Chapter 1
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
1972
Joshua walked for what seemed like hours through Crotona Park. The path he took was as
familiar to him as the crackled sidewalk just outside the stoop of his apartment building. He
knew it well. The patchy grass and sandlots beckoned soberly, taking him back to his
childhood of eight or nine years of age. On this day, though, for some odd reason, he couldn’t
find his way out of the park. A bitter cold saturated the air, made worse by a painful wind that
cut deeply into his unprotected flesh.
Why didn’t I wear long pants this morning…and my coat, he asked himself. It’s freezing out
here. What was I thinking?
A disgusted huff blew out from his mouth sending up a smoke trail of frozen breath. He
continued on in what became an endless stretch of connecting paths. Along the way, passersby
layered in their warm garments, stared in disbelief at his ashen knees that even a nicer day
couldn’t justify, and then simply snickered at his foolish arrogance. Trees, tall and bare of
leaves, lined the way ahead like spectators to his bold parade of impetuosity, while overhead,
pigeons circled like hungry buzzards waiting to attack and peck at the slight meat of his bony
legs. Nevertheless, he continued on in search of the park exit although his resolve was
weakening; his determination, struggling through a full fledged attack of paranoia that pricked
his skin with stares and whispered anonymous laughter in his ears.
Night was quickly approaching. He grew tired and needed a break from the seeming ridicule
that followed him for many miles. He searched for a place to rest, but each bench he neared
held more people then he cared to approach. He walked further and saw an unoccupied bench
just up ahead. It was painted bright red; strangely, the only red bench in the entire park.
Forlorn and tucked underneath the gently swaying wisps of a willow tree, its crimson wood
seat excluded by harsh contrast from the surrounding company of otherwise acceptable
benches. Everyone else noticeably avoided its depressive signature, but Joshua seemed
purposefully drawn to it; as if its solitude mingled with his own despair. He sat down at the very
far end of it, believing as he might that dead center were the only point of focus for the curious,
then breathed in a cold chill of air as he settled back.
The same flock of pigeons still hovered directly overhead. They had followed him from early
on; crisscrossing each other in elegant figure eight’s, their wings excited and fluttering the wind
like a song to his ears. Suddenly, out from the flock descended a lone white dove. It lighted
gently atop the expanse of empty bench next to him. There it cooed with little regard for the
human tendency to shoo such things away. And normally, that would have been Joshua’s first
impulse. But after all, this was a dove; clean and white, and without the trappings of odor or
likely contagion that might usually accompany the typical pigeon. He felt at eased by the virgin
purity it represented; its fearless trust in him that helped to make his loneliness less obvious.
Now relaxed, he looked up to watch the people as they hurried past.
“Do you mind if I sit here?” a disquietingly whimpering voice said, seemingly from out of
nowhere.
Stunned and fearful that the cold and fatigue had beset his faculties, Joshua turned to face the
dove, but it was gone. A young woman now sat next to him where the dove had been. She,
too, was not dressed for the weather and shivered next to him in a lonesome posture that
seemed overshadowed by an almost palpable sadness. “Not at all,” he said to her with a
degree of shyness.
“Thank you,” she said in words that again trailed off in a demure, pitiful whimper. “Hey…do
you mind if I sit a little closer. It’s very cold and I’m afraid my skirt’s too short for this weather.
My legs are freezing.” Only inches away from him, she radiated warmth in soothing waves like
bare skin catching an open flame. She then inched closer as if agreement were a given, until
their legs eventually touched, and still she moved closer until thigh pressed thigh
uncompromisingly.
No longer weeping now, her presence quickly enveloped him as if one flesh, igniting other
feelings that only intimacy should arouse. He gushed with awkwardness, groping for words that
seemed caught in a jumble of peculiar shades of meaning. He had yet to see her face, but
somehow knew she was beautiful.
“Wh…what’s your name?” he asked before releasing his breath.
She leaned over to his ear and whispered, “Sahara. My name is, Sahara.” Her tone was soft,
erotic, and all but spelled the end for his endurance. An exhaustive breath preceded a gush of
intense pleasure, during which his eyes popped open with a sudden awareness of what had just
happened. Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” played softly on the small clock radio atop his
nightstand, and then faded into the voice of the morning DJ who declared the colors for the day
to be burgundy and gray. Afterglow and disappointment left him still for a moment until the cool
chill of morning welcomed him back to reality, followed by a sulk of resentment at such a
presumption of wardrobe.
“Yeah, like I’m actually gonna stay home cause I don’t got anything burgundy or gray. I own
one pair of jeans, a pair of Converse All-Stars that beg to be put out of their misery and a
handful of shirts that are one size too small. I’m wearing the first thing my hand touches.” With
that said, Joshua Peeler sat up to begin his day.
It was 6:30 in the morning and no degrees out. He crawled out of bed and looked out the
frosted pane of his window. A petrified landscape stared back at him, its appearance glazed
over by freezing rain and fingers of ice that hung from anything with a ledge; from parked cars
that lined the curb step sparing only inches between them, to the rusty fire escapes protruding
from red brick buildings whose aged face was like that of a great, great grand parent looking
after all beneath the tent of a black sky. “Maan…not even a crack of daylight,” he said with a
shiver.
At sixteen years old he was tall for his age, standing just over six-foot, and six o’clock skinny; a
label that was given him by his uncle after one drink too many. The past six months saw a
spurting growth gland add two more inches to his frame which all but rendered his few clothes
a fraction short of a charitable donation, not to mention the havoc it wreaked on his
coordination. It resulted in an odd looking, out of control stride as he headed for the bathroom.
There, he removed his underwear and threw it in the corner with yesterday’s underwear, and
the day before that ones, then turned with reluctance toward the mirror. His afro was a matted
mess of lint balls along a rough terrain that resembled a rusty Brillo pad, causing him to wonder
again why he could never shape it into the sculpted symmetry of say—Jermaine Jackson’s; why
each morning’s comb through took on the animated likeness of a bare knuckled fight between
himself and the remaining teeth of his plastic afro pick. It was enough to cause him to ponder
the ancestral happenstance of good hair, bad hair; light skin and dark. His was milk chocolate
with a hint of red in certain light. As a child caught in the wave of black is beautiful awareness in
the late '60s, he’d come to accept his particular shade of brown. But all bets were off when it
came to his hair. At a time when the size of a back man’s afro was linked directly to his
masculinity, Joshua’s was short, nappy and hopelessly unmanageable. He’d be most proudest
of his hair after leaving it braided in tight-as-he-could-stand-it corn rows for a day or two—
granted those times when his mom felt up to the task of braiding it. In the morning when he
loosed out the braids, to the relief of his stretched forehead, he’d have a no frills blow-out of
gargantuan proportions. He’d leave his house feeling like the guy on the Afro Sheen bottle—a
strong, proud black man for all the sista’s to love and the brotha’s to envy—unless of course if
it happened to rain that day. Then he’d return home looking like the nappy headed little frog out
of a Grimm ghetto fairy tale.
“So what the hell are you looking at?” he said, glancing up at the big zit in the middle of his
forehead. It stood out like Rudolf’s red nose; antagonizing him for days now. But on this
morning, he could tell by the pale bubble at its center that it was ripe and ready for reckoning.
He pinched the whitehead firmly between each thumb. “Well, it was nice knowing you. Now
kiss your butt good-bye,” he said, and proceeded to squeeze it till he drew a squirt of puss,
leaving bits of pimple residue to dot the mirror. It wasn’t a pretty picture, but it needed to be
done, as if anyone else but him really gave a care.
“I think my nose is too big for my face,” he said in a self deprecating analysis, thumb and finger
following the broad curve of each nostril to settle along the bridge as he strained a profile view
from out the mirror. “There’s a bump there. I can feel it.”
He stood back to asses himself. “Damn, and look at my chest. It couldn’t be any flatter. I can
practically count each rib. In fact…I think I can actually see my heart beating. No wonder I
can’t get a date. I’m too skinny. I gotta start eating more.” Back in his bedroom, Joshua pulled
open his closet and automatically reached for an outfit which could’ve doubled as a uniform it
was worn just that often. Though he owned a few more clothes to speak of, he found none of
them to be as casual and everyday acceptable as a pair of LEE blue jeans and a tucked in
flannel shirt.
Life on the fifth floor of a five story walkup in the South Bronx was becoming more and more
perilous for Joshua and his family. The neighborhood was christened “Fort Apache” by the
local (mostly white) police, many of whom viewed the residents as nothing more than scalp
marauding savages, while they, in contrast, were the righteous cavalry, there to save them from
themselves. Each morning as he left for school, the stairwell of his building would be littered
with the remains of folded waxed paper squares that the night before contained fresh cut
heroine, enough to rid its enthusiasts of just about any plague of pain that victimized them. The
resident junkies owned the adjoining rooftops, transforming them into an open air shooting
gallery, their used paraphernalia laying waste after them like spent shells left to mingle with
newish blood droppings, the only evidence to communal coterie caught in a sordid trail of
escape.
One of his most vivid childhood memories was that of coming home one evening and hearing a
noise on the steps leading to the roof. He looked toward the noise, and there on the top landing
saw what was unmistakably a white man kneeling down to one knee; his gaunt pale face, raked
by a gnashing jaw that carved his grim expression into tiny flexes of feverish intensity.
Contrary to public perceptions, white folks were always a part of, if not entirely welcomed, in
the predominate neighborhoods of color. They were the social workers, the store owners, the
school teachers, the politicians, the cops and firemen—anyone with deep pockets, a liberal
attitude and more often than not, a last name of Jewish decent. Their numbers were few, but
more powerful it seemed than the majority, and rarely seen past business hours. Still, they
found cause to enter into the smolder of a community trying to pull itself out from the ashes of a
late ‘60s revolution and its long festering anger. Their presence did little to affect meaningful
change. Nonetheless, the pale of their skin was none too unusual against a backdrop of varying
shades of brown.
Irish, Italian, it was of no matter, as long as they adhered to the rules of conduct, that being a
sprinkling of humility and a whole lot of respect. And if business wasn’t their pursuit, then the
trade of drugs most certainly was. Unattainable in the cloisters of their well kept middle-class
suburbs, they’d venture into uncharted territory; cash in hand and looking to get stoned.
Joshua looked up at the visiting white man whose frail limbs were all folded up in a desperate
crouch and from there, immediately spotted what was the syringe end of a needle sticking out
from his arm. A calmly steady hand began to feed him its contents, and then relaxed instantly as
the body waited to feel the rush overcome it. At that point, his eyes turned to notice Joshua’s
looking all wide with aghast at him. In that instant, though glazed over and bloodshot, Joshua
saw in them a frightening glimpse down to the depths of rock bottom; exposing a hopelessness
where little else seemed to matter to him except the when and where of his next fix. From then
on, Joshua kept his curiosity under restraint, and in time, learned to ignore the rumblings of
intemperance in the hollow quiet that led to the roof.
His biggest concern now were the street gangs roaming throughout his neighborhood. Known
by fearsome names like the Black Spades and the Savage Nomads, they’d emblazon the
words in homemade colors across their backs and show themselves off in a gaudy display of
membership like military men on leave. Around the South Bronx they did more recruiting than
the U.S. ARMY, the proportional casualties of their wars, no less disturbing to the local home
front than the body counts coming in from Vietnam.
Joshua was one of four children raised by his mother, Clara Peeler; a devoutly religious woman
who credits the Lord God for every single crumb that fed her family; every stitch of clothing
that she could alter to create another, and every ramshackle roof that housed them, kept them
all dry, and kept them together as one. Physically, she was a complete contradiction to the
images that television programmers tried to portray of strong black mothers. The current
offering of black sitcoms would have viewers believe that the ghetto was full of big, fat, black
women with multiple children, all of whom finding one reason or another to delight in their own
poverty. Joshua’s mother may have been black, but she wasn’t big’n fat, and she certainly
didn’t love being poor. Tall for a woman, she stood about five-foot eight, and carried a fairly
decent figure for someone who gave birth to four babies the natural way—three of them girls,
two of which were younger than him.
An outsider might think his being the only male in a house full of women would have certain
advantages, like never having to cook, clean, do laundry, dishes and the like. For Joshua, there
were no perks to this arrangement. Spoiling him could not have been farther from Clara’s plan.
He was expected to carry his own weight around the house; doing chores right along with his
sisters until he could wash a greasy glass and listen for the squeak under his thumb. She made it
a point to teach him the skills necessary to survive on his own while instilling in him a deep
respect for women as individuals, not caretakers. In moments where thoughts were free to
roam, he dreamed of success, fame and riches; of being an entrepreneur ruling over a chain of
establishments that had his name on them; of buying a home for his mother and sisters in a nice
neighborhood away from everything they were used to. In his short lifetime he saw the demand
for civil rights come to a head in the mid ‘60s. The end of the decade ushered in the black
power movement. By the early ‘70s, empowerment and self determination became the rallying
cry behind a raised fist and a unifying flag of red, black and green that liberated the shackled
minds of those who’d forgotten how to dream, sparking an initiative that made it okay for a
young man like himself to think outside of the box. Arthur Ashe inspired awareness, Shirley
Chisholm evoked pride, the Nation of Islam called for solidarity, and James Brown provided
lyrics of hope for the people to hold on to. There was enough social and political activism so
that he felt no goal to be beyond his reach. Joshua set his sights on college, a career, and a
family, in that order.
Because he hadn’t many friends, he sat through the bus ride to school trying to listen to himself
think over the robust conversations going on all around him. At an age where peer pressure can
create either lasting memories or forgettable ones, Joshua received absolutely no peer pressure
at all. He wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. “Too shy for your own
good,” his sister would often remark in an acrimonious assault of sibling unrest. Like it or not,
he accepted his ambiversion as a personal cross to bear. If anything good could be said of his
shyness, it would be that he was extremely focused because of it. “No friends, no distractions,”
was his motto. He breezed through his work effortlessly and came home appreciably wiser, but
always alone.
Still, he found some comfort in knowing he wasn’t a complete outcast, mainly thanks to a few
friends he’d made from around the neighborhood. They all lived happily in the Bronx rarely
venturing past Manhattan. Brooklyn might as well have been Mars, and the existence of Staten
Island hadn’t been proven yet by any of them. He dreamed of owning a car one day; most
notably a Pontiac Firebird. He’d spend hours on end looking through stacks of new car
brochures and fantasizing about the playboy lifestyle that came with the turn of a key and the
rev of an engine, then revel in all the girls that would flock to his side, drawn like bees to honey.
Between the sporty cars and the gorgeous girls, it was always the latter that kept him up most
nights in a restless toss-n-turn which made sleeping on his stomach nearly impossible. He didn’t
have much luck with girls and wondered if it was because of his looks; not that he was
unattractive, his looks just hadn’t quite reached their full potential. It would’ve helped if he just
opened his mouth and said hello if ever he saw a girl he liked, but whenever the time came,
amnesia would suddenly strike him dumb, eliminating whole groups of words from his
vocabulary. The result was something that sounded much like nonsense whenever he dared to
say anything. For that reason he chose silence over sheer embarrassment.
One friend of his, Shawn Thomas, was quite the opposite. He was gregarious, funny and very
outgoing. Everyone seemed to like him, and Joshua liked being around him. The truth be told,
Shawn was his only true friend. The others were really friends of Shawn’s who obligingly
allowed Joshua into their clique. Where Shawn was savvy and streetwise, Joshua, on the other
hand, grew up over protected, and without one male role model to speak of. Thus he became
his own best friend, cultivating a stunted sociability behind the locked door of his family’s
apartment. Because he wasn’t exposed to many of those things which in his neighborhood
accelerated one’s maturity, it left him at sixteen, clever, perceptive and insightful, none of which
could save him in a battle of wits with a street smart kid half his age. When others laughed at
him, Shawn befriended him, naiveté and all.
Thanks to Shawn, the weekends for Joshua were like the onset of a summer vacation on the
very last day of June. For forty-eight hours he could forget who he was and conduct himself
like someone who had a chance to be hip. But come Monday morning his alter ego would take
control again as, each weekday, the popularity contest of High School left him struggling to find
the rules to the game. His reputation as “that quiet guy,” having already been established, there
was no turning back for him. To change his behavior now would only make him a laughing
stock of dual personalities among his peers. When the bell rang to end a period, he headed
straight for the next one, sometimes being the only one sitting there waiting for class to begin.
No hanging out in the hallway to casually discuss what amounted to bull, no horseplay or
macho crotch grabbing with the other fella’s, just the everyday disciplined routine of a friendless
soul.
The one class that made attending school worth the frustration of being there was required
Biology—Mr. Peterman’s class—and a girl named Tanya who sat in the front row. She was
absolutely gorgeous like no other girl he’d seen outside of a Jet centerfold. Her hair was long,
well past her shoulders and her skin, a beautiful honey brown. She also had the biggest chest of
any other girl in the class under 130 pounds and, by his own admission, was the single most
compelling reason for his infatuation with her. Although they sat relatively close, he could never
muster up the courage to talk to her directly. Thus his time in class was spent incessantly
fantasizing about her, and what he might say to her if the world were scheduled to end
tomorrow.
Tanya had a friend named Claudine whose business it seemed was to stick close up under her.
Conjoined twins couldn’t have been any closer. It was clear to some that she was only
capitalizing off Tanya’s attention getting looks, hoping that by chance, some random attraction
might draw a little of the same her way. Like a ready sponge she was there and willing to sop
up the spillage of rejected young men that puddled at her friend’s feet. Their constant union
increased the difficulty-of-approach curve by healthy percentage points for Joshua, and anyone
else who couldn’t resist the luscious flesh beneath her sweater just waiting to be handled. If the
chance ever presented itself to say anything at all to her, he would have preferred it be between
just the two of them—he and Tanya—with no witnesses. That way, an errant foot in the mouth
might be cushioned by the tender mercy of a conscionable girl who could appreciate flattery in
its simplest form, and just maybe squash any ill gossip before it got started.
There was one afternoon in particular when he arrived to class early and found Tanya sitting
alone at her desk. He immediately pinched himself to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating, and
proceeded to run off in his mind a series of hopeless opening lines that would incite uproarious
laughter from even the most desperately homely of girls. When he finally did settle on something
acceptable, who walks in but Claudine looking as though she had just raced with the devil to
get there; her boy-block, blazing with flying sparks to ward off any serious suitors. He imagined
tying her up and stuffing her in one of the lockers that lined the hallway. This would give him the
space he needed to string syllable and word together into something intelligible and hopefully
gain a sliver of Tanya’s interest. But wishful thinking aside, he knew the likelihood of such a
thing happening was slim, at best a fantasy, and his relationship with her, forever doomed to the
realm of his imagination.
Joshua was just getting home from school when Shawn stopped by. Their plan was to go to the
playground and shoot some hoops until sundown; Shawn, though, seemed to be more
interested in spending time with Jonelle, Joshua’s younger sister. She was developing in a way
that caught Joshua completely off guard. To see the way Shawn doted over her also raised an
interesting question for him. Was Shawn just pretending to be his pal in order to get close to
Jonelle? The thought of possibly losing his best friend to his baby sister gave not one hint for
him to pay attention to. Now suddenly they all seemed as obvious as the smile on her face
whenever he came by to visit, or the intrusion of “Hi Shawn,” as he and his buddy discussed
things of a strictly male nature. To call him friend was only for lack of a more suitable word, for
he had fit comfortably into Joshua’s family like one spoon over another. It sort of made
anything between Jonelle and him incestuous by default. Entertaining it a little further, Joshua
couldn’t help but feel a bit unloved and at the same time, a little queasy at the notion of jealousy
where same sexes were involved. He treaded uneasily along a suspected jilt until the weirdness
he was experiencing told him how ridiculous the whole thing was. It quickly purged him of any
insecurity regarding the matter. They left for the courts together. The subject of Jonelle never
came up between them.
The street they walked along was lined end to end with burned out tenements from glory days
gone by. Buildings, once alive with activity, were now just hollow shells waiting to be
demolished. The street, once teaming with cars, children playing and parents keeping a watchful
eye, now resided quiescent with ghostly echoes of the past. A stretch of block had been
completely taken over by junkies; their drug driven resourcefulness transforming a dilapidated
structure into a ramshackle of frightening appearance, complete with amenities, courtesy of
stolen electricity from a nearby street lamp. Joshua and Shawn had made this walk to the
playground quite often enough to negotiate each dried clump of doggy-doo blind folded. They
grew to ignore the deafening silence that surrounded them. This was, after all, an extension of
their playground.
“Y’know that girl Diane I used to talk to a few months ago?” Shawn asked, his voice
redirected in a hollow ricochet that emanated all around them.
“Yeah, she’s fine. What happened with that anyway, I haven’t seen you with her for a while?”
“Last week she told me she was pregnant.”
Joshua looked at him with surprise. “Is it your kid?” he asked as thoughts of little sister Jonelle
came quickly to mind.
“Yeah…it is. She’s really scared, y’know? Like she really doesn’t want to have my baby n’all.”
“Well, can you blame her? What is she, about fourteen or fifteen? I’d be scared too.
I don’t know whether to congratulate you, or feel sorry for you.”
“She hasn’t told her family yet. I kind of like the idea of having a baby, but daaamn. I think I’m
too young for this s**t, y’know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I know. So what are you gonna do?”
“Damned if I know,” Shawn answered. On such an ambiguous note his face read like it hadn’t
a care in the world.
They threw the ball back and forth to each other as they continued walking; jumping in the air,
catching the ball and quickly throwing it back before their feet touched the ground. Shawn
missed the ball and it hit the pavement, cracking the silence like a whip. Its sound reverberated
through the alleys, bouncing off the hollowed out buildings to create machine gun pops that
buffeted all around them. Intrigued by its rhythm, Shawn began to make odd sounds with his
mouth loud enough to encourage an echo. The park was just minutes away. Their instincts
clouded by distraction, there was not a warning, notice nor subtle tweak of intuition as two
unknown boys, much older in appearance than either of them, stepped out from one of the
buildings and blocked the way ahead. Emblazoned across their jackets were gang colors
printed out in large letters that read—BLACK SPADES. Their faces were chiseled hard and
expressed an intimidating hatred. Joshua and Shawn turned to run, but a third stranger had
stepped out behind them.
“Give me some money,” one of them said in a gravely monotone voice.
“We don’t have any money,” Shawn said, most likely frightened, but not letting it come through
in his voice. When there’s no place else to run, defiance was the only thing that separated the
meek from the brave. Both he and Joshua had seen this scenario played out too many times
before and each knew the outcome. If they had to lose something, there was no sense in going
out like punks. If there was to be pain involved, take it like a man. Shawn looked his assailant
straight on. A stare down ensued between them where only the fearless or the foolish tempters
of fate dared to tread; pupils locked in an unflinching gaze as narrow slits of anger met wide-
eyed dread. Joshua tried his best to mimic Shawn’s courage, but his own attempt at a hardened
stare fell somewhere between why are you doing this, and don’t hurt me, please! Throughout
their limited encounters with the cities underbelly, physical violence had not courted either of
them personally. Avoiding trouble was more a skill of necessity and less prone to factors of
dumb luck.
“You’d better come up with something nigga,” the young thug said.
“But really man…we don’t have any money,” Shawn repeated. “Where we gonna get money
from anyway? We ain’t even got jobs.”
“Then give me that jacket,” one of the others demanded. He eyed Shawn’s brand new leather,
the one Joshua recalled Mrs. Thomas warning her son never to wear unless he had someplace
special to go.
“I can’t give you this jacket. It was a gift.”
“I don’t give a damn how you got it. I want your f**k’n jacket. Take it off, NOW nigga.”
Shawn was usually so cool and in control most of the time. His quick wit and an uncanny ability
to adapt to almost any situation had bailed him out of a few basketball court fracases and
school yard squabbles. But this time, for the first time in Joshua’s recollection, he showed clear
signs of panic; standing within arms reach of two thugs anxious to do him bodily harm. Joshua
stood at his side and only a few inches behind him. His first impulse was to run like hell and
take his chances in a chase, but he knew he couldn’t leave his friend behind.
“Man…let’s jack’em up, take the jacket and get the hell out of here,” the one Spade standing
behind them said. Joshua turned to see him reach into his jacket and pull out a switch blade. He
closed the distance, sandwiching them between the two Spades in the front. Another pulled out
a blade as well, pushed Shawn back against the other and pressed the sharp edge against his
throat.
“Nigga…if you don’t take that f**k’n jacket off right now, you’re gonna bleed. You hear
me?” Shawn looked over at Joshua. Tears welled and streamed down his face. His eyes were
saying help me please. Joshua didn’t know what to do. He was never so scared in his life.
Elapsing seconds felt like minutes; that’s when the knife at Shawn’s throat suddenly broke
through the skin and inched its way around the front of his neck. Blood gushed from the
wound, flowed down his body and splattered in drips onto the concrete. Shawn dropped to the
ground, landing in the circular drops of his own blood; his hands clutching the open wound until
they were painted red; his eyes, held open in a frozen stare that would soon lose their intensity
with every passing minute. The three assailants turned and ran off, disappearing down one of
the alleys and leaving behind the now blood stained jacket they so coveted. They knew nothing
of this young man—his hopes and dreams, his age, the type of person he was—nothing. They
didn’t care to know. Joshua knelt down beside Shawn and cradled his head as a torrent of
blood spilled from his neck and pooled out around them. With no one close by to call out to,
he could only watch helplessly as his best friend’s life left its body.
Weeks later, he still mourned the loss of his friend. Shawn had impacted his life in ways he
never noticed until he looked back. Unknowingly, he taught Joshua that friendship, commitment
and love are boundless and not distinguished by one’s gender. Shawn was the brother he never
had. His heart told him that he loved him, and that was all that mattered.
Joshua’s mother, having had just about enough, packed up the kids, gathered up their few
belongings and left the South Bronx. She feared it was only a matter of time before they, too,
became forgettable statistics of violence run amok. They moved into a quiet residential
neighborhood in the Soundview section of the Bronx. Their building was part of a small
complex of buildings designed for low income families. The residents were predominately black
and Hispanic with only a handful of whites who had yet to react to the changing color scheme.
Joshua hadn’t lived around white folks before and somehow felt it to be a step up. After all, the
service was better, the neighborhood was safer; everything seemed to work. There was no
logical reason for them to flee, especially since class distinction labeled them all to be poor in
the eyes of the IRS. The few whites that remained were friendly enough, but guarded in their
hospitality. One didn’t have to be a prophet to predict they weren’t going to be around for long.
On a quick look, there were no visible junkies decorating this neighborhood which is not to say
there were no drugs to be found. Heroin had infiltrated his old neighborhood like Satan’s
blitzkrieg to root itself deep into the psyche of a generation. Here, contentment had left the
residents vulnerable to a threat they believed would pass them by. Joshua knew better. He and
his family lived in building-5, by far the best maintained building in the complex. The floors were
always clean, the elevator always worked and the residents all pitched in to keep it that way.
They lived on the tenth floor giving them a clear view of the Whitestone Bridge from their living
room window. This was definitely a far cry from whence they came. Always prayerful, Joshua’
s mother reminded them that they must be grateful for every blessing they received. To be
standing there with her family looking out onto the horizon of Long Island Sound was a
monumental blessing indeed—one that transcended the hardships of a single parent; hardships
of the sort that Joshua and his sisters could not conceive.
Directly across from them lived the Rodriguez family. Joshua had known Puerto Ricans before,
so this was nothing new to him, but living right next door to them resulted in regular chance
meetings that blossomed into a more than a casual acquaintance. They were a nice family, quiet
and friendly, not unlike his family. A single parent also, Miss Rodriguez and Clara had that one
thing in common if nothing else. Raising two teenage boys for her was no small task, but it was
their credentials that ranked it as quite an accomplishment. One attended the Bronx High
School of Science, undoubtedly the most prestigious academy of learning in the entire New
York City public school system. The other attended the Lawrence School, a facility for kids
with unique problems. Both were on opposite ends of the educational spectrum; each one with
their own special needs; neither one at a loss for attention from their mother.
Antonio’s disability wasn’t apparent until he opened his mouth. A stutter introduced nearly
every sentence with a halting frustration, while developmental shortcomings only served to
sabotage any attempt at conversation. As a result, he was shy, a little awkward around new
people and not very talkative. Hector on the other hand was involved in so many things in
preparation for college, that he was rarely seen. In the morning when Joshua left for school,
he’d sometimes see Antonio walking a feverish pace ahead of him for the corner bus stop.
There, a broad range of teen tempest and temperament crowded the sidewalk, separating
themselves into groups of favorite friends to the exclusion of some. Antonio usually stood alone
leaning against the wall of a grocery store as if to protect his back from something unexpected.
This morning found Joshua approaching the bus stop, heading for school along with a parade of
other kids, none of whom he knew well enough to say hi to. Once there, he meshed himself into
the crowd, planting his two feet on the first vacant space they landed on and there, waited for
his bus to arrive which he hoped would be shortly. Antonio, always the early bird, was already
there and waiting just a few yards away; standing and looking every bit like a meek little
Chihuahua petrified in an unwitting slump of cautionary solitude. Not far from either of them
stood a small group of boys. For someone like Antonio, there’s nothing more terrifying than the
sight of other teenage boys in a group; each one believing themselves to be tougher than the
next. Whereas, for a rambunctious few among them, just seeing someone with Antonio’s
particular disability was all the provocation they needed to stir their machismos into an uproar.
He stood a cautious distance back from them; segregated to a lonely square of sidewalk that
he’d painfully grown accustomed to, but one that at least offered a clear view of any
approaching dangers. From there, he kept a furtive eye on everything; those same boys in
particular as they communed in a huddle of precursory spitting, gratuitous profanity, requisite
rough housing and habitual self-crotch-grabbing that seemed to be wearing thin of its of
amusement with them. That’s when they began to make their way over towards Antonio.
It began with vile allegations of his mother’s infidelity, than escalated to repeated finger poking
to the side of his head. He stood there enduring it all, stretching a nervous smile across his face
that unintentionally said to them, take your best shot! Some of the others in witness goaded
them on; a handful begged them to stop. “Leave him alone,” they said in a ring of spectators
where pure excitement was more tantalizing than interference. Their circle cut Antonio off from
view, thankfully for Joshua who couldn’t bear to watch any longer. He stepped back
wondering if he could help, if he should even help, but figured throwing himself into the fray
would only rile them. Besides, getting a butt kicking wasn’t on his agenda for that morning. If he
learned anything growing up in the South Bronx it was self preservation; to not stick his nose
where it didn’t belong. Still, he couldn’t help but feel for his beleaguered neighbor. Where
would he find humanity if not from his own neighbor? Up to now, he and Antonio never said
two words to each other. That by itself wasn’t reason enough to call him a stranger, and simply
roll over at night in a pleasant sleep as though nothing had happened. His memory flashed back
to Shawn, and he thought, If only I had done something—anything—then maybe he’d be alive
today. As for Antonio, Joshua knew there was nothing he could do for him at the moment, but
what about tomorrow, he wondered in the complicity of his own inaction. The shame of it
stayed with him for the rest of that day.
familiar to him as the crackled sidewalk just outside the stoop of his apartment building. He
knew it well. The patchy grass and sandlots beckoned soberly, taking him back to his
childhood of eight or nine years of age. On this day, though, for some odd reason, he couldn’t
find his way out of the park. A bitter cold saturated the air, made worse by a painful wind that
cut deeply into his unprotected flesh.
Why didn’t I wear long pants this morning…and my coat, he asked himself. It’s freezing out
here. What was I thinking?
A disgusted huff blew out from his mouth sending up a smoke trail of frozen breath. He
continued on in what became an endless stretch of connecting paths. Along the way, passersby
layered in their warm garments, stared in disbelief at his ashen knees that even a nicer day
couldn’t justify, and then simply snickered at his foolish arrogance. Trees, tall and bare of
leaves, lined the way ahead like spectators to his bold parade of impetuosity, while overhead,
pigeons circled like hungry buzzards waiting to attack and peck at the slight meat of his bony
legs. Nevertheless, he continued on in search of the park exit although his resolve was
weakening; his determination, struggling through a full fledged attack of paranoia that pricked
his skin with stares and whispered anonymous laughter in his ears.
Night was quickly approaching. He grew tired and needed a break from the seeming ridicule
that followed him for many miles. He searched for a place to rest, but each bench he neared
held more people then he cared to approach. He walked further and saw an unoccupied bench
just up ahead. It was painted bright red; strangely, the only red bench in the entire park.
Forlorn and tucked underneath the gently swaying wisps of a willow tree, its crimson wood
seat excluded by harsh contrast from the surrounding company of otherwise acceptable
benches. Everyone else noticeably avoided its depressive signature, but Joshua seemed
purposefully drawn to it; as if its solitude mingled with his own despair. He sat down at the very
far end of it, believing as he might that dead center were the only point of focus for the curious,
then breathed in a cold chill of air as he settled back.
The same flock of pigeons still hovered directly overhead. They had followed him from early
on; crisscrossing each other in elegant figure eight’s, their wings excited and fluttering the wind
like a song to his ears. Suddenly, out from the flock descended a lone white dove. It lighted
gently atop the expanse of empty bench next to him. There it cooed with little regard for the
human tendency to shoo such things away. And normally, that would have been Joshua’s first
impulse. But after all, this was a dove; clean and white, and without the trappings of odor or
likely contagion that might usually accompany the typical pigeon. He felt at eased by the virgin
purity it represented; its fearless trust in him that helped to make his loneliness less obvious.
Now relaxed, he looked up to watch the people as they hurried past.
“Do you mind if I sit here?” a disquietingly whimpering voice said, seemingly from out of
nowhere.
Stunned and fearful that the cold and fatigue had beset his faculties, Joshua turned to face the
dove, but it was gone. A young woman now sat next to him where the dove had been. She,
too, was not dressed for the weather and shivered next to him in a lonesome posture that
seemed overshadowed by an almost palpable sadness. “Not at all,” he said to her with a
degree of shyness.
“Thank you,” she said in words that again trailed off in a demure, pitiful whimper. “Hey…do
you mind if I sit a little closer. It’s very cold and I’m afraid my skirt’s too short for this weather.
My legs are freezing.” Only inches away from him, she radiated warmth in soothing waves like
bare skin catching an open flame. She then inched closer as if agreement were a given, until
their legs eventually touched, and still she moved closer until thigh pressed thigh
uncompromisingly.
No longer weeping now, her presence quickly enveloped him as if one flesh, igniting other
feelings that only intimacy should arouse. He gushed with awkwardness, groping for words that
seemed caught in a jumble of peculiar shades of meaning. He had yet to see her face, but
somehow knew she was beautiful.
“Wh…what’s your name?” he asked before releasing his breath.
She leaned over to his ear and whispered, “Sahara. My name is, Sahara.” Her tone was soft,
erotic, and all but spelled the end for his endurance. An exhaustive breath preceded a gush of
intense pleasure, during which his eyes popped open with a sudden awareness of what had just
happened. Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” played softly on the small clock radio atop his
nightstand, and then faded into the voice of the morning DJ who declared the colors for the day
to be burgundy and gray. Afterglow and disappointment left him still for a moment until the cool
chill of morning welcomed him back to reality, followed by a sulk of resentment at such a
presumption of wardrobe.
“Yeah, like I’m actually gonna stay home cause I don’t got anything burgundy or gray. I own
one pair of jeans, a pair of Converse All-Stars that beg to be put out of their misery and a
handful of shirts that are one size too small. I’m wearing the first thing my hand touches.” With
that said, Joshua Peeler sat up to begin his day.
It was 6:30 in the morning and no degrees out. He crawled out of bed and looked out the
frosted pane of his window. A petrified landscape stared back at him, its appearance glazed
over by freezing rain and fingers of ice that hung from anything with a ledge; from parked cars
that lined the curb step sparing only inches between them, to the rusty fire escapes protruding
from red brick buildings whose aged face was like that of a great, great grand parent looking
after all beneath the tent of a black sky. “Maan…not even a crack of daylight,” he said with a
shiver.
At sixteen years old he was tall for his age, standing just over six-foot, and six o’clock skinny; a
label that was given him by his uncle after one drink too many. The past six months saw a
spurting growth gland add two more inches to his frame which all but rendered his few clothes
a fraction short of a charitable donation, not to mention the havoc it wreaked on his
coordination. It resulted in an odd looking, out of control stride as he headed for the bathroom.
There, he removed his underwear and threw it in the corner with yesterday’s underwear, and
the day before that ones, then turned with reluctance toward the mirror. His afro was a matted
mess of lint balls along a rough terrain that resembled a rusty Brillo pad, causing him to wonder
again why he could never shape it into the sculpted symmetry of say—Jermaine Jackson’s; why
each morning’s comb through took on the animated likeness of a bare knuckled fight between
himself and the remaining teeth of his plastic afro pick. It was enough to cause him to ponder
the ancestral happenstance of good hair, bad hair; light skin and dark. His was milk chocolate
with a hint of red in certain light. As a child caught in the wave of black is beautiful awareness in
the late '60s, he’d come to accept his particular shade of brown. But all bets were off when it
came to his hair. At a time when the size of a back man’s afro was linked directly to his
masculinity, Joshua’s was short, nappy and hopelessly unmanageable. He’d be most proudest
of his hair after leaving it braided in tight-as-he-could-stand-it corn rows for a day or two—
granted those times when his mom felt up to the task of braiding it. In the morning when he
loosed out the braids, to the relief of his stretched forehead, he’d have a no frills blow-out of
gargantuan proportions. He’d leave his house feeling like the guy on the Afro Sheen bottle—a
strong, proud black man for all the sista’s to love and the brotha’s to envy—unless of course if
it happened to rain that day. Then he’d return home looking like the nappy headed little frog out
of a Grimm ghetto fairy tale.
“So what the hell are you looking at?” he said, glancing up at the big zit in the middle of his
forehead. It stood out like Rudolf’s red nose; antagonizing him for days now. But on this
morning, he could tell by the pale bubble at its center that it was ripe and ready for reckoning.
He pinched the whitehead firmly between each thumb. “Well, it was nice knowing you. Now
kiss your butt good-bye,” he said, and proceeded to squeeze it till he drew a squirt of puss,
leaving bits of pimple residue to dot the mirror. It wasn’t a pretty picture, but it needed to be
done, as if anyone else but him really gave a care.
“I think my nose is too big for my face,” he said in a self deprecating analysis, thumb and finger
following the broad curve of each nostril to settle along the bridge as he strained a profile view
from out the mirror. “There’s a bump there. I can feel it.”
He stood back to asses himself. “Damn, and look at my chest. It couldn’t be any flatter. I can
practically count each rib. In fact…I think I can actually see my heart beating. No wonder I
can’t get a date. I’m too skinny. I gotta start eating more.” Back in his bedroom, Joshua pulled
open his closet and automatically reached for an outfit which could’ve doubled as a uniform it
was worn just that often. Though he owned a few more clothes to speak of, he found none of
them to be as casual and everyday acceptable as a pair of LEE blue jeans and a tucked in
flannel shirt.
Life on the fifth floor of a five story walkup in the South Bronx was becoming more and more
perilous for Joshua and his family. The neighborhood was christened “Fort Apache” by the
local (mostly white) police, many of whom viewed the residents as nothing more than scalp
marauding savages, while they, in contrast, were the righteous cavalry, there to save them from
themselves. Each morning as he left for school, the stairwell of his building would be littered
with the remains of folded waxed paper squares that the night before contained fresh cut
heroine, enough to rid its enthusiasts of just about any plague of pain that victimized them. The
resident junkies owned the adjoining rooftops, transforming them into an open air shooting
gallery, their used paraphernalia laying waste after them like spent shells left to mingle with
newish blood droppings, the only evidence to communal coterie caught in a sordid trail of
escape.
One of his most vivid childhood memories was that of coming home one evening and hearing a
noise on the steps leading to the roof. He looked toward the noise, and there on the top landing
saw what was unmistakably a white man kneeling down to one knee; his gaunt pale face, raked
by a gnashing jaw that carved his grim expression into tiny flexes of feverish intensity.
Contrary to public perceptions, white folks were always a part of, if not entirely welcomed, in
the predominate neighborhoods of color. They were the social workers, the store owners, the
school teachers, the politicians, the cops and firemen—anyone with deep pockets, a liberal
attitude and more often than not, a last name of Jewish decent. Their numbers were few, but
more powerful it seemed than the majority, and rarely seen past business hours. Still, they
found cause to enter into the smolder of a community trying to pull itself out from the ashes of a
late ‘60s revolution and its long festering anger. Their presence did little to affect meaningful
change. Nonetheless, the pale of their skin was none too unusual against a backdrop of varying
shades of brown.
Irish, Italian, it was of no matter, as long as they adhered to the rules of conduct, that being a
sprinkling of humility and a whole lot of respect. And if business wasn’t their pursuit, then the
trade of drugs most certainly was. Unattainable in the cloisters of their well kept middle-class
suburbs, they’d venture into uncharted territory; cash in hand and looking to get stoned.
Joshua looked up at the visiting white man whose frail limbs were all folded up in a desperate
crouch and from there, immediately spotted what was the syringe end of a needle sticking out
from his arm. A calmly steady hand began to feed him its contents, and then relaxed instantly as
the body waited to feel the rush overcome it. At that point, his eyes turned to notice Joshua’s
looking all wide with aghast at him. In that instant, though glazed over and bloodshot, Joshua
saw in them a frightening glimpse down to the depths of rock bottom; exposing a hopelessness
where little else seemed to matter to him except the when and where of his next fix. From then
on, Joshua kept his curiosity under restraint, and in time, learned to ignore the rumblings of
intemperance in the hollow quiet that led to the roof.
His biggest concern now were the street gangs roaming throughout his neighborhood. Known
by fearsome names like the Black Spades and the Savage Nomads, they’d emblazon the
words in homemade colors across their backs and show themselves off in a gaudy display of
membership like military men on leave. Around the South Bronx they did more recruiting than
the U.S. ARMY, the proportional casualties of their wars, no less disturbing to the local home
front than the body counts coming in from Vietnam.
Joshua was one of four children raised by his mother, Clara Peeler; a devoutly religious woman
who credits the Lord God for every single crumb that fed her family; every stitch of clothing
that she could alter to create another, and every ramshackle roof that housed them, kept them
all dry, and kept them together as one. Physically, she was a complete contradiction to the
images that television programmers tried to portray of strong black mothers. The current
offering of black sitcoms would have viewers believe that the ghetto was full of big, fat, black
women with multiple children, all of whom finding one reason or another to delight in their own
poverty. Joshua’s mother may have been black, but she wasn’t big’n fat, and she certainly
didn’t love being poor. Tall for a woman, she stood about five-foot eight, and carried a fairly
decent figure for someone who gave birth to four babies the natural way—three of them girls,
two of which were younger than him.
An outsider might think his being the only male in a house full of women would have certain
advantages, like never having to cook, clean, do laundry, dishes and the like. For Joshua, there
were no perks to this arrangement. Spoiling him could not have been farther from Clara’s plan.
He was expected to carry his own weight around the house; doing chores right along with his
sisters until he could wash a greasy glass and listen for the squeak under his thumb. She made it
a point to teach him the skills necessary to survive on his own while instilling in him a deep
respect for women as individuals, not caretakers. In moments where thoughts were free to
roam, he dreamed of success, fame and riches; of being an entrepreneur ruling over a chain of
establishments that had his name on them; of buying a home for his mother and sisters in a nice
neighborhood away from everything they were used to. In his short lifetime he saw the demand
for civil rights come to a head in the mid ‘60s. The end of the decade ushered in the black
power movement. By the early ‘70s, empowerment and self determination became the rallying
cry behind a raised fist and a unifying flag of red, black and green that liberated the shackled
minds of those who’d forgotten how to dream, sparking an initiative that made it okay for a
young man like himself to think outside of the box. Arthur Ashe inspired awareness, Shirley
Chisholm evoked pride, the Nation of Islam called for solidarity, and James Brown provided
lyrics of hope for the people to hold on to. There was enough social and political activism so
that he felt no goal to be beyond his reach. Joshua set his sights on college, a career, and a
family, in that order.
Because he hadn’t many friends, he sat through the bus ride to school trying to listen to himself
think over the robust conversations going on all around him. At an age where peer pressure can
create either lasting memories or forgettable ones, Joshua received absolutely no peer pressure
at all. He wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. “Too shy for your own
good,” his sister would often remark in an acrimonious assault of sibling unrest. Like it or not,
he accepted his ambiversion as a personal cross to bear. If anything good could be said of his
shyness, it would be that he was extremely focused because of it. “No friends, no distractions,”
was his motto. He breezed through his work effortlessly and came home appreciably wiser, but
always alone.
Still, he found some comfort in knowing he wasn’t a complete outcast, mainly thanks to a few
friends he’d made from around the neighborhood. They all lived happily in the Bronx rarely
venturing past Manhattan. Brooklyn might as well have been Mars, and the existence of Staten
Island hadn’t been proven yet by any of them. He dreamed of owning a car one day; most
notably a Pontiac Firebird. He’d spend hours on end looking through stacks of new car
brochures and fantasizing about the playboy lifestyle that came with the turn of a key and the
rev of an engine, then revel in all the girls that would flock to his side, drawn like bees to honey.
Between the sporty cars and the gorgeous girls, it was always the latter that kept him up most
nights in a restless toss-n-turn which made sleeping on his stomach nearly impossible. He didn’t
have much luck with girls and wondered if it was because of his looks; not that he was
unattractive, his looks just hadn’t quite reached their full potential. It would’ve helped if he just
opened his mouth and said hello if ever he saw a girl he liked, but whenever the time came,
amnesia would suddenly strike him dumb, eliminating whole groups of words from his
vocabulary. The result was something that sounded much like nonsense whenever he dared to
say anything. For that reason he chose silence over sheer embarrassment.
One friend of his, Shawn Thomas, was quite the opposite. He was gregarious, funny and very
outgoing. Everyone seemed to like him, and Joshua liked being around him. The truth be told,
Shawn was his only true friend. The others were really friends of Shawn’s who obligingly
allowed Joshua into their clique. Where Shawn was savvy and streetwise, Joshua, on the other
hand, grew up over protected, and without one male role model to speak of. Thus he became
his own best friend, cultivating a stunted sociability behind the locked door of his family’s
apartment. Because he wasn’t exposed to many of those things which in his neighborhood
accelerated one’s maturity, it left him at sixteen, clever, perceptive and insightful, none of which
could save him in a battle of wits with a street smart kid half his age. When others laughed at
him, Shawn befriended him, naiveté and all.
Thanks to Shawn, the weekends for Joshua were like the onset of a summer vacation on the
very last day of June. For forty-eight hours he could forget who he was and conduct himself
like someone who had a chance to be hip. But come Monday morning his alter ego would take
control again as, each weekday, the popularity contest of High School left him struggling to find
the rules to the game. His reputation as “that quiet guy,” having already been established, there
was no turning back for him. To change his behavior now would only make him a laughing
stock of dual personalities among his peers. When the bell rang to end a period, he headed
straight for the next one, sometimes being the only one sitting there waiting for class to begin.
No hanging out in the hallway to casually discuss what amounted to bull, no horseplay or
macho crotch grabbing with the other fella’s, just the everyday disciplined routine of a friendless
soul.
The one class that made attending school worth the frustration of being there was required
Biology—Mr. Peterman’s class—and a girl named Tanya who sat in the front row. She was
absolutely gorgeous like no other girl he’d seen outside of a Jet centerfold. Her hair was long,
well past her shoulders and her skin, a beautiful honey brown. She also had the biggest chest of
any other girl in the class under 130 pounds and, by his own admission, was the single most
compelling reason for his infatuation with her. Although they sat relatively close, he could never
muster up the courage to talk to her directly. Thus his time in class was spent incessantly
fantasizing about her, and what he might say to her if the world were scheduled to end
tomorrow.
Tanya had a friend named Claudine whose business it seemed was to stick close up under her.
Conjoined twins couldn’t have been any closer. It was clear to some that she was only
capitalizing off Tanya’s attention getting looks, hoping that by chance, some random attraction
might draw a little of the same her way. Like a ready sponge she was there and willing to sop
up the spillage of rejected young men that puddled at her friend’s feet. Their constant union
increased the difficulty-of-approach curve by healthy percentage points for Joshua, and anyone
else who couldn’t resist the luscious flesh beneath her sweater just waiting to be handled. If the
chance ever presented itself to say anything at all to her, he would have preferred it be between
just the two of them—he and Tanya—with no witnesses. That way, an errant foot in the mouth
might be cushioned by the tender mercy of a conscionable girl who could appreciate flattery in
its simplest form, and just maybe squash any ill gossip before it got started.
There was one afternoon in particular when he arrived to class early and found Tanya sitting
alone at her desk. He immediately pinched himself to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating, and
proceeded to run off in his mind a series of hopeless opening lines that would incite uproarious
laughter from even the most desperately homely of girls. When he finally did settle on something
acceptable, who walks in but Claudine looking as though she had just raced with the devil to
get there; her boy-block, blazing with flying sparks to ward off any serious suitors. He imagined
tying her up and stuffing her in one of the lockers that lined the hallway. This would give him the
space he needed to string syllable and word together into something intelligible and hopefully
gain a sliver of Tanya’s interest. But wishful thinking aside, he knew the likelihood of such a
thing happening was slim, at best a fantasy, and his relationship with her, forever doomed to the
realm of his imagination.
Joshua was just getting home from school when Shawn stopped by. Their plan was to go to the
playground and shoot some hoops until sundown; Shawn, though, seemed to be more
interested in spending time with Jonelle, Joshua’s younger sister. She was developing in a way
that caught Joshua completely off guard. To see the way Shawn doted over her also raised an
interesting question for him. Was Shawn just pretending to be his pal in order to get close to
Jonelle? The thought of possibly losing his best friend to his baby sister gave not one hint for
him to pay attention to. Now suddenly they all seemed as obvious as the smile on her face
whenever he came by to visit, or the intrusion of “Hi Shawn,” as he and his buddy discussed
things of a strictly male nature. To call him friend was only for lack of a more suitable word, for
he had fit comfortably into Joshua’s family like one spoon over another. It sort of made
anything between Jonelle and him incestuous by default. Entertaining it a little further, Joshua
couldn’t help but feel a bit unloved and at the same time, a little queasy at the notion of jealousy
where same sexes were involved. He treaded uneasily along a suspected jilt until the weirdness
he was experiencing told him how ridiculous the whole thing was. It quickly purged him of any
insecurity regarding the matter. They left for the courts together. The subject of Jonelle never
came up between them.
The street they walked along was lined end to end with burned out tenements from glory days
gone by. Buildings, once alive with activity, were now just hollow shells waiting to be
demolished. The street, once teaming with cars, children playing and parents keeping a watchful
eye, now resided quiescent with ghostly echoes of the past. A stretch of block had been
completely taken over by junkies; their drug driven resourcefulness transforming a dilapidated
structure into a ramshackle of frightening appearance, complete with amenities, courtesy of
stolen electricity from a nearby street lamp. Joshua and Shawn had made this walk to the
playground quite often enough to negotiate each dried clump of doggy-doo blind folded. They
grew to ignore the deafening silence that surrounded them. This was, after all, an extension of
their playground.
“Y’know that girl Diane I used to talk to a few months ago?” Shawn asked, his voice
redirected in a hollow ricochet that emanated all around them.
“Yeah, she’s fine. What happened with that anyway, I haven’t seen you with her for a while?”
“Last week she told me she was pregnant.”
Joshua looked at him with surprise. “Is it your kid?” he asked as thoughts of little sister Jonelle
came quickly to mind.
“Yeah…it is. She’s really scared, y’know? Like she really doesn’t want to have my baby n’all.”
“Well, can you blame her? What is she, about fourteen or fifteen? I’d be scared too.
I don’t know whether to congratulate you, or feel sorry for you.”
“She hasn’t told her family yet. I kind of like the idea of having a baby, but daaamn. I think I’m
too young for this s**t, y’know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I know. So what are you gonna do?”
“Damned if I know,” Shawn answered. On such an ambiguous note his face read like it hadn’t
a care in the world.
They threw the ball back and forth to each other as they continued walking; jumping in the air,
catching the ball and quickly throwing it back before their feet touched the ground. Shawn
missed the ball and it hit the pavement, cracking the silence like a whip. Its sound reverberated
through the alleys, bouncing off the hollowed out buildings to create machine gun pops that
buffeted all around them. Intrigued by its rhythm, Shawn began to make odd sounds with his
mouth loud enough to encourage an echo. The park was just minutes away. Their instincts
clouded by distraction, there was not a warning, notice nor subtle tweak of intuition as two
unknown boys, much older in appearance than either of them, stepped out from one of the
buildings and blocked the way ahead. Emblazoned across their jackets were gang colors
printed out in large letters that read—BLACK SPADES. Their faces were chiseled hard and
expressed an intimidating hatred. Joshua and Shawn turned to run, but a third stranger had
stepped out behind them.
“Give me some money,” one of them said in a gravely monotone voice.
“We don’t have any money,” Shawn said, most likely frightened, but not letting it come through
in his voice. When there’s no place else to run, defiance was the only thing that separated the
meek from the brave. Both he and Joshua had seen this scenario played out too many times
before and each knew the outcome. If they had to lose something, there was no sense in going
out like punks. If there was to be pain involved, take it like a man. Shawn looked his assailant
straight on. A stare down ensued between them where only the fearless or the foolish tempters
of fate dared to tread; pupils locked in an unflinching gaze as narrow slits of anger met wide-
eyed dread. Joshua tried his best to mimic Shawn’s courage, but his own attempt at a hardened
stare fell somewhere between why are you doing this, and don’t hurt me, please! Throughout
their limited encounters with the cities underbelly, physical violence had not courted either of
them personally. Avoiding trouble was more a skill of necessity and less prone to factors of
dumb luck.
“You’d better come up with something nigga,” the young thug said.
“But really man…we don’t have any money,” Shawn repeated. “Where we gonna get money
from anyway? We ain’t even got jobs.”
“Then give me that jacket,” one of the others demanded. He eyed Shawn’s brand new leather,
the one Joshua recalled Mrs. Thomas warning her son never to wear unless he had someplace
special to go.
“I can’t give you this jacket. It was a gift.”
“I don’t give a damn how you got it. I want your f**k’n jacket. Take it off, NOW nigga.”
Shawn was usually so cool and in control most of the time. His quick wit and an uncanny ability
to adapt to almost any situation had bailed him out of a few basketball court fracases and
school yard squabbles. But this time, for the first time in Joshua’s recollection, he showed clear
signs of panic; standing within arms reach of two thugs anxious to do him bodily harm. Joshua
stood at his side and only a few inches behind him. His first impulse was to run like hell and
take his chances in a chase, but he knew he couldn’t leave his friend behind.
“Man…let’s jack’em up, take the jacket and get the hell out of here,” the one Spade standing
behind them said. Joshua turned to see him reach into his jacket and pull out a switch blade. He
closed the distance, sandwiching them between the two Spades in the front. Another pulled out
a blade as well, pushed Shawn back against the other and pressed the sharp edge against his
throat.
“Nigga…if you don’t take that f**k’n jacket off right now, you’re gonna bleed. You hear
me?” Shawn looked over at Joshua. Tears welled and streamed down his face. His eyes were
saying help me please. Joshua didn’t know what to do. He was never so scared in his life.
Elapsing seconds felt like minutes; that’s when the knife at Shawn’s throat suddenly broke
through the skin and inched its way around the front of his neck. Blood gushed from the
wound, flowed down his body and splattered in drips onto the concrete. Shawn dropped to the
ground, landing in the circular drops of his own blood; his hands clutching the open wound until
they were painted red; his eyes, held open in a frozen stare that would soon lose their intensity
with every passing minute. The three assailants turned and ran off, disappearing down one of
the alleys and leaving behind the now blood stained jacket they so coveted. They knew nothing
of this young man—his hopes and dreams, his age, the type of person he was—nothing. They
didn’t care to know. Joshua knelt down beside Shawn and cradled his head as a torrent of
blood spilled from his neck and pooled out around them. With no one close by to call out to,
he could only watch helplessly as his best friend’s life left its body.
Weeks later, he still mourned the loss of his friend. Shawn had impacted his life in ways he
never noticed until he looked back. Unknowingly, he taught Joshua that friendship, commitment
and love are boundless and not distinguished by one’s gender. Shawn was the brother he never
had. His heart told him that he loved him, and that was all that mattered.
Joshua’s mother, having had just about enough, packed up the kids, gathered up their few
belongings and left the South Bronx. She feared it was only a matter of time before they, too,
became forgettable statistics of violence run amok. They moved into a quiet residential
neighborhood in the Soundview section of the Bronx. Their building was part of a small
complex of buildings designed for low income families. The residents were predominately black
and Hispanic with only a handful of whites who had yet to react to the changing color scheme.
Joshua hadn’t lived around white folks before and somehow felt it to be a step up. After all, the
service was better, the neighborhood was safer; everything seemed to work. There was no
logical reason for them to flee, especially since class distinction labeled them all to be poor in
the eyes of the IRS. The few whites that remained were friendly enough, but guarded in their
hospitality. One didn’t have to be a prophet to predict they weren’t going to be around for long.
On a quick look, there were no visible junkies decorating this neighborhood which is not to say
there were no drugs to be found. Heroin had infiltrated his old neighborhood like Satan’s
blitzkrieg to root itself deep into the psyche of a generation. Here, contentment had left the
residents vulnerable to a threat they believed would pass them by. Joshua knew better. He and
his family lived in building-5, by far the best maintained building in the complex. The floors were
always clean, the elevator always worked and the residents all pitched in to keep it that way.
They lived on the tenth floor giving them a clear view of the Whitestone Bridge from their living
room window. This was definitely a far cry from whence they came. Always prayerful, Joshua’
s mother reminded them that they must be grateful for every blessing they received. To be
standing there with her family looking out onto the horizon of Long Island Sound was a
monumental blessing indeed—one that transcended the hardships of a single parent; hardships
of the sort that Joshua and his sisters could not conceive.
Directly across from them lived the Rodriguez family. Joshua had known Puerto Ricans before,
so this was nothing new to him, but living right next door to them resulted in regular chance
meetings that blossomed into a more than a casual acquaintance. They were a nice family, quiet
and friendly, not unlike his family. A single parent also, Miss Rodriguez and Clara had that one
thing in common if nothing else. Raising two teenage boys for her was no small task, but it was
their credentials that ranked it as quite an accomplishment. One attended the Bronx High
School of Science, undoubtedly the most prestigious academy of learning in the entire New
York City public school system. The other attended the Lawrence School, a facility for kids
with unique problems. Both were on opposite ends of the educational spectrum; each one with
their own special needs; neither one at a loss for attention from their mother.
Antonio’s disability wasn’t apparent until he opened his mouth. A stutter introduced nearly
every sentence with a halting frustration, while developmental shortcomings only served to
sabotage any attempt at conversation. As a result, he was shy, a little awkward around new
people and not very talkative. Hector on the other hand was involved in so many things in
preparation for college, that he was rarely seen. In the morning when Joshua left for school,
he’d sometimes see Antonio walking a feverish pace ahead of him for the corner bus stop.
There, a broad range of teen tempest and temperament crowded the sidewalk, separating
themselves into groups of favorite friends to the exclusion of some. Antonio usually stood alone
leaning against the wall of a grocery store as if to protect his back from something unexpected.
This morning found Joshua approaching the bus stop, heading for school along with a parade of
other kids, none of whom he knew well enough to say hi to. Once there, he meshed himself into
the crowd, planting his two feet on the first vacant space they landed on and there, waited for
his bus to arrive which he hoped would be shortly. Antonio, always the early bird, was already
there and waiting just a few yards away; standing and looking every bit like a meek little
Chihuahua petrified in an unwitting slump of cautionary solitude. Not far from either of them
stood a small group of boys. For someone like Antonio, there’s nothing more terrifying than the
sight of other teenage boys in a group; each one believing themselves to be tougher than the
next. Whereas, for a rambunctious few among them, just seeing someone with Antonio’s
particular disability was all the provocation they needed to stir their machismos into an uproar.
He stood a cautious distance back from them; segregated to a lonely square of sidewalk that
he’d painfully grown accustomed to, but one that at least offered a clear view of any
approaching dangers. From there, he kept a furtive eye on everything; those same boys in
particular as they communed in a huddle of precursory spitting, gratuitous profanity, requisite
rough housing and habitual self-crotch-grabbing that seemed to be wearing thin of its of
amusement with them. That’s when they began to make their way over towards Antonio.
It began with vile allegations of his mother’s infidelity, than escalated to repeated finger poking
to the side of his head. He stood there enduring it all, stretching a nervous smile across his face
that unintentionally said to them, take your best shot! Some of the others in witness goaded
them on; a handful begged them to stop. “Leave him alone,” they said in a ring of spectators
where pure excitement was more tantalizing than interference. Their circle cut Antonio off from
view, thankfully for Joshua who couldn’t bear to watch any longer. He stepped back
wondering if he could help, if he should even help, but figured throwing himself into the fray
would only rile them. Besides, getting a butt kicking wasn’t on his agenda for that morning. If he
learned anything growing up in the South Bronx it was self preservation; to not stick his nose
where it didn’t belong. Still, he couldn’t help but feel for his beleaguered neighbor. Where
would he find humanity if not from his own neighbor? Up to now, he and Antonio never said
two words to each other. That by itself wasn’t reason enough to call him a stranger, and simply
roll over at night in a pleasant sleep as though nothing had happened. His memory flashed back
to Shawn, and he thought, If only I had done something—anything—then maybe he’d be alive
today. As for Antonio, Joshua knew there was nothing he could do for him at the moment, but
what about tomorrow, he wondered in the complicity of his own inaction. The shame of it
stayed with him for the rest of that day.