High Crime Area (25 page)

We are three months before the race riot of sweltering July 1967. But no one can know that, in wintry April.

The secret handgun: a purchase from another instructor. A secret from friends as from my unsuspecting students. And my husband.

Drew had given me rudimentary lessons in using the gun. Safety, how to load, what kind of bullets, how to clean. (Not that I planned on cleaning the gun.) How to aim the barrel, how to “gently press” the trigger. Assuring me that I didn't really have to be skilled at using a firearm, all I'd need to do was allow anyone who was threatening me to know that I had one—I was
armed.

Like me Drew was an adjunct teacher which is to say temporary, expendable and near-anonymous. He had a master's degree in English and “communication skills.” Of course, he was
white
.

He was leaving Detroit, he'd said. Moving across the continent to Seattle. He'd given up trying to establish a life here in this city that was paved-over like a great parking lot yet had the feel of shifting-sands, that could fall away beneath your feet and suck you down to Hell.

If I can get to Cass Avenue. And across. And to the parking garage. There is likely to be—well, there might be—someone in or near the parking garage, at this time—another faculty member and so there would be two of us, and only one of
him.

Frightened white faces, like mine. Snug inside their pockets, worn against their hearts, or hidden in their shoulder bags or briefcases, secret weapons like mine?

Probably not. Possibly.

Would I dare remove it? Would I dare
—lift it, aim the barrel, press my terrified finger against the trigger? Shoot another person, even in self-defense?

Drew had said, you don't have to aim it, even. Just reveal it, that would be enough. Fire it into the air. Fire wildly. And scream. Just to demonstrate you aren't defenseless, helpless.

Wildly now I am thinking
I will do this! I am strong enough.

Here, to my right as I approach Cass Avenue, is the six-foot concrete wall covered in graffiti, that has drawn my eye since the start of the fall term. On this ruin of a wall is a tangle of impassioned scribbles like the art of Miró, Klee, Picasso—not a primitive or crude form of that art but near-identical to it. I inquired about the startling graffiti but no one was very helpful. My questions were met with looks of bemusement, disdain—
Sorry! No idea. It all looks the same to us
—ugly.

Briefly, before other distractions intervened, and the responsibility of teaching remedial English became a sort of obsession, I'd contemplated the possibility of writing an appreciative essay on the graffiti, and taking photographs of the “art.” I have to concede, I'd imagined making an impression with an essay of this sort, that might appear in an intellectual literary journal, and draw attention to the (white) (woman) author as well as to the unknown artist... But with the passage of months the graffiti has begun to fade into the general shabbiness of the urban campus. The artist hasn't revisited the wall. I want to protest to him—
But you are special. You shouldn't remain anonymous.

He will remain anonymous. Maybe he isn't even alive any longer.

The mortality rate for young black men in Detroit is said to be nine times higher than that for their white counterparts. Likelihood of incarceration, even higher.

At Cass, I cross the wide, windy avenue as swiftly as I can without breaking into a run or turning an ankle like a fool. Slow-moving traffic on the avenue, city buses, trucks belching diesel exhaust, but mostly sidewalks are deserted at this hour at the scruffy edge of the campus.

Behind me whoever is following me accelerates his pace, crossing Cass against the light on long striding legs.

Calmly I am thinking
It is just a coincidence. This person is not really following me.

Calmly I am thinking
He can't know that I am armed. As soon as it is revealed, in whatever way it will be revealed, he will disappear.

I would not have to fire the gun, I was sure. I would not have to kill another person.

Yet my heartbeat has quickened. Almost, I'm unable to breathe.

Not panic. A reasonable apprehension, in this place and at this time.

Sweat breaking out beneath my clothes which are the remnants of winter wear—dark-crimson down coat with a hood, black woolen trousers, knit gloves. For weeks in March the temperature seemed frozen—literally—at 32°F; only grudgingly has the air turned warmer.

The last time I'd been followed off campus whoever had been following me seemed to become discouraged when, on Cass, a city bus wheezed to a stop to disgorge passengers with whom I mingled like a clumsy white goose among dark-feathered Canada geese—what relief! I'd almost laughed, I was so elated. And when I'd glanced back, the (male, black) figure seemed to have vanished.

Ninety percent of muggings, rapes, even homicides in Detroit are what the police label
opportunistic
. Meaning the victim happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Bad luck. Nothing personal.

But this evening there's no bus. At least, no bus that's going to stop. And there's no one on this stretch of pavement except me, conspicuous in my pale skin as a mollusk shorn of its shell.

White Devel. Enemy Black People.

My husband had said, You don't have to teach there. You don't have to teach at all.

I'd said, But—I do.

He said, Look. You
don't
.

It was true: my husband had a good job and could support us both. Some measure of old-fashioned pride lay lodged deep within him.
A man should support his wife. A man should not allow his wife to work in demeaning or dangerous circumstances.

Wayne State is in a high crime area, my husband said. He'd meant to be kindly and not bullying.

High crime area
was an expression commonly heard in the media, seen in print. As commonplace in Detroit and vicinity as the parallel expression
exclusive suburb Grosse Pointe.

What is the proportion of black and white citizens who are
armed
?

Recently it was revealed that there are at least two firearms for each citizen of Detroit though in the same news article it was acknowledged that this was a figure compiled from gun registrations only. Many more “firearms” are not registered as they are illegal purchases and of these, many are in the possession of individuals under twenty-one.

Crime in Detroit is “predominantly black”—and yet, victims-of-crime in Detroit are “predominantly black.” White citizens have fled and are fleeing to “white suburbs.”

But we have not yet fled. We are stubborn, or guileless. We are not yet ready to make the leap.

The (male, black) figure is approximately twenty feet behind me. He isn't gaining on me—he has slowed his pace since running across the street. I can hear something—whistling? Humming?
Is he singing under his breath?

Dark skin. Young, lean, and edgy like a boxer who's too tall for his weight, and his arms and legs too long. No jacket, bare muscled arms, denim cap pulled low over his forehead.

He's a stranger—I think. He is no one I know.

No one who should know
me
.

We are headed east on that short, narrow street off Cass. Suddenly it seems to be dusk—the red-hazy air has darkened. I'm walking swiftly in the awkward way in which people walk when they believe they're being followed but don't want the follower to know that they're aware of being followed—head slightly ducked, shoulders stiff, arms tight against my sides. My veins are flooded with adrenaline like hot acid and I feel a kind of crazy elation—wanting to break into a run. But I know that this would be a mistake.
He will know, then. It will be acknowledged between us.

How exposed I am feeling, a (lone, white) woman. At the same time trying to console myself—
He's a student. He's from the University. He doesn't want to hurt me.

If he could see me now my husband would chide—Why did you stay so late in that building, who did you imagine you were waiting for?

Furious chiding me—What are you trying to prove? That you don't need a marriage, you don't need
me
?

Ahead is the parking garage. Five floors, near-empty, my car on the third level. I can't step inside, into that dark interior. In my panic I think—
Should I run? But where?

Should I fumble in my shoulder bag and reveal it
—the illegal, terrifying pistol?

Once I have done this I will have crossed over, I am thinking. All that is secret will be revealed. And if I “fire” the gun—my life will be changed, irrevocably.

I know this. This is inescapable.

I am panting, sweating. A roaring in my ears like a great cataract.

And then, I've made a decision: I have turned to the man who has been tormenting me, and I am holding my shoulder bag in such a way that I can reach inside, if required; and I will not hesitate, if required.

I am trembling badly but my voice is stronger than I'd expected. I am saying, “Excuse me! Are you—do you—want something?”

My question seems to have taken the man by surprise.

“Ma'am? What you sayin?”

He has no idea how desperate I am. No idea what I am carrying in my shoulder bag. I am not the type, he has been thinking. But whatever he's been expecting, he has not expected me to turn and confront him.

Of course, I am very nervous. I am trying not to stammer.

“I'm asking—are you following me? Why are you following me?”

“Ma'am! Not following anybody.”

Wariness in his eyes, that are large, and hooded. And a kind of bemusement. His lips draw back in a wary smile.

“But I think you are. I think you've been—following me. You've been following me since...”

Now that I can see the man's face, I realize that he's a former student of mine, from the first semester I'd taught at Wayne State. But it isn't clear if he remembers
me
.

His name is—Ezra? Ezekiel? His last name, I can't recall.

Ezekiel had been the first “casualty” among my students—as I'd thought at the time. The first of my Wayne State students to disappear with no explanation from a class of mine.

Because he'd dropped out of the course without securing permission from the University, I'd had to give Ezekiel a grade of F. I'd have given him an I (“Incomplete”) if he'd requested it, but he had not requested it. Ezekiel's attendance in the course had been sporadic and unpredictable and in class he'd shifted almost continually, maddeningly in his seat beside a steam radiator, legs too long for the desk, head lifted at an odd angle as if, beneath my voice, or drowning out my voice, he was hearing another, more crucial interior voice, or an intoxicating interior music. Often Ezekiel's face crinkled in frowns, grimaces. He smiled, but not at me. His eccentric behavior seemed to disconcert some of the other, more subdued students, but except for his occasional blunt stare he'd never seemed threatening to me or to anyone. I had not quite dared to call on him, but a few times he'd lifted his hand to answer a question of mine, with the demeanor of a schoolboy.

The fact was, I'd felt a tinge of loss when Ezekiel disappeared from my class. There's no rebuke to an instructor quite like an empty, abandoned desk in a classroom. No more clear sign of failure.

Now, I am hesitant to utter Ezekiel's name, for fear that I have remembered it wrongly. I don't want to insult him, confusing him with another (black, male) student.

Maybe, I have remembered him wrongly.

Ezekiel has thrust his hands deep into his pockets as if to force me to see, he isn't dangerous. His trousers are tight, no room for any handgun though there might be room for a slender knife or a razor—I am thinking.

There is something impudent about this handsome young black man's bemused drawl: “Maa'aam? Maybe I was followin you, seein it was you.” He laughs, loudly. “Thinkin it was you, Mz. Mc'tyre.”

So he remembers my name. He remembers
me.

Yet, until this moment it hasn't been clear if he'd known who I was. Like me, he hadn't remembered. And he mumbles my name as if enunciating it clearly would suggest an awkward intimacy between us.

We are standing on the sidewalk near the front entrance of the parking garage. There is less than ten feet between us. In my extreme unease I'm hardly able to speak, nor even compose my face. Should I be smiling in recognition of Ezekiel, or in relief? Should I be as wary as before?
Should I be frightened?

Ezekiel removes one of his hands from his pocket, to stroke his jaws that are covered in short bristly hairs. Until this moment, I hadn't noticed that he has a beard, a goatee. (But Ezekiel hadn't had a beard when he was in my class, had he? I was sure he had not.) Though he wants to suggest that he's in supreme control of the situation, Ezekiel is still surprised by my turning to confront him—the last thing he'd expected was this white, lone woman turning to him, to challenge him, in this desolate place.

He is eyeing my shoulder bag. I think I see this. Eyeing my large bulky quasi-leather shoulder bag in which I carry a paperback textbook and student papers but also car keys and a wallet. Money, credit card. Not much money, but Ezekiel could not know that.

And the heavy little handgun. Ezekiel could not know.

Rapidly my mind works—has Ezekiel been planning to follow me into the garage, though it's clear that he has no reason to enter the garage, and announcing then that he has been purposefully following me; has he been following a solitary woman he didn't recognize as a former instructor of his; and with what intent?