It started out as many friday nights before: My fiance Curt went downtown to the pub for some drinks with friends. I started to grow concerned as it began to get late and still no text or call. At last, I received a text.
Curt apologized, explaining that his sister, Victoria, was in town and she decided to meet him at the pub for a visit.
Somewhat relieved, I went to bed. Only to wake up an hour later as my phone rang, with the bed still lacking my fiance. It wasn't him but rather the police. They were calling from the George Floyd Memorial Hospital.
Details came swiftly, even if they took days to process. Apparently Curt and Victoria had exited the pub together only to be ambushed across the street. After a brief altercation, Curt was stabbed and incapacitated while his sister was forced into her car and driven back to her motel under threats.
The culprit was an ex-convict by the name of Javar. A name was all I had and wanted at the moment. He holed up inside the hotel with Victoria as a hostage. The police surrounded the hotel and it took until morning before any more developments were heard. Javar surrendered around 8 o'clock the next morning. Victoria was discovered alive inside the room.
Curt spent three days in the hospital and then was able to come home. He and his sister both were going to recover just fine. It seemed as if it were divine intervention. But this lucky break came with a bit of fine print.
Curt had been stabbed multiple times and due to the assailant's short stature, most of the wounds had been dealt to the lower stomach and legs. Unfortunately his testes had also been destroyed in the attack. Once on the ground, a flurry of brutal punches and stomps shattered his spine, leaving him crippled.
His sister seemed she was handling herself well, whatever had ocurred in that motel room for those several hours. She had nothing to say, and I had nothing to ask.
Victoria:
It came as no surprise to learn I was pregnant. During the hostage situation, Javar's attention had been entirely on me. He had time to run, but couldn't keep his hands off me. To run was survival, but the way he looked at me signaled that a more important mission was underway.
Since Javar was black, the Global Diversity Commission got involved. They wouldn't allow me to get an abortion. I was indirectly threatened with being branded a racist for extinguishing a black life. I would have to carry it to term, and in the meantime they wanted Javar to retain his rights as a black father. He was mandated a supervised visit with me at the hospital.
He barged in before I even had time to get dressed from my latest checkup. Once more I was facing the thug who neutered and crippled my brother and raped me for hours, disrupted my life. I should have been furious, should have hurled the lamp at his face or even cussed him out. I remained calm. I didn't even rush to cover myself and my rage evaporated. I realized that what I really wanted was a moment of peace, to look into his eyes for some echo of what our child would look like.
I guess priorities were shifting as my body adapted to the life growing inside it. My brother would be unable to reproduce and so now it fell to me to continue our blood line. I needed a strong, healthy alpha male for such a mission. On a primal level I understood why Javar didn't flee the hotel that night. Why he kept going at me so many times, unrelenting until he made me a mother.
It all flashed back to me. He gave me more orgasms in one night than I had experienced in months with anybody else. They all seemed to flash back at the same time. Once again, I remained silent when I should have been screaming.
Back in the present, he nodded solemnly as I approached. Whatever he had been about to say, I cut him off.
Robin:
The nightmare seemed to be entering its aftermath phase. Though strictly internal, I still felt guilty about my complaints. I didn't want to complain. I wanted to make some sense of all this. I was isolated, bobbing in the wake of the tidal wave unable to do more than keep my head above the water. Bouncing between frustration and helplessness quickly became monotonous. And so, I made a simple promise to myself. I couldn't see a solution right now but I swore I would make something good come from it. I would find a silver lining to this big gray boulder weighing on my shoulders. I carried that thought with me as things eased back into something resembling normal.
Before the incident, Curt and I had been discussing starting a family. With his injuries, it clearly wasn't going to happen now. Around the time we planned to start preparing for a pregnancy, we found ourselves instead preparing for the trial. It was insult on top of injury. More and more, I was just numb emotionally.
I hadn't put much thought into the monstrous person that attacked Curt and his sister. My first glimpse was an orange jumpsuit across the courtroom. An unflinching face as he was led up front.
Javar came from a disadvantaged background. He had a long and varied rap sheet, but his specialty seemed to be auto theft and burglary. Between prison stints, he had seven children with his "baby's momma" as he eloquently described her. Although, it was about to be eight children thanks to Victoria.
Had I spotted Javar coming down the sidewalk, being in the mindset I was in at the time, I would probably cross the street. He was indeed short, by my estimate near five feet tall and not an inch north of it. A squat little demon that had caused so much pain, uncaring and unashamed even in front of his victims.
"Don't judge a book by its cover"
Is a highly misinterpreted phrase. It means not to assume the story is bad just because the cover looks rough. One would not be blamed for picking up 'Harry Potter' and assuming they were going to read about witches and wizards. In this case though? For once the more popular meaning of that phrase bizarrely seemed more appropriate.
On the stand, Javar did not speak much about himself. It wasn't delivered in the most eloquently way, but he talked at length about the systemic racism and discrimination that had brought him here. The man's very life and freedom was on the line and yet his concern was for others. Black people and other minorities struggling to survive in a system that constantly worked against them.
I had nothing to glean any closure from. Much as I hate to use the term, I felt...robbed. Even after Javar was sentenced to 12 years in prison. It wasn't the end of it though. Javar's testimony had got me thinking.
Injustice in our system. Racism, white supremacy. It's the ghoul that still latches on to us with a rotten bony arm, reaching out from the past and what should have been its grave. Racism kills black people. A survival situation is what many people of color wake up to and walk around in each and every day. It's not a siutation where one can always follow the rules. Javar was a perfect stranger, what motivation would he have to attack my now-husband?
Nothing that I could see. What I could see was a man forced into a desperate survival situation by the powers that be.
=
The week after Victoria gave birth was when I found myself going to visit him for the first time. I hadn't thus far been able to go face him. The birth of his son pushed me over the edge and gave me a strictly business reason to sit down in front of the man himself.
He wasn't phased at first, confusion on his face as I sat down across the glass. I got straight to the point and broke the news to him. For once I saw a real person unmasked as he looked at the pictures I showed him. He had a new, healthy son that already looked just like him. After that we talked for longer than I was expecting. None of it to do with what had happened nor his current situation. I simply made conversation with another human.
I kept the things I had learned in mind as I watched Victoria raising Javar's child. Curt and his sister had been raised in a less than progressive family. The grandparents were none too pleased, but their bitterness was contained enough not to interfere. I had no such reservations. A beautiful black life was blooming. Something positive had come from the wreckage of the prior year.
I kept Javar updated, but soon we were talking about ourselves. It didn't take long before I realized Javar was as much a victim in this as anybody. The Human side of him was the real side of him. He wanted to belong to the world as much as anyone else, but was prevented from doing so. Lashing out was the one option he had been left with and was robbed of his precious time on Earth for the trouble.
Javar's son could have been that silver lining I had been looking for. If not for the fact Curt and I could not start one of our own at this point. My instincts immediately pointed to him. There was no debate within me. The discussion with family and friends I am happy to gloss over, but suffice to say it purged my social media of the close minded and vengeful. Even a few racists.
I could not reach through glass or bars and rescue him. But I could use the wealth and privlidge that I was given for the benefit of his legacy.
Though we had spent much time talking, I was shocked into speechlessness once I was actually standing before Javar. We were as different as could be. Tall, blonde, knowing nothing of the life he had lived. Pouty lips painted just for him. He wasn't even slightly intimidated. He knew exactly what to do with me. I was surprised at how gentle his lovemaking was, how expertly he used his manhood which even the stereotypes didn't do justice. He made those...hours? Days? I couldn't say. He made that visit a surreal and timeless vacation.
Our visit ended up being a success. Javar's next heir had taken root.
During the pregnancy, a lot of things were on my mind. Among them, the things I would now face as a consequence of my decision. There were the folks who hated that I was involved with this "convict". Let's just say their trust in the legal system was far greater than mine even before educating myself in just how racist society still was. Then, the outright racists who were furious at me for obvious reasons.
Despite the protests of a noisy few individuals, my body had no problem preparing itself to nourish the life growing within me. I finally felt as if I could consider my mission and promise to be successfully achieved. I had made something good come out of this.
We added two more to our family over the intervening years before I decided to sit down and write about it. To date, Javar has given me a daughter and two sons. Curt has meanwhile been faithful and understanding throughout this whole process. If anything it has made him, his sister and I closer.
