“Good morning’ mom.” Zoe pounced into the kitchen and sat at the kitchen table.
“Hi baby. Want some pancakes?”
“And you know this,” she cheered.
I placed a small glass of orange juice in front of her and went back to the stove.
She immediately took a sip. “Hey mom?”
“Yes.”
“Things goin’ OK?”
Turning to her I said, “Why yes honey. Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know. It seems that you’re just distant. Off someplace else since you’ve been back.”
She was right. Since returning home from LA, no matter how much I tried to laugh and divert my thoughts into other everyday events, Koltrane kept flashing through my mind. I figured that the Los Angeles experience would just slip out of my life as time went on and things would return back to normal. Time and time again, Koltrane and the other murders persisted throughout my daily routines. One day, two days, five days then a week and my reflections boomeranged back to LA, Koltrane and Allen Knight. Did Allen do it? Was I actually in the room with the killer? Allen just didn’t seem to have the hate and anger within him to kill his friend. Was it somebody from the Chat Room? Was it Masonite? Was it just a random killing of another Black Man? Or did Koltrane get caught up into something evil? There were an infinite number of possibilities. “Everything’s just fine honey. I just have a few little things on my mind,” I finally said.
“Like what Mom?” Zoe asked.
I lied and said, “Like having to crack the whip on a few employees.”
“Hey, I’d tell somebody off in a second.” Zoe snapped her fingers and swirled her neck.
“Yeah, well let’s just crack the whip on those school books.”
She smiled and said, “I always do.”
We sat down to breakfast and an early morning conversation. Zoe’s such a bright girl. I’m truly thankful for having her support throughout the years. I’m not sure how or what life would be for me if she hadn’t been around. Although I tend to show it less to her, I lean on her presence probably just as much as she leans on me. I hesitated to tell her about the things that happened in LA. She doesn’t need to know about everything in Los Angeles. But we did talk about Alice and had a good laugh about her acting debut. Zoe had never been to LA and was so anxious to visit. All she ever imagines are movie stars, fancy cars, palm trees and that entire Hollywood glamour experience. But as we all know, there’s more to LA than just Hollywood. Maybe next time I’ll send her to visit Alice. What will I do when she’s gone to college?
After our breakfast, she went off to a sewing class in downtown Evanston. Zoe had always been into fashion and clothes ever since a young girl. For years I had always discouraged fancy and expensive clothing. The tricks advertisers use to entice young black kids into buying expensive Hip Hop fashions made by white folks who didn’t give a damn about them or what they thought. From my perspective, clothes and the whole hair dilemma for black youth were problematic.
I remember buying a gift for Zoe at the Evergreen Plaza Mall and walking into the Bum Rush clothing store, one of those Hip-Hop retail outlets. The Bum Rush had overpriced, named brand styles like Nautica, Tommy Hilfiger, Abercrombie and Fitch to name a few. I overheard one young brother state that he was going to purchase six hundred dollars’ worth of some named brand clothes for the weekend. The entire outfit was a pair of pants, a top and jacket. Six Hundred dollars!! All of the designs displayed bold lettering promoting the brand that the particular person wore. Tags on pants, socks, boxers, T-shirts, watches, everything. It was just presumptuous, conspicuous and gaudy. But Zoe, she picked up on fashion all on her own. Her meticulousness about appearance grew out of her own being. She was good at it too. Somehow she would save allowances and gift money to buy fabrics, and then sew creative self-designed fashions for her own personal use. Ever since she was eight years old, her girlfriends would ask for her tips and opinions about hair and clothes. Now, I ask her for fashion tips.
I drifted into my office, a space that I had barely entered since returning from LA. I sat down at my desk and stared at the cold lifeless monitor. It stared back at me through dull plastic eyes of ruin. It didn’t speak or curse me, it didn’t have too. The omnipresent power that was beneath the man-made peace of lust just sat there motionless waiting for me to act. A surging power that was new and strange to the world. The infancy of the computer revolution during the end of the century and beginning of the new millennium was astounding. It was a driving unforgiving revolution of throw away people and foreign products. Hurry up, because you’ll miss the IT train and get left behind. Fast, fast superfast, around the world in a millisecond, instantaneous communication to China, Africa as fast as next door. Online, email, cyber space, information superhighway, multi-million dollar computer geeks, web sites, YAK, chips, gigs, bites, bits, computer billionaires that rule the air space, where are we going from here. The little plastic box spoke loudly without carrying a stick at all. Who would have believed it? Now we’re all caught up in the matrix of muddle and denigrations.
With great apprehension, I reached down and pushed the computers ‘On’ button. I knew where I was headed. Somewhere that I shouldn’t go, but reluctantly I continued. I knew that travelling down the dark path toward death and destruction was somewhere that I had hidden from throughout my life. From growing up in the heart of Chicago’s Southside, I learned daily about the cruelties of death while darting away from its constant chase. The mysterious darkness of death and darkness that kids drifted towards and tried to cheat through youthful ignorance. But for me, cheating death existed only in movies, cartoons and books. When it came to the dark side, I always ran to the light.
The screen flashed Lilliputian explosions of electrical charges and the computer started like a rolling snowball picking up speed down a mountainside careening out of control touching off an avalanche thundering toward a small village. I felt that tingle of excitement as it went through an array of checks and diagnostics as the hard drive churned quickly and efficiently. I could hear it come alive as it sang a quite aggressive sound heard millions of times each day around the world.
I typed in ‘Queenb’, my screen name and ‘Fosterhood23’, my password. After a few seconds, I heard the little chime that signaled that I had entered.
I pointed the mouse to my favorites and clicked Africanbeats. Once in, I clicked the Drumroom. Well, I see that it’s still popular as ever. There were eighteen mysterious people dressed in off-track names. Some just listening, others sitting in the room were gaping and laughing at the silliness of silent conversations. Let’s see who’s in there. Prettypink1, Babybear16, Chinagirl888, Bigben, Suddensam, Blackrose…
Prettypink1: “What’s up Queenb?”
Queenb: “How’s everybody?”
Queenb: “Did anybody know that Koltrane was murdered?”
Blackrose: “Murdered?”
Queenb: “Last week. Koltrane was murdered in Los Angeles.”
Williamtell: “Damn...”
Blackrose: “Give me the 411.”
Queenb: “He was killed in his home. That’s all I know.”
Prettypink1: “Wow, what next.”
Queenb: “I think the killer is somebody from the Chat Room.”
Oh no, did I just do that?
Secretsquirrel: “You buggin’. Ain’t nobody done that.”
Queenb: “How do you know? Are you familiar with everybody in the Chat Room? Do you know where we live? How we make a living? What our backgrounds are? No, you probably know nothing about anyone here but you’re willing to defend everybody.”
Prettypink1: “If I thought somebody was a killer in this room, I couldn’t be in it.”
Babybear: “I agree. We have to trust or at least feel that we’re safe.”
Suddensam: “The veil of secrecy lies in email names.”
Queenb: “That’s precisely the point. We really don’t know each other.”
Babybear: “I can’t believe that.
Matter of fact I refuse to believe that.”
Queenb: “But check the past few months or so. First it was Slamdunk23, then Shaft67 and now Koltrane, all from the Chat Room. I just think there’s a connection.”
Williamtell: “You’re a fool.”
Bigben: “Paranoid is more like it.”
Queenb: “Well, it was just a thought that I had to get out. Pay no attention to it. It was just me blowing off steam. Queenb out.”
OK, it’s finished. A sense of accomplishment and at the same time fear covered over me. What had I done? Did I start something that wasn’t even happening? Was I gossiping and starting trouble for somebody I didn’t even know? Was I really paranoid?
CHAPTER 16