males with their mother, who was full of herself and feisty in a wheelchair. All stared
hatefully at the cop car. Not real sure what to make of the situation, West ordered Brazil
to stay put, as both their doors opened and both climbed out.
“We got a call of …” West started to say to Mama.
“Just passing through,” her oldest son, Rudof, volunteered.
Mama gave Rudof a killing look, holding his eyes.
“You don’t got to answer to no one!” she snapped at him.
“You hear me? Not to no one!”
Rudof looked down, his pants about to fall off, and red boxer shorts showing. He was
tired of being dissed by his mama and hassled by the police. What had he done?
Nothing. Just walking home from the E-Z mart because she needed cigarettes, all of
them going with her, taking a nice walk and cutting through the church parking lot. What
was so wrong with that?
“We didn’t do nothing,” Rudof folded his arms and said to the cops.
Brazil knew a fight was coming, just like he could smell a storm before the front moved
in. His body tensed as he scanned the small, violent crowd standing restlessly in the
dark. Mama wheeled closer to West. Mama had something on her mind she’d been
wanting to deliver for a long time, and now was as good an opportunity as any. All her
children would hear, and these two police didn’t look like they would hurt anybody
unnecessarily.
“We just got here,” Mama said to West.
“We were just coming home, walking like anybody else. I’m tired of you people
prosecuting us.”
“Nobody is …” West tried again.
“Oh yes. Oh yes, uh huh, you are.” Mama got louder and angrier.
“This is a free country! We was white, you think anybody would’ve called the police?”
“You have a good point,” West reasonably replied.
Mama was amazed. Her children were baffled. For a white lady cop to admit such a thing was unheard of and miraculous.
“So you’re agreeing that you were called because we’re black,” Mama wanted to make
sure.
“That would be my guess, and it absolutely isn’t fair. But I didn’t know you were black
when the call came over the radio,” West went on in the same calm but sure tone.
“We didn’t respond because we thought you were black, white, Asian, or anything. We
responded because it’s our job, and we wanted to make sure everything was all right.”
Mama tried to be hateful as she wheeled on her way, her brood in her wake. But she was
wavering. She felt like she might cry and didn’t know why. The police got back in their
shiny new car and drove away.
“Rudof, pull up your pants, son,” Mama complained.
“You gonna trip and break your neck. Same with you, Joshua. I swear.” She wheeled
ahead in the night, in the direction of their poor apartment.
Brazil and West were quiet as they got back on Wilkinson Boulevard. He was thinking
about what she’d said to that family. West had said we several times, when most people
would have said /, as if Brazil wasn’t there. It felt really good when she included him,
and he was touched
by her gentleness with that wounded, hateful family. Brazil wanted to say something to West, to let her know, to somehow show his appreciation. But he was oddly tongue-tied
again, just as he had been with Hammer.
West headed back into the city, thinking, and wondering why her ride-along was so quiet.
Maybe he was angry with her for avoiding calls, or trying to avoid them, at any rate. She
felt bad. How would she like it were the roles reversed? It wasn’t very kind, and he had
every right to resent her for it. West was totally ashamed of herself.
She turned up the scanner, and picked up the mike.
‘700,” she said.
‘700,” the dispatcher came back.
“I’m ten-eight.”
Brazil couldn’t believe it. West had just told the radio that she was in service, meaning
she wanted to take calls like everyone else on the street. The two of them would actually
be assigned situations. They were available for trouble. This wasn’t long in coming.