Inside the station, Jeremy was separated from Sidney by a six-inch-thick gray stonewall and an automated security checkpoint. Jeremy sat for hours on a padded bench with his reddened wrist twisting and turning against the ridged edges of handcuffs secured to the railing in the waiting room. Police officers and station operatives hurried about while Sidney sat fifty yards away, down a startlingly bright hallway illuminated by overhead fluorescent lights fitted into the ten-foot ceilings in a six-by-six jail cell. Alone in the stark brightness, he sang.
“I’m not the man that can be chased into the other
Just a young nigga who would switch his skin for another
In a minute, or an hour…it’s just not the color.
Or I would rub my face against the bathroom tissue…why bother?”
Jeremy knew the verse and recognized his friend’s mood.
“Sidney! What’s happening? Tell me something good,” he called. Seconds passed, and all he heard was the shuffling of an unruly drunk going into the lockup, resisting the way the officers pulled and prodded him past the turnstile in the long hallway.
“Let me go. I got rights! Hey! I ain’t done nothing,” he yelled before the cops pushed him into a cell near Sidney and locked him in. “Hey! Somebody call me a laur’ yer…you punk-ass cops!”
Jeremy looked up at the cops as they returned, wanting to ask about Sidney, when he heard the song start up again.
“Just fuck the man…screw him good
Each one steals our heart and soul
Take them out so we can make more…
Kill the man…Kill the fucking man.”
“What’s going on?” Jeremy called back to Sidney. A cold sweat materialized on his skin, and he twisted to yell after the departing cops. “Officer!…Officer! …Someone needs to check on my friend!”
Officer Fuller approached him with a grim and bloodless look.
“Boy, you got to keep quiet. If you do, you’ll be out of here in about thirty minutes. Be patient.” He rested a hand on Jeremy’s leg reassuringly. Down the hall, the lights in the jail cells went dark and the intense hallway lights dimmed, throwing shadows along the secured corridor.
“But what about Sidney?” Jeremy asked.
Officer Fuller pulled his attention away from the bench and glanced down the shady hall, where he heard a sudden groan.
“Ugggghhhh. Uggggghhh…Ohhhhhh…Ugggghhhh.”
Fuller rose and walked back into the jail without turning back to Jeremy.
“Hey!” Jeremy yelled after him. “Come on. Tell me something.”
Fuller’s fast walk became frantic footsteps, as he approached the cell of the drunk.
“Jesus Christ…did you have to get it all over the floor? That’s what the fucking toilets are for, you moron…I got to find someone to clean this up. Are you done?” he demanded.
“I don’t feel so good,” the drunk said, his voice echoing into the jailhouse plumbing.
Fuller sighed and reached for his shoulder mic. “Get someone down to cell seven for a cleanup,” he said into it.
“Ugggh…Ohhh…Ohhh…Aye…Aye….”
Jeremy could barely hear over the groans. He heard the ascending sounds of Fuller’s footsteps.
“Remind me. Who is Sidney?” the cop asked as he put his leg up on the bench and ignored the moans coming from the sick drinker.
“You don’t know? …He’s the Black kid I came in with…. We were play-fighting on the street,” Jeremy said in disbelief.
“Ohh…my purse-snatching suspect,” Fuller said.
“Sidney’s no thief,” Jeremy pleaded. “I was with him all night, and he didn’t steal anything!”
“I don’t know. If I were you, I would stay calm,” Fuller advised. “You’ll be out of here before you know it. Just take care of yourself.”
“I want to call my dad,” Jeremy said.
“Young man. There’s nothing more I can do. A detective will question him later. I think I can have you out of here in less than thirty.” Fuller said, looking at his watch.
“I’m not leaving…not without my friend.”
“Whatever. Good luck, kid—take my advice and stay off the boulevard.” Fuller headed for the sergeant’s desk.
From down the hall, Sidney’s mournful voice pierced the air and then faded into the hermetically sealed void.
“Don’t take me away from trouble
That lives inside my mind
I look for my freedom in the rubble
And among the troubling times
The dangers than touch my soul
Can’t be freed with the harness of force
Get away from my face and free me
For I’m set driven on another course.”
Later that night, Jeremy was released on his own recognizance and Sidney was found dead in his cell, hanging from a bed sheet tethered to an overhead light fixture.
News of the Hollywood incident swept the nation. In Chicago, Reverend Harper booked a redeye to Los Angeles and was visiting with both Jeremy and the parents of Sidney Dennison by early Monday morning. At the Talbert home, he addressed Jeremy’s parents.
“I’m Reverend Rufus Harper, from the Freedom Brigade. Our mission is to seek justice whenever we see racism. That’s why we’re here,” he said, sipping at a sweet cup of coffee on the Talbert’s burgundy floral loveseat.
“We welcome your support. We’re just thankful Jeremy was unharmed,” said Jeremy’s father while holding hands on the matching sofa with the boy’s mother.
“That’s why we’re here and thankful Jeremy’s okay. I’d like to ask a few questions?”
“Of course. I know you suggested over the phone that we get ourselves an attorney, but unfortunately we can’t afford one.”
“Don’t worry about that. One more question, Jeremy. Did you at any time fear for your life when you were in police custody?”
“No…? What do you mean?” Jeremy asked from the seat next to his father.
Reverend Harper tilted his head and studied Jeremy’s face. “Do you think they treated you like a White boy?”
Jeremy took a deep breath that stretched his chest like a nervous rooster while he struggled to hold back tears and body palpitations. His torso shook from the pressure until he let the tears of grief run down his face.
“I miss my friend,” he said, and shrugged off his father’s attempt at a muscular hug.
“Take your time,” Harper said as he took another sip of coffee. “Did they treat you differently than they treated Sidney?”
“They had him in a cell and sat me on a bench outside,” Jeremy admitted.
“Did you think Sidney hung himself?” Harper continued.
“I don’t know.”
“There’s no easy way to say this,” Harper said. “Have you ever been taken for a White boy before?”
“When I’m with my friends, sometimes we get funny looks, but mostly when we’re out of town. I get different looks.”
Harper leaned back on the loveseat, nodding with satisfaction. “Our mission will be to get justice for Sidney, and I must control the conversation. Whatever you do from here, talk to the media only when I tell you to.”
Jeremy looked at his father and waited for him to answer.
“We understand,” the elder Talbert said. “Just as long as there’s no lying or misrepresentation about anything, including the police treatment that night.”
“Agreed. Now we are going to pay our respects to the Dennison family. Thanks for letting me talk with you this morning,” Harper said, swallowing the last of his coffee. “Shall we pray?”
Without a word, the four of them and the two security men held hands in a circle, bowed their heads, and closed their eyes. Harper spoke.
“Heavenly father, we seek out justice for these two young men. Help us discover the truth behind what happened to your servant Sidney while in Hollywood last weekend. We will find a brighter day…. In your holy name, we pray. Amen.”
With warm handshakes and gospel hugs, Reverend Harper and his security team got back into the black Cadillac Escalade and headed for South Los Angeles.
The Dennisons lived in a small two-bedroom apartment with two teenage boys. Mr. Dennison was a retired municipal bus driver. Reverend Harper found their home by the scores of neighbors that were mingling around the front door, paying their respects to the mourning parents.
Harper looked for a figure of command. He found several men with gang colors who were protecting the peace. He finally selected the biggest, blackest, baddest one among them, who glared at Harper. The brother stepped in front of Harper and his security man before they could reach the front door.
“So, what can we do for you, my brother?” the big man rumbled.
“I am Reverend Rufus Harper from the Freedom Brigade in Chicago,” Harper announced, “and I have flown all night to pay my respects to the Dennison family and see what I can do to command justice.”
“Aren’t you the dude that’s on Rev. Sharpton’s News Hour?” the brother asked, squinting. “I liked what you had to say about economic empowerment and set-asides.” He shook Harper’s hand and stepped away from the door.
Harper trundled inside. A thin ebony man in a sleeveless undershirt and tattered blue jeans, smoking a Black and Mild cigarette, stood in the tiny living room. The room smelled of coffee and cheap bourbon. A heavy-set woman in hair rollers, a floral housecoat, and bedroom slippers sat in the kitchenette next to a half-empty box of Kleenex. Her eyes were swollen and bloodshot. Both parents looked up from their blank stares and acknowledged the Reverend’s presence with nods. Mr. Dennison spoke slowly in low tones.
“You dat pastor from Chicago who’s always trying to stir the pot and get justice for Black people. You here to find out who killed my boy?”
“Yes, sir. I am,” Harper replied, drawing himself up to his full but unimpressive height. “The Freedom Brigade wants to say how sorry we are that your boy died.” He doffed his baseball cap and cupped it gently in his hands.
“He didn’t just die,” Mr. Dennison spat. “Those bastard cops murdered him. So what are you doing to do about it?” He stubbed his smoke out on the Kool’s cigarette ashtray on the coffee table.
Mrs. Dennison sobbed into her tissue and looked up at the reverend.
“Sidney was a good boy who never hurt anybody,” she told him. “I want people to know he was God-fearing.”
“I will do my very best,” Harper promised. “Have you received a coroner’s preliminary report?”
“No, but KJLH news said it was suicide,” she said, reaching for a clean tissue. “I was washing clothes in the laundry mat when I heard it. No mama should hear her boy’s dead on the radio.” She sobbed again as Mr. Dennison came up behind her and rested his slender, strong hands on her shoulders.
“I will be talking with the Police Chief today to demand any information be released to you,” Harper said. “We just want to help in what little way we can.” He fingered a Bible in his right hand.
Mr. Dennison reached out and shook Harper’s hand.
“You find what they did to my boy,” he ordered.
“I promise you I will. But first, can I see Sidney’s room?” Harper glanced down the short hallway that led off the kitchen.
“Sure. He’s the one on the right. He shares it with his brother, Ray-Ray,” Mama said.
Inside the bedroom, Harper walked between the twin beds and noticed the Raiders team poster on one side and the Rams poster on the other. Ray-Ray stood at the door, watching. He wore a blue and gold football jersey with the number 24 on it. He looked much older than his probable age, and appeared to have had life harder than most. He wore colors of the gang life and appeared overwrought and underfed.
“I bet Sidney was a Raider fan,” Harper said, resting his hands on the small bookshelf at the edge of the bed.
“You’d be right. Reverend,” Ray-Ray said. “What do you want?”
“I’m here to see Sidney gets the justice he deserves. Don’t you want that?” Harper asked. He looked at the stack of papers piled up by the headboard.
“What are you looking for?” Ray-Ray asked as Harper turned some of the loose papers over for closer examination.
“Anything that would either help us or protect your brother’s memory,” Harper said.
“Can you make something disappear?” Ray-Ray asked.
“You mean something that needs to stay private?” Harper answered. “Of course.”
“Then you should take this,” Ray-Ray said, walking into the room. He stuck a hand between Sidney’s mattress and his box spring and pulled out a small blue notebook.
“What’s this?” Harper asked, taking the book.
“Sidney’s notes. There’s some pretty raw shit in here.”
“Oh. I get it. Thanks,” Harper said as he put the book in his coat pocket.
“Sidney and I got lots of riffs and joints about killing cops and being freedom fighters. Serious. Don’t show it to Mom. I’m a rapper—want me to spit something?” Ray-Ray asked. He inched awkwardly over to stand by his small desk, adorned only with a laptop computer.
“No, son. Not the right moment. But I’ll get back to you. Okay?” Harper said.
“That’s cool. I know you’re down with T-Bone and his crew. Maybe you can hook a brother up?” Ray-Ray asked as Harper left the room with the notebook.
Leaving Nickerson Gardens, Reverend Harper read Sidney’s thoughts about the Los Angeles police and the Black community and his chaotic ramblings about a better world. Before the limo reached his hotel, it pulled up behind a drugstore, where Harper found an old commercial-grade baked-bean can, put the notebook inside, and poured lighter fluid on the yellow-lined pages. He watched the book go up in flames until the paper was ash.
“Dust to dust,” he said to the curling black pieces of a dead boy’s soul.
