Nothing Ever Happens
Myra’s Unfinished Business
Myra was in the end stage of her battle with breast cancer when I met her in hospice care. She told me from the outset that she had made her peace with dying, and just wanted to focus on her remaining bit of unfinished business before she died: saying her goodbyes to her children and grandchildren, and binge watching her favorite shows on TV.
Three generations lived under one roof, which was a satisfactory arrangement for everyone involved. Myra was easy-going and enjoyed watching her shows and having good conversation, when her energy allowed for it.
Trouble in Camden
Weeks passed and our spiritual care provider — patient relationship grew. Myra began to pull the curtain back on some very traumatic chapters in her life. She talked about growing up near the steelyards of Camden, where so many Black families had migrated from the south in search of better wages, a better life for the young families, and to escape southern racism. Many were not prepared for what they would find there. Jobs were to be had, but they came with racial animosity and discriminatory subtexts. They left Jim Crow segregation in the south only to find themselves pushed into northern de facto segregated enclaves with sub-standard public housing — the first ghettos. And the predominantly white police precincts were brutal enforcers of this anti-social social order, earning disrepute for treating “the Blacks” as second-class citizens and keeping them in “their place” at the bottom of a waterless well.
A Deadly Encounter
Myra’s friend and neighbor, Leon, was a prankster and loved to be the life of the party. Late one winter’s afternoon they were walking back home from the local bodega when a patrolman confronted them.
“Where y’all been?” the burly officer stood tall over them, his large frame blocking the light from the waning sun.
“We just left the bodega. See our bags?” Leon lifted his bag overflowing with penny candy and grabbed Myra’s hand to lift hers. Leon understood the drill. The officer was just there to remind them, and everyone in that part of Camden, of their place and who was in charge.
“I can see that, boy! You trying to sass me?!” The officer bellowed loudly and menacingly in a staccato Italian baritone.
“No sir. We’re just trying to get home to our folks before dark, that’s all.”
Leon eyed the officer carefully as he spoke. The officer unfolded his arms from across his chest and adjust his belt, resting his hand on his billy club.
“Well, there’s been a lot of criminal activity around here. Low-life thugs and riff-raff hanging around the bodega and snatching folk’s purses and wallets.” He squinted his eyes at Leon. What do you know about that?” The officer was sizing Leon up now. Leon was tall for his 13 years of age and was often mistaken for being much older than he was, even though one could clearly see from his mannerisms, speech and facial features that he was still just a young boy.
Leon was getting anxious. He looked nervously at Myra, then looked back at the officer. He was thinking about all the things his parents had taught him and his little brothers early on about how the police treated folks like them, and they coached them on how to conduct themselves in the presence of cops: “Defer, de-escalate, and make it home.”
“Officer, sir, I don’t know anything about all of that. Honestly.” Leon was deferential and sincere as his parents trained him to be. He understood that getting home depended on how he handled this unsolicited and unwarranted encounter with the police.
“Are you hiding something from me, boy?” the officer challenged him. He leaned in closer to Leon as if he was going to search him.
Leon instinctively pulled back from the officer. “N-no-no sir!” he stammered. “Can we go home now, please? We haven’t done or seen anything.” Leon’s eyes began to water.
“Shut up little n****r! I’m the one asking the questions!” The officer moved his hand from his billy club to the butt of his revolver on his right hip. Now Leon was really scared. Myra was quiet, looking fearful and afraid to say a word. She knew that the longer that they were detained, the more unglued Leon was becoming. She had heard one story too many of the police harassing and intimidating the boys and men from her neighborhood, trying to provoke them to fight or flee so they could justify resorting to violence against them. Some of the veteran cops would use these encounters as a sort of initiation ritual for the rookies, to teach them how to “police their kind.” Hot tears began to stream down Myra’s beautiful face.
“P-please officer! We haven’t done anything wrong. Let us go!” Leon was shaking now.
“What’s the matter, boy? You scared?” The officer mocked, unholstering his .38 and lifting it into the red western sky. The cold blue steel was enveloped by an eerie yellow light. “Leon! Nooooo!” Myra screamed hysterically.
Leon pushed the officer out of his way and took off running. “Stop! N****r I said, Stop!” The officer cocked his pistol after Leon. But Leon couldn’t hear him. His life suddenly flashed before him, and his heart was pounding so hard and so fast that he could hardly breathe, much less hear anything but the pounding rhythm of his own heartbeat in his head. Leon was running as fast as his lightning legs could carry him. But lethal fire flashed from the muzzle of the officer’s gun, and Leon crumpled to the asphalt below, the lifeblood pouring from his pierced torso.
The community was outraged, demanding that the officer be held accountable. The police commissioner opened an investigation.
The investigation formally cleared the officer of any wrongdoing.
He was back on his beat the following week.
Like nothing ever happened.
The Trauma Cycle Continued
The brutal police murder of her friend haunted Myra well into her adult years. She never received proper treatment for her firsthand and vicarious trauma. She suffered from sleeplessness, anxiety, and depression, and became alcohol dependent. She later married and had children, but it was very hard for her. Her husband was abusive and brutalized her, ripping open old wounds and creating a lot of fresh ones. It took her decades before she finally mustered the courage to leave her abuser, taking their children with her.
Years later, her eldest grandson was shot dead in a deadly confrontation with the police. Like her friend Leon, he was young, unarmed, and not a danger to anyone. The officer who shot him was also investigated by his peers and cleared of all wrongdoing. “He was walking around that next week like he owned the neighborhood, like he knew nothing bad was ever gonna happen to him.”
Myra paused from her sharing and adjusted herself in her bed. As she related her story, no tears fell from her eyes. There was not even the faintest quavering of sadness in her voice. Instead, her eyes were looking at a faraway place. Her facial expression was a mix of longing, soul-weariness, and smoldering anger. And then there was that unmistakable sigh from deep in her spirit, like the low-frequency groaning of the boughs of a mighty oak curtseying themselves under the invisible force of a midsummer gale.
Kendra, Myra’s eldest and Kyrie’s mother, was leaning in the doorway to Myra’s room. She walked into the room and directed my attention to the family’s photo wall that she put together for Myra. It was the first thing Myra saw every morning. “This is Kyrie, right here,” pointing to a still-glossy polaroid of a tall, gregarious-looking youth with a bright face and a kinky afro. He was wearing a kind of innocent grin that, imperceptibly at first, brought a reciprocal smile to my face. “He was a good kid. But oh, was he a hothead! He knew how to protect himself against neighborhood bullies. He was afraid of no one. But I couldn’t protect him from the police,” Myra whispered. Kendra sat next to Myra and wrapped her arms around her shoulders.
I understood Myra to be speaking of her grandson and her friend in the identical breath. I sat reverently and bore witness to her unsalved trauma. Only the chime of the grandfather clock and the laughter of her grandkids playing outside intruded into the silence.
Make Something Happen
A couple of weeks passed when I visited Myra again. Usually, she had her TV on and could be heard from the kitchen. But this time there was no TV. I called to Myra and stepped into her room. She was asleep. I gently called her name again. “Myra, it’s the Chaplain.” She stirred lightly and turned in the direction of my voice. “Oh, Hi Chaplain. I must have dosed off. I’m glad you’re here. I’ve got something to share with you.” She beckoned towards the chair next to her bed and I sat as she turned on the evening news.
“I had to go to a different place, you know, especially after Kyrie died. I felt like I was losing my mind.” Myra was looking afar off again, like someone who could see their past and their future all at the same time. “I kept asking “Why, God, why?” and I wasn’t getting any answers at all.”
Myra held herself, paused, then started again. “Then I thought about Kyrie, the way he was. He was a free spirit. He didn’t let anything bother him at all. So, I decided for his memory that I had to become free and move on. I was done waiting on an apology that was never going to come. I wasn’t gonna hold out for justice that I knew we was never gonna to see. Not that I don’t want to see those things happen, I still welcome it if it comes. But I shifted my hope in a different direction. You know what I mean?”
At that moment on the news, a local politician was speaking at a press conference calling for an investigation into the latest incident of an officer-involved shooting.
Myra scoffed. “As if another investigation or protest is gonna change the outcome! We already know what’s going to happen! How long are we going to do this? All this protesting and promises of change and accountability, and nothing ever changes! It’s tiring!” Myra’s hazel eyes turned a shade of red.
“I hear your pain, Myra. We’ve been doing this for a long time.”
“Well, I’m tired of all the talk!” She continued. “All of this promising and protesting and what do we have to show for it? Nothing!” Myra stabbed her fork into a piece of cold macaroni on her dinner tray. “When will all this killing stop?” I knew that she was thinking of her other grandchildren, how things would be for them after she was dead and buried and they were grown. She wanted better for them, better than the harsh realities of police brutality and domestic violence that robbed her of her innocence at very young age. She clung tenaciously to that last ray of dying hope for a better future for the generations to come.
