Blood at the Root

by LaDarrion Williams

“Baybeh, sometimes you got to get to the root of things. Find out what’s planted deep inside ya that’s rottin’, and you pluck it. Only then can you fill it with good things that’ll spring forth everythin’ you need in this life. The world may be fallin’ down round us, but best believe we gon’ laugh, we gon’ dance, and we gon’ be family. That’s how we’ve been for generations. No matter how much hate, how much pain they throw at us, we always gon’ rise. Resilience is a form of magic…that’s in our blood, chile, and that’s somethin’ they ain’t gon’ neva take away. Ya hear me?”

In this life, y’all consider it the end, but y’all just don’t know. Death is ya friend, nephew. It guides you to places that’s far better than here. Shit, death is only the beginnin’.”

“Be a kid,” he says. “Have fun, go to them college parties. Sleep in. Hell, get you some coochie. A lot of it.” I laugh through the tears. He inches toward me. “Be a kid, because the world will fight to steal the innocence from Black boys like you, and you can’t let it. You hear me? You can’t let it. Move mountains, nephew. I restore all the good in you. I restore all the brokenness that’s been passed down from your mother and your mother’s mother. I restore goodness into you, nephew. I restore the innocence that was taken from you, nephew!” He slips into Kreyol. “Mwen retabli li! Mwen retabli li! Mwen retabli li.” The emotional walls come crashing down, and I just fall into Baron Samedi’s arms, crying a silent cry. “I got you, King. I always got you.”