The Usual Suspects

by Maurice Broaddus

  “A grocery bag wadded into a ball. It was heavy so they unwrapped it.” Mrs. Fitzgerald pauses, probably for effect. She knows how to put on a show and right now she has all our silent attention. “Inside was a gun.”

  “Ooh,” everyone says.

  Well, almost everyone. I lean back in my seat and cross my arms. I’ve seen this movie play out many times before. Something goes missing? Must be one of us. Something gets broken? Must be one of us. I know where this story is headed because the last time they “investigated” something, Twon wound up blamed anyway and suspended. And he wasn’t even around.

  “Being responsible and cautious, they called over a couple of our custodians who were doing their jobs. Taking care of the building and keeping Persons clean and secure. We know that the park is a popular hangout for all of you. So I wanted to impress on you that this is a very grave matter.” When Mrs. Fitzgerald is on a roll, she can give the best preacher a run for their money. “We turned the gun over to the police. This was too close to our school. We strive to maintain a safe environment here at Persons. We want you to be safe. We want our staff to be safe. We want our visitors to be safe. There isn’t any reason to bring a weapon near this building. Not to impress anyone. Not to scare anyone. Not to threaten anyone. It won’t be tolerated.”

  After a few heartbeats, I speak up. “And you think one of us brought it.”

  Everyone else stares at me with their mouths hanging open, gawking like I’d grown a third arm out of my back.

  “When something goes wrong, you just bring in the usual suspects,” I finish.

  They turn their attention slowly back to Mrs. Fitzgerald and hold their breath, waiting to see just how much of my head she was about to shred.

  “It’s not like that, Thelonius. What is it we say? We STEP our problems: Say the problem, Think of solutions, Explore consequences, Pick the best solutions. I wanted to impress on each and every one of our students just how seriously we are going to treat it. We’re going to conduct a full and thorough investigation. We’re going to be talking to a lot of students.”

  Starting with us. I open my mouth to begin saying it, but the words catch in my throat. Like when you’re about to say something smart in church after getting away with one comment but you know the next might get you snatched into next week. I had used up all the attitude I could muster in Mrs. Fitzgerald’s presence and chose to keep my thoughts to myself. Besides, they can talk all they want about doing an investigation, but they’re not going to get too much truth out of us. Lying to adults is how we breathe.

  “But now that you’ve brought it up,” she continues, as if reading my mind, “I have been reconsidering how the special education room operates. Trouble does seem to follow you. Mr. Caldwell over there is on strike two and his third would have him automatically expelled. And I’m pretty sure there are some pitches thrown that the facilitators haven’t bothered counting.”

  Nehemiah shrinks in his seat, but side-eyes me as if I put him on blast.

  “We’re having all our teachers talk to their classes today. I wanted to personally inform some of the students. I will be sending a letter home with each of you apprising your parents of the situation. Messages will go out to their phones and emails, too, so you might as well give the letter to them. We’ll be doing a full school assembly at the end of the week. Anything we learn from our investigation we’ll share then. But everyone is on notice.” Mrs. Fitzgerald eases back in her chair. The air squishes out of it with a gentle sigh.

  “Let me make this perfectly clear, gentlemen: if someone comes forward by the end of the week, I will consider a lenient punishment. But if I find out someone in this class is the culprit and others are helping to cover it up, this entire class will be transferred to the Banesford Accelerated Academy.”

  There is a collective gasp. Banesford Accelerated Academy is the boogeyman teachers threaten us kids with. A charter school alternative to juvenile detention, Banesford focuses on kids who have serious discipline problems at their respective schools. In other words, it is a whole school made up of all the other kids schools gave up on. Rumors spread about how strict they are there. How kids get detention for not having their pencils sharpened. How students are only allowed to talk during recess and for five minutes at lunch.

  I can only imagine how Moms is going to react to all this. The bottom falls out of my stomach.

  I’ve been accused of a lot of things, some worse than others, but this here? Hiding a gun near the school? This is beyond me. It’s criminal. It’s hard enough to go to school with the idea that a shooting could happen. Grown folks only whisper about it because it terrifies them and that fear’s like a virus they know is easy to pass on so they try to vaccinate us. But no matter how hard they avoid bringing it up, we hear about it. On TV. On the radio. On the internet. And we try not to think about it, like we do all the other big things that are out of our control.

  Then I get accused of this.

  That crosses a line. That’s an attack on me, who I am at my core. I may do some knucklehead stuff, but accusing me of that leaves a stain on a person. They’re trying to do me dirty.

  The more I think about it, the more heated I get.

  I understand that folks have a job to do and all, and things would be different if I’d actually done something. I have done plenty I could be busted on. But I can’t stand being blamed for stuff I didn’t do. Which happens all the time. I hate living under a cloud of constantly being accused. It just gets so frustrating, all I can do is act out. I guess if I’ve got impulse control issues, I just can’t help myself. I wish I had a distraction, like planning my next move with my boys, but I can’t because our schedules have separated us for our noncore classes, so I need a target to vent my frustration on.

  Luckily we have that same sub for World Music today.

  The substitute music teacher has the stink of being an easy mark all over him. His pin-striped black suit over a red vest makes him look like he is dressed to impress at a board meeting. A newbie sub, he reads and rereads the lesson plan, studying it as if trying to commit Scripture to memory. The man has probably never even been to a music session in his life, yet here he staggers about, playing at being a music teacher for the day. Walking to the front of the class, he hesitates with the dry erase marker at the whiteboard as if struggling to remember how to spell his own name. As far as I am concerned, he’s a new chew toy whose name I wouldn’t bother remembering.

  Rows of chairs arranged in a semicircle face the raised stage. The students begin to whisper, low at first, one eye kept on the sub to see what noise level would draw his attention and cause him to try to quiet us.

  “What goes around the world but stays in a corner?” Squinting as if under a spotlight, and sweating in the same way, the sub wears a desperate grin. “A stamp.”

  The class groans. A corny joke to get on our good side? That’s a straight-up rookie move. This is almost too painful to watch.

  Suddenly I appreciate how Mr. Blackmon is the opposite of the sub. Relaxed and sure of himself, he’s an old hand at the teaching game despite being much younger. Tapping me on the shoulder and nodding toward the substitute teacher, Mr. Blackmon quietly encourages me to pay attention. This is corny, I want to say, but I can almost hear him respond with It’s important to respect whoever the teacher is. He has a series of “structure isn’t your enemy” speeches.

  A door across the hallway slams so hard it rattles the one to the music room. Shouting fills the hall, prompting all heads to turn toward the disturbance. I recognize the raised voice of my dude Nehemiah. I’m not the only one acting out due to frustration, though a solid draft of air would be enough to send him off wilding. A smile creeps across my face. The timing couldn’t be have been more perfect if we had planned it.

  Mr. Blackmon leans over to me. “I have to go see about that.”

  “You know it’s just Nehemiah popping off.” I keep my attention on the sub, not daring Mr. Blackmon to read anything on
my face.

  “I’ll just be gone a minute. Behave.” He overpronounces each syllable of behave like it was a foreign word to me.

  “I promise, Mr. Blackmon, I’ll just sit here.” A ring of innocence fills my voice so thick it comes out almost singsongy. I flash two fingers in a peace sign. “Deuces.”

  The door barely closes behind Mr. Blackmon before I turn my attention back to the class. I run my tongue over my lips. People are easy marks for me. Underneath their fancy suits or school uniforms, they are all the same. Everyone has their weak spots. You just have to know how to push them.

  Everyone has a gift. My gift is words. I know how to make up a story.

  I duck down in my seat and bring my sheet music up to my face. I pretend to study it, but actually it makes for a good shield. With the sub unable to see my lips move, I turn to my left. “Hey, my guy.”

  “What’s up?” Jaron Andemichael wears the same red short-sleeved polo shirt and navy blue pants the other boys do. However, Jaron hit a growth spurt after his mother bought his school clothes for the year. His shirt barely covers his belly, riding up whenever he moves. He’s a big dude and usually people assume he has a temper. Don’t get me wrong, my dude could throw with the best of them when riled up, but most people don’t see him. He rarely meets anyone’s eyes for fear of them locking on to him and picking on him about his weight. And the more he gets picked on, the more he eats, so he walks the halls like a big, nervous squirrel.

  “I ain’t trying to meddle in your business. I’m a live-and-let-live sort of dude. But I hear things. If it’s none of my business, just let me know.” I press my hand to my chest to emphasize that I’m more than willing to back off and mind my own.

  “What’d you hear?” Jaron suddenly can’t get comfortable in his chair. He studies his classmates, his eyes accusing each of them.

  “You see that light-skinned dude with the beaver teeth and goofy glasses? I heard him talking about you. About how you never met a cheeseburger you didn’t like.”

  “He said that?” Jaron sits up straighter, anger slowly filling his eyes. Like I say, everyone has their snapping point. Everyone has that limit where they grow tired of what people assume or say about them. When they can’t take any more and just want to put the world on notice to leave them alone.

  “Word is bond. He says you have to go to a special Goodwill to get your shirts ’cause no one stocks sizes with that many X’s in them. And the stuff he says about your momma . . .”

  “What’d he say about my momma?” Jaron balls up his sheet music in his meaty fists.

  What was the point of trying to be better when other folks always believed the worst about you? Sometimes you just want to give in and be what they believe you are.

  “I don’t know the woman, so I’m not making any judgments, but he was saying how she don’t cook. She just shovels food into a trough, then rings a bell to have you come eat.”

  “That . . .” Jaron springs up and dashes across the room.

  The sound of a chair scraping the floor causes the sub to pause mid-writing on the whiteboard the list of classwork to be completed today and turn around. The sight of Jaron charging toward another student with murderous intent freezes him. While the sub gathers himself to figure out what to do next, I turn to my right.

  With a sly glance, I study the boy. Sweat-streaked dirt rings his shirt collar. Something greasy smears his wrinkled pants. His shoes flop with each step as the sole separates from the rest of it. “Hey, my dude.”

  “My name’s RaShawn. Hold up, man, I want to see this.” RaShawn Lothery, like I didn’t already know his name, crouches half out of his chair in order to sneak a peek.

  The sub wraps his arms around Jaron, but in a tentative way, not wanting to injure him. Or just scared of being sued later. But Jaron is a beefy kid, much larger and harder to get ahold of, especially when he’s all worked up.

  “That’s cool. I probably ought to stay out of what folks are saying about you anyway.” I lean back in my chair with a cool disinterest.

  RaShawn keeps one eye on the fight, but the other returns to me. “What’d you say?”

  “Just that some folks were talking crazy about you.”

  “Who? What’d they say?” RaShawn climbs down from the chair like a slowly deflating balloon.

  I angle my head toward a kid cheering on the chaos from his seat of Jaron acting buck wild. The sub accidentally catches an elbow to the side of his face when he steps in front of Jaron, who was attempting to throw punches. “Little man over there.”

  “Yeah, he got a mouth on him,” RaShawn says with a sneer.

  “Sure do. Going on about how poor you are. Talking about how you have to wear your clothes three, four days in a row because you can’t afford to do laundry.” I lace my hands behind my head. Winding people up as much as I’m wound up seems about right.

  “He got some nerve, him and his raggedy, country behind.”

  “That’s what I’m saying. He all up in your Kool-Aid, putting your business on blast. And the stuff he says about your momma . . .” I press my left hand to my chest and wave my right as if the news was too much and I can’t bear to go on.

  RaShawn leans forward. “What’d he say about my momma?”

  “I don’t know the woman, so I’m not making any judgments, but he was saying that she’s out every night, you know . . .”

  RaShawn erupts with a stream of profanity so loud everyone in the classroom stops where they are. The target of his sudden wrath barely has time to angle toward him in his chair before RaShawn leaps. He tackles the boy and the pair tumble onto the raised platform in front of the class. They wrestle along the carpeted area. The cymbals clang as RaShawn and the other boy roll into them. The bass drum pounds an irregular rhythm as they thrash about.

  Still wrapped in the sub’s bear hug, Jaron continues to swing his arms. He wrenches free of the teacher. Jaron jumps on the man’s back when he steps between them as he attempts to grab the boy.

  “Fight! Fight! Fight!” the class chants.

  Mr. Blackmon opens the door. Despite RaShawn and one boy knocking over music stands and the sub separating Jaron from another boy, Mr. Blackmon walks straight to me. “What’s going on here, Thelonius?” he asks, unfazed by the classroom bedlam.

  “Nothing, Mr. Blackmon.” I pretend to be studying my sheet music as if trying to concentrate despite the chaos. “I’m trying to do my work, but it’s hard with all the distractions. The sub don’t know how to keep control of his class.”

  “I suppose you had nothing to do with it?” Mr. Blackmon sighs with disappointment.

  “Nothing at all. I’m hurt that you could think such a thing.” I catch myself as my hand moves to my chest to protest my innocence. That kind of theatricality would be insulting to both of us.

  “Hey!” Mr. Blackmon shouts.

  Like a spell suddenly being broken, all the fighting stops. Mr. Blackmon hooks my arm and escorts me from the classroom, allowing the substitute to regain control. I chance one last look at the scene before the door closes behind me. The overturned instruments, Jaron and RaShawn hyped up. The kind of handiwork I’d normally be kind of pleased with, but it feels a little hollow today. It’s too much a picture of how I feel: angry, amped up to fight, and leaving a mess that only really hurts the people around me.

  Mr. Blackmon’s disappointed sigh rings in my ears.

  I can’t move through the halls without feeling the weight of everyone’s eyes on me, like invisible fingers pointing. I’m used to people feeling some sort of way about me, but this is different. More like they might be afraid. Mrs. Horner watches me with suspicion from the second Mr. Blackmon opens the door.

  Mrs. Horner sees us and her instinct is to swat us. I call it the Spider Syndrome: when people see a spider, their eyes light up and their hearts race because they’re scared. They’re so panicked they forget the thing that’s terrifying them is often, like, one hundred times smaller than they are. All they know is
all the bad stories they hear about them, how deadly a bite from one of them can be even though that only applies to a small fraction of them. Spiders look strange to them, different and ugly. Their ways confuse and alarm people like them—the way they skitter across a room, lower themselves unexpectedly on a strand, how they leave messy webs wherever they go. So when a person sees one, they’re conditioned to smash it. It’s easy to believe bad stories and let them color how you see things.

  Shaking his head, Mr. Blackmon sips from the bottle of water he always carries around with him. I slow walk over to the sink in the back of the Special Ed room to primp in front of the mirror over it. I slant my head several ways to make sure each strand of my thick coils of braids is in place. Not that I’m vain or anything, I’m just still undecided about how they look on me. My aunt laced a red cord into each braid. Now that I’m coming down from showing out, I’m growing anxious at the thought of having to confront Moms and explain the latest thing I have been all but accused of doing. Me acting up is one thing. She isn’t going to sweat the small stuff. Me accused of a felony or whatever, that’s going to take Moms to a new level.

  Mr. Blackmon coughs to draw my attention, and points toward my seat. With his arms crossed, he hovers about my desk. And he sighs all dramatic-like.

  “Why you so mad, Mr. Blackmon?” Imitating the tone he usually takes with me, I pat him on the shoulder as I move toward my seat.

  “I thought we were making some progress with your . . . tendencies. I’m just disappointed.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself.” I attempt to sound as sympathetic as possible. “Keep your head up. You’re doing fine.”

  I smile. When I smile, most folks can’t help but be less mad at me. It’s another gift.

  “Just have a seat.” Mr. Blackmon takes another quick swig of the bottled water. He closes the lid up, letting the clear gray container dangle off his finger by a single black loop. I imagine him as a gunslinger in the old West, twirling the bottle around his finger before holstering it. I have a theory that he conveniently drinks whenever he’s about to break character and smile. He’s all about maintaining his firm but fair image.