Sing With Me
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Carlisle kept hearing the gunshot fired just to the side of his face, again and again. The concussion-propelled hum at his left ear continued, and the explosion of the gunshot remained all around him. The parking lot resumed its part in the urban soundtrack of angry horns and tired brakes, bus stops and truck gears, airplanes overhead and stray cats underfoot, familiar hellos and anonymous threats, as soon as Alfons fired the shot at Des’s head from point-blank range and again as soon as Alfons fired more shots at his look-alike associates driving away, the first of those done so close to Carlisle’s face he felt the heat of the gunpowder exploding in the pistol. But it was the blast from the handgun Carlisle continued hearing as he watched the man and woman, who had disturbed Alfons from pulling the trigger once again, walk by Des and glance down at him without breaking their staggering stride but with apparent amusement. “Fella can’t … can’t handle his booze. Hate to see that … don’ you sweetie?” She got behind the wheel of one of the road-worn sedans and started driving before her sweetie closed the passenger door. Carlisle still heard the gunshot when he started toward Des’s body. But he stopped. Not for any reason or any intent. Not for a reason he was aware of. He stopped anyway. For a reason he didn’t want to be aware of. He didn’t want to move closer to his co-worker sprawled on the littered pavement. John Desmond Johnson, who until recently had been just another school employee unknown to him. Standing with his torso twisted to turn toward his car, Carlisle decided he didn’t know enough about Des to say John Desmond Johnson wasn’t unknown to him. Someone he had little to nothing in common with. Someone he really wouldn’t expect to get to know and who he really wouldn’t expect to expect to get to know him. Someone who was none of his business.
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About the Book
In “Sing With Me,” Carlisle Jacobson begins a teaching career in Washington, D.C., learning as much as he is teaching. Through personal experiences, he learns most youths don’t have the advantages he enjoyed in the horse country of northern Virginia—only a day-trip away from Washington but worlds away from its streets plagued by crime and nearly cut off from hope—as a child of privilege and wealth, with slave owners of the antebellum south in his ancestry. A hunting enthusiast since he was young, Carlisle still is alarmed to learn firearms are used frequently in D.C. for hunting down other people, including one of his student's and a co-worker. His most frequent teacher in learning he has a lot to learn is Lucia Sanspeur, a black woman with ancestry that extends to Colonial era settlers on the Delaware River, including a man who performed a heroic mission during the Revolutionary War despite the white militia leaders’ disdain for his skills and initiative. Lucia’s voice captivates Carlisle from their first encounter and her ideas propel him toward understanding that he looks at the world and other people through a sense of white wealth and privilege. When he experiences first-hand the violence and crime that victimize many in the area daily, Carlisle’s education moves into advanced studies but also comes to nearly a complete stop.
About the Author
Michael Spice has lived in the Washington, D.C., area for more than 20 years, observing the often alarming events, activities and trends that affect the people of the area. Michael works as a writer in Washington, and in the suburbs in Maryland and Northern Virginia. He also enjoys time in the Eastern Shore areas of Maryland and Virginia and on the Delaware coast. He draws on his more than 25 years working as a writer to look inside the people and the communities, the institutions and the industries of the Washington region and describe the lives of people who call it home but are far removed from the worlds of national politics and international diplomacy, the symbols most of the nation and the rest of the world associate with the capitol of the free world.