Let Freedom Ring: Trayvon Martin

“Green? Gross!” He tosses the skittle back inside the package, digs out another color. 
“Reeed! More like it!” he says, throwing the sweet treat to his tonsils, forgetting to chew the flavor. 
His fingers fumble inside the bag, scoping out the next letter of the rainbow. 
ROY-G-BIV. 
“Grape! Yes!” He shovels it in, forgetting about the “Green again! Ugh!
“Aw damn! Didn’t realize there were only three left! Shoulda saved the grape for last.” 
He scrunches the wrapper and shoves it in the right pocket of his hoodie. He pulls up his hood as a light breeze strokes his cheek gently. 
Florida winds always feel like summer time. Even in February.



Beady eyes squint out in the twilight behind a gun glinting underneath the single shine of the street lamp. 

“Hold still,” the voice of the beady eyes projects. 

Hands up as he had learnt from television and movies, or from the innate consciousness of the tone of his skin, he pivots in the ground and turns to face the gun wielder. 

“Excuse me. Sir?
“Is there something wrong?”

Hands hang in the air. Hang there. Open. Outstretched in an open prayer. Hanging. Hang there. Hung up on nooses. Or hung up by handcuffs. Hanging there. Dangling upwards, defensively. Heart open to vulnerability. Heart open. Open. Prayer. 

“Please, sir. What’s the problem? Sir, please, I’ve done nothing wrong. I’m heading home.”

Trembling hands clank the chamber. 
“Just...just hold still! Citizen’s arrest.”

“What?”

“You are now being asked to remain silent...”

“But, how? Wha...”

“NOW!! Silent!!”

Hands lower. Hands back down. 

“I said, ‘Hold still’
“You have the right to remain...”

“What right?”

Hands hang down. Back down. Down to earth. Lowered. Grounded. Standing ground. 

“What rights? When I’ve done nothing wrong!”

“Stop resisting arrest!”

“With what authority do you have to arrest?”

“Abiding citizen...”

“But I’ve done nothing! I was heading home.” Hands pointing. Home base. Safe at home base. Home of the free. 
“I was just getting skittles. See...”

Hands uncrumble the wrapper from inside the hoodie pocket. 

“See?”

Hands hold the red wrapper so beady eyes can see. Hands hold. 

“Nothing wrong, right?”

“You have the right to remain...”

“No.” Now feet on the move. Move forward. 

“You are resisting arrest?”

“Yes.”

“Are you resisting arrest?”

“Yes!”

Hands hang the skittle remains as a flag of surrender. The flag flaps with the hit of the wind. 


Feel the rainbow, he thinks, feet pivoting back on their heels. Retreating. Heart open. Unlocked. Gun cocked. 


White. White gunpowder. White smoke billowing the crisp night air. Residue dusts the droops of each bag underneath those beady eyes. White highlights. Highlights the beady man. Zimmerman. 

Black. Beautiful. A beautiful black boy. Dropping to the ground. Dropping to the ground. Backed down, but shot down. A beautiful black boy who wanted nothing but not to end on green. A beautiful black boy named Trayvon Martin. Let freedom ring! 


#BlackLivesMatter





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

You Have to Draw the Line Somewhere

Image
Since when do people not know how to wait on line?             Imagine if you will: it is 7:30 in the morning, you are tired and cranky, and certainly not a morning person. You arrive at the bus stop where people appear to have forgotten the fundamentals, not to mention the common courtesy, of waiting patiently in an orderly place on line. No! Let’s do away with lines , I think they think as they cluster-fuck together in a clump (or a crowd as some people call it) so that there is no rhyme or reason­­— and just so I can piss the fuck out of all the other passenger-people . Maybe if you would wait on line you could be lucky enough to stand next to me and hear me bitch about how people do not know what a line is anymore. Here is a line:  Here is a line of people:  Here is a bus line:  Here is a clump (or a crowd—a clumpy crowd):  I am just short of snapping and holding a sit-...
Read more

Brain Boggle

Image
This is kind of like everything I have ever said (similar to my post about putting things in inappropriate places, or just where they do not belong— Tear Down That Bitch of a Bearing Wall ).  This kind of situation that I will talk about in a few sentences from now happens with words and sentences and idioms and things.  Perhaps this is how we have come to know some of our most ridiculous and popular phrases like white on rice or call a spade a spade or putting my foot in my mouth .  See, but if one is to do their research I am more than positive that there are reasons and explanations for those exact sayings.  But there may not be a reason at all for what I am about to explain.              You know those instances, where you just do not say what you want to and your brain takes over and that little guy inside manically laughing rewires the word choices of your brain so that there you are saying some barbari...
Read more

The Big Book Theory

Image
It all started with someone’s status on Facebook being, “Nook or Kindle?” and me writing back, “Book.” The status writer cleverly or stupidly spat, “I think you spelt Nook wrong.  And anyway I am just looking to read, no fancy stuff.” So I remarked, “Like I said, Book!” Later I told my dad the story inserting, “I need to turn pages!” as my reasoning for a book being the victor of a very pointless competition.    “And if he wants to read to just read, why get a nook at all?” I continued.  “He can’t say he read a book then, he just looked at a screen.  That's worse than scanning a book.”  I told my dad, “It’s like when you were reading audio books; you didn’t read them, you had them read to you .  You listened to a book, but you certainly did not read one.” My dad said, “Screw you,” probably, and asked, “Then what would you say about a blind person reading a book?” “Oh, that’s easy," I ...
Read more

Dear David Hasselhoff

Image
Dear David Hasselhoff, I do not like you. You know how everyone has that one celebrity they cannot stand, who grids their gears, who irks them to the core—I am sure you have one too. Well, that one is you for me. I have no real reason to dislike you. I have never met you. Although a friend of mine worked for a major retail store, and as the story goes, this friend’s manager was serving you and your daughter and you tried to bargain down a thousand dollar coat and made a whole scene when you were denied. I have not even really familiarized myself with your work to make this judgment against you, but I have encountered just enough. This is not to say that I do not find you funny, I do. I found that video you made of Knight Rider funny, and some other appearances of yours, sure. But to be honest, I just cannot shake the distaste. And just like how I image it will be when I meet my future mate, I can pinpoint the exact moment this aversion arose.  Vocal 8: senior year of high ...
Read more

Beyond the Road

Image
*For Halloween, but mainly for Dan, without whom this story would never exist, because it happened to him (with a few of my artistic embellishments). Like I said, worked real hard on this. Hope I did the vision justice.                 A driver drives southbound-east in a car, shoving crusty chips in the corners of his cheeks. The bag of grease lounges on the passenger’s seat and the driver dips his hand in periodically, licking vinegar crystals off his fingers from the sea-salt snack. His other hand padlocks around the steering wheel, drives onward. His glasses fall to the point of his nose; eyes fixated on the pulsing potato chips and not the road ahead—those circular discs of caloric pleasure. The fatty deposits at his sides expand his smallish figure. The groan in his belly growls deeper. The radio dial flickers neon blue and reverberates off the lens of his frames onto the road before him. He watches as...
Read more