The Weight of Justice

Chapter One

Today is my 14th birthday. As I trace a cake with my finger over this chalky mirror I blow my candle dust away. The powder from my pointer quickly settled into the dust again. It is my first birthday on my own but my wish today is the same as it is every year; I wish my name wasn’t Justice. My grandmomma, Ms. Henrietta, told me I was born into a civil society, or at least what was deemed “civil” for back then. She said it was a cool evening in the fall and she was at my birth momma’s bedside as they both stared out the window holding hands. They saw two birds fly into a nest settled in this enormous and astoundingly beautiful oak tree. Supposedly, it was right there in that room that my momma said she wanted to name me Oakley. It must’ve been one marvelous tree. So why is my name Justice? Well, unfortunately for me, my real momma died shortly after giving birth to me. Something about a blood clot traveled to her brain that there wasn’t anything the doctors could do about it. Cue grandmomma being devastated and decided to change my momma’s wishes for my name in a twisted attempt to “honor her '' by naming me after her. Justina Rose Brooks was my momma. And my life purpose was bestowed upon me to bring JUSTICE to this world, as Ms. Henritetta would continue reminding me this over the course of my existence. Supposedly, I look just like my momma, too. It doesn’t make me too sad when I think about her since I never really knew her. Grandmomma told me plenty of stories about her but she did not like talking about my daddy though. She would get mad at me for even asking about him. Heck, I didn’t even find out who my daddy was until some time a year ago. I’ll get to that later…

Chapter Two

I know all about our family’s ancestry. I grew up with Grandmomma tellin’ me about the struggles and hard lessons that were learned by her daddy, his daddy before him, and even his daddy before him. She would say I’m lucky to have survived into a world that burned itself to the ground. It was up to me to rebuild it back up. She would say that it was my duty to remember their names. The most horrific stories I was told at bedtime. She would take me back and forth throughout her life span of experiences. She’d shout out things to me randomly but with very firm intentions, “Justice! In 1955, Emmett Till was lynched at 14 years old - Remember His Name.” Or “1968 - Martin Luther King Jr., assassinated at 39 years old - Remember His Name, Justice!” Story after story for years and years. Night after night she would put the weight of their souls on my consciousness. Drilling into my head that fundamentally the white man was the root of all evil. I had nightmares most nights because of her. She’d tuck me in and say, “1998; James Byrd Jr., tied up and dragged to death at 49 years old - Remember His Name, my grandson.” Or, “Justice, in 2012, a young boy named Trayvon Martin, not too much older than you, was killed at 17 years old - Remember His Name, baby.” “And don’t you forget our beautiful ebony queens, too. In 2020, Breonna Taylor, fatally shot in her home. She was 26 years old - Remember Her Name. She existed and she mattered!” I’d think to myself, how could a young boy cope with so much death before he’s even lived a life? Yet, even though I live in this valley of devastation, Ms. Henrietta always made me feel lucky to be alive.

Chapter Three

It’s hard to picture any calm way of life where people were ever peaceful. Where you could walk about minding one’s own business or even exchanging niceties out of goodness. Present day, the subtleness of eye contact crossing paths with someone can be dangerous. What patch are they wearing? Which tribe do they belong to? All important information needed to survive such a treacherous landscape. After all, no one was to be trusted. If you see members of another tribe in the streets it’s best to keep your head low or stay in the shadows altogether. We always had something valuable to trade just in case we got caught up. But we never got caught up under Ms. Henrietta’s watch. We’d have to follow her rules to the tee. If we weren’t running low on supplies then we seldomly left our grounds. Grandmomma told me the real disorder started only a few days after the very public street execution of George Floyd’s death that was caught on camera back in 2020. She said she could feel a revolution in her bones since the uprising had been brewing and was certainly past due. Sure enough, by mid summer that year she said total anarchy had ensued. Ms. Henrietta had been waiting all her life for the government to collapse. She grew up in a hateful world where people with differences just couldn’t figure out how to get along.

Chapter Four

One morning last year, I awoke to something different. Ms. Henritta had taken a fall which injured her badly. From her hip to her head there was so much pain and so much bruising. Her frail skin tore so easily against the pavement. After this incident grandmomma and I could see that her days were numbered. Practically bedridden at that point, she finally began to open up about my parents' love story. Ms. Henrietta had finally given me my momma’s special necklace which she held close to her heart and never took off. Little did I know what a treasure it would become to me; a long thin chain with a heavy heart shaped locket made of pure silver. Inside was a picture of my momma AND my daddy. Remember how I had no idea who my daddy was... Much to my surprise, he was a white man! I remember so many feelings coursed through me as I looked at his pale face in search of a comparison to mine. And thinking to myself, how could she keep such a huge part of my identity hidden from me? I had so many questions, too many, in fact. But I also felt double crossed so I was angry. Angry at her for making me hate the white man when even my own mother loved one.

Life on my own has been dreadful lately and lonelier than ever. A whole year since she’s been gone and it’s become easy now to be defiant in the midst of surviving. However, that territory comes with precarious encounters. Quickly, I have had to learn the difference between a boy and a man making decisions in the name of Justice.