Courage

by Barbara Binns

  “Why are you letting him go so early?” I ask, staring at Mr. Cho.

  “I don’t make the rules,” Mr. Cho says.

  Adults always say things like that. But if they don’t make the rules, who does?

  “Do you want your brother to come home?” Mr. Cho asks.

  “Of course he does,” Mom says quickly.

  Does not.

  Mr. Cho leans back in the chair. “Support from the family is often a deciding factor on whether a parolee returns to a life of crime or makes a successful transition to the outside world.”

  “Lamont will have support,” Mom assures him, looking at me pointedly. “I won’t put any pressure on him.”

  “Put enough on him to make him understand he doesn’t get to decide which rules he wants to obey. He can’t go near his victims”—he looks down at a file folder with papers in it—“Pietr Frank or the Murhasselt family. Most important, he has to steer clear of his former associates. That’s often the rule that trips these gang members up. They find it nearly impossible to break ties.”

  “What if he does go back to them?” I ask.

  “I will revoke his parole.” He sounds reluctant. I feel excited and sit down to hide my joy. Lamont loved gang life and the guys he called his real family. He won’t be here long.

  “That won’t happen,” Mom insists. “My son was sucked in when he was young and vulnerable, but he’s matured. He was just a boy, not a hardened gang member.”

  Oh, please, Mom. Lamont thought he was a king. He was never cool with rules. Dad was the only person who could keep him in line. Lamont and Dad would argue. My brother would get angry at our father, and then he would do what Dad said anyway.

  I lean closer to Mr. Cho. If he is serious about the rules thing, then I don’t have to worry anymore.

  Mr. Cho clears his throat. “I don’t want to argue, ma’am, but he never denied his involvement with the Enforcers gang.”

  “He promised me those days are over,” Mom said. “He wouldn’t lie to me.”

  Mr. Cho’s knees crack as he climbs to his feet and gathers his files. “I hope so.” He pulls a card from his pocket and hands it to Mom. “Program my number into your phone. If you need me, call.”

  “Thank you,” Mom says. “T, walk our guest out, please.”

  I follow him to the door. He pauses in the hall.

  “How old are you, T’Shawn?” he asks.

  “Almost thirteen.”

  “Then you’re old enough to understand. I’m afraid your mother might be a little soft with him.”

  “She’s not soft.” Only, she does cry about him sometimes. Like on the day he left us. And when he was arrested. And every time she packs him a care package or returns from visiting him in prison.

  Mr. Cho steps closer to me. “Your mom looks like she blames herself for your brother’s bad choices. None of what happened was her fault. Or yours. Some people are born bad.”

  “He wasn’t born bad.” I can’t believe I feel the urge to defend Lamont. But he wasn’t always that way. Once, he was the best brother ever. That only changed after Dad died.

  Cho looks unconvinced. “People promise anything to get out of prison. Sometimes they even intend to follow through. But the recidivism rate is still above fifty percent. Do you know what recidivism means?”

  I shake my head no.

  “It means more than half the people who get out of prison walk through a revolving door and end up back inside.”

  Recidivism. The word won’t be on any of my school vocabulary quizzes, but I don’t think I will ever forget it.

  He pulls out another card and hands it to me. “This one is for you. If your brother does anything that could hurt any of you, let me know. Okay?”

  “You mean be your spy?”

  “I mean keep your eyes open. Don’t be afraid to tell me if anything goes wrong.”

  “I’m not afraid,” I insist as he starts down the stairs. Then I shut the door and return to the kitchen, struggling to make myself believe my own words.

  Chapter

  Seven

  MY BIRTHDAY COMES AND GOES. The thirteenth of March is no longer the most important date circled on the calendar. I have to explain to Dontae that I’ll be having a brother instead of a birthday celebration. I wait as long as I can, until Dontae shows up at my apartment. Party or not, he intends to give me a present. He whistles when he sees how my room has changed. Mom traded with a coworker my bed for a set of bunk beds her friend no longer needed.

  “I still can’t believe you have a secret brother,” Dontae says. “You told me he was dead.”

  “I never said dead. I said gone.”

  “What did he do?” Dontae asks.

  I tell myself to lie, but this is my best friend, and I’m too tired to think up a story. I drop down on the bottom bed and close my eyes.

  When I remain silent, he pulls out his phone and thumbs through the internet, doing a search for my brother. I’ve never searched, never looked online to see what information exists. The details of his arrest and conviction for robbery and assault must be there.

  “This says your brother almost killed Mr. Frank,” Dontae says in a low voice.

  “I don’t want to talk about this,” I say, because the rest of the story goes from bad to really awful. Lamont and other gang members broke into Frank’s Place, a local restaurant a few blocks from our apartment, and held Mr. Frank and a waitress, Linda’s older sister, hostage. They were there partly for money and partly because Mr. Frank continually defied the gang’s attempt at neighborhood domination. There is one thing that won’t be in any internet file because I never told and neither did my brother. I would have been with him that night if Malik hadn’t found me first and taken me away from my brother and his friends.

  “When will your brother be here?” Dontae asks.

  “Three days.” Crappy birthday to me.

  “Is this why your mom had to cancel your party?”

  I shrug, unwilling to admit the cancellation was my idea. A bus rumbles by on the street outside my open window.

  “You’ll have to sleep with your eyes open, you know,” Dontae adds, his face as solemn as a teacher giving instructions before a test.

  “I won’t be able to sleep at all. Worst of all, I’ll have to do my not sleeping up here.” I climb the shaky ladder to the top bunk. When I sit, I have to hunch my shoulders to keep from hitting my head on the ceiling. I reach up and rub my fingers along the rough, painted surface. “I hate this.”

  “Claim the bottom, if that’s what you want. It was your room first. He has to respect dibs.”

  “Lamont only respects Lamont. He’ll take the bottom bunk just because he can, once he knows I want it.”

  “Is he smart?” Dontae asks.

  I nod. “Real smart. He taught me to fight and stand up to bullies. And how to swim. He’s school smart too. He used to help me with my homework. But he was fascinated with the gang life. My dad told him he needed to stay in school and graduate. He used to say, ‘If you join, I’ll come back from my grave and go after you.’” Then he died. My brother joined the gang, and Dad never returned.

  “I know how to work smart bullies. You know I have to deal with people who think I’m weak all the time. Whenever someone comes after me, I always have something I can pretend I want to protect. They tear into that first, and the rest of my stuff is safe. Survival skills, man.” He pretend punches me in the arm. “Fake him out. Tell him you want the top, that you’re dying to be up high.”

  “But I don’t want the top.”

  “Let him think you do. Then he’ll take what he thinks you want.” He rubs his hands together, grinning.

  “I could try, I guess.”

  Dontae frowns for a moment, thinking. Then he adds, “If things get really bad, come to my place. You could live with me. That’s what buds are about, man.”

  That’s why friends are better than brothers. And I picked me a good one. We do our special handshake: knuckl
e fist bump and two snaps.

  Mom enters the room, bringing cups of hot chocolate. From up here, I look down at the wrinkles running deep in her forehead. Rochelle follows her and starts up the ladder. I reach down, take her arms, and pull her up. She settles into my lap and giggles.

  “You look better,” Mom says. “Happier.”

  I shrug.

  “This is going to work. You’ll see,” Mom continues, handing one cup to me and one to Dontae. “I’m thinking about inviting a few people over once your brother arrives.”

  “I told you, Mom, no party.”

  “Not a party, more like a housewarming. Just a little get-together, to help him feel welcome.”

  I blink back angry tears and finger the parole officer’s card in my pocket as my mom leaves, taking Rochelle with her.

  Maybe we should have that housewarming bash. We can invite Lamont’s old friends, the ones who have escaped arrest, anyway. The sooner he reconnects with his gang, the sooner his parole officer can send him back where he belongs.

  “It’s still your birthday, and even without a party, you deserve a present.” Dontae pulls an envelope from his jacket pocket. “It’s no bomb, man,” he adds when I don’t take it right away. “Are you going to open it or what?”

  Inside is an iTunes gift certificate and a birthday card with a picture of a beach. I open the card, read the handwritten inscription, and laugh. “‘So you can buy some of that funky music that only you love,’” I read aloud. “Your grandparents sent you this from Florida, didn’t they?”

  He looks startled for a moment before shrugging. “How did you know?”

  “I’ve seen your grandmother’s handwriting before.”

  He slaps his forehead. “I should have gotten a new card. Anyway, don’t you believe in regifting? They sent it last year, but I never used it. If it was supposed to be good enough for me, it has to be good enough for you.”

  I fall back on the mattress, laughing. “Thanks, man.”

  “Happy birthday, bud.”

  He doesn’t even realize his friendship is the best present he could ever give me.

  Chapter

  Eight

  OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS I keep trying to pretend things are normal. I almost succeed, right up until L day.

  Mom puts a vase of fresh flowers in the living room before leaving to go to the prison a couple hours away in Pontiac, Illinois. It’s early morning, and the sun is barely visible through a dark haze of clouds. Rochelle and I are supposed to dress nice. Rochelle is wearing a purple dress with lace on the collar. Mom told me to make sure I put on a fresh shirt and the blue pants I wear for church.

  I have just finished feeding my sister lunch when I hear Mom’s key in the lock. The door opens, and my big brother, Lamont, steps inside the apartment door, holding a gray duffel bag. He crosses the room to stand towering over me and drops the bag with a thump at my feet.

  Come on, God. How about a bolt of lightning right between my eyes? Maybe eight feet of snow centered over my head.

  Nothing happens.

  “You grew, Short Stack,” Lamont says, and part of my brain wiggles at the sound of the nickname I haven’t heard in forever. He uses his first words to remind me that I’m little, unimportant, someone he can order around.

  “My name is T’Shawn,” I remind him. It’s not old times, and I no longer do hero worship. My heart thumps painfully as I tilt my head to look up into his nearly black eyes. The top of my head almost reaches his shoulder. I had forgotten how much he looks like Dad. He’s grown an ugly tuft of hair under his lip and above his chin, a soul patch that doesn’t work on his face. Standing in the middle of the living room, he looks sharp wearing the new jacket, shirt, and slacks Mom bought for him. New dress shoes too, not the high-top sneakers he always insisted on wearing. He’s put on more muscle. His broader-than-ever shoulders leave him looking huge and menacing in an “I can think of all sorts of creative ways to make you sorry” kind of way. There is a scar over his left eye that wasn’t there when he left. But his lips widen in the same sunshine grin that attracted almost everyone, even his enemies.

  “I missed you,” he continues.

  Yeah, sure you did. I barely keep from rolling my eyes. I won’t believe anything that comes out of his mouth. I know how easily his expression can change to the sneer that made people back away. Maybe he missed being out, doing whatever he wanted when he wanted. But he didn’t miss me enough to put my name on his list of allowed visitors.

  Mom pats her hair, a sign she’s nervous. She dressed up too and put on jewelry. A bracelet jangles when she moves, and her golden butterfly brooch shines on one shoulder of her pink blouse.

  “Let T show you around. I’ll be back soon,” Mom says before starting out the door.

  “But we just got here. Where are you going?” he asks, sounding confused.

  “I need to return the car,” she says, and hurries out the door.

  Lamont turns back to me. “What does she mean ‘return’?” He and I walk to the front window, where we watch Mom climb behind the wheel of the metallic blue Chevrolet and drive off.

  “It’s a rental,” I explain.

  “Pretty fancy car for a rental.” Lamont frowns, apparently finding it hard to believe. It is a neat car, one I never got to ride in. We’ve never had a car, even when Dad was alive. He always said a car in the city was a crazy expense. A lot of people in Chicago do not own cars. The rental fee for one day would have paid for a week at swimming camp.

  “Mom’s gotta return it quick or pay a late penalty. You’ll have to learn to walk again now that you’re back.”

  He gives me a slit-eyed stare so intense my stomach ties itself into a hangman’s noose. “Good thing I’ve done a lot of walking in the prison yard and on the prison laundry job I had. If you need shirts washed and pressed, I’m your guy.” He turns away from the window and rubs a hand over his head. Lamont used to be an imitation Pitbull, Mr. Worldwide, keeping his head shaved completely bald. His hair has grown several inches, dark and thick, hiding the skull tattoos that branded him as a bad guy. He must be aching to get to a barbershop.

  “Mom spent a lot of money for the care packages she sent you,” I say.

  That makes him grin. I was hoping he would feel guilt. “It was nice to get mail and treats. The cigs came in handy too.”

  “When did you start smoking?”

  “I don’t. But they were currency on the inside. And even the guards loved her cookies.”

  “I love cookies,” Rochelle says from behind him.

  Lamont jumps and turns, crouching slightly. Rochelle stands in a corner with her mouth open. He slowly stands, unclenching his fist. After several deep breaths, he takes a step toward her.

  “Hey,” I say, moving quickly to try to get between them. But all he does is kneel in front of our sister.

  “Do you remember me?” he asks.

  She shakes her head. A finger slips into her mouth. He’s a stranger, and she’s worried.

  “I’m your brother.”

  “Nuh-uh. T is my brother.” She runs around him and comes to me. I pick her up and hold her against my chest.

  “You can have more than one brother,” Lamont says, still on one knee.

  “Not you. I don’t like you,” Rochelle says, because my sister is a smart girl.

  “How is she supposed to know who you are?” I ask. “She was barely a year old when you decided to leave our family.”

  “I didn’t decide. The Wiggins Witch kicked me out of the shelter. And Mom let her.”

  The fury and hate in his voice makes me take a step backward. Constance Wiggins is the director of the homeless shelter we moved into after we lost our home. Lamont disobeyed rules and scared other residents and staff. That’s why he had to leave. I think he enjoys scaring people. Especially me.

  He laughs, his voice a little raw, as if he’s no longer used to making that sound. He stands and removes his jacket, letting it fall over one lean, muscled arm. Be
neath is a black T-shirt. “You’re all going to have to get used to me now. Lead the way, Short Stack. Show me where I’m bunking.”

  T. My name is T’Shawn.

  I put Rochelle down and let him follow me down the short hallway to my bedroom. Our bedroom now. Nothing is mine anymore. He steps inside and turns slowly, pausing once to look at the bunk beds, then a second time to gaze at the wall. I tacked up an orange-and-blue Fighting Illini pennant on that wall. It’s the emblem of the athletic teams of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. That’s where Malik plays basketball.

  Lamont grunts, opens the closet door, and tosses his duffel bag on the floor. An autographed jersey from Malik hangs on the closet door. It’s one he wore his freshman year and signed for me as a Christmas present.

  “Leaky’s shirt,” Lamont says, fingering the jersey, a note of annoyance in his voice.

  “His name is Malik.” I back over to the dresser and grab the picture of Malik I keep there. I shove the picture inside a drawer before my brother turns around. I should have moved it and the jersey before Lamont arrived. Malik is black, like us, but his family is wealthy, not like us. He volunteered to be my imitation big brother after Lamont was banished from the shelter, until his father gave Mom her job. When I was little, the words “Lamont says” fell off my lips a dozen times a day. Lamont acted annoyed until I started saying “Malik says” instead. I forgot how much he hates Malik.

  “Are you two still tight?” Lamont asks, clenching his fists.

  “We text every week. I follow him on Twitter.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Your hero isn’t that different from me. Just because his father can pay for college and cars and for him to play basketball. I used to play a little ball.”

  Malik is the opposite of you, I think. Aloud, I say, “You never cared about schools or teams or anything except being in charge.”

  “Oh, please, Short Stack. People are ready to do anything to be on top, including your special friend.”

  “Malik is a champion. He doesn’t cheat or lie, he’s not like—”