All Day

by Liza Jessie Peterson

  Before I can address the boys, MoMo is back in the room yelling, “Y’all niggaz play too fucking much—niggaz better get up off my phone! Who got my phone, yo?”

  “MoMo! Your yelling is not helping the situation. Go wait outside of the room now! Let me handle this. Go!” I command.

  Of all the girls not to fuck with, it’s MoMo. But the boys get a kick out of pushing her buttons and getting her riled up just to watch the MoMo-go-crazy show. She is their postlunchtime entertainment. Lord have mercy on me. We’ve got guests. I’m cringing, but there’s no time to be embarrassed. I have to go into Sherlock-Kojak mode before MoMo goes beast and we’re all facing Godzilla.

  Her phone was sitting on top of her pocketbook one minute and no sooner than she turned her head to talk to someone, it was gone. Whoever lifted it so blatantly did it in front of others who are clearly in on the joke. But the prank has gone too far and needs to end. We have company, goddammit.

  “All right,” I lay into the boys, “who has her phone? Where is it? I know this is a practical joke, so let’s end it. Joke’s over. Give up the phone, guys.”

  Kadeem sucks his teeth. “Sista Liza, who would want to steal her phone? She got a bum-ass phone, a Sidekick… don’t nobody want her old played-out phone.”

  Marcus agrees. “It ain’t even a phone worth stealing.”

  “Like I said, gentlemen, I don’t think it was stolen, but somebody is playing a prank and it’s time to stop it. It’s not funny anymore and it’s causing a major problem and disruption.”

  Jamel Shabazz is on his laptop quietly sifting through images he’s prepared to show the group while patiently waiting for the whodunit drama to be resolved. While my coworker David has the boys undergoing a voluntary search, emptying their pockets and backpacks one by one in a private office, I’m in another room with MoMo, having her empty her purse, checking every nook and cranny. She empties the contents: comb, brush, lip gloss, iPod, headphones, lotion, cigarettes, wallet, nail polish, keys.

  “Argh, I want my phone! Who got my phone?” she roars in frustration.

  I come up with a eureka idea! “Hey, let’s call your phone.”

  “Sista Liza, my phone is on vibrate!” She’s on the launchpad of going ballistic. MoMo tries to sneak past me to leave the room and confront the boys. In a split-second ninja swerve, I block the door, foiling her escape and potentially saving a life.

  “Sweetheart, they are looking for your phone. We are going to find your phone, baby.” I make a promise I can’t guarantee.

  “I need my phone! Niggaz got my fucking phone and shit is not funny! Lemme out! Aaagh, let me go get my phone from them bum-ass niggaz!” Still screaming at the top of her lungs, tears are now sprinting down her face in a mix of fury and frustration. She punches the wall and immediately grabs her fist in pain, making the tears flow like a fountain. A coworker hands her a soft, round, squishy stress-reliever ball to squeeze.

  I answer her ridiculous request in my well-trained Miss Crabtree clinical voice, smothered in honey: “Now MoMo, you know we can’t let you out of here just yet, not in the state of mind you’re in and not until we find your phone, baby. Let us handle it, sweetheart.”

  MoMo takes a deep breath and serves me an exaggerated supercalm voice. “Sister Liza, I just want to go in there and let them know how I feel, that’s all.” We’re playing ping-pong with the phony pleasantries. She is trying anyway she can to get out of the room. I can’t contain my laughter at the absurdity of her request and the inner actress that she has mustered up.

  “Girl, you’re a damn good actress; that was a good one. Now you know if I let you back in the room with the boys, you’re gonna turn it up and turn it out. Come on, ma, even you know that.” I chuckle and she cracks a smile. “Give me a minute, MoMo, lemme go back upstairs. I’ll be right back. Be easy, okay?” I won’t leave until she promises me that she’ll sit tight with my coworker and let me handle it with the boys.

  The search with the boys is unsuccessful; nobody has turned over the phone. I attempt to use a stern but reasoning tone with them, trying to spank ’em with a little guilt. “Guys, look, this has truly gone too far. Y’all are friends with MoMo and how would you feel if the shoe was—”

  Kadeem cuts me off, laughs flippantly, and says, “This is ridiculous, why would anybody want—”

  I snatch the mic and cut his ass back off. I think it was his dismissive laughter and that smug look on his face that tripped the switch on the lamp. It’s this group’s first time getting a lil’ taste of thug mama.

  “Do not interrupt me! I am talking. This is not funny. It’s a bad joke and whoever took her phone trying to be cute, you know who you are, and you’re being straight-up foul and disrespectful. I am so ashamed and embarrassed… today of all days—when we have a guest! Whoever took it and hid the phone is dead wrong.”

  My nostrils flare with steam rolling out of them. I take a deep breath to calm down. I really want to lay into their asses, but we have company. One of the ICP teaching assistants suggests that we call the phone. I tell her the phone is on vibrate and she comes up with a plan B. She suggests we get everyone in the room to be supersilent and call the phone with the slight chance we might hear it vibrate. I think her idea is like trying to stab an elephant with a toothpick, useless. But I’m willing to give it a whirl. It takes a minute to get the boys silent and I call her phone.

  “Shhh, I hear something,” Jason blurts out. “Over here, I hear something vibrating.”

  Jason, who is sitting next to a tall metal file cabinet, presses his ear to the cabinet. “It’s in here. I hear it vibrating in here!”

  Jason is a stoner and looks like the ancient pharaoh Akhenaten, a tall, handsome, gangly artist type who loves poetry. He reminds me of Malik, aka Far Rock, and sort of looks like him too. Jason could have easily been in my class at Rikers, but he got lucky and was sentenced to an alternative-to-incarceration program and reports to probation twice a month. Besides his occasional purple-haze-hydro, glazed-eye mornings where we have to send him home for coming in high, he is otherwise a supernice, jolly hood nerd. I keep telling him he’s playing with fire, getting high. If his PO decides to random-drug-test him, he could get violated and the judge could send him to jail instead of our “second-chance” program.

  I fling open the file cabinet and there’s MoMo’s phone. “Here it is!” I yell and roll my eyes at the boys as I make a mad dash down to the first floor into the room where MoMo is contained doing deep-breathing exercises. I burst through the door holding the phone up in the air like an Olympic torch, prompting MoMo to leap to her feet and give me a bear hug. I hook my arm in her arm and pull her close. “See, I knew nobody stole your phone. The boys like to pull your chain and they play too much. I told you I was gonna get your phone; I got your back, girl.”

  MoMo puts her hand on her hip that’s poking out and smiles. “Yeah, Swagga Sisters get it done, you already know. Thank you, Sista Liza.” We walk arm in arm out of the building like besties. I want her to take a fresh-air-and-sunshine bath to reset her energy before going back into the room with the boys. I make her promise me that she won’t say one word to them and absolutely no side-out-the-mouth, signifying-monkey comments either. She’s the queen of saying some snide, slick shit under her breath, throwing backhanded batteries. MoMo pulls a cancer stick out of her purse, lights it, and drags on it, slow-inhaling toxins and years of accumulated stress. “Nah, I got you, Sista Liza. I ain’t gonna say nothing; I got my phone. I’m good now.”

  Letting her back in the room with the boys is a dice roll but I gamble and take the risk, praying she’ll keep her word and not antagonize the boys by hurling a Molotov cocktail with fighting words. When MoMo and I enter the classroom, Jamel Shabazz is already addressing the group of testosterone rascals. Quietly we slide into two empty seats. I make sure to sit next to MoMo so I’m in arm’s reach; I’m still nervous she might pop off, turn it up, make it hot, and be the first one to shake.

  Ja
mel Shabazz has an ominous, impressive presence that commands attention, standing at six foot six, broad and diesel. The brother is well dressed—as my daddy would say, he’s “clean as the board of health,” sporting a tailored, raw silk, short-sleeved silver shirt with finely pressed matching slacks that lightly graze the top of his shoes just enough to slightly break the crease. He’s immaculate from head to toe in a military/Nation of Islam kind of way; hairline razor sharp, posture erect, crisp suit, and wingtip shoes spit-shined to damn near see your reflection in them. He’s addressing the boys.

  “I am in a lot of pain right now. It pains me to see my young brothers and sisters, our children, fighting with each other with no regard for the other person’s feelings. Especially when I know you all have so much potential and greatness inside of you. I don’t even want to show my photographs, which is why I came here today to share my work and look at yours, but I just want to talk to y’all.”

  Let the read begin. Two nincompoops put their heads down on the desk, pretending to sleep in an act of quiet resistance and rebellion. I have the urge to pluck them in the back of the neck, but I don’t. Jamel continues. “I used to work on Rikers Island. I was a CO for twenty years. I’m fifty years old.”

  One of the boys, Kevin, cuts him off: “You’re half a century?”

  I can’t tell if Kevin is being a smart-ass or just dim-witted like normal. Jamel doesn’t break stride, ignoring the irrelevant question, and keeps going with his story. “And I worked at C-74 in 4 Upper, which was the baddest, absolute worst housing area you could be in. Sending you to 4 Upper was a punishment. But I worked with the young brothers and gave them guidance and knowledge of self. I had them doing workout regimens. I can do a hundred push-ups easy, and I had those brothers in shape. My partner was a Puerto Rican CO who spoke Spanish. And, ideologically speaking, we were on the same page because, just like me, he saw the value in investing in our youth and he gave the Spanish perspective, so we had our bases covered with the ‘knowledge of self’ study groups we ran.”

  I’m getting goose bumps. He’s a kindred spirit speaking my language. That was exactly what I tried to achieve with my rug rats at Rikers, teaching them knowledge of self. God I wish I knew Jamel when I was teaching at the Rock; I would have had him come talk to my rug rats and do a life skills class in a heartbeat.

  Jamel wipes the sweat from his brow, pushing his glasses back up on his nose; they had slipped down to the tip. Preacher man is warming up. “I turned those young brothers around because I talk to people. I want to hear what you’re going through, what you’re thinking, especially the youth… especially! That’s my mission, to save as many young lives as I can.”

  He is talking straight from the heart, unscripted, in a complete stream of consciousness. The energy in the room is supercharged with the intensity of Jamel’s passionate conviction. And the sermon has just started; it hasn’t reached fever pitch yet, which I know it’s headed toward. I’m leaning on the edge of my seat, his power pulling me forward like a magnet.

  “It’s real out here, y’all, I’ve seen some things… I’ve seen some things. I’ve seen a guy come into intake at Rikers, go through the strip search and he’s got on a pair of fresh kicks because he’s just come from central bookings, still wearing his fly clothes from the street. And there’s two other inmates fighting, cutting each other’s throat over who’s going to get the new dude’s sneakers. So if they’ll fight each other over the sneakers that you still have on your feet, what the hell you think they’ll do to you for the actual sneakers… that are still on your feet? Oh, I’ve seen some gangster things go down!”

  It’s super quiet. All the kids are wide-eyed and fixated on Jamel as he bobs and weaves through Rikers Island war stories like a professional heavyweight storyteller rope-a-doping thug rats, holding court with words. The two ornery juveniles still have their heads down on the table and I really want to mollywhop them on the back of their heads and tell these two little disrespectful gremlins to sit the fuck up, but I am so riveted by Jamel’s spontaneous sermon that I dare not create an interruption that would cause a hiccup in the service—which is in full, high-spirit swing. I let them silently protest and pretend to sleep.

  “And it hurts my heart to see Black men treat other Black men with such unjustifiable rage and violence. When I was a CO, I was promoted to captain and could have become warden but I disobeyed orders. I didn’t play by the prison rules. I treated the brothers with respect because I’m not better than anybody, so I referred to the inmates as gentlemen and I’d say ‘Good morning, gentlemen.’ The higher-ups didn’t approve and told me to stop calling them ‘gentlemen.’ They said they’re scumbags, dirt, and no-good mutts. You have to understand, I was a righteous Black man in a plantation atmosphere, and because of it I lost my rank. I refused to disrespect and humiliate the inmates. I was considered dangerous to the status quo, so I was demoted. I never made warden because I was bringing a righteous consciousness in a place that rejected the inmates’ humanity. But how am I any different? We’re just wearing different uniforms. They’re in green, I’m in blue, but we are both Black men trying to survive in a hostile society and toxic environment. I couldn’t buy into the ‘overseer’ mentality. I learned a hell of a lot about human nature in that place.”

  Jamel pauses to retrieve a handkerchief from his left lapel and dabs the perspiration from his forehead, the anointed warrior water seeping through his skin. I do believe the minister is about to take us to the river for a baptism. “I didn’t plan on talking this much, much less about my life, but I gotta talk! I gotta just talk to y’all. My camera has taken me all over the world, across the country. I’ve had so many conversations. I’ve been able to photograph the leader of the Bloods, the Crips, Ñetas, Latin Kings, all the major gang leaders—”

  Kadeem’s eyes get big with starstruck wonder and he cuts Jamel off in childlike excitement. “You went to Los Angeles and met T. Rodgers!”

  Kadeem’s Blood, so he’s superanxious to know if Jamel met one of the original LA-based founders of this notorious gang that he has pledged his adolescent life to—willing to die for a general he’s never met. T. Rodgers is a big deal if you’re Blood; he’s a real, living OG. It’s sort of akin to meeting Huey P. Newton if you were a Black Panther, or Kool Herc if you’re a hip-hop DJ, or Steve Jobs if you’re a computer geek. T. Rodgers created a crime organization of epic proportions that has captured the imagination and lives of thousands of wayward warriors across the nation. The mere mention of him has Kadeem’s attention, sitting up like a soldier.

  Jamel seizes the moment with masterful precision. “Not only did I meet him, I shot the cover of his book and kicked it with him at his house. And what’s so deep about it is, the brother has diabetes and has a rare symptom where his disease, his diabetes, makes his eyes constantly run so it looks like he’s crying nonstop. How ironic is that? The leader and founder of the Bloods, a gang that has shed a lot of blood and pain in the streets, has an illness that causes him to cry nonstop.”

  Kadeem takes out his phone and shows Jamel a picture of a picture that he has of T. Rodgers: “See, that’s T. Rodgers right there.” Kadeem is so proud to have an image of his gang-guru and is naively looking for Jamel’s approval. Jamel lifts the glasses off his nose to examine Kadeem’s picture on his cell phone and gives an unimpressed, “Ok, ok.”

  Kadeem keeps fishing. He’s still in weird starstruck awe and asks, “So what was T. Rodgers like? Was he a cool person? Like, you actually sat and talked to this man. That’s deep!”

  The rest of the class commences sucking their teeth at Kadeem’s obsession with the Bloods leader, especially since most of the people in the group aren’t in gangs and the two who are gang-affiliated are Crips. They’ve never fought. I learned it’s possible for a Blood and a Crip to occupy the same space without knocking knuckles so long as their respective neighborhoods don’t have beef.

  “Everybody has a story they want to tell and photography has given me
entrance into a lot of people’s lives,” Jamel responds graciously. “The brother was a cool dude to talk to and he’s a very smart man, but to be honest, I wasn’t impressed. Here’s a man who is so powerful and smart but wasted all his potential in creating a gang which is hurting and killing so many of our young Black and Latino men—”

  “Anybody ever tell you that you look like Minister Farrakhan?” Since Jamel didn’t give T. Rodgers the props Kadeem was looking for and eloquently criticized his sacred king, Kadeem felt compelled to interrupt our guest, totally off topic. “I mean not exactly, but your facial features, some of them.” Jamel looks nothing like Minister Farrakhan; however, there is something about Jamel’s Nation of Islam Message to the Black Man consciousness-raising energy, powerful presence, and minister-like delivery that seems to conjure a Farrakhanesque aura, which Kadeem picks up on. I feel it too. Jamel is bringing a critical testimonial to the boys in all of his alpha male command, grabbing their attention like a gladiator. If I had a tambourine, I’d be shaking it. If I had a fan, I’d be fanning it. If I had a bell, I’d be ringing it.

  Jamel gives Kadeem a slight smile at the compliment. “Thank you, brother. I try to be a righteous man with integrity who loves our people. Our people are in so much pain, ignorance, and confusion. We have to save our youth by telling y’all the real deal, what’s really going on in the world.” Jamel briefly pauses to reflect on the thought, on the state of Black people. “I tell you, there is nothing like the drug crack cocaine. Crack did a number on our communities and was allowed to be sold and distributed in our communities with the assistance of the U.S. government. It was like dropping the atomic bomb on our people.”