My Breonna Taylor Experience

 

 

This is not fiction, although I wish it were. This happened a few weeks ago, a week or so after the storming of the Capitol. I just couldn’t talk about it enough to share at the time. Yes, 

i had to exhale and process it first, and it is still difficult, but I hope my sharing it will heighten awareness. 

 

My doggy and I are at home alone. She’s been with me for less than a year but we are solidly bonded - my shadow, BFFs for life. She’s a tiny Jack Russell Terrier, and as senior a dog as I am as a human. My little Diva weighs about 18 lbs (and that’s obese for her the vet tells me). I linger downstairs watching marathon reruns of Curb Your Enthusiasm while she sleeps (her favorite thing to do) at my feet, comfy in her ergonomic bed. She gives new meaning to the expression ‘let sleeping dogs lie.’ I am killing time really because I had planned on folding and putting away laundry at long last, but I’m an inveterate procrastinator. Deciding reluctantly to stop procrastinating, I get off my butt to go upstairs. She’d usually follow like she’s on Twitter except when she is in diva mode and thinks I am disturbing her beauty rest. This time, as I get 

up from the sofa, she raises her head, gives me a quizzical look and takes the decision to continue with doing nothing until she is good and done. 

At times like these, when the spirit moves her, she eventually comes up and settles herself in her bed in my bedroom. She has a bed in every room that I frequently occupy - with the exception of the restroom.  I assume she’ll do the same, so I continue up to my bedroom, put on my headphones to listen to an audio book while I work; she knows her way and will show up eventually, I know. There was one time she had not followed me for hours and when I finally went back downstairs to see what was the problem, I found that her sweater had worked its way down her tiny body, restricting her movements and making negotiating the stairs an impossibility. But she does not have on a sweater today so there is no chance of a recurrence. Sure enough, my bedroom door opens about twenty minutes later and she saunters in, immediately setting her sights on dissecting, and hopefully devouring, a green bacon-flavored rubber bone toy while I continue doing my work.

 

It is about 20 minutes later while I am in my recessed in-suite bathroom that I hear her barking. I pay it no mind thinking my son has come home. Although he has been the other permanent resident in this house long before she ever came along, she still refuses to recognize that fact, and barks at him whenever he opens a door, comes up or down the stairs, leaves or returns home. Unperturbed, I continue to listen to my audio book, and, truth be told, my Bluetooth usage weekly updates have always cautioned me against amping up the volume so loud. I don’t think it’s loud, though; I can hear just fine; but it is noise-canceling, that I admit. It cancels all other noises except, apparently, the sound of my doggy’s barking (she must have a secret arrangement with the thing), which, most times, is a good thing. This time, the frantic and persistent barking penetrates the noise-eliminating perfection of my Beats 3 Solo headphones. It’s an old pair held together by black sports tape and Krazy glue in some places; the sound is gone from one ear and I have had to change the ear pad cushions twice. But I still love these old babies. They have been put through the ringer because I usually fall asleep listening to music or an audio book or the soothing vibe of some Fitbit mindfulness meditation designed for insomniacs like me. While the physical housing can certainly do with some advanced engineering, the sound remains impeccable. My son’s Christmas gift to me was a new set but I still use old faithful while he has ditched his Apple Bluetooth earbuds in favor of my new Beats Solo 3. All this to say that when an external noise penetrates the effective single-minded focus of these puppies (pun intended) on whatever sound it is transmitting to me at the moment, it calls for further investigation.

 

The frantic barking accelerates sharply in pitch and urgency as I linger in the bathroom; then I hear it moving farther away as the Tasmanian devil persona inside my Jack Russell Terrier bolts out of the bedroom and charges downstairs. It occurs to me that something else must be truly wrong because she won’t be carrying on like this were it my son who had come home. The only other things that elicit such rowdiness from her are the sound of the dryer, the vacuum, and the house alarm, for all of which she harbors serious phobias. Now concerned, I bring my bathroom visit to a hurried end and decide to go downstairs to investigate. I emerge from my bedroom - *dramatic music* - only to come face to face with a Glock revolver (I guess since that’s the only brand name that I know) leveled, cocked, and ready for action pointing directly at my face. 

 

What?? In confusion, my eyes travel from the finger standing at readiness on the trigger, up the brown arm, and slowly, disbelievingly, l register the uniform and attire of a youthful police officer, with traces of mother’s milk still on his face. And I instantly think of Breonna Taylor and Botham Jean and that 94-year old lady from East Point who were all shot dead in the supposed safety of their own homes without having been guilty or accused or even suspected of having committed any crime. I know I have done nothing wrong so all I can think of asking is, “Did my alarm go off?”

“No! Your alarm didn’t go off,” he tells he, gun still pointed to my face. 

“Is anybody else in there?” he asks, meaning my bedroom, I assume. 

I tell him no and that I’m home alone, but for the dog (See what happens? Just like that, these people have reduced my diva to a dog, and me to a child of a lesser God). 

He beckons me to come out fully from my bedroom since I was still standing in the doorway. I do as he has commanded. Then he motions me to go downstairs. His more hesitant, equally young, partner, gun still in holster, is standing behind him at the top of my stairs. So, I slowly walk down the stairs with one policeman in front of me and one behind, with the latter’s gun still out and ready. Meanwhile, with a gun pointed to her human’s head, my doggy diva defender is sustaining her frantic barking, donning her big guard dog alter ego.

 

As I walk, they tell me that they received a call from my neighbors (not sure which, since none of them are very neighborly to me) to say that my dog was walking around my yard off-leash and that my back door was wide open. “They called,” he says, “because they were concerned something was the matter with you.” I know he did not just say that! He must have the wrong neighborhood; not my neighbors! I know for sure, too, I left that door closed and latched. How she got out is a mystery to me. I’m not yet crazy and not yet senile so I would never leave the back door open and just go upstairs all carefree like lah-dee-dah, not even in the worst of times. How did that happen? I wonder. ‘I is a long- memoried woman” (quoting the title of Grace Nicholl’s book of poems that I so love), and a ‘long-memoried’ Caribbean woman at that. If I say I know the door was not open, trust me, it was not open.  But at this time my brain is in panic mode and not functioning well enough for me to work my way through to solving this mystery like the logic problem aficionada that I usually personify. It – my brain, that is - is still shaking like a leaf to match the rest of my body. All the time I’m thinking look how I almost got ‘Breonna Taylored’ this ‘good’ morning, all because my black neighbors did to me exactly what they complain about when white people do it them. They had done a ‘Karen’ on me. 

 

After getting me all the way downstairs, these two oh so brilliant, over-zealous limbs of the law then ask me for my DL. Why couldn't they ask me for that while we were upstairs? I have to force my trembling legs to take me back upstairs to get it then bring me all the way back downstairs again. In going to fetch my ID, I feel the fear and incredulity within me shift and give way to red hot anger rising like a searing flash seeking outlet; anger first with my neighbors, and next, and above all, with these police officers who ought to know better, especially the one with the revolver on ready. 

 

Let me deal with the neighbors first.  I have several, none of whom had have ever greeted me with a ‘Hello,’ a ‘Good Morning,’ or a ‘Good Day’ let alone a something, anything casserole, or a freshly crusted, aroma-wafting apple pie like we see in the movies. And I have lived here for almost five years. Well, except for one guy two houses to my right who was known on occasion to half-raise his hand in greeting to me as I reversed out of my garage, down my driveway, and sped past his house on my way to work, cutting it close as usual and resolving that I’d have to make up the time en route by flying low instead of driving fast (Have I told you about the time my car told me to slow down? But that’s another story for another time more fitting of such obvious hilarity).  But this one goodish neighbor, I have not seen him in the last two years or thereabouts. I recently learned from my son that he no longer lives there - apparently because of some acrimonious, I imagine, parting of ways between him and his lady friend (I hate to call adult women girls), whose house it is. Granted, three of the neighboring houses have relatively new occupants, but they, too, are accustomed to regard me with nothing approaching anywhere near amiability. So how is it that they are suddenly so concerned for my welfare?

 

“Really?  Where I come from, a neighbor concerned for another’s welfare would come over and knock or pick up the phone (if they know my number) to inquire. Calling the police would not and should not be high up on your priority list of things to do to show your concern; you’d be buzzing my doorbell or calling out to me if you did not have my number. A different culture, indeed! Secondly, since you’re so concerned, how about an occasional greeting when our eyes lock while I’m checking my mailbox or rolling my trash can to the curb? Instead, you avert your eyes and look in the other direction just so I do not get a chance to ‘smeyes’ you a greeting (a Tyra-ism) in return - every last one of you. Since you care so much, how about not littering my yard and my driveway with the charred debris of your frequent fireworks that defy the rules of celebratory occasion? How about keeping your dog on a leash and not giving me extra work having to pick up poop totally unrelated to me littering my backyard, which you and/or your ‘somma-dog’ (some o’ this, some o’ that – a Viveca-ism - what we would call back home a Caribbean Shepherd or dustbin terrier) often try to cover up by scooting dirt over it? Since you care so much, how about not letting the trash in your yard stray casually over into mine? How about not letting your visitors park their cars such that they block access to the driveways of the neighbors you care so much about? How much do you really and truly care? And since my house is more recessed that the others on both sides, how do you have full view of my back door let alone to know that it is wide open unless you are actually trespassing in said backyard? And even so, if my tiny doggy diva is off leash for a hot nanosecond, should calling the police be your first resort? What great neighbors! Did they pull you aside and teach you that in school? But since, it seems, I ought to easily deal with them by returning the favor when next their dogs are roaming loose and crapping in my backyard as they are won’t to do, let’s focus on the two soi-disant upholders of law and order in question.

 

 

The most troubling part of this is not the action of the neighbors, however. It’s the response of the responding officers especially the one with the Glock at ready and the itchy trigger finger. Had I or my dog inadvertently done anything to startle him, I could have ended up like Breonna Taylor or Botham Jean. And dead people tell no tales, so it would have been their word against mine, but I would have been long past the point where contributing even one word would have been an option for me. My diva, too, could not have given testimony on my behalf, although I know she would have if she could have. Or the over-eager PCs could have fabricated some far-fetched scenario of having to act quickly and in self-defense since I fired at them first. Hey! It has been known to happen. Think of that 94-year-old East Point grandmother who was riddled with bullets when they executed a no-knock warrant on the wrong house, then shot themselves in the foot, and planted a gun in her cold dead hands to corroborate their self-defense story. We only got to know the truth because somebody’s guilty conscience caught up with them eventually. But think of all the many instances where consciences have failed to put in an appearance either sooner or later. (In fact, conscience seems to be on extended sabbatical in this country). I would have gone down in history as an attempted murderer, cop-killer, who got her just deserves. I can see the gleeful headlines blaring from some of the sleazier muckraking press editions now: “Justifiable Homicide;” “Collateral Damage;” “Injured in the Line of Duty in Dangerous Black Neighborhood;” “All in a Day’s Work” and a picture of the deceased,moi, in happier times, sans gun. 

Since black lives don’t really matter as much as, and to, blue lives, who can feign surprise? The hue of my skin I’m in and love being in, mind you, and the complexion of my very existence only mean that not a single  body would question their story (Of course, she’s guilty; don’t trust that smiling seemingly-innocent face; all black people are criminals or potential criminal aka guilty). I would have bitten the dust and ended up, like the Lord Composer once said in a very deceptively catchy ditty, “just another black-hen chicken, a next common breed, to eat the bread that the devil knead.” 

 

And I can just imagine the fancy embroidery that would have been decorated the fringes of that story. I can hear it now: “Both she and the son were big drug dealers” “We found drug paraphernalia, arms, ammunition and loads of cash in the house.” Excuse me, Ima a need you to think! Had I loads of cash, do you think I’d be living here? Come on now, Ima need you to take as long as you need and think really seriously about it!  And cogitate, too, upon the possibility of what would (yes, would, not could) have happened had my son, a tall young confident upwardly mobile black man, emerged from that room instead of me. Is this how our police officers are trained to investigate a domestic health concern? Or to resolve however non-existent neighborhood conflict?  Had I fallen ill or had a heart attack or something, how would a drawn gun have helped my cause? Or would people coming to rob me in the middle of the day have left my back door swinging wide open off its hinges for “the Marish and the Parish” to see while their robbery was still in progress and they still inside my house? Do you mean to tell me police nowadays don’t even know how to think like criminals? Is not the possession of commonsense still one of the basic requirements for any job these days, let alone the police force? Is the motto of the organization still to protect and serve? And if so, to protect and serve whom? Or is it to protect and serve white neighborhoods while terrorizing black ones? 

 

Would the response have been the same had this been a posh white neighborhood and me a posh white good citizen (I forget; I didn’t even have to be posh, just white; since this

	past administration taught us that all white people as good citizens? What this indicates to me is that because this is an undiluted and unapologetically black neighborhood, you feel justified to come in assuming a crime is in progress, with either me or some invisible intruder as criminal-in-chief.

And where were the trigger-ready protectors, servers, and defenders of law and order when those white-supremacist seditious thugs, invited and incited by the real criminal-in-chief, were storming the Capitol in search of senators, congressmen, and congresswomen to lynch and assassinate? Huh? We could have done with such excessive show of zeal for law and order then. But no! Nary a gun was in sight except on the part of the hooligan rabble with whom they took selfies instead. Meanwhile I could have ended up like Breonna Taylor because my smart-as-hell tiny Jack Russell Terrier, unbeknownst to me, had more intelligence than the ‘investigating officers.’ She sure figured out how to liberate herself instead of begging open-palmed, “Give us Free” like Cinque in the Amistad; she figured out how to seize by force that which she has been legally denied, how to open my back door and give herself a few minutes of unrestricted roaming around her very own backyard to sniff and crap in peace without, if only just for once, being at the end of a rope.

 

They tell me the report will be ready in the next few days in case I’d like a copy, but that they are not pursuing charges. Charges for what? I should be the one pressing charges. A dog off-leash for a fleeting few seconds in no one else’s backyard but mine is hardly deserving of capital punishment. But then again, in this country, black peoples have died at the hands of police for far less. Georgia is no state - scratch that - The U S of A is no country - for black people. Yes. I C U. And, in case you’re wondering, I’m still shaking inside, from fear, but mostly from outrage. My sleeping beauty, meanwhile, no longer attempts her escape artiste stunts because propped up against the back door now stand two sturdy sentinels, upholders of doggy diva law and order, her nemeses, the vacuum cleaners.             

 

 

©KalyPsouL

02.09.21