It's Roman's 13th birthday and all he wants is for this one day to be as uneventful as possible... a average, normal day... but can it ever? An encounter in the halls of his inner city Jr. High pits Roman against the school bully... Roman wrestles with his moral conscious on how to break the news of his suspension to his family, Rob, his father will surely sentence him to a life sans TV and reading assignments... but as fate would have it... Roman is thrust into another world, one he is poorly prepared for... his relationship with Rob... his life and everything that follows will determine the next chapter for Roman to untangle.
It's Roman's 13th birthday and all he wants is for this one day to be as uneventful as possible... a average, normal day... but can it ever? An encounter in the halls of his inner city Jr. High pits Roman against the school bully... Roman wrestles with his moral conscious on how to break the news of his suspension to his family, Rob, his father will surely sentence him to a life sans TV and reading assignments... but as fate would have it... Roman is thrust into another world, one he is poorly prepared for... his relationship with Rob... his life and everything that follows will determine the next chapter for Roman to untangle.
The steam from the boys’ locker room shower was beginning to fog up the mirror, Roman saw his face vanishing within the cloud, the fog slowly wiping out all trace, the breakout from a week ago, his disarming smile, blue eyes, freckle - sprinkled nose, all disappearing before him, he wiped the mirror clean then turned away slamming the locker shut.
On his way to the showers he passed the full-length mirrors, stared at his slight build, lanky… that’s the word that came to mind whenever he caught sight of himself.
A granddaddy longlegs with a towel wrapped around its neck. His best friend’s mom once said… when that boy grows into that face of his – he’s gonna be so handsome. Roman loved her for that, and ever since secretly wished that she were his own mother, not to say that Mora hadn’t told him countless times how handsome he was, but… with her past history of breakdowns, alcoholism and mental hospitals… well, it’s just different when it comes from somebody else’s Mom, isn’t it?
Roman took one last sideways glance into the mirror before entering the steamy showers, before entering the field of battle… and nowhere is it more amplified than a junior high locker room. The same scene plays out over and over, never tiring… grab ass and the dozens… “You’re Momma is sooo fat, when she walks it looks like two pigs fighting over a box of milk duds”… then your sister, your father and so on. Towels snap and crack through the steamy fog finding that exposed tender flesh and leaving its mark. Roman hated few things more than having to shower in a group setting. What was the thinking behind that, he had often wondered.
After gym class, it was mandatory and unavoidable, like a scene from some primal contest of manhood, shrouded figures, emerging from the fog to do battle against one another in an age old rite of passage… finding your pecking order.
The year was 1976 and at Washington Carver Jr. High, life was no different than many other inner-city schools, mostly black and you had better be able to handle your business, or find yourself stuffed in a locker with a fat lip and your nose bleeding.
Roman took a lot of heat just for being white, reverse discrimination Rob, his father would say… its an character building opportunity. Showers after gym class were a brutal event, ruthless as any junior high locker room, a lesson in humility, verbal sparring, showcasing ones physical strengths and endowments… which Roman desperately tried to make up for with his razor sharp wit and quick tongue.
“Leroy, your Sister gets so much action, she oughta have a turnstile in her bedroom!”
“What the fuck is a turnstile…?” Leroy responded. “Leroy… seriously man? It’s one of those things you gotta pay to ride the subway…” Roman started to explain but was then cut off. “That’s why Leroy don’t know… he never has any money to pay to get through, Leroy just jumps the bar!” Someone else chimed in.
“Ohhhhh! White bread done got you again… hee – hee!” That’s how it usually went… though out in the hallway it was a different story.
Roman gave as good as he got, that was his strength and his downfall; seldom did he back down from a challenge - even when he needed to, when he knew better. He never learned how to… with dignity or grace, without feeling beaten.
But not today… nothing was going to spoil this day… his thirteenth birthday. Roman had made few friends since his family moved over the summer, since they had moved into the commune… but he hadn’t spoken a word about it to anyone, a good day at school was an uneventful day as far as he was concerned, why screw everything up now … now that it’s finally going his way.
That “It’s gonna be a good day” streak held out until sixth period, right in the middle of changing classes. Roman was getting a drink of water from the fountain, when all of a sudden somebody rapped him on the back of my head causing his lip to start bleeding. Thinking it was one of his dipshit friends who had obviously overreached their liberties and got carried away…smacking him a bit too enthusiastically on the back.
As he turned around, uttering the words “You sonofabitch…” only to see standing behind him the very big, very black, Yolanda King, with her two smaller but equally proportioned sidekicks, their eyes locked on their boss.
“Say what you little, white motherfucker?”
Yolanda was the school bully and by the end of his first day he knew enough to stay out of her way, she was big and mean, a dangerous combination. As her two-hundred and fifty pound frame lumbered down the hallway being trailed by her pint sized look-a-likes, she terrorized the kids smaller than her, which included just about everybody.
She easily outweighed Roman, by well… another Roman. Yo-yo was as big as a grown man… and towered above him like a mountain, a… black… mountain… of death.
Yo-yo had a distinct aroma, one that only comes from several weeks of missed baths… it rolled off her in waves and burned the inside of Romans nostrils as he fought back the tears beginning to form in his eyes. He wasn’t sure if it was because he was afraid or her aroma was burning his eyes… Do not cry… do not fucking cry you goddamn baby or so help me…
It was turning into one of those surreal moments in life… where it’s impossible to wrap your head around the situation in real time. Exactly like in the movies, time just winds down to where everyone was moving in slo-mo.
Even though Roman was staring straight into her eyes, his eyes are seemingly picking up every single nuance and looks, from the every student passing by in the hall – they have stopped now, all eyes on the two in a Mexican standoff. The never-ending chatter has been stifled but for this brief moment captured so perfectly in time… frozen.
His senses went on high alert. Roman could feel his heart beating in his ears, his eyes taking in every movement, Yo-Yo’s every twitch telegraphed instantly to his little lizard brain. EVERYONE was watching, waiting to see what would happen between the new kid in town and their Ogre in residence.
Just another day in the life of Roman Caral Bayley… just another of those moments in his life where it all comes down to that one decision… that cross-roads moment… the kind that will live on forever in infamy. Roman thought he was racking up a lot of those moments lately and made up his mind that if he lives through today, he was going to make some changes in his life.
Roman had everyone’s rapt attention. All eyes fixated on his next move. There was but one thought in his mind… fight or flight time baby, What’s it gonna be boy? You gonna run away… run home to your Momma? Fuck it, he thought, whatever happens… he couldn’t back down – it would be paramount to Jr. High suicide.
So without another thought… Roman allowed the words to roll off his tongue that set into motion a chain of events that no one, not even God himself could have imagined. As he mouthed the words… “I’m not afraid of you (he was terrified)… You … you… big (way to go, Captain Obvious!)… smelly… black (why did he feel the need to throw that in? Bitch… the cherry on top, he thought as he brain caught up with his mouth… (he could hear the grenade pin pop, the firing pin drop, the ground shudder)… as that last word rolled off his tongue, a faint whooshing sound could be heard… the air was suddenly inhaled by everyone in the hallway.
At that precise moment Romans thoughts on the subject were quickly interrupted by one of her massive fist, as it suddenly blocked out the light… like an asteroid crashing into Earth… Yo-Yo’s fist crashed into his sweet, cherub looking upturned face, literally knocking him off his feet. It was Romans first physics lesson – that no two objects can occupy the same point in space and time.
He came to later in the nurse’s office, blinking and disorientated… with an aching head, his face puffy, bruised but still in better shape than his pride or ego. The nurse looked down at Roman, and said, “Mrs. White wants to see you in her office”, she looked at him, like a jury looks at the condemned. “Who…?” Roman asked.
“Mrs. White… the principal… Are you alright?” The nurse looked at Roman with a look of concern on her face. “Oh, right… yeah, sorry… we just moved here and…” his voice trailed off.
The Bayley family, had just moved into the commune, at the beginning of the school year, they had packed everything they owned into an old beat to hell, Mercury sedan and a broken down, smoke belching, 1958 Chevy truck, then hauled it across the Ohio River bridge from Henderson, Kentucky to Evansville, Ind.
They might as well been going to another planet. Somewhere between getting on that bridge and off the other side, Roman felt like everything had changed, that something important was about to happen in his life… that something had been lost, it was a strange feeling… it set him against this new place from the start.
This was his first time in this school’s principal’s office, once he’d regained consciousness, Roman soon learned that he was being suspended for three days for fighting, and that a letter would be mailed home, it didn’t seem to matter that he never even threw a punch – there was only two hits… Yo Yo hit roman, and roman hit the floor.
But evidently his antagonistic remark had somehow made its way back to the Principal and she wasn’t pleased with his choice of vocabulary, which obviously didn’t sit well with Mrs. White, being a rather big, boned black woman herself.
What a wonderful birthday it was turning out to be. Happy birthday you stupid little fucker.
He knew when he’d been beat, so without protest he took his punishment and tried to look at it as a sort of break. Once Rob found out it… it wouldn’t feel that way. Could one be grounded for life?
Dr. Robert Bayley, or Rob as Mora refers to him, taught at the university and one thing he never tolerated were racial slurs of any sort, or swearing, or fighting… not in his house. Which roman had always found odd since his father had been raised in the Deep South…?
If you ever find yourself on the Southern border of the Okeefenokee Swamp wildlife refuge – you’ll not only find more alligators and cottonmouth water moccasins than you could possibly imagine existed, but a fukload of redneck farmers and hippie college students, but go north about an hour’s drive somewhere up around Suwanee County… man… it’s moonshine stills, tobacco and watermelon farms, and poaching at night by torch light. North Florida was about as redneck, backwoods as one could get.
Roman recalled the last time he forgot this fact. One of the few times the entire Bayley Clan had gathered to eat breakfast… before the whole commune thing, no this was when they still lived in Kentucky. He’d been daydreaming as usual… staring out the kitchen nook window that overlooked the backyard when Roman noticed a black man, just walking down the alleyway directly behind their house.
“What’s that nigger doing back there?” he had said… out loud.
Rev Rob’s hand shot out like a cannon and slapped roman across his face knocking him clean out of his chair… right onto the kitchen floor.
Reverend Rob stood towering over Roman, his six foot four inch frame cast a giant shadow that covered him… pointed a long finger at Roman and let rip.
“Don’t you ever let me hear you use that word again… not in this house!”
With his hand covering the side of his face, eyes wide and tears beginning to swell up in them, roman just laid there on the floor staring up at his father. Both Erin Rose and Roman had spent several summers on the family farm, their cousins threw that word around as part of their everyday vocabulary, it never even raised a brow at the dinner table, Reverend Rob had been raised just like them but… he clearly had evolved and was like them no more. He had just been given a glaring reminder.
“I… I’mm sorry, but they say it all… all the…” Roman stammered.
“I don’t care what THEY say – that kind of trailer talk will not be tolerated in my house… I’ve raised you better than that Roman, maybe it’s time you separate yourself from the THEYS of this world.”
No, Reverend Rob was not going to be pleased when he finds out why roman was suspended, getting into a fight with a black girl at school was right up there with punching Dr. Martin Luther King in the face… or dragging Rosa Parks off the bus, as far as father was concerned. He didn’t tolerate bullies and abhorred violence.
Roman worked every synapse in his pea size brain to somehow find a way to twist this into something more to his favor, as he walked home from school. There was always the old gold standard… tell a big fat lie - always an option.
Roman: “It was one of those rare days when all the elements are aligned just right and the sky is that perfect shade of blue you only see in the movies. The weather inspired me more than anything else, just go home and tell Dad the truth.”
With that thought firmly placed in my head, I set off for home, taking all the shortcuts and back alleys. I could make it in better time than the bus. I picked up the pace remembering that the commune didn’t ban TV like Rev. Rob had done in their old house… here he was allowed to watch whatever he wanted… and ‘I dream of Jeanie’ comes on in an hour.
As I walked along the cracked sidewalk, many places buckled from the roots of the giant sycamore trees planted on both sides of their street. I felt hopeful, maybe it was just because today was my birthday, maybe I’d get lucky and catch a break.
As I approached the house, I noticed there was an unfamiliar car parked along the curb, which was odd because I had never noticed anyone park there before. We had a large driveway that went to the back of the house, the garage housed four cars, and the driveway was big enough for a half-court basketball game.
That’s where everybody parked… everybody meaning, Mora’s Mazda RX-7, Dr. Rob’s Mercury, and Jim and Susie had that rust-colored Saab, and George’s Porsche 911… and his endless parade of girlfriends drove everything from a VW beetle vans to bicycles. Yes, the house was shared financially by three parties… it was huge, six bedrooms. That’s right. Not relatives. Not kin, not even old family friends… just some people father had met at the University. When they had moved from Kentucky into the huge six bedroom house, Dad had called us kids for a group meeting and told us they would all be living together, sharing the expenses, sharing the chores, the cooking.
“Like a commune?” Erin Rose asked.
“Yeah, sort of, but it’s not like you’ve seen in the movies, a bunch of hippies getting stoned and running around half naked or anything like that.” Dad explained.
“Too bad… so what IS it like then?” I inquired.
“Think of it like an extended family, it’s no different than if all of us, your aunts and uncles and everybody all living under the same roof.”
“Except you hate it when they come over and mooch off us.”
“Exactly… this time they’ll be no mooching going on, got it? Said Rev. Rob, he then pointed his finger at Roman with his thumb in the air and made a clicking sound like he was firing a pistol.
“Got it Daddy-O”, and I pointed my finger right back at my father.
For me, it took a while for that concept to sink in, don’t get me wrong, I liked the house, I loved it. It was by far, the biggest and nicest one they had ever lived in… it was just… just, damn it… I had just gotten that dyslexia monkey off my back with the learning disability thing, now this? How was I supposed to explain why they have six cars in the driveway? Who were all these people? Were they some kind of a cult or something? No, I couldn’t chance it. Roman told anyone that inquired that they were family… aunts and uncles, cousins, whatever… nothing freaky going on here, we’re just your normal, average family.
As I rounded the corner, I saw Dad’s car parked in his usual spot in the driveway, again which was somewhat odd, Rev. Rob usually worked late during the week and seldom ever was home before four pm. I burst through the back door like always, with a big shout, “I’m home!” as I made my way to the fridge and swigged down something cold. OJ straight from the carton.
I stopped… cocked my head to listen for the usual, “get a glass! Or stop drinking from the carton!” But this time nothing… but silence.
“I’m home, I’m home!” I called out again, though not quite as loudly as I had coming through the door. Wondering where Dad was… I thought what the hell, let’s get this over with and I bounded up the stairs and knocked on my parent’s bedroom door. “Dad? Dad?” I slowly opened their door and peeked in and noticed the made bed and no signs that it had been occupied since earlier that morning. I tip toed out to the balcony veranda that connected the two master bedroom suites to see if Dad was possibly out there reading or having a cup of tea… nope. I quietly closed the door and went down the hall to check the bathrooms… nada, study… zip. What the hell? He’s probably not even here, I started to think maybe Dad had just dropped off his car and hopped a ride with one of the other house mates. His keys are probably on the dining room table with all of his other stuff and I had just over looked it.
I slid down the banister like I always did, and looked in the dining room… the table was completely empty… what was that? I heard it again… a muffled sound.
“What was that sound?” I asked himself, as I walked around the main floor checking the den… the living room… the sun porch… the laundry room… the pantry… the first floor apartment where Jim and Susie resided… I told you it was a big house. I had looked in all the rooms but couldn’t find anything unusual, couldn’t locate the source of that sound. There it was again! I turned and headed into the kitchen hallway and looked at the door that went down to the basement. That’s odd, I thought. It was closed… usually it’s always left open because everyone goes up and down so much to get cold drinks out of the second fridge they had, or watch a movie on the big screen TV that was down there, or do laundry on the second set of washing machines down there… it was a fully renovated basement complete with even a guest bedroom and full bath… but today… it was closed. Maybe someone just shut the door, right? Sure, I thought… but in order to shut the door, someone would have to move a potted plant, move the ten pound chunk of lead paperweight and un-hook the chain on the back… basically someone had to go through a lot of trouble in order to shut the door for no apparent reason. But why?
Why does it have to be the basement? I thought. Goddamn it, I’ve got this thing now with basements… they give me the heebie-jeebies. I moved slowly to open the door… placing my head close to the door, straining to hear. Then I stepped back and wondered if maybe it’s a surprise birthday party…. Maybe Dad and Mora were helping to set it up for later that evening… yeah right, I thought, sure he was… idiot. Again… the muffled sounds… what the hell? I strained to hear better, but could not imagine the source of the sounds, sure as hell, there’s something or someone… down there.
“Dad?” My voice creaked barely above a whisper, “Is that you?”
Nothing.
I knew there was someone in the house now, I could feel it. Now I was starting to get worried. What if somebody had broken in? Maybe one of Dad’s patients… one that he had decided to bring home, who knows. I remembered vividly back when Dad had brought Clint home, one of his patients from the mental health group home… I pushed those images from my mind… not now. Don’t need to think about that shit right now, do we? There’s plenty here to deal with, thank you.
I had to find out what that noise was from! I crept down the stairs and looked around the basement, nothing creepy here, except of course if you counted the avocado colored wall to wall shag carpeting, I thought. The basement had been completely remodeled in the not too distant past, wood paneling, pool table and wet bar. There was even an extra bedroom with a shower on the other side that was used as a guest room. The very same guest room where the noises seemed to be coming from. I was now in full on stealth mode… careful not to make a sound.
It sounded like… no, it couldn’t… I didn’t believe it. From my limited library of sexual experience… the one time with Barbie next door, but I would bet a million dollars it was the sound of people having…. sex.
Gross… Rob… and … who? Mora? Why weren’t they up in their bedroom? No way is Dad down here with somebody else – not in a million years. This is crazy… in the middle of the day? Maybe it’s one of his TA’s, that one with the blonde hair, oh she’s a fox! I would have to hand it to the old man if that’s the case.
Talk about a turn of events… I can hardly believe my good fortune, here I was worried sick about getting suspended and grounded for life, well… this changes everything. I had to get up closer to see who was in there. I crept up to the crack in the door that was only opened enough for me to get one eye in and look inside.
I had to squint my eyes to adjust to the low light… I couldn’t see a damn thing.
What in the world…? it took a second or two for me to figure out exactly what it was that I was seeing… what I was actually looking at… if that’s Dad there… then who?… what?
When the scene finally took shape in my mind I stopped breathing. My brain went numb. I just stared… unbelieving… I don’t understand… I don’t understand… Like a broken record skipping over and over.
As I made out my father’s face, Rob’s eyes squeezed shut tight… I could see the other person clearly now… over Rob, my father, my Dad… holding him down… their bodies moving like some creature trying to metamorphosis into… something… else… to evolve. Never in my wildest imagination could I have foreseen this moment. It was another man… and he was… he was… they were… fucking.
I faded back into the shadows trying hard not to lose it. Afraid that if I stopped holding my breath, I’d begin to hyperventilate or something, make too much noise and they’d hear me. I felt frozen in place, afraid if I’d move, I’d make a sound and Dad would hear me, somehow know it was me. So I just stood there, pressed up against the outer wall staring at a Budweiser poster of “Bud Man” holding a beer… “Budweiser makes your day better”…and listened to them... it made me think of the horses on Pop pops farm… animals rutting… their breathing was heavy and labored, I could hear the other man now, “Yes, yes… oh Rob, yes like that, it feels so good Rob, yes…” I thought I was going to throw up… or scream… or both.
My mind was blank. Images flickered across the screen in my head, like I had never dreamed of… I began slowly backing away from the door until i felt that I was far enough away to take my first breath… nice and slow now big fella, nice and easy, no sense in giving up the goose now.
Like a ghost I quietly slipped back up the stairs and out the back door, careful to make sure it closed without a sound. Then I ran.
I ran down the sidewalk towards the flower shop… I ran across the street and headed for the park. I ran until I couldn’t breathe. When I stopped to look around I found myself under a giant sycamore tree and collapsed to the ground, my chest burning from the exertion, my mind reeling from the sudden knowledge, it was too much, too big to wrap my head around. I laid there for what seemed like eternity replaying the day’s events in my mind… what if I hadn’t provoked Yo-yo? What if I’d gone to the bowling alley on the way home for a chili dog, like I had so many times? What if I’d just gone straight up to my room and put on some music …. Elton John’s Madman across the water blaring through my ear covered headphones… what if?
Shadow Life – The Roman Files.
The fickled finger of fate has fucked me again…