فصل 23

TWENTY-THREE

It’s a quiet ride to Seven’s grandma’s house.

I told the truth. I did everything I was supposed to do, and it wasn’t fucking good enough. Khalil’s death wasn’t horrible enough to be considered a crime.

But damn, what about his life? He was once a walking, talking human being. He had family. He had friends. He had dreams. None of it fucking mattered. He was just a thug who deserved to die.

Car horns honk around us. Drivers shout the decision to the rest of the neighborhood. Some kids around my age stand on top of a car as they shout, “Justice for Khalil!”

Seven maneuvers around it all and parks in his grandma’s driveway. He’s silent and unmoving at first. Suddenly he punches the steering wheel. “Fuck!”

DeVante shakes his head. “This some bullshit.”

“Fuck!” Seven croaks. He covers his eyes and rocks back and forth. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

I wanna cry too. Just can’t.

“I don’t understand,” Chris says. “He killed Khalil. He should go to prison.”

“They never do,” Kenya mutters.

Seven hastily wipes his face. “Fuck this. Starr, whatever you wanna do, I’m down. You wanna burn some shit up, we’ll burn some shit up. Give the word.”

“Dude, are you crazy?” Chris says.

Seven turns around. “You don’t get it, so shut up. Starr, what you wanna do?”

Anything. Everything. Scream. Cry. Puke. Hit somebody. Burn something. Throw something.

They gave me the hate, and now I wanna fuck everybody, even if I’m not sure how.

“I wanna do something,” I say. “Protest, riot, I don’t care—”

“Riot?” Chris echoes.

“Hell yeah!” DeVante gives me dap. “That’s what I’m talking ’bout!”

“Starr, think about this,” Chris says. “That won’t solve anything.”

“And neither did talking!” I snap. “I did everything right, and it didn’t make a fucking difference. I’ve gotten death threats, cops harassed my family, somebody shot into my house, all kinds of shit. And for what? Justice Khalil won’t get? They don’t give a fuck about us, so fine. I no longer give a fuck.”

“But—”

“Chris, I don’t need you to agree,” I say, my throat tight. “Just try to understand how I feel. Please?”

He closes and opens his mouth a couple of times. No response.

Seven gets out and holds his seat forward. “C’mon, Lyric. Kenya, you staying here or you coming with us?”

“Staying,” Kenya says, her eyes wet from earlier. “In case Momma shows up.”

Seven nods heavily. “Good idea. She’ll need somebody.”

Lyric climbs off Kenya’s lap and runs up the walkway. Kenya hesitates. She looks back at me. “I’m sorry, Starr,” she says. “This ain’t right.”

She follows Lyric to the front door, and their grandma lets them inside.

Seven returns to the driver’s seat. “Chris, you want me to take you home?”

“I’m staying.” Chris nods, as if he’s settling with himself. “Yeah, I’m staying.”

“You sure you up for this?” DeVante asks. “It’s gon’ get wild out here.”

“I’m sure.” He eyes me. “I want everyone to know that decision is bullshit.”

He puts his hand on the seat with his palm facing up. I put my hand on his.

Seven cranks up the car and backs out the driveway. “Somebody check Twitter, find out where everything’s going down.”

“I got you.” DeVante holds up his phone. “Folks headed to Magnolia. That’s where a lot of shit happened last—” He winces and grabs his side.

“Are you up for this, Vante?” Chris asks.

DeVante straightens up. “Yeah. I got beat worse than this when I got initiated.”

“How’d they get you anyway?” I ask.

“Yeah. Uncle Carlos said you walked off,” says Seven. “That’s a long-ass walk.”

“Man,” DeVante groans in that DeVante way. “I wanted to visit Dalvin, a’ight? I took the bus to the cemetery. I hate that he by himself in the Garden. I didn’t want him to be lonely, if that make sense.”

I try not to think about Khalil being alone in Garden Heights, now that Ms. Rosalie and Cameron are going to New York with Ms. Tammy and I’m leaving too. “It makes sense.”

DeVante presses the towel against his nose and lip. The bleeding’s slacked up. “Before I could catch the bus back, King’s boys snatched me up. I thought I’d be dead by now. For real.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re not,” Chris says. “Gives me more time to beat you in Madden.”

DeVante smirks. “You a crazy-ass white boy if you think that’s gon’ happen.”

Cars are up and down Magnolia like it’s a Saturday morning and the dope boys are showing off. Music blasts, horns blare, people hang out car windows, stand on the hoods. The sidewalks are packed. It’s hazy out, and flames lick the sky in the distance.

I tell Seven to park at Just Us for Justice. The windows are boarded up and “Black owned” is spray-painted across them. Ms. Ofrah said they would be leading protests around the city if the grand jury didn’t indict.

We head down the sidewalk, just walking with no particular place to go. It’s more crowded than I realized. About half the neighborhood is out here. I throw my hoodie over my hair and keep my head down. No matter what that grand jury decided, I’m still “Starr who was with Khalil,” and I don’t wanna be seen tonight. Just heard.

A couple of folks glance at Chris with that “what the hell is this white boy doing out here” look. He stuffs his hands in his pockets.

“Guess I’m noticeable, huh?” he says.

“You’re sure you wanna be out here?” I ask.

“This is kinda how it is for you and Seven at Williamson, right?”

“A lot like that,” Seven says.

“Then I can deal.”

The crowds are too thick. We climb on top of a bus stop bench to get a better view of everything going on. King Lords in gray bandanas and Garden Disciples in green bandanas stand on a police car in the middle of the street, chanting, “Justice for Khalil!” People gathered around the car record the scene with their phones and throw rocks at the windows.

“Fuck that cop, bruh,” a guy says, gripping a baseball bat. “Killed him over nothing!”

He slams the bat into the driver’s side window, shattering the glass.

It’s on.

The King Lords and GDs stomp out the front window. Then somebody yells, “Flip that mothafucka!”

The gangbangers jump off. People line up on one side of the car. I stare at the lights on the top, remembering the ones that flashed behind me and Khalil, and watch them disappear as they flip the car onto its back.

Someone shouts, “Watch out!”

A Molotov cocktail sails toward the car. Then—whoompf! It bursts into flames.

The crowd cheers.

People say misery loves company, but I think it’s like that with anger too. I’m not the only one pissed—everyone around me is. They didn’t have to be sitting in the passenger’s seat when it happened. My anger is theirs, and theirs is mine.

A car stereo loudly plays a record-scratching sound, then Ice Cube says, “Fuck the police, coming straight from the underground. A young nigga got it bad ’cause I’m brown.”

You’d think it was a concert the way people react, rapping along and jumping to the beat. DeVante and Seven yell out the lyrics. Chris nods along and mumbles the words. He goes silent every time Cube says “nigga.” As he should.

When that hook hits, a collective “Fuck the police” thunders off Magnolia Avenue, probably loud enough to reach the heavens.

I yell it out too. Part of me is like, “What about Uncle Carlos the cop?” But this isn’t about him or his coworkers who do their jobs right. This is about One-Fifteen, those detectives with their bullshit questions, and those cops who made Daddy lie on the ground. Fuck them.

Glass shatters. I stop rapping.

A block away, people throw rocks and garbage cans at the windows of the McDonald’s and the drugstore next to it.

One time I had a really bad asthma attack that put me in the emergency room. My parents and I didn’t leave the hospital until like three in the morning, and we were starving by then. Momma and I grabbed hamburgers at that McDonald’s and ate while Daddy got my prescription from the pharmacy.

The glass doors at the drugstore shatter completely. People rush in and eventually come back out with arms full of stuff.

“Stop!” I yell, and others say the same, but looters continue to run in. A glow of orange bursts inside, and all those people rush out.

“Holy shit,” Chris says.

In no time the building is in flames.

“Hell yeah!” says DeVante. “Burn that bitch down!”

I remember the look on Daddy’s face the day Mr. Wyatt handed him the keys to the grocery store; Mr. Reuben and all those pictures on his walls, showing years and years of a legacy he’s built; Ms. Yvette walking into her shop every morning, yawning; even pain-in-the-ass Mr. Lewis with his top-of-the-line haircuts.

Glass shatters at the pawnshop on the next block. Then at the beauty supply store near it.

Flames pour out both, and people cheer. A new battle cry starts up:

The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire! We don’t need no water, let that mothafucka burn!

I’m just as pissed as anybody, but this . . . this isn’t it. Not for me.

DeVante’s right there with them, yelling out the new chant. I backhand his arm.

“What?” he says.

Chris nudges my side. “Guys . . .”

A few blocks away, a line of cops in riot gear march down the street, followed closely by two tanks with bright lights.

“This is not a peaceful assembly,” an officer on a loudspeaker says. “Disperse now, or you will be subject to arrest.”

The original battle cry starts up again: “Fuck the police! Fuck the police!”

People hurl rocks and glass bottles at the cops.

“Yo,” Seven says.

“Stop throwing objects at law enforcement,” the officer says. “Exit the streets immediately or you will be subject to arrest.”

The rocks and bottles continue to fly.

Seven hops off the bench. “C’mon,” he says, as Chris and I climb off too. “We need to get outta here.”

“Fuck the police! Fuck the police!” DeVante continues to shout.

“Vante, man, c’mon!” says Seven.

“I ain’t scared of them! Fuck the police!”

There’s a loud pop. An object sails into the air, lands in the middle of the street, and explodes in a ball of fire.

“Oh shit!” DeVante says.

He hops off the bench, and we run. It’s damn near a stampede on the sidewalk. Cars speed away in the street. It sounds like the Fourth of July behind us; pop after pop after pop.

Smoke fills the air. More glass shatters. The pops get closer, and the smoke thickens.

Flames eat away at the cash advance place. Just Us for Justice is fine though. So is the car wash on the other side of it, “black owned” spray-painted on one of its walls.

We hop into Seven’s Mustang. He speeds out the back entrance of the old Taco Bell parking lot, hitting the next street over.

“The hell just happened?” he says.

Chris slumps in his seat. “I don’t know. I don’t want it to happen again though.”

“Niggas tired of taking shit,” DeVante says, between heavy breaths. “Like Starr said, they don’t give a fuck about us, so we don’t give a fuck. Burn this bitch down.”

“But they don’t live here!” Seven says. “They don’t give a damn what happens to this neighborhood.”

“What we supposed to do then?” DeVante snaps. “All that ‘Kumbaya’ peaceful shit clearly don’t work. They don’t listen till we tear something up.”

“Those businesses though,” I say.

“What about them?” DeVante asks. “My momma used to work at that McDonald’s, and they barely paid her. That pawnshop ripped us off a hell of a lot of times. Nah, I don’t give a fuck about neither one of them bitches.”

I get it. Daddy almost lost his wedding ring to that pawnshop once. He actually threatened to burn it down. Kinda ironic it’s burning now.

But if the looters decide to ignore the “black owned” tags, they could end up hitting our store. “We need to go help Daddy.”

“What?” Seven says.

“We need to go help Daddy protect the store! In case looters show up.”

Seven wipes his face. “Shit, you’re probably right.”

“Ain’t nobody gon’ touch Big Mav,” says DeVante.

“You don’t know that,” I say. “People are pissed, DeVante. They’re not thinking shit out. They’re doing shit.”

DeVante eventually nods. “A’ight, fine. Let’s go help Big Mav.”

“Think he’ll be okay with me helping out?” Chris asks. “He didn’t seem to like me last time.”

“Seem to?” DeVante repeats. “He straight up mean-mugged your ass. I was there. I remember.”

Seven snickers. I smack DeVante and tell him, “Shush.”

“What? It’s true. He was mad as hell that Chris is white. But ay? You spit that NWA shit like you did back there, maybe he’ll think you’re a’ight.”

“What? Surprised a white boy knows NWA?” Chris teases.

“Man, you ain’t white. You light-skinned.”

“Agreed!” I say.

“Wait, wait,” Seven says over our laughter, “we gotta test him to see if he really is black. Chris, you eat green bean casserole?”

“Hell no. That shit’s disgusting.”

The rest of us lose it, saying, “He’s black! He’s black!”

“Wait, one more,” I say. “Macaroni and cheese. Full meal or a side dish?”

“Uh . . .” Chris’s eyes dart around at us.

DeVante mimics the Jeopardy! music.

“How to earn a black card for three hundred, Alex,” Seven says in an announcer’s voice.

Chris finally answers, “Full meal.”

“Aww!” the rest of us groan.

“Whomp-whomp-whomp!” DeVante adds.

“Guys, it is! Think about it. You get protein, calcium—”

“Protein is meat,” DeVante says. “Not no damn cheese. I wish somebody would give me some macaroni, calling it a meal.”

“It’s like the easiest, quickest meal ever though,” Chris says. “One box, and you’re—”

“And that’s the problem,” I say. “Real macaroni and cheese doesn’t come from a box, babe. It eventually comes from an oven with a crust bubbling on top.”

“Amen.” Seven holds his fist to me, and I bump it.

“Ohhh,” Chris says. “You mean the kind with breadcrumbs?”

“What?” DeVante yells, and Seven goes, “Breadcrumbs?”

“Nah,” I say. “I mean there’s like a crust of cheese on top. We gotta get you to a soul food restaurant, babe.”

“This fool said breadcrumbs.” DeVante sounds seriously offended. “Breadcrumbs.”

The car stops. Up ahead a Road Closed sign blocks the street with a cop car in front of it.

“Damn,” Seven says, backing up and turning around. “Gotta find another way to the store.”

“They probably got a lot of roadblocks around the neighborhood tonight,” I tell him.

“Fucking breadcrumbs.” DeVante still can’t get over it. “I swear, I don’t understand white people. Breadcrumbs on macaroni, kissing dogs on the mouth—”

“Treating their dogs like they’re their kids,” I add.

“Yeah!” says DeVante. “Purposely doing shit that could kill them, like bungee jumping.”

“Calling Target ‘Tar-jay,’ like that makes it fancier,” says Seven.

“Fuck,” Chris mutters. “That’s what my mom calls it.”

Seven and I bust out laughing.

“Saying dumb shit to their parents,” DeVante continues. “Splitting up in situations when they clearly need to stick together.”

Chris goes, “Huh?”

“Babe, c’mon,” I say. “White people always wanna split up, and when they do something bad happens.”

“That’s only in horror movies though,” he says.

“Nah! Shit like that is always on the news,” says DeVante. “They go on a hiking trip, split up, and a bear kills somebody.”

“Car breaks down, they split up to find help, and a serial killer murders somebody,” Seven adds.

“Like, have y’all ever heard that there’s power in numbers?” DeVante asks. “For real though.”

“Okay, fine,” Chris says. “Since you guys want to go there with white people, can I ask a question about black people?”

Cue the record scratching. No lie, all three of us turn and look at him, including Seven. The car veers off to the side of the road, scraping against the curb. Seven cusses and gets it back on the street.

“I mean, it’s only fair,” Chris mumbles.

“Guys, he’s right,” I say. “He should be able to ask.”

“Fine,” says Seven. “Go ahead, Chris.”

“Okay. Why do some black people give their kids odd names? I mean, look at you guys’ names. They’re not normal.”

“My name normal,” DeVante says, all puffed-up sounding. “I don’t know what you talking about.”

“Man, you named after a dude from Jodeci,” Seven says.

“And you named after a number! What’s your middle name? Eight?”

“Anyway, Chris,” Seven says, “DeVante’s got a point. What makes his name or our names any less normal than yours? Who or what defines ‘normal’ to you? If my pops were here, he’d say you’ve fallen into the trap of the white standard.”

Color creeps into Chris’s neck and face. “I didn’t mean—okay, maybe ‘normal’ isn’t the right word.”

“Nope,” I say.

“I guess uncommon is the word instead?” he asks. “You guys have uncommon names.”

“I know ’bout three other DeVantes in the neighborhood though,” says DeVante.

“Right. It’s about perspective,” says Seven. “Plus, most of the names white people think are unusual actually have meanings in various African languages.”

“And let’s be real, some white people give their kids ‘uncommon’ names too,” I say. “That’s not limited to black people. Just ’cause it doesn’t have a De- or a La- on the front doesn’t make it okay.”

Chris nods. “True enough.”

“Why you have to use ‘De-’ as an example though?” DeVante asks.

We stop again. Another roadblock.

“Shit,” Seven hisses. “I gotta go the long way. Through the east side.”

“East side?” DeVante says. “That’s GD territory!”

“And that’s where most of the riots happened last time,” I remind them.

Chris shakes his head. “Nope. Can’t go there then.”

“Nobody’s thinking about gangbanging tonight,” Seven says. “And as long as I stay away from the major streets, we’ll be all right.”

Gunshots go off close by—a little too close by—and all of us jump. Chris actually yelps.

Seven swallows. “Yeah. We’ll be all right.”