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.
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