KEEPER OF THE SOULS

Plainfield, New Jersey, October 26, 1965

Three Colored youths, all male, were walking down Somerset Street toward Front Street when one of Plainfield’s finest demanded they come to his squad car for questioning.

Betty’s breath hitched in her chest when she recognized one of the kids was her young neighbor, Muscles, whom she’d grown very fond of.

It was about 11:30 P.M. The downtown area was lit up like Times Square but empty as a schoolyard at midnight. Three Colored kids and a racist cop is a guaranteed prescription for trouble. This was the something bad Betty feared would happen earlier.

One of the more vocal youths replied to the cop’s baseless command. “For what? We ain’t do nothing.”

That was all the excuse the bastard in blue needed. He jumped out of the car with his gun drawn. The kids broke camp, all three of them running in separate directions.

Betty picked up her pace.

The cop caught one of the kids on Park Avenue and dragged him into the United National Bank parking lot. Betty said a silent prayer of thanks that it was not Muscles. She ducked behind a parked car across the street to conceal herself. She was in no position to get in Plainfield PD’s crosshairs. If they were to get wind of the carnage she left back in Mississippi, they would throw her Black ass under the jail, or worse.

Betty was forced to hide and watch the sordid scene unfold right before her eyes.

***

What Betty witnessed that night blasted through the brick wall of numbness encasing her heart. It forced her to feel everything she’d kept banked inside for the past six months.

The sounds that kid made while the cop repeatedly struck him with the butt of his pistol reminded Betty of the brutal blows her son must have endured at the hand of Mississippi vigilantes. The boy’s ragged screams ripped away the tenuous scab that was holding Betty’s sanity together, allowing the darkness to rise to the surface and bubble over.

There was no more sass, no bravado, just a scared, young Colored boy begging the cop not to kill him. The kid was screaming for his mother, his father, for somebody to help him. And all he had was broken Betty, kneeling behind a car across the street, as an impotent witness. This was somebody’s child being beaten worse than a dog. Like it or not, Betty’s hands were metaphorically tied.

The cop was merciless. He beat the kid until his chest started heaving and sweat dripped off his face. He beat him until his arm got tired and his hat fell off his head. The sonofabitch beat on that kid long after he stopped moving. And Betty witnessed it all.

Betty couldn’t help but wonder. Did my baby scream like that? Did he call my name? Did he beg his murderers for mercy?

The thought was too much for her to bear. She clapped both hands over her mouth to keep from screaming as scalding hot tears burned the flesh on her cheeks. She knew there was nothing she could do. She could not protect this kid any more than she had protected her son. The reality nearly broke her.

Finally exhausted, the cop lowered his weapon. He dug deep inside his pocket and planted a small plastic bag containing white powder in the kid’s pocket. And then the bastard had the gall to read the unconscious kid his rights.

“You are under arrest for possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute within a thousand feet of a school.” He then dragged the unconscious youth to the nearby squad car and threw him in the back.

Betty waited until the taillights on the cop car diminished and disappeared before hurrying across the street to retrieve the forgotten hat. It had his name inside the sweaty rim: “Paul R. Pressley.”

“There was nothing I could do to help that kid without bringing attention to myself. But I swear before the Divine Creator and every single one of my Ancestors and Spirit Guide Egun who walk in darkness, that cop’s days are numbered!” Betty said aloud.