“Look, C-Boy, hand out the rest of these programs for us. I need to go over here and get wit’ Rise before we get swept up in what’s goin’ on this morning.”
“Man, what you mean, ‘Pass these out for us?’ You done went to sounding all political and things already. Don’t change on me, kid.” C-Boy is smiling, but he ain’t playing.
“Don’t panic on me,” Lil Chris reassures him. “You know we get it on. But we all gotta grow, right?”
C-Boy sobers. “I feel you. I was just sayin—”
“Well, don’t be just sayin’,” the C’ster says, asserting himself. “That’s how things go bad. Just rock with me if you ‘just’ go’n do anything.”
“A’ight, a’ight. I got this, yo. You just go head and holler at Rise.” C-Boy takes the rest of the program pamphlets out of Lil Chris’s hands. He turns to meet the procession of visitors stepping past the security gate.
Lil Chris turns and walks over to Rise.
The day is fast-paced already. Lil Chris and Rise embrace each other like brothers. After exchanging daps and pounds, they step around the serving counter into one of the back rooms where the refrigeration units are kept. They stop on either side of a low-topped deep freezer and stand eye to eye.
“Have you thought about how important the day is for us?” Rise begins.
“This day,” Lil Chris says soberly.
“This day.” Rise permits a smile to crease his features.
“Yeah, you hand over the club to me today.”
Shit is forced. They both know it. They have to stand off each other. They know this as well.
“It’s not just about the club,” Rise comments.
Lil Chris starts to speak. Holds his tongue.
Rise grins sideways. Can’t help it. “This club is just position. You can lose it. Gain it back.” He collects himself. “Man, look at you. Posture. Confidence. That alchemy at work.”
“C’mon, Rise,” Lil Chris flags his hand.
“No,” Rise insists. “You should be proud. You’ve come a long way. Raised me in the process.” He looks him over for a heartbeat. “And, believe this, lil brother. It’s not gonna take you as long as it took me.”
A security whistle blows somewhere outside the window. Draws Lil Chris’ attention.
“Ignore that,” Rise holds one hand up. “This us, right now. They business ain’t no more important than ours.”
“I feel you, big brother.”
Rise takes a deep breath. “These last couple weeks I’ve really been grappling with some things. Questions I won’t present to you. They’re for a season. You’ll come across them in your own time. Find your own answers. You don’t have to know everything. But you have the mechanics you need to figure out whatever draws you.”
“Like the law library,” Lil Chris reasons.
“Right.”
“But, that only counts if you stick to your beliefs.”
“Principles. Beliefs change.”
“Constitution.” Lil Chris settles on this with the resolve of autumn leaves. “My personal constitution.”
Rise pauses again. For pace. Just entirely in the moment. “There will be plenty of people around you that understand what needs to be done. You are the only person that can carry it. The next part I give you plain: never compromise your carriage. Don’t get creative with it. Those masks tend to get stuck in place. You will meet a lot of people. They’ll cycle in and out like kids on a carousel. Never let a one of them make you feel inadequate. Make sure they all witness your humanity first, whether they choose to acknowledge it or not, and regardless of what you think you need from them.
“Also, there is no altitude in prison. You can’t climb your way out. Don’t get caught up in the favor game. You work your way out. This is America still. If you know what you want and you’re willing to work for it, you can have it. Define your own positive. Know your own forward. Be the kind of leader that you would follow and the rest will fall in place. Step sure.
“Finally, I love you, man. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.”
Rise tries to keep a straight face with the last. He fails.
They share a laugh. One final soul-jah’s embrace. Then back on their respective squares.
“I know that. Even though I didn’t really look at it the way you’re puttin’ it to me. I’m ready, though.” Lil Chris is standing. Shoulders square, chin up. Looks every bit the hope of the struggle he has come to be.
“Well, look,” Rise says. “There is no need to prolong this. We’ve lived with each other and walked together for almost five years, now. Everything you need is already inside you. The only thing left is for you to formally become one of the suns in the Skies Over Gaza. You ready for that?”
Silence.
Their eyes communicate.
Rise lifts his left hand and waves in eight convicts who have been standing right outside the room’s entrance since he and Lil Chris walked in. Gary Law leads the number. Most of the brothers with him are at least 50 or older. The old battleships come to surround Rise and Lil Chris at the deep freezer.
Gary Law is the first to speak. “You know that your choice to be a party to this number is a decision that has to be made of your own free will?”
Lil Chris nods.
“From now on, we need you to drop the ‘Lil’ from your name. Chris is sufficient. The change will be a statement in and of itself. From here on, this is your inner circle. Any one of us would die to protect this circle and the members thereof. Every one of us is actively committed to the freedom, uplifting, and empowerment of our people. We give what remains of our lives to live for this cause. Are you with us?”
Chris utters, “Yes.”
“Well then, from here on out, the brethren will greet you with the reminder, ‘To touch without feeling is the ultimate sin.’ To which you will properly respond, ‘Far worse than blasphemy.’
“With this whispered reminder, we acknowledge that no one of us is perfect. We all have done things that would have better been left undone. We’ve learned from our shared experiences that to live is to be accountable. In so much as we are capable, we must be the answer. This is how offense is recompensed.”
At this, Gary and the rest of the circle one by one embrace their new leader with a whispered reminder. “To touch without feeling is the ultimate sin.”
And each time, Chris answers, “Far worse than blasphemy.”
THE BREAKBEAT
A year and six months later
EPILOGUE
CHRIS IS UP BEFORE THE sunrise. A cup of community coffee, brewed through a stretched athletic sock as a makeshift strainer. Good jabba. Them shits cost six dollars a bag. These days his commissary is straight, though. Rise been sending him a few pennies.
He had a thought early on, while he was brushing his teeth. Anticavity toothpaste. Ubiquitous in the prison. The state is still handing it out in generous amounts. Wonder why? Imagine a prison full of bad breath and toothaches. Thought that was funny.
Our Daily Bread devotional, a couple Bible verses, and he’s up and moving.
The first spot he hits is the gym for an early morning workout with his man, Hao Nguyen. Hao is Vietnamese. Didn’t speak a word of English when he first stepped on the prison farm. That was 21 years ago. Since then he not only speaks English, he also reads and writes it. And he’s retooled himself into one helluva chef. The latter being the chief reason why he’s up at the crack of dawn throwing around weights with Chris. All that cooking and taste-testing. His short frame and face have been roundin’ out. Gettin’ kinda plump. Got him scramblin’ tryin’ to address that. Oh yes, he is.
“I thought you knew that, Chris,” Hao is saying. He and his fellow Vietnamese homie, Tran, are recapping some elements of the crime he was charged and convicted of. Particularly the fact that he always maintained that it was self-defense.
“Yeah, I knew that,” Chris agrees. He had been speaking about a rape and, wanting to make sure he didn’t offend, asked
Hao if that was his charge. Somehow, the simple question has tilted the conversation.
Chris’s turn has come up in the shoulder routine the three of them are doing. He climbs under the weight, pumps out his number. “On you,” he says to Tran, when he finished his reps.
As he and Tran are switching out on the work bench, Chris asks Hao about the Vietnamese community in Houma, the small Louisiana town near the Gulf of Mexico where Hao caught his charge. Hao speaks about his culture. Chris casually listens as they all sweat through the workout. Hao’s manner. His tone of voice, the windedness. The pacing, the vaguely uneasy glances at his homeboy. Damn if he doesn’t remind Chris of how he and his Black homies would act talking about Black culture in the company of a white dude. The recognition is unsettling.
“I know it isn’t your culture,” Chris qualifies. “But I just recently got some pictures of Chinatown in San Francisco.”
“Yeah,” Hao ventures. “There is a Chinatown in almost all the major cities.”
“Alright,” Chris goes on. “I got a picture of a, ah, Chinese brunch with that, too.”
“You mean dim sum?”
“Yeah, that’s what my homeboy Zach wrote on the back. A couple bowls of dumplings.”
“Uh-huh,” Hao says. “Qoang tha’nh.” Chris breathes a bit as he sees his longtime friend loosening up. Hao, for his part, explains, “Usually you can pick from a bunch of them. Pork, beef, duck. Hey,” Hao says. “You know, ah, New Orleans has a pretty big, ah, Asian community, too?”
“Yeah,” Chris jumps in, all enthused. “I used to write to a Asian girl from New Orleans,” he shares. His voice gets wistful. Dreamy. “Seray. I’m tah’m ’bout beautiful. And that muthafucka was sexy too. Like gotdamn!” He chuckles.
When Chris refocuses from his bout of nostalgia, intuitively his eyes dart to Hao. Then Tran. That recognition again. Ah … so that’s what we be lookin’ like, Chris thinks to himself.
Later in the morning, Chris’ next stop is the law library to check with Gary Law before going upstairs to clean his drop.
G likes to ask if Chris has heard anything new from Rise. Always a rub, ’cause Rise doesn’t write much. At least, not an actual letter. Kinda feels fucked up to expect more from him. But, even with the money it feels like being left behind. Abandoned. Chris usually says something vague, like, “I heard from him the other day. He wasn’t talking about much.”
The best thing about hanging out with G is the law work. Once he got used to the language, that is. And that alone took a minute. Now, however, Chris has gotten to the point where he can read case law like novels. Like every syllable is as descriptive as a love letter. Well. Maybe not a love letter. But his mind does tend to hug them shits. To memorize the “keys” effortlessly.
Plus, lately Gary Law has taken to introducing him to bill writing. Imagine that. Him, the C’ster, actually studying statutes, legislator’s voting records, task force packages, and such. Part of a team that actually drafts bill proposals that could one day become law! It’s one of the things Chris does with his time that he’s most proud of.
Dipping out of the law library, he takes a walk upstairs. Kunta has already hit the drop. So, he falls into the little office he and his work partners have set up in one of the old book storages along his work station. Actually, he couldn’t control who could and could not visit the chess club’s office. So, he gave Kunta and ’em free rein of the club office and in exchange he has his own space. In a restricted area at that.
However, he still can’t control all the traffic that comes through. Case in point, as he opens the door he’s greeted by the familiar presence of Brecheen, a captain now, slouching in the glow of the television in one of Chris’s office chairs. Like a relative who came to visit for the holidays and won’t go home. Should’ve known it was a catch to agree to let the officer stash his video game in his spot.
“Hey, Chris! What up, brah,” Brecheen greets him in that childish voice of his. He has brown hair, and is a foot taller and about 30 pounds heavier than Chris.
As he often does, Chris doesn’t reply. He just grabs an energy drink out of the mini-fridge, a bag of Cheetos out of the cabinet, and plops down beside the captain.
The two of them sit, as they often do, in silence. Except for the sounds of the PlayStation’s game play and soundtrack. Another army/military/special forces number. They seem to be Brecheen’s favorite. He’s assigned to the Treatment Unit on his regular shift. Yet it seems like every off-day he’s sitting here beside Chris. Usually talking about his dream of quitting his job and running off to become a standup comedian. No shit. Can’t make this up.
“You know what?” Brecheen says, the first to break the silence. As he often does. “Bourdelon’s a real dick!”
That’s Major Bourdelon. Brecheen’s supervising officer over at TU. This oughta be good. Chris pops the cap on the energy drink and munches a few Cheetos in response.
“Man, there’s this little Black chick …”
Chris doesn’t so much as flinch, though his breath slows as if his air passages are contracting. Totally involuntary. Damn Hao and Tran!
“Well, put it this way. Bourdelon’s jealous ’cause I give the lil mamma a ride to work every once in a while. You know, take her home …”
Chris, picking Cheetos out of his back teeth, forces his breathing back to normal. One of the main tortures of long term incarceration has been being forced to watch the prison personnel go about living their lives over the years right before his eyes.
“Here’s the thing, see,” Brecheen continues in his white man’s equivalent-of-hip voice. “That asshole’s been lovin’ her. She’s a sweet lil Black thang. Big ass, small waistline. Keep herself up, too.”
Here, Chris turns to face him, this flat expression on his face. Brecheen’s personal business, as is often the case, is nowhere near what was on his mind when he first turned that door knob.
“Anyway, the shit hit the fan last week. I took the girl home, you know. Like I always do. And I never ask her for nothin’ for it. But, I guess she wanted to do something to, you know, show her appreciation.” This low echo colors his voice. Like he’s forming the words in his chest cavity. “So, we pull up to her crib. Right there in the drive way. Before she gets out of the car, the girl reaches over and—”
“I get the point, mayne,” Chris interrupts.
“She blows me, man!” Brecheen just had to get it out.
That piece of shit, slut bitch. Chris’ venomous, involuntary thought.
Brecheen is so self-absorbed by now, he doesn’t even notice Chris’ expression. Or maybe he does. He’s married, by the way. “So, the next day, when I get to work, this fat fuck is acting all crazy. Like he’s mad at me all of a sudden. He’s tellin’ everybody I got in his business.” A prisoner’s slang.
Chris gnashes his teeth so hard his jaws are rippling. “You snitched.”
“I told a couple of people, maybe,” Brecheen mumbles, like it’s nothing.
Chris throws his hands up. Almost upends his chip bag. As often happens, Brecheen has drawn him into his madness.
“Man, yesterday, the son of a bitch wrote me up on a DR1,” Brecheen bursts out. “That fat bitch is tryin’ to get me demoted. He fuckin’ with my money, now. My wife’s gonna have a fit if that happens.” Here, he starts laughing almost uncontrollably.
“C’mon,” Chris says in this flat voice. “I’m listening. Don’t go to actin’ stupid.”
“Nothing more to say,” Brecheen snaps back. “I know it’s hard to believe. But, yeah, this redneck cracker is pert’ near irresistible. Especially to Black women.”
Chris still looks at this obnoxious asshole. Who he’s slowly but surely, if grudgingly, come to think of as a friend. He would never speak those words out loud. Though there are still things that he would never talk to Brecheen about, and he’s equally certain there are things Brecheen would never tell him. Though they are still from two different worlds, and both have to be discriminate wi
th every interaction. Chris looks at this friend—crazy how life unfolds—thinking of his other friend, Hao, and his homeboy, Tran. Chris realizes his goal should be a clarity of principle and concept. Clarity that affords him the confidence to be exactly who he is, no matter the company.
“You know what I think?” Chris finally says.
Brecheen lifts his eyebrows.
“The sistah,” Chris continues. “Was probably down on her luck to begin with. Juggling you and that other fat muthafucka was just more bullshit. She be a’ight.” He chomps some more Cheetos. Sips a little more of the energy drink.
Brecheen holds out his fist. They dap. And then Brecheen quietly gets up and leaves. Mu’fucka doesn’t even turn the video game off.
Chris munches on chips and his thoughts for a while. Eventually, he licks the cheese from his fingers and opens a note pad.
“Rise,” he writes. “Remember when we used to speak about the need to have negative capability …”
He still has the callout tonight in the A Building. Gary Law mentioned it earlier. Supposedly some pretty important people are coming. He’s just looking forward to seeing Saboor.
The chess club’s concession is supposed to provide refreshments. He’ll need to get up and see to that. So much about his life is still a work in progress. He puts the notepad away, resolves to write Rise later. Negative capability, indeed.
“You know, it’s crazy,” Chris observes. Looks over the crowd. “How everybody wanna preach about protest, lament, and speak to the wrongs done to young Black men. The injustices. Now, I know there’s more than Black folk in here tryna get free.”
Applause.
“The thing is, what just occurred to me is how they always wanna say, ‘Y’all doin’ them wrong ’cause they innocent!’ As if to say the shit they do us wouldn’t be wrong if we was guilty. Excuse the language.”
A few hardheads snicker.
He spies Mansa, No Love, Joseph, and ’em among the crowd. Mansa lifts two fingers to his brow in salute.
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