The Bank Robbery (a serial novel in progress)
Chapter #5: Black women with afros — (In which your lawyer to be remembers how he applied for law school in the first place)
(Author’s note: I apologize for being away from updating my serial novel, “The Bank Robbery,” but I promise, the story will continue. Thanks to all readers. And please check out all the previous installments linked below)
It was my main man Chapman who dared me to apply to law school. Chap (that’s what I called him) said I would never get in anyway. If Chap knew I was on the floor of a bank being robbed because I needed money to finish law school, he would crack the fuck up too.
I know him. He liked to chop it up. When I told him I was going to law school, he cracked the hell up for days. I had been saying it to him for weeks and he would laugh.
Then dared me to apply. That’s when I knew I was going to apply. Why couldn’t I be a lawyer? It wasn’t like I was a gravedigger.
Finally, I decided to seriously fuck with him one day and just tell him it was going to happen. I rolled up to his cubicle and told him point blank —
“I found my purpose, Chap. Law school. Justice.”
I laughed. He was eating Chinese takeout. That’s all he ate anyway. Chinese takeout because someone told him it was healthy. But I used to come by his cubicle and tell him that Chinese takeout was heart attack food especially for him because he never worked out and sweated out all that salt.
But Chap set his chopsticks down and got serious.
“The hell you talking about, man?”
“As I told you, I am going to law school. I am going to be a lawyer.”
Then he laughed. I
“You? Perry Mason? You? Someone told you some lies didn’t they?”
“Yea, man. Me? I know you don’t think working this fucked up dead-end government job is the ticket, do you?”
Chap stuffed some more broccoli and beef strips in his mouth. Took a swallow of a Diet Pepsi. Then he stared at me again.
“Look man, do what you want but at least I know what this is. What happens when you fail the fuck outta law school? What you gonna do then? Law school is for white boys, anyway. And you ain’t white, last I checked. You want some of this Chinese? You might need it if you quitting your job and shit.”
Chap chuckled again.
He was my man. Very good friend. But his last line stuck with me. “Law school is for white boys. Law school is for white boys. Law school is for white boys.” Like a church bell. I knew then I was doing the right thing. I knew even if I fell flat on my face, I had to do this. I was going to do this.
Besides, Chap did not know I had already gone into the building and picked up an application and applied for school either. The Washington D.C. Law School. I didn’t tell him. I just bid his ass adieu. Keep eating that heart attack Chinese food, Chap. If you croak, I will eulogize you.
But I was going to go for it. I wasn’t going to wake up 15, or 20 years from now working a bullshit government job. Wasn’t anything wrong with the government per se, but where I was working was for slaves. Mental slaves who were treated like panhandlers.
Yep, I had already applied to law school, I remember saying to myself that day. Fuck you, Chap. And fuck everyone else who thought law school was for white boys. If law school was for white boys, why in the fuck was there so many famous Black lawyers.
Thurgood muthafuckin’ Marshall, I wanted to say to Chap. How about him? Was he white? My father had friends who came by the house who were Black lawyers. Black people were lawyers.
I remember the day I walked into the law school, a few days before I told Chap about it all. Two Black women greeted me. Two soul sisters with afros. Well sculpted beautiful afros. I didn’t know anything about the law school either. I had heard about it but I never thought twice.
I was wandering the city one day reading some poems by Alice Walker, and there it was. I was like — Wow. I felt something pulling me towards the building. I felt like something important was going on in the world in that building.
I walked into the building and took the elevator to admissions.
“May I help you?” the first Black woman with an afro asked me.
I smiled. I was in the right place. I knew it. I knew I had to apply and try to become a lawyer.
But damn, here I was now, on the floor of a bank with some other people being robbed. So much shooting through my brain like Chinese food down Chap’s throat.
If I hadn’t run out of money and lost my way, I would not be in this bank right now about to be shot perhaps. I could be still in law school studying to be a lawyer. Or, I could be working that bullshit government job. Man, was I whacked out mentally.
The bank robber who looked just like Jesse Jackson looked like he was almost done searching for more cash. He was still rummaging through the drawers. He knew what he was doing. He probably had been watching the bank for weeks. He knew at closing time it was a good time to rob a bank. No one around.
Man, I wish he would get the fuck out. If he would just leave and not shoot us, I swear I am going back to law school and finish. I mean, I guess I am. If only I could think straight.
Nina, I whispered to myself. Nina. Where are you at, baby? Get me the fuck out of here. You got me in here. Come rescue me, and make love to me, baby.
The Bank Robbery is a serial novel in progress.
© Copyright 2022 — The Bank Robbery — Brian Gilmore
