Dear Marcus: A Letter to the Man Who Shot Me

by Jerry McGill

  Uncle Michael was a real character, and if I resemble anyone in this family it is probably him. He was a performer, an actor, a musician, a real artiste. He had leading-man good looks and once even appeared in a television commercial, which brought all of us great pride. Uncle Michael was also a homosexual. Know how I learned this? Through a very brief conversation in the kitchen with my mother that went something like this:

  “Jerome, what do you think about a man that kisses another man?”

  “I don’t know. I guess it’s okay. As long as he don’t try to kiss me.”

  “Your uncle Michael kisses other men, you know.”

  “Okay.”

  The one Thanksgiving that we ever attempted to celebrate as a family was at Michael’s apartment in the West Village. He and his partner, a kind Asian man named John, did their best to make it a by-the-books family holiday, but, alas, it wasn’t meant to be. When you are a kid you don’t really understand what deep-rooted animosities there can possibly be between two siblings. If you have a brother or a sister you know that there are times when they can really piss you off, but it’s always the little things. My mother and my uncle Michael really disliked each other, and to this day I am not sure what it was all about. I do have my ideas, though. They were simply two intrinsically different people. Both were highly dramatic, both lived with the scars of supposedly shaming their mother, but the similarities ended there. One was cultured and educated and one was not. They had the same genes, but that didn’t make them compatible as friends.

  That Thanksgiving Day, my mother and my uncle became involved in a heated argument at the dinner table and she stormed us out of there, cursing as we left. I would see Michael on a few more occasions after I got out of the hospital and unlike with Butch, I actually had a healthy and sincere respect for Michael. I could tell he had a decent heart. He and my mother reconciled before he died and he even came to live with her toward the end, but I’m not so sure I would say they ever really loved each other.

  In another great bit of irony, my uncle Michael died at St. Vincent’s Hospital, roughly ten years after I checked out of there. He had gone to visit me there during my incarceration, once, maybe twice, but I never went to visit him during his tragically brief stay. It was too much for me to handle. I never attended his funeral, either.

  You ever hear that saying, Marcus, “The sins of the father shall be visited unto the sons”? I think it is from the Bible but I’m not really sure. Well, with the case of my sister and myself, one could say, “The sins of the mother and her brother shall be visited unto the children.”

  My relationship with my sister, Zonnie, younger than me by three years, is one that has always been difficult and strained. I know there was a time as kids when we got along, but once I got older and began to want more independence, things went downhill. Like Michael and my mother, my sister and I are inherently different people. We may have shared a uterus, but that’s where our commonality ends. She has light pancake-toned skin and hazel eyes. I have darker, chocolaty features. As many who knew both of our parents will tell you, she resembles my father. I resemble our mother. If she and I ever had a chance at friendship it was pretty much obliterated the moment you chose to shoot me in the back. Our tenuous relationship was not strong enough to endure this trauma and the subsequent responsibilities and discomfort it would thrust upon us.

  Me and my sister in happier times.

  I remember when Zonnie would come to the hospital. At the time she was only nine years old, and I am pretty sure she hated it. All of those sick people and the smells and the constant noise and me just lying there the whole time attached to those large machines that beeped constantly. I’m sure she viewed these visits as a great burden to her and I can’t say I blame her. When she should have been out playing with her friends she had to be there tagging along with my mother. At a time when she wanted—craved—attention, suddenly everyone’s eyes were on me. For a girl who had for years felt like she lived in her older brother’s shadow this was a bitter cup of tea to swallow.

  Zonnie would go on to attend the same junior high school that I attended and she once told me of the painful process she consistently endured whenever new classes began. When attendance was called and they would get to her name, the teacher would oftentimes look up from his or her book and ask, “Are you related to Jerome McGill at all?” She probably wanted to shoot me herself at those times.

  Things should not have ended up the way they did, Marcus. If I have any real resentment for you and the situation you forced me into, it is mainly around this matter of the unnecessary strain it put on my immediate family. I wonder if you have any siblings, younger ones in particular. Don’t you feel this natural yearning to take care of them? To make certain that they are safe and protected no matter how strained your relationship? Well, I of course felt this same urge and thanks to you I would never be able to honor those responsibilities that I feel apply to the role of big brother. After January 1, I would forever feel inadequate in this area. My macho sensibilities had a hard time managing this, coping with this.

  I was supposed to be taking the lead in our relationship. I was supposed to be the strong one, the Man of the House. My little sister should never have had to help me get dressed. She should never have had to brush my hair, feed me breakfast, go to the store to buy me Snickers, pizza, or ginger ale. My sister should never have had to wipe my ass. It wasn’t supposed to be that way. You screwed up the balance in our relationship, Marcus. It should have been me taking care of her. The equilibrium was rendered askew and neither of us would ever fully recover from it. The same unhealthy fate awaited my mother and me.

  My mother is a pretty incredible woman and she probably deserves a medal of some kind for what she went through as a result of my utter disregard for her rules and authority. That night, she knew something was wrong. She would tell me years later that she could just feel it. I was supposed to come home early that afternoon. I chose to stay at Dean’s house playing a little longer with my friends. I had hoped that I would get to stay over one more night but Dean’s mom decided that two nights in a row with a house of adolescent boys was enough. That’s completely understandable. When I called my mother to tell her I was on my way home it was well past the scheduled time we discussed and I knew I would hear it when I got home. This wasn’t the first time this had happened.

  There were many occasions when I would call my mother from some friend’s house, some party, some event, and let her know that I was running late. The way our building was set up there were huge windows in the hallway from which you could see everyone entering the building and many a night did I arrive home late to see my mother’s silhouette in that window watching and waiting for me. Sometimes she would yell down to me: “Jerome, you get your black behind up here now!” At these moments it was fairly certain that a good ass whupping was waiting for me once I got upstairs.

  However, over the past year I’d gotten taller, stronger, and quicker. I was hitting that period that I’m sure many single moms secretly dread—when they can no longer physically dominate their child. I remember one occasion when I first realized the balance of power was shifting a little in my favor. I had been caught stealing from a local store and the manager called my mother and had her come pick me up. On the way home my mother let me have it verbally and by the familiar tone of her voice I knew the fate that awaited me once we got back to the apartment. Yet when my mother went to hit me with the belt I was able to deftly wrench it from her hand and take off out the door before she could recover in time. I remember smiling as I ran down the stairs, I was so proud of myself.

  That evening of January 1, 1982, it was past midnight and I still wasn’t home. My mother sat at her spot in the window, camped out, wringing her hands nervously, waiting to see that familiar figure of her son, trudging home guiltily. But as we both know, Marcus, on that night she would not see that figure. No, instead she would receive that phone call that no mother ever wants to receive. Can
you imagine what that must have felt like? When she put that phone down and got dressed to go to the hospital? Can you imagine what emotions and thoughts raced through her mind as she got into that taxi, my sleepy sister in tow, and headed to the ER?

  I would have to hear about that night for years to come. It was like a tape that my mother played whenever she was angry with me, which was often. In dark moments of our relationship her resentment for me would shine through and the intensity of it was pretty blinding. It most consistently shone whenever she would dress me or feed me or perform whatever menial task that needed to be done that she should never have had to do in the first place had I just obeyed her. I would have to listen to her as she muttered, “I told you to get your ass home that night. But no, you were so smart. Such a fucking smart kid.”

  And here is the interesting thing, Marcus: The resentment went both ways. Yes, my mother hated me for putting her in this position, but I also had the audacity to hate her for putting me in that position as well. I had the nerve to hate her for having me too young. For lacking strong parenting skills. For not knowing that if you don’t use protection you are bound to become pregnant and raise kids that you could never provide for adequately.

  I hated her for raising me in neighborhoods that I was afraid to come home to. I hated her for not being attractive enough to keep a man around. I hated her because whenever I went to my white friends’ apartments they all seemed to be living so much better than we did. I hated her for being a statistic: poor, black, single, welfare-recipient mother. How dare she.

  Any decent psychologist worth half their paycheck will most likely tell you that in hating my mother for those reasons I was also exhibiting signs of self-loathing; that my animosity toward her most likely mirrored a guilt and shame that I harbored as a result of knowing I had been in the wrong that night. And they would be right. The truth be told my mother did her damnedest to give my sister and me a good, decent, stable, healthy upbringing. She tried her best to get us into decent schools, enroll us in special courses, and see to it that we had unique experiences.

  One of the most wonderful things she ever did for us was to send us away with a program called the Fresh Air Fund. Their mission was to link inner-city kids with families who lived comfortably outside of the city and bring the two together for weeks at a time in the summer to give that inner-city kid the experience of getting away from their environment and embracing a rural community. My goodness, Marcus, to this day I still have these crystal-clear memories and images of my time away with my host family. They are among the most precious of my childhood.

  I got to live with a family in upstate New York: Oneonta was the name of the town. I was roughly eight or nine and I remember getting on a bus at the Port Authority with my big army bag and driving along winding country roads for hours. When I finally got off I was warmly welcomed by this white couple, both of them in their fifties or so. They behaved as if they had known me forever. I got into their car (the first time I had ever been in a car) and we drove to their lovely two-story house on the outskirts of town. There I met their two children, a daughter and a son, both in their twenties. All of them treated me with such affection and tenderness I had no choice but to love them right away. Funny thing is, I don’t even remember their names now. Let’s just call them the Joneses.

  The things I got to do with them, Marcus. The Joneses owned a Dairy Queen in town and I got to hang out with them at work and eat all the ice cream I wanted. They also owned a house on the lake and a couple of times a week we would all pile into the car and go out there for the day. We had family barbecues, picnics with neighbors. They would let me take a canoe out on the lake all by myself, no life jacket or nothing. The beauty and serenity of paddling in that canoe all by my lonesome on a warm July morning; all that nature—every city kid should be so blessed to have such an experience. Maybe, Marcus, if you had had that kind of opportunity things could have turned out differently for you; for the both of us really.

  I remember crying when that summer ended because I didn’t want to leave. I had fallen in love with those white folks and the lifestyle that being with them provided me. I did not want to leave it all behind to return to the nightmare of the inner city. The Joneses were special people, though, with wonderfully open hearts. They assured me they would have me back again and they kept their word. Oneonta became my summer pilgrimage, with the Joneses making all the arrangements. Once, they even brought Zonnie out to join me.

  I never really did get to thank them. After you shot me I lost contact with the Joneses. To be honest with you, I don’t even know if my mother was able to tell them what happened to me. Like so many of my friendships at the time, I don’t know exactly what became of them all. My God, Marcus, when I think of the things you took from me: the precious relationships ruined, fallen to the wayside like ashy remnants of a burnt house. I just want so much to be angry. That would be natural, acceptable even, wouldn’t it? But I cannot do that anymore. It takes a lot of energy to stay angry and I want to save that energy for something great. I’m over all of that darkness.

  But the scars will remain forever. For several years after the dust settled and I moved away from home, my sister and I barely spoke to each other. Though I was slightly closer to my mother there was also a noticeable void in our relationship and I never felt the need to do much to fill that space. On some level I felt—why bother? I will never be able to make up for the pain I caused, nor will I ever live up to the ideal of the model son every mother wants in her only male child. For making me realize my shortcomings I will always resent that woman. And at the same time I feel cheated by her. She should have been able to provide for me the same glorious life I experienced with the Joneses, shouldn’t she?

  How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child! That’s Shakespeare, Marcus. Look it up, you son of a bitch.

  INT. HOSPITAL CAFETERIA—DAY

  DR. DEMPSEY, early thirties, sits alone at a table drinking coffee and reading a paper. DEBRA, a pretty nurse in her twenties, enters and sits across from him. SUBTITLE: REALITY CHECKS

  DEBRA

  Hi.

  DEMPSEY

  Hi. What a pleasant surprise.

  DEBRA

  I want to ask you about something.

  DEMPSEY

  Okay.

  DEBRA

  Jerome McGill. What’s going on with him?

  DEMPSEY

  I’m sorry …

  DEBRA

  That kid thinks he’s just gonna leave this place and go back to his normal life. Has no one spoken to him about all of this?

  DEMPSEY

  It’s on my agenda.

  DEBRA

  On your agenda?

  DEMPSEY

  It’s not an easy conversation to have, Nurse Mitchell.

  DEBRA

  I don’t doubt that, Doctor, but he deserves to know the truth, don’t you think?

  seven

  They wanted me to cry, Marcus. The staff at the hospital was insistent that there was something wrong with a kid who sheds no tears over such a traumatic event as that which I had recently undergone. Lots of my visitors cried. Even that mean Madame Behn, my sixth-grade French teacher, who made a spectacle out of me in front of the entire class when I was being too talkative one afternoon. She made me cookies and cried at my bedside while holding my hand. It was somewhat disconcerting—the steely Madame Behn weeping for little old me?

  The truth is, for the first month or two I had no idea just how serious it all was. I really thought for a while that when it was all over and those doctors and nurses were done with me I would simply return to the life I had once led. It wasn’t until I shared this belief with my favorite nurse, Debra, that it became clear to me that life as I had once known it was over and done.

  Debra and I had a very comfortable way with each other. She was gorgeous—a blue-eyed, buxom brunette who knew I had an affinity for lovely ladies (boys are so funny; I still remember how she wor
e her nurse’s outfit and how it highlighted her cleavage)—and she was one of those people who truly enjoy their job. It felt like she was meant to be in a place where young people went to heal.

  Sometimes Debra would come hang out in my room and watch television with me, especially during the climactic moments of one of our favorite soap operas. We would sit there and yell at the characters, wondering how Nina could marry Steve when it was clearly Cliff she loved. Or why wouldn’t Liza stop meddling in the lives of Greg and Jenny. Couldn’t she see how right they were for each other?

  On this particular afternoon I was discussing my life with Debra and how much I was looking forward to leaving the hospital. Some of my friends had just been visiting and they mentioned that they were heading to the Roxy, one of our favorite spots, a roller rink in Chelsea, later that night. Oh, how many great times I’d had at the Roxy. Skating backward, arms around the waist of a pretty girl, dancing to the music of Donna Summer or the Village People or Blondie. Were you ever a ladies’ man, Marcus? I sure was. The chicks dug me!

  When my friends came to visit me that afternoon I could feel their anticipation and it was intoxicating. After they left my bedside, skates hanging off their shoulders, I said to Debra, “Man, I can’t wait to get out of here and get back to the Roxy. I miss skating so much.”

  Debra turned to me, a look of calm concern on her face.

  “Do you think that when you leave here you’re going to go back to your old life, skating and whatnot?”

  “Yeah, of course. That’s why I can’t wait to leave.”

  She nodded, listening to me, but all the while biting her tongue. At some point she realized she had to speak up.

  “Has no one talked to you about what things are going to be like for you once you leave here?”