by Angie Thomas
It sounds like an accusation more than a question.
“We had a li’l run-in” is all Aunt Pooh says. “What he take, Bri?”
My jaw aches from clenching it so hard. “The chain.”
Aunt Pooh folds her hands on her head. “Shit!”
“The Crown’s been wanting that chain since they killed Law,” Scrap says.
For what? So they could have a trophy for taking my daddy from me?
“I didn’t wanna give it up.” Dammit, my voice cracks. “He had a gun and—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Aunt Pooh says. “He held y’all at gunpoint?”
There’s fury in her eyes waiting to spark. I know six words that will light it up.
My own fury makes me say them with ease. “He pointed it in my face.”
Aunt Pooh slowly straightens up. Her face is blank, calm almost. “This ain’t over.”
She marches for the car, her way of telling us to come on. Malik hangs back on the sidewalk.
“You coming?” I ask him.
“No. I’ll walk home. It’s only a couple of blocks.”
Home. Where Aunt ’Chelle’s probably waiting by now. “Hey, um . . . Maybe don’t tell Aunt ’Chelle about this, all right?”
“Are you serious?” Malik says. “You got robbed, Bri! I got a black eye!”
I’m as serious as a heart attack. He tells her, she’ll tell my mom, and my mom will bring a halt to anything Aunt Pooh and I plan to do. “Just don’t, okay?”
“Wait, are you thinking of going after that guy?”
I don’t respond.
“Bri, are you nuts?” Malik says. “You can’t go after him! You’re asking for trouble.”
“Look, I didn’t ask you to help us!” I yell. “I simply said don’t tell her! All right?”
Malik stands as straight as a board. “Yeah,” he says. “Whatever you want. Bri.”
He says my name like it’s a foreign word.
I don’t have time for whatever his problem is. I don’t. I need to get that chain back. I hop in the car. He’s still standing on the sidewalk when we peel off.
Aunt Pooh and Scrap go back and forth about the Crown. Apparently, he’s known as Kane and he likes to race his Camaro on Magnolia. I figure that’s where we’re headed, but Aunt Pooh pulls up in front of my house.
She puts the car in park. “C’mon, Bri.”
She gets out herself and holds her seat forward. I climb out, too. “What are we doing here?” I ask.
Aunt Pooh suddenly hugs me extra tight. She kisses my cheek, then whispers in my ear, “Lay low.”
I push away from her. “No! I wanna go, too!”
“I don’t give a damn what you want. You staying here.”
“But I gotta get that—”
“You wanna die or go to prison, Bri? Either a Crown will kill you in retaliation, or somebody will snitch and the cops will take you down. That’s all that can come from this.”
Shit. She’s right. But suddenly it hits me—
She could get killed. She could get arrested.
Forget a spark. I’ve lit a bomb that will explode any second.
No, no, no. “Aunty, forget about it. He’s not worth—”
“Fuck that! Don’t nobody come at my family!” she says. “They took my brother, and then one points a gun at you, and I’m supposed to let that shit go? Hell nah!”
“You can’t kill him!”
“What the hell you call me for then?”
“I . . . I didn’t . . .”
“You could’ve called your momma, you could’ve called Trey, hell, you could’ve called the cops. Instead, you called me. Why?”
Deep down, I know why. “Because—”
“Because you knew I’d handle him,” she says through her teeth. “So, let me do what I do.”
She heads for her car.
“Aunt Pooh,” I croak. “Please?”
“Go inside, Bri.”
That’s the last thing she says before she speeds off.
Now I know why I called her. Not because I wanted her to handle him. But because I needed her.
I drag myself up the walkway and unlock the front door. Jay and Trey’s voices drift from the kitchen as some nineties R&B plays on the stereo. A creaky floorboard announces me.
“Bri, is that you?” my mom calls.
Thank God she doesn’t peer around the kitchen doorway. I don’t think my face can hide what just happened. I clear my throat. “Y-yes, ma’am.”
“Okay. Dinner’s almost ready.”
“I, um . . .” My voice weakens. I clear my throat again. “I ate at Malik’s.”
“Probably a bunch of junk food, knowing you three,” she says. “I’ll put a plate up for you.”
I manage to get out an “Okay” before I make it to my bedroom.
I close the door. I just wanna hide under my covers, but my bed feels miles away. I lower myself in the corner and pull my knees up to my chest, which feels like it’s gonna cave in.
I wanted that guy dead, I swear I did. Now all I can think about is how a gunshot’s gonna take him like one took Dad.
If he has a wife, his death will mess her up like it messed Jay up.
If he has a momma, she’ll cry like Grandma cried.
If he has a dad, his voice will dip when he talks about him like Granddaddy.
If he has a son, he’ll be angry at him for dying, like Trey is.
If he has a little girl, she’ll never get a response when she says, “Daddy.” Like me.
They’ll bury him and make him into everything he wasn’t. The best husband, the best son, the best dad. There will be T-shirts worn around the neighborhood with his face on them and murals in his honor. His name will get tatted on somebody’s arm. He’ll forever be a hero who lost his life too soon, not the villain who ruined my life. Because of my aunt.
They’ll only show her mug shot on the news. Not the pictures of us smiling together on her Cutlass or her cheesing with that GED Jay thought she’d never get. She’ll be called a ruthless murderer for about a week, until somebody else does something fucked up. Then I’ll be the only one mourning her.
She’ll become the monster for handling the monster I couldn’t handle myself. Or somebody’s gonna kill her. Either way, I’m gonna lose Aunt Pooh.
Just like I lost my daddy.
Every tear I’ve held back rushes out, bringing sobs with them. I cover my mouth. Jay and Trey cannot hear me. They can’t. But the sobs come out of me so hard that it’s almost impossible to breathe.
I hold my mouth and fight for air all at once. Tears fall over my fingers.
Jacksons can cry. Even when we have blood on our hands.
Nas once called sleep the cousin of death, and I suddenly get that. I could barely sleep for thinking about death. I said six words that may have summoned it.
He pointed it in my face.
They felt heavy when I said them, like I was taking a weight off of my tongue, but somehow, it’s as if they’re still lingering there. I practically see them and all seven of their syllables.
Since he pointed it in my face,
My aunt may be gone to waste.
Because those six words told Aunt Pooh something else: Handle him for me. Ruin your life for me. Let everyone pin one word—“murderer”—on you. For me.
I hear those six words in my ears all night. They make me text her three: Are you okay?
She doesn’t respond.
I drift off to sleep at some point. When I open my eyes, my mom is sitting on my bed.
“Hey,” she says gently. “You okay?”
From the looks of things, it’s morning. “Yeah. Why you ask?”
“Every time I came to check on you, you were tossing and turning.”
“Oh.” All of my limbs feel heavy as I sit up. “Why were you checking on me?”
“I always check on you and Trey.” She strokes my cheek. “What’s going on, Bookie?”
“Nothing.” She can�
�t know that I ordered Aunt Pooh to kill somebody. She can’t know the chain is gone, either. It would break her heart.
At this rate, I’m piling up secrets.
“It’s not that petition, is it?” Jay asks.
Oh. Ironic that a gun made me forget that someone hates that I rapped about guns. “You know about it?”
“Mm-hmm. Gina and ’Chelle texted it to me. You know how your godmothers are. They’ll go hood in a minute over you.” She chuckles. “They’re ready to whoop that woman’s behind. But I told them to ignore it, just like I’m telling you.”
It’s easy to ignore now, but I’m wondering if Emily may have been right. Maybe my words are dangerous. “Okay.”
Jay kisses my forehead. “That’s my girl. Come on.” She pats my leg. “Let’s get you some breakfast before you head to school.”
I glance at my phone. It’s been eleven hours. No word from Aunt Pooh.
I follow Jay to the kitchen. Trey’s still asleep. He’s taking off from Sal’s today just for a mini vacation.
Something’s . . . off. There’s an odd stillness, like the house is quieter than it should be.
Jay opens a cabinet. “I think I’ve got time to make you some French toast before the bus comes. The kind my momma used to do. She called it pain perdu.”
I love it when Jay pulls out those recipes her momma used to make in New Orleans. I’ve never been there, but they taste like home. “I’ll get the eggs.”
I open the refrigerator door and stale warmth hits me. All of the food is blanketed in darkness. “Umm . . . the fridge isn’t working.”
“What?” Jay says. She closes the door and opens it, as if that’ll fix the issue. It doesn’t. “What in the world?”
Something over near the oven catches her eye and her face falls. “Shit!”
The numbers are usually lit on the oven’s clock. They aren’t.
Jay flips the kitchen light switch. Nothing happens. She hurries to the hall and flips that switch. Nothing. She goes in my room, the bathroom, the living room. Nothing.
The commotion is enough to wake Trey up. He comes in the hall, rubbing his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“They shut the power off,” Jay says.
“What? I thought we had more time.”
“We were supposed to! That man told me—he said—I asked for another week.” Jay buries her face in her hands. “Not now, God. Please, not now. I just bought all that food.”
That’ll probably spoil in less than a week.
Fuck. We could’ve pawned the chain and paid the light bill. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Jay uncovers her face, straightens up, and looks at us. “No. We’re not doing this. We’re not about feeling sorry for ourselves.”
“But Ma—” Even Trey’s voice is rough.
“I said no, Trey. We’re down, but we’re not out. You hear me? This is only a setback.”
Yet it feels like a major blow.
But the final blow may be around the corner.
Eleven hours, twenty minutes. Still no word from Aunt Pooh.
Twenty-Three
Since the stove is electric, we can’t have pain perdu. I eat some cereal instead.
I’m quiet on the bus. It’s just me and Sonny today. Sonny says he stopped by Malik’s house, and Aunt ’Chelle told him that Malik had some sort of freak accident that left him with a black eye. He’s staying home to recover. He obviously didn’t tell her what really happened, just like I asked.
I should be relieved, but somehow I feel worse. Malik never stays home from school. So either his eye is really bad or he’s so shaken up that he needs a day.
Either way, it’s my fault.
But maybe it’s a good thing Malik took today off. That way he doesn’t have to see the four armed cops acting as security just yet.
He and Shana were right. Midtown considers all of us black and brown kids threats now. We go through metal detectors as usual, but it’s hard to focus on anything but the guns on the cops’ waists. Feels like I’m entering a prison instead of my school.
I’m happy to go home at the end of the day, even if that means entering a dark house.
It’s as if my brain’s got a playlist of all the shitty things happening in my life on repeat. That gun pointed in my face. That article on the newspaper’s website. Long and Tate pinning me down. The cops at school. The lights going out. Aunt Pooh.
Twenty hours and no response.
Only thing that distracts me a little bit are the Uno cards Jay pulls out after dinner. With no TV and no internet, there’s nothing else to do, so she suggested we have a family game tournament. She and Trey are so not acting like family though.
“Bam!” Trey slaps a card onto the kitchen table. The sun’s still out, giving us all the light we need to play. “Wild card, baby! We making this thing as green as y’all gon’ be when I whoop them behinds.”
“That’s a lie,” I say, and put a green card down.
“Boy, sit your li’l narrow behind down somewhere,” Jay says. “You ain’t did nothing, ’cause, bam!” She slaps a card down, too. “I got a wild card, and I say we’re going back to mellow yellow, baby.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll let you have that one,” Trey says. “You gon’ regret it though.”
They’re both gonna regret it. See, I’m letting them do all the trash talk. They don’t know I got two draw fours, a wild card, a yellow skip, and a red reverse. I’m ready for whatever.
This is our third game, and miraculously we’re still on speaking terms. The first game got so heated that Jay walked away from the table and disowned both of us. She’s the definition of a sore loser.
Exhibit A? I put down that yellow skip and Jay flashes me the glare of death.
“You’re really gonna skip your own momma?” she asks.
“Um, you’re not my momma. Right now, you’re simply some chick I gotta beat.”
Trey goes, “Ha!”
“You mean nothing to me as well, sir.”
“Ha!” Jay mimics him.
“Well, since I mean nothing.” Trey slowly lifts a card, going, “Ahhhhhh,” like a heavenly choir, then, “Bam! Draw two, boo.”
Ooh, I can’t wait to pull that draw four on his ass.
I draw my two, and there is a God. I got another wild card plus a skip. In the words of the late, great philosopher Tupac Shakur: “I ain’t a killer, but don’t push me.”
It’s kinda messed up that I’m enjoying this. We don’t have lights, and Aunt Pooh could be—
Several loud knocks at the front door startle me.
Trey gets up to answer. “Chill, Bri. It’s just the door.”
Time slows, and my heart slams against my chest.
“Shit,” Trey hisses.
I’m gonna puke.
“Who is it?” Jay asks.
“Grandma and Granddaddy,” he says.
Thank God.
But my mom goes, “Dammit!” She holds her brow. “Let them in, Trey.”
The door has barely creaked open when Grandma says, “Where in the world y’all been?”
She lets herself in the house, peeking in every room like she’s looking for something. Sniffing. Knowing Grandma, she’s searching for drugs.
Granddaddy lumbers into the kitchen behind Trey. He and Grandma wear matching Adidas tracksuits. “We happened to be over this way and wanted to check on y’all,” he says. “Y’all wasn’t at church yesterday.”
“Don’t lie!” Grandma says as she joins us in the kitchen. “We purposely stopped by! I had to check on my grandbabies.”
Figures.
“We’re fine, Mr. Jackson,” Jay says, to Granddaddy and Granddaddy alone. “We just decided to stay home yesterday, that’s all.”
“We barely in the house and you already lying,” Grandma says. “Y’all ain’t fine. What’s this about Brianna making vulgar songs?”
God, not now.
“First Lady came to me yesterday after service, said her and Pastor’s grandchil
dren been listening to some ol’ garbage that Brianna recorded,” Grandma says. “Said it’s so bad that it was on the news. Liked to embarrass the hell out of me!”
“Can’t nothing get the hell out of you,” Jay mumbles.
Grandma narrows her eyes and sets her hand on her hip. “If you got something to say to me, say it.”
“You know what? Actually, I do—”
“We already know about the song,” Trey says before World War III can break out. “Ma addressed it with Bri. It’s fine.”
“No, it ain’t,” Grandma says. “Now, I done bit my tongue when it comes to a lot of stuff with you and your sister—”
Um, she hasn’t bit her tongue about anything.
“But this? This the final straw. Brianna wasn’t acting like that when y’all lived with us. Making vulgar songs and getting suspended. Got everybody in the church talking ’bout her. Some mess!”
Granddaddy fiddles with the button on the oven clock, as if Grandma hasn’t said a word. He’s a pro at tuning her out. “Jayda, when this here clock stop working?”
If Granddaddy sees a problem, he’s gonna try to fix it. Once, we were at my pediatrician when I was younger, and a light in the waiting room kept flickering. True story, Granddaddy asked the nurse if they had a ladder. He got up there and fixed it.
Jay closes her eyes. If she’s about to tell them what I think she’s about to tell them, we’re about to have a blowup. “The lights are off, Mr. Jackson.”
“What?” Grandma shrieks.
“What your lights doing off?” says Granddaddy. “It’s that box, ain’t it? I been saying it need to be replaced.”
“No, no,” Jay says. “They were turned off by the electric company. We’re behind on a payment.”
There’s a moment of calm before the storm.
“I knew something was going on,” Grandma insists. “Geraldine said her daughter thought she saw you come into the welfare office where she works. That was you, wasn’t it?”
Lord, Ms. Geraldine. Grandma’s best friend and partner-in-gossip. Grandma says “Geraldine said” almost as much as she breathes.
“Yes, it was me,” Jay admits. “I applied for food stamps.”
“Now Jayda, you could’ve asked us for help,” Granddaddy says. “How many times I gotta tell you that?”