Chapter 5
As they are leading him away, Zombie like, in handcuffs, there is no way for any of the hundred or so friendly spectators to know exactly what is going through Sterling’s mind. He appears to be in a daze, in shock actually, as if he has just witnessed something terrible happen, something like a car accident, or a child’s suicide, or the unraveling of the life of a young, on-top-of-the-world 17 year old, who at this very moment is being whisked away, hands behind his back, toward the uninviting rear door of a Durham County Sheriff’s patrol car. The vehicle, save for its unique license plate, is identical to one habitually parked by the curb in front of the Sterling Arms. In this deserted part of downtown, especially deserted on an early Sunday evening, there is quite a crowd of spectators, in fact it’s fair to call them “rubber-neckers” for there is not much frontage around the side entrance leading into Vegas Gym and the curious pouring out of the entrance are forcibly clumped together so that they have to crane their necks for a clear view of the stunned teenager and his professionally relaxed, recomposed after a minor skirmish, police escort.
Sterling is familiar with the car he is getting into, or ones like it, because he has ridden in them since he was a tot in car-seat restraint, belted in the back seat, while his father did errands. At one time the County had encouraged police to use official vehicles for trips around town, hoping that a police presence, even an off-duty one, would lower the crime rate. The only rule was that police had to be in uniform and carry their weapons. This practice, which was later understood to be some newly elected politician’s stupid idea – the Mayberry model – had been abruptly terminated after one citizen – it only takes one – had complained in a letter to the Durham Herald-Sun about private use of public funds. Still, cops were allowed to park overnight in front of their residences, as a parked patrol car also has a talent for cost-effective crime prevention.
Sterling is also acquainted with the officers – Ben, Betty and Suhail – who have been assigned to this merciless mission which Sterling figures could be titled: Operation Birthday in Hell. It is like he is living the second act of a teen comedy (when the unraveling intensifies), except there isn’t much funny about being arrested. At first he thought it was truly a joke, a prank set up by his father and his brainless colleagues. Seeing Sterling hauled away would amuse the crowd and provide a great photo opportunity for his friends. They could shoot him with their cell phones and immediately upload to Facebook or one of the blogs before the squad car had even departed. Indeed, Sterling’s phone, deep in his front jean pocket, is vibrating non-stop, with inquiries and photos, no doubt, yet Sterling’s hands are not in a position to verify, much less respond, to what is happening.
Just like in the movies, once Sterling is seated in the back seat, the patrol car stands stationary for what seems like an excessively long time, which is for necessary exposition. In TV this moment of no action usually follows an exhausting chase, followed by the arrival of coroners and CSI types who confirm the body-count and explain to each other what just happened, for viewers’ benefit. This is usually followed by a cute, character-driven tag (which has to do with our good guys, not perps, in a family or lover subplot) and the final credits. At this moment Sterling would much appreciate someone coming up and explaining the entire recent episode to him rather than treating him as some sort of McGuffin or writer’s device. It’s his life; he’d like to know what happens before the credits, after which he could finish celebrating his birthday in style, with an evening spent with the girl he loves.
The other plot, the real one unfolding before his eyes, however, is verily his actual life and he needs to know what the fuck is happening. He can see his parents having a quiet conversation with the uniforms. Sterling is not within earshot, and he is starting to worry about the tone of the parental conversation as picked up by body language. Neither of his parents looks distraught. There is no wailing and gnashing of teeth from Catherine or a threatened fist from Pandely aimed at one of his duplicitous colleagues. “You should have come to me, Suhail. I could have taken care of this,” he should be saying. But he and his buddy seem to be involved in nothing more than friendly chit-chat. An Ashton-type rookie, Ben, is biding his time through a cigarette (a departmental infraction). There are smiles all around as if someone has just cracked a joke. This scene, with implied laugh track, is not right, thinks Sterling. Pandely should be making his case with his fellow officers or at least trying to evoke some sympathy. This is not happening. His parents are so cool, in fact, he still wonders whether this so-called arrest is not indeed a joke, whether his first hunch has been correct all along. Someone is going to come and for the final surprise, present the key to undo the cuffs which is paired with a key to his new Lancer Evo that is surely parked somewhere on the block. He looks; nothing new he doesn’t recognize. Mostly SUVs, a Shelby Mustang (circa 1968, he’d been reading up on them earlier) and Honda Civics. At this moment, Sterling would have been pleased as punch to settle for a Civ, but only if it were new, not pre-owned. Who wants a used car; you don’t know where the back seat’s been.
Sterling waits for such a pleasant dénouement. Two officers arrive; it must be affirmative action night: the force’s lone Indian, actually Bangladeshi, who prefers to be know as a Subcontinental, and half its gun-toting females. They sit up front, caged in by Sterling’s view; they buckle up.
“Don’t worry, Sterl. This won’t take long. You’ll be OK,” Betty tells him as the squad car considers pulling away.
Sterling looks back at the crowd, which has timidly crept out and spread itself along the curb. If this is a gesture of sympathy, it’s a bit late. Sterling would have preferred his friends to have joined him at the car, offering their condolences then and there, when it might have done some good, rather than now, when it’s totally ineffective. His cell phone keeps buzzing.
“My hands aren’t free. I can’t turn it off,” Sterling wants to explain. The officers wouldn’t care.
In the crowd, just before it will fade out of his view, he searches for who’s making a call. He sees three calls being made, which may or may not be to him. The Vaney Trips, standing phone-in-hands, playing with their identical BlackBerrys, then tapping them off, and each placing his in its belt case on his right side. A perfectly choreographed movement, no doubt for Sterling’s benefit, comes to an end, just as three text messages, certainly identical, arrive in Sterling’s pocket.
“Fuck, they set me up,” Sterling figures out.
About an hour into the party the Trips had taken a break. They had been sequestered in a corner of the Vegas playing some tracks from their new album, Three with Love. They were, as usual, the center of most people’s attention. Sterling’s girl classmates especially had gathered around to watch the Christian Rock starlets perform: one Trip on the drums, another Trip on guitar and the third Trip on bass guitar. Each could play all three instruments and they would sometimes trade places in the middle of a set, or even in the middle of a song, sort of their signature idiocy; Sterling suspected, however, there was some degree of specialization. One seemed to have the louder, more sappy voice, another seemed more accomplished beating drums and another might be the lyricist. They had just finished their set that included some wisdom that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people, but that sometimes good things happen to bad…They were such bad lyrics, Sterling thought. How could they enchant such a large teen entourage? They made their way over to Sterling, who they boxed in.
“We have…something…for you, Sterly..Sterl…Sterling,” they said, with each Trip taking one of the sequential phrases and all joining in for the mix-up of names.” That was at least not as irritating as when they sung his name: Eu-mor-fo-pou-lis, each taking a syllable and then singing it in a round like Frère Jacques. That was very annoying, especially as it persuaded more and more people to join in. One time, to Sterling’s utter embarrassment, they had managed to abduct a sco
re of singers (singers who would not sing outside the privacy of their showers, for good reason) and the round went on for several minutes, with the Trips improvising (well, probably rehearsed as Sterling figured the Trips were incapable of spontaneity) the verse:
Eu-mor-fó́-pou-los
Eu-mor-fó́-pou-los
Bro-ther Ster-ling
Bro-ther Ster-ling
We were born before you
We were born before you
Ding, dang, dong. Ding, dang, dong.
“You brought me something, boys. How nice of you,” says Sterling flatly.
One of them discretely shows Sterling a 4x4 inch ziplock bag of something that look’s like course oregano, while another says:
“You gotta relax, bro. You’re always so wound up.”
“Yeah, unwind, bro,” the other chimes in.
“Put that away, you idiots. I should report you to my father,” Sterling says through clenched teeth. They’ve had this discussion before. The Trips’ response is that nothing in the Bible prohibits smokables.
“If bro won’t take our gift, let’s ask who wants it,” one says to another, as the third, who holds the bag, starts to wave it publicly.
Sterling quickly grabs it and sticks it down his jeans. He is as angry as he gets, only constrained by being in a semi-public place.
“I’m going to fuckin’ murder you guys,” he says.
The trips response is a rendition of Eu-mor-fó-pou-lis, in the style of Frère Jacques.
As this plays out in Sterling’s memory, he realizes that the pot must still be in his pocket, which is to say in the police car. At one point he’ll be searched, and another item will be added to his list of crimes or misdemeanors, whatever they are. Despite the cuffs, he is able to twist his long arms around and reach into his pocket and rummage down into his pants. The non-phone pocket is empty. “What?” he wonders, as he recalls another episode.
Just as the party was heating up, the Trips had finished their second set and gone out for a smoke. Their parents, who were safely upstairs with the rest of the adults, were oblivious to the fact that their little cherubs went through collectively at least one pack a day, more if they were on the road where they had acquired a number of other delinquent habits including a taste for particular beverages, mixed cocktails that came in soda-sized cans. These they could also drink in the comfort of their home, in their studio where their parents were not permitted to disturb them. The Trips were the breadwinners of the Vaney household (their dad supervised their management team and their mom was their most avid fan and publicist); consequently they were on long leashes, even by Sterling’s standards; this allowed them to be in cahoots with their “tutors” who chaperoned them during gigs. Their so-called bouts of creativity in the home studio more resembled liquid binges or smoky highs. They had once tried to get Sterling drunk by spiking his Coke, but for several years he had been wise to their tricks. That they smoked pot really didn’t matter much to Sterling; that the Trips had probably already acquired far worse drug habits didn’t bother him much either. People get what they deserve, he thought from the comfort of the backseat of the patrol car.
What did bother him at the moment was what happened just as he was being arrested. Ben, the doofus policeman, his father’s protégé, had asked Sterling to turn around so he could be cuffed, offering only: “Sorry, Sterl, I have to do protocol.” At that very moment, the Trips had intervened, making a racket, issuing overlapping complaints that made no sense even if they could have been untangled. Something about due process, First Amendment, Jesus, redemption, God will be the judge, and almost anything that could pour forth from their feeble minds. They were encircling Sterling, protecting him from the policeman, who was temporarily outmaneuvered until Suhail and Betty arrived as back-up. There had been pushing and shoving, and Sterling had found himself being groped. He had never before in his life been groped; some of his friends like Billy had, but Sterling’s size and implied muscles seemed to keep the curious perverts at bay. Someone was now playing with Sterling’s junk but before he could reach and grab if not break the offending paw, the Trips immediately disengaged, segueing into ensemble weeping and consoling each other in a sobby hug, as a way of expressing their solidarity with their soul- and birth-mate Sterling. He was quickly cuffed and led away. It was only now, on reflection, that he realized that the Trips had intervened to retrieve their dime bag of weed. Sterling didn’t know whether they did this to keep him out of more trouble or because they feared he would rat them out, or because they just wanted their dope back for personal use. In any case, it was clear that the Trips, for all their bad qualities, were not entrappers. The son of a cop, Sterling had never been able to suffer informers, entrappers, plants or snitches well. He would never rat on anyone, even scum. The Trips could not be branded as scum. They had not set him up; and on the face of it, they had done him a great favor, that is, they had extricated him from a problem they themselves had created for him. For that he was grateful, sort of.
Overall the party had begun so well. Several of his teachers, as well as Coach Mac, were segregated up with the parents upstairs. Sterling was able to reacquaint himself with his gifted classmates, who he rarely saw (“Their gift to me,” he’d tell Sara); his mother had as expected issued a blanket invitation and several dozen boys and girls from Durham Prep had shown up, including Brandon Buffeau. They had exchanged nods; Brandon took a studied tour of the gym, feeling and testing the ring, its canvas, ropes and the various apparatuses. He was solo, without a plus one. He played around with the speed bag with sufficient dexterity to impress not just the teenage girls but also Sterling, who had a hunch that the Buffer had a lot more to him than met the eye. No one unacquainted with a speed bag can instantly acquire such professionalism. Then Brandon socialized and worked the crowd, all the time apparently oblivious to the thrills he was giving to some of their girl classmates, who ignored Brandon when he was looking directly at them but undressed and devoured him when his eyes went elsewhere. At one time Brandon and Billy were conversing privately, suggesting perhaps they had indeed met at the spa.
Most of the Friday Night Boys were there also. Besides Bil…William, who had been a constant in the pre-teen soirees, the Davis brothers were also present. Whenever he visited Sterling the elder Davis was almost always accompanied by the younger. The pattern had been established since the dawn of their relationship with Sterling, which is to say since they were five, six and seven years old. Their mothers had met at day care and the children had often had pre-school play dates in the name of diversity. Normally, baby/infant Sterling was content playing with himself but he didn’t mind these interlopers. Sterling’s birth fell in between theirs, placing him in a middle child position, which he quite enjoyed. He had a special bond with the younger Davis, John Dewey. From the back of the squad car, he could see John Dewey in the crowd, the only person not connecting with the drama that was unfolding. He seemed preoccupied with a mathematical puzzle on his new tablet computer.
John Dewey was forever bringing new electronic toys to Sterling’s; he was part of a beta-test group and over the years he had acquired on a temporary basis a lot of weird devices, and this was not the first tablet computer he had tested. The others had not survived the John Dewey experience. John Dewey found comfort in playing with the beta-devices, which were still in test stage with bugs that had to be first discovered before they could be fixed. It seemed that John Dewey had a knack for pushing software to its limit, so he was perfect for beta-testing. Also, he never got angry or frustrated when a device failed to work. If, after he gave it his best shot, it still didn’t function, it got UPSed immediately to its R&D team, inevitably located in Triangle Research Park. In such a case John Dewey would lose a toy, but the kid never got attached to toys, or people for that matter. The devices were always anonymous, without logos or other markings. Thus neither John Dewey’s parents nor Sterling knew a device’s ori
gins, or who would eventually end up marketing it, if it ever hit the market. Except for some knock-off mp3s most devices John Dewey tested ended up in their designer’s trash bins. The device John Dewey was now testing, however, was very impressive. It was not just another tablet computer: only 1 ½ pounds, with a multi-touch touch screen, headset controls, proximity and ambient light control and a myriad other features. When Sterling had first seen it the previous week he had measured it (9.6 x 7.5 and only an incredible half-inch thick) and immediately gone onto the forums to see if any one knew what it was. It was very hush-hush but he suspected it was the new tablet eagerly awaited from Apple – Sterling figured it would be sold as a tApple or a TabApple or an iTab – still nameless but rumored to be released sometime next spring. The buzz on the forums went viral; everyone wanted Sterling to upload a photo, and some even suggested breaking into it to look at the components. Both of these suggestions Sterling very much wanted to pursue, but he couldn’t. John Dewey’s parents had signed some sort of confidentiality agreement and even taking a photo was verboten. Sterling could have taken a picture indiscreetly, of course; John Dewey would not have objected, for he never seemed to care what Sterling did. Most of the time for John Dewey, Sterling did not exist; even when they were together John Dewey regarded this entity, which he acknowledged as ‘Sterl,’ as no more than a physical presence, just as a tree or a rock or any other inanimate object. Sterling did not exist relationally when he was present, nor metaphysically when he was absent. Sterling seemed to exist for John Dewey to a fashion only in the here-and-now, Sterling at his side. John Dewey was self-contained, and whatever Sterling said or did to John Dewey remained unacknowledged at the very least. But taking and showing off a bootleg photo would have violated the trust Sterling had with the Davis family and no doubt do irreparable damage to this trust, nothing near compensatory for the kudos he’d received on the electronic forums for exposing Apple’s next wonder. Sterling was sufficiently tempted, however, that he took a photo of John Dewey using his new device at the party and one day, if the device ever became public, he could then show the photo, praising John Dewey for being instrumental in Apple’s success. Mrs. Davis already had a list of tweekings that the device needed (more reliable WiFi, for example). Sterling was not, however, averse to telling everyone he knew that they should immediately buy Apple stock, as the stock was certain to rise in the springtime. If they failed to take his advice, he could one day give them an I-told-you-so, which would be rewarding in itself. He had had this conversation with numerous adults and no one seemed to listen. At the party he had earlier repeated his predictions and shared his insider information, John Dewey, with William Duke Sr, before he and the other adults were prodded to move upstairs.
“Just ten days ago Apple topped the Q2 estimates, with iPhone sales up 123%. Stock is at $136. It could easily double within a year and pay for my entire college education if I could borrow some money to invest,” he told Senior, who took this all in over his second bourbon.
Sterling had pulled over John Dewey to show off the device. He put his arm over John Dewey’s shoulder, a gesture that was totally ignored because of John Dewey’s preoccupation with the tablet. When he realized that Sterling was touching him, however, he quickly shook him off.
“I’m telling you, sir, this is a life changer. If you lend me 500k for a year, I’ll pay you back with 50k in interest.”
William Sr. studied John Dewey, still engrossed on the tablet, and he looked around at all the kids talking on their iPhones.
“And if you’re wrong, Sterling, and you can’t pay me back on time, you will work for Duke Enterprises to pay off the debt. You start the day after graduation, before college. We have a deal?” he asked.
Sterling reflected on this “put up or shut up” proposition, seconded by his 151 barrel proof corn liquor.
“We have a fuckin’ big deal, sir” he said as they shook on it. They had done this ritual many times, usually when the old man smelt like one of his distilleries; Sterling had usually won (and never lost) millions for the hypothetical Duke fortune. It was just a game they played, less dangerous for pigeons than trap, given Senior’s aim.
As he headed upstairs, Senior thought he should speed-dial his broker at home. “A million on Apple to win,” he wanted to say. He’d lose more money because of that kid.
Sterling enjoys being with John Dewey because he understands John Dewey, as much as anyone can. John Dewey never feels any emotion; he is afunctional, some would say a highly functional boy with Asperger’s. He is also enrolled in Sterling’s school for the gifted where for the most part the autistics are integrated into the program. Though mainstreamed they also receive special instruction, mostly on how to make truce with society and its expectations about their behavior. They are taught how to pretend to look people in the eyes, how to repeat silently to self rather than out loud to others, etc. A half dozen intelligent, fairly high functioning autistics in the same classroom has also provided a golden opportunity for researchers. These boys and girls’ educational costs are largely covered by various research foundations; and of course they earn pocket change for beta-testing some R&D team’s soggy dream.
The older Davis brother, James, is not autistic, thus deemed normal, which is to say indistinguishable from most any other teenagers who attends Hillside High School, the oldest traditionally all-black high school in Durham. You could hardly call this institution a learning institution; children there mostly underlearn; the school’s purpose seems merely to baby-sit them, to keep them off the streets, until society moves them on to meaningless jobs or into prison cells. James has done quite well by not just the school’s standards; he has just graduated as salutatorian. He could likely, however, be from one the school’s last graduating classes, for HHS could soon be shut down. Its composite testing scores are below 55% of state average, so it could be closed by judicial degree along with other poor performing North Carolina high schools under the Leandro ruling, which states that North Carolina must provide a sound, basic education for all citizens. In any case James heads off to Morehouse College in the fall, on a National Achievement Scholarship from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.
The Davis parents are at the party also, upstairs in the adult sequestration. Over the years they have learned to cope with having a child once described as handicapped, now described as gifted. Sometimes they have resorted to medication, but behavioral therapy seems to work best; mostly they rely on patience and perseverance, their own and their children’s. John Dewey is a mathematical savant and this talent will no doubt somehow by harnessed. They are optimistic about their children; they don’t know what the future will bring but it’s already brought them an African-American president; they are looking forward to whatever the good Lord cares to bestow. It is with 21st Century irony that the William Dukes Senior and the Davises are not only drinking bourbon together, but that in fact Mr. Duke is serving the Davises. No one but Senior touches his $300 bottle of 16 year old Hirsch Reserve. The Davises, who don’t drink much and never to excess, relish this depravity, as they enjoy addressing the millionaire as Mr. William, something he fails to notice odd (what the long-suffering help have called him). In previous centuries Mrs. Davis’s side of the family worked for the Dukes several generations after they arrived in the US from Africa’s Gold Coast. In Reconstruction they continued to work for their masters, now called employers. Mr. Davis’s people were from freed slave stock; they were Yankees. His great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great-grandfather had bedded at Winchester with the rest of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment as it marched through the Piedmont on the way to Charleston. He had fought bravely under Robert Gould Shaw in the Fort Wagner debacle; he had survived, only to be temporarily enslaved until the end of the war. He remained in the South after the war; many generations later Mr. Davis met the future Mrs. Davis, both sets of whose grandparents worked for Dukes.
/> The Davises are boasting about their daughter, who attends Columbia on a full scholarship, and are also offering kind words for James, who will work for Duke Enterprises in community outreach over the summer. From an early age both older children accepted their role as John Dewey’s caretakers. James’ own personality, with such empathy and kindness, is in part largely formed by his necessary handling of his little brother. Just about anyone who meets James instantly acknowledges that he is one of the sweetest kids they’ve ever met. He has no enemies and he can especially be friendly with people who can’t stand each other, to wit, Sterling and the Trips. Because Sterling gets along so well with John Dewey, James always brings along his little brother when he visits The Sterling. This was even the case for the Friday Nights, that dry-cold winter of ’04-’05 when a group of pre-teenage boys hung at Sterling’s. Boys being boys, sex was inevitably one of the topics occupying their four hours together. During those particular discussions Sterling was careful that John Dewey be excluded. Together, James and Sterling were not sure how John Dewey would traverse puberty; it was difficult for they themselves to navigate these years during which so much is informed by hormones. So if the discussions or the videos got too graphic, too physical, too sexual, one of the boys would volunteer to take John Dewey aside and to keep him company, less he be exposed to a Pandora’s box. Now, a half decade later, John Dewey in his own manner has become obsessively aware and interested in the human body, particular in the bodies of girls. At Durham Prep sex education, relabeled the more politically correct “family life education,” is a specially designed course for the auties. From even before they reached puberty the course accounted for much of their behavior therapy. In earlier years their teachers inculcated in them particular behavior patterns, which they practiced over and over on field trips. The female teachers worked with the girls on menstruation; the male teachers worked on privacy issues, especially instructing the boys not to parade their erections in public. The teens were instructed about when and where it was okay to touch themselves, and about the absolute need for privacy when they did so. Sterling’s mother was called in to present, not once but three times to the same group (which meant four times for John Dewey who had also experienced her pinot gris-infused presentation, which he had not understood at the time). Durham Prep ensures that for autistics both sexes rote-learn the iron rule: close and lock the bathroom door; close and lock the bathroom stall. These words are repeated like an Army drill. Instruction also focused on circles of comfort, i.e., who may touch you or ask you to undress, what involves good touch/bad touch, and the necessity to report past events such an inappropriate touch. John Dewey, it seems, has not had any bad touches, as his family keeps him on a tight dependable, fraternal leash.
The most difficult instruction at Durham Prep fell to those teaching the 16 and overs. John Dewey and his classmates, autism aside, were just as interested in human reproduction as any other teenager; but when they had an interest, any interest, in their craw, it remained stuck there until it could be fully engorged. External forces could not dislodge it. At the same time, ironically, their brains were wired so that they went through life mostly unaware of social cues and peer expectations. In other words, they didn’t have the wherewithal to unstick what they sought to swallow. To go on dates and to enjoy consensual sex, consensual safe-sex, would not be a simple accomplishment. Durham Prep’s best psychologists talked to the autistics, individually and in groups, about love and accompanying feelings – guilt, mistrust, shame, revenge – the exact emotions the autistics could not easily experience, if indeed they could ever experience them at all.
What teachers can’t figure out, peers sometimes can. The Friday Night boys once discussed how John Dewey should solve the sex dilemma. John Dewey was present, but it was not clear to the boys whether he was listening or what he understood. In any case a consensus quickly emerged: John Dewey’s first experience should be professional. If it didn’t work out, they reasoned, then the problem is solved. If, however, a professional liaison proved satisfactory, then they could figure out dating in Phase Two. No one disagreed with this solution. It became clear over the next few years John Dewey had indeed understood. He was awaiting a professional experience. He had been repeating the mantra – professional, professional, professional – ad nauseam to his brother for some months; then suddenly he stopped. The Friday Nights had long disbanded but Sterling, as ringleader, kept up with all the participants, first through email, then through Facebook and now through Twitter. John Dewey who communicated best when on-line, had tweeted his mantra to the Friday Nights on a weekly basis. When the texts all of a sudden disappeared, Sterling suspected, and James later confirmed, that John Dewey had successfully completed Phase One of the program. The details, which were not all that juicy, were shared on Twitter. It seems that John Dewey in matters below the belt was proficient; more importantly he had quite enjoyed the experience (at least that was Sterling’s interpretation); and he was eager to move on to Phase Two.
Physically John Dewey was average enough and, take away his ticks, repetitions, and relational deprivation, he seemed normal enough. Many girls might find him cute, at the very least, harmlessly interesting. He had a wicked sense of humor, Sterling noted, knowing instinctively when someone was lying and often repeating back to them their own words from the past as evidence of the lie. Girls would have to surmount John Dewey’s overall bizarreness, but then most teenagers are bizarre in one fashion or another. At least John Dewey’s was all upfront; once you got to know him, he didn’t offer many surprises. The Friday Nights were clueless, however, when it came to wondering how to find John Dewey a girlfriend. John Dewey, moreover, voiced no particular requirements in terms of likes and dislikes although the professionals had reported back to James that his younger brother was most certainly a breast man. The Friday Nights had long recognized that pimping for John Dewey – that is, finding a willing amateur – would be an impossible task. Mostly, the difficulty can be attributed to race, which the Friday Nights did not mention, but which they certainly could not themselves ignore. For his part James mostly went out with black girls, with an occasional Asian, and most of his and his family’s friends were African-American. Save for the Friday Night boys, which he knew through Sterling and their parents who were friends, James and John Dewey lived in the South’s pretty black demi-universe, a world unfamiliar to the lily whites of the Friday nights. For now, Phase Two was a major attention grabber in the Davis household; James realizes that a monthly repeat of Phase One could be an easy temporary fix. John Dewey, who seemed to rival Sterling in the area of formidable memory, got it into his mind that the first Saturday of each month would be sex day. No other day of the month was acceptable. He would entertain no discussion. James was nonetheless relieved, fully accepting the once a month requirement; as arrangements fell to him, he would not mind returning home from Atlanta once a month, for laundry, eating some home cooking, getting some spending money, etc. Yet he realized as a new freshman he may have some conflicts as college schedules might not jive with John Dewey’s monthly needs. James had his own life to lead, he explained to Sterling. One of the promises he had extracted from Sterling during the party was that he would keep an eye on John Dewey while James was at Morehouse, at least until Sterling himself went away to college. That promise was one of the last things Sterling had agreed to before his present life had suddenly become severed, leaving him in the current lacuna, between past and future. Surviving the present was his immediate goal.
While Sterling was receiving well-wishers (in between his bouts with the Trips) Sara had been reconnecting with friends she didn’t see all that often. She missed her friends and looked forward to staying full-time in Durham over the summer. She had found a volunteer job helping infants with their finger-painting, which Sterling had instantly labeled pee-wee art, immediately redefined as p-wart. P-wart was now what the family called her summer job.
Sara’s parents lived an hour away in Greensboro. One of the conditions made on The Reverend by his family when he took the new job was that his daughter could finish her last years of high school in Durham. She was given a Ford Focus S sedan for the commute. One of The Reverend’s parishioners ran a local dealership and for the past academic year the car had been on some sort of extended test drive. Sara was fuzzy on the details, but her father had made clear that God help her if she got even a minor ding on the car. The Reverend would deliver it back to the dealer Monday morning. Newly carless Sara would have to borrow Catherine’s car or perhaps she could drive Sterling’s much rumored, but as yet invisible, automobile.
Durham School of the Arts had been an exceedingly competitive school to get into; by test score it usually rates as the best of Durham’s public high schools. Granted, the school was academic in only an off-handed sort of way; its Advanced Placement offerings were scant; Sara was planning to take AP psychology, which was the least science-oriented among them. DSA had a lively, creative, diversified student body. Like the city’s three other fully integrated high schools, blacks and whites were evenly split, in contrast with the school James attended, which was 92% black. Sara was studying the visual arts, which included a lot of installation work, which she enjoyed although she found it to be more about decorating than art. She also studied art history and continued to improve on the fundamentals, media and technique: painting, watercolor, drawing, figure, still-life, landscape, composition, perspective…anything as long as it didn’t involve computers. Avoiding graphic design software, however, was nearly impossible, as it had stealthily crept into the darkest corners of the curriculum; it had now become a major part of almost any course. Computer art continued to be all the rage, for all but Sara. The school could not spend money quick enough on software and hardware, while telling the band they could provide and repair their own instruments or telling the stage crew to reuse lumber and nails. Sara considered “computer art” to be at best a contradiction in terms, a nifty phrase she had recently picked up from Sterling. In her opinion computers often did more harm than good. A lot of her classmates who were uncomfortable with pen or brush, could mouse off a large portfolio, much of which seemed mediocre to her. For computer art, however, the bar had been lowered so much that today almost any work qualified as art. Computers were becoming crutches for artists. At best they should be tools, but now even the art-challenged could draw, thanks to programs and templates that did most of the creative work. This, in Sara’s view, was a supreme cop-out, a cheat. Sterling had one of these programs and he was always showing off his so-called art work, which didn’t stand up to Sara’s more rigorous eye. Sterling, she thought, should stick with what he did best, which was mostly anything but art. He was a sort of dodo when it came to music, too, having never more than a 50-50 chance at being able to differentiate between major chords and minor cords. Sara, however, would never criticize Sterling’s computer generated so-called art, for she lived by another pet Sterlingism: De gustibus non est disputandum. Although Sterling disputed the Latin word order per se, he agreed they you shouldn’t quarrel over tastes; this would likely prove a handy way to end any argument the teen lovers might get into this summer. Art, music, food, sports, sex…isn’t everything about tastes?
Sara wondered, especially on the contemplative drives to and from Greensboro, whether she and Sterl had jumped the gun last night. Should they have taken the big leap? Sterling, true to form, was halfway down the track before she had even settled in at the starting blocks, but they had expected that. They had discussed at some length, over the preceding year especially, that men and women reference different schedules, different clocks, different hardware and software (Sterling’s metaphors). They had discussed that their first time should be important, should not be rushed, and should encompass more than a few minutes in the backseat or in a hotel that charged by the hour (as ironically The Sterling had once done). No, they wanted the first time to be a full night together. As they grew closer and closer during junior year, they tacitly agreed that their first “all the way” might be disappointing. Both of them were becoming a bit impatient, however, what with their friends’ virginities being lost on an almost weekendly basis. John Dewey’s defeat (defeat for virginity, victory for him) was a last straw. The previous night when it became clear that Sterling’s parents could care less if their son and girlfriend were having sex down the hall, provided they protected themselves, and when these spatial or geographic constraints evaporated, the big event happened, spontaneity coating years’ of preparation. The carnal pleasures were not unexpected and when last night had turned out to be NOT disappointing at all, they were as equally relieved as they were happy. Now, the sexual nature that everyone, including his own parents, had attributed to their relationship was something they no longer could impugn. Yet she now had to deal with her own parents, who are upstairs at the party sipping ice tea. They would certainly need something stronger to survive the news that she and Sterling would not be able to hide from them for much longer. She herself could obfuscate her private life as well as any teenager, but Sterling had this knack for letting facts escape his tongue despite their consequences. While he may be secretive in his own way, he didn’t seem capable of keeping others’ secrets, even if the other turned out to be his own girlfriend. In other words if only Sterling could have a relationship without involving another party, he could keep that relationship secret. Sara could not figure out if Sterling was just too honest a person, or had no control over the use of information. Maybe this was a flaw; in any case it was part of the boy she had over the years aimed to bind to. Maybe she had caught him many years ago, as early as second grade. Last night she had him roped and tied, that’s for sure. For good or for bad she expected she would keep him; if the day came they separated, the undoing would not be hers.
Rationally, it’s often hard to shape out why two lovers are in love. For most teenagers it’s a matter of hormones and instinct; most children are just not well enough developed to have the proverbial shared chemistry. That was the take by Sterling’s parents on his relationship with Sara. They have nothing against this union, be it a brief fling or something that lasts until he goes off to college in a year. It will keep him off the streets, they joke to each other, maybe help with the maturity issue. In fact they really like Sara, sometimes much more than they like their son, especially on those not-too-rare occasions he’s being a smart-alec pain in the ass. Sterling’s parents feel they have always supported him as he continues to learn more about himself and about life and how the two go together. Certainly, it’s better that the children have sex in the comfort of their home than in some seedy motel. Furthermore, the kids are right at the tip of the bell of the bell curve: seventeen is the precise average age Americans of their race, religion and family situation lose their virginity. Nevertheless, the parents hold no illusions that this is a serious relationship. It’s serious to the children, of course, but children don’t often know what seriousness is.
Seriousness and sharing a chemistry is what Catherine and Pandely are all about. Their relationship has had its ups and downs, maybe more so than the average couple that has happily remained together. From the very start his obsession with boxing was a relationship tester, that’s for sure. His being MIA somewhere around Iraq or Iran, a week of uncertainly and state-secrecy and the subsequent year of physical and mental rehabilitation built up in both of them in mere months a lifetime of stress. She had held a full-time job, had some courses to complete for a degree and, of course, their two toddlers to manage. After her husband’s discharge from the VA hospital she had an adult who required even more attention than the children. It was tough; they survived. Later, the death of a child was painful, but they survived that, too. Their life was nowhere near as tough as what their parents faced as immigrants and political refugees. In almost twenty years together Catherine and Pandely have produced a
proven track record: they can take anything dished their way. Sterling’s arrest is thus not the end of their world. It will be dealt with in time, each parent taking an individual approach, conferring occasionally to coordinate strategy. Not to discount the seriousness of the arrest – Pandely’s occupation is primarily about arrest – the couple see it as an opportunity for Sterling to correct some of his short-comings and work on the maturity issue. Of course, if asked, Sterling could not for the life of him produce a list of his own flaws, whereas his parents could rattle off a few dozen, if asked. Granted, only a thin line separates personality trait from personality flaw. Still, they know they understand their son a lot better than he thinks he understands himself – self-reflection being a task Sterling figures is at best utterly self-absorbing and wasteful, at worst mental masturbation or self-rape. Sterling would vehemently disagree with this parents’ assessment of himself. First, they don’t have all the facts at hand, in that much of Sterling’s life is withheld from their scrutiny. They have a “don’t ask, don’t tell” attitude when it comes to his spending money. Chinese drivers’ permits, Napoleon papers, on-line stock trading…just the tip of his parent’s unimagined iceberg. Furthermore, he subscribes to the general belief among kids that parents are not only clueless about their children, but worse, they don’t even realize that they are clueless. Too clueless to be clueless. Moreover, few children, Sterling included, believe that their parents act in their – the children’s – best interest. The parents do what’s in their own best interests. At the moment no one in Vegas Gym, average age seventeen, would disagree with that statement. Few of the boozing elders upstairs, average age 43.7, would support it.
Sterling, on his way to the station, is eager to get this show on the road. He wants to confront his accusers. The had cops produced some paperwork for his parents to peruse, but he was not given an opportunity to question whatever warrant they may or may not have had. Whatever happened to being an adult at sixteen in Carolina? He has constitutional rights. Here, the police, his father’s colleagues, had said nothing of substance to him. This was most annoying. Which of his misbehaviors are they going after? And why do they choose a Sunday, right dab in the middle of his birthday party? Don’t they take weekends off? His father only has the weekend shift every other couple of months; maybe the diversification hires are assigned weekends and at the moment don’t know what they are doing. Did they have to swoop in so abruptly and snatch him away? Did he pose a flight risk? Was this for maximum effect? Without answers Sterling is getting more and more annoyed. He had not seen his parents’ getting into his mother’s car to follow. They could not very well take the police cruiser to follow two police cruisers, one containing their detained son and the other the doofus cop. Sterling does not think “detained innocent son,” for it has crossed his mind, he was probably guilty of something ever so slightly illegal – writing papers for hire, the faux permits, some occasional hacking, nothing really serious enough to merit such well-policed overkill. How was he going to explain all this to Sara? He didn’t even know what it was he’d need to explain. If Sterling were the crying type, he would have begun. He hasn’t cried since his sister’s death, six months back, and he isn’t about to start again. In any case, he is way too angry to cry.