"Do you mind if I ask you something?"
I am Sielow, these are my words.
This is another person’s story, and is True.
"Do you mind if I ask you something?"
The black man was sitting at a small table in the otherwise empty white room. He was staring off in the distance as though thinking of something that captured his mind, occasionally taking a long drag off a cigarette that he held between his fingers.
"No, go ahead. It's not like I don't have the time," he said as he ground out the cigarette in an ashtray.
I sat down in a chair of my own, facing him across the table. "Why did you do it?"
"Yeah. Why did you pull the gun on the cop? Was it an accident? Didn't you know what would happen?"
He looked at me and a grin appeared on his face.
"Shit. I knew. Or rather I figured I knew.
"What do you know about me?" I admitted I didn't know much. "Five years ago I was busted for possession with intent to distribute. It was only a few joints, but my PD …" (Public Defender, court appointed attorney.) "… didn't really care and told me to plea to the offer.
"I got five years with a parole option in 9 months. I did 22 months.
"When I got out I went back to the neighborhood. It was the only place I knew and most no one would care that I'd done some time. I wasn't the first and I wouldn't be the last.
"The problem is, in my neighborhood, the defenseless get eaten. If you can't defend yourself, then you don't walk the streets. The guys are always looking for someone to take down. Someone is always pissed at someone for something, or sometimes people just get bored. But if you couldn't defend yourself, you were a target."
He took a deep drag off his cigarette. "So I got a piece. It made me protected. It kept the target off my back. I was safer with the other guys knowing I could defend myself if needed.
"Then I was driving with my girl Charlene when somehow, I don't know, somehow a cop decided to light us up.
"I'm sitting there in the passenger seat not knowing what to do. A cop was pulling us over and I was carrying. Honestly, I didn't know what to do.
"An ex-con packing is an automatic 5 years in prison. Hell, there wouldn't even be a trial, just ship my ass off to Bennington."
First the first time he looked at me in the eye. "Dude! I didn't want to go back. Not again." He leaned back and took a drag off a new cigarette and let the smoke rise in front of his eyes and drift off.
"A cop pulling over a black man in this part of town? It's an automatic search." He cupped his hands around his mouth and started imitating a speaker system, "Please step from the vehicle and place your hands on the hood of the car."
In his normal voice he said, "I was fucked."
"Then suddenly it suddenly hit me: I could come out blazing. Maybe I could even get lost in the Projects if I came out fast enough, shooting fast enough.
"And if not, then, black man killed by a cop, even a black cop, shit! I'd be famous!"
He paused in his smoking, leaned toward me and looked me in the eye, grin gone from his face. "Do you know what my destiny was as an ex-con working shit jobs for the rest of my life? I'd probably be buried in a mass grave of unknowns. Just another brown body without a name. No one to mourn me. Hell, probably no one even knowing I'd gone."
He leaned back in his chair and grinned at me again. "But as a black man killed by cops? At the worse I'd get my own grave, probably my own tombstone. People would know my name! Hell, even the Reverend Jackson might show up and tell people what a great man I'd been." He took a very long drag off the current cigarette, ground it out in the ashtray and another cigarette appeared which he took deep drag off of before continuing.
"Charlene seemed to know what I was thinking because she starts screaming at me not to do it, but at the same time she's turned on the camera of her phone to record everything.
"When the cop got along her side of the car, I made my move. Jumped out and immediately fired two shots in his direction, moving backwards. Pap! Pap!
"Somehow I got lucky. He didn't have his gun out and apparently hadn't suspected I'd come out shooting. But he pulled his weapon quick enough and as I'm turning to run into project and make my escape, he manages to get off two shots."
He turns in his chair and raises his shirt, showing me what looks like a large bruise in his side, under his rib cage. "The first shot got me here, the second was in the back where I can't see it.
"The funny thing is, the first shot, which stung like a son of a bitch, sort of turned me as I ran which put the second shot through my lung and nicking an artery. At least that's what I heard.
"At the time all I could think of was how much they burned and who in the projects did I know who could help me out." He laughed. "Honest to god, the one person I thought could help me the most is the biggest junkie I knew. He's always measuring things, and cutting things, and has all sorts of tools and shit for his stuff. After realizing I'd been shot, I thought maybe he'd be able to help me.
"But I sort of fell before I'd gone another three steps. Damn, it burned. And I was tasting blood. I don't think I'd ever really tasted blood before, not like this. As I'm falling I know I'm not gonna make it. The taste of iron from the blood, the burning, not being able to keep running? It all just sort of slid to a stop.
"I felt the ground sliding along my face as everything got gray and then dark and finally black. After a few seconds of the blackness, I stepped out and stood with the others to watch everything that happened. All the cop cars, all the people, all the anger and all the …
"I just watched. It was weird. I was the reason for everything but I seemed to have been forgotten in all the reactions. The reactions from the cops, the cameras, the cell phones recording everything and even from the people who, I guess, had been my neighbors."
He paused. I cleared my throat and asked again: "So the reason you came out of the car shooting?"
He looked me in the eye again. "I was an ex-con who had to carry to be safe in my neighborhood with the understanding that if I got caught, I'd do another five.
"I got caught and figured I'd rather go out famous than a nobody."
I said, "You know, the cop will have to live with the consequences of your actions."
"Yeah, well so will I." He paused as he considered his words and then laughed. "Well, I guess I won't really be living with the consequences, will I?"
I bowed my head, looking at the table top. "No. I guess you won't." I considered what he told me. "Thank you for your time."
"Sure," he said, grinding out his cigarette before producing another.
As I got up to leave, he asked, "Did you see it?"
I opened myself up and looked at what he'd seen. There had been angry people screaming, black women he'd never known crying and holding up babies saying their children were next. The police were there, at the funeral, trying to keep order. People, usually young black men, would get in their faces screaming obscenities at them. The police just stood there taking it as long as no one touched them.
The ceremony was open casket. People from the mayor on down spoke. He was right, even The Reverend Jackson showed up. He kept mispronouncing the kid's name, and losing his place in the cue cards he was reading from, but every time he'd pound the podium he stood behind, people would scream out in rage as if wired like puppets.
His mama, who he hadn't seen in a while, was there. She cried over his casket and screamed in agony when she gripped his hand. He chuckled. It was the most care he'd seen from her for him in ten years or so. Not that she didn't love him, it was just that … Well, she loved him a lot more in the middle of audience.
TV cameras and cell phones recorded everything. Some of the people were even live streaming the services. A few people, including some of his homies, were making rude comments about him for the internet. A lot of people actually seemed to care, hating the fact another kid from the area had been taken down. Some were actually glad it was cops this time. Cops could provide them with "someone" to hate; usually it was just another body in a bag killed by an unknown in the Projects.
He laughed again. A few of the people just wanted a cool room to sit in and something free to do on a warm Saturday. Some were even wondering if there was gong to be a wake and if it was going to be catered. With Jackson attending there might even be an open bar.
He was surprised when his girlfriend came up to see him. She'd really cared. She wasn't here for the anger, the food or even The Reverend, but because it hurt that he was gone. She paused for the longest time at his box and he heard her praying for him.
He suddenly realized it wasn't the first time she'd done so.
In the ride to the graveyard, The Reverend was in one limo and on his cell phone talking to local news stations or grabbing a couple of minutes of sleep. He wanted to appear fresh and angry for the final stretch. His limo was comfortably cool and he hoped it wasn't too hot out there. He looked at his watch and calculated how much time he'd have before the game started. The rest of this shouldn't take that much time and shouldn't be a factor.
Sure enough he got his own private grave. They already had a tombstone ready and everything. It looked like they used the photo from his High School year book, his Junior year photo engraved on the tombstone and for a extra large picture in a gold frame that was standing next to it.
In the picture he was seated sideways on the corner of a desk, looking sharp in a suit he'd borrowed from a cousin. He was looking all serious like at the camera with the coolest look he could give it. He'd always liked that photo. He was glad it was what people would see on the tombstone, when they visited him.
I watched as people spoke again. Most of the words were not about him but cameras were still recording and he understood. His casket was lowered, his momma and a few others took a last look at his casket, throwing flowers on his casket before they left. Later, after most of the people had gone, a truck came up and dumped dirt onto his grave. A couple of guys spread the dirt around a little bit with shovels and pressed it down, making the area flat.
"Is it what you wanted?" I asked.
He took a drag off his cigarette and replied, "It will do. It wasn't everything I thought it would be but I have a tombstone with my name on it, and Jackson spoke about me, even if he couldn't pronounce my name right.
"I guess … I guess it will do."
I turned toward the exit and left the black man, staring off in the distance, looking over his life and reviewing all that it was and how he got to where he currently was. He'd finish one cigarette and another would take its place, as he reviewed his life.
