I Rest My Case

I don’t have many memories of my dad.  A party when I was maybe 3.  He was choking the neck of a champagne bottle.  When he saw me, he told Moms to get the camera.  My dad kissed my cheek, put his cigarette between my fingers, and tucked my other hand around the base of the bottle.

I can still feel his arm over my shoulder as he said, “C’mon, Bee.  Get a shot of me and my Lil’ Mann.”

Other than that, the extent of my memories with him revolves around the disturbing presence of sirens, screams, and chaos.  Throughout the years, people have told me:

You’re no different from them,

You’re just like all the rest.

But at 1^st glance, my 2^nd chance is a SON

That sets in the West… Courtesy of Compton!

You don’t know me, so how could you see

I’m a troubled father with a happy SON?

If he can’t get the truth from me, Word is bond

He’ll get it from no one.

They put me away for killing when killing

Wasn’t a part of my mental

This is highly confidential.

But fuck it, SON

This ain’t no truth I deem to be incidental

21 years after the fact,

I’m labeled a killer so killing me might

Kill the memory.

The blood in your vein, however

Will register the pulse of my name forever.

So their story can NEVER be our story

Now is the time to give you mine; a history

Without the gloss of commercial fame and glory

There were always good times, and some bad

With women throughout my life

The victim in this case was a dear friend

My codefendant was my wife

I said, “My codefendant was my wife.”

Pain and strife;

Stabbing me in the heart like my daddy’s knife

SON, here’s a picture of my Life:

My dad did time at Rahway, he was killed at 31

Murder was the case for Moms; I’m guilty

Of being her youngest,

The only one of 3 who can say I’ve done this.

Not the crime of murder,

For which I was charged and strung up

Like Nat Turner.

“Done this” implies living through death

When there should be no life left

I’m 48 now, still thriving and surprising my captors

And their execution klan

Accusers will not understand a Mann

They’re more receptive to a defendant pointing

Fingers from the witness stand

They couldn’t smell the gunpowder

Or hear the kill shot ringing louder

Than it did that fateful night

I know, I know, I know it wasn’t right

To protect the one responsible for all this hurt

But SON, it’s a wonder my eyes ain’t covered in dirt

There’s beauty in barely being able to blink

Seeing so much to live for

My Lil’ Mann playing football

And my Lil’ Mama all grown at 4

Let this voice be the wind

That blows through the tip of a pen

THE PEN

It’s a different world in here

A bubble-type atmosphere

I can shout “INJUSTICE” at the top of my lungs

And it still falls on deaf ears

Hear this punctured heart that bleeds

All over my sleeves;

A truth beating at the base of the next generation’s eardrum:

I am a troubled father,

With one happy SON

I rest my case…

Still Livin’

MannofStat

Copyright © 2017 by Leroy Elwood Mann