Ruben and I played ball in high school, though I was never any good. But he'd been recruited by several colleges, won scholarships, was well liked by the faculty, who inflated his grades to qualify him for acceptance and these awards, which he lost after his arrest. His cousin trapped, he involved himself, and then both were caught and sentenced heavily. That was six summers ago. We'd been close back then, Ruben and I, having shared our all of our school days. I recall mornings before class spent at the banks of a waterway, where we'd talk and smoke. Sometimes we'd arrive before sunrise, when often we'd sit silently. And then the sun would ascend, sow clouds with light, whose color I likened to nacre, as the nature around us wakened and chattered.
At his arrest Ruben felt grief, like a mother for her miscarriage, for a life he'd never have. He had talked eagerly of a future outside of Miami, away from his family and neighborhood. Though his home-life burdened him, his mind, as I knew it, was carefree. He could lift physical weight like no other—he'd been our best linebacker—and his mental burden was as a sack of feathers, which to another would weigh as boulders. That's why, when Ruben got locked up, I shared his grief but didn't worry, knowing he'd be alright.
In Port-au-Prince his father had been a pastor. When the pastor arrived in the States, in 1983, he established a church in Little Haiti. The church building comprised a chapel and two other rooms. He and his wife lived in these rooms and tended to the chapel, where they raised Ruben till he turned five, when the pastor was shot and buried in the garden.
Soon Ruben's mother couldn't afford payments on the church house, and since she couldn't preach, there was no use in keeping it. The church was sold to a black Muslim, who converted it to a mosque, and the proceeds sustained the fractured family, if only for awhile. Ruben's sole inheritance was the pastor's bible, from which he'd been read the Psalms. The pastor had known more than a few by heart, had composed his own, which Ruben later found scrawled on odd margins. He showed these to me, had memorized them, along with those by David, and sometimes, while working—I wondered whether he believed himself to still be in prison—I'd hear a low, signing voice from behind the dishrack.
Bestow grace onto me, oh Lord!
Bestow grace onto me, so that
My spirit takes refuge in thee.
I'll retreat to the shade of your wings,
'Till earth's last upheaval...
His life then grew more troubled. At seventeen he'd had a son, and his girl stuck with him till his imprisonment. At first his family made payments to the mother, till Ruben turned eighteen, and upon his release he'd accumulated an insurmountable debt. A portion of this debt was owed to his uncle, the pastor's brother—his mother's debtor—which is why, I suspect, Ruben had entered into business with his cousin. He seldom mentioned the matter. Ruben hated his cousin, who he scapegoated for his misfortune. I feared that he'd trade his freedom for retribution, having inhabited the same prison. But I thank God he never got the chance, since two years into their term his cousin was killed by a lunatic. It was over cards, Ruben said.
Upon his release Ruben had called his mother, who didn't answer, and then his uncle, who informed him of her death and then pestered him for money. Then he called me. That was two years ago. I was broke then, but I put him up in my apartment. For his rent I had him perform chores. I gave him two sets of clothes: one to lounge and another to seek work. It surprised him that I was broke, and he joked that I'd be as well off in prison as on the street. I was broke because I was a busser, but then I became a barback, and I started to earn a little more. We shared meals, and one time when I came into some cash I took him to a dinner where he had to dress nice. He enjoyed that evening.
