We have been here before. Black bodies have lain in the street, with white men standing over them, in uniform. We have been here a thousand times before.
This stretch of land has known tragedy and grief. It has known deep and fleeting joy. This stretch of land has known sun and snow and rain, cleats and Jordans and clicking Mary Janes. The joyful slap of double-dutch rope, the colorful chalk squares of hopscotch, the blood of skinned knees and shards of afternoon Coke bottles.
This stretch of land remembers when it was earth, longs for something out of reach.
You shave carefully in front of the mirror. No nicks. There is no such thing as smooth enough today.
You lotion up while your wife fusses with the iron. She clatters the thing more than necessary. She does not approve. But she can do in two minutes what would take you an hour, and she is gracious.
She holds out the shirt on one finger.
“Are you sure?” she says, not for the first time.
You roll your shoulders. The white fabric is still warm.
You are sure of nothing.
Her kiss offers either judgment or permission. Hard to tell. You only smell shaving cream.
You button your good black suit. You promise yourself closure.
No.
I don’t want to go.
Mommy says WE ARE GOING.
When she speaks in capital letters she means business
I mean business too
NO.
NO!
No
more
funerals.
Alone in the office, I practice my move. “Kimberly, would you like to have dinner with me?”
It’s all hypothetical, of course. I wish I could turn this particular setting off in my brain. I don’t want her to feel weird, or like I’m putting pressure on her. I’m not her boss, not exactly. But sort of. And that makes it weird. And possibly inappropriate. I’m not sure. I think I get a vibe off her that says she won’t hold it against me. But I don’t want to be one of those guys who thinks he’s the exception and end up making her uncomfortable.
When the door opens—and I jump out of my skin—it’s not even Kimberly. Of course it’s not. She’s not due in for an hour.
It’s Yvonne. Looking dead serious.
“Hey.” I greet her with a smile anyway. “What’s going on?”
“It’s the funeral this morning,” she says.
Right. That’s enough to bring anyone down. “Yeah, I heard that on the news.”
Yvonne shakes her head. “There’s a problem. Unexpected.” She looks downright shaky all over.
“How can I help?”
Yvonne sinks into the chair on the other side of my desk. She bursts into tears. Whispers. “She was a child.”
My hands fumble toward a tissue box that I know is somewhere.… There it is.
I pull one. Two. Three. Fork them over. “I know. It’s a tragedy.”
She lets it go for a minute. I don’t really know what to do. My impulse is to go over and hug her or something. We’re friends, I guess. But she’s sort of my boss, and again, there’s an underlying no-touching rule about the workplace that’s hard to get over. I settle for pulling more tissues. Maybe there is no comfort, anyway, in the face of human cruelty.
Yvonne takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m supposed to be smooth and in charge.”
“Hey, don’t worry about it,” I assure her. “This is a rough one for all of us.”
Her tearful smile contains a thousand years of suffering.
“There are protestors,” she says finally. “At the funeral. They showed up with signs.”
“Not my SCORE crew. We didn’t arrange for that.”
“No.” Yvonne clears her throat. “Not us. Not on behalf of Shae.”
That doesn’t compute. “They’re protesting the funeral?”
Yvonne nods. “Someone organized a group. I don’t know from where.”
She turns her phone to face me. The image on the screen strikes hard. All the breath rushes out of me. The background is filled with the chests, knees, and arms of several adults carrying posters and banner sticks. The focus is on a small girl, not more than ten, standing at the front of the group. Her long blond pigtails fall over her shoulders, framing the hand-lettered sign at her chest:
SHE HAD IT COMING.
Zeke’s call makes no sense, and neither does this vision of the small clump of white women outside the funeral. From the corner of the church steps, they sprawl out in front of me, a sea of hateful signs, hateful faces. It is impossible to comprehend and yet it’s taking place in real time. The edges of two different worlds collide and the aftershocks would bring me to my knees. But I have a job to do.
It’s easy enough to count the women. Twelve. They have children with them. Four small, pale beings bundled in colorful coats and hats. They are one small, silent island, but they loom large, even amid the hundreds of people coming up the steps for the funeral.
I don’t know who they are. A women’s group? Church ladies? Cops’ wives? A book club? I don’t know who they are, but I know who they follow. A woman in the front has a Wes Steele Studio logo on her jacket. One of their signs reads END THE WAR ON COPS. Another reads EXPOSE THE BLACK CONSPIRACY #MAKEITKNOWN.
I post from the SCORE account, tagging every news outlet on our list. The news media will show up sooner or later. The ones who are already on-site are actively filming.
My still shots of the group lack the power of video, but to film too long means I have to stop posting. I take a 15-second short every now and again. Try not to focus on how I’m eating through data.
This is history. This is worth it. This is the twenty-first century’s Birmingham. This is radical segregationist stay-in-your-inferior-place bullshit and we can’t stand for it.
It’s bizarre to see my pics—mine—going viral.
Zeke texts. You OK?
I’m good. I’m on it.
I’m on my way. Hang in there.
Hang in there. That’s what they want, too. This is a twenty-first century lynching and they’ve come with their picnic baskets to witness the spectacle.
As if she’s read my mind, one of the women whips a square of cloth from her bag, spreads it over the pavement. She settles the smallest of the children onto it, pouring out Tupperware. String cheese and grape halves and Goldfish crackers. The toddlers loll against the handle of her sign, which reads:
HENDERSON DESERVES A MEDAL, NOT A PUBLIC LYNCHING.
Click. Post. A picture is worth a thousand words.
Shae was my friend
She’s gone now
Tariq was my friend
not only my brother
He’s gone now
I am supposed to say Tariq died
but gone sounds nicer
I am supposed to come to terms
which means to accept it.
This is confusing
because it is not up to me whether it is true
Tariq is dead
but gone sounds nicer.
It does not mean I don’t know what is real.
Words can mean different things
Why doesn’t everybody know this?
Now I say it the other way out loud
Tariq is dead.
Shae is dead.
Grown-ups are goofy sometimes
In my head, gone sounds nicer.
Sheila likes riding with the windows down, even though it’s too cold. Today, I let her. We’re going to her best friend’s funeral, so she deserves a pass on the stupid stuff.
She buzzes the window up and down, eyeing me. Her smile is huge.
She leans out and giggles, straining against her seat belt. Her cheeks redden, her eyes sparkle, and she glances at me out the corner of her eyes waiting for me to crack down, like I usually do.
Maybe she doesn’t care about the window. She just wants to get a rise out of me.
“It’s too cold,” I chide her. “Stop that.”
Buzz, buzz. Side-eye. Grin.
It’s not about the window. It’s the fun of breaking the rule. Huh. That’s my kid sister all right.
“Come on, goofball. Are you trying to freeze us out?”
I wonder if she finds healing in her own reckless laughter, or if the game just takes her to another place.
The spire of the church pokes up at the end of the block. Cars everywhere. There’s going to be nowhere to park. Should’ve realized that earlier.
The 8-5 Kings better show up in force. My word is law.
And yet I’ve been hearing about it for two days. “Why we gotta show at some kid’s funeral?”
What goes unsaid: there’s a funeral every day in Underhill. For someone too young.
The implication slams me like a hit. Why do we care about this one, and not all the rest? Because of Sheila. Like losing T, like losing a member of our ranks, this one hits home.
“Respect.” I’m in charge. We care when I say we care.
“Breeeeeeeeeeze,” Sheila drawls, pulling for my attention. The window goes all the way down.
“We’re almost there, goofball. Roll it up.”
I reach across and poke her tummy. Hysterics. Kids are so simple sometimes. When I pull my hand back, she stops suddenly.
“Is it bad to laugh on a sad day?” Sheila asks.
Not so simple.
They roll in the tiny coffin. Music plays. Organ swelling, choir moaning, that kind of thing. Can’t help but get thick in the throat. Tina’s small hand slips into mine. Her mother sits at her other side, stroking her back. It’s interesting. Often she slides away into her own separate world, not wanting to be touched or bothered. But when she wants comfort, it’s here for her in spades.
In the middle of the service, Sheila comes to me, crying. She slips down the aisle from somewhere behind. I wrap my arms around her and pull her into the pew with us. There is room. We can make room. She tucks herself onto my lap.
A second later, a long shadow crosses us. Brick looms over me.
He takes Sheila’s hand. “Come on back. Sorry,” he says to me.
Sheila presses herself against me tighter. She doesn’t need to worry. I won’t let go. “It’s okay, she can sit with us.”
“She needs to sit with family.”
I shake my head. This is what he gets for sending her away.
“There are all kinds of family.”
His body tightens up.
Maybe it’s a slap in the face. Maybe that’s a risk worth taking. Turn my head, send a glance toward all Brick’s boys in their row.
“You made your choice a long time ago.”
They come into the diner together, two men in nice clothes, well layered, with signs folded in their bags. I bring them menus and water and they ask for tape to repair a thing.
They order bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches and fries. When they ask to borrow the tape, I think absolutely nothing of it. I bring it, and they say thanks. They smile politely.
I could’ve said Sorry, we’re out and sent them across the street to the corner store to buy some. They don’t look like they’re from around here. I did notice that. We don’t get a lot of clean-cut white boys out to eat in Underhill.
Their signs are horrible, confusing, upsetting. I stay behind the counter as they do up their tape job, looking satisfied with themselves. I hope they finish before their order comes up. I have to bring them their sandwiches, but it would be easier if I could pretend I didn’t see.
They leave me a decent tip. I’m surprised they’re willing to eat in a diner in this neighborhood. They must’ve been really hungry, to accept food prepared by black hands. Except, by the look of them, I doubt they even know what it means to be hungry.
I don’t agree with their signs. I’m not racist. People should live and let live.
Certainly, they should live and let Rest in Peace. It was a kid, after all. It’s distasteful to show up with hate signs at someone’s funeral, regardless of how you feel about things. There’s such a thing as basic decency, after all.
I hook my thumbs over my belt, put on my sternest expression. No one gets through me. Not today.
I’m not worried about it, though. They’re all just standing there with their signs. Exercising their First Amendment rights. They’re not even yelling.
They’re not here to start a fight.
“Can you fucking believe this?” Robb marches into the lounge, where I’m trying to study. Econ is kicking my butt already and we’re only a couple weeks into the semester.
“Which part?”
Robb holds up his phone. It’s open to the Twitter feed of Underhill SCORE. Picture after picture of the white protestors and their rabid, homemade signs.
Tiny flames erupt beneath my skin. My voice, though, barely simmers. “They misspelled the N-word. Kinda undercuts the argument, don’t you think?” My fingers fan the pages of my textbook. I really need to focus. I don’t have time for this.
“She was a little girl! Why are they picketing her funeral?”
I rub my temples. “Uh. ’Cause they’re messed in the head?”
“It makes no sense.”
“It’s racism. It never made any sense.”
Robb paces. “For a child.”
“Remember that school shooting? All the elementary schoolers? People planned to picket at the funeral.”
“That’s batshit.”
I shrug. It infuriates me to my marrow, and yet the world keeps turning. I still have an Econ quiz at two. “It happens all the time after hate crimes. The shooting in that nightclub in Florida.”
“The gay club?”
“Yeah. They’re cool with domestic terrorism as long as it’s ultra-wack white Christians doing the terrorizing.”
“Ultra-wack,” Robb echoes. He tosses himself down on one of the couches. Great. Now I’ll have to endure his popcorn thoughts.
“Look, I gotta study.”
“Sure, sure.” Robb scrolls through his phone, occasionally clucking in disgust. He never seems to study. I don’t know if he gets good grades like magic, or if he just doesn’t care if he does well. A job in his dad’s company is already waiting for him.
There are earbuds in my backpack, somewhere. Here they are. Whew. I pop them in, even though I was enjoying studying in silence. I really don’t feel like music right now.
My thumb stops on an album of thunderstorm sounds. Yup. That feels fitting.
When the bell rings at 11:40, I don’t go to the cafeteria. I pack up my books, take my coat from my locker, and bounce. No one stops me or asks questions. Easy as that. Skipping is a no-brainer, it turns out.
All I know is, I can’t sit still anymore.
I’ve been prepping for college. Steve’s big on academic achievement, and I’ve got the goods, you know? I can put pencil to paper and come up with some solid thesis statements or whatever.
Today, I don’t know. Four more years feels like a long time to be cooped up in a classroom, waiting for real life to kick in. Real life’s alive and kicking all over Underhill, right this very minute.
Or else it’s got a bullet in it. And it’ll all be over before it begins.
The apartment is quiet in the middle of the day. Too quiet.
The pile of textbooks stares silently back at me from the middle of the dining room table. This homework feels like nothing now. No meaning to it.
On the other hand, my backpack, my hoodie, a half-dozen cans of paint—they scream to me.
What went down with Tariq Johnson, well, you could chalk that up to bad luck. A freak thing. Call it gang banging, put it in a box with things that don’t make sense, and padlock it away.
But this girl now? Shae?
You can’t call that nothing but racist. Tragic. The cops are gunning for our annihilation, one innocent at a time. They say they ain’t, but they keep on shooting. What’s that?
I should do my calculus worksheet now … but why? Because, screw it, I could spend ten years getting a PhD or whatever and still get shot on the street like a dog. LIKE A DOG. Worse than a dog, actually. With a dog, they stun you or Tase you and throw you in a net. They don’t shoot to kill dogs. Say it’s inhumane. I’ll paint a dog, being killed. Watch the news cover it as a blight on the community. I’ll paint a black man being killed. No news. Cruelty to animals = sickness. We are less than animals now.
We Don’t Call It a Picnic
Ladies, ladies
loud ladies
big ladies
chewing ladies
sipping ladies
humming, Lord Jesus
humming, my baby
humming all the way to the cathedral sky
crying ladies
hugging ladies
stories and stories and stories
all sad
laughing anyway
checkered tablecloth
fried chicken and greens
biscuits and mac and cheese
vocabulary word: cliché
means
always delicious
princess tablecloth, like someone’s birthday
pies and cakes and cookies
yum
red tablecloth
iced tea and lemonade
and someone’s uncle, Arnold Palmer
vocabulary word: family
means
blood and beyond
plain black tablecloth, plastic
photos and notebooks and tears
because
they don’t make deathday tablecloth
“Hi, Tyrell.” The background hums with sounds of chatter.
“Tina? Where are you?” My brain zings upright. Is she lost? Is she in trouble?
“I memorized your number. I can call you from any phone.”
“That’s very smart. Whose phone are you using?”
“The one on the wall.”
“Which wall?”
“The church. It’s a funeral,” she says.
Oof. “You’re at Shae’s funeral right now?”
“There are too many people.”
“I bet. Does your mom know where you are?”
“She’s busy.”
“What is she doing?”
“Holding Shae’s mom’s hand. She’s crying a lot.”
“I bet.” I rub my forehead. I’m really not sure how to help Tina from here. “Don’t go outside, okay?” I’ve seen the news. The mess over there is hard to fathom.
“There are too many people outside, too.”
“Yeah, exactly.”
“Did you know there are six different ways to make macaroni and cheese?”
“I bet there’s more than that,” I say. “Why do you think there are only six?”
“There are six macaroni pans on the table downstairs. They all look different.”
“Which one did you like best?”
“The ones without any crunchy stuff on top.”
“Oh, but the crunchy stuff is my favorite.”
“You can have it.”
I laugh. “You’re all about the cheese, huh?”
“Tariq says cheese and noodles are the perfect food.”
“Yeah, he liked his mac and cheese, didn’t he?” My eyes close of their own accord. Let the memories scroll across the screen of my mind. With Tina on the end of the line, it doesn’t hurt as much. My heart doesn’t try to stop.
“Everyone likes mac and cheese, silly.”
“Who you calling silly, silly?”
Tina giggles. There is a small pause. “I won’t go outside,” she says. “There are lots of police out there. I don’t want them to get me.”
Oh, my heart. “You stay with your mom, and you’ll be okay.” I want to add, I promise, but it doesn’t seem very wise, all things considered.
We light candles in the living room. “In honor of a young life lost,” Daddy says.
“We could go to the funeral,” I say.
“No, we can’t,” Mommy says. “No one wants to see Daddy there.”
“Because he did a bad thing?” It doesn’t make sense, because when you do a bad thing, you’re supposed to apologize.
“He did his job.” Mommy is what Daddy calls a broken record, saying the same thing over and over.
“But what happened is a tragedy,” I say. This is the word everyone keeps using. The worst of the worst possible thing. The most terrible kind of sadness.
Daddy puts his head in his hands.
“It’s complicated,” Mommy says. “Let’s pray.”
Host: Shae Tatum’s funeral in Underhill.
NNN Commentator: This is the wildest thing I’ve ever seen. Protesting at a child’s funeral?
Guest Activist: There’s a history of counterprotest. Remember, the “God Hates Fags” contingent showed up at Matthew Shepard’s funeral.
Commentator: What is the point? It’s insult to injury. What do they hope to accomplish?
Guest: It’s a stunt.
Commentator: It’s twisted.
Host: And yet, legal. First Amendment protections.
Commentator: Hate speech is not protected. This is hate speech.
Guest: We have freedom of beliefs in this country. That doesn’t mean we have to tolerate cruelty.
Commentator: We tolerate a lot in the name of religious faith.
Guest: When a serial killer says God made him do it, we don’t let him off the hook for his crimes. Are we supposed to accept murder as a protected aspect of faith?
Host: That’s a false parallel.
Guest: Actually it’s not.
Commentator: But the white supremacists will turn around and say the same. That the mere presence of diversity impinges on their beliefs.
Guest: It doesn’t. It’s not the same.
Host: Why not?
Guest: Because exclusion and liberty can’t co-exist. Exclusion means you don’t have liberty and justice for all. Full inclusion is, or should be, an American value.
Commentator: The minute you accept the premise that intolerance is a valid point of view, you lose freedom.
Guest: Exactly.
Host: Isn’t that intolerant?
Guest: No. Empirically. My existence makes no threat to the personhood and liberty of a white supremacist. His existence does make a threat to mine.
Commentator: He perceives a threat, though.
Guest: He also thinks white people are better and more deserving than non-white people. His perception is not reality. More importantly, his perception does not get to define MY reality.
Host: Freedom of speech—
Commentator: I get it. It’s the difference between beliefs and actions.
Guest: You can believe you’re better than me all you want—
Commentator: But look at their signs. “She had it coming”? And what was trending on social media this morning from the same people? “The only good n—— is a dead n——.” I won’t say that word on air …
Guest: Thank you.
Commentator: That message is about more than a belief. It’s a call to action. That’s troubling.
Guest: My liberty does not stop a white supremacist from enjoying his own liberty. His existence and beliefs are specifically about limiting what someone who looks like me can do in society. How is that freedom?
Commentator: White supremacy enforces liberty for whites only, at the expense of all others. Which is the system we’re already living under.
Host: The system—
Guest: If a police officer is justified in shooting any citizen who appears to possibly have something in their hand, then we’d see similar proportions of dead “suspects” across races. If this justification only holds when the citizen is black, then black people are not safe anywhere. Not while holding a cell phone, not while driving lawfully, not while listening to headphones. As long as bias is our reality, black Americans are not truly free.
We sit side by side on the steps of the church. Zeke rubs his forehead, looking tired. “I’m starving. You wanna get some food?”
“Oh, sure.”
He jolts upright, dropping his hand. “I mean, uh, no. I mean, Kimberly, would you like to … or maybe not … I didn’t mean to suggest … I just said it.” His cheeks are all flushed. He’s adorable when he’s flustered.
“I’m hungry, too,” I said. “There’s a diner where my roommate works. If her manager’s not in, she can hook us up with some free dessert or something.”
“Sounds good,” he says, relieved.
He’s bending over backward to make clear that he wasn’t asking me out. Got it. I let him off the hook with a smile. “You act like you’ve never eaten out with a friend before.”
“Friend? Right. Yeah.” He shakes his head. “That’s totally normal.”
Now my cheeks are flushing. We’re side by side now. Maybe he won’t notice.
We walk in silence for a block or so. Should I be trying to make conversation? My head is kind of swirling with everything that happened this morning and I don’t know how to shake loose of it. I can’t get the image of those kids and that hateful sign out of my head.
“You’re really good at the media stuff,” Zeke says. “What did you major in?”
“Oh, I didn’t go to college.”
He blinks long and slow at me. “Really? Why not?”
“I got my cosmetology license,” I say.
He nods. “That’s great. And do you like what you’re doing now?”
“Yeah, sure,” I say. “I make decent tips at the salon. And I still have some time to volunteer.” I wave my cell phone at him. The battery is down to one red sliver of life.
He grins. “Sure. Well, we’re glad you’re on board.”
We. Okay. I get it. Still, it’s no effort at all to smile back. He has that kind of draw. “Right.”
“I mean, uh—” His long fingers dance in the air between us. “I mean, I’m glad you’re here.”
My face is hot, hot. “Thanks. I’m glad you’re here, too. Although, I mean, I guess none of us would be here if not for you, so…” Gah. Awkward much? My brain screams at me. SHUT UP.
“I’m proud of the work we’re doing,” he says. “SCORE is going to make a difference around here. I really think so.”
“Me too.” My hand twitches with the impulse to reach out and hold his. But I can’t. That would be weird. I don’t know where he is with all of this. It’s okay. We’re friends. Colleagues. He wants to share a meal with me. It’s enough.
We arrive at the diner. Jennica is working, which I expected. The place is not too crowded. She greets us and seats us near a window. Prime table placement. She lays down the menus for us, but I stay standing.
“Excuse me for a minute. I’m going to wash my hands.”
I make huge eyes at Jennica and tip my head toward the bathroom. It’s a one-seater, which I know, but she follows me in there anyway.
“Is this him? Zeke?”
“Yeah.”
She smiles and smacks my arm lightly with the backs of her fingers. “Oh, he’s cute.”
“Right?” I can’t hold it. I slip into the stall.
“Totally. And he’s into you.”
“You were there for like two seconds. How can you tell?”
“I know what guys are like. He was looking at you.”
It feels like I’m going to pee forever. I speak over the sound of it. “So, wait, is this a date?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Jennica says.
“We were both hungry after working the funeral. Not exactly romantic.”
“If he didn’t want to spend extra time with you, he’d be eating by himself.” Jennica starts washing her hands. “I have to go back. I have other tables.”
I squeeze my way around the stall door. My reflection in the mirror is frazzled and all my makeup is worn. “Gah. I’m so not dressed for this. Maybe it’s not a date.”
“If he pays, it’s a date. Go get him.” She grins and slips out the door.
Forty minutes later, Jennica lays the check on the table. She glances at me out the corner of her eye, as she positions it delicately in the middle of the table. Exactly between us. It is all I can do not to laugh.
Moment of truth. Zeke reaches for the check. When he does, I put my hand forward also.
“I got it,” he says.
“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” I blurt, fumbling toward my purse.
“You worked hard today. The least SCORE can do is buy you dinner.”
Ah. So, he’s treating but as a SCORE work meal. What does this mean?
“Well, thanks,” I say. “That’s really nice of you.”
He smiles. “This was fun.”
“Yeah, it was. Thanks.” How many times do I need to thank him? Sheesh.
Zeke stands up. He plucks my coat off my chair and holds it while I slide my arms in. I make an excited face at Jennica while my back is to him. She gives me a double thumbs-up.
We step out to the sidewalk.
Zeke says, “I’d, uh … Kimberly, I’d like to buy you dinner another time, if you might be interested.”
They’re cute together. Kimberly claims not to know if he’s interested in her, but it’s so obvious. I mean, come on.
I’m happy for her, but there’s more to it. Something under the skin that doesn’t sit right. Maybe I’m jealous, which is awful and unfair. Kimberly deserves everything.
I’m butterfingers all afternoon. Feel it all slipping from my fingers.
When the door bell jangles, I know without turning who it’s gonna be.
Noodle. He had to choose tonight to drop by. It’s like he’s got some kind of radar for when I’m lonely, when I’m sad, when I’m vulnerable. How does he do that? How does he read my mood from all the way across the neighborhood? When we were together, he couldn’t read my mood from across the room.
“What are you doing here, Noodle?”
“I came to see you, baby. I missed you.”
Maybe. It sucks how much I want it to be true. “Then why don’t you ever text me back?” He’s hurt me too many times. I’m supposed to be strong. I am strong.
“I’ve been busy,” he says. “This girl who died, all the chaos. Haven’t you been busy, too?”
“Sure, of course.” I wave at the rest of the diner. “In fact, I’m busy right now.” If I walk away, maybe he’ll go. Not so much.
“Table for one,” he says, following me.
“Why don’t you just sit at the counter?” I suggest. Noodle doesn’t pay his check, let alone tip the way Brick does. I don’t want him taking up a whole table when it’s about to be the dinner rush.
“Nah.” He tosses himself into a prime booth that could seat four. “This is cozy.”
I pull in one big breath, gather my courage. “If you’re gonna sit there, you gotta spend at least fifty bucks,” I inform him. “It’ll come out of my tips, otherwise.”
Noodle grins. “Sure, sure. You know I’m good for it.”
“Up front,” I insist.
He reaches into his wallet and pulls out a fifty. “Most expensive cheeseburger I ever ate,” he says, grinning.
“Well done with fries and a shake?”
He grins. “I haven’t changed.”
Lord knows that.
As I return to the kitchen, my cell vibrates in my apron pocket.
This is me, texting you.
And then, while I check on my other tables.
You look hella sexy in that apron.
And then, while I’m refreshing the coffee.
Do that hair flippy thing that I like.
And then I stop looking. The phone vibrates six more times.
“Order up,” Troy calls.
I march back to Noodle’s table with the burger. He’s all smiles, all surface chill.
“What, you don’t write me back?” He pouts. “After giving me all that grief?”
I push the plate over to him and smack down a bottle of ketchup. “Stop it. I’m working.”
“Aren’t you gonna ask me if there’s anything else I need?”
The words almost rush out of me, by habit. But … “No.” I walk away.
He texts twice more. I don’t look. The diner gets more crowded, and Noodle’s taking his time with the fries and shake. I want his table to turn over.
When I finally circle back to clear his dishes, he says, “No, seriously. I hate to think you’ve been waiting by the phone.” His hand teases my hip.
“Of course not,” I lie. “I have a life. It’s just … if you’re gonna drop by like this, it’d be nice to hear from you in between.”
“We’re not together anymore,” he says. As if I need reminding. “You got no claim on me. We’re chill. We’re casual. I thought that’s what you wanted. Just friends, and shit.”
“We’re not getting back together,” I assure him. “I’m not expecting anything.”
“Then why you giving me grief about a few texts, baby? We cool?”
“Sure. Yeah.” I want him to go. I want him to leave me alone before it all becomes too much and the inevitable happens. I’m not strong. Not nearly strong enough to fight all the things he reminds me of. Being held. Being part of a pair. Having someone who would always, always bring me home.
As if I have willed it, Noodle grabs his coat and slides out of the booth. He seems not to notice that I’m holding his dirty plates in my hand. He wraps his arms around me and pulls me close. “Love you,” he says. “Miss you.” He holds me just long enough that my body wants to relax into him and let him carry me away.
He leaves, and about ten minutes later, my phone vibrates again. This time, I check, just in case it’s not him.
I really miss you, Noodle texts. Come home with me tonight?
It may or may not be true. The truth is that I’ve missed him and he knows it.
“What are you doing in my room?” Will demands. He marches in through the open door and tosses his backpack onto his bed.
I drew the short straw on who gets to talk with Will. Actually, I lobbied for the gig, although at the moment it doesn’t exactly feel like a win.
My wife is hopping mad, too mad to have this conversation in a reasonable tone. “I will tear him limb from limb,” she announced, the moment she hung up from the school attendance office. They called to report that Will missed his afternoon classes.
I offered to talk to him first, since she was threatening to take a metal spatula to his backside, as if he was still young enough to be cowed by the fear of a spanking. It seemed like a good plan at the time, but it failed. The second he walked through the door, she lit into him like there would be no tomorrow. So I came in here to wait.
“Mom already read me the riot act,” Will says.
“I heard.”
“So, leave me alone.”
“Let’s go get some ice cream,” I suggest.
He blinks, then scoffs. “What am I, seven?”
We used to go for ice cream when he was small. When my wife and I started seeing each other, he was so young, and already jaded by the world. By the men of the world, in particular. It took a long time to worm my way in, and looking at him now, I’m not sure if I ever fully got there.
“Rocky road,” I say. “Cookie dough. Are you really gonna make me go down there alone?” Ice cream outings used to be good for us. We got to talk a little, even if it was only about the merits of various toppings.
“I want to be alone,” Will says.
“She might not be finished,” I tell him. “If I go out there and have to say we didn’t talk, you better believe you’re gonna hear more from your mother.”
It’s a cheap shot, I know, but desperate times.
Will considers me. “I’m getting an entire banana split,” he says. “With extra everything.”
“You can order whatever you want.” I clap him on the shoulder. He flinches.
We stand at the window, looking down at the night. My condo overlooks the park, and the neighborhood beyond. They’ve placed floodlights at each corner. They’ve linked up rows of metal barred fences to keep people from gathering on the grass. So instead, people fill the streets, pressing and surging and chanting.
“You seen these barricades,” I tell Noodle. “We can’t stand for it. This is our turf.”
“You wanna walk up and tell the popo that? They will carve you up. Pigs.” He spits into an empty glass on the windowsill.
“Maybe we carve them up first. Let them know whose space they’re stepping into.”
Noodle huffs. “Sure, right. We’ll get right on that.” He sips his drink with a grin.
He thinks I’m not serious. Thinks I wouldn’t rather be down there screaming with everyone else. It’s not a planned protest. It’s organic, spontaneous. A pouring out. We may be disorganized, but we are unified. And we are loud.
Behind us, the never-ending music thumps on. I could lose myself in it, find some honey to wriggle against me, soft and warm. There’s someone for me. Always. Any woman I want. The one in the hot-pink mini skirt. Damn. The one with the shaved head and earrings like Olympic rings. Hmhmmm.
It’s ten-fifteen. In an hour or so, I ought to shut this party down. Make sure everyone gets home safe, before the midnight curfew.
Or.
Or, I could shut it down now, and take the party to the streets. Bust into my arsenal and take it to the cops. Show them a taste of what Underhill really has to offer. There’s enough of us. We could do some damage.
I wish—goddammit. I wish I could have this conversation with someone else besides Noodle. Anyone.
No, not anyone.
Jennica isn’t the most bookish person I ever met, but she asks the right kinds of questions. The stuff she doesn’t know shows me what I know and don’t know. The shit she knows is on a whole other level. She knows how to stay calm when everything is flying off the handle.
“No joke,” I insist. “We gotta go down there.”
Noodle takes down his drink in a gulp. “Why, so they can throw us in jail? You want a replay of the other night?”
“Throw us in jail for what?” My throat is tight and my fists are like rocks.
“Aw man, you know they’ll find something. The whole point is they come after us for nothing now. We can get high and forget about it.” He reaches for the bottle. Offers it to me. Even though he knows I don’t drink anymore. Gotta keep a clear head.
Clear head.
Clear head.
“You think it’ll blow over?” I try to breathe. I shouldn’t give a whit about Shae Tatum. I don’t. I mean, I wouldn’t, if not for Sheila. I know good and well that I walk a line. I’m no innocent bystander. If I go down with a pig bullet in me, it’ll be my choice. My fight. I do what I gotta do.
“Naw,” Noodle says. “They’re gunning for us. Don’t make today no different than yesterday. Tomorrow, either.”
I look at him hard. Gunning for us. Sure. We live under the gun, Noodle and me. By choice. Cops roll up on us, it’s ’cause of who we are, ’cause of what we do, not how we look.
This is different.
There’s such a thing as innocence. When they start coming for our littlest ones, we can’t stand for it.
Usually I do homework on the bus. Tonight, I’m boycotting homework. It’s bullshit.
Without a book or a math problem, the ride is long. Interminable.
The news says the curfew’s coming down at midnight, preventing people from being out late. So what’s different about that? They’re always patrolling. Always ready to roll up on guys like me. I know how to duck and cover. Screw ’em. I have things to say.
I paint the dog thing:
RULES FOR DOGCATCHERS:
STUN GUNS ONLY, GENTLE TOUCH
RULES FOR POLICING BLACK COMMUNITIES:
SHOOT FIRST, ASK QUESTIONS LATER
After the fact, my fingers are ink-stained. A hole in my glove I didn’t notice. Steve will blow a fit if he catches the stain on me. He doesn’t know it’s written all over me already. Indelible.
Anyway, I’m not going home. Not yet.
I want to see what goes down. I want to paint it.
Put my mark on the world.
They’re coming for us. Dressed in red and black, the colors of the 8-5 Kings. A handful of Kings lead the protest, and they’ll stay out walking and chanting past curfew. There is heavy media coverage and citizen journalism. We are instructed to discharge a weapon only in the event of very last possible resort. The reminder echoes in the back of my mind. Because, isn’t that always true? Isn’t that what we’re taught in the first place?
I know how to do my job. Shooting is always the very last possible resort. This is how we live. They remind us anyway. Firing into a crowd is dangerous. We are being filmed.
The street teems with angry people carrying signs. First Amendment. Chanting:
“Unarmed! Not a threat! Unarmed! Not a target!”
Unarmed … so they say.
I’m scrolling, I’m scanning. Faces and bodies and hands. Looking for weapons. The glint of screens in the darkness comes from everywhere. Glint after glint.
My fingers itch toward my gun. No, toward my baton, which I will reach for first. I’m committed to that. No mistakes.
My heart races. It is hard to remember to swallow.
I have a shield. A vest. A helmet. A baton. A gun. They have to go through a lot to get to me. They won’t get there.
I’m scrolling, I’m scanning. Glint after glint.
Twenty minutes to go. The crowd will thin. It will. When the curfew hits, anyone who remains gets arrested.
@UnderhillSCORE: We don’t retreat. We don’t back down. We demand answers. We demand our rights. #TodayForShae #TomorrowForAll
@TroubleInRiverCty: Shae Tatum’s crime: running while black. #convicted
@Momof6: I feel sad for police officers working today. This is the treatment they get for trying to serve and protect?
@Momof6: Do what you’ve gotta do down there in #Underhill, fellas. We’ve got your back.
@Momof6: Respecting cops is the law. Right to protest be damned. #BlueLivesMatter
@Viana_Brown: The world is on fire. Stay safe out there, friends. #TodayForShae #TomorrowForAll
@WhitePowerCord: Like monkeys in the zoo. Making sounds and throwing feces. Ooh Ooh. Fenced in! Tear gas! Tase their asses! #PassThePopcorn
@KelvinX_: Underhill, take your stand. #TodayForShae #TomorrowForAll