Dead Man Running

For Robert and
Lena
, my parents and the source of my love for words.

PROLOGUE

OAKLAND
CALIFORNIA
– OCTOBER 2010

Tamesha Holloway, a child alone among the noise and activity of her
East Oakland
neighborhood, carefully threaded her way home.  Home was the Altadena Arms, one of the worst projects in the city. 
That place, terrible and disgusting,
literally
consumed
children like Tamesha whole
.  Soon
her bright brown face and lively mind
would be
gone into a machine of hopelessness, poverty, despair and cannibalism.

Yes, c
annibalism
.  T
he residents
of Altadena Arms
ate
their own.  Residents like the group of young black males shooting
'
the rock
'
a couple
of
blocks away from
Altadena
.  Tamesha – who in her twelve years ha
d
learned to be friendly to all her neighborhood's residents – waved to the boys
as she fast
walked down the broken sidewalk
. 

A few stopped to shout greetings at the long legged young girl with the
cute face and boyish frame as she hurried
down
Montecito Avenue
.  The ones who stopped playing
in order to watch her
and some of those who pretended not to notice her made similar mental assessments of the girl child. 

She was still too young – nice legs in that school uniform of hers but she's not ready to have my child.  Maybe next year I'll hit that, get my baby growing inside her.  Make that bright smile belong to me.  Drop my shit inside her then move on to the next bitch. 

Most of the
black
boys were thinking this for it was their objective to destroy black girls. 

If she's bleedin', she's needin'
is how the ghetto puts it.  The boys on the playground, noses held high
in the filthy air
, could not yet smell Tamesha's blood.

If the boys didn't get Tamesha surely drugs would – either the drugs themselves or the byproduct of the drug trade
, violence
. 

Tamesha passed by the drug lookouts – children younger than her paid twenty dollars a day to look out for the 'po po'.  She greeted these children and they smiled back at her with what was left of their youth.

Tamesha finally reached the wrought iron gate that encircled Altadena Arms
and entered
.  She dodged the syringes and used condoms in the courtyard.  She walked to the backside of her building – Tower A – to look for
'
her
'
dogs.  She found three of the mutts
nosing through plastic garbage bags that
had
not ma
d
e it into the dumpsters
that
squatt
ed
behind the building.  Their efforts to find food in the garbage ceased when Tamesha appeared.  The three mutts ran to greet her.  Tamesha pet each dog and allowed each to lick her
hands and
face with their garbage tinged mouths.  Greetings done, the animals sat on their haunches and watched.  Tamesha pulled her
book bag
off her back and reached inside.

The dogs were salivating by this time.  She slow
ly
unwrapped a grilled cheese sandwich
from
a grease stained napkin.   This was her lunch – provided by some government entity.  She carefully broke the sandwich into three chunks and fed 'her' dogs.  She watched the dogs wolf down the food in seconds,
then
turned and entered her building.  After climbing the stairs to her twelfth floor apartment, she was barely winded.

Inside, a woman who looked decades older than her forty-four years greeted Tamesha. 

Tamesha hugged her grandmother
Eldina
and luxuriated in the smell of collard greens and pork chops that met her nose.
 

Her earring clinked against her granny's golden heart pendant, a birthday present from her granddaughter.

Her grandmother pulled off of the embrace and looked in Tamesha's eyes. 
She had tears in her
dark brown
eyes.

"I've seen the
monsters
, Tammy, and
they're
on
their
way."

Tamesha was used to tales of her Granny's second sight so she thought nothing of this declaration.  She enjoyed her dinner, did her homework and had time to watch a little TV before bed.  She slept very well.

Perhaps, if she had known that her grandmother was correct, she would
have
sle
pt
less well, or not at all. 

The
monsters
indeed w
ere
on
their
way and
t
he
y
would come for Tamesha Holloway
soon enough
.

ONE

THE CAPITAL BUILDING -
WASHINGTON
DC
– FEBRUARY 20
13

Congressman Claude Simmons, chair of the House Special Committee on Domestic Terrorism, checked his watch.  Satisfied that it was time, he banged his gavel, signaling the beginning of this 'eyes only' meeting.  In attendance in the volumin
ous meeting room w
as
he and the eleven members of the committee.  There was no press, no staff present
except for a stenographer and a videographer
.  Capital Police were posted at each exit.  The senior congressman from
Iowa
cleared his throat, glanced to his left and right to assure the attention of his committee, and began his opening remarks.  As he spoke, he fought to keep the excitement he felt out of his throat.  Imagine, a
n
orphan boy from
Des Moines
in charge of investigating
America
's biggest domestic terror threat since
9/11
.

"Good morning.  Since our work is urgent I want to get right to today's witness.  I don't have to remind anyone in this room regarding the gravity of the testimony that we are about to hear.  Given the threat to our way of life, given that the threat emanate
d
from within this august body, I cannot emphasize that there shall be no leaking details of these proceedings.  Am I understood?"

S
immons waited until each individual acknowledged his words.

Finally, using no microphone in the empty room, he ordered the Capital Police to bring in the witness.

In less than a minute,
Congressman
Elias Turnbull was escorted into the room.  He wore a dark blue pinstriped suit that appeared to be two sizes too
small
. 
Always a very fit man, he
looked
to have hit the free weights too hard recently as the fabric strained against his wide back and shoulders.

The former fashion plate,
named
one of DC's most eligible bachelors
ten
years
running, was neither fashionable nor eligible. 
The suit might have come off the rack.  He dressed like a guilty man, one so focused on his crimes he cared not what he wore.  He might as well
have
walked in wearing an orange jumpsuit.

He
was escorted to the witness table opposite the committee's raised semi-circle.

The witness sat. 
He laid
his
h
ands flat onto the table
, met
the eyes of the committee
will a gaze of steel
.  He
re
was a man
under
threat,
his very life
in the balance
,
but there he sat cool
and calm
.

"Welcome, Mr. Turnbull."  The man
gave the chair his attention. 

Simmons continued: "Mr. Turnbull,
c
ould you identify yourself for the record?
"

"
My name is Elias
James
Turnbull.
"

"Your occupation?"

"Member of Congress, representing Harlem
New York
."

"
Mr. Turnbull, are you prepared to tell this committee about the events surrounding the 2
010
New York
4th
C
ongressional
District election
and
its
aftermath
?
"

"
Yes sir.
"

"
Please proceed.
"

Elias Turnbull settled in
to
his chair and stared straight ahead, his twenty mile
gaze
affixed
onto the raised seal of the Congress of the
United States
.  He forced his eyes to stay in that one place
as he told his story.

He realized that there was nowhere to run, no one
in that room
to whom he could turn for protection
, solace or
absolution
. 
There was no understanding what he had done, the hell he had unleashed.

He would tell, and then
pray
for his
freedom and his
life
, and that of his loved one
.

It was the way it had to be.

TWO

SAVIOR THIS
DAY
BAPTIST
CHURCH
,
HARLEM
-
NOVEMBER 2010

It was a normal Sunday in the urban wonderland called
Harlem
. 

The church
wa
s
rocking
,
the large
band cranked up
in its supersonic glory
.  The choir
wa
s swaying back and forth
,
its rich collective voice powerful enough to tickle the underside of Heaven.
 

The minister
, Our Most Reverend
Congressman
Benjamin
Americus
Crispus
Attucks Wiley III, wa
s swaying to the rhythms in the pulpit.

It all started out like any other Sunday.  Congressman Reverend Wiley ministered to his spiritual flock that morning.
  The holy man's dark face glistened in sweat, the byproduct of his near constant movement, the Spirit energizing his fifty-seven year old bones into unbound activity, so much
so
that he mimicked the moves of his late friend James Brown as he worked the church. 

Finally, after a performance that would have put the Godfather of Soul to shame, the reverend's tall and thick body stilled
as he stood
behind the pulpit.  The band quieted gradually, creating a golden musical path to the door of
spiritual
knowledge, soon to be opened by the reverend.

With one
sharp
glance the music stopped - the band and choir silently taking their seats. 
T
he man's
preaching was surprisingly direct, given the thunder and glitz that led the parishioner to his words
.  H
e wasted no time informing the several hundred in attendance that God's Word today was
'
e
vangelism
'
.  He used the sermon as a
n
opportunity to teach his flock about their African history, how the white man had come to the
so called
Dark Continent
'with a Bible in one hand and a gun in another'.  Although he voiced thanks to the white man for bringing Jesus to our ancestors, he quickly castigated their methods.  His address picked up steam and force as he walked
the congregation
into modern times, describing the ills of the present society – guns, drugs, unwed pregnancies,
and
black
Republicans.