In the light of day, the street appears unchanged. The feeling in the air, the one that can’t be shaken, is intangible.
The people step gingerly as they go about their business. So as not to break the silence. They scurry heavily. The cold is bone deep.
They avert their eyes from the caution tape. Caution is in their blood.
You wake, and it’s already in your bones. The memory of what you’ve seen. You can’t shake it.
You pour coffee, and it looks like pavement. You crisp some toast and it looks like skin. You make the bed and it looks like that moment when they pull a sheet over the body.
You can’t shake it. The house is full of things that speak of girlhood.
Your daughters’ pink socks.
Their dolls.
The glitter explosion of art magnetted to the fridge.
A robot dressed like a princess sits in the middle of the dining room table, its neck cocked like it’s ready to listen.
These things make you inexplicably angry.
Well, not inexplicably. You understand where it comes from and that understanding only amplifies the anger.
Things of innocence should not spark rage. Things of innocence should not spark fear. Things of innocence should go on and on and on, until they end in something poignant, beautiful. Should go on and on, until they grow.
“Hey,” Kimberly is saying. “Do you want to sleep some more here, or move to your bed?”
Groan. Stretch. The couch blanket feels thin and the chill of the night has already reached my bones. “What time is it?”
Her warm weight settles beside me. Her hip fills the arc between my chest, stomach, and thighs. My knees curl up, as if I can tuck her into me. A reflex. She runs her hand softly over my back. When I shiver, she strengthens her touch.
“You okay?”
My brain is fuzzy. Half-sleepy. “I guess.”
“You’re cold. Come on into your bed.” She tugs. I moan. This is familiar. Sometimes we fall asleep on the couch, trying to watch one more episode of whatever we’re into. Then one of us wakes up in the middle of the night and has to drag the other one up. My sleep brain would rather stay in this semi-warm spot that is really not warm enough.
My bedsheets will be cold at first. Kimberly pulls me down the hall anyway. She folds back the bedding and I crawl in.
Pale light streams in through the blinds.
“It’s almost morning.”
“Yeah,” she says. “It just got clear enough to come home.”
I’ve slept through some crazy, is what it sounds like.
“What’s going on out there?” I split the blinds’ slats. The street looks like the street usually does. “You only just got home?”
“Yeah. It was … bad. For a while.” Her voice is strained.
I’m awake now. “Did you get any sleep?” I grasp her hand, and she slides into the bed beside me. She’s warm.
“A few hours at the center. Wait,” she says. She leaves the room. Comes back a minute later, in soft pants and oversized T-shirt. Pecking at her phone in her hand. She plugs it in to charge. “I have to get up for work in like two hours.”
“Ugh.”
She climbs back in with me. “Zeke was there,” she says. “I was kind of waiting for him. If I’d left on time, I would have missed the whole thing.”
I’m sleepy again. I tuck my hand under my cheek and yawn to signal it. “So you got to hang out?”
“Yeah, and it was crazy and busy and everything, but…”
“What?”
“It’s probably nothing.”
“What?”
“There was this moment, I don’t know, where it seemed like maybe he wanted to kiss me?”
I used to think it was easy to tell when a guy was interested. If they’re into you, they try to get with you. Period. They’re not subtle. But thinking about Brick lately … it’s not so clear anymore.
“He should want to kiss you,” I say. “If he knows what’s good for him.”
Kimberly scoots closer and I roll to meet her. Wrap my arm around her stomach, rest my head on her shoulder. Sometimes it is best not to be all alone.
I like to run, I love to skip
I own many, many hats
When it is dark I go fast
too
When it is cold, I go faster
still
Momma holds my hand
Not too fast.
Slow down, baby girl.
Not everyone has a Momma
you’re
Not always with your Momma
outside
The shower steam follows me into the hallway. Soapy heat collides with the scent of frying bacon.
Great. The last thing I need today is a man-to-man breakfast with Steve.
Sure enough, Steve’s the one at the stove and Mom is nowhere to be seen. We have Pop-Tarts, right? I slink toward the pantry. Steve’s back is turned but my growling stomach gives me away.
“Really?” he says. “It’s so bad you’re gonna skip out on eggs and bacon?”
Caught.
“Whatever.” I throw myself into a kitchen chair. Who am I to turn down first-class service?
“Order’s up!” Steve smiles.
“Eggs and bacon, hold the lecture.”
“Eggs, bacon, toast, and fruit.” He sets the plate in front of me. And a mug. “Hot chocolate.”
With whipped cream? Hell. I’m really in for it.
Steve sits down across from me with his own plate. “Your mom was worried sick.”
“I caught enough of that last night. Don’t drag it all back up.”
He sips coffee. “It’s not that simple. When she worries, it affects everything.”
“I know.”
“You’re a good kid.”
I avert my eyes.
“Shae Tatum—”
I see her body in the street. Feel the heat.
“—it has her shaken up, okay?”
“Yeah.” It’s safest to nod and eat. How fast can I empty a plate of eggs?
“This kind of tragedy reminds us all of how black bodies are treated in this country. How easy it is to make a mistake when you look like us.”
The white-hot center of me ignites. “Why you wanna put it on her? She’s the one who died.”
“I didn’t mean—” He shakes his head. “It’s so easy for what we do to be misinterpreted.”
“She didn’t do anything. Media is reporting the cop’s version of the story. That’s not how it went down.”
“How do you know?”
Steve doesn’t know I tag, but he knows I go back to Underhill.
“Cone of silence?” I say. That’s what Steve calls it when we keep a secret from Mom. It’s from this old TV spy show, Get Smart. He says it is important for men to have discussions between themselves.
He nods. “Usual protocol.”
I hesitate. That means he will not tell Mom what I say unless someone is going to get hurt, or if he thinks it is in my best interest. But he’s gotta cover his bases. I get that.
“Never mind.”
“Will…”
“Never mind.” I toss two Pop-Tarts into my backpack and bounce.
The email comes before I’m even at the office. New shared calendar appointment, with John at 9:15. My office.
The strange part is the location. Usually John has me come to him. Maybe it’s disciplinary. It shouldn’t be. Everything about my performance is on point. I’m sure of it. I make sure of it. Daily.
Something big is happening, to compel John out of his office. To be sitting on the wrong side of the desk is a position of weakness. He knows this. He’s making a strategic choice. It won’t be disciplinary. It’ll be the opposite.
Like asking for a favor.
I make sure to arrive in the office by 8:45. If you’re on time, you’re late. It’s easy to straighten up, clear the desk except for one fat file, which I’ll leave open until they arrive. I dust the tops of the Nigerian carved-wood statues on my bookcase, smooth out the Zambian fabric swath hanging on one wall. My wife picked out these decor elements, on the theory that it gives people a sense of my heritage. It’s not meant to be political.
I water my plant, arrange its leaves so the fullest part is forward. Adjust the blinds, such that there is a slight glare on the spot where John will be sitting. Then I pose behind my desk.
John enters my office, alongside a man in uniform. I don’t know how to read the bars and badges, but he appears high-ranking. Underhill PD. Another officer comes in behind them.
I stand to greet them.
It rolls out in front of me, a blood-red carpet.
The officers glance around, taking in my decor. I figure anyone walking into a PR exec’s office and finding a black man sitting there is going to get a sense of my heritage. So it is political.
What isn’t?
“Have a seat.” My arm sweeps forward to invite them.
They perch in my wing chairs. They squint into the sun. For a moment, I allow them to squirm. The leather of my desk chair settles underneath me.
They nod. Blink.
“Oh, John, would you adjust the blinds?” I tip my hand negligently toward the window. Not meeting his eye, which is more than enough to let him know. I’ve sat at the knee of a master. I’ve learned to play the game.
The officers relax, grateful. I appear both thoughtful and in charge.
Everyone at school knows it was my dad. His name was on the morning news and so was the name of the girl. Shae Tatum. A girl only a few years older than me. She was in sixth grade.
Other kids look at me and point. They whisper behind my back.
Teachers speak in voices extra bright. They whisper over my head.
He was only doing his job! I want to shout.
But I’m supposed to say nothing.
Sheila cries when I tell her about Shae. When her face falls, I learn what that saying means in real life.
Maybe it was a mistake to come in person. I wanted to. Thought it was right. I don’t know. I don’t know anymore.
I’ve dropped her off a cliff. She loves it when I visit. Her eyes light up, she bounces. “Hi,” she exclaims, when I walk into the breakfast room. “Look!” Sheila shows off her sparkling blue backpack. Her smile is a hundred watts and brightening.
But when her favorite person comes bearing terrible news … Extreme high to extreme low. I ask the cook to leave us alone for a minute. Pull up a chair next to Sheila and take her small hands in mine.
I was younger than this the first time I tasted grief. I remember, and I don’t want to remember. If I could use my power to spare Sheila of this loss, I would do it. If I could give all my money to make it untrue, I wouldn’t hesitate.
Her cries echo off the wood-paneled walls. She will wake the whole house. Any minute now, other residents or staff from the home will come running. Sheila knows that dead means gone, not just out of sight but gone forever. We go over it anyway.
When I reach over to hug her, she fixes me with a look worse than death. I am the bad-news man. I can offer no comfort.
It breaks me. I hold myself as still as I can, but in every other way I am falling apart.
One of the nursing aides rushes in. “Melody!” Sheila screams. “Shae is DEAD. Goodbye forever. We will never see her again.”
“I know, sweetie.” Melody gathers Sheila against her. They are practically the same height.
Hovering beside them, it hits me. At thirteen, Sheila is the size of a small adult. Shae was taller. A head taller, maybe. I can picture them, bobbing along the street side by side. What I picture next is Shae bobbing along by herself. In the dark, on the run … nope. In my mind’s eye, she’s still clearly a child.
Is it only because I knew her?
We stand at the corner of Peach and VanBuren, fighting about the route we will take to school. Tina holds my right hand, Sheila holds my left. They are crying.
Sheila wants to take the same route because it’s our route, and patterns are important.
Tina doesn’t want to go by Shae’s building. It’s too sad.
“We can’t skip Shae,” Sheila cries.
I squeeze her hand. “You know she’s not there. We can go to her house, but she’s not going to come out.” The routine has changed. It will be an adjustment.
They sniffle. It’s too cold for this, and we’re gonna be late.
“Switch hands.” I shuffle their tiny selves around me. “Now, we’ll take our usual route but you can stand on the street side.” I shake Tina’s little hand. “And you can stand on the house side,” I tell Sheila.
“You can even close your eyes,” I tell Tina. She clusters against my side, and we make our way. But she does not close her eyes. She looks straight at the sidewalk. Sheila walks with her head up.
The steps of the building are decorated with all manner of tributes. Flowers wilting in the winter air, small stuffed animals, signs and cards and even balloons. My eyes sting.
“If we knock on the door, what will happen?” Sheila asks.
“We’d probably make her mommy sad,” I answer. “It’s already a really sad day.”
“When Tariq died, lots of people knocked on our door,” Tina says. “Sometimes it made Mommy stop crying.”
A weird little stab of old grief cuts through me. Tariq Johnson’s murder two years ago feels fresh again this morning. Probably to Tina most of all.
“We’d be late for school. Let’s say bye to Shae’s house and keep going.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
“On the way home, we can knock,” I tell them.
Saying goodbye usually means
you will get to say hello again
soon.
We shout it from the doorway
from the street
back and forth
until we can’t hear each other
anymore.
The footage out of Underhill from last night is unreal. Everyone is posting it. I see it over and over in my feed. Most of the clips are the same after a while, but I check them all anyway.
My favorite, the one I find most striking, is of a young kid throwing a bottle through a storefront window. It was shot on someone’s phone, it’s all vertical and weird, but you can see his face in a semi-close-up. He’s crying and furious all at the same time. First there’s this pause where he looks down at the bottle in his hand, then his face goes monstrous for a second while he puts his whole arm into the throw. He watches it land, then you just see him run away, crying. It’s awesome. At the tail end of the frame, as the little boy leaves, the phone gets juggled and red and blue lights flash somewhere in the shot and then it’s cut. I keep trying to find out what happened next. Did they catch the kid? The cameraman? Social media is asking, but no one has it yet. I keep checking.
On my way into poli-sci, I bump into Kwame, this guy who’s in two of my classes. We roll on the same wavelength, I guess.
“‘Sup?” We slap hands. He passes me a flyer from a stack in his arms.
“We’re planning a vigil,” he says. “In memory of Shae Tatum.”
“That doesn’t sound like much. What does it do?”
“Raises awareness on campus.”
“Yeah, but what about some kind of action? You know, to send a message?”
Kwame nods. “It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” he says. “Student organizing got it done in the ’60s and it’ll get it done in our generation, too. It’s gonna look different, though.”
I wave my phone. “More technological.”
“Well,” Kwame says. “You should come by the Black House later, if you’re interested in the work we’re doing.”
“Sure thing, sure thing.” I grin. DeVante’s always going down to the African American Student Center. I could tag along. The more I watch of these videos, the more I know something has to be done.
“It’s a relief,” says the woman in my stylist’s chair. “Don’t you think?”
“What? Sorry.” My hands can weave perfect plaits without my mind checking in. I’m elsewhere, but the customer doesn’t need to know that.
She flips through a copy of O. “A break from the coverage. At least you’re showing regular TV in here.”
On the monitor over our heads, The View is playing.
“Yes, it’s tragic,” I murmur.
“You’re so distracted,” she says. “Heh. Must be thinking about a man.”
“What, no, I, no—” I sputter.
She laughs like an auntie. “Must be a hot man.”
“He doesn’t know I’m alive,” I tell her. It’s the easiest thing.
Auntie eyes me in the mirror. “Mm-hmm. Looking like that, he knows.”
My face flushes. “Stop.”
“Girl, you got it going on. Don’t let no one tell you different.” She flips the magazine page. “Mm-hmm. He knows.”
“SCORE, how can I help you?”
A pleasant woman’s voice says, “Ezekiel Jacobs, please.”
“This is Zeke. Who’s calling?”
“I have Senator Alabaster Sloan for you, Mr. Jacobs.”
“You’re kidding.”
Her laugh is warm. “Hold, please.”
Reverend Alabaster Sloan? Now Senator. My palms tingle. I dry them on my thighs. This man marched in Birmingham as a child. Up against dogs and fire hoses.
I stand up at my desk. It feels right, to take a call like this standing up.
“Ezekiel?” I’d know his voice anywhere, even if he hadn’t been announced.
“Zeke. You can call me Zeke, sir. Hello.”
“Talk to me about the situation on the ground.”
I shift my grip on the receiver. “We’re basically on lockdown, sir. Last night’s protests brought significant backlash from law enforcement. Tear gas. Rumor is, they’ll be enforcing a curfew tonight.”
“I’ve heard that, too.”
That confirms it, I guess, if the news has reached DC. “People are pretty upset.”
“Rightly so,” the senator agrees.
“The situation was mishandled, and the cops are escalating. But we’ll get blamed for it.”
“I agree. The coverage is … problematic.”
That’s an understatement. “They have tanks, sir. Just parked around the neighborhood. They’re putting up barricades.”
“It doesn’t help that Wes Steele is all over the internet with his videos.”
“The ‘war on cops’ guy? I can’t even stand to watch him.”
“His following is growing,” Senator Sloan says. “Shae’s story has gone national, in a bad way.”
“What are you saying, sir?” It settles into me, the reality that this is not a pure condolence call, not merely a show of support. It’s a warning.
“Steele’s been ranting nonstop on his shows. You don’t have to watch, but you need to know about it.”
“I know about it. They’re all over our social media feeds spewing their racist rhetoric.”
“Henderson is Steele’s latest cause célèbre. He’s rallying the troops.”
“That’s so messed up.” I should have better, smarter things to say. “Why does anybody even listen to him?”
“He plays their deepest fears like a banjo. It’s all too easy for white America to believe we’re out to get them. Much easier than examining their own biases and complicity.”
That’s how I want to sound. Formal and intellectual. “Yeah, I get that.”
“Steele runs toward the spotlight, wherever it is. This story started out with increased attention, because…”
“Because of Tariq Johnson. No one has forgotten his murder, or the media firestorm that followed.”
“Every news outlet wants another piece of that pie.”
“That’s sick.”
“That’s America.” The senator sighs. “I’ve considered attending the child’s funeral.”
Wow! “I’m sure your presence and support would be appreciated.” I hope I sound chill, but not too chill.
“I’m just as interested in supporting community efforts,” Senator Sloan adds. “My presence draws attention, but I want it drawn to the right things. What are your plans?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.” I flex my shoulders, consider where to begin. This conversation is a dream come true.
Kimberly walks in just as I’m hanging up the phone. She glances at me. Double takes. Smiles. A question on the corners of her lips. She’s looking at my face. My overjoyed, can’t-believe-what-just-happened face.
I leap out from behind the desk, extend my hands to her. She takes them. Our fingers connect and I’m reminded of lying down close with her last night.
“You’ll never guess who that was.” I draw her hands in and out from my chest, one by one, a little boogie.
She tips her shoulder. “Who?”
I let go of one hand and spin her around under my arm. She’s smiling. “Al Sloan! The senator.”
She pulls back. Her eyes widen. “Oh?”
“He’s coming here. Isn’t that great?”
Kimberly shrugs, ending our little dance. “He’s been here before.”
“I know, but that was two years ago. Tariq Johnson, right? I saw him speak then.”
Kimberly averts her eyes.
“SCORE was brand new then. We grew. People got involved. You know. You’ve been with us almost since then. Except you stuck with it, when a lot of people didn’t.”
“Yeah.”
“Sloan was organizing around the hoodie march back then. Didn’t it inspire you?”
“You could say so.”
“What’s wrong?”
She shakes her head. The hesitation is strong. “I—I also knew Tariq Johnson,” she says finally. “I used to babysit for his sister.”
“Oh, wow.”
“Yeah.”
“So it brings up bad memories? Everything that’s happening, and Sloan coming to town?”
She shakes her head swiftly, then beams. “No. It’ll be great. Of course. It’s great news, Zeke.”
I love to hear her say my name.
Everyone’s talking about what went down in Underhill last night. They all seem to know everything about what happened. We shuffle into the Black House common room for the vigil planning meeting and people all around us are bantering about this tweet and that image, things I haven’t seen. I’ve been watching the coverage, too, constantly, and yet somehow I feel like I’m behind the curve. So what else is new?
I never feel quite at home in the Black House. It’s supposed to be this sanctuary from the whiteness of everything else, and it is, kind of, but in other ways it puts me on edge.
I’m not used to being with a room full of black people. It’s super exciting and different, but it’s never been something I craved. It doesn’t make me feel at home. Sometimes I get scared that I’m secretly racist, because it’s so much easier to hang out with white people. Not that that doesn’t have its problems, too.
I glance at Robb. He wanted to come with me tonight, which is cool I guess. He knows Kwame, who invited him. But he’s my friend, and we arrived together, so I feel like people are looking at us like, Who’s the white guy and who’s that oreo who brung him?
I like living in the dorm. It’s simple. Food is right downstairs in the dining hall. You don’t even have to go outside. Swipe the meal card, and it’s like manna from heaven. I’m gonna get fat. And I’m gonna like it.
I take full advantage of every swipe. I bring my books. Eat, then study, then eat again.
Some kids come down and use a whole swipe for a bowl of cereal. One of many things I don’t understand about this world.
They be trippin’, bro. That’s what Tariq would say about it. Even now, two years later, it’s hard to stop his voice from sliding into my head.
Harder today than usual. I don’t want to watch the news, but I can’t help seeing it. Her name, her face, is everywhere. Around the cafeteria, soft mutterings:
“Can you imagine?”
“God, her parents. I feel so bad for them.”
“What kind of cop can’t tell the difference between a little girl and a gangbanger?”
“Never walk wearing headphones. That’s the moral of the story.”
“I can’t imagine.”
I bend over my tray, keep full attention on this bowl of oatmeal. Bite my tongue. You can’t imagine? Really? It’s happening in front of you. Some of us don’t have to imagine.
Cinnamon, raisins, brown sugar, sliced almonds. What I can’t imagine is a world in which someone pre-slices your almonds for you.
My spoon keeps stirring. The truth is, I’m full. For now.
I make myself walk an hour every day, for a bit of exercise. Put in my headphones and let the music carry me. In the last few weeks, I’ve even started jogging.
I go at dusk, right before I head down for my dinners. The sunset sky settles over the trees. I loop through the wooded walks of campus, across the quad, weave among the dorms. I become a dark shape moving against the gathering night, and somehow it is okay. People move out of my way when they see me coming, but otherwise I am barely noticed.
It’s amazing.
Girls scurry around in clusters after dark, all but holding hands. Occasionally they seem a bit wary of me. They might hug the outside of the sidewalk, keep their eyes on me. I don’t begrudge them. I know what it is like to walk afraid.
Every few weeks we have to sit through yet another talk about campus safety. I see their worried faces, hear them fuss. I feel for them, I do, and yet a part of me is content with this arrangement. I’ve never been in a world where the least safe person on the street is a white girl. Some kind of twisted logic applies in this place.
I’ve never felt safer.
The security guards scoot around in tight little golf carts. Most of them are black. They think they are very menacing, and it makes me want to laugh. They are battery-powered, they are siren-less, and they are all that it takes to keep the peace. This is paradise.
Picking up the girls after school is the no-brainer part of the day. I mean, usually. Today’s gonna be different. I know it the second I step out of the building.
It’s a twenty-minute walk from here, one way. I lose count of the cops I see in the first five minutes. There’s a few on our block. Many more when I turn on Peach. A couple dozen cops, easy, and all their cars and trucks taking over the street.
A construction-looking truck turtles along the center line, dropping those kinda metal fence barricades like you see at a parade. Dudes in neon vests scurry behind it, grabbing them up and lining the street. It’s usually parked cars all along the block, so the street seems wide open, to one way of thinking, and totally packed at the same time.
Peach is the most direct route, but I don’t care. I’m taking the side streets. Gotta hurry, though. Can’t be late.
I meet Sheila and Tina at the side door of the school, right near their special education classroom.
Usually they bounce along the sidewalk, begging for time on the playground. Today they stand quiet by the pillar, holding hands.
Usually it’s the three of them. As two alone, they look lonely and small. Sheila and Tina are about my height. It was Shae who was built taller and thicker. She made them all seem bigger, I guess.
We walk quietly together. The usual route. Can’t help but to worry what they’ll think of the barricades. They must’ve heard all the people out last night. Must’ve been scared.
“Shae’s house,” Sheila says.
Tina adds, “We’re going to knock.”
“I am going to knock,” Sheila says. “We decided.”
“Okay,” I agree. I did promise.
Brick pops up along the way. Can’t be a coincidence. Sheila runs to him.
“Hey,” I say over her head.
“Hey.” Brick puts up his hand for a high five. That’s … odd.
I raise my palm to clap his, and it’s lucky I’m slow. It wasn’t meant for me. Tina steps forward and slaps his gloved palm with her mittened one.
“How’s Miss Tina today?”
“Shae is gone,” Tina reports. “Shae is dead.”
“Yeah, I’m sad about it, too,” Brick says. He strokes Sheila’s back, keeping his arm around her.
“We’re stopping by her house on our way,” I tell him. “If you’re here to pick up Sheila, maybe you can wait until after?” She’d be disappointed otherwise.
Brick nods and falls in step. “You seen Peach Street?” he says, probably rhetorical. “It’s a gauntlet. Pork central.”
I smile. “So, you’re here to walk us home?” That’s sweet. Unexpected. But to be real, I can’t decide if he makes us safer or not. Three small women alone, versus three small women with the beefy leader of the 8-5 Kings? Brick is something of a target in and of himself. But I can’t deny it feels safer having him along.
We walk hand in hand in hand in hand, with the girls between us. Maybe this is what it’s like to be married with children. Feeling needed, safe, loved, worried, scared for what the world will do to them. Feeling strong and weak all at once.
Sheila and Tina let go of our hands when we reach the Tatums’ stoop. They bound up the steps and Sheila knocks, as planned. They rush inside when Shae’s dad opens the door. Brick and I follow. We pile the coats inside the doorway.
Mr. Tatum shakes Brick’s hand. “I owe you.”
Brick shrugs. “Nah. It’s good.”
It’s awkward when men who don’t really know each other try to hug. They get all stiff and where-do-my-arms-go. Like robots.
Shae’s mom hugs the girls and cries. They sit on the sofa together, all snuggly and tearful.
Mr. Tatum comes outta the kitchen with two mugs. “We got mulled wine. My sister-in-law’s been making it like there’s no tomorrow.” He smiles in a broken way. A way that means he ain’t sure about there being no so-called tomorrow.
I’m technically working, but I don’t know how to say no. I grip the handle. I can just hold it without sipping. A sniff or two won’t hurt.
He goes away again and comes back with hot chocolate for the girls. Shae’s favorite. Then he disappears toward the bedrooms.
Brick and I hover in the doorway, holding our mugs.
“You okay?” he says. He kneads the muscles along my shoulders with his big strong fingers. It feels nice. A little strange, ’cause we don’t really know each other ’cept to say hello to. But nice.
“Me?”
“Yeah. How you doing with all of it?”
“I guess I don’t really know yet.” That’s the truth. “It’s too fresh.” It feels realer, here in the Tatums’ living room. The air is thick with grief, turned humid by tears.
“You on duty?” Brick says, clinking his mug against mine. Guess he noticed I’m not drinking.
“Yeah.”
“When you’re not, you should come by my place sometime.”
Wow. Brick’s place is legendary. He gets DJs up in his own house to lay a beat. I bet it’s awesome. Or would be, if I was a club-scene kinda girl. “Oh, sure.”
“I get the music going around nine.”
“Every night?”
He shrugs. “Couple times a week. When I feel like it. I usually take Sunday and Monday off.”
“That’s when you cross-stitch?”
He smirks against the rim of his mug. “Don’t knock my hobbies.” He drains his mug, then hands it to me. “Switch.”
We swap mugs, my full for his empty. He’s thoughtful. Not gonna let me turn a full cup back over to Mr. Tatum when we leave.
Brick’s hand moves up and down my back, massaging gently. It feels damn good. I ache over Shae, but some other kind of pain, some other thing dissolves away beneath his touch. I find myself gazing up at him. Who is this guy?
Host: The police department has instituted a curfew for the Underhill neighborhood, effective from midnight to six a.m., beginning tonight. We’re here with prominent activist and community organizer Sam Childs to discuss the effects of such crowd control measures. Mr. Childs?
Childs: Policing against nothing. It will only inflame tensions that might otherwise dissipate. This could’ve been all over by now, if the police weren’t trying to escalate.
Host: It’s their duty to keep the peace.
Childs: They broke the peace to begin with! They were the instigators at every level in this.
Host: The officer-involved shooting of thirteen-year-old Shae Tatum brought citizens into the streets last night.
Childs: Police are the aggressors. This is racism and police brutality 101. It’s a cycle.
Host: Isn’t it possible that increased policing and curfews could prevent such shootings?
Childs: Only if you believe in taking away people’s freedom for their own protection. Those restrictions would never fly in a white community.
Host: Riots aren’t happening in white communities.
Childs: Unarmed white children aren’t being shot by police, either.
Host: So, it all comes down to race?
Childs: Racism leads to bias. Bias leads a so-called “good” cop to see a criminal in a black child. Fear causes him to pull the trigger too soon, without a moment of pause for the benefit of the doubt. He sees a black face and he has no doubt.
Host: You weren’t there. You can’t assume that moment of pause didn’t happen, or what went through the officer’s mind.
Childs: An unarmed child died! You really want to stand by the claim that Henderson displayed good judgment?
Host: I didn’t—
Childs: He made a deadly mistake, due to bias. And here come all his defenders to say it wasn’t a mistake?
Host: Police officers make split-second decisions—
Childs: To say a thirteen-year-old girl should have known better than to be running down the street wearing headphones? That she deserved to lose her life because she was tall for her age?
Host: No one’s saying—
Childs: Absolutely, you are. Every argument about trusting a cop’s best judgment, or an officer’s need and right to protect himself, is built on the premise that something about what happened last night was not wrong. A thirteen-year-old girl. Unarmed.
Host: And the curfew…?
Childs: (Shrugs) Let’s not forget that Shae Tatum was shot around five p.m. If the police want to protect the citizens of Underhill, maybe they should think about decreasing their presence, not militarizing it. If they want to prevent wrongful shootings, maybe they should think twice about making it harder for people to legally walk the streets.
When Noodle comes around, sometimes it’s like the sun is shining for the first time in forever. I turn my face into him and everything is warm. When he comes around other times, it’s like the sun will never shine again.
How many times do I have to say no before he hears me?
How many times can I stand to?
“Hey, gurrrrrl.” He drags the word out so long it sounds dirty. There are times when I know I will never be clean of him.
“Go away, Noodle. I don’t wanna keep doing this.”
“I wanna keep doing you.” He leers.
My eyes roll of their own accord. I’m out of energy. What I miss about him has nothing to do with sex. It doesn’t make sense, how you can look at someone and love them and hate them and want them to hold you and never want to see them again, all at once. The head trip is some kind of roller coaster.
I whisper to myself over and over, in my mind. He’s not a good person. He’s not a good person. You can’t. You don’t want to. Don’t do it.
But when his arms go out, it’s too hard. Way too hard to say no.
It’s a little bit about his hands. The way he moves paper across the desk so efficiently. Long slender fingers. I love to watch him dial the desk phone—quick and smooth, like he’s strumming.
It’s a little bit about the way he tilts his head while people talk to him. He really listens.
It’s a little bit about that one time, when he touched my shoulder, and the shiver went all the way through me. The funny little dance we did … I would have let it go on forever, if—
He caught me off guard earlier, bringing up Al, that’s all. Zeke can’t ever know what happened between me and Al. Reverend Sloan. The senator.
I can pretend better, so he never finds out.
Just look at him. He’s so adorable. So dedicated.
It’s a little bit about his mind. He has ideas. More than that, he knows what to do with them. You never see him confused. He’s got everyone’s respect.
It’s a little bit about his smile. White teeth, pretty close to perfect, like maybe he wore braces once. The quirky, jaunty question mark at the corner of his lips; would you call that a dimple, or merely something in that vein? A tiny dart of his dark tongue over those lips, and I have to check myself from staring.
He’s fine.
She’s fine. Can’t tear my eyes from that big, sexy behind of hers. Why is she wearing cute pants like that to the office? Nobody needs to look that good while filing correspondence.
She glances over her shoulder. Catches me staring. The receiver feels wrong in my hands all of a sudden. I fumble it down to the cradle. It’s been a minute since I finished the last call. My fingers work to make up time. Dialing the next call. Over and over until I reach the bottom of the sheet.
Then she’s there. Right in front of the desk. “Oh, hey, Kimberly.” My voice sounds like shredded wheat. She thinks I’m an idiot.
“Zeke, I was wondering—” She pauses. “Is this an okay time to ask a question?”
She’s so thoughtful. She pays attention to everything going on around the room, and what everybody needs.
“Sure, of course.” When I turn my face up to her, to show I’m listening, she smiles. Wow, that smile. A shower of feelings crashes over me.
“Do you maybe need a new notepad?” She has a fresh yellow legal pad in her hand, like the one I’m already using. Which, I now notice, is full. I’ve covered all the pages, and my notes from the last call are scrawled straight on the cardboard backing.
I laugh out loud. “Uh, yeah. Looks like I do.”
Kimberly laughs along with me. Those sparkling eyes.
I’d better be careful. I can’t go falling for anyone right now. This movement is bigger than me. I feel the call with it. Can’t walk away. Don’t have time to get dizzy.
DeVante comes to my room. “I got your text about the vigil,” he says. “I’m going down to the Black House now. You wanna come?”
“Yeah, yeah.” I glance at my phone. It’s six-thirty already. The vigil starts at seven.
I tug a few scraggy strips from the spiral rings of my notebook. They crumple easily into a tiny paper nugget. I toss it across at Tyrell. It lands in the gutter of his math textbook. He looks up and pops out an earbud. Just the one. Always.
“Yo, T, you coming to the vigil?”
“Tyrell,” Tyrell says. “No, I have too much work.” He sticks the earbud back in.
I expected as much. I turn to DeVante. “Let’s bounce.”
A large group of students gathers at the fountain. We’re early. We get near the front. This is where most of the campus demonstrations take place, on the cobblestone plaza surrounding this fountain.
Behind me, the crowd is growing and growing. The glow of the candles starts at the front, one flame passed from wick to wick. It spreads back and back. It looks like Christmas Eve. At the far edges, the people who don’t have candles switch on their phone lights and hold them to the night sky. We are surrounded by bluish-white light, like an aura.
Kwame gets up on the edge of the fountain’s rock wall. “We’re gathered tonight in memory of Shae Tatum. Let us begin with a ceremony of libation.”
He holds up a palm-sized pitcher of oil, pours a few drops onto the stones and a few drops into the rippling pool of the fountain. “Tonight we call forth the ancestors as we gather in their memory, particularly in the memory of those who have died due to police brutality and those who have died in the struggle for liberation and peace. Let them be remembered not only for their deaths but for their lives. In their name, we carry forward the struggle.”
“Shae Tatum,” someone begins.
“Emmett Till,” says someone else.
Then other names rise up, spoken in many voices. The soft calls burst overhead like fireworks, each carrying a whole story, a whole life.
“Martin Luther King, Jr.”
“Sandra Bland.”
“Tariq Johnson.”
“Medgar Evers.”
“Eric Garner.”
“Philando Castile.”
“Viola Liuzzo.”
“Trayvon Martin.”
“Malcolm X.”
“Bobby Hutton.”
Shivers run up my spine. There are so many names. I don’t know one to say out loud that hasn’t already been said, but other people do and the names just keep coming. I’m embarrassed that I don’t know who they all are. I promise myself I’ll remember. I promise myself I’ll look them all up.
“Michael Brown.”
“Freddie Gray.”
“Shae Tatum,” Kwame repeats, to close out the naming. We stand in silence together as the candles flicker and burn.
Across the quad, through the trees, the glow of the candlelight is strong. When the vigil breaks up, not everyone blows out their candles. They walk the paths, flickering like fireflies. It is hard to ignore, so I close the blinds.
I’m not the person Robb and DeVante think I am. If the other shoe drops, it’s gonna mess things up for me.
They think I’m not interested, or that I don’t care. Whatever. They can think what they want. I can take the heat.
Not everyone has to march. The fight is bigger than they know. I’m part of it, just by being here.
I win if I graduate.
The police aren’t making our job so easy right now. I’m supposed to weigh in on messaging, figure out how to position the police actions as positive. Difficult when everything is such “a hot mess,” as my stepson would say. I’ve never been fond of that phrase, but it makes perfect sense in this context.
“We need to streamline and clarify the official communications around the incident,” John tells the officers clustered in the conference room. Union reps and a handful of brass. “In this climate we can’t underestimate the value of perception.”
“You mean a climate in which unchecked police violence is unacceptable?” I can’t help myself.
“What Steve means is—”
“Steve can speak for himself, thank you.” Pause. Breathe. Be politic. “You have me on this case to provide a black perspective. Believe me, that’s the black perspective.”
“I don’t follow,” says one of the brass.
“Police violence is unchecked in black communities, and the powers that be are comfortable keeping it that way. That’s the existing perspective of most black Americans.”
“But—”
“Look, no one has made it clear what Henderson thought he was doing.” I lean forward. “There’s no narrative from the police side. The child was running away and got shot in the back. That’s the best they have to say?”
The brass stir uncomfortably. “Obviously he thought there was a weapon in play.”
“I’ve been over the public statements. That hasn’t been made clear. At all.”
The union rep folds his hands. “I think it’s clear enough.”
“Are we really expecting the public to make that assumption? He shot an unarmed child in the back.”
“So, we need to say there was a weapon?”
“There wasn’t one. That much, we know.”
“Henderson thought there was a weapon.”
“Did he?” I ask. “If he did, why wasn’t that part of the initial statement?”
“He ordered the suspect to stop running. She didn’t.”
“Is that a capital crime now? Running while black?”
“Resisting arrest. Failing to respond to a police officer.”
I wave my hand. “Those are misdemeanors, aren’t they? Anyway, which is it? Was she shot because he thought he saw a weapon, or because she was resisting arrest?”
“A number of factors contributed to his decision to discharge his weapon.”
“How many of those factors were simply bad judgment?”
John interrupts my flow. “This is what I meant about clarifying and streamlining the narrative.”
It’s not complicated, people. “You need to fire Henderson.”
The union rep shakes his head. “Before there’s been any hint of due process? We’d take so much flak for that.”
“The public respects due process,” the brass agrees.
“For police officers, but not for thirteen-year-old black girls?”
The room falls silent, then fills. With a slow cold certainty that nothing has changed. We are back at the beginning. The impasse is a roadblock guarded by tanks and AR-15s. A Grand Canyon–wide gap in logic and practice.
Ham and peas and potatoes. It is one of our favorite dinners, but tonight everything tastes like chalk.
“I have the right to defend myself,” Daddy says.
“We’re not supposed to talk about it, Darren,” Mom says again. She glances at me. “Not at the dinner table, okay?”
They want to protect me from what is happening, but they can’t. They get to stay at home and keep the TV off. They don’t have to go to school and hear about it from everyone.
“I have the right to defend myself,” Daddy says again. When a bad thing happens, sometimes you get stuck in one place.
“No one’s arguing that you don’t.”
“Damn right they are. I’m supposed to stand there and let myself get shot when someone draws on me?”
An elephant is in the room. And it’s packing. The air is double charged.
“There was no gun,” Mom says gently. “They confirmed it.”
“I thought there was.”
“Just keep telling them your version,” Mom says. “It’s your right.”
“A girl,” Daddy says. “Thirteen.”
“Don’t think about it,” Mom says, which is the strangest thing to say. How can we not think about it?
“I thought there was.”
Silence.
“I thought there was,” Daddy repeats.
Boots. Batons. Shields. Service weapons.
We will patrol tonight.
Our goal is to protect the people.
But the world has changed. The city is out to get us.
We will patrol tonight.
Our goal is to keep the peace.
From high up in my window
they look like toy soldiers.
Little dolls with plastic legs
you can bend only so far.
They are not toys and yet
they are not willing to bend.
I close one eye and squeeze
them between my fingers like ants.
Tariq taught me that trick,
and also how to hold up a fork
and send someone to jail.
We laughed about it.
No one is laughing now.
Curfew is a fucking joke. Who do they think they are, to pen us in like that? The streets are strange and calm and empty. We can’t stand for it.
Caution tape be damned. This is our neighborhood. Sheila, Shae, Tina—they should be able to walk in peace.
Anger defines us. The shape it takes in each of us is who we are. How we move. Sinewy like a snake, stealthy like a cat, the swirl of a tornado or the steadiness of a rock.
They would take it from us, our anger. Render us motionless and mute. We can’t stand for it.
Nothing is simple. Nothing has ever been simple. This neighborhood, our hearts, our homes. Our jobs, our shame. The way we kowtow and cower. Shuck and jive to keep going one more day.
They would shove us into small boxes. Smaller and smaller until our bones are dust. Build cities out of our shells, our shards.
We can’t stand for it.
@UnderhillSCORE: We have questions. Who has answers? #UnderhillPD #StartTalking
@Momof6: This could happen to any cop. #StopWhenTheySayStop #NoBrainer
@KelvinX_: Resisting arrest IS NOT a crime unto itself. #KillerCop needs to answer for HIS crimes. #NoKidDeservesToDie
@Momof6: Resisting arrest is a crime!!! When everyone obeys the police, there’s no problem.
@KelvinX_: A 13yo child is dead. The onus should be on cops to protect our children.
@BrownMamaBear: Heartbreak after heartbreak. Pray for all the brown babies out there.
@WhitePowerCord: Sure, play the black card. She was BLACK, she couldn’t have done anything wrong. He’s a WHITE COP, he’s obviously evil. STFU. #BacktheBlue
@UnderhillSCORE: Where are the politicians? Where are our leaders? It must stop. It must change. Who will take us where we need to go? #YouthRiseUp
@WesSteeleStudio: When Police come under attack, none of us are safe. The cop-baiting traps the mainstream media won’t show you out of Underhill. Unbelievable video footage!! #HeroCop #MakeItKnown
@Momof6: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God. #BlueLivesMatter
@UnderhillSCORE: We don’t retreat. We don’t back down. We demand answers. We demand our rights. #TodayForShae #TomorrowForAll