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  She couldn’t speak. Her mind spun like a top set loose, whirling and whirling around and around. He can’t leave me, she thought as an ache hit her hard. Please don’t leave me, she thought, please don’t be leaving. And just like that the top stopped spinning and so did she. She sat down real calm, as if his words had left her somewhere far away. She just sat real still, holding it all in, holding on as the tears warmed her eyes at the sound of his words. How could he do this to me. I thought he loved me, she thought as he walked over to her and kneeled before her as if he were about to propose, only he wasn’t and she knew it by the look on his face.

  “I—I… I know it’s hard to hear ’cause this is hard for me to say,” he said with tears in his eyes and a pained look on his face, as if his world was more torn than hers. “And I know it’ll be even harder to do, but you see, sugar, it’s something I gotta do,” he tried to explain, almost in a whisper, his voice cracking from the pain he felt trying to explain why it was time he leave the woman he loved with all his heart.

  “Why?” she asked as a single teardrop fell from her eye. She was asking why not only of him for leaving, but of herself for loving and of God for allowing her to love. However, it seemed that he was the only one with an answer. He stood back up, his full six-foot-three frame dwarfing her as she sat on the edge of the small, twin-framed bed looking down into her hands clasped tightly in her lap. He sat back down next to her and began.

  “I never told you why I went and joined the Army. I never told nobody, not even my own mama, but I guess this is as good a time as any.” He chuckled lightly and continued. “I remember the way you looked at me the first time we met, me in my uniform and all. You looked at me like I was crazy. What’s a black man doing in the Army is what your eyes said to me, and I liked it. Sound funny me sayin’ that, huh?” he asked her as she nodded, not saying a word, just listening. “But, it’s true, don’t no black man belong in no white man’s Army, fightin’ and dyin’ for no white man’s war. But, baby, I ain’t join to fight no war for them. I went over there to fight my own war, to fight the war I knew I could never win over here. The war goin’ on every day on every black man in America. The war they say don’t exist. But, I know it exist, ’cause I been fightin’ it my whole life and losin’ a little bit every day, losin’ my respect, losin’ my love, damn near losin’ my goddamn mind.”

  He stood up as silence filled the air and he walked over to the solitary chair in the room and picked up his pack of Kools out his jacket pocket. He pulled one out and lit it.

  “A man can lose his mind fightin’ an enemy he can’t see, gettin’ it from every which way and not knowin’ where it’s comin’ from, why or when it’s gonna come knock you on your ass again. Every black man you done seen or know done felt that. Only difference, from me and them, is that they confused, they fight the wrong people. They get to thinkin’ it’s comin’ from them, so he start fightin’ his woman, start fightin’ his kids, start fightin’ his brother, even start fightin’ with himself. They confused, they mad, they hate, they despise, and then they blood turn to poison and a man can’t live like that. So, before I lost everything I got lucky, I figured out who the enemy was and how they was winnin’, you just couldn’t see them.” He emphasized his words with his hands as if he were gripping an invisible person. He slowly walked to the window, blowing smoke against the pane with Delores’s eyes glued to his back.

  “My first time in the bush wasn’t nothing. A little spelling recon operation, me and about five others, two was white boys. Them Vietnamese muhfuckers was sure nuff slick. They had tunnels that went everywhere and would come outta the ground like snakes. The first shots I fired in action struck one of those white boys square in the back, then everybody ran for cover. From where I was, I could see the other white boy; he could see me, too. See, baby, they fightin’ some war for they president, but I’m fightin’ my own. So, when I lifted my M-16 he ain’t pay no attention, no attention till it was too late. The look on his face, when the nose of that M-16 swung around and stopped on him…” Just then he broke out into a mad liberating laughter, which scared and warmed Delores all at the same time. It was that same laughter she heard come from her own mouth the night she bit into that Snickers bar, then set Mr. Reilly’s store on fire. She watched him as he turned around to face her, pretending to hold a gun in his hand.

  “He didn’t know what was going on, till them slugs ripped through his face like paper… just like paper,” he said, his words traveling off into a distance as he pictured himself that day in full living color.

  “That was my first,” he said proudly as he took a long draw on his cigarette, then let the smoke out slowly. “I lost count after fifty-somethin’. Sometimes, I’d mow ’em down in bunches, sometimes one by one, and sometimes I’d get me one while he was sleepin’, cut that muhfucker’s throat without ever makin’ a sound. But you know, I never killed one of them Vietnamese people, except in self-defense. Shit, I see one of them muhfuckers and keep right on about my business, unless they got in the way. But naw, them crackers, they catchin’ it out there from me, every chance I get,” he said, flicking his cigarette out the window. He walked back over to the bed and sat down next to her, taking her hands into his.

  “I… I don’t expect you to understand it, baby. I just… I gotta be where insanity is acceptable, where my anger is legal, you know? Where a black man can fight back… fight back for every black man lynched, every black woman raped, every black child cold and hungry. I can kill these muhfuckers and come home to you, free. I know it sounds crazy…” his voice trailed off to a mumble as Delores just stared at his bowed head.

  He probably didn’t think she understood, but she did. She understood the need to destroy old ghosts in order to fully face the future. She knew deep inside that he wasn’t telling her he was leaving, he was asking her to let him go. Delores knew he would stay if she refused. He’d stay and gradually she would come to despise him for allowing anyone to get in the way of his freedom, including her. It was a feeling she had come to value above all else. She also knew that he would come to despise her, if she didn’t let him go.

  Delores traveled off in the near future to one day… their wedding day. She imagined herself in a white flowing gown and her soldier standing so tall and handsome in his uniform. She knew that day would never come. The house they would live in for the rest of their lives would never be built, and the life they would share they would never have, and she resigned herself to the reality of the situation. It was over.

  Tears streamed from both of them, silently. She kneeled with him on the floor, took his tear-soaked chin into her hand, and lifted it to look into his eyes. Their last words were hers, “I love you.”

  They parted at the entrance to Pennsylvania Station in New York City. She watched him disappear from her life in the sea of people moving to and fro through the terminal. She waited until she could no longer see him, then returned to the cab awaiting her.

  She never heard from him again. He never wrote, he never came back. She never had the chance to tell him she was pregnant. She never had the chance to tell him he had a son. A son that she named after him, Bernard James, Jr.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ROBERTO’S PIZZERIA

  This court stands in recess for lunch until one o’clock,” the judge said, banging his gavel loudly as he stood.

  The courtroom hummed with the cacophony of multiple conversations being carried on as people filed out. Michael Glass asked Dutch if he needed to see him before he went to lunch.

  “Enjoy,” is all Dutch replied. He flashed Glass a reassuring smile. As Glass walked out he noticed that there were a lot of old women in the courthouse. Unusual for this kind of trial, he thought to himself. He shrugged them off as probably the mothers of Dutch’s many victims hoping and praying for justice. Not if I can help it, old ladies, thought Glass with a devilish grin on his face. He walked out, with Dutch walking slowly behind him, taking in the many faces in the crowd until he st
opped on one in particular who was still seated in the back of the courtroom. He looked again, placing the familiar face he hadn’t seen in years. It was Mrs. Piazza. He smiled sincerely as he approached her.

  “Mrs. P, is that you?” Dutch asked, knowing that it was.

  “Of course it is. Whazza matter, you tryin’ to say I’m getting old?” Mrs. Piazza asked as she stood up and hugged Dutch tightly.

  “You don’t look a day older than the day I last saw you,” he lied, looking at all the makeup she wore trying to cover the many wrinkles life had dealt over the years. She playfully hit him.

  “And you still can’t lie, I see,” she said to him.

  They shared a light chuckle.

  “It’s been a while. How are you doing?” she asked with lines of concern on her brow.

  “When have you known me to worry, huh?” Dutch responded, and she could tell he wasn’t worried at all. But she was. “I didn’t expect you to be here,” he said, happy she was.

  “I didn’t expect you to be here, either,” she joked. “How’s your mother?”

  “Like you, worrying too much,” Dutch answered.

  “Things ain’t the same, Dutch, not since—” Her voice broke off and Dutch quickly cut in to comfort her.

  “Nothing’s changed, Mrs. P, trust me, really. Okay?”

  Just then, one of Dutch’s boys walked up.

  “Give me a minute.” Dutch spoke in a tone letting the guy know he needed privacy as he turned his back to him and focused on Mrs. Piazza.

  “You sure you okay? Can I take you somewhere?”

  “No. No, thank you, I’m driving. I just wanted to see, to see if you needed anything,” Mrs. Piazza told him.

  “You know what I need. One of your old-fashioned Italian feasts, huh? After this is all over, I want some chicken française, fettuccini alfredo, the stewed vegetables with the potatoes, and some of your homemade lasagna. Oh, and of course, a pizza.”

  They both laughed, but they both knew there’d be no gourmet Italian feast after this, no matter what happened in the courtroom.

  “Sure, I’d like that,” said Mrs. Piazza, trying to sound convincing.

  “It’s a date then. Listen, I gotta go, though.”

  “I know, I know, go ahead. Take care of yourself, Bernard,” she said, cutting him off and wishing him a last farewell.

  He nodded, and with that, he was off.

  As Mrs. Piazza opened the door to her blue Volvo wagon and got in, she stopped short of inserting the key into the ignition. She sat back in the leather interior and peered up at the courthouse that towered above her. She had been here many times over the years, but this was the first time she had felt so dwarfed by the building. It was the first time the courthouse had looked so ominous, despite the afternoon sunlight. When her husband, Roberto, was alive, he himself had been in and out of this building, but always with a smile and a swagger in his step. He never saw a day in jail. But Roberto had died three years ago.

  That was the last time she had seen Dutch, at the funeral, and she thought how Dutch over the years had played such a major part in her life. She knew if he were Italian, he wouldn’t be on trial for his life, and for the thousandth time, she wished that he was. She always wished that for Dutch because she disliked blacks, not passionately, but passively.

  In her eyes, they never amounted to anything, except Dutch. Dutch was different. He had saved her husband’s life and her own. Her mind traveled back fifteen years to the day when Roberto had his pizza parlors.

  The parlors did well, but the better business took place in the back where Roberto handled Fat Tony’s gambling money. Roberto had five parlors in different parts of Newark, all in impoverished areas, so Mrs. Piazza was exposed to the seedy, seething side of the ghetto. Her interactions with blacks were usually with the street element and the drug addicts who sold them everything from kitchen appliances to jewelry, all stolen and very cheap.

  Not to mention the young black girls who spat out baby after baby, running scams on the welfare department, getting food stamps, then bringing them to her in exchange for cash; seven dollars for every ten dollars in food stamps. Then there were the little kids who never seemed to go to school and who had no pride in their appearance. They hung around the pizza parlor trying to jig her video machines with paper clips for free games. These were the types of blacks by whom she shaped her opinion of all blacks, and she treated them all the same. This was her idea of equality.

  Dutch was one of the young boys who always came to her pizza parlor and hung around. He was a lot like all the rest, except he usually had some money and seemed to have good hygiene habits. She also noticed her husband taking an interest in the little black boy. Roberto would let him sweep the floor and help unload the delivery trucks every Thursday, stuffing the boy with pizza and worldly chat. She, unlike her husband, didn’t warm to Dutch’s presence, but merely grew accustomed to him being underfoot… until that night.

  It was a night like any other at closing time. Dutch was sweeping the floor, while Mrs. Piazza was cleaning the counters and utensils. Roberto was balancing the cash register when all of a sudden, a tall black man in a ski mask burst through the front door brandishing a .38 caliber revolver and yelling, “You know what it is! Gimme what I want ’fore you get what you don’t!”

  Mrs. Piazza froze with a feeling of fear mixed with anger. How dare one of these niggers try to take something from her? How dare he step into her husband’s shop and demand anything? But her anger took a backseat to her fear as the gunman pointed the .38 at her, then waved it in the direction of her husband.

  “You! Get over there by yo’ husband and start takin’ off them rings and them chains, NOW!” Mrs. Piazza moved over closer to her husband, quickly removing her many jewels. Dutch stared at the gunman openly. The gunman turned to him. “Who the fuck is you? The monkey or somethin’? Get yo’ ass in front of me where I can see you, nigga!”

  Dutch stepped over to the counter on the gunman’s left, still clutching the broom. The gunman ran up to the cash register and shoved the gun in Roberto’s face.

  “Okay, you fuckin’ wop, put all that money in a bag, real quick, ya dig, and it’ll all go down smooth.”

  Roberto began to fill the bag, never taking his eyes off the gunman. He was trying to find a distinctive mark or tattoo with which to identify the man later, on his own time, but the gloves and mask completely covered up his skin.

  “Hurry up!”

  Dutch looked at the murder in Roberto’s eyes and he knew he had to do something. He looked at the gunman, who continued to keep a close watch on him in case he tried to run. But Dutch was no sprinter. He had already decided what to do by the time Roberto handed the bag to the robber and he began backing toward the door. Just as the gunman was about to make his exit, Dutch spoke up.

  “That’s not all the money.”

  Roberto and his wife looked at Dutch with wide-eyed surprise. The gunman stopped dead in his tracks.

  “Whut?” he asked, confused, as he glanced down at the bag of money he held. “Whut you say?”

  “I said, that ain’t all the money. The old wop got a safe in the back,” Dutch stated calmly, watching the greed build in the gunman’s eyes.

  Roberto shot Dutch a look of death. “You little black bastard! I’ll kill you! I may not know him, but I swear to God I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you!”

  Mrs. Piazza looked at her husband, concerned for his blood pressure and bad heart, then coldly stared at Dutch. How could Dutch do that after all her husband had done for him? She couldn’t figure it out. She questioned, but it made no sense to her.

  “Roberto, why you let the black kid sweep up at the end of the night? He’s a moulyan and you got him hanging around like he belongs,” she had questioned her husband.

  “I like the kid, Miriam. Is that okay with you? He’s just a kid, he’s harmless,” Roberto had responded.

  He isn’t that fuckin’ harmless. He got a nigger in our restaurant about
to rob us blind, thought Mrs. Piazza to herself.

  The gunman looked at Roberto, then at Dutch, then took a quick glance over his shoulder at the street. He lifted the gun in Roberto’s direction, then waved it toward the back.

  “You heard the little nigga”, he said, smiling like a Cheshire cat. “Let’s go in the back, all of us.”

  Roberto looked at Dutch angrily and Dutch returned his gaze nonchalantly. They all headed to the back with the gunman bringing up the rear. When they reached the storage room, the gunman shoved Mrs. Piazza into the corner and put the gun to Roberto’s head. “Where’s the safe, lil’ man?” he asked Dutch, never taking his eyes off Roberto.

  “Bottom drawer of the file cabinet. Snatch the door off and it’s right there,” Dutch told him.

  “Get to it, cracker,” the gunman spat as Roberto shot Dutch one last murderous stare, before bending down to open the bottom drawer. When it was removed, it revealed a large safe.

  “Bingo!” the gunman hollered happily.

  Roberto opened the safe and inside were stacks and stacks of money.

  “Cl-clean it out!” the gunman stammered. He’d never seen so much money in his life. He’d only hoped for enough to get high for the night, but the safe appeared to have enough to get high for the rest of his life!

  “Thanks, lil’ man. You leave wit’ me after this!”

  He took his attention off Dutch, which was his first and last mistake. Mrs. Piazza saw the gun come out of Dutch’s waist before her husband. The gunman never saw it. She started to scream and the little sound that did escape her lips caught the gunman’s attention, but before he could turn around…

  His brains sprayed all over the cabinet and the walls and on Roberto’s dirty white apron. He slumped over dead before he hit the floor. Roberto looked up completely astonished to see the automatic .32 in Dutch’s hand and a smile on his young black face.