Another bone-chilling Jersey night. Andre freezes when he sees a black Crown Victoria parked in front of the bus garage with its rear tire straddling the curb.
You’re being paranoid, Dre.
He curls his hands together and blows on them to keep warm.
Inside, two men who possess all the swagger and sloppy chic of undercover DTs are in Dominick’s office. Mr. Dominick, Andre’s supervisor, tips the scales at a fleshy 375, and is spread out in an oversize chair behind a messy desk. The two men sit across from him. Andre hides himself and pays attention.
“So this guy, he drives the 22?” the white detective inquires.
“Yeah.”
The black detective follows up with, “And according to your driving logs, all of his runs were on time that night?”
“That’s correct,” Dominick says, “but nobody reported hitting anybody. And not reporting an accident is immediate cause for canning.”
The black detective flashes a toothy grin. “Usually? What’s reported and what happens don’t have much to do with each other.” He lightly backhands his partner in the chest. “That’s why we have jobs.”
Andre lowers his chin and heads for the locker room. The white detective spots him.
“Who’s that?” he asks Dominick.
“The guy you were just asking about.”
Andre is scarcely out of his jeans when Dominick and the detectives enter the locker room. The white DT is scary in the worst way. He’s a diminutive man, and his pale, plain-featured face is not the least bit intimidating—but his eyes. They’re ice-blue and as lifeless as a baby doll’s. The black detective is chocolate brown and brawny.
“Andre, this is Detectives Jackson and Carollo from the JCPD.”
Andre works hard to maintain a calm veneer as he rises. “Gentlemen, nice to meet you.” He heartily shakes hands with both men.
Jackson smiles. “Andre, how are you tonight?”
“I’m great.”
“Good. We’ll make this quick so you can get on with your shift. Just a couple of questions.” He whips out a pen and notebook, licks his thumb, and flips to an empty page. “Two Sundays ago. You were working, right?”
“Right.”
“And your route that night went down Bergen?”
“Yes.”
“Past Wegman Parkway?”
“That’s correct.”
“According to the driving logs, you were on schedule, so you arrived at that intersection around midnight?”
“About that.”
Jackson dutifully scribbles notes without looking up. Carollo keeps his lifeless eyes parked on Andre but doesn’t move an inch.
Andre starts to perspire. “Excuse me,” he says. “Can I put on my pants before we continue? It’s a little weird standing here in my underwear.”
Jackson smiles. “No problem, buddy. You go right ahead.”
Andre slips on his dark blue slacks. “Okay, I’m good now.”
“So’d you see anything out of the ordinary that night? Say, a vehicular accident? Maybe even a shooting?” Jackson smiles again.
What’s with all the smiling? Andre wonders.
Detective Jackson’s sarcasm makes Andre nervous. He knows that he doesn’t have to answer without an attorney present, but he’ll look as guilty as sin if he refuses, especially with Dominick tonsil clocking.
“Nothing out of the ordinary. No,” Andre says.
Jackson licks his thumb again and snaps a business card from his breast pocket.
“If you remember things differently, give me a call. I know from experience that memory and dirty diapers have a lot in common.”
Carollo, Dominick, and Andre all look at him.
“Always changing,” Jackson says. He beams at the genius of his punch line as Carollo’s eyes show the first signs of life.
“Don’t quit your day job,” Carollo swipes.
A light moment, but Andre knows the drill. Jackson is granting him the opportunity to come to the precinct to talk without Dominick hovering—just in case things went down differently than his present recollection.
Tonight Andre is in the belly of a dinosaur, a 1997 MCI Detroit Diesel Series 60G. From the moment he started the engine, the rattling old bus has steadily ramped up the tension in his head. On a normal night, after driving several miles Andre would no longer notice. But tonight the shaking has whipped up a headache that crouches behind his left eyeball and dances on his optic nerve. His left eye waters.
What could those detectives possibly know?
Andre wipes his eye. Suddenly he’s cloaked in panic.
He pulls into the garage, throws the bus into park, and roots through his wallet. He finds the business card and stares at it. After he punches the number into his cell, he checks the time before he hits SEND.
Six fifty-five a.m. I can just leave a message. SEND.
“Hakeem Shabazz.”
Andre’s tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth.
“Hello?” Hakeem says.
“Yeah . . . this is Andre. Andre Bolden.”
“Hey, how are you, man?”
Andre hesitates. “Iffy.”
“Well, it’s good you called. You should stop by. We can chat informally and I can let you know how I work.”
Andre processes what Hakeem says. It all sounds cool, but he is still a shrink, no matter that they both suffered under Dabrowski’s doo-doo breath.
“I don’t know. I guess I’m not even sure why I called,” Andre says.
“Hey, I’m aware of the stigma associated with seeing a shrink in our community. But look at it this way. If you saved my card and you called despite the stigma, that’s a pretty good indication that you need to talk to someone. The longer you wait, the easier it is to convince yourself that you can handle things on your own. We humans have the unique ability of thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought to.”
Andre is surprised at how easily Hakeem seized upon his thought processes without any prompting.
“Are you open right now?” Andre asks, half joking.
“No, but I will be by the time you get here. Use the bottom buzzer.”
Second thoughts crawl up into Andre’s head the instant he hangs up, and when he sees the building that matches the address on Hakeem’s card, it takes everything in him not to turn and walk away.
The two-story brick structure at 674 Communipaw Avenue is hidden behind scaffolding and stumped between two rusty fences. A used-car dealership is to one side and an auto parts store with inventory harvested from junked cars is on the other. The parts of the building that can be seen between the scaffolds are spray-painted with phrases colorful enough to make a sailor blush.
Andre presses the bottom buzzer.
“I’ll be right down,” crackles through the intercom. After a moment the door swings open. “Andre, welcome.”
Hakeem’s office is the entire first floor. Partially unpacked boxes outline office furniture wrapped in plastic and positioned in slapdash fashion.
“Still under construction,” Hakeem says. “I’ve only been here two weeks, but since I live upstairs I had the contractor start on the living quarters first.”
The inside is freshly renovated with blindingly shiny hardwood floors, and the exposed brick walls are adorned with oversized black-and-white portraits in chunky mahogany frames. “I recognize two of them,” Andre says, pointing to the pictures of George Washington Carver and Benjamin Banneker, “but the others I don’t know.”
“Maybe not their faces, but I’m sure you’re familiar with their work. They’re all scientists and inventors.”
Hakeem approaches the first picture. “This is Benjamin Bradley. He developed a steam engine for use on American warships back in 1850. He couldn’t get a patent for it because he was enslaved, so he sold the technology and used the money to buy his freedom.”
Hakeem moves to the next frame. “Lewis Latimer invented the electric lamp and the carbon filament in lightbulbs. He was the only black person who worked in Thomas Edison’s engineering laboratory.”
“Where’d you get these?” Andre asks, marveling at the illustrious black faces that stare back at him.
“Banneker and Latimer were gifts from my dad, but the others I hunted down at different archives and collectors’ shows. It’s a hobby my dad and I do together.
“This next one is Patricia Bath. She founded the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness, and she also invented the Laserphaco Probe, which treats cataracts.”
Hakeem stops in front of the final picture. “And this is Mark Dean. He led a team of scientists at IBM who pioneered the technology that made personal computers crazy-fast. He also led another group of IBM scientists who created the first one-gig processor chip.”
“Why’d you put them down here instead of upstairs in your house?” Andre asks.
“So that all who enter can see what a healthy black mind can accomplish.”
“Good idea,” Andre says, completely at ease now. “Are you from Jersey City?”
“Born and bred.”
“What part?”
“Bergen Square.”
“So you went to Hudson Catholic?”
“As a matter of fact, I did.”
“I went to Dickinson. We didn’t get a chance to stomp y’all rich boys because you were under parochial protection.”
Hakeem laughs. “I’ve never heard it put that way, but you’re right, we didn’t play the public schools. But I didn’t play football. I was on the swim team.” He motions to Andre. “Let’s go over to my desk. I’d like to put your contact information in my database if that’s okay.”
“Sure.”
Andre studies the titles of the many volumes shoehorned in the bookcase behind Hakeem’s head. The MMPI-2: An Interpretive Manual, Second Edition. Reading Statistics and Research, Fifth Edition. Introduction to Personality: Toward an Integrative Science of the Person.
“So what was it that made you call?” Hakeem asks.
“Well. Sometimes I get the feeling that I’m trapped in life’s crosshairs.”
“Spoken like a true poet. You still doing spoken word?”
“I don’t write as much as I used to, but I still have it in me.”
“Cool. And I’m sure New Jersey Transit insurance covers psychological treatment, but check with your HR rep to be sure.”
Psychological treatment. The thought of it makes Andre’s ego crawl.
“So here’s how I work,” Hakeem says. “Basically, I have two jobs. The first is to help you arrive at the truth about yourself, no matter what it is. The second is to help you accept that truth. And that’s where we have to begin. Because only then can we determine what we need to do in order to get you headed in the right direction. Once that happens, we assess what your needs are at that time and then determine if we need to continue to meet. In my line of work, success is determined by how many former clients I have. Any questions?” Hakeem asks.
“I guess not.”
“So if you’re up to it, we can set an appointment for next Tuesday around this time. What do you think?”
Andre kicks around the idea of an actual appointment. “Why not,” he says.
What do I have to lose?