by Jerry McGill
There was also Lisa, who on the first day of sixth grade had become the love of my life. I’d walked into homeroom that day and saw the prettiest face I had ever seen. Olive skin, long brown hair, and soft brown eyes; some of my favorite features to this day. I tell you, it was like every cliché ever written that second I laid eyes on Lisa: violins swirled, time stood still, my heart skipped a beat. I immediately took the seat beside hers and for weeks I would pester her in that annoyingly teasing fashion that kids (and at times adults) use to flirt with their romantic interest. Eventually she succumbed to my adolescent charms and we began seeing each other after school. We took the same M14 bus to and from school going east to west in the mornings and then west to east in the afternoons. We would go to school outings and our classmates’ birthday parties together. We even went to the movies once with my mother along as chaperone. We laughed uproariously at the sophomoric humor of Airplane!
One time especially lingers in my memory, a time when my mother shocked and impressed me. Lisa had come over to my apartment after school, which was against the rules, but my sister was in day care and my mother didn’t usually get home from work until five thirty or so. But of course on this particular day, my mother came home early and she found Lisa and me in her bedroom watching television. I expected her to flip out, not just on me but on Lisa, too. Instead she treated Lisa with respect and calmly told me I needed to take her home right away. I just knew when I returned I would get the beating of a lifetime, but to my surprise she never did or said a thing about it again. I bet she just chalked it up to “boys will be boys.”
I tell you, Marcus, those early days with Lisa, it was almost like I was meant to love someone, you know? I was good at it. I held her hand, opened doors, bought her little gifts. My knees shook in the elevator the first time I went to pick her up. Don’t ever let anyone tell you kids aren’t capable of falling in love. Have you ever been in love, Marcus? Has anyone ever loved you? It makes a huge difference in life, doesn’t it? I believe a major difference between people who are genuinely happy and people who are generally miserable has to be linked to how much love those people were able to give and receive at an early age. And it doesn’t matter how much money you have or how much money your family has. You take a prince living in the Royal Palace or a squatter living in a shantytown, it’s the same shit. How they see themselves, how they perceive their self-worth, greatly depends on whether or not someone touched them, someone kissed them on their cheek before going to bed at night, someone hugged them and held them close when they spilled a glass of milk and thought their world was falling apart. These are the experiences that make or break many of us. I hope someone loved you, Marcus. I hope someone still loves you today and that you are able to lavish love on someone as well. You gotta be able to do both. I don’t know that anything we do in this world matters more. The main ingredient that got me through this ordeal, both in the hospital and for all the years after, was the love and affection of others. That and my sense of humor pulled me through this dark crevasse and into the sunlight. I can testify to the healing power of unconditional love.
And the funny thing is, I probably have you to thank for it. Now that’s fucking irony, if I do say so myself.
EXT. GRASSY LAWN OF A PARK—DAY
JEROME and his uncle, BUTCH, late twenties, are facing each other in a boxer’s stance. SUBTITLE: MANHOOD 101, GHETTO STYLE
BUTCH
Okay, now jab. Jab.
Jerome jabs at Butch’s open palms.
BUTCH
Harder, harder, Nook. You punch like a pussy. Act like you got something.
Jerome hits harder.
BUTCH
There you go. There you go. Let me tell you, this is the only way you gonna get respect in these streets. You hear me? If niggers think they can push you around, they gonna push you around. They gonna walk all over your scrawny black ass. You gotta be a man. And men use these. You understand me.
Jerome nods, taking in Butch’s words.
four
I understand darkness, Marcus. For reasons that I can never explain I have always related to moribund themes. It could just be my nature. Yes, I smile often and people regularly remark how happy I always seem and that is all true; I am one cheerful fellow. But there is a certain blackness about me—not in the dismal sort of way, but I feel like I have an innate disposition to relate to less sunny perspectives. I am drawn to the James Baldwins, the Sylvia Plaths, the Mahlers, the Fellinis, the Chekhovs: artists who embrace life while simultaneously recognizing it is filled with pain and suffering. When I look at paintings I am always drawn to the darker hues in the work. It’s why I appreciate van Gogh’s Starry Night. To me, this painting is clearly expressing that there exist many bright spots in the world, but it is a world mostly filled with blackness.
It is also why as a child I loved Peanuts and voraciously read all the comics ever printed in the series. Charlie Brown is the ultimate sufferer, but he still keeps trying to kick the football knowing damned well it will most likely get pulled out from under him. He still throws the pitch well aware it will come back at him, knocking him over in the process. My experience with you exacerbated this proclivity but it in no way created it. My fascination with darkness was there long before you shot me. Ibsen once stated: “Our whole being is nothing but a fight against the dark forces within ourselves.” Fascinating theory, no, Marcus?
There were instances in my childhood in which I questioned my behavior: in which I asked myself how I could behave in such a way. These moments almost always involved violence. Once, at my favorite sleepaway camp, located in a small Connecticut town, I went for a walk with a few of my friends. All of us were minority kids soaking up the rich rural beauty that area had to offer, knowing that this was our one chance a year to walk among trees and greenery on empty dirt roads.
On this particular walk, we came upon two white kids, locals, right around our age. They were most likely unaccustomed to seeing so many kids of color in their little town on their little out-of-the-way road and I’m sure we intimidated them because they suddenly picked up their pace and basically ran home. We laughed at them as we continued on our walk, well aware that if the situation were reversed, we probably would have done the same thing.
About half a mile down the road we passed by a house, and who should happen to be out in the yard playing but those same two boys. Being in the secure confines of their yard behind their white-picket fence must have given them a renewed sense of courage. As we walked by the boys proceeded to yell things at us from their porch. The terms nigger and boy rolled off their tongues with a disarming ease.
This was my first experience of having these terms directed at me in a derogatory fashion. In the hood everyone, black, Latino, even the few white kids there, used the term nigger in the same way one would use dude or buddy or bro. There was an unspoken understanding that this was part of the vernacular of our brotherhood. However, these little white kids intended to inflict pain by using these words and their verbal assault had a jarring effect on me. There is a reason why it is solely the male species that is responsible for wars: A little testosterone can be an ugly thing.
I quickly turned to my bunkmate, Hector, a Dominican kid with big ears and a huge Cheshire-cat grin. We all knew that Hector had a switchblade because he was always showing it off at night after the lights went out and our counselors were gone.
“Give me your blade,” I said to him, a stern look on my face.
No one questioned my intentions, so strong was my tone. It was as if we were all in agreement that these smartass white boys needed to be taught a lesson. Hector instinctively handed me his switchblade and anxiously watched along with the others to see how I would proceed. I had suddenly become the ringleader.
With a skill I must have obtained from watching too many gang-related films I flipped the blade open as if I had done it a hundred times in my life and approached the front gate of the fence. I spoke directly to them, pointing the
sharp end of the knife at their faces.
“You like to play games?” I asked, a slight menace in my voice. “Say some shit now, white boy.”
The two of them froze. I don’t suppose they ever anticipated this type of reaction. I could hear my friends laughing behind me, satisfied with our collective “putting in place” of the boys. There was one of them in particular, the younger one, whose face still haunts me to this day. There was a fear in his eyes at the sight of me, this young black kid with a sharp knife and a threatening tone. That look in his eyes terrified me. I must have appeared monstrous to him. I know that I could have never been a mugger or an abuser of any kind. I couldn’t stand the look of fear in my victim’s eyes.
After a few seconds of intimidation and posturing I realized that I had been successful in achieving the upper hand and I put the knife away and walked off with the group. We all giggled and took great joy in the thrill of the incident. The moment quickly gained legendary status as the word spread around camp of my bold, “heroic” action. Its lore was only intensified when later that night a sheriff came to camp looking for me. In his patrol car we had a brief conversation about the event and I assume he chalked it up to juvenile foolishness on both sides, because he simply let me off with a warning to never let such a thing happen again. He didn’t even ask to see the knife.
That moment would stay with me forever. I questioned myself repeatedly. Why did I have to pull that knife? Why couldn’t I just let it go? Now I was never going to forget the look in those kids’ eyes—that sad look of helplessness and genuine fear. I hated myself that I could make another person feel that way. I felt that same feeling in sixth grade when I punched my classmate, Michael Allen, in the face and chipped his tooth for shoving me outside typing class. I hated violence, yet I seemed destined to have it in my life.
These are the types of things one ponders as one lies in a hospital bed for six months unable to move or feel. Thanks to you, Marcus, I was forced to become a most introspective person at a very early age. I started to wonder—maybe this was all some sort of payback for my earlier misdeeds? Perhaps I was being punished for my obvious arrogance? Was I a black Achilles and the Lower East Side my Trojan battlefield?
Perhaps I’ve gotten a little carried away. Besides, all of that is mere conjecture. Only you know why you shot me, Marcus, and you’re not saying much. That secret dies with you.
INT. CHILDREN’S RECREATION ROOM,
HOSPITAL WING—DAY
JEROME sits beside JUDY, a pretty woman in her mid to late thirties. The room is colorfully decorated and littered with toys. They are alone in the room. Judy is showing Jerome a series of diagrams. SUBTITLE: A PRELUDE TO SELF-DISCOVERY
JUDY
And what do you think this one looks like?
JEROME
That one looks like a hot fudge sundae.
JUDY
Really? Hungry, are you?
JEROME
You asked me what it looked like and I told you.
JUDY
Fair enough. What does this one look like?
JEROME
That one looks like a hamster … with a really long tail.
JUDY
Hamster, huh? And what about this one?
JEROME
That one looks like a kid walking down the street … and over here is a guy about to shoot him in the back.
JUDY
Really?
JEROME
Isn’t that what you want me to say?
five
There is a built-in melancholy where hospitals are concerned. For the people residing in them, there is the discomforting sense that time is standing still in your little sphere and the world is moving on without you. The longer you stay in one, the larger that sentiment grows. It is difficult for a resident to get the sense that they are spending their time constructively. The only genuine way I had of telling the time and the day of the week was by noting what television shows were on and when.
Before I came to the hospital, television and I were good friends. I would come home after school and watch repeats of The Little Rascals, Three’s Company, The Love Boat, I Love Lucy. Maybe two hours of television in a day. Once I became a full-time resident at St. Vincent’s, lying in a bed unable to leave it, television became my dearest, most valued, and most dependable friend. I had it on from sunrise to sunset. Now before you judge me too harshly, Marcus, please remember, for the first couple of months I didn’t have the strength to even hold a book or a magazine.
In the morning it was news programs, game shows, and reruns of shows like Little House on the Prairie and Fantasy Island. In the afternoon it was four hours straight of soap operas. I became addicted to the travails of Luke and Laura, Jesse and Angie, the Ryans, the Buchanans, and the Corys. So much time wasted. Then in the late afternoons, it was more reruns, talk shows, and then some evening news and prime-time fare.
Weekends followed a pretty strict schedule as well. Saturdays were full of cartoons and sporting events, followed by every ghetto kid’s favorite: Saturday afternoon kung fu films on Channel Five. I still know the theme song by heart. Sundays were always the worst, as aside from football, all of the shows were pretty boring. Especially in the mornings, when most shows seemed to surround church and religious themes.
Everything in a hospital is structured. I’ve never been to prison, but I imagine life is similar there. You have breakfast, lunch, and dinner at a set time. You can bathe at a set time, and you have to be back in your room by a set time. For six months I lived by this system’s rules. It became all I knew.
For the first month or so I was in such a state of shock that I basically sat around receiving visitors and watching television all day. I couldn’t even move my arms and had to call a nurse or ask a visitor to change the channel for me. But then I began to receive visits from a team of hospital staff members on a daily basis. They were my rehab team, sent from places unknown with the unified goal of helping me rebuild my life and get me on a road to independence.
At first I found these people extremely annoying, as they always seemed to pop in at inopportune moments (basically, any moment that I was watching television was an inopportune one). Soon, though, I came not only to trust these good-natured folks but to depend on and completely adore them. In a sense they were there to give me my life back. Or, better stated: They were there to lead me down a path on which I would seize my life back. And they succeeded.
My primary care doctor was a young, gregarious redhead named Michael Dempsey. He was kind of the new hotshot doctor on the scene and he had a caustic and naughty sense of humor that jibed well with my own. One could often find us making crude comments about the physical attributes of certain nurses and exactly what it was that made them so attractive. Some of his humor was pretty inappropriate, which made me love him even more. He was just what I needed at that time. And he cared about me deeply. He once told me that I was the closest thing to a son he’d ever had.
My occupational therapist was a plainly attractive young woman with a bright, cherubic face. Her name was Irit Wittenberg and out of everyone I met during my time there, Irit was the most influential person in my becoming the strong, independent person I am today. It’s funny, I had a close childhood friend who was Jewish, but religion was such a nonfactor in our childhoods that it never came up during our friendship. Irit was the first person I ever knew who took great pride in her heritage. It was from her that I learned a few Hebrew terms and I jumped at the opportunity to impress her with my multilingual skills, addressing her regularly with a “Shalom” and a “Mah Nishmah.”
Irit had a heart that overflowed with love and devotion toward her job. She was also firm and tough. Her job was to teach me everything all over again, and I do mean everything. Writing, eating, dressing, brushing my teeth, brushing my hair, getting in and out of bed; these were all things I had to learn how to do once more in my new shell. Irit was there for me every step of the way with the determination of a bull and
the patience of a saint.
As I mentioned, in the beginning my arms were so weak that nothing came easy to me. I could barely lift my arm above my shoulder. My balance was so lousy and my trunk so weak and unsupportive that if anyone else lifted my arm I would fall to the side. You should have seen me, Marcus. I was like a baby. A baby with a full vocabulary and a sassy attitude. Also, babies will eventually learn to walk and I, of course, never would.
I would get frustrated often. Things like writing, feeding myself, brushing my teeth: These were exceptionally difficult tasks since I could not grasp any object with my fingers. My fingers didn’t move. They sat there at the end of my hand like stale sausage links. Irit began to make a set of removable splints for me that I could wear around the room. These splints fit around my hands with Velcro and had slits in them where I could place a pen, a spoon, a comb, a toothbrush. At first I felt silly wearing these big old plastic splints to do seemingly simple things, but after a short time I came to really appreciate the independence they afforded me.
In school, writing had been one of my favorite activities. I knew early on that I was meant to be a creator of fiction, because all through grade school I amused teachers and students alike with short stories I would write on my own. It just came naturally to me, and I thoroughly enjoyed the ritual of sitting down with a pencil and a blank sheet of paper and creating these characters and plots. Now, my handwriting was no different than a child’s, barely legible. Due to the lack of control in my arms I had a difficult time writing small enough to fit into the lines of a page. Things like crossing my t’s and dotting my i’s were suddenly challenging.
