Heart of a Black Man

Raphael Dorval leaned back on his chair inside the Carleton University library, sighing deeply. The last day of July 2012 and he was still a thousand dollars short for the classes he wanted to take come September 2012. He was going to have to hustle in the month of August, for real. Life wasn't easy in the City of Ottawa these days, if it ever was. The big and tall young Black man groaned at the prospect of working more shifts at the security company which hired him in mid-2010. Paying for tuition when you only made eleven dollars and seventy five cents an hour before taxes was tough, but he would have to find a way. After all, he was six credits short of obtaining his bachelor's degree in Criminology. Now was not the time to give up.

Sitting at the computer, he checked his messages on Facebook. As usual his friends were goofing off. His buddy Mohammed, a native of Mogadishu in Somalia, was going on and on about the dance routine of a certain sexy Australian runner at the London Olympics. Michelle something or other. Raphael smiled. Mohammed was one horny bastard, and he never met a white chick he didn't like. After getting dumped by a Somali gal named Fatuma, who chose an Arab guy over him, Mohammed was basically boycotting Black women. At first Raphael tried to encourage his buddy to get back into the game and give the sisters another chance. Mohammed wouldn't have it. No more Somali women, or Black women of any community or faith for him. This Black Muslim stud was checking himself out and trying a whole new ball game.

Raphael Dorval sighed, yet another brother gone to the other side. He often heard Black men and Black women making disparaging remarks about each other, more so than any other race. It didn't matter if they were Afro-Caribbean, continental Africans or North American-dwelling African-descended people like those found all over the U.S. and parts of the Confederation of Canada, they all had the same problem. Raphael didn't have time for romance. Or casual sexual encounters for that matter. His life simply didn't allow for these simple pleasures. He was twenty six years old and felt it was about time he finished university and got himself a job in his field. Life circumstances kept getting in the way of his goals but the determined young brother simply wouldn't give in. He was way too close to accomplishing his goals to give up now.

Raphael Dorval was a man with a complicated life, to say the least. Born in the town of Cap-Haitien in the island of Haiti on February 1, 1986, he moved with his family to the City of Miami, State of Florida, three years later. A naturalized citizen of the United States of America, he wouldn't return to his native land until seventeen years after he first came to the U.S. His trip the island of Haiti changed his life, and how he looked at things. He'd graduated from the Criminal Justice program at Miami Dade College, and didn't want to continue his education any further. He wanted to get into the police academy, and when that didn't work out, he almost gave up on life. Becoming a police officer was his dream. His parents, Miguel and Vanessa always encouraged his dream and were crestfallen when the City of Miami Police College turned down his application. Raphael sighed, thinking about the downward spiral his life took afterwards.

To say that he became somewhat self-destructive would have been the understatement of the century. Raphael began going out to the clubs six nights a week, and his drinking and fighting got out of control. He made a lot of enemies during that dark period of his life. It got so bad that some of those enemies, notably a Puerto Rican drug dealer named Emilio Suarez, put out a hit on him. He was mad because Raphael hooked up with his African-American girlfriend, the lovely Isabella Bronson. To save his life, Raphael's parents sent him to stay in the City of Ottawa, Province of Ontario, with his uncle Fernando and his aunt Cecilia. They just wanted things to cool off in Florida, especially since Emilio Suarez, whose girlfriend Isabella was shot later during that tumultuous summer, was now wanted by the Miami Metro Police Department. The notorious drug dealer went underground, but he was still considered dangerous, especially now that he had nothing to lose.

Thus, Raphael Dorval, a Miami man through and true, found himself in the Great White North. The last place any authentic Haitian-American should ever end up in. He wasn't enamored of life in the City of Ottawa at first but grew to appreciate the few good things that life in the Canadian capital had to offer. Economically it was far more stable than the average American city twice or three times its size. Also, the City of Ottawa was quiet and peaceful for the most part. Now, as a six-foot-four, 250-pound Black man, Raphael Dorval attracted the occasional stare. More than once he encountered some overt racism but growing up in the dirty South, he was used to dealing with tougher bigots than anything Canada could throw at him. In a staring context with the average racist hockey-obsessed xenophobic Canadian moron, the Florida stud won every time.

Yeah, he was getting settled in the City of Ottawa. Raphael applied to Carleton University through the Ontario Universities Application Center, after obtaining a study permit and a work permit. He wrote to Miami Dade College and they sent his transcripts to the registrar's office at Carleton University. He got accepted at Carleton University as an international student, and was dismayed to find out that he wasn't eligible for most of the scholarships available to Canadian students of equal academic standing in the Province of Ontario. He got himself a job as a security guard, and saved three and a half grand over the course of four months. It wasn't easy saving up for school while paying rent and groceries. He left his uncle Fernando's house in the Orleans suburb of Ottawa a long time ago, and got himself an apartment in the Vanier sector.

Raphael Dorval focused on school, and kept his mind off other things. The City of Ottawa was full of lovely women. Ethiopian women. Algerian women. Haitian women. Brazilian women. Congolese women. Italian women. Nigerian women. Greek women. Australian women. Cuban women. Chinese women. New Zealand women. Japanese women. Trinidadian women. You name it, they had it. No matter your preference in race, culture, religion or creed. He told himself that the reason why he didn't bother with dating or random sex like most of his male ( and some of his lady friends ) friends was because he was simply too busy. It didn't have anything to do with the fact that Isabella Bronson, the only woman he ever loved, was dead. Shot dead by her Puerto Rican gangster of an ex-boyfriend, the notorious Emilio Suarez. He told himself that one day he'd return to the States and avenge her. And he wanted to have a gun and a badge when he did it. Until then, he would study hard at Carleton University. When he returned to the U.S. he'd get into a police academy somewhere, become a cop, and then the hunt for his beloved's killer would be on. Silently he pledged it to himself.