It's What You Know

My two sisters, Jaquilla and Alicia, sleep beside me in bed below a high window where I watch people’s feet pass by – but nobody’s there now. I once saw some twinkling stars there in the summertime when kids shot the streetlights out. They get shot at in winter too, though with all the coal furnaces, the air gets too thick to see the moon clearly. So why one bright star, now?

I wet my bed last week; my mom threatened to beat me if I did it again, so I stay awake a lot. I hate her – she’s never here and when she is, she doesn’t pay attention to me, only my sisters. She dresses in a clown suit every day to clean rich people’s homes, then at night she dresses like a ho to sell cigarettes in a night club.

That star it’s growing. Is it coming at me? It’s getting bigger and faster, what is it...an airplane, a comet - Whoa! It slams past the window and even through my blanket I see a brilliant flash. I’m shaking, it looked like a giant gorilla with oversized teeth coming at me. Shit! I’m wet! Whew, it’s large drops from my forehead. I don’t hear anyone else awake.

Dontrelle never told anyone about his “dream”, though it taunted him for weeks. He felt it meant his life was in danger, and he dreaded the next few months. His friend Robert, who he’d known since 2^nd grade, was pressed by his older brothers to get tattooed and join their gang; they want Dontrelle, too.

“It’s what you know – your fate is determined by how you grow up and you will always be that person. Society builds a niche for us folk and they take advantage of us while knowing the risks of what we do to survive,” repeats Dontrelle every day as he has never struggled with moral questions.

Education is a low priority for many kids he’s met in classes for years; the substitute teacher is beyond the fenced-in schoolyard. Dontrelle and Robert have become master shop-lifters, devising elaborate schemes to bring home food and whatever else was available. They began inside stores in the winter wearing large coats, where they would buy a 50-cent candy bar, and have several dollars’ worth of goods stuffed underneath.

By spring they had scouted out the delivery people, knowing their times and habits and how well they guarded their load while in the store. There was the disturbance trick, where the delivery person filled up the dolly and before closing the truck’s door, Robert staged a fight with another kid and knocked into the driver while Dontrelle grabbed boxes out of the back. When deliveries were deep in the store, even though the truck door was padlocked, Dontrelle easily broke into the cab that was open to the goods in the back.

About two weeks after the dreaming, Dontrelle’s mom was not working on Saturday, and was dressed in her Easter clothes. A man in a blue suit with white shirt, red striped tie wearing a stiff, pleated brimmed hat came to the door asking, “Who wants to go on a drive to a carnival and eat at a restaurant afterward?” Dontrelle tugged his mom aside and whispered, “What’s going on?”

“He’s a new friend and he wanted to meet you kids. Please, go along and smile and don’t forget to thank him a lot, he’s trying to make things nice for you.”

“But, mom – I was supposed to go meet Robert today. Carnivals are for little kids like my sisters. You guys go, I’ll meet up with you here later.”

“NO! GET DRESSED! Please, just today, try to enjoy this like a family, this is very important. Please, Baby.”

Dontrelle did have fun, getting ice cream, caramel corn and riding the Wild Mouse several times. At the restaurant with large red leather booths and shiny, thick wooden tables, he ordered the hamburger with everything; it was the best he’d ever had and was tempted hold it close to his mouth for the next juicy bite, but instead laid it on his plate. His mon leaned over, winked and nodded and turned to the man to say, “Aren’t my children well mannered.”

His grandpa had drilled all his children and grandchildren to observe proper table manners. “It doesn’t matter where you live or how much money you have,” he would say. “When you eat with people, if you have manners, people respect you. You don’t want the reputation of an uncouth pig.”  

They got home late that night and there was a babysitter waiting. “We’re going out late, so you kids get to bed right now, don’t wait up for us.” The next morning, Dontrelle’s mom was humming as she fixed breakfast, filling bowls with more cereal and milk than ever before, flittering around the table. “Babies, we got a proposal. How would you like to move out to the suburbs?”

Dontrelle was confused, this is what he knows – he’s doing well. But he is unsure about gangs, and thinks about the classmates who’ve been shot, knowing how and why it happened. But he’s certain about his street smarts and knows there’s some kind of protection around him because he’s never gotten caught by the law. All in all, it’s probably best to leave.

Suburban life was dreadful. He was too far behind in school and sent to remedial classes with younger students, never having social contact with those his age. His neighborhood was filled with younger children the ages of his sisters, who got along well.  The few kids he knew were always at Hebrew School, Boy Scouts or science fairs and they studied too much. Besides, he didn’t look, think or act like them.

Life with his step-father, Larry, was brutal, as the two never got along because of Dontrelle’s smart-ass attitude. Larry used any excuse for a whooping, just to release his frustration from this insolent child who was not of his own making.

When Dontrelle was a sophomore in high school, Alicia, who was four years younger, was starting her freshman year. He associated with the school’s bad-ass greasers; their fathers were Italian and worked irregular hours, but drove new cars and lived in stately houses. He didn’t hang out with them at school, as they were set apart to a single classroom and stayed with one teacher throughout the day – only mixing with other students at gym class, which wasn’t a safe venue for the unsuspecting herd.

These guys were pre-thugs, learning early about extortion for protection. Those who didn’t give up their lunch money would get snapped by towels which caused raised, burning welts; that was foreplay. Occasionally, faces were slammed into lockers, some showing vent lines afterwards, and balls thrown viciously at heads playing dodgeball, basketball or softball. Dontrelle honed his kleptomania skills and became a guru to these boneheads in organizing them for thievery.

Dontrelle was always protective of Alicia and impressed with how she got along so well in school and socially. His partnership with these mobsters-in-training allowed him to keep her safe from these hoodlums. He was jealous of her ability to adapt to their new family life in the suburbs, but he was hardened by his own rules set long ago. She was young enough to have not acquired influences from their city life, and was eagerly flexible in this new erudite society.   

One day the unthinkable happened during a van break-in, a patrolman surprised them with a gun drawn and gave orders for “Hands Up!” A box was thrown, several gunshots peeled, the policeman was on the ground, and everyone scattered.

Dontrelle ran to a movie theatre and snuck in a backdoor as he always did, spending a long time slumped low in the seat, thinking about what he could do. When he got home, he said he wasn’t feeling well, wasn’t hungry and would lie down. One of the greasers involved in the heist knocked on his bedroom window. “Dontrelle, you’re busted. Cops got a surveillance photo of you and they’ll be at school tomorrow to look for you. They want you to rat us all out.”

“Oh Shit! Oh Shit. How do you know that? What am I gonna do?”

“My uncle heard it from a cop friend, my dad talked about whacking you. I asked if there was anything else – he has a plan. Get some clothes, jump out the window. You’re going to run away. My dad’s down the block waiting for us. He’s got a bus ticket to L.A. and $250 bucks – the bus leaves in an hour! Come On!”

With no time to think, other than knowing his life here was over, Dontrelle was eager to leave anyway, though upset about how it was happening. He quietly ripped open his dresser, pushing and tamping clothes in a backpack, then stepped on a chair and swung out the window.

No one said a word in the car on the way to the bus depot. The man driving with the pockmarked nose and scarred face, handed an envelope to Dontrelle, saying, “My son tells me you’re a smart kid. Be very smart, stay out of the light, keep your head down and that hoodie over your forehead. When you get to L.A., go to the Casa Nostra Restaurant and ask for Jonny, he’ll take care of you. If you know what’s good for you – don’t get caught.”

Those words played over and over again in Dontrelle’s head, “He’ll take care of you.” Yeah, sure he will, he thought. And they will make sure I never get caught and never be seen again – they know what’s good for them. He got off the bus the next afternoon in Denver.

Street smarts is not all you need to survive in the depraved, murky fringes of society. Dontrelle’s “skills” kept him fed and housed in a myriad of living arrangements often putting up with virulent and unsavory characters prior to many fortuitous escapes to another dark dwelling. “It’s what you know”, he claimed when he would meet a sympathetic listener. “I have always lived this way and I have no way to change. I’ll always be one notch below the privileged folk, but I know how to survive off of their naivete and sense of self-importance.”

He lived for a while in Pasadena, with his fourth assumed name, having known many forgers and con men in his line of work. On a cloudy Tuesday afternoon in a sparse crowd at Santa Anita Racetrack, he noticed a folded newspaper on the seat next to him with a familiar picture.

“That’s Alicia!” He exclaimed. Reading the article, it was indeed his little sister, who had won a National Science Fair and been offered a scholarship to Caltech. She had created models to explain the wave nature of light with the double-slit experiment using a paintball gun, a small water trough and a light to show both particle and wave patterns; here, light behaves like water and not paint balls. “She’s my little sister! She learned a lot from me when we were younger.”

He had to talk to her to say how proud he was, and also let her know he was alright, though she was the only family member he cared about. He arranged a trip back home, feeling enough time had lapsed and he could remain anonymous for a while in order to meet with her. Waiting in a park two blocks from his family’s house, he knew this was her route from school.

Turning his head cautiously, assured no one could hear, “Alicia!” he shouted.  

“Oh my God, Donny, where’ve you been – what happened? We are all so sick thinking you were dead! Did you see mom?”

“Shhhhh – Come here and sit down. I’m alright but I can’t tell you anything – and I can’t stay. I just want you to know how proud I am of my little sister. You are so amazing and smart and I know you will become the next Norman Einstein.”

“Heh, heh, that’s Albert – Albert Einstein. But, but where are you living? What do you do? Are you coming home?”

“No, I can’t and I can’t say a word about me. I’m leaving right away, but I’ll watch for you and someday catch up to you.

“You know – when we were younger and sleeping in the same bed, I had a dream, that a flash of light came and gave me a warning. It scared me, I think it was telling me that our lives are always in danger, but that I would survive because I was tough and I knew how to deal with it. I am in danger, but don’t you worry – I’m going to meet up with you again.”

“Wait, you saw a flash of light at night, in bed?”

“Yes, I didn’t say anything, but I felt it meant I was protected.”

“Was that right before we met Larry?”

“Yes, how do you know?”

“I saw it, too.”

“You saw the monster, like a gorilla going to kill us?”

“No, I saw Tinkerbelle, and was so happy, knowing my life was about to change because of her magic. And it did! I remember waking up to see a star getting brighter and coming towards us. I saw the whole room light up, like from a lightning bolt, but I looked around and everyone was asleep and you were buried under covers. I thought it was a dream, but I was excited.”

“Yeah, I was scared and hid. Funny, we saw the same thing, but you looked at it differently, and look how we both turned out so different.”

“Wow, I’m shocked. We both felt a sense of protection, and I still do, like a guardian angel is always with me.”

“That would be me. Who do you think kept all the bullies away?”

“I do appreciate that, but I mean more than just kept from physical harm. I’ve always felt the ability to learn new things and not let the past control me. I have a positive energy to share easily with many people while accomplishing any goal I set for myself. It seemed I was given a gift to find myself surrounded by peace and good fortune.”

“Well, my conscience is clear for taking care of my life despite all that happened to me. Perhaps I made a pact with the devil, while you lived with angels. Either way, I’m OK. And you are wonderful. Look, you’ve got to go – please don’t say a word to anybody, but we will meet again.”

They hugged and tears rolled down Alicia’s face. She turned away and stepped stiffly into the street, wiping the back of her hand across her cheek. “You be good, keep studying, and I’ll see you soon,” Dontrelle called out. 

Alicia turned and raised her open hand slowly, meanwhile a car was coming up the street too fast and heading towards her. Dontrelle leapt up and ran, trying to shout, while seeing a confused look on her face. He arrived in time to push her out of the way, but took the full force of the car’s grille into his midsection.

Screaming in horror, Alicia yelled “Call 911 – Help! Oh Donny!”

She knelt over him seeing the driver who had stopped and gotten out of the car walking over – “How could you? Please help him! Call an ambulance!”

Dontrelle was unresponsive. The silhouette against the orange twilight sky came within feet of them; its head, then its entire body turned to smoke and began swirling, blown away by the light breeze. Alicia saw a flash, then a star moving rapidly away from them, decreasing in size and brightness into the night sky.