CHAPTER 8

MY ALARM CLOCK BARELY BUZZES TWO times before I slam the snooze button with the palm of my hand and climb back across my blanket to the edge of my bed closest to the door. My chin slams hard into the floor while my feet fly over my head and down to the rug, leaving me flipped over flat, facing the ceiling. I squint across our dark room, checking to see if anybody witnessed it, and DeShawn pokes his head out from under his covers, shakes his head, and goes back to sleep. Markus doesn’t even move. Saturday is the day they try to pretend they don’t have any responsibilities. I wake up with one responsibility that’s too important to sleep on. I fling the door open and run down the hall, hearing Dad shuffling around in the kitchen even though I don’t smell nothin’ breakfasty happenin’ in there.

“Where y’all going?” I blurt out the minute I realize both my parents are heading toward the front door. Out of breath and feeling like I have to talk fast, I don’t have time to say anything else.

“Well, good morning to you, too, Simon,” Moms says, looking over her shoulder, gasping for a second when she checks out what I just did to my face. Both of her shoulders have bags full of kitchen tools and groceries, otherwise a whole first aid kit woulda been out already. Her eyes watch the blood starting to ooze from my chin.

“How’d you sleep, little ma—I mean, Notorious D.O.G.?” I can tell by the way Dad says this that he’s tryna soften me up. He’s got more grocery bags in both hands. He steps closer to get a better look at the open cut I just gave myself rushing out of bed and drops the bags in front of the door.

“I slept fine. Y’all about to leave? We’re getting people to sign our petition today!” I coulda sworn I told Dad about the plan last night when I got back from C.J.’s, and I even mentioned it to Moms that night right after Maria told us what she was thinking at lunch. And when I got back home last night I still had to make something else for Maria so I couldn’t talk too much before bed. But they still should have remembered. Maybe they’re just running to the store for breakfast stuff. Yeah, that’s it. Chill, Simon. They both look at each other for a second before Moms starts to answer and Dad starts to move.

“Simon, baby, you know I made a commitment at the shelter, right?” She pauses, waiting for me to say something about how she promised to cook at the shelter a few Saturdays a month. “Baby, you don’t think you need a Band-Aid or somethin’?”

“And I’m picking up your friend Sunny. Gonna take him for a haircut and a shave. Gonna give him some time to get himself cleaned up and in some new clothes that don’t smell like the shelter. We thought it’d be good for us to do this on the same day. Plus, it’ll give us a head start on making sure things are all set for your open mic tomorrow. You know how it is over there, Si. They forget we’re comin’ sometimes. Here, let me just…” Dad is tryna back Moms up so I don’t get too mad about what they’re not really telling me. He seems like it only takes him four steps, tops, to get in and out of the kitchen with a wet towel. He grabs my head and pushes my chin in it and the coldness spreads through my face. We hear the toilet flush from down the hall and Aaron lets out a dramatic yawn as he flings the door open. He scratches his stomach, walking through the kitchen into the living room, and plops down onto the couch.

“Don’t nobody go in there for at least thirty to forty-five minutes,” he says, laughing by himself. He takes a look at the three of us and pulls his phone from the pocket of his basketball shorts.

“Like I was saying,” Moms continues while clearing her throat. “We made a commitment at the shelter to keep helping after your project was over, and we need to do what we said we’re gonna do. Including being here for our family so we can help others,” she adds, eyeballing Aaron and pausing for a second. His thumb is already in scrolling position, and his mouth hangs open a little bit as his thumb sweeps the screen upward, over and over again. He double-taps and then keeps going. At this rate, Moms will never let me get my own cell phone. If you cracked open Aaron’s skull, you’d prob find nothing but mush up in there. “When one of us cares about something important in this house, we all care about it,” Moms says. “That’s why Aaron agreed to take you and your friends out to get people to sign y’all’s petition today.”

Aaron’s thumb freezes and he stares in the direction of his phone for a second but is clearly no longer scrolling. I know he has no idea how helping me with this petition stuff has anything to do with him. But Moms don’t sound like she’s asking. He looks like he’s about to say something to her but instead he lets out a deep sigh, dropping his phone into his lap and folding his arms. Whatever he was about to waste his Saturday on just got cut by Moms’ deathly stare. Sometimes Aaron looks like wherever he puts all his quick comebacks and anger toward grown-ups is going to get too big to stay inside him. One day, it’s all gonna come spraying out like Silly String from the can, water hose style.

“Okay, okay, you got it, Ma,” Aaron says in a way that sorta sounds like he just wants Moms to leave him alone. You got it is definitely code for STOP TALKING. And it really sounds like a polite way to tell Moms to stop talking without getting grounded. He might not care about what me, C.J., and Maria got going on but if agreeing to chaperone us today means Moms will get off his back, Aaron will probably do it.

“Why don’t you take ’em up over on Linden to that block party they got goin’ on today after y’all leave Ford Park. It’s beautiful out and it’s gon’ be plenty of people out there, jammin’ and eatin’ and whatnot. It’ll be easy, son.” Now it sounds like Dad is talking to both of us. “Besides, I know you and your boys was probably gonna end up over there later anyway.” Dad opens the front door and steps back to let Moms walk out first and uses his head to call Aaron over to him. He lowers his voice and reaches out to shake Aaron’s hand while leaning in to speak into his ear: “Just think of it as a paid vacation.” I catch a flash of green and white going in between their hands.

He palms Aaron’s head like a basketball, pulling him in to kiss his forehead, pushes him back away from the door, and tells me to get a Band-Aid from the cabinet above the refrigerator. Then they’re both gone. Aaron raises the twenty-dollar bill in the air the way they check to see if it’s real at the movies and speaks to me for the first time since walking into the living room.

“You’re on your own, fool. I’m eating good today. Better get you some cereal and get dressed before I change my mind.”

Getting up early enough to make it into the bathroom before DeShawn and Markus is worth finding out that Aaron is taking us to get signatures instead of our parents. I got enough time to figure out my look before anybody starts banging on the door for me to hurry up. Everybody always needs the bathroom at the same time in the morning and I need to be far away from here when all that starts to go down. I try on three looks before I settle on one of my favorite Black Panther T-shirts with M’Baku on the front, a pair of khaki cargo pants with lots of pockets, and a pair of Jordans that Grandma Lucille got me last year even though Moms said I don’t need no expensive sneakers. Granny said she don’t have nothin’ to do with my money no way. I stare at myself in the mirror while using Markus’s brush to smooth down my sideburns and think about the different pictures Mr. James showed us this week. I don’t look nothin’ like the people he told us were in the original Black Panther Party. They wore black head to toe all the time but I just look like me.

I SAW PICTURES OF FRED HAMPTON AND HUEY NEWTON,  

  SOME ACTIVISTS FROM WAY BACK, NOT BOOKER T. STUDENTS.

THE WAY THEY WERE DRESSED SHOWS ME THEY MEANT BUSINESS.  

ALL BLACK—THAT’S WHAT YOU ’SPOSE TO WEAR, ISN’T IT?

BUT HONESTLY, I SEEN OTHER PEOPLE DO IT DIFFERENT.

AND WEARING WHAT THEY WANT NEVER MESSED UP THEIR MISSION.

BEYONCÉ SPEAKS UP WHEN SHE WEARS IVY PARK,

AND A WOMAN NAMED MALALA WEARS A COOL HEAD SCARF!

  MARI COPENY, SHE’S A KID LIKE ME

WHO WAS DRESSED IN SOME JEANS AND A PLAIN OL’ TEE.  

DON’T FORGET LEBRON JAMES (HE RELATED TO MY TEACHER?).

ANYWAYS… HE WEARS A JERSEY, OR A SUIT, OR SNEAKERS.

SO I GUESS AN ACTIVIST CAN REALLY DRESS HOW THEY LIKE

  JUST AS LONG AS THEY’RE READY TO PUT UP A GOOD FIGHT!

TO SCRAP, TO RUMBLE, TO WRESTLE, TO SPAR—

NOT ABOUT WHAT YOU WEAR, IT’S ABOUT WHO YOU ARE.

WOOF! WOOF!

The doorbell rings and I know it has to be Maria.

“OH EM GEE, SIMON! I’m SO excited!” Maria starts talking a hundred miles a minute about all the places we could go before she’s all the way in the door. Her big sister, Camille, walks in behind her, looking like she feels the same way Aaron does. When she sits down on the couch and pulls out her phone I know she probably got the same speech, too, since Ms. Estelle doesn’t walk through the door behind them. I don’t see Maria and Camille together that much cuz Camille is always hanging out with her middle-school friends or blasting somebody named Noname in her room for hours. But when I do, I remember how different they are. From her skin to her clothes to her hair, I’d never think Camille was Maria’s big sister if I saw her walking down the street and didn’t already know who she is. Today Maria’s neon-yellow frames match some of the stripes in her favorite T-shirt that matches the patches in her favorite pair of jeans that match the shoelaces on her favorite pair of Vans. Her Afro puffs look especially tight next to the big, loose chunky curls hanging out of the opening of Camille’s black hoodie. Camille pulls the strings of her hood even tighter so the curls almost cover her face and slouches deeper into the couch. Me and Maria can hear the music blasting from her earbuds all of a sudden so it’s not surprising when she stuffs both her hands into the pouch of her overalls, leans back, and closes her eyes.

Maria hands over a map that she drew last night of all the stops we can make today. Whoa. “Simon, we can get HUNDREDS of signatures if we go here, here, here, and here and…,” she says pointing to each place that I hadn’t even thought about.

The doorbell starts ringing over and over, drowning out Maria’s travel plans. C.J.’s drip isn’t a surprise but it’s never not funny when any kind of important day comes around. To start with: Homie’s haircut is so fresh it looks like he walked out of Mr. Ray’s five minutes ago. Forehead so shiny I probably could brush my teeth in it. I cough the second I open the door wide enough to let him in and a big gust of too much of Uncle Jamaal’s cologne busts me in the face.

“Who’s in charge here?” is how Auntie Sharon says hello to me, stepping halfway in the door and peering around it to search our apartment for a grown-up. By this time, C.J.’s checking himself out in the big mirror by the door, not paying attention to me and Maria trying to hide how hard we both want to laugh.

Aaron walks through the kitchen, dressed and durag-less, with DeShawn and Markus behind him, and it looks like he used his big brother powers to transfer however he was feeling earlier over to them, which means he’s making them go with us, too. Both of them drag their feet behind him, pulling on wrinkled T-shirts and pushing crust out their eyes until they get one look at C.J. They lose it, and in seconds, Markus has tears streaming down his face from laughing so hard. I cover my mouth with one hand and point at Aaron with the other to answer Auntie Sharon’s question.

She sizes him up and I guess how big he is makes her believe me. When her eyes reach the top of his head, way above hers, she tells C.J., “That money I gave you is for the whole day, so don’t go blowin’ it all in one place,” in the same voice Dad used earlier to Aaron.

I stop laughing when I realize Dad left any money I might need in Aaron’s pocket. Face-palm.

“Preach, PreaCHA!” DeShawn hollers, crashing into Markus. He takes off running into the kitchen with one hand in the air and runs back with a dishrag, waving it like one of the old church ladies yelling things out during the sermon on Sundays.

“Boy, ya look like you ’bouta collect offering! Ha! That boy so fresh and so clean! Ha!” Markus shouts like the preaching pastor DeShawn’s talking to. I can tell by the look on Auntie Sharon’s face before she shuts the door behind her that the whole situation is way too dramatic but I catch C.J. cracking a smile, too. He’s been wearing suits for special days since I met him in kindergarten and all the other times they laughed didn’t stop him. Aaron shakes C.J.’s hand, bending down to straighten the tie that he’d been trying to fix in the mirror. C.J. turns to face Aaron for help with his collar and slaps Aaron’s hand away the second he notices somebody’s on the far end of the couch.

Camille had her eyes closed all the way up until Markus started going off about C.J.’s look. She pulls her hands out of her overalls, turns off whatever’s blasting in her earbuds, and pulls her hood all the way off.

“I got this,” C.J. tells Aaron with his eyes stuck on Camille.

“Can we go or what? I got homework,” she says, paying my boy no attention at all.

“Who’s pressed to get back home to do work?” DeShawn says, nudging Markus like Camille is some type of joke.

“We are.” And Maria walks to the door and waits while we all rush to get ready to go.