“Hello, little boy, my name is Warrior. This girl you’ve been messing with is my sister, and when people mess with her, I get very angry. Understand?” The little boy nodded his head slowly, aware that he was in serious trouble.
“Now, I don’t want you to touch her, make faces at her, or even say anything to her. Otherwise, I’m gonna come back here again, and we’re gonna have another talk. I told her that if you ever bother her, even once more, to come and get me. Now, you wouldn’t want that, would you?” Warrior gave him an evil look that almost matched his sister’s. The boy’s eyes got big with understanding, and he nodded again, this time much faster. He looked down at the ground, and then at Warrior.
“You could put me down now?” he asked, hopefully.
Warrior slowly took the boy from the air and put him down on the ground. The boy looked at Warrior’s sister with new respect, and immediately took off running into the school. Warrior’s sister squealed with delight, jumped up and down, and as Warrior leaned toward her, hugged his neck with both arms.
“Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou! You’re the best, Wawia,” she said.
“That’s what big brothers are for,” Warrior said as he kissed her and stood up.
As his sister walked into school, Warrior looked at her, saw her devilish smile and signifying eyes. He saw her detached look, and the way she absently rubbed her hands together, her mind racing with her now limitless possibilities. Warrior laughed to himself. That boy is in serious trouble, he thought. She’s gonna make his life hell. He shrugged his shoulders and walked down the stairs to catch the train to his school, glad to have turned the tide in his sister’s favor.
As he stood in the train station, waiting, as usual, Warrior remembered that his mother had asked him to pick up his sister’s medical form from the school clinic. She had told Warrior twice, and when she had begun to remind him a third time, he had said, “Mamma, I won’t forget. I don’t forget things like that.” She had agreed, acknowledging his excellent memory, and had not reminded him again. He had forgotten. He shook his head, sighed, and walked down the long platform to the exit. He made his way up the stair from the train’s tunnel, and into the busy rush-hour streets.
When Warrior again reached the street of the school, it was much quieter. School had begun, and most of the students had already reached their classes. A few stragglers, the ones who had no one to get them ready in the mornings, were still slowly coming in, but the sounds and the commotion were gone. The crossing guards were still directing traffic but with less force, and the cars were once again driving at city speeds.
As Warrior walked up to the steps to the school, a boy came up behind him. The boy, about ten years old, carried all of his height in his long legs. His green faded corduroy pants were much too long. They had been hemmed on the bottom to fit his height and may have been handed down to him by an older brother. On one leg the hem had fallen out, and the cuff dragged on the ground below his black sneakers, collecting dirt and gray snow, changing the color from faded green to dusty gray. His uncombed hair and scalp was in need of greasing. His brown skin was ashy, craved lotion, his hands chafed in the winter cold. His lips, chapped till broken by the wind, were desperate for Vaseline. No one had bothered to clean up after the Sand Man, his nighttime droppings filling the child’s eyes with morning crust. The boy ran up the stairs, almost tripping on his untied shoelaces, and Warrior followed.
He walked through the doors of the school surprised by the silence. The halls were empty. Classes had begun. On the first floor Warrior walked down the hallway toward the back staircase. On the first floor were the kindergarten, first grade, and second grade classrooms. As students moved up in grades, they moved up in flights. The top floor of the school was reserved for the oldest kids. The linoleum floors of the hallways were green squares outlined in black, the walls were made of light gray tiles, and the doors were of a darker gray metal. The walls were lined with words of encouragement, posters stating the Student of the Week for each class, pictures of famous people. What brought life to the walls, were the endless pieces of children’s art. There were brightly painted rainbows, finger paintings of dogs, cats, and houses. There were great pieces of white paper filled only with the colorful pressings of tiny, paint-covered hands. There were abstract butterflies, created by placing many drops of paint on a sheet of paper and then folding it, mushing the colors together. Mostly though, there were crayon and watercolor pictures with the same title: “Me.” Warrior walked through the gallery in awe.
As he walked, he looked through the window in the door of one of the empty classrooms. The activity sign on the door, made of construction paper with a swinging wheel and an arrow pointing to whichever activity the class was engaged in, pointed to the word “gym.” Warrior pushed open the door, and looked in. He noticed the tiny desks and chairs, the one adult-sized table at the front of the class. Chairs like these had once held his body but now would not even fit one of his legs. The tables were more like stools, and the students’ cubbies, lined with their coats, hats, gloves, and backpacks, now couldn’t even fit his bag. The play area in the back of the room was covered with a thick rug, cornered off by shelves filled with woodblocks and books. The top of the shelves reached only to Warrior’s waist. Warrior remembered reaching high for books. He remembered playing games with brotherman, tossing wooden blocks at targets. He remembered boredom descending, and the games finally ending with the two of them throwing the blocks at each other. As Warrior’s eyes moved around the room, recalling those days, he heard a man clear his throat behind him.
The security guard was an older man with a smiling face and a large belly. He held a cup of coffee in one hand, and a clipboard with rumpled sheets of paper under his other arm. From the drooping belt that hung under his overflowing stomach swung a giant key ring that seemed to have enough keys on it to unlock every known lock in the school, and also those long-forgotten, buried, and unknown. His voice told of Southern roots.
“Can I help ya, son?” the man asked, his accent reminding Warrior of his grandfather’s.
“I’m here to get my sister’s medical form from the clinic, and I started lookin’ around,” Warrior said.
“Well the clinic is right down the back stairs, through the doors, and make yourself a left,” the guard said, pointing through the walls.
“Yeah, I know where it is. I just stopped to look at their artwork,” Warrior said.
“It’s somethin’, ain’t it?” remarked the guard. “Seems like every child has art talent when they young. They little, but they got stories to tell,” said the guard.
“That’s the truth. I haven’t seen any of my sister’s pieces, but I still can’t take my eyes off the walls.”
“I know what ya mean, son, some days I spend my lunch hour just walkin’ the halls, lookin’ at they work. I reckon that’s one a the reasons I like workin’ here. Anytime I start fixin’ to leave this place, somethin’ always keeps me. Figure it might be the children,” said the guard as he looked at the walls.
“Might be,” said Warrior. “Might be.”
The guard brought his eyes down from the walls looked at Warrior and asked, “So what’d ya say your sister’s name was?” Warrior gave the man her name, and the guard laughed as his belly shook.
“Oh yeah! She’s a right cute one. Always runnin’ ’roun’ here, lookin’ to git inna some’in’. Cute as can be! Reminds me a my grandbaby.” The man looked past Warrior, remembering his own granddaughter’s face.
“Yeah, that’s my sister. Mine,” said Warrior.
The guard returned his thoughts to Warrior. “Well you go ahead and look aroun’, and take care now, son, hear?” The guard smiled, and as Warrior watched, he moved on down the hallway. His keys jingled on his hip, and the sound of his deep, low voice filled the air. He hummed the notes to a long-sung spiritual, and the rhythms bounced off the walls, echoing in Warrior’s ears.
As Warrior walked slowly from the train station to his schoo
l, he remembered how he had felt about school days when he was younger. He would wake every morning and choose a special outfit for the day, usually mixing bright colors that didn’t match. He would dress quickly, eat breakfast, and run down the staircase of his Brooklyn brownstone. He would meet brotherman at the foot of his stoop, and the two of them would run off to school, a whole new day of adventure in front of them.
In those days, school was exciting and new. It was your job to play, and playing taught invaluable lessons for life. In those days, Warrior felt that he was learning something in school, but not anymore. Now school was monotonous. Warrior felt he was learning pointless information that he would never use, and it definitely was not fun. Now he learned his true lessons through the countless books he read, the discussions with his mother and father, the wisdom passed down from elders he knew, and the education that comes with living. His school didn’t care enough to teach him. They seemed concerned with order, rules, state tests, and statistics.
Warrior walked up the many stone steps to the school and entered through the front doors. It was the middle of second period, and the hallways were empty. He walked to his locker and opened the padlock. As he hung his coat on the hook, Warrior noticed the letter he had grabbed from the counter before leaving home sticking out of the coat pocket. He turned it over and saw that it was from brotherman. Warrior quickly threw his books into his bag, shut his locker, and walked to one of the few quiet areas by the gym, below the offices, a place he often went to think. He sat down on the steps and opened the letter. A cold breeze from the large open window above him blew against his face. He was not the first to open the envelope. It had been unsealed already, and read by the prison censors. It was marked with their stamp. The postmark showed that the censor’s meddling had delayed the letter for over a week. Warrior unfolded the letter and entered brotherman’s world.
Dear Warrior,
My trial is coming up, and I’m starting to get nervous. I know that they have no case, but that means nothing. They might convince the jury that it’s illegal in this state to assault a blue soldier’s stick with a Black skull. Or they might convince them that my teeth committed felonious assault against the soldier’s gun. You never know. Nothing would surprise me anymore. They’ve already had me behind these bars for months now. The charge? Gettin’ my Black ass beat. The law ain’t nothing but our guillotine.
I gotta get outta here soon, Warrior. There’s too much ugliness in this place. You surround a man with ugliness like this for long enough, some of it’s gonna rub off. A man can’t drink and breathe pollution, and remain clean. I’m surrounded by hatred and brutality, and I can feel the rage growing inside of me. My blood is flowing with violence. I know that that is just what they want. That they want me to strike out, to give ’em cause. And I will not be their creation. They brutalize for the sake of brutalizing. I can see it in their eyes, how much they enjoy pushing me to the edge. If I respond in kind, they win. I’m not gonna have that.
I’m trying to maintain. To stay on the path. But they’ve turned it into a gauntlet, and it’s hard not to stumble. I don’t remember so many of the turns anymore. It’s like I’m trying to find my way through darkness. It is the darkness that breeds hatred. With the hatred comes violence. I know the way. But it is so tempting to turn into them.
Remember the bears in the zoo, Warrior? Remember how when we were little kids it was our favorite place, until we saw them that time. Then we didn’t like it so much anymore. I keep seeing those bears, I keep hearing their cries. I gotta get out, Warrior. My head is constantly pounding, I hear the voices whispering. I can’t spend the rest of my life in a cage.
love,
brotherman
Warrior finished the letter and sat on the cold, hard steps, staring out the open window. He crumpled the envelope of the letter in his fist and threw it out the window, its weight fighting the force of the breeze. He gently folded the letter in half, and then in half again, pressed down the edges firmly, and placed the letter in his shirt pocket. The bell for third period sounded, and Warrior reached up and grabbed the banister of the stairs, pulling himself up. He threw his bag across his shoulder and walked to English class.
The classroom was bright, and the radiators were furiously hissing as steam rose through the metal pipes. Warrior walked to the back of the room acknowledging no one. He fell into a chair in the last row and immediately moved his eyes to the window. Some of his classmates gossiped, drew on their desks, or flirted with each other, while a few tried to make eye contact with Warrior. Their attempts rejected, the students simply added this latest rejection to a list of many, engraving their image of Warrior in stone. He did not care what image they carved, his mind was in distant places, and they were still busy being here and acting like young children.
Warrior listened to the shrill whistle of the radiator, and felt the first beads of sweat trickle down his neck. The metal chairs of the classroom were too narrow for Warrior’s broad back, and the sides of the chair dug into his shoulder blades. As he sat, sweating, he looked out at the trees—their branches stripped bare by the wind. He heard, somewhere, the sound of the teacher’s voice greeting the class, and their mumbled replies of “Good morning.” The teacher spoke, her voice calling off the names of students, and Warrior’s eyes remained on the trees.
“. . . Warrior? Is he here? Oh yes, there he is. Warrior? Warrior, are you with us?” The teacher’s voice cut through Warrior’s thoughts, and he turned his eyes toward her.
“Here,” Warrior replied, through hardened eyes.
“Please try to stay with us, Warrior. This is class time you know?” The teacher spoke while looking down from above her glasses.
“Yes. I know it’s class time,” replied Warrior as the teacher continued her roll call. Warrior shifted in his seat and began to sweat harder. Again he listened to the radiator, its whistle far more interesting to him than the teacher’s daily ritual. Warrior listened for a while, until the teacher’s voice broke through once more.
“Now what we are going to do today is to work on our writing, using the autobiographical form. I want each of you to write a statement in the next thirty minutes that tells a little something about yourself. I want you to tell me who you are. Any questions?”
Warrior laughed.
“Yes, Warrior?” the teacher asked. “What seems to be the problem?”
“Why do you think that I’d want to tell you anything about me? You really think I care if you know who I am? You can’t handle who I am. We come from two completely different places, you could never understand my world.” Warrior stared at the teacher.
“Well, why don’t you try to tell me a little bit about your world? Try to make me understand this complicated place,” the teacher said.
“What about you? Are you gonna tell us about who you are? Are you gonna show me ‘a little bit’ of your world?” Warrior asked, his head tilted to the side.
“I am not the student here, Warrior, you are. I have a choice, you do not. Answer the question,” the teacher said, raising her voice.
“You’re asking for personal information. You’re asking us to open up to you, to let you inside our minds, and I don’t have enough time to show you that place. And then you won’t even give us the respect of allowing us the same insight into yours. That seems—” Warrior’s words were cut off by the teacher’s.
“That’s too bad, now isn’t it? Now the question is ‘Who are you?’ Answer the question, however you may like. If you want to consider the exercise one of me looking into your mind, so be it. Just do it,” the teacher said, taking off her glasses while she spoke.
“Fine,” Warrior said, “but you might not like what you see.” He opened up his notebook and tore out a piece of paper. He wrote his name and the date in the upper left-hand corner, and then stared down at the blank sheet. Drops of sweat fell onto the page. Warrior wiped the wetness from his forehead, but that only caused more drops to fall. As he sat there, sweating, the
words came.
All of our souls contain rage. It is in our music, it is in our walk, it is in our blood. There are those who say, ‘But some continue to smile.’ Our souls are made of many layers. Be assured: We wear masks, you do not see the rage in our eyes. I recently met an elder who asked me how old I was. Before I could answer he said, “Seventeen.” When I looked surprised, he said simply, “I can tell because your eyes are full of anger.” Our eyes reflect our souls.
You want to know what I am? Look beneath the mask. You want to know what I have seen? Look into my eyes. You want to know why I am so loud? They have tried to silence my voice since I came out screaming. When I was born the white nurse handed me to my mother with the words, “Here is your screaming little Black Panther.” So you want to know why I carry a chip on my shoulder, why I walk so strong, and wear such a tightened jaw? You walk to live, I walk to survive. The names we wear tell stories of death.
You ask me who I am? I tell you I don’t know. I am not supposed to survive; I am supposed to die. You see, my brothers are disappearing. Countless numbers of them march in the army of the dead. I do not want to walk with them, I avoid my destiny, and so I serve as witness. If you were to go to our graveyard and ask all those with hearts filled with rage to scream, the sound emanating from beneath the ground would be deafening. Each day, more voices scream. Each day, more soldiers fall. Each day, roll call lists another name. Each day, another part of me, dies. Who am I? I am seventeen. I am Black. I am barely alive.
Warrior finished writing just as his hand began to cramp. He shook the cramp out, flinging more moisture on the page, making the ink run. He stood up suddenly from his seat, grabbed his bag, and walked to the teacher’s desk at the front of the class. He thrust the page at her, turned his back, and walked out of the classroom. As he walked through the door, the teacher called to him.
Passage Page 8
