فصل 04

FOUR

That night, Natasha tries to convince me to follow her to the fire hydrant, and Khalil begs me to go for a ride with him.

I force a smile, my lips trembling, and tell them I can’t hang out. They keep asking, and I keep saying no.

Darkness crawls toward them. I try to warn them, but my voice doesn’t work. The shadow swallows them up in an instant. Now it creeps toward me. I back away, only to find it behind me. . . .

I wake up. My clock glows with the numbers: 11:05.

I suck in deep breaths. Sweat glues my tank top and basketball shorts to my skin. Sirens scream nearby, and Brickz and other dogs bark in response.

Sitting on the side of my bed, I rub my face, as if that’ll wipe the nightmare away. No way I can go back to sleep. Not if it means seeing them again.

My throat is lined with sandpaper and aches for water. When my feet touch the cold floor, goose bumps pop up all over me. Daddy always has the air conditioning on high in the spring and summer, turning the house into a meat locker. The rest of us shiver our butts off, but he enjoys it, saying, “A li’l cold never hurt nobody.” A lie.

I drag myself down the hall. Halfway to the kitchen I hear Momma say, “Why can’t they wait? She just saw one of her best friends die. She doesn’t need to relive that right now.”

I stop. Light from the kitchen stretches into the hallway.

“We have to investigate, Lisa,” says a second voice. Uncle Carlos, Momma’s older brother. “We want the truth as much as anyone.”

“You mean y’all wanna justify what that pig did,” Daddy says. “Investigate my ass.”

“Maverick, don’t make this something it’s not,” Uncle Carlos says.

“A sixteen-year-old black boy is dead because a white cop killed him. What else could it be?”

“Shhh!” Momma hisses. “Keep it down. Starr had the hardest time falling asleep.”

Uncle Carlos says something, but it’s too low for me to hear. I inch closer.

“This isn’t about black or white,” he says.

“Bullshit,” says Daddy. “If this was out in Riverton Hills and his name was Richie, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“I heard he was a drug dealer,” says Uncle Carlos.

“And that makes it okay?” Daddy asks.

“I didn’t say it did, but it could explain Brian’s decision if he felt threatened.”

A “no” lodges in my throat, aching to be yelled out. Khalil wasn’t a threat that night.

And what made the cop think he was a drug dealer?

Wait. Brian. That’s One-Fifteen’s name?

“Oh, so you know him,” Daddy mocks. “I ain’t surprised.”

“He’s a colleague, yes and a good guy, believe it or not. I’m sure this is hard on him. Who knows what he was thinking at the time?”

“You said it yourself, he thought Khalil was a drug dealer,” Daddy says. “A thug. Why he assumed that though? What? By looking at Khalil? Explain that, Detective.”

Silence.

“Why was she even in the car with a drug dealer?” Uncle Carlos asks. “Lisa, I keep telling you, you need to move her and Sekani out of this neighborhood. It’s poisonous.”

“I’ve been thinking about it.”

“And we’re not going anywhere,” Daddy says.

“Maverick, she’s seen two of her friends get killed,” Momma says. “Two! And she’s only sixteen.”

“And one was at the hands of a person who was supposed to protect her! What, you think if you live next door to them, they’ll treat you different?”

“Why does it always have to be about race with you?” Uncle Carlos asks. “Other races aren’t killing us nearly as much as we’re killing ourselves.”

“Ne-gro, please. If I kill Tyrone, I’m going to prison. If a cop kills me, he’s getting put on leave. Maybe.”

“You know what? There’s no point having this conversation with you,” Uncle Carlos says. “Will you at least consider letting Starr speak to the detectives handling the case?”

“We should probably get her an attorney first, Carlos,” Momma says.

“That’s not necessary right now,” he says.

“And it wasn’t necessary for that cop to pull the trigger,” says Daddy. “You really think we gon’ let them talk to our daughter and twist her words around because she doesn’t have a lawyer?”

“Nobody’s going to twist her words around! I told you, we want the truth to come out too.”

“Oh, we know the truth, that’s not what we want,” says Daddy. “We want justice.”

Uncle Carlos sighs. “Lisa, the sooner she talks to the detectives, the better. It will be a simple process. All she has to do is answer some questions. That’s it. No need to spend money to get an attorney just yet.”

“Frankly, Carlos, we don’t want anyone to know Starr was there,” Momma says. “She’s scared. I am too. Who knows what’s gonna happen?”

“I get that, but I assure you she’ll be protected. If you don’t trust the system, can you at least trust me?”

“I don’t know,” says Daddy. “Can we?”

“You know what, Maverick? I’ve just about had it with you—”

“You can get out my house then.”

“It wouldn’t even be your house if it wasn’t for me and my mom!”

“Y’all stop!” Momma says.

I shift my weight, and goddamn if the floor doesn’t creak, which is like sounding an alarm. Momma glances around the kitchen doorway and down the hall, straight at me. “Starr baby, what you doing up?”

Now I have no choice but to go to the kitchen. The three of them are sitting around the table, my parents in their pajamas and Uncle Carlos in some sweats and a hoodie.

“Hey, baby girl,” he says. “We didn’t wake you up, did we?”

“No,” I say, sitting next to Momma. “I was already awake. Nightmares.”

All of them look sympathetic even though I didn’t say it for sympathy. I kinda hate sympathy.

“What are you doing here?” I ask Uncle Carlos.

“Sekani has a stomach bug and begged me to bring him home.”

“And your uncle was just getting ready to leave,” Daddy adds.

Uncle Carlos’s jaw twitches. His face has gotten rounder since he made detective. He has Momma’s “high yella” complexion, as Nana calls it, and when he gets mad, his face turns deep red, like it is now.

“I’m sorry about Khalil, baby girl,” he says. “I was just telling your parents how the detectives would like for you to come in and answer a few questions.”

“But you don’t have to do it if you don’t wanna,” Daddy says.

“You know what—” Uncle Carlos begins.

“Stop. Please?” says Momma. She looks at me. “Munch, do you wanna talk to the cops?”

I swallow. I wish I could say yes, but I don’t know. On one hand, it’s the cops. It’s not like I’ll be telling just anybody.

On the other hand, it’s the cops. One of them killed Khalil.

But Uncle Carlos is a cop, and he wouldn’t ask me to do something that would hurt me.

“Will it help Khalil get justice?” I ask.

Uncle Carlos nods. “It will.”

“Will One-Fifteen be there?”

“Who?”

“The officer, that’s his badge number,” I say. “I remember it.”

“Oh. No, he won’t be there. I promise. It’ll be okay.”

Uncle Carlos’s promises are guarantees, sometimes even more than my parents’. He never uses that word unless he absolutely means it.

“Okay,” I say. “I’ll do it.”

“Thank you.” Uncle Carlos comes over and gives me two kisses to my forehead, the way he’s done since he used to tuck me in. “Lisa, just bring her after school on Monday. It shouldn’t take too long.”

Momma gets up and hugs him. “Thank you.” She walks him down the hall, toward the front door. “Be safe, okay? And text me when you get home.”

“Yes, ma’am. Sounding like our momma,” he teases.

“Whatever. You just better text me—”

“Okay, okay. Good night.”

Momma comes back to the kitchen, pulling her robe together. “Munch, your father and I are visiting Ms. Rosalie in the morning instead of going to church. You’re welcome to come if you want.”

“Yeah,” Daddy says. “And ain’t no uncle pressuring you to go.”

Momma cuts him a quick glare, then turns to me. “So, you think you’re up for it, Starr?”

Talking to Ms. Rosalie may be harder than talking to the cops, honestly. But I owe it to Khalil to pay his grandmother a visit. She may not even know I was a witness to the shooting. If she somehow does and wants to know what happened, more than anybody she has the right to ask.

“Yeah. I’ll go.”

“We better find her an attorney before she talks to the detectives,” Daddy says.

“Maverick.” Momma sighs. “If Carlos doesn’t think it’s necessary just yet, I trust his judgment. Plus I’ll be with her the entire time.”

“Good thing somebody trusts his judgment,” says Daddy. “And you really been thinking again ’bout moving? We discussed this already.”

“Maverick, I’m not going there with you tonight.”

“How we gon’ change anything around here if we—”

“Mav-rick!” she says through gritted teeth. Whenever Momma breaks a name down like that, you better hope it’s not yours. “I said I’m not going there tonight.” She side-eyes him, waiting for the comeback. There isn’t one. “Try and get some sleep, baby,” she tells me, and kisses my cheek before going to their room.

Daddy goes to the refrigerator. “You want some grapes?”

“Yeah. How come you and Uncle Carlos always fighting?”

“’Cause he a buster.” He joins me at the table with a bowl of white grapes. “But for real, he ain’t never liked me. Thought I was a bad influence on your momma. Lisa was wild when I met her though, like all them other Catholic school girls.”

“I bet he was more protective of Momma than Seven is with me, huh?”

“Oh, yeah,” he says. “Carlos acted like he was Lisa’s daddy. When I got locked up, he moved y’all in with him and blocked my calls. Even took her to a divorce attorney.” He grins. “Still couldn’t get rid of me.”

I was three when Daddy went in prison, six when he got out. A lot of my memories include him, but a lot of my firsts don’t. First day of school, the first time I lost a tooth, the first time I rode a bike without training wheels. In those memories, Uncle Carlos’s face is where Daddy’s should’ve been. I think that’s the real reason they’re always fighting.

Daddy drums the mahogany surface of the dining table, making a thump-thump-thump beat. “The nightmares will go away after a while,” he says. “They’re always the worst right after.”

That’s how it was with Natasha. “How many people have you seen die?”

“Enough. Worst one was my cousin Andre.” His finger seems to instinctively trace the tattoo on his forearm—an A with a crown over it. “A drug deal turned into a robbery, and he got shot in the head twice. Right in front of me. A few months before you were born, in fact. That’s why I named you Starr.” He gives me a small smile. “My light during all that darkness.”

Daddy chomps on some grapes. “Don’t be scared ’bout Monday. Tell the cops the truth, and don’t let them put words in your mouth. God gave you a brain. You don’t need theirs. And remember that you didn’t do nothing wrong—the cop did. Don’t let them make you think otherwise.”

Something’s bugging me. I wanted to ask Uncle Carlos, but I couldn’t for some reason. Daddy’s different though. While Uncle Carlos somehow keeps impossible promises, Daddy keeps it real with me. “You think the cops want Khalil to have justice?” I ask.

Thump-thump-thump. Thump . . . thump . . . thump. The truth casts a shadow over the kitchen—people like us in situations like this become hashtags, but they rarely get justice. I think we all wait for that one time though, that one time when it ends right.

Maybe this can be it.

“I don’t know,” Daddy says. “I guess we’ll find out.”

Sunday morning, we pull up to a small yellow house. Bright flowers bloom below the front porch. I used to sit with Khalil on that porch.

My parents and I hop out the truck. Daddy carries a foil-covered pan of lasagna that Momma made. Sekani claims he’s still not feeling good, so he stayed home. Seven’s there with him. I don’t buy this “sick” act though—Sekani always gets some kinda bug right as spring break ends.

Going up Ms. Rosalie’s walkway floods me with memories. I have scars tattooed on my arms and legs from falls on this concrete. One time I was on my scooter, and Khalil pushed me off ’cause I hadn’t given him a turn. When I got up, skin was missing from most of my knee. I never screamed so loud in my life.

We played hopscotch and jumped rope on this walkway too. Khalil never wanted to play at first, talking about how those were girls’ games. He always gave in when me and Natasha said the winner got a Freeze Cup—frozen Kool-Aid in a Styrofoam cup—or a pack of “Nileators,” a.k.a. Now and Laters. Ms. Rosalie was the neighborhood Candy Lady.

I was at her house almost as much as I was at my own. Momma and Ms. Rosalie’s youngest daughter, Tammy, were best friends growing up. When Momma got pregnant with me, she was in her senior year of high school and Nana put her out the house. Ms. Rosalie took her in until my parents eventually got an apartment of their own. Momma says Ms. Rosalie was one of her biggest supporters and cried at her high school graduation like it was her own daughter walking across the stage.

Three years later, Ms. Rosalie saw Momma and me at Wyatt’s—this was way before it became our store. She asked my mom how college was going. Momma told her that with Daddy in prison, she couldn’t afford daycare and that Nana wouldn’t take care of me ’cause I wasn’t her baby and therefore I wasn’t her problem. So Momma was thinking about dropping out. Ms. Rosalie told her to bring me to her house the next day and that she better not say a word about paying her. She babysat me and later Sekani the whole time Momma was in school.

Momma knocks on the door, rattling the screen. Ms. Tammy answers in a head wrap, T-shirt, and sweatpants. She unhooks the locks, hollering back, “Maverick, Lisa, and Starr are here, Ma.”

The living room looks just like it did when Khalil and I played hide-and-seek in it. There’s still plastic on the sofa and recliner. If you sit on them too long in the summer while wearing shorts, the plastic nearly glues to your legs.

“Hey, Tammy girl,” Momma says, and they hug long and hard. “How you doing?”

“I’m hanging in there.” Ms. Tammy hugs Daddy, then me. “Just hate that this is the reason I had to come home.”

It’s so weird looking at Ms. Tammy. She looks the way Khalil’s momma, Ms. Brenda, would look if Ms. Brenda wasn’t on crack. A lot like Khalil. Same hazel eyes and dimples. One time Khalil said he wished Ms. Tammy was his momma instead so he could live in New York with her. I used to joke and tell him she didn’t have time for him. I wish I never said that.

“Where you want me to put this lasagna, Tam?” Daddy asks her.

“In the refrigerator, if you can find room,” she says, as he heads toward the kitchen. “Momma said folks brought food all day yesterday. They were still bringing it when I got here last night. Seems like the whole neighborhood has stopped by.”

“That’s the Garden for you,” Momma says. “If folks can’t do anything else, they’ll cook.”

“You ain’t ever lied.” Ms. Tammy motions to the sofa. “Y’all, have a seat.”

Momma and I sit down, and Daddy comes back and joins us. Ms. Tammy takes the recliner that Ms. Rosalie usually sits in. She gives me a sad smile. “Starr, you know, you sure have grown since the last time I saw you. You and Khalil both grew up so—”

Her voice cracks. Momma reaches over and pats her knee. Ms. Tammy a takes a deep breath and smiles at me again. “It’s good to see you, baby.”

“We know Ms. Rosalie gon’ tell us she fine, Tam,” Daddy says, “but how she really doing?”

“We’re taking one day at a time. The chemo’s working, thankfully. I hope I can convince her to move in with me. That way I can make sure she’s getting her prescriptions.” She sighs through her nose. “I had no idea Momma was struggling like she was. I didn’t even know she’d lost her job. You know how she is. Never wanna ask for help.”

“What about Ms. Brenda?” I ask. I have to. Khalil would’ve.

“I don’t know, Starr. Bren . . . that’s complicated. We haven’t seen her since we got the news. Don’t know where she is. If we do find her though . . . I don’t know what we’ll do.”

“I can help you find a rehab facility near you,” Momma says. “She’s gotta wanna get clean though.”

Ms. Tammy nods. “And that’s the problem. But I think . . . I think this will either push her to finally get help or push her over the edge. I hope it’s the former.”

Cameron holds his grandma’s hand as he leads her into the living room like she’s the queen of the world in a housecoat. She looks thinner, but strong for somebody going through chemo and all of this. A scarf wrapped around her head adds to her majesty—an African queen, and we’re blessed to be in her presence.

The rest of us stand.

Momma hugs Cameron and kisses one of his chubby cheeks. Khalil called him Chipmunk because of them, but he’d check anybody stupid enough to call his little brother fat.

Daddy gives Cameron a palm-slap that ends in a hug. “What’s up, man? You okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

A big, wide smile spreads across Ms. Rosalie’s face. She holds her arms out, and I walk into the most heartfelt hug I’ve ever gotten from somebody who’s not related to me. There’s not any sympathy in it either. Just love and strength. I guess she knows I need some of both.

“My baby,” she says. She pulls back and looks at me, tears brimming in her eyes. “Went and grew up on me.”

She hugs my parents too. Ms. Tammy lets her have the recliner. Ms. Rosalie pats the end of the sofa closest to her, so I sit there. She holds my hand and rubs her thumb along the top of it.

“Mmm,” she says. “Mmm!”

It’s like my hand is telling her a story, and she’s responding. She listens to it for a while, then says, “I’m so glad you came over. I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I say what I’m supposed to.

“You were the very best friend that boy ever had.”

This time I can’t say what I’m supposed to. “Ms. Rosalie, we weren’t as close—”

“I don’t care, baby,” she says. “Khalil never had another friend like you. I know that for a fact.”

I swallow. “Yes, ma’am.”

“The police told me you were the one with him when it happened.”

So she knows. “Yes, ma’am.”

I’m standing on a track, watching the train barrel toward me, and I tense up and wait for the impact, the moment she asks what happened.

But the train shifts to another track. “Maverick, he wanted to talk to you. He wanted your help.”

Daddy straightens up. “For real?”

“Uh-huh. He was selling that stuff.”

Something leaves me. I mean, I kinda figured it, but to know it’s the truth . . .

This hurts.

But I swear I wanna cuss Khalil out. How he could sell the very stuff that took his momma from him? Did he realize that he was taking somebody else’s momma from them?

Did he realize that if he does become a hashtag, some people will only see him as a drug dealer?

He was so much more than that.

“But he wanted to stop,” Ms. Rosalie says. “He told me, ‘Grandma, I can’t stay in this. Mr. Maverick said it only leads to two things, the grave or prison, and I ain’t trying to see either.’ He respected you, Maverick. A lot. You were the father he never had.”

I can’t explain it, but something leaves Daddy too. His eyes dim, and he nods. Momma rubs his back.

“I tried to talk some sense into him,” Ms. Rosalie says, “but this neighborhood makes young men deaf to their elders. The money part didn’t help. He was going around here, paying bills, buying sneakers and mess. But I know he remembered the things you told him over the years, Maverick, and that gave me a lotta faith.

“I keep thinking if only he had another day or—” Ms. Rosalie covers her trembling lips. Ms. Tammy starts for her, but she says, “I’m okay, Tam.” She looks at me. “I’m happy he wasn’t alone, but I’m even happier you were with him. That’s all I need to know. Don’t need details, nothing else. Knowing you were with him is good enough.”

Like Daddy, all I can do is nod.

But as I hold Khalil’s grandma’s hand, I see the anguish in her eyes. His little brother can’t smile anymore. So what if people end up thinking he was a thug and never care? We care.

Khalil matters to us, not the stuff he did. Forget everybody else.

Momma leans across me and sets an envelope in Ms. Rosalie’s lap. “We want you to have that.”

Ms. Rosalie opens it, and I catch a glimpse of a whole lot of money inside. “What in the world? Y’all know I can’t take this.”

“Yes, you can,” Daddy says. “We ain’t forgot how you kept Starr and Sekani for us. We weren’t ’bout to let you be empty-handed.”

“And we know y’all are trying to pay for the funeral,” Momma says. “Hopefully that’ll help. Plus, we’re raising money around the neighborhood too. So don’t you worry about a thing.”

Ms. Rosalie wipes a new set of tears from her eyes. “I’m gonna pay y’all back every penny.”

“Did we say you had to pay us back?” Daddy asks. “You focus on getting better, a’ight? And if you give us any money, we giving it right back, God’s my witness.”

There are a lot more tears and hugs. Ms. Rosalie gives me a Freeze Cup for the road, red syrup glistening on the top. She always makes them extra sweet.

As we leave, I remember how Khalil used to run up to the car when I was about to go, the sun shining on the grease lines that separated his cornrows. The glimmer in his eyes would be just as bright. He’d knock on the window, I’d let it down, and he’d say with a snaggletooth grin, “See you later, alligator.”

Back then I’d giggle behind my own snaggleteeth. Now I tear up. Good-byes hurt the most when the other person’s already gone. I imagine him standing at my window, and I smile for his sake. “After a while, crocodile.”