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Sirens, Part 4 of 'What's Going On': A Political Fiction

2 years ago
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James Grady
James Grady
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Previously: A gun battle in D.C.'s Liss Gardens neighborhood shatters a truce crafted by Dante Jones, then earns him the wrath of his wife Rhea as he leaves her to "politic" that truce AND the ire of colostomy-bagged, goateed Luther, the gangster whose hegemony over Liss Gardens requires the peace sought by Dante's Coalition Of Committed Citizens. Dante rescues his protégé, 22-year-old ex-armed robber 'Trey, from an altercation with the Murder Police inside the nighttime crime scene's yellow tape, only to have 'Trey say: "We lost Mrs. Williams."
The night ballooned against Dante and 'Trey as they stood on the front porch of a gray brick house three blocks from Liss Gardens. Black steel bars outside the porch windows and drawn shades on their inside kept the home's interior secret and blind.
Dante reached through the black bars over the front door.
Knocked. Again.
"'Tellin' you," said 'Trey. "She's so done with us, she might shotgun us right off her porch."
"Mrs. Williams!" said Dante to the closed door. "Please!"
Behind them in the street: a car rumbles.
"No worries," said 'Trey. "Just some old guy like you. "
Knock on the door.
Whispers of TV from up the block.
Echo of an out-of-sight woman laughing in the night.
Not as sweet as Rhea who didn't laugh when Dante called her cell phone, told her it was safe to go home and she said: "Just as long as you're not there, right?" then hung up before he could smooth some reply.
Dante told the closed door: "Your neighbors are going to wonder when we're still standing out here after sun up."
Muffled voice beyond the wood, Mrs. Williams: "Go away! I'm not going to listen to you again. I already heard police and ambulance sirens you said weren't going to come like that no more."
"We need to figure out what to do now. Or all we get is more sirens."
The door behind the black bars opened enough for Dante to see a grandmother inside her house say: "Your help didn't do nothing."
"It's been 11 weeks since somebody last got shot in a beef 'round here," said Dante. "Eleven weeks is more than nothing."
Her eyes flicked away from the two men on her porch.
"None of us can just walk away," said Dante.
Mrs. Williams let them in.
But didn't ask them to sit down in the spotless living room that smelled of lemon furniture polish. Wouldn't look at Dante and 'Trey.
Now that they were inside, they heard her turned-low TV and its perky blonde news star: "Some people are saying that the country is dangerously off course, but we want to know what you think, so text us at the number on your screen. Press Star 1 for YES and Star 2 for NO, and we'll report that poll back to you. We report, you know."
Mrs. Williams muttered: "Who are `some people saying'? Her boyfriends? She gets folks confused about what `dangerous' or `off-course' means so they pick a choice from 'some people.' Then she reports what she started as what's going on so we can know out here in real America."
Dante said: "What's going on is we're here. Now. For real."
"No," said Mrs. Williams, "you're just like her. Put on a show. Six months ago, you and your Coalition pals, knocking on doors, talking to the corner boys, people in the grocery, coming to my church. Saying you want to help stop the killings, stop our babies from shooting each other. So I did what you said. Talked up how we needed to help you make truce between wild boys like my grandson Jerome. You got me to call Jerome, get him to meet you -- and now there's bodies in the street."
"Jerome's OK, isn't he, Mrs. Williams?" said Dante.
She said nothing.
'Trey said: "I hit his cell, but he won't answer."
"He won't talk to you," she said. "And I won't ask him to!"
Dante said: "Even if that wasn't his West Side crew shooting and getting shot, you know him and his are going to get dragged into it."
"Jerome's a stand-up guy," said 'Trey. "If he's with you, he's there."
She said: "He ain't no thug! No dope slinger. No killer."
"We're not the police," said Dante. "We aren't about figuring who killed who. We don't want anybody to kill anybody. Your grandson Jerome. He's going to stand with somebody. Best chance he has is to stand with us and try to stop the madness."
"We talked to him before an' he helped us," said 'Trey. "Hooked us up with his friends, 'n' then Dante worked with Jerome's West Side posse and the East Side guys and a truce come together."
"We need to talk to Jerome again," said Dante. "He won't answer our call, but he'll take yours."
She turned her face to stone. "I won't help you."
"Why?" asked Dante.
Words tore out of her like wounds opening under torture.
"Because you say there's hope! Say we can stop this killing! Say we can give my Jerome a chance. But it won't ever stop. This is the way it is. We been killing each other always, good Lord help us. I can picture my Jerome bleeding on some sidewalk or locked up on killer's row until Judgment Day, that breaks my heart but I GET THAT! Know it's real.
"Then you, you come around saying there's hope! That life doesn't have to be all luck and the way it is and what's real America! I believed you once. Let myself do that, so help me Jesus, but your _____ didn't happen and now, now you're back here still saying there's hope!
"I can live with pain," she said. "I got a lifetime of practice. But I can't live in lying hope, 'cause that guts my soul and makes me your fool."
Got no other choice. Gotta tell her.
Heart pounding, Dante said: "Do you know who I am?"
"I don't care," said Mrs. Williams.
"My son got gunned down when he was 19," said Dante. "Dead in the street. Something over nothing, bang he's dead. Never made the news. His name was Malcolm. He was streetwise. Like me. Like Jerome."
The grandmother's eyes watched him.
"I was in prison then," said Dante.
"I was on heroin then," he said.
Ran out of words.
She said: "How do you get up every morning?"
"Because if I get up every morning, maybe I can help one person from becoming me. And that real helps me be more than the pain."
They heard the TV play a commercial for deodorant.
"Can you save my grandson?" whispered Mrs. Williams.
"No," said Dante. "But maybe we can help him save himself."
She nodded OK like she was knocking her head on a gravestone.
What's Going On is fiction. All characters and incidents, except for historic references, are purely fictitious. Copyright: James Grady

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