Monday, January 15, 2018

Character Profiles - Jamil



On this Martin Luther King Day, I want to share the fictional story of Jamil  Ramos. I have always been inspired by the words of MLK, even though he died before I was born. His message was one of hope that the injustices of men would one day be replaced by equality and freedom from fear. Dr. King had a dream of a better life for those who have been oppressed just because of the way they look or where they were born. His dream is the American dream, that anyone, no matter how poor or disadvantaged, can become whatever it is they want to be. And this is the theme of Crawdad

Jamil, as well as all the other characters in Crawdad, have challenges in their lives, but they each do the best they can to overcome those challenges. Jamil dreams of being a professional trumpet player despite having no money and very little family support. He doesn't let it stop him.

~Meet Jamil~


I spent most of my math class, staring at my trumpet, thinking about what Mr. T said. I sat next to the window so I always put my trumpet on the window sill. It had a few dents in the horn. Mama said it was probably from too many late nights playing in the juke joints of New Orleans. She bought it in a pawn shop there before I was born. A few of those dents were from me though.
I grew up playing with it all the time, like it was some kind of weapon till I figured out you could make sounds with it. I made all kinds of awful racket with it. Mama said it sounded like dying rooster. Sometimes it got so bad, she’d take it away, but eventually I got the hang of it.
Mama would play her old vinyl records of Duke Ellington and Miles Davis till the record player broke and we had to throw it out. I’d play with those records over and over till I could make my trumpet sound the same. Lots of times I’d play by myself till Mama got home from work. My trumpet kept me company like a friend. When I played, I wasn’t lonely by myself.
By the time I was old enough to start band at school, I was hooked. I was also way past the other kids my age. I wasn’t too good at sheet music, but I could usually play what I heard. I thought everybody learned that way till I joined band.
I wanted to play trumpet for real, professionally. I always had, but now I wanted something even more. I wanted to meet my dad, Leon Ramos in Charleston. I wanted to ask him a million questions, like what he did to make Mama hate him so much. Or why did he never come around? What had he been doing all these years? The more I thought, the more questions popped into my head the way dish soap bubbles grow bigger and bigger until they fill the whole sink and spill over the side. I was filling up with questions I had no answers for and they were pushing my music out of the way.

If I was going to play well at audition, I’d have to clear out all the cobwebs out of my mind, but how? The only way I could think of was to find him.


You can find out more about Jamil and read Crawdad on AMAZON

Happy Martin Luther King Day!

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