Friend or Foe

by Patrick Jones

  Copyright © 2016 by Patrick Jones

  All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

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  Main body text set in Janson Text LT Std 12/17.5.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  The Cataloging-in-Publication Data for Friend or Foe is on file at the Library of Congress.

  ISBN 978-1-5124-0005-2 (lib. bdg.)

  ISBN 978-1-5124-0095-3 (pbk.)

  ISBN 978-1-5124-0096-0 (EB pdf)

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1 – SB – 12/31/15

  eISBN: 978-1-51240-096-0 (pdf)

  eISBN: 978-1-51240-518-7 (ePub)

  eISBN: 978-1-51240-516-3 (mobi)

  For Chioma, Olivia, and Sabrina

  —P.J.

  JUNE 22 / MONDAY AFTERNOON

  “Ian, take your time.”

  “Time is all I got.” I glance down at the rough county-issued sweats without a drawstring. In the free I dressed sharp, especially for shows. Not like these threads, as drab as this room.

  “We need to know why.”

  “I keep telling you I don’t know.” This guy is as thick and dumb as the walls around me.

  “There has to be a reason.” He’s emotionless; that’s all I have in common with this suit-and-tie cog in the machine. He’s black, old, tall, free. I’m white, young, short, locked up. “We know the how and what and the—”

  “And the who,” I add, cutting him off. This guy knows better than to speak his name out loud. When I hear his name, think about the things I did because of him, it’s like somebody’s hand grabbed my throat. I can’t speak, I can’t breathe, and all my sins run through my head. “I’ve got nothing to say.”

  The guy frowns. “Here.” He pushes his big white legal pad and a short yellow pencil across the table at me. I grunt at the futile gesture. “Then write it.”

  “Write what?”

  “Write what happened, Ian, and maybe you can figure out why you made the decisions—”

  “No.”

  “If the judge understands why, he might change his mind. You got something else to do?”

  I think about the unread books in my room and an unwritten letter to Chase. I shrug.

  “It doesn’t have to be perfect. Started back in May, right?” he says, all friendly. Another shrug from me.

  The pencil sits untouched on the table. He knows I won’t pick it up, but I wonder if it is some sort of test. Maybe he thinks a pencil is too small to be a lethal weapon, like me. Or is it? Am I?

  “You want people to know your side of the story, and only you can tell it.”

  “It wasn’t my fault. It was his, but I never intended for things to end—”

  “You can’t tell the end without the beginning. Let’s be clear on your story, Ian. Remind us whose fault you’re saying it was? His name, for the record?”

  My nostrils flare, eyes narrow as I manage to hiss those two words. “Orlando Moore.”

  1

  MAY 15 / FRIDAY EVENING

  VENICE PIZZERIA / FRISCO, TX (SUBURB NORTHEAST OF DALLAS)

  “Those guys are staring.” I tapped Orlando’s strong right guitar-strumming arm to get his attention. We sat crammed into a booth with our bandmates in a noisy restaurant filled with jocks. This crowd looked a little younger than the drunk girls and baked frat boys we’d played for at a party in Dallas, an hour earlier.

  “They’re just starstruck!” Orlando laughed it off. With his big retro Afro, Orlando stood out everywhere in Frisco.

  The staring made me nervous. “What do you want to do?” I asked.

  “Nothing?” Orlando said, like a question directed at Chase. Chase sat across the booth from us. On the other side of Orlando, his gorgeous girlfriend, Desiree, clung to his arm like a vine.

  Chase reached across the table for a fist bump with Orlando. The four of us, along with the other PunkFunkers—a funk-grunge mash-up band—and our crew filled the east end of the eatery. “They don’t like it, they can leave,” Chase said. His girlfriend, too-thin Tonya, kissed his cheek.

  “You know what, Orlando, I think they’re mainly staring at Desiree,” I noted.

  “You mean they’re staring at me with Desiree.” Orlando’s smile faded. He’s black and six-two; Desiree’s white and five-two. I’m not a good at math, but that’s a bad addition in Texas. “Redneck crackers.”

  Before I could agree, Chased jumped in. “If that’s the case, then they’re asking for trouble. If they ask, we got the answer.” He pounded his fists together. Chase tries to act like he’s some tough guy whenever he’s around us. He’s not.

  “Now, about Funk Fest.” Orlando started running down the particulars for the festival the next weekend at The Crush Club, an all-ages place in Plano. Last year, before Chase joined the band, we opened, but this year, we’re one of the headliners. I jotted down Orlando’s notes, but he stopped talking when he saw a middle-age white dude staring down at him. “Problem?”

  “You’ll have to keep your voices down or you’ll have to leave,” Meek Manager Man announced quickly. He started to walk away, but Orlando yelled at him to wait. The guy turned around looking scared.

  “Other people are being loud, and you didn’t say anything to them. I wonder why,” Orlando said. As one of the few African American juniors at Frisco High, a school that for years had the Coons as its sports mascot, Orlando getting singled out was nothing new. I’d seen it a hundred times: sometimes he reacted, sometimes he let it go. It all depended on his mood. Meek Manager Man stayed mute and walked away.

  Orlando laughed and started talking more about the gig, and louder, but Chase interrupted him after a while, pitching his ideas about the arrangements. “We got to feature Des and—”

  “Desiree,” Orlando snapped. Then he kissed her check softly.

  Chase dropped his head like he’d been punched. “Sorry, I meant Desiree.”

  I still didn’t like the loud guys across the room. They reminded me of bullies from back in middle school. “Do you want me to say something to those guys who were staring at us?” I asked. “I could—”

  “Ian, you gonna bite their ankles?” Chase cracked. Orlando laughed, which was more of an insult. “I’m playing, Ian. You take everything so serious. For a drummer, you’re sure off beat.”

  “Back to business,” Orlando said. It wasn’t the first time he’d had to get himself between me, his steady drummer, and Chase, his erratic bass player. “This is a business. First gig is paying four figures.”

  To the rest of them, that wasn’t big money; to me, it was a fortune. “I estimate by the end of—” I started.

  “Ian, Chase, check it out.” Orlando pointed at the door. The manager pointed back at him. But now, next to him was a pudgy white guy in a rent-a-guard uniform.

  “Come on, Orlando, let’s go,” Chase said quickly, not sounding quite so tough as before.

  Desiree started to stand. “Chase is right. We—”

  Orlando cut her off with an icy tone. “You would agree with him.”

  “Really, Orlando, this again,” Desiree said. “You’re my heart a
nd soul and everything.”

  “That’s right. OK, let’s go!” Orlando motioned for everyone to stand, rise, and leave with him. We did as told, except Chase who paid the bill with the credit card his dad gave him for band expenses.

  “Good night, officer,” Orlando whispered to the rent-a-guard. “Is there a problem?”

  “I’ve called the police,” said the guy with lots of attitude. “You’re disturbing the peace.”

  “You mean disturbing the pizzeria,” Orlando cracked. “And you’ve certainly eaten your share!”

  I laughed louder than warranted.

  Coming from behind, Chase slapped Orlando on the back. “You flamed him good, Orlando!”

  “All of you, get out of here,” the guy said. “Except you and you.” He pointed at Chase and Orlando. Orlando motioned for everyone to go, but Desiree and I stood by his side.

  “I said everyone—” The guy took a step toward Desiree, but Orlando blocked his way.

  “Out of the way unless you want to spend the night downtown,” the officer said.

  “You get out of our way.” Orlando stared the smaller man down with a hard look.

  The nervousness I’d felt before was magnified a million times. “Man, let’s go. We got a summer—” I stopped talking when the guy yelled at Orlando to put his hands behind his back. Orlando refused. When the guy reached for Orlando, he backed away and somehow in the chaos, Desiree got knocked down.

  Chase reached his hand out to help her up, but Orlando yelled at him. “Don’t touch her!”

  “Turn your thug self around!” The security guy shouted at Orlando.

  “You’re just hassling me for no good reason except—”

  “What is your name?” The security guy interrupted. He asked maybe ten times before Orlando spoke.

  “We’re the PunkFunkers,” Orlando said. Chase cracked up, but nothing was funny to me. I didn’t understand why Orlando acted so tough. Was he trying to impress Desiree or maybe Chase? Soon Orlando and the guy were nose to nose, spit flying as they jaw jacked until whitey dropped the n-bomb.

  “You gonna take that, Orlando?” Chase asked.

  Flying spit turned to flying fists. I think the security guy threw the first punch, but it happened so fast. When he was getting the better of Orlando, I jumped in, and then Chase helped. We got Orlando free and we made a run for it, but two squad cars pulled up just as we got out the door. The police didn’t need to yell “stop”—the guns pointed at us spoke louder than any words.

  2

  MAY 16 / EARLY SATURDAY MORNING

  FRISCO POLICE OFFICE PARKING LOT / FRISCO, TX

  “Ian, I don’t want to hear it.” Mom had steam coming out of her ears. She walked fast in front of me out to her old white Ford F-150 pickup, acting like she didn’t know me.

  “I told you it wasn’t my fault,” I said when I climbed in the truck, sitting on the ripped seat.

  “Nothing ever is.” She turned the key. “Let me guess—Orlando was involved. I told you he was trouble.”

  I wasn’t having this fight with her again. It was because Orlando was black, no other reason. He was a great influence. I knew it, and she knew that I knew it, so she denied it all the time. Orlando was the son of two college professors, and they lived in a house nicer than ours. He got great grades and was headed to Rice University, in Houston, although I wanted him to give our band a go. I wasn’t headed to college, so the band, which we’d started in ninth grade, was my one shot at success.

  I started to tell the story from the pizzeria again, but Mom wouldn’t listen. I tried texting Orlando, but his phone was off. I thought about trying Desiree, but I called her once about something and never again after Orlando found out. If he discovered her number on my phone, he’d cut me off with that death glare.

  Whenever Orlando felt Desiree was in need of protecting, he’d hit you with a look that made you feel like the maggot that lived on scum that lived below other scum.

  “If your father—” Mom spoke up. But those are the three words that end my listening to her. I tried a few more numbers and finally got Mrs. Moore. I liked talking to Orlando’s mom much more than my own.

  “It’s Ian,” I said, like she wouldn’t know my voice. Until we started practicing at Chase’s house in the Plantation Estates, I’d practically lived in their basement, where the PunkFunkers rehearsed.

  “Ian, you’re out?” She sounded surprised, but not in a happy way.

  “They did this testlike thing and then called home,” I told her. “I got to see someone in the juvenile probation office on Wednesday. Isn’t Orlando home?”

  I heard what sounded like muffled tears. “No. He’s being held until sometime next week. There’s a detention hearing. Is Chase with you?”

  “I don’t know what happened to him.” Fact was, I didn’t much care. I’d been out with Orlando, Desiree, and the band lots of times and nothing happened. But ever since Chase got involved and up in Orlando’s ear, things were different. Chase never thought; he just acted and got Orlando to do the same.

  “I can’t believe he’s got to spend the weekend in a—”

  “There’s nothing you can do, Mrs. Moore?” I asked.

  “They say he assaulted a security guard,” Mom interjected and turned to her favorite country station. I put my left hand over my ear to block the noise assault. The only thing worse than the sound was the smell in the truck’s small cab: bourbon. I wondered if it was from last night or if Mom started early this a.m. Her driving seemed normal—that is, as erratic, irresponsible, and inattentive as her parenting.

  “But so did I,” I confessed to Mom, covering the phone’s mic. “And Chase did too. I’m out, so why isn’t Orlando?”

  The answer was obvious as black and white. But I couldn’t help worrying about another color—green. If Orlando was locked up, what would happen to the band?

  “We’re going to visit with Orlando later today at the juvenile detention center where he’s being held,” Mrs. Moore said.

  “Can I come with you?” I pleaded. “I need to know how he wants me to handle the band.”

  “No, the rules are only family.”

  “But I’m like family,” I whispered so Mom wouldn’t hear me say those words. The Moores had been like a real family, which I hadn’t been in since Dad left us to shack up with his secretary. I listened as Orlando’s mom poured out all her worry and grief. Finally I said, “Trust me, I’ll fix this somehow.”

  “Orlando’s lucky to have a friend like you, Ian.” For the first time in hours I smiled. She excused herself and ended the call, promising to keep me informed and saying she’d ask Orlando about his instructions for the band. As drummer, I kept the rhythm together, so it only made sense he’d have me run the band until he got out, probably even have me take over doing lead vocals. I’d star for once.

  Just before we pulled into our apartment complex, my phone buzzed. It was Chase. I ignored him: he thought we were friends, but I just pretended for Orlando’s sake. I shoved the cheap phone into my front pocket and practiced singing along to Mom’s terrible country music.

  3

  MAY 18 / MONDAY MORNING

  FRISCO HIGH SCHOOL

  “I think I’m going to die!” Desiree cried. We had first hour English Lit together. She looked like she hadn’t slept all weekend. The only bright thing about her was an expensive gold necklace that Orlando had given her to wear to prom. She tugged on it nervously as if it were a magic charm. Normally, Desiree looked really fine, which was a double-edge sword for Orlando. He liked having the hottest girlfriend, but he hated that other people stared at her. “Chase and Ebony told me everything.”

  I still hadn’t talked to Chase and had no plan to do so until rehearsal at his house. And I rarely talked to Ebony, Orlando’s ninth-grade sister, who acted like some princess and treated me like a commoner.

  “Has she seen him?” I asked.

  “No, Ebony said they don’t allow visitors, even family, under the ag
e of 18,” Desiree said. Her voice sounded scratchy. “I’m writing him a letter to make sure he knows I love—”

  “He knows Desiree, trust me, he knows.” The only thing I didn’t admire about my best friend was his girlfriend. Not her, but how Orlando acted around her. He was so smart and talented, but he was almost like another creature because of her: all heart, no mind.

  “I’m going to go down there after school, even if they won’t let me in,” she said. “Just sit in the lobby. Maybe Orlando will sense that I’m out there. You and Chase should come with me.”

  I nodded in agreement. “You arrange it, okay?”

  “He’s got to know his best friends are standing with him.”

  Another head nod, but I didn’t agree. Chase was a good friend; I was Orlando’s best friend. I knew it, and I sensed Chase did too. It made him a little crazy. If the roles were reversed, it might make me crazy too.

  “They said there’s a chance he’ll get to go home today, but since he struck an authority figure, it’s doubtful.”

  Mr. Hoban, our teacher, called us out for talking and tried to start the class. He rattled on about old, boring, dead white guys, but my mind was on a young black man sitting in a six-foot cell, ten miles away.

  4

  MAY 18 / LATE MONDAY AFTERNOON

  COLLIN COUNTY JUVENILE DETENTION CENTER LOBBY

  “Now I know how Orlando feels,” I whispered to Desiree, who sat to my left in the hard orange chairs in the crowded lobby. The walls were puke green, and all the faces, other than ours, were brown. About half were Latino, the other half African American.

  “What?” Chase snapped at me. I ignored him. He can’t sit still or stay quiet. Every second it seemed he paced the floor or went outside to take or make a call.

  “He used to talk about feeling out of place a lot, but he just got used to it,” Desiree whispered.

  “What’s that line—” I replied, “‘what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger’?” She smiled at me, but then she stared at the door. Behind that door, and probably many others, I guessed Orlando also sat cramped and uncomfortable.