Windward Review Vol. 20 (2022): Beginnings and Endings

She had him when she was only
sixteen, worked two, sometimes three
jobs to support them. His daddy split
right after hearing he was about to be
a father. So, yeah, his mama knew the
ways of men, the thin line separating
them from the beasts.
It wasn’t until later—when he was
a man going on twenty years—that T.J.
saw the worst of mankind. War was a
terrible thing, especially for a black
man in the sixties. Denied basic human
rights in one country, he was sent off
to another a thousand miles away from
home to fight for those same rights he
was denied.
Poor folk killing poor folk, while
somebody made a profit out of it.
Whole history of the world was just
one big fish swallowing up a smaller
one. In the army, there was always a
bigger fish in the sea.
“Don’t you go off being no hero,”
Mama had said. “Heroes die. This
here’s a white man’s war so let him go
fight and die for it. You just keep your
head well hid and do your time and
come back to me, ya hear?”
T.J. told her he would, but if the
stories were true, those who came back
were shells of their former selves. The
streets of the east side of Detroit were
littered with poor souls, wandering the
streets late at night, making threats
out of ghosts, and losing themselves
one bottle at a time. Even if war didn’t
kill you out right, it still left its mark.
In the army, color didn’t matter.
Everybody bled equally. You were just
a number, a body to be grinded up in
the machine. Yes, sir. No, sir. Get in
line. Shut up. Don’t think. Just obey.
Follow orders.
T.J. survived the war, barely.
He was injured twice. Received two
purple hearts. One just a flesh wound,
but a real bleeder. The other, more
permanent. T.J. still had pieces of
shrapnel stuck in his back. They were
the only things he brought back with
him from the war besides his two
purple hearts. T.J. still felt them too,
especially when the weather was
cold and rainy.
Hell, he felt them now, his back
crying out to be itched or rubbed.
“Almost there.” T.J. shifted the
weight of the ladder, thinking for
every Cheryl in life, there were two
or three pieces of shrapnel.
What she was up to now?
Married? Kids? Hell, T.J. didn’t even
know if she was still alive. Sometimes
he pictured the life they would’ve
had together if they hadn’t gone
down separate paths. Thoughts of
Cheryl were sweet and dreamy. More
of a hopeful teenager’s longing than
that of a tired old man looking at the
back end of his life. Nobody ever saw
themselves in their fifties, sixties,
or seventies until they were actually
there.
Cheryl. Sweet Cheryl.
“If you ever,” T.J. crooned, his
voice a low tenor. “Change your mind
. . . about leaving, leaving me behind.”
They sure didn’t make songs like
they used to. Where was the talent?
Nowadays anybody could churn out
a beat on a machine, recycle an old
song, auto-tune the hell out of their
voice and call it music. Where was
the soul in that? Sam Cooke would
be rolling in his grave.
With a satisfied grunt, T.J. placed
the stepladder in the back of his
rust-bottomed Ford. He patted the
chalk dust from his gloves, stuffed
them in his back pocket, and wiped
the sweat from his forehead. The day
sure was a hot one, especially for late
October. That was the trend lately.
Longer summers, tamer winters.
He had trouble remembering the
last time he saw a white Christmas.
When he was kid, not having a white
Christmas was a rarity.
Beginnings X Endings
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