by Neta Jackson
I nodded and rolled the window back up. “Okay, okay, Lord. I heard you the first time,” I muttered as I stuck my key in the ignition. “You didn’t have to send a cop too.”
Five minutes later, I pulled the Caravan into a parking spot in front of our house and headed inside, picking up yesterday’s mail, which was still in the box—what’s this? A business envelope addressed to me from the Super Skatium. Hoo boy. Still standing on the porch, I ripped open the envelope. It’d been over four weeks since I’d written. Had our petition done any good?
I pulled out the single sheet of paper. “Dear Ms. Baxter,” I read aloud. “Thank you for informing us of your concern. We are proud of our ten years in the Chicago community, serving a widely diverse clientele and providing quality entertainment for young and old alike.” Yeah, yeah, yeah. I skimmed on. “. . . sorry for any inconvenience or disappointment you experienced. We hope you will come again and—” . . . blah blah blah.
I sighed and sank down on the top step of the front porch. Huh. So much for that. The Skatium manager had probably had a good snicker-fest with the DJ before shooting off his thinly veiled reply: “Change our music? You gotta be kidding, lady!”
Made me want to gag.
Now what? Organize a boycott? Yeah, right. It wasn’t as if I knew a hundred people who went skating every week. The Skatium wouldn’t even notice. Go out to the Skatium with a protest sign? “The Skatium plays X-rated music!” Not really my style. Maybe a letter-writing campaign. If they wouldn’t pay attention to one letter, what about ten letters, or twenty, or thirty, or—
Whoa. Slow down, Jodi.
What? Oh, right. I was doing it again, Old Jodi response, jumping on my high horse and riding off in ten directions. But, God, it makes me mad, thinking about the raunchy music they’re feeding to all those young kids! Is it too much to ask for one, measly, family-friendly skate night? Do I just give up at the first resistance?
The Voice in my spirit cut into my thoughts. Not too much to ask. It’s a good idea. But . . . is this your battle right now? Didn’t you just agree to spend your spring break at the juvenile detention center, starting Monday?”
Well, yeah. Good point. I felt pretty clear that saying yes to the JDC was something God wanted me to do. When would I do any of that other stuff?
I squeezed my eyes shut and crumpled the letter. Okay, God. I think I get it. But God? This business of hearing the Holy Spirit—knowing what’s from You and what is just distracting me from doing what You want me to do . . . it’s hard, You know?
I stood up and unlocked the front door. I had Easter dinner to plan and a couple of scripts I needed to read.
39
When we arrived at SouledOut the next morning, a row of Easter lilies graced the front of the low stage, a bevy of little girls in pastel dresses darted about in patent leather shoes, and people came in greeting each other happily: “The Lord is risen!” “He is risen indeed!”
I was trying to feel resurrection-ish, but after reading the scripts that had been handed to me two days ago—a short, modernized version of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing and a dramatized version of Washington Irving’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow—I felt more like someone who’d be facing a firing squad the next day. I’d never pull this off!
But I now had an inkling—just an inkling—of how Mary Magdalene must have felt when she ran into Jesus walking among the tombs that first Easter morning. Someone she never expected to see there. She couldn’t believe it. But such a welcome sight!
Because when I came in the door, the girl named Sara stood by the hot drink table with Hoshi Takahashi, sipping coffee from a paper cup. Not the Sara I’d last seen at Adele’s salon with gooey wet hair piled up on her head. No, this Sara had warm honey-blonde hair with sunny highlights and a fresh bounce, with just enough curl to tuck the ends under sweeping below her ears. Yes, and just enough makeup to highlight her pale eyes and give some color to her usually lifeless skin.
Lord, You sure are an Almighty God. What kind of miracle had brought crowd-shy Sara to church?
Hoshi was introducing her simply as “my friend from school.” But when I slipped over to the coffee table, she beamed. “Sara, this is Jodi, one of my Yada Yada sisters.”
Sara nodded shyly. “I know. We m-met yesterday.” A small smile tipped the corners of her mouth.
“Oh?” Hoshi’s eyebrows raised.
Let Sara tell Hoshi if she wanted to. I just grinned and said, “I’m so glad to see you again, Sara. Welcome to SouledOut. And you look great. Really great.” I wanted to grab her in a big ol’ hug, “that girl in the sundress” I’d prayed for so often the past year—but decided not to push it. I didn’t know what God was doing with Sara, but the Holy Spirit had clearly told me to back off now and give Him some space to work.
Pastor Clark’s voice called out over the general hubbub. “Church, find your seats!” Adults and children scurried to stand by their chairs. “The Lord is risen!”
“He is risen indeed!”
And with that cue, the praise team with keyboard, drums, electric bass, and saxophone launched into the wonderful Easter hymn: “Christ the Lord is risen today! Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-le-eh-lu-u-ia!”
I opened my mouth and belted out the alleluias, grinning so big I thought my earrings might pop off. Lord, I know it’s not a go-down-in-the-history-books miracle, but . . . thank You! Thank You!
It wasn’t until we’d welcomed visitors and sat down again on the comfortable, cushioned chairs from an “anonymous friend,” that the firing-squad feeling loomed once more. Oh Lord, I moaned silently. I’m going to need another miracle tomorrow.
I HAD TO LEAVE THE HOUSE by seven-thirty the next morning in order to be at the juvenile detention center by nine o’clock. Denny, bless him, walked me to the Morse Avenue el station. The temperature was once again sagging in the low forties.
“You sure you feel okay taking the el?”
I nodded. But I lied.
“You got the cell phone?”
I nodded again. “Don’t worry. I’ll call if I need to, but I ought to be home by one-thirty or two.” That’s right, Jodi, press on. Keep rolling.
The ride was long, especially with no one to talk to. As we jostled from station to station, I read and reread the scripts the English teacher had wanted to introduce. Brave woman. Maybe in a fully equipped school with honor students. Kids who’d already read Shakespeare and Irving. But kids off the street, in trouble with the law, struggling to get their GED? Not to mention we were already weeks behind schedule. The production was supposedly on the calendar for April 24—barely two weeks away.
If I weren’t so terrified, it’d be hilarious. Crack-up, take-me-away-in-a-straitjacket funny. God, You got me into this. You’ve gotta get me out!
But I guess God decided not to spirit me away in a fiery chariot like the prophet Elijah, because at nine o’clock I was standing in front of the rows of chairs in the all-purpose room on the second floor of the JDC, sweating in my armpits as a handful of boys shambled through the door, followed by two men I presumed were guards. The boys, ranging in age, I guessed, between thirteen and sixteen and dressed in various colored DOC uniforms, flopped into chairs and slouched on their tailbones.
“Sit up, gentlemen!” barked one of the guards, who proceeded to park himself on a chair at the back of the room along with the other guard, arms folded.
I looked at “my” students—and blinked. Chris Hickman sat among the boys, his eyes averted. I almost didn’t recognize him with his almost shaved head. I wanted to shout. Thank You, Jesus! But if Chris didn’t want to acknowledge our relationship, I’d respect that.
“Good morning.”
A few of the boys mumbled, “Mornin’.”
“My name is Mrs. Baxter, and I understand that we’re here to produce a play.” A few nods. “But tell you what. This isn’t a lecture. We need to get acquainted, and we need to figure out how we’re going to do this play. Each of you, grab a chair from the front r
ow and pull it into a circle . . . that’s it.” I took a chair and started the circle. As the boys slowly complied, I counted noses. Ten.
“Let’s start with names.” I could remember ten names.
Ramón . . . Jeremy . . . Chris . . . Terrance . . . James . . . T-Ball—
“Not your street name!” yelled the guard at the back. “Real names, gentlemen!” Snickers from the boys.
. . . T.J. . . . Mike . . . Kevin . . . Rashad . . . David. Mostly African-American or Latino. Only James was obviously white. Rashad was probably black but had a Muslim name.
Given my restrictions on asking anything about their personal lives, I got down to business. “Your English teacher selected two possible plays to put on for your parents. It’s your choice.” I gave a brief summary of both plays, starting to relax. Just stick to business, Jodi. Do what you can do. They’re just kids . . .
“Legend of Sleepy Hollow? Yeah, saw that on TV once.” T.J. grinned. “I wanna be that headless dude who smoked the ol’ scarecrow guy, what’s-his-name.”
“Ichabod Crane,” I said, but T.J. was pretending to screw off his head and “throw” it like a fastball at Kevin. The boys laughed.
“Bam! Busted, man!”
“Yeah. Forget that Shakespeare crap.” Jeremy, who seemed to be the oldest—or at least the biggest—of the group, nailed that one into a coffin.
“All right.” I dug into my tote bag and handed out photocopies of the Sleepy Hollow script (“No staples, nothing sharp,” the principal had said). “Let’s just read through it. Don’t worry about who’s who. We can assign parts later. Ramón? You want to start? Just go around the circle.”
But we hadn’t even made it to the bottom of the first page when I realized we were in trouble.
“Katrina? A chica? I ain’t readin’ no girly part.”
I read the part of Katrina.
A couple of the boys read well. I was surprised and pleased. They were smart. Bright. But Mike stumbled over every other word. Chris read tonelessly. And by the time we got to the third page, Jeremy tossed the script to the floor. “Aw, this is dumb. Who cares about some ol’ ghost story? What’s this gotta do with us?” His outburst drew a chorus of “Yeah, man” and “Got that right” from the others.
Frankly, I had the same question. Maybe, if we had two months, these boys might catch a vision for classic literature. Maybe, if their English teacher wasn’t down with mono, she could pull this off. But they had me, I had two weeks, and we didn’t have a play.
Don’t panic, Jodi. Think!
“All right.” I laid down my script. That surprised them. “Talk to me. What do you want to do?”
The boys looked at each other. No one spoke for several seconds.
T.J. was the first with an opinion. “Action, man! We wanna do some action.” He pulled out an imaginary pistol. “Ya know, bam bam bam! Blowing da cops—uh, da rivals’ heads off.”
“Hey! None of that!” snapped one of the guards.
Thank you, mister. I took a breath. “Okay. Action. What about the rest of you?”
“We could, ya know, do some rappin’. I got Snoop Dogg’s latest down, man.” Terrance stood up, affecting the hunched shoulders and distorted fingers of a rap artist, and letting go with a string of snappy words I could hardly understand, though I caught the S-word a few times.
“Uh, okay. Rapping. Though I bet you could write your own. What else?”
The group fell silent.
I had no idea where I was going with this, but I asked, “What do you want to do when you get out of here? What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Now eyes rolled and heads began to shake. “Huh. We ain’t goin’ ta grow up,” Rashad muttered. “Ain’t you heard? We destined for prison or da ice house. If da cops don’t pop us, some rival will.”
I stared at the young faces around me. No one contradicted Rashad, a good-looking young man, seemingly bright. He should be going to college. But he’d already given up.
I made another stab. “You don’t have to be a statistic. Who are your heroes? Somebody you look up to, who overcame diversity to do great things. Dr. Martin Luther King? He was a great man. He had a dream for young people like you—and it didn’t include prison or the, um, ‘ice house.’ ”
Jeremy shrugged. “So? They popped him too.”
His words hit me like a fist in the mouth. I couldn’t breathe. Had no words. I just stared at Jeremy until he broke our gaze and looked away.
Tears stung my eyes. Suddenly I was mad. Angry that these young men, one of whom was the son of my Yada Yada sister, thought they had no future. Maybe I’d believe it, too, if I was thirteen, fourteen, or fifteen and already in trouble, sitting here in the Juvenile Detention Center . . . except I knew Chris could have a future. He had talent. He was smart. He had parents—a whole lot of people, in fact—who cared about him. And if it was true for Chris, it could be true for the rest of them.
A vague idea started to spin a web in my brain. I found my voice. “Look. It might seem like we’ve wasted our first day, and we don’t have that many days. But it’s not wasted. You decided what you don’t want to do. That’s a start. And you gave me a lot to think about. I’m going to go home, and when I come back tomorrow, we’re going to put together a play, a show—whatever—ourselves. Don’t know what yet. But”—I cast a wry grin at T.J.—“it’ll have some action. Maybe some rapping. Something that’ll make your parents or guardians sit up and take notice. I just need one thing from you.”
Ten pairs of eyes shifted from one to the other, then back at me. “What’s that, Mrs. B?” Jeremy said.
“Promise me you’ll come back tomorrow. All of you.”
Shrugs, a few grins. “Yeah, why not.” “Yeah, we’ll be here.” The boys filed out—all except for Chris Hickman, who lagged behind.
I wanted to hug him. But I just said, “Hey, Chris.”
“Uh, thanks, Mrs. B, for not lettin’ on our families are tight. But . . . I dunno about comin’ back tomorrow. I heard it was you comin’ ta do a play, I thought it might be fun. But I can’t talk or act or any of that stuff.”
The idea web in my head was catching more flies. “Don’t worry about that. I have an idea for you—but can we talk about it tomorrow? Will you come?”
He thought it over. “Okay. Tomorrow. But that’s all I promise.”
I DON’T EVEN REMEMBER walking to the bus stop. Barely remembered the ride home on the el. My mind was buzzing. Jeremy was right. A lot of “heroes” had been shot and killed, even in my lifetime. Dr. King, President Kennedy, his brother Bobby. Civil rights workers like Medgar Evers. Earlier American heroes, too, like Abraham Lincoln, who was from Illinois. Just like the prophets of old.
That’s what we do to prophets, Jesus said.
Pieces of ideas floated and collided in my head like meteor fragments. I needed a connection, something to piece all the pieces together. Wasn’t Dr. King killed in April? What else happened in April?
I leaned my head against the window of the northbound el as it creaked and groaned around the Loop, then headed north toward Rogers Park. “God,” I whispered, “You said if we lack wisdom, to ask for it. I need a whole lot of wisdom right now! I know I can’t do this in my own strength. This whole situation is way over my head. But I have a crazy confidence that You put this in my lap, so I’ve gotta trust You’re going to come through. I just . . . don’t see how yet.”
My breath was steaming up the window; a couple of passengers nearby looked at me strangely. So I shut my mouth but continued my talk with God. Don’t mean to tell You what to do, Lord, but . . . I’ve got less than twenty-four hours to get my act together.
I felt better as I got off the el at Morse Avenue and headed home. God put this in my lap, but I’d just put it back in His.
When I got home, I found a note from Denny. “Amanda and I went to a movie. How’d it go? Love, D.” They weren’t home. Good. And Josh was at work. Good. Because I didn’t want any distractions.
“Wouldn’t mind if you were home, though, Wonka,” I murmured to the silence as I turned on the computer and waited for it to boot up. Yeah, I missed Wonka lying on my feet when I had some serious praying and thinking to do.
40
I was genuinely glad to see all ten boys saunter into the JDC school all-purpose room the next morning. Even Chris. I motioned them to sit in the same circle of chairs. “Thanks. I know you didn’t have to come. But I have an idea for a play—actually, the idea came from you.” I grinned. “God helped a lot too. Here’s the deal . . .”
I leaned forward. Curious, the boys all leaned in. I shared my idea, sneaking a peek now and then at the two guards who sat cross-armed at the back of the room. One glared at me, frowning, as I passed out the stuff I’d found online to provide background; the other chewed absently on his nails.
So far, so good.
“Okay,” I said. “We need four volunteers to make these speeches. You can’t read them; you have to memorize them. We can make them shorter, though—I’ve marked the main thoughts.”
“Huh!” T.J. snorted. “James is the only one who can play a white dude.”
“Hey! Don’ matter to me,” Ramón smirked. “Might be my only chance to be prez-i-dent.” The others laughed.
“Exactly,” I said. “These heroes belong to all of us—white, black, Latino. Don’t think of it as giving a speech. Become your character. Speak as though these thoughts, these feelings, these ideas came from inside you.” I looked around the circle at the ten boys, clothed in their purple, green, and blue uniforms. “But we need some action scenes too.”
T.J. raised a fist. “Aiiiight!”
Once again, we huddled. Their laughter punctuated the process. By the end of the three hours, we’d selected our four main characters, selected the villains, and brainstormed the final act. When the guards looked at their watches impatiently, I released the boys, but asked for another minute with Chris.