lwilson - Tumblr blog

lwilson · 3 years

Text

the day of the round brown

The cattle truck rattled along the rutted road shaking us about like dice in a Yahtzee cup. I was standing in a sea of crew cuts and camouflage wondering what in the hell I had gotten myself into. There were no poles or guard rails for us to hold on to so we swayed back and forth like wheat in an open field. We were strangers, young men crammed into the back of a cattle truck like pigs, or cows being led off to slaughter. A sense of doom hung like storm clouds over us.

“What in the hell was I thinking,” I thought as I looked around at the scared young faces, their nervous hands fidgeting stuffed in pockets only to be pulled out seconds later. Our restless feet shuffling, anxious twitching grins, and racing minds. I was scared too, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t. It’s the not knowing that scares you, the not knowing what to expect or what is expected of you. We didn’t know where we were going or who would be waiting for us when we got there. For five days the military experience had been nothing more than doing a little police call(Standing in a straight line and walking shoulder to shoulder picking up trash), I still don’t know why they call it that, but that’s what it’s called for whatever reason. We had our pictures taken for our military IDs, received our dog tags, learned to march, and filled out paperwork, and for the most part that was about it. I remember thinking,

“If this is the Army, I should have done this a long time ago.” Of course, that wasn’t the real Army. We were at the wait station being processed into the real Army. Unbeknownst to us, they were breaking us down into groups and deciding what battery (An artillery unit is called a battery), each man would belong to and who the Drill Sargeant of that unit would be. We had been treated fairly well and had basically been left alone for five days aside for police calls, morning, noon, and evening formations, and chow time. We had been lulled into complacency. Reality finally caught up to us on a cool autumn afternoon. The sky was tropical water blue, with just a few wispy clouds floating aimlessly overhead. I remember it like it was yesterday. We were called to formation, and I remembered thinking,

“I wonder what Alan is up to right now?” I smiled a little and thought how wrong Alan had been for not joining up with me, we could have come in together on the buddy system because as far as I could tell the Army was going to be great.

Corporal Thigpen, a lean, dark-skinned young man in his mid-twenties stepped to the front of the formation and told us to fall in, and we all snapped to attention. I don’t remember the short speech he gave, but the jest of it was that we would be moving on to where we would be starting our basic training. Playtime was over. He marched us around the squat puke green buildings to the parade field where the cattle truck sat, blinding silver and shining under that pale Oklahoma sky. We stood there with our jaws unhinged and mouths gaping not fully understanding what was happening. I turned and looked at Corporal Thigpen, his face was a blank slate, he looked through me, he had already mentally moved on to the incoming recruits that would arrive after we were gone. I felt alone, scared, and trapped.

An overwhelming urge to run swept over me. I looked around at the mosaic of young faces surrounding me and saw the same desperate and confused looks In many of their eyes. I thought of my father and what he would have thought. He must have felt the same when he was young and in the Air Force and he had more than managed to have gotten through it and so would I. I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths, then opened them and prepared myself for whatever would come.

We were marched the two hundred feet to the cattle truck, a shimmering block up on a small hill about one hundred yards away. The trailer had twelve-inch rectangle slots cut out on both sides for air and a swinging double door in the rear. One way in and one way out. Although we were standing in front of it, it still hadn’t dawned on us that this was our transport. Most of us had never seen a cattle truck let alone ridden in one. This would be the first of many. As we stepped timidly aboard our cattle truck the man sitting with his legs crossed and hat down over his brow went almost unnoticed.

He never peeked up from under the rim of his round brown to see the commotion going on around him or uttered a sound. He was there while not being there. I didn’t notice him until I was standing near the back squished between a trembling fat kid we would later call Pillsbury because he reminded us of the Pillsbury doughboy and a slightly older Spanish dude who looked like he might have been a former gangbanger. I forget his name now, but I do remember him being tough, but one of the nicest guys I had ever met. I wish I could remember his name, but I guess it’s just one of those things time steals away from you along with faces and certain places, taking away the whole leaving only an imprint of what was.

To my right, I could hear Pillsbury muttering something under his breath, a prayer, his mother’s name, I don’t know. I turned and looked at him and could see tears filling his lower lids. I quickly turned away not wanting to embarrass him and met the gaze of the Spanish guy, his eyes were wide with alarm, but I didn’t see fear. He gave me a slight shrug, I shrugged back then we both retreated into our own little worlds.

The air was dense and silent and smelled of sweat and nervous farts that hung like cigarette smoke over us. The cattle truck was cramped and stuffed neck-deep with nervous jittery young men with shaved heads and wearing crisp new BDU’s (Battle Dress Uniform), with armpits damp and foreheads shining from anxious sweat. Our eyes were wild and darting about like we had been dropped into total darkness in unfamiliar surroundings. But there was light, which in my opinion only served to make the trip more ominous. In the dark, you may hear but you never see the dread that sneaks up and attacks you, then devours you, and finally claims you. Our collective dread sat near the front, and he was plain to see. He was a silent nodding man none of us had ever seen before.

He sat as silent as time with his head lowered, his eyes shielded by the brim of his drill sergeant’s hat, the fabled Round Brown as they were called. He sat like an old western gunfighter napping in front of some long-forgotten saloon with names like Sally’s, or Miss Calamity. Round brown’s legs were kicked out in front of him and crossed at the ankles the tips of his jump boots glistened in the dim light like patent leather. His arms were folded across his barrel chest and his head bobbed loosely on his neck as we passed over rough and bumpy terrain. He wanted us to believe that he was asleep, but he wasn’t, and we knew it, and I believe he knew we knew it. The cattle truck rambled on.

The trip lasted about ten minutes then we crossed some railroad tracks, and for the first time, the nodding man seemed to take notice of us. He looked out over the sea of young faces staring anxiously back at him. He stood up and straighten his round brown on his head and as he did the cattle truck rolled to a stop. We had arrived at Fort Sill, and this was the very first day of Basic Training.

“Well,” round brown said with a sinister smile, “Welcome to hell ladies.” He opened the side door of the cattle truck and stepped off. The back double doors of the cattle car flung open and as far as you could see there was nothing but Drill Sergeants, screaming at the top of their lungs for us to get our useless, lazy asses off their cattle truck.

“You have five seconds to get your useless asses off my truck and four of them are already gone,” I will never forget hearing that, or the chaos that ensued after that. Duffle bags being flung in every direction, Drill Sargeant’s inches from your face screaming at the top of their lungs calling you things I wouldn’t dare repeat in this piece. It was a harrowing experience that seemed to last forever. Although I was experiencing it I was able to step out of myself to observe what was going on around me. Things go quiet for me and I can watch without the distraction of sound. It’s always been my way of dealing with overly stressful situations. As I hurried about gathering my thrown things I observed the reaction of some of the other young men I arrived with. Pillsbury just froze. He was surrounded by three or maybe four drill instructors who were all up in his face screaming obscenities at him about his weight, his face, you name it, if it was hurtful they screamed it at him.

“You fat sonofabitch,” One yelled.

“Your fat ass looks like the Pillsbury doughboy,” the Round brown that rode over with us yelled at him.

“ You got more meat on your ass then my wife,” Another drill instructor patted him on the behind and laughed.

“Mine too,” another drill instructor laughed.

Pillsbury stood there trembling on the verge of tears unable to function which only served to spur them on. Scenes like this were playing out all around me.

The Spanish guy I saw on the cattle car moved about ignoring the insults being hurled at him.

“Where you from cholo,” the drill sergeant demanded.

“L.A.,” he answered as he picked his duffle bag up.

“You think you talking to one of your gangbanging ass friends,”

“L.A. Sargeant,” he said unfazed.

“Drill Sergeant,” the drill sergeant screamed pointing at his round brown, “You’ve got to be a bad motherfucker to get one of these, you a bad motherfucker Cholo?”

The Spanish guy shook his head.

“ Speak,” the drill sergeant screamed as he took a step closer to the Spanish guy.

A drill sergeant stepped in front of me blocking my line of sight. It was drill sergeant Kelly, a young black man of about twenty-five. His skin was coal-black, and his eyes were the color of good bourbon. His lips were drawn tight almost into a pucker and his jawline was as sharp as a barbers razor. He was tall and lean with a uniform as clean and crisp as any I’ve ever seen. The tips of his jump boots shone like glass. His Round brown drill sergeant’s hat sat tilted forward with the brim resting just above his eyebrows. He stood there with his hands on his hips sizing me up.

“What the hell you looking at son,” he asked in a raspy smokers voice.

“Nothing,” I answered.

“Where you from Private,” he asked.

“Michigan sir,” I answered stiffly

“ I work for a living son,” he exploded, “ Don’t ever call me sir. I’m a Drill Sargeant, you understand me?”

“Yes, Drill Sergeant.”

“What part of Michigan… wait, let me guess,” he stepped back and looked me over for a second,

“I bet dollars to doughnuts your dope selling ass is from Detroit, you from the “D”, he asked mockingly.

“Yes, Drill Sergeant,”

“Well I’ll be a sissy without a fur coat,” he turned to a few nearby drill sergeants, “We’ve got us a real-life Detroit gangster here.”

The other Drill Sergeants swarmed and I found myself standing in the middle of four Drill Sergeants hurling insults at me. I remember thinking,

“Alan was right. I’ve made a huge mistake. There is no way I will be able to deal with this for thirteen weeks.”

After a few weeks of starting basic training, I begin to see a pattern.There was a method to the Drill Sargeant’s madness. The badgering and insults aren’t personal. First, they have to see how mentally tough you are, second, it’s part of the stripping down process. The process of stripping away the civilian in you so that they could build you back up as a soldier. The insults were targeted I noticed, an example, If you were from the south they hurled incest insults at you. If you were from a big city like Detroit, New York, Chicago, you must have been a gang member. If you were overweight, fat insults were coming your way, overly handsome, homosexual insults. When you read this you have to remember that these events happened in the eighties and things that might be unacceptable today were quite acceptable back then.

Basic Training

They call it culture shock. The transformation from civilian to soldier. The process isn’t always a smooth one. For some, the transformation happens almost overnight, for others, the process can be bumpy almost to the end of the training. The first day we were broken down into the units we would be in for our basic training. I was in Bravo Battery along with the Spanish guy and a few other guys I had arrived with. Drill Sargeant Kelly and his team would be Bravo Battery’s drill instructors. Pillsbury ended up in Alpha Battery, and the Drill Sargeant from the cattle truck would be their drill instructor. Throughout our training Alpha and Bravo competed for the top spots in our training exercises. To my surprise and the surprise of many, even to himself, I think, Pillsbury over the weeks blossomed into one of the best soldiers in his unit. He was losing weight, his confidence was on the rise, it was an amazing thing to see.

The first few weeks of basic training were pretty tough, tougher than I would have ever imagined. It wasn’t the physical aspect of the training that made it difficult for me. I was a former football player and at the time I was in the best shape of my life. The psychological aspect of basic training was the hardest for me. The never-ending shouting and beratement, the isolation, the not knowing what to expect for one moment to the next, being away from family and friends. These were the things that weighed heavily on me. It had been weeks since I last talked to Alan and I would wonder what he was up to? What was going on in the neighborhood? I thought of my parents, and how I was unable to say goodbye to my mother, and how badly my leaving must have hurt her and my father although my father would never say so. I was thinking of my girlfriend and being away from her, would she wait? She did, but at the time I couldn’t worry about that. I was thinking of all the things that made being away from home harder than it needed to be. Finally, I decided that the best way to get through basic was to not think about home and what I was missing by not being there. No one had forced me to join the Army, I had to remind myself that I did it for the opportunity serving would afford me and my girlfriend when I got out and we got married. So, I forced all thoughts of home to the back of my mind and focused on becoming the best soldier I could be. Change never comes easy and being transformed from one thing into something else is no easy task. Residual resistance to the past makes changing for the future hard.

But, the change did come. As the weeks rolled by we began to gel as a unit and before we knew it a ragtag bunch of young men from across the country and from many different cultures and backgrounds was standing shoulder to shoulder becoming a cog in the awesome machinery that is the United States Military. We were Thirteen Bravo’s, a field artillery unit, and we trained on M110 8 inch (203 mm) Self-Propelled Howitzer which was responsible for firing long-range HE( High Explosive) rounds downrange. During this time I was appointed Platoon Guide(PG) by Drill Sargeant Kelly. The PG answers to the drill instructors directly. In each unit, you have a PG, an assistant PG, and five or six-section chiefs all recruits. The Drill Sergeant tells the PG what needs to be done and the PG relays the instructions down to the assistant PG and section chiefs. Each section chief is responsible for five or six recruits. If any of the orders relayed by the drill instructors are not done or are done incorrectly the PG is held responsible. It was not a responsibility I wanted but I accepted it.

I’ve never seen myself as a person that needs to be a leader, or who needs to be out front giving orders. It doesn’t bother me either way, but if I had my choice I would rather ease into the background and let someone else take up the mantle, that’s why I find it so incredible that I’ve always been put into leadership positions.

My McFarlene Problem

David McFarlene was a problem. He was this big, not muscular guy from the upper peninsula in Michigan who was simply not cut out for soldiering. When he moved it was like watching someone whose pieces were not quite put together right. His movements were loose and jerky, and when he walked he leaned forward like he would tip over and fall at any moment, his thick neck was extended in some funny uncomfortable looking position holding up his oddly undersized head.

Before I became PG I had barely noticed the large clumsy guy with the slack jaw and dull hazel eyes. Why would I, he wasn’t my problem. The only time I took note of McFarlene was when he was being chewed out for doing something wrong that he should have learned how to do right weeks before. This guy had no coordination, for whatever reason he couldn’t get marching down. Marching is basically walking. You start with the left foot and if you’re turning left you planted your right foot and if your turning right you do the opposite, simple I thought.

Our unit spent many a day after the regular day of training was over on the parade field being hammered by drill sergeant Kelly and his guys because McFarlene who for whatever reason couldn’t catch on to walking in time with the rest of us. This did not make McFarlene popular with the other guys in the unit. It wasn’t long before I began to hear guys talking about giving old McFarlene a blanket party(A beating). I would have felt bad for the guy, but I didn’t. McFarlene was a huge jerk and undercover racist. He didn’t care that because of his lack of effort the rest of us were suffering. When he should have been practicing McFarlene would be on his bunk sleeping or walking around telling off-colored or racist jokes. It didn’t take long before the rest of the guys black and white had felt that they had waited long enough and it was time to give “Baby Huey”, as some of the guys called him the beat down he had coming his way. We stood around in the laundry room which was around the back of the barracks and took a vote. One by one the guys raised their hands in favor of giving McFarlene a blanket party.

J.D. Kidder, was a small womanish man with a squeaky bird-like voice was another guy that simply couldn’t get his act together and was causing the unit extra heartache and they wanted to vote on giving him a blanket party as well. For McFarlene I voted yes. In hindsight, I’m not proud of it, but I was eighteen and the guy was a racist and at the time I thought he had it coming. Kidder, on the other hand, I voted no. He wasn’t a good soldier, but he worked hard and was getting better. So, it was a go on baby Huey and a no go on Kidder. Neither of them received blanket parties that night because almost as if he could sense that something was going on Drill Sargeant Kelly called me into his office and appointed me PG.

“You understand that you are responsible for these guys now. They will be looking to you for leadership and I believe you can give it to them. You up to the task Private?” He asked as his eyes bored through me searching for signs of weakness. I fought to keep my expression flat, but this was the absolute last thing I wanted. Hell basic training was no picnic for me, now I’m responsible for the rest of these guys, responsible for McFarlene and Kidder.

“Yes, Drill Sergeant,” I answered. He rocked forward on his chair.

“Good, I’m counting on you son,” he said and handed me a red sleeve armband with sergeant stripes painted in yellow on it. I slid it on.

“Thank you,” I said as I adjusted the armband on my arm.

“ I’m counting on you to get those boys whipped into shape.”

“Yes, Drill Sergeant I will.”

“ I know you will,” he stood up and offered me his hand. I shook it.

“ You’ll do fine don’t worry. I’ve got all the faith in the world in you.”

“Thank you drill Sargeant.”

Becoming Platoon Guide

“Holy shit, he made you the PG,” Holly, a babyface monster of a man grinned. Holly was from somewhere in Alabama, I don’t remember where. We bonded almost immediately. We were two former football stars forced to face the realization that the NFL was not going to be in the future. I played tailback and I was built like one at the time. Holly was Six- three and built like an NFL linebacker and was as strong as a mother’s love. Holly was still clinging to his NFL aspirations. Hanging on was too painful for me so I let my aspirations go.

“You ready for tonight,” Holly asked with his eyes glowing with excitement.

“Can’t be no blanket party tonight,” I said in a low serious voice. I was expecting trouble, hell I might receive a blanket party myself for this.

“Why not,” a voice came from the back of the room.

“Because I can’t have that shit happening on my first day on the gig”

“That’s your problem,” another unseen voice drifted in.

“Shit rolls downhill and now that I’m up on a ledge, well, you understand gravity right?”

“So what, we got to let him off the hook,” Holly asked.

“No, just for tonight. Trust me, he’ll get what he’s got coming to him, just not tonight.”

“What if we beat his ass anyway,” another voice asked.

“You could do that and I’ll personally make sure that you are on shit duty until the end of basic and A.I.T. If you like cleaning toilets have at him.”

“This ain’t cool, you coming In here laying down the law like this,” Holly said to me in a voice that was just above a whisper.

“He knew something was up. Drill Sargeant Kelly knew that something was going down,” I answered him in the same low voice.

Holly was a popular guy, almost as popular as I was and if he decided on his own that come hell or high water McFarlene was going to get that blanket party that would be a major problem for me. First I would have to deal with Holly because I couldn’t let something like that stand unanswered, and that would be no small task. Secondly, Drill Sargeant Kelly might decide that maybe I wasn’t the man for the job if I couldn’t handle the guys any better than this. Quitting and being fired are not the same thing. I didn’t want the job, but I had no intention of being fired from it in the first week. No, I couldn’t let that happened. Holly and his guys wouldn’t wait forever. I had to do something to blunt their efforts. That night I didn’t get much sleep. I knew I had a day or two at the most before McFarlene was going to end up beaten within an inch of his life. A beating I thought he had earned, with his nigger jokes, and his refusing to work to get better at his job, the crude homosexual jokes he liked to tell. His constant masturbating, the guy had it coming, but not yet.

The next day I asked Drill Sargeant Kelly if Holly could be my assistant PG, and he agreed. I liked Holly and thought he would be a good assistant PG, but I also needed to make him partly responsible if things went sideways with the guys. If he had skin in the game he would do whatever was necessary to make sure the guys stayed in line and no one would move on McFarlene until I gave the word. My problem was no longer just my problem, it was now our problem, and since I was able to make Holly assistant PG he like the power and would do what he needed to do to keep it. Holly now felt indebted to me not that I would ever throw it in his face, there was no need to. There came a point where Holly was telling the guys without any prompting from me that they could not go after McFarlene or Kidder. It was also now in his best interest that they didn’t. It was a cynical move pulling Holly in like that, but for me, it was a necessary one. I believe Drill Sergeant Kelly understood what I had done and I think he liked it.

One day shortly after I asked if Holly could be my assistant PG I noticed Drill sergeant Kelly watching me. He walked over to me after training and said,

“That was a very clever thing you did with Holly, you’re smart,” he then turned and walked away. Although McFarlene’s blanket party had been furloughed for a few weeks it was not by any means canceled. McFarlene’s dance with destiny came out of the blue. We had been doing bayonet training (yes bayonet training), running and slashing at hanging dummies it was all quite ridicules but we had to do it, so we were. Of course, the usual suspects were having trouble with the training, Kidder, McFarlene, and a few other guys that were always one step behind the rest of the class. The guys were having a bit of good-natured fun laughing and joking with them. Most of the runts took the ribbing in stride and laughed and joked with the rest of us all except McFarlene. Today was the day McFarlene had decided that he had had enough of me and wanted to go one on one with the Pugil Sticks ( a stick with huge cushions on the ends, looks like a big Q-tip). I agreed and Drill Sargeant Kelly told us to have at it.

McFarlene is a big graceless man who can barely walk without stumbling over his own feet. He charged me like I knew he would. Bigger guys always try and use their weight against you. Instead, I used speed and after a few minutes I had him huffing and puffing and gasping for air, his arms and chest were bruised and I’m sure his head was hurting from all the head blows he received. He cursed and kept coming and I kept pummeling him then he did something he had been careful not to do in the presence of too many others and certainly not in the presence of any of the Drill Sargeants, he let his temper get the better of him.

At this point, I had stopped hitting him and was just dodging him laughing and joking which only made him madder. He lunged at me and I stepped aside and he went face down in the sand.

“All right McFarlene, you had enough,” I asked still laughing. McFarlene slowly got to his feet spitting sand out of his mouth and brushing his uniform off. He took a few unsteady steps in my direction and spit a huge glob of yellowish-green phlegm at me.

“That’s for your mother you fuckin nigger,” he said as he marched in my direction.

“What,” my blood was boiling. I took off to meet him. “ My mother,” I screamed at him, “You bring my mother into this?”

Drill Sargeant Kelly and several other drill instructors marched over to McFarlene and surrounded him.

“What the fuck did you just say private,” The brim of Drill Sargeant Kelly’s round brown was bumping against McFarlene’s forehead. McFarlene blinked stupidly looking around like he was just waking from a trance.

“Huh,” he muttered looking around like he was seeing them and the sand dunes for the first time. I was going to kill that stupid bastard. Holly and a few other guys had managed to keep me back.

“ At ease private,” a drill instructor yelled at me as I struggled to get free of Holly.

“Did you hear what I said private,” he asked in a sharp authoritative voice. The wind went out of my sails and I began to calm down.

“Yes, Drill Sargeant,” I answered still huffing and puffing.

“Good, fall in,” he said as he turned his focus back to the swarm of drill instructors gathering around Mcfarlane.

The rest of us fell into formation and were marched back to the barracks. McFarlene was taken over to the administration building and didn’t return to the barracks until later that evening. By nine that night things had settled down. McFarlene was sound asleep in his bunk, and Drill Sargeant Kelly was gone for the night. I looked down at McFarlene, he was sleeping like a baby. Kidder slid off his top bunk and took his place among the gathering boys surrounding McFarlene’s bunk. They were all holding socks with bars of soap in them. Holly looked at me and then threw the blanket over McFarlene’s head. I walked to the front of the barracks and sat down at the fireguard desk and wrote a letter to the girl that would later become my wife.

#military #army #basic training #drill instructor #drill sergeant

6 notes · View notes

lwilson · 3 years

Text

our last ride in the bread truck

I remember the rain. It was coming down in silver sheets. It was September 16th, my sister’s birthday and the day I was scheduled to report to basic training. I emerged from my bedroom in the basement with a heavy heart. The news of Ramone’s suicide hung heavy on me. It had been a few weeks since Alan and I had learned of Ramone’s death and I hadn’t slept very well since.

I walked across the kitchen to the dining room. I sat my travel bags on the floor next to the table and walk across the room to my father who was standing in the front of our open front door listening to the rain. My parent’s house was quiet as time on a monument except for the faint sounds of my mother’s sniffles coming from my parent’s bedroom. It was early, I don’t remember exactly how early, but it was still dark and cool outside.

“ It’s coming down out there this morning,” my father said as I walked up beside him.

“It’s pouring,” I said.

“You got everything,” he asked without looking at me.

“I think so,” I said turning to look at his profile.

“Better check before you go.”

“ I will.”

My father had been in the Air Force and had fought during the Korean war. An experience he rarely spoke of. He was old school, he believed action spoke much louder than words. My father was a quiet man. Stoic, yet approachable. He was not the type of man who went around tossing out I love you’s like they were confetti, but if you were family you knew that you were loved. He was strong, smart, and the most patient person I have ever known. My father was a straight shooter, a guy who as far as I knew always walked on the right side of the line in life. When I was a kid, I wanted to be my father. In many ways I still do.

The economy in the 1980s, the Ronald Reagan era economy was garbage, and finding a decent paying job was hard to come by, but trouble, not so much. You didn’t have to look too long or too hard to find trouble. Because trouble was always lurking in the shadows, hanging out at all the popular hot spots, if you called, trouble would be more than happy to show himself in the form of drugs, alcohol, frustration, and anger before exploding from the shadows. Fuel by the newest and most devastating drug of them all, crack cocaine.

A destroyer of lives, past, present, and in some horrible cases future. The Reagan administration’s reaction, a real quippy new slogan “Just say no,” and legislation that unduly targeted minorities and destroyed families for generations. The effects of crack on the scene were immediate and devastating. As I look back now, I can see that this is where Alan and my views on social and perhaps racial issues were beginning to diverge for the first time. This change also coincides with us moving into young adulthood. Alan and I disagreed over the drug sentences being handed down to minorities as compared to their white counterparts.

Alan thought that people selling drugs should have the book thrown at them. I agreed if it were the same size book. Black and Hispanic offenders were getting harsher sentences than white offenders for almost the exact same crime. Friends of ours that we had grown up with were going down. We were seeing it first hand. Fat Rich Martinez, got caught selling dope and caught a hand full of years, his brother Jumbo went the same way, Flip and Solman went the same way and got sent up, Donny, a white kid in their crew got probation. Alan couldn’t see the glaring difference, I did.

“Donny wasn’t selling crack,” Alan said.

“Cocaine is cocaine, rather it’s rock or powder. They should have all gotten the same amount of time.”

“The sentences had nothing to do with race. Maybe Donny’s parents got him a better lawyer?”

“He had a state-appointed lawyer like the rest of them,” I said.

“Still, I just don’t believe that it had nothing to do with race.”

It’s funny how two people can look at the same thing, yet see something totally different. The differences in the Americas we both lived in was beginning to emerge.

*****

My father understood why I had to leave. He may not have liked it, but he understood it. My mother on the other hand, was hurt and angry and didn’t care to understand. My mother was in her and my dad’s bedroom. She wouldn’t come out. I had joined the Army against her wishes, and I was leaving again, and she wasn’t too happy about it. I had to go. For my own sanity, I had to go. I had just return unceremoniously from California where I had gone to play football, but health issues, undiagnosed asthma, put my dreams of playing in the NFL on the rack. So, back I came to Detroit, angry, dejected, and bitter at what I saw as limited options.

Alan offered to get me a job at C.Q. the laundry company he was working, but I turned him down flat. It was a dead-end job and I wanted more.

“It’s good enough for me, but not good enough for you,” Alan said bitterly after I turned him down.

“ It’s not that,” I said regretting not finding a more subtle way of turning him down.

“So what, the rackets. You saw what happened to Jumbo and those guys.”

“ I’m going into the Army,” I said. Thinking back to the shocked expression on his face still makes me smile. My girlfriend, the woman that would later become my wife had just moved to Florida, her mother’s job had been transferred to Jacksonville so nothing was keeping me in Michigan. I wanted to marry her and the Army was my way of providing us with a tangible future.

“She’ll be alright,” my dad said in his calm soothing way referring to sniffles coming from their closed bedroom door. The guilt I felt was overwhelming.

“ I have to go, ” I said with my voice quivering with emotion. He turned to me and smiled. It was a small intimate smile; one he had never given me before or since.

“ I know you do,” He put his hand on my shoulder as he spoke, “It will be good for you. Get you out of here. You go see the world.” He let his hand drop from my shoulder and stuffed it into his front pocket and turned back toward the door and looked out at the pouring rain.

“Thanks, dad.” I wasn’t sure what I was doing. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go into the Army, but what I was sure of was this, I had to go. If I wanted any chance at a decent future I had to go. As I sit here now writing this, I remember standing with him in that doorway listening to the rain slapping down on the sidewalk in front of our house on Promenade Street. I remember staring at his unflinching profile wondering what he was thinking about. I wondered if I was what he had imagined his only son would be like. Was he proud of the man that I was becoming? I wondered if he ever saw parts of himself in me. I don’t know. I’ll never know.

My father died a few years ago while I was in Florida. We would speak on the phone, not as often as I would have liked. My dad was never much for talking on the phone. When I called my mother would always answer the phone. She would ask how I was, then ask after Carmen my wife, then our son Jamie, she would ask if I would like to speak to my father as if I would ever say no.

“Hey,” he would say. My dad had a rich baritone voice, “How’s everything?”

“Good dad, we’re all doing fine.” I would say happy to be talking to him.

“How’s the wife and baby?”

“They’re fine, Jay’s getting big.”

“ I bet he is. Is he taller than you yet?”

“Not yet, almost though, did you watched the Lion’s Sunday dad?” I’d ask referring to the Detroit Lions.

“Them old Lion’s,” he would say with a chuckle, “they have to win eventually, right? we would both laugh.

“ Alright then,” he would say still chuckling. “ I got nothing else to say, here’s your mother.”

“Alright, dad,”

“Okay then,” and he would give my mother the phone.

My dad and I stood in the doorway watching as the headlights turned into our driveway splashing light across the front of the house and us. Dad looked at me.

“You got any money,” he asked seriously. I nodded.

“I do. I have a couple of hundred dollars.”

He reached in his pocket and tried to hand me some more money.

“No, Dad. I’m good. This should be enough,” he shook his head.

“You never know,” he said, “Just take it. Put my mind at ease.” He pulled three hundred dollars out of his pocket.

“Seriously, dad, I’m good.”

“ I know that you are, but for me. Put your mother’s mind at ease.” He handed it to me. I reluctantly took the money and stuffed it into my front pocket.

“Thanks,” I looked toward the closed bedroom door. My dad put a hand on my shoulder.

“ Don’t worry about her. She’ll be alright. Go on,” he motioned toward the front door, “let your friend in.” I walked over to the front door in time to see Alan getting out of the car, hunched over running across our side lawn to the porch. I could hear the slushy sounds of his feet on the wet grass. He ran up on the porch soaking wet and breathing heavily. He looked like a soaked poodle wearing a blond helmet.

“It’s raining,” I joked.

“Funny,” he said stomping his feet and shaking off the rain. I opened the screen door and Alan entered our house. The house was dimly lit with only the light from the kitchen and a small lamp on a side table.

“Want some coffee,” I asked as I moved toward my parent’s bedroom which was just down the hall. Alan had already grabbed a cup and was pouring coffee when I asked.

“Thanks,” he lifted the cup in my direction. He knew where we kept things. He had been coming here since he was a kid. He was virtually part of the family.

“Where’s mom,” he asked. I nodded toward the bedroom and shrugged.

“Oh,” he said. There was no need for me to say more.

“I’ll be back,” I said and walked down the hall toward my parent’s bedroom.

“Thelma,” my dad called to my mother as I walked toward the bedroom door, “ Come on out now, the boys getting ready to go.” I walked over to the bedroom door and stood next to my father.

“Mom, I’m getting ready to go now. Alan’s here.”

“So, you are going to leave after all?” The muffled disbelieving voice came through the door.

“ I have to. I’ll get in trouble if I don’t.” I stood there waiting for the door to open, but it didn’t.

“Fine then, go.” I backed away from the door heartbroken. My dad followed me back into the dining room.

“Hey Dad,” Alan said to my dad and quickly shook his hand, “Can you believe this one,” he motioned toward me, “He’s in the Army now, god protect us all.” We all laughed as I gathered my bags and made my way toward the door. I shook my father’s hand. I wanted to hug him, but I’m not sure how he would have felt about something like that, so I shook his hand, and off Alan and I went. As we backed out of the driveway and turned onto the street, I could see my mother in the door watching us. I waved and she waved back as we pulled away.

*****

Alan and I rode in silence for a long while each lost in his own thoughts. We had been here before. Our friendship put to the test by time and distance. The first came when my family left the old neighborhood first. In the back of my mind and I believe in the back of Alan’s to we thought this might be it, but it wasn’t. Here we are again almost ten years later facing the same threat and once again we came through it. Neither of us could have imagined the threat Donald Trump would pose to our friendship almost thirty years later.

“You really going to go through with this,” Alan asked referring to my decision to join the Army.

“ I have to now. I’m already signed up.”

“Shit, instead of going to Metro (the airport) we could cross the bridge and before you know it you’re in Windsor.”

“I ain’t running to Canada,”

“Why not?”

“Because I already signed up. They’ll come looking for me.”

“Whose gonna come looking for you?”

“Uncle Sam,”

“Uncle…and who in the hell is that?”

“I don’t know, the F.B.I. or some shit,”

“Nobody’s gonna come looking for you if you don’t show up.” Alan and I rode in silence for a while then he said in a low raspy whisper.

“ I can’t believe he did that.”

“What,” I asked.

“ Ramone, I can’t believe he killed himself.”

“ Yeah,” I said looking out the window, “ It’s pretty horrible.”

“ I thought he was stronger than that,” Alan said glancing at me.

“Sometimes the weight is just too much to bear”

“We all got our problems, you be a man and deal with them, that’s how we were raised, right?” I nodded.

“You don’t take the easy way out.”

“How do you know it was the easy way out?”

Alan looked at me confused.

“You think walking into ongoing traffic was easy, I sure in the hell don’t.”

“Must have been easier than facing his problems like a man.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The atmosphere was radioactive in the car. We rode in silence for the rest of the way to the airport with our friendship teetering on the narrow head of a pin. I remember thinking,

“Ramone is gone, and I don’t know who this asshole sitting next to me is. Maybe it’s time to cut ties with everything and everyone from my past and start fresh. If I were going to do it, now was the time. Yeah, now is the time.” I sat back and looked out the window and watched as Chene street slid by us. Every now and again I would catch Alan stealing a glimpse of me from the corner of his eye.

“FMB bakery,” he said grinning as we passed an old abandoned building, “We had some good times up on that roof.” I smiled and let my head swivel in the direction of the building as we passed. Alan was right, as kids, we had some great times there. When we were kids our friend Billy and his mother Lexie, and his sister Lucy lived over the bakery and Billy’s mother Lexie worked as a delivery driver for the bakery. Billy’s family was from Kentucky, and I remember one of the first things he told me when I met him was that his mother Lexie was a former Playboy model, she wasn’t, but at the time Alan and I believed him. She looked like she could have been one honestly.

Billy was in our 5th-grade class even though he was a year older than the rest of us, he had Mrs. Drum the year before us and failed and he had to repeat her class. Ramone and Billy never became friends, but Alan and I became good friends with him and would often spend the weekends over his house partly because he was a fun guy, and partly to ogle his super attractive mom who liked to walk around in Daisy Duke shorts or bikini bottoms and a tee-shirt on her days off.

We never had so much freedom, as we did when we spent our weekend nights over Billy’s house. His mother would buy us a case of Pepsi and pizza and basically leave us to our own devices. Our nights were spent staying up super late listening to music, our favorites in case you were wondering were “Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting, by Carl Douglas, Shadow Dancing by Andy Gibbs, and Saturday Night Fever by his brothers, The Bee Gee’s,” and talking about girls in our classroom, Franchesca, in particular. We all had it bad for Franny. A golden brown girl with dark limpid eyes, thick black hair, a small upturned nose, and pouty blushed lips. The product of a white father and a black mother Franchesca looked about as exotic as her name sounded to us all at the time. When we weren’t pining over Franchesca we were leafing through the mountains of playboy magazines that Billy’s mom’s married boyfriend Richard had gotten for him. We couldn’t believe the stack of dirty mags he had and his mother didn’t seem to mind, and we certainly didn’t.

My parents nor Alan’s parents never knew about the dirty magazines, Daisy Duke shorts, or bikini bottoms or we would have never been allowed to stay over. On those clear summer nights, when Billy’s mother went on her deliveries, his sister Lucy and her boyfriend Otis crept off to her bedroom for the night Billy would always want to go and play one of our favorite games, “Stump the Drunk”.

“Come on guys,” he would say in his easy Kentucky drawl. Alan and I would look at each other and off we would go scurrying out of Billy’s bedroom window onto his rooftop. We would duck low and move quickly past Lucy’s bedroom window and over to the edge of the building. There was a high brick wall, a rampart of sorts, it was high enough to hide us from sight, but low enough for us to see clearly out across the main road. We would then hustle about on the rooftop gathering small rocks and pebbles to throw.

Then like clockwork starting at around 1:45 in the morning men and women would begin to wobble arm in arm out of “Max’s Lounge”, a glorified hole in the wall on the corner of Chene and Fredrick street. Giggling women in form-fitting shimmering dresses clinging to the arms of fidgeting men of all shapes, sizes, and colors, all dressed in variations of the polyester white suit that John Travolta wore in “Saturday Night Fever.” The hunched couples would stagger across the wide blacktop to their waiting LTD’s, Lincoln continentals, and Cadillacs. As they crossed we would pop up like Jack in the boxes and start chucking our rocks at them, not to hit them, we never wanted to do that. We just wanted to freak them out, and we did do that.

They would freeze like deer paralyzed in the road by approaching high beams. Brains locked, watching as the lights grew wider and brighter until something becomes nothing but a twitching stain dying on a lonely road. For our staggering friends, it was nothing quite that dramatic. Our deer would stand swaying in the middle of the road looking around bewildered and afraid as invisible objects clunked down near them. Some would stand for a moment before the brain snapped back to life and off they would dart back across the street to the safety of the lounge, others defiantly waved their fist into the night sky cursing and daring us to show ourselves, still, others stood as still as rocks in the road half-drunk looking glassy-eyed and uncomprehending.

“ Look at them,” we would all laugh pointing and throwing rocks until we ran out of them. When the last of the rocks were thrown, high and arching invisible in the black sky before falling to earth like a tiny meteor we would turn and scurry off belly laughing until the one night we heard a scream that stopped us in our tracks. We all looked at each other our smiles fading, our eyes wide and afraid. We slowly crept back over to the wall in time to see a young woman holding her head being helped back across the street. Blood was streaming down her face. People were pouring from the bar looking up and pointing in every direction.

My heart was pounding so hard in my narrow chest I thought I might pass out. Alan was as pale as a sheet of paper, his brilliant blue eyes danced wildly back and forth between Billy and me. Billy, on the other hand, seemed as calm as if nothing had happened.

“Come on,” he said as he was slowly backing away from the wall.

“What are we going to do,” I asked.

“Nothing, they didn’t see us. They don’t know where the rocks came from.”

“Fuck you, Billy,” Alan said, “We’ve got to tell someone what happened.”

We went back and forth for several minutes before our fear of getting in trouble from our parents and our pure cowardice at the time won out and we decided to keep our secret, that is until now.

This is a recent picture of Chene street, it’s sad to see how bad it looks now. The last time I was anywhere near here was when Alan and I found out about Ramone’s death and that was about six blocks away from here. When we were growing up none of these buildings were abandoned, it was a bustling fun place to spend our weekends. It’s sad. Back to the story, the woman we hit and no one knows whose rock it was that hit her was fine. Turns out she was a young woman that worked up the block at what used to be a local drug store.

The woman was okay, we saw her a few days later working at the corner drug store at the end of the block, I forget the name of the place, but like everything else, in that area, I imagine it’s been closed for years by now. The name tag hanging on the shirt of her bland brown and white uniform was Janice.

The three of us walked to the counter carrying out Better Made potato chips and Faygo sodas. I remembered thinking that she was really pretty up close and that she looked way too young and innocent to be hanging out in a sleazy joint like Max’s. She had a small bandage on the right side of her head near the hairline where she had to have stitches.

“ Is that it,” she asked, her voice bored and robotic. She sat her paperback down on the stool next to her. She was looking right at us, but she really didn’t see us. We were an annoyance, like wiping down the counter or sweeping the floor, we were a chore she needed to get done as quickly as possible so that she could get back to her book, and here Billy was asking her stupid questions.

“What happened,” Billy asked pointing to the bandage on her head. Her eyes narrowed.

“None of your business, you little redneck tard.”

“Sorry,” Billy said slowly turning up the knob on his southern drawl. He gave her a sly knowing smile that suggested that he wasn’t sorry at all. She stared at him for a minute then glanced at Alan and me.

“Yeah, I bet you are… sorry.” She said to Billy, and then rang our items up and picked up her book and began to read as if we were no longer standing there, we were dismissed. As we walked out she looked up at us and with a slight smile spreading across her thin lips and the devil dancing behind her hazel eyes.

“Bye, bye, ” she said coldly while flicking her wrist at us then went back to her book.

“Jeez, what a bitch,” Alan said as we made our way back up the block toward Billy’s house.

“Yeah, maybe she has a headache,” Billy said trying to keep from laughing.

“Next time we should throw bricks,” I said joking.

“ Yeah, smash the wicked witch of the north,” Alan chimed in. The truth be told we were glad to see Janice was okay, and although no one ever said we shouldn’t do it, we never played “Stump the Drunk,” again. If I’m being honest and I always try to be, the way Janice treated us wasn’t that out of the ordinary. Most older girls didn’t appreciate young knot heads staring at their breasts or backsides. We were a small pack of horny dogs back then and Billy’s skin magazines didn’t help.

That night we went on deliveries with Billy’s mother. It was fun we would eat cakes and cookies until we had our fill, while we visited wonderbread, Bluebird, and several other major bread company warehouses. Most of the warehouse workers were mostly men at that time of night, between eleven at night and four in the morning would always hit on Billy’s mom, women did too. His mother seemed free and open, she didn’t carry the baggage other parents seem to lug around. She was happy with the way she was and didn’t seem to mind if people didn’t like or understand it.

There would be times usually when Lexi and Richard were fighting that she would seem to stay extra long at certain stops. She would be talking to the warehouse manager off in the shadows, and then they would be gone. sometimes for up to a half an hour at least that’s how long it seemed to me at the time. She would appear out of the shadows and without a word slide into her seat and buckle in.

“You boys ready to go home,” she’d asked in that sexy southern drawl of hers and before we could answer she would be pulling out of the dock. By the end of the night, the truck would be filled with empty bread trays stacked in columns against the front wall of the truck. The truck she drove was similar to a UPS truck with open sliding side doors on both sides. On summer nights Lexi would let us keep the side doors open so that we could catch a breeze as long as we stacked our trays toward the back and away from the open doors, and we did. The ride home was usually quiet. Our stomachs were full of cookies and cakes and we were beginning to come down off our sugar highs. We would each find ourselves a stack of empty bread trays and climb in. Our butts and backs were the only parts in the tray and our legs and arms would dangle over the sides and off to dreamland we would go. It doesn’t sound like it would be comfortable, but it was. Lulled to sleep by the sweet aroma of fresh bread lingering in the summer night breeze was great. It’s one of my fondest memories from my childhood to this day.

I remember it like it was yesterday, the night I almost died. The night we went out on the route was like any other night except on this night there had been a light drizzle. Not enough for an umbrella, but enough that if you stood out in it longer than a few minutes you would be wet. We waited for Lexi’s truck to be loaded and off we went. I could tell that Lexi was in a hurry to get done because Richard was going to be there when she got home. She did her route as quickly as possible and before we knew it we were all laying in our bread trays dozing off on the way back to Billy’s house.

The highway was nearly deserted like it always was on our early morning returns, I could vaguely hear the swooshing of the tires gliding over the wet roads. Lexi was unusually quiet on this night, most nights she would play the radio softly and sing along with the songs she liked, but not tonight. I would learn later that Lexi had asked to meet with Richard that night to tell him that their relationship was over and that she was thinking about moving back to Kentucky, the bakery was closing, but that wouldn’t be for another two years. Billy told us later that when he asked her why Richard stopped coming around she told him, she wanted to get married and Richard had broken his promise to leave his wife so she was leaving him. She just wanted to be free of Richard and the harassment of his wife.

As I slept on the bread rack I noticed that the trays were beginning to sway, we had stacked them to high and they were threatening to fall over. I opened my eyes and noticed that Billy was still sleeping and Alan had already jumped down from his pile and was already removing trays from his stack.

“ Your trays are too high you better…” Alan started to say when Lexi slammed on the breaks. A driver who was starting to fall asleep had swerved into her lane. Lexi blew the horn and swerved to miss him. The other driver swerved back into his lane. All the trays in the back of the truck went flying as she swerved back into her lane. Billy fell to the floor and was slammed into the sidewall. My stack of trays slowly tilted and fell forward and I went flying toward the open door. Lexi turned and through her arm out in my direction trying to break the fall, but she couldn’t hold the steering wheel and stop my fall at the same time. I could see the wet pavement rushing toward me glimmering like black ice.

My arms pinwheeled as I grasped for anything that would stop my fall. I remember thinking that I was about to die. I closed my eyes and tried to think of one of the prayers I had heard in church on the few mornings I went, but my mind was blank. The banging and clanking from the tumbling metal and plastic bread trays were deafening. As I slid forward I opened my mouth to scream. Suddenly I was no longer falling forward. I felt a sharp tug on my right leg and looked back and saw Alan holding onto one of the nylon straps used for tying down the trays and the other holding my leg. He was on one knee, his arms were spread eagle, he reminded me of the biblical Samson pushing the pillars apart in the temple of the Philistine leaders.

He was trembling, his head twisting back and forth like a wet dog shaking the water out of its fur. His blue eyes were so light they almost looked white. His lips were pulled back into a snarl exposing his clenched teeth. The cords of muscles in his skinny arms bulged and I could see it his eyes, if I went, he was going too.

“Help him,” Lexi screamed at Billy who was just sitting there frozen. He instantly snapped to life and grab my other leg and they pulled me back into the truck.

“ I got you,” Alan said with a nervous chuckle and patted me on the leg then fell back exhausted.

“You all right,” Lexi called back to me.

“Yes ma’am, I’m alright.”

*****

As we turned off of Chene street and onto I-94 the rain had begun to slow down. I looked at Alan’s profile remembering that night I almost died. He must have felt the weight of my stare. He turned to me wearing a slightly embarrassed expression.

“What,” he said grinning.

“Nothing,” I said.

“You looking at my pimple,” he brought a hand up to cover the red pimple on his cheek.

“ I wasn’t, but now that you mentioned it.” I laughed.

The rest of the ride was filled with reminiscing and jokes. I didn’t see Alan again for nearly four years.

1 note · View note

lwilson · 3 years

Text

the boy we knew

The day we found out the tragic news was a beautiful autumn afternoon. I think it was a Saturday and the leaves were turning colors and gathering in mounds of reds, yellows, and greens at the base of the trees in front of the small houses on the block. I had just enlisted in the Army and I wanted to see my friend Ramone before I went off to basic training at Fort Sill in Oklahoma.

Alan, another close friend of Ramone and mine worked at an industrial laundry company called C.Q’s. over on East Grand Blvd and Palmer street. He detested the job, the pay, and the people, but with times being what they were, and jobs being few and far between during the Reagan era recession of the 1980s it was the only job that he could get so he took it, and fought tooth and nails to keep it. I had worked at C.Q’s. as well, and speaking from personal experience I will tell you that there should have been a sign engraved over the entrance that read “All hope abandon, ye who enter here,” like at the gates of hell in Dante’s “Inferno”. I lasted all of six weeks before hell got to be too hot for me to handle. So, I quit and joined the Army.

Alan, on the other hand, stayed and with good reason, his girlfriend Kacy was pregnant now which only exacerbated an already stressful situation. They were beyond broke and argued constantly about everything. I can’t remember how many break up to make up sessions they had, but it was a lot.

Kacy was a feisty streetwise girl with the misfortune of having two train wrecks for parents. The only thing keeping Kacy and her little brother Steven from being homeless and on the streets or worse was Kacy’s wit and her strong will. Kacy was the type of girl that could smell bullshit coming a mile away. She’d smile her sweet slightly crooked smile at the bullshitter, usually some guy way to old to be hitting on a girl her age then she’d kick him in the nuts verbally and sometimes literally and down he’d go. She and Alan were perfect for one another they were the embodiment of Detroit tough. Her biological father was a real winner. I never knew his name or met him, but I heard from Alan that he was doing some serious time up in Jackson penitentiary. Jasmine, her mother was a part-time recovering addict and a full time, well let’s just say the word I would like to call her rhymes with witch.

Kacy and Steven were little more than afterthoughts Jasmine. Jasmine’s major concern was when and where her next fix was coming from, raising a blossoming fifteen-year-old girl and a high strung twelve- year -old boy with criminal tendencies wasn’t high on Jasmine’s to-do list. Kacy and Steven were mostly left to fend for themselves. Kacy, I figured would be alright. She was tough and street smart, but Steven on the other hand was a different story. The first time I saw him strutting up and down the block like a little banty rooster with his nearly translucent white skin and unruly red curls bouncing about his shoulders as he made his way up Farnsworth Avenue, blustering and picking fights with anyone that crossed his path. I knew he was on borrowed time.

Steven was a twig of a boy with visions of grandeur. He was the outlaw son of the outlaw father he never met or knew. A little boy with a major Napolean complex walking around with a boulder on his shoulder daring anyone to knock it off, and many did knock it off and much worse. Undeterred, Steven had decided that being a so-called outlaw was in his blood and that was the way he was going to go.

I watched as Steven began to take up with the absolute worse elements in the neighborhood. Kacy had asked Alan to talk with him, then she asked me, but nothing worked, he was bound and determined to go the way of the wicked, a decision that would cost him his life. When he was 18 or 19 years old I don’t remember which. Steven’s brutally beaten and stabbed body was found in a burnt-out drug den near Woodard Ave.

*****

Kacy’s mother’s boyfriend Bulldog was a small-time weed dealer who liked getting underaged girls high and drunk so that he could take advantage of them sexually. He had tried this move on Stacy a few times when Jasmine wasn’t around or either blackout in one of the upstairs bedrooms, but Kacy always managed to escape unscathed. It was only a matter of time she knew before he would take what he wanted from her the way he did with Tammy, a young Korean girl from up the block. When he did come for her, Kacy and her four-inch steak knife she slept with would be waiting. She told me and Alan that she would kill him before she let him have her. Kacy was right, Bulldog did come for her a few nights later and she had managed to fight him off but cutting him with her knife. When Alan got the news he was furious and although she told him that she had the situation under control I knew that there was no way that Alan would let that kind of thing go.

Bulldog received an anonymous ass-kicking one wintery Michigan morning. Still high or drunk from partying the night before Bulldog staggered out on the icy porch and fell. His feet slipped and slid underneath him then shoot out from under him. The first thing that hit the porch was his fat girlish ass. His ass bounced off the ice, his feet flew into the air, he farted, then his head slammed into the ice-covered wooden porch.

“Motherfucker!” he whined. His voice sounded super high and tinny in the still earlier morning. He lay there for a moment breathing heavily and making a strange sound, a mixture of groans and whimpers.

“ Fat Fucks crying,” Alan whispered barely containing his laughter.

“You think,” I asked amazed and tilted my head toward the porch and sure enough he was crying. Bulldog always played the tough guy and now he was out here crying because he fell and bumped his head. What a fuckin cooze.

“Damn,” I said shaking my head.

After a few minutes, Bulldog pulled himself together and tried to stand up. His feet slid back and forth beneath him and he fell again. His ungloved hand slapped down hard on the icy wooden rail. He yelped like a kicked dog and yanked his hand back and tumbled backward off the porch. He rolled down the four or five front steps and landed flat on his back in the walkway and once again the water work’s started up. Alan and I could believe it. We knew Bulldog was more bark than bite, but we couldn’t believe how soft he really was. This guy was a cream puff. After a few seconds, Bulldog got to his feet and staggered toward his 1970 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, red with a white interior, a very nice car. As he reached for the door handle he looked up and got knocked out. We heard that Jasmine found him lying face down in the snow with a bloody nose, ears, and a broken hand twenty minutes later. A few days later Tammy’s family contacted the police about Tammy’s sexual assault, but by the time they got around to investigating it, Bulldog was gone. West Virginia, that’s where I heard he went, and surprise, surprise, he ended up in jail for statutory rape a few years later.

*****

“What are you going to do,” I asked Alan after he told me about Kacy’s pregnancy. He looked sick.

“ Got to marry her I guess,” he said staring down at the floor.

“ You guess?”

“Yeah, what else can I do. We ain’t having no fucking abortion.”

“ I never suggested…”

“ I know. I’m sorry. I’m so fucked right now.”

“What about money,”

“ I got the job over at C.Qs. Tony’s gonna have to give me a raise.”

“Tony’s not going to give you a raise.”

“Why not?”

“Because he just gave you one a few weeks ago. Why don’t you join the Army with me,” I said? Alan shook his head.

“Forget that, I ain’t going into no Army.”

“ You’ll make more money in the Army then you will working at C.Qs.” Alan thought about it then shook his head again.

“ Nah, we’ll be alright, we’ll manage,” he said.

“You still driving me to the airport?” I asked really wishing my friend would come with me.

“Yeah, If you want me to.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’m heading over to Ramone’s. I’d like to see him before I go.”

“I’ll drive,” Alan said quickly and grabbed his car keys.

*****

Although it had been a few years since we had last seen him, I still considered Ramone a good friend and I wanted to see him before I went off to basic training. Ramone’s street was quiet as it always was when we were kids. Alan parked in front of Ramone’s house and killed the engine.

“I can’t believe he still lives here,” Alan said absently as he looked up and down the short block.

“His parents left him and his sister the house is what I heard,” I said as I looked around.

“Fuck that, I would sell, I wouldn’t want to live around here now.”

Alan and I got out of his Ford Talon and walked up the thin paved walkway up to the house. Everything about the place seemed smaller and shabbier. It was the same small house on E. Palmer that Ramone and his family had lived in when we all went to Ferry Elementary. Going there was like stepping back in time. Many of the same families and small business owners were still there. “Young’s Barbeque” on Mt. Elliot and East Grand Blvd, was still there at the time, “Thompson’s cleaners”, on McDougall and Ferry was still there, and my favorite penny candy store “Frank’s Beer &Wine” on the corner of Ferry and Mt. Elliot, my old block was still there at the time.

That was years ago, they are all gone now, even Ferry Elementary is gone now. Torn down by the city leaving a gigantic black hole where our childhood once stood. An obscene black scar the size of an entire city block with scattered houses and overrun weed fields.

As Alan and I walked toward the small blockhouse my mind drifted back to when I first met Ramone in Mrs. Drum’s class when we were in the fourth grade. I wanted to be Ramone’s friend. It took a while, but slowly but surely he started opening up to me. I remember sitting at our table waiting for the class to start. Alan for whatever reason wasn’t in school that day. Ramone and I sat quietly waiting then he turned to me and look me directly in the eyes. His voice was calm and splashed with a hint of contempt for me.

“ Do you like Alan better than me because he’s white,” he asked. My views on race and culture were still in the development stages so this question caught me completely off guard. As I sit here today writing this, I can almost hear his flat monotonic voice.

“ I don’t like Alan better than you,” I said quickly.

“You don’t,” he asked slightly surprised.

“No, why would I? I like you both the same,” I said.

“For real,” he smiled. It was a rare thing to see Ramone smile.

“Yeah, sure I do. Maybe I’ll ask my mom to see if she’ll let me have company this weekend.”

“Spend a night,” he asked excitedly.

“Yeah, you haven’t spent a night yet,” I said.

A cloud suddenly came over his dark features and his smile slowly faded.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. He looked down at the table and began to fidget with a piece of torn notebook paper.

“You going to invite Alan too,” he looked up and asked cautiously.

“I was going to, why?”

“ Oh,” he said and looked down at his torn piece of paper again, “Then I can’t come.”

“ Why not, should I not invite Alan, I thought you liked Alan?”

“I do. Alan and I are best buds,” he hesitated, “ It’s just that if my mom and dad knew that Alan is going to be there… I don’t think they’ll let me come over.” I looked at him confused for a moment then I remembered Alan telling me about how Ramone’s parents weren’t too keen on him having white friends.

“ My mom would talk to your mom and let her know that you’ll be safe.”

“I know,” he hesitated, “ It’s just that if Alan’s there they won’t let me come.”

“Why not,” I asked even though I already knew the answer. I needed to hear him say it. I don’t know why, but I did. So, he did say it.

“My mom and dad don’t want me playing or hanging around them.” He motioned with his head toward a table of white children.

“Oh,” I said, “why not?”

“They’re white,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Oh,” was all I could think to say.

“My dad says you can’t really trust them and that most of them look down on us black people. They think we’re all on the welfare, or on drugs, or crooks,” he said.

“No, they don’t.”

“My dad says they do.”

“I’ve been to Alan’s house…” I started to say before he interrupted me.

“Your mom and dad let you go over there?” He asked shocked.

“Yeah, and his mom and dad treated me real nice too. They never looked down on me. I even ate dinner over there once.”

“ I bet they think you’re poor now. They gave you charity, see,” he said raising his voice slightly.

“ My dad works at Ford Motor Company, that’s a good job. We’re not poor, my dad’s a boss or something.” I said.

“ I know you’re not, but I bet they think you are.”

“They don’t. They’re nice every time I go over there.”

“ My dad says we shouldn’t do that. He says we should stick to our own kind.”

“ You want to spend the night or not?”

“Alan going to be there?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Just don’t tell your mom and dad.”

He looked at me as if I had just suggested that we rob a bank.

“You mean lie?”

“No, just if they don’t ask you about Alan don’t tell them.” Ramone smiled again and nodded. Ramone was never allowed to spend the night. His parents just wouldn’t let him do it.

On the day of our visit to Ramone’s house, Alan’s family and my family had moved out of the neighborhood and had been out for years by this point. My family moved out right after I graduated from Ferry in 1979. We moved to a quiet middle-class neighborhood about ten miles from where we lived on Mt Elliot Street. The neighborhood was strikingly different than the one we had left. These were tree-lined streets with manicured yards. Our neighbor Mr. Traminski literally had a white picket fence around his yard. It looked like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. When my family moved in the neighborhood was predominantly white with a few black, Asian, and Arab families sprinkled in for good measure. By the late 80s rolled around almost all the white families had moved out. White flight is what they called it, I guess. Mr. Traminski was one of the first to go. I guess we liked him more than he liked us.

Alan’s family moved out of the old neighborhood around 1983. In this period, Alan and I had become as close as two friends could be, while Ramone whose family never left the old neighborhood began to drift from our orbit. We tried to keep in touch with him but were unable to regularly. All and all, Alan and I had been away from the old neighborhood off and on for almost nine years and at that time, we might have seen Ramone five or six times. The times we did see him he didn’t seem quite right. He seemed tight, and a little off-kilter.

By 1985 Alan and I were high school graduates with our whole lives laid out in front of us. I looked as if I was about to embark on a promising college football career, Ramone had been accepted into several really good universities, and Alan had gotten a job at a paper manufacturing plant.

*****

“This neighborhood has gone to shit,” I said as I scanned my surroundings. I looked out toward the empty lot where Ferry Elementary once stood. The last time Alan and I had been in the neighborhood Ferry Elementary was still standing It had been closed and torn down for years by the next time Alan and I rolled around.

“To shit and then some,” Alan said. I looked up at the cool cloudless sky. A tiny barely visible plane flew by overhead. A reflective dot high above it all creeping across the cobalt sky dipping in and out of sight. I tilted my head back and closed my eyes. I could almost feel the earth rotating, even though I knew that it wasn’t possible, still, it made me feel dizzy. I took a half a step back to avoid staggering, then opened my eyes.

“I bet Ramone’s heading off to Yale or Princeton or some other ivory league school partly because of his grades and partly because he’s black. Affirmative action,” Alan said out of the blue. I slowly turned to him not believing what I was hearing.

“What,” I said my anger was bubbling just below the surface.

“ I bet I couldn’t get in,” he said sharply.

“Yeah, because you don’t have the grades.”

“ I’m just saying,” he shrugged.

The front door swung open and Serina stepped out onto the porch. Serina’s, Ramone’s little sister. She had smooth chocolate skin and wide brown eyes, she looked like a black Barbie doll. She stared at us with a blank expression. She didn’t recognize us. Before that day I remembered Serina as a slightly chubby happy-go-lucky little girl running and playing with her friends on the playground with her protective older brother Ramone always keeping one eye out for her and the other eye out for us. The chubby little girl that used to be too shy to look at me was gone and had been replaced with this beautiful stern woman standing before us in the partially opened screen door.

“Can I help you,” She asked while subtly looking us over.

“Serina,” I said cautiously.

“Yes,” she said without looking at me. Her eyes were fixed on Alan.

“I’m Luke and this is Alan,” I said, “We’re friends of Ramone. Is he here?” She turned to me, her jaw tightened and her eyebrows came together in a tight knot.

“What,” she said, the words came out in a breathy whisper. Her expression softened.

“ Is he home?” I asked. Serina looked at me for a long moment then she turned and looked at Alan. I could see the light bulb coming on. She slowly raised a finger and pointed it at me.

“ Your Luke?” She asked. I nodded and motioned toward Alan.

“ And that’s Alan, do you remember us?” She nodded and stepped out onto the porch closing the screen door behind her.

“Where have you guys been?” she asked in a thin wavey voice. Alan and I looked at one another confused.

“Excuse me,” Alan asked.

“Ramone is dead,” she said in a voice that suggested that she was still struggling with the realization of what had happened. The news was devastating.

“What, when,” Alan and I asked in unison.

“He walked into traffic,” she said in a voice strangled with emotion. “ a truck hit and killed.”

“Where did it happen,” I asked.

“He was on Mt Elliot when it happened.”

“How could this have happened?” I thought. “We were all good friends, weren’t we? How could it be that this was the first we were hearing of this?” I looked at Alan he was standing with his jaw gapped and unhinged looking glossy-eyed and confused. Alan and I stood there on her front porch like mute idiots as Serina dropped the bombshell on us. My brain went foggy and felt warped and wobbled and I jerked my head to the left to shake off the cobwebs. I couldn’t believe it.

“Suicide,” Alan muttered in a low husky voice. I was trying to think of something to say, but my mind was blank.

“I’m sorry,” Serina said. “I thought you guys knew,” she paused, “I thought everyone knew by now.”

“By now,” Alan asked, “How long has he been gone?”

“Three years,” She said matter-of-factly, “ I thought all his true friends knew,” she said bitterly as she glared at us.

“No,” I said shaking my head. She cocked her head to the right and looked at me with her big doll-like brown eyes. She had the kind of eyes that made grown men stutter if she looked directly at you and she was looking directly into the eyes. My mind went blank. Serina was studying me with those eyes, looking for signs of a lie. I understood what she was doing so I held her gaze until she looked away. Ramone had killed himself on my old street. He didn’t kill himself on my block thank god. He did the deed a few blocks up near East Grand Blvd. I don’t think that I had ever known anyone that had committed suicide before or since.

As sad as Ramone’s suicide was I’m sure he was now in a better place. Ramone was a melancholy boy from the moment I met him back in 1976 up until the last time I saw him which must have been some time in the mid-eighties. He just seemed too delicate of a human being to survive in this harsh and hateful world.

#suicide #depression #friends #friendship

1 note · View note