No Hiding Place, Page 2

with a gun to her head. Estefani watched in silence and horror with her head peeking from behind the corner of the house. A few weeks later her aunt disappeared. Estefani knew then, at the age of ten, that she had to leave that place.

  At nineteen she had mapped out a plan: when to leave, how to leave, and where in the United States she could go. The other nearby countries, from what she knew, had little better to offer. Estefani worked in a free-trade zone making less than one dollar an hour as a seamstress for a foreign clothing manufacturer sewing smiling cartoon characters onto T-shirts. She could see that escaping the Caribbean was her only option if she was to avoid that fate altogether.

  She was constantly thinking about her plans, except for the night she met Francis. At a friend’s house party Estefani leaned against a pastel green, chipped-paint wall drinking soda and chatting with friends. She talked about music while inadvertently grabbing the attention of every man in the room who caught sight of her curvy body, beautiful face, and bright eyes. Francis was among those men, but memories of death had tamed him of his earlier desires. He admired her like a star in the sky that he had no thought of reaching for. He was too tired to aspire and contented himself with just admiring.

  Soon, however, he found himself dancing to a bachata song that forced him to his feet. The melody moved him to where he needed to close his eyes for a moment to appreciate it. When he opened them, he saw Estefani dancing alone next to him. He grabbed her and they danced through the rest of that song as well as the next four. He held her hands tightly, but without his earlier, immature passions. She held his as well, and from their courtship to their marriage to their move to the United States, they never let go of each other’s grip. When they eventually did, it was so they could hold their child, Edouard.

  The two saw their lives in the shifting shape of their baby’s familiar face. Through the lens of their own history and experience in their new country, they could also see the general path that the life of their baby boy would take.

  Edouard would grow up in a loving home where his father would teach him to love other people and his mother would teach him to love himself. He would try his best in the Crown Heights neighborhood to actively step over the trappings of poverty. The everyday scenes inspired by drugs, greed, and deprivation would all capture his attention as his peers indulged in things that felt good at the moment. His middle school would have a glut of students, while at the same time be starved of all the things needed to teach them—the things needed to divert Edouard’s mind from the violence around him that was both literal and figurative.

  With his parent’s help, Edouard would remain distant from the kind of life that led to no life. He would maintain a relatively high GPA along with an independent reading list to supplement what was lacking in his school; his father would take him on trips to museums when he wasn’t working at the local mechanic shop; his mother would teach him how to cook proper mangú and arroz con gandules while talking to him about big ideas and the dreams he hoped to fulfill one day. Edouard would also stay out late with friends and occasionally smoke weed while trying to get his dick sucked by local girls. He’d keep up this healthy balance until he and his family would be forced to move.

  Within the span of a year, his parent’s neighborhood would see police presence increase dramatically. A new precinct would be set up near their apartment building with the results being a slight decrease in crime and a drastic increase in the amount of Edouard’s (now Eddie’s) friends who would be thrown in jail or snatched up on spurious charges like resisting arrest when asking why they were being told to empty their pockets.

  After a few months, Eddie, as well as his parents, would see the changes in their neighborhood. Construction on old vacant lots would reveal beautifully modern glass and steel apartment buildings. The people moving in would have more money than the long-time locals and this would be evident to Eddie for a few reasons. For one, most of them would be white, which, while Eddie would try to consciously fight the idea, had long ago become a sign of wealth and power to him. They’d also dress differently and carry themselves differently—in a way that would make Eddie feel uncomfortable for reasons he couldn’t put a finger on.

  Soon, their landlord would raise the rent well beyond what it had been. Their new rent, along with the grocery stores and shops that now catered to the new residents, would increase their cost of living and drive them from their home of the previous sixteen years.

  Their new neighborhood, further south in Brownsville, would be much rougher than their previous. It would take longer for Eddie’s parents to get to work and it would be much harder to get the foods that they were used to buying. It would also become harder for Eddie to continue the balancing act he had cultivated for most of his life. Though he had already been accepted to a reputable college, his last year in high school would see his grades slip. He would spend more time in the streets trying to do more than just getting his dick sucked.

  Francis and Estefani would worry about him a little, but would tell each other that he was just being young and that he would straighten up again once he left for college, a place far away from the negativity that surrounded them. Eddie would be on their mind as he sat on a park bench with four friends, laughing at a joke made about his history teacher’s ill-fitting hairpiece. In the middle of the laughter, a squad car would pull up and the exiting policemen would ask what was going on. What were the five boys doing out there? Eddie and his friends would stare back silently, not trying to hide the disdain in their eyes for being asked, essentially, why they existed.

  One of the officers would ask, “You little shits don’t have anything to say?”

  Again, silence, until one of the boys would begin to walk away. With a sudden movement, the officers would walk quickly toward the group. Their hands on their holstered guns, one of them would shout, “Don’t move! Stay right there!” At this the boy would turn his walk into a run for the nearby housing project courtyard. The officer closest to him would give chase and leave the other cop to remain, his gun now drawn on the four teens. He shouted again, “Don’t move!”

  “What did we do wrong?” is what Eddie would try to say, but after “what” the nervous policeman’s gun would go off and shoot Eddie in the chest. The fatal shot would lead to a publicized funeral and, later, a failure to indict the killer. Leaving the courthouse, reporters would ask Francis if he intended to sue the city. Both Estefani and Francis, almost choking on their own tears, would confirm that they planned to sue.

  Their civil suit would drag on for two devastating years wherein they had to regularly relive the very thing they moved to New York City to escape. They would lose the case and afterwards try to return to something of a normal life, minus the only child they had. Every so often Francis would watch the news and hear of stories similar to Eddie’s. The parents would look like him or Estefani, and the child always looked like their son.

  The country where Francis was born was a place he could never go back to because of the turmoil that would meet him if he returned. Because of new laws, their dark skin and Haitian ancestry would deny him and Estefani the ability to go back to the country where she was born. Listening to the news, both nations would seem eerily similar to where they now lived. Francis and Estefani would miss their son with a pain that made every breath hurt. Every so often they would succumb to that pain and cry on each other’s shoulders as they realized that they had never been safe. There was nowhere they could they be free.

  They both caught a glimpse of this life as they looked at Edouard’s miniature face, still wet from his trip though the birth canal and into the light of the world. Not mentioning anything to the other they simply sighed and kissed as they wondered about the place they had brought this new life into—a place that was supposed to be his home.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Alex Clermont is a creative writer, and a full-time copywriter, born and raised in New York City. As a music journalist he's written, on and off, for a dozen outlets includ
ing Beyond Race Magazine, AllHipHop.com, Stagebuddy and Plateau (where he was also the managing editor).

  His short stories have been published in several literary journals and anthologies including The Bodega Monthly, The aois21 Annual, Every Second Sunday, Foliate Oak and Out of Place.

  Alex likes to write literary stories about fake people with real-life problems.

  Say "Hi" if you get the chance.

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