At the Crossroads

by Travis Hunter

  “I want you to stay out of my line, ya heard? You see me, go the other way. Do that and you’ll be okay. If you don’t"—Nigel made a swinging motion with his bat—"ain’t no telling what I might do, ya heard?”

  Stick nodded. He knew his place in the street hierarchy. He was a bottom feeder, the lowest man on the totem pole, and he was okay with that.

  “Gone on, man. Take the bag,” Stick said.

  Nigel picked up the pillowcase and walked out of the back door, hoping that Stick would heed his advice. He didn’t have a lot of patience when it came to his kind.

  Once he was around Stick’s house and back on the street, he saw the paramedics loading Mrs. Bertha into the back of the ambulance and couldn’t help but wonder if she was going to be okay. He thought about little Jason and what he would do if something happened to his grandmother.

  “Freeze,” a police officer said, pointing his gun directly at Nigel. “Drop the bag and get on your knees.”

  Nigel froze. He dropped the bag and held his hands up above his head. He went down to his knees with his hands still in the air. He knew he was in trouble. Here he was literally holding the bag, and he knew that he would never tell on Stick. As sorry of a human being as Stick was, Nigel wasn’t the type of guy to tell the police anything.

  A police officer rushed over and pushed him facedown onto the hard, hot concrete.

  7

  Franky was running late. He had gotten confused on which hallway his classes were on two times already. Now he found himself running to get to his last class before the late bell rang. He looked down at his schedule, then up at the numbers above the wooden doors.

  “Finally,” he said as he heard the bell sound just as he opened the classroom door.

  Franky walked in, and only a handful of students paid him any mind as he looked around for a place to sit. Four of the six chairs on the front row were free, so he walked over and took the one closest to the window.

  “Good afternoon,” Mr. Johnson, his teacher, said. He looked to be in his midtwenties and from first appearances seemed to be a sharp guy.

  “Good afternoon,” Franky said. “Is it all right if I sit here?”

  “Sure,” Mr. Johnson said. “I love it when students sit in the front of the class. It sends a message to the world that they’re about their business.”

  “Suck-up,” someone from the rear said, causing the peanut gallery to laugh.

  “Don’t pay him any attention, Mr….?”

  “Franky Bourgeois.”

  “Nice. Is that Creole?” the teacher asked.

  “French but …,” Franky said, hunching his shoulders.

  “Okay. Well, welcome to Spanish. Take a seat and let’s get started,” Mr. Johnson said. “Everyone settle down and grab a paper and pencil. It’s note time. There will be a test on what is on this board, so I suggest you get to writing.”

  Franky looked around and hardly anyone moved. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The room itself resembled any other classroom he’d ever been in. There was a whiteboard, a podium, lots of posters on the walls with math equations, a lot of desks that were filled with teenagers, and a teacher standing at the head of the room. But that was where the similarities stopped. The entire day had been one big eye-opening experience and explained why the have-nots continue not to have. His dad used to tell him about this, but he really didn’t have any real idea what he was talking about until now. Now he could see why his parents tried so hard to keep him away from the hood.

  The world doesn’t need another shiftless Negro, his dad would often lecture. There are people out there who look just like you and I who will make sure the prisons stay filled because they refuse to educate themselves. I’m going to make sure you’re not one of them.

  There were almost thirty kids in each of his classes, and he could count on one hand the number of them who showed the slightest amount of interest in learning what the teacher was attempting to teach. This new school would definitely take some getting used to.

  Mr. Johnson, the enthusiastic Spanish teacher, was from a small town in South Carolina called Pamplico. As a child, he had always been fascinated with the foreign people he saw on television and wanted to learn how to communicate with them. Having parents who dropped out of school before they made it to high school, he made sure he studied hard and earned an academic scholarship to the University of Georgia. He finished his master’s degree in Madrid, Spain. He always stressed to his students the importance of learning a second language, but as he stood at the front of the class writing sentences on the board, the majority of the class did their own thing.

  The girl who sat beside Franky was texting someone on her cell phone and laughing to herself at whatever response she was getting. Every now and then, she would look at him and blow a bubble from the wad of gum she was furiously working. One chair over from her sat a little guy who looked like he should still be in elementary school. He was asleep and snoring so loud it was amazing that he could sleep through it. A couple of kids in the back were listening to their iPods as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Two other guys were battling each other with raps while a third guy made beats with his mouth. And this was one of the calmer classes.

  Mr. Johnson turned around and looked at the sleeping boy and huffed as if the snoring was just too much for him to take. He put his marker down and walked over to the boy. He stopped right beside him, leaned down right above the boy’s ear, and slapped both of his hands together as loud as he could.

  CLAP!

  The sleeping boy didn’t budge, which sent the entireclass into a laughing frenzy. Even Mr. Johnson chuckled and shook his head.

  “Is he dead?” one of the kids asked.

  “Have you ever heard a dead man snore?” Mr. Johnson replied.

  “I don’t know what midgets do when they die,” the boy said.

  “Come here, Mark,” Mr. Johnson said to the boy. “Grab his legs and I’ll get his shoulders. This is ridiculous.”

  Mark was tall and wore a pair of gray sweatpants, a T-shirt with m&m high basketball across the front, and a pair of Nike flip-flops. He walked up, and they politely lifted the sleeping boy up from his desk and carried him outside the classroom and into the hallway. Mark decided to drop the boy’s legs before Mr. Johnson could get him on the floor.

  “Oops,” Mark said.

  “Why did I even bother asking you to help me?” Mr. Johnson said, shaking his head.

  “Hey,” Sleepy said, finally waking up and pulling away from Mr. Johnson. “What y’all doing to me?”

  “You will not sit up in my class and sleep. Especially not as loud as you snore. Go to the office,” Mr. Johnson said.

  “I wasn’t asleep. Man, y’all need to stop trippin',” Sleepy protested.

  “What happened? You had a bug in your eye, and you were trying to suffocate it?” Mark said.

  “Shut up, Mark,” Sleepy said with a frown. “You so black you blend in with the dark.”

  “And yo momma had liquor in her titties and stunted your growth, you lil ugly bastard,” Mark said.

  “Hey, you guys, cut it out,” Mr. Johnson said, stoppingthe two before things got heated. “Mark, go in the classroom, and, Antonio, you go to the principal’s office. And when you get home today, I want you to ask your mother or father to take you to see a doctor,” Mr. Johnson said as he walked back into the classroom, shaking his head.

  “Man, Mr. Johnson, you’re a hater,” Antonio said before walking down the hallway.

  Franky was busy writing notes from the board when Mr. Johnson walked over and peeked at his tablet. “Thank God somebody actually wants to learn up in here,” he said, and went back to the board. “I appreciate that, Mr. Bourgeois.”

  “Give him some time. He’s new,” Mark said. “We’ll have him corrupted in no time.”

  “Sit down, Mark,” Mr. Johnson said.

  “Hey,” the girl sitting next to him said to get his attention. “What’s your name?”


  “Didn’t you just hear him tell Mr. Johnson his name, gurl?” a nappy-headed boy said.

  The girl turned around and shot him a nasty glare. She didn’t say a word, just looked at him. He tried to stare her down but couldn’t and turned away. She kept staring until he placed his head on his desk.

  “Franky,” he said. “What’s yours?”

  “It’s Khadija,” she said with a pretty smile that showed off the straightest and whitest teeth Franky had ever seen. “You got a girlfriend?”

  “Nope,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

  “I’m just asking, but I think you’re lying. You’re too fine not to have one,” she said.

  Franky stopped writing and looked at her. He hadn’t really paid her too much attention before, but now that she was trying to push up on him, he really studied her.

  She was cute, and she would be even cuter if she took all that colorful yarn out of her hair. Khadija’s skin was a deep mocha and was as smooth as a baby’s bottom. Her eyes were a little big for her small face, yet they sparkled with life. Franky looked down at her thighs, which were nice and thick in her tight jeans. He wondered if she ran track or played any sports. She had on a pair of high-top sneakers with colors that matched her polo shirt and hair.

  Khadija kept chewing her gum and blowing bubbles while she watched him watching her.

  “Thank you. Are you gonna take any notes?” he asked, finally turning away from her.

  “Nope,” she said. “I already know this stuff.”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Maybe you can help me catch up. I haven’t been to school in a minute.”

  “Maybe I can, maybe I can’t,” she said. “I don’t know. We’ll have to see.”

  “Do you have a boyfriend?” Franky asked while he wrote.

  “No,” she said quickly. “I don’t have time for these lames around here. Most of these dudes at this school can’t handle a girl like me.”

  “A girl like you? And what type of girl are you?” Franky asked.

  “A real one. And only real dudes can recognize and appreciate a chick like me,” she said. “Where are you from? You sound funny.”

  Franky laughed and shook his head. “I’m from New Orleans,” he said. “And you sound funny to me. Where are you from?”

  “ATL, shawty. Yep. Born and raised right here. I’m a Grady baby,” she said before blowing another bubble.

  “What’s a Grady baby?” he asked.

  “That’s the hospital where I was born. Grady Memorial. Get it, Grady baby?” she said.

  “I got it.”

  “It was a fool from New Orleans who shot my potna,” a voice said directly behind Franky.

  “It wasn’t me,” Franky said, not even bothering to turn around.

  “How I know that? You put in the mind of one of ‘em, so I might just take my frustrations out on you. Even if it wasn’t you,” the boy said.

  Stand tall. Send a message. Don’t let nobody punk you.

  Franky stopped writing and turned around to face the boy who seemed to be looking for trouble. Other than the time he took a trip to Africa with his parents, he had never seen skin as dark as this guy’s. He was almost the color of coal and had bloodshot eyes. His hair was short and nappy, but he had slanted eyes as if his ancestors were of Asian descent.

  “Why would you do that? I never even shot anybody. I don’t even own a gun,” Franky said.

  “You might wanna get one, homeboi,” the boy said, then stood up and walked out of the classroom without even asking for a hall pass.

  Franky turned to Khadija and frowned as if to ask her what that was all about.

  “That’s Tyrone. He’s a thug—or at least he wants to be one. Don’t worry about him. He just likes attention,” Khadija said. “Just punch him in the eye one good time and he’ll leave you alone.”

  Franky sighed and shook his head.

  “So you want my number or what?” Khadija asked.

  “Of course,” he said with a smile. “You seem like you’regood people. Besides, you gotta help me catch up on this work in here.”

  “I am cool, and we’ll see about the help,” she said, blowing another bubble. “What’s your cell number?”

  “I don’t have a cell phone,” he said.

  “What?” she asked as if he had just said he didn’t have a head on his shoulders.

  “I don’t have one. Is that a crime?”

  “Well, when you get one, I’ll give you my number. Is that fair enough?” she asked.

  “Nope, but it’s your number, so what can I do? And you should still take notes even if you know this stuff already.”

  “Why?”

  “Because what else do you have to do?”

  “Text my friends,” she said.

  “You can do that at home,” he said.

  “Okay, Dad,” she said, closing her phone and pulling out a tablet from her book bag. “See. You’re already a good influence on me. I like that.”

  Franky laughed and tore off his first page of notes and handed it to her. “I’ll help you even if you don’t want to help me,” he said.

  “I never said I wasn’t going to,” Khadija said. She wrote her number down on a piece of paper and handed it to Franky. “You better be glad I love that accent. I wanna hear it again tonight around eight.”

  “Fo sho,” Franky said, and slipped the number into his pocket.

  8

  Franky walked out of the school building among the sea of teenagers who seemed to be happy that their day had finally come to an end. For the first time in almost three years, he felt right. The school itself wasn’t what he was used to, but that was okay; he would adapt. He was good at adapting and was sure he’d get used to the place the kids called M&M High. He walked down the steps and took in the scenery of the high school campus. He was in dire need of a book bag because his teachers loaded him down with four thick textbooks and a not-so-thick one for his technology class. He saw a few familiar faces from his neighborhood and nodded at them as he made his way down the school’s stairs. He wasn’t ready to go home. He had spent too much time in that place since arriving in Atlanta and wasn’t in a rush to get back there. He decided he would try to find the football field to see what the team was looking like, but just as he stopped to ask someonewhere he could find the coach, he heard someone running toward him. He turned around just in time to see the guy who’d tried to start something with him in Mr. Johnson’s class.

  “Boo,” Tyrone said, with a frown on his face.

  “What’s up?” Franky said casually, turning around to see the blue-black face. He wasn’t sure what this guy’s deal was, but his antenna went straight up.

  “Did I scare ya, boi?”

  “No,” Franky said. “What can I do for ya?”

  “Leave my school. Get from round here. That’s what you can do for me, New Orleans,” Tyrone said as he stepped so close to Franky that their noses were almost touching.

  “You mind backing up out of my face?” Franky said.

  “Make me,” Tyrone barked, sending saliva into Franky’s face as people rushed over to see what was going on.

  Stand tall. Don’t let nobody punk you. Send a message. Try to break something.

  Without a second thought, Franky dropped his books, stepped his right leg back, slightly bent his knee for leverage, and came up with a hard right-hand uppercut to Tyrone’s left jaw. The force of the blow caused Tyrone’s head to snap back. Franky followed with a quick left cross to the boy’s temple, and Tyrone’s eyes rolled toward the back of his head. He was unconscious before his body hit the ground. The crowd of onlookers oohed and aahed at the destruction that just took place in a matter of seconds. Franky stepped back with his hands up and his head on a swivel. He was looking for anyone else who might want to join in or come to Tyrone’s defense. He wasn’t playing the big tough guy; he just didn’t want to be blindsided. He heard a loud whistle, and the same two hulking securityofficers who were manning the metal detecto
r when he first arrived at school came running over to the crowd.

  “Back up! Back up!” they yelled. “What happened over here?”

  Franky started to say something to defend himself—and likely incriminate himself—but Khadija appeared out of nowhere and looped her arm into his. He pulled away from her, not sure if she was a friend or a foe. Once he saw her smile and realized who she was, he relaxed. She reached down to gather his books for him, and after a few deep breaths, he leaned down to help her. Once they had all of his things, she slipped her arm through his again and led him away from the crowd.

  “Oh, nobody seen a thing, huh?” one of the officers asked as he leaned down to check on Tyrone, who was bleeding profusely from the mouth.

  “Snitches get stitches,” someone yelled from afar.

  “Yeah, okay,” the officer said. “We’re gonna find out who did this once we look at that videotape. But y’all go on and act like ya Ray Charles.”

  “Looks like he got knocked clean out,” the other officer said, trying to stifle a laugh. “Let’s get him up.”

  “Do you walk home or catch the bus?” Khadija asked, her mind no longer on the fight that just took place. It was a daily occurrence at M&M High.

  “I’m walking,” Franky said, still amped about the fight that took him totally by surprise. “I’m going to get suspended on my first day of school. What’s that dude’s problem?”

  “No, you won’t get suspended,” she said. “Nobody’s gonna tell those rent-a-cops anything. They couldn’t get directions if they were lost.”

  “But what about the videotape?” Franky asked.

  “What about it?”

  “They’re gonna see me on the tape,” he said, wondering how his parents would feel about the way he handled the situation. His dad would’ve been proud and given him a high five; his mother would’ve been appalled and chastised him for not walking away.

  “Those lazy bustas ain’t looking at no tape. Especially about no measly little fight. Stop yo worrying, shawty. You’re good.”

  “Man,” he said, “all I wanted to do was come to school. Why did that guy try to start something with me? I don’t know him, and he doesn’t know me.”