Beyond Poetry

by Nathan Jarelle

  Irritated, the detective exhaled as both Senior and Sandy looked at one another, surprised by Junior’s big sissy.

  “Very well.” He fake-smiled. “Junior. I’m Detective Engram with the Philadelphia Police. I need to ask you some questions about what happened earlier. Can I get you to talk?”

  Junior sluggishly extended his arms so Casey and Senior could hoist him up in bed. He grunted in pain. Through the slit in his gown was a large scrape across his back from where he had fallen to the asphalt. With his right hand, Junior reached for the controller to his bed to raise himself to speak with Detective Engram. Meanwhile, the detective jotted notes on Junior’s injuries onto a clipboard. Sandy offered him a sip of ice-cold water to help him wake up.

  “I can come back tomorrow if you guys think that’ll be better?” Detective Engram said.

  As Sandy went to speak, Casey beat her to it.

  “Give him a damn second, OK?” she hissed as she straightened Junior’s pillow. “The kid just had his brains beaten out of him. He’s in a lot of pain, Detective.”

  Sulking and impatient, the detective backed into the corner of the room as Junior’s family tended to him. To nurse his delicate jaw, Senior fed him a bowl of chicken noodle soup with crushed crackers and a box of fruit juice. Junior barely stayed awake during the feeding as the antsy detective constantly changed positions, crossing his legs and folding his arms. At one point, the man excused himself to take a phone call from his cell phone, leaving Junior’s room.

  “I mean, what’s the hurry?” said Sandy. “Our son was just attacked! Can’t we get any help?”

  “You see?” said Senior. “There’s that niceness in you, I be talkin’ ‘bout! You always want to see the good in people, Sandy. Ain’t nothin’ good ‘bout none of ‘em. Same thing with Lawrence. All of a sudden, you wanna call the police. Motherfuck the police! I’ll say it to the bastard’s face!”

  “Look, don’t you start that shit in here!” Sandy fired back. “Not now, Leonard, OK?!”

  As Junior’s parents began to argue, he sat there watching half-awake. A nurse walked in and asked for the Robinsons to take their fight outside, which they did. Smartly, Casey stayed behind to wait for the detective. Minutes later, Detective Engram returned to Junior’s room with an emergency and had to leave. The Robinsons returned to Junior’s room, noticed the detective had left, and began to shout again in front of Casey. They blamed one another for Junior getting hurt and for the detective having to leave. As Sandy went to thank Casey for her help and to relieve her for the night, Junior came to life.

  “Can she stay a little while longer?” he mumbled.

  Before either of Junior’s parents could answer, Casey was right by his bedside. She then leaned over and grabbed Junior by his splinted hand.

  “I’ll do whatever you want me to do, J., as long as your parents say it’s OK,” she told him. “If you want me here, I’m here. Whatever you need. I got you.”

  With his face still scuffed, eyes like golf balls, and the top of his head looking like the Appalachians, Junior turned to look over at Senior and Sandy for approval. They scowled at one another before finally giving Junior the nod.

  “Sure, Junior,” said Sandy. “If you want her to stay, well, then we want her to, also.”

  As Junior slowly rolled over onto his side, Casey thanked Junior’s family for their hospitality and excused herself to use the restroom, leaving the Robinsons alone.

  “So, is she the white girl from Junior’s school?” asked Senior.

  “She’s not white, Leonard – she’s black – she’s an albino,” said Sandy.

  “A what? A who? You said she’s a rhino?!”

  “Lord Jesus! Will you just go away? Go have a cigarette or something!”

  Sometime after 1 a.m. in the early morning hours of Thanksgiving Eve, Junior awoke to the sound of J. J. Evans’s voice on a re-run of the 1970s television show, Good Times. Still in pain, he turned to survey the room and noticed Senior asleep next to him in a chair with his ball cap cocked over his face. His daddy’s long legs were outstretched as if he was on a long flight. Across the room in the corner, Casey was curled into a ball beneath Senior’s jacket. Meanwhile, out in the hallway, Junior overheard his mother’s voice as she conferred with staff about his condition and treatment upon his discharge. According to what Junior overheard, he had sustained no broken bones during the attack but would need to miss seven to ten days of school. Junior tried to stay awake to hear more but drifted back into sleep.

  Three hours later, Junior awoke to Casey and Sandy talking; Senior was gone. He could tell from the tones of their voices that they were enjoying talking with each other. To keep them bonding, he pretended to be asleep, eavesdropping on their conversation.

  “I can’t believe what you just told me!” Sandy fussed. “Mrs. Hawkins did what?! Why didn’t Junior tell me all of this? How could he not tell me all of these things?”

  “He didn’t want to upset you,” said Casey. “Look, I was wrong to carry on having a friendship with your son after you told him not to. I take responsibility for that, Mrs. Robinson. But I do understand Junior’s dilemma. Growing up as the only albino girl in my neighborhood in Jersey, I know what it feels like to be different than other kids. So, we bonded on those similarities.”

  With his sausage lips somewhat smiling, Junior drifted back to sleep. He awoke again two hours later to the aroma of a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit from McDonald’s. With a plastic knife, Senior sawed Junior’s sandwich into four bite-sized sections to accommodate his achy jaw. Across the room, Casey and Sandy stood together near the window to Junior’s room, sipping hot coffee, looking at the sun as it crept over Philadelphia.

  “Girrrrl, I gotta give it to you,” Sandy said to Casey. “I thought I grew up bad. You’ve had it hard your whole life.”

  “Had what hard?” Junior snaked into their discussion.

  “Ha! He’s awake!” laughed Casey.

  “I forgot to tell you that he does that.” Sandy shook her head. “Feelin’ better, honey?”

  “Here and there,” said Junior.

  Some prefer the lake while others prefer the ocean.

  I prefer the motions of a body of water to cleanse my soul.

  Let the rain pour down soon

  with streams that run into my wildest dreams.

  Lakes & Oceans.

  What waters must I swim?

  LEONARD G. ROBINSON JR.

  Uninspired

  When Junior was discharged the following morning, doctors handed him a packet of mandible exercises to nurse his injured jaw along with a prescription for Percocet. By then, the small slit between his engulfed eyes had opened enough for him to cry as he recollected what had happened to him. As suggested, Junior would miss between a week or more of school to allow his injuries to heal. Down at the Save-a-Lot, Sandy bought Junior a cart full of chicken noodle soup, oatmeal, and apple sauce. As the Robinsons parted ways with Casey that morning, she hugged Junior and left him with her cell number in case he wanted to talk.

  At home, Junior limped in front of the bathroom mirror, surveying his battered face. Most of the swelling in his scalp had subsided, but his eyes were still enlarged and dried blood caked the inside of his nostrils and corner lip. Using his finger, he dabbed the patch of swollen skin surrounding his orbital bone. Pain shot through his body and he yelped in agony. Feeling sorry for himself, he shut off the bathroom light and wept in the dark.

  Later that afternoon, a police detective arrived at the Robinsons’ house to interview Junior about his attack. Downstairs at the kitchen table, the detective spent more time jotting notes than questioning Junior about the incident. Fed up with the injustices her family had received since the previous summer, Sandy became irritated with the detective, questioning the officer about his interview skills.

  “Do you mind telling me what you’re writing?” she asked. “Because you’ve been sitting at my kitchen table for over an hour, and you haven’t asked
my son anything noteworthy, sir.”

  “What would you like for me to ask him?” the detective asked.

  “I don’t know, perhaps, ‘Can you tell me what they looked like? What were they wearing? What kind of vehicle were they driving?’ You know? Something.”

  Sassy and smart-alecky, the detective rolled his eyes at Sandy.

  “OK, Junior.” He shook his head. “Can you tell me what they looked like? What were they wearing? What kind of vehicle were they driving? Is that good enough, Mrs. Robinson?”

  Infuriated, Sandy threw the detective out of her home.

  “Get out of my house!” she barked at the man as she followed him to the door. Shortly thereafter, Junior retreated upstairs to his bedroom.

  Uninspired to write, he relegated himself to read some of his past works during his time off from school. Angry, Junior’s poems read to him like litter floating downstream. Before long, he began ripping and tearing out the pages to each of his journals, one by one. On his first night home from the hospital, Junior destroyed eleven of his journals from the summer before.

  Thanksgiving came and went that year, much like it had the previous year after Lawrence had died. Senior stayed out of the house most of the day, on his ladder or out on his truck, while Sandy prepared Junior a short plate of collard greens, thinly cut ham, and candy yams. As he tried to open his tender jaw to eat, pain ripped through his body, forcing him to drop his fork down onto the floor. Touching his lumpy face, he started to whimper.

  “I need you to be strong for me.” Sandy held him. “Don’t let yourself get too low.”

  For Junior, there was no other place for him to go except down low. He spent all day sleeping or tearing up his old journals. At night, he stared out the window into the world, contemplating revenge for all of the injustices of the past year.

  The day after Thanksgiving, three days after Junior’s attack, the swelling around his face had gone down, and the cut on the bridge of his nose finally scabbed. To get him out of the house, Sandy took Junior along with her for a quick drive into Philly’s west side. Sandy waited until they arrived back in front of the house to apologize to him for being hard on Casey several weeks back and not giving her a chance.

  “I should’ve believed in you,” she told him. “I was wrong about everything. I had no idea what was happening at Medgar all this time, and all that you had been going through. But I got something to tell you,” she went on. “I’m thinkin’ about pullin’ you from Medgar. At least next fall you can start again at Franklin High.”

  “Franklin High?” asked Junior. “Then that means I won’t see Casey again! I’ll stay back a year. I won’t graduate on time – I’ll be behind. Ma, please,” he begged. “I can go back to Medgar. I’ll be fine. It’ll all work out.”

  “Junior – ”

  “Ma, please!” he interrupted. “I’ll do anything!”

  “It’s just not safe. I know that you’ll miss a year and that you’re worried about not being able to see your friend, but we’ll find a way to make it all work out. OK? But I may have to do this, Junior. Those boys could’ve killed you that night. Then what?”

  Afterward, Sandy hopped out of her car and went inside, leaving Junior in the passenger seat to mull over his predicament. He did so without tears, but with heaviness. As the rigors of life’s injustices weighed on his heart, his poetic mind became dark with vengeance. Instead of phoning Casey to talk, Junior phoned the malevolent spirit reigning within him.

  The world is not my oyster.

  Things do not happen for a reason.

  Practice does not make perfect.

  Nice guys will not finish last.

  Lies given to me by my ancestors shall be abolished,

  like rusted chains given to slaves.

  You must take what’s yours while you still can.

  I’ve decided to take what’s mine

  and whomever else is weak enough to let me take theirs.

  LEONARD G. ROBINSON JR.

  .38 Revolver

  Days later, while standing in the doorway of his parents’ bedroom, Junior noticed Senior’s nightstand partially open and saw a glimpse of his daddy’s loaded .38 revolver. As he returned to his bedroom for the night, he paced back and forth, hoping to ward away his thoughts of revenge. To take his mind off of his daddy’s gun, he tried to write but found his world filled with nothing but pain and hatred. He hated the police for dumping on his case and for treating Lawrence’s death as just another black person shot dead. He hated running away from Crawford afterward, and the grief his peers had given him since moving to Brooke’s Rowe. He hated Franklin. He hated Medgar, and all that had been associated with his stumbling blocks since day one. Suddenly, the only light illuminating his sinister world, Casey Haughton, was being taken away from him along with the school year. Tired of losing, Junior slipped into a world of darkness. He returned to Senior’s nightstand the next night, and the night thereafter.

  In the bathroom mirror, Junior role-played with his daddy’s gun, aiming at his reflection. Admiring its chrome finish, he fingered its solid grip before feathering the trigger. Then, before his daddy noticed it missing, Junior returned the revolver to his nightstand. Back in his room for the night, he fantasized about the .38 revolver, and the power it gave him. He was no longer a boy, but a man. He would never be a loser again.

  One afternoon, Senior placed a bowl of chicken noodle soup and pain medication onto Junior’s nightstand and closed his son’s door. The second he left, Junior hurled the bowl into the wall, shattering the fine porcelain and soiling his wall with soup. As Senior opened the door and saw the mess, he looked at Junior’s lumpy face and thought twice about beheading him. If it had been any other day, Junior’s daddy would’ve buried him beneath the house. Not that day. Instead, he left and returned to clean up the mess while his son sat sulking on his bed. “If you ain’t gonna eat nothin’, at least take your medicine,” Senior told him. Heeding his daddy’s advice, Junior reached for the melted tablets swimming in his spilled soup.

  Sandy didn’t sleep for two whole nights after learning what had happened. Under duress, she succumbed to her old, filthy habit of smoking – a habit she had given up when she’d become pregnant with Junior. Unable to sleep, she slipped out into the backyard long after her family was asleep to indulge in her new favorite pastime.

  Meanwhile, the Robinsons were still at war over Brooke’s Rowe. At odds with their decision was Sandy’s tenure down at the post office. With only ten years left until her retirement, she spent her twenty-year celebration sobbing into the arms of co-workers who were unaware of her troubles at home. The Robinsons’ two-bedroom townhouse was crumbling on top of them. The roof was old and needed repair. Beneath the basement drain outback, underground roots had torn through a drainage pipe, causing it to clog often. The cost to have the old piping replaced was $8800 – more than the family had managed to save in nearly five years. Not to mention, both cars needed major repairs.

  With the holidays fast approaching, Senior’s handyman business had begun to stagger, tightening their overall income. Whereas he usually averaged five to six jobs per day, he was now lucky to make two in one week. With tempers short, arguments were often and volatile. The worst problem was Junior’s dilemma. Not a single public school (or alternative) in all of Philadelphia would take him until the fall of ’96. Adding more misery to their problems, this would be the Robinsons’ second Christmas without Lawrence.

  The weekend before Junior was due to return to Medgar, his face and sore jaw had healed significantly, and he began to come around. Returning to writing, however, proved to be an arduous task. Beside him on his bed was a pile of crumpled paper that reminded him how his artistic talents continued evading him. On his mind was the barrel of his daddy’s .38 revolver tucked away in his nightstand. Although writing had given Junior his path to understanding the world, nothing could compare to the power he felt when holding his father’s gun. Desperate for a new identity, he entere
d his parents’ room, removed his daddy’s .38, and placed it into his pocket. Shortly thereafter, he was distracted by a knock at the door.

  “Honey, can you get that?” Sandy called to him from the kitchen. “My hands are full!”

  As Junior attempted to return the gun, Senior got on him.

  “Boy, didn’t you hear your momma callin’ you?” he seconded. “Get the door, dammit! Th’hell are you doing up there? Hurry up!”

  Rushing, stumbling, Junior shoved the revolver back into his pocket and rushed downstairs. As he neared the door, his parents exited the kitchen and stood in the living room, watching him. Alarmed, Junior stopped in his tracks.

  “Don’t look at me!” growled Senior. “Open the door, knucklehead!”

  As Junior went to open the front door, waiting for him on the other side was Casey. She was holding his favorite meal: Domino’s pizza with extra cheese, pepperoni, and sausage. Before Casey could get a word in, Junior grabbed his big sissy and hugged her. He then turned to look back and see his parents grinning with guilt. He had been set up – in a good way.

  Keeping Casey

  After a late lunch, Junior and Casey stood out on the porch, overlooking Brooke’s Rowe as they enjoyed an unusually warm November night. On the sidewalk in front of them, walkers strolled up and down Kennedy Street, some without a destination and some waiting near a shattered bus stop. Across the way, hands begged for loose change as snaggle-toothed, cold-beer sippers skipped checkers along a dingy checkerboard.

  For Junior, seeing Casey was rejuvenating to his fractured world. As she happily chattered on about nothing, he looked over into her pudgy face and could see her sibling-like love for him. She was his best friend in all of Brooke’s Rowe, Crawford, all of Philly, and the entire world. Each time she attempted to leave, Junior would ask her to stay and Casey would oblige him. “OK, ten more minutes. For real this time, man!” she’d say before an hour would pass by. “But I gotta get going after this!”

  The more Casey talked, the better for Junior. Her energy was warm and magnetic, and having her over for dinner was a much-needed break from his dreaded head. She had a cute, dimpled smile that shone, and her infectious laugh let everyone in the room know that Casey was there. It was beyond Junior why the staff at Medgar treated his big sissy with such disregard. As she got up to leave him, Junior begged her for another ten minutes.