The War From Within, James Anthony Love [e textbook reader .txt] 📗

child was no safer than an adult.
Bearing these things in mind it was an easy choice to go to the corner. The only problem was that I hated the owner. His name was Mr. Pearson and he was a middle aged black man who thought that he was living the American dream. He hated black people, though these were his only customers, barring the occasionally white person who had made a wrong turn or one that just didn’t know any better.
Now I had experience this kind of hatred before but he was the first, but sadly not the last, person I knew that looked like me and had these feelings.
He was a big burly man that looked like at one point of time he might have been in shape. His large round bald head always had beams of sweat hanging from it no matter what the temperature. His large and rotund stomach poked out in front of him, when he walked it looked like his belly would lead the way while the rest of his body followed. He, or maybe it was his store, also smelt bad, like collard greens that had been sitting out for a couple of weeks.
He also was a cheat, on several visit he had cheated Emma out of some of her change, or he charge more for an item than what was right. I would try to inform Emma of this but she would scream at me and tell me to keep my ass out of grown folks business. I always did what I was told.
So my hunger forced me to ignore the fact that I disliked him and the fact the he was probably going to cheat me, because I had no choice but to go. So I threw on my clothes and headed up to his store.
It was a beautiful summer day and most everyone was outside. The girls were out jumping rope, and some of the boys were playing touch football in the parking lot. The older teenagers were all out too and some, rather most of them, were openly smoking weed like it was legal. The older girls were rocking the newest hairdos and skimpy clothes all for a little attention that they most likely didn’t get at home. The boys were hanging out sporting their new or use Jordans, some slap boxing or ragging on each other and some giving the girls the attention that they sought. While the grownups sat around with each other, the men drinking beers and playing dominoes and the women gossiping about whom sleeping with who and who is cheating on whom.
I looked around and thought that this was a community, and if a stranger came in he would not suspect that a person had just got gunned down last week for his new Jordans in the parking lot where the boys were playing football. He wouldn’t know that the building close by where the girls jumped rope was a known crack house, also where Emma was probably residing at the time. He wouldn’t know that three out of six of these playful teenage boys would either be dead or in jail and four out six of the teenage girls would become pregnant from one of those dead or incarnated men, thus continuing the cycle in which we call poverty. No, he would not know this he would just see people having fun and enjoy life. He would see a loving community all together. Which was what I saw, but of course it was still day time.

After a short uneventful walk I arrived at the store. As soon as I opened the store’s door the repulsive odor laid siege to the inside of my nostrils. The odor was so bad that I would have turn and left if not for my stomach constant complaining growls. So I force myself into the store.
The bell hanging over the door alerted all of my presence. Mr. Pearson jumped up hard out of his seat from behind the counter as if I was the police or something. I walked in to get a clearer view of Mr. Pearson, who now was standing behind the counter wearing his patent dirty white shirt and overalls except they were not strapped and hanging barely above his waist line. He was trying, not succeeding, to hastily pull his pants up when a woman came for under the counter smiling, and without saying a word she smoothly walked to the back of the store.
Amazed I just stood there, now I didn’t have any idea what they were doing. All I knew was that I had walked in on Emma and a male friend is a similar situation and she had beaten me like she was trying to kill me. I brace myself for a similar beating from Mr. Pearson or the woman, but I was not going to run. Not because I was tough, I was just hungry and I was willing to go through hell just to get some food.
“Boy what the hell you doing in here? Ya know that I don’t want no damn kids in here.” Mr. Pearson shouted out furiously.
“I thought I locked that door.” he added, mostly talking to himself rather than me.
“I am hungry and I came to buy some food.” I said as innocent as I could.
As I spoke I looked at the ground as if I was scare to look him in the eye. I knew that most grown ups liked it when I child made themselves inferior to them, especially an inferior grown up. I also thought that it would hurt the heart of all adults for an innocent child to go without.
“Yeah right, you little ghetto bastards ain’t trying to buy nothing, you just here to steal. Nah, I’m not buying it. Now get your little black ass out of here and tell ya mama to come back and buy some food. Cause I ain’t letting ya in my sto’.” He replied waving his hands like a maniac as he talked.
Though he was inferior, I didn’t factor in the fact that Mr. Pearson did not have a heart.
One thing I could remember thinking was that I sure that he did not remember me from the few times that I was in his store, so why did he say tell my mother instead of my father or my parents plural. I thought to myself, did I have the look of a fatherless child? Or was it branded on me where others could see but I could not. Or was this just him presuming the obvious.
Mr. Pearson, saw that I was not moving so he picked up something and started to come around from his counter. I again readied myself for whatever he was going to bring. I was scared but I willed myself to stand still. It became must easier to stand my ground as I saw what it was that he picked up, a belt. I almost busted out laughing, but I knew that would not make the situation any better, which in turn would leave me hungry for the night.
I loosen my stance and looked up to him and lied, “My mama is sick that’s the only reason I came here alone. I never have been shopping alone before.”
Stubbornly he just stood there shaking his head.
“Sick my ass, she probably somewhere with a pipe in her hands.” He retorted
What he said did not hurt me, the truth rarely did, but I was taken aback by the fact that he said that she was on crack. Granted half of the neighborhood, at that time, was hooked on it, but still was I also branded by my crack head mother? Or again, did I look like I didn’t have a father and that I was a son of a crack head?
“I don’t know what wrong with these niggas today… Mr. Pearson started in on one of his self hatred rants.
Luckily the woman had return and spoke up, “Damnit Willie, let the boy get some food. You can see he is hungry and shit he even got the money in his hand.”
As she spoke she put a basket’s worth of groceries into some paper sacks. I remember thinking that she must had already paid for them because she never pulled out any money.
I had pulled out the food stamps in my last attempt to show Mr. Pearson that I was not going to try and steal anything.
“Who asked ya ass anyway. Don’t tell me how to run my damn business. Get you food and get the hell out of here.” He exclaimed with his arms waving wildly again.
She did not move a muscle, she just gave him look that could have been exchange for a thousands words then she turned her back on him and faced me. I had no explanation for it but it look like Mr. Pearson was truly intimidated by just her looked. All I know was that she clearly had some kind of power over him because he changed his tone faster than someone singing off pitch.
“Aw… come on now Nikki, you know I was just playing with the little nigga, he can gon’ head and get whatever he needs.” He said in the nicest voice I had ever heard from him, as he rush to her side and started to rub her shoulders with his ancient looking and ashy hands.
He continued, “Now you just go on home and I’ll see you next week.”
She eased her glare, smiled at me and turned back to him. She gave him a quick kiss and grabbed her groceries and headed to the door. I was in her path and she was staring right at me. Though she was not glaring at me angrily at me like she did Mr. Pearson, her stare was still intimidating. Her smile tightened the hunger knot in my stomach and my legs almost buckle as if someone had kicked me in the back of my knees. She had some form of power because I had never felt like that before.
“You Emma’s Boy Right?” She said to me in a voice just above a whisper.
The mention of Emma’s name brought me back to reality and I merely just nodded my head.
“I live in the Hall too, in fact I live in the apartment building right next yours. I’ve seen you outside a couple of times.” She said as I admired her golden brown complexion and the bright red freckles that adorned her face.
I wanted to respond but I could not, I just stood there like I was in a trance. I was the deer and she was the oncoming headlights.
“Well what’s your name?” she asked
Reluctantly, I told her.
“How old are you?”
I told her eight and began to wonder why she was asking all of these questions?
“Eight my ass boy you look like you about to be a teenager.” She replied with this silly laugh.
I heard this many times before, usually it made me angry. However, I laugh with her like she had just told the world’s funniest joke, for reasons that I could not explain.
After laughing a couple of seconds to long I felt that it was my turn to say something so I said the first thing that came to my mind, “What’s your name?”
She looked relieved, like she thought that I would never ask.
“Nicole, baby, but you can call me Miss Nikki.”
“Huh… Yes ma’am.”, was all that I could choked out.
“You gonna have to come and see Miss Nikki when you get a little older. Ain’t that right?”
Even if I wanted