Closed on Sundays

My Dad’s house was on Heartsoul Dr inside the new development called Madden Hills. All the houses in the subdivision were cookie cutter ranch style homes with manicured front yards. It was the early 70’s and this subdivision had been redlined reversed and built especially for young families of color who had migrated North to work in the factories. There were no corner stores, no bodegas, no liquor stores or wine shops. The neighborhood had been built around a library, nestled and surrounded by a fortress of tress in one corner, an elementary school in the far left corner and way down the block from my dad’s house was the high school Paul Laurance Dunbar High School.

All the kids in the neighborhood walked to school together. For me and my brother it was 3 blocks down and 4 blocks up and you entered the back of the school yard of the elementary school. All the kids were from 2 parent homes. My one friend who lived down the street was the anomaly of neighborhood, living with just her Mom. In this day and age that would not have been unusual. She didn’t walk to school with us either. She attended a private school. But I loved going to their house. It was so light and airy, not like my Dad and Step Moms house where the first steps of divorce were taking place. It had become very ugly in my Dad’s house, and I would run to the library to find peace and solace among the books that had that booky smell and quiet silence. It was almost religious to me and still is.

My Dad had sent me to the library to learn who Paul Laurence Dunbar was. I loved reading and was fascinated by this black poet who had his name emblazoned on a high school. I was only 6 or 7 and thought anybody who went to that high school had to be lucky and special. My Dads Mom had taught me to read when I was four. She was a homemaker for a steelworker and lived a very rigid schedule. Sunday school and church on Sunday, wash on Monday, Iron on Tuesday, mop, and clean walls on Wed, shop on Thursday, bake on Friday, prep for church on Saturday’s. She told me she didn’t have time to read to me, so she taught me to read to to myself and I read everything, cereal boxes, billboard signs, letters in the mail, pill boxes. Anything that had letters in the alphabet, I read it. When my reading had advanced and I was looking for something more than chapter books, I started reading those romance books and they were good and well written but I certainly realized (after watching educational shows like 60 Minutes and National geographic with my Dad) I was never going to have that life. I was not going to go to Paris, meet Price Charming and live Happily ever after. Not this little black girl from a factory city in Ohio. The library opened doors for me. I traveled to worlds that were across oceans and read about women who lived lives that were absolutely fascinating.

I found my friends Mom fascinating too. She took us to places that were extraordinary. We had tea in fancy tea houses, went horseback riding, Ice skating in the park. My friend went to a private school. Sometimes she would come to my house when her Moms ex showed up. There were nasty rumors floating around about my friend and her Mom. We would run to the library together to just be little girls with the whole word in front of them. All the men had guns in the neighborhood. After al they were black men living in America acquiring their first piece of land and prepared to defend it to the death. I saw my dad shoot our neighbors dog because he had wandered across the street into our yard. Our beautifully manicured lawn.

One Sunday after the football games had stared on the TV, there was a gunshot. Of course, it sounded like it could have been a firecracker shot off.  People stopped and looked up. Paused and wondered about the loud popping sound. There were no screams or other shots, so people went back to what they were doing. Twenty minutes later another loud popping noise. My Dad said that sounded like gunfire. But no following screams or loud popping noises.

Five minutes later another gunshot sound. People started coming out of their houses and looking around, talking to each other.

“Did you hear that. Sounded like a firecracker” “No, that was a shotgun. I have one and when I shot mine that’s how it sounds.” “Yes, but where did it come from?”

This time there were two quick shots, one in succession behind each other. People ducked, dropped, and ran back into their homes. After a few minutes, pole started coming back out of their homes and discussing.

“Sounded like it was coming from the elementary school, No probably the high school…No No No those sounds were louder nearer the elementary school. People started walking together down the 3 blocks and up the 4 blocks as they were doing so. More shots rang out and people had to duck because they weren’t near their homes. They started looking around and they could see figures laying in the street. The street that led to the library. Then the cops swooped in with their sirens and lights and pushed the people back. 

We looked up and we couldn’t believe it. There was my friends Dad who hadn’t moved in with her and her Mom. He was on the rooftop of the library taking shots at people walking into the library forest. Nobody had thought to look at the library. The library was closed on Sundays.

The next morning the incident was on the news. They reported a mad and angry  black man took position on top of the neighborhood library and was shooting people who looked like they were trying to enjoy the comforts of the library. The police had shot my friend’s father who they named the “library sniper”.