TheBanyanTree: Sunny Days . . . Everything's A-OK

[Margaret R. Kramer]

The first 60 degree temperature of the spring always brings everyone
outside.  We got to that milestone yesterday and with the drifts of snow
down to mere puddles, kids were out in droves.  Six months ago I made my
regular dental check-up appointment which brought me to my old neighborhood
on this blue sky, warm, and wonderful Friday.

After I got my teeth picked, cleaned, and polished, I left the dentist and
drove past an elementary school just letting out for the day.  The school
patrol kids with their orange flags were guiding younger children across the
busy street.  Clusters of parents stood on the corners waiting for their
children.  The school buses were loaded and ready to go.

Instead of heading for the freeway, I continued down the road past the “path
park” on the right.  The path park is where I walked my dogs, started
running, and took my son to the playground.  Years later, the path park was
where I took my grandsons to play.  Shortly after my older grandson was
born, a waterpark was added, and my grandsons spent some happy hours there
as well.

I think the last time we were at that waterpark, it was around two years
ago.  It was hot and crowded and we saw some of Asher’s friends from our old
neighborhood there.  Asher wasn’t with us on that day, so I mentioned I had
seen those friends to him.  I thought he would be glad we saw them, but he
wasn’t.  “That’s why I don’t go to that park anymore.  They’re there,
drinking, doing dope, whatever.  I just don’t associate with that stuff
 now.”

I turned left away from the “path park” and drove to a street lined with
ramblers built in the 50s.  These ramblers are the typical three bedrooms,
small kitchen, one bath homes that were built after the War and the US
economy was growing by leaps and bounds and 3M was becoming a major employer
on St. Paul’s east side.

A few cars were parked outside of one of the homes, a home right in the
middle of the block, with easy access to another great park with a HUGE
sliding hill, recreation center, and the elementary school, the school where
Asher trudged off to everyday, carrying his own school patrol flag.

Some people were standing outside the house on this gorgeous day.  My sun
roof was open, my driver’s side window was rolled down, and I heard the
laughing, rippling voices of children everywhere.

I saw the person I was looking for.  She was sitting on the steps, on her
cell phone, and I got out of my car and walked right to her.  And we
embraced, and hugged, I cried.  I think her tears were gone and shock had
set in.  Her stepson, his fiancé, and his fiance’s 15 year old daughter had
been murdered that morning, execution style, shot in their heads.
http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_5507951

We’ve known each other for 20 years.  We lived across the street from each
other in rented duplexes.  My son played with her son and the stepson,
Otahl, wasn’t much of a factor in my son’s grade school life.  He was just
enough older than Asher not to have an impact at that time.  But her younger
biological son, was one of my son’s best friends, and continues to be a
friend of my son today.  Her sister-in-law watched the boys and I never
worried about Asher, because C knew where all the kids were in the
neighborhood and what they were doing at any given moment.  This family was
a thread in my family’s life, and we’ve maintained those connections, the
threads didn’t break, over the years.

Otahl became more a factor as my son grew older, drawing him into the gang
and drug lifestyle.  Otahl tried using our address to FedEx illegal drugs,
and Asher would be the receiver.  We caught onto that one the first time and
called the police.  End of that story.

But the story didn’t really end there as Asher followed his own path into
the Crips or Vice Lords or Bloods or whatever goofy names they call
themselves.  The lifestyle of having easy money, but no where to live and
being manipulated by people up the chain and white businessmen who deal in
cocaine and crack and heroin who never get caught and get young black men to
believe that this path leads to nirvana if they only put in their time and
always looking over your shoulder appealed to him for a while.

One of Asher’s high school principals told me once that he would back to the
way he was raised.  I didn’t believe at the time, Asher was too far into the
lifestyle, but that’s what happened.  Asher pulled away.  He quit drinking,
using drugs and man, it’s amazing how losing your mind numbing and hazing
comforts can introduce you to reality and that reality is realizing that
there is no life in gangs or selling drugs or spending every weekend getting
drunk and feeling sorry for yourself.  And you can also stop worrying about
being in the wrong place at the wrong time and getting shot.

But some people never figure it out.  And keep living the lifestyle, keep
looking for nirvana on those dark streets, and then end up getting shot
execution style on a early spring Friday morning as straight people get
ready for work.  Otahl was not a dealer or a gang member at this point in
his life, I want to be clear about that, he was in the wrong place at the
wrong time, along with his fiancé and her daughter.

After our hugs and my condolences, I felt the wall come up.  You see, I’ve
never been a part of them, not in 20 years or when our children slept over
at each other’s house or when we would talk late at night about where our
sons were and what they were doing.  I’m too straight.  I don’t drink, I don
’t do drugs, I sure in hell don’t sell them, and I don’t like acting out the
ghetto lifestyle.  Does killing people for drugs or money or being
“disrespected” solve anything?

But there is a cesspool of humanity just below us, we are the people who go
to work everyday, who own homes and cars, and wait for our children on the
corner after school lets out, and every once in a while, the cesspool’s
polluted water spills out and washes over on us, like the shootings on
Friday morning.  The stink and the poison from this cesspool get our notice
for a time, but it doesn’t really affect us, and we’ll forget about it as
the days warm up.  We go on with our lives while the cesspool people ooze
along with theirs.

The wall came up and I knew it was time to leave.  I drove towards the city,
towards our new house in a different neighborhood.  I thought about 20 years
ago, when we moved into the duplex and the one across the street had a
Boston Celtics sign in the front window.  Yeah, that was back when the
Celtics were the rulers of the NBA.  And our kids rode their bikes and
bounced their basketballs up and down the street on those sunny spring days.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net
margaret.kramer at polarispublications.com

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows
cold:  when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.
~Charles Dickens