Force of Nature

by Stephen Solomita

  “Now Joe was a mean son of a bitch and everybody in the projects knew it. The kind of big, black ugly nigger hates all other niggers cause they ‘bring down the race.’ He walks straight up ta Greenwood and slaps the joint out of his mouth. Damn if Greenwood don’t uppercut him right in the balls. I mean the fuckin’ kid is only fifteen years old. Weighs about a hundred-twenty pounds.

  “Naturally, I figure I gotta disabuse the kid from his violent tendencies. I mean Joe’s rollin’ around on the ground, fa Christ sake. So I go up to him, smilin’, and ask, ‘Why’d ya do that for?’ Then I jab my nightstick into his gut while the stupid nigger’s tryin’ ta come up with an answer. Doubled the little fuck over.

  “Joe’s yellin’, ‘Kill ’em; kill ’em; kill ’em’ and I know we’re all alone down the basement, so I decide ta teach the asshole a lesson he won’t forget. I drag his fuckin’ black ass over to one of the steam valves. It was winter and the heat was goin’ full blast.

  “‘Now I’m gonna show ya somethin’. They all say ya too stupid ta learn, Levander fuckin’ Greenwood, but this time ya gettin’ a lesson you ain’t never gonna forget. You’re gonna remember this every time ya try ta comb ya hair.’

  “Naturally I didn’t wanna actually go through with it. I thought the kid’d break down and cry or somethin’, but he don’t even blink. He don’t even try ta pull back his hand.

  “So what could I do? What could I fuckin’ do? I hada do it, right? I open the valve and the steam comes pourin’ out, but Greenwood don’t make a sound. Then I put his hand in it and he still don’t say nothin’. Blank face like a fuckin’ jigaboo Indian. Finally, I got disgusted. I just threw him down and took my partner out of there. I mean with a kid like that you ain’t got no fuckin’ choice. You gotta kill him. Right?

  “We ended up puttin’ a buzzer in the mother’s apartment. Rings on the wall behind me. Figure if he comes knockin’, I’m gonna go huntin’. I got a special place on my wall reserved fa that nigger’s head.”

  Racism exists in the NYPD, as it does in every other aspect of American life, white or black, but Tilley had never before heard it expressed so violently, or so blatantly. Here was a cop, a hairbag finishing up his career behind a desk, admitting to the torture of a fifteen-year-old child as if torture was a police function described in the Patrol Guide.

  The young detective looked over at Moodrow, but the big cop’s face was expressionless.

  “You and a hundred other guys,” Moodrow said evenly. “When did you put the buzzer in?”

  “A year ago. When the restraining order went into effect. I don’t expect we’ll see him around here again. His mother don’t have enough money to make the risk worthwhile.”

  Moodrow shrugged. “We’re going up anyway, take a shot. You think the old lady’s home?”

  “Do I look like a fuckin’ doorman?”

  4

  THE INTERIOR OF LOUISE Greenwood’s building was depressingly familiar to the two cops. Minuscule lobby (there probably wouldn’t be any lobby at all if the city could have found another place for the mailboxes), narrow hallways, fresh graffiti scrawled across yellow tile walls announcing the existence of the most macho ENRIQUE 193. The architect, no doubt encouraged by politicians spending the taxpayers’ money, had clearly acknowledged no motivation greater than mere utility. Still, the floors were clean, the outer door locked and the stairs smelled of disinfectant instead of urine. Someone was making an effort.

  Moodrow and Tilley, already sweating, trudged up the stairs to the third floor and knocked on the metal-covered door of apartment 3D. A few seconds later, after the peephole was drawn back and the cops were subjected to close scrutiny, a clear, unmistakably angry woman’s voice called out, “Who is it?”

  “Police. Sergeant Moodrow.” Moodrow held his badge to the peephole, then motioned for his partner to do the same.

  “What do you want?”

  “C’mon, Marlee, open the goddamn door.”

  “That tone of voice will get you exactly nothing, Moodrow.” Nevertheless, the sharp, metallic sound of opening locks filled the next few seconds and the door swung in. “If you’re here about my brother, you can turn around and walk down the stairs.” She was tall and heavily built, a round face all huge, black eyes, maybe thirty-five years old, wearing a New York Marathon t-shirt and gray warm-up pants cut just below the knee. She gave Tilley a withering look guaranteed to boil the blood of any cop. “What’s this, Moodrow?” she asked. “You get a dog?”

  Moodrow reached out to put a restraining hand on Tilley’s arm. “Marlee, if you don’t get control of your tongue, I’m gonna tell your mother on you.”

  A brief smile flickered across her face, then her features froze once again. “Don’t bullshit me, Moodrow. Where was your bullshit when we needed it?” She paused, got no answer and rushed on. “Do us both a favor. Turn around and go back down the stairs.”

  “You’re Miss Redmond? Mrs. Redmond?” Tilley finally managed to get a word in. He wasn’t nearly as much of a Rambo as most of the younger breed, but he still couldn’t believe that Moodrow would take her shit.

  “Do I know you?”

  “Detective Tilley, Ma’am.” He kept his voice neutral, but he was so angry his fingers were trembling. “You work for the Transit Authority?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “What do you take home? Ballpark figure. Twenty-five thousand? Figure in the o.t. and your mama’s salary, it probably comes to near forty thousand for the household. That about right? What’s the cutoff for the projects? Isn’t it around twenty-two? I hope you haven’t been lying on your financial form.”

  Everything stopped. The question was so unexpected that, for a moment, even Moodrow had nothing to say. Then his face clouded and Tilley thought Moodrow was actually going to come after him. The idea didn’t frighten him; he was ready to fight anyone, though he would have preferred Marlee.

  “Who is it, Marlee?” A middle-aged woman, leaning on a cane, stepped out of the kitchen and began walking toward the front door.

  “It’s a couple of pigs who want to know how much money we make.”

  “Now why would they want to know that?” Louise Greenwood was short and gray-haired. Her eyes, behind thick glasses, peered at the two detectives until they recognized Moodrow. “Oh, it’s Sergeant Moodrow. Why didn’t you say who it was, Marlee? Come in Sergeant. Who’s your friend?” She turned abruptly and began to walk toward the small living room, obviously expecting the two cops to follow.

  The apartment was spotless. The walls, bare except for a painting of the crucified Jesus on black velvet, looked freshly scrubbed. The living room set, a couch and two chairs, was covered with heavy plastic and the end tables gleamed with polish. Even the fibers on the rug stood straight up, as if they’d been combed by hand. “Just take a seat anywhere. Do you want coffee?”

  “No thanks, Mrs. Greenwood.” Moodrow lowered himself into one of the stuffed chairs, then leaned back confidently. “This is my new partner, Jim Tilley.”

  “Will you have coffee, Officer Tilley?”

  “No thanks,” he said contritely. He felt like an utter asshole, like he had on that unforgettable afternoon when Sister Dennis caught him looking up Patricia McNeill’s dress. The woman was not an enemy.

  “What’s all this about money, Sergeant Moodrow?” If the mention of money was upsetting to her, she didn’t show it. Her look was questioning, curious.

  “They want to know about Levander, Mama,” Marlee cut in. “The baby, here,” she pointed to Tilley, “thinks he can scare us with questions about how much money we make. He’s gonna have us thrown out of the project if we don’t cooperate.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Tilley protested.

  “What you gonna do now, boy? You gonna run away from it? What other reason could you have to ask about our income? Don’t bullshit me.” She was still standing up, though the rest of them were seated, and her attitude was so aggressive it absolved Tilley of his guilt as surely as ten Hail Marys, five Our Father
s and a perfect Act of Contrition.

  “Maybe I didn’t know there was a human being,” he gestured to Mrs. Greenwood, “standing behind the animal.”

  Suddenly Mrs. Greenwood broke into laughter. Not the breathy tinkle of an elderly woman, but a deep whooping belly laugh that had Moodrow giggling back, an odd high sound that leaked out between closed lips as if the humor of the situation was something only he understood.

  “Well,” Mrs. Greenwood said at last, “isn’t it wonderful how the children get along?” She paused momentarily, then went on. “Actually, I expected you’d be stopping by.”

  “That means you already know.” Moodrow was suddenly all business. His eyes locked on those of Louise Greenwood and they didn’t move until he was ready to leave.

  “Yes. Mrs. Perez told me that her boy heard it at school from the members of some street gang. Now I’m not saying that I knew it was true, Sergeant, but I was not surprised. You know all the troubles we’ve had in this home since my husband died. Better to count your blessings. That’s why I thank the Lord for Marlee.”

  The daughter flinched as though she’d been struck. “You don’t have to talk to these people, Mama. They got no right coming here. Knocking down people’s doors.” Her teeth were clenched, nostrils flared; so angry her voice hissed.

  “They’re here because I invited them.” Louise turned to face her daughter. “I have something I want from Sergeant Moodrow,” she said evenly. “I know those other policemen would lie to me. They’d promise, but they wouldn’t mean it.” She turned back to Moodrow. “They feel that promises to black people don’t have to be kept. They’re different from other promises.”

  “What do they want, Mrs. Greenwood?” Moodrow asked gently.

  “They want to kill my child.” Her voice cracked and out of the corner of his eye, Moodrow saw Marlee’s hands float up, palms extended, like she was cradling an infant.

  “Do you think that’s true, Sergeant Moodrow?” Louise Greenwood continued.

  “I would have to say it is.” He didn’t flinch from it.

  “And you, Sergeant Moodrow. Do you want to kill Levander?”

  Moodrow didn’t respond immediately. Tilley, watching intently, wondered if he was trying to make up a lie or just at a loss for the right words. Then Moodrow surprised his partner by saying, “Yeah, I do. He killed a cop.”

  “And you came here because you want me to help you?”

  Moodrow didn’t answer and Louise Greenwood struggled to her feet, accepting her daughter’s arm. Tilley expected to be invited out the door, but the two women went to the closet and took out a small metal box. “I have to show you about this, Sergeant. So you’ll know why,” said Louise. Marlee set a glass table in front of Moodrow and Mrs. Greenwood took a seat behind it. Tilley was completely ignored.

  “I know what my son is, Sergeant. I’ve known about it for a long time. He was two years old when my husband passed away. Marlee was six. Up till that time, he seemed like a normal child. He walked real early and he understood every word you said to him. When I read to him at night, he never took his eyes off the book.

  “But after my husband died, I started losing control. I was just a country girl from South Carolina. A little colored girl right off the farm. I tried to work at first, but I wasn’t qualified for city work. I spoke like, ‘yessuh ma’am, us workin’ real hawd fo y’all.’ I probably could have gotten work as a domestic servant and I would have taken even that, if I had my own mama near me to look after the children. There wasn’t any day care back then and the kind of baby sitters I could afford to hire would as likely kill the children as look after them.

  “So I did what a whole lot of other black mothers without husbands did. I went on welfare and the caseworker helped move me from a house on Wales Avenue in the Bronx to this project. There were projects going up all over the city then, and I thought the kids would get better schooling in Manhattan. By that time,

  Levander was five and I put him in preschool even though I knew in my heart he wasn’t going to be able to be with the other children. He was already hard to control. Marlee was four years older and she was afraid of him. He had a terrible temper, but he was cruel and mean beyond that. When I would punish him, he’d stand there with a half-smile and eyes like black glass. Eyes that you couldn’t see into at all. Any fool knows that being scared is the worst part of the punishment for most children. What do you do with a child that has no fear?

  “Then the teacher at the school started sending back reports that Levander was fighting with the other kids. And he wouldn’t stay at his desk. And he threw things at the teacher. And he spit on the principal. I could see what was coming. The teachers were almost all white women in those days and the school administration was all white, too. I just couldn’t talk to them about what to do, so I went to my caseworker, Judy Cohen, and I told her all about the situation. I said, ‘I know my son, Levander, has a problem and I want to get help for him, but I don’t know what to do.’ At that time, I was also trying to get into a training program to become a practical nurse and Judy was helping me.

  “She knew about Levander, of course, from home visits, and the letters from his teacher, Miss Hauptmann, came as no shock to her. She said the first thing was to put in a request through the school for a psychiatric evaluation which she did. I have a copy of it right here.”

  She began to ruffle through a thick stack of documents and Tilley had a premonition that they were in for a very long afternoon if Moodrow didn’t cut her short. Once again he wondered if Moodrow expected to get any information out of her. Maybe he was only being polite. Listening out of respect. In any event, he took the paper she offered and read it slowly.

  “You see the date, Sergeant? April 18, 1963. Levander was five years old. I waited two months to hear from them, then Judy called the principal, Dr. Rudoso, to find out what was happening, but Dr. Rudoso said the school system wasn’t an insane asylum and that, anyway, Levander would receive more benefit from a prison cell than a psychiatrist’s couch. Then he said something about women social workers and they should stick to giving away the city and stay out of Department of Education business.”

  As Mrs. Greenwood went on, her voice began to drop and she seemed to shrink on the overstuffed chair, to sink into the cushions despite the stiff plastic slipcovers. At one point, her daughter took her hand and began to caress the backs of her fingers. “Judy took everything he had to say. Then she reminded him that he was obliged to either approve or reject the application. That he could not sit on it forever. That if he didn’t act, she would take it to the Commissioner. Judy was tough that way. She knew what she wanted and she would never give up until she got it.

  “A week later we received a letter in the mail with an appointment for Levander to go see Dr. Smithley at the Bushwick Psychiatric Center. Here’s the letter. It’s signed by Dr. Rudoso.

  “Levander and I kept the appointment. It was one of the hardest days I ever had with him. He seemed to know he was being tested and there was a lot of waiting with other patients in a small room between tests. I had to hold onto him every minute, but I felt so good when I went to bed that night, Sergeant, because I thought at last something was going to be done.

  “About a month went by and nothing happened. I called the Center several times and was told the test results were being evaluated. By this time it was summer vacation and Dr. Smithley said they would forward all the information to the school administration. I wouldn’t have to come back again. I asked what did he intend to do to help Levander and he said it was up to PS22 and he was hired by the school to do the evaluation, so he couldn’t talk about it without their permission.”

  “Mrs. Greenwood, you don’t have to tell me this,” Moodrow finally broke in. “I know how hard you tried.”

  “You don’t know shit,” Marlee said, stepping forward. “When you try to do something you’re supposed to at least have a chance. What chance did my mama have? No chance at all. When Levander went back
to start first grade that white pig Rudoso got even with Judy and my mama by putting Levander in a special education class. You know how to spell ‘special education’? R E T A R D.”

  Mrs. Greenwood put her arm around her daughter’s waist. “They didn’t tell me about it. I thought he was with the rest of the students. Of course, when I did find out, I went to see Dr. Rudoso. I said, ‘Dr. Rudoso, I don’t think Levander is retarded, but even if he is, he still has a problem with his temper. When he gets angry, he loses control and he hurts the other children. How will these classes help him?’

  “Two years later, Dr. Rudoso was replaced by Simon Hooks, a black man and I thought I would get some help, but when I went to him he told me my son was ‘incorrigible.’ He said he was hired to bring discipline to the school, to end the reign of the juvenile delinquents. He said he was going to show the brats who was running the school system.

  “Levander was eight years old, Sergeant. Eight years old and they showed him who was running the school system by putting him in PS607 on Henry Street. Do you remember the old ‘six hundred’ schools?”

  “Yeah, I know about them. I remember them real well.”

  “Then you recall they took all the ‘problem’ children from the regular schools and put them together in these ‘six hundred’ schools. They didn’t teach them anything. They just kept them caged until three o’clock in the afternoon. By the time Levander was ten, he was gone. He started living on the street, running with street gangs. Come home and take money from my pocket-book. When he was about twelve, he hurt one little boy real bad. Hit him with a stick in his ear and made him deaf. Then the policemen started coming around. They said my son was a menace. They asked me why I didn’t do anything about him and I explained that I did try. I tried from when he was still a baby, but I couldn’t do it by myself and nobody would help me.