Without Faith

by Leslie J. Sherrod

  “Thanks for caring,” I murmured.

  “Of course. Though I’ve seen him around church, I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting your son yet; but knowing his mother, I’m sure he’s a great kid. I’m hoping and expecting the best here.” He was smiling, a warm gesture, but something behind the way he was studying me irritated me. “Tell me, Sienna,” he continued, smiling, “what kind of activities does Roman like to do in his spare time? I’m only trying to get a better sense of who he is since I never talked with him.”

  I blinked at the man, my irritation growing. “Um, do you need to take out your notepad to remember all your questions and write down all your notes?”

  “Sienna, what are you talking about?”

  “I guess you finally have your big breaking story.”

  “Sienna—”

  “Brother Tyson, you are going to have to go. I can’t deal with you right now. My son is missing. I do not know where he is, and you are out here asking me some dumb questions about him so that you can have more to say during your next report. I am sorry that your segment was not long enough to warrant more attention on you, but I really don’t care, and I really don’t want you here right now.” I threw his coat back at him and turned away.

  “No, Sienna, no.” Laz tried to grab my hand, but I immediately recoiled.

  The nerve of this man!

  “No, no, you have me all wrong,” he pleaded. “I’m sorry for upsetting you. That was not my intent.”

  “Go away, Laz.” I marched toward my car, thankful that although I had not grabbed my coat, I did have my car keys. If people could not leave me alone, I would go away myself.

  “Sienna, listen please. You’ve got me all wrong. Was I trying to get more information about your son to help with my next report about him? Yes. Am I doing that for my own benefit? Absolutely not!”

  “Get away from me, Laz!” I pried his fingers off my wrist, heard my voice getting louder as I continued trying to push toward my car. Laz did not let go.

  “Sienna, Roman is your son, your pride and joy. You know him. You know his innocence. However, to the rest of the country, to the rest of the world, he is just a black teenage boy from Baltimore. Do you think his missing is going to send shockwaves across the country? Do you think floods of volunteers are going to start combing through deserts and fields, and inner-city neighborhoods to find him?

  “I’m not trying to be mean, but I know the media world, Sienna. I know the reality. How much air time do you think his disappearance will get on the news networks tonight? He’s not a female, he’s not blond, and he’s not eight years old. I am out here, Sienna, right here with you and the people who care about him most. Where are the national news vans? Where are even the other local news stations?

  “You want me to help find him? I can do that with the power I have using a camera and a microphone, but you need to help me. Other networks—especially national networks—are only going to pick up his story if people care. And people are only going to care if they don’t get stuck looking at him as a young black man who they secretly fear or outwardly hate or just don’t understand. They need to see Roman as their own son who plays video games too much, who . . . who keeps his room a mess, who eats up all the food out of the refrigerator, whose biggest mission in life right now is making the varsity team or making out with a pretty girl.

  “Sienna, let me help you by telling the world exactly who is missing. I need to know if he tried out for the football team, if he likes peanut butter on his burgers. I need more than his picture. I need his story. ”

  My hands were over my mouth and every limb of me shook as the truth of his words absorbed into me. “His room . . . is not messy right now,” I whispered. “He cleaned it right before he left.” Of all the things I thought and felt, that was the only sentence I could get out. “I’ll be back. Please, let me go. I need . . . I . . . I’ll be back.” I stared up into his eyes. He let go of my arm, and took a step back away from me. I took two steps toward my car before turning back to him.

  “Officer Sanderson has a key to my house. Get him. You two can go there. You can see Roman’s room. Take shots of his trophies, his mola quilt that his father . . .” My hands went back over my mouth as if covering it would somehow shut back the tears. “You two go. Leon can tell you more about Roman. You can see his room for yourself. You go. There is no way that I can go back into my house if he is not there yet.” I turned back toward my car, opened the door, got in. I watched as Laz stared after me a moment more, and then he jogged up Mother Sprigg’s steps, and disappeared into her home.

  I drove away. No destination, no plan, no peace.

  “God, I am so afraid. Please help. Jesus, please.”

  My family, my church community had been offering prayers up all evening, and yet that was the first prayer I’d said out loud that night, the only words I could voice without feeling my stomach churning again.

  For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind.

  Power.

  The word comforted me. Emboldened me.

  Laz said his power to help my son was with his microphone and camera. What was my power? I refused to feel helpless. I’d been immobilized all evening. Passing out. Lying on couches. Weeping. Whining. Trembling like a leaf on a tree withstanding wind.

  But I had not fallen.

  My son needed me, and he needed me to walk in power.

  I decided that I would not stop driving until I figured out exactly what power I had to save my son.

  Chapter 38

  “Don’t mess with momma cheetah.”

  In the brief time I was with RiChard, in our many constant travels, there was only one trip that we made together that could be counted as an actual vacation. In the midst of village hopping on his quest for revolutionary social justice, we paused one day to go on a safari through the massive African bush and wild lands. We saw elephants, herds of zebras, giraffes. However, there was one animal that struck me the most, simply because it was the single one about which RiChard commented.

  The cheetah.

  Specifically, we saw a mother cheetah and her cubs, which made RiChard lean in close to me and say, “Don’t mess with momma cheetah. She is one feline who stays with her cubs until they are a year and a half, parenting by herself, teaching her young ones how to survive and protecting them from predators. Mess with her and she will go from zero to sixty in three seconds and, believe me, you are not outrunning her.”

  In retrospect, perhaps RiChard did talk about the other animals. More than likely, knowing how much he seemed to enjoy flaunting his knowledge about nearly any and everything, he’d probably shared facts and tidbits about the other wildlife that appeared oblivious to our passing vehicle.

  But it was his comments about the cheetah that stuck with me, implanted somewhere in my consciousness, and made an imprint in my brain.

  In recent years, I’d forgotten about the cheetah, her inability to roar, her exhaustion after a high-speed chase. Now, her maternal mission was front and center and reflective of my resolve.

  To protect.

  To survive.

  To run down threats and attack and defend like life and death depended on it.

  My drive had taken me to Charles Street, to the historic Mount Vernon area where the nation’s first architectural monument to George Washington stood tall and lit in the darkness on a large, park-like island in the center of the road. As I circled the monument, the cobblestone street rumbled under the wheels of my car, startling me, waking me up from the daze of a distant memory, a faded daydream.

  “Where am I going?” I shook my head, determined to fight back tears, tiredness, and despair as I contemplated what power I had in finding my son. “I guess I first need to go get some gas.” I was nearly on ‘E,’ Leon’s generosity from earlier that day almost depleted. I pulled up to a small gas station hidden in a narrow, unkempt space between two old, tall office buildings. Not my first choice to stop at nearly
twelve-thirty in the morning, but I decided it made more sense to stop there than to run out of gas again in the empty darkness.

  I parked at a pump and got out of the car before realizing my mistake.

  I had not been home all day to get my purse, which had my money, credit cards, and phone charger. Without any coat on, I had no pockets to check for loose change. I searched through my car for any stray coins, pulling out the ashtray, sticking my hand between the seat cushions, turning over the floor mats, checking everywhere that I could fit my hands. Even as I did so, I knew my search was pointless. The gas station did not appear to have any attendants at the window to accept cash payments.

  A part of me wanted to laugh, another part wanted to scream. I settled for an anguished cry as I debated how to get myself out of this new predicament. I was not sure that I had enough gas to get back to Mother Sprigg’s home, and I had no phone access to call for assistance. The seventy-nine cents I scrounged up in change offered no help.

  For the first time in a long time, I wished phone booths were still around. At least I could have made a collect call.

  “This is hands-down the absolute worst week of my life,” I spoke aloud. “God, I don’t know what you are doing, but there is nothing else I can do right now but ask for your help and trust you.” I thought of Mother Sprigg’s last words to me before I’d pushed myself out of her house. “I won’t lose my faith, Jesus,” I whispered, shutting my eyes as I leaned against my car door. I was so intent, so focused on praying, that I did not notice the screeching set of wheels that pulled into the station. As a car door opened and sharp footsteps punched the ground, I was forced to open my eyes to see what had pulled up beside me.

  A red Lexus.

  “Jenellis!” I gasped. My confusion deepened as a second door opened and a man got out of the passenger side. Not Brayden, but David, the young man who had escorted me to Silver’s hideout two days before.

  “What are you doing here?” I demanded as both marched toward me. Jenellis’s hands were thrust deep in her coat pockets and her expression remained blank as she approached.

  I didn’t have time for any of this foolishness, whatever it was they were up to.

  And she knew it. She could see it in my eyes. She came prepared.

  “Now,” she commanded David, and before I could protest, protect myself, or prevent it from happening, a sharp needle pricked my shoulder, piercing right through my blouse. I remember wondering if wearing a coat would have helped my situation as blackness began to envelope me and my legs began to give way. I was being led, guided, forced to her car, and felt myself being thrown into the back seat, powerless to stop the attack.

  As a groggy darkness finished taking hold of me, drawing me deeper into a blacked-out state, I heard Jenellis say, “Get rid of her car.”

  I heard my own voice whimper, “My son . . .” Felt my last bit of power being sucked away from me.

  No.

  I still have power. My last thoughts before succumbing completely to the darkness.

  The power of faith.

  God could work even when I couldn’t.

  Chapter 39

  Basketball trophies . . . Butterflies . . . Mbali . . . Cheetahs . . . The smell of rain when it first hits the pavement . . . Power . . . Smoke . . .

  Smoke?

  I forced my eyes open, willing myself to come out of the darkened, trance-like state I had been in.

  Years ago, when I needed a minor outpatient surgical procedure, my doctor had administered some type of anesthesia that put me in what she called a “twilight sleep”: not completely unconscious, but sedated enough that I had no awareness or memory during the operation. I remembered coming to and feeling woozy—and also feeling like only seconds had passed and not the full hour that the doctor said she’d worked on me.

  I was having the same sensation at that moment.

  Smoke.

  My senses were awakening and the smell of something burning overpowered my nostrils. Still feeling flighty from whatever had been jabbed into my shoulder, I willed myself to focus, to concentrate.

  To try to figure out what in the world was going on.

  A kitchen.

  I was in some type of industrial kitchen, I concluded, as my eyes came into better focus. Large stainless-steel vats with stirring mechanisms, multiple ranges with burners, and warehouse-sized refrigerators filled the large room. One of the burners was lit with a high flame and a large pot sat on top of it. Thick, smoke-like steam rolled out of it and I concluded that was what I was smelling.

  Burning food.

  I was looking up at everything. The burners, the refrigerators, the vats were all taller than me. I must be on the floor, I decided, becoming aware that the entire left side of my body, from the side of my face, to my arms, to my legs felt cold.

  I was lying left side down on a cement floor.

  I tried to move my arms, my feet, but realized every part of me was tied up, and whatever had me bound also had me attached to a four-inch-thick pipe that ran along the length of the kitchen floor.

  “Oh, God,” I tried to pray, but my tongue, my teeth, were tangled up in what felt like a steel wool scouring pad stuffed into my mouth.

  Pieces of memories—the gas station, the red Lexus that had pulled up beside me, Jenellis, David—started infiltrating my consciousness. But none of the pieces fit together, made sense. And honestly, I did not care that they did not. Only one thought, one recent memory mattered most to me in that minute.

  Roman.

  I was on a mission to somehow rescue my son, and this woman and whatever foolishness she had going on with her had interrupted me. Tears filled my eyes as my sense of helplessness turned to horror. Nobody would know where I was, or that I was even in any danger. I had left Mother Spriggs’s house, demanding to be alone, so who knew when anyone would even think to begin looking for me?

  What time was it? Was it even still the same day? As my senses and consciousness continued to register, a thousand and one questions began filling my mind. I tried to move, but whatever had me bound had no give.

  I shut my eyes as the tears continued to streak down my cheeks, stinging, pooling on the cement floor next to my face. My nose started to get congested and I gagged for breath, my mouth a blocked airway.

  Survive, Sienna!

  A calm, still voice somewhere in the inside of me spoke out and my eyes opened again. I did not have time to sit there and cry. Falling apart was not an option. I had to get out of there. I had to at least try.

  The pot on the top of the burner seemed to be rattling, as if whatever inside it that was boiling and slowly burning had a life of its own, and was seeking its own escape.

  Someone would be back to check on this food, I realized. I did not know who that someone was or when they would be coming.

  I could not wait to find out.

  First, I tried to spit the scouring pad out of my mouth. Try as I might, it did not budge. I looked at what was binding me.

  Thick, green, industrial-strength garbage bags, rolled up into tight ropes, crisscrossed over my arms, legs, ankles, and midsection, knotted to the pipe. The heavy green plastic looked like a rope of convenience, what had been on hand.

  This had been an impromptu undertaking, not a carefully planned attack. That gave me an advantage as I just needed to outwit a hastily formed strategy. It also warned me of imminent danger. Having me here bound up was seen as an immediate necessity and spoke to desperation. Though I did not have a clue as to why, I knew that such desperation could very easily turn deadly for me.

  What do I do, Lord?

  I studied my wrists, tied up tightly with the rolled-up bags. They reminded me of plastic wristbands at a state fair. That’s it, I decided, thinking of how Roman would always refuse to let me cut wristbands off of him following carnival or ER visits. He would always pretend to be an escape artist and manage to wriggle them off. Most of the time he succeeded. It was thick, heavy plastic that bound my hands, but plasti
c nonetheless. Using the bottom corner of a cabinet nearby, I willed myself to imagine my hands being smaller, to believe that I could somehow roll the tight bands off my wrists. The pain was torture as my hands turned red and my fingers turned white from the blockage in circulation, but millimeter by millimeter, I worked that plastic until it was over my thumb knuckles, past my palms.

  Then free.

  Working quickly, I took the scouring pad out of my mouth. The rest of my body was still entangled in tied knots, still attached to the metal pipe. I used the steel wool to begin scraping the knots down and within seconds I was free from the pipe, though my legs and ankles were still tied. The knots down there were bigger, thicker, tighter, as if whoever had bound me had more time to work on them and had sped through the knots that had tied down my upper body. I pulled myself up, attempting to hop and half slide through the kitchen. I got to the end of the aisle where I had been hidden, seeing that the massive kitchen was made up of several rows separated by racks and cabinets, workspaces, ranges, and storage areas. The pot that was burning, boiling away, was at the end of my aisle. I noted a chopping board on a counter near the range. Quartered potatoes and celery stalks spilled off of it.

  There has to be a knife nearby, I decided, and quickened my hops and slides to the counter where the cutting board lay. Almost there! I put my all into one last hop to round the corner, but instead of landing back on the concrete floor, I tripped, stumbling forward, began falling forward, but I caught myself, grabbing on to a metal drawer handle, and holding on to the side of a refrigerator.

  “Oh, Jesus!” I screamed as I realized what had tripped me.

  A white tennis shoe attached to a foot attached to a man who lay lifeless on the floor. He had been out of my view on the other side of a large refrigerator, which was on the other side of the still-burning pot. He had a slight olive hue to his otherwise pale skin, which, together with his dark curly hair, spoke to a possible Mediterranean ethnicity. He lay on his back, his eyes and mouth open as if frozen forever in a look of utter surprise and horror.