THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, May 28, 1996 TAG: 9605280151
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY VICKI L. FRIEDMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 143 lines
Jeremiah Stokes carries the memory of his brother with him wherever he goes.
Fumbling for the wallet inside his denim shorts, he unfolds it and holds up a pair of facing snapshots. On the left is Jerrell Stokes as an infant. On the right is Jeremiah's favorite, a cute 5-year-old blond Jerrell showing off his dimples and his innocence.
It's an innocence missing in Jeremiah, lost on Aug. 28, 1994 - the day his older brother was gunned down in a drive-by shooting on a Norfolk street.
Before that day, Jeremiah was a carefree kid slugging baseballs with his pals in the Bromley neighborhood where he grew up. Since then, he has suited up for Jerrell's funeral, fought his own inner rage upon seeing the accused in court, and watched as his brother's name was memorialized on a graffitied trash can outside of Lake Taylor High, where Jeremiah is now a junior.
``You do everything you can think of to forget your brother's dead,'' says Jeremiah, 17, whose subdued disposition seems far removed from that of his classmates.
But forgetting isn't possible. Jeremiah can't do that. Not by writing poetry or burying himself in music or putting on a baseball uniform for the Titans, who won last week's Eastern District tournament. Instead, Jeremiah is left to continue and cope.
``I've been to my brother's grave many times,'' he says. ``I know he's not there. I know he's somewhere that I have no idea what it's like.''
Jeremiah has picked up on the bewildered looks directed his way when he wears the T-shirt he had made up with his brother's picture on it.
``How did your brother die?''
Drive-by shooting.
It sounds so incomprehensible coming from a kid who looks all apple pie. ``Drive-by shooting'' are the words the soft-spoken boy with middle-class roots reaches inside himself to say.
It was after midnight that summer night 21 months ago when Jeremiah was upstairs listening to the radio, half asleep, in the home he has lived in with grandparents Jean and Stanley Frazier since age 3. The phone rang, and suddenly he was jolted awake by frightening news.
Jerrell had been shot about a mile from the high school, in the 5100 block of E. Princess Anne Road. In a flurry, his grandparents scrambled out the door for Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. Jeremiah was left behind to baby-sit his younger brothers and wait.
Probably nicked him in the leg, Jeremiah assured himself, although he was tense as he stared at the phone. Jerrell had been shot before in a scuffle, and he had been OK.
The phone rang. Stanley, sounding shaky. Jerrell had been shot through the stomach, he told his grandson. Don't know much more.
He'll make it, Jeremiah said, believing if he said it aloud it would somehow make it so. I mean, he'll make it, Grandpa? Of course. Call back soon with news.
Less than 15 minutes later the phone rang. Too quick for good news. Pick it up, Jeremiah urged inside, his stomach churning. But he couldn't reach for it. His 9-year-old brother handed him the phone.
Jerrell Wayne Stokes had been pronounced dead. The police labeled it gang-related; Jeremiah says his brother was just hanging out with the friends he had known all his life.
``I didn't cry that night,'' Jeremiah says. ``I couldn't imagine my brother, my 17-year-old brother, being dead. It was only when I saw my mom, my grandparents and my older brother. Everybody was crying real bad. It was like reality had hit. I knew then. I knew they wouldn't be crying for nothing. They were crying because Jerrell was gone.''
The school year started only a few days after the funeral. All summer, Jeremiah had expected his sophomore year to be something great. The plans were in motion inside his head.
Jeremiah had mustered the courage to try out for the baseball team after Jerrell had put in a good word with the coach. He wanted to do better academically, to get over the hump of being an underachiever.
Instead, his sophomore year became a forgettable blur.
``Jerrell consumed every thought I had,'' he says. ``I couldn't focus on schoolwork. My plan was to play baseball and I don't even remember baseball until one day before the season starts.''
Jeremiah penned a couple of poems, one printed in the school's literary publication. At night, he'd crank up the song Jerrell had become attached to before his death, ``Round Here'' by Counting Crows, while rereading the words on the CD cover. The album was titled ``August and Everything After.''
``Whenever I needed to remember him, I'd play that song, look at my pictures and talk to my grandma about it,'' he says. ``She loves to talk about Jerrell.''
His brother Jason, now the eldest, had been with Jerrell the night he was killed. Jeremiah speculates that the bullet was meant for Jason over a love triangle. Jason attempted to retaliate later and was convicted of an assault charge, although he has since earned his GED and landed a construction job.
Jeremiah considered revenge, too, but didn't give in to the temptation. The trial against Jerrell's 16-year-old accused killer has been continued on six different dates with a new date set for June. Jeremiah has only seen his face once.
``I wanted to go and grab him around the neck and choke him,'' he says. ``But I didn't want to end up sitting in his chair before a judge.''
Titans coach Towny Townsend became a mentor to Jeremiah. Townsend remains impressed by Jeremiah's character.
``When everybody around him is losing their temper, he keeps his,'' he says. ``Pain makes you grow up real fast. Jeremiah is way beyond his years in terms of maturity.''
Some at Lake Taylor remembered Jerrell by writing his name on school property - trash cans, walls, lockers. Standing up and gazing around the school's weight room, Jeremiah strains to see if any wall holds a remembrance of Jerrell. The typical scribble in black marker reads ``JWS RIP.''
``I don't know if that's the way he would want to be remembered,'' Jeremiah says. ``If you want to remember him, get a picture or something.''
This year, Jeremiah enrolled in a weight-training class and began to shed the pounds he had put on his sophomore year. Today, having dropped from 245 to 220 pounds, he talks of continuing the workouts through the summer and playing American Legion ball.
But during this high school season, it was good enough to be just one of the guys.
``I can't tell you how big this year was for me. Now I'm just a teammate,'' he says. ``It's easy; it's fun. I like nothing better than hanging out with my team.''
In his second at-bat this season, Jeremiah belted his first home run, a three-run shot to win the game.
``Nothing I ever did was as exciting as that,'' he says, his face still alive with the memory. ``We won the game and I was player of the week in school. It was amazing.''
Now sports is his passion again. He bought CFL season tickets for the area's proposed team. He'd love to pursue some kind of career in sports - maybe as a broadcaster or a writer. He is considering college and playing baseball there.
``I love to play defensive baseball,'' he says, ``because there are so many things to remember.''
He'll never forget Jerrell, and he and Jason are closer than ever. And while the events of that terrible August night no longer dominate his life, they've left a scar.
``I look at people in school, people in the hallway. They don't know how hard things can be,'' he says. ``I hear them talking; they don't have a care in the world. But it can all change; it can happen any time. You can be lying in bed at night . . . listening to the radio.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]
CHRISTOPHER REDDICK
The Virginian-Pilot
Jeremiah Stokes and grandparents Jean and Stanley Frazier hold a
framed photo of Jerrell Stokes, killed at age 17 on Aug. 28, 1994.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE by CNB