“They look like Portaricans.” The desk
sergeant turned his attention to Daddy
Peaceful. “Who’re you?”
“Still don’make no sense.” Daddy
Peaceful shook his head.
“We don’know everything yet.”
“I’m they grandfather. Gibson T. Peaceful.”
They headed west across King, turned
south onto Frederick Douglass and
parked as close to the precinct house as
they could. The precinct house looked
like a gray waterstained fort. Daddy
Peaceful imagined the roof lined with
snipers holding off the savage Zulus.
“Peaceful, huh? You don’t look
Portarican.” The desk sergeant nodded
his head, smiling. “Come on, fellas.
Joke’s gone far enough.”
“Two Reupeon guys kidnapped my
son—”
“How d’you know they was Reupeons?”
“We want to report a kidnap,” O’Page
began without a greeting. “About four
fifteen o’clock.”
“I too am Reupeon.”
“You don’t say.” The desk sergeant
looked up from his papers. “Who got
kidnapped? You?”
“Sergeant, two guys took my son and
his cousin.” The pink in O’Page’s ears
had turned to red. “What a you gone a
do about it?”
Daddy Peaceful noticed the top of
O’Page’s ears turn pink.
“My son and his girl cousin, ages five
and seven.” O’Page produced the flyer
that Jasmine had created. It looked
professionally done with a bold
headline: kidnapped and glossy photos
and a description of the abduction.
“We make this up.”
“What’d you make up? The kidnapping?”
“I thought you Roopy wiseguys had
your own private code. And you, pop,
I’m ashamed of you for associating
yourself with a situation like this.”
Daddy Peaceful took O’Page’s arm and
pulled him away. “We telling you
the truth, officer. Two men kidnapped
my grandkids this afternoon. We wrote
down everything we know about it.
Our address right there and phone
number. Now we going out to look for
them ourselves. Come on, son.”
“Yeah yeah. Have it your way, pop.” The
desk sergeant went back to his papers.
“Well, let’s see what we can do ourselves.”
Daddy Peaceful buckled his seat belt.
“Maybe more people checked in with
Jasmine. Maybe the kidnappers called
asking for they money.”
O’Page wheeled out into the twilight
traffic and turned left onto 121st street
going east toward Marcus Garvey Park.
“Is no kidnapping, Daddy. Is somebody
reaching out to me from Reupeo.
Not from over here because here when
I see those guys, I cross street. Is some
debt from Reupeo I didn’t know I
didn’t pay.”
“But what about Bloombloom? You said
that—”
“Sure, sure, the code, but some of these
guys they make war on whole family.”
O’Page steered his Americar round
Marcus Garvey Park south east north,
then west on King, then left into 5th
avenue, where he parked near the
vintage four story walk up apartment
building housing Harlem Central.
“Guys from mountains. Make children
slaves to grow and roll tobacco.”
“Alphrah had a show on about that
today,” Daddy Peaceful remembered.
“What kind o tobacco is that anyway?
Do it get you high or something?”
13
“The sheet here, for you to know how
they look?” O’Page’s ears got a little
pinker. “My son. His cousin.”
“Takes one to know one, huh?”
In the car, O’Page sat silently before
starting the engine. “I send to Reupeo
and get my brothers and cousins to
come and look for Samson and
Bloombloom. We find them or we rip
big hole in New York.”
BLACK RENAISSANCE NOIRE
“Could be me, Daddy,” O’Page said
sadly after he started the car and made a
left onto Madison avenue. “But still—”
BRN-FALL-2012.indb 13
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