Up a flight of worn wooden steps, on a leafy, tree-lined street, Cathy Cornelius has lived in the same apartment for 17 years, raising four sons by herself, working in a high school cafeteria and for a youth program during the summers.
Her home is hardly bigger than a doctor's waiting room, but it is neat. The largest appliance in the living room is not a TV - it's a floor fan to stir around the sluggish air on hot evenings, shushing the neighborhood voices in the street below.
Terry, 17, was clanking plates in dish suds, leaning his tall, slim shoulders over a kitchen sink. A boombox played rap on the sidewalk. Mrs. Cornelius introduced me to her sons and their friend, Keith. I said hello and her son Brandon, 15, nodded and smiled and might as well have been listening under water.
''He can hear people talk, but he can't understand what they're saying,'' his mother explained. ''He hears the voices, but not the words.''
For 17 years, she has raised her sons at 505 Ezzard Charles Drive, never fearing violence. On May 26, that changed along with Brandon's future.
''We were out playing games,'' Terry said. He and Keith and Brandon ''owned'' the outdoor basketball court across the street in a three-on-three tournament. ''We kept beating everybody, and this one guy got mad because I kept blocking his shots. He said I was fouling him. He said, 'I can beat you at another sport.' I said, 'Whattya mean?' And he said, 'How about boxing?'''
Terry says he thought it was stupid to fight over a game. But it started anyway. The angry guy was Dwight Maurice Davis, 26, with a rap sheet as long as a three-pointer. Just a month before, he had been busted for cocaine use and trafficking, and was set free without bond.
''Dwight had picked up a four-by-four board, and was about to hit me,'' Terry said. ''My brother said, 'You're not about to do that' and when he turned, Dwight hit him in the back of the head. My brother fell down and had a seizure. I said, 'You killed him,' and he said, 'I hope he dies.'''
Brandon's medical report says skull fracture and contusion on the brain. Severe and profound hearing loss. Traumatic brain injuries. Poor short-term memory. Difficulty with higher cognitive functions, including reasoning. Disabled.
He was in intensive care for two weeks. Now he goes to Children's Hospital twice a week for therapy and takes pills to prevent seizures. He can read lips a little, but he is left behind by conversations and frustrated by TV.
''I think he's going to get better,'' his mother insists. ''I'm praying.''
Brandon would have been a high school freshman next fall - not a great student, but one who never got in much trouble except for playing the jokester, his Mom says. Now she's looking for a school for the hearing impaired.
And justice.
''I'm not trying to start a big crusade or change the world. I just think this guy should be noticed. He should not be on the street. He could have killed someone. He almost killed Brandon.''
But Dwight Davis is back on the street, released on a $1,000 bond for two felony assault charges. His trial is Aug. 12, the same day as his cocaine-trafficking trial.
Mrs. Cornelius said she was ''shocked and floored'' when she heard he was out. At a hearing, Mr. Davis glared and postured, ''trying to intimidate Brandon,'' Mrs. Cornelius said.
''It was stupid,'' Terry says of the fight. ''We should have talked it out.''
Now lawyers will do the talking. Mr. Davis' attorney, Elliott Polaniecki, would only say, ''There is a different version to the story.''
No doubt. Mr. Davis deserves his day in court to explain how an innocent game of hoops ignited a fight that left a 15-year-old kid deaf and disabled. Maybe he can explain how pick-up basketball games that usually cause nothing worse than a chipped tooth or sprained ankle can result in a skull fracture and brain damage.
He won't have to explain his previous record. His drug charges and convictions for thefts and fighting or threatening won't be admissible evidence.
And I doubt if he could explain how one swing of a board can ruin a young man's life, poison a neighborhood and crowd a small apartment with fear.
''It's getting to be a problem with a lot of these older guys around,'' Mrs. Cornelius said, looking across Ezzard Charles from her front steps.
A woman who lives across the street in Laurel Homes calls that crowd ''the 40-ounce boys and the Pampers girls'' - young men whose future is in a brown paper bag at the bottom of a malt-liquor bottle; teen-aged girls whose babies in disposable diapers ride their hips as their child-mothers ride the welfare train to nowhere.
Mrs. Cornelius laughed at that. She may live nearby, but she's in an attitude zone a thousand miles away. She has faith in finding the positive. ''In a way, this has brought our family so much closer together,'' she said.
All she asks is, ''Just prayers.''
Brandon couldn't hear that, but I think he understands.
Peter Bronson is editorial page editor of The Enquirer. If you have questions or comments, call 768-8301, or write to 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.
