Brothers Stand Strong, Chapter 1

[Daniel Brooks]

Brothers Stand Strong
The early morning sun crept over the valley above Fort Wayne, Indiana, chasing the last clouds from the sky that had been overcast the day before. On the north side of the predominately black city, the light hit the window in Jarvis Johnson's bedroom first. Creeping slowly over the large wall poster of LeBron James, it would be five minutes before the sunlight hit the poster of Kobe Bryant that was hanging loosely on the opposite wall. In the bedroom next door to his of the three story brick house, his brother Roni was already awake. Roni had not gotten out of the bed yet. Instead he just lay there letting the life-size poster of Mike Epps on his wall stare back at him. Jarvis was the older of the two brothers and a senior at Sarah High School. Roni was in the tenth grade at the same school. Their father, Robin Johnson had attended Sarah High school years before. Both boys looked up to their father with great admiration for the devotion he showed towards them.
Their father had already left the house earlier that morning after realizing there were not any eggs for breakfast. He hurried down to the local 24 hour store, choosing to pay more for the eggs and save time rather than walk the three extra blocks to the grocery store. If all went well he would make it back home in time to cook breakfast and still get to work at his day job on time.
The neighborhood they lived in was typical of any medium sized urban area in the twenty-first century. Most of the neighbors were nice, though the occasional drive by shooting did occur on the long weekend nights.
Robin was almost home when he noticed that Old man Hunt was sitting on his front porch. Not wanting anything to do with him he started to cross to the opposite side of the street. When Robin was younger he had killed old man Hunt's father by accident. Old Man hunt called out to him.
"So you're going to cross the street like a sissy," he said.
"I got your sissy right here," Robin said as he turned to face the old man. I don’t know this man, Robin thought. What could he want with me now?
Old Man Hunt lived next door to the boys. Old Man Hunt was born and raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Robin sized up the fifty year old man. The black man had brown eyes, black hair, 5"8, and weighed one hundred and eighty pounds. Old Man Hunt's skin tone is brown.
Robin dropped his bag and raced over to Old Man Hunt's porch. Old Man Hunt grabbed for his gun and the two men charged each other.
The gun fired. Old Man Hunt was never raised by a father, so he wanted Jarvis and Roni not have a father. He gloated over his deed as Robin lay there on his porch and bled to death.
The two boys were greeted that morning by the news of their father's death.
Roni was in shock by the news.
"Man, why did that happen?" asked Jarvis.
"I could not tell you much about Old Man Hunt or the conflict," said Rosa, their mother.
"Dad got killed on his way back from the grocery store?" asked Roni.
"Yes," answered Jarvis.
"What could life be without a father?" Roni wondered out loud.
Once he hung up the phone, Manuel Ramirez (Jarvis' friend) stopped to him.
"Hey man, what's wrong?" asked Manuel.
"Ah...I lost my notes for Mrs. Serena's class, do you have yours?" asked Jarvis.
"Let me check, my wave cap, grease for my waves, a picture of my daughter, nope."

Manuel came over and hugged Jarvis.
Manuel always says man a lot and it's cool he can say that and own the word man.
Manuel and Jarvis went to class and everything that he told him, did not affect his day.
At football tryouts, Coach Cruise had told the players about he used to play professional football and played for the Seahawks back in Seattle.
He appeared on Fox, NBC, ABC, CBS, the C.W., ESPN, and also appeared on many television shows like Maury, Jerry Leno, and ESPN series "Pardon for Interruption" and "Cold Pizza."
The boys were trained how to under run players with the ball and throw an over toss from the center point to and from the quarterback line.

"Pick up your feet, Charlie, picks up your feet, Charlie!" yelled Coach Cruise.
"Crap, I can't...I'm tired," anxiety Jarvis.
"Sit up, sit up, look I know that maybe if you put some body into it you would've been tired. Sit out man," told Coach Cruise.
After practice, the boys went to the locker room to change and leave.
Jarvis' coach was disappointed he was not trying.
He gave his mom a call and she wondered if there was a way she could get him back on the team.
"Jarvis?" said his mom.
He sighed. "Yes ma'am?"
"I talked to Mr. Who?"
"Coach Cruise?"
"Right, your coach called me; something about you got kicked off the team."
"Yeah, it's not like he just found the talent he needed."
"I know, I know believing in God has made many opportunities for us, if we want to succeed, we have to move forward and go where God leads us," said his mom.
"I'm really tired of how all this about God and how today there was no lucky for me, maybe you should find a way out for us."
Jarvis took a bus to school at five in the afternoon to see all the talk about how football tryouts went.
"Okay boys, I'll see you guys tomorrow," said Coach Cruise.
"So Mr. Johnson what did your mom say?"
"We got into a fight, so I don't know," said Jarvis.
"I'm not surprised."
"I'll talk to you in the morning about what we're going to do."
"Night coach," said Jarvis.
"Night, Jarvis.”

"Hey Manuel, did you made the football team?" asked Jarvis.
"Yeah, did you?" told Manuel.
"The coach will tell me in the morning, hey want to come over, play football?"
"Sure."

Roni was over Old Man Hunt's house talking to him. Jarvis and Manuel pulled up by Old Man Hunt's house and they had words to each other.
"Man, why you're talking to my brother?!" yelled Jarvis.
"No, let it go," said Roni.
"Yeah, let it go and tell your mom to..." Old Man Hunt punched Jarvis spitting in his yard.
"You ever spit on my yard, I'll mess you up like I did your daddy!" yelled Old Man Hunt.
"Come on, Jarvis!" panicked Roni.
"Bring it in, bring it in!" yelled Coach Cruise.
All the players came around Coach Cruise, listening to him about what a great football season they had.
"I'm really; really happy that I had a great group of guys, who came, got everything done during the season and went out there; and proved to me excellence for any circumstances, made our season great," said Coach Cruise.
"It's not what's inside of a sport; privileges in a sport makes it worth your chances to succeed into other sports," said Jarvis.

The football season was over; basketball season starts in a few weeks.
Coach Cruise stopped Jarvis.
"Have a great year," said Coach Cruise.
The Johnson's ate Pizza Hut pizza for dinner. There was one slice left of the half pepperoni/ half sausage pizza. It was a slice of sausage pizza that was left in the large box. Roni didn't like sausage pizza, so he headed towards the steps to go upstairs to bed. Looking behind him, Roni paused on the first step.
"Jarvis, you coming to bed?" asked Roni.
"Yeah in a minute," said Jarvis.
Jarvis was gripping his blue Verizon switchblade phone. He didn't even bother to look up at Roni. Hitting the speed-dial button, Jarvis dialed Manuel's number.