ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, June 10, 1996 TAG: 9606100060
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NORFOLK
SOURCE: VICKI L. FRIEDMAN LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
NEARLY TWO YEARS after his older brother was killed in a drive-by shooting, a Norfolk teen is trying to remember the good times they had together, and to make the best of his own life.
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.
The picture has 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 neighborhood where he grew up.
``You do everything you can think of to forget your brother's dead,'' says Jeremiah, 17.
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 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 he was jolted awake by frightening news.
Jerrell had been shot. 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. His grandfather Stanley, sounding shaky. Jerrell had been shot through the stomach, he said. Don't know much more.
Less than 15 minutes later, the phone rang again. Too quick for good news. Pick it up, Jeremiah urged himself, 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.''
His brother Jason, now the eldest, was with Jerrell the night he was killed. Jeremiah speculates that the bullet was meant for Jason over a love triangle.
The trial against Jerrell's 16-year-old accused killer has been continued six times, with a new date set for this month. Jeremiah has seen his face only 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.''
Jeremiah is now a junior at Lake Taylor High. 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.''
Jeremiah says: ``I look at people in school, people in the hallway. They don't know how hard things can be. I hear them talking; they don't have a care in the world. But it can all change.
LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: CHRISTOPHER REDDICK/Landmark News Service Jeremiahby CNBStokes, 17, (center) holds a portrait of his brother, Jerrell, who
was killed in a drive-by shooting about two years ago. Jeremiah's
grandparents and guardians, Jean and Stanley Frazier, stand next to
him at their home in Norfolk. Color.