CHAPTER 10
THE NEXT DAY, I’m at the water fountain between classes when Wes—my Black friend—comes up. We haven’t hung in a while.
Dan and him have avoided each other since their beef from last year, when me and Wes were arguing about rap music.
“Drake is the best rapper out,” Wes said.
I wagged my head. “He’s a’ight. But he’s trash compared to—”
Dan jumped in. “Wes, there’s, like, twenty rappers better than Drake.”
Wes snapped on Dan. “No one asked you. Rap is a Black thing. Let me and Stephen speak.”
Ever since, they haven’t spoken.
Right now, Wes is with Devin, Erik, and Elijah. These four are tight-tight.
What’s funny is we all could pass for family, even though we’re not all half African American and white. Me, Wes, and Erik are. Devin is Dominican and Elijah is Puerto Rican.
“Whattup,” I say. Me, Wes, and the other guys fist-bump. “What’s good?”
“What you doing after school?” Wes asks. “We hitting the bowling alley. Come.”
“Dang, I have plans,” I say because I’m broke, plus I don’t feel like bowling.
“Word?” Wes rolls his eyes. “You mean you and Dan have plans, right?”
I’m glad Dan isn’t here. Because Dan would ask Wes, “Why you roll your eyes when you say my name?”
Wes thumbs his nose. “Let me talk with you, on the low.”
I’m confused. “A’ight.”
He asks Devin, Erik, and Elijah, “Wait here?”
When we’re far enough from Devin, Erik, and Elijah, Wes asks me in a soft voice, “Bruh, why you only be with white kids now?”
“Whoa. What?”
“You. You always with Dan, and Jen, Christopher, and Jeremiah.”
“If I only hang with them, how am I here with you?”
“This ain’t hanging.” He names times he’s seen me with Dan, Jen, and all them lately. “That is hanging. And they all white.”
I chuckle. “So? They white. And me and you just hung last . . .” Oh snap. I can’t even remember when. “Hold up. We last hung out . . .”
He raises an eyebrow. “Go ’head.”
“Wait. Me, you, and Devin hit the arcade. That was just . . .”
He finishes my sentence, all flat. “A month ago. Look at you. You can’t even really name when we last hung.”
“Yeah.” I feel grimy because I like Wes. “We should link up. Mos’ def.”
“We should. So don’t run from us.” He pauses. “Because we alike, y’feel me?”
“Alike?”
“Black. Brown.”
Here we go again. “Black.” Like my dad says, I’m only “Black.” This feels like my dad saying I need to stay in my lane.
“So I should stay in one lane?” I ask. “The Black lane?”
“Nah, bruh. I’m saying ride in mad lanes. But you only in one now. With some grimy heads.”
“Grimy? Grimy why? Who’s grimy? Dan? He’s not grimy just because you don’t like him.”
“You think I don’t like Dan. Dan’s okay, just nosy. Chad’s the one who’s grimy.”
I didn’t know they had history. “Why Chad? What’d he do?”
Wes take a deep breath and explains. “So, when Chad first started here, I was friendly to him. One day, we walked out near each other at dismissal, and his parents were outside waiting for him. I said bye and he ignored me. I stuck around to talk with a friend who wasn’t too far from Chad, and I overheard his parents say . . .”
“What?”
“His pops asked him, real disgusting, ‘Who is that?’ And Chad said, just as disgusting, ‘A nobody. That’s Dan’s friend.’ His pops told him, ‘Make sure. I don’t want to see you with kids like that.’ And his mom nodded, agreeing with his pops!”
I ask, “What they mean by ‘kids like that’?”
“That’s what I’m saying! Was I cursing? Was I being a troublemaker? No! His dad could’ve only meant one thing by ‘kids like that’—Black kids.”
“Wow, Wes, they were foul.”
“It gets worse. Then about a week later, a few of us were at the park playing Hands. Me, Elijah, and some white kids Elijah knew. So Chad and his friends—Andy and Gabe—came over. Chad asked to play, so me and him started, right?
“He puts his open hands on mine and I’m on the bottom. Smack. I smack his. Smack smack. I keep soft-smacking the back of his hands over and over, real easy. He gets lucky and pulls away once. Since I missed, it’s his turn to try and smack my hands. On his turn, he OD’s. He smacks my hands way too hard. His friends Andy and Gabe grin all evil. Then he keeps hitting me, harder and harder. I tell him, ‘Chad, chill,’ but homeboy keeps trying to smack my hands off.”
Wes’s face right now. Tight doesn’t even describe it. He eyes me like I’m Chad and he wants to snuff me.
“That’s so messed up. What you do?” I say.
“I pulled my hands back and asked, ‘Why you keep OD smacking hard when I said chill?!’ Chad’s friend Andy asked me, ‘What if Chad punched you in the face. What would you do?’ And I told him, ‘I’d knock his teeth out. And if you jumped in, I’d knock your teeth out.’”
Wes isn’t a troublemaker. But he’s not afraid to fight if he has to, even if the person is bigger. It happened when this eighth grader named Keith and his friend tried bullying Wes by soft-smacking his neck without knowing him. I wasn’t there, but I heard Wes dropped Keith with one punch. Everyone knows about it.
“So that’s when Chad and them left. To avoid getting their butts beat.”
“Woooow. I didn’t know.”
Talk about weird timing. Right now, Chad turns a corner, spots me talking to Wes, and then U-turns around the corner he came from.
“Son,” Wes says. “See? He’s butt. That’s why he just U-turned. Never bring him near me. And you should watch out with him. Dude’ll go too far if you let him.”
I nod, staring Wes in the eye. It feels like he has my back.
I lift my fist. “Let’s get up with each other soon. For real. All of us: you, Devin, Erik, Elijah.”
He nods. “Word.”
As our fists bump, I notice he rocks a black rubber bracelet like mine. I nod at the white letters on his. “What’s BLM?”
“Bruh, for real?” He shakes his head like he can’t believe I asked that. “Black Lives Matter. The fact you don’t know means you should hang with us more.”
It’s like he’s saying again that I’m riding too much in one lane—a white lane. It’s like he’s saying I’m slipping on being Black.
I don’t like looking ignorant, so later in computer lab, I type in Black lives matter. Dang! This page is full of links. Now I feel extra dumb for being clueless about it. I won’t be next time. I read parts of different links in my head.
Social movement . . . that the lives of Blacks matter . . .
A group saying life should be just as fair for Blacks as everyone else . . .
Black Lives Matter . . . mantra for people protesting police violence against Blacks . . .
Life should be just as fair for Blacks as everyone else.
This is so similar to what I’ve been thinking about. Life should be the same for me as it is for my white friends.
So me and Wes’s bracelets sorta mean the same thing?