I know him. It’s Redmond. He’s here because he’s homeless, I almost say. But that’s not my secret to tell. Both Lamont and Redmond look ordinary in the daylight. Just two guys, one white, one black, playing together. Redmond may not want to be my friend, but he and Lamont look like total bros.
“This explains the gang tags that keep appearing on buildings,” Dontae adds.
The marks covered the wall of one of the buildings in our courtyard complex. Big ugly spray-painted marks that signal dominance and a call for recruits. Some people wearing red-and-white Take Back the Streets shirts were already painting them over when we passed this morning.
“You don’t know they had anything to do with that.”
“I have a brain. You should use yours. It’s been over a year since anyone tried to tag our building or anyplace on our block. Now your brother is here, and so are they. I bet it’s a message, either from him or to him.”
“Sometimes where there’s smoke, there’s just more smoke,” I protest.
“And sometimes there’s an inferno.” Dontae pulls out his phone and begins snapping pictures.
Redmond dribbles his way around Lamont’s outstretched hands and scores on a jumper. That must signal a win because he stops and laughs and begins rolling down his sleeves to cover the marks on his arms while Lamont retrieves the ball. They exchange high fives. It’s strange to see them act so friendly. Lamont always steamed whenever anyone beat him at anything.
Thunder rumbles in the distance. Dontae takes more pictures. Lamont reaches into his pocket and pulls out a wad of money that he hands over to Redmond, right out in the open where anyone can observe him. “Did you see that?” Dontae asks.
“Uh-huh.” A weird taste fills my mouth, like I’ve been sucking on a penny. Lamont could be paying off a bet because he lost to a new friend, and it’s just two guys finishing off a friendly one-on-one game. Or he could be paying for something more.
I should tell Mom.
But I can’t. This would kill her.
Miss Wiggins? No, then Redmond would be on the streets. How can I do that to someone else’s little sisters and brothers?
“Maybe we should call the police,” Dontae says, his voice hesitant.
“No way. You know what they will do. Besides, the guys were just playing ball.”
“Are you willing to wait until he brings in even more new friends? Until he goes after someone else and hurts or maybe kills someone?”
“He would never!”
“Never?”
I don’t want my brother hurt or back in jail. I just want him to stop dealing with these bad people. “Maybe Mr. Cho can help. That’s Lamont’s parole officer.” He isn’t a cop, not exactly.
“Call him. He could make your brother leave.” Dontae is almost jumping.
Mr. Cho’s number is programmed into my phone, but my fingers still shake as I press the keys to pull it up from my contact list and call for help.
Chapter
Twenty-Two
MR. CHO AGREES TO TALK to me, but it has to be now. I don’t want to explain things on the phone. He tells me he’s having lunch, and Dontae and I head back to the fish-and-chicken place.
While Dontae locks his bike to a post outside the door, I walk inside. Only a few tables are occupied. A family with five kids is sitting in one corner. Mr. Cho is alone at a table near the back. But my eyes spot a bunch of girls from my school, including Carmela, chattering noisily and trying to fit six in a booth meant for four.
I turn to leave and almost bump into Dontae coming in.
“We need to go,” I whisper. “She’s here.” I nod to the table where Carmela holds court.
“I don’t care about her. We have a mission. Where’s the parole officer?”
I point. He is eating a huge burger that looks too big for his mouth.
“Come on.” Dontae starts walking. I follow, sliding into the booth opposite Mr. Cho. Dontae squeezes in beside me. “That looks good,” he says, licking his lips.
“It’s a beef-and-steak burger.” Mr. Cho wipes juice from his chin with a napkin. Who comes to a fish-and-chicken place for a burger? There are a couple of dozen items listed on the wall: catfish, shrimp, chicken breasts and wings, even chicken fries. The smells swirl around me. My mouth waters. But I have a mission, even if it means betraying the brother code. Even if Lamont deserves it, this hurts like crazy.
Mr. Cho puts down his napkin and stares at me. “So, what can I help you with? You sounded like you had an emergency.”
“Lamont sneaks out at night,” I say quickly.
“How do you know? Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping at night?” Mr. Cho says.
“I know,” Dontae says. “My dad saw him walking through our apartment complex at night. And just a few minutes ago, he was in the park with another gang member. Wasn’t that rule number one: He can’t associate with other bad guys?”
“Who are you?” Mr. Cho asks sharply.
“T’s friend. His best friend,” Dontae says proudly. “And I have proof. I took pictures.” He speaks a little too loudly, and from the corner of my eye, I see Carmela turn to stare at our table.
“Let’s see,” Mr. Cho says, finally putting down the burger. After wiping his hands on a napkin, he takes the phone Dontae offers. He frowns as he scrolls through the picture gallery and stops at a photo showing the exchange of money.
“Do you know who this boy was?” he finally asks.
“No idea,” Dontae says before I have time to decide how to reply. “But look at the insignia on his clothes. He’s in the gang, all right.” He reaches for Mr. Cho’s fries as he speaks. His reward is the kind of glare that would make an alley dog back down. Dontae completes his move, stuffing the fries in his mouth.
“When were these taken?” Mr. Cho asks.
“Just before we called you, in the park at King Drive. Go grab him. Do your job.” Dontae’s words sound garbled as he chews.
“My job is to help Lamont stay out of prison.” Mr. Cho gives Dontae back his phone, then waves a hand, signaling for the waitress to bring his check.
“But aren’t you going to do anything?” Dontae asks, his mouth falling open.
“You don’t know where he is going at night, and you don’t know who this guy is. That isn’t much evidence.” He looks at me pointedly. “I’ll talk to Lamont.”
“And?”
“And now I have another appointment.”
“That’s it?” Dontae asks once Mr. Cho goes to the cashier.
I shrug. “I guess so. He’ll talk with Lamont.”
“We gave him everything we had and got nada.” He begins eating the rest of Cho’s fries as he speaks, until Carmela drops into the seat vacated by Mr. Cho.
“What’s going on?” she asks. “Wasn’t that Lamont’s parole officer?”
“Yeah. I asked him to do something about Lamont, but he won’t listen to me,” I say.
“Or me,” Dontae chimes in. “He doesn’t listen to any kid.”
“He has to listen,” Carmela declares. She gets up and runs through the restaurant, out the door after Mr. Cho. I follow her, eager to see what she will do. I stop and blink when the sunlight hits my eyes. She just runs faster and jumps in front of him before he can climb inside his car. “We want Lamont Rodgers out of our neighborhood,” she says.
Mr. Cho shakes his head. “Oh, God. Not more of you. Sorry, kids. This isn’t a game. This is real life.”
“We’re not playing,” she insists. “You can order him to go away.”
Mr. Cho glances at me. “Would you like it if someone ordered you to go away?”
“I’m not the bad guy, he is. We all want him gone.”
“Maybe you don’t want him around, but you’re only a few people,” Mr. Cho says.
“How many people would it take to make you decide to do something?” Carmela asks. “What if we had hundreds of people from the community who wanted him gone?”
“Then you might have something,”
Mr. Cho says with a final snort before climbing into the Jeep and driving off. Carmela and I return to the restaurant and our friends.
“That’s how adults act. ‘You’re just kids,’ they always say. We’re people too,” Carmela says. “Mom and Dad have told me about the old days when ordinary people made the big guys back down. War protests and civil rights.” She pauses when Dontae and I stare at her blankly. “Don’t either of you know your heritage?”
“We haven’t gotten to that part of the history book yet,” Dontae says.
Carmela rolls her eyes and gives him a cluck of pity. “Real history isn’t in books. My grandparents lived history and fought to make a difference. Now it’s my time to do something big and important.” She begins pointing at each of us. “Don’t you all get tired when people call us thugs because they can’t use the N-word without feeling embarrassed? Or they say inner city like we live in a radioactive wasteland where only rats would choose to stay. Even the police. My dad has to hear it all the time. He says the white officers lower their voices when they see him, but he still hears.”
She’s right. I do hear what people who don’t know us, have never spent one day around us, still believe. It’s all because we look different on the outside. They don’t come close, look close enough to see that we are the same inside.
“T needs our help,” Carmela says. “Think about climbing into bed every night with a criminal on the bottom bunk, closing your eyes and wondering if you’ll live long enough to open them again.”
“Melodrama much?” Linda murmurs. I hadn’t noticed her come after us.
“I don’t want him back in prison,” I tell Carmela.
“I thought you wanted him gone, T’Shawn.”
“I did. I do, but . . .”
“I know he’s your blood, but he’s also a danger to us all,” Carmela says while waving a careless hand. “He pushes you around, bullies you, but I see you feel bound together by blood. Fine. I’m only going to ask that he be moved far away.
“Far away where?” I ask.
“Anywhere.”
“My brother hasn’t even done anything yet,” I protest.
Carmela scowls. “Maybe not, but he will. He pushes you around, bullies you. He took your bed and stole for you.” She makes me sound like a total wimp.
“Dontae!” I’ve never told anyone else about the bed or the headphones. He bends his head, refusing to meet my eyes.
“Walking the streets at night, writing graffiti,” Carmela continues
“We don’t know that was Lamont,” I try again. I wince when some kids snicker.
“Who else could it be?” Dontae asks. “Your mom shouldn’t have let him back.”
“Don’t blame my mom.”
“I’ll blame you if you don’t do something,” Carmela says.
Me? I can’t win.
Linda looks at me as if I should be stopping her. But Carmela is on her rant, getting everyone riled up, and, well, I guess I see her point.
“What’s the plan?” Dontae asks Carmela.
“A petition. We’ll get the parole officer a hundred people and even more.” She hugs herself, as if embracing her new idea.
Dontae nods. “Like the Olive Branch Petition we studied during American History.”
“Not like that. That was colonists begging, ‘Please, King, stop treating us so bad.’ That won’t work, I won’t beg. We have to demand.” Carmela finishes with her arms raised, eyes fiery. Sometimes she makes me think of a thirteen-year-old version of civil rights leader Diane Nash from my grandparents’ days. That woman really did help make the world better. I sometimes wonder if the people around her felt as conflicted as I do about this girl.
“You’re crazy,” someone says.
No, I think she’s right. The American Loyalists begged the king of England to treat the people in the colonies like real British citizens. They received nothing but a laugh in response. Nothing changed in America until after the Revolutionary War. Why should we expect begging to work for us here and now?
“We’ll go through TBTS,” she continues. “They’ll help us. We’ll get adults to sign, voters, everyone, including our parents.”
“No. No way.” I can’t even picture Mom’s face if I asked her to sign something like that.
“You want him gone most of all,” Carmela reminds me.
Maybe. But not like this.
Lamont is lying on his bed when I drop down at my desk after dinner and open a book.
“What are you doing?” he asks after a few minutes of silence.
“Are you blind? Homework.” I scowl at him.
He walks over to me holding a high-end android phone in his hand.
“Where did you get that?” I ask.
“I’m expanding my horizons,” he replies, which isn’t really an answer. He messes with the volume control until I hear music. A YouTube music video plays on the screen. The song is a genre-bending blend of country with overtones of rap, pop, and hip-hop, sung by an all-white group. In the video they traipse through woods and fields singing about “rednecks and homies.” Some wear hunting caps, others wear camo gear or hoodies—all eventually end up sitting by a river. They are surrounded by cars, cows, horses, shotguns, and one other, all just chillin’, like they say.
When the video ends, Lamont says, “I think I get what you see in this stuff. The lyrics are deep and real. They feel about their part of the world the way I do about mine.”
I stare at him, fighting disbelief.
He points at the screen. “I mean, that’s still not like real music, but, yeah, I feel this. For these dudes, it’s take back the river. I could see myself standing on the bank with them and I bet we’d find a lot in common. It’s not the truck or the shotgun or even the cows or horses. That song was about living your life your way and owning who you are and where you’re from.”
“I could show you more.” I almost shake I’m so eager to introduce him to more of my world.
“Do it. This stuff makes me think maybe I’d actually like living in Memphis more than I knew.”
Which instantly kills the fun feeling. I can’t believe he’s still thinking of going down there where the only people he knows are gang members.
He slaps me on the back. “We don’t want your grades slipping. How about we listen to a few more while I help you with your math?”
“How are you going to help me with geometry?”
“I’m not stupid. I have my GED from prison. I think I know enough to help you.”
We listen to more videos on YouTube as we work, pausing once when Nelly, complete with tats and chains, appears in a video, joining with Florida Georgia Line to sing “Cruise.” The song isn’t exactly rap, but it is practically a Southern anthem. This version is a pop remix that I love. I also love watching the outstanding girls riding in cars with the singers.
“Maybe you shouldn’t watch this,” Lamont declares at one point.
“Why? Because the trucks are too hot?” I say, smirking when he shakes his head.
“Seriously? You’re thirteen and only interested in pickup trucks?”
“That big-wheeled blue number is the bomb.” Of course I like watching the girls too. But I really would love to cruise down the streets in one of those tricked-out trucks.
Lamont snorts. “If that’s your favorite part of this video, then I’ve gotta say you’re strange, little bro.”
I snort and for a moment feel superclose to my brother. He could always make me laugh. Especially when he treated me like an equal. Like now.
“This is bro-country, redneck rap,” he continues. “Different package, same feelings. They are like us, stuck in a world that doesn’t care about them, but they’re still determined to hold onto their place. City street or country lane, a neighborhood should belong to the people who live there, not politicians or cops or fat businessmen who intend to bleed it dry and leave, or . . .”
“Or drug dealers,” I throw in when he pauses.
He h
eaves a sigh filled with regret. “The streets belong to people who care and work to make their blocks better. That was my goal, T—all I ever really wanted.”
It doesn’t add up to me. “How did pulling a gun in an old man’s face help that?”
“I told you, I didn’t have the gun. That was one of the other guys.”
“But you were the boss, so it was still on you. Did you ever even tell Mr. Frank you were sorry?”
His lips tighten. “You need to be strong to get something in this world.”
“Strength isn’t always enough,” I tell him.
Chapter
Twenty-Three
THANKS TO SPRING BREAK, MY days are totally free. Mom is at work, Rochelle is at day care, and Lamont is out doing whatever he does when he’s not home, which is pretty much all the time now.
Dontae comes over to my apartment on Tuesday, and we sit together at the kitchen table, studying. Our teachers loaded us up with extra homework over the break. Last night Mom made a big bowl of chicken enchilada dip for us to snack on: black beans, corn, chicken, and homemade enchilada sauce. Dontae and I are gorging on chips and dip while we work on our homework. Dontae has an art project. I’m writing a song for music class. I call it, “Second Chance Drive.” I guess I could say having Lamont around inspired me. I’ve written a little, scratched out a lot. I’ll type out the final song on the computer, but I use pen and paper for my drafts because I think in music better when I compose by hand. Being creative is a lot of work.
Dontae finishes his art quickly—naturally. He claims he was born to draw. He looks over my shoulder and reads one line aloud. “‘Sometimes heroes hide inside the worst disguise.’” He turns to me with a scowl. “Don’t pretend your brother is some secret good guy.”
“He’s not the devil.”
“That’s not what you said before.”
I shrug. “Maybe I was wrong.”
Dontae scratches his head and reads a few more of my lines.
“All the man needs is a chance.
Courage Page 14