Courage

by Barbara Binns

  “Lamont is just one guy,” I protest. I don’t want him around, in my room, messing things up between me and my friends. I never wanted him released. But now that he is out, I don’t want him to have to go back. Going back feels wrong because . . . well, because that would hurt Mom.

  “He’s a pest, a parasite,” Carmela insists. “He’s your brother. Do something.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Figure something out! Make him run off and be somewhere else.” She gives me that order and then whips around like a junior ROTC cadet performing an about-face. A moment later, she strides away with her head high, her long braids swinging against her back with each step. Her satellites march after her. Only Linda pauses to look back.

  “Why does Carmela care so much?” I ask.

  “But she’s not wrong,” Dontae says, moving closer. “My dad had to go across the courtyard to number four late last night to fix a leak. He didn’t finish until after midnight and saw your brother leaving your building on his way back.”

  I keep myself still and quiet, swallowing down an acid taste.

  At least he didn’t ask me to run the streets with him.

  The warning bell rings for first period, so Dontae and I race to class. Things stay quiet for the rest of the day, and I manage to avoid Carmela.

  I go directly to Dontae’s apartment after dinner. His father has a second job as the courtyard’s superintendent, so he gets free rent for his garden apartment. But that also means he has to spend a lot of time fixing tenant problems. He’s out now while Dontae and I study.

  “Hey, so I found The Book of Negroes—the one the Hun was talking about a few weeks ago.” Dontae says.

  “Oh, yeah? So, what is it?”

  “It has a list of the names of the thousands of slaves, male and female, who helped the British during the Revolutionary War.”

  I read an explanation about the book over his shoulder. “Even though Britain lost, they kept their word and evacuated thousands of the former slaves who worked with them. Huh. Some white people kept their word. Awesome.” I say the word, but I can’t keep enthusiasm in my voice.

  “What is wrong with you?” Dontae says, turning to me. “You usually love this stuff.”

  I shrug. “Just a lot of stuff with my brother. I had an argument with him a few days ago. He made me turn off my music. He thinks he owns the place now that he’s back.”

  “I think brothers are destined to fight,” Dontae says.

  “You once said you wanted a brother,” I remind him.

  “I want a lot of stuff and most of it ends up being bad for me. Learning about the adventures of T and Lamont cured me. Remember Loki and Thor in the movies. Those dudes tore up the nine realms because they hated each other.”

  “They were only foster brothers,” I say.

  “What about Romulus and Remus?” he says, moving on to a Roman myth we studied last year. “They were twins and one still killed the other.”

  “What do you expect? Those dudes were raised by wolves.”

  “How is that different from running around with a gang?”

  His words stop me. I have no real answer.

  He closes the book and turns back to his notebook—the one he uses to draw in. I’m into music. Dontae puts his energy into his drawing. Dontae has his whole future planned. He’s a B student now but intends to start getting As once he gets to high school so he can grab a scholarship to college. His father can’t get him there on a preacher’s salary. He’ll become a BIB—a Black Internet Billionaire—by the time he’s twenty, and live on the beach surrounded by girls and all the chocolate and chips he can scarf down. And he promises I can be his partner.

  Dontae’s head is down—he’s busy crafting yet another comic panel in his notebook. If he doesn’t make it as a billionaire businessman, he’ll probably make a fortune creating graphic novels.

  “This is real brotherly hatred,” he says, holding up the drawing to show off his new creation. The panel shows a battle between the half brothers Shango and Ogun, the deities of storms and of metal from Nigeria. We learned about them from an elderly immigrant from Haiti who sits around the park and shares tales.

  In Dontae’s picture, both African deities are slugging it out with bulging muscles, angry scowls, and clenched fists. If I stare hard, I can almost see them move, hear their grunts, smell the sweat. Dontae put my face on the figure holding the lightning bolt. Lamont’s face is on Ogun’s body, pointing an iron sword at my chest. Dontae made only one mistake. Ogun should be holding a gun.

  “What will I do if Lamont doesn’t leave?” I ask. I couldn’t win in any fight between us.

  “There’s always a way.”

  Says the preacher’s kid.

  “They should have sent him somewhere else,” Dontae adds.

  “You think? His parole officer thinks it’s good for him to be accepted back home or something. I really think this was Mom’s idea. She arranged for him to be in her home and got Lamont and the parole officer to agree.”

  “What if you don’t accept him?”

  “Lamont has to stay with us unless he gets permission to leave.”

  “That’s it.” Dontae grabs me by the shoulders and begins dancing. “We’ll get him permission. No, wait, he might hang around anyway.” Dontae rubs his chin, just like his old man during a sermon. “We have to order him to go.”

  Chapter

  Seventeen

  INSTEAD OF GOING HOME DIRECTLY after practice on Saturday, I take a detour, stepping off the bus near an old, three-story brownstone building. From the outside, it looks like an ordinary apartment building. You’d never guess how many families are squeezed inside this shelter, the place I called home for over eight months. It’s full of people whose lives have been torn up by accidents, job loss, family troubles, or sickness. For us, it was Dad’s cancer. He spent almost a year dying of the cancer eating up his pancreas. His hospital bills plus the funeral and Rochelle’s birth took all our money. The landlord didn’t care about our problems and grief. We were evicted. Two rooms on the second floor of this building became our only shelter.

  There are bathrooms at the end of each floor that residents share. The community kitchen is on the first floor. It gets really hot in the summer. Especially for us, crammed into two rooms, right above the kitchen. I hated living here. Lamont hated it more. They try to keep the rest of the world from knowing who lives here, but the kids in school always find out which students have no home.

  I stand and stare up at the window with the blue curtains. The curtains were always drawn when that was my room, as if sealing the windows shut could hide the shame. Lamont and I shared that room for the first month, sleeping on the same bed until he was banished.

  There’s a keypad at the front door, and we had strict orders to keep the code a secret. I walk up three stairs to the front porch and type in the numbers I can never forget. Nothing happens. It’s been a year and a half since Mom got a job and we moved out to our own apartment. Of course the code is different now. Besides, I didn’t really want to go inside, anyway. I only came here today because . . .

  Because . . .

  I don’t know.

  Ever since the last time I walked out these doors, I’ve wanted to forget the place ever existed.

  I start to walk back to the sidewalk when the door opens behind me. “T’Shawn?” I turn to see Constance Wiggins standing there, smiling at me. The last time I saw her, she wore a Bears sweatshirt that was so big it hung down to her knees, covering her blue jeans. Today she’s dressed in an oversize White Sox jersey. Her brown face gleams and her long black hair is pulled back in a single braid that hangs down her back.

  “What are you doing here?” she continues. “How nice to see you.”

  “I can’t believe you remember me.” It’s surprising and makes me feel good, even though I used to call her a witch. Actually, wicked old witch, but she doesn’t really look that old to me anymore. And definitely not wicked.


  “It’s been less than two years,” she says. “Of course I remember you! Is your mother with you?” She looks around the block behind me.

  “She’s at home with Rochelle,” I say. Mrs. Wiggins smiles when I mention Rochelle. Everyone smiles when they think of my sister. “I was just . . . I was in the neighborhood.”

  She chuckles. “Traveling down memory lane? Would you like to come in for a bit?”

  I shrug. “Maybe for a minute,” I mumble. I’ve confused myself and don’t know what to say now that I’m here. I don’t know what to say to her, anyway.

  I carry my gym bag inside. Dark velvet curtains cover the windows. It’s almost like entering a coffin, except the living room holds living people, parents and kids. I even see a kid from my school, a sixth grader and one of the few white kids in school. Redmond, I think his name is, with stringy, dark brown hair. I’ve seen him in the halls and know he gets in trouble a lot. I didn’t know he was homeless.

  When I lived in this place, they sent us to school in taxis. We hoped no one would find out we were homeless. It didn’t often work. Kids discovered I was a shelter kid. When they did, I was taunted and bullied until I found friends to be on my side.

  Redmond walks past me, deliberately bumping my shoulder. His blue eyes hold the set, angry look of people who get pushed around. They also mark him as gang bait, if he hasn’t been recruited already.

  “Apologize,” Mrs. Wiggins says as he continues walking toward the door.

  He stops and turns to me. A smirk twists his lips. A thin scar under his lower lip makes the deep cleft look like an upside-down T. “Yeah, apologize for getting in my way.”

  “I meant you, Redmond.” The power in Mrs. Wiggins’s voice is much bigger than her body. Redmond’s smirk vanishes, and he takes two steps backward.

  A white woman holding two struggling kids in her arms says, “You heard her. Do it.” Some kids run through the living room, including a boy a little older than Rochelle. He stops and looks at me for a second, then runs to Redmond’s mother. He doesn’t smile, instead looking wary, as if I am a threat he’s trying to assess. The same look I saw in my own mirror back in the days when I lived here.

  Redmond shrugs, throws out a word that sort of sounds like, “Sorry,” then continues out the door.

  I drop into a chair in a corner, glad Mrs. Wiggins doesn’t take me to her office in the back. I used to have to spend lots of time there because I was angry and got in a lot of trouble after she forced my brother to leave. Pipes clang as someone somewhere inside the building turns on a faucet.

  “Some things don’t change,” she says with a laugh.

  “But some things do. At least, I hope so. I mean . . .” I take a deep breath and then say in a rush, “Lamont is back. He was released early.”

  “Is he in a halfway house?”

  I shake my head. “Mom let him move in with us.”

  “I see.” She sits up straighter. “How are you doing?”

  “It’s only been a few weeks.” It’s nice to say just a few words and know someone totally understands everything roiling through my guts. Things I can’t say to Mom because she’s too happy having number one son back.

  She purses her lips. “Do you need anything?”

  “No. Right now, he’s being quiet.” I know what she is really asking me.

  “Lamont had a certain charisma that drew in others like quicksand. Unfortunately, he also had something inside compelling him to violate every rule. Even staff members became afraid of him and some of the older girls. He could have hurt some of the other residents, kids like those.” She nods toward Redmond’s family before adding, “And like you.”

  I hear the unspoken question in her voice. It’s good to have an adult worrying about me as if I come first. I nod but stay quiet for a moment, watching the little boy with his mom. “Maybe I could volunteer around here sometime,” I say.

  Mrs. Wiggins smiles. “I’d love to have you do just that in a couple of years. Who could understand these kids better than someone who has stood in their shoes?”

  “Like Malik, the guy you assigned to babysit me.” Malik never stood in my shoes. Both his parents are alive, and his father owns a chain of auto shops. But he was a better brother to me than Lamont.

  “Not babysit. You were devastated when I was forced to expel your brother. You needed a friend; Malik needed responsibility. I knew it would be a perfect match.”

  I nod again. “Thanks, Mrs. Wiggins.” I get up to go.

  “Anytime, T’Shawn. You can come by whenever you need to.”

  Redmond is standing on the corner when I leave, smoking. I can’t help walking close to him. I can’t believe he’d do something like that.

  His eyes lower when I come close. “I’m not gonna apologize.”

  “I never asked you to.” I’m still not a fighter. “You know you can’t be in a gang and stay here. She won’t let you.” I set my bag on the sidewalk as I speak.

  Something flickers in his eyes. “I’m not in no gang.”

  “But you want to be.” He has some of the same problems with anger I saw in Lamont years ago. And he’s heading in the same direction. Standing out here on the corner like this is advertising. He’ll meet a recruiter soon enough. He may be younger than Lamont, but if Mrs. Wiggins decides he is dangerous, she won’t let him stay.

  “I can’t make it alone,” he snarls, kicking the ground with his foot.

  “We could be friends, then you wouldn’t be alone.”

  He laughs and shakes his head. “We’re too different.”

  “You mean because you’re in sixth grade and I’m in seventh?”

  He stares like I suddenly grew a second head. “I’m white and you’re black.”

  I keep forgetting that some people think that makes a difference. It’s why there are usually only four reasons we see white people this far on the South Side of Chicago. First, they are just passing through (usually driving faster than the speed limit or on the bus with their heads buried in a book or their phone). Second, some might be lost. They don’t stay too long either, but sometimes they look around and may even talk to people. The third reason white people come this far on the South Side is to search for drugs. Those people usually come at night in big cars with suburban stickers. They do as much to stain our neighborhood as the gang members.

  The fourth reason is because they work around here. People like the Hun and like the police who know even less about us than he does. That’s why I don’t have any white kids as friends. There are only a few at school and none in my class. I’ve seen Redmond but just passing in the halls. The guys on the swim team only talk to me if they feel like bullying me around.

  “Are you lonely?” I ask Redmond, because I know how that feels.

  “I’m alone. It’s not the same thing.”

  Maybe not, but life is easier with friends. “I used to live in that shelter too, after my dad died.” I want him to know we have things in common.

  “You lost your old man too?” He swallows. “Do you tell people about being in the shelter?”

  “Just my friends. Since I told you, you have to be a friend too.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.” He sighs.

  “One thing. If you are going to be my friend, you can’t join the gang. That’s my rule.”

  He steps back. “I can do what I want.”

  “Don’t join. My brother joined—that’s enough. Don’t you care about your family?”

  He straightens and tosses the cigarette on the sidewalk. “Don’t talk about them. You don’t know anything about me or my folks.” He shoves me.

  Before I can shove him back, I hear a siren whoop. A shiny white Chicago police car with a blue stripe and big star on the side comes down the road toward us. The driver slows, gliding to a stop as he reaches us. My feet beg to run, but I know that’s the wrong move. I lower my head because I’ve been warned that police might think I am challenging them if I stare. My heart thumps, boom, boom.


  “You okay over there?” the officer calls.

  I risk a glance and see him leaning out the car window looking at Redmond.

  Redmond grins. “I’m fine. We’re just chilling.”

  “You be careful,” the officer says, and drives off.

  When I lift my head, Redmond looks amused. “You were scared,” he says.

  Of course I was. “Why weren’t you?”

  “I don’t get scared of cops. They wouldn’t do anything to me, anyway. I’m only twelve.”

  He sounds like he really believes that. Doesn’t he know anything about the world? “Cops killed Tamir Rice, and he was our age.”

  Redmond scratches his head. “I don’t think I know that guy.” He sounds like he thinks I’m making something up. As if I could imagine anything as awful as a kid being shot by police while playing in a park. Right after that happened, Mom sat me down for a long lecture. My hands are still shaking. I don’t want to be as scared of police as I am of gang members. I just have to be.

  Redmond leaves me and goes back inside the house. Maybe he’s right and I don’t know him, just like he doesn’t know the things that scare me. But I bet I know everything about his brothers and sisters. I know their future if he doesn’t change. Only there isn’t anything I can do with that knowledge. I can’t change him. I can’t even change my own brother.

  Redmond needs his own version of Malik Kaplan, someone who can help him steer his boat through rough waters. But that’s not me.

  I pull out my phone and tap out a message to Malik.

  Me: I miss you.

  Malik: Problems? Should I come down there?

  Yes, yes, yes.

  And no. He has a real life. He wants to be a lawyer. That means he needs to keep his mind on his studies and on basketball. I wish God had arranged things so he could be my real brother. I can almost see his face, brows arching, white teeth gleaming. Who would want a try-hard loser like Lamont if he could have Malik, the guy who is always good and always succeeds?