by Ron Johnson
“I felt uncomfortable—”
“With these people—”
“YES.”
Speaking barely above a whisper, my voice cracking, I say, “So, if I didn’t have my uniform on, if you didn’t know me—”
I don’t want to continue. I want to end this conversation. I want to get away from him. Instead, I lean in and continue.
“I was talking to some young men out there. We need to talk to them. We need to hear them out. We can’t run away from them.”
He stares at me and I stare back. And then my entire body sags. I feel as if my world has tipped over.
My thoughts jumbled, my anger swelling, I spin and head toward the bathroom—passing my boss, who has finished his phone call and has been listening to us. I shove my shoulder into the bathroom door, duck inside, and lock the door.
I pace a few steps, drop into a crouch, and start to cry.
I lower my head into my chest and weep.
I weep over the loss of a friend.
I weep for a world that no longer exists.
I weep because I feel completely and brutally alone.
And then I mutter a prayer.
Please, Lord. Help me.
These are the only words I can find.
I dab a wet paper towel over my eyes as I study myself in the mirror. I look ravaged. My eyes are filmy and bloodshot. I sigh, crumple the paper towel, toss it into the trash, and walk out of the bathroom. My boss is waiting outside the door.
“I overheard the two of you,” he says.
“I know,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry.”
“I just . . . I didn’t like how he kept saying these people.”
My boss nods, and I can see that his eyes are bloodshot too.
“Ron,” he says, “this is just starting. A lot of people are afraid.”
We look at each other, and then the two of us, my boss and I, two seasoned highway patrol troopers, a black man and a white man, grab each other and hug.
And then we both begin to cry.
“WHY AM I DIFFERENT?”
* * *
I want to look happily forward. I want to be optimistic. I want to have a dream.
EDWIDGE DANTICAT
“MESSAGE TO MY DAUGHTERS”
MONDAY ENDS WITH MORE ARRESTS, looting, chaos, and pain. I get home after midnight, still shaken by my encounter with the trooper—a friend, I thought, but in reality, a man I never knew. I climb into bed, my mind racing, fearing for tomorrow, seeing no conclusion, no good outcome, no answers. Tossing fitfully, trying not to wake Lori, I look up at the ceiling . . . and something comes over me, a kind of presence, dropping gently onto me like a mist. I shade my eyes with my hand and say, very softly, “Sometimes, Lord, I get busy and I forget to pray. That has been happening to me. It’s been happening for a while. Maybe it’s always happened.”
I feel a tear trickle down my cheek. I blot it with my thumb and say, “I have no words right now. I feel lost. All I see are dead ends and darkness. I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t even know if I’m facing the right direction. But starting tomorrow I am going to get down on my knees every day. That I promise.”
I close my eyes and sigh.
Something my dad used to say echoes in my mind: Keep on moving forward.
I will, Dad.
But before I can do that, I need to go back.
When I was seven years old, I lived with my parents, Roscoe and Annie; my brother, Bernard; and my sister, Regina, in St. Louis, in one half of a long, narrow, railroad-style house, with the living room in the front as you walked in and the kitchen in the back, facing a small yard and an alley. I shared a room in the basement with Bernard, two years younger, while Regina, two years older, rated a bedroom to herself upstairs near the kitchen.
Money mattered. My parents struggled, but I wouldn’t say we were poor. Even when my parents both got laid off, they still managed to put food on the table. For a time, we relied on food stamps and took the free cheese and snacks that volunteers gave out at church. And sometimes my parents had to make difficult choices.
I remember one especially cold night during the winter, we went to a little burger restaurant called the Red Barn. After we finished our burgers and fries, we all just sat at our table. My parents seemed in no hurry to leave.
Finally, bored, I asked, “Can we go?”
“Not yet,” my father said.
We stayed until closing time, when one of the restaurant workers wheeled out a bucket and mop and started swabbing down the floor.
When we got home and opened the front door, I remember a chill rolling over me like a frosty wave. In the winter, my parents sometimes had to choose between food and heat. That month, they chose food. Shivering, my brother, sister, and I huddled together in one bed, wearing sweaters, tightening the covers around us, summoning our combined body heat to keep warm.
As the middle child, I assumed the role of referee when my brother and sister went at it. Regina at nine—older, worldly, and sophisticated—had little tolerance for five-year-old Bernard, a fiery handful with a nonstop motor and a nose for trouble. I didn’t mind playing peacemaker because I modeled myself after my father, who had become a campus police officer at St. Louis University. I looked up to him. (That’s not accurate: I wanted to be him.) Whenever we played “Family,” my favorite game, I assumed the role of Dad, slipping my small feet into my father’s shoes and clopping authoritatively around the house.
Outside the family, people saw me as quiet. I suppose I was, but I also had a keen, observant eye. Even if I didn’t say much, I took in everything. People called me “the good kid,” and I tried to live up to the title. I was a good kid—most of the time.
One day, my mother announced that Regina, Bernard, and I would be going to the circus with our church group. We had no money for food or snacks once we got there, so my mother fed us before we left.
As we headed out the door, I passed my parents’ bedroom and spotted a twenty-dollar bill on the dresser. I paused, looked around, darted into their room, snatched the twenty, and stuffed it into my pocket. At the circus, I waited for the right moment and revealed to my sister and brother that I had found a twenty-dollar bill on the ground. I was an instant hero. I used the money to treat myself, Bernard, and Regina to ice cream and candy, coming home with only a couple of dollars in change.
The moment we walked into the house, we could hear our mother sobbing. We found her and our father in their bedroom. Through her tears, my mother said that she had left twenty dollars on the dresser and now it was gone. She blamed herself, saying she must have misplaced it.
“That was the last twenty dollars we had,” she said. “I don’t know what we’re going to do.”
Then my sister, in total innocence, blurted out that I had found twenty dollars at the circus.
Of course my parents knew immediately what had happened.
“Where did you get that money?” my father asked.
“I found it.”
“I’m going to ask you one more time,” my father said, his voice level. “Where did you get the money?”
I answered by bursting into tears. I knew I had been doing something wrong when I stuffed the twenty into my pocket. But only as I saw my mother sobbing did I realize that I had actually stolen the money. I felt like a thief.
At a minimum, I expected a severe whupping at the hand of my father, the dispenser of punishments. But he didn’t lift a finger. He knew in this case that any punishment would pale in comparison to the pain I felt seeing my mother cry.
A few days later, after the pain had subsided into a crippling sense of guilt, I was surprised to discover that my parents didn’t hold anything against me. In fact, our relationship hadn’t changed at all. They had expressed their disappointment, but then they had given me a second chance. I was afraid they would snub me, ignore me, or speak to me only in anger; but they treated me as they always had—with love and kindness.
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br /> I learned a powerful lesson that day: I am their son. They loved me and believed in me, and they accepted that people make mistakes.
How often in our culture do we condemn young people after they make a mistake? How often do we give young people—especially young people of color—a second chance? Society often defines people by their mistakes. Sadly, I’ve seen that mistakes can determine the entire course of a person’s life.
My parents not only gave me a second chance but would also soon give me a third chance.
A year or so later, when I was about eight, our family’s financial situation had improved enough that my parents enrolled my brother, sister, and me at a private Catholic school. I don’t remember much about my time there, except I felt like an outcast among my neighborhood friends because I went to a different school than they did, and they gave me grief about it. At the Catholic school, probably because I really didn’t want to be there, I acted out.
One day, my second-grade teacher asked me to do something—or stop doing something—and I refused. She reached for my arm. I defiantly swung my hand away and accidentally slapped her wrist, smashing the crystal on her watch. Upset, she sent me to the principal, who called my mother—and not for the first time.
When my father got home that night, he walked into my room and handed me a brown paper shopping bag.
“Put all your things into this bag,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because you’re moving out. You’re not going to be living here anymore.”
Then he left me alone in my room.
Stunned, I slowly started filling up the bag. I put in a few clothes, a favorite toy, my toothbrush, and then, clutching the bag to my chest, I walked slowly into the living room where my parents and siblings sat waiting.
“Say good-bye to your brother and sister,” my father said.
I looked up at him but didn’t move. He tilted his head toward Bernard and Regina.
I walked over to them and whispered good-bye. They both immediately started crying. I lost it. I threw my arms around my brother and then hugged my sister.
“Say good-bye to your mother,” my father said.
I went over to her and stood in front of her—speechless. She bit her lip and then began to sob.
Tears gushed down my cheeks, and I began to wail.
“Where . . . where am I . . .”
I couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Let’s go,” my father said, pulling me away from my mother. He guided me out to the driveway, and we got into the car.
As we drove away from the house, with my paper shopping bag on my lap, I managed to gain control of myself. My father drove slowly and said nothing. He stared ahead, his gaze grim and determined. After a while, he turned a corner and parked in front of a large, imposing building.
“We’re here,” my father said.
I hunched down and squinted through the window, trying to make out the lettering on the building.
“This is the police station,” my father said. “You’re going to jail.”
The tears came again, this time in sheets. I heard my father climb out of the car and close his door. Within seconds, the passenger door opened, and he ushered me out of the car, leading me by the arm into the police station and up to the front desk where the officer on duty looked up from some paperwork he was doing. He nodded as if he were expecting us.
“Is this him?”
“Yes,” my father said.
“Okay then,” the officer said. “I’ll take it from here.”
“Good luck, Son,” my father said. He offered his hand and I shook it. Then he turned and walked out of the police station.
I let out a wail, my entire body shaking with sobs. I wanted to run and catch up to my father, but before I could move, the officer came out from behind his desk, took my arm, and steered me across the room. I tried to walk, but my legs felt as heavy as lead.
“Hurry up,” the officer said.
I gasped and one last cry gushed forth before I could contain myself. My chest heaving, I allowed the police officer to escort me down a corridor toward a jail cell. I managed to catch my breath and swiped at my tears. I felt broken, destroyed—like an actual criminal.
This is for real, I said to myself. This is happening. My life is over.
We stopped in front of the cell. The officer pulled out a ring of keys and inserted one into the lock. He jiggled the lock; I heard a click, and the cell door swung open, creaking and clanging. The officer stepped aside and nodded—first at me and then at the inside of the cell.
I looked into the cell and saw a slab connected to the wall (which I assumed was the bed), a filthy washbasin, and a grubby toilet with no seat. An icy chill streaked down the length of my spine, as if someone had dropped an ice cube inside my shirt.
“Get in there,” the officer said.
I hesitated and my stomach lurched. I thought I was about to be sick. The officer put his hand on my shoulder.
“This isn’t where you want to be, is it?” he said.
“No, sir,” I mumbled.
“Then you need to start making better decisions. And you need to listen to your parents.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let’s go,” the officer said.
He closed the door to the cell with a crash that startled me. Then he led me back to his desk, and my father was waiting there. I threw myself at my dad, gripping his legs with every ounce of strength I could find.
When we got home, I ran into the living room, where I found my mother, brother, and sister still sitting in the same places—and still crying.
I can’t say I became a perfect child after that, but I made sure that I never stepped far enough over the line to get me anywhere close to that jail again.
Right before Christmas when I was nine, my parents bought a house on a corner lot in a predominantly white suburb of St. Louis. We were the only black family on our street. We moved for the larger space, bigger yard, better schools, and safer streets. In other words, my parents moved for us kids, for our future.
We moved in the middle of the school year and would start at our new school in January. But first my parents decided to celebrate this new start—this new life—by taking a Christmas trip to visit my mom’s family in San Francisco. As we boarded the train in St. Louis, I tried to grab hold of all the newness swirling around me—new home, new neighborhood, new school, new friends. I was taking a cross-country train ride for the first time, visiting a city I’d never seen and relatives I’d never met.
Christmas in California.
A trip I will never forget.
Our relatives met us with two cars outside the train station in San Francisco. My mom got into the first car with her sisters, while my brother, sister, and I scrunched into the backseat of the second car with my cousin. My dad settled into the front seat next to my uncle, who was driving. I remember the car pulling away from the curb and into the flow of San Francisco traffic, but after that, my memory is a blur. Scattered images and sounds topple over each other, flashing before my eyes, blinding me.
The car lurching.
The jolt of impact.
The deafening crash.
The crunch of metal.
Screams.
Our bodies springing forward.
Sirens.
Hands clawing at us, pulling us out from the mashed-in backseat.
I can see my brother, my sister, and my cousin standing outside on the street, with my uncle’s car listing at an ungodly angle in front of us, impaled on a guardrail. The front end crushed. Glass everywhere.
Where’s Dad?
I envision my mother in the other car with her sisters, laughing, driving home, blissfully unaware.
More sirens wailing.
Yellow police tape flapping, closing us in.
Fire trucks roaring, surrounding us. A scramble of firefighters everywhere.
Police cruisers screeching, lined up in rows.
A crowd.
Hands grappling at the front doors of the dismembered car. A fireman approaching with a crowbar. Another with an ax.
Where is Dad?
My uncle and my father trapped in the front seat.
I see no movement.
Then I see my uncle’s head bobbing. But I don’t see . . .
Where’s . . . DAD!
My disembodied voice.
Howling.
We spent Christmas Day at the hospital, my father hooked up to tubes and machines that gurgled and beeped. The moment I saw him, I began to cry. My father, who was my world, had shrunk to something small and frail. He extended his hand toward me.
“I’m all right, Son,” he said. “I’m going to be all right.”
I ran to him. He gripped my hand, smothering my fingers. I wanted to be strong. I didn’t want to cry. But I couldn’t stop myself.
Finally, breathing hard, my sobbing now intermittent, I dragged a chair to my dad’s bedside. Neither one of us could say very much. I stayed with him for what seemed like hours, until he got tired. Then the nurse and my mother said we should leave so my dad could sleep.
In the hallway, I asked my mom, “Is he really going to be all right?”
My mother paused . . . too long.
“Yes,” she said.
At some point later, she told me the truth. My father couldn’t walk. He had been paralyzed, and the doctors didn’t know whether he would ever walk again. They sounded optimistic, though, she said, and the lead doctor predicted that my dad would walk again, especially given his powerful determination and the fact that he was only thirty-five years old.
I know he’ll walk again, I told myself. I know it. Dad’s a fighter. He will walk again.
But the doctors couldn’t promise anything. All they could say was that my dad would have to stay in the hospital for several more weeks. We extended our time in San Francisco through the end of the year, but then we had to return to our new house, our new neighborhood, our new school—our new life—while Dad stayed in California in his hospital bed.
Meanwhile, my uncle, who had caused all this, had been released from the hospital with minor injuries—able to walk, free to return to his family and his life.