Firsts

North Minneapolis. Friday, July 8, 11:27 a.m.

A black Chevy Impala pulled up to the intersection of Penn and Lowry. Just then, Melvonte Peterson rolled up in his minivan, two kids inside. The driver of the Impala fired two shots at Peterson’s vehicle—one bullet grazing fifteen-month-old Melia’s leg and the other striking two-year-old Le’Vonte in the chest. Peterson returned fire, hitting the nearby hardware store before he sped off to North Memorial Medical Center.

As I drove east on I-94 on Friday morning, July 15, I remembered the chilling details from the news the week before and gripped the steering wheel like it was one more life slipping away. I watched for the Snelling exit, tension claiming the space between my eyes.

It would be a day of firsts for me: the first funeral I would attend for a stranger, the first for someone who had been murdered, the first for a child.

I arrived at Bethel Christian Fellowship in Saint Paul too easily. I should have circled the block numerous times, at last snagging a parking spot a mile away. Instead, I parked only feet from the front door. A packed sanctuary should have forced me to stand in the back, straining to hear the preacher’s words about the little one. Instead, I had my choice of any seat in the house.

The previous day, three-thousand people had attended the funeral for Philando Castile, a man killed by a police officer on July 6 at a traffic stop in Falcon Heights. But at the service I attended on Friday for Le’Vonte Jones, the two-year-old gunned down on July 8 in north Minneapolis, not even three-hundred mourners made an appearance. I gritted my teeth at the unequal treatment of two humans, now gone.

Did the public consider this an issue of age? Was Le’Vonte worth less because he had enjoyed fewer trips around the sun than Philando? Or did the credentials of a shooter determine the value of a victim’s life? I frowned and clung to my belief that all black lives equally matter.

I made my way down the aisle to the front of the church. A tiny white casket cradled the toddler, stuffed toys propped at his feet. I gazed at the child’s body—so similar to the little boys who had stayed in our home—and wept at violence snatching yet another life from my neighborhood.

To the right of the coffin stood a woman holding a box of tissues. She looked at me, her mouth curving up at the corners. A question mark lit her eyes.

I’m no one, I felt like saying. I’m just here to cry too.

“Bless you,” she whispered as she wrapped me in a hug. “Bless you. Bless you.”

Then I turned toward LeShae, the boy’s mother, who toted fifteen-month-old Melia on her hip. Serene and thin, she spoke to the person ahead of me, her voice a gentle breeze. My gaze drifted to a wound on the baby’s leg—evidence of the other bullet that had ripped through the minivan that day.

“I’m from north Minneapolis.” I said when it was my turn. “I’m so sorry.” My words, backed by gold, sounded like tin.

“Thank you.” She circled an arm around me, and I hugged her back, taking care not to crush her. 

I left the grieving mother to the next mourner and strode toward the back of the church to find a seat. A woman I had met at Birdell Beeks’ vigil a month earlier settled into the chair next to mine.

She pointed her chin toward LeShae. “She had another baby—a girl—just one week before Le’Vonte died.”

I blew out a breath. One week, life; the next week, death. “Where’s the dad?” I asked.

The woman extracted a tissue from her purse. “He was arrested this morning in connection with the shooting.”

The sun shone through the church windows, and I shivered. Instead of filling the sanctuary with warmth, the light exposed everything: dead toddler, injured baby, arrested father, hurting mother.

Hopelessness crept up my throat.

The service began. A soloist sang “Soon and Very Soon”, and I clapped along with the congregation, because I wanted to feel it too. Two women circulated the sanctuary with boxes of tissues. Then the preacher stood and delivered a message. He spoke of the boy, stolen away by the violence that too often raged through the streets of north Minneapolis.

Then he held out his own past for all of us to see.

“I was a shooter too. But God transformed me.” The pastor thumped his chest with a fist. “You see, He gave me a new heart.”

My friend leaned toward me. “He shot a cop,” she whispered. Then she clutched my arm, her eyes shining. “But the cop forgave him.”

In the days following Le’Vonte’s funeral, I sifted through the details, recalling the meager number of mourners gathered for a horrid reason. Was there any good in any of it? But then I remembered the story of a man—once a shooter—now forgiven, redeemed, transformed.

And a stream of light pierced the darkness of our times. Hope had broken through again.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Enough

One man killed at a traffic stop in Falcon Heights. Five men slain in Dallas. One toddler murdered in north Minneapolis.

And even more losses lit up the map. The nation’s sadness wasn’t monochromatic; it came in every color. An abundance of voices on the news, in social media, and on the streets poured into the confusion, deafening the country. The heaviness—the division—roiled my stomach. What could be done?

What could I do?

I stumbled on some internet articles addressing the racial issues of the day. The writers said the situation was complex, and since I was white and privileged, I would do well to contemplate social constructs and my place within them, because my deference toward people of other races was too short to span the divide.

Discouragement draped itself around my shoulders.

Later in the week, Husband told me about an article he had read.

“When the Bible says in the future it will be ‘nation against nation’, the original language for ‘nation’ is ‘ethnos’. It’s where we get the word ‘ethnic’. So, it really means ‘ethnicity against ethnicity’. Just like we see happening right now.”

“That’s the reality.” I chewed my lip.

“Yeah.”

“But we’re still called to love and live at peace with everyone, no matter what.”

Husband nodded, his eyes filling.

On Sunday, Pastor addressed the fissures in our nation.

“When the tribe of Benjamin was suffering, the other tribes gathered and asked, ‘What shall we do?’ That has to be our question too. We need to abandon ourselves and rise up when one of our tribes is hurting.”

I jotted notes. His points brimmed with grace, truth. A humble word in turbulent times.

But how did all this translate to our lives? What exactly could we do? And would it be enough?

The next day on my return home from errands, I pulled the car into our driveway and hopped out. But before Flicka and I could shut the vehicle's doors, two of the neighbors’ pit bulls bumbled about our feet, wagging their whole bodies. One of them jumped into the front seat.

“She’s so cute I can’t stand it,” Flicka said, shooing the animal out of our car.

The dogs’ tails whipped my shins; exuberance wrapped in fur. “Let’s get these two back into their yard.” I pointed to the place across the alley.

“I’m dying here, they’re so adorable,” my girl said. “Just a hypothetical: If the owners don’t want them, could we keep these guys?”

I smiled, shaking my head. “I wish.”

We wrangled the wiggly ones back onto their property. I assessed the fence, but couldn’t find their exit point.

A woman emerged from the back door of the house. “They’re escape artists, those two. Sorry about that.”

I laughed. “They’re sweet.”

“Too sweet.” The woman chuckled. “I’m scared they’ll get themselves stolen. They’d go with anyone.”  

We exchanged names, and I learned Tiana had moved in ten months earlier.

“I can’t believe I haven’t met you before this,” I said.

“I work all the time.” Tiana stepped from her yard into the alley, clasping the gate behind her. Her dogs were two blurs as they chased each other around the yard. We chatted about the neighborhood. She voiced her concerns about the alley kids—the ones who had frequented our driveway to play basketball. She had reached out to them one day and beaded five-year-old Laya’s hair. The little girl had soaked in the attention as if her life depended on it.

“She didn’t know her birthday,” the woman said, her eyebrows coming together.

I sighed. “I feel for those kids.”

Then Tiana mentioned her own children—almost all grown up. “My boys are good, quiet—not messed up in drugs or gangs—but they better watch themselves, I tell them, because they look the part.”

“I’m sorry it’s like that.”

As we visited, I thought again about the discouraging articles I had read earlier in the week. In theory, maybe they were true. But the writers had left out the flesh and blood part—the heartbeat of connection and the pulsing warmth of interactions with neighbors just across the alley.  

And right then I knew that by ourselves, we didn’t have the power to make a sweeping difference for our own or any other race. But we could do the simple, small things in front of us—herding pit bulls or beading hair—and with love, it was enough to get started.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The storm

“Whoa, it’s really coming down out there,” I said to my friend Angel who sat across the table from me at a Caribou in New Hope. I nodded toward the window. The skies had released a torrent that July day, and the winds battered the coffee shop’s windows.

She turned around in her seat to look. “Oh no! I left my car windows open!”

Angel zipped outside to rescue her auto upholstery. That rain… I frowned and checked my cell phone. 5:45 p.m. We had already whiled away a nice slice of time together. In just under three caffeinated hours, we had determined which way our country should go, pinpointed the problems with teenagers today, and discussed solutions for it all. We had even carved out enough time for some vanity, bemoaning the evidence of the years on our faces.

As I watched Angel swaying in the wind and struggling to open her car door, I remembered I had children and that they needed things from me—and how bad would this storm get anyway?—so I bolted from the coffee shop, hacking twenty minutes off our Minnesota goodbye.

“I gotta go!” I hollered to Angel through the squall.

My friend may have answered me, but the driving rain and gale-force winds swallowed her response. Head down, I plunged through the elements, pointed toward my car. I unlocked it, jumped inside, and wrestled the wind for possession of the door. After I won the match, I caught my breath and checked my phone. Weather alerts lit up the screen: 60-80 mph winds. Tornado watch. Flash flood warning.

First, I called Flicka who was hanging out with a friend in Columbia Heights. The two girls had just finished thrift shopping and were riding back on a bus to her friend’s place. It was raining, but no big deal, she assured me. “Get yourself there and stay,” I said.

Next, I phoned Ricka. Home alone, she hadn’t noticed the weather until I called. But now that I had mentioned it, it looked to her like the wind had ripped a piece of the house’s trim loose, and it dangled from the eaves. Oh, and the sky was green too. “Hightail it to the basement,” I said.

Finally, I texted Dicka’s chauffeur for the day, her friend’s mom, who responded with a picture of the girls in front of the Snoopy fountain at Valley Fair, grey skies in the background. But soon after, she sent another text: “Crazy winds!! Heading out now!”

More weather alerts bleeped on my phone. The gusts rocked the car and whipped the watery surface of the parking lot into waves. I called Angel. She answered, breathless.

“You’re not driving in this, are you, Tam-Tam?”

“I’m still in the parking lot, waiting it out in the car.” The wind pummeled the vehicle. What would it take to blow over a parked SUV? “Where are you?”

“In Caribou again, soaked to the bone. Come back inside. They’re giving out towels and free coffee now.”

I braced myself for the downpour. “On my way.”

The rain bested my bathroom shower at home in both volume and pressure. And on my dash back to the coffee shop, I hydroplaned on my flip-flops. Skidding to the door, I pulled the handle, but it was locked. Within a second, an employee let me in. Angel huddled nearby, her teeth chattering and her hair limp from the deluge.

“They locked the door?” I asked, plucking my wet shirt away from my skin. The air conditioning blasted me, and I started shaking.

“They had to.” Angel offered me a towel. “The wind was ripping it open.”

An employee handed me a coffee. “On the house.”

Angel raised her cup in the air and scanned the room. “Wet t-shirt contest anyone?”

I snickered. “I can just picture us middle-aged ladies now.”

Fake flames danced in the electric fireplace in the center of the room. Angel and I grabbed chairs and pulled close to the warmth. Just then, one of the employees sprinted outside and chased after the wrought iron tables and chairs that tumbled across the parking lot all the way to Walgreens, which was as black as the complimentary brew in my cup. All the other businesses around the Caribou were dark too, along with the traffic lights.

“At least the electricity didn’t go out here,” I said.

“That’s good, but what’s not good is this.” Angel pointed to her hair. “It’s a frizz fest. There goes the vanity.”

Toasting our fronts and backs by the fireplace, Angel and I texted our people. We couldn’t get home to them yet, but they would make it without us. We had more coffee to drink and bigger world problems to solve.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The calling: Part 2

During a weeding session one day, the truth came to me, vivid as the astilbe in my garden, fully magenta now and shooting its brilliant arrows. Like the flower, it was striking, bold. The revelation? The calling had its costs—for everyone.

I already knew the calling, the basketball hoop for the neighborhood kids, had cost our family. Young ones were drawn to our hoop, and their play often unraveled into small acts of vandalism on our property. I had filed it away as part of the inner-city price for doing a good thing. But for the first time, I thought of the expense for those around us.

Dallas had mentioned the basketballs that flew into his yard. He understood; he’d been young once. Passing in through his back gate, the neighborhood kids had retrieved them, bulldozed through his flowers, catapulted over our shared cinder block wall, buzzed through our back yard, and exited through our gate to resume their game. Dallas had stated the facts without complaining, and I had absorbed them without judgment.

Glenda had talked about the balls zinging into her yard too. No problem, she had said. She only wished the kids would remember to shut the gate. And move aside when they saw her trying to pull her car into her garage. She had shrugged—no complaining—and I had listened without drawing a conclusion.

But in our determination to do the right thing—for better or worse—we had made life more difficult for the adults around us. Husband and I agreed to put our home’s magnet up for sale. From Craig’s List it came, to Craig’s List it shall return, I thought.

“We’re going to let the basketball hoop go,” I told the neighbors. “It’s gotten out of hand.”

They wouldn’t have suggested the ousting of The Main Attraction on the Block, but they admitted they were relieved. “That first group of kids was the best. Maybe the hoop was meant for them,” one of them said.

I recalled the good years. Neighborhood teenagers doing layups on hot summer nights, Husband and I strolling outside to ask their names if they were new. When they trusted us, the teens told us about their lives—about getting jobs or being fired; about what positions they played in certain sports or about how they had been suspended from school. We had listened to them, and they had listened back.

After we had decided the hoop would leave our family but before it was gone, a new kid showed up at our door. His name was Marvell, he said, and could one of our girls come outside?

“The other kids won’t play with me.” The little boy’s face drooped.

I motioned to Ricka, the first of my girls to enter my field of vision. She tilted her head and mouthed Mo-om!, but I widened my eyes, so she followed the kid to the driveway.

From the kitchen window, I watched them play. A fourteen-year-old girl and an eight-year-old boy. I nibbled my lower lip, and my heart twisted.

A day later, a man from the suburbs came to buy our basketball hoop. After he drove away, I ignored the bare spot on our driveway, my stomach jumping, wondering if we had done the right thing after all.

Later that evening came a knock at the front door. Marvell.

“Where’d the hoop go?” he asked.

Husband explained. The kid’s expression sagged. That lonely, hangdog look again. He turned away and slumped down the front steps. Minutes later, we saw him ripping around our front yard, barreling through our hostas, tossing his ball into the air and smacking it against the house.

Husband and I sauntered outside to watch him.

“Where are your parents, Marvell?” Husband said.

“In Chicago.” The boy shot his basketball into our rain barrel. “I’m staying with Granny.”

My man rested his forearms on our front steps’ railing. “What do they do in Chicago?”

“My dad makes toys. My mom exercises.” He unrolled our garden hose, whipped it over his head like a lasso, and then cranked the spigot on.

Husband showed Marvell how to turn it off and coil up the hose again, but the kid ran away.

The next day, I sat on our porch, sipping tea and thinking about the first group of kids we had met six years earlier because of the hoop: Keyondra, Peanut, Armani, Antoine. I always grinned when I thought of Keyondra, her smile never far from the surface even though she tried to hide it.

Just then, an SUV pulled up in front of our house. A woman emerged and made her way to my front steps. Donna, Keyondra’s mother, from down the alley. What were the chances?

I didn’t tell her I had just been thinking about her kid—and the others—who were never far from my mind. Instead, I gave her a hug.

“I see you got rid of the basketball hoop,” she said.

“Yeah, it had gotten hard.” I underscored my statement with a nod.

“It’s good you let it go.” She plugged her hands into her hips and bobbed her head. “Those kids came from all over. Got into all kinds of trouble in the alley on their way to your place.”

“Oh no.”

She told me about some of our basketball players vandalizing the bus she drove for work, which was parked in her driveway. They had broken into it numerous times, messed with all the knobs inside, and then finally rammed a steel rod through one of its wheels.

“I’m sorry to hear this.” I frowned at the big picture. I had only watched the show on the stage—not what was going on behind the curtains. “I wish you had said something.”

“No, no.” She waved away my statement like a pesky fly. Then came that smile that belonged more to her eyes than her mouth. “We saw what you were trying to do for those kids.”

The acts of mischief on our property and in the alley disappeared along with the basketball hoop, but the blank space on the driveway hadn’t changed anything inside of us. The needs around us hadn’t changed either. I opened my ears to The Next Thing, a new calling.

And in our neighborhood, it would surely come.

Marvell and Ricka.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The calling: Part 1

“Do you have gum?” Five-year-old Laya hooked her fingers on our chain-link gate.

“No, I don’t.” I hauled a bag of garbage past her and the rest of the kids—nine of them in all—playing basketball on our driveway. I dropped the trash into its bin in the alley and then passed back through the group again, asking them about their lives during the wintry months that had separated us.

Laya caught my hand and tugged it. “Do you have gum?”

I chuckled. “I still don’t, hon.”

“Oh.” She dropped my hand and patted her belly, poking out from under her too-small shirt. She gazed at the basketball game again.

The early spring sunshine had melted the snow from our driveway and also driven the coats off the kids, but they still clumped around in winter boots.

I retreated into the house, but thoughts of the alley kids snagged my focus away from work. How had the little ones filled their time all winter? What did they do when they couldn’t play basketball?

Spring break soon arrived, and the alley kids lived on our driveway. The basketball games held their fascination for a while, but soon I saw piles of garbage, abandoned toys and clothing, and broken bricks strewn everywhere. I put away my work and headed outside with some books.

I dragged a lawn chair to the driveway. “Why are the bricks broken?”

“It wasn’t us,” said the ten-year-old boy. “Some other kids did it.”

“Let’s pick them up. The garbage too.” The littlest ones scurried to do what I had said. “Do you know why littering is bad?”

A few of the kids stared at me, mouths agape, and shook their heads. One little girl waved her hand in the air. “I know!”

I pointed at her. “Go ahead.”

“It kills the animals.”

I gave her a verbal gold star and explained how littering is unkind to nature, ourselves, and others. But while I talked, the kids’ eyes glazed over, and I imagined I was tucking my message inside a tiny bottle and tossing it into a tsunami.

When the trash was gone and the bricks were piled up again, I sat in the lawn chair, opened a book, and began to read aloud. A few of the boys paused from their game to listen, then they resumed shooting baskets. Two of the girls—ages seven and nine—pressed in against my legs.

“Can I read now?” the nine-year-old asked.

Even though a speech impediment clouded her delivery, she breezed through the stories of a very hungry caterpillar, a mouse’s craving for milk with his cookie, and Noah’s nautical adventures.

“That last one makes me think of water,” said the seven-year-old. “In a glass.”

I held in a smile. “Are you thirsty?”

She nodded, so I went inside the house and returned with a pitcher and some Dixie cups.

I handed out the usual pick-up-the-garbage reminder, but it fluttered away on the wind. When the kids were satisfied, they crumpled their cups, dropped them on the ground, and scampered home.

Months passed—months filled with deserted items of clothing and toys, garbage, and more broken landscaping blocks in our driveway. We reminded the kids they were welcome to play at our place if they were considerate, Husband mentioned the problem to the adults in the rental property, the grown-ups yelled at their children, we oversaw the clean-up, and the cycle repeated.

“I really miss the group of kids who’d come to play when we first got the hoop,” I told Husband one day.

“Yeah. They were always respectful.”

I sighed. “So, what do we do about this bunch?”

“Keep doing what we’re doing, I guess.” He shrugged. “Eventually, they’ll learn.”

One day, we returned home by way of the alley. The usual nine kids played at our place, but as we neared our garage, they scattered. Our driveway, speckled with shards of broken mirror, glittered in the sunlight.

“Oh no,” I said. “This is bad.”

I hopped out of the car and assessed the damage. The pavement was a sea of shattered glass. Glenda’s driveway was littered with splinters too, and so was the alley—in both directions. Blood was smeared along the side of our garage. Then I saw the source: a couple of houses away, someone had propped two large mirrors against a garage for garbage day. One of them was broken in half.

Husband strode over to the rental property. I pulled out several brooms. Soon, he was back, followed by a woman I had never seen before. The pack of kids trailed her.

“Look at this mess!” she screamed at them. “Are you kidding me?”

Without a word, the kids watched her sweep debris into a dustpan. Husband handed the oldest boy our big shop broom, and the kid shoved it around with one hand. After a few minutes, the woman disappeared with the little ones. The boy stayed behind with us.

“You know we want you guys to play here,” Husband said to him. “But you can’t be doing stuff like this.”

The boy nodded and dragged his feet and the broom back and forth, missing large swaths of glass. Husband swept too, and I scrubbed away the blood.

I thought of the basketball hoop and all the good it had delivered before the hard years began. I missed the original four—Keyondra, Antoine, Armani, and Peanut—all done with high school now, except for Peanut.

For the first time in years, questions formed: Was the basketball hoop making a difference anymore? Or had our outreach tool grown obsolete?

The next day, I mentioned my thoughts to Flicka and Ricka, but the words caught in my throat like a piece of apple too big to swallow.

“Maybe it was only meant for that first group of kids, Mom,” Flicka said.

“Maybe it’s time to be done,” said Ricka.

How could we impact the lives of the little ones in the neighborhood without the basketball hoop? I had believed it was our calling—our gift to the kids around us. But did it mean more to me than to them now?

A good thing at the beginning isn’t always a good thing forever. I needed to talk with Husband and the neighbors. Maybe it was time to surrender.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The car ride

Fourteen years ago, when episodes of “Veggie Tales”, sippy cups of apple juice, orchestrated naps, and jaunts to the park defined our days, I shook up the summer schedule and planned a visit to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Back then, we only had Flicka and Ricka, and they were both in diapers, but Husband would join me on the trip this time, and the thought of the extra help eased the tension from my neck.

When my man returned home from work the day of our departure, we buckled the babies into their car seats and set out on the six-hour trek to northern Minnesota. But only three hours in, the girls started fussing.

“I think they’re getting tired of sitting,” I said.

Husband adjusted the radio and wrinkled his nose. “Smells like someone needs a new diaper.”

I glanced into the back and sniffed. “I think you’re right. Let’s stop soon.”

The car gobbled up the miles as we scanned the landscape for a rest stop. The stench increased, and the girls’ squawks became strident. I reached back to play with their toes, but when Ricka pumped her legs, I saw something dark seep from her diaper.

I gasped and turned to Husband. “You’ve gotta pull over right now.”

He shot me a look. “Why?”

“Apparently she’s not feeling well.” I described the scene.

He flipped on the blinker and swerved onto an exit for Fergus Falls. After surveying the options just off the ramp, he careened into the parking lot of a Walmart.  

As soon as Husband threw the vehicle into park, I bailed and yanked open the back door on Ricka’s side. He turned off the ignition, hopped out, and opened the other door to check on Flicka. I unclasped Ricka and lifted her out, holding her at arm’s length. Her car seat was a soupy mess.  

“Uh oh.” The sight triggered my gag reflex. “I’m gonna need some help.”

Husband peeked into Flicka’s diaper. “Whoa. Same thing here.” He unbuckled her, and his face contorted. “It’s bad.”

As he pulled her out, sickness poured from her diaper too.

Frantic, I darted a look around the car, taking inventory. An old bath towel, some wet wipes, a battered roll of paper towels shoved under a seat—a pittance when what we really needed was a bathtub. Or a garden hose.

“Where to start?” I looked from the car seats to the girls—and back again.

Husband bunched his lips to one side. “Let’s lay them on the ground and clean them up.”

“Okay.”

With Ricka in one arm, I tossed the diaper bag onto the pavement and then grabbed the towel and spread it on the parking lot’s asphalt. Only a few cars were parked nearby, so thankfully, we wouldn’t perform for a big audience. Daylight flirted with the encroaching darkness, though; dusk was upon us, so we would need to make quick work of the mess while we could still see.  

I set Ricka on the towel, and Husband planted Flicka next to her. The girls tried to squirm away. Then I noticed Husband’s shirt, smeared from the rescue effort, and I gagged again.

“Come on.” He cocked his head and skewered me with a look. “Pull it together.”

I coughed and bit my lip. “I’m trying.”

I flipped open the lid of wet wipes and jerked out a string of seven. Was that all we had left? I let out a bitter laugh; our battle appeared as fruitful as sopping up the sea with a Kleenex.

Husband lapsed into commander mode. “You go in and buy more wipes. I’ll try to keep these two from rolling around in it. Go.”

I nodded, jumping to my feet. Stumbling into the store, I forced myself to think about the Twinkies on display inside the front door instead of the hopeless filth I had just deserted. I took a deep breath, jogged to the baby department, scooped up a load of wipes and some hand sanitizer, and hurtled through the checkout line, tossing my debit card at the cashier.

In the dim light outside, Husband and I hurried to wipe down the girls. I rifled through their bags for clean clothes and new diapers in a race against time and muck.  

An older woman approached. Her face twisted into a smile, and she snorted. “Been there, done that,” she said as she clipped by us. I heard one more chuckle before she disappeared inside the store.

Husband and I looked at each other. He shook his head.

“Real nice, lady,” I muttered.

At last we climbed back into the car and chugged onward. The hours passed, the little ones slept, and the long miles smoothed away our parking lot trauma. And as soon as we arrived at our destination, I made a beeline for the laundry room. Husband accompanied me to lend a hand, and together—in the bag of yuck—we found what we had been missing earlier.

Wadded up in that ball of soiled laundry were our senses of humor, and we were happy to see them again.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Birdell and Bruce: Part 2

*Last week, Birdell’s name was spelled two different ways in various places online. This week, I have corrected the spelling to match what’s stated in her obituary.

Five days after Birdell Beeks was killed, Husband and I attended her vigil. We gathered with many others at the corner of 21st and Penn—the location of the woman’s death. One by one, residents of the neighborhood strode up to the microphone.

“They used to be throwing footballs,” one man said. “Now they’re throwing bullets, and you can’t take that back.”

“We’re going to put the ‘neighbor’ back in the ‘hood’,” said another man. The crowd cheered.

A marching band and dancers—all kids from the neighborhood—performed for us. The range of instruments reminded me of our music teacher Bruce Jackson, gone just the day before. He had played piano, guitar, mandolin, accordion, harmonica, banjo, and dobro, and they had all been his favorites—just like the Northside kids he had served.

We clasped hands with neighbors we hadn’t met before and formed a circle big enough to hold all our colors, ages, and backgrounds. Then more people wandered into our assembly and broke through the ring to grab onto our hands too, making us even stronger. And we prayed.

The recent shootings in our part of town—and Birdell Beeks’ and Bruce Jackson’s deaths—had blown up my positivity, blasting the bits—along with the shell casings—into the streets. But the vigil dispelled the dark cloud dangling over me.

Some days later, I heard a woman had been shot in the head as she sat in a beauty salon on Broadway. Then a guy on a north Minneapolis Facebook page wrote about a new incident: More gunshots… at least three. This neighborhood is a cocktail of awesome mixed with random terror. And on a different day, I learned four more people were injured when a fight erupted in gunfire.

The summer was shaping up to be the bloodiest we had known in all our years on the Northside. Would the violence ever end? Should we pack up our belongings and move away? My desire to raise our girls among diversity and poverty hadn’t changed, though, so I again preached the old three-part sermon to myself: We’re not too good for north Minneapolis; it’s okay to be uncomfortable; this life isn’t about us.

But one night, as gunshots rang out, my thoughts again tried to own me. Once more, I took the slimy things captive, wrangling them back into their box. And in those dark hours, I knew The Great Realtor who had chosen our home for us fourteen years earlier hadn’t made a mistake.  

A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; But it shall not come near you.

Was it true? Would we live in safety if we stayed? Had my self-preservation stomped out my trust in the One who had moved us there in the first place?

The next day, I received messages from several women who knew our Realtor too.

“I see His hand of protection lying over your family.” “He’s placed you there, and He’ll protect you.” “Although He may not ask you to stay, you don’t want to leave until He says so.” “You are loved, and you are covered.”

This time, I held onto the truth with everything in me. It didn’t matter how it appeared on the news or the way it sounded when explosions split the night air. We lived in the safest place in the world, and no human could make us go.

North Minneapolis peace activist (and friend) Kay G Wilson and me at Birdell Beeks' vigil.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Birdell and Bruce: Part 1

Last Thursday at 6:00 p.m., Birdell Beeks, grandma to the community, sat in her minivan at a stop sign at 21st and Penn in north Minneapolis, her granddaughter in the seat next to hers. But before she could step on the gas pedal again, violence exploded at the intersection.

“Baby, they got me,” Birdell said right before the stray bullet stopped her heart.

When the tragic news unfolded, I stewed under a dark cloud, thinking of the woman—cut down in the streets—who set extra places at the table for anybody at any time. And I thought of the one with the gun, so bent on bloodshed that he’d take anyone—even a grandmother.

We stood on the cusp of summer—not even June—and violence had already bubbled to the surface in north Minneapolis. Did the good in our part of the city outweigh the risks of living there? Or were we foolish to keep turning the calendar’s pages in that place?

The following day, a man from a local news outlet posted on a north Minneapolis Facebook page, asking if anyone would be willing to speak with him about why they continued to live on the Northside in spite of the incidents. Almost fifty people responded, and their reasons for calling the Northside home varied. I read through the comments, pondering my neighbors’ words.

Then I left the computer and strode into the kitchen. I poured two cups of coffee and handed one to Husband. We headed into the living room.

“Today, I’m forgetting.” I sat down and pointed at another chair, and he sat too. “Why are we staying here when we could go?”

Husband listed some reasons, and his words jarred my memory, bringing back the truth of the inner-city: the beauty that nestled within the sharp edges, the daily goodness that tamped down the evil, the peace that was louder than the gunshots. But discomfort squeezed me anyway.

I held my mug in both hands. “What would it take for us to leave?”  

“Maybe if the girls were afraid.” Husband took a sip of coffee.

“But they’re not. And leaving out of fear?” I shook my head. “That doesn’t feel right.”

We walked through our Memorial weekend, remembering those who had sacrificed their lives for freedom. And I again thought about those in our neighborhood who had given their lives to violence in one way or another too—either as promoters or as victims. And the cloud over me grew darker.

On Memorial Day, I heard the news that our neighbor, friend, and music teacher Bruce Jackson had passed away after a long fight with Mesothelioma.

Several years earlier, I had signed up Ricka and Dicka for piano lessons at our neighborhood’s Camden Music School. I had selected Bruce as their teacher. I hadn’t met him before I clicked on his name on the computer screen, but I had heard good things, and that was enough.

The first day of piano lessons, Bruce entered the building in a Hawaiian shirt and a straw Panama fedora. The corners of his mouth curved up under a bushy mustache, and his eyes sparkled with the promise of musical adventures.

Over many weeks, Bruce taught my girls to relax and feel the music. Dance off the page and go beyond the notes, he told them. I snickered to myself as I watched the girls—their previous learning-style rigid and their postures even more so—try to navigate improvisational waters. Bruce beamed at their efforts, tapped his foot, and played along on the mandolin. When Dicka voiced her interest in percussion, Bruce pulled out some drums, gave her a few pointers, and set her free.

The year before, I had relieved Flicka of her piano duties; the fussing during practice time at home had eaten away at my resolve. But now Bruce was in our life. Was there something else for my first-born?

“I’d like to play the autoharp,” Flicka announced one day.

“Cool,” I said. “I bet Grandma would loan us hers.”

I asked Bruce if he could teach Flicka to play the stringed instrument.

“Sure,” he said. “Have her come in.”

The autoharp had sustained some injuries from the kids’ and grandkids’ home concerts over the years, but I soon learned Bruce also repaired instruments. He tinkered the harp back into shape and taught Flicka the basics.

Eventually, though, sports burst into the girls’ lives and pushed away the music. We phased out lessons for a while, always intending to return to Bruce, even when the Camden Music School closed its doors for lack of funding. Bruce invited us to stay in his life and come to his home for piano and autoharp time, and I always meant to. But good intentions flit away sometimes.

I kept in touch with Bruce’s fiancée—and with the man himself—through Facebook. I learned that he struggled with cancer, having begun the battle six years before we met. And each day was growing harder for him.

Bruce’s passing on Memorial Day 2016 darkened the cloud that hung over my head. One more reason to stay on the Northside was gone.

But stormy clouds don’t last forever; into the dark moments of contemplation at last comes the light. And I would see my way again.

Remembering Birdell.

Remembering Bruce. (Photo by Kathy Tauer)

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Excitement

If I had a dime for every time we came home from Art-a-Whirl to a disaster, I’d have twenty cents by now.

The largest art crawl in the nation, Art-a-Whirl, exploded on the calendar each year in that delicious space between the school’s plant sale and the girls’ last day of classes. Artists in northeast Minneapolis invited the masses into their creative minds and studios for one weekend in May, and we always left the event glowing from their imaginative work. In 2011, though, the devastation of a tornado that had obliterated our neighborhood while we were away dampened our enthusiasm.

On Saturday night—just five days ago—after seven hours of gallivanting once again among creative geniuses, we returned home to flashing lights and emergency vehicles. And nothing quashes one’s day of artistic inspiration like numerous police cars, a fire truck, an ambulance, and a tow truck parked right outside one’s house.

After we stepped inside the back door, my mother-in-law—visiting for the weekend—greeted us. Then she delivered the evening’s full report.

“Lala killed a squirrel earlier tonight, and then just ten minutes ago, someone crashed into a parked car out front. It was so loud, we thought it was ours.”

“What on earth? Again?” I dropped my purse on the table and hurried to the front window.

Husband went outside to take a look, and after my mother-in-law told me about the dog’s hunting escapade, I ventured out too, the girls on my heels.

Two cars, fused together in a mangled union, sat on the grass by the sidewalk. Into the night sky twisted smoke from the wreckage.

“Oh no,” I said as I approached Husband, standing near a crowd of neighbors. “Do you think anyone died?”

“I don’t know. But it’s Rodney and Shayla’s car that got hit.” Husband nodded toward the couple a few feet away.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. A driver of a speeding car had blasted into the couple’s parked vehicle one night in March too. “Twice in two months. What are the chances?”

“Rodney said that just yesterday they got their insurance check from the last crash.”

Husband wandered off to talk with a police officer. I threaded my way over to the couple. Rodney stood shirtless in pajama pants, staring at the rumpled heap of metal. Shayla, by his side, bit a lip and shook her head.

“What a nightmare,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

Rodney let out a laugh and raked a hand through his hair. “What’re you gonna do?”

Then I eyed Shayla; her shape had changed since the last time we had visited. “So, you had your baby?”

Her face softened. “Yeah, a boy. Wanna see him?”

“If it’s not a bad time.”

She pointed toward her front door. “Go ahead. The kids are in the living room with him right now.”

Unable to resist a fresh baby, I motioned to my girls, and they followed me into Rodney and Shayla’s house. The neighbor kids—now a big brother and sister—sat side by side on the couch, the newborn dozing in the boy’s arms.

“He’s beautiful.” I stroked the infant’s head as the kids told me about his name and birthday. Soon, the girls and I exited the tender scene to go home, once again cutting through the mayhem on the sidewalk.

Inside, Lala welcomed me, her tail beating the air. She plopped down on the floor and flipped onto her back, exposing her belly for a dose of affection.

“Now you, you naughty thing.” I crouched and scratched her chest. “You killed a squirrel tonight, huh?”

Still on her back, her tail swept the floor; the petting session turned her eyes to slits.

Husband came through the door. “The driver’s going to live. He has a broken leg, but that’s pretty much it.” He strode through the room. “So, where’s the dead squirrel, Mom?”

My mother-in-law pointed through the kitchen window to a spot in the back yard, and Husband pulled on a rubber glove and headed out. The dog scrambled to her feet and scuttled after him, but the closed door stopped her, and she parked on her haunches and whined.

A few minutes later, Husband came back inside. “It was just a baby. Maybe sick too, if Lala was able to catch it.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Ew.”

He patted the dog’s flanks. “She was just doing her job protecting the family.”

An hour later, Husband and I looked out the front window at the dwindling activity. The onlookers had dissipated, and the only vehicles left on the street were a police car and a tow truck. Two workers scraped the accident’s debris into a bin.

“Well, that was something.” I tugged the curtains shut, remembering the night’s events: the collision, the baby, the squirrel.

“Makes you wish you lived in the country, doesn’t it?” Husband shot me a half-smile and then locked the door’s deadbolt for the night.

I hid a grin. “There would be dead animals out there too.”

“Fewer crashes, though.”

I set our alarm system. “Where’s the excitement in that?”

He pointed at me. “I was thinking the same thing.”

Photo by Dicka.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Mrs. Fitzpatrick

Whenever someone dies, it rains.

Or at least that’s what I decided that day in 1974.

We lived in a big, green house in south Minneapolis—across the street from Seward Elementary School—back then, and Mrs. Fitzpatrick and her sister Inez lived next door.

To my preschool eye, our two neighbor ladies looked ancient. Mrs. Fitzpatrick wore smock tops, and half-moon eyeglasses hung from her neck on a jeweled lanyard. Her fingers dripped with splashy rings, and when she laughed in her gravelly voice, she flashed silver-capped teeth.

Mrs. Fitzpatrick was good to us kids and allowed us inside her house for visits. The place brimmed with musty knick-knacks and heirlooms, but I was drawn to one picture on her wall: a peacock—its splayed feathers done in shimmering threads—laid to rest on black velvet and framed in ornate gold.

Mrs. Fitzpatrick was the only adult I knew who smoked, and I thought the habit was otherworldly and matched her velvet art. She owned a beaded coin purse, made especially for her pack of cigarettes. And pedestal ashtrays stood at attention by the sofa and chairs in her living room like servants awaiting their lady’s orders.

On Halloween, Mrs. Fitzpatrick treated us kids as guests and not like front-stoop beggars in costume. With a flourish, she swept us into her home so we could choose the candy we wanted. And my older sister Coco counted the old woman as her friend.

While Mrs. Fitzpatrick watered her lawn one day, Coco modeled all her summer clothes for her in an impromptu fashion show. As my sister flounced outside in each new combination, the woman threw back her head and laughed. Some days, after Coco returned home from her school across the street, she went over to visit Mrs. Fitzpatrick, and the two of them chatted while they worked crossword puzzles on the porch.

Then one morning in 1974, a paramedic van with its lights flashing pulled up in front of Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s house. My two-year-old brother Fred and I scrambled up to our perches on the back of the brown couch and watched the activity through the picture window. Several men from the vehicle traipsed into our neighbors’ home, but the rain pelted the glass, obscuring our view. So Fred—wearing nothing but a diaper—scooted from his post, pulled on a coat, and stepped into Dad’s galoshes by the front door. Then he tromped outside in the thigh-high boots, and I followed him. We stood side by side in the rain in our front yard until the men emerged from the house, carrying out a body in a bag on a gurney.

Coco came home early from school that day. She had spotted the emergency vehicle when she was outside for recess, and she told her teacher she felt sick. Then Mom announced the sad news to us kids: Inez had found her sister in bed that morning. Mrs. Fitzpatrick had died in her sleep.

A year later, I watched the episode of Little House on the Prairie where the widow passed away, leaving behind her three children. The woman’s voice had been raspy—just like Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s—and rain poured down at her graveside funeral. I again thought of our neighbor’s showy accessories and generous candy dish, her smoke-staled furniture and Coco’s frequent visits. I recalled the scratch of the upholstery on the backs of my legs as I sat with Fred on the couch that last morning and the feel of the rain that greened the grass but washed away our friend next door.

Because back then, it always rained when someone died.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Sounds

In my tiny hometown, some people wedged air conditioners in the open windows of their homes in the summertime. As a kid, I saw those units as a sign of wealth, along with carpeting and wall murals. But in our little rambler, we only had fans. And I sang into those cooling machines and laughed at the quavering effect on my voice. They made me smile too on muggy Minnesota nights when I dreamed to the sound of those blades, beating behind bars.

If I snoozed away my teenage summer mornings, the sound of distant lawn mowers jostled me awake, reminding me of my chore. I had to cut our grass too before the afternoon, because my sisters and I had the grueling task of sunbathing—back when frying oneself in baby oil was a good idea. After my lawn mowing, we wriggled into our swimsuits, looped beach towels around our necks, grabbed the boom box, and sneaked out to the back yard where we committed our act of luxury. But the slam of a car door—that was Dad coming home for lunch. And we couldn’t let him see us being lazy in the back yard or we’d get more jobs added to our lists. Greasy and giggling, we scrambled back inside for cover. 

Some evenings back then—if the mosquitoes weren’t too ferocious—we sat on our front steps, sipping limeade. Our view was a gravel road, and beyond it, a field that stretched out forever—or at least as far as the place where sky kisses soil. Crickets chirped the soundtrack for those evenings, and fireflies igniged the ditches.

A decade and a half later, I traded the bucolic sounds of my youth for the jagged noise of inner-city living. Street fights in the night replaced the sound of purring fans, sirens trumped the buzzing of lawn mowers, and booming music choked out the crickets’ songs. But the commotion outside soothed my city babies to sleep. And Husband and I heard the pops of fireworks—or gunshots?—somewhere close, and the sounds lulled us to sleep too.

One Saturday night not long ago, I drove home from an event. As usual, I turned the car west at the exit and onto Dowling Avenue North. But what was up ahead? Inactivity on the streets snapped me to attention. I straightened my posture and glanced at the digital clock on the car’s dash. Midnight. I narrowed my eyes. The area was naked of violence and flashing lights. Why? I rolled down the driver’s side window to listen. Only the distant hum of freeway traffic floated into the car. As I drove deeper into north Minneapolis, I swiveled my head to scan each intersecting street. Something was awry.

Where were the police cars? And the sirens? Where was the normal activity—as common as jam on toast—of officers making arrests? Where was the yelling I had come to expect? Or the screeching tires that told me I was almost home?

That night in bed, I stared into the darkness. Like the whirring fans of my childhood, the clatter of unrest in our part of the city had become my white noise. I remembered two earlier conversations.

“A police car just went by,” an out-of-town guest had said, rushing to our living room window. “And it had its lights on.”

“Oh?” I shook my head. “I didn’t notice.”

On another occasion, a neighbor said, "That's the third time this week police helicopters have circled over our houses."

I shrugged. “I guess I didn’t hear them.”

Turmoil had become commonplace; dissension, humdrum. My senses had dulled, turning my gaze inward and blurring my motivation to serve the neighborhood. And one peaceful night on the streets felt wrong to me.

The next day, I let the dog out into the back yard. She sniffed the air, and I followed her outside to survey my garden. The usual sounds swirled around me: squeals from nearby tires, the bang of a dropping garbage can lid in the alley, and faraway sirens screaming toward crisis.

I breathed out a prayer for a fresh outlook, a renewed perspective—for ears to hear once more.

The bells from the church on the corner—louder than the neighborhood now—pealed out an old hymn, and I perched on a garden stool to listen. Memories of the song's lyrics wafted to me on spring winds, nudging me out of complacency and back to my purpose.

Faith of our fathers, we will love

Both friend and foe in all our strife,

And preach thee, too, as love knows how

By kindly words and virtuous life:

Faith of our fathers, holy faith,

We will be true to thee till death.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Jamal: Part 2

I gripped the door handle; I could be faster than a four-year-old if I had to be.

A boom car zipped by us. The noise snatched the little boy’s attention from his task.  

I knocked on the window. “Hit the button again, Jamal.”

More clicks, but not the right ones. Let the next one be it. He pressed again. The knob popped up, unlocking the car. In a fraction of a second, I opened the door. Jamal abandoned the keys and scrambled into his booster seat in the back. He tugged at the seat belt. I pulled it into place and clasped it for him, and then we drove off.

The harrowing adventure had spanned five minutes, and the story had concluded with the best of all possible endings. I adjusted the rearview mirror and looked at my passenger.

He gazed out the window and then at me. “Can I have candy now?”

The last thing an active boy needed was sugar, but I had given my word. “You sure can.”

Each weekday morning, my girls helped me awaken Jamal for preschool. We dressed him, fed him, and walked him to the bus stop at the end of our block. His groggy start to the day turned more vibrant with each step. And before the bus arrived, he entertained us with his knock-knock jokes and dance moves.

One morning while we waited at the corner, Jamal danced his fastest for us. Then the bus pulled up with a hiss, and the door screeched open. His smile vanished.

“No, no, NO!” Jamal’s feet stuck to the pavement.

“C’mon, buddy.” I lifted him up to the bus steps. “You had a good time yesterday.”

“No!” He kicked one foot up on each side of the open bus door and locked his knees.

“It’ll be fun, Jamal,” I said, still holding him under his arms. “You’ll come back to me soon.”

He braced himself against the door. The girls and I coaxed him with ideas of all the fun he might have at school.

“I gotta go, ma’am,” said the bus driver. “Can’t wait any longer.”

I stepped back and set the little boy down. “Okay, Jamal. You can stay with me today.”

The driver closed the door and drove away. The girls’ eyes widened as we all walked back to the house.

Fresh awareness lit Ricka’s face. “You mean you can do that?”

“What?” I said.

“Refuse to go to school like that.” Flicka’s words were slow, thoughtful. A smile crept onto her face. “I didn’t know it was possible.”

I cocked my head. “Don’t even think about it, girls.”

“The dad’s home!” Jamal hollered to me one day as Husband pulled up in front of the house. The dad.

I straightened shoes by the door. “Maybe he’ll play basketball with you again.”

The boy buzzed out to Husband—emerging from his truck—and from the window, I watched him bob in front of my man, tugging on his arm. The two of them came inside the house, and minutes later, they headed to the back yard to play basketball. I stepped outside to snap some pictures of their game.

Jamal dribbled the ball, then zinged a look at his opponent and laughed. “I’m gonna beat the black outta you!” He stepped closer to the basket, squinted at his target, poked out his tongue, and shot. The ball swished through the net.

Husband chased after the boy, stole the ball, and pulled out his jab steps, pump fakes, and dribble drives. Soon, the kid’s moves slowed. “A tired puppy is a happy puppy,” I remembered our dog trainer Mimi saying.

Back in the house thirty minutes later, Jamal splayed out on the living room floor. Then he crawled over to where Husband sat, climbed into his lap, looped an arm around his neck, and tussled Husband’s naturally curly hair. “You’re a nappy head too.”

A smile played at the corners of my man’s mouth. “You think so?”

“Yeah.” He pressed his forehead into Husband’s. “Just like me, Dad.”

Thirteen days with us, and then Jamal was gone. The day he left, I chatted with the host mom who had taken in his five-year-old brother. I had gotten to know her during the little boys’ play dates.

“So how did it go?” she asked as she stood on my front porch.

I pictured Jamal, a busy boy—amped up even more by his nebulizer treatments. I remembered his shining face, peering at me through the car window; his obsession with yogurt and basketball; his affinity for our whole family—but especially for Husband. I recalled the smell of the Moroccan hair oil I’d rub on his head after his baths, how he slept hard and long after his active days, and how he relished eating chicken skin—dragged through ketchup—more than the chicken itself. I had learned an adult should never relinquish control of her keys to a four-year-old, and once in a while, everyone deserves a personal day away from the demands of life and preschool. I had also learned that this kind of hosting would leave its mark—deep grooves in our lives that would never heal—but we’d do it again anyway.

The look on the woman’s face mirrored what I felt. I drew a deep breath, and let it go. “It was good.”

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Jamal: Part 1

“We have an unfilled urgent need,” the placement coordinator said on the other end of the phone line. “If you’re willing, we could use you now.”

During the previous weeks, we had completed the paperwork, the background investigation, the home inspection, the interview with the social worker, and the online training to be a host family for Safe Families for Children. We were fresh and ready to go.

“Tell me about the situation,” I said.

“There are two little boys. A four-year-old and a five-year-old. Their mom’s fine with separating them. Choose one, and the other one will stay in a host family near you.”

“Hm.” I flipped between the options, but it didn’t matter; whomever I chose would be the right one. “We’ll take the four-year-old.”

The coordinator explained that the boys’ mother had assumed the job of raising her ten-year-old sister after their parents had died on the same day in two different parts of Chicago. She was staying in a shelter in Minneapolis with the kids and struggling to cut through the fog of her days. Her to-do list was daunting: secure housing, find a job, raise her sister and her two boys, grieve her losses. A respite from her active little guys might help, she had said.

The director of Safe Families for Children drove Jamal, the four-year-old, to us the next day. In our living room, he stuck to her side while she pointed out his luggage and taught me how to operate his nebulizer. My girls—ages 8, 11, and 12—edged closer to him. His eyes glinted with curiosity as he watched them.

Dicka touched his hand. “Do you like basketball?”

Jamal’s face split into a smile, and he nodded. Soon, he darted out the back door with her.

Before bed that night, I read to him while the girls clustered around us. Together, we followed the adventures of Little Bear, Curious George, and Frog and Toad.

A tear trickled down his face behind the nebulizer mask. “I miss my mama.”

“I know, hon.” I closed the book. “We’ll call her in the morning.” I snuggled his stuffed dinosaur next to his cheek.

The next day, Jamal perked up. He ripped around the house, switching to a new activity every two minutes. One of those activities was nosing around inside the fridge. I whisked him out, but not before he snapped up his second yogurt of the day.

“This is the last one, okay? You just had yogurt an hour ago.” I steered him into the dining room. “And sit at the table to eat, please.”

He spooned up the creamy treat. Then the girls burst through the door from school. Jamal begged them to play basketball with him. They dropped their backpacks in the middle of the floor and scampered outside. Minutes later, Ricka stuck her head inside the house.

“Jamal just threw up in the back yard, Mom. I think he had too much yogurt.”

“Oh boy.” I followed her outside.

An empty yogurt container sat on the patio table. Jamal dragged the back of his hand across his mouth and bolted back into the game.

“You threw up, Jamal?” I said.

“No.” He swiped the ball away from Dicka. “I just spit.”

“No more yogurt today.”

The little boy whooped as Flicka chased after him. “You can’t catch me, Jo-Jo!”

I smiled at the nickname and passed through the gate, interrupting their game. “Did you hear me, Jamal?”

“Yeah.” He shot the ball, then flicked his gaze at me. “Can I have another yogurt now?”

One afternoon, Jamal and I left the house to run some errands. I smiled down at my little shadow. He watched me lock the front door, his focus glued on my keyring.

“Can I do it?” He tugged on the hem of my jacket. “Can I try?”

I flicked a finger under his chin and chuckled. “I already locked the door, bud.”

“Can I open the car?” As we walked outside together, he danced a jig around me, his eyes shining. “Let me open the car. Please?”

I recalled the girls’ intrigue with keys and how they had years earlier begged to do the same thing. Where was the harm in a kid learning a little independence?

“Push this one.” I pointed to the unlock button on my key fob, and he snatched the keys out of my hand.

He unlocked the passenger side door of the car, scrambled inside, and yanked it shut. I jogged around to the driver’s side, but before I could reach the door, I heard the click of the automatic locks.

Uh oh.

I did some quick math and added up the facts: A four-year-old boy locked inside my car—with my keys. And me outside my car—with no keys.

Jamal got the giggles. I pasted on a smile.

“Hey, let me in.” I rapped on the window. “We’ll go get some candy—and more yogurt. Sound good?”

He pressed his lips against the glass and puffed his cheeks out. Then he laughed as if he had performed the funniest act in the world.

I slowed my breathing, the plastic smile still stretched across my face. “Jamal, open up, okay?”

After another second of amusement, he stared at the key fob and furrowed his brow. Then he looked up at me.

“See the picture of the little open lock on there? Push that one,” I said.

He poked at the fob, but the doors locked again. He shrugged and shook his head.

How could I expect a little boy to understand the symbol of an unlocked padlock? “It’s the other button. Try it again.”

He tapped the unlock button. Nothing. He probably hadn’t pushed it hard enough. Think.

Maybe Husband had left his extra set of keys at home today. But the kid had the house key too, and I couldn’t let him out of my sight long enough to find the spare key hidden in the back yard, go back inside our place, and search for the extra car key that may or may not be on its hook by the back door. An icy thought froze me: Jamal held the key that also drove the car, and if he had ever watched an adult put one into an ignition…

“Jamal, I have an idea.” I clapped to draw his attention away from the keys. He pushed his face up to the glass and peered at me. “I want some candy—you do too, right?—so listen carefully. See those buttons on the door? Push one of those, okay?”

Jamal jumped into the front seat and stabbed at a few knobs on the dash.

“No, here.” I pointed down at the door.

On his first attempt, he hit the lock button again. I poised my hand on the door handle. Maybe his next try would save the day.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Book review: Assault on Saint Agnes by Joseph Courtemanche

I first saw Joe Courtemanche in early 2014 in a class at a writers’ conference in Colorado Springs. I recognized him as an Operation First Novel contest finalist for his thriller, Assault on Saint Agnes. With Tennyson’s hairstyle and Longfellow’s beard, Joe already wore the look of an author. I had read he lived in Saint Paul, so after class, I threaded my way over to him and introduced myself as a fellow Minnesotan. Then he invited me to join his writers' group back home, promising good speakers and chocolate at every meeting.

Over the months, Joe talked about the travails of publishing, but as a man of faith and laser focus, he pounded the rocky path anyway. He shared his manuscript with many beta readers—his wife, patrons of Mickey’s Diner, homeless folks, and more. And he listened to them and polished his writing to a glossy sheen. By 2015, Assault on Saint Agnes won the Genesis Award, and by early 2016, Joe’s baby was published.

Joe had served as a former police officer and Middle East/North African analyst and Arabic linguist in the United States Navy. His expertise informed his writing, and I couldn’t wait to find out how. I snapped up my autographed copy at the March writers’ group meeting and hustled home.

“I’ll read to you,” I said to Husband. “Like I did back in the day when our love was new and the kids weren’t around.”

He settled into a chair. “Yeah, let’s go.”

The first chapter plunged us into Bobby Kurtz’s world, the air pungent with burnt gunpowder and the floor strewn with shattered glass in Saint Agnes Church in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Minutes earlier, a team of terrorists, including a suicide bomber, had rained down horror during Mass. But they hadn’t counted on Kurtz—in the right place at the right time—ruining their day.

After the attack, Kurtz is dragged away—as a suspect and not a hero—but is soon pulled back into his former life as a "spook" (intelligence operative) where he helps a shadowy government agency in its plans to crush terrorist cells bent on destroying the Twin Cities’ power grid. But will Kurtz and his team obliterate the evil before it destroys them all?

As the book progressed, I increased my reading speed, flipping the pages in a race against time along with Bobby Kurtz. Husband hollered out a “Nice!” here and there, and the mounting tension made me forget all about my cup of coffee. I waited until the end to rub the knots out of my neck and shoulders; the last time I had needed a massage after a book was when I read Andy Weir’s The Martian.

In this debut novel that hits the ground sprinting, Joe Courtemanche serves up snappy dialogue that helps take the edge off the layered crises, but the familiar Twin Cities locations and plausible details about Homeland Security and the military made me wonder if the author knows something the rest of us don’t.

Husband read my thoughts and chuckled. “Don’t worry. It’s just fiction.”

*Joseph Courtemanche's novel Assault on Saint Agnes launched on April 18, 2016. Get your copy from Amazon here today. (And listen to the audio sample, read by Joe.) 

*Follow Joe's blog, and watch for his future novels too: www.commotioninthepews.com

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The truck

“Why don’t you take the Honda?” I said on Tuesday to Husband as he headed for the door. “You have a few kids to transport, so it makes sense. I only have to pick up Flicka at the train. I’ll take your truck.”

As soon as the words had left my mouth, regret settled in. Husband’s twenty-two-year-old pick-up—a battered Ford F150 with almost 300,000 miles on it—had given him some unwelcome surprises at inopportune times. Hopefully, its fickle attitude wouldn’t surface with me.

“Sounds good.” He strode from the house with Dicka and her friend who were dressed for boxing lessons.

After he left, my thoughts meandered from the pick-up to dinner. I had a plan for the meal, but lacked two ingredients. I would need to make a quick stop at the grocery store downtown before Flicka’s train arrived at the station.

I drove into the pristine and silent underground parking ramp of Whole Foods, the truck’s noisy steering pump announcing my entry. The grinding whine drew a look from a shopper who was making a beeline for the doors. Then the pick-up moaned even louder as I wedged it into a parking spot. I turned off the engine. A Lexus crept into the space next to me, and then a Prius tiptoed in on my other side. One of these kids is doing her own thing.

I entered the store, gathered my items, and waited in a checkout line. Flicka texted: I’m here. No problem. The station was close. I’d be there in under five minutes.

When it was my turn to pay, the cashier held his mouth in whistle position; his eyes twinkled as he scanned. He caressed my bag of parsley, a tender smile playing on his lips as he keyed numbers into the register. He spoke kind things about the corn starch I had quickly plucked off the shelf. And as for the crunchy pea snack I had tossed into my basket at the last second, he and I shared the same delight in the savory treat, he said.

The checkout had taken longer than expected, so I picked up my step on the way back to the truck. I climbed into the driver’s seat, stuck the key into the ignition, and turned. Nothing. Not even a glimmer of life.  

I texted Flicka: The truck’s dead and I’m stuck in the WF ramp. How about you walk this way?

I noticed the red mark on my phone’s battery app: 18%. Uh oh.

Flicka answered my text with a phone call. “Where is Whole Foods again in relation to the train?”

Worried about my dwindling battery, I gave her directions. She voiced her uncertainty about my whereabouts. “Start walking. I have to call Dad, and then I’ll walk to meet you.” I clicked the phone off and called Husband. But Dicka answered his phone.

“Dad’s in the meeting.” Ah, yes. Ricka's softball fundraising meeting. “Want me to get him?”

“Yeah, you better.” I explained the issue. She promised she’d relay the message and then hung up. A few minutes passed. I hopped out of the truck and started walking to meet Flicka. Finally, I spotted her a block away, heading toward me. My phone rang. Husband.

“Truck won’t start?” His voice was even.

“The battery’s dead or something.” I waved to my girl—now across the street from me—and she waved back.

“Okay. Open the hood.”

“I can’t. I’m out on the street meeting Flicka. But I’ll be back there in a minute.”

“You have to wiggle the wire on the left terminal on the battery. Then it’ll work.”

“Okay. Gotta go before my phone dies.” I punched the off button.

I recalled the times Husband had started his truck with a screwdriver and the occasions when he had needed to hit the starter with a hammer first. It all reminded me of driving through my college years in a Honda Accord that almost reached a half a million miles before its demise. I toted around a box of spark plugs in those days, and when needed, I could swap them out in minutes.

Back in the truck in the parking ramp, Flicka sat in the passenger seat while I searched for the latch to release the hood, illuminating the dark belly of the cab with my phone’s flashlight.

“I can’t for the life of me… Oh, there it is.” I pulled a lever. “Nope. That’s the brake release.”

She and I poked around under the dash, but came up empty. Her cell phone charge was lower than mine, so I used my own phone—its battery now registering 12%—to dial Husband. He answered before I heard it ring.

“Did you get it started?”

I groped around near the floor. “I can’t find the lever to open the hood.”

He guided me through the process. Once it popped, I ended the call and jumped out. I fiddled under the hood until the owner of the Prius returned, but I avoided eye contact; I could figure this out on my own. Or not. The driver backed out of his spot with as much sound as a fly rubbing its wings together on a summer day. Then his car whispered off and out of the ramp.

I wiggled the left cable on the battery—the right one too, for good measure—and hopped back in behind the wheel. The engine roared to life, and its shrieking had never sounded so sweet.

Dinner on Tuesday night was only a little later than I had planned. The vehicle issue hadn’t caused much stress for anyone. Neither Flicka nor I had lost charge on our cell phones, but if we had, we had been in the vicinity of other humans anyway. The weather had been pleasant; the walk toward my girl had been quick and painless. And Husband hadn’t minded missing five minutes of his meeting. In total, a bland time had been had by all.

Often in life, things happen and we move on, almost entirely forgetting about them by the next day—and certainly without garnering any lasting truths from them—because they were really no big deal in the first place. Not all vehicle mishaps are disasters, and not all stories have morals. But this event brought enough words to create a blog entry.

So that’s something.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.