Blue soldiers sped by, their car sirens blasting. Bottles were thrown, glass shattered, and somewhere close by, gunshots rang out. Warrior looked down the street and saw that the soldiers were running, trying to find the shooter. The street was deserted, and so Warrior quickly ran up the steps. The door of the building was boarded up with thick plywood and chained shut, but the wood that covered one of the windows on the ground floor had been destroyed by the storm. A few thick splinters of frozen wood still hung from the top of the window. Warrior kicked them in and stepped through the building. The drums were pounding now, the speaker’s hand beating them, urgently.
The room was damp, it stank of urine and burnt charcoal-scarred wood. A thick layer of crushed brick covered the floor. On top of this layer were the littered remnants of broken needles and empty glass vials. There was a sound of crunching as Warrior moved through the room. From the ceiling, a loose light socket hung from its frayed cord; Warrior saw discarded clothes and a soiled mattress, remnants of someone’s home. The stench of the place made Warrior dizzy, and he moved toward the back of the building to another room.
This room was even darker, but it had cleaner air. It had not been used so often, and it smelled musty, like a house sealed for too long. Warrior stumbled against a pile of dry bricks and broken wood that lay in the center of the room, and he sat down on the pile, surrounded by darkness.
As he rested, Warrior could still hear the faint sounds of the sirens, their hum seeping through the cracks in the old building. He could also hear voices coming from the roof—they sounded like screams, but by now he couldn’t tell anymore. As most of the sounds from the outside melted away, the wolves and the beating of the drums remained, and Warrior sat there, listening.
It was some time later when Warrior felt the hand. At first it just rested on his shoulder, but then, as Warrior turned violently drawing back, it reached out and gently touched his face. Warrior brought his head back, but the hand remained. Warrior could now feel the hand was that of a child. It was so small. The tiny fingers were soft as a baby’s skin, and they caressed Warrior’s features, touching, sensing, remembering. The fingers sought answers. They brushed across Warrior’s eyes, his nose, his lips, as if the face belonged to the hand. The fingers knew every rise, every depression.
The child then took Warrior’s hand and spread his fingers, making Warrior touch the unseen face. Warrior could only tell that the face belonged to a small boy. His fingers glided over the fat baby cheeks and the broad, wide nose. His hand felt the head of the child and found that no hair grew there, only the faintest feel of stubble, the smoothness of a head shaved repeatedly. He could feel the child’s pulse beating and was surprised that it beat so slow. In the darkness, surrounded by blue soldiers and the sounds, Warrior’s heart beat fast, but here, in this place, the boy’s pulse beat as slow as time moves on a blistering Southern day. The boy took Warrior’s hand from his head and brought Warrior’s fingers down to his opened eyelids. Warrior tried to bring back his hand, not wanting to injure the child’s eyes, but before he could, Warrior’s own eyes closed in recognition. The child had no eyes.
The boy took Warrior’s hand and led him out of the dark room. They walked toward the dimly lit staircase that rose up from the floor at the center of the building. The storm window up on the roof had long ago been shattered, and the light of dusk shone down, illuminating the stairwell with gray hues. As they climbed the rickety staircase, the boy leading, Warrior following, the voices on the roof became clearer, and Warrior knew they were screams. The boy’s hand gripped two of Warrior’s fingers tightly, leading Warrior up the stairs toward the voices. The staircase was made of wood and had been eaten away by years of erosion. As the boy held on to Warrior, Warrior felt for the first time that the boy was pressing—whatever lay at the top of the stairs was important, and the boy was insistent that Warrior follow. He allowed the boy to lead him, content to see what lay ahead, moving to the urgent call of the drums.
Out on the roof, Warrior’s eyes scanned the tops of the nearby buildings and looked up into the sky, becoming accustomed to the dull light that surrounded him. It was the kind of light found toward the end of dusk, right before nightfall. The kind of light that offered plenty of hiding places for shadows. The roof seemed empty, but Warrior noticed deep tracks in the snow; men had walked here and had dragged someone with them. Then, from the other side of the roof, Warrior heard the screams. He picked the boy up in his arms, lifting him high above the snowdrifts that reached past Warrior’s waist and above the boy’s head, and ran through the snow in the direction of the screams.
The woman was bloodied and bruised, but the hardness in her eyes told a tale that her body did not. She had struggled and though the men had just overcome her, they knew they had been in a battle; that they had warred. They had her body bent over one of the exhaust pipes of the incinerator, her jacket, violently ripped from her, lay discarded in the snow, and her dress was shredded. One man held her down, and the other stood behind her, his hands reaching up under her dress. Warrior took the boy from his arms and placed him down in the snow. His jaw tightened and his eyes closed to near slits as he looked at the woman’s face. The man whose hands held her down was pushing the side of her head into the metal pipe. Her face was turned toward Warrior, and her eyes watched him, silently. Warrior gritted his teeth and breathed in deeply, one word flooding his mind:
No . . .
Warrior was on top of the men before they even saw him. He threw the one who was holding the woman off her with such force that as he stumbled to regain his footing, his head smashed into the brick wall and he fell down, unconscious. Warrior grabbed the other man whose hand had been under the woman’s dress, gripped him by his coat, lifted him in the air, and slammed his head down onto the metal pipe. Warrior was so close to the man that he could smell the sweat frozen on the man’s skin, and could see in his cold eyes that had so recently been filled with power but now were glazed, full of fear. He lifted him up and carried him toward the roof’s edge. The man feebly attempted to fight Warrior’s grip, but it was fastened with iron, and there was no freedom to be found from these chains. As Warrior held the man high in the air, he heard the woman’s voice from behind him.
“No. He’s mine.” Her words were spoken slowly, making them that much more dangerous. Warrior turned around, still holding the man’s body, and looked at the woman.
The brown skin of her face was bloodied, and one eye was badly swollen, but her long and powerful body moved with strength and purpose. She came over toward Warrior, and without even looking in his direction she took the man from his arms. Her face was set in a stiff mask as blood slowly dripped down one of her high, chiseled cheekbones. The only thing that the mask could not cover was the fierce line of her tightened lips. The man she held had ceased to struggle as soon as she had gripped him, knowing that now his fate was sealed. As she looked the man in his face one last time, Warrior swore that he saw her lips turn ever so slightly into a smile. The woman thrust the man out over the roof, his feet hanging in the cold air, and then she released him. The man fell down toward the dark alley below, his brief cries ending suddenly.
The woman stood at the roof’s edge for a long time, doing nothing but looking down. Her body was completely still, her head bowed, as she looked into the darkness of the alley. Finally, her searching done, the woman brought her head up, turned around, and looked at Warrior. She made no sound, but she was crying, the tears running down her blood-streaked face. She walked slowly over to Warrior and took his hand. She looked into his eyes and said, through a taut jaw, “Yes.”
She walked away, stopping only to pick up her torn jacket. As she moved toward the staircase that led from the roof, she walked through Warrior’s footprints in the snow. She passed by the boy who was still standing in the spot where Warrior had placed him, and though she was close enough to reach out and touch him, she walked right by as if she could not see him. After the woman disappeared from Warrior’s
sight, the boy walked slowly toward Warrior and took hold of his hand, wrapping his own hand around his fingertips. Solemnly, he led Warrior to the edge of the roof and then stopped, releasing Warrior’s hand.
When Warrior reached the edge, he saw that the man who had been thrown by the woman was hanging on, nearly twenty feet down, grasping a piece of metal that jutted out from the building, slowly slipping on its icy surface. The man looked up at Warrior.
“Please . . . please?” the man pleaded as he slipped further.
The boy reached up as the man spoke and took hold of Warrior’s hand. Suddenly, Warrior’s mind was filled with visions. He saw brotherman lying in a pool of blood on the street. He heard the sounds of brotherman’s skull breaking and his teeth being shattered by the barrel of a gun. He was a man. Warrior saw a boy filled with the wonder of new sights and visions, a boy who looked out at the world with innocence. Then Warrior saw darkness. He saw a boy with beautiful brown eyes that served as guides to undiscovered dreams. Then Warrior saw nothing. Warrior saw the back of a blue soldier’s car, and feet pounding away at a child’s face. He saw blood everywhere. He was a boy. Warrior saw a shadow taking the hand of a lost girl, leading her into a darkened alley. She would be his meal. He heard her moans, desperate sounds of pain and confusion. He felt her fear and she wondered where her mother was. She was a girl. Warrior saw a woman’s brown skin against the snow. She was bent over a pipe, her body exhausted from the struggle. The violation so extreme he felt as the madness descended on her. She was a woman.
As the visions left Warrior, he looked down at the boy. The boy tilted his head back and turned his face toward Warrior. Then, the boy slowly opened his shut eyelids and showed Warrior where his eyes had once been. Warrior looked into the raw, empty holes, and the rage flowed. He could only hear beating drums. How can someone do this to another human body? Warrior stood there, watching, as the man slowly lost his grip on the icy metal.
“Please. You have to help me,” again he pleaded, his hands almost at the end of the broken pipe.
Warrior gently placed his hand on the head of the boy who now stood in front of him, leaning against Warrior’s legs. And they watched.
The man fell into the darkness below. They sat together in the snow, until the last remnants of the sun’s light had faded away, until the moon shone brightly in the night’s sky. In silence, they looked down at the chaos that still filled the streets, and at the occasional calm that descended, its stillness filled only with darting shadows. They heard the screams, the crackling radios of blue soldiers, and the sirens. They heard the voices calling out, and they heard the wailing of the wolves. Warrior and the boy watched and listened.
Once again Warrior stood on the steps of the stoop and blood ran through the street, like a river. He stood alone, the boy having disappeared as they walked down the stairs from the rooftop. They had walked through the darkness, the boy once again leading the way, clenching Warrior’s hand, guiding him. As they reached the foot of the stairs, the boy released Warrior’s hand. Warrior called out to the boy, blindly stumbling through the rubble-filled rooms, but there was no use. The boy was gone. Now, Warrior stood alone on the stoop as the river of blood flowed past him.
The wolves were all around him, lining the bank of the river. Warrior thought for a moment they had come to feed, to drink from its depths until he heard one sustained howl, one wolf crying out desperately, and for the first time, Warrior truly heard the call. The wolf was not crying out for food, he was being held captive, and seeing the river’s powerful current, he was deciding whether he would be carried away to his long-de-sired freedom. The wolves had never been searching for food, they had never been following Warrior out of hunger, they were being driven by the demons, the same ones who endlessly tracked Warrior The wolves were crying out for their release.
Warrior heard the bottomless laugh of the claw, and as he listened to the laugh, he heard the whip of the claw’s demon kin descend, driving the wolves from the river’s edge. They had come to witness the chaos that was their creation. As his pack fled at the cracking of the whip, the lone, howling wolf pointed his nose toward the sky and let out one last haunted cry—then leapt into the bloody river. As Warrior watched the river’s current carry the wolf away, he was overcome by the sound of drums that beat violently, almost too fast, and as the speaker’s hands struck them, they screamed.
Warrior ran. He ran from the sight of the river and from the sound of the wolves who once again were locked in their cage. He ran from the demons who called after him with whispers, laughing, mocking,
Run, Warrior, run . . . run . . . run . . .
He ran past the blue soldiers and their red and blue swirling lights, paying no mind to their calls to stop, his powerful legs carrying him quickly out of their reach. He ran through snowbanks, over shattered glass, and past burning buildings. He ran through dark blocks, turning corners blindly, staying close to the buildings, away from the streetlights, in the shadows. As he ran, he pulled up his black hood over his already covered head, and melted into the darkness. He ran past alleys, and past buildings out of which poured music. Past night walkers, past still open corner stores, past children playing in the snow, and the elders who watched them from windows, Warrior ran. He ran, and ran, and ran.
He reached a subway station, grabbed hold of the railing, and fled down the stairs. His chest heaving, the sweat feeling good on his chilled skin, Warrior looked down the tracks, and seeing the two bright white lights winding through the darkened tunnel, he breathed deeply, relieved that the train was coming. When it came to a stop in front of him, the doors opened, and he walked into the empty train and sat down. He pulled his hood on tighter, the sides serving as blinders, hiding his face from other eyes. He tried to quiet the pounding in his head and his heavy breathing, but it was no use. The train snaked out of the station and sped toward Brooklyn.
Warrior stepped inside the brownstone, then turned to shut the mighty oakwood door behind him. It was warm inside, and Warrior could hear all of the familiar sounds that filled the house. He could hear his father moving around, upstairs, most likely searching through the unending piles of books, records, and song sheets that littered the floor or, filing through the two massive steel file cabinets whose towering presence rose up from the floor to the ceiling. Within its deep drawers were old family photographs, childhood drawings, school report cards, long ago sent letters, deeds to Southern lands, and freedom papers—all the carefully kept history of a family. Warrior heard his father moving around and imagined him sitting at the foot of one of the files, surrounded by yellowed papers, remembering.
The sound that was heard above all others, the one that claimed the air, was, as usual, music, or as his father always said, “voice.” This night, the word was being passed by Coltrane. His horn told tales of worlds only he had seen, worlds others doubted even existed, but Trane knew. Warrior walked up the stairs to the second floor, leaning heavily on the banister. As he moved, he heard Trane, and the drums that filled his own ears joined the cry of the horn in kinship, sharing a conversation that some had named, a name Warrior had no need for, having long ago decided just to listen. His father was playing his favorite piece of music, one that merged love and the sanctified, two songs that merged into one, “Pursuance” and “Psalm,” from the spiritual journey called A Love Supreme. Warrior knew it well.
He walked into what had once been his room, and felt peaceful—though the walls were bare, all of his possessions having been moved to Harlem. For him, this room was still the deepest part of home. Even in its starkness, it held many memories, it felt safe and familiar. The dark-stained furniture was the same, the walls were still winter green, the old, thick brown drapes hung low, sealing off all light from outside, and the bedspread made of the same material, but a more earthy shade of dusty red brown, still covered the small, sunken bed. At the head of the bed, on the night table, was the one picture that remained. It had been taken the day Warrior’s mother had come h
ome with his sister from the hospital. His mother was in her bed, dressed in a white nightgown, tired but glowing, holding her daughter against her breast with one arm, as Warrior’s father, smiling from ear to ear, lay on the bed with her, one hand resting gently on his daughter’s head, one wrapped around his wife. Warrior was not looking at the camera, stared wide-eyed at his sister, leaning on the end of the bed, his mother’s hand in his.
Warrior took off his jeans and his sweatshirt, keeping his undershirt on. Earlier in the day, the cold had given him a deep chill and he still hadn’t recovered; in fact, it had gotten worse, now he was shivering. The room was warm, since his father always kept the heat on high, so warm that it felt almost damp as the heat fought the cold that raged just outside the windows. He closed the door, needing silence. He pulled back the cover and climbed into bed. As he lay in the dark room, his lungs heaved, desperately seeking air. In the silence, he heard only the sounds of the beating of the drums. The speaker’s hands had lost control, and the drums pulsed wildly. There was no rhythm. No order. No time.
CHAPTER 7
Warrior’s father, surrounded by his papers, had fallen asleep on the couch. He had spent hours reconstructing the family tree, the passing years having stolen some of the names and stories from his memory. He needed the memories of family elders in order to extend back to the years before Emancipation, but even they hadn’t known all of the history of past generations, slavery having erased dates and names. Through the night, he struggled to reclaim those lost in name, and to restore the ties of blood that had been dissolved by time. When his eyes had grown weary, Warrior’s father had simply closed them and slowly faded into a deep sleep, his prone body covered by papers, his mind having gone somewhere else, captivated by the world of Trane that floated through the speakers on the second floor.
Passage Page 12
