Thieves in the Temple: A Prequel to Purple Rain

CH.3 Ghetto Child Running Wild- Curtis Mayfield Pt.2

The next morning, Kid gravitated straight to Morris. He sat across from him at the cafeteria table. "Thanks," Kid said without looking up from his powdered eggs. Morris rolled his eyes. "Next time, you're on your own."

"Why didn't any of the grown-ups come to help me?" Kid asked.

"Are you kidding? The dude who's supposed to be watching us at night probably fell asleep...or left," Morris said with a shrug. "Sometimes he leaves and doesn't come back 'til daylight." Kid had a lot to learn and Morris was the perfect boy to teach him. He had been at the facility thirteen months.

"The White boys stay over there," Morris explained pointing across the yard. "And we stay over here." Kid nodded. "They get the baseball field, we get the basketball court. Understand?" Morris asked. Kid nodded again.

Most of the rules at the facility were easy to gather just by watching. You can trade food off your tray at mealtime but eat everything. Sit by age in the classroom. Stay away from the doors. The door to the lobby stayed locked, except on weekends when children had visitors. There was a padlock on the chain link fence gate. Get in a group you can trust.

"What kind of name is Kid?" Morris asked with his nose scrunched like he smelled some funk. "It's the kind of name that sounds better than Francis Louisiana Smith, Jr.," Kid said solidly. Morris understood this subject was forever closed and mutually protected.

Kid and Morris found a commonality. They both liked to bang on desks, tables, chairs and walls. Jennifer gave them the two old metal trash cans when the city gave the facility new plastic ones. They beat the cans with tree sticks while the other boys their age played basketball. The older boys cursed their way through games of dominoes or spades.

Kid and Morris soon became known as the Bangers. They made up combinations, copied each other, called, responded, and argued about who messed the other one up. Some of the boys on the yard gathered around dancing the Robot and the Bus Stop. "She's a dancing machine," they would sing off key with cracked pre-teen voices. 

Kid missed his father's piano but he found something fresh about banging. He could only play the piano alone but having a partner to vibe with was fun, raw and invigorating. The piano seemed so antiseptic by comparison. There were times he wished he could fill the empty spaces with piano notes. He came across some plastic bean buckets behind the cafeteria when the cafeteria manager, Mrs. Beechum asked him to take out the trash. He sat on one and tapped the other with his sticks. This was the way to fill up some of the empty spaces.

"Man, that's boss!" Morris said. Kid tried not to grin but he couldn't contain it. If Morris liked it, Kid liked it too.

"When we go home and go to a regular school, we should find some other guys to join our band," Morris said, using his "drum stick" to dig in the ground.

"Band? Is that what we are?" Kid asked.

"Not yet, but we will be," Morris said. "All we need now is a guitar player, a bass player and you can play piano."

"I don't want to play piano," Kid said. "I want to play drums."

"But I'm playing drums!"

"We both can play drums, Man."

"Who ever heard of a band with two drummers?" Morris said with a smirk. It seemed absurd.  But not to Kid. The songs he had in his mind required two drummers, or at least two percussionists. He just had not shared with Morris the songs he had streaming through his consciousness. They also required two keyboardists and ten horns. It might sound stupid and Kid did not want Morris to think he was stupid. People said they looked alike. They certainly liked the same things. It felt good not to be completely alone. Kid thought he might actually survive at the facility.