Dontay joined us at the table. “Takin forever, boy, wit dem big ass feet!” yelled a happy Bucket. Dontay was wearing my old shoes. They are 13’s and busting at the seams but Dontay’s a size 8 and his foot is digging through the side. His arms are chunked and wrapped in healed sores from years of drug abuse. He’s eight years clean off of the hard stuff now, but I met him way back when I was 13, in his wild days.
He was huddled over his girlfriend in the alley behind my house. I watched moments before as she performed an abortion on herself with a twisted coat hanger. She screamed like the sirens we hear all day. I couldn’t stop looking at her. He gazed too, in and out of a nod and then signaled me for help. I joined them. Together we dragged her to Johns Hopkins Hospital, which was under a mile away. Blood scabbed and dried on my hands, Nikes and hooping shorts; she lived until she OD’d months later. I’ve been cool with Dontay ever since.
“Tryin get dem roach eggs, tee-he, tee-he he he, gotta get the bleach on da roach eggs! Den dey won’t come back!” Dontay replied as he sat at the table.
The Ferguson library stayed open.
In the highly charged wake of November’s announcement that there would be no indictment for officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown, local schools and other services were closed – but the library proudly kept its doors open and made good on its promise to do “everything in our power to serve our community.” It’s proof yet again that libraries are magic, and librarians are superheroes.
Staying quiet was not an option.
Years of cryptic rumors about Canadian radio host Jian Ghomeshi – and decades of disturbing talk about Bill Cosby – came to a head, with dozens of women coming forward with remarkably similar accounts. The deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner — and lack of consequences for the cops — drove thousands into the streets across the nation. The mass shooting near the University of California, Santa Barbara, sparked an intense and illuminating public conversation about violence against women. We saw a lot of really horrible stuff this year. But for a lot of people, this year was the moment we didn’t turn away.
Chris Pratt took off his shirt.
We love him at any size or shape. And if the goofy “Parks and Recreation” star hadn’t been pumped up and seriously ripped for “Guardians of the Galaxy,” he’d have been a winning, funny hero nevertheless. But he was. And those abs. Those gasp-inducing abs. You know, this was a rough year, and that was the six-pack that definitely took the edge off.Miss Sheryl doesn’t have a computer and definitely wouldn’t know what a selfie is. Her cell runs on minutes and doesn’t have a camera. Like many of us, she’s too poor to participate in pop culture. She’s on public assistance living in public housing and scrambles for odd jobs to survive.
Sheryl lost her job as a cook moments after she lost her daughter to heroin, her son Meaty to crack and her kidneys to soul food. It took 15 to 20 unanswered applications a week for over a year for her to realize that no company wants to employ a woman on dialysis. Sometimes Bucket-Head and I chip in and buy groceries for her and her grandson Lil Kevin who has severe lead-paint poisoning, but was diagnosed late and is too old to receive a check.
Bucket-Head is a convicted felon but not really. He was charged with a crime that he didn’t commit. I know this because my late cousin did the shooting and our whole neighborhood watched. Bucket was in the wrong place at the wrong time and as many know, we are products of a “No Snitching” culture.
As a result, the only work Bucket can find after 10 years of false imprisonment is that of laborer with the Mexicans who post up in front of 7-Eleven, or as a freelance dishwasher. Bucket’s no angel, but he’s also not a felon and doesn’t deserve to be excluded from pop culture no more than Miss Sheryl or Dontay, who represents the definition of redemption to me.
“A good samaritan,” I said. “They couldn’t have just confronted me directly?”
He laughed again, then grew serious. “Look,” he said. “Here’s how I look at it. I’m glad we live in a world where people are watching out for kids. I’m glad that when someone thinks they’re seeing something wrong take place, they get involved. But in your case, what happened wasn’t malicious. It wasn’t neglectful. It was a temporary lapse in judgment. This is what we need to stress.”
I picture this concerned someone standing beside my car, inches from my child, holding a phone to the window, recording him as he played his game on the iPad. I imagined the person backing away as I came out of the store, watching me return to the car, recording it all, not stopping me, not saying anything, but standing there and dialing 911 as I drove away. Bye now. At this point, almost a year had passed since it happened. I could hear my lawyer shuffling papers. I looked down and saw that my hands were shaking. My hands were shaking, but unlike before, I wasn’t afraid. I was enraged.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It doesn’t sound to me like I committed the crime I’m being charged with. I didn’t render him in need of services. He was fine. Maybe I should plead ‘not guilty,’ go to trial.”
Dontay joined us at the table. “Takin forever, boy, wit dem big ass feet!” yelled a happy Bucket. Dontay was wearing my old shoes. They are 13’s and busting at the seams but Dontay’s a size 8 and his foot is digging through the side. His arms are chunked and wrapped in healed sores from years of drug abuse. He’s eight years clean off of the hard stuff now, but I met him way back when I was 13, in his wild days.
He was huddled over his girlfriend in the alley behind my house. I watched moments before as she performed an abortion on herself with a twisted coat hanger. She screamed like the sirens we hear all day. I couldn’t stop looking at her. He gazed too, in and out of a nod and then signaled me for help. I joined them. Together we dragged her to Johns Hopkins Hospital, which was under a mile away. Blood scabbed and dried on my hands, Nikes and hooping shorts; she lived until she OD’d months later. I’ve been cool with Dontay ever since.
“Tryin get dem roach eggs, tee-he, tee-he he he, gotta get the bleach on da roach eggs! Den dey won’t come back!” Dontay replied as he sat at the table.
The Ferguson library stayed open.
In the highly charged wake of November’s announcement that there would be no indictment for officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown, local schools and other services were closed – but the library proudly kept its doors open and made good on its promise to do “everything in our power to serve our community.” It’s proof yet again that libraries are magic, and librarians are superheroes.
Staying quiet was not an option.
Years of cryptic rumors about Canadian radio host Jian Ghomeshi – and decades of disturbing talk about Bill Cosby – came to a head, with dozens of women coming forward with remarkably similar accounts. The deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner — and lack of consequences for the cops — drove thousands into the streets across the nation. The mass shooting near the University of California, Santa Barbara, sparked an intense and illuminating public conversation about violence against women. We saw a lot of really horrible stuff this year. But for a lot of people, this year was the moment we didn’t turn away.
Chris Pratt took off his shirt.
We love him at any size or shape. And if the goofy “Parks and Recreation” star hadn’t been pumped up and seriously ripped for “Guardians of the Galaxy,” he’d have been a winning, funny hero nevertheless. But he was. And those abs. Those gasp-inducing abs. You know, this was a rough year, and that was the six-pack that definitely took the edge off.Miss Sheryl doesn’t have a computer and definitely wouldn’t know what a selfie is. Her cell runs on minutes and doesn’t have a camera. Like many of us, she’s too poor to participate in pop culture. She’s on public assistance living in public housing and scrambles for odd jobs to survive.
Sheryl lost her job as a cook moments after she lost her daughter to heroin, her son Meaty to crack and her kidneys to soul food. It took 15 to 20 unanswered applications a week for over a year for her to realize that no company wants to employ a woman on dialysis. Sometimes Bucket-Head and I chip in and buy groceries for her and her grandson Lil Kevin who has severe lead-paint poisoning, but was diagnosed late and is too old to receive a check.
Bucket-Head is a convicted felon but not really. He was charged with a crime that he didn’t commit. I know this because my late cousin did the shooting and our whole neighborhood watched. Bucket was in the wrong place at the wrong time and as many know, we are products of a “No Snitching” culture.
As a result, the only work Bucket can find after 10 years of false imprisonment is that of laborer with the Mexicans who post up in front of 7-Eleven, or as a freelance dishwasher. Bucket’s no angel, but he’s also not a felon and doesn’t deserve to be excluded from pop culture no more than Miss Sheryl or Dontay, who represents the definition of redemption to me.
“A good samaritan,” I said. “They couldn’t have just confronted me directly?”
He laughed again, then grew serious. “Look,” he said. “Here’s how I look at it. I’m glad we live in a world where people are watching out for kids. I’m glad that when someone thinks they’re seeing something wrong take place, they get involved. But in your case, what happened wasn’t malicious. It wasn’t neglectful. It was a temporary lapse in judgment. This is what we need to stress.”
I picture this concerned someone standing beside my car, inches from my child, holding a phone to the window, recording him as he played his game on the iPad. I imagined the person backing away as I came out of the store, watching me return to the car, recording it all, not stopping me, not saying anything, but standing there and dialing 911 as I drove away. Bye now. At this point, almost a year had passed since it happened. I could hear my lawyer shuffling papers. I looked down and saw that my hands were shaking. My hands were shaking, but unlike before, I wasn’t afraid. I was enraged.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It doesn’t sound to me like I committed the crime I’m being charged with. I didn’t render him in need of services. He was fine. Maybe I should plead ‘not guilty,’ go to trial.”
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