The Coldest Winter Ever (36 page)

Because we are both busy, I treasured the time we had after class once a week. I held onto things I wanted to discuss in politics concerning the progress of our people. I knew you would always introduce an interesting angle or unexplored response. Besides every now and then I get sick of staring into the blank faces of students who could care less about world events, politics, or even people they are not directly related to.

So you got inside of me, not physically, but in more intimate ways. You got inside my mind, my thoughts, my spirit. When a girlfriend of one of the sisters on campus said your name was Midnight, I told her she must be thinking and talking about the wrong guy. But she described you so well, knew the car you drive, and said she heard you were involved in “questionable activities.”

Sitting in my bedroom one night, I pulled out your business card. It listed the name of your company, B-K Car Service. But nowhere on the card did it say your name, Bilal Jones. The phone number on the card was the same as your home number. When I called information neither your name or the name of your car service was listed. I confess that I went to the address on your business card. There was no car service. It was a mailbox place. So here I am, reviewing everything in my mind, knowing in my subconscious that a man with such a sensual level of confidence about everything, a trait which has been erased from so many black men, had to have some kind of tragic irony to him.

I flipped through the scenes of our two and a half month emerging friendship. Despite my sweet addiction I have decided to end it. I’m writing to you because it’s easy for me this way. I cannot be deceived or seduced by the passion and strength of your voice. I cannot be persuaded by the power of your reasoning. I will not call you. I ask that you don’t call me either. As this class ends this week, you will not see me anymore. I see no reason to know you, to continue if you are involved in what I suspect. In fact, it makes you so typical and undesirable to me.

SS

May 1993

Sister Souljah,

All a man has is his business. Without it he has nothing. Women are confused. The same things you love are the same things you hate. Have you ever seen an aggressive, confident man with broke pockets and no business? If you did you would not remember him. If you remembered him you would not respect him. You could have just bounced and not said nothing, no goodbyes. You said something, so what we have between us must not really be over. If I don’t see you now, I’ll see you later. But I will see you.

Bilal

July 1993

Peace Souljah,

You are always on my mind. Even when I try to push you out, you’re on my radio or on somebody’s television. So you’re holding out on me. I’m surprised, I just knew I would hear from you. I even bet myself it would be a week to ten days after I dropped you a line, but nothing since. So the strong girl thing isn’t an illusion.

You were right about one thing. Everything being said by the women I date has already been said. Everything being done, I already did. As you put it one time when we was chillin’, “What’s the sense in fucking an empty-headed girl? It’s like fucking a hole in the wall.” I know I bugged you when you said it. I didn’t even consider it seriously. But now that it’s been brought
to my attention, I find myself tripping over the words we shared, the thoughts we exchanged and your pretty smile. I miss you. Give a man a break.

Missing You,
Bilal
              

September 1993

Peace,

I reread your letter. You said you like to watch people, that’s how you get your understanding of life. Well I live in these streets. That’s how I get my understanding of life. The hard way. The real way. A man’s way. I heard you talking about black unity the other night on the radio. Look Souljah, I dig you, but you’re fooling yourself. Niggas ain’t never going to be unified. You put all your time into organizing niggas yet you lock out the nigga who’s real with you, me.

What do you want from me? Can I live? Are you better than the niggas you supposed to be helping? You put yourself in a position to judge. Only God can do that. I want to see you. I know your Columbia classes start up again next week. I’m coming to check you.

Peace,   
Midnight

September 1993

Dear Bilal,

It’s funny how the same thing a man loves, is the same thing that he hates. What makes me stand out as a woman is that I have nonnegotiable principles, strength, and faith in my people. From the time that we shared you seemed to love that, admire it, even. Now you hate it because my ways have isolated you. The truth is, you’ve isolated yourself.

I move on a vibe, a combination of what I see, think, learn, and feel. If I was to move strictly on feeling I’d get myself into a whole lot of trouble. I already did that when I was eighteen, nineteen, and twenty. Now I’m twenty-four. I’ve learned a lot ’cause that’s what we’re all supposed to do. Only a complete asshole would keep repeating the same old mistakes and
blaming it on something else. Hell, we have all had it hard. It may not seem like it, but I grew up in the projects. I lived in poverty. I didn’t have no father in my house. I’m not asking for sympathy. Every black face has a story, many times a gruesome story. But we have to get over it no matter how bad it might be. We have to re-create our families and build our communities again. It may seem hopeless. Many times I get depressed but I move on because I have to. God requires this from me.

I do know something. Where there are drugs, there can be no love. There can be no family. Drugs rob every person, man, woman, and child of their beauty. Drugs turn people into animals who can only respond to instincts. Drugs are so powerful they eradicate the God in both the taker and the giver.

I have worked with prisoners incarcerated in New York, New Jersey, and North Carolina. Hundreds, thousands, and millions of drug-related convictions. The contradiction, maybe I’ll find out after death, is that behind those walls seem to be the majority of black men, and increasingly women. The tall, the dark, the beautiful. But how do we get men and women before they are hunted like foxes and trapped like rats and treated like ants to understand the concept of unity, working, building, living together? It seems the Black National Anthem is If it’s broke, don’t fix it.

What do I want from you? The best that you have to offer instead of the least and the easy. Do I think I’m better than you? No. I know in many ways you’re brilliant. That was my first real attraction, the power of your mind. But you lack the understanding of life that every man should have. I can assume this because you have not denied being involved with drugs. Therefore … In life we make choices, conscious decisions to move left or right. We reap the rewards and/or disasters of the choices we make. I do feel you. I feel you all the time. However, I won’t see you. Don’t bother to check me.

SS

September 1993

Yeah,

You want it raw dog, here it is. I tried to hold back because of my respect for you. You won’t see me so at this point I have nothing to lose. Men and women will never think the same. They live different lives, separate realities. Women want love, peace, unity, and shit like that. Men are tribal.

I ain’t tryna save the world. I’m just tryna get my piece for my crew, that’s all.

That’s all it’s about and that’s the most you can ask for. What you know about that?

You want to know who I am and what I’m about and how I’m living? You want the truth? My name is Bilal Odé. My mother and father and I were born in the Sudan. They raised me to understand love, honor, respect, loyalty, and family. Then my father was killed by tribalism in a war for what men want, power, control, land. Just so you be clear, my father was killed by black men, African men. Me and my pregnant mother came to this country when I was 7. From the minute I arrived I had to fight. Niggas disrespecting my name, disrespecting my accent, disrespecting my clothes. While holding my ground I got rid of my accent, my clothes, and even my name. I found out quick what brought respect and I schemed to get it. In the hood I been fucked up by black cops and white cops. Why? For no reason. Except the cops is a tribe and they fighting for a piece of the action as well. I got into my body, working out, judo, tai kwon do, all of that. I learned everything I needed to know about burners, all kinds.

One afternoon I’m walking down the staircase to get my little sister from the baby-sitter’s house. I was late. The elevator was broke as usual. Now this big nigga around my way named Lance, a dude three times my size who had banged me up more than a couple of times, had my eight-year-old sister pinned against the wall with her panties down and his dick in his hands. I’m wondering what this motherfucker is doing ’cause she ain’t got titties, curves, nothing yet. When I called out his name he turned around and charged at me. He had the same face on that he did the last time he almost broke my jaw. So I shot him, right between the eyes.

At fourteen years old, I was convicted of manslaughter and incarcerated. I didn’t read about it. I didn’t go to jail to give a speech. I was a prisoner.

The whole time that this was going on, my mother was praying, crying, being emotional, and going back and forth to work, ten hours a day. You know what she wanted? The same thing you wanted, peace, unity, happiness. But that’s not what was happening on the streets.

Inside I was stomping with the big dogs, imprisoned with grown men due to “prison overcrowding.” What was going down? Tribalism, war over anything, the toilet, the phone, cigarettes, space to breathe. Niggas vs. niggas. Niggas vs. Ricans. Decepticons vs. Bloods. Niggas vs. Aryans, The Latin Kings, whatever. Everybody had a crew. My moms came more than once a week, kept my commissary stacked. Anything I asked for she brought it, sneakers, gear, whatever. All she did was work and save. Point-blank she would have done anything for me.

It was 7 P.M. when they came for me. Six big grown ass men (some of those dark, beautiful motherfuckers you wrote about). I fought like a warrior, but they still left my ass ripped open, twenty stitches to repair. For six months, in addition to the pain of shitting, I’m wondering does this mean I’m a homosexual? My cellmate said “Don’t worry about it, it’s just an initiation, that’s what they crew do. You fought back, you held it down. Now they’ll look at you like a man.” Easy for him to say, he was getting out in one more year. I did five and a half years.

On my second year locked down, my mother disappeared. No more letters, no more visits, no more commissary. I called home but never got an answer. Soon the number was disconnected. After hassling one of the c.o.’s who knew I was a good kid who got caught out there and killed a nigga the neighbors and even the cops wanted dead, he revealed the truth to me. My mother was arrested. In a state of panic I cried like a bitch and laughed like a madman ’cause I knew my mother, a devout Moslem, the type who kept her head wrapped, walked with a prayer cloth and even stopped to pray at work, would never have violated any law. Upon further investigation I found out her conviction was for transporting drugs. No matter what kind of rumors I heard about the incident I refused to believe them.

Four years later when I was released, the lady next door to our old apartment told me my mother was out of prison and in the hospital. I went straight to her.

“Son,” she told me, “I’m sorry. An inmate from your prison told me if I didn’t bring him some drugs to the prison on my next visit to see you they were gonna hurt you again. They said when you come home I would no longer have a son, I’d have a daughter. I didn’t know what else to do. They told me if I told anyone I’d be attending your funeral. I just needed to see your face before I die. Don’t cry for me son. Allah has a place for me. I cannot live here, these are not my people.” My mother died trying to tell me about my sister. As she lost her life, the words just wouldn’t come out. It took me four weeks to find my sister. She had been adopted by a white family. The agency told me I could not see her. I could not think about getting her back until she’s eighteen. Then only if she wants to come to me.

My mother left a will. In her six years of work in the U.S., combined with the inheritance left by my father, she had managed to save a good piece of money. Even from prison she was able to keep up her life insurance payments somehow. I couldn’t collect any money according to her will until my sister turned eighteen. It was placed in a trust under my sister Efe’s name.

After my release I searched for work for six months. The one line they
gave me on every job application to explain—“Have you ever been convicted of a felony? If so, please explain”—didn’t work out. How do you explain murder? It just runs people and employers away.

The man who took me in when I was jobless and homeless has been like a father to me. For that he has my eternal loyalty. In my youth I was taught that if someone saves your life, you owe them your life.

With steady work, good money in my pocket, a roof over my head, and all the things a man needs to be more than invisible in this world, I stand firm on my two feet. You cannot teach me to be a man. You may know a lot, but you know nothing about that.

I’m drawn to you Souljah. I hope you know how to take this. You remind me of my mother. There is something so pure about you, so beautiful. I respect your mind, your body, the whole package. If I could possess you I know my mother would smile down on me. But could you think about me and you instead of the whole world? Could you think about me?

Bilal Odé

October 1993

Midnight,

I’m sorry about your momma. During the months that we spent together I noticed how sometimes you would be so alive and talkative. Then suddenly you’d fall into a strange silence. I figured there was a very personal story behind that silence. In time I told myself you might confide in me.