Darius and the Vanilla Funk
Phil Wohl
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2005 Phil Wohl
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CHAPTERS
Lost and Found
Candy Man
My Name Is…
Partners in Crime
Mr. Cohen Can Play
Breakfast in Desk
Elements of the Universe
Thug's Life
Court's In Session
Jersey Blues
Shot In the Dark
Limping Through Life
Second Chance
Blame It on the Funk
Lost and Found
My father was gunned down when I was five years old. Seeing him lying in a coffin was so spooky that the image has haunted me my whole life. I never had the chance to say goodbye to him and barely even had the opportunity to say hello.
Being an undercover cop had its advantages for my dad, Dennis Mitchell. He grew up in Oakland, California, in the late 1960’s as a member of the Black Panthers. The Panthers were the black community’s answer to oppression and injustice. In the early 1970’s he moved from the city by the bay to the city that was the epicenter of New York, Harlem. The purpose of this exodus was to bolster the Panthers presence in New York’s premier African American community.
A few years after he arrived at 135th Street, dad met my mother, Angela, at a Panther rally. A year later they had Malcolm, their first child, who was named after Malcolm X. Shortly after Malcolm arrived in the world, Dennis Mitchell married Angela Baines. With the glory days now fading in the glow of Harlem, my family picked up and moved to a new community on Long Island called Branchville. With the promise of a new career in law enforcement waiting for my dad and a new house to live in, the family had come a long way from the tension-filled, big city streets.
My parents had three more kids in seven years, ending in the early 1980’s, as Rosa, Martin, and finally Julia were brought into the world. Rosa was named for Rosa Parks; Martin got his name from Martin Luther Ling; and Julia was named out of love for Diahann Carroll’s TV character bearing the same name. With four kids and barely enough room for everyone in the house, my mom’s baby making days seemed to be over.
A decade went by and the family was flourishing. My dad worked his way up the ranks and out of the shadows and dangers of undercover work into a coveted position of Captain. After his last undercover operation in the early 1990’s, he and my mom spent a few days getting reacquainted. Nine months later, I was born with the name Darius Theo Mitchell. The name Darius was an original concoction, but Theo was taken directly from the son on The Cosby Show, who I grew to appreciate by watching Nick at Night reruns.
Being an “Oops!” baby didn’t exactly give me the explosive head start I needed in life. The one advantage I did have was that my dad was around a lot more than he was when my brothers and sisters were growing up. Working nine to five instead of being away from the family weeks at a stretch, left my dad with a lot of free time. Luckily, I was the immediate beneficiary of that extra time.
My dad must have felt some guilt about not having spent so much quality time with my brothers and sisters. He would take me to the park when I was real small, and then we went to a few basketball games together once I was out of diapers. By the time I realized who my father was and what he meant to me, he was gone. I heard people talking about an “old score” that a few local drug dealers wanted to settle with him. Seems that dad had infiltrated their operation and the dealers served about ten years of hard time for their indiscretions.
I still remember the night he left us like it was yesterday. We had just walked back from watching Branchville High School beat its archrival Pritchett High School in a basketball game. Branchville High was located about a block from our house—so was the local elementary school I was going to attend the following year. As we were walking into the house my dad told me to go inside, and he went to set up the lawn sprinkler in front of the house.
Just as my mom asked me about the game, we heard the roar of a supercharged engine barreling down the street. My dad must have heard it too, because he was reaching for the gun in his ankle holster before the car had approached our house. His nine-millimeter was no match for the machine guns these guys were packing. Instead of running into the house and jeopardizing his family, Dennis Mitchell became a hero on his front lawn. The sprinkler he just turned on washed away much of the blood trickling out of his new holes but failed to wash away the memories of my main man, my dad.
The pain of my father’s death extended way beyond my little head; my mother received a huge sum of money from the New York State and Nassau County. She proceeded to live the good life and leave me behind. The subsequent virtual passing of my mother exacerbated the grief of losing my father. She had no time or energy left for me and I was on my own.
The years rolled by between kindergarten and the end of fourth grade. Being a kid that was always surrounded by women of color at home, it was a surprisingly easy transition to be bossed around by a bunch of uptight white ladies at school. The sound of a woman’s voice seemed to connect to some sort of obedience mechanism in my brain. Conversely, the sound of a man’s voice never made it past the outer reaches of my ears. It would sound interesting to say that male speech went in one ear and out the other, but the noise was deflected even before it had a chance to be processed.
I was like a wild Mustang running with no sense of control or purpose. Once my sister Julia graduated from Branchville High School, she was out of the house about as often as my mom. Being a fourth grader with a key and an empty house gave me license to do just about anything I damned pleased. My life had come a long way from park strolls and basketball games with my dad.
Looking back on my life in those days is often painful and a constant reminder of the person I might have become—the person I might have become if not for Mr. C. Lucas Cohen picked up where my dad left off. He cared about me even after I no longer cared about myself. What I had lost, he had found. What I had forgotten, he had remembered. What I couldn’t see, he clearly saw. Without Mr. C I would no longer be living on this earth. I would have been just another punk who had his death wish fulfilled. Dying time will come, but I have plenty of living to do before that fateful day.
Candy Man
The summers are really hot and humid in New York. The humidity clings to your body like a sopping-wet t-shirt. The heat also has a way of turning boredom into trouble for the small, deviant minds of ten year-old boys. My crew and I were growing and we were bad, in every sense of the word.
I used to hang out with two guys—one guy’s name was Edgar Ellison, or Easy E as we called him; the other dude was simply known as Beast—this brother was as wild as he was strong. I was never really sure of his full name because we didn’t go to the same school. In fact, I don’t even know if he went to school. Someone once told me his name was Harold, but I didn’t dare call Beast by his formal name in fear that I would get beat down. My nickname was D Mitch, but Beast just called me D.
Easy E, Beast, and I made quite the trio of trouble. I was the brains, Easy E had arms like an octopus, and Beast was the muscle in case we got in trouble. Beast always had some level of protection for us when we walked around; he carried anything from a screwdriver to a piece of broken glass but we always knew we were safe when he was around.
One liquid August afternoon we took our usual stroll up to the Korean market about half-a-mile from my house. We had a few close calls with the owner of the store, but enjoyed the challenge that the market presented us. This guy had seen every trick in the book; he even saw through my distractive tactics of asking questions while my friends use their five-finger discounts to get us some snacks.
We were out of tricks and out of money but we were going to try to rob the vault with little more than speed, strength, and my devious mind. It was about 100 degrees outside and it had to be at least 110 inside of the airless store. I was tempted to crawl inside of the small soda refrigerator just to get some relief from the heat. The three of us worked the store pretty good, stuffing drinks and chips in our pants and shirts. We were about to leave when this huge white guy walked in, blocking any sun that was filtering through the poster-laden front glass door.
I thought Larry Bird’s entrance would be the diversionary tactic that we needed to escape, so I motioned over to E and Beast that it was time to go. We quickly shuttled toward the door but were blocked by the owner, Mr. Morioto, who somehow had beaten us to the door. I swear I never saw the man move but he was so quick that any escape attempt on our part seemed pointless. Morioto yelled, “You punks rob me for last time! I call police!” E said, “Easy, Mr. Miyagi,” making a reference to the wise Asian man in The Karate Kid.
Just as Beast was about to pull something dangerous from his pocket, the big white dude spoke. “Excuse me, sir. I just wanted to pay for all of our stuff.” He looked at me and said, “Bring all of your stuff up here so we can get back to school.” My friends and I looked at each other in shock as we slowly moved up to the front counter. Mr. Morioto said to the man, “What are you doing with hoodlums?” The white guy responded, “They’re in my class as part of a summer program. I’m sorry I should have told you when they walked in.” He then nodded at me like he wanted to know my name. I whispered, “Darius.” He then said, “Darius, make sure you and the guys get a few candy bars, too. We don’t want you guys running out of energy this afternoon. We have a lot of work to do.”
We grabbed three or four candy bars each until the white man gave us a look and put up two fingers. He then asked Mr. Morioto for a lottery ticket and then gave it back to him once it was printed, “That ticket is for you. Thank you for your help. C’mon guys, let’s go.”
We left the store and walked toward the man’s blue PT Cruiser; he got in the car, rolled down his window, looked at us seriously and said, “Next time don’t be so obvious.” We exchanged slaps and the man stuck out his left fist and I banged my right fist on his in affirmation. As he drove away I thought, “Who was that tall white dude and why was he in my town?”
That was the first time I met Mr. C; he was on a break from new teacher training and he came over to the store to get a drink. Little did I know what awaited me a few weeks later when school started? Destiny had a way of setting me up for things before I even knew what was happening. Easy E, Beast, and I talked about getting away with stealing stuff from Mr. Morioto all day. The extra bonus was those last few bars the Candy Man threw into our bounty, making our getaway even sweeter. Little did I know that nothing in life is handed to you for free, because there is always some price to pay down the road. But, for one shining moment, I was enjoying being a kid who could do no wrong… or was that do no right?
My Name Is…
The summer seemed to drag on as slowly as a Social Studies lesson. With the month of August moving off into the blazing sunset, it was time to get my groove on and head back around the corner to school. Fifth grade would be my last year at Acorn Road Elementary School, and would signal the end of my not so innocent youth.
I had spent so much time at the school during the summer when the air was calm and the spaces were wide open. Workmen had built an overhang to protect the kids in the portable classrooms from being rained and snowed on as they traveled to the main building; me, E and Beast often sat in the shady steps right in front of my new class. I was in the front of the line that first day for Mr. Cohen’s class. Not that I knew who Mr. Cohen was, or what torture he had foolishly signed up for. As the line for my class grew longer, I could sense that this would be a memorable year. It was like someone picked all of the bad kids and put them together in one class. I smiled as the other fifth grade classes looked at us both in horror and relieved amazement.
I was talking to my friend Vernon, when the line suddenly grew quiet and everybody looked up. I was laughing as I turned directly into the bottom of a large rib cage. I looked up and saw a slightly familiar white man staring down at me with a big smile. He beamed and said for the class to hear, “Darius my man, this is your lucky day!”
Embarrassment and I were the worst of friends. I didn’t like it when somebody made me look like a fool in front of my friends. While it was cool what the big white dude did at Mr. Morioto’s store, this was school and it was my turf. The teacher led us into the classroom and we looked up at the board for our seating assignments.
He waited for everyone to nestle into their wooden desks before introducing himself, “My name is Mr. Cohen, but you can call me Mr. C.” He then wrote his name on the board and kept talking, “This is the first year for me as a teacher and, by the looks of this class, I’m hoping it won’t be my last. I expect you to come prepared to work every day, because I will be presenting the material a little different than what you have become accustomed to at Acorn Elementary. We have 24 students in this class that I expect to be freethinking individuals. While we will do many tasks together, I want your creativity to be the dominant force. Be respectful but don’t ever act like a robot. Now that you know what I’m about, let’s go around the room and hear your stories.”
One person after another babbled on and told their names and life stories. Every other teacher I’ve ever had would have cut each person off after only about a minute; Mr. C. gave each student between five and ten minutes to exhaust his or her tension.
Twenty-three people and a few hours later, it was finally my turn to speak. Before I had a chance to open my mouth Mr. C. interjected, “There won’t be any ‘My name is’ with this last speaker. Class, this is Mr. Darius Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell, this is the class.” I felt both embarrassed and special at the same time. While just about everyone in the class knew me, I felt a great deal of pressure to live up to the expectations of my words. I think Mr. C. sensed my anxiety and he helped me through my ten minutes of fame.
In my five previous years at Acorn Elementary I was never made to feel anything more than average. Occasionally I would get a B on a test or a project, but no teacher ever gave me a second chance. Mr. Cohen saw right through my ordinary student smoke screen and helped me clear the fog that surrounded my head.
From the way I am talking, it sounds like it was all smooth sailing from the moment I walked into that class—it took quite some time for the two of us to achieve a harmonious balance— proving once again that nothing good comes easy.
The one mistake Mr. Cohen made was that he was trying to be so supportive that we took advantage of his generosity. To be honest, that’s what kids do if you don’t set some kind of limits for them. Mr. C. often talked to me about the guidance he got from fellow teachers and administrators. Among the gems of advice included, “Don’t smile until Christmas” and “Give them so much homework in the beginning that their heads will explode.” I couldn’t imagine Mr. C. not smiling at some point in the day. I’m not really sure how he stopped himself from exploding, but he managed to make it through that year without completely melting down.
There wasn’t a day that went by during that first month of school that I didn’t test Mr. Cohen. The funny thing was that he was testing me right back. I had finally met my match on the stubborn scale; Mr. C. was determined to break down my walls and unlock the riches in my protected mind, but I had other ideas.
I waited a few weeks before I told Mr. C. about the death of my father. He told the class that he was a big kid and that he loved being with us, but the real reason he became a teacher was because his wife had passed away a few years prior to becoming a teacher. I identified with his loss and instantly latched on to his unwavering spirit. I could sense that he was hurting inside but he wouldn’t let us into that world. He told us “You have to be able to separate the professional from the personal in your life.” There was nothing that wasn’t personal about Mr. Cohen’s professional life. He treated all of us like we were part of his extended family. We all could have used a good ass-wupping every once in a while, though.
That first month was rough; the classroom became sort of a battlefield because Mr. C. was giving us room to be ourselves. We had never been in a classroom where our thoughts were listened to; life before that was all about learning random facts and winning useless certificates for good behavior. We must have changed the configuration of our desks at least once a week in the beginning. With relationships shifting almost every time we stepped in the room, it was difficult to find a group of four or five people you got along with at any given time.
All of the fifth graders had to take a big state Social Studies test In November. That didn’t give us much time to get to know each other and also put in the hard work needed to do well on the exam. Mr. C. would say almost every day, “I’m not changing what we are doing for a test. I have a responsibility to prepare you guys for the future, not just the present. While the other three fifth grade classes studied Social Studies facts for at least three or four hours a day, we did our usual one hour per day.
At first, I questioned Mr. C.’s methods; I think the whole class was wondering what he was doing. We weren’t used to a balanced attack; whenever we had a major test in a subject, the preparation was usually exhaustive. I remember giving Mr. Cohen a real hard time during those first few months. I made sure the majority of his lessons were as broken as my heart. I clung to Mr. C. at every opportunity but made him suffer when I thought he wasn’t paying enough attention to me.
Mr. Cohen said to us often “When you sit down to take this test, I want you attack it. I have found when you walk into a test and you’re afraid, you have no chance to succeed. Failure always comes to people that look for it; we are all winners in this class. There is no reason to fear a simple test—I will give you the tools to succeed and all you have to do is listen and execute the plan. I was a poor test taker most in my life because I wasn’t focused. You will be focused because nobody outside of this classroom thinks you can do this.” It was a classic us against the world speech that hit home for a group of cast-offs that were used to finishing second best.
Partners in Crime
It seemed the closer Mr. C. and I became, the more I tried to push him away. It usually didn’t take this much effort to separate myself from the average adult. However, as disappointed as Mr. Cohen was at my attempts, he kept coming back stronger and stronger every day. That was, until I joined forces with my new buddy Javon Trumane.
Javon wasn’t your average fifth grade student. In fact, his diminutive size put him closer to the average height of a second or third grader. But, what J Bug lacked in height he made up for in guts. He was the toughest kid in our school but that didn’t stop other stronger, bigger kids from beating him up every day.
It was natural for Javon and me to be friends. He had a special talent of getting under people’s skin and I could look into anyone’s eyes and influence their judgment. I remember this one time when I was called down to the Vice Principal’s office. Mrs. Daniels was a large, Nubian princess who was the main authority figure in our school; Principal Lewis was the white figurehead, while Mrs. D did all of the dirty work and kept all of his hoodlums in line.
Mr. Cohen was in Mrs. Daniels’ office talking to her about his unruly mob. Mrs. D. asked him, “Who is this boy named Darius Mitchell in your class? You’re not going to believe this, but I had four girls in my office the other day because they were fighting. I asked them why they were fighting and they said, ‘Darius Mitchell.’ I have to see this for myself.” Mrs. Daniels picked up the phone and called the gym and had me sent down to her office.
I walked into the small office and looked at Mr. C, who put his head down and smiled. While my pearly-white smile and riveting hazel eyes might have cast a spell on every female within a 30-mile radius, it did little to make my teacher’s legs weak. Mrs. Daniels took one look at me and told me to go back to the gym. She waited a few seconds, changed her work voice to a more casual tone and said, “That boy’s has gorgeous eyes.” I think I even saw Mrs. D. fighting with a few of those girls the next day on the playground.
Rumor had it that my man Javon had a chemical imbalance. We always knew he was a bit volatile, but none of us thought that it would go as far as him needing medication to level off his brain waves. Javon lived with his grandmother, who was in a wheel chair, and his little brother. Dispensing medication wasn’t the first thing that crossed Mrs. Horton’s mind every morning. It took her at least ten minutes to get out of bed and climb into her chair. By the time she emerged from her room in the morning, Javon had already eaten a donut and was well on his way to school.
Medicine that was previously distributed twice daily by the school’s nurse was now given first thing in the morning in a time-released formula. Forgetting to take the medicine each morning slowed the release of the feel good formula to non-existent.
We all knew each morning whether Javon had remembered to take the medication before he left his house. I could tell by the look in his eyes whether I could leverage his instability for my own pleasure and gain. Javon and I were literally partners in crime, leaving destruction and devastation in our path. Mr. C decided to separate us from the rest of the class, but all he did was give me the chance to create even more havoc.
With J Bug directly in front of me, my thoughts were focused on directing him toward the most unusual of stunts. There was this one morning when we finished a lesson and Mr. Cohen had us work in groups. The activity was a little slow, so I told Javon to do a flip on to the carpet in the middle of the class. Before I knew it my words were quickly turned into action; Javon had jumped onto a chair and quickly bent his knees and then headed airborne into the thin air of the classroom.
The thud of Javon landing flat on his back resonated through the class like an earthquake. He had every intention of doing a flip but only made about three-quarters of the way around. Mr. C looked at Javon in amazement as he jumped up off the carpet as quickly as he had hurled himself into the air. We all had a good laugh at flying J Bug’s expense, and then quickly got back to business. We had become so used to his zany antics and didn’t let any of his moments last any longer than were necessary.
Most of my ideas about stirring up trouble were pretty tame; that was until I came up with the mother of all pranks. I was pretty disturbed at Mr. Cohen for not agreeing with me in class the previous day. He asked the class, “If you could go out to eat with anyone who would it be?” We were doing a history lesson, but the answers were anything but historical. He probably expected answers like “Harriet Tubman” or “George Washington,” but what we heard was more like “50 Cent” and “B2K.” My answer was sweet and simple; “I would go out to dinner with my dad.” I then asked Mr. C who he would go out with and when he hesitated, I said “Wouldn’t you want to go out with your wife?” He tried to avoid the issue but I pressed him for an answer, “Don’t you miss your wife?” Mr. Cohen had talked about getting remarried and he even had a picture of his new wife on his desk. Since I hadn’t moved on, why had he? I didn’t think he ever gave me an answer and it was one of the rare occasions when he didn’t have an opinion.
Mr. Cohen’s silence fed my lack of clarity of my own situation. I figured that it was better to have a wallowing partner than one who could so easily move on from tragedy. I was in rare form the next morning and was planning to do something big to get Mr. C’s attention. With Javon as my vehicle, and rage as my ally, it would be a day that none of us in Room 232 would ever forget.
We were in the middle of another long, slow Social Studies lesson, when I looked across at Javon and noticed something shiny sticking out of his pocket. From the looks of Javon’s wild eyes, it had been days since he had taken a hit of that mood-softening medicine. I motioned to him to show me what he had in his pocket and he pulled at a metal protractor. When the metal glistened from the fluorescent classroom lights, I flashed back to the summer and the way Beast was able to turn virtually any item into a weapon. I have regretted what happened next ever since it occurred.
Mr. Cohen was up at the board with his back to us, writing down a few things for us to focus on in the chapter. I smiled and motioned to Javon to get up and stab Mr. C with the protractor. He got to his feet quickly—Javon did everything quickly—and stabbed Mr. Cohen in the right side of his lower back. Javon removed the pointy end of the protractor and dropped it on the floor. He ran back to his seat and started crying as Mr. C gently grabbed his back. He walked over to his phone and quietly called the main office, so that the Vice Principal and the nurse could come to our class.
Mrs. Daniels came to get Javon and check on Mr. Cohen. It was time for recess so the class filed out to the playground and Mr. C. and some of my classmates quickly told Mrs. Daniels what had happened and he then walked to his car to go to a nearby clinic.
That was the longest lunch hour of all time! I felt so guilty at first that I couldn’t focus; about midway through recess, the guilt was replaced by sadness. I asked one of the aides if I could go to the bathroom, and I then proceeded to cry in the bathroom for the next ten minutes.
Why did I want to hurt someone I had such strong feelings for? Did I get rid of the one person that actually cared about me? I made sure that no one knew that I was crying before returning to recess. The whole class was depressed at lunch and Mrs. Daniels ushered all of us into the vacant gym to have a talk. We all couldn’t believe what had happened, but nobody knew that I was just as much to blame as Javon. Mrs. Daniels told us that Principal Lewis had suspended Javon indefinitely, pending a hearing on whether he would be sent to an alternative school.
We all wanted to know if Mr. Cohen would be our teacher for the rest of the year. Mrs. Daniels did not know Mr. C’s status and if he would be healthy enough to return. By the end of lunch, we were picked up by one of the aides and brought back to our classroom. As we walked into our classroom we were shocked at what we saw; Mr. Cohen was in front of the classroom writing the afternoon’s lesson on the board. He was wearing the same white dress shirt and there was a bloodstain over the spot where Javon had stabbed him. I’m sure he could have changed his shirt but knowing Mr. Cohen, he was wearing the shirt to prove a point.
The weapon’s point missed puncturing Mr. Cohen’s kidney by a fraction of an inch. He got patched up, got a few tetanus shots and was back fighting the good fight within the hour. I walked up to the front of the class, gave him a hug, and whispered, “I’m sorry.” Mr. Cohen bent down and whispered in my ear, “Next time we both might not be so lucky.”
I remember that I ran and ran for miles through the streets of my neighborhood that afternoon. Not only wasn’t I sure what I was running from, I also had no idea where I was going. I was completely lost in my own backyard but had no idea how to get home.
I saw Mr. Cohen’s familiar PT Cruiser rolling down toward me and I waved my hands for him to stop. The car came to a stop and the driver-side window gradually rolled down. Mr. Cohen smirked at me and I slowly stuck my head in his car until my forehead connected with his; we banged fists and I then punched my hand to my chest, put my head down and walked away. That man did care for me but I wasn’t sure how to return the favor. What if something happened to him just like it did to my dad? It frightened me to see blood on his shirt – I’ll never forget the image of my dad’s bloodied body on our front lawn. The image comes to me almost every time I close my eyes at night, or I see blood.
I wish I could have jumped into Mr. C’s car that day and escaped from that place, even if it was for a few minutes, or an hour, or for a few days. What I’ve learned is that you can’t run from your past because it will hunt you down like an angry mob. No matter how fast I ran, my inner demons would always be a few steps ahead of me.
Mr. Cohen Can Play
I love basketball more than anything else in the whole world. The only things that can deflect my attention away from playing ball are girls. Girls and basketball must have been ingrained in my head at an early age, because my dad used to point out both the finer points of the game and the finest cheerleaders. The apple didn’t fall far from that tree.
It was plain to see that Mr. Cohen was a tall, white man. The way I saw it was not only can’t white men jump they also have no basketball skills. I also thought that girls were put on this earth to drive me crazy. All right, that second one was right but Mr. C put that first one to rest one afternoon in the gym.
Mr. Cohen never missed an opportunity to make our day more interesting. Simple things such as a few extra minutes on the playground or going to gym class while the previous class was still outside, gave us additional chances to blow some steam off. Mr. C was walking over to the sidelines when I called out his name and threw him a basketball. Without hesitation, he turned and shot the ball through the hoop and then sat down on a stack of gym mats. One lucky shot didn’t convince me that Mr. C could play basketball. I called him out to play one-on-one with me and he happily obliged.
I have never played against someone who knew my every thought before I had chance to react. I tried to embarrass Mr. C by dribbling through his legs on the first move but he stole the ball before I had a chance to collect the ball behind him. He said, “You didn’t just try to put the ball though my legs.” Then he talked as he shot the ball, “You’re gonna’ have to come out here and play me.” The ball swished through the net as he finished talking. For a change, I was speechless. Mr. Cohen had proved his point, but I knew he’d let me score a bunch of times. I really can’t remember who won the game; in fact, I don’t think our game was about keeping score. It was so much fun competing against somebody who knew how to play, and Mr. Cohen could play.
The other kids in the class smiled at the sight of their teacher playing with them. I took his participation to a completely higher level. This was a man who got me, who felt my pain and did everything in his power to ease my brain burden.
Mr. Cohen would usually let us out five or ten minutes early for recess. Sometimes he would follow us to the basketball court on the playground and even up the sides a bit. The funny thing was that Mr. C and I never played on the same team. He very rarely shot the ball, preferring to give kids a chance to shoot that rarely could create their own shots. The more we played with Mr. C, the more I felt my game changing. Before we met, my game consisted of breaking down the defense with my Allen Iverson-inspired crossovers. As the weeks went by I found new joy in passing and bringing my teammates along for the ride. As long as the ball was in my hands it was my choice to lead, not just take for myself. It was easy to get what was mine; Mr. Cohen taught me that it was all there for me if I took what my opponent gave me. The game and life were so much easier when I let things come to me, instead of forcing the action.
Mr. Cohen kept telling us that he had no favorites among the 24 kids in his class. However, he and I shared a connection that went beyond the average student-teacher relationship. The class used to go to Computer Lab every Friday after lunch. Mr. Cohen initially resisted the temptation of letting us go on the Internet and play our favorite games. He always went through the motions and gave us some lame educational assignment, only to give us at least 30 minutes of playtime. It only took a matter of minutes before Mr. C would pull up a chair and sit next to me. A few minutes later we were locked up in an epic battle of Slam Dunk! I was always the brother and Mr. Cohen was always the vertically challenged white dude given wings for the day.
The action of Slam Dunk! got so intense that we often lost track of time. It was a good thing that Mr. C wasn’t a scheduling freak or he would have really cared if we missed a science lesson, or two. For Mr. Cohen, school was more about real-life lessons than facts listed in a textbook.
For me to say that my teacher spent all of his free time with me would be a false statement. There were many times that Mr. Cohen circulated throughout the computer lab and played games against other kids. It was plain to see how much he enjoyed the interaction with all of us. We seemed to have our best moments outside of the limiting confines of the classroom. Maybe Mr. C felt as uncomfortable as we did in that class. He often talked about how much he disliked school and said he was “here to make the experience more pleasant for you.” None of us could have argued with that.
Breakfast in Desk
To say that my mother was not a morning person would be a complete understatement. Come to think of it, she didn’t smile much in the afternoon and evenings, too. I’m sure part of my mother died along with the passing of my dad; a part of all of us was taken when I heard those thugs barreling down the street toward our house. I spent at least five years looking for a reason to carry on and it took me even longer to stop beating myself up over not being able to save him.
I was constantly disturbed by the memories that hovered around our house. For most kids, the smile on their face would mask the pain that was gnawing away at their insides. My smile was certainly genuine—too bad for me that it was genuinely a disguise. I rarely hung around my house, using it only as a place to sleep and stay out of bad weather. I use to wake up at least an hour before school started and bolt out of the house as soon as I was showered and dressed. Eating breakfast at home was not an option for any of us—that was dad’s favorite meal to eat with us. He was always so busy running around during the day that he often ate lunch and dinner on the road or grabbed a bite to eat when he came home late at night. None of us could stomach sitting at that kitchen table and facing each other every morning. It became a lot easier to skip breakfast or grab something quick at either the 7-Eleven or Dunkin Donuts.
Even though I wasn’t a big fan of the learning part of school, I loved being in school. I used to get there early and sit on my favorite stoop in front of the class. One morning I even fell asleep waiting for Mr. Cohen to show up. I was so small and he was so big that he scooped me up off the ground and carried me in the classroom. Good thing no one else was there to see that. A few minutes later I awoke at my desk with the blurry sight of Mr. Cohen at the board preparing our lessons for the day.
Before I could even speak I looked down into my desk and picked out a box of breakfast cereal with my right hand. I felt like thanking Mr. C but he played it cool and went about his business and the other kids started filtering into the classroom a few minutes later. When things settled down later that morning I turned to him and said, “Fruit Loops.” He smiled and replied, “Next time I’ll go to Costco.”
I didn’t go in early every morning looking for food. Some mornings I was able to fend for myself and eat leftovers from the night before. Cold pizza tastes a lot better than the piping hot, skin-scalding, greasy pizza. Mr. Cohen started coming in later and later as the temperature dropped. It must have been as difficult for him as it was for me to get out of bed. Besides, it would become increasingly difficult to fall asleep on the porch of the class when the temperature dipped below the freezing mark.
It was a rare occurrence that Mr. Cohen would say “No” to us. The relationship the class had with him bordered on abusive, but he could not deny us if the cause was right. Pretzel and cookie sales were prime examples of Mr. C’s generosity. His bigheartedness must have been contagious because I swear that kids started to give him things in return.
I remember this one time when a few PTA women walked into our class in an attempt to sell the final batch of pretzels from a day-long sale. There must have been over 30 pretzels on the tray. Mr. C. said to Mrs. Smith, “How much for the whole tray.” She told him “15 dollars” and he didn’t even blink. Money wasn’t the issue for him—he always looked past the money, or the time, or the difficulty, and zoomed in on a greater good. Buying the tray of pretzels was an opportunity for Mr. C to support the PTA, but more importantly, it was a chance for all of us to interact as people—not teacher and student. We sat there on the end of that day and ate pretzels until our stomachs were about to burst. After he bought us the pretzels, I whispered in his ear, “You want me to get some sodas?” I looked at the five-dollar bill in his hand and slid the green from his fingertips. Little did Mr. Cohen know that I had pocketed the five spot and lifted some cold sodas from the cafeteria. At least that’s what I thought before he approached me the next day.
“I hope you didn’t already spend all of that money I gave you yesterday,” Mr. Cohen said in a sarcastic tone. I shot him an inquisitive look that said “What money?” but he wasn’t buying it. “I left five dollars with the people in the cafeteria yesterday afternoon after I realized that I failed to inform anyone that you were taking the sodas.” Mr. C knew that the money he had given me was nearly gone and he was going to make me squirm a bit before letting me off the hook. He continued talking, “This is why I’m the teacher and you’re the student. You still have a lot to learn, D.M.” I knew the lecture was over as soon as he called me D.M. Mr. C wasn’t my dad but he knew how to get into my head without laying a hand on me.
It was very comforting to know Mr. Cohen was thinking about me even when he went home. I would imagine that he would go to Costco and walk up and down the aisles for food that would fill the bottomless pit that was my stomach. Not that I even knew what the inside of Costco looked like, being that I had never been inside the warehouse club at the time— although I did peak inside one day while riding around the neighborhood with my Beast and Easy E. It looked like the inside of a warehouse to me, but it did give me a good visual when I thought of Mr. C walking around looking for cereal, or Pop Tarts, or candy, or cookies. You know, the good stuff.
Mr. Cohen’s generosity extended far beyond my classmates and me. He would even give leftover candy to the smaller kids of our school. They would crowd around him at the end of the day like bees buzzing around the hive. Although I didn’t like sharing my teacher with other kids but it wasn’t really up to me how other kids acted around him. Mr. C was a fun guy to be around, and he also let me be myself… whoever I was back then.
Elements of the Universe
Music was always a big part of Mr. Cohen’s classroom. He figured that “music makes moods,” and he never hesitated to slide a CD into his portable player so we could relax. Whether it was Jay-Z or Andrea Bocelli, we usually enjoyed any music that took us outside of the usual day. Our class was anything but ordinary and our leader wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Kids in other classes were always telling our class that we were “Crazy.” In fact, I think some of the teachers were starting to question Mr. Cohen’s unique methods. Mr. C had met with the parents during Parent-Teacher conferences and assured all of them that he “would not forego the children’s’ education to only focus on a Social Studies test. You could feel the pressure building for the states Social Studies exam, but somehow Mr. Cohen was able to shield us from the stress. We didn’t realize that his methods would prepare us to take any test, whether it was English, or Math, or Social Studies.
The first thing Mr. Cohen did was taught us how to write. Now, we all knew how to write but we didn’t know how to effectively get our points across. Any moron can write, but the true test comes if the reader can stay awake for the duration of your words. Mr. C was not only teaching us how to open our minds, he also insisted that we open our mouths. Again, we all knew how to open our mouths, but it became debatable if anyone wanted to hear what we had to say.
I had become an expert at giving teachers just what they wanted. It was a rare day when I would give them any more or any less than what was expected of me. I knew from the moment I walked into Mr. C’s classroom that my days of minimalism had come to an end… at least for a year.
Simply writing words on a piece of paper were not good enough for our teacher. He made us divulge our precious, confused feelings, too. When we used verses like “I felt bad” or “I felt good” he immediately went digging for more. The confusing part for us was always that teachers couldn’t to put their directions in words we could understand. Simply telling us to talk about our feelings never got us to open up. Mr. C told us repeatedly, “Use you senses people! When you write a story tell me what you see, what you hear, what you smell, what you feel through touch, and even what you taste!” We often questioned the taste part of the senses package but often explored it as a means to complete the task.
I had never been able to talk about my dad’s death in any other terms than “it hurt.” Yeah, of course it hurt but the pain went much deeper than a truckload of mental and physical anguish. My dad’s dramatic passing limited so many aspects of my life that I couldn’t see the walls that had surrounded me. With a broken heart and a matching shattered family structure, I was living a solitary existence that left me with nowhere to go.
When you don’t care whether you live or die, most likely you’re going to wind up six feet under the ground in a crappy wood box. Many of my friend’s brothers were the subjects of eulogy after eulogy, and many of us little thugs in training were following a similar path toward destruction.
Mr. Cohen tended to keep his emotions in check while he was with us in the classroom. I guess you could say that he never got to low or too high while babysitting us. That’s not to say that he wouldn’t smile a great deal, but I sensed a sadness surrounding him that he wouldn’t share with us.
One morning before lunch I wrote an essay about my dad. I believe the topic of the day was “If you could change one thing about your life, what would it be?” We all have things we would change if we had the ability, but somehow I think he gave us the assignment to help me open up about my dad. I’m here to tell you that talking about the past and virtually reliving it are two completely different stories.
The thing I’ll always remember about that day was how hard I cried when the rest of the class left for recess and I was alone with Mr. Cohen. It took me the better part of two hours composing this one page essay. Mr. C. had sent me back to my desk at least five times to dig deeper and deeper as I was composing this tearjerker. Once the classroom cleared out I handed Mr. Cohen the essay and took a seat across from his desk. Mr. Cohen took a deep breath and started to read my words:
DADDY
I’ll never forget the look in your eyes when we were together. I wish I could see you now because being without you is painful. The pain in my heart hurts so much sometimes that I think it will explode.
I walk on the front lawn and I still smell the smoking guns and I see your blood stains on the grass. I can taste the salt from my tears and every time I hear the revving of an engine my stomach drops to the ground. Sometimes I wear your shirts so I can feel you close to me.
I miss you daddy and I will see you again. I love you.
Darius
Mr. Cohen put the paper down and tears started streaming from his eyes and down his stubbly cheeks. I started hysterically crying and jumped into his arms. It had been a long time since I got a hug from an adult. He told me, “Everything is going to be all right. Everything is going to be all right,” and for a few moments I believed him.
A few weeks and a couple boxes of Kleenex later, the class devoured the state Social Studies test. Mr. Cohen told us over and over again that we “had to attack the test” and “If you walk in thinking you will fail, you probably will.” We were calm and nothing surprised us; I didn’t feel the other fifth grade classes were as calm as we were. Pressure from parents and teachers was intense, and it wasn’t difficult for a 11 year-old to crack under the pressure. Mr. Cohen’s “us against the world” stance worked and we all did better than expected.
It was amazing that 15 out of 24 of us got a perfect score on the writing portion of the test. Only one person in our class got a below average score, but he was a Special Education student.
Mr. Cohen was so pleased that we did well on the test that he invited us back to the classroom during lunch for all of the pizza we could stuff into our faces. The boxes of Domino’s were stacked to the ceiling and our spirits had never been higher. I was standing next to Mr. Cohen’s desk when he opened his drawer and pulled out a CD. He said, “Guys, get ready for the elements of the universe.” He slid the CD into the player and the class was immediately sent into an old-school groove. What had started for me as simply meeting a white dude who gave us free food turned into a surreal experience with the Vanilla Funk. The color of this man’s skin concealed the depth of this cocoa brother’s soul. There was no doubting that the elements of the universe on this pizza celebration were indeed Earth, Wind, and Fire.
Thug’s Life
It was pretty ironic that I decided to participate in the play Annie in the spring of my last go-round at Acorn Road Elementary. I was one of the orphans singing “It’s a Hard-Knock Life” and nothing could have been closer to truth about my world. I was on the fast track to a thug’s life and being a virtual orphan left few obstacles in my path. With my mom rarely around to keep me in line, it was open season for me to explore the boundaries of my impending manhood.
I’ll never forget the look on Mr. C’s face when I told him about the gangs in the neighborhood. He said, “I’ve been living next door to this town my whole life, but I never realized that Branchville had gangs. I detailed for him the constant turmoil between the Bloods and the Crips, fully thinking that these gangs were the modern-day version of my dad’s Black Panthers. In the traditional East versus West showdown, the Bloods and Crips gang members were the heroes of the neighborhood. Once I heard that the Crips were responsible for gunning down my dad, I knew I would be in the Bloods for life.
It was a good thing I didn’t tell Mr. Cohen that I was already involved with the Bloods. I could see that his mind was already on overload with basic information, so I didn’t dare tell him that I was already earning my stripes and working my way into the gang. It was never too early to start making deliveries or going on food runs for the guys. My buddy Beast had already seen action and been stabbed a few times by the time I became involved.
It was kind of innocent how I got my first taste of the thug’s life. I was playing basketball on my street when I heard the sound of a car with a huge engine slowly creeping down the street. I immediately had my dad being gunned down flashback and stood motionless watching the chrome-rimmed tires spin down the block. There were four guys in the classic Cadillac convertible, which came to a halt in front of my house. Three of the guys got out and started to play basketball with me. The two other kids I was playing with ran in their houses at the sight of the car. It was like we were swimming in the ocean and the music from Jaws started playing when they came by.
I started to relax after a few minutes and even crossed-up this one skinny dude, Allen Iverson style. I looked over to the car as this big dude got out and said, “You’re D Mitch’s boy, ain’t you? He used to have that same move when he played against my dad over at Groves Park.” I nodded my head and the guy smiled and asked me, “What’s your name, boy?” I replied, “Darius.” He laughed and proclaimed, “Look what we have here. It’s the second coming of D Mitch, Deuce Mitch.” I had my first and last gang named attached to me that day. The big dude, named B Rob -- ‘cause his name was Billy Robinson – and sometimes they called him Big Rob -- led me and his crew over to my house. We were all facing the front of the house when he said, “This is your house, right?” I said, “Yeah” and he continued, “I remember when the Crips did your dad.” He walked right over to my dad’s final resting spot. “D Mitch was a good man. He fought hard so us brothers could get some power back on the streets. My dad filled me in when your old man was killed.” He turned and looked straight into my eyes with his cold, brown eyes, “That can’t happen in our house, right Deuce?”
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