Beyond Poetry

by Nathan Jarelle

  Brother Gay

  Running, rushing, Junior zipped up the hallway staircase and down to Mrs. Hawkins’s classroom expecting her door to be locked. When he got there, however, he saw no sign of the evil, bat-faced woman and noticed a different teacher was sitting at her desk. Junior looked around the room and noticed every single artifact of Mrs. Hawkins’s classroom along with her desk plate was missing. As he poured into his seat in the front row, a bearded black man sporting an African Kufi hat stood up and introduced himself. With a sharp voice, the man wrote his name on the blackboard in fancy, bold letters: BROTHER GAY. Junior’s classmates all snickered except for him. His peers carried on as if he hadn’t got jumped a week earlier.

  “I know y’all are used to Mrs. Hawkins closing her door at a certain time,” he explained to Junior’s class of twelve. “But I believe that no door should be closed on a child’s education. If you’re late, you will still be permitted to enter my class – but it’ll be your responsibility to find out what’s going on – not mine. As many of you know, Mrs. Hawkins has moved on. So, I’ll be your teacher for the remainder of the school year. If you need anything, Brother Gay or Mr. Gay is fine.”

  Junior’s class all laughed again. Brother Gay then passed around a sign-in sheet for each student to fill out and promised to memorize their names before the end of the day. Unlike Mrs. Hawkins, he didn’t react to the gossipers in the back, the way their former teacher would have.

  During first period break, Junior approached Brother Gay with the sign-in sheet and politely asked to be addressed as “Junior” rather than Leonard. The man looked down at Junior’s school ID and back up at him.

  “Something wrong with the name ‘Leonard’?” he asked.

  “I ain’t too fond of that name,” explained Junior. “So, everyone calls me, ‘Junior’.”

  Brother Gay opened his wallet and pulled out his Pennsylvania State Driver’s License to show Junior. To his surprise, Brother Gay was also named Leonard.

  “Well, I happen to like that name quite a bit.” The man winked. “But sure, Junior it is.”

  Proudly free to be me.

  Free to think. Free to dream.

  Free in my heart. Free to cry.

  Free not to care what others think.

  Free to be me – the only way to be.

  LEONARD G. ROBINSON JR.

  Beyond Poetry

  For Junior, returning to Medgar was more than just seeing Casey. It was returning to the scene of a gruesome crime – and not batting an eye. It was about confronting his fears without retreat. He was not a product of his environment but a victim of it, both at home and in school. Back in Crawford, the boys would chump Junior over his video games or figurines, and they’d bait Junior by starting fights with Lawrence. Picking on his brother was the only thing that would provoke Junior to fight. During the contest, however, he’d cry so pathetically that the boys would all mock him. One day, Lawrence had come home with a swollen eye, and Senior made Junior go fight the boy responsible. Junior later found the kid but didn’t fight him. Instead, he paid Lawrence his entire allowance for a month to tell Senior that he had won the fight. Junior knew he wasn’t a fighter; he was a writer. It was poetry that refined Junior’s purpose, and through poetry, he would rebuild himself. The thrashing he’d received the Tuesday before Thanksgiving would be his genesis. Bloodied and stripped of his pride on a city street, his healed face failed to show the stitch marks on his young heart. Taking Senior’s .38 was Junior’s breaking point. Putting his daddy’s gun back was his baptism. Casey was an anomaly. A delicate black woman, born white as snow, who he’d call his big sissy and who would lead him to overcome the traps inside his mind. The first true friend he’d had since moving to Brooke’s Rowe. Sandy, his mother, was Junior’s rock to lean on. Senior was Junior’s balance between the parallel worlds of poetry and life in South Philly.

  On his first break that morning, Junior went looking around for Casey but was unable to find her. Afterward, he returned to class and tried again on the second break, lunch, and afternoon break. Desperate, he phoned Casey’s cell phone from a payphone outside the cafeteria before leaving school that day but couldn’t get an answer. Looking for answers, Junior went tracking for Mr. Levy inside his office, but he wasn’t there. Confused, he climbed into his mother’s car parked in front of the school.

  “Look, I’m sure she’ll be in tomorrow,” Sandy assured him. “You guys can talk then.”

  The next day at Medgar was the same result, Junior dividing his break time between looking for Casey and spying on Mr. Levy. Out of options, Junior went to Brother Gay during break to ask if he had seen or heard from Casey.

  “Not too familiar with her. You’d have to check with Mr. Levy on that,” he advised.

  When the day ended, Junior went down to Mr. Levy’s office to ask if he had seen Casey. His mouth stuffed with tuna fish and mayonnaise, Mr. Levy glared at him.

  “I thought I banned you two from being together,” he said. “Haven’t you heard by now?”

  “Heard what?” snapped Junior.

  “She quit earlier this morning,” he said nonchalantly. Mr. Levy then pointed down at Casey’s security badge sitting atop his desk. Junior picked up the badge and looked at his best friend’s imprinted name. On the back of her old badge near the needle was a piece of cotton left behind as if the badge had been abruptly taken off. Immediately, Junior envisioned Casey ripping the badge from her shirt in protest. Incensed, he tossed the badge down onto Mr. Levy’s desk. It bounced, landing next to his sandwich.

  “If she quit then it’s because of you!” said Junior. “You made her quit!”

  “Th’hell if I did!” he yelled. “She quit this morning, I said. It happened earlier. She said she couldn’t handle it, and that’s the truth!”

  Junior looked down at Casey’s badge on top of Mr. Levy’s desk.

  “If Casey was leaving, she would’ve told me! She wouldn’t just leave suddenly.”

  “Bullshit,” he shot back. “It’s one of the more reasons she chose not to tell you. Look at you, Junior. You’re like a damn little puppy who lost its owner. She didn’t want to hurt you.”

  As Junior digested Mr. Levy’s story that Casey had abruptly quit, it began to make sense to him. On the night he had taken Senior’s gun, he recalled her life story and wondered if her past had caught up to her again. Disappointed, he trudged out of Mr. Levy’s office and into his mother’s car. With a lump wedged between his throat and his broken heart, Junior could barely tell his mother what had happened to Casey. Sandy, always the optimist, uplifted him during the drive home.

  “Maybe she just needs time to process it all, Junior,” Sandy explained. “Leaving a job can be devastating for some people. She’ll reach out to you. Just give her time.”

  “Give her time?” Junior asked. “How could she just leave like that and not say nothin’?!”

  When Junior and his mother returned home, Senior was outside attempting to replace the light fixture on the front porch when Sandy told him about Casey. Unphased by Junior’s predicament, he skipped right to the point.

  “Well, wouldn’t you’ve quit if you had to work for a sumbitch like that?” Senior asked.

  “That ain’t the point, daddy!” Junior complained. “She left and didn’t even tell me!”

  “Adults have reasons why they don’t tell kids certain things,” Sandy chimed in. “Just give her a chance; I’m sure Casey will explain everything when the time is right.”

  That night, Junior paced across the floor of his bedroom wondering where Casey had gone off to. At the dinner table, he picked through his food while both his parents carried on as if nothing happened. On his nightstand was Casey’s cell phone number which he usually carried inside his wallet. From the kitchen phone, Junior called three times and left three messages on her voicemail service. Just after 7 p.m., Senior came upstairs to ask Junior to ride with him down to the hardware store.

  As Senior’s truck cruised u
p Kennedy Street, Junior stared off into the holiday air, wondering where Casey had gone. Images of their first day together at Medgar to the last time they had seen one another flashed through his mind. Suddenly, it dawned on him. The prior week, Casey had told Junior about her past struggles with suicide. Was she dead? he wondered. Was she in a hospital somewhere in his big city after finally losing it? As the night wore on, so did Junior’s mind which began playing tricks on him.

  At the hardware store, he asked his father if he could remain inside the truck which Senior obliged. Out in the parking lot, he saw a blue Toyota resembling Casey’s car and exited Senior’s truck to investigate. The inside of the car looked exactly like Casey’s. Junior moved from the driver’s window to the passenger side looking for any artifact that would resemble his big sissy. Suddenly, a dog, a rat terrier, sleeping beneath its owner’s coat whisked into the front seat and began barking at Junior from the window. Startled, he fell backward onto the asphalt. Shortly thereafter, Senior exited the shop and saw Junior lying on the ground next to the blue Toyota.

  “Pretty sure the owner wouldn’t ‘preciate you lookin’ in his ride,” Senior joked. “You mind tellin’ me what in the hell you’re doin’? Are you crazy?”

  “I thought it might be Casey’s car,” Junior replied.

  “Well it ain’t!” his daddy woofed. “Now, get your ass back in that truck.”

  On the way back home, it seemed that every passing car was a blue Toyota, and every driver behind the wheel looked like Casey. Senior could care less about a blue Toyota and its operator. Riding down Kennedy Street, he chatted on about a neighbor who had promised to help swap the transmission inside his Ford pickup. It was one of the only times he seemed to say more than just a few words when it came to fixing things. As Junior’s daddy carried on about the transmission to his truck and the fluid needed to get it up running like new, Junior stared out into Brooke’s Rowe, wondering about Casey. When he returned home, Sandy was waiting for him at the door with a message.

  “Casey called, said she was on her way,” Sandy told him. “She asked if she could see you for a few minutes. I told her that’s fine. Make sure it’s quick; it’s still a school night.”

  With his coat still buttoned, Junior waited by the window for Casey to arrive. At one point, a blue sedan parked near the front of the Robinsons’ house. Believing it was Casey, Junior charged from the house before realizing the driver was a delivery person in a blue Geo Prism, similar in make and model to Casey’s vehicle. Frustrated, he returned to the front steps before Sandy asked him to come in from the cold. An hour went by with no sign of Casey until just after 8:35 p.m., her car arrived in front of the Robinsons’ house. By then, Junior was fed up with Casey toying with his emotions. With a scowl worse than his daddy’s, he marched down the walkway, opened Casey’s car door, and slammed it behind him. Her pleasant smile turned to a look of bereavement.

  “Man, what the fuck is your problem?!”

  Junior hollered as if she was his out-of-control, teenage daughter. “I been lookin’ all over for you! How could you just leave like that?”

  “First of all,” she barked back. “I might be your friend, but I’m still your elder…and your big sissy! You will not talk to me like that, young man! Now, what the fuck is your problem?”

  Realizing he had barked up the wrong road, Junior eased off the gas.

  “I-I’m sorry, Casey,” he fumbled for an apology. “I didn’t mean to…I was just…I miss you at school. How come you didn’t tell me you were gonna quit?”

  “I didn’t quit, J. I got fired.”

  “You what?”

  “Levy called me Sunday night. We got into it, and he fired me. I didn’t quit anything.”

  “What about your cell phone? I called a bunch of times, left messages too. How come you never called me back? Didn’t you get ‘em?”

  “No, I didn’t,” she told him. “I lost my phone. I had to get a new one and a new number. Can you believe that? A new number? I’ve had that number since last year! I was so pissed. Of course, I was pissed about Levy, but I can’t say that I didn’t see it comin’.”

  Junior looked off into the distance, relieved to know that Casey was all right and that he and Casey would still be together post-Medgar. Soon after, Sandy stood near the living room window before flickering the light on the front porch, indicating their time had come to an end. Concerned, Junior tried to coax Casey into staying longer.

  “Yo, ten more minutes – ten more minutes!” he begged.

  “Not this time, J., I gotta go,” she laughed. “Look, we’ll talk again soon, OK?”

  “No, Casey!” he threw on his seatbelt. “You can’t just…” his eyes teared. “What am I supposed to do with you not around at Medgar? I’ll be alone again…”

  As Junior lowered his head, Casey grabbed him by his pointy chin.

  “You think this is goodbye?” she asked. “You ain’t gettin’ rid of me that easy.”

  Casey then reached into her bag, lifted out an ink pen and an old receipt, jotted down her new cell phone number, and passed it to him. She placed a row of change into Junior’s hands. Before sending him inside, Casey removed a poem she kept inside of her bag, placed it into Junior’s hands, and closed them as he stared back at her.

  “This way, no matter where you are,” she pinched him on his bubbly nose, “you can reach me. I’m sorry for making you worry. I won’t run off like that again. I promise.”

  As Casey placed her hand on Junior’s shoulder, he leaned onto Casey’s wrist as if her touch and presence rejuvenated him. Junior took a deep breath, relieved. Despite what had happened, he still had his big sissy. As the two embraced, Senior opened the door to the house standing next to Sandy in the window. Junior looked at the clock on Casey’s dashboard and noticed it was 9:03 p.m. Twenty-eight minutes had passed since Casey arrived, but it seemed like twenty-eight seconds as the time magically quickened whenever the two were together. With his change and poem, Junior exited her car and returned to the house. As he entered the foyer, Casey dabbed at her car horn and drove off.

  “Everything all right?” asked Senior.

  With his hands filled with change and a poem from his big sissy, Junior nodded.

  “It is now,” he said.

  Upstairs inside his room, Junior unfolded Casey’s poem and read it. Moved, Junior re-folded Casey’s poem and placed it in his wallet behind Lawrence’s photo.

  Dear Junior,

  You’re the moon that balances my waters.

  The sun that lights up my sky.

  The blood that runs through me.

  You’re the sail in my winds.

  The strength to keep me going.

  You’re the brightest star I’ve ever seen skip across the galaxy.

  You and me?

  We’re beyond poetry.

  CASEY HAUGHTON

  The “L” word

  To showcase his students’ flair, Junior’s teacher, Brother Gay, invited every child to the front of the room for a mock talent show to celebrate the upcoming Christmas holiday. “Since you all won’t be exchanging gifts,” he explained, “your gift to one another is to share your talent.”

  Brother Gay’s commitment to camaraderie was succeeded by teeth-sucking groans as Junior’s peers threw up their arms in disgust and leaned in their seats. The first kid up was a girl named Shannon Jackson. She trudged to the front of the room with hair covering over her beautiful face and sung lyrics to Groove Theory’s hit “Tell Me”. Junior couldn’t believe the perfection of the girl’s voice as his peers all clapped to celebrate her. It was the first time Junior had seen his classmates at Medgar encourage another student. His only experience of encouragement was on his second day in Mrs. Hawkins’s class when his classmates tried to goad him to spit into her coffee.

  The next eye-opening act came from a boy named Mario who conned the class, telling them all that he was a master illusionist. More like the king of bullshit, Junior thought, as he watched
Mario walk to the front of the room donning a folded dollar bill in his hand. Holding it high for the class to see, he passed the crumbled bill to Brother Gay to inspect. Finding nothing off about the dollar bill, he handed the bill back to Mario who re-folded it. “Y’all wanna see it disappear?” he asked, egging on the class. Shortly thereafter, he stuffed the bill inside his mouth and swallowed it.

  “Ta-da!” he said before marching back to his chair. “This is so stupid!”

  When it was Junior’s turn to perform, he was met with a litany of teeth-sucking and eye-rolling from the peanut gallery. Anxious, he surveyed the room, acknowledging his peers’ displeasure with him. Just as Junior was about to quit and take his seat, Brother Gay approached Junior at the front of the room and whispered into his ear.

  “I believe in you, Junior,” he told him. “Don’t be afraid of your fellow students.”

  Swallowing his fears, Junior opened his journal and began to read.

  Plant a seed, water it, and birth a tree.

  But some young seeds don’t get the water they need.

  Instead, they get forgotten by other forgotten seeds.

  LEONARD G. ROBINSON JR.

  “Yes!” Brother Gay began to clap. “That was terrific, sir! Impressive!”

  Junior took a look around the room to see his peers slouching from their chairs with faceless expressions. Invalidated, he quickly closed his journal and took his seat, wishing a black hole would open in the center of Brother Gay’s classroom for him to fall into. As the bell sounded for lunch, Junior’s classmates passed by his desk, mocking his poetry with typical belligerence. “Faggot-nigga,” one boy mumbled on the way out. “Fuckin’ loser,” another boy muttered. Embarrassed, Junior opted to be the last one out the door. As he attempted to leave, Brother Gay asked him to stay behind for a few.

  “That was an incredible poem, Junior,” he complimented. “You have a gift for words.”

  Shrugging, Junior tucked his hands into his pocket.

  “Nobody else thought so,” he said.

  Brother Gay then motioned for Junior to take a seat as he sat on the edge of his own desk.