Bang!

by Sharon Flake

  Kee-lee’s been liking Keisha since they was eight. She used to be skinny, but since school ended, she got bigger—everywhere. That only made Kee-lee like her more. She can get any boy she likes now, “So why I want you?” she tells him sometimes. He don’t mind her being mean, ’cause he figures she’s gonna be his one day.

  My mother was at the mall. Kee-lee and me was playing videos. Then we shot hoops. Then we sat outside on the curb talking to Keisha and Carlotta, who was supposed to be on punishment for sneaking out the house last night. Kee-lee started it. He asked Keisha, the pretty one, if she wanted to feel his hair. “It’s good. Soft, too.”

  She told him no. Her cousin Carlotta told her she was chicken. Kee-lee bet Carlotta he could get Keisha to come across the street and play with his hair. She leaned over the railing, crossing her big pretty legs. “What you betting?”

  Kee-lee started licking his lips and smelling his breath. “Let me see.” He rubbed his muscles. “If I get Keisha to rub my hair, then you gotta kiss me.” He stuck out his lips. “Right here. If I can’t get her to come rub my curls, I’ll carry you up the street and around the corner on my back.”

  Carlotta whispered in Keisha’s ear. She looked at Kee-lee and said she’d take the bet. Keisha says she’s not rubbing his head: he might have cooties in his hair. “So you might as well bend down and give Carlotta a ride.”

  It was on, then, ’cause Kee-lee don’t let nobody talk about his hair.

  I didn’t see what Kee-lee could do to get the girl to rub his hair. And I didn’t see why he wanted Carlotta to kiss him anyhow. She ain’t cute. And she’s not built as good as Keisha. But it turns out Kee-lee didn’t care nothing about her anyhow. He was trying to make Keisha jealous. Hoping to get a kiss off her too.

  It took Kee-lee a while to think of something to do to get that girl over to our side of the road. He ran in my house, came back with colored chalk, and started drawing right in the street. There was hardly any traffic on our block. So the picture he drew stayed fresh until he was done. It wasn’t big enough for the girls to see the whole thing from across the street. But it was big enough for them to see that he was drawing their picture. Making them look exactly like they look in person, only he made Carlotta look better than she really does.

  My mother pulled up to the house. She stopped and checked the picture out before it was done. She looked across the street at the girls. “Oh, you’re gonna like this.” She went inside with her bags.

  The girls took their time crossing the street. But I could tell they wanted to rush. Kee-lee stopped them.

  Said only Carlotta could come see. But she had to rub his head first. Kee-lee just changed the rules but Carlotta didn’t care about rubbing his hair, long as she didn’t have to kiss him. But Kee-lee said if she kissed him, he’d draw the same picture on paper for her. He’d frame it too. At first she said she didn’t wanna kiss a boy with rotten teeth. But then she saw the drawing. Her hand covered her mouth. Her eyes bugged. “You did this? You?” she said, like she didn’t just see him draw it.

  Kee-lee didn’t have to ask for no kiss. She closed her eyes and opened her mouth and, man—I sure wish that’d been me kissing her. Even though she ain’t pretty, she’s still a girl.

  Keisha had her arms crossed at first. Then when the kissing didn’t stop, she came over and pulled Carlotta off Kee-lee.

  He winked. “I got bad teeth, but I got soft baby lips, now don’t I?” He stepped up to Keisha. “Want some?”

  She spit and told him to get out her face. But she didn’t go nowhere. She stared at the street. “I want one on paper too, so I can have it forever.”

  Kee-lee was gonna draw one for her cousin, but if Keisha wanted one, he said, her lips were gonna have to pay up first. Keisha was looking at his teeth while he talked, frowning up her face. “Never mind,” she said, folding her arms and turning away.

  Carlotta whispered, but we still heard her. “Don’t look at his teeth. Just kiss him.” She turned around and rubbed Kee-lee’s hair, and whispered too loud again. “He do got soft lips.” Keisha licked her lips and stared at his mouth again. She didn’t give him no warning. She pulled him over to her and stuck her lips out, closed her eyes, and made a face like she was swallowing bleach. She ain’t stop kissing him for a while, then she wiped her lips and pushed him away. “Happy now?”

  After Kee-lee gave them each a picture, they went back inside. It didn’t take us long to get bored. That’s when I got out my charcoals and crayons and started drawing. Kee-lee saw what I was doing and helped. When it was done, we had a big picture of Jason. It was just his face, and it wasn’t gonna last once the rain came. But when my mother saw it, she got down on her knees and rubbed his cheeks and touched his big brown eyes. My dad said we did a good job. And when I went to bed later on that night, I saw him and my mom outside with the back light on, standing over Jason; holding each other, talking real soft and sweet. Waiting for the rain, I guess.

  Chapter 20

  I WAS HOME ALL by myself. I saw what happened. A man with a gun walked up to a group of boys standing on our pavement talking, and pulled the trigger. Bang! When my mother and father get home, yellow tape ropes off our sidewalk so they have to walk around it. Blood from the boy who got shot is still on the ground.

  “Let’s go,” my father says, pulling me up the steps by my arm.

  When we get to my room, he pulls my dresser drawers open two at a time. Dumps clothes on the floor and then stuffs them in a large green plastic bag.

  My mother walks in and grabs my father’s hand. “What in the world?”

  He pushes her hand away and walks out. Next thing I know he’s in their bedroom, dumping plastic shavers, soap, and clothes in another green bag. “Get out my way, Grace,” he says when she tries to block his way.

  “William. You’d better tell me something.”

  He ignores her for a long while. Then when the bag’s too heavy to drag or carry, he sits down on it. “They gonna kill him,” he says, looking my way.

  “Who? Why?”

  I don’t ask who. I figure somebody was coming for me sooner or later: a stranger, a friend— somebody.

  My father starts talking about the murder right outside our front door. He says that’s gonna be me one day. “He’ll step on somebody’s toe, or look at them too hard, or not do nothing to ’em, just be in the wrong place at the wrong time and, Bang!” he says, holding his throat and swallowing hard.

  My mother makes me leave the room. But she don’t shut the door all the way, so I hear her tell him what she told me not to tell him: she wants to move to Kentucky. She hadn’t left yet because she was waiting for things to settle down with me. My dad says it won’t do no good for me to go there unless I know how to defend myself. My mother says all we have to do is move someplace safe. “Then he’ll be okay.”

  He sits her down on the bed next to him, touching her face and her lips. “Grace, don’t you know that black boys is for hunting and killing and burying?” He gets quiet for a little while. Breathes deep and coughs. “And that don’t change ’cause they got a new address.”

  He sticks his head out the door, points to the bag, and looks at me. “Take it downstairs.”

  The bag is way too heavy, but I don’t say that. I pull. Drag. Sweat. Stop. Push. Kick that thing. I get it to the top of the steps. Stand in front. Hold on to the walls while it leans on the back of my legs. I take one step at a time and listen some more.

  My father’s talking again. Saying that a man is put on the planet to do two things—protect his family and make his boys into men. “Jason ain’t never gonna be no man. But he is.” He points my way, then pulls more bags into the hall. “But if he’s gonna make it to manhood, he’s gonna have to drop them daisies I put in his hand.” He cuts his eyes at me. “Forget what I said about treating people right and holding his tongue.”

  “William!”

  My dad points directly at me. I step aside and let the bag roll down the steps. “If he�
�s gonna grow into a man, he’s gonna have to learn to chew nails and hold a gun in his hand, maybe even shoot somebody.”

  My mother’s running down the stairs behind him. “William! You raised a good boy—good boys!”

  My father ignores her. He heads for the living room and starts dumping bullets into a brown bag. My mother grabs the phone.

  “Ma Dear,” she says, dialing up my grandmother.

  My father slams down the phone. “Ma Dear don’t run my house!” He starts loading his gun. “How you gonna stop a man from protecting what’s his?” He drops more bullets in the bag. “How a woman gonna teach a man how to raise a boy?”

  My mother looks up when he says that. She stares at the phone, then goes to the kitchen. After my dad’s done loading the truck, she comes back into the living room. She’s got a box full of candy, chips, pretzels, and pop. “Here. Take these.”

  He hugs her, but before she lets him go, she asks him to promise her something.

  “What?”

  “That we will move to Kentucky if this thing you’re doing with him doesn’t work out.”

  My father always said it was hard for him to say no to my mother. I guess that’s why he says yes. “But you gotta give me two weeks, Grace.”

  She looks at me and nods her head. “That’s all you get, William. Two weeks. Then you’d better bring my boy back to me in one piece.”

  “In one piece,” he says, walking over to her and holding her to him. “Maybe now’s the time for you to go to Kentucky.”

  She’s shaking her head no.

  “I wouldn’t hurt my own, Grace.” He’s whispering in her ear, saying he’s just gonna teach me to box and hunt. “Toughen him up a little. That’s all.” He cuts on the porch light, then walks out the door, telling her to call my therapist and say that I’m sick.

  One of Jason’s soldiers is standing on the porch swing, with his rifle pointed at my father’s back.

  My mother hugs me and won’t let me go, even while I’m trying to push her away.

  “Go,” she finally says, covering her mouth.

  I don’t move.

  “Go,” she whispers.

  I swallow air.

  Then Jason speaks up. Go.

  I take a baby step.

  Go, he says, giggling.

  I take another step.

  Go, dog. Go, he says.

  I take off running across the floor with my eyes closed. Jumping. Flying high over the porch, landing on the concrete step on my own two feet. Like a man.

  Chapter 21

  MY FATHER IS not a talker. He can sit and be quiet for hours, so it’s good that he talked Kee-lee’s mom into letting him go too.

  Kee-lee’s in the backseat with the bags. “I’m tired.”

  I try to give my dad the hint. “Me too.”

  We been driving for four hours, nonstop. We’re not in our city no more. We’re on a highway passing trucks full of dirty chickens, stinking pigs as big as cows, and horses that shine like their coat’s been greased with hair oil. “Mr. Adler,” Kee-lee says. “I gotta pee. Now.”

  My father pulls the truck over to the side of the road. Kee-lee unzips his pants and hops out.

  My dad points to a field full of grass. “Do your business over there.”

  Me and Kee-lee are looking at things flying and hopping around, and we don’t move.

  “Y’all go do your business. Now.”

  I’m not in that grass two minutes before three grasshoppers take a ride on my pants. Kee-lee hates bugs, so he’s running around in circles like a girl. “Take it off, Mann! Take it off!” Slapping his legs, he drops his pants and trips over them. I’m laughing, holding a skinny light-green hopper in my hand. Walking up to Kee-lee with my mouth wide open. Bringing the hopper closer and closer to my stuck-out tongue.

  “Aw, man,” he says, turning away.

  I smack my lips. “That was good,” I say, chewing. I hold another hopper out to him. “Now you eat one.”

  He takes off running, falling down in the grass.

  “You too scared to eat a bug?”

  While he’s peeing and yawning, I take that hopper and flick it in his mouth. Pee shoots everywhere. Kee-lee’s slapping his tongue with his wet fingers.

  Throwing half the hopper my way and spitting out legs and a head.

  I’m slobbering over myself, I’m laughing so hard. Rolling around in the itchy grass and holding my side. Pointing to Kee-lee, who’s laughing now too and can’t stop.

  “What?” my father asks, laughing hisself.

  “Kee-lee ate . . .”

  “What?”

  “A hopper. A hopper was on my . . .”

  We’re all laughing, holding our sides and getting dust and grass stuck in our hair every time we move. After a while we lie on the ground with our hands under our heads, staring straight up at the sky. The clouds are white, like somebody stuck ’em in a washer and poured in extra bleach. The grass smells spicy, like them cardboard pine trees that hang in your car window. Already, I’m liking this trip.

  It’s August, so it stays light a long time. My father looks tired. He’s been driving since yesterday. “How far we going?” I ask.

  “Forever,” he says.

  Kee-lee yawns and stretches. He’s covered in pink Calamine lotion to make the ant bites stop itching. He lay down in a patch of carpenter ants and they ate him up good.

  My father picks up speed. “We need to find someplace to stay for the night.”

  I’m looking for a motel or hotel sign. Kee-lee’s saying he ain’t sleeping on no cot. He wants a real bed. My dad’s not saying a thing. He’s got country music on the radio and a cold beer between his legs. He points out the window. “There’s a spot.”

  I don’t see nothing, just grass and trees. I look across the road. There’s a gray sign with sticks glued around it saying CAMPGROUND. SPACE FOR $20 A NIGHT.

  Kee-lee tells my dad he ain’t sleeping outdoors with bugs.

  My dad pulls into the driveway and pays a fat white man at the gate. He drives into the campground with one hand, pointing to the back of the truck with the other. He lets us know he brought the grill, tent, cooler, and some food for us to eat. “We gonna do some good eating.”

  “Good eating?” Kee-lee and me both laugh.

  “What’s good eating?” Kee-lee asks.

  “Anything you can catch: fish, possum.” My father steps out the car.

  Kee-lee takes one end of the cooler, I take the other. “Rats. I ain’t eating no rats.”

  My dad’s standing by the car with his arms folded and his sleeves rolled up. “Seems to me you’d take the tent out first.” He looks up at the sky. “It gets dark fast in the woods. You wanna be setting up in pitch-black, worried about what’s crawling over your fingers and into the tent?”

  We drop the cooler, grab the tent, and help my father set up. I’m sticking poles in the ground and looking all around. The people next to us are white. The people across from us are white too. So are all the other people here. “They ain’t gonna shoot us, are they?”

  Chapter 22

  IT’S STILL GONNA be a while before it gets dark. So Kee-lee and me pocket a few rocks and set off walking. “To hit somebody,” I say, “if they start something with us.”

  Neither one of us has ever been to a place like this. There’s people everywhere: sitting outside of tents or in parked cars or vans, grilling stuff that smells so good it makes you wanna beg like a dog. Kids are everywhere too. Running. Laughing. Playing cards, catch and tag, hoola-hoop, b-ball, and jump rope, or just lying across somebody’s lap, getting their hair braided. All the stuff we used to do round our way, till the killings started four years ago.

  We head up a dusty trail that winds around the lake and lets you out near a field of trees so thick it shuts out almost all the light. We climb over rocks that look rusty from too much rain. I lie on my stomach. Look over the edge and drop stones into the muddy water. Kee-lee lights up a blunt. I lay my ear on the r
ock and listen. He shakes his head like I’m nuts. I take a hit. Hold the smoke in till I spit it out and cough my head off. Then I check out the water some more. It’s just sitting there. Still. So gray you can’t see to the bottom; so quiet it seems dead. I stand up and push Kee-lee in.

  “Ma-a-ann!”

  I dive in behind him. The water’s warm, at first, like a nighttime bath in the wintertime. But the deeper I go, the cooler it gets. Stuff’s floating and swimming past me. Sticks and string. Soft-shell turtles. Snakes. Go down some more, I tell myself. So I kick harder. Move my arms faster. Feel my baggy jeans get heavier when I go deeper.

  Get yourself some air, I’m thinking. But the water’s nice and cool now. I wanna bring myself something back from down here. So I pick up a slimy green rock and stick it in my pocket. Grab a little brown turtle and stick it down my drawers. Snatch a black baby snake that slides out my hand.

  My lungs burn like hot wax got dripped on ’em, so I head up—fast. My mouth’s trying to open. My nose is trying to suck in air. You gonna die. I’m telling my head to stop saying that. You gonna drown. My feet kick, but they don’t get me nowhere. My arms are dropping as fast as books out a second-floor window. My eyes close and my nose is doing what it wants to—breathing.

  “Mann!”

  I’m coughing. Choking.

  “Boy, open your eyes.”

  Kee-lee’s laughing. Sitting on the short cliff, watching me cough up snot and spit.

  “You wasn’t down that far. I seen you the whole time.” He kicks my sneakers in the water. “It’s a lake. Not no ocean.”

  I grab my sneakers, walk over to the sand, and sit down. I unzip my pants and feel around in my shorts for the turtle. It’s gone. I lie on my back and look up at the sky, watching a crop plane pulling a sign: BUY ONE GET ONE FREE, MASON’S GROCERY STORE.