Tempered by Fire

By Robert Brewer

All thirteen-year-old Tab Brown wanted was an exciting, fun-filled summer alongside his friends. No teachers, no books, no homework--just freedom. What he got was the most tragic experience of his young life. That experience would force the young teen into a painful journey from childhood to adulthood. That journey would forge a fire inside of him that would become his inspiration for greatness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9798886542462

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Tempered by Fire

Robert Brewer

Copyright © 2022 Robert Brewer

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2022

ISBN 979-8-88654-243-1 (pbk)

ISBN 979-8-88654-246-2 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Foreword

Foreword: Ed Morris

Acknowledgments

Preface

Chapter 1

Raided

Chapter 2

The Ladies

Chapter 3

Enemies All Around

Chapter 4

The Bet

Chapter 5

Young Lovers

Chapter 6

The Rumor

Chapter 7

Rock's Dog

Chapter 8

The Water Basin

Chapter 9

Almost Dead

Chapter 10

The Rear Window

Chapter 11

Sunday Picnic

Chapter 12

Up in Smoke

Chapter 13

Tempered by Fire

About the Author

I would like to dedicate this book to the memory of my father, Richard L. Brewer. Never have I been so indebted to one man. Truly, he made me, and truly, I love him for all that he did to make me the man that I am today. I cherish the words from his voice that I can still hear in my head. I only hope that I can make him as proud of me as I am of him. I dedicate this book to my father, Richard L. Brewer, with all of the love that is in my heart.

Foreword

Foreword: Ed Morris

You may not know who I am nor what I do, but that is exactly the point I want to make about this unique but essential account of becoming man captured by the main character of this profound work so richly penned by Robert Brewer. In my experience, I have come to know very intimately that fame, finance, and access are not the prerequisites for being properly forged in the fires of life. Let me explain. In one domain of the American experience, I have marked influence across the country and have mentored or professionally trained many men who have dedicated their lives to transforming the next generation of young minds as educators. It is a hard, arduous, and often unrecognized calling to serve as a guide observing significant transformations that will be guideposts in the lives of hundreds of young people. These men are not rich; they daily put their reputations at risk and are often the only means of access to a better life for kids. Yet in my work, these men have profound and privileged access into the dark, yet necessary, life experiences adolescents must endure every day as they evolve into their own unique legacies. Robert is not an educator nor has he submitted research on principles of developmental psychology. Yet he has masterfully unpacked the peril and the beauty of the most complicated time in the life of Black manhood. His careful attention to the small but significant moments in Tab's life, the central figure in this story, will make the reader wonder what university fellowship has allowed Robert to collect and judge such a rich collection of the experience of becoming man, even better, becoming a man in a Black body. I propose the reader awakens to the fact that not every mentor or teacher or sage can be found inside of a classroom, community-based institution, or on a stage as this novel will prove.

Robert is my wife's cousin, and through my twenty-year immersion into her family experiences, Tempered by Fire has given me the clearest roadmap into what really lies behind their legacy of life fully lived. Robert messages in the manner of a seasoned mystic with Tempered by Fire. So this work is not an escapist approach to find the self in characters who, in any way, live above the fragility and hardness of being ordinary. It is not an exploration into the assumptions held by outsiders looking to understand the anatomy of Black masculinity or living in the South. Instead, Robert takes the dark and mysterious world of a Black boy becoming man and has penned a message essential for generations of cultures and ethnicities; the young, the old, and the ready to grow the hell up. I commend him for his bravery and his brilliance. He is owed admiration for enduring his own fires that forged this rare treasure of wisdom you are about to engage. Rest assured, that by the end of your reading journey, even you, the courageous reader will understand why it is not important to be known by the masses. Instead, you will find yourself thankful, as I am, that you are already known and your extraordinarily ordinary life story has been heard and forever forged in the pages within these pages.

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge, first and foremost, my loving wife, Joanna. You took a young man that was as raw as a lump of coal and you squeezed me—and I love you for that. Your loving squeeze, no matter how uncomfortable it sometimes felt, made me better. You are truly the captain's helm of my ship and you have never steered me wrong. Again, I love you for that. Daily, I find myself amazed with the love you show. I hope that I communicate my love for you as well.

I would like to acknowledge my sons, Rodrick and Jaden. You guys inspire me. Everything I do is because of you. You have stretched me to see things in ways that I never thought I would see them. You taught me a different, selfless love. I never thought that I could I could be so in love with someone other than your mother. Rodrick you changed that and Jaden you changed it all over again. I love you both for that and so much more.

I would like to acknowledge my family. Mama, Rick, Lisa, Bill, Barbara, Martha, Darron, and Donna. You made me. You always loved me even when this world sometimes did not. You accepted my good and my bad. You accepted me. I love you for that. My family, and extended family, are too many to name, but I want to acknowledge you all, especially the Brewers, Lees, and Thompsons. I love you all so much.

I would like to thank Ed Morris, without whom this book would not have been possible. Your persistent but gentle nudging has been the catalyst that has driven me to continue my work.

Thank you so much for being my big brother.

Preface

God put a fire inside each of us. For some that fire is a tiny flame that burns and directs our moral compass. If directs our lives and actions. It distinguishes between right and wrong. In some, it rages like an eternal inferno. For others, it flickers cold, dim, and weak. It pushes some people to greatness and fuels an unquenchable drive that motivates some to great things. For others, it burns and consumes, leaving nothing behind except ash and charred rubble. It can kill dreams and wrecks lives. However, it is—by its inherent nature—a good thing, because it is given to each of us by God, and God alone. Despite how it burns in any of us, it burns in all of us.

This story is about our internal fire and how it manifests itself in us and how it is influences by our lives, as well as, how our lives influence our fires. This story, more specifically, is about how that fires burns in people and manifests itself in many ways. Sometimes it manifests itself in multiple ways in a single individual. Our fires often create duplicity, sometimes even multiplicity, in people. That duplicity is often a stark contrast of how people are seen through the eyes of others, as opposed to who they truly are.

This book is a plea to the reader to not be defined by the environments around you, whether good or bad. It is a plea to harness the heat from our fires and self-determine. It is a plea to listen to the spirit that is within each of us. It is a plea for each of us to be his or her best, no matter the circumstances.

Chapter 1

Raided

It was Tuesday morning, two days of school were left in the school year, and thirteen-year-old Albert Brown had been awake most of the night. He was lying in his bed, eyes wide open staring at the ceiling. He could hear the soft, low-volume music gently playing on his brother Lou's radio. He was excited about the upcoming summer and had hardly gotten a wink of sleep all night. Tab, as he was affectionately known by everyone in the neighborhood, got up early, as he did on most days, put on his pants and shirt, and tiptoed down the hall past his sister Dana's room to the bathroom. Mornings were challenging for the youngest member of the family to be able to get into the bathroom and get ready for school. So he usually got up early each day. Tab could see the light from his parents' television peering out into the dark hallway. Tab washed his face and stretched his arm high, reaching toward the heavens, and groaned quietly so that he did not wake his brother and sister. He grabbed his shoes and socks and went out onto the front porch of the small wood-framed house.

Tab stopped for a moment to take in the brisk morning air. It was early in the morning in late May, and the freshly cut grass was still covered with the morning dew. The sweet smell of Mr. Chambers' roses and day lilies wafted through the air as Tab sat on his front porch with his shoes and socks in his hands. The concrete floor of the porch was cold on the bottom of his feet. The cold cement jolted the nerves on the bottom of his feet and stirred his dark skin to goosebumps. His body shook as the chill shivered up through him. He sat down on an old wood-framed chair that was fashioned with a corn silk rope bottom and a hand-stitched pillow that laid over the rope as the seat. It was one of the remaining items left from his grandmother's home. As far as he knew, that chair was older than anyone in his family. He placed his shoes down on the porch beside the chair where he sat. He bunched up his right sock until the entire sock was crowded at the bottom of itself like the shape of a small doughnut. Tab stuck his right foot into the middle of the opening and tugged it from the bottom of his toes to over the back of his heel. He put on the left sock exactly like he had done the right. There was a slight chill in the air and Tab's skin tightened and his hair stood up on his arms. As he pulled up his socks and tied his shoes, he day dreamed of summertime trips to the swimming pool and the park. He fantasized about going to the fishing pond in the woods behind the neighborhood, about riding his bike and hanging out with his friends.

Suddenly, the serenity of his peaceful morning was shattered. Tab heard the urgent sounds of tires racing down the street, the growl of engines pushing through the neighborhood. He looked up and saw seven police cruisers and unmarked cars barreling down the street. At six in the morning, Tab already knew what this was. He wanted to somehow warn Black that they were coming. To somehow be inside of the house to warn him but without actually being inside of the house to face what he knew was about to happen next. The first two cars pulled up next to the curb. The officers jumped out and didn't bother to close their doors. Immediately, they ran around back of Black's house. The next car that stopped were the officers with the battering ram, and the others came right behind them as they broke down Black's front door and burst into his sleepy residence at six in the morning. Tab knew that Black was already prepared for this moment. He had even overheard Black bragging to the older guys in the neighborhood that he even had a lawyer already on retainer. But when that undercover cop walked across to the opposite side of the street and opened the AT&T box next to the telephone pole that lined up with Black's front door and sofa, Black and Tab both knew that it was all over except the sad singing. Tab rushed inside to where Lez was getting ready to leave for work and said, Mama, the police are raiding Black's house.

Tameka, Lez said faintly as she thought about Black's girlfriend.

Tasha too, Tab said as he reminded her about Tameka and Black's daughter.

That's the risk you take when you do what he does. I just hope he got his lawyer money already put away, Lez added.

Tab thought about the Black that he knew. He thought about how Black hosted the annual picnic in the park and how Black always made sure that he sent food to all of the elderly and disabled people in the neighborhood. He remembered how Black had bought uniforms for one of the girls' basketball teams that needed uniforms one year and how he volunteered to coach the team the one year that their coach had surgery on his leg after the season started. Tab knew Black sold drugs. Everyone in the neighborhood knew Black sold drugs. Tab had seen some of the people in the neighborhood who were strung out on drugs, and he had seen firsthand how it had shattered vibrant lives. Tab had seen girls from the neighborhood that were once beautiful, vibrant, healthy and full of life that now scratched at pus-filled sores that grew all over their dry, cracked flaky skin. Girls that now had partial brown teeth rotting inside the chapped lips of their infected mouths. Girls with clothes in shambles, hair uncombed and tangled with grass and other debris scattered throughout what was left of it. He had seen guys with their eyes dark and sunken inside of their heads. Discretion long gone, they only could think of how to get the next fix.

Noah was no different. He, like many others, had grown up right in the same neighborhood that he now lived in the shadows of. He had gone to the same schools and been taught by some of the same teachers that were now teaching the children in the schools. He had played on the football team and gotten a football scholarship to go off and play college football. While he was away at college, he began using drugs and was kicked out of school. He returned home disappointed. He continued to use drugs and had gotten deeper and deeper into his horrible addiction.

Tab recalled one summer