couldnât help it. I fucked up baby. Please donât be mad at me.
Love,
Antonio
Â
Â
Â
May 2, 1990
Dear Antonio,
Â
Donât be mad at yourself. Things happen. I really didnât think it was that bad. I mean, I could tell you was getting mad and you wanted to bust the bitch in her grill, but you wasnât that mad. Iâve seen you really mad, like when you all lost that basketball tournament at Riverside Church by like two points, and when your mother told you that you couldnât be in the band no more cause she couldnât afford to rent the drums anymore. Now you was mad then, punching the walls and everything. But I think you kept it together up there today. I guess weâll see. Just between me and you, I donât think that the other side is doing too good. It seem to me that the lawyer lady whoâs against you is not very nice, and I think the jury see that. Remember when me and you had legal studies together and we learned all about the tactics that lawyers is supposed to use in the courtroom? Remember when we talked about them being sensitive to
the jury, not alienating them and making themselves sympathetic? Dawg, I canât believe I remember all that. I probably should think about being a lawyer. Well anyway, I donât think she doing that right now. Like, when your lawyer gets up and say funny stuff or make little comments some of the jurors might laugh or smile, but they never do that with her. So see, thatâs a good sign. I donât know what Iâm gonna do for the rest of the week, until we find out what they say. They gonna let you off, I know it. I can feel it in my heart. They canât deny the truth. They canât deny everything your mother said, all the good stuff people said about you, what the experts said about you defending yourself. Mommy said that she gonna come to the courthouse with me when the jury come back. Mrs. Lawrence said she gonna call me as soon as your lawyer call her, and we all gonna go down there together.
My grandma even said that she been praying for you Antonio. And my grandmother is a holy woman. I mean she donât smoke, she donât drink, she donât cuss, she donât dance unless she in church. She said Granddaddy the only man she was ever with in her whole life. Just like Iâm gonna be with you, you gonna be the only man Iâll ever let love me like that. But she said that at her prayer meetings on Wednesdays, they been praying for you Antonio. Her and a bunch of holy women like her. I been to their prayer meetings before. All the times I ran away to live with her, she made me go to church. She made me go to the prayer meetings with her. All the
women look just like my grandmotherâtheir skin shiny smooth and dark like the sky at night, gray hairs on their chins, bodies that look like men from behind, but when they turn around you see their breasts and stomachs so big from having so many kids. They donât even talk really at the meetings. Sing and pray. Sing and pray. Thatâs all they do. When you walk through the door everybody singing without music and you just join in and start singing too. Then the oldest ones start praying and shouting and screaming and crying and they donât stop until everybody is sweaty and tired. They doing all that for you Antonio, probably while Iâm writing this and while you reading it. So see, you got my grandma and her church, me and my mother, your family, the teachers at school, our friends. You got all these people pulling for you and all of us together can move a mountain. Where thereâs a will thereâs a way. We all canât be wrong.
Love,
Natasha
Â
Â
Â
May 3, 1990
Dear Natasha,
Â
My lawyer talked to me today. He asked me if I wanted to make a plea. I asked him why and he said that things wasnât looking too good. The biggest problem, aside from the fact that I blew my testimony, was that they
Love,
Antonio
Â
Â
Â
May 2, 1990
Dear Antonio,
Â
Donât be mad at yourself. Things happen. I really didnât think it was that bad. I mean, I could tell you was getting mad and you wanted to bust the bitch in her grill, but you wasnât that mad. Iâve seen you really mad, like when you all lost that basketball tournament at Riverside Church by like two points, and when your mother told you that you couldnât be in the band no more cause she couldnât afford to rent the drums anymore. Now you was mad then, punching the walls and everything. But I think you kept it together up there today. I guess weâll see. Just between me and you, I donât think that the other side is doing too good. It seem to me that the lawyer lady whoâs against you is not very nice, and I think the jury see that. Remember when me and you had legal studies together and we learned all about the tactics that lawyers is supposed to use in the courtroom? Remember when we talked about them being sensitive to
the jury, not alienating them and making themselves sympathetic? Dawg, I canât believe I remember all that. I probably should think about being a lawyer. Well anyway, I donât think she doing that right now. Like, when your lawyer gets up and say funny stuff or make little comments some of the jurors might laugh or smile, but they never do that with her. So see, thatâs a good sign. I donât know what Iâm gonna do for the rest of the week, until we find out what they say. They gonna let you off, I know it. I can feel it in my heart. They canât deny the truth. They canât deny everything your mother said, all the good stuff people said about you, what the experts said about you defending yourself. Mommy said that she gonna come to the courthouse with me when the jury come back. Mrs. Lawrence said she gonna call me as soon as your lawyer call her, and we all gonna go down there together.
My grandma even said that she been praying for you Antonio. And my grandmother is a holy woman. I mean she donât smoke, she donât drink, she donât cuss, she donât dance unless she in church. She said Granddaddy the only man she was ever with in her whole life. Just like Iâm gonna be with you, you gonna be the only man Iâll ever let love me like that. But she said that at her prayer meetings on Wednesdays, they been praying for you Antonio. Her and a bunch of holy women like her. I been to their prayer meetings before. All the times I ran away to live with her, she made me go to church. She made me go to the prayer meetings with her. All the
women look just like my grandmotherâtheir skin shiny smooth and dark like the sky at night, gray hairs on their chins, bodies that look like men from behind, but when they turn around you see their breasts and stomachs so big from having so many kids. They donât even talk really at the meetings. Sing and pray. Sing and pray. Thatâs all they do. When you walk through the door everybody singing without music and you just join in and start singing too. Then the oldest ones start praying and shouting and screaming and crying and they donât stop until everybody is sweaty and tired. They doing all that for you Antonio, probably while Iâm writing this and while you reading it. So see, you got my grandma and her church, me and my mother, your family, the teachers at school, our friends. You got all these people pulling for you and all of us together can move a mountain. Where thereâs a will thereâs a way. We all canât be wrong.
Love,
Natasha
Â
Â
Â
May 3, 1990
Dear Natasha,
Â
My lawyer talked to me today. He asked me if I wanted to make a plea. I asked him why and he said that things wasnât looking too good. The biggest problem, aside from the fact that I blew my testimony, was that they
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