The Apostles

D
URING THE 1920S AND 1930S, AROUND THE TIME OF THE
Harlem Renaissance, more than a quarter of a million African-Americans settled in Harlem, creating what was described at the time as “a cosmopolitan Negro capital which exert[ed] an influence over Negroes everywhere.”

Nowhere was this more evident than on West 138th and 139th Streets between what are now Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., and Frederick Douglass Boulevards, two blocks that came to be known as Strivers Row. These blocks attracted many of Harlem's African-American doctors, lawyers, and entertainers, among them Eubie Blake, Noble Sissle, and W. C. Handy, who were themselves striving to achieve America's middle-class dream.

With its mission of publishing quality African-American literature, Strivers Row emulates those “strivers,” capturing that same spirit of hope, creativity, and promise.

“Turn on your stomach.”

Silently the boy refused. His trembling brown frame was covered only by a pair of white briefs.

“Boy, you better turn yo motherfucking ass over now!”

Still the boy refused to obey. He knew that his submission was needed for his stepfather to attain the level of power over him that he craved, but he couldn't submit to the man's will.

His stepfather tried a different tack. “C'mon, boy. Take this shit like a man. You want to be man, don't you? Men take what's coming to them. So gone ‘head and turn on over so that we can get this shit over with.”

The boy shook his eight-year-old head.

His stepfather ran his hand over his straightened hair.

“Now that's what I'm talking about. That shit right there. I'm sick of this little no-talking role you be trying to play. I done heard you talk plenty when you be with them little niggers down there in the alley. You little slick bastards is always scheming up on something to get into. Now you want to sit here and act like you can't talk. That's some bullshit! Your mother wants me to make a man out of you, and I'll be damned if I don't!”

The boy already knew this beast couldn't make him into a man. He knew that a man wouldn't roll over and take a whupping. Not that he was scared of being beaten. That was nothing new. Before he died, his father had administered his fair share of those, but they were
always tempered with love and understanding. This man had none of that in him. He wasn't trying to make him a better person as he claimed—he simply reveled in beating on someone who was power
less against him. More than anything in the world, Shawn missed his father. That quiet, strong man with the receding hairline and thick glasses was gone forever. He managed to make the newspapers on his way out though. An out-of-work construction worker who tried to rob a currency exchange and ended up on a slab in the morgue. Where was the justice in that?

Swack!

The first blow from the belt landed on his shoulder.

“You know you stole that two dollars out your teacher's desk drawer! Now you might as well turn over and take your whupping! You not opening your mouth is the same as lying. The only thing worse than a liar is a thief and you both.”

Where was the justice in this? Shawn knew that he didn't steal the money. He knew who took it, but he would never tell; it just wasn't in him to snitch. And there was no way that he could make his teacher or this buffoon understand that after his father was killed trying to rob that place, he made a vow that he would never steal anything in his life.

Whap!

The boy writhed in pain from the lick, but he still refused to turn onto his belly.

“Boy, I said turn yo black ass over! I ain't gone tell you that shit no more!”

As his stepfather hollered these words six inches from his face, he could smell the potent mixture of malt liquor and cheap wine on his breath. He looked at his stepfather with disdain. This was the man whom his mother had chosen to love in his dead father's place. An unemployed cardboard box maker to replace an unemployed, dead construction worker. A man whose big dream was to buy a Cadillac with the money he was waiting to get from a settlement from the card board factory for a fraudulent back injury. This man who spent most
of his day sleeping in the bed that his father had bought. The sick bas
tard even dared to wear some of his father's old clothes.

Whack!

The blow landed across his naked thighs. Its force made him scoot backward on the bed a bit and rub his thighs, but he didn't turn onto his stomach. Tears jumped into his eyes, but he willed himself not to release them.

Thwack!

The belt slapped across his arms and curled itself around to his bare back. Two large tears dropped from his eyes. A large welt rose instantly on his back and his small brown arms. The boy could hear the Commodores' “Zoom” playing in the living room. He knew it was his mother's favorite song. He liked the lyrics too. Some shit about “flying away.” He also knew that his mother had turned the record player volume up so loud because she didn't want to hear him getting beaten. She would be sitting in the window seat with her favorite cup full of Thunderbird wine, listening to her favorite song while her husband beat the shit out of her only son. Later, much later, she would sneak into his room and tend to his wounds. She would rub his head, kiss him on the forehead, and beg him to try and get along with his stepfather. She would tell him how much she loved him and how one day soon she was going to take him and his younger twin sisters and leave this man.

“Little nigger, you better lay on your motherfucking stomach or I'm gone beat your ass just like that! That's yo damn problem now, you can't do what I tell you to do! You act like you slow or something! You little motherfucker, you just like yo punk ass daddy—a fucking thief. That's how he got his dumb ass killed, trying to steal somebody else's shit!”

Whack! Whack!

Two licks in quick succession. One landed on his shoulder, the other on his neck. This time he had to groan in pain. He closed his tear-filled eyes, balled his hands into fists, and pounded them into his thighs. He was angry with himself for allowing that groan to slip out.

“So you ain't gone lay down, huh? Well, that's okay, you little fucker. I'll beat yo ass just like that!”

“You,”

Whack!

“little,”

Whack!

“ungrateful,”

Whack!

“son of a bitch.”

Whack!

“I,”

Whack!

“hate yo,”

Whack!

“black,”

Thwack!

“non-talking,”

Whack!

“ass!”

Inside Shawn screamed. He screamed for his dead father. He screamed for his mother to protect him. And he screamed for himself. But not a sound would he allow to cross his lips.

T
HE FIVE MEN WALKED INTO THE REAR ROOM OF THE CANDY
store and video game parlor. They all took seats around the wooden table. The surface of the table was scarred with cigarette burns and the ancient carvings of men's and boys' names. There were no formalities among the old friends as they made themselves comfortable. There was plenty of trash talking and playful chiding in the group. Well, all of them except one.

Though Shawn “Solemn Shawn” Terson laughed lightly at some of the jokes, for the most part he preferred to nurse his Dr Pepper. He was dressed plainly, as was his custom—blue jeans, a black Mecca sweatshirt, and a pair of soft-bottom Kenneth Cole shoes.

Fresh from working out at Bally's gym, Dante “Tay” Thompson was attired in a black Ultrasuede Sean John jogging suit with a pair of all-white Air Force Ones on his feet. His average height was belied by his great physical strength, which was a huge source of pride for him. When it came to bench-pressing, Dante could hold his own with Big Ant, who was a hulking six-foot-three, two-hundred-ninety-pound chunk of darkness. The large round belly that Anthony “Big Ant” Hamilton sported often fooled men into thinking that he was weak, but in the end they found out that his arms and chest were as firm as his belly. Murderman and Mumps though, between the two of them, had never lifted a weight. Thomas “Mumps” Murphy believed that any kind of physical activity would mess up his perfect manicure. Sweating was against his
religion, he would often say. Though he was proficient in most of the areas of ghetto vice, gambling was his passion—high-stakes gambling. Today he wore a milk white Coogi sweater with the matching hat. Coogi jeans and a pair of white Coogi tennis shoes completed his outfit. His top teeth were all platinum and a platinum link necklace with a diamond frosted crucifix hung around his neck.