All American Boys

by Jason Reynolds

  “I don’t know,” I said, working hard to keep my voice level. “But I know he stood up for what he believed in.”

  I walked across the kitchen and wrapped my arms around her. She put her glass down and hugged me back, her thin fingers holding on to me tight.

  When Paul Galluzzo told me he was signing up to become a cop, he and I were practicing three-pointers in the Galluzzo driveway. I was in ninth grade, and basketball tryouts were one week away. Guzzo was still inside, changing, and before he came out, Paul tossed the basketball up and down in one hand and dropped his other hand on my shoulder. “Your dad,” he told me. “Just thinking about him inspires me. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. And I realize, your father was a hero. I want to be somebody like that. I want to be somebody who makes a difference too.” He might have been the two hundredth person to tell me my father was a hero, but this was the strangest time, because it was the first time I’d heard someone say it and it didn’t piss me off.

  “Man, you already are somebody who makes a difference,” I told him.

  He laughed. “Nah, but I mean make a difference in the world. Like a real difference. Like your dad.”

  I did not want to be a hero. I did not want to make any of what had happened in the last week about me. There was a guy who’d just spent six days in the hospital because the guy who’d been my personal hero for four years had put him there. Paul beat Rashad. That was the truth. And if Ma was going to talk about Dad, so was I. She didn’t remember Dad the hero, she remembered Dad the man—and so did I. I knew him too. He was a hero, not in the way people always talked about him—not the soldier, not the war hero—but because of the person he was.

  Paul’d gotten it all wrong. Becoming a cop would not make him a hero—but what kind of cop he became could have.

  I’d been thinking about that all day, but I didn’t have the words for it until Ma brought up Dad. Everybody wanted me to be loyal. Ma wanted me to be loyal. Guzzo wanted me to be loyal. Paul wanted me to be loyal. Your dad was loyal to the end, they’d all tell me. Loyal to his country, loyal to his family, they meant. But it wasn’t about loyalty. It was about him standing up for what he believed in. And I wanted to be my dad’s son. Someone who believed a better world was possible—someone who stood up for it.

  My mother did eventually show up with the lawyer she found Wednesday evening, but by the time she got there, I was wiped, maybe from getting up so early talking with Dad, or maybe from actually talking with Dad, or maybe from talking with Mrs. Fitzgerald, or maybe from all of it. I was beat. I tried to rally up the energy because this attorney, a young woman named Maya Whitmeyer, was definitely there to talk business, or law, or whatever, but I just couldn’t. I was so sick of talking about it.

  “Son, can you at least just tell her the story, beginning to end?” my mother requested. And of course, I did. Again. I rambled off every detail, just like I had done with my parents, my brother, and my friends. Ms. Whitmeyer took notes in crazy fast writing and asked if the officer ever even read me my rights (the right to remain silent, the right to blah blah blah), which, once I thought about it, I realized he hadn’t. He just skipped to the part about me not having the right to be in that store. She then explained that this should be “open-and-shut,” which was lawyer-talk for “easy.” But we all knew that it wasn’t that simple. These types of cases were never easy. We had all seen cops get away with far worse, so why would this be any different? I mean, I wasn’t killed. True, I hadn’t even touched the cop; the video footage showed it all. I even had a witness. Still, there was no such thing as “open-and-shut” in cases like these. But I appreciated the lawyer’s confidence. I guess somebody had to be hopeful.

  There were so many questions I had for the lawyer, like why, exactly, she felt like this was going to be “open-and-shut.” But honestly, I was just too exhausted to even get into it. Before drifting back to sleep, I made sure to give my mother Ms. Lansing’s card. I’d barely glanced at it when she gave it to me, but before I handed it to my mom, I checked it out.

  KATIE LANSING

  Archivist

  Springfield Department of Records and Information Services

  Under her name and title was her phone number and e-mail. Seemed like another office job to me. Anything that said “Department of” just meant the job came with a cubicle and benefits. At least that’s what Spoony always said. I handed the card to my mother.

  “This is the lady who was in the store. She was here today,” I said.

  “Here?” my mother asked, nearly leaping out of her seat. The lawyer did the exact same thing.

  “Yeah. She came by to see me. She told me to tell you that she would testify.”

  My mother stared at the card, a huge smile coming across her face, then handed it to the lawyer, who scanned it, then nodded and murmured, “This is good. This is good.” And that was good night for me.

  Thursday morning I was awakened by Dr. Barnes. He had come by to let me know that my vitals had been stable for forty-eight hours now—Clarissa had been keeping track, and I had been keeping up with my spirometering—and the internal bleeding had finally subsided. I just needed to stay put for a few more hours and then he’d be discharging me. Well, once my parents got there.

  Best news ever. I was so ready to go. I took a shower, making sure I didn’t get the bandage on my nose too wet, and I had to wash my torso lightly—even the slightest pressure on my ribs still made me see white. But when I got out of the bathroom, I realized that the only clothes I had were the ones I had on when I got to the hospital. My mother hadn’t brought me anything clean to wear besides fresh underwear—she brought eight pairs! Actual clothes seemed to slip her mind. And if she hadn’t thought about it, I knew my father hadn’t thought about it. And Spoony—forget about it. I reached into the bottom drawer of the side table, which was also a dresser, and pulled out the plastic bag stuffed into it. I picked at the knot in the drawstring—damn, it was tight—until the mouth of the bag finally opened. I pulled my clothes out. First my jeans. I gave them a shake and laid them on one of the chairs. They were filthy and there was a small hole in the left knee, the knee that hit the ground first. Next came my shirt, swatting it out of the tight ball it had been in for the previous five days, the wrinkles deep and seemingly permanent. There was blood up by the collar. I laid it on another chair. The jacket Spoony gave me was in the closet. I opened that door, looked at the sleeve ripped a good three inches in the shoulder seam. I didn’t bother taking it out—no reason to yet. I felt exhausted again, so I sat on the edge of the bed in nothing but clean boxers and looked at my clothes all ragged and torn. My blood on the shirt, concrete dust dingy-ing up the denim. Clothes that I would probably never wear again.

  “Hello?” Clarissa’s voice came from behind the door, just before she poked her head in like usual. I didn’t flinch. It honestly didn’t matter. “Whoops, I’m sorry,” she said, noticing that I wasn’t dressed.

  “It’s cool,” I replied, grabbing the gown. “Come in.”

  Clarissa came in as I snapped the gown shut. “So, I hear you’re leaving us,” she said, pushing in the breakfast tray for the last time.

  “That’s what Dr. Barnes said.”

  “Good,” Clarissa said. She twisted her hair up in a bun and checked my vitals, I guess just as a final precautionary measure. It would’ve sucked if she heard something weird in my heart, or if my temperature or blood pressure was high, and then I couldn’t go home. Luckily, everything was fine. “So what’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get out of here?”

  Funny, I hadn’t really thought about it. I just wanted to go home. “I don’t really know. I guess try to see my boys. Put on some clean clothes,” I said, smirking awkwardly. Clarissa glanced to the chairs where I had my dirty T-shirt and jeans spread out like some kind of strange art exhibit.

  “Oh my . . .” She put her hand over her mouth. “You want me to put those back in the bag?”

  “No,” I sai
d. “I got it.” I grabbed the shirt and jeans as Clarissa held the bag open for me to dump them in. I didn’t want her to have to touch that stuff. Then I tied the drawstring back in a knot and made the decision right then and there to put the bag in the trash.

  “Well, I’m probably not going to see you, so you make sure you take care of yourself.”

  “Thanks for everything. Really.” I sat back on the bed as Clarissa gathered up her equipment.

  “But before I go, I wanted to ask . . . did you ever finish that drawing you were working on?”

  “Yeah, I finished it yesterday.” I slid my sketch pad off the dresser and handed it to her.

  “Wow,” Clarissa said, gazing at the paper, then glancing back at me. “Rashad, this is incredible. You should be proud.” Then she looked a little closer. “Hey . . . this one has a face.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, well, whoever is looking at this scene, you, me, I don’t know, that lady Claudia James, my friends, my family, Mrs. Fitzgerald—”

  “Who?”

  “This lady I met,” I said. “Anyway, all of us looking at the scene see the person who has the hand put through his chest. The dude with his heart torn out. It’s impossible to ignore him. He has a face. He deserves a face.”

  Clarissa looked from the drawing, to me, then back to the drawing. “Yeah, he does.”

  My mom and dad showed up a few hours later. I had texted my mother, reminding her to bring me clean clothes, which she did. I also texted English, Shannon, and Carlos to let them know that I was finally on my way home.

  #RashadIsAbsentAgainToday is what they all texted back, along with,

  THURSDAY 5:33 p.m. from Los

  ABOUT TIME. I ALMOST HAD TO REALLY STEAL TIFF. GIVE HER A SHOULDER TO CRY ON.

  THURSDAY 5:34 p.m. from Shannon

  DUDE IM SO GLAD UR OUT. SHIT IS CRAZY. GUZZO GOT INTO IT WITH QUINN AT PRACTICE. YOU KNO QUINN?

  THURSDAY 5:35 p.m. to Shannon

  WHO IS QUINN?

  THURSDAY 5:36 p.m. from Shannon

  HE’S ON THE TEAM. MEAN JUMPSHOT. U MIGHT NOT KNO HIM. BUT GUZZO HIS BOY, AND THEY WENT AT IT OVER THIS WHOLE THING.

  THURSDAY 5:38 p.m. from Los

  IM COMIN OVER 2NITE AROUND 8 SOLDIER-BOY. NO CRYING. I KNO HOW MUCH UVE MISSED ME LOL

  THURSDAY 5:39 p.m. from English

  DUDE WE GOTTA TALK. SCHOOL IS INTENSE. EVERYBDY’S PICKED A SIDE.

  THURSDAY 5:41 p.m. to English

  I KNO. COME THRU 2NITE. LOS IS COMING. BRING SHAN.

  And before I knew it, I was leaving the hospital, wearing a sweat suit, carrying nothing but my notepad. But before we left, I tore out the piece I’d drawn and set it on the food tray for Clarissa. Just to thank her again. I wish I could’ve seen Mrs. Fitzgerald one more time, but the truth is, when it was finally time to go, I was ready to get the hell out of there. I didn’t want to make any extra stops.

  Apparently, the lawyer my folks hired asked the media to give us some privacy, which was a good thing because we didn’t have to dash from the hospital to the car through a mob of cameras and microphones. That would have been too much for me. Instead, it was just a few short, peaceful steps from the door to the car. I sat in the backseat as my dad drove through the city. Neither of my parents said much, which was weird. I had this strange feeling like they were uncomfortable around me, or around each other. Something was different, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

  I cracked the window, the fall crisp seeping in, the familiar static of air pushing through a tight space. Through neighborhoods, down the crowded streets, First Street, Second Street, Third Street. Red light. My father put his blinker on, but there was no reason for him to turn. We lived straight ahead. But he made a left at Third and went around the block, coming back out to Main Street at Fifth, the whole time glancing at me weird through the rearview. But I knew what he was doing. He was dodging Fourth Street. He wanted to skip Jerry’s, as if him not driving by it made it no longer exist. As if that’s all it would take to help me forget. Maybe he was doing it for himself, but the way my parents were acting made it clear that this was something they had discussed.

  I decided not to bring it up, and instead just sat quietly until we got to the house, where I went straight in my room, to be around all my things. All my faceless sketches taped to the wall above my tiny twin bed. But more importantly, I needed my computer, so that I could scour the Internet to try to catch up on my own life. You know how weird it is to hashtag yourself, to read posts and updates other people—most of whom you don’t even know—make about you? It’s strange. But I did it anyway.

  #RashadIsAbsentAgainToday brought up hundreds, maybe a thousand posts. Some were just pictures of all these random places with that tag, just like Spoony showed me. I knew where the first one started. At least I thought I knew. But I had no idea where all the other ones came from. Other links connected to the hashtag were of the news clips. Turns out, I was only watching the local news channel (the hospital could only get five or six channels anyway), but I was being covered in all the newspapers, and even on cable news channels. What the . . . this was insane! There were clips of panel discussions, where preachers and community leaders sat around arguing for me. Defending me. I mean, not just me, but, y’know. And then there were some clips of people defending Galluzzo, everyone saying the same things: He was just doing his job, and He’s a good guy, and We don’t know if that boy was stealing or not. And there were pictures of people holding up pieces of paper with the hashtag written on it. Some of them just said ABSENT AGAIN. There was even one of somebody in a T-shirt, I couldn’t see the face, but written on the front of the shirt was I’M MARCHING, and then the back said ARE YOU?

  Besides all this, the wildest part was seeing all the pictures of me snatched from websites and social media pages. Some of them were of me dressed in my usual, everyday wear. Jeans sagged just below the waist, T-shirt, sneakers. Pictures of me throwing up the peace sign, some—the ones Spoony feared—of me flipping off the camera. Carlos and the fellas had been cropped out. These images would have nasty comments under them from people saying stuff like, Looks like he’d rob a store, and If he’d pull his pants up, maybe he would’ve gotten away with the crime! Lol, and Is that a gang sign? Other pictures were of me in my ROTC uniform. Of course, those had loads of comments like, Does this look like a thug? and If he were white with this uniform on, would you still question him?

  Everything was a mess. The real world. The cyberworld. All of it. I wanted to turn the computer off, but it was like seeing a car wreck—you keep looking. And I kept digging. Deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole, finding pictures and comments about my family. People saying that my father was a dirty cop and asking why everybody cared so much about me when my dad shot a kid for the same reason years ago. Oh, so just because Officer Galluzzo’s white, everybody’s mad now? What about Officer Butler! This kid is the son of a bad cop. Karma is a bitch! I have to admit, that one stung the most. Rage started to surge through me, but instead of shutting my computer down, I decided to try to look up Darnell Shackleford. I hated knowing what I now knew about my father. That he had done this to someone, and even if he didn’t mean to, he ruined an innocent kid’s life forever. All because of fear and assumption. And even though my father lived with the guilt, I now had to live with it too. So as I clicked on the first image link to pop up, as I stared at Darnell’s high school senior picture, the arms of his wheelchair peeking into the camera too, I made it clear to myself that this protest, this whole thing, was also for him.

  English, Shannon, and Carlos got to my house around eight. My mother ordered Mother’s Pizza for us and had Spoony pick it up on his way in. We sat at the kitchen table waiting as patiently as possible for Ma to pick her slices before we dove in, tearing the cheesy triangles from the pie as if we had never eaten pizza before.

  “So what’s been going on?” I said, picking off the pepperonis and eating them like chips.
Seemed like a stupid question to ask, but up until that point we’d all been sitting there listening to Carlos ramble on about how he thought Silky Wilkes really liked him. “I know y’all didn’t come over here just to let this dude talk about Latrice.”

  “Naw, it was for the free pizza,” Shannon said with a smirk.

  “Oh really?” from my mother, who was using a fork and knife to cut hers.

  “Kiddin’, Mrs. Butler.”

  “Man, seriously, we just wanted to catch you up,” English cut in. “People have been on edge. Even me. A few days ago I got into it with that dude Quinn I was telling you about. He was kickin’ all that ‘Paul was doing his job’ crap, while you were laid up in the hospital with your ribs busted. I mean, it’s wild. But then today, that same dude got into it with Guzzo at practice. Then afterward the dude, Quinn, came up to me to say that we should just call this one play we have, it’s like an isolation play for me”—I had no idea what he was talking about—“he agreed that we should just call it ‘Rashad.’ ”

  “What?”

  “Yep. Coach Carney named it ‘Fist,’ but I called it ‘Rashad’ in practice, and I’m gonna call it that in the game, too. Quinn was with me.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I asked, feeling really weird. Plus, I didn’t want English to get benched for something like renaming a play after me.

  “Dude, at this point, I don’t care. It ain’t like people ain’t thinkin’ ’bout it anyway. It’s on everybody’s mind.”

  “Plus, ‘Rashad Is Absent Again Today’ caught on like wildfire,” Shannon said.

  I looked at Carlos, who was trying to shove a whole slice in his mouth.

  “Wha?” he grunted.

  “I know it was you,” I said. “And for the record, you should’ve did it in a way where the paint dripped. Almost like vampire blood style.”