“You see,” he began, “I was worse than y’all could ever be.” The man hobbled by Junior’s desk, touching him on the shoulder as he passed. “I used to be a little bad somebody. Always in the middle of things. Robbin’ folks. Stealin’. All kinds of shit.” He touched another boy on the shoulder. “But I had a goal and that was to get out of Philly.”
In Mr. Darrius’s back pocket was a photograph taken during his youth; he passed it around the classroom. In the picture was a group of boys that had since passed or were serving life terms in prison.
“See him,” the man said. “That’s my buddy right there. We played football together in college. Football is a beautiful sport. I made some good money in those days.”
Unimpressed by the man’s narrative that sports entertainment was their only hope for the future, Junior opened his journal to write. Fortunately for Junior, Senior had long since killed his dream of playing professional sports.
“Look here, you don’t need no goddamn football to be somebody to white people. That’s bullshit,” Junior recalled Senior telling him when he didn’t get picked to play intramural football back in North Philly.
Hoping to win over the rambunctious class, Mr. Darrius showed Junior’s class his battle scars on both legs from having two of his knees replaced. Finding little spark, he pulled out two hundred in cash and counted it as Junior’s class suddenly came to life. He offered to pay a kid a hundred bucks if they could name which NFL team won the championship in 1960.
“Do you know?” the man asked Junior.
“Know what?” Junior answered, irritated.
“Which team won it in 1960?”
“I don’t watch football, sir.”
Junior’s class all blew out air, groaning at him as Junior carried on in his journal, unmoved by the presentation. The one time Junior did glance over was to look at Mrs. Hawkins’s evil face. Her eyes slanted at him behind her bifocal glasses. By then, Junior was numb and could care less about what Mrs. Hawkins, Mr. Levy, or anyone else thought. He used the hour-long presentation to write a new poem to Casey. Ever the perfectionist, he erased until the rubber on his pencil wore into the metal, scratching a hole inside his sacred journal.
As soon as Mr. Darrius left, Mrs. Hawkins reamed Junior in the hallway.
“You gotta be the most disrespectful little boy I’ve ever seen in my entire life!” she hollered at Junior, her voice echoing throughout the fourth-floor. “How dare you sit there and write during Mr. Darrius’s presentation? You ought to be thankful someone took the time to talk to your little narrow ass. Damn devil!”
Already on punishment, Junior had nothing to lose. Fed up with Mrs. Hawkins and the underworld at his school, he lashed back.
“Fuck you!” Junior screamed back. “You’re the devil!”
Mrs. Hawkins gasped as she held her chest with one hand and stumbled backward into the wall like Fred Sanford, unable to believe Junior. He had had enough.
“Lady, you got some nerve! You’re the biggest bible-preachin’ hypocrite I’ve ever seen! Yeah, I said it!” Junior continued. “Call my mother. Call my daddy. Just leave me the fuck alone!”
Downstairs in Mr. Levy’s office, Sandy shouted at Junior through the phone line. “What did we just discuss a few days ago?!” she went off. “Boy, are you crazy? Are you on PCP or something? Because you gotta be on drugs to talk to an old lady that way!”
Sickened by his behavior, Sandy hung up on him. Junior was later issued afterschool detention for disrespecting Mrs. Hawkins. With a subdued look, he returned to Mrs. Hawkins’s class to the celebration of his peers. They patted Junior on the back as if he’d finally crossed over to the dark side and had done some good by cussing out Mrs. Hawkins. For Junior, however, it was the lowest point of the school year for him. He had gone from being a quiet, shy kid to someone who would curse out a woman old enough to be his grandmother.
At lunch, Junior barely ate as he stared down at his cold corndog and mashed potatoes covered in diarrhea-colored gravy. Sulking, angry, a kid walked by and asked if Junior planned on eating his lunch. “Man, just take it,” he flapped at the kid. Minutes later, a teacher bypassed Junior at the table, shaking his head at him in disgust, followed by another teacher. Bothered by the events from earlier, Junior looked up toward the door of the lunchroom and noticed Casey staring right at him with her arms folded. Soon after, she disappeared into the hallway – his cue to leave. Junior headed down to room 328. When he got there, Casey was waiting for him. Her arms were still folded.
“I know…” he greeted her. “She started it first, though.”
“Junior! C’mon, man!” she fussed at him “You know you’re not supposed to be writing poetry when a guest speaker is talking. It’s rude! And then you cuss out Mrs. Hawkins? Who in the hell do you think you are? Samuel L. Jackson or somebody?”
Junior leaned against the wall and sighed.
“C’mon, J. You can’t be cussin’ out your teacher and gettin’ into trouble. You’re just giving Levy more ammunition. We gotta be smart, remember? How many days did Levy give you?”
“What does it matter?” he asked. “I’m already in trouble. Besides, who cares?”
“I care Junior.” She looked into his eyes. “Why do you think I’m still here?”
As Casey walked over to the window, using her reflection to straighten her hair and uniform, Junior followed behind her.
“So, let me get this straight,” he asked. “You stayed… because of… me?”
Ignoring him, Casey tied her hair into a ponytail as if to avoid the sentimental moment between them. Unable to do so, she turned to face him. “Yeah…I uh…I love you, man.” She giggled as her voice began to hoarsen. “You’re like the little stubborn brother I never got to have. Like the family I’d dream about having as a little girl. Like the little… homie from around the way that you knew was gonna grow up and be somebody special someday.”
Junior was speechless.
“I don’t know what to say. You love me? Shit, my own daddy won’t even tell me that,” he said.
“You ain’t gotta say it back to me or nothin’.” She wiped her eyes. “But that’s just…how I feel, OK? I don’t want to see you hurt or get into any trouble, J. You got it, man? I’m fuckin’ serious, Junior,” She grabbed him by the arm. “I ain’t playin’!”
Staring into her green eyes, Junior nodded.
“I won’t, Casey. I promise I’ll fly straight.”
“Good.” She smiled. “OK. Go away. You made me cry — I’m mad at you!”
Don’t want your money or what isn’t mine.
But if you don’t mind,
I would like a little more of your time.
Don’t care what’s on the outside
because that’ll eventually fade away.
And I pray, our souls become as inseparable
as your sun is to my day.
LEONARD G. ROBINSON JR.
Fuck Detention
When the day was over, Junior stayed behind in Mrs. Hawkins’s class to serve detention. She put him to work immediately, dropping a huge filing box loaded with old test papers onto Junior’s desk. The second it landed, a sheet of dust overwhelmed him. She sneered at Junior as it landed. Between sorting papers, rearranging desks, washing boards, and beating erasers probably not used since the 80s, Junior spent the next hour mumbling expletives to himself.
Mrs. Hawkins made the experience hell for him. She double and triple-checked Junior’s work, making him redo each task just to prolong his agony. Then, as if she was enjoying his misery, she sat near the back of her room with her bony legs crossed, sucking on candy, teeing off insults at Junior. She called him a “rotten bastard” and shouted at him every time he missed a spot. At one point, Mrs. Hawkins threw an empty juice bottle at him. It had been left behind by a student. The bottle bounced from the wall, nearly missing Junior’s head before it landed at his feet.
“You heathen! Here!” She flung the bottle. “Catch this!”
<
br /> “Yo, don’t throw nothin’ at me,” Junior barked at her. “That’s rude, Mrs. Hawkins!”
“Shut up. I throw whatever the hell I want! Hurry up!”
Child-like, Mrs. Hawkins threw whatever she could scrounge on the floor at Junior. Fortunately for him, her delicate arm could only get so much wind behind her throw. Throughout detention, she berated Junior, snickering like a dying cat as he grew angry at her antics. She dared to quote scripture from the bible before asking Junior if he was “saved” as she claimed the world would end on December 31, 1999.
“I feel sorry for your mother,” Mrs. Hawkins told him. “She’s got an ass for a son.”
“Is that right?” Junior indulged her to pass the time. “What makes you so sure of that?”
“How you ask? You ask how do I know? ‘Cause you ain’t nothin’ but a lowdown heathen!” she scoffed. “I’m gonna work the devil out of you! Go’on. Work!”
Junior was no saint by any stretch of religion, but he was also no heathen. He was misunderstood, just like Casey was often mistaken for being a white girl, he once thought. As Mrs. Hawkins carried on in her foolish torture, damning Junior’s future and blaming his parents for raising such a “shithead son”, he ignored his teacher. Near the end of his punishment, Mrs. Hawkins approached him at the front of the room to check his work. She eyeballed the clean board and grunted before finding a dime-sized smudge in the far corner.
“It’s clean, Mrs. Hawkins,” said Junior. “Can I go now?”
“Clean?” she yelled at him. “Look at that smudge! What’s all this stuff here? You’re about as useless as a limp dick.”
After Mrs. Hawkins pointed out the smudge on her board, she walked over to the filing cabinet where Junior had sorted through a stack of papers and emptied it onto the table.
“These are all wrong!” she fussed. “Forget it. Just leave. You’re worthless like everybody else in this damn school. Go away before I change my mind.”
Before she tried keeping him overnight, Junior grabbed his belongings and headed toward the door. Having a change of heart, he decided to confront Mrs. Hawkins about her attitude. Biting his tongue, he was mindful of his behavior.
“How come you hate me so much?” Junior asked her. “What’ve I ever done to you?”
Marching over to him, Mrs. Hawkins slammed her hand down onto the desk. She stood directly in Junior’s face as he towered over her. Her mean bug eyes fixed on him and her breath smelled like coffee and menthol cigarettes. To get away from her hideous breath, Junior leaned backward.
“I hate all of you kids equally. You’re all heathens. Especially you. You’re just like my son. You think you know every damn thing.”
As Mrs. Hawkins trolled back to her desk, Junior put two and two together.
“So, I get it now. This ain’t about me. It’s about your son.” He softened. “I didn’t know you had a son, Mrs. Hawkins. Did something happen to him? Is he OK?”
“Why don’t you mind your damn business?” She suggested.
Junior approached Mrs. Hawkins at her desk.
“I’m sorry for cussin’ at you earlier, OK?” he apologized. “But if you’re gonna throw scriptures from the bible at people then you’ve got a lot to learn about treating people better than the way you do, ma’am. I don’t know a lot about God, but I know he doesn’t like ugly. And I don’t know what happened to your son, but I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive him…and me. Have a good Thanksgiving, Mrs. Hawkins.”
With the last word, Junior threw on his Walkman and headed out the door.
I breed forgiveness,
though I remain savvy with my heart,
unaware of the direction
to which sinister winds might blow.
LEONARD G. ROBINSON JR.
Down the Barrel of a Gun
Darkness had befallen Brooke’s Rowe as Junior stepped out of Medgar and into the cool night air. That evening, with the holidays keeping Sandy busy on mandatory overtime and Senior tied up with his handyman business, Junior would have to catch the city bus back to Kennedy Street. Unfortunately for him, the nearest stop was a six-block walk from Medgar’s doorstep. With his headset blaring Nas’s Illmatic, Junior carried on into the Philly darkness, drowning out the city sounds surrounding him. Earlier, Casey had offered him a ride home before remembering Mr. Levy’s strict order for them to not socialize.
Up the block, Junior passed by a green Jeep Cherokee with tinted windows parked along Sunnyside Avenue. Humming to himself, Junior bypassed the small SUV, unsuspecting of the four masked individuals approaching him from behind. With his guard lowered, he stopped to flip his cassette tape when suddenly he felt a sharp blow to the back of his head. The pain dropped him to his knees. Unaware of what happened, he palmed his scalp to find his hand covered in blood. Junior turned to look and saw four masked men standing there, one of whom brandished a silver handgun. Before Junior could surrender, the gunman shoved Junior into a steel shutter and raised his gun into Junior’s face. His hands went up immediately.
“You the nigga that called for help in Mrs. Hawkins’s class the other day?” the gunman asked him. “That didn’t have shit to do with you. You should’ve minded your business.”
Crying, Junior begged for his life. “C’mon man! Look, I ain’t with none of that, I’m just trying to get home!”
“Shut the fuck up!” The gunman cocked his pistol. “Empty your pockets!”
Trembling, Junior dumped the contents of his pockets onto the sidewalk and raised his hands again. As the gunman’s goons scrounged through his wallet, they dumped his school ID onto the pavement and removed ten dollars from inside his wallet. Another boy went through Junior’s pockets, patting his legs and ankles and checking inside his school bag.
“That’s all I got is that ten dollars.” He pointed with his toe. “I ain’t got shit else.”
Junior looked on in fear as the robbers looked around at each other, deliberating on whether or not to spare his life.
“Ten dollars ain’t enough to pay for what you did!”
The robber then struck Junior across the jaw, hard, knocking him down onto the pavement as the others proceeded to beat him. They kicked and punched Junior mercilessly as he crawled out into the street, desperately trying to get away. As he tried to run, one of the boys tripped him, causing Junior to fall. Helpless, he covered his face, begging for his attackers to leave him alone.
One of the robbers took Juniors’ headset from around his neck, a beloved Christmas gift Lawrence had bought him two years before. Another ripped off his tennis shoes and bulky jacket. The robbers pummeled Junior some more as the gunman placed the barrel against Junior’s forehead, threatening to kill him if he told anyone what happened.
Battered and bloodied, Junior laid there with a gun pressed against his head, wondering if he’d ever see his family again. Staring at death, he overheard a car come gunning up Sunnyside Avenue to his rescue, succeeded by the flickering of high beams and a car horn. It was none other than his big sissy, Casey Haughton. Startled, the gunman let Junior go.
Casey, still wearing her security uniform, exited her car hurling sections of broken brick from Medgar’s mural toward Junior’s attackers. The first brick hit the gunman square in the face.
“Get off him!” she screamed. “Step the fuck back! Back up!”
As pieces of brick reigned on the robbers, the gunman dropped his pistol. Thinking quickly, Junior, bleeding from the mouth, knocked the gun into a nearby storm drain, disarming the assailants. Casey then grabbed her pepper spray off her duty belt and sprayed the robbers as they coughed and retreated back to their getaway car and fled.
Limping, falling over, Junior struggled onto his feet as Casey and a bystander helped Junior up. Sobbing, he could barely talk.
“They fuckin’ robbed me,” he moaned. “I can’t believe they fuckin’ robbed me.”
Wasting no time, Casey hoisted Junior onto his feet, shoved him into the back of her car and rac
ed to the nearest hospital.
Don’t get misinformed by the uninformed.
Miseducated fools swim together
Like a school of dumb fish
waiting to get eaten
by the sharks of their oppressors.
—LEONARD G. ROBINSON JR.
Eight
Junior appeared in the lobby of Children’s Hospital, lagging onto Casey’s shoulder, swollen, crying, and bleeding from his mouth. He was aided by a desk nurse who quickly summoned for a gurney. Knots lined atop Junior’s forehead and scalp like anthills, and his eyes looked like golf balls with slits for his red eyes. There was a gash on the bridge of his nose, and his lips were bloody and puffy like undercooked sausage links. Missing a sock, the toenail on his right pinky toe was snapped back to the cuticle. He struggled to make his way onto the gurney. Wincing, whining, writhing in pain, he held onto Casey’s hand before a team of hospital staff whisked him away into Intensive Care, breaking the hold.
Aching all over, doctors administered Junior extra-strength Tylenol. When that failed, they gave him morphine to slow down his restlessness and anxiety. Within minutes, his pain subsided, and he was out. When Junior awoke an hour later, he was surrounded by his parents, Casey, and a police detective. Still out of it, Junior could barely keep his eyes open as Sandy tried to talk to him. His jaw and head throbbed, and the room was spinning from the combination of drugs and the four-on-one ass-kicking.
“Junior? Baby?” Sandy leaned over him. “Honey, can you hear me?”
Nodding his head in response, Junior winced as his headache suddenly grew worse. He cried again which also made Casey cry.
“Honey? This is Detective Engram. He needs to ask you about what happened, OK? I need you to talk to the detective for us. Can you do that for me?”
Slow and more precarious than the first time, Junior nodded again.
“Hello Leonard, I’m Detective…”
“He prefers Junior!” Casey interfered. “Please, call him Junior, sir.”
Beyond Poetry Page 14
