Memphis(51)

Derek never confirmed his involvement with the Douglass Park Bishops, but he did not have to. The judge, the Honorable Dorothy White, was from the streets of Memphis, knew that a seventeen-year-old boy does not own an AK-47; that weapon had been gifted. She, and the jury, also knew that a boy from North Memphis had no valid, reasonable reason to even be in Orange Mound, much less with an automatic weapon used in warfare, all to kill two people he had never met. The jury took all of thirty minutes to issue a guilty verdict; didn’t even need to break for lunch.

Miriam remembered only letting go of her sister’s hand when she took the stand at Derek’s sentencing. The prosecution was pushing for the death penalty; Derek’s best shot was life without parole. August wore a black cape dress that flared out at her arms so that she looked like some medieval sorceress. A black funeral hat with a lace veil covered most of her shell-shocked face. Her kitten heels clicked on the marble floor as she swung open the saddle doors separating public from judge and took the stand.

“Raise your right hand,” the security guard had bellowed.

August obeyed.

“Do you solemnly swear that you will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, under penalty of perjury, so help you God?” he asked.

“Yes,” August said.

“Ma’am, we need you to state your full name for the record,” Derek’s defense attorney began. He was a stout, bearded, middle-aged man, and he wore a well-tailored suit, a red carnation at the lapel.

“August Della North.”

“And state your relation to the defendant.”

“He’s my son.”

“Ma’am, what is your occupation?”

“I’m a hair stylist. I have a little shop I run out the back of my home.”

Derek’s attorney paced, nodded his head, and stroked his beard. He spoke slow, pronouncing each syllable so that the courtroom understood the gravity of the situation. “Ma’am, why don’t you begin by telling us a little about your son?”

Miriam remembered seeing her sister take a deep breath, exhale. She had never seen August so utterly spent. She looked like she had been to the underworld and back and could speak the language of the dead and the lost.

At first, it didn’t seem as if August would be able to speak. She sat on the witness stand and Miriam saw her shoulders rise and fall in deep, concentrated breaths. The silence got to the crowd. There were snickers from the Kings Gate Mafia pew.

It seemed as if August took no note. She lifted her veil so that her eyes were exposed. Even from her seat, Miriam could see them: They were two dark holes. Looked like they contained the suffering of the entire world.

August began: “That boy’s father was Lucifer. I mean that. Kind of man make you believe in evil in this world. Know it in your bones. Feeling you get when you stare at an abyss and know in your heart that there, below, dragons roam.”

The courtroom fell silent. There were no more snickers.

“We met on Beale Street,” she said, her voice steadier now. “He was walking down Beale, cigarette in hand, and offered me one. I had never tried one before, and it tasted so good, like a freedom I didn’t know I needed. He had on this black leather jacket. Sideburns. He was the color of fall—golden brown. Stole my heart. Took it, beating, right out of me. Felt like I didn’t even have a say in the matter.

“He never hit me. Didn’t have to. I knew what a demon was, what it wanted, what angered it. Miss Dawn—she an old family friend—she once told me, ‘Djinnis are real.’ But I didn’t believe her until Derek was born.

“Derek was born in the middle of a thunderstorm in March. The power out. Six hours into labor, an elm had fallen on a power line. People drowned that night. Derek came out silent as a lamb through all of it. His father held him first. Can you imagine? Wouldn’t even let me be the first to hold my boy. He said, ‘He’ll be a Spartan.’ God, that man lived up to his promise. Brutally. Ruthlessly. Once, I found D—we call him D at home—in a closet, shivering. He had held a bucket of water in his hands. For hours. You hear me? Hours. He was ten years old. I was at home, but I had ten washes and sets that day—” She broke off, reached for a tissue from a box on the witness stand.

All the hairs on Miriam’s body were raised. She’d known Derek’s father was no good, but she’d never heard most of what August was telling this room. August had a secret side no one in the family had ever been able to penetrate. As a child, she’d always be pounding away at the piano keys, her face unreadable, lost in some reverie that Miriam, even Hazel, couldn’t understand. Or she was hiding up in some tree, listening in to the fireside political debates at the house, her thoughts her own. Yes, August had always been the mysterious one. So, when she got pregnant, far too early, no one had even asked who the father was. Miriam knew her sister would never tell.

“Sometimes, I’d come back from Stanley’s—Stanley’s is a deli by the house—and I’d find the house dark, the lights all turned off. D would be shaking, just shaking. Wouldn’t let me touch him. Wouldn’t say nothing. He’d hide in the cupboards sometimes. The closets. Like some scared, hurt animal. And his father. I don’t think I should even name the nigga. I’d find him sitting at the kitchen table. Drinking black, cold coffee. Asking me, ‘How long ’til dinner?’?”