17

All that night, I kept thinking about Mrs. Lee’s boyfriend or husband or whatever he was. It was one thing to see a mention in the paper. But now, people were looking at TKO. Maybe he was just a crank, somebody who thought he could rid the world of everything he thought was bad. But he had a big mouth and sometimes big mouths get heard. Which meant that if K and the boys ever got caught, I’d get caught too.

I stared at the flyer again. It said things like: BLACK ON WHITE CRIME! SPEAK OUT! TAKE BACK OUR NEIGHBORHOODS! They called us mindless and criminal too. It made us look like we were some thugs roaming the streets, raping and pillaging. Were we? I mean old people are always complaining about young people—the music is too loud; they’re into drugs and sex and video games. Knockout was just another game compared to the guys on my corner who were actual crackheads and dealers or gangbangers or whatever. They actually killed people. How come they weren’t being hunted down? OK, I knew that was bullshit but still, compared to what some others were doing . . .

On the flyer, I noticed a link to a Facebook page. I was curious, so I looked it up.

The group page was called Knockout Violence! There was a picture of a group of people who called themselves The Watchers (as in, we’re watching you) all wearing those red shirts with eyes on them. That man was front and center. His name was Joe Lee and he was a medic in the Iraq war who’d been injured and now is all about helping fight for a strong community. There was a page about the protest, followed by links to news coverage of different attacks that had happened. These attacks went back several years. I read a few of them and it made me upset.

At the bottom of the page was a YouTube video with the man’s face on it. My cursor hovered over the PLAY button and finally, I just clicked on it.

The man was sitting at his desk, an American flag behind him.

“My name is Joe Lee. I’m a former medic for the Marines and head of the neighborhood watch committee for the Tower Grove area. I want to be clear up front: we are a group of concerned citizens who are not willing to stand by while our way of life is slowly being destroyed. It is being shattered by random attacks on white citizens by black perpetrators.” He paused dramatically. “There, I said it. This is not some crazy right-wing conspiracy from Fox News. In fact, I wish you could hear about it on Fox News, or any news, but the media refuses to call a spade a spade, because it’s not PC to say black-on-white crime. But the facts are what they are. If you are white, you need to be on alert. It doesn’t matter if you are young or old, male or female. If you live in St. Louis, particularly—”

Here, he unfolded a homemade map of St. Louis. He had circled several neighborhoods in red. “If you live in one of these five neighborhoods: Compton Heights, Oak Hill, Shaw, Tower Grove East, and South. These are the hot spots for black-on-white crime that is being perpetrated by a gang of bored teenagers who get their kicks inflicting horrifying violence on random white victims.”

WTF? This was crazy. My first thoughts were that Kalvin was right: this guy’s a crank. But then the more I thought about it, doubt crept in. All our targets had been white. Every. Single. One.

I shared the link with Destiny and said, “Is this true? Are we really what he says we are?” I clicked send.

I went back and saw a link to a video page. It was filled with videos that The Watchers had made. They followed young black men and documented their movements. More than a few showed Kalvin and members of the TKO. Some showed evidence that Kalvin was messing with them—leaving rude comments on their Facebook page or dog shit on Joe Lee’s front doorstep. There were all kinds of comments and once they got started, the commenters became really vicious—against us.

I freaked out when I saw a video with me in it from the back. The woman who was filming commented to someone how sad it was to see a white girl get mixed up in all of this.

At least they hadn’t caught us playing Knockout. Yet.

Suddenly, there was a ping!—a message from Kalvin Barnes, right on time, like he knew what I was thinking.

I took a deep breath, opened it.

“Don’t let that fool scare you off. He’s just making noise. Guys like that tend to get caught for doing something stupid. They always do.” He added a link to an article about The Watchers, which mentioned a bit about Joe’s troubled past—being dishonorably discharged from the service and annoying the city council with baseless claims on the so-called race war.

Destiny must’ve forwarded my message.

I stared at Kalvin’s profile picture. It didn’t occur to me that he had his own Facebook page since he always posted from the TKO Club page. His profile pic looked like one of those stock pictures, all bright-eyed and smiling, just the nicest guy in the world.

But when I began scrolling his info, I got this weird feeling down my spine. Was this even the same person?

Name: Kalvin Octavius Barnes

Job: community organizer, youth activist

Studies at: University of Missouri

From: Saint Louis, Missouri

Knows: Russian, Arabic, kung fu, sword fighting, and deep-sea diving

He had to be messing around. I guess anyone can say anything they want about themselves online or just reinvent themselves. Was this the version of himself that he wanted to be? Or just a cover?

There were a bunch of pictures, and they were definitely of him. There was even a cute one of him and Boner. I knew he was NOT going to university, but whatever. Maybe that was just a cover for him not being at school.

There were pictures of him with some of the Tokers I recognized. He looked like a big brother, taking them for pizza, posing in a gym dressed like a boxer. And then some of girls that looked like more than friends.

Including one of me, a still he lifted from the park video.

Another image showed him and a younger looking Destiny. They were standing next to another guy who looked kind of like her—her brother? I noticed K had his hand on her ass. Brother was not smiling.

One of the weirdest touches was at the end of his list of favorites. His favorite quote kind of gave me a chill: A disobedient child shall not live his or her days to the end.