“Mr. Barnes!” she said, as she jumped up and walked quickly over and embraced me. “You came. I knew you would.”
“Over her head, I could see Officer Carruthers nod again, more to himself than to me, then turn and leave. I knew he hadn’t walked me up there just to be polite. Harold appeared to be a man who took his job seriously. Good for him. Not enough of that going around.
Larretta stepped back and looked at me.
“Mr. Barnes, you haven’t changed one bit, ‘cept you even better lookin’ now!”
I smiled and said, “Larretta, I can’t remember what grade you got in my class, but if it wasn’t an A, I promise you I’ll go over to the school tomorrow and change it.”
She laughed, and for a minute, the worry lines in her face seemed to disappear. But the moment passed, and she was serious again.
“I ‘preciate your comin’, Mr. Barnes, I really do. Anthony . . . well, I don’t know what to do.”
She sat back down on the overstuffed chair, and I sat on the matching love seat next to it.
“How’s he doing, Larretta?”
“The doctor was here a few minutes ago. They just took another X-ray, and she said Anthony gonna be okay. Said he can go home tomorrow. They bringing him back upstairs now.”
“That’s good news,” I said.
“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe not.” Seeing my look, she added, “Don’t get me wrong, Mr. Barnes, I want Anthony home, but at least here he’s safe from all that gang nonsense.”
“Larretta, I’m not sure why you told Mr. DeNunzio that you wanted to see me.”
“I want you to talk to Anthony about leaving the gang.”
“I understand why you’d want him out of a gang,” I said, “but I don’t understand why you think he’d listen to me. We’ve never even met. There must be someone else, besides you, that Anthony would listen to.” I paused for a minute and then said, “What about his father? Is there a relationship there?”
“No,” she said. “Never. Anthony’s father and I wasn’t together no more than a month or so. The last time I saw him, I told him about me being pregnant and that it had to be him ‘cause I hadn’t never been with no one else. Darryl was twenty, and after that night, I never saw him again. His mama tole me that Darryl left and went to New York. Didn’t neither of us ever see him again.”
“I’m sorry, Larretta,” I said, “but isn’t there someone Anthony looks up to, someone whose advice he might take?”
“Un-uh, Mr. Barnes. There’s no one. The minister at my church tried talking to Anthony, but Reverend Lyle is near eighty, and he and Anthony just don’t talk the same language. A couple of Anthony’s teachers tried, but it didn’t do no good. One of the counselors at school told me Anthony needed a good man in his life. Well, hell, so do I, but so far it hasn’t happened for either of us. I tried the Big Brother program, but they said they had too many boys and not enough men. Plus, Anthony got a stubborn streak, which I guess shouldn’t be no surprise seeing as I’m his mother, and right now, he don’t wanna listen to no one who starts talkin’ at him ‘bout gettin’ out of that gang. But Mr. Barnes, he’s gotta get out of that gang. If he don’t, I’m afraid of what might happen to him.”
“Larretta, I understand everything you’ve said, but I still don’t see why you think I could persuade Anthony to do anything, let alone leave his gang.”
“But I think you could,” Mr. Barnes. “I really do.”
“But why?” I asked again.
“’Cause of Romeo and Juliet,” she said.
Chapter 13
“Romeo and Juliet?” I said. “Okay, Larretta, you lost me with that one. What does Romeo and Juliet have to do with Anthony and his gang?”
She sat for a minute before answering.
“Nothing, really,” she said. “But when me and Mr. DeNunzio got to talkin’ ‘bout you last week, I remembered how much I liked your English class. I never really liked English before, and the only reason I went to any of my classes at first was ‘cause I wanted to stay eligible for basketball. And when you said we was gonna be readin’ Shakespeare, I thought . . . well, you don’t want to know what I thought. And at first, I didn’t like Romeo and Juliet at all. I mean, it was practically in a foreign language, and the way the people acted and all. But then you told us that Juliet was only thirteen, and you explained how it was back in those days and how kids was expected to obey their parents and everything. And before I knew it, I was hooked. I couldn’t wait to get to your class every day. I can even still remember some of the lines, like when Juliet found out that Romeo was a Montague and she said, ‘My only love sprung from my only hate!’”
“I’m impressed,” I said, “and flattered, but—”
“Don’t you see, Mr. Barnes? I hated the whole idea of readin’ that play, but you showed me how wrong I was. You helped me learn to appreciate what Shakespeare was saying. If you was able to get me to like Romeo and Juliet, then I know you can get my Anthony to quit that gang.”
She stood, and so did I.
“Anthony’s all I got in this world, and I know he ain’t no angel, but he’s not a bad person, either. ‘Member how
