Remembering Tony

One evening when Rashan Miles came home to his Harlem apartment, he checked his messages, and there was his father’s voice.

Miles hadn’t talked to his father since April, and there he was, in his matter-of-fact tone telling Miles to call him or his grandma. His cousin Tony had been shot.

Around 3 am that Sunday, February 3, police responded to a radio call on the 3800 block of Parrish Street, where they found an unresponsive black male with multiple gun shot wounds to the body and face. The male was found a short distance from a car that was still running.

He was later identified as 39-year-old Anthony Saunders, ‘Tony’ to Miles and his family.

Saunders was pronounced dead at 3:26 am.

Miles, who’s been sober for more than two years, left Philadelphia long ago to escape his tattered childhood of drug-addicted parents and a West Philadelphia neighborhood he now calls a shantytown.

When thinking about his cousin’s funeral he was torn between go or not go.

He last saw Tony a year and a half ago at his grandmother’s house.

“He was always happy to see me,” says Miles. The two talked about Miles’ life: his photography, his play, and about Tony, more like his uncle at 10 years his senior, visiting him in New York.

Tony worked well with his hands, Miles remembers, and could build or fix anything. But his fondest memory of Tony is him working the grill at a deli at 40th and Brown. Miles would go there after school and Tony would always look out for him with double cheeseburgers.

Eight years ago, Tony’s mother died of cancer. Miles doesn’t know much about Tony's father. Tony was an only child.

He had two sons and a daughter, and he loved kids. He worked summer after summer as a lifeguard at the neighborhood recreation center.

“He was full of life,” Miles says.

Miles believes Tony was killed over money. Some guy apparently owed him, he says, and Tony had been calling the guy all day. Then around 3 am, the guy told Tony to come get it. Miles says according to Tony’s phone records, it was the last call his cousin ever made.

“My cousin,” Miles says. “It’s just such a … horrible way to die.”

Miles goes to the service. It's the first time he ever sees his grandma cry. Tony was her good grandson, not in-and-out of jail or stealing money out of her purse like some of the others.

Miles greets most of his family with token hellos, but when he sees his cousin lying in his casket, he gently touches him on the shoulder.

“It looks like you’re sleeping,” he whispers to Tony. “Have a very peaceful rest. I can’t believe you’re gone.”