Granville js Johnson

"Whatever is that boy doing now?" Thought Margea. It sounded like her son was trying to tear his closet apart without opening the door. From the sounds of cascading clothing, tumbling boxes, flying bags and clanking hangers, he was ransacking his room; or a marching band had just moved in while she slept.

Margea was soul tired. She had worked the evening shift that too often ran till early morning. Last night had been one of those nights. One of the men on her shift replacement had been, caught DOA (Drunk On Arrival) and an hour late.

He had earned the night off. Of course she was volunteered to do his work down in the hole cleaning sump traps. She wasn't, by far and a bit, low on the coach maintenance crew's pecking order in fact her seniority placed her very near the top of the heap. But, she was the only woman in the crew, a fact they never tired of reminding her of her proper place with all the dangerous, filthy and demeaning jobs that were beneath their precious male egos and therefore only suitable as "woman's work".

While there, her Super had dropped in to check on her condition; or maybe it was to offer her an early pass home with a bit of overtime thrown in for good measure, equaling the approximate length of his pencil dick down her throat. It would have been a short suck, indeed.

While she squeezed his balls held in the iron grip of her left fist, beneath his coverall clad perma-pregnant beer gut, she reminded him with the heft of her rock hammer poised above in her right hand. (Her hammer was a handy multipurpose tool that she kept in her kit at all times: light and razor sharp, it had many uses.) It was painfully clear that if he tried to touch her again, she would bury its head where his wife would have to suck on it next time she was on her knees.

His face lost all color: beet purple-red to pasty yellow, then ashen white. Trembling lips stammered, spat then hissed, "Bitch! Y...Y...Ya... You are some CRAZY Bitch." Through his black/brown chewing tobacco-stained-teeth, half under his putrid breath, so as not to be heard by the leering crew, waiting to witness her "com-up-ance," as he scurried, as fast as he could, up the ladder and out of range, backwards.

She worked straight through, another full shift, no overtime.

"Shadrac what is the problem?" Margea called as she approached his room, having to stop to absorb a painful lower back spasm in the kitchen. Holding on to the top of her high-back chair at the table, she continued, "You're supposed to be at work by now. Boy, we both know that you cannot afford to be late for work, any time, period."

"Mom, have you seen my tool?"

As she slowly entered the earthquake epicenter that, a short time ago, was his meticulously organized room, a disembodied voice echoed from under the bed.

Shadrac Andrews, a fine featured beautiful cheerful man-child, strong and lithe, yet so small and somehow feminine, he was often teased about his sensitive nature and graceful movement.

He was her love child, her middle child, her mediator. He looked all of twelve until you noticed his eyes, ancient in their wariness. Dark clouds loomed in their black depths. A spectral agony clung close to his heart.

She couldn't remember any longer when the shroud wasn’t there. Nor could she imagine what was behind it.

These days, with her diabetes stealing all but her will to live, her swollen legs and feet throbbed a bone deep ache that resonated behind her eyes in endless migraines. She longed to whisk this evil away, soothe the awful pain and fear that grew within the shadows.

Those eyes, mirror images of her own, now peered up at her, seething with repressed rage and fear.

Her son, a cornered beast at bay, blood lust vivid in curling upper lip revealing the split gums above blooded snarling canine fangs. A slow trickle of bright red life oozed along a dark jagged welt from his nose over and around his cruelly distorted mouth to cascade down the front and side of what was his brand new ultra-stylish deep blue linen shirt jacket. That shirt jacket was Shad's pride and joy.

As in most things, Shadrac had an acute sense of style that set him apart from his peers. He, the proud individual, seldom followed the crowd, pop fashion, or in most cases the ghetto mentality. He chose: to stand apart, to listen to his own counsel and that of his mother above all others: dangerous ground for a teenage man-child in the Westside Chicago inner city black ghetto. Thus he reflected her sense of propriety, integrity, gritty determination, positive self-worth and pride. Like her, he tended to walk his talk.

His sixteenth birthday present to himself that he had purchased with the earnings of his first real job was now torn badly at the left shoulder seam where the epilate had been ripped away. His left side and shirtfront, she now noticed, was slowly being saturated with his life essence.

An ugly purple/black bruise rippled across his clenched lower jaw and neck. His eye on the same side, blood red and swelling rapidly, as if to hide from sight or seeing the horrified awareness and abject resignation on his mother's face.

Her son no longer resembled himself, but a poorly assembled 3-D jigsaw puzzle, a combination of two desperate images: one beautifully familiar, the other grotesque, and familiar only in the horrific sense of Dr. Jeckal sharing a body with Mr. Hyde.

Silence.

He did not have to ask again, nor explain what had occurred.

She knew the answers to all her questions. She would not delay nor try to dissuade him from what he had to do. Moving his chest of draws, she reached behind it to retrieve his tool (a foot long steel-alloy shaft), fashioned by her uncle in a metal shop. It was smooth and shiny; about one half inch thick with a slightly rough series of raised ridges scored into one end that served as the handle. Though both ends could easily be used for striking or thrusting. It was light and strong.

Each of her boys had been given one and taught how to use them effectively by their Great Uncle Ben. He had schooled the boys well, practicing all the time,

and cautioned them, to never use their tools, until they had tried every other way that they could to "fix the problem".

At first it was a game for the fertile imaginations of young boys, until they had to use them during the block-busting race war that welcomed the family to this neighborhood.

Then, it all had been White, poor White.

She and her children were the only black faces that dared call this place home.

The tools had helped to "fix the problem"during the final battle: three (her black children) verses, twenty (all the other white children on the block) their parents had also turned out to cheer and jeer.

Hopelessly out numbered, out-powered, yet led by the courage of her oldest, her boys had faced them down and won their right to live in this rat and roach infested three storey walk up. Fortunately no child, white or black was truly hurt in the confrontation, though lives changed forever as a result of it,

Now war, once more had claimed their home. The neighborhood had transformed from poor White to poorer Black. A situation, Margea had few problems with. The schools were good, the neighbors, white and black were reasonable or they simply left her family alone.

The local merchants liked her boys, especially Shadrac, who sometimes earned extra money cleaning up in the butcher shop next door or serving customers in the corner convenience store.

A new enemy had gathered and targeted her son. Shadrac was often harassed because of his biblical name. Well named, though, as fate would have it, for having a namesake with the gall to face down a tyrant while refusing to accept the judgment of fire, has been instrumental in Shadrac's life.

It was his favorite children's story. No surprise that the moral of that story has become the essence of his life.

The enemy, now, was the black gangs living all around them. They went by many names:

Vice Lords, Roman Saints, Black Stone Rangers, etc. A plethora of violent stupidity feeding upon themselves, and others they felt threatened by. The gangs had targeted Shadrac and hunted him with impunity, because he was the first to live in the ‘hood’. And his role in the subsequent race war during the block-busting scam was a local urban legend. Shadrac had the nerve to be here, moving among them, but refusing to have anything to do with them.

"Like some Supreme Gangster," the cops had labeled him, in bitter jest, that faithful day. "Shadrac don't need any gang. He's already proven that he's the 'baddest-ass' young nigga in the hood. He was here before any of you; an' you heard how he whipped a whol' block fulla crackers, almost by himself. You best be smart 'n leave him alone. I'd hate to see any of y'all get hurt. Y'all have a good day now."

Their mocking laughter echoed off the hardened maleficent rage of Black Jesus, the Vice Lord gang boss, as he glared through the backs of the fat salt 'n pepper 'poke-rinds'in their retreating 'pig-mobile'.

Since that infamous day, Shadrac's presence, in his home world, was taken as a personal insult to every gang member itching to prove himself. "Join, move or fuckin'die." was the choice; he chose to do neither. The war had begun.

Ignoring the blood and bruises, as he was now doing, for they would heal; she honored his courage and pride, now ready, once more, for battle. Kissing his beautiful side as she handed him his tool, she whispered, "I love you, fight well, and we'll be here when you're done."

He returned her kiss as best he could, brushing her cheek with his full lips,

"Love you too, Momma. Thanks for everything." His lips were twisted, his words, his eyes and his heart were clear.

Hugging her with all his might, as she did in kind, he turned to open the front door leading into their building's hall.

Before closing, he turned once more to face her, hearing the chant.

"Mighty...Mighty Vize Lauds...Up In Here! Careening through the hallway, raising the hackles at the base of his neck.

Their eyes met, he smiled crookedly, "Work to do. Gotta fix it. I'm late."

Closing his front door softly behind him and grasping his tool firmly, He went to work.

Top of Page