Shut Up & Listen

Breaking In

August 4
Cole

It's strange. Walking into the building— standing in the spot I was arrested less than twenty-four hours ago. It's quiet now. And oddly uneventful. No one greeted me at the door. I was at least expecting the head Security to have words, but nothing. I walked past the security office as usual and one guy was watching me from inside, but didn't say anything.

Even though it was strange, I let my guard down. I stepped into the elevator and tried calling Lonnie but the call went to voicemail. I'm not one to leave messages, but this time I did. I wanted to see him. Soon.

I walked down the long hall from the elevator to my door and stopped when I was standing in the spot I'd officially met Lonnie. That night— three in the morning.

He's on my mind heavy and he hasn't answered any of the three calls I've made since leaving Cobe's place. It's funny how we're in the same boat right now, Cobe and me. Waiting for a nigga to return a phone call not knowing what the hell could be going on.

There was a piece of paper on the floor when I opened the door to the loft. It must've been slid underneath the door while I was gone. But, I didn't stop to pick it up or read it because something else stole my attention.

I walked further into the loft. My father's chair had been cut up and the filling was all over the floor. The TV was bashed in and the couches flipped over. I walked down the hall and went upstairs to my pop's bedroom first. No one has been in there since he passed and the door was opened. My heart sank when I saw the family photo with me, Cecil Jr. and our parents, crushed on the floor. The bed had been undone and his computer was gone.

My first thought was that Jemaika was upset when I left. But what the fuck would she do all this for? She's crazy, but she's not crazy. 

I stared at the photo from my spot in the hallway. I yearned to pick it up, hold it close to my chest and relive the day we took the photo at J.C. Penny's the weekend after I was adopted. Afterwards we went school shopping and sat together in a booth in the center of the restaurant where everyone could see how excited we were to be together— enjoying a new life; a life that was meant to remain as happy as that day was, but didn't. Now I'm standing in the hallway afraid to cross the threshold into my fathers bedroom. The last place on this earth that he drew breath. I wish I could give mine for him; he was too good to go the way that he did. They always did say the good die young.

Everything was strewn about the room in a manner that screamed 'fuck you' to not just me but to my father who lived forty years in this building and to my mother who gave her life to public service— a true woman of God if I never saw another. They painted the two words with big red letters in the way that all the clothes untouched for ten months had been yanked from the closet and haphazardly thrown about the room. How dare they scream in the faces of good people who did good things.

Not me. It isn't about me. This room is sacred. It encapsulated his spirit and his soul in a way that dared anyone who wanted to live to open the door. And we didn't. We never did. But this person, disturbed the last things my father left. Fuck them.

My chest heaved as I remembered coming into the home after not hearing from him all day. Trudging up the stairs after a long night shift at the warehouse. He always instilled the urgency of true labor— always. Nothing comes easy. Nothing comes for free. Not even the life we live— especially not the breath we breathe. We owe. We owe labor. We owe emotion and time and if we cannot master the art of holding it all together without ease, we owe our sanity. Once you lose it, your sanity, you can never get it back.

I grew sick at the sight of the orange pill bottle peaking out from beneath the overturned dresser in the center of the floor. Being reminded that just as he refused to pay up by quieting the voices that charged him daily was the same route I'd been taking, I stepped forward. Almost walking through the door, bravely I reached in. If only I could feel him again— see him.