Gives the Strongest Soldiers

This is not a story.  This is what happened.  Friday came and left.  It was the first day of autumn, my birthday, and it was lovely.  I worked, talked shit with my co-workers, had lunch with Lauren, and rested all night. Saturday came and went, I rested and rejuvenated with Lauren some more, didn’t even leave the 7th ward. Sunday came, and shit…got…real.

It’s about 1 am, Lauren walks into our bedroom. “Al,” she whispers, “my door was open when I got home and Opal was sitting in the doorway meowing at me.”  The situation startles me into the waking world. I don’t move but I promptly return from dreamland and bring comprehension to the statement.”  Half asleep, my brain poops out the words, “someone was in your house. Break in! Probably stealing shit, assholes. Was anything gone?” I ask before beginning to nod back to sleep.

“Not that I could see, but, you know, I was hurrying here.” Lauren replies. I realize that my previous statement was insensitive as I was dragged back into dreamland.  Hours later I wake up for real.  Really excited too. Go fishing! I haven’t felt excited like this for anything in a while.  Bouts of depression might be strong enough to impair my ability to do the things that bring me pleasure, it’s a wonderful feeling when feeling excited to do something returns to one’s diversity of experiences. It is a different kind of pain that comes from continuing to make yourself do things when there’s no dopamine being produced to reward and reinforce those actions.  I’ve been doing good about maintaining some actions like showering, brushing my teeth, and eating food.  I have been failing at others like going to work 5 days a week, talking to family and friends, and doing anything that I usually, on a good day, characterize as fun, like fishing.  Depression makes everything a chore. 

For some reason, this Sunday morning, I don’t feel like crying under the covers until the end of the apocalypse.  I want to go fishing.  “Lauren,” I shake the beautiful being next to me awake, “Lauren, I know it’s like…5 am, but would you come fishing with me?”  It being a few days after my birthday, and her being the sweetest person in the world, she graciously obliges. We get bait, call T, and head to our spot on the lake.  More fish are jumping out of the lake than I have ever seen.  And I’ve been fishing at this lake more than anywhere else.  Something is happening in the stars.

We have SO MUCH FUN fishing for hours, catching all types of cute fish and throwing them back. We catch so many more fish than T, he gets mad, but really happy, as we enjoy each other’s stories, company, and love. Eventually we realize that it’s 2pm, the sun is hot, and we haven’t eaten anything besides whiskey all day.  I order PeeWees, everything that I want, fuck it, it’s my birthday and I am sooooooo hungry. Lamb chops! I don’t even eat meat but…let’s go!  Our food is getting ready while we are talking.  Not realizing that my comments and lack of taking directions while driving were causing her pain, Lauren and I had a heart to heart about the issue while waiting for our food. The brain chatter is louder than any of the surrounding sounds.  She gets a fraudulent alert on her debit card.  We drive home in relative silence to see what’s happening with her credit card.  

Lauren unlocks the door to her apartment. “What’s wrong,” I ask in response to the look of horror on her face. “Someone rob your house?!” I ask in a giggle.  I turn off the car and jump into the house.  Immediately, I notice that my $1200 fujifilm camera is gone, all of the gifted liquor on the table next to it is gone, and I ask Lauren what of her’s is missing. It wasn’t funny anymore, someone definitely broke in and robbed the house.  “My Telfar bag was right next to this door when I came in late last night, it has my new MacBook Pro in it and an Yves, St. Laurant bag in it.” Lauren tells me. “4 grand,” I am thinking, “we just lost 4 grand.” I open up the lamb chops but can’t even look at them, let alone eat. I’m so hungry.  But I’m even angrier. “I guess we could call the cops.” I suggest, making myself even angrier.  Fuck the police. They always want to arrest me, even when I’m the one who calls them. 

“How did they even break in?” The question strikes me.  I try to break in.  I spill the $100 birthday meal I got us.  Now I’m beyond mad.  Rage fills me from toe to crown.  Stuck in the chest with an adrenolyn shot of justice, anger, and so much hunger, I come to the front of the house ready for whatever.

“No,” Lauren says as she rejects the acceptance of loss of property today. “Can we go to these places?” Lauren pulls up the last locations of the fraudulent charges from her online banking app on her phone.  “They won’t give us the footage,” I say, thinking back to my limited knowledge of crime tv. Anything for my love, we speed off to the last two places the thieves used Lauren’s card and they each text her video surveillance of the person who came in using the card.  Each time, it was a young 15/16 year old boy, such a boy in these videos that he is wearing a spiderman t-shirt. Crime tv is stupid.

We drive to a third location at a corner store near Lauren’s house where her app reported fraudulent charges. We show the picture of the kid to the people behind the counter.  Before their words say anything, their faces do.  They know him. “That’s April’s son isn’t it?” One clerk asks the other before answering his own question, “ yea, that’s April’s son. She’s here all the time outside, she’s probably here now.” We follow the clerk outside, looking hard for this April character.

“Let’s wait here,” I say, “I’ll get us waters,” Lauren replies. “Wait,” Lauren continues, “That’s that little nigga over there!!!” She points at a teenager in a spiderman t-shirt biking down St. Bernard towards Claiborne.  It’s him.  I’m going to fucking kill him.  I take off. “Baby, your keys!!! Do you want to take the car!?”  I’m halfway to him and keep running.  I cross half of Claiborne. I don’t want him to cross the rest of it and go under the bridge. “Hey! Hey!” I yell, he turns his head to me skeptically, I smile and yell, “you dropped something! Is this money yours!?” He smiles back, turns his bike around, and starts slowly pedaling to me.  I keep running full speed towards him and knock him off his bike.  I can tell that Lauren is giving him hell too.  She’s furious, yelling, and ripping at him. The boy gets away from me.  He squares up on my love.  Bad decision young man. I throw my arm over his neck and pull him into a choke hold. “You’re going to take me to the shit, or I’m going to hold you here until the cops come.” Ms. Johnson comes out to give the ultimatum, “I’ll take you ok,” he says. Before I can let up on his neck, he pushes me and starts running.  I grab his remaining flip flop and throw it to the side.  I’m running so close on his heels that I grab the remaining strips of his spiderman t-shirt and snatch it off his body.  He runs.  I run.  He’s a block ahead of me.  I see him getting tired.  He starts walking.  I start walking. Stalking.

He’s looking for me but can’t see me.  I catch my breath then start chasing.  He sees me and starts running. Perfect. “HEEEEEEELP!!!” I wail, “HEEEEEEEELP, someone please, he stole my shit, please someone.” Within seconds a young black couple pulls up.  “I know you aint on a run wearing boots and pants like that, what’s wrong?” The lady in the car asks. I tell her a version of what happened. “I saw that boy stop about two blocks up on Esplanade” the kind woman adds.  An older black lady came up, “I have security footage, I saw the entire thing! Stop chasing that boy, he could kill you, it’s not worth it my baby.” she says. The rage starts to break with the kindness of strangers.  

A black car pulls up. “What’s going on?” an officer asks, stepping out of the unmarked vehicle. I time travel to many places and back in a fraction of a second.  Rage has quickly coupled with fear. I hear the cop’s radio, “we’ve got a suspect in custody with white socks, grey shorts, and no shirt.” “THAT’S HIM!” I can’t contain my excitement.  The cop looks at my left hand.  It’s covered in so much blood that it’s dripping to the concrete.  “They’re going to arrest me for assaulting this child thief.” I realized, “FUCK!” My brain shuts down. Overdrive. Too. Much. Cop. Trauma. We’ll be back soon folks, with your regularly scheduled programming. 

“Get in the back!” The cop yells, “NO!” I yell back, ready to bloody up the right. “I’m not trying to arrest you, I just need you to come and identify the suspect,” the cop lies.  I see an iphone charger in his front. “OK” I say. I jump into the front seat, unplug his phone, and plug mine into the charger.  Fishing since 5 am is a battery killer. I unlock the cop’s phone and call Lauren, “come to esplanade and miro, they’ve got him…and me…in the cop cars, you’ll see us.” I call Mom, “something bad is happening and I don’t have Quita’s number. Please call her and ask her to call this number.  Quita and I connect within seconds, “long story short friend, I’m scared that I’m about to go to jail, please come to Esplanade and Miro.” 

“I’m on my way!” Lauren and Quita both respond immediately. Everyone is now here.  My heart is pounding, my eyes are leaking, my brain is too fried and overwhelmed to think.  A cop gives me some water.  I drink the entire bottle in a second. My brain starts back up.  My body is shivering like a naked person in the mountains. Everything looks blurry.  I’m starting to get so confused that I’m forgetting where I am.  I’m somewhere that’s real, but not the same real place I was a second ago, or the second before that. I need to leave. “I need to leave,” I tell Quita while Lauren talks to the cops. “I understand friend, no problem, let’s get you out of here.” Within seconds I am being driven to our car while Quita and Co stay to support Lauren with the cops.

I grab the car and drive back to watch the situation from a safe distance.  Feeling better and better.  In fact, each moment without being detained feels exponentially better than the last.  I’ll go to jail, but at least they didn’t arrest me at the scene, another day free.  They’ll drag me out of my house later today or my car later tomorrow, but they don’t have me right now.  And that makes me feel so much better.  Still not great.  But better enough to stop shaking. 

“Your girl is lowkey trying to save a young black man today. The cops are over there begging her to press charges and she’s just trying to get them to ask the kid where the things are,” Quita proudly updates me on Lauren’s progress and safety.  Lauren walks to the car. I beg her to stay and leave with me to find somewhere safe, far away from the cops.  She declines.  I beg her not to get in the car with the police.  They’re the biggest gang in the Freaky 50 and they will destroy you for fun if you let them.  If you get in that car, be ready to fight for your life or spend the rest of it in jail. Lauren drives off in the car with the cops. Quita jumps out of my car, anticipating my chase. I call Lauren, “It’s going to be ok baby,” she says so calmly. I yell fearful rageful things through the phone about how the cops are lying pigs who can, and gladly would, take advantage of you in every way possible.  I am going to have to ram the cop car in a way that doesn’t injure Lauren or myself. I pull up at Lauren’s old house where the thief supposedly threw all of the stolen things into the bushes across the street.

I can’t think so I stand still. The cop car pulls up with Lauren.  Good thing I beat them here and already parked.  No ramming today.  I have no idea how long I’m frozen in space. I hear, “is this your bag?” A cop is asking Lauren while pointing to a black purse shoved in some bushes.  I know that bag, it’s definitely Lauren’s bag.  Motivated to move, I stomp through all of the landscaping until the cop, Lauren, and I find her MacBook Pro, my camera, and each of her stolen designer bags. We thank the cop for helping. “Why didn’t  you call us in the first place?” The cops asks. “Because we would still be waiting for you to come and take the report, even after you wouldn’t have done as fast and thorough of an investigation as we did, and surely all of our things would have been sold by now,” I say with the little amount of fight left in me.  In shock at the day’s events, we walk back inside. The things we must do just to go to bed with the same shit that we woke up with are prodigious. We did that shit. And that’s not a story. That’s just what happened on Sunday.