It took us all week to clean up from the party. That’s okay, though, ’cause I ain’t never gonna forget how much fun I had. Ja’nae and ’em are still talking about it. Asking me when I’m gonna get off punishment for kissing Sato. I tell ’em that I don’t know. Momma ain’t saying just yet.

It’s different now, between Sato and me. When we at Odd Job’s, he stares at me all the time. I can feel his eyes on me even when my back is turned. Every once in a while, Odd Job grabs him by the ears. “I ain’t paying you to stare at Raspberry, boy. I’m paying you to work.” Then Odd Job comes over to me and smiles. “Now you done ruined him for good,” he says. “His mind used to be on work, now it’s on you. Might have to fire that boy.”

I tell Odd Job not to do that. Sato is making money so he can give some to his mom. “It ain’t his fault—”

“That you’re so pretty,” Odd Job says, pulling me by my hair. I wore it down today. It’s sticking to my neck, itching me in all this heat. But Sato says he likes it this way.

Sato’s soaking wet with sweat. On our way home, he stops by an open fireplug and sits down under it. His sneakers bubble up every time he takes a step. “Feels good,” he says, squeezing water from his shorts while we walking.

I’m trying to think of something to say to him, but words won’t come out my mouth. All I do is smile. All he does is stare at me, then look at the ground. A few blocks away he stops and points. “Ain’t that your dad over there?”

My heart starts pounding. I look up. There he is, sitting on the curb. Leaning against a big plastic trash can. Legs spread wide open. Head down. No shirt. No shoes. No shame, I think.

“That cop’s gonna bust that bum’s head wide open,” some man says, like he just can’t wait for it to happen.

I look over and see a cop car pull up, lights flashing.

“I hope he don’t crack your father one with that nightstick,” Sato says to me.

“Let’s go,” I tell him. But my feet ain’t moving.

Sato takes my hand. “Maybe he’s hurt or something.”

“Drunk, or trying to come down from that mess he been taking,” I say. “You staying? I’m not,” I snap.

We start walking. Sato’s still looking back at Daddy.

“Get up,” the cop says to Daddy. “You can’t stay here.”

Daddy starts throwing punches. Out comes the nightstick. Next thing you know, the cop whacks him upside the head. Blood runs down the side of his face.

“Don’t hit my father!” I scream, running over to him.

“Girl,” another police officer says, holding my hand up in the air, “you better calm yourself.”

I’m not afraid of him. “He’s sick. Why you hitting him just ’cause he’s sick?”

Daddy’s blood is so dark it almost looks black. It’s all over the place. On his shorts. Dripping onto the concrete. Squished between the gloved fingers of the other cop trying to cuff him now.

I bend down and whisper in his ear. “Daddy. It’s Raspberry. You hear me?” I say, taking the tip of my shirt and wiping blood out his eye.

He lifts up his head and looks at me with one eye. “Hey, baby girl.”

The cop pulls me by the arm. “This your father?”

I nod my head yes. Watch another cop car pull up to the curb, lights flashing.

“Well. You can visit him at County. He’s going to jail.”

Traffic on Madigan Street ain’t hardly moving. Everybody is staring at us. A man in a gray suit and gray sunglasses yells out his window, “Lock the drunk up.”

I look down at the blood on my shirt and my sneakers.

“Raspberry,” Daddy says, when they get him to his feet and make him walk over to the squad car. “I love you, Raspberry Girl.”

I look at him. He ain’t wearing shoes and his feet are black and blistered. My stomach flips. My mouth tastes like acid. Next thing I know, vomit is coming out my mouth and nose. The cop is cursing, saying this is the way his whole stinking day has been going.

I can hear Daddy cursing at the cops, saying to take his cuffs off so he can make sure that I’m all right. They shove him in the car anyway.

Soft, warm fingers start to rub my back and shoulders. Then a woman says for me to relax and just let it all out. “You’ll feel better when you’re done,” she says, handing me a bunch of tissues. She wipes my face and mouth, opens her half-empty bottle of water and hands it to me. I shake my head no, at first. Germs, I think. But I take and drink it anyway. Every drop.

The woman walks off and leaves me when another policeman comes over and asks, “Is he really your father?”

I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. “Yeah,” I say, feeling Sato move closer to me.

“Get in,” the cop tells me, opening the door. “I’ll take you both home.”

I look at him. “Home?” I say. “But he don’t live . . .”

The cop smacks his lips. “He goes with you or he goes to County. Loitering is an offense. I can lock him up or take him home. What’s it gonna be?”

The tall cop is me and Daddy’s color, with moles all over his face. He looks hot in his tight, blue uniform. Mad, too.

“Raspberry,” Daddy says, begging me. “All I need is a little time to clean up and sleep this off.”

I think about my money. How he ain’t mind stealing it from me before. “No,” I say, turning my back on him.

“Let’s go, buddy,” the cop says, pushing Daddy.

“Raspberry,” Daddy says. “Please?”

My tongue rolls over my teeth and I smash my lips together when I feel myself ready to say for him to come go with me.

“I’m gonna quit. For real I am,” he says, staring over at me.

My father has the prettiest eyes when he ain’t on that stuff. “They the color of honey, with splashes of green,” a lady at the grocery store told him once. They cloudy now, like the eyes of the old, slimy fish they try to sell you at the market, long after they shoulda trashed ’em.

“Momma ain’t gonna like you coming to our place,” I say, giving the cop the name of our street.

The policeman tells me to get in the car. Sato too. In a few minutes, he’s pulling up to our place. He don’t even help me get Daddy to the door. Me and Sato do that.

“We coulda locked him up,” one of ’em says, leaning out the car window. “You caught us on a good day, I guess,” he laughs. The woman on the police radio starts talking. The siren and lights go on. The car pulls away from the curb and goes up the street real fast—almost hitting somebody’s car—trying hard to get off our street.