A Dark Truth

by Jeff Ross

  “We have to leave our boards here,” she said.

  “No way. That’s a brand-new setup!”

  “Riley, those cops were serious. We can’t be seen with decks right now. I moved them around under the bushes. We can come back first thing tomorrow and get them.”

  “Tomorrow is Monday. We’ll be in school.”

  “I’ll come get them, then. The first bus out here is at, like, six thirty.”

  “This is crazy,” I said. “We were just skateboarding.” I didn’t want to leave my deck somewhere overnight. I kept it in my room with me all the time. It had its own spot, where its dirty wheels had lovingly smudged up the wall.

  “Did they not look serious to you?” she said.

  “Yeah, they sure as hell did.”

  “Then trust me on this. Your board will be fine overnight. I hid it well.”

  I sighed heavily as Natasha picked up her backpack and stood. I slid out of the booth and sighed some more.

  “Shouldn’t we wait for D?” I said.

  “He’ll get back. He might even be on the bus. Who knows?”

  I took a last look around the restaurant in case Dashawn had come in and we hadn’t noticed. He was nowhere to be found. In fact, I noticed then that everyone in the restaurant was white except for two of the people behind the counter, who were black. I have no idea why I noticed it at that moment—I guess because I was looking for Dashawn. In any case, it seemed odd that the restaurant was entirely filled with white people.

  The suburbs, I figured.

  I grabbed my hat off Natasha’s head and put it on my own.

  “At least you saved my hat,” I said.

  “Like a boss,” she said. “Like a freakin’ boss.”

  We stood at the bus stop across the street with two older ladies and a couple of middle-school kids. Right before the bus came, the cruiser rolled past. It slowed, and I could feel the cops looking us over.

  “Told you it was a good idea to leave our boards,” Natasha said. We got onto the bus and found seats. Dashawn wasn’t on the bus. For a couple of stops we were hopeful that he’d hop on, but soon we were close enough to the city that if he’d made it that far, he would have just kept going all the way home.

  We didn’t dare text him. Not that night anyway. My parents didn’t notice my lack of a skateboard when I returned home, even though it was pretty much an extra appendage most days. I went to my room, logged on to Facebook and Hangouts and waited for Dashawn to write. When he didn’t, I feared the worst—that he’d been busted.

  That wasn’t the worst.

  Chapter Six

  I was awakened by a text from Natasha in the morning. It was a photo of our boards together, pushed up against the back of the seat in front of her on a bus.

  Thanks, I texted back as I heaved myself out of bed. It was only the second week of school, and already I was done with it. I’d thought I would have some exciting classes, and who knew, maybe they would pan out over the term, but so far everything was as dull as the year before.

  I decided it was safe to text Dashawn. He lived three blocks from my place, and I normally picked him up on my way to school. I sent a simple What’s up? and left it at that. But a growing sense of dread was creeping in as I ate my breakfast and listened to my parents talk. No matter what, Dashawn would text back. Unless he was in jail. But no one goes to jail for skateboarding. I kept waking my phone up, hoping a text had come in and something had just kept the phone from ringing.

  Somehow, neither of my parents noticed that I walked out the front door instead of rolling through the garage and down the driveway. I went at a normal pace at first, but soon I noticed my feet were moving quicker than ever.

  Dashawn’s house looked empty. I rang the doorbell anyway but wasn’t surprised when no one came. I sat on his porch and texted Natasha.

  Have you heard from D?

  The response was almost immediate.

  No.

  WTF he’s not @ his house.

  Jail?

  No, I texted back, but I wasn’t certain. I waited another ten minutes and then stood up to go to school. I would keep texting him all day, I decided, until I found out what had happened to him.

  As I was stepping from the porch, Dr. Reed’s pulled into the driveway. I could see Dashawn in the backseat, his mother in the front passenger seat. The car came to a stop, but for some reason I didn’t feel the urge to dart over to it. I was stuck in that spot. I had a strange feeling that I couldn’t place right that moment. It hummed around inside me and then settled in my stomach.

  The doors opened.

  Dr. Reed glanced at me before reaching back into the car for something. Mrs. Reed got out of the car and opened the rear door. Dashawn slid out of his seat. Before I noticed anything else, I saw him wince. Then it came in a flood.

  His arm in a sling. Black eyes, and a long bruise down his cheek. When he took a step, it was short and hobbled. He raised a hand toward me, but his face showed no sign of pleasure at my presence.

  Mrs. Reed went around the side of the house as Dashawn’s father took a call on his cell phone, leaving Dashawn and me alone for a moment.

  “What the hell, D?” I said. “What happened?”

  He couldn’t seem to look at me. Finally, staring at his feet, he said, “The police.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He raised the arm that was in a sling. “They did this.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Dr. Reed was yelling at someone on his phone. He was a big man, six foot six or so, and thick. A surgeon at the local hospital.

  It all came out in one long sentence then. The words tripping over themselves, like if they were said quickly enough, they wouldn’t count as being real. As words actually representing something that had happened.

  “When I tried to run, one of the cops tripped me, and I had my phone in my pocket and when I reached for it another one of the cops stomped on my hand, and then they just started yelling things at me, and before I knew it they were hitting me with batons, and one of them jumped on my back.”

  “The cops beat you?” I said. “They did this to you?”

  “Yeah, man, like I said.”

  “For skateboarding?” I said.

  “No, not for skateboarding.”

  I shook my head. “Are you saying four cops beat you?”

  “No, just two. The other two took off after you guys. Did they catch you?”

  “No—I mean, they found us at the Mickey D’s, but they didn’t know it was us. We stashed our boards like we’d planned. Then Tash and I took the bus back and left our boards there. She just went and got them now.”

  “Good,” Dashawn said.

  “Good? What is good about any of this? They can’t just do that,” I said.

  Dashawn finally looked at me. There was something new in his face. Something that hadn’t been there before. “Well, they did.”

  “What are your parents going to do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?” I said. “They can’t just do nothing.”

  “The cops said I bailed skating and that’s why I’m all messed up.”

  “But that’s not the truth,” I said. Nothing he was telling me made any sense. You couldn’t just get beat up for no reason, or just for skating, and nothing happened to the police. I twisted at my waist because my stomach suddenly felt awful. I looked out across the lawn.

  “That’s their truth, and it’s the only one that matters.”

  “You told your parents exactly what happened?”

  “Yeah, and they believe me.”

  “So they have to press charges, right? Those cops are going to pay for this.”

  Dashawn inhaled deeply. “There were no cameras in the area, Ry. No one filmed anything. It’s their word against mine, and my word is not going to win.”

  “Dude, they cannot—”

  “They can, Riley. They can. They do it all the time. Don’t you watch the news?”r />
  “No,” I said. Because I didn’t believe it—not really. I heard things now and then, and sometimes someone would post a news story about a police beating, but I didn’t see it in our city. I’d never expected it would happen here.

  “They can do what they want, Ry. That’s the point. I got busted somewhere I shouldn’t have been, and they decided to teach me a lesson. That’s what they said.” His voice had gone quiet. “When they were hitting me, the guy on my back told me I’d learn a lesson about what I was and wasn’t allowed to do in his city.”

  “His city?”

  “Yeah. That’s what he said.”

  “D,” I said. But I had nothing else. “This can’t happen.”

  “Well,” he said, “it did.”

  Chapter Seven

  Dashawn’s father was suddenly standing beside us, pocketing his cell.

  “They can’t do this to him,” I said. The sickening sensation I had in my stomach had changed to an anger I didn’t even see coming.

  “Oh yes they can,” Dr. Reed said. “And they proved it. I went straight to the chief of police. He already had the officer’s story, and that was all he needed. The official story is that the officers responded to a call of intruders on private property. They discovered three youths skateboarding.” He looked me in the eye. I felt myself sink a little. We’d run. It wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t run.

  “At this time they witnessed Dashawn attempting to slide down a handrail. Do you notice my tone, Riley? Tone is very important in these reports. One must make certain to sound official so people won’t be swayed by other ideas.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “The report goes on to state that ‘a black youth’ slipped, fell, crashed down half a dozen stairs, smashed into a ledge and then twisted his arm violently. His injuries were the direct result of a skateboarding accident. The kind-hearted police officers helped the black youth to their cruiser, and instead of bringing him to the police station, they delivered him to the hospital. There were no signs of destruction to any of the property in question, and therefore the black youth would not be charged for trespassing or destruction of property. The chief of police informed me that the police officers in question should be thanked for their assistance when they could have been much less kind.”

  “That’s what they told you?”

  Dr. Reed bent down slightly. “That’s what happened, Riley. That’s the truth because it came from the mouths of two white cops rather than one black kid. Oh, the black kid has a different story. That he didn’t fall. He didn’t crash. But instead that these officers of the law beat him with their batons, kicked him with their boots, jumped on his back. But that’s not the truth. The truth is what the white cops say it is.”

  “But it isn’t,” I said. I’d never felt uncomfortable in or around Dashawn’s house. Not once in all the years we’d hung out. But right then I felt as though I’d rather be anywhere else.

  “I know it isn’t, you know it isn’t, Dashawn and his mother know it isn’t, and every black man and woman who hears this story will know it isn’t. But that doesn’t matter because the truth is in that report those officers submitted.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Dashawn sat on the porch. I wanted to leave. It was awful. Dashawn couldn’t look at me. His father was growing more and more angry. I took a step away. Dr. Reed grabbed my arm and held it lightly.

  “They put their hands on my son, Riley. They beat him because they knew they could get away with it. They beat him to put him in his place. They beat him to put fear in his heart. Not as a kid. Not as a skateboarder. But as a black man. And now that they’ve done this, they know they can do it again. People out there hear about this—I mean, white people hear about this? They’ll say it was awful, but a lot of them are going to believe the police. Others might not—they might believe Dashawn’s story. But then they think he must have been doing something more. He was reaching for a weapon. Resisting arrest. He’d been destroying property or stealing. He didn’t deserve to be beaten, but then again, he didn’t really not deserve it. This wasn’t just wrong place, wrong time, some people will think. This was a kid who’d done something and was punished. Most people will think the punishment didn’t fit the crime, but on the other hand, there was a crime, and there was punishment.”

  “But he was just skating,” I said.

  “He was black and skating. That’s a different crime, Riley, than being white and skating.” He let go of my arm. “Same as being black and stealing some cigarettes is different than being white and stealing some cigarettes. Being black and walking down the damn street is a completely different act than being white and walking down that same street. And now that they’ve done it once, they know they can do it again. Dashawn isn’t safe here any longer. Not at all.”

  He was about to say something else when his phone rang. He put it to his ear and walked into the house, leaving Dashawn and me alone on the porch.

  “This is messed up, man,” I said.

  “So we’re moving,” Dashawn replied.

  “What? Why?”

  Dashawn looked at the ground some more. I couldn’t tell if he was crying. Thinking back, I’d never seen Dashawn cry. Not once. Not even when we were kids. But I sensed that that was exactly what he was doing.

  “You heard him. It’s not safe here.”

  “It’s totally safe here,” I said. “It’s, like, ridiculously safe.”

  “Not for me,” he said. “Not anymore.” He shifted slightly. It looked like every movement hurt. “My parents have been thinking of it for a while. We have a lot of family down in Atlanta, and my dad’s been offered a good spot at a hospital there. He could become head surgeon someday. There are just way more opportunities.”

  “You can’t move,” I said. I was thinking of myself then.

  “I don’t really have a choice, Ry,” he said. “And anyway, after last night…”

  “It’s not that,” I said.

  “What?”

  “It didn’t happen because you’re black. There’s just no way.”

  “It did, Riley.” He looked up at me and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. There was no question in his voice.

  “We never should have split. If we’d been there…”

  “It wasn’t your fault, man,” he said. He stood and walked over to me. He kind of leaned into me and gave me a one-armed hug. “You’ve been a good friend, man.” He stood back. “I gotta go lie down. Talk soon, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said. “You have to figure out a way to stay.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  He went inside, his father’s voice leaking out as he yelled into his phone. When the door shut, I was left standing in the same neighborhood I had walked through for years. The same birds and passing cars. The same wind rushing across my face. But none of it was really the same. Not the birds or cars. Not the wind.

  Nothing.

  Chapter Eight

  Dashawn didn’t go to school that week. I would skate to his house after last bell and we’d work on flatland tricks on his driveway. It wasn’t until Thursday, when I had a spare last period, that we returned to the skate park. We were the only ones there. Some of the old Dashawn came out as he breezed around the park, although he was pretty cautious. I expected some of it was his arm, which was still in a sling. But whenever a car came toward the park, he would jump a little and watch it go past. Just before we were about to leave, he tried a hardflip up the bank and landed it dead on the bolts. It was the first time I’d seen him smile since that night at the new building.

  “I’m moving on Monday,” he said while we rested beneath a tree and drank some water.

  “This Monday?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Shit,” I said. I didn’t say anything more. I couldn’t ask him to stay. I didn’t need to tell him how much it would suck. We both knew exactly what was happening.

  I’d been thinking all week about what Dashawn’s dad had sa
id. How black people needed to be more cautious. How some people placed others on a different level based entirely on the color of their skin. At first I’d been certain he was wrong. That it didn’t happen anymore. Those days were gone. But then I’d remembered a few things that had happened over the years. Things I’d never talked to Dashawn about.

  Like this one summer when our parents had forced us to play soccer so that we could see what being on a team was like. Most of the games were fine. We were an okay group, and we won a little more than we lost. Then we played an out-of-town team. Those guys rode Dashawn hard the whole game. Tripping him, elbowing him—everything that makes soccer a horrible sport. At first I’d thought it was because Dashawn was one of our best players. But in the handshake line, one of the kids leaned over to Dashawn and said as quietly as possible, We’ll kick your ass next time, nigger.

  I’d thought I misheard him. Dashawn looked shocked. I shoved the guy right away, and he shoved me back. He said something into my face. Something else with that offensive word another couple of times. A ref came over and separated us, and later, in the locker room, our coach talked to me about behavior and sportsmanship. I didn’t tell him what the guy had said because Dashawn seemed so embarrassed by it. As if it were, in some way, his fault.

  Then there was Mr. Wells, our history teacher. It was well known that he sized up his students based on their first assignment and then gave out the same grade, paper after paper. He never gave tests, which made it difficult to prove anything. I always received a B+. I did the work I had to do, and maybe it just happened to always deserve a B+. Dashawn kept receiving Cs or even C–. When Dashawn would ask Wells about his grades and how he could improve, Wells would tell him he had to dig deeper into the topic. And work on his grammar. So Dashawn would try harder. He would study more, use multiple sources for his papers, and still he’d get the same mark—C– work harder.

  Mr. Wells also had a horrible memory. Over the years students had often resubmitted an older sibling’s paper to him. So when I got my hands on a paper from a student who’d passed through the school three years before, I gave it to Dashawn. It had been given an A+. And it really was an A+ paper. I read it, and what the guy had written was better than anything I’d read in any of our textbooks. Dashawn decided to hand it in, just to see if an A+ was actually an A+.