by Angie Thomas
“Yeah,” I say quietly.
DeVante. Khalil. Neither one of them thought they had much of a choice. If I were them, I’m not sure I’d make a much better one.
Guess that makes me a thug too.
“I’m going for a walk,” I say, getting up. My head’s all over the place. “You can have the rest of the graham crackers and peanut butter.”
I leave. I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know much of anything anymore.
FOURTEEN
I end up at Maya’s house. Truth be told, that’s the farthest I can go in Uncle Carlos’s neighborhood before the houses start looking the same.
It’s that weird time between day and night when the sky looks like it’s on fire and mosquitoes are on the hunt; all of the lights at the Yang house are already on, which is a lot of lights. Their house is big enough for me and my family to live with them and have a little wiggle room. There’s a blue Infiniti Coupe with a dented bumper in the circular driveway. Hailey can’t drive for shit.
No lie, it stings a little knowing they hang out without me. That’s what happens when you live so far away from your friends. I can’t get mad about it. Jealous maybe. Not mad.
That protest shit though? Now that makes me mad. Mad enough to ring the doorbell. Besides, I told Maya the three of us could talk, so fine, we’ll talk.
Mrs. Yang answers, her Bluetooth headset around her neck.
“Starr!” She beams and hugs me. “So good to see you. How is everyone?”
“Good,” I say. She announces my arrival to Maya and lets me in. The aroma of Mrs. Yang’s seafood lasagna greets me in the foyer.
“I hope it’s not a bad time,” I say.
“Not at all, sweetie. Maya’s upstairs. Hailey too. You’re more than welcome to join us for dinner. . . . No, George, I wasn’t talking to you,” she says into her headset, then mouths at me, “My assistant,” and rolls her eyes a little.
I smile and take off my Nike Dunks. In the Yang house, shoe removal is part Chinese tradition, part Mrs. Yang likes people to be comfy.
Maya races down the stairs, wearing an oversized T-shirt and basketball shorts that almost hang to her ankles. “Starr!”
She reaches the bottom, and there’s this awkward moment where her arms are out like she wants to hug me, but she starts lowering them. I hug her anyway. It’s been a while since I got a good Maya hug. Her hair smells like citrus, and she hugs all tight and motherly.
Maya leads me to her bedroom. White Christmas lights hang from the ceiling. There’s a shelf for video games, Adventure Time memorabilia all around, and Hailey in a beanbag chair, concentrating on the basketball players she’s controlling on Maya’s flat-screen.
“Look who’s here, Hails,” Maya says.
Hailey glances up at me. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
It’s Awkward Central in here.
I step over an empty Sprite can and a bag of Doritos and sit in the other beanbag chair. Maya closes her door. An old-school poster of Michael Jordan, in his famous Jumpman pose, is on the back.
Maya belly flops onto her bed and grabs a controller off the floor. “You wanna join in, Starr?”
“Yeah, sure.”
She hands me a third controller, and we start a new game—the three of us against a computer-controlled team. It’s a lot like when we play in real life, a combination of rhythm, chemistry, and skill, but the awkwardness in the room is so thick it’s hard to ignore.
They keep glancing at me. I keep my eyes on the screen. The animated crowd cheers as Hailey’s player makes a three-pointer. “Nice shot,” I say.
“Okay, cut the crap.” Hailey grabs the TV remote and flicks the game off, turning to a detective show instead. “Why are you mad at us?”
“Why did you protest?” Since she wants to cut the crap, may as well get right to it.
“Because,” she says, like that’s reason enough. “I don’t see what the big deal is, Starr. You said you didn’t know him.”
“Why does that make a difference?”
“Isn’t a protest a good thing?”
“Not if you’re only doing it to cut class.”
“So you want us to apologize for it even though everybody else did it too?” Hailey asks.
“Just because everyone else did it doesn’t mean it’s okay.”
Shit. I sound like my mother.
“Guys, stop!” Maya says. “Hailey, if Starr wants us to apologize, fine, we can apologize. Starr, I’m sorry for protesting. It was stupid to use a tragedy just to get out of class.”
We look at Hailey. She sits back and folds her arms. “I’m not apologizing when I didn’t do anything wrong. If anything, she should apologize for accusing me of being racist last week.”
“Wow,” I say. One thing that irks the hell out of me about Hailey? The way she can turn an argument around and make herself the victim. She’s a master at this shit. I used to fall for it, but now?
“I’m not apologizing for what I felt,” I say. “I don’t care what your intention was, Hailey. That fried chicken comment felt racist to me.”
“Fine,” she says. “Just like I felt it was fine to protest. Since I won’t apologize for what I felt, and you won’t apologize for what you felt, I guess we’ll just watch TV.”
“Fine,” I say.
Maya grunts like it’s taking everything in her not to choke us. “You know what? If you two want to be this stubborn, fine.”
Maya flicks through channels. Hailey does that BS move where you look at someone out the corner of your eye, but you don’t want them to know that you care enough to look, so you avert your eyes. At this point it’s whatever. I thought I came to talk, but yeah, I really want an apology.
I look at TV. A singing competition, a reality show, One-Fifteen, a celebrity dance—wait.
“Back up, back up,” I tell Maya.
She flicks through the channels, and when he appears again, I say, “Right there!”
I’ve pictured his face so much. Actually seeing it again is different. My memory is pretty spot-on—a thin, jagged scar above his lip, bursts of freckles that cover his face and neck.
My stomach churns and my skin crawls, and I wanna get away from One-Fifteen. My instinct doesn’t care that it’s a photograph being shown on TV. A silver cross pendant hangs from his neck, like he’s saying Jesus endorses what he did. We must believe in a different Jesus.
What looks like an older version of him appears on the screen, but this man doesn’t have the scar on his lip, and there are more wrinkles on his neck than freckles. He has white hair, although there’s still some streaks of brown in it.
“My son was afraid for his life,” he says. “He only wanted to get home to his wife and kids.”
Pictures flash on the screen. One-Fifteen smiles with his arms draped around a blurred-out woman. He’s on a fishing trip with two small, blurred-out children. They show him with a smiley golden retriever, with his pastor and some fellow deacons who are all blurred out, and then in his police uniform.
“Officer Brian Cruise Jr. has been on the force for sixteen years,” the voice-over says, and more pics of him as a cop are shown. He’s been a cop for as long as Khalil was alive, and I wonder if in some sick twist of fate Khalil was only born for this man to kill.
“A majority of those years have been spent serving in Garden Heights,” the voice-over continues, “a neighborhood notorious for gangs and drug dealers.”
I tense as footage of my neighborhood, my home, is shown. It’s like they picked the worst parts—the drug addicts roaming the streets, the broken-down Cedar Grove projects, gangbangers flashing signs, bodies on the sidewalks with white sheets over them. What about Mrs. Rooks and her cakes? Or Mr. Lewis and his haircuts? Mr. Reuben? The clinic? My family?
Me?
I feel Hailey’s and Maya’s eyes on me. I can’t look at them.
“My son loved working in the neighborhood,” One-Fifteen’s father claims. “He always wanted to make
a difference in the lives there.”
Funny. Slave masters thought they were making a difference in black people’s lives too. Saving them from their “wild African ways.” Same shit, different century. I wish people like them would stop thinking that people like me need saving.
One-Fifteen Sr. talks about his son’s life before the shooting. How he was a good kid who never got into trouble, always wanted to help others. A lot like Khalil. But then he talks about the stuff One-Fifteen did that Khalil will never get to do, like go to college, get married, have a family.
The interviewer asks about that night.
“Apparently, Brian pulled the kid over ’cause he had a broken taillight and was speeding.”
Khalil wasn’t speeding.
“He told me, ‘Pop, soon as I pulled him over, I had a bad feeling,’” says One-Fifteen Sr.
“Why is that?” the interviewer asks.
“He said the kid and his friend immediately started cursing him out—”
We never cursed.
“And they kept glancing at each other, like they were up to something. Brian says that’s when he got scared, ’cause they could’ve taken him down if they teamed up.”
I couldn’t have taken anyone down. I was too afraid. He makes us sound like we’re superhumans. We’re kids.
“No matter how afraid he is, my son’s still gonna do his job,” he says. “And that’s all he set out to do that night.”
“There have been reports that Khalil Harris was unarmed when the incident took place,” the interviewer says. “Has your son told you why he made the decision to shoot?”
“Brian says he had his back to the kid, and he heard the kid say, ‘I’m gon’ show your ass today.’”
No, no, no. Khalil asked if I was okay.
“Brian turned around and saw something in the car door. He thought it was a gun—”
It was a hairbrush.
His lips quiver. My body shakes. He covers his mouth to hold back a sob. I cover mine to keep from puking.
“Brian’s a good boy,” he says, in tears. “He only wanted to get home to his family, and people are making him out to be a monster.”
That’s all Khalil and I wanted, and you’re making us out to be monsters.
I can’t breathe, like I’m drowning in the tears I refuse to shed. I won’t give One-Fifteen or his father the satisfaction of crying. Tonight, they shot me too, more than once, and killed a part of me. Unfortunately for them, it’s the part that felt any hesitation about speaking out.
“How has your son’s life changed since this happened?” the interviewer asks.
“All of our lives have been hell, honestly,” his father claims. “Brian’s a people person, but now he’s afraid to go out in public, even for something as simple as getting a gallon of milk. There have been threats on his life, our family’s lives. His wife had to quit her job. He’s even been attacked by fellow officers.”
“Physically or verbally?” the interviewer asks.
“Both,” he says.
It hits me. Uncle Carlos’s bruised knuckles.
“This is awful,” Hailey says. “That poor family.”
She’s looking at One-Fifteen Sr. with sympathy that belongs to Brenda and Ms. Rosalie.
I blink several times. “What?”
“His son lost everything because he was trying to do his job and protect himself. His life matters too, you know?”
I cannot right now. I can’t. I stand up or otherwise I will say or do something really stupid. Like punch her.
“I need to . . . yeah.” I say all that I can and start for the door, but Maya grabs the tail of my cardigan.
“Whoa, whoa. You guys haven’t worked this out yet,” she says.
“Maya,” I say, as calmly as possible. “Please let me go. I cannot talk to her. Did you not hear what she said?”
“Are you serious right now?” Hailey asks. “What’s wrong with saying his life matters too?”
“His life always matters more!” My voice is gruff, and my throat is tight. “That’s the problem!”
“Starr! Starr!” Maya says, trying to catch my eye. I look at her. “What’s going on? You’re Harry in Order of the Phoenix angry lately.”
“Thank you!” Hailey says. “She’s been in bitch mode for weeks but wants to blame me.”
“Excuse you?”
There’s a knock on the door. “Girls, is everything okay?” Mrs. Yang asks.
“We’re fine, Mom. Video game stuff.” Maya looks at me and lowers her voice. “Please, sit down. Please?”
I sit on her bed. Commercials replace One-Fifteen Sr. on the TV and fill in the gap of silence we’ve created.
I blurt out, “Why did you unfollow my Tumblr?”
Hailey turns toward me. “What?”
“You unfollowed my Tumblr. Why?”
She glances at Maya—quickly, but I notice—and goes, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Cut the bullshit, Hailey. You unfollowed me. Months ago. Why?”
She doesn’t say anything.
I swallow. “Is it because of the Emmett Till picture?”
“Oh my God,” she says, standing up. “Here we go again. I am not gonna stay here and let you accuse me of something, Starr—”
“You don’t text me anymore,” I say. “You freaked out about that picture.”
“Do you hear her?” Hailey says to Maya. “Once again, calling me racist.”
“I’m not calling you anything. I’m asking a question and giving you examples.”
“You’re insinuating!”
“I never even mentioned race.”
Silence comes between us.
Hailey shakes her head. Her lips are thin. “Unbelievable.” She grabs her jacket off Maya’s bed and starts for the door. She stops, and her back is to me. “You wanna really know why I unfollowed you, Starr? Because I don’t know who the hell you are anymore.”
She slams the door on her way out.
The news program returns on the television. They show footage of protests all over the country, not just in Garden Heights. Hopefully none of them used Khalil’s death to skip class or work.
Out of nowhere, Maya says, “That’s not why.”
She’s staring at her closed door, her shoulders a bit stiff.
“Huh?” I say.
“She’s lying,” Maya says. “That’s not why she unfollowed you. She said she didn’t wanna see that shit on her dashboard.”
I figured. “That Emmett Till picture, right?”
“No. All the ‘black stuff,’ she called it. The petitions. The Black Panther pictures. That post on those four little girls who were killed in that church. The stuff about that Marcus Garvey guy. The one about those Black Panthers who were shot by the government.”
“Fred Hampton and Bobby Hutton,” I say.
“Yeah. Them.”
Wow. She’s been paying attention. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
She stares at her plush Finn on the floor. “I hoped she’d change her mind before you found out. I should’ve known better though. It’s not like that’s the first fucked-up thing she’s said.”
“What are you talking about?”
Maya swallows hard. “Do you remember that time she asked if my family ate a cat for Thanksgiving?”
“What? When?”
Her eyes are glossy. “Freshman year. First period. Mrs. Edwards’s biology class. We’d just gotten back from Thanksgiving break. Class hadn’t started yet, and we were talking about what we did for Thanksgiving. I told you guys my grandparents visited, and it was their first time celebrating Thanksgiving. Hailey asked if we ate a cat. Because we’re Chinese.”
Ho-ly shit. I’m wracking my brain right now. Freshman year is so close to middle school; there’s a huge possibility I said or did something extremely stupid. I’m afraid to know, but I ask, “What did I say?”
“Nothing. You had this look on your face like you couldn’t believe she sai
d that. She claimed it was a joke and laughed. I laughed, and then you laughed.” Maya blinks. A lot. “I only laughed because I thought I was supposed to. I felt like shit the rest of the week.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
I feel like shit right now. I can’t believe I let Hailey say that. Or has she always joked like that? Did I always laugh because I thought I had to?
That’s the problem. We let people say stuff, and they say it so much that it becomes okay to them and normal for us. What’s the point of having a voice if you’re gonna be silent in those moments you shouldn’t be?
“Maya?” I say.
“Yeah?”
“We can’t let her get away with saying stuff like that again, okay?”
She cracks a smile. “A minority alliance?”
“Hell, yeah,” I say, and we laugh.
“All right. Deal.”
A game of NBA 2K15 later (I whooped Maya’s butt), I’m walking back to Uncle Carlos’s house with a foil-wrapped plate of seafood lasagna. Mrs. Yang never lets me leave empty-handed, and I never turn down food.
Iron streetlamps line the sidewalks, and I see Uncle Carlos from a few houses down, sitting on his front steps in the dark. He’s chugging back something, and as I get closer, I can see the Heineken.
I put my plate on the steps and sit beside him.
“You better not have been at your li’l boyfriend’s house,” he says.
Lord. Chris is always “li’l” to him, and they’re almost the same height. “No. I was at Maya’s.” I stretch my legs forward and yawn. It’s been a long-ass day. “I can’t believe you’re drinking,” I say through my yawn.
“I’m not drinking. It’s one beer.”
“Is that what Nana said?”
He cuts me a look. “Starr.”
“Uncle Carlos,” I say as firmly.
We battle it out, hard stare versus hard stare.
He sets the beer down. Here’s the thing—Nana’s an alcoholic. She’s not as bad as she used to be, but all it takes is one hard drink and she’s the “other” Nana. I’ve heard stories of her drunken rages from back in the day. She’d blame Momma and Uncle Carlos that their daddy went back to his wife and other kids. She’d lock them out the house, cuss at them, all kinds of stuff.