People in the diner were singing something, but I couldn’t tell what. The closer I got to the door, the louder it got, but I still couldn’t figure out what they were saying. When I opened the door the place was packed.
“Who built the ark?” I heard Fat Mack ask.
“Noah. Noah.” Nearly everybody in the diner answered him.
“What’s going on?” I asked, a little bewildered. No one paid me any mind.
“Who built the ark?”
“Noah. Noah.”
“Noah built the ar-ar-r, ar-r ar-ark.” The crowd broke into a song of sorts.
Oookay. With that, I turned around–without breaking stride– and started heading back out the door. Shirly caught my eye and held her forefinger up. She wiggled it from left to right while slowly shaking her head. I got the message she was sending. It was either ‘No,no,no’ or ‘Don’t you dare.’ Either way, I was screwed. I sighed and headed over to our favorite booth.
Uncle G was frowning and ruffling the newspaper. Every now and then he’d look up and glare at everybody in the room– especially Fat Mack, who clearly didn’t give a damn. The big man moved into a verse:
[quote]
God called Noah, and Noah stopped.
He said Look a here, Noah, build me an ark.
Build it big and build it strong’
Build it 300 cubits long.
Thirty high and 50 wide,
It’s got to stand my rain and tide.
People hired to protect and serve
Killing everybody like the buffalo herds
I’ve seen a brother turn against his mother
So I decided not to go no further.
Children weep and mothers groan,
Sorry the day that man was born.
Sorry the day that man was born.
I said, who built the ark?
Noah, Noah.
Who built the ark?
Noah, Noah
Noah built the ark.
[/quote]
Mack took the song on into the second and third verses and before I knew it I was singing “Noah, Noah” and humming with everyone else at the end of every line. I caught Uncle G glaring at and I stopped, but before I knew it I was doing it again. Shoot, it was a really catchy tune. Something that you could rock at a basketball or football game. Everybody would probably join in.
Yeah, it was catchy, but I also heard the social commentary, too– about police killing people like animals.
[quote]
He gathered all the animals two by two
The lion and the camel and the kangaroo
The elephant, the monkey and crocodile
The little bitty animals did not smile
He packed them in the ark so tight
They couldn’t even go to sleep at night
Couldn’t go out, couldn’t stay inside
Might get stopped and made to die.
Too many people being killed today
All they want to do is have their say
But you can’t talk back, you can’t run away
Even if you’re deaf no time to pray
I said who built the ark?
[/quote]
It went on and on, and would have kept going on if two officers of the law hadn’t come in.
“Uh huh, why y’all stoppin’ now?” Uncle G said a little too loudly for my taste. “Thank you, officers, for stopping by,” he said. “These folk were ’bout to drive me crazy with all that call and chant stuff. Y’all DO know that that’s the kind of song the old slaves used to sing, don’t you?”
“We’re slaves NOW,” Little Willie shot back, and I braced for more discomfort. I started thinking about something to say to stop what was coming.
“That’s right,” someone else said, and I thought: uh oh, too late.
“If you’re a slave it’s because you want to be a slave,” Uncle G shot back.
“Tell that to Kevin Harris,” Fat Mack almost snarled at Uncle G.
“Who’s that?” Uncle G asked. “Some young thug with a gun, or driving a stolen car–?”
“What you mean is some young black thug, don’t you?” Little Willie chided him.
“Yep, guess I do,” Uncle G said, a little defensively. I think he was a little bit embarrassed but just too darn stubborn to back up.
“Well Kevin Harris is not one of those,” Fat Mack said. “He’s white, a father trying to raise his 4-year-old son, and he’s deaf. Well, he was deaf. The police in North Carolina shot him down like a dog when he was trying to communicate with them using sign language.”
Uncle G looked stunned. “What?”
“Yeah,” Ebony was sitting at the booth just opposite us. She looked sad. Everybody knows she has a deaf sister. “He didn’t have any weapons in his hands. Deaf people need their hands to talk,” she said. “He was right outside his house. Pulled over for speeding. Now another child has to grow up without a father.”
She got up and walked over to our booth. Her eyes were watery.
“I get that police need to protect themselves because they have families that they want to get back home to. I really get that,” she said, her voice just loud enough for the two officers to hear. But what I don’t get is what gives any police officer the right to kill an unarmed person for any reason.
It was gotten pretty uncomfortable in the diner. One of the officers appeared a little agitated. Actually, he looked a little pissed off. But hey, I’m pretty big on the right to freedom of speech. Sister girl had a right to ask the question. Either of the officers had a right to reply if they chose. The other officer, though, seemed to appreciate the sincerity– if not the truth– of what Ebony was saying. But, then, I really couldn’t read his facial expression.
Uncle G started pulling his flag of a handkerchief from his jacket pocket. It took him a little while– the thing is huge. It’s about the size of half a flag. He handed it to Ebony and told her to wipe her eyes. She blinked several times at the size of that thing.
“So, what happened to make them shoot him?” he asked.
Little Willie answered. “Uncle G, you got to get your word usage correct. Noboby ‘made’ them shoot him. The officer tried to pull Harris over for speeding but Harris didn’t stop at first. I think– and it’s just my opini0n– but I think he was trying to get back to his house where somebody could speak to the police for him. You know, police don’t have to learn sign language.”
“But when he got out of his car,” Fat Mack cut in, “police say– and I quote– ‘an encounter’ took place.” He used his fingers to put quotation marks around ‘an encounter.’ “And you know what that is, don’t you? That’s code for saying the cops started yelling and screaming at him to do something like to get your hands up and get down on the ground. Unfortunately for Brother Harris, he couldn’t hear them; they couldn’t sign; and his only way of communicating with them was using his hands.”
“But using his hands meant the police could clearly see he didn’t have a weapon,’ Ebony said, handing Uncle G’s bedsheet back to him. “How in the world do you carry that thing around?” she asked, shaking her head in amazement as Uncle G started folding it away.
“Are you all sure that’s all he did?” Uncle G glanced over at the two police officers, who were now in the process of paying for their food.
“People saw it, Uncle G,” Ebony said. “There were witnesses. And they said the police shot the man right after he stepped out of his car. Cops need to stop killing people for no reason. I’m down with Black Lives Matter, but for real, all lives do matter. They’re killing everybody,” she said. “We all matter. And, hell, all of us want to go home to our families at the end of the day.”
“Word,” Little Willie said.
The two cops left, and Mack started singing again.
“Who built the ark?”
_______________________
The call and response “Who Built the Ark?” was shared with me by our publisher Min. Kevin Seraaj. One of his high school classmates, Donald “Frog” Harper, apparently adapted it from a song by the same name for use at their high school basketball and football games. The song was regularly sung at Chicago’s Forrestville High School, between 1964 and 1968. Fat Mack added the lines that reference present-day police violence.
