Like Clockwork by Adrian Francis

Like Clockwork

by Adrian Francis

Black trauma is a wristwatch composed of a million gears. It ticks and ticks off the backs of grinding metal, assisting the passage of time, marked by hands of oppression.

Crack of Dawn

When George Floyd was murdered, I remembered I was Black. Not that I wasn’t fully aware before. I don’t think that there’s a Black person in this country that doesn’t have that persistent ache—that nagging pain that one does not get rid of but only gets used to feeling. Shit, they released the video of Ahmaud Arbery’s lynching only a few weeks before the final time-halting 8 minutes and 46 seconds of Mr. Floyd’s soul cycle. So, I knew I was Black; it’s just that racism makes itself prominent every so often, reminding you that your skin is a target for armed marksmen. It could be the media placing varying levels of merit to stories they feel will gain traction, positioning certain anecdotes to the front of the conveyor belt of their manipulation professionally known as the ‘news cycle.’ Whatever the reason may be, the fact remains that there are checkpoints in a Black person’s life where they remember what it means to be Black. In older generations, the murder of Emmett Till often serves as a benchmark in the realization of that grief. For my generation, Trayvon Martin’s lynching awoke the inherited demons linked to pain and indiscretion. And of course, George Perry Floyd Jr. marked 2020, an already aberrant year, with his forced expression of martyrdom. What I did not anticipate about George Floyd’s death, however, were the tremors that would wrap their trembling arms around my very own college community.

Solstice

In response to the events surrounding George Floyd’s death, angered individuals across the nation took to the streets armed with heavy hearts and eyes filled with fervor. I was one of them. A few days before I actually went to protest, my girlfriend and I were on my back patio smoking a joint and venting to each other.

“I don— I just don’t know. I don’t think anything is gonna change, Adrian. This shit has been going on for too long. It’s deep in our country. It’s like a fucking stain that you leave unwashed for months.”

I agreed with her.

“I can’t raise my kids here. How am I supposed to explain to them tha—that people hate them and care less about them because of…”

I trailed off, punctuating that thought with a tear. I was tired. Exhausted. Sick of the cycle and scared of the future. So I fought.

We took to the streets of Tallahassee in the middle of the summer, demanding answers and action. We were a conglomerate of students from the area’s triad of higher educational schools: Florida State University, Florida Agricultural and

Mechanical University, and Tallahassee Community College. We marched in solidarity not only for George Floyd but also for Tony McDade, a transgender man gunned down by the Tallahassee Police Department in front of his apartment complex on May 27, 2020. Naturally, eyewitness accounts clashed with the police report, which stated McDade pointed a gun at officers before they opened fire. Witnesses claim the officers did not announce themselves as the police, and all they heard were gunshots. That same police report also misgendered McDade, and the day after they filed it, the department made a half-assed attempt to correct their disregard by claiming McDade was a woman who identified as a man.

Our group of approximately 400 people moved like a hivemind and set our collective sights on the Police Department to insist for the bodycam footage of the officers involved in McDade’s killing to be released. We met in front of the State Capitol on Monroe St. and trudged in our sweat-soaked clothes through streets surveyed by TPD. Cars filled with supporters accompanied our brigade, honking their horns in approval of our advancements. We picked up a few strays on the way. One young woman prominently covered in tattoos left her job to join our mission. Local businesses even supplied us with drinks and snacks as if we were participating in a marathon, which we were. It’s a race that we’ve run for centuries.

Before we could even make it to Tennessee Street, about a fourth of the way to our destination, a man in a pickup truck did not yield when he saw our group. Instead, he revved his engine in an attempt to intimidate and frighten us. He said something I didn’t hear, but suddenly, that’s when people started toward the truck, throwing things and yelling in its direction. I stayed put, and a few members of our group started arguing with the passenger and then began punching him. The driver revved up again and hit two people in his attempt to escape the crowd. Officers rushed in and escorted the two in a police vehicle which hastily left the scene.

We arrived at the police department with even greater zeal than before. Congregating on the steps and the surrounding streets, community leaders took center stage, equipped with a megaphone to guide their thoughts into the air. Everyone who spoke shared either personal police-brutality-related stories or ways that we should all stand in unison. Then there was Toyin. She had on traditional African dress, faux loc dreads, and skin as lustrous as onyx. Her tone was affirmative and bold, expecting the attention of every ear in proximity. She spoke on the unfulfilled promises of justice, fearing for the Black men in her family, and the apathy of our oppressors. Her message hung in the air like a damp cloth on a clothesline, dripping and heavy. It stuck to me. After about an hour of waiting for the Chief of Police to show up, we decided to take our protest back to the Capitol to display our coalition. We stopped at the intersection of Apalachee Parkway and Monroe St. and sat in the road. We were tired. Exhausted. No one in power would hear our cries for equality, but we continued to wail. Toyin paced around the setting and uttered manifestations that carried the ancestral wishes of every Black woman that has ever graced the earth. She spoke protection,

guidance, safety, and realization over our lives. She wanted security for us, and I felt assured through her aura. For the next few days, my mind often drifted to Toyin’s words and her demeanor. I wondered about her background and interests, whether this was her first protest, what sparked her confidence, and what level of legacy her advocacy her actions would carry. I regretted not having a conversation with her.

Whom the Bell Tolls

Oluwatoyin “Toyin” Ruth Salau went missing on June 10, 2020. A few days before her disappearance, on June 6, she tweeted that she had been molested in Tallahassee by a Black man who offered her a ride. Toyin’s body was found in a ditch on the side of a road, along with the body of a 75-year-old AARP volunteer, Victoria Sims. I felt numb and disassociated. #JusticeForToyin started to trend on Twitter. Her story ran on CNN. It was all surreal. We commemorated her with a march to where she was found, lighting candles and sharing tears.

A Civil Rights group named TheMovement850 got in contact with me and asked if I could write and share a poem at Toyin’s official vigil, which would be on the local news station. I’d already partnered with them a few weeks prior and performed on a Zoom call with Tallahassee’s NAACP chapter. I said yes. I wouldn’t have a chance to ever speak to her, so this was the closest to a dialogue that I could ever get.

I wrote the poem mostly at night. I only had a few days to draft it, and I wanted it to be poignant. The vigil would take place at the State Capitol, which had become a location that seemed central to the events that had been transpiring. I was anxious for that day to come.

Half Past 4:00

All the speakers/performers of the vigil had to be at the Capitol for rehearsal a few hours before the actual start. I ordered a Lyft and eagerly awaited its arrival. I got in the car with every intention of listening to music and pondering the day’s events, but my driver sparked up a conversation.

“Ohh, so I see you’re heading to the Capitol.” Her eyes darted from the road to the rearview mirror, determined to see my expressions.

“Yes, ma’am, I am.”

“You must be going to a protest over there. They still doing all of that?” I wasn’t sure if her tone had any malice in it, so I answered.

“Well, I’m not going to a protest. I’m actually going to the vigil for the teenage activist that was found dead the other day. I’m not sure if you heard about it, but it’s

been all over the news.”

I quietly sighed. I was trying my hardest to avoid any conversation that could take a political turn because I wasn’t in the headspace for a debate.

But she insisted.

“Oh yes, yes, I saw that. How heartbreaking… You see, my problem isn’t with the peaceful protestors; it’s really with the looting. We’ve been pretty peaceful up here, though, so that’s a good thing, but I just don’t see why you have to destroy your own environment. It just doesn’t make sense to me.”

I paused a moment and thought of a way to get her to understand that riots are the language of the unheard. I did my best.

“No, for sure. I can definitely see how that could be a problem for a lot of people. And I don’t condone violence in any way, shape, or form, but look at it from this perspective: the people looting are tearing down the establishments and businesses they built. The whole economic system of the U.S. was built on the backs of slaves. If their descendants are still being treated unfairly by white people, how else are they supposed to get their attention? Many rioters may feel like they have a right to burn everything to the ground due to the fact they built it by extension.”

I could tell that wasn’t the answer she was expecting, but I didn’t care. I was fed up with being told by unwronged people how to act after generations of oppression.

“But why does it have to be a race thing? There are good white people; I’d like to think I’m one of them. I didn’t grow up in the South. I’m from up North, and we treat people equally where I’m from.”

I was tired. Exhausted. But I retorted.

“It is a race thing. When one race is being conceptually incarcerated, it is a race thing.

Then I baited her ass.

Would you say you don’t see color?”

“Exactly! I don’t see color! I don’t look at a Mexican person and say, ‘Oh, look at him, Mexicans are so dirty.’ That would be wrong. And in any case, even I’ve felt oppression myself. I’m a woman. If you and I walked into a job interview, they would give you the job over me.”

I wasn’t even surprised at her mindset.

“No. I think you’re forgetting something very important here. I’m a BLACK man, and you are a WHITE woman. White women are one of the most protected groups in this country. If anything, they’d give you the job to ‘protect’ you from me.”

I sensed a bout of white fragility creeping in her speech, and I almost wished I hadn’t said that, but it needed to be said.

“That’s not true!” she rebutted, “Who are you to tell me about what would happen to me in any given situation?”

I could’ve given her any number of my “credentials” to assure her that she was wrong, but it would’ve been counterintuitive.

“I’m no one. No one at all.”

She drove for the duration of the trip in silence, chewing and swallowing back the words that she really wanted to say.

Grains in an Hourglass

After rehearsal, I walked to the front of the State Capitol Building and waited on the sidewalk until I was sure it was safe for me to cross. I was heading back home to change clothes and to prepare more for the vigil. I stood there thinking about the number of people that might show up. I hoped that the turnout was good. Toyin deserved it.

The traffic light in front of the Capitol turned green, and cars started to pass where I stood. A dirty white pick-up truck rolled past me just slow enough so that I could make out the racial epithets the passenger hurled at me.

N***er boy (2x)

I remembered that I was Black then, too. I also remembered that I was Black during the vigil, when cars honked their horns and yelled out of their windows, consciously interrupting our commemoration project. I remembered I was black when I shared my poem about protecting Black women, and I remembered I was Black when Toyin’s friends wept on the podium for their sister. I know full well that I’m Black, and believe me, I’m proud of it. I just wish the world found a better way of reminding me.

POETRY