The bell yelled.
End of homeroom.
Students poured into the corridor as I entered. I took a few steps toward the band room as students filed past with pats on the back. A bewildered boy walked past me, brushing my shoulder and offering no excuses. I turned to him, then—
“She got a knife!”
The bewildered boy turned quickly and our eyes met. His expression was vacant, the face of one who had given up a long time ago. And for two of the longest seconds in the history of Time, we stood three feet apart in a private moment of forgiveness. I sought an apology and he knew it, but his sullen, brown eyes told me that he was out of apologies, so engulfed in dread that he was beyond reproach. And the last second (or second number two) he acknowledged that I understood and that an apology would not be necessary. And in that last, quick second, relieved from the burden of apologizing or confrontation, he offered a slight smile in appreciation. This would be his last smile.
It was a fourteen-inch kitchen knife, the kind used to carve a Thanksgiving turkey. It entered from his back, between the shoulder blades, and pushed out from his left breast, severing arteries to his heart. She kept a firm grip on the handle as two boys grabbed her. Peanut pulled her off as she still held the knife. Deep red blood flowed from the boy’s chest as students screamed and kept their distance. He looked at me again, searching for understanding, needing help but not knowing why. He was confused, and when he saw the girl struggling with Peanut, he panicked and ran.
The girl attempted one more swipe at him, only to catch Peanut’s hand with the blade. And I was frozen, standing in a puddle of fruit punch syrup. As though a switch clicked in the young girl’s head, she dropped the knife and calmly walked to the principal’s office. But the boy continued to run, leaving a trail of warm fruit punch syrup in his wake. A few students chased after him, but he ran and ran and ran, then collapsed at the doors of the cafeteria. Mr. Douglass, the vice principal, rushed toward the boy and took him by bended knee. The boy’s glazed eyes stared through Mr. Douglass as his fading heart pumped out the last and final quart. Students gathered around, and with a soft murmur he spoke—
“That bitch was talkin’ ’bout my momma.”
His body slumped on Mr. Douglass’s knee as he joined his mother, who had died two months earlier. His name was Bruce Watkins and he was fifteen years old.
Students rushed past me to get to the boy, but I walked away in the opposite direction. I didn’t want to see blood anymore. And if you listened with discriminating ears, you could hear Bizet’s “Je dis que rien ne m’épouvante” from Carmen. God had a twisted sense of humor, I thought.
Paramedics, HPD, news vans, and the coroner fell upon Jesse H. Jones High School. We watched it from the park across the street, passing forties and blunts with quiet reverence. Country set it out for everybody, and no one said a word. We just watched and drank and smoked. Nobody really knew the kid and nobody ever would. And I brooded over my Olde English, mad as hell. A fucking dead sophomore stole my thunder.
Thud, thud, thud, thud.
It took almost an hour to get my car out of the student parking lot, but when I did break free, I rolled back the sunroof, leaned against the door, and let Guy serenade me to my new girlfriend, Donna Fontenot, in Third Ward.
Donna was a cute little cheerleader at Jack Yates Senior High School, and she probably was my cousin, considering I first met her at a family reunion. We had been going out for the past few months, mostly a movie, a bottle of Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill, and a late-night make-out session at The Lakes of 610. After the day’s tragedy, I needed some sex to settle my nerves in a way that Olde English couldn’t provide. It was a quarter to five and Donna’s cheerleading practice would be wrapping up, so I headed to Third Ward.
I could see the red and gold pom-poms from Scott Street as I headed toward Yates. Fine black legs and thighs jumping to and fro in soulful, syncopated movement reminded me that Frenchy’s Fried Chicken was having a sale—two legs and two thighs for $1.99. I knew Donna would be hungry.
Thud, thud, thud, thud.
She spotted me and smiled, her envious cheermates leering. She ran over and gave me a dramatic kiss, all tongue, for her girls to see. She tasted like red Now and Laters. Pretty little vanilla thing with dark brown hair down to her ass because Creole girls didn’t cut their hair. I played it cool like Denzel in Mo’ Better Blues, accentuating her performance with a loving embrace, opening my eyes to witness her girls snickering for want of passion. And there in Donna’s arms, lips locked in red Now and Later madness, I saw her. Charity Alexander. Captain of the cheerleading team and definitely the finest high school girl in Third Ward or South Park. Green eyes, big titties and thighs. This girl was a testament to staying out past curfew, buying gold charms and trinkets, and not using a condom. Her caramel skin glistened with afternoon sweat, taunting me with treasures I did not know. And despite the fact that almost the entire cheerleading squad had their eyes on me, she could care less, choosing to busy herself with her sneakers. But I wanted her attention. I wanted to know what the boys would so easily fight about. I wanted to know what hid behind those emerald eyes and underneath that skintight uniform. I wanted a distraction.
“You ready?” asked Donna, interrupting my fantasy with hopeful eyes. She had shown the newspaper article to everybody, so my arrival carried more weight than usual. Girls were always more open to discussing academic matters, but these Third Ward ingénues restricted their comments to “You gonna go to one of them white schools?” And I had never really thought of it like that.
Donna was prouder than me about the news coverage, only briefly asking about the stabbing that had already hit the wire. I was quiet, watching the road and her hairy legs, feeling my subtle malt liquor drunk fade into perspiration. Slowly, I was returning back to awareness with jolts of the bewildered boy’s face nagging me. That haunting face asking me to help was becoming my nemesis. I was falling back into that moment of stillness in action; orbiting around my numb pole were the faces and sounds of that terror, yelling in unison—“Help a brother out.” And then it stopped. Thud, thud, thud, thud. And a thousand torches of truth alit in my head, scorching my better self. Thud, thud, thud, thud. I had failed him, that bewildered son of South Park. I had failed him.
“The light’s green,” Donna reminded me.
I was stuck at the corner of Blodgett and Dowling, stuck at the corner of bad memories and promising aspirations. I needed a distraction to continue, so I slid my right hand between Donna’s legs.
Nothing mattered more than the moment to be released from the day’s burden. She hadn’t showered, I hadn’t brushed my teeth or popped a mint. Neither of us really cared. Her mother would be home in forty-five minutes. Hairy legs around my waist, firmly clasped hands, soft daybed, tender moans, hurried thrusts, the odor, the fear of detection, the knowing, the mischief, the damp hair—for a brief moment, I was free. I came. I left. Returning to the streets that bore me, returning to the dark crevice where fruit punch syrup stained dirty linoleum, unclean and unforgiving.
Mike was waiting for me when I got home. He’d heard about the killing and wanted a firsthand account. I gave him every detail. Mother watched from the window, staring expressionless, attempting to ascertain my mental condition, worried that I had been psychologically scarred by the tragedy. She wouldn’t come out, respecting my need to confer with a friend. But it had already happened and the damage was done.
“That’s fucked-up,” Mike said.
“The crazy thing is, he had just walked right by me. And the girl ran right by me.”
“You didn’t stop her?” he asked.
“It happened too fast. But guess who I saw at Yates?”
“Charity?”
“You gotdamn right.”
“Man, you need to leave her alone; three dudes done already went to jail behind her.”
“I ain’t gonna holla at her, Mike. I got five months. Five months and I’m gone,” I said. A
nd I meant that shit.
thirty-three
the beatification of jules saint-pierre sonnier, fmc
Eunice, Louisiana, January 5, 1953
On the day Nonc Sonnier was to be hung, the entire city of Eunice, Louisiana, shut down, and not out of respect for Nonc but fear. Cautious white men extracted him from his cell and led him to a mule that waited in front of the jail. It was Sonnier’s request to be taken to the gallows by mule—Sonnier loved performance. For his last meal, he requested a bowl of couche-couche et caillé prepared by his relations. When asked if he’d like to see a priest for final rites, he laughed and sang—
O kwa, o jibile
Ou pa we m’inosan?
The priest made prayer for the heathen nonetheless.
They led the mule all the way to the Boudreaux rice fields. Had to teach that nigger witch a lesson, they reasoned. They knew the spot—right by that tree. Nonc looked around and let off a haughty laugh that scared everybody, including the mayor of Eunice, who’d prosecuted his hanging—Leon Richard, Nonc’s son. Now Leon was in effect passé blanche in Evangeline Parish, but the Boudreauxs knew the truth, as did Leon himself. He was ashamed of his witch negra blood, so when he learned that it was Sonnier who’d cast a powerful spell to rid him of fits and fevers, he took it upon himself to prosecute Sonnier for attempted murder by use of black magic, although Sonnier actually saved his life. Yet Sonnier didn’t raise a fuss, particularly when he noticed they were going to hang him from an old cypress tree. The joke would be on them.
He looked at his son and winked, which unnerved the mayor. They placed the noose around his neck and gave him a moment to say his last words—
“Tell them when they ask, tell them that wasn’t no nigger hanging from that tree. Tell them it was a Frenchman, a free man of color. Tell them it was Marguerite’s kin that they hung on his own gotdamn property. Tell them. And if you don’t, then ta hell with all y’all.”
The mule’s rear was slapped. The animal took off. The rope tightened. Nonc Sonnier dangled from the cypress.
thirty-four
the gun and the fire
Houston, Texas, c. May 1991
The next day at school buzzed with the makeshift eulogy of the boy nobody knew. Speculation and fact were the day’s soap opera sponsored by a school that was officially in mourning. School psychologists held small assemblies to assess the student body, to ensure that this wouldn’t happen again, but the students were generally nonchalant, more concerned with winning tickets for the Superfest concert from Majic 102.1. And I among them had let the event pass into the Yearbook of Things-to-Be-Forgotten with Bruce Watkins’s autograph signed in blood. He would never know that of the entire eighty-six-page picture book of students, there was not one photo of him. He had skipped Picture Day to attend his mother’s funeral.
Fortunately, I had other things on my mind. The closing of the school year marked the parade of scholarship interviews and ceremonies.
For a ghetto child scholarship recipient, it was a chance to show articulateness, presentation, and poise. Countless hours of television mimicking and Mother’s constant correction of my speech had developed an even and succinct “white talk” into my vernacular that could easily be summoned at the turn of a phrase or the shift of a conjunction. The ability to express oneself well when presumably inarticulate is sometimes rewarded, and the articulate ghetto child takes advantage of that myth. Scholarships (or rewards) were handed out by one of three kinds of people: (1) those who recognize achievement on its face and reward it; (2) those who have an obligation and would be negligent to ignore it; and (3) those who either feel guilty or have a God complex (i.e., white folks). That was the lineup, and first at bat was No. 2—an old black fraternity later that evening.
Mother was to meet me at Wyatt’s Cafeteria at six sharp. I was receiving a thousand-dollar scholarship from an old historic black fraternity. I arrived early and sat in my car drinking, waiting on Sonnier to show and give me an explanation, tell my future, which he never did.
“Why you wanna know that, Nephew?” he said once. “It’s more fun when you don’t know.”
One by one, I watched suited, obese black men waddle into the crude eatery, some holding the newspaper article. They greeted each other with a hug and secret handshake, at least that’s what I had gathered from School Daze. They belonged to each other and they were proud of it, following each other into old age with familiarity. They would never be alone. I thought that was cool, probably like that gang that my cousin Alfred ran with in Los Angeles.
I drained the bottle as Mother drove into the parking lot. My head felt lighter and I swayed. I popped a mint and greeted her. Her face turned from the malt liquor aroma, her eyes asking, “How could you?” I shrugged off her glare and entered my reception to find that the fine fraternity men had already turned my award banquet into happy hour. Half gallons of every known spirit were collected at a busy ad hoc bar. Loud, deep laughter accompanied long cocktail gulps, and the Main Guy offered me a soda while leering at Mother. These niggas were just looking for an excuse to get drunk. I was seated on a dais and waited through a few half-drunk speeches about the fraternity with not-too-subtle suggestions that I sign up when I get to campus. Yeah, right. Mother was annoyed but maintained a congenial smile. She was still proud of me. And finally I was brought up to the podium to accept my scholarship by the Main Guy, and my drunk was official. We met at the microphone and he hugged me (pretending to give me their secret handshake for laughs), but he pulled back with a questionable expression. He smelled Olde English. I smelled Chivas Regal. We both were drunk and we both knew it. I grinned, took the check, and tried to steady myself at the podium. Normally, I would’ve given an elaborate speech, but I knew these fat, greasy men were anxious to return to drinking, so—
“Thank you.”
However, Mother gave a tearful, hour-long speech in the parking lot as I dozed in and out in the driver’s seat. Frustrated, she took my keys and left me with instructions to call her when I sobered up. So I slept.
THUD, THUD, THUD, THUD.
Dammit! I had a hangover. I turned the volume down.
Thud, thud, thud, thud.
Much better. The same boulevard. The same faces. The same intersections with bloodshot eyes teasing me by design, shifting to emerald eyes, Charity’s eyes. Familiarity breeds contempt, and I was angry. Too familiar. The damn dirty Polaroid. I envied the birds and jet planes that flew over my sprawl with barely a glance, never to know Bruce Watkins or Timmy Chan’s Chinese food, only splashes of color canvassed on the earth below, waiting to be shit on, waiting to be speckles in the far-off horizon. Waiting to be nothing, nothing that mattered.
I parked in front of the school and watched. It was Friday, a day filled with promotions of the after-school boxing matches, dates kept and broken, quizzes given back for a parent’s signature, relief, celebration, and escape. The drab brick building stood attentively, probably as anxious for the weekend as its occupants.
First period. But not for me.
thirty-five
bad gris-gris
Saturday night, Mike and I headed to a scholarship benefit teen dance at the Texas Southern University student rec center. Three dollars at the door ushered us in to Lagerfeld cologne, conspicuous fake gold earrings, Contempo dresses, Tommy Hilfiger button-downs, Girbaud jeans, Timberlands, audacious rayon shirts, proud fake-leather Africa medallions, flavored lip gloss, alcohol breath, whispers, sneers, laughter, pretentious arrogance, teenage fear, nervousness, infatuation, and a whole lotta ass shaking. Yes indeed, the party was jumping. These were good kids from good schools who were going somewhere, doing something positive with their lives. Patrick, Ricky, and Russell joined us.
“Say, man. What’s wrong with you? You still trippin’ on Noelle, ’cause that ain’t your fault,” Mike asked.
“Mike, if I told you, I promise, I mean I promise, you wouldn’t believe me. And it’s probably a good thing if you don’t,” I answ
ered and zoned out.
“Man, you can tell me.”
“Okay. Do you believe in God?” I asked.
“Yeah, of course.”
“Why?”
“ ’Cause I do, why you askin’ why?” he queried.
“Why do you believe in God? Have you seen God?”
“No.”
“Have you felt God, like something touching you?”
“Dawg, you trippin’.”
“Am I? I mean, really. Am I?”
“Do you believe in God?” he asked.
“Oh yeah. I believe.”
“You don’t even go to church anymore.”
“So?”
“So how you gonna say you believe in God and you don’t even go to church?” he asked.
“Nigga, we havin’ church right now.”
“You crazy, Johnny.”
“You know what, Mike. You’re absolutely right. I’m crazier than a muthafucka.”
After eighteen years in South Park, I had chosen my circle of friends from greener pastures. Gone were the days of Booger and Raymond Earl. So long to Charles Henry and Pork Chop. Most of them were in jail or dead or just blurry images that I nodded to while passing in and out of Clearway Drive like the postman, on the move, headed elsewhere with purpose. I even chose a different school than my former playmates, who, at some point or another, showed up at Sterling Senior High School. The St. Andrew’s crowd was safer.
With Donna babysitting half a mile away and half a case of beer quaffed between Mike and I, the night was wide open for the girls. There were always one or two “cute, new faces,” a cousin from the other side of town, the new girl from Louisiana, or the pretty little thing whose momma let her out of the house for the first time.
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