by Omar Tyree
“No, he’s in the eighth grade.”
“The eighth grade?! Well, what are you—” I stopped myself before I got too excited and backed up a bit. “What is the boy’s full name, Walter?”
He was hesitant to tell me.
“WHAT’S HIS DAMN NAME?!” I said, raising my voice. I was ready to grab my son’s hands and squeeze the hell out of them, I was so angry! I was in no mood to deal with that code of the street shit!
“His name is Michael Riley.”
“Michael Riley? Is he black?” I was making the same assumption that most Americans had been trained to make; the black kids were always the ones causing trouble.
“No, he’s white,” Walter told me. He looked up into my eyes for a reaction. I guess he was proud to say that the boy was white. As young and as immature as Walter was, he understood, as fully as I did, what race meant in America, even on his minor level.
“So what happened? You and Michael Riley had a beef with some other boy?”
“No. I wasn’t even in it.”
’You weren’t in it? So what were you trying to do, protect this boy? Is that it?”
Walter’s head dropped again.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you, boy! Were you trying to protect him?”
Walter said, “I wasn’t really trying to protect him. It just happened.”
I had a picture of the entire incident in my head already. Walter’s little white friend, “Mikey,” wanted to play a “roughneck,” and when some real danger arrived, he punked out, and my son, Mr. Hero from Chicago, jumps in there and gets himself stabbed!
“Boy, you don’t make no damn sense!” I yelled at him. “How come he wanted to be your friend? Because you’re black? And he wanted to be down? And how come you can’t be friends with the smart boys? You’re smart, aren’t you? Or are you trying to be the school tough guy now?
“You need to be with boys your own damn age!”
I was pissed, and all of my own prejudices were leaping out of me. My son was making his know-it-all father seem as if he was right. And that only added to my disappointment.
Walter was shaking his head. “Naw, Mom, it wasn’t even like that.”
“No, Mom, that’s not the way it was,” I corrected him. I wanted to correct everything that was slipping, including my son’s English, if I had to!
He looked down once again, then flipped his head up before I was ready to reach out and smack him! I didn’t move out to Oak Park so my son could become the black tough guy at school and get himself stabbed. I could just imagine what the administrators, teachers, and parents were all thinking at his school.
“And what did the principal say to you about this?”
Walter looked really nervous when I asked him that. “Umm, I think they wanted to talk to you.”
’You think they wanted to talk to me?!” I snapped. “Did they talk about suspending you, Walter?” I asked him. I knew that would be next; either that or kicking him out of school altogether.
Down went his head again. I knew the answer before he raised it back up.
“They were talking about kicking me out of school,” he mumbled.
My hands raised up to my temples, and I had to restrain myself from turning into a lunatic inside of that hospital room!
“Okay, just calm down, and we’ll sit and talk about this tomorrow,” I told myself out loud.
Walter looked at me and said, “I’m sorry, Mom,” and started to cry.
I wished that I could cry with him and tell him that everything would be all right, but I had been through too much to cry. I leaned closer to his hospital bed and held his head to my shoulder.
“We’re going to go back to your school tomorrow morning and straighten everything out,” I told my son. Out of curiosity, I asked him, “So what happened to your friend? Did he get suspended too? Are they talking about expelling him?”
Walter shook his head. “No. All they did was talk to him.”
I leaned back to look into his tearstained face. “All they did was talk to him?! Were you all in the same room?” I couldn’t believe it! That damn white boy was getting off scot-free, when he had been the one to start off the drama in the first place. It looked like I was going to need a lawyer after all. And I knew more than a few good ones!
“Mmm hmm,” I mumbled to my son. “I see exactly how this is going. And I’m going to have a surprise for their ass!” I said. “Now Walter, everything that you’re telling me is the truth, right? Because, boy, if I find out that you’re lying, about anything—” I was so incensed by the whole ordeal that I couldn’t even finish my sentence. My son got the point though, and he answered my question.
“I’m telling you the truth, Mom,” he whined through his tears.
I said, “Yeah, well, you better be. And now I have to call your father and tell him everything.”
My son looked up at me in silence. I didn’t know what part was worse, him getting stabbed, the school talking about expulsion, or having to call up his father and tell him that he was right about Walter going bad on me, as small and as silly as the boy was!
I was so upset that I didn’t know what to think. Raising kids in the nineties was pure hell! Even when you try and move out to the suburbs, they still find a way to test your damn nerves!
I looked down at my son and said, “Boy, you have really done it now!” I didn’t know what else to say to him. I just felt so helpless, which was the worst feeling in the world for me. I absolutely hated feeling helpless! I had worked too damn hard to regain my life to feel helpless about protecting my son from the evils of the street.
Walter began to cry even harder at seeing how angry I was. He said, “I didn’t mean for this to happen, Mom.” His voice had turned into a squeal.
My natural mother instincts kicked in, and I hugged the boy like he was dying. I said, “I know, Walter. I know. Now just calm down.” But in my mind, I couldn’t help thinking that half of the black boys in prison had said the same damn thing, “I didn’t mean for it to happen.” That excuse only made it seem worse to me, because it sounded like they were saying they couldn’t control themselves. And I just knew that I wasn’t raising a child who had no self-control! I just knew it, like a thousand other mothers thought they knew! Damn he had me mad!
Boys Will Be Boys
HILE on the phone with Denise, I looked at Beverly and couldn’t believe my ears.
“What’s wrong?” my wife asked me. We had just finished eating dinner.
I help up my index finger so that I could get all of the details first. It sounded as if Denise had everything mapped out already.
“So what time should I be there?” I asked her.
“Nine A.M. sharp,” she told me.
I nodded my head and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow then.” I hung up the phone in near shock.
Beverly was still awaiting a report. “So, what’s going on?” she asked me again.
“Walter was involved in a stabbing incident at school today. The school officials are now thinking about expelling him. Denise wants me to meet her up at the school tomorrow morning with her lawyer,” I answered. I didn’t know exactly how to feel yet. I had a mixture of guilt, anger, pity, disappointment, fear, and anxiety all wrapped up in one, which left me immobile, as if paralyzed.
“Oh my God!” Beverly gasped. “Did he stab someone?”
I shook my head, still numbed by the news. “No, he didn’t stab anyone,” I was proud to say. “He had both of his hands cut while grabbing the knife of the alleged attacker.”
Beverly frowned and asked, “So why is he being expelled? Did they expel the other student? Did Walter start it? Even if he did start it, he wasn’t the one with the knife, right?”
“The kid with the knife was not even a student at the school,” I informed her. “The attack occurred inside of the schoolyard during their lunch hour. Apparently, there was a white student involved, who’s attempting to let Walter take the fall for it.”
I shook my head and said, “There’s just a lot more to this story that I don’t have all of the details to. Denise doesn’t have them all either, so she asked me to meet her at the school tomorrow with her lawyer.”
“Mm mm mmm,” Beverly grunted. “And this is junior high school! What’s next, kindergarten?” she asked rhetorically. “I hear they’re already bringing weapons to grade school. This is just getting out of hand!” she snapped. At least she had an immediate response to things.
In fact, I had never witnessed Beverly so animated before. Her motherly instincts were kicking in early. We had just recently found out that she was expecting. The due date was May 13, 1998.
I sat there at the table still daydreaming about what had gone on at school with my son. “I just can’t believe this!” I finally ranted. “Damn it!” I yelled, standing up from the table. I had all of these different emotions boiling up inside of me with nowhere to go. I just had so many questions to ask, and so many to answer. Whose fault was it? Was it mine, for not being there for my son? Was it Denise’s, for being a workaholic? Was Walter simply a bad kid who couldn’t help himself? Or was it a sign of the times of growing up in America?
Beverly rushed over to calm me down. “Do you want me to take off from work tomorrow and go down there with you?”
She was being really supportive. I loved my wife. But Walter III was an issue between Denise and me. Beverly being there would have been a second left shoe. Then again, if I did take Beverly with me, the school officials could attest that a solid, two-parent household was waiting in the wings for my son as a safe haven against the problems he could find himself mixed with in the future. Maybe the stabbing incident was a direct message for me to stop shuffling my feet and gain custody of my son before something more drastic occurred. Suddenly, I began to think about calling my own lawyer.
I leaned away from my wife to look into her face. I asked, “Beverly, would you support me if I wanted to gain custody of my son now? I mean, you see how crucial a time this is for him. The next time he may be involved in a shooting.”
I knew that I was wrong before my wife even answered me. We would have to sit down and discuss it when we were both in a sane state of mind, and not with a stabbing incident and expulsion from school on the table.
Beverly looked into my eyes and answered, “Yes. Yes I will.”
I had already decided that I would disavow her answer. It wasn’t a fair time for me to ask her. However, I was pleased to find that she would support me if push came to shove. I figured that her recent pregnancy had something to do with her change of attitude. Nevertheless, I was forcing myself to be more considerate than I had been in the past. It was all a part of maturity and respect for others. And that respect for others was the reason why my final decision was to observe how Denise would handle things before I jumped to any wrong conclusions.
“Not yet, honey,” I told my wife, with a desperate hug. “But I’ll let you know when. I just hope that it won’t be too late.”
When I showed up at Walter’s junior high school in Oak Park, I met my son, Denise, and her lawyer inside the principal’s office. Denise was worked up and ready for a battle. Not that we were best friends or anything, but she barely spoke to me. She talked more to her lawyer, attorney Melvin Fields, a lean and rather calm brother in his early forties.
While we waited for all the included school officials to join us inside the office, I looked over and said Hello to my son. He had both of his hands wrapped in gauze.
“How are you feeling?” I asked him.
“I’m all right,” he mumbled, lacking the energy that I was used to seeing from him.
Denise said, “His hands are going to take up to two weeks to heal.”
“That means he won’t be able to do his homework for a while,” I commented.
Before Denise could respond to me, the principal walked in with the vice principal, the disciplinarian, and one of Walter’s seventh-grade teachers. None of them were black, and all of them looked nervous and apprehensive.
The principal, a stately man in wire-framed glasses, addressed us: “Ah, Mr. Perry and Ms. Stewart, after going over the details of the case, we’ve all decided that we will not be expelling your son from the school, and that he can rejoin his classes as early as tomorrow. Ms. Walker has told us that Walter is a good student, and we’ve had no other disparaging complaints about him, so we apologize for the mishap.”
Denise looked around at everyone inside the room. “Wait a minute,” she said, “I didn’t come down here to have this thing just brushed under the rug. My son was attacked on school premises, suspended, and told that he would be expelled, then police officers asked us who, what, when, and where, and now I take off a second day from work for you to tell me that everything was a mishap! Oh, no, you’re not getting off that easy!” she ranted.
Denise wasn’t going to be denied her battle that morning. I wasn’t planning on leaving so early myself. We both wanted an explanation for their actions. Denise and I were actually in agreement with each other!
“First of all, where are Michael Riley and his parents?” she asked them.
The principal looked to the disciplinarian. The disciplinarian looked like a high school football coach in a dark suit. He could have used a tailor to make his suit fit his broad shoulders a little better.
He said, “I spoke to Michael Riley, and he informed us that he witnessed the attack, and that it was unprovoked on Walter’s behalf.”
“Did he also tell you that he was involved in it?” Denise asked him.
The disciplinarian looked to the vice principal, a tall woman in a gray business suit. “We were planning on having him back in our offices to answer more questions about the incident today,” she told us.
“And will there be any police officers around when you’re asking him questions?” Denise jarred them. I began to wonder what her lawyer was there for. I guess he was the silent voice, carrying the long, legal stick of the law to crack heads when the opportunity presented itself. I was curious to see the guy in action just in case I would need the experience for future reference in a possible custody battle.
The principal decided to speak up again. “Ah, Ms. Stewart, if you will, you have to understand that this was something we’ve never had to deal with before, and we didn’t know exactly how to handle the situation.”
“Yes, you did,” Denise calmly responded. “You knew how to handle it. You said, ‘Let’s get rid of this black troublemaker and make him an example for everyone at our school.’”
It was a beautiful setup on her part. All of a sudden, it felt awfully stuffy in the room. We could all use some fresh air and some bottled spring water.
Then her attorney decided to join in with the discussion. “Will any of this show up on Walter’s permanent record?” he asked the principal.
“Ah, no it will not,” the principal answered eagerly.
“It shouldn’t show up on any record,” Denise snapped.
“It won’t,” the vice principal informed us.
“And do you have any security at the school that would extend to the students while inside of the schoolyard?” Mr. Fields asked.
The principal looked to the disciplinarian, who quickly turned red. I guess security was part of his responsibility.
“Ah, yes we do,” the broad-shouldered disciplinarian answered.
“Have the police found the other party involved in the stabbing yet?”
“Hopefully, they’ll have him in custody by later on today.”
Mr. Fields then questioned the vice principal. “And you say that you’ll be talking again to the other student involved?”
“Michael Riley,” Denise added. It seemed as if she had memorized the name, and she was making sure that she wouldn’t forget it.
“That’s correct,” the vice principal answered.
“And is he a white student?” Mr. Fields asked.
At that point, the principal started to turn red. “I
see exactly where you’re trying to go with this case, ah—”
“Attorney Melvin Fields,” Denise’s lawyer filled in for him, with a quick extension of his card.
The principal took it in hand and continued with his response: “Mr. Fields, we don’t look at this as a racial incident. We see this as a freak occurrence at our school that will definitely not happen again,” he assured us. “There were just a lot of mistakes that were made in handling it.”
Mr. Fields nodded as he rose from his seat. “I understand. I understand that perfectly. These kinds of mistakes are always made.”
“Especially when it comes to dealing with black people,” Denise interjected. “Black boys in particular.”
It was obvious that the school officials hadn’t had sufficient time to get their stories together. I was quite sure that they didn’t expect for Denise to come at them with a lawyer so fast. Had they known, I believe they would have been forced to counter with a lawyer or two of their own that morning.
Mr. Fields headed for the door and addressed the principal before we left. “By the way,” he said. “We’ll be back in touch.”
I was wondering what would have happened had Denise been a poor single mother with no lawyer, and her son’s father happened to be a jobless black man who was nowhere to be found. In fact, had that been the case, Walter would have never been allowed to enroll at the Oak Park Junior High School. Education and economics were definitely power in America, no matter what color you were!
Before we all made it out the door, Walter’s teacher, a twenty-something recent college grad, apologized for everything. “You really are a good kid, Walter, and I hope to see you back in school soon,” she said to my son.
Denise turned and shook the teacher’s hand. “Ms. Walker, I want to thank you for your support on this, because my son is not some street thug, and I want everyone to know that. He’s a good kid with a good head on his shoulders, and I will never let someone try and wipe their hands with him and label him a bad kid. We have to be supportive of our youth and let them know that they are loved, and that they can make it in this world.”
