Chapter 19
Justine covered her mouth with her hand as she stared at the images on the television screen of what reporters were calling ghetto riots in which hundreds of students were protesting the killing of James Powell, a fifteen-year-old student who’d been shot and killed by police Lieutenant Thomas Gilligan in front of his friends and more than a dozen other witnesses.
Whenever a Black boy was killed, the press had a field day when they interviewed people who claimed the kid had a troubled past. Powell was purported to have gone wild after the death of his father, while he’d had prior run-ins with the law when he attempted to board a subway and bus without paying, and he’d also been accused of breaking a car window in an attempted robbery, but had been cleared of those charges.
There was less talk about Lieutenant Gilligan, who prior to killing Powell, had shot a man he claimed was trying to push him off a roof.
He also shot a young man he said was burglarizing cars in front of his apartment.
The New York Daily News reported six-two, two-hundred-pound Gilligan had disarmed suspects in the past, so why hadn’t he been able to disarm five-feet, six-inch Powell, who weighed a mere one-hundred twenty-two pounds?
The protests that had begun on Thursday escalated into a riot on Saturday, and when Frank called to her to say he was coming to pick up Kenny, Justine told him she was keeping her son in the house until it was safe for a Black person to walk the streets.
People were swept up in the chaos as they exited the subway and local businesses, while some did not realize why they were being pursued by police.
Frank had tried to tell her Kenny would be safe in the car with him, but she wasn’t willing to listen to anything he had to say.
Justine told him emphatically that Kenny was her son and therefore her responsibility, and then she hung up the phone.
Not only was she concerned about her son staying away from drugs, but also the police, who seemed not to differentiate whether a Black person was young or old, a criminal, or a law-abiding citizen when they drew their weapons to fire without discretion, while claiming self-defense.
“But Mom, nothing will happen to me if I’m with Mr. Dee,” Kenny said, who’d watched her during her conversation with Frank.
Justine fisted her hands and mumbled a prayer not to lose her temper with her son.
“Don’t you watch the news, Kenny? Didn’t you see the police arresting members of CORE, an organization dedicated to peaceful protesting?
They were just demanding that Gilligan be suspended, and now they’re being treated like criminals.
If Black folks see you riding in a car with a White man, they will assume he is the police and what do you think would happen if they decide they need to rescue you?
Cops aren’t the only ones who have guns, Kenny. Black folks own a lot of guns, too.”
Kenny flopped down on a chair. “Okay, Mom. I’ll stay home.”
“Don’t sound as if you’re doing me a favor, Kenneth Douglas Russell, because I’m trying to keep your Black ass out of jail or the morgue.”
Kenny glared at his mother. “I don’t know what happened between you and Mr. Dee, but I hope you work it out, because you’re always mad with me for no reason.”
“Nothing happened between us.”
“Yeah, right.”
Justine threw up both hands. “I want you to go into your room and stay there, because if you keep mouthing off, I’m going to call Francis D’Allesandro and tell him he’s never to knock at my door to take you anywhere. Do you understand what I’m saying, Kenneth?”
Kenny bowed his head, nodding. “Yes, Mom.”
“Now go!”
Slumping against the sofa, Justine tried to calm the runaway beating of her heart.
She didn’t know how to get a thirteen-year-old fatherless boy to understand that every time he stepped out of the apartment, he had a bullseye on his back when it came to a rogue or racist cop, who viewed Black people as less than human.
Negroes had come north to escape Jim Crow, but unfortunately, it was waiting for them even before they arrived.
On the morning after the shooting, when CORE—the Congress of Racial Equality—demanded a civilian review board to discipline the police, they were met by fifty officers holding nightsticks. So much for peaceful diplomacy.
Justine felt a band of pain tightening around her forehead that made it impossible for her to focus, and she realized she was having a migraine.
It had been a while since the last one, which had been so debilitating that one of the doctors at the hospital had written a prescription for pain medicine that had helped to ease the discomfort after she’d spent hours in bed in a darkened room.
Going into the bathroom, she retrieved the bottle with the pills, and took two with a glass of water, then went into her bedroom, lowered the shade, changed out of her clothes and into a nightgown, and got into bed.
It took nearly half an hour before the pills kicked in, and she was able to drift off to sleep.
Frank realized he was losing his concentration after he’d counted the stacks of bills in denominations ranging from fives to fifties at least three times before filling out a deposit slip for a night drop at his local bank.
The telephone call with Justine was just as disturbing as the conversation he’d had with his police detective cousin.
Anthony Esposito had called Gilligan a fool for killing the kid rather than wounding him, because his name and reputation would always be linked to the city’s racial unrest.
He’d driven Gio and his family to the airport for their flight to Italy a day before the Powell kid was killed, so they were spared of the chaos going back home.
And when he’d spoken to Justine about picking up Kenny, he’d tried to reassure her he would take another route to her apartment in an attempt to avoid the Tactical Patrol Force, who’d been called in an attempt to break up the crowds of protesters.
But everything he’d said had fallen on deaf ears.
She just wasn’t hearing it. He wanted to understand her reasoning, and because he wasn’t a parent, he’d been forced to acquiesce.
There was one bit of good news he’d received that morning. Guillermo’s assistant had been truthful about his landlord raising his rent, and he had stopped dealing drugs out of the butcher shop.
Frank smothered a curse when the temperature in the kitchen became unbearable.
The temperature was predicted to go above ninety, and the cool air from the unit in his bedroom didn’t reach the kitchen.
He picked up the bag with the cash and secured it next to a registered handgun in the floor safe in a bedroom closet.
It was too hot to go out, so he decided to wait until Monday morning to make the drop.
After cranking up the air conditioner to the highest setting, he went into the bathroom to shower.
The telephone was ringing when he emerged from the bathroom. Walking quickly into his bedroom, he picked up the receiver. “Hello.”
“Mr. Dee, you need to come quickly. Mom’s in bed, and I can’t wake her up.”
Frank felt his knees buckle as he sank down to the mattress. “Is she breathing?”
“Yes-ss. But I tried to wake her up, but—”
“I’m on my way,” Frank said, cutting him off.
He didn’t remember getting dressed or running to where he’d parked his car, or how fast he was driving to make it across town; he found a spot close to Justine’s apartment building and took the stairs two at a time. His pulse had slowed to a normal rate by the time he rang the doorbell.
The door opened, and he saw fear in the eyes of the teenage boy he unconsciously thought of as his own. A son if he’d married Justine and they’d had a child together. “Stay here,” he said, closing the door.
Frank walked into Justine’s bedroom and sat on the side of her bed, watching the rise and fall of her chest under a cotton nightgown.
Leaning over, he smelled her breath to see if she’d drunk something.
He didn’t detect alcohol, and then he spied the bottle of pills on the bedside table.
He picked it up and read the label. It was a prescription for migraine headaches, with directions for her to take one pill every eight hours as needed for pain.
A slight frown creased his forehead. Had she exceeded the dose, and that’s why Kenny couldn’t wake her?
He set the pill bottle on the table, then went into the bathroom to wet a cloth with cold water. By the time he returned to the bedroom, Kenny was standing there watching him as he placed the cloth on his mother’s forehead.
“Is she okay?”
Frank gave him a reassuring smile. “She will be when she wakes up. She had what is called a migraine, and she took some medicine to relieve the pain.”
Kenny slowly blinked. “I know she sometimes gets headaches, but she will take a couple of aspirins, and they will go away.”
“Migraines are ten times worse than a headache, Kenny.”
“Have you ever had one, Mr. Dee?”
“Thankfully, no. And I don’t want one. I’m going to sit here with your mother until she wakes up, if that’s okay with you?”
Kenny smiled. “Of course it’s okay. That’s why I called you.”
Frank gave Justine’s son a long, penetrating stare, wondering if the boy may have had an ulterior motive to get them back together.
After the incident in the kitchen when he’d attempted to make love to Justine, everything between them changed.
They’d become polite strangers whenever he came over to pick and drop off Kenny every Saturday morning since the school year ended.
However, when Frank picked up the phone and registered the fear in Kenny’s voice, he realized the boy had reached out to him because he was his mother’s friend. And as her friend, he had come to see about her.
“I’ll be in my room,” Kenny said.
“And, you know where to find me.”