My grandmother had a stroke while sitting on the sofa reading the newspaper.  She had mis-read an article about the escape of my crime partner.  In the article, my name was used to explain our high profile case.  Thinking I had escaped too, she had a stroke.  In her mind and experience, black men in conflict with white authority meant my death/murder.   1 + 1 = 2.  Facts!  She never spoke again.

Most believe change is like travel, taking you just as long to return from that wrong spot in life as it took you to get there.  They’re wrong.  Change is delivered within the heart of an explosion!   There’s a BOOM! of action.  It’s how mothers lift cars off their children, how addicts stiff arm drugs and how people find themselves back in school after the age of forty in pursuit of a degree.   It’s a BOOM!, not a slow process.

I was eleven years old the first time I was chosen to play on the junior neighborhood basketball team. Twelve to fifteen lowriders of people from four or five different Blood gangs and Piru hoods would gather in this or that park.  It wasn’t just a tournament, it was part car show, part cookout, part fashion show.  People would show up in their bright ‘hood colors, sporting both new and old R.I.P. shirts and hats.  The girls and women wore cut off shorts, lip gloss shining, hair freshly pressed, permed, and curled, with edges laid down like a senator before a lobbyist.   Boys and men with fresh cuts and cornrows, ice-white t-shirts and matching kicks that lived in a box most of the year.

Black and brown faces flashed brilliantly at me, setting complexions and spirits ablaze, sparkles of pride and  joy flashing in the eyes of everyone I met.   It was like an African village in my mind, and we were all family.  All love.  All good.  All ‘hood.  Nothing is ever ‘one thing’ to all people in life. 

After the weekend long tournament we were heading back home with my Uncle James and his wife Lisa.  Myself and two of my homeboy teammates were in the backseat of Unc’s ’72 Impala low rider.  Carl was bragging about his skills in a tournament we’d lost, no less.  Kilo was asleep in the corner. 

When the red and blue lights filled our car it froze my heart, as I recalled images I’d seen of police beatings, battering rams, black men being choked out, half clad black women being dragged from beds into streets, babies torn from arms and hearing screams that are colored red and blue to this day. 

I elbowed Kilo awake as my uncle swore in fustration and rage at what he knew was to come.

“Fuck!” he banged the wheel,  “Boys, put your hands on the roof, and don’t move until they get you out of the car, and don’t say shit!”  Fear led to anger, trying to get us home alive.

Aunty Lisa stuffed two grams of marijuana in her mouth, handing some butts to Unc, both placing their hands on the dash as the second squad car pulled up.  The officers spilled out to help circle our car, their hands on their guns, angry eyes and stoneset faces.  What did they see in our eyes?

One approached the window and Unc asked why he was stopped, demanding to know.  They pulled us out and we were hand-cuffed, facedown on the sidewalk, still warm from the setting sun.  “We smell marijuana.  Tear it up!”

“If you’re going to search us, call a female to search my wife!” my uncle demanded.  He’d been talking the entire time, drawing their attention.  

A cop dropped a knee on his head, splitting it open on the concrete, growling, “Shut the fuck up, bitch! I’m sick of your fuckin’ mouth!” 

Aunt Lisa cried out.  I looked back at the other kids, turning away from Carl’s tears so he wouldn’t see my own.  Kilo’s eyes were trying to eat up his face, shared fear bonding us for life. 

They kept searching  us and tearing up the car, but when they got to Aunty Lisa, Unc lost it.  The cop on his head pulled his gun and let off a shot into the grass next to my uncle James’ head.   That’s when Lisa lost it, Unc bucked, and the beating began, Josh Gibson-like swings that sent blood sailing through the night air like rubies dancing under the red and blue lights.

My uncle would need 87 stitches to close up his body and head.  He’d lose the hearing in his left ear, the sight in his left eye and his motor skills would be forever impaired.  He’d also lose his mind and memory in part.  He’ll forever need care, requiring someone to help his confusion and explain the situation to him daily. 

I was numb and fozen until the boom of the gun, until Unc’s life pooled on the sidewalk, until I saw one of his braids soaked in that life laying in the dirt. 

Aunty Lisa was the only one to notice I was having serious issues, in need of help.   “We’ve got to fight back!” she cried as she hugged me tight, her tears baptising me into a new light, a new attitude, my value – duty or honor maybe?

“We’ve got to fight back, because they’re never goin’ to stop swingin’ on us,” she cried, trying to set my young, battered mind and spirit for the war she knew would be my life.  A war she was sure I’d already lost.  It was in the way she held me.

To flip it, it didn’t take more than a fraction of a second for me to pull that trigger and change the world for countless others, people I’ll never meet.  They feel that fraction of a second every day.

Is there a ‘boom’ when the change is positive?  Or is it drowned out in the echoing reverb of so much negativity?  Does it count if it goes unheard?  And if not heard or recognized, did it happen at all?

Time is the only measuring rod, and change is the only thing to be measured.  It should be forever flowing, constantly cutting into the landscape of a life in ways both unforeseen and unpredictable, forcing us to feel everything or hide from it.  To lie.

My Aunt Lisa would be found naked on the side of the road in some bushes in the state of Arkansas.  I can only pray she knows that I’m still fighting back, because she was right – they’ll never stop swinging. I’ve changed.   Boom!

Mr. Jones can be contacted at:
DeLaine Jones #7623482
777 Stanton Blvd.
Ontario, OR 97914