I did not want to see a dead Bobby in that beautiful rectangular box. I want to remember him alive, laughing like when we doused Dwayne with flour on his ninth birthday.
Bobby's brother, Dwayne was skipping rope with me, my sister and some friends. We were busy preparing for the Double Dutch competition in a few days. No one remembered that it was Dwayne's birthday. Dwayne turned the rope in his hands for us to jump when out of nowhere Bobby and his best friend, Willie, came with bags of flour.
"Happy birthday bozo!" Willie said, and he and Bobby poured heaps of flour all over Dwayne. Dwayne tried to run, but it was too late, they absolutely whitened him! He was covered in piles of flour from head to foot. "You guys are evil!" Dwayne shouted. But no one cared, we were all laughing and wishing him a happy birthday. He was a mess. Bobby's laughter is what I remembered most of all. I had never seen him laugh so hard, and I remembered thinking that he was sort of cute. Funny, the girls in the neighborhood always said Pastor Donald's sons were cute. Dwayne maybe. But not rotten Bobby! But that day Bobby was good looking for sure. Big tooth and all.
Summer and spring breaks were always fun times for the Ferocious Five. We were always busy in a good mischievous sort of way. We would sit as a group and plan with Bobby and a few friends which heist was next. That was one thing with Bobby. He was five years older than Dwayne, and eight years older than Roger, and he never left any of us out of his adventures. Even us girls were deeply involved in everything. We would throw water balloons at the mailman, clean up person's yard for money, do a noisy drum parade throughout the neighborhood and asked for donations. We broke too many car windows playing games on the street, made fake 911 calls or sent the pizza guy to various addresses in the neigborhood. Confusion reigned when the Ferocious Five was around.
We all got into trouble. Bobby most of all. I remembered the day Pastor Donald looked at fifteen-year-old Bobby and said, "I wish you weren't my kid!"
YOU ARE READING
A Dark Sun
RomanceValerie loved Bobby. Bobby loved Valerie. Everyone in the community knew it, though the two tried to keep their relations secret. They were childhood friends who grew to be lovers. But they were black. And black people can find themselves in the...
