[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
about it afterward. Swore I wouldn
'
t do it again and figured my wife would never find out. But I gave the girl my
e-mail
address and we chatted online a lot, and my wife found the e-mails. Some of
them
referenced that night. Yeah, I know
--I'm a dumb ass.
210
Anyway, we split up and my son blamed me. He had a hard time with it. A few
years
later, he got into drugs and dropped out of school. I lost all contact with
him.
When they declared martial law, I called my ex-wife. I hadn
't talked to her in about six months, but it was the end of the world, you
know?
I was worried about him--
about them both. My ex-wife answered. She was worried sick. Turned out she
hadn
't seen or heard from Mick in months. All she knew was that he was dating this
girl
named Frankie. She was a prostitute and a heroin addict, and she'
d gotten Mick addicted, too. One of my ex-wife
Page 69
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
's coworkers had apparently seen him and his girlfriend. They were sleeping on
the
streets down in Fells Point."
"So you went looking for him?"
"Yeah, I did." Mitch sighed. "It was a stupid thing to do, but love makes us
dumb
sometimes. There was no way he could have been alive. I knew that, deep down
inside.
But I had to do it anyway, because I
'm his father and that's part of it. When you become a parent, you have all
these
dreams. Maybe your kid will be a quarterback for the Ravens someday, or maybe
he'
ll win the Nobel Peace Prize. My dream was a little simpler than that. I just
wanted
grandkids. Don
't guess I'll ever have one now. But you have these dreams and you'
ll do anything to help your child achieve them, and sometimes, you do this
even if
your dreams aren
't your kid's desires. You help your kids out. That's what you're supposed to
do.
But I wasn't there to
211
help Mick, so I had to make up for it, even if he was dead. I had to see it
through."
"You could have been killed."
"And I almost was--many, many times. Started out okay. Blew away most of my
neighbors--they'd
all been infected. But then, once I'
d taken care of them, I was home free. My car had a full tank of gas and I had
plenty
of ammo. Fucking Rambo, right? At first, I stuck to York Road, but believe it
or
not, it was more congested than Interstate Eighty-three, so I switched to the
highway.
I made it as far as Television Hill before the fucking car overheated. Then I
grabbed
my guns out of the trunk and went on foot. Understand me, Lamar. I had to see
it
through to the end, but I expected to die every second of every minute. Those
things
were everywhere. The deeper I went into the city, the worse it got. I
'd been in the city for two days before I ran across you and the kids."
"Jesus ..." I was stunned. "Two whole days? How did you make it?"
"Determination. I went there looking for my son and I intended to find him."
"Did you?"
"No." He paused, taking a deep breath. "No, I never did. But I found you guys
instead
and that's enough for me. I tried. In my heart, I know that and I'
ve made peace with it. I tried to find Mick. I made the effort, and Mick would
have
appreciated that. It would have been important to him. Nothing else matters.
And
that
's why Tasha and Malik look up to
212
you so much--because they see you trying. So the professor is right, Lamar.
You're
their hero."
Page 70
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"But I'm not a hero," I snapped. "I'm a fraud, man. A fucking poseur. I'm
everything
people assume that I am when they first see the color of my skin or find out
where
I'm from."
"What are you talking about? Is this because you couldn't shoot the preacher?"
"I'm not talking about the preacher. I'm talking about before all of this
shit. I
did a bad thing, Mitch. A real bad thing."
"What? Were you a drug dealer or something?"
"See?" I pointed a finger at him. "That's exactly what I'm talking about. I'
m black and from the ghetto, and when I tell you that I did something bad, you
fucking
automatically assume it must have been drug related. I must have committed
some type
of crime."
"Hey," Mitch said, "that's got nothing to do with it. You said you did
something
bad. Of course I'm gonna assume it's a crime."
"Because I'm black."
"Oh, bullshit."
"No, it's not bullshit, Mitch. You just can't see it from where you're
sitting."
He sighed. "Then prove me wrong. Go ahead and tell me what it was."
"That's the thing. I have no right to get pissed off at you, because in the
end,
I contributed to that bullshit. I became what I hated. See, I lived in the
city and
shit, but I always felt like an outsider. Not
213
just because I'm gay, but because I didn't do drugs, or sell them, or do any
of the
other crazy shit that so many people were into. The thug life isn'
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]