by Coe Booth
I stop walking and stand there on the sidewalk for a minute just watching. All these people from my building is standing ’round talking, shaking they head. I feel the breath leave outta my body. Something musta happened to Cal again. Somebody musta hurt him worse this time. Somebody musta—
“Ty.” Keith come ’cross the street on his scooter. What the fuck he doing out here this time of the morning? “You wasn’t home?”
“Nah,” I tell him. “What’s going on? Is Cal—?”
“You missed a lot,” he say.
“C’mon, Keith. What the fuck happened?” Can’t believe I’m looking for answers from a thirteen-year-old on a scooter.
“Cal got arrested,” he say. “He shot some dude that I think was trying to rob him or something.”
“Shot?” Nothing making sense no more. “Cal don’t got no—”
Gun.
Shit. That’s why he left outta Bronxwood, to go to Willis Avenue by hisself. That’s what he had to go get. I wasn’t even hardly paying no attention to him.
I look through the whole crowd and I’m like, what these people still standing ’round for? “The guy he shot, he alive?”
Keith shrug. “I seen an ambulance come and take him away, but I don’t know.”
“And Cal was arrested?” I can’t believe this.
Keith nod. “About two hours ago, I think.”
Cops is still walking ’round outside the building and in the lobby, like they trying to find something. They got yellow tape up ’round the front door and there’s a female cop standing there, looking like she making sure nobody get underneath that tape.
I look ’round to see who I know out here, somebody that could give me more information. Only one I kinda know is this guy Evan that live on my floor. He tell me that the dude Cal shot ain’t dead, but they don’t think he gonna make it. “They investigating it like a homicide,” he say, shaking his head.
Homicide. Cal mighta killed somebody. He musta been scared out his mind to do something like that. “Damn,” I say. “Damn.”
“You can’t go upstairs, Ty. The cops is in y’all’s apartment now.”
“You know if Greg there?”
“Yeah, he there. Cal went up there after he shot the guy and that’s where the cops found him. Now they searching the place with a warrant.”
I stand there for another couple minutes knowing they gonna arrest Greg soon as they find what he got up there. Least Cal ain’t the only one going down for the shit his brothers got him into. Wouldn’t mind seeing the cops drag Greg ass outta there. But, nah. I ain’t gonna give Greg the chance to try and drag me into they shit.
All my stuff is upstairs, all my clothes and my equipment. Everything. All I got is the clothes on my back, my backpack, and the money I got left over from what Emiliano paid me last week.
Everything going on is fucked up and it kill me what Cal probably going through right now. But I knew something like this was gonna go down one day. I’m just lucky I wasn’t ’round when it did.
So I tell Evan I’ma see him ’round, and I turn and walk back down the block, back toward the train station. I don’t know where I’m going, but I leave outta Bronxwood and don’t look back.
FORTY-TWO
’Cause I’m tired and ’cause I don’t got nowhere else to go, I take the train to Jerome Avenue, and walk down Mosholu to my moms and pops apartment. I was gonna end up there anyway for Troy visit, but the real truth is, I don’t got no other choice. I’ma hafta ask my pops if I could stay there for a while, least ’til I get my equipment outta Cal and them apartment, play some parties, and save up enough money for my own place.
Then I’ma be on my own for real. ’Cause what I was doing at Cal apartment all this time wasn’t being no man. All I was doing was playing.
It’s Saturday morning and people is starting to come out already. I don’t even know what time it is. As I walk, I dig ’round at the bottom of my backpack and find my cell. I turned it off before my pops party and forgot ’bout it. I put it on and it’s 7:40. And I got four texts. The first two is from Cal. The first one say: call me
Then the next one just say: 911
The other two is from Patrick trying to find out where I am, and if I was home when everything went down with Cal.
Thinking ’bout Cal texting me after everything that happened and me not calling him back, that hurt. He shot that guy and ain’t know what to do, and where was I? And why he ain’t even tell me he was gonna get that gun? Me and him used to talk ’bout everything.
Now he going through something nobody should hafta. And his freedom is gone. He through.
I’m ’bout to put the cell in my pocket when I see I got a voicemail too. It’s Troy first foster mom. “I’m still out of town, Tyrell,” she say, “but Ms. Thomas called and said Troy wants to come back and stay with me. And that’s fine by me. That little boy wasn’t a problem at all.” She say more, ’bout how she coming back from vacation after Labor Day, but I don’t need to know all that. I’m just glad that Troy gonna be somewhere where he happy. ’Til they let him come back home for real.
Knowing that make it easy to go back home and deal with my pops. Nothing he tell me could fuck this feeling up for me.
When I get upstairs to they floor, I knock, but nobody answer. I know my pops was gonna go to the Black Rock, but where my moms at? She s’posed to be home waiting for Troy to get here. I don’t got no key, but I try turning the knob and it’s open. I’m like, what’s up? Why the door ain’t locked?
When I go inside, I see my pops sitting in the kitchen. He drinking a beer this early in the morning and he look so pissed, I don’t even think he see me come in.
That’s when I hear crying coming from the back of the apartment and I know what’s up already. Damn. Fuck.
I run down the hall to my moms and pops room, but she ain’t in there. She in the bathroom, on the floor, and I can’t believe what I’m seeing. My pops fucked her up real bad this time. For a second, I just stand there in the door looking at her ’cause I don’t know what to do.
My moms ain’t wearing nothing but her panties, and she curled up in a ball on the floor between the sink and the tub, like she hiding. Her mouth is bleeding and I can see that one of her front teeth is knocked out. And there’s blood all over her face and her hair and her neck. It’s crazy.
But the crying is the thing that get me. She look and sound like a little girl. I get down on the floor next to her and try to help her up, but she ain’t moving. She shake her head and say, “I can’t. I can’t.”
“You need a ambulance?” I ask her. “You want me to—”
“No, no, no,” she say. “No, don’t call nobody. I don’t want—”
“You hurt,” I say. I snatch a towel off the rack and start to wipe her face with it. I wanna see how bad he beat her. But every time I touch her face with the towel, she let out a high-pitched cry, ’specially when I get to the left side of her forehead. She got a cut that’s real deep, like maybe where my pops ring dug into her. “Stop, Ty. Stop, I’m okay. I’m—”
“You need stitches,” I tell her. “And you need to go see a dentist or something.”
“I can’t. I can’t. They gonna arrest him and then what I’m gonna do? What can I—?”
“You can leave his ass,” I tell her, but watching her sitting there, shaking her head, I know it ain’t gonna happen. Never did before, no matter how bad he beat her. Ain’t gonna happen now.
While I clean her up the best I can with warm water on a towel, I listen while she talk on and on ’bout why did she wait for him to get outta prison when she coulda found somebody else to be with, and why she gotta live like this, and why, why, why? This ain’t the first time I’m hearing her say shit like this. It’s what she do.
But what she say next is new. “We was trying to have another baby, you know, your pops and me. We wanted to have us one more baby, maybe a little girl this time. We was trying to give Troy a little sister.”
I close my eyes for a second. Damn. That’s what they was up to. Trying to make another baby that would end up in foster care too the next time my pops get locked up. What the fuck is wrong with them?
It take a while to get my moms up off the floor, but I don’t let her see herself in the mirror ’cause she look that bad. She scary-looking. Not one, but two teeth is knocked out and they still on the bathroom floor, and the cut over her forehead still gushing blood. The washcloth I gave her to hold against it is already soaked.
It’s hard, trying to get her to walk too, she in so much pain. But I get her back to her room, help her put on a T-shirt, and get her to lay down in bed. Then I leave outta there, even though she still crying, still talking to herself ’bout how she deserve to be treated better than this.
This whole thing my fault.
My pops still sitting in the kitchen. Nigga ain’t even move to help his wife, ain’t even see if she alright. “What the fuck you had to do that for? Why you—”
“You know I’m all about respect, Ty.” My pops voice is calm, like he ain’t just wild out on my moms a little while ago. “I can’t have nobody disrespecting me like that, not even my wife.”
“But she—”
“You gotta demand respect from people!” He look at me hard. He mad at me. “I taught you that, Ty.”
“I know. Didn’t you say you taught me everything I know?” I stare back at him now.
“I did!” Now he outright yelling at me.
“You wrong. Only thing you did was teach me everything you know. What, you don’t think I learned nothing else all this time you was locked up?”
He stand up. “What you learned? You a man now?”
I move closer to him and we standing, like, two inches away from each other. “I am.”
He try and do that thing again where he grab me by the throat, but I don’t let it happen. I been letting him do that shit to me all this time but not no more. Never again.
This time I push him back and, I don’t know if he wasn’t expecting it or what, but I catch him off guard and he fall back against the counter. Then without even thinking ’bout what I’m ’bout to do, I punch him in the face as hard as I can, just to make him feel some of the pain my moms felt.
Just like I knew he would, he come back at me and, next thing I know, we fighting. It don’t last long, but this a first for me and him. It used to be just him hitting me, and me not doing nothing back, but not this time. This time we like two men fighting. For real.
By the time my moms make it out there and get us to stop, the kitchen is jacked up. Broken glass is all over the floor ’cause the table got knocked over and the vase and some glasses that was on it got smashed. My pops lip is bleeding and I got cut on the hand, but that’s it. We done.
Before I leave, I go back down the hall to find my backpack in my moms and pops room. My pops wallet is on the dresser. I open it up fast and grab a handful of bills. I don’t count it, but the way I feel, it’s what he owe me for helping him DJ.
Then, before I leave, I look ’round and know for a fact, with the way the apartment look and how beat up my moms is, ain’t no way Ms. Thomas gonna leave Troy there. He ain’t coming home no time soon.
And I can’t be here when Troy find that out. I can’t take the look on that kid face.
I leave out the apartment and go down in the elevator, not knowing where to go or what to do. I walk outside and more people is out there now. It’s a nice sunny morning, but everything in my life is so fucked up I can’t even think straight.
My cell ring and I pull it out my pocket. It’s Novisha. “Hello.” I sound mad tired.
She sigh. “Oh, my God. I’m so glad to hear your voice. I thought … I was worried about—”
“I’m okay, Novisha.”
“Good. When I heard about Cal, I prayed you weren’t—”
“I wasn’t home. I’m a’ight.”
“Good,” she say again. Then she stop talking and I keep walking, not knowing what to say to her neither. After everything that just happened with my moms and pops, and everything that happened between me and Novisha in the past, I don’t know. It’s hard to know what I’m s’posed to say to her no more.
Finally, she say, “Ty? You still there?”
“Yeah. I’m here.” I get to Jerome and stand there waiting for the light to change.
“Ty, I know you were mad at me for what I did and I understand that. I know I messed up. But I’m always gonna want you to be okay. I’m always gonna want you to be happy, even if it’s not with me.”
What come out my mouth next surprise the shit outta me. But I’m too tired to lie to her. “It’s the same with me, Novisha, you know what I’m saying? No matter who you with and who I’m with, you was the first girl I had feelings for, for real.”
She quiet again.
“Me and you, Novisha, right now, we cool. We friends, a’ight?”
“Alright, Ty.”
“I gotta go now, okay?”
“Okay. Bye.”
We hang up and, I gotta be honest, that felt alright, ’specially after the shit that just went down. Yeah, Novisha disrespected me, but why I gotta stay mad at her for? I ain’t my pops.
I cross the street, and it ain’t ’til I’m on Grand Concourse that I even notice where I’m walking to. The cell is still in my hand and all I gotta do is go through my contacts real fast and hit the talk button.
“Tyrell?”
“You still sleeping?” I ask.
“No,” Jasmine say. “I’m waiting for Emil to get back from the car wash place. We’re leaving in a little while. What — what’s going on?”
“I’ll tell you everything when I see you.” I start walking faster.
“Ty, I told you. I’m leaving.”
“Tell me this. You wanna go or not?”
She sigh. “You know I don’t, but—”
“Then come downstairs. And bring some stuff with you, what you think you gonna need.”
“What, where are we—?”
“I don’t know. But I wanna be with you. That’s all I want.”
“Me too,” she say, “but—”
“Come with me, then.”
Jasmine don’t say nothing for a long time and I’m walking to her apartment, hoping she don’t say no ’cause right now it feel like she all I got. “Jasmine, you with me or what? ’Cause I—”
“Then stop talking and get here already,” she say. “And hurry up.”
“A’ight.” I smile. “I’ma be there in a minute.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to Mom, Mike, Haadiyah, Micayla, Alyssa, Hamza, Hasan, and Halima — you’re all a constant source of inspiration; Holly Black, thanks for all your help with this book; Jodi Reamer, thanks so much for being in my corner; and, as always, thank you, David Levithan, for your endless support!
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About the Author
COE BOOTH is the author of the novels Kendra, which was named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and a New York Public Library Book for Teen Age, and Tyrell, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was also named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age. She was born in the Bronx and still lives there. For more, check out www.coebooth.com.