slamming the door behind him, Junior jetted from the house and raced down Kennedy Street, crying. Behind him, he turned t
o see Senior fire up his truck and come flying up Kennedy after him. As Junior tried to run, Senior pressed on the gas, eventually cutting his son off in a neighbor’s driveway. Sandy was in the passenger seat and jumped out to take hold of her son as Senior raised holy hell at Junior from the inside.

  “Sh-sh-sh,” Sandy comforted her son. “Tell me what’s wrong. What’s wrong with the money your daddy gave you, Junior? Now, eighty dollars is good money. You ought to be thankful you got that.”

  Gathering himself, Junior took a deep breath. “I am thankful,” he said. “It’s plenty, Ma.”

  “Well, then what’s the problem?” she asked.

  Scowling from the driver’s seat with his truck still blocking the neighbor’s driveway, Senior looked on at Junior, waiting for an answer. Instead, Junior took a seat on the curb as Sandy sat next to him. Senior then parked his truck and stood beside Sandy as Junior began to talk.

  “Lawrence had said something about taking the eighty last summer before he did it, I just didn’t say nothin’. I wasn’t sure if he would. Now he’s dead and it’s my fault.”

  As Junior began to cry, Sandy draped over him.

  “You’re right. You should have told us,” Sandy said with a tear in her eye. “But it’s not your fault Lawrence is dead. That was due to senselessness, Junior. You didn’t pull the trigger on Lawrence. None of us did. It was a mistake.”

  As Sandy consoled Junior out in the middle of Kennedy Street, Senior placed his hands on both hips and paced back and forth as he relived the nightmare from the previous summer. Before long, Senior took a seat next to him along the curb and issued his son a full pardon. In Senior’s hand was the crumbled up money Junior had earned throughout the week, with interest. As Junior attempted to turn down the money, Senior hushed him.

  “It ain’t eighty,” he said. “I stuck a lil’ bit extra in there for you…take it.”

  Looking over at his mother, Sandy nodded as Junior accepted the money.

  Later that evening, back at the house, Junior counted the hundred dollars he received from Senior. Before bed, he kept twenty from his stash and wrote “For Lawrence” and placed the rest behind a picture frame of him and his brother on top of his dresser.

  Can I drink from your fountain?

  Your waters are nourishing and fulfilling.

  I can feel myself heal at a taste of your eloquence.

  LEONARD G. ROBINSON JR.

  New School

  Finding Junior an alternative school in the middle of September was a burden itself after he had been expelled from Franklin High. After a long workday beside his daddy, Junior would return home to Sandy waiting on him. From there, they’d cruise around Philly looking at both private and alternative schools. Douglas MacArthur Military Academy, an all-boys school on the west side, wanted $5,600 per semester with $2,000 upfront. Richardson Baptist wanted double that, and Eisenhower High said that Junior had missed the enrollment deadline by a week. Every other privately run institution was either out of the Robinsons’ budget or too far away. Frustrated, Junior overheard his mother complaining over the phone to his Aunt Tonique about his dilemma. By then, he had missed two weeks of school and Sandy was desperate. Together, he and Sandy had visited a total of eighteen schools across Philadelphia.

  While down at the post office, a colleague of Sandy’s encouraged her to visit Medgar Evers Secondary School, located on Sunnyside Avenue. On a windy Friday afternoon, Junior and his mother visited the campus with the hope of having him start by Monday.

  The principal was a man named Thomas Levy, a stumpy, sloppy, fat white man with a potbelly that protruded above his belt. He had a wide, porky neck and gray, crusty hands riddled with eczema. He greeted Junior and Sandy in the parking lot as they arrived late that Friday afternoon. As Sandy drove up beside his shiny Nissan Sentra parked at the head of the lot, he waddled over to the passenger window like a duck.

  “Sure, we take boys like Junior all the time.” He winked down at Junior. He had foul dragon breath and rotting coffee teeth on his gumline. “I’m headed home, but if you bring him back Monday morning, I’ll get you guys enrolled.”

  Junior didn’t like Mr. Levy the second he met him, nor did he think much of Medgar. From the outside, the building looked like an asylum for the criminally insane. The glass windows on the first-floor were covered in iron grating and a brown film as if they hadn’t been washed since the Great Depression. At the front of the school was a fractured mural of the school’s namesake. Junior surveyed the surrounding neighborhood and looked up to the sky. A dark cloud loomed over his proposed new school, and he felt his anxiety spiking out of control. On the way back to Kennedy Street, Junior voiced his concerns.

  “Did you see what I saw?” he said to Sandy. “Something ain’t right about that school.”

  Desperate to get him back into school, Sandy shrugged him off.

  “Yeah, well, there aren’t too many other options available, Junior,” she said. “What am I supposed to do? Keep you out until next year?”

  Junior kept his mouth shut. Sandy was right. For the past two weeks, she had driven him all over Philadelphia, hoping to find him a new school. He was on the verge of missing the mandatory enrollment date set by the Philadelphia School Board.

  Back at home, Sandy told Senior she had found Junior a new school for him to attend, but Senior was preoccupied with changing the oil inside his truck. “Mmmhmm,” he grunted as Sandy went on about their son’s new school. Meanwhile, inside, Junior fretted at the idea of attending Medgar as he recalled Mr. Levy’s golden teeth and peeling hands. Mr. Levy looked like a child’s nightmare come to life with some relevance to a character in Tales from The Crypt. To take his mind off Medgar, he turned to his journal to write. When that didn’t work, Junior went to his Nintendo for a quick video game before Sandy called him to the table for dinner. Senior, however, beat Sandy to the punch.

  “Take a run with me down to the store, I need to grab somethin’,” he said. “And hurry up, I want to get back here before it gets dark. You know how these niggas are around here, Junior.”

  “Why do I need permission to be black?”

  asked the boy whose black parents told him to behave

  when it came to racism.

  LEONARD G. ROBINSON JR.

  A Race Down the Road

  As Junior and his daddy readied to leave the store’s parking lot later that evening, Senior patted his breast pocket for his Newports. Slapping the lighter to his dashboard, he took a long drag of his cigarette and exhaled as he turned from the parking lot of Trak Auto. In the backseat on the floorboard of his pickup was a can of rags, an air filter for his truck, a Sunkist soda for Junior, and an ice-cold Budweiser beer to go with Sandy’s fish-and-collard-greens dinner.

  Pushing his pickup faster than he’d normally drive, Junior thought of saying something but didn’t. Senior always hated backseat drivers, especially when Sandy got on him. Instead, Junior kept his thoughts to himself as he glanced over at the dashboard and noticed Senior was approaching fifty-five miles per hour in a thirty zone.

  Near the intersection of 19th and Bogdan Street, the traffic signal switched from steady green to yellow. Rather than slowing down, Senior pushed his truck past seventy to make the light and flew by a marked police car idling on the next block over. From the passenger side mirror, Junior saw the patrol cruiser zip onto Bogdan and slip behind his daddy’s truck. Suddenly, the flash of blue and red illuminated them as Senior pulled to the side of the road. The truck was overcast with two spotlights. A voice appeared on the loudspeaker.

  “Driver! Turn off your vehicle!”

  Afterward, a second, third, and fourth police car appeared next to the initiating cruiser.

  Shaking, Junior turned to look back and saw nothing but blue and red lights behind them as Senior shut off the motor.

  “Driver, place your keys on the roof of your vehicle!”

  Junior saw the look on Senior’s face and could tell his daddy was irritated. Remo
ving his keys from the ignition, Senior complied with the voice coming from the loudspeaker.

  “Now, driver and passenger, place both of your hands on the dashboard!”

  “Y’all want to tell me what this is all about?” Senior yelled.

  “Just do it, man!” a second officer yelled.

  Junior glanced in the passenger side mirror and saw two police officers with their guns drawn, moving soundly toward his daddy’s truck. Nervous, he trembled as he recalled the story of Rodney King that had taken place in Los Angeles several years earlier. On Sunday, March 3, 1991, officers from the Los Angeles Police Department were filmed beating Rodney King mercilessly. In the video, officers battered Rodney King during a traffic stop, leaving him a bloody mess. The story made headlines across the world.

  For Junior, it was one of many stops he’d experience. The first time, Senior’s truck was impounded for expired tags and Junior ended up calling Sandy from a parking lot payphone. During the second stop, the summer before, Sandy was behind the wheel when an officer gave her shit over a burnt brake light. Unfortunately, for the officer, Senior was in the car. Bad temper and all, he threw the officer’s ticket book (and threatened to toss the cop) over Benjamin Franklin Bridge. Senior spent three nights in the city jail and was ordered to pay a fine of $250.

  With their hands on the dashboard, five police officers encircled Senior’s Ford truck, four on the driver’s side, and one where Junior was sitting. They shined their flashlights throughout the truck, asking Senior all kinds of questions about where he had come from and the bag with Senior’s unopened Budweiser in it.

  “You’re not supposed to have alcohol in the vehicle,” one cop said.

  “Why? It ain’t open,” said Senior. “How else am I supposed to get it home?”

  “Shut your mouth! We’re asking the questions here!”

  Quivering, Junior nudged Senior to stop talking, which he did. But knowing his daddy, Junior wondered if he hadn’t been in the car if Senior would’ve ended up dead that night. He was quiet and peaceful most days but had a violent temper when provoked that led him to not give a damn about anything.