Defining Moments

by Ben Burgess Jr.

  Akeem smiled and ran over to the truck.

  The guy was dark-skinned, with a long, thin scar that ran down the side of his face.

  “Who’s that?” I asked Jalen.

  “That’s Drastic and his right-hand man Boogie Brown,” Draper answered for Jalen. “He’s got crazy loot. He always has the latest Air Jordans and the best clothes. Sometimes, he pays us good money if we drop off packages in certain buildings for him.”

  “I want those new Jordans, so I hope he asks me to do a drop-off. I already know my mom can’t afford to get them for me,” Jalen said.

  Jalen’s little brother, Jerami, had cancer back then. Jalen’s dad was killed in the crossfire of a shootout several years before. With his dad gone, Jalen’s mom, Juanita Wilson, was always working to pay for his brother’s treatments and household bills. Often, when my mom was feeling decent, she’d watch Jerami for Mrs. Wilson to help her out since his aunt Carina, who lived with them, was a flake and wasn’t dependable. Jalen hated the life of being a poor latchkey kid. He never wanted to go home, because being home for him was depressing. It reminded him that his family was broke and his brother’s sickness might take another person he loved out of his life.

  I stepped closer to Akeem and strained to listen in on his conversation with Drastic.

  “Yo, you and your boy Jalen wanna work for me again?” Drastic asked.

  “I don’t know,” Akeem said. “My mom would kill me if she found out. Me and J can’t get picked up by the cops again, or we’re going to Spofford for sure this time.”

  The Spofford Juvenile Detention Center was located in Hunts Point in the Bronx and served as a youth jail for kids that got caught up with the law.

  “Don’t worry about that. It won’t be like last time. I don’t want y’all stealing shit for me anymore. Don’t worry about your mom, either. Mine’s was the same way when I was coming up. All you gotta do is hit her off with some cash every now and then, and she’ll chill out.”

  Akeem stood there, thinking.

  “Look, I’m a busy man. I need an answer now. You’re my first choice, but if you can’t handle it, I’m moving on.”

  “Nah, I can handle it,” Akeem said. “All right, bet. I’m in.”

  “Call your boy over here. Let’s see if he wants to make some consistent money too.”

  “Yo, J, Draper, III Bill, y’all come here.”

  “Chill kid-Draper and the white boy can’t be down with us. They’re bad for business,” Drastic said.

  Akeem waved us off. Jalen stood by with Draper and me.

  “Draper’s cool and my boy B is good people. Bill wouldn’t snitch or nothing. I can vouch for that,” Akeem said.

  “Draper got a big fucking mouth,” Drastic said. “The last time he did a drop for me, the block was hot with cops for weeks. Putting Draper and the white boy on would draw too much attention. If you wanna make money with this, bringing notice to yourself can fuck you up. You wanna stay under the radar.”

  Akeem nodded. “Yo, J, come here.”

  “Y’all ready to make some real money? I’m tryin’to have y’all sell for me on the block. No more of the little kiddie shit I had y’all doing before. Both of y’all can make some serious money,” Drastic said.

  Drastic turned to Jalen and said, “Your boy Akeem said he was down. What about you? You in?”

  “Fuck yeah, I’m down,” Jalen said.

  “That’s what I like to hear. Drop these two and I’ll show y’all what I want y’all to start with. Hop in.”

  Draper looked furious, watching Drastic talking with Akeem and Jalen.

  “Yo, Bill, Draper, me and J gotta do something with Drastic. We’ll catch up with y’all later,” Akeem said.

  Things weren’t the same with Draper and them after that day.

  Akeem did well selling crack for Drastic. His reputation on the streets was growing, but the bigger he got, the more Draper hated him. Akeem was a natural-born leader, and in a different environment, he could’ve been anything, but he was consumed by the street life. Draper eventually stopped hanging out with us altogether. Seeing Akeem’s reputation growing and watching him make good money made him jealous. He picked arguments with Akeem often and eventually became his competition in the street when it came to selling drugs.

  * * *

  High school came around. With all the money Akeem and Jalen were making, they felt the streets taught them way more than school ever could, so they dropped out. They stopped playing basketball for our neighborhood leagues, too, focusing all their time and energy on the streets. Even though they stopped playing, they always went to my games and supported me. Seeing their success and observing my mom struggling over the years, I often begged Akeem to let me sell drugs too, but he always refused.

  “You’re meant to do more in life than this, B. You’re smart. Keep your head in the books. The streets aren’t for you.”

  “You’re making good money, though,” I said. “I’m broke. My mom barely has money to buy groceries after paying all the bills, and she won’t let me quit playing ball to work because she says she wants me to enjoy life right now.”

  “If you need money here and there, I got you.”

  “Nah, I’m not cool with that. I’m no charity case.”

  “It’s not charity. You’re like family to me. You always got my back, and I got yours.”

  We gave each other a brotherly hug. After that conversation, every other week, Akeem slipped money under the door for my mom for groceries.

  The cops had been cracking down hard. Eventually, Drastic got caught by the cops in a traffic stop gone wrong. The cops found drugs and a gun linked to a few homicides in his truck. With that stuff and his priors, Drastic was sentenced to life in prison. With him gone, Akeem was number one in the streets. This made him a target for Officer O’Sullivan and Draper, who despised him. With his new power came those who tried to test him. To “keep my hands clean,” as Akeem would say, he didn’t have me around when he had to “take care of business,” but he was notorious for being vicious and ruthless. I knew he hurt people. He was known for being stone cold in the street, but he never showed that side to me whenever we hung out.

  Scholastically, Ebony and I were doing well and were in a lot of the same honors classes. We were officially dating but kept things on the low out of fear of how Akeem would take it. Surprisingly, he was happy about it.

  “B, come here for a sec,” Akeem called from the living room.

  Ebony and I were laughing and working on a group project together, sitting at their kitchen table. I walked up to him.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “Sit down. I want to talk to you about something.”

  “Is everything good?” I asked, concerned.

  “I know you and my sister got something going on.”

  My heart raced. I was stuttering and stammering, trying to find the right words to explain myself.

  “It’s not-I wasn’t trying to-I won’t—”

  “It’s fine, B, relax. You’re a good dude, and you’re going somewhere in life. I don’t want her to be with a guy like me. She deserves the best, and I know you would give her that type of life. Just don’t hurt her.”

  “I won’t.”

  “I know.”

  * * *

  Before I knew it, it was my senior year in high school. While things were going great with Ebony and me, the tension between Akeem and Draper was at an all-time high. Whenever they saw each other, it was a fight. Things were getting violent, and it was drawing a lot of attention from the cops.

  “What the hell is your bum ass looking at?” Akeem shouted at Draper.

  Akeem, Jalen, and I were hanging out on the benches near the basketball courts when Draper walked past us with his boys, pointing in Akeem’s direction.

  “Keep talking shit. I got something for your big-ass mouth,” Draper fired back.

  “That sounds real gay. I knew you were a homo.”

  “What’d
you say, motherfucker?” Draper said, rushing over and pushing Akeem.

  “All right, jiggaboos, break it up,” Officer O’Sullivan said, seemingly coming out of nowhere.

  Everyone was so focused on the argument with Akeem and Draper that the cops caught us slipping and crept on us. Every one of us sucked our teeth. Lately, O’Sullivan and his new partner, McIvor, had been stopping and frisking us nonstop. Akeem never kept any hard drugs on him, but O’Sullivan was determined to bust him and send him to prison like he did with Drastic.

  “You all know the drill. Spread your legs and place your hands on the fucking table,” O’Sullivan said.

  Five more officers surrounded us, so there was no use in trying to run. O’Sullivan walked next to me and whispered in my ear, “How many times do I have to tell you? Stop hanging around these niggers. Go home, Billy.” Then O’Sullivan shoved me and shouted, “Get outta here.”

  In his twisted mind, his racist view was his way of looking out for me.

  “They were just arguing. Nothing happened,” I said.

  O’Sullivan swiftly punched me in the stomach. My knees buckled, and I dropped down to the ground gasping for air. He manhandled me, yanking me off the ground and pushing me out of hearing range of my friends.

  “Don’t you ever backtalk me in front of other cops again. I’m trying to protect your stupid ass, and you insist on trying my patience and ending up like these lowlifes.”

  I looked over at my friends. Akeem took his hand off the table and motioned for me to calm down.

  “Keep your fucking hands on the table where I can see them,” Officer McIvor yelled.

  O’Sullivan turned my face back to him and continued. “Look at me, kid. They don’t have futures. They’re gonna be stuck in this hellhole for generations to come. I’m trying to keep your record clean so you can amount to something in life and get out of here. I’m nice, but don’t take my fucking kindness for weakness.”

  “I’m not asking you for your help, and I don’t want it,” I shot back.

  He punched me in the stomach again.

  “I’m not going to say it a third time ... Get the fuck out of here. Your mother is under enough stress with her sickness. She doesn’t need this bullshit from you. Go home.”

  Akeem looked at me and said, “It’s OK, man, just do what he says. We know you got our back.”

  McIvor put him in an arm bar and slammed him on the ground. The gravel scraped Akeem’s face, and his lip was cut and bleeding.

  “Nobody was talking to you, boy,” McIvor said. “Let’s get something straight-we run shit here.”

  I didn’t want to be the cause of anything else negative. I walked home, praying nothing bad happened while I was away from my friends.

  * * *

  Two weeks passed. Word on the street was Draper was going around the neighborhood telling everyone he had enough of Akeem punking him and was going to shoot Akeem if he got in his face again. Not trying to ruin his reputation, Akeem went looking for him. I tried to convince him to let me go with him and Jalen, but he wasn’t having it.

  “B, things might get real out here tonight. I don’t want you getting caught in the middle,” Akeem said.

  Two hours passed. I was sitting in my living room when I heard three loud shots, boom, boom, boom, and ran to my window. I carefully stood off to the side and saw marked and unmarked cop cars speeding down the blocks blaring their sirens. In the distance, I saw Akeem sprinting past buildings headed toward ours with his gun in hand while Draper continued to fire at him. O’Sullivan’s patrol car stopped in front of them. Draper hauled ass in the opposite direction while Akeem ran around the car. O’Sullivan and McIvor chased Akeem with their guns drawn.

  “Drop your weapon!” O’Sullivan yelled.

  Instinctively, Akeem turned around quickly with his gun still in his hand. O’Sullivan and McIvor riddled him with bullets.

  “Nooooooo!” I screamed.

  “Billy, get away from that window,” Mom yelled.

  I rushed past her, frantically putting on my shoes.

  “What are you doing? Where are you going? You can’t go out there right now,” Mom said.

  “They shot Akeem,”I said, rushing out the door.

  I ran past Jalen in the stairwell.

  “You gotta tell Ms. Williams and Ebony. Hurry up,” I yelled to him, not stopping to talk further.

  I rushed outside. My heart was pounding so hard, it felt like it was going to beat out of my chest. Akeem was slumped on the side of the fence leading to our building. His blood was gushing out at a rapid rate and seeping on the concrete. I held him as he gasped for air.

  “Help ... Help. Call an ambulance. He’s dying,” I yelled to O’Sullivan.

  O’Sullivan rolled his eyes, grabbed his radio, keyed the microphone, and said, “Central, shots fired. The perp was hit, and we’re going to need a bus at this location.”

  “He’s not a perp, and he doesn’t need a bus. He needs a damn ambulance,”I said.

  “Relax, kid. A bus is cop jargon for an ambulance,” McIvor said. “They’re on their way.”

  “Let me get a rush on that bus, Central,” O’Sullivan said nonchalantly on his radio.

  “What’s the condition of the perp?” I heard the woman on the radio say.

  “The perp is likely, Central,” O’Sullivan answered.

  “What’s ‘likely’ mean?” I asked.

  “Kid, it means I don’t think he’s gonna make it.”

  “You knew him. He was terrified of you. He wouldn’t have shot you, and you know it.”

  “Look, when someone turns around with a gun pointed, you don’t have time to assume they’re not going to shoot at you. You said it yourself: he was terrified of me. Wouldn’t you want to kill the boogeyman that you’re afraid of? Wake up. They’re all the same. They’re all killers, and I took him out before he killed me.”

  Our neighbors and other people from the surrounding buildings ran outside to see what happened. Jalen pushed his way through the crowd. He dropped down to the ground next to me. He was trembling and crying, too shocked to say anything. Akeem shook as he struggled to raise his head and look up at me. He let out one last pant, and I wept as I rocked his lifeless body in my arms.

  I heard the wail of approaching sirens, but I knew it was too late. When the ambulance finally arrived, the paramedics slowly pried Akeem’s body from my grasp. Jalen and I watched them work quickly in the ambulance while we sat on the ground in shock, drenched in our best friend’s blood. Time moved in a blur. There were about twenty patrol cars out, and cops were everywhere trying to calm the community down.

  Mrs. Wilson, Ebony, and Mrs. Williams ran out of our building.

  “Billy, where is Akeem? Where’s my brother?” Ebony yelled. I couldn’t stop crying. Ebony shook me by the shoulders and asked again, with her eyes welling up with tears, “Billy, where is he?”

  I point to the paramedics, who were using a defibrillator on him. Ebony and Mrs. Williams sprinted over to them.

  “Ma’am, you can’t come in here,” a paramedic said to Mrs. Williams, extending his arms to block her.

  She batted his hands away. “That’s my son,” she shouted as she and Ebony tried to jump into the ambulance.

  The paramedics were moving frantically in the ambulance, working to stop the bleeding and attached an AED to Akeem’s chest. Akeem’s eyes were shut, and his arms dangled off the sides of the stretcher.

  While the paramedics were struggling with Ebony, Mrs. Williams pushed past everyone and rushed into the ambulance. She caught sight of Akeem, reached for the gurney, and tried to pick up his lifeless body, but the cops took her off so the paramedics could continue to work on him without any distractions.

  Mrs. Williams dropped to her knees and wept. Ebony crouched and held her. Then Mrs. Williams jumped to her feet, rushed over to a random cop that was closest to the ambulance, and pounded on his chest. Some of the other cops tried to restrain her. Even Ebony tried to hold
her back. Mrs. Williams finally stopped, her eyes pained as she stared at her son’s blood on the concrete and his dead body in the ambulance. The cops and EMS workers tried to console her and Ebony.

  “Get off me. Get the fuck off me. You murdered my son.” she wept.

  Jalen’s mom, Mrs. Wilson, consoled her, but the hard reality was that Akeem had died that night.

  * * *

  Ebony and I were in her bedroom after Akeem’s funeral. She was sitting on her bed, staring out the window, deep in thought. She was hurting, and I had no idea what I could say or do to take her pain away.

  Then she sighed and asked, “What do you want to be after high school?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I was thinking maybe a lawyer. I like arguing with people, and I want to fight for good people that the world is fucking with. I’m still thinking about it. What do you want to be?”

  Ebony didn’t take her eyes off whatever she was looking at outside her window. “I want to be a cop.”

  “A cop? Why?” I asked.

  “I should hate them after two of them killed my brother, but I learned something from all of this. My brother was far from being a saint, but he didn’t deserve to die. The cops in this neighbor prey on minorities and think we’re all savages. For things to change, communities and the way they are policed need to change. I want to become a cop so I can show other minority children that there are other ways to make it besides selling drugs. I know it sounds crazy, but I want to become one to help change things for people of color. If I’m a cop, at least I know there’d be one good one in the world. A lot of these white cops come in our neighborhoods and don’t know how to handle situations with people of color. Instead of running from the cops, I want to make changes from the inside.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “How do you think scientists create vaccines? They have to get the virus first before they can create what’s needed to cure it. I’m going to become a cop and rise so high in the ranks that I’ll have the power to make changes to police procedures and the way cops interact with minority communities. I know, it sounds crazy.”

  “That’s not crazy,” I said. “Hearing you talk about it like that, it makes a lot of sense. I already know you can do anything you put your mind to. You always have my support. I got your back.”