Maybe I made a mistake when I told Miss Treecie that Javante killed Cash's puppy and left it in my rain barrel. Maybe she was no more surprised than Javante was when he said, looking away from me, afraid to face the barrel, afraid to even look up, "I think there's a dog in there. Mr. Zach, I think a dog drownededed in there."
I knew as soon as I told her that it was a bad idea, but Cash's baby mama said I had to, and Javante's mom had already been summoned. What did I look like from her side of the fence? Only my head was visible and boy did she yell at my head. "Who you think you is? Not my boy! You got him on camera? No? Then shut the fuck up."
Javante was one of my best helpers when he helped, when it was just the two of us and none of the other kids were around. He helped me build a bench, even helped to design the damn thing. It weighed about six hundred pounds because it was flat two by six screwed to flat two by six about eight high. It didn't matter. We did it. We built it with wood I found in piles throughout New Orleans, wood my wife told me I was not allowed to bring home anymore. I didn't let him give up on himself, even when the screwgun seemed too heavy and he had to use both hands, even when he said, "I can't do this"…I said, "You can." And he did. He said, "You gonna tell my mama this?" I said I would.
Javante was the leader, the brave navigator that scaled my fence and entreated new troops daily. When I complained to my wife about the two broken windows, the burnt hammock, the smashed terra cotta pots, all the cups and plates I left outside that he then shattered--when I complained about the aronia berries, the orange pomegranates, the goumis, and the numerous other starts he dumped out for kicks, she said, "Maybe this is the only place he feels safe."
Maybe she was right. I let things slide. I let him lead his ever-growing legion of merry pranksters over the fence and into my yard where he would impress them with his daily deeds of destruction. I let him lead them to the mulberry tree, to the parsley, to the anise hyssop and all around. Sometimes I watched from the window, surreptitiously kneeling in the living room while he gathered mulberries and shared with the others. I liked to think that he was teaching some of them what I had taught him. I didn't hide because I needed space or time. I hid because I was once a kid. I hid because my intrusion would have changed the journey…because I remembered running through fields and down to creeks and picking boysenberries and mint. I remember squishing tadpoles in my hand and denying Frogdom.
Javante has not climbed the fence once in the three months since Miss Treecie yelled at me. I have seen him on the street, walking with his mom, and when he sees me there is a look of recognition, the beginning of a smile, but then he holds his lips, level, horizontal, as if I no longer represent whatever it was I once represented.
I yelled at Javante once. He didn't see me, but I saw him. I saw him launch a brick at a laying hen, and I saw that hen leave her eggs. I walked right in front of him, so close that he could not move, and I said, "That is not okay!" I said, "Go home. Now!" And he obeyed. He climbed the fence without warning.
This did not dissuade him from climbing onto my side of the fence or from playing a game where he would see me working, would turn, wait, look at me as though I was supposed to chase him, and then bolt for the fence at any move I made in his direction. This did not stop him from asking me if I was going to have a birthday party for him when he turned eight. It did not stop his helping me plant okra seeds or lay down wood chips.
What stopped all of this was the day I poked my head over, the day I saw Cash's lady, the day she asked me if I really knew what happened to their dog. What stopped all of this was truth. A truth so deep that Javante's addicted mother feared she would lose one of the only things she had left. I don't know how to change this. I don't know that anything needs to be changed. I do know this: Tomorrow is Halloween, and I miss Javante.
Epilogue: Javante was dressed as Batman. His sister, Kevyon, was a princess. Treecie didn't dress up, but her mom, Miss Lisa, was a witch. Then there were two itty bitty kids I didn't even know. I told the kids, "Two pieces each." They obeyed. Miss Lisa took six pieces, and then yelled Motherfucker at a man driving the wrong way down a one way street.
