When I was smaller and my feet couldn't even reach the pedals, my daddy used to let me sit on his lap and take hold of the wheel while he put his hard hands on top of mine. One time I drove almost all the way down 125th when it was Christmastime. I counted all the lighted Christmas trees hanging above the streetlights. That was one of the only ways I even knew it was the holidays. I counted seven Christmas trees in the sky before my daddy bounced me off his knee real fast. He had spotted this cop pulling up behind us when we passed 5th and he was worried about getting pulled over cause his license was suspended. Daddy slowed down, turned off the radio, and I swore I could hear his heart beating as loud as mine the whole way, and I kept looking back to see if a police car would be behind us with its lights flashing and then the cop would pull us over and throw my daddy on the car and handcuff him while his head was down low and I would have to walk to my uncle's house around the corner on 124th and Lenox and maybe just maybe somebody I went to school with would see me walking and ask me why or see my daddy in the police car and ask me why and I would have to tell them and be laughed at the next day at school. We was quiet
the whole way home until we made it to our building, where my mother was looking out of the window on the fourth floor, waiting for us with Drew in her arms because he was still just a baby. She couldn't start dinner until Daddy came home with the groceries, and I remember how happy my daddy looked bringing the groceries up the stairs, staring at my mother like he couldn't wait to make another baby with her. We were a regular happy family back then, before the fire, before Roy, before Drew left to live with Grandma. Me and you gonna have a family like that one day, we gonna start all over again and get it right.
With love,
Natasha
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April 5, 1990
Natasha,
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Baby, I'm scared. I don't think I want you to come to the trial. My lawyer said that he might call you to testify, to talk about my character and to talk about my relationship with my mother and father. But he said that most likely he won't need you, since you can'tâwhat was the wordâsubstantiate any abuse or anything. He asked me if you knew about it and I told him you didn't know shit about it because I wasn't trying to expose you to anything. Tyler and Trevon definitely gonna have to talk, maybe Black since he
my best friend and he was in our house a lot. I don't think I want anybody I know to come to the trial. It's a lot of things you don't know about me, things that have happened to me in my life that I'm embarrassed to have people know. My lawyer been practicing with me, he been schooling me on what to say and how to act and how to look at the jury and the judge and all that so they can be sympathetic for me. He told me that it was only about five of us on the jury, you know, black people. He said that he tried to get more, but he couldn't. He said that he tried not to pick no old people or no Christians because they was the worst when it came to feeling sorry for somebody, especially me since people think that the worst thing in the world is killing one of your parents. He said if it was my mother, I could have hung it up, but since it was my daddyâa manâthat I have a big chance. He said that I have a real chance. I really ain't never talked about God a lot or went to church, mostly cause my family didn't, but I guess you should pray for me. I think that's gonna help.
Love,
Antonio
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April 8, 1990
Dear Antonio,
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How can you ask me not to come to your trial? Baby you KNOW I gotta be there for my man! How you gonna
ask me to not come down there so I can see you every day? I'm gonna get on the train and come to the courthouse every day. Fuck school, cause I ain't learning shit in that dump anyway. Everybody been looking at me at lunch, in the halls, in the courtyard, talking bout “Ah-hah, yo man locked up.” Like you was a nobody or something. These the same motherfuckers used to laugh in your face, used to be your friends. And to think, we actually worry about who like us and who don't, when even the people who act like they like you ain't got your back when you need it. Plus Mommy don't care if I go. All she can think about is Roy, so she won't know no better. I told you that your lawyer and the popos and everybody else been trying to get me to talk, but I told em I don't know shit. But if they want me to say something good, I'll be there. I wouldn't miss that for the world. I'm gonna look real good for you too, baby. Every day I'm gonna have a new outfit, something fierce and sexy, so you can have something to think about at night when you can't sleep cause you thinking about being with me. And don't worry about me hearing anything at the trial that's gonna make me stop loving you. THAT is never going to happen. I ain't never gonna stop loving you as long as I live. So, make sure that you look for my face out in the audience, whenever you thinking about giving up or thinking the judge don't like you, know that you got somebody out there who love you and got your back.
Love, your wife,
Natasha
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April 12, 1990
Hey boo,
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Never thought the infamous Antonio Michael Lawrence would be saying this, but God I miss school!!! I miss that punk ass principal Mr. Diggs, I miss them damn security guards chasing my ass around and making me go to class, I even miss those nasty slices of pizza at lunch. Yo those things taste like rubber, but I don't think anything could be worse than McDonald's all the damn time. I miss wilding out in the hallway and joshing with Black in class, casing on people and shit. Talking about each other's moms and each other's dicks. I even miss my teachers, a little bit at least. I miss driving them up the wall. Madame Girard still crazy, still running around with them bright ass colors on talking about she celebrating Mardi Gras? Yo that bitch was crazy. I know she used to be cussing me out in French and knew I hadn't studied that shit so I wouldn't be able to tell. You said Mr. Lombard getting on your nerves? What's new? Mr. Cook still bringing in his whack ass rhymes, trying to get us to listen to that shit? He need to stick to teaching English and leave hip-hop to the pros. But I guess I really liked Mr. Cook cause he came to work looking nice every day in his suits and shit, although I don't know why he was dressing up just for us. But he used to tell me all the time, Antonio, you gotta dress for success. That's what he always used to say when I rode him about them tight pants and his shoes shining like new
money. I mean, his wife is mad fine, so I don't know why she didn't dress him better. He used to say with that funny ass voice, Black man got hard enough boat to row in this country without being harshly judged for their appearance. You need to pull your pants up and tuck your shirt in young man. Or he used to call me son sometimes, and I imagined he was my daddy. Member all that “Crackdown on Putdowns” shit he tried when he got sick of us making fun of him for that Jamaican accent? That week, I musta got put out about forty or fifty times cause I couldn't stop making fun of that motherfucker when he was up there trying to teach us that
Catcher in the Rye
shit. Now that I'm locked up, I kind of wish I woulda listened to him a lot more.
I didn't want to tell nobody, but I really did like that book,
The Catcher in the Rye.
Yeah yeah yeah, I know I told you I didn't read it and I made you write that damn narrative essay or whatever the hell it was for me. But I did read it, matter of fact I read it twice. I was really feeling all that Man vs. Society and Man vs. Self shit that Mr. Cook was telling us Holden was going through. Like I was really identifying with the part when he fell down the steps and slipped on them peanuts or cashews or whatever the hell it was, cause I thought that meant that it was easy for you to kind of walk into stuff in life that could make you fall, that could trip you up just when you thought you couldn't get any lower. That's what I used to think before this shit, but now I'm like Holden Caulfield slipping on peanuts. Shit only got worse for me. I'm gonna tell you a
little secret that you can't tell nobody and you better not show nobody this letter cause then they'll know. But remember that part in the very end of the book, when Holden sister, I think her name was Phoebe, was on that carousel and he couldn't stop looking at her and he started crying because he thought she looked so pretty? And then it started to rain, and he couldn't even move because he was just so happy looking at her? I had started crying on that part, cause I was thinking about this one time that my mother had took me and Trevon all the way to Coney Island to walk on the boardwalk and ride the Ferris wheel. I had stood down at the bottom cause you could only ride two at a time and Trevon wouldn't ride with nobody but Ma. But she looked pretty like that, with her bright red lipstick on and them big doorknocker earrings and her baseball cap. She looked like mad young and I had looked at her in a different way that day, like I could see why my daddy fell in love with her. I had wanted to write about that for my narrative essay or response or whatever that shit was called, but I guess I didn't want to worry about the fellas laughing at me.
Yeah, I miss that place, never thought I'd say that shit but it's true. Most of all, I miss looking at your fine ass every day, passing notes and shit, sneaking feels in the stairway. I can't wait to get back. I'm gonna be a different person. I mean that Natasha. If I get out of this shit, Michael Antonio Lawrence II is gonna be a new man. I made a promise to God that if he let me out then I'm gonna be the person that him and my mother would want me to be.
I promise I'm gonna do all my homework, I'm not gonna make the subs cry, I ain't gonna crack on nobody in class, I ain't gonna cheat off my boys work. Matter of fact, I'm gonna make them start studying. Imagine that, me and Black and some of our other cats in the library or at the crib with a book open and the TV off. I can't wait to see that one. But I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna make it happen. I'm gonna change, cause if me and you gonna do this man and wife shit, then I gotta get my shit together. That's on the real. I gotta go to college, get a good job, make sumthin out of myself so I can do right by you and the kids. I ain't gonna fuck up like my daddy did. I ain't gonna have my kids living in no projects, wearing hand-me-down shit and lying to folks over the phone cause I can't pay my bills. I ain't gonna drink myself silly and beat my wife and my kids cause I ain't a man and I can't pay my bills. I ain't gonna fuck no young tricks in my wife bed cause I don't have respect for her. I ain't gonna do none of that. I'm gonna be a good man.
Love, your husband,
Antonio
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April 19, 1990
Dear Antonio,
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You looked so good today in the courtroom. I ain't never seen you in a suit before and you sure looked fresh in it.
It made me think that maybe if we went to church like my grandmother always trying to get me to do, I would have seen you in a suit before. And maybe if we went to church, God would smile down on us more like my grandmother say and this wouldn't have happened. But, oh well, it did happen so here we are. Anyway, I helped your mother pick out that suit. We went all the way to Macy's to get it. It cost almost 150 dollars, Antonio. Your mother said she had used some of the money she got from people after the funeral to buy it. She had wanted to buy you some of them corny ass loafers to wear with your suit, but I told her Antonio IS NOT gonna wear them shoes. She tried to challenge me, and said, “Little girl, I think I know my son better than you do.” So I had to break her heart and let her know she didn't. I told her about them no-name jeans she used to get you from Conway, remember the ones with the pockets all high to your stomach and them thick cuffs at the bottom? I told her you used to take them jeans off in gym and wear sweats hanging down all day. She looked hurt about it, but at least she took my advice and we got the black sneaks. Who braiding your hair up in the joint? It looked all nice and neat and fresh. Let me find out you got a “girl”friend up in there! I'm just kidding. I know you wouldn't never leave me and go that way. I was surprised that things was so short today. I thought we was gonna be there a long time. I thought it was gonna be a lot more screaming and yelling and the judge banging his gavel and stuff like that. But everything was pretty
chill, which was cool. The less action the better in this case, right? I think your lawyer real good. He did a good job talking to the jury about you, he made you sound real good. Not that you ain't real good anyway, but it seemed like you was going through some shit you wasn't letting me in on. I didn't know you was going through it baby. Why didn't you tell me? If we gonna be husband and wife, I'm gonna need to know these things. I'm gonna need to know about what's going on with you at all times, so no shit like this don't ever happen again.
Love,
Natasha
PS. Madame Girard want me to apply for this special program they got for kids who go to public school in New York City to go to France over the summer. She said that you could spend like a whole month in Paris over the summer, living with a family and taking classes and going to all these art museums and stuff. She told me she would write me a recommendation because I do good in her class. See Antonio, when you come back to school you gotta make sure you do good in her class so she can write you a recommendation and you can go too. Maybe we can get married before we go and this can be our free honeymoon. Think about it, okay boo?