Gripping onto his steering wheel, Senior stared ahead as officers asked him for his license and registration. Without warning, he leaned backward to reach down into his pocket as officers placed their hands on top of their service weapons.
“You just asked for my license,” he said. “Now, do you want the motherfucka or not?”
“Take it easy, pal,” the cop said.
“Fuck you,” Senior shot back. “You take it easy. This is bullshit.”
“C’mon Daddy, stop!” said Junior. “Just give ‘em the license so we can go home. Mom is waitin’ on us.”
Exhaling, Senior reached into his wallet and handed the officer his driver’s license.
“Be right back,” the cop said as he and his co-workers disappeared between the sea of blue and red lights.
Looking back, Junior watched as his daddy puffed on a cigarette and waited for them to return with a citation for speeding, unmoved by the event. Five minutes later, the officer returned and issued Senior $200 worth of tickets. Quoting every scripture in the Pennsylvania State Traffic Law, the officer explained the citations to Senior and handed over his ticket book and a pen for him to sign with. Scanning, looking, Junior noticed the words seemed foreign to Senior as he attempted to read the fine print. The cop became a smartass, telling Senior that he didn’t have all night and demanding him to sign the citation or face arrest.
Panicking, Junior offered to help.
“Here Daddy, let me help. I think here it’s saying that—”
“Dammit, Junior!” Senior interrupted. “Let me do this!” he hollered.
Pitifully, Junior watched as his father struggled to interpret the issued citation. He watched a side-eye as Senior traced the ticket word for word using his index finger. The rookie cop raised his eyebrow at Senior before looking over at Junior. The cop then looked over at his squadron of oppressors as they covered their pompous smirks and looked at one another, realizing what they had in front of him. It then became immediately apparent to Junior: Senior, for all his handyman, tough-guy talk, was illiterate. Sweat trickled from his forehead as he stared down at the citation helplessly, his eyes scrambling across the printed ticket looking for a miracle. Impatient, the officers began patronizing Senior, treating him like a runaway slave desperate to find his way north.
“Uh…you sure you don’t need an interpreter or something?” the cop asked.
The officers standing around Senior’s truck all laughed. Ignoring his outburst from earlier, Junior intervened to spare his father further embarrassment.
“Just sign right there on the line.” Junior pointed. “It’s saying you were speeding. We’ll take it back to Mom; she can talk to you about it later.”
With the officer’s pen, Senior quickly scribbled his signature on the line and handed the officer’s ticket book back to him, relieved. The officer, still attempting to contain himself amongst his colleagues, removed Senior’s copy and placed it onto his dashboard.
“Have a good night.” He grinned before eventually driving off along with his buddies.
After the stop, Junior sat looking over at Senior as he reached for his car keys from the roof of his truck and cranked the engine. He couldn’t believe that his father was illiterate, not after seeing his beautiful illustrations earlier in the week. Anger brewed inside his daddy as the feeling of embarrassment and inadequacy overtook him. As Junior tried consoling his father, Senior lashed out, burying Junior for interfering in the stop.
“You should’ve let me handle it!” he barked. “You had no business gettin’ in the middle of that. Th’fuck is your problem, Junior? Huh?”
“I was just trying to help, Daddy,” he apologized. “Sorry. I didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”
“I don’t need your help! I can sign my own goddamn ticket!”
For the remainder of the ride back to Kennedy Street, Junior sat in silence.
They enslaved us for 400 years. Gave us new names.
Raped our mothers. Raped our fathers.
Whipped us for running. Whipped us for dreaming.
Whipped us for reading.
Then sold us away.
Whipped us for running. Whipped us for dreaming.
Whipped us for reading.
Stole our dreams. Stole our opportunities. Stole our future.
And then called us ignorant niggers.
LEONARD G. ROBINSON
Never Seen a Man Cry
Ashamed of his illiteracy, Senior escaped down to the basement where he remained for the night. Junior, believing he was at fault, summoned Sandy to his bedroom for advice.
“I didn’t mean it, Ma,” he said. “I was just trying to help. If I thought Daddy would’ve got angry, I wouldn’t have said anything. I didn’t know.”
Sandy looked down at the citation issued to Senior earlier that evening and sat next to Junior on his bed.
“It’s not your fault,” she said. “It’s my fault. I should’ve told you.”
Sitting on his bed, Junior heard a sound coming from the vent on the floor. He sat closer to the vent, listening: it was his daddy, crying in the basement.
As Sandy headed down to check on Senior, Junior waited a few minutes to pass before tip-toeing to the top of the basement stairway to hear his mother smoothing things over with Senior. It was the first time Junior had ever seen a man cry, and the first time he’d seen his father succumb to anything in fourteen years. Before his cover was blown, he headed back upstairs to his bedroom to write and allow for Sandy to work her magic on Senior. Unlike most nights when Junior’s parents cussed and traded insults, that night they put on the show of a quality marriage of two partners who understood one another. Later, when the dust settled, Sandy returned to Junior’s bedroom to allow Senior time to recoup from earlier.
“Everything OK?” asked Junior, concerned.
Sandy rolled her eyes.
“So, what’d you write tonight?” she asked, switching topics. “Anything good?”
Junior switched expressions. “What?” he laughed. “Man, all my stuff is good!”
He handed his journal over for Sandy to read.
I no a lot of people so that I won’t know a lot of people.
LEONARD G. ROBINSON JR.
“Whew! Too deep!” she applauded him. “I’d be careful with that one!”
“For what? So far, everyone I’ve run across in Brooke’s Rowe has been against me.”
Sandy then handed Junior back his journal.
“Everyone?” she asked. “As I said, I’d be careful with that one. We all need somebody in this world, Junior. Everybody. Including you.”
Sandy left, allowing Junior to marinate on her wisdom.
Plant a seed, water it, and birth a tree.
But some young seeds
don’t get the nutrients they need.
Instead, they get forgotten
by other forgotten seeds.
—LEONARD G. ROBINSON JR.
Four
The brakes on Sandy’s Buick Skylark whined as her car came to a stop, alerting the world that Junior had arrived for his first day of school. With his loaded backpack over his shoulder, Junior stepped out of his mother’s car and looked over at the tatted brick outside of Medgar Evers Secondary School for his first day. Next to the school’s namesake was the weathered mural of the prominent Civil Rights Activist. Stenciled beneath the iconic hero were his eternal words, “You can kill a man, but you can’t kill an idea.” When Junior had first gotten his library card the year before, he had happened upon an article about Medgar Evers, left on the computer by a visitor. Junior stared at the dilapidated building as he trudged toward the entrance behind Sandy, anxiously. He wondered how the city could allow a school named after such a powerful man to go to hell in the two decades since the school had been built.
That day in the library, Junior had learned about Evers: born Medgar Wiley Evers on July 2, 1925, in Decatur, Mississippi, Evers rose to prominence as the First State Field Representative for th
e NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). Before his untimely death, he had fought for the equal rights of African-Americans and, like his contemporaries, became a target for white supremacists. On June 12, 1963, upon returning to his Jackson, Mississippi home, Evers was assassinated in his driveway after returning from an NAACP meeting.
The closer to the building Junior got, the more nervous he became. His stomach filled with the same butterflies as when he and his family had first moved to Brooke’s Rowe last fall. He walked with his head pointed down at the ground. Occasionally, Junior would look up to acknowledge the mural of Medgar Evers painted on the wall with other contemporary trailblazers Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, as well as a picture of Jesus Christ with his arms around Emmitt Till. Beneath the mural on the sidewalk, however, was an unfortunate picture: a group of truants skipping dice across the asphalt.
As Sandy led the way, Junior lagged behind her embarrassed. Near the door, he peeked at the boys shooting craps and quickly turned away before they could make eye contact with him. By then, it was too late. They sized Junior up immediately, taking shots at him as he followed behind Sandy like a sheltered puppy trying to keep up with its owner. Intimidated, Junior raised the hood to his thrift store windbreaker over his head and stuffed his hands inside his pockets. As Sandy approached the door to Medgar, she looked back to see her son slouching along and scolded him for his defeatist manner.
“Hey!” she whispered to him. “Pick your head up! Take those hands out of your pockets and walk like you come from someplace. You ain’t no damn bum!”
As the boys continued their tomfoolery, Sandy turned to survey the boys picking on her son. Unimpressed, she stood there looking at them.
“Man, let’s just go inside,” said Junior. “C’mon, Ma.”
Sandy didn’t budge as the jokes from the dice shooters continued. They went from picking on Junior to ribbing on Sandy. They got on her postal service outfit and beatdown Buick Skylark parked at the bottom of the lot. One of the boys took it a step further. Disrespectful, he claimed to be Junior’s biological daddy. It triggered Junior, but not enough to take on four boys all twice his size, if not bigger. But Sandy, who’d lived the better part of forty years on Philly’s north side, could give a damn about a group of young punks tumbling dice and their corner-store criticism. Unafraid, she pushed the door to Medgar closed and walked over to the group, and stood in the middle of their dice game.
“Yeah, real cute.” Sandy kicked at the dice. “Now, which one of y’all can tell me something about those people over there on that mural, and fast – ‘cause I got to work, and I ain’t got time to be out here bullshittin’ with a bunch of low-life niggas like y’all.”
Disoriented by her boldness, the boys looked at each other, fumbling for words as they deliberated, mixing up their ancestors’ names and accomplishments. Junior was stunned at Sandy, but at the same time, not surprised. She was fearless, and in her years as a mail carrier had fought off dogs and once leveled a man who had tried to rob her. She was old school and built differently than most of the so-called troublemakers lurking around their hometown.
As the boys fished for answers, Junior’s mother turned to look back at him, shaking her head in disgust at the uninformed miscreants as they struggled for clarity.
“My, my, my,” Sandy sang. “So, what do we have here? Are you serious? Y’all should be ashamed of yourselves. Ignorance for black history is the fruit of white supremacy. That’s why y’all killin’ each other now! And y’all gonna keep on killin’ each other, too! And that’s why twenty-five years from now, y’all kids are gonna keep getting killed by racist white cops and you ain’t gonna do a goddamn thing about it,” she continued as Junior stood at the door to Medgar chewing anxiously on the string to his jacket. Embarrassed, one of the boys reached into his jacket as if he was gonna pull out a gun or a knife, and Sandy called his bluff.
“Go ‘head, shoot! Go’on! Kill me!” She threw her arms out to the side. “That’s all you niggas good for anyway. Or, what you can do, is pick those dice up off my sidewalk and take your asses inside that school – cause I’m payin’ for it. Where your mommas at? Y’all need one!”
The boys each looked at each other and over at Junior. Three of the boys did as Sandy ordered, and one walked off. Sandy then returned to Junior at the door to Medgar, disgust painted on her face, hidden behind a smirk of victory as she continued inside. Once in the foyer next to the main office, Junior’s momma grabbed him by the arm, jacking him next to the wall.
“Do you know the people on that mural out there, Junior?” she asked.
“Yes,” he exerted.
“Good. You better.”
Inside the main office, Junior and Sandy saw Medgar’s principal, Mr. Thomas Levy. His collared shirt was fastened together with a cheap, red clip-on tie around his wide neck as he waddled around his office like an intoxicated duck. His protruding belly hung over his shirt and the sleeves to his suit extended down to his fingertips. He was the tackiest principal Junior had ever seen. On the outside, he resembled the look of a pedophile or chronic porn user who’d struggled all his life with dating. As both Junior and Sandy waited for him to make copies of his paperwork, he slithered throughout the office like a crooked salesman. At one point during the meeting, he reached across the table to shake Junior’s hand. Junior looked down into the dry, scabby palm of Mr. Levy’s hand and hesitantly shook it. The principal’s dehydrated hand felt like open sores and sandpaper; Junior gagged. Not to mention, Mr. Levy gave a flaccid shake. Junior then remembered what Senior had once told him about a man with a weak handshake. “If a man ever gives you a weak handshake, watch ‘em!” said Senior, “He’s probably fixin’ to kill you later.” Mr. Levy then smiled into Junior’s face, showing the top row of coffee-colored teeth, with pastry plaque wedged around his gumline. As Mr. Levy went to shake Sandy’s hand, she returned a fist bump.
Despite his sleaziness and cheap clip-on tie, Mr. Levy, for what it was worth, appeared to be quite the accomplished scholar, Junior noticed. On the wall inside of his office was his Master’s and Bachelor’s Degree from Berkeley College along with several commendations of service from the mayor’s office in Philadelphia. He had also been featured in a March of 1980 New York Times article for developing a mentorship program for disadvantaged youths in Queens, New York. In the picture, Mr. Levy looked nothing like he did in the present day. He was slim, had a head full of hair and pearly white teeth.
Mr. Levy took Junior and Sandy on a brief tour of Medgar which ended on the fourth-floor. As was the case outside, the interior of the building was subpar at best, with graffiti on every floor and scattered patches of mold or smog near the ceiling and around some windows. Some of the windows were so badly rusted that they creaked as Mr. Levy opened them to let a passing breeze of Philly air into the school.
Back inside his office, he blew through Junior’s file in a cheap pair of bifocal reading glasses attached to a bootstring that wrapped behind his ears and meaty head. Meanwhile, as Junior waited on a verdict, he continued to look around the man’s office. He took notice of Mr. Levy’s artifacts, eyeing pictures on his wall of the principal’s past life. According to the photos, Mr. Levy had always had a bubbly neck. Once upon a time, he was a happily married man with two kids – a boy and a girl. As Junior’s eyes continued around the room, the pictures of Mr. Levy’s perfect life were replaced with pictures of just him with his children. Down on Mr. Levy’s desk in front of him was a framed photo of a young boy that resembled him. Beneath the picture was the gold-plated inscription: “Catonsville Boys and Girls Club, 2nd place at Top Batter Award – Elliot “Ellie” Levy. September 1985.” Junior peered into the grainy photo on Mr. Levy’s desk and lifted the frame before Sandy could scold him.
“Is this a picture of your son, sir?” Junior held up the photo.
Mr. Levy looked down at the photo and back up at Junior. In his bi-focal glasses, his eyes
were as big as two tennis balls.
“Was my son, yes,” he said. “Some damn drunk driver hit him on his way home from practice a few years ago. They never found the scumbag who did that.”
Sandy ripped the photo from Junior’s hands and returned it to Mr. Levy’s desk.
“Well, he’s still your son.” She mugged at Junior. “Nothin’ will ever change that.”
Nodding in agreement, Mr. Levy took down Sandy’s contact information and filed it away with Junior’s application. Shortly thereafter, Sandy left for work, leaving Junior in the hands of his new principal and the staff at Medgar.
Black is the skin I reside in.
Love is the language I speak.
Poetry is my air. God is my sun.
Music is my Holy Water.
I am who I am. That’s just how it be.
Let the rest just hate on me.
LEONARD G. ROBINSON JR.
Getting to Know Medgar
Junior’s first day at Medgar was nothing like any first day of school he’d ever had. After Sandy left him, Mr. Levy pointed Junior to an empty cubicle outside of his office. According to Mr. Levy, more than half, it not all, of the school was on a field trip down at the zoo for the day. With few teachers lurking throughout the building, he promised to assign Junior to a staff member.
Around 9 a.m., Junior followed Mr. Levy up to Miss Wallace’s class on the fourth-floor. When they got there, however, the room was pitch black. Next was Mr. Madison in 234, but he requested leave to take his pregnant wife to the doctor. The music teacher, Mrs. Patterson, preferred to use her free day to develop lesson plans and had no intention of being a sit-in for Junior. With the door shut to her room and Junior waiting on the opposite side, she was concerned with more than just developing lesson plans.
“Jesus Christ, Levy!” Junior listened in. “Haven’t you given me enough black students here at Medgar, already?” Junior couldn’t tell which was more disturbing, the fact that Mr. Levy didn’t fire Mrs. Patterson on the spot or that Medgar’s music teacher was darker than him. P.E. teacher Mr. Reid had volunteered to watch Junior but then had a family emergency. Out of options, Junior returned to the empty cubicle outside of Mr. Levy’s office.
Beyond Poetry Page 8