As Mr. Drayton tried to start his lecture, Zeke kept riding him. Speaking out of turn. You were supposed to be dude’s friend! You sold the nigga out. Y’all always sell niggas out. Selling niggas down the river like you own them. Why is that thing even here? You lost your dog Mr. Cold, so you brought in another dog to replace him with? You foul, Mr. Drayton.
Nothing could settle Zeke. Mr. Drayton stepped from the room to summon security, and Zeke strode to the barrier that separated Iggy from the class and began barking loudly. Iggy stood and barked back, his hackles raised as if about to strike. Mr. Drayton dashed into the room and grabbed at Zeke, shoving him as hard as he could.
Don’t you ever touch my dog, Mr. Drayton screamed. Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare. Don’t you—
Ezekiel swung wildly, punching Mr. Drayton twice in his forehead. His head snapped back with each blow. Mr. Drayton fell fast, and even bounced when he hit the hard classroom floor. There he was, our Mr. Drayton, out cold during fourth-period science.
And after that, no more Ezekiel. No one was sure what happened to Zeke. Yeah, I could have dropped by his house, it was only a half-hour walk from where I lived, but I’m not sure that ever crossed my mind. Those we think of as friends, how easily they can be disposed of when it takes even the slightest effort to see them. I learned that over and over after Zeke, sometimes painfully.
When Mr. Drayton returned several weeks later, he wasn’t the same man. It’s as if the already old man had aged two decades. He walked with a limp that had never been present before. The urine smell now sometimes stung my eyes. We weren’t sure if he had always worn orthopedic shoes. One class he didn’t even bother to talk science. He just told us that he wasn’t mad at Zeke. It’s not his fault, he said. Your people are naturally scared of dogs. It’s because of what they put you through when you were slaves. Making dogs hunt you down. Then with the civil rights movement, how they sicced their dogs on you. Real cruelty. It got into your genes. Evolution, you know. Not Zeke’s fault at all.
Last I heard, Zeke had murdered a pretty big drug dealer and fled the country before the law or the streets could catch up with him. I don’t know if there’s any truth in all that, but I wonder after him a lot. I get on the computer sometimes and search his name, but nothing ever turns up. Once in a while I hear that a member of Dem Freak Boyz N Motion is trying to make a comeback, and I check to see if Zeke is in his entourage. Ridiculous, I know. But wasn’t he destined to become a soccer star? There are days I search through the roster of the European teams. Maybe he’s a benchwarmer, maybe some sort of coach, a towel boy. Anything but a fugitive. What becomes of the children destined to be broken by their saviors?
I know where Ezekiel is. He’s on a beach — in the Caribbean or Europe, somewhere where’s there’s no chance he’ll be snatched and brought back to face his problems. He’s looking calm, but yet still troubled. There on that beach, Zeke sips beer after beer as the waves crash. And he cocks his ear toward the whispering foam, hoping it will tell him how things went so wrong.
Confirmation
My father, dead now, but back then standing in that Episcopal church. Oak brown like the benches and tall like the sturdy tree out front that I often thought of when I thought of him. In fact, this Sunday I imagined him as that tree bursting from the ground beneath the undercroft, shattering the floor of the nave, the leaves of his head scraping the church ceiling. My father swayed, standing there, clean-shaven with a strong chin he used to hide beneath stubble or overgrowth. A shining knight among pawns, king to me and my mother and my sister (but in the church Jesus Christ is King and it’s wrong to say otherwise). Impeccably dressed. Thin knot in a tie lain slightly askew, just enough so we all remembered who he was and how far he’d come.
This was our happily ever after. Dad had stopped drinking. He and my mother were now getting along. My sister was in her first year of college at Freedman’s University. She lived on campus and didn’t often attend church with us anymore. My father told anyone who would listen and even those who wouldn’t that she had made the dean’s list. We had even moved north from our Southside apartment to a house my parents purchased near the far end of the park. Dad now worked steady and worked well. At least once per week he’d speak of the virtues of being one’s own boss. And each Sunday he said it was our duty to give it up to God, and I didn’t mind much.
On this particular Sunday, just after the rector made a point during the sermon, the scent of my father’s heavy cologne mingled with my mother’s perfume, causing me to release a sneeze that echoed through the cavernous church building. It was as if I shouted an Amen. The pastor responded with the same joke he told whenever anyone sneezed—Amens, achoos, I’ll take what I can get. I looked up at my father expecting to see anger bubbling behind his eyes. In the old days he would often scream about self-control when I shot forth a thunderous sneeze. Once, he waited until we got home from church and slapped me, a lesson he called it. That was long ago. So much had shifted within the man. He looked down, put his hand to my head, and smiled. He gave my spongy naps a squeeze. I took it as I took all his actions in those days: as parts of an extended apology for the rough times.
Sometimes he’d catch me gazing up at him while he sang Jesus songs — his voice lithe and bouncy — and he’d tap my hymnal, an order for me to serenade the Lord. But my voice embarrassed me. Croaky and cracky. Struggling to change from one non-tuneful state to another. God gave you that voice so you could praise him in any and every way you can, my father told me. Still, I rarely sang along.
I never did understand how my father so smoothly held notes for the delight of all around him. Even in the hard days when my father’s voice was liquor-stained, he could still sound like Paul Robeson’s little brother.
There was a moment that Sunday that I had looked toward for most of my short life. It came after a soaring Jesus number, and when the organist trailed off, the congregation sat with a thump. The wood whined beneath our weight. There was a silence punctuated by coughs and clearing throats. The rector started with the announcements. This was the announcement of a lifetime. Crafted specifically for me. The announcement that separated this boyhood from that manhood. Next week, confirmation class would begin. Twelve- and thirteen-year-olds and all other teens who had not yet been confirmed in Christ were to sign up for classes leading to the spring Sunday when we were to affirm our dedication to the Lord. My heart leapt. I nearly jumped from my seat and broke into open applause. With a class and a few simple words I would be a man in Christ’s eyes. I suppressed my smile as well as the urge to race to the narthex to sign up for classes. Instead, I prayed solemnly.
No, that’s not what happened. I remember it that way often, but the truth leaks through sometimes. At the moment of the big announcement, the rector had lulled me to sleep, and my head was back and my mouth open. My mother popped me on the cheek, lightly, but strong enough to send a message.
Open your eyes you lazy—, she whispered. You hear what the rector said? Don’t forget to sign up for confirmation class when the service is over.
Confirmation? Was it really time? The service couldn’t end soon enough, and after the final acolyte in the recessional passed, I raced to the narthex to find the list. Mine became the second name after Alana Spencer, intriguing because I was relatively new and didn’t know any of the other children in the parish. I wondered just whom I would be stepping into adulthood with.