Pam sat on her bed inside her dorm room at the Ohio State University, staring at the black handgun lying just in front of her. She couldn’t believe what had happened at the Waffle House. It was surreal. Her brazen attempt at trying to be cute now crumbled. She had never seen a real handgun, let alone touched one, until last night. It took her two hours of pacing and debating just to get up the nerve to pull it out of her purse. She slept little during the night, thinking of it in her room. Should she call the police? Should she go to the dean of students? Should she call the campus police? How about just toss the thing inside the nearest trash can? But what if she ran into him again, and he wanted it back? What would she do? What would he do if she didn’t have it to give back?
“So, what are you going to do?” Tomiko asked, looking at Pam, then at the gun.
Tomiko Harrison was Pam’s roommate. She was nineteen, a sophomore from Houston, Texas. She had run to Ohio State because it was the first place she could think of that was far enough away from her parents, particularly her mother.
Tomiko wasn’t going to be the long-haired, green-eyed, yellow-skinned AKA with the Fisk degree and fiancé from Meharry Medical School. Those were her mother’s dreams, not her own. She was determined never to set foot on that campus in Nashville, if she could help it.
Her mother was crestfallen at Tomiko’s graduation when she had broken the news, but her father had given her a secret thumbs-up. To gain her own identity, Tomiko had stripped the perm out of her hair and did everything she could to lock it. She wore it in twists, and braids, and even had coarser hair braided into her fine locks so that she could have the appearance of dreads. It was her personal declaration of independence from her mother.
Thanks to Tomiko, Pam was quickly learning where to get a decent hot meal on High Street, away from the dorm cafeteria, how to balance school and her blooming social life, and where the hottest nightspots were nestled in the bustling streets of downtown Columbus.
“I don’t know!” Pam answered Tomiko’s question.
Tomiko sat on Pam’s bed, with the handgun sitting between them. “Well, you better decide something quick.”
“I know, girl!” Pam sighed, frustrated. “What do you think I should do?”
“Get rid of the thing! I would have given it to the police last night!”
“No,” Pam said, shaking her head, “he would have gone to jail.”
“So?” Tomiko said, turning up her palms. “You don’t even know him!”
“I know he’s black . . . and there are enough black men in jail already!”
“He was carrying a gun, Pammy! You wonder why there are so many in jail. Maybe it’s because they do stupid shit like carry guns to places where people are just having a good time. This is how so many of our guys also end up in the cemetery.”
Pam nodded. Tomiko had a point.
“I say we take it to him, and throw it at him,” Tomiko suggested.
“What?”
“He didn’t give a shit about you when he stuck it in your purse last night!”
“He did. He just knew that the police weren’t searching the women.”
“Make excuses for him,” Tomiko said with a teasing smile. “He must have been cute.”
“That has nothing to do with anything,” Pam protested.
“Was he cute, Pammy?”
Pam hesitated and then nodded reluctantly. “He was kinda cute. Girl, he had some pretty-ass eyes.”
Tomiko nodded. “Um-hum, that’s what I thought. Girl, you willing to go to jail for a cute face. I really need to school you.”
“I ain’t stupid, girl,” Pam confirmed, rolling her eyes. “You don’t need to school me.”
“This isn’t you.” Tomiko pointed toward the gun. “In the streets, you’re like a babe in the woods. I knew I shouldn’t have took you to the spot last night.”
“Girl please, that has nothing to do with anything.”
Tomiko grabbed her purse. “Look, let’s hop in the Beemer and go and find this mystery man.”
“How are we going to do that? It’s Sunday afternoon, and shit, I don’t even know his name!”
“You know what he looks like, don’t you?” Tomiko quizzed. “Besides, we know he carries a gun, so he’s probably one of those fools that hang out at the gambling shack, or over by the projects selling that stuff.”
“You want to go over there?” Pam said, with her eyes bucked out of her head.
“Girl, we can leave the top up on the ride and just roll through real quick to see if you spot him.”
“Two females in your car, rolling through the hood, and you think nobody is going to pay any attention to us?” Pam asked sarcastically. “And even if we do find him, then what? I’m gonna just walk up to him and say, ‘Hey, stranger, here is your murder weapon back’? Girl, what if he shoots us?”
“And you didn’t think about that when you accepted the damn thing?”
“I didn’t accept anything!” Pam protested. “He stuck it in my purse!”
“And you could have stuck it back in his face and told him you didn’t want it. Or you could have given it to the police.”
Pam folded her arms and crossed her legs.
“Okay, okay, you ain’t down for turning brother-man in,” Tomiko told her. “I’m cool with that. But damn, girl.”
“Let’s just find him, and you can give it back to him.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, Tomiko, you ain’t scared of nobody. Hell, you carry guns in the back of your pickup truck down in Houston.”
“Ha, ha, real funny. Does it look like I drive a pickup truck?”
“Girl, you know y’all be hunting down in Texas.”
“Pam, don’t make me front on Detroit, ’cause you know better. Even the babies carry guns in their diapers in that dangerous mother.”
Pam laughed heavily. “Get off my city. I’m from Motown, baby!”
“Girl, get your illegal-ass gun and let’s go find this nigga.”
Pam took a sock, lifted the gun, and put it inside a paper bag. She was determined not to get any of her fingerprints on it.
“You think it done killed somebody?” Pam asked.
“Girl, let’s just hope it don’t kill nobody today!” Tomiko told her. “And by nobody, I mean us!”
“Amen!”