“Nah, yeah. I see what you mean.”
A picture was forming, of Lila’s life. Even her name made more sense now. Lila. It wasn’t just unique. There were definite shades of the Talented Tenth in that name.
“I should text her, just to see.”
“Who? Your mom?”
“No, Tianna. She’s probably out here somewhere.”
“Yeah, you should check,” I said.
It wasn’t that I wanted to introduce someone else into the mix, because it was hard enough trying to get to know her under these circumstances when it was just the two of us. More than anything, I was curious to meet this bone of contention between Lila and her mother, this second-place winner, usurped only by Lila’s father in her esteem.
The closer we got to the east entrance of the Museum of Art and those famous steps, around us, we saw more and more mini-encampments, groups sitting in circles, beating drums, smoking weed, straightening out the creased corners of droopy signs and placards. Just before dark, there were supposed to be speakers, folks to keep our energy up before we all scattered to our homes to rest up to fight the good fight once again tomorrow.
“You mind if we …?” Lila indicated a tree nearby and we went to stand under it while she fished out her phone and tried to locate her friend.
While she was doing that, I sent Lamar a quick text, asking if he was alright, and stared at the screen for a few minutes to see whether he might respond right away. He didn’t so I double-checked to see whether my phone was on vibrate and shoved it back into my pocket. It was then that I remembered I’d lost my wallet and would probably need to get on the phone soon to make sure I reported my cards lost.
And I wondered about Brittainy. She hadn’t called me, and I hadn’t thought about her till just then. She, and the ho-hum concerns of the real world, like lost wallets seemed like things out of another universe. I only half-ass cared about them right now even though I knew I would again later.
Later, I would call Brittainy, or she would call me and there would be ‘sorries’ exchanged. And then I would have to let her know that whatever we were doing didn’t make much sense for her, that I wasn’t what she needed. I would get off the phone only when she was fully convinced that breaking it off had been her idea.
And I’d have to figure out how to get some real cash in my hands that wasn’t just an abstraction, a listing of digits on my iPhone. Now since I didn’t have an ATM card, nor too many places open that would give me cash back with Apple Pay purchase, I might have to hit up Lamar, or Taylor, even my pops to wire me something to tide me over.
“Ohmigod, where are you?”
Next to me, Lila’s voice had risen. She had found her friend.
“East entrance?” she said. “Yes. We’re here. Yes, we’re right here. We could … me and Kai. Kai. Yes, Kai. He’s …” Lila laughed. “We got arrested together kind of. Okay, we’ll wait. Go to the bottom of the steps and on your left …Just stay there and we’ll come to you. Cool. Yeah. See you in a little bit.”
When Lila hung up she was smiling.
“Found her,” she said.
“I heard.”
“So, yeah. You get to meet her.” She was excitable all over again.
“Cool,” I said. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Six
Lila
Sometimes I forget how Tianna can be. But I remembered as soon as I spotted her leaning against the wall near the bottom of the steps. The crowds were getting thicker and everyone was gravitating in that direction either to sit down and take a load off or stake out a spot while waiting for the speakers to begin. Tee was by herself, wearing her army-green cargo pants, black t-shirt and Pan-African colored headscarf, with black face covering pulled for the moment down to her neck.
So I had full view of her expression when she caught sight of me and Kai. Almost immediately, her eyes got that look, like she was rolling them without rolling them. And her lips turned up at the corners ever so slightly. Tee has this thing where she decides very quickly and on almost no information at all whether she likes someone or not. It’s not her most positive personality trait, but her dislike doesn’t often manifest in being mean, exactly, she just freezes people out, like shutting a metaphorical door in their face.
I could tell from her expression that she was deciding as we walked toward her that she didn’t like Kai. And because I know her as well as I do, I even think I know why. Just like the guy in the paddy wagon who made me nervous is Tee’s type, Kai is exactly not her type. He has a shiny, middle-class exterior, like the kid who got all this orthodontia taken care of right on schedule at twelve, so that his teeth are now perfect; got enrolled in every enrichment and after-school activity available, and whose parents did a “college tour” with him when he turned eighteen.
Guys like that, Tee generally calls “corny” or “weak” or “soft”. She doesn’t look them in the eye when she speaks to them, but a little off to the right or left of their heads. She mocks them when they’re not around, for the way they speak, walk, or the things they find interesting. I think there’s part of her that finds guys like that intimidating, like they have keys to a kingdom where she fears she would never be welcome. The worst part about Tee’s dislike that usually, that opinion is an immovable object—fixed, permanent and eternally damning.
As we drew closer, she shoved herself upright and hugged me. I saw when she glanced down and noticed the tether, attaching me to Kai, but she said nothing about it.
“Damn, I was hoping they didn’t pick you up out there,” she said, looking me over as if checking to see I was intact. She didn’t acknowledge Kai at all.
“I’m not as fast a runner as you are,” I said. “I looked up and you were gone.”
“You stood around calling yourself sounding the alarm though!” Tee laughed. “I mean, who does that?”
“Me, I guess. Anyway …” I turned a little, orienting myself to include Kai. “This is Kai. We were in prison together,” I joked.
“Hey,” Tee said, her tone lukewarm.
“Hey,” Kai said back at her.
They sized each other up, doing the are-we-gon’-vibe-or-we-gon’-beef assessment. Tianna’s verdict was clear within fifteen seconds. For Kai, the jury seemed to still be out when he allowed his eyes to drift away and up the steps to where a cluster of people who looked like they had something to say were gathering, bullhorns in hand.
“You know him?” Tianna mouthed when Kai’s eyes were averted.
I shook my head, and then shrugged. I didn’t know him really, but he wasn’t a stranger either, so I didn’t want her to start making painfully obvious excuses to ditch him.
“I got us a spot,” she said indicating a shaded area just behind the wall. “We can see everything from there.”
I glanced over to where she was pointing and recognized a few people from school, and some of the activists from the west side of the city that she stayed connected with. I noticed that among them was Elijah, the guy she was messing around with. He liked to be called Jah which Tee thought was cool but I thought sounded like he had delusions of grandeur. Like, who wanted a nickname that meant ‘God’ unless they thought a little too highly of themselves.
Jah was a minor celebrity in advocacy circles. A former juvenile lifer, he had been released from prison because a national organization represented him, made a cause célèbre of his case and sent him on a speaking tour. Later, he had a memoir of his life published, co-written with an attorney from the Southern Poverty Law Center and since then had been a staple on local and sometimes national news because he spoke so stirringly about his experience, and the need for criminal justice reform.
Jah had the perfect look for his role—handsome, but not so handsome he looked slick; a little rough around the edges but with high code-switching quotient, and just connected enough to the life he left behind that he could call himself an expert. I wasn’t super excited about him for Tee, because there was a hint of a hustle just underneath
Jah’s activist exterior, a tiny stain of old-bad-habits that I just couldn’t make myself un-see.
“Let’s go then,” I said. “It’ll be good to sit down for a while.”
Those words summoned Kai’s attention back to me and I pointed out where we were headed. He nodded and we followed Tee as she led the way. Something in his posture told me he was still assessing, still taking things in.
At the tree, Tianna collapsed onto the ground and against Jah’s side, reclining against and claiming him. I introduced Kai to everyone and then we sat as well. When we were settled, he reached for and helped me remove my backpack. For a few seconds, our tether got a tangled and we exchanged the smile of a shared joke, as he unclipped it from his belt.
“Your eyes kinda pink there, bruh,” Jah said, lifting his chin in Kai’s direction. “They got you with that gas, huh?”
“Yeah,” Kai said. “Wasn’t too bad.”
“Wasn’t too bad?” a girl named Julie said. “I thought I was going to freakin’ die. And it has this weird vinegar smell, right? Like … if someone hadn’t handed me that milk …”
“I heard that’s a myth,” someone else said. “That milk helps relieve the effects of tear gas.”
“It helped me,” Julie said.
“Milk works,” Jah said.
And that was the end of that. That was usually how things went when Jah spoke. He had more cred than anyone because he’d been in Ferguson, in Baltimore, at just about every uprising major and minor since he got out of prison ten years ago at eighteen.
When Tianna first hooked up with him, I told her I’d heard his name but didn’t know much about his case, or why he’d gotten life as a juvenile in the first place.
That’s besides the point, she had snapped at me. The point is that no juvenile should be sentenced to die in prison.
Of course, I said, backing down. Of course not.
Later though, I looked it up.
Jah and two older cousins had robbed a cheesesteak carryout joint at eleven p.m. when the sole proprietor, Haynes Fletcher, a fifty-three-year-old father of two and grandfather of one had been closing down for the evening. One of Jah’s cousins demanded all the money in the register, and Mr. Fletcher complied. When the cousin counted it, he was enraged by how little there was. He told Mr. Fletcher he was a liar and beat him about the head with the butt of the gun. Mr. Fletcher insisted he had nothing else. Jah’s cousin shoved him to the ground, shot him in the face and then they all left.
During the robbery, fourteen-year-old Elijah had been playing lookout outside. The testimony was that when his cousins went into the carryout, they told Elijah they were “‘bout to get some free food.” Although both cousins had confirmed that they didn’t think Elijah knew what their intentions were, the prosecutor argued that he was not only aware but complicit because at the sound of a gun discharging, young Elijah hadn’t run away but stayed at his post until his cousins emptied the restaurant of everything of value they could find, including several pounds of frozen, shaved beef.
I didn’t know what to think of Jah’s conviction, and his possible complicity in a murder. But I believed fourteen was too young to be in prison for life. I tried not to think of Haynes Fletcher. I thought instead about what Tee said was the most important thing—Jah’s redemption work. That was the word she used “redemption.”
By the time the speakers began their loud and rousing calls for justice, the sun had let up and was beginning to retreat a little. Everyone’s energy was waning but waxed once again when after the reminders of the words of the call and response.
No justice!
No peace!
No justice!
No peace!
No peace!
No peace!
We all stood, and cheered and whistled. And as soon as there was no one left to speak, all of that energy had nowhere to go. I think that’s probably why what happened later happened. The news was all over Twitter of what was happening in other cities, of cops losing their shit with protestors, overwhelmed, exhausted some of them, angry.
We all looked down at our phones, reading accounts of marauding gangs of white men in different neighborhoods, daring protestors to march where they lived.
“We gotta get back down to Center City,” Jah said. “Closer to City Hall. That’s where all the action’s gon’ be at.”
Kai and I exchanged a look.
That was where we had been picked up, and there had already been plenty of action there today. The difference now, was that it was getting dark and the police presence would already be in place and fortified, expecting trouble.
“And we definitely need to be where the action is,” Tianna said nodding.
“What kind of action y’all talkin’ ‘bout?” Kai asked.
Since he had spoken so little, everyone turned to look at him, me included. As the afternoon turned to early evening, he had stayed close, standing just behind me, so I felt his sheltering height while I raised my hand in a fist and yelled with everyone else. We were all kind of moist and slightly funky, and I smelled him. He smelled like soap, grass and boys down the block playing b-ball late on a summer day.
Now, looking at him, I saw that his eyes were no longer ringed in pink, but clear and white again, their blue-grayness stark and beautiful.
“We’re talking about whatever action jumps off, brother,” Jah said. “You either down with all of it, or down with none of it.”
Kai gave a small laugh and shook his head. “Huh,” he said. “Is that true though?”
“It’s absolutely true,” Tee chimed in.
Jah held up a hand to silence her, taking a step forward. Not like he was about to fight, but like he was priming himself for an amusing argument with a clearly inferior adversary.
“Should Nat Turner have killed every man, woman and child?” he asked. “Burned all those plantations? Or should he have spared the nice ones? The massas who let their slaves have helpings of pork fat on Sundays?”
“In this analogy, I guess you’re Nat Turner?” Kai said.
“Maybe not, brother. But you are most definitely a slave.”
For a moment I wondered whether Kai was going to hit him. I saw a twitch working at his jaw, and his eyes grew darker. As his grin disappeared, Jah’s smile made an appearance.
“Look …” I stepped between them. “Let’s just make a plan. I mean, we can all go back down there, but if things look like …”
“If things look like what?” Tianna snapped. “Messy? Out of control? Listen, we either in this, or we not in it. Because once we get down there, we need to already know which side we’re on. Ain’t no half-steppin’.”
Everyone fell silent for a few moments while around us, people had begun streaming back south, towards homes, cars, or an indeterminate phase two, down by City Hall.
“Why’re we headed back down that way though?” I asked. “I mean …”
“Because that’s where the heart of this city is,” Tianna said. “Where the wealth is, where the protected ones are. This shit happening up here? This is a tv show to them! Until we make some noise right outside their window, where they shop at, where they … jog at, where they get their five-dollar lattes and hundred-dollar blowouts, they won’t give a shit!”
“And the reason to do it after-dark is …”
“Because that’s when they sleep, Lila. And there should be no rest. Not for the wicked.”
Next to me, Kai heaved a deep sigh.
“A’ight,” he said. “Well y’all be safe. Lila?”
I looked up at him, and then at Tee who had turned her back to me and was conferring with Jah.
Julie looked ambivalent as well, but I knew from experience she wasn’t about to challenge Tianna and definitely not Jah.
“So … you’re leaving?” I asked Kai, lowering my voice.
He nodded. “You should come with me.”
“I … But I came with …”
“Lila, you just met this dude like ten minutes ago
.” Tianna’s voice broke into our conversation. I didn’t even know she had been listening. “You really gon’ leave with him and don’t know him from a can of paint instead of comin’ with us to do what we came here to do?”
Kai held my arm and pulled me a little further away from the others, leaning in and lowering his voice.
“You know what’s gonna happen down there, right?”
I shook my head. “That isn’t how Tianna operates. That isn’t how Jah …”
“Maybe not. But look at this crowd …” Kai looked around and I did as well. “You see it?”
Compared to when we’d first arrived when the energy was at about a six or seven, now it was close to a ten.
“They’re all hype,” Kai said. “No one’s thinking right now. It’s all emotion.”
“And what’s wrong with that? If you’re not in your feelings in this moment, after everything that’s happened? Then I’m sorry, but you’re dead inside.”
At that, Kai straightened up a little, and his eyes narrowed.
“It’s not just about what you feel, it’s about how you express it. You think I’m not mad too?”
“Then march with us! Come back down to …”
“Y’know what? Your friend Tianna is right. You just met me. You know her. So, if you feel good about going back down there with her, that’s what you should do. But … I don’t.”
“She wouldn’t …”
“It’s not just about her. She’s one of one thousand right now. And I’m a thought-precedes-action kinda dude. I’m not willing to get in the mix to wait and see what jumps off.”
“I am thinking! It’s not like I’m just mindlessly …”
“Following?” he finished for me.
I looked at him and swallowed hard.
“Okay,” I said. “Y’know what … You’re right. I don’t even know why I’m trying to convince you. It was cool hanging out today. I’m glad I got to meet you, Kai.”
Resistance: A Love Story (The Shorts Book 9) Page 6