Doing Right (Locked Out)

by Patrick Jones

  “Wherever you would like to start, Mr. Lewis,” the history teacher, Mr. Hart, says.

  I lean in to listen, but also so I can sneak a peek at Ralisha.

  Gramps talks about growing up in Alabama, going to a black-only school, separate drinking fountains, all of it. Hard to believe that happened in the lifetime of somebody who lives in my house. Why did people put up with that crap for so long?

  Mr. Hart notices some people falling asleep, so he asks a question. “Who can tell me about Brown versus Board of Education?”

  Not a hand goes up. I know the answer, but I’m trying not to be a show-off. I just want to blend in here, not make enemies, find a few friends.

  “Nobody knows about Brown versus Board of Education?” Mr. Hart asks, all stunned.

  “Last night I watched the movie Freddy vs. Jason,” this girl Tia says.

  She gets a laugh, but Ralisha rolls her eyes and mutters, “Just listen.”

  Gramps looks frustrated and confused, so I save him.

  “That was the Supreme Court case that ended segregated schools in the United States,” I say—trying to act casual, not all “Einstein,” as Martel and Anton would say. I notice Ralisha crack a little bit of a smile when I get serious.

  “That’s right, DeQuin,” Gramps says. “And one of the lawyers involved in that case, Thurgood Marshall, later went on to become the first African American Supreme Court Justice.”

  “What kind of name is Thurgood?” Tia snickers. Gramps looks like he got slapped.

  “What kind of name is Tia?” Ralisha snaps.

  “Kind of name my boo likes whispering in my ear,” Tia hisses. “You wouldn’t know nothin’ ’bout that since Tobias dropped your—”

  “I dropped him!” Ralisha cuts across her. “Now shut up and listen to the man talk.”

  “Girl, Tobias just didn’t want no more of your ugly face and fat ass.”

  “Shut your mouth or I’m shutting it for you!” Ralisha yells.

  Tia pushes her chair over and starts toward Ralisha, who meets her halfway. Mr. Hart tries to get between the two girls, but he doesn’t have much luck keeping them apart. Tia and Ralisha keep screaming at each other even as they’re throwing hands. A hard slap bloodies Ralisha’s nose, and that’s what unfreezes me.

  I rocket to the front of the room and grab Gramps’s arm. “Gramps, get out of the way,” I say and then lead him to the door.

  He starts to protest, but I got no time to argue with him. It’s time for action. Once he’s safe from the fray, I push my way through the circle that’s formed around the girls almost like a cage.

  “Enough!” Mr. Hart keeps repeating louder each time, but he should save his words.

  Tia’s got bigger, stronger, tougher, and faster hands, so I make my move. I grab Ralisha, pinching her flailing arms against her sides. I pick her up and carry her to the back of the room.

  “Let go!” she screams. No tears, but blood drips down from her nose, staining my gray hoodie. She’s squirming and kicking her legs, but I just hold her tighter.

  “Stay out of this, DeQuin!” Tia yells from across the room, but she’s cut off by Mrs. Oliver’s commanding voice. Our principal stands in the doorway and tells everyone to sit down. She’s got two rental cops as backup.

  Slowly the room calms down as the rental cops escort Tia and Ralisha from the room.

  I go over to check on Gramps. “You OK?” He nods. “Sorry about that.”

  “You really jumped into action there,” he says.

  I can’t tell from his tone if he thinks that was a smart or stupid thing to do. I don’t get a chance to ask him before Mr. Hart brings Gramps back to the front of the room. Then Gramps goes back to talking about nonviolence, preaching to the deaf ears of kids who live in an eye-for-an eye world.

  11

  “DeQuin, please sit,” Mrs. Oliver says. Sitting next to her is Mrs. Washington, the special ed teacher I haven’t seen since we did my IEP the second day.

  “What did I do wrong?” I ask.

  “We were already planning on having this check-in,” Mrs. Oliver says, smiles. “I don’t want you to assume the only time you ever get called into my office is because you’ve done something wrong. I don’t want you to associate me, this office, or even this school with failure. Understand?”

  I nod and take off my hood, exposing my shaved head. I want them to see my scar.

  “But first, yes, we need to address the fight the other day in Mr. Hart’s classroom and—”

  I cut her off. “I didn’t start it. I was trying to end it.”

  “That’s what Mr. Hart said, but you shouldn’t do that. You could’ve gotten hurt yourself.”

  “Ain’t no female ever gonna hurt me,” I say, which is a total lie. Normally I break up with girls first so they can’t say they dumped me. It’s about knowing when to flee.

  “Still, it’s not a good idea to involve yourself in any fights,” Mrs. Oliver says. “In starting them or ending them. Let the staff handle it, OK, DeQuin?”

  “The other thing we want to discuss is progress on your IEP,” Mrs. Washington says. “I’d asked your uncle to join us this morning, but it looks as if something came up at work.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time,” I say—then wish I hadn’t. Lee’s always been there for me as much as he can. He saved me from a life in foster care and took me into his home. He wants the best for me, even if his version of the best is mostly about hard work, sacrifice, compromise, and all those other words he always uses.

  “We’ll find another time. Caregivers are important to the process,” Mrs. Washington says. “The issues you came here with as a result of your concussion—short-term memory loss, light sensitivity, and so on—seem to be going away, which is consistent with that kind of injury.”

  “My head don’t hurt as much either and my hearing’s all the way back, too.”

  “That’s good. Now just stay out of trouble,” Mrs. Oliver says as she writes the pass for me to go back to class. I don’t tell her that trouble seems to find me far too easy. I wonder if it was like that for my dad too.

  I get back to science class just as it’s ending. “What did I miss?” I ask Ralisha—who, much to my surprise, didn’t get suspended after the fight. Tia’s still in school too, not that I care.

  She opens up her purse and pulls out a pad of pink Post-it notes. “Gimme your hand.”

  I hold out my left hand.

  “Thanks for sticking up for me other day.”

  “You were the one sticking up for my gramps when Tia made fun of him.”

  “Yeah, and then I made a fool of myself. I try to stay out of drama like that, but when I’m getting whopped I gotta put up a fuss about it. You did good, getting me to settle down, making sure nobody got hurt.”

  In my palm, Ralisha places a pink sticky note with the handwritten number six on it. “If you act like a gentleman for nine more days in a row, DeQuin, then you’ll get all ten of my digits.”

  12

  “What time you off work?” I ask Ralisha. I’m waiting with her by the bus stop during lunch hour. Just like every day, she’s headed home after morning classes. She does online school the rest of the day. I don’t ask why and she ain’t saying.

  “Nine. You?”

  “Ten thirty, it sucks,” I reply. “But how else are we getting money for college?”

  She raises her eyebrows at me. That girl has some fine, sassy eyebrows. “So you’re gonna go to college, DeQuin?”

  “That’s the plan,” I say. It’s Uncle Lee’s plan, and Gramps’s plan, and more and more it feels like mine.

  “Huh,” is all she says. Then she shivers. I wrap my arms around her. It took ten days, but I got her digits, her attention, and her lips on mine.

  “Maybe we could hang out or something afterward.” I blow on my hands to warm them and then put them on her freezing face. She warms my mouth with a kiss.

  “Or something,” she says.

  It’s not t
he answer I was hoping for. So far, she won’t see me outside of school. But I don’t push. Instead I say, “Can I ask you a question?”

  She looks at her phone. “Make it quick, bell’s gonna ring and you don’t wanna be late.”

  “What happened with that guy Tobias? The dude Tia mentioned that day in history class.”

  She raises those eyebrows again. “Does it matter?”

  “I was just wondering because I don’t want to make the same mistake,” I say, super nice.

  She laughs at that. “Look, I broke up with him because there was too much childish drama. I’m a serious person with plans and he was just a fool.”

  “I’m a serious person too,” I say, but can’t help smiling, which I do whenever I’m around her.

  “I don’t know yet if you’re serious enough for me to get serious with,” Ralisha says.

  “Come on now,” I say. “I’m the kind of boy you could bring home to mom and dad.”

  “Why do you think I want you to meet my family?” she asks.

  I try to figure out how to pull my size-12 out of my mouth. “No reason. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean nothing by it.” She never talks about her family, but then again, neither do I.

  “You see, there you go, backing up. Give some of that back. Say ‘Ralisha, you ain’t exactly a mom’s dream date for her son!’” For somebody wanting serious, she’s pretty funny.

  “I don’t have a mom, so no worries,” I say. I’m playing, but the words come out wrong. A little sad, a little angry.

  “I’m sorry, DeQuin.” She’s quiet for a second, then asks, “You got a dad?”

  “Sort of.”

  I’m trying to decide how much to say, but Ralisha doesn’t push me. “Well, I know you got a grandpa, and I bet he would straight up have a heart attack if he knew you’re going out with one of those crazy girls who went at it in the middle of his talk.”

  “That’s for sure,” I laugh.

  But I’m thinking about other girlfriends I’ve had—and dumped. Run away from. There’s no doubt in my mind that some of them think of me the way Ralisha thinks of Tobias. And they got good reasons. I ain’t never been with the same girlfriend longer than a couple months. Never tried to build something that could last.

  I gotta change that. And Ralisha can’t ever learn about the boy I was until I become the man I want to be.

  13

  It’s Valentine’s Day, and business is dead. So the boss—who reports to Lee—lets me go home early. I head over to the Maplewood Mall, where Ralisha works at Foot Locker.

  Ralisha’s surprised to see me when she comes out after her shift. “DeQuin, what you doing here?”

  “I just thought we could hang out or something now that you’re done with work.”

  “Look, my parents are real strict about me coming home on time.”

  “Did you drive?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “Bus.”

  “Then let me give you a ride home. We’ll listen to some tunes.”

  She crosses her arms. “You can give me a ride near my home.”

  I kiss her fast but soft and we head toward my car, which I bought with a combination of summer KFC income and a loan from Lee. We make out for a while in the car, but we get hit with the bright lights of one of those mall security guard cars, so she tells me to get going. Except for her giving me directions to where she lives, we don’t talk, and somehow that’s better. She finds a station she likes, sings along every now and then, but mostly just hangs on to my arm. “Pull over here,” she whispers.

  I pull into a subdivision that’s got a few houses. We drive toward the back of it, where it’s nice and dark. “I only got ten minutes before my bus is supposed to...”

  I cut her off with a kiss so as not to waste a second. My car was built for speed on the open road, not romance in the front seat, so we do the best we can in the time and space.

  When she has to go, I drop her on the main road outside of a nicer area than I live in. When my uncle gets his own store, maybe we can afford one of these dream houses too. Anything seems possible right now. Six months ago, I was acting stupid with Martel and Anton, heading down Dad’s road, but now I got Ralisha—and a new attitude.

  But I know the best way to stay on the path I’m on is to look at the ending point for the path I was following. Instead of heading home, I head east, toward Oak Park Heights.

  It’s not visiting hours or anything, so I drive around the outside of the prison and look at the thick walls, the barbed-wire fences, and the tall guard towers. It ain’t a pretty sight. It’s like the building was specifically designed to suck the life out of the men inside—and those of us on the outside too. “Prison takes everything from a man,” Dad once said.

  But I won’t let it take everything from me. I’m gonna build a life out here, and I’m not gonna let anyone take it from me. If anybody tries, I’ll fight to keep it. One way or another.

  14

  I don’t feel like going home yet, so I take the back streets. To get my mind off Dad, I hook up my phone and blast some tunes. That helps. While my system doesn’t rock as loud as the one in Martel’s ride, I’m getting some serious shake. I’m singing along, leaning back, when I see it out of my rearview: flashing red lights. I turn down the music but I’m still shaking.

  Before I roll down the window, I take a deep breath. I pull my ID from my Levis and wait. It seems way too long goes by before I hear a deep voice ask for “license and registration.”

  I hand my license to the officer—a youngish white guy with soul patch and a Woodbury PD shield. I start to reach for my registration in the glove box, but suddenly he starts yelling.

  “Put your hands where I can see them!” He roars over the sound of his side-holster unbuckling. I do as I’m told. “Turn so I can see you.” And I do that too. He can see me; I can see his angry white face and black pistol.

  “Out of the car, now!” he yells, somehow even louder. I do that too. “On the ground.”

  “What did I do?”

  “I said on the ground, on your knees, hands behind your head, and don’t move a muscle.”

  He shines a flashlight right in my eyes and it blinds me for a second. Behind me, I sense he’s shining that light and looking through the car for whatever it is he assumes I stole.

  “What are you doing out here at this hour?” I’m on my knees, staring up at him.

  “Seeing my girlfriend.” Even as tense as this is, the image of Ralisha makes me smile.

  “You think this is funny?” I squeeze my hands together hard against the back of my head. He starts talking about robberies in the neighborhood. “Know anything about that?”

  “I don’t live around here,” I say, as if he doesn’t know that.

  “I do, and it’s my job to protect these citizens from thugs and hoodlums.”

  “Can I go?” I speak into the ground.

  “After I write you a ticket.” He clicks his pen; it sounds like a trigger.

  “For what, driving while black?” I snap. He doesn’t say a word, just shines the flashlight in my face again. I think about moving my hands to block the light, but I can’t risk it. I shut my eyes tight. I hear the sound of his footsteps and then the clatter of glass breaking.

  “For driving with a broken tail light.” He drops the ticket in front of me. I wait until he walks away before I stand up. And I wait until his intact tail lights are way out of view before I rip up the ticket.

  “Why are you late?” Lee asks when I walk in the door. I saw that he’d called earlier, but I couldn’t answer, having my hands behind my back and all.

  “Where’s Gramps?” I ask. “I want him to hear this too.”

  Lee looks puzzled, though Gramps and I have been getting along a little better since his talk in history class. Lee heads into the other room, and I turn to the fridge. When he comes back with Gramps, I’m seated at the table with three open beers, one for each of us.

  “What’s the story?” Lee asks. He
says nothing about me drinking the beer. It’s nasty. People must really love to get drunk if they drink this garbage. Why something so foul is legal and something as good as weed ain’t—well, add that to the list of things that are seriously messed up.

  While I explain what happened, I think about Gramps on Pettus Bridge in Selma in 1965. All those cops, all that yelling, all that hatred. And it seemed so long ago until tonight.

  “You gotta pay the ticket, DeQuin,” says Lee when I’m finished.

  “But I didn’t do anything wrong!”

  “It’s true,” says Gramps. “They had no excuse to pull him over.”

  “Well, there’s nothing we can do about that,” snaps Lee. “No point getting yourself in more trouble now, DeQuin. Just pay the fine and move on. There’s a saying: ‘Get along, go along.’”

  I notice Gramps jamming and twisting his cane into the floor like a drill. The sound launches a headache I haven’t felt for almost a month.

  “Just keep your head down,” Lee’s saying. “That’s how you survive.”

  “Isn’t that selling out?” I ask.

  “Let me see,” says Lee. “Pretty soon I’ll be able to buy my own store, control my own future, and not have my boss, a white man with money, tell me what to do ever again. So you tell me. Is that selling out?”

  Gramps shakes his head. “It’s all about money with you, but back in—”

  “No, Daddy, it’s about respect,” my uncle shoots back. “Every day I turn on the TV, turn on the radio, do I see the millions of black men like me playing by the rules? No, I see thug criminals, rappers getting arrested, and black men being made fun of all over the place.” He finishes his beer. “And then I visit my brother, and I see a man who fits that image, and he didn’t have to. He was like DeQuin once. A bright kid with attitude. And look what he turned into. Didn’t have to happen. You stay out of trouble, work hard, then you get your chance.”