Feet planted strong, Carlos says, “Kim es mi familia.” Fiercely, he repeats, “Ella es mi familia.”
Eddie steps one step down, face-to-face with Carlos, closer to Carlos and Kim.
I scream. No one hears.
Eddie offers his hand. “Bueno. Con respeto,” he says loud enough for everyone to hear. Some kids stop, peer; others keep walking, their heads down. “Con respeto.”
Carlos smiles. Eddie turns to Kim. “I’m sorry about your brother.”
I worry Kim’s going to call him a bully. But she’s smart. Eddie can still make life hurt for her and Carlos. She says, simply, “Thanks.”
Relieved, everyone smiles.
Carlos and Kim wave at Grandma. Eddie, Mike, and Snap walk close behind them. Kids stare.
All four—Carlos, Eddie, Mike, and Snap—walk my sister to class.
Not quite a new alliance. Just a truce.
I sit on the school steps and cry. Not unhappily but happy. How come life seems better now that I’m dead? Not even the bullies are bullies anymore.
While I still ache for Ma and Pop, Grandma and Kim are moving on. Carlos helps.
Life is better.
When will I get to move on? When will Emmett? The other ghost boys?
I stand, yelling. No one hears, sees me. I yell and yell. Not fair.
The school bell rings.
Carlos walks Kim home. He snaps a tree branch, then snaps it again. Drumsticks. He taps, tap-taps buildings, steps, and metal trash cans. Quick, snapping sharp. Both of us like percussion. Maybe we could’ve saved money to buy drumsticks?
Kim skips, dances. Birds skitter and glide. Even the sun seems to smile. My sister is having fun again. She shouts, “Faster, faster!” I dance alongside them. They can’t see me.
Carlos taps on a trashed television in the street. The plastic cover makes a deep, hollow sound; the glass tube sounds high, sharp. My sister wiggles out of her backpack’s straps. She twirls and twirls and an old man sitting on his front stoop claps. Two women, snapping pole beans on their porch, grin, shout, “Dance, girl.” Other kids spin, too. Carlos keeps the rhythm. Enjoying sun, music, being alive, I’m happy for my sister.
Kim stops. Her pigtails are undone; one sock has squished, flopped down to her ankle. She’s a mess. A smiling mess. Then her smile disappears.
Carlos stops tapping, making rhythms. Folks lose interest. Two girls go back to playing jacks.
“Okay? You okay?”
Her face is somber, strained like when we hear shots outside our apartment window. Or when the upstairs neighbors fight.
“You’re going to have to tell Grandma.”
Carlos shrinks. He seems even more out of place—again just a Texas kid in Illinois. He hands his tree sticks to a boy with a backwards baseball cap.
“You’re going to have to tell her.”
“Yes.”
I feel bad for Carlos.
TELL NO LIES
Sitting on my family’s apartment steps, everybody’s talking. I never realized folks talked so much. Little kids, old people, the men standing, rapping, gabbing on the corner.
When folks are telling stories, the neighborhood is warm. It’s like it glows, inside out. The streets smell of barbecue and greens. Everybody’s got a story:
Did I tell you? Did I tell you about my bad hip? My boss? My b-boy moves? Growing up in Carolina?
Did I tell you… I got an A in math? About my car getting jacked? Finding a dead baby bird?
Did I tell you why I cried? How I got hurt? How I howled? Found my lost dog? How my daddy got sick? How blue crayons are happy? Orange crayons, sad?
Me, how I died?
Kim’s right. Carlos has to tell Grandma his story. She can’t tell it. Carlos has to tell how he gave me the toy gun.
Just like Emmett has to tell me his story. But he says I’m not ready to hear it. Is that why I’m here? To get ready?
Ghost boys haunt. One by one they appear. Several boys wearing hoodies, sports T-shirts. Overalls. There’s a kid who looks like he’s eight. Another kid—Tamir?—with a toy gun.
Ghosts fill the street. Some stand in front, or beside, or behind the living. Two worlds. Grandma is right. “Dead, living… both worlds are close.” “Every goodbye ain’t gone.”
Even though life ends, it also doesn’t end.
Mr. Anders’s beagle, Joey, barks. “Ssssh,” hisses Mr. Anders. Joey sniffs.
I think, Good boy. Good dog.
It’s a half-moon. Emmett appears. All the ghosts watch him.
Was he the first black boy to be killed? Naw. I don’t believe that. Slavery was awful. Afterwards, Pop said the KKK began lynching.
Ghost boys nod, step back, high-five. Emmett’s the leader. The leader of our crew. An unnatural alliance—young, but dead.
Ghost boys.
I understand now. Everything isn’t all about me.
LISTENING
“What happened to you? What went down?”
Me and Emmett are alone. Ghost boys have disappeared, like they know it’s time for Emmett’s tale.
Neighbors are asleep. The moon shines. Moths flit. It’s garbage day tomorrow. Rats dig inside pails, eat through plastic bags. My neighborhood’s poor, segregated. Until I started wandering, I didn’t know by how much. Didn’t know how much I was living in a danger zone.
But why did cops fear me?
“Are you ready to hear?”
I nod.
Emmett sighs. “Let’s go to my home.”
Two shakes and we’re there. A two-story brick house with squat, deep steps and an awning to keep rain off the landing.
“West Woodlawn. My mother and I lived on the top floor.”
His apartment isn’t far from where my family lives. Has our neighborhood always been poor?
Emmett speaks, slowly. “My great-uncle, Moses Wright, and his wife, Elizabeth, lived in Money, Mississippi. My cousins, Curtis, Wheeler, and I begged to visit them. We wanted to play with Simeon, Robert, and Maurice. Six boys. Almost enough to field a team. Plus, Maurice said he’d take us fishing. Four rivers passed near his home and there were seven deep lakes. Can you imagine? I wanted to see all that water.
“My uncle was a sharecropper. But he lived in the nicest tenant house on Frederick Plantation. It was a run-down shack with a tin roof. But it had two bedrooms in the front and two in the back. Me and my cousins slept in blue metal beds and shared boxes for our clothes. Happy, we didn’t mind.
“‘Dirt-poor people,’ Mother used to say. ‘That’s why I left Mississippi. Because I didn’t want to be a sharecropper picking cotton.’
“‘Dirt-poor,’” Emmett repeats. “A stinky outhouse. An icebox with real ice, not electricity, to cool food. But I loved being with my Mississippi cousins. They roamed. In Chicago, Mother never let me roam.”
Emmett’s head falls back. I think he’s looking at the sky. But he isn’t—his eyes are closed. A shudder shakes him.
He looks at the ground, then back at me. His eyes, widening pools, pull me in like I’m going to drown.
“After an overnight train ride, I arrived in Money, Mississippi, August 21. August 28, I died.”
I’m not on the outside anymore. I’m inside. In an old-time black-and-white movie.
Emmett’s telling his story by making me feel.
Standing on the roadside, I watch Emmett alive again, living in his old world.
Oak trees arch; cypress leaves hang. Grass is knee-high. Crows soar and screech; woodpeckers peck.
Squirrels scamper. Emmett and his cousins play.
The air is hot, hotter than Chicago’s. And though I can’t feel it, I can see wet in the air.
Sweat cloaks everybody.
Emmett wears his rimmed hat. He still looks like a chipmunk, but now with skin, plump and fresh.
Emmett’s laughing, his shoulders brushing against Maurice’s. He likes Maurice best. He’s the oldest. The big brother. They wrestle, half-serious.
“Come on,�
�� Simeon shouts. Everybody runs—kicking up dust, stumbling over rocks, running through the forest.
The cousins run to the river. Emmett’s hat falls.
I try to shout, “Emmett. Your hat.”
Wheeler points at Simeon. He’s the youngest, littlest. Emmett nods, then him and Wheeler lift Simeon, dumping him in the river. It’s so hot, Simeon doesn’t mind. Robert and Maurice laugh.
“Let’s go to town.” Maurice pivots back toward Emmett. Resting his hands on his shoulders, he says, serious, “Say ‘yes, ma’am,’ ‘no, sir’ to white people. Don’t look anybody white in the eyes.”
Emmett throws a stone. It skips across water, sinks. “You’re not my uncle. My mother either.”
“Don’t be stupid, Emmett. This is Mississippi.”
“I know it’s Mississippi.”
“Sidestep if white people are walking on the same street. Step into the road if you have to. Let whites pass first.”
Emmett wipes sweat from his forehead, muttering, “Not afraid of white people.”
No one but me hears.
Town isn’t much. Dirt roads; wood sidewalks. A few stores with porches. Segregated, black and white men play checkers and drink soda outside. Country men in denim. Women in flowery dresses. Two black girls skip. The day is sunshiny and bright.
The biggest store is Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market. Maurice says, “The Bryants sell mostly to blacks. White folks drive to Greenwood. They’ve got much better stores.”
“Bryants have bubble gum?” asks Emmett.
“Be careful. Don’t say nothing,” pipes Simeon, his clothes still wet.
Scornful, Emmett boasts. “Life’s different in Chicago. I talk with white people all the time.”
“No, you don’t,” scolds Simeon.
“I do. I’ll show you.” He heads toward the store.
“Don’t,” says Simeon.
“Think I’m scared?”
Simeon grips Emmett’s shoulder. Emmett shrugs him off.
“Don’t.” My voice makes no sound. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Emmett, don’t be stupid.
“Here’s different,” says Simeon, fierce, desperate. “Tell him, Maurice. Folks don’t care about black people. Don’t like black people.”
“Don’t even believe we’re people,” says Maurice, sorrowful.
Emmett doesn’t listen. He walks into the store.
Not much of a store. Some chips, penny candy. Cold sodas. Bags of flour, sugar, salt.
A woman with long brown hair sits on a stool behind the counter. She’s pale, with red lipstick and brown eyes.
Emmett digs out a purple bubble gum from a bin and puts a penny in her hand.
He walks away. Not seeing the woman’s outrage.
I see it. Hatred.
At the doorway, he stops, turns, and smiles. “Goodbye.”
Wordless, I holler, “Run, Emmett.” Like I tried to run.
Simeon leaps onto the porch. “You spoke to her?”
“Yeah.” Emmett unwraps his gum. “Said goodbye like I would in Chicago. Put the penny in her hand.”
“Put the penny in her hand?”
“So?”
Simeon hops, twists, like the ground is on fire. He drags Emmett toward the cousins. He speaks rapidly, squeaking, “Talked, touched her.” Robert trembles. Wheeler asks, “What’s wrong?” Curtis, like Emmett, is dumbfounded.
“We’ve got to go,” insists Maurice.
“W… why… wha… what’s wrong?” Emmett stutters.
Mrs. Bryant bolts out of the store. Her yellow dress flaps.
“She’s fetching her pistol,” warns Simeon.
Stunned, Emmett can’t move. No one can. They’re paralyzed.
Mrs. Bryant flings open her car door, reaches inside.
“W… w… w… what’s wrong?” Anxious, his voice pitches high. “W… w… what’s… w… wrong?”
W sounds whistle.
The white lady glares at Emmett like he’s a monster. She thinks he’s mocking, whistling at her.
A crowd gathers: white men, women, even some kids. Black people, heads lowered, step, slide away, disappearing. Escaping.
Even dead, I can feel, smell the danger.
“Run!” screams Maurice.
“Run!” echoes Simeon.
Emmett runs. Runs as fast as he can.
He can’t run fast enough.
Emmett pauses, closes his eyes, then mutters, “I begged my cousins not to tell my uncle and aunt. ‘I don’t want to be sent back to Chicago,’ I said. I was young, embarrassed. I didn’t understand the trouble I was in.”
“But you didn’t do anything wrong.”
Emmett almost fades, then I see the shape of him, more focused and bold. “What mattered was what they—white people—thought I had done. It gets worse. See.”
I stare into his eyes.
Past midnight, the house is cloaked in darkness. Two white men burst into the shack, guns pulled, flashlights startling, searching faces. Everyone’s howling, frightened. Aunt Elizabeth runs toward the back bedroom. They follow her. Emmett’s face is caught in the flashlight’s glow.
“Get up, get dressed.”
Petrified, Emmett wets himself. He pulls his overalls over his pajamas.
“He’s a child. Not from here,” his uncle pleads, begs. “He didn’t know.” A man with black curls and a short-sleeved white shirt slams him against the wall. “How old are you?”
“Sixty-four.”
“You make any trouble and you’ll never live to be sixty-five.”
Simeon grabs hold of Emmett’s leg, trying to keep the men from dragging him away. The second man kicks him. Simeon wails, clutches his stomach. Wheeler holds his brother.
Emmett screams, “Mama. Mama!”
His uncle and cousins are shouting, begging, pleading on the porch.
Emmett’s pushed into a truck’s cab. He’s caught between two men. One drives; one keeps punching Emmett.
“Teach you. I’m going to teach you.” Bam. “You talked sass.” Bam. “Nobody disrespects my wife.” Bam, bam.
Emmett’s face swells.
I don’t want to see this. I pull back. How many times has Emmett shared this tale? Hundreds? Thousands? I inhale, deep.
Staring into his eyes, I am inside again. The film rolls.
The Tallahatchie River glows silver. Lightning bugs blink; fish splash, leaping for moths, flies. Emmett is dragged from the truck.
“Mama.”
“Mother isn’t going to help you, boy.”
His fist falls like a hammer. Emmett drops to his knees.
The dark-haired man grabs his legs, pulls. “You whistled at my wife.” He chokes Emmett. Emmett’s squirming, trying to beat the hands away. His feet lift off the ground. “Who do you think you are?”
Eyes bulge—blood floods his mouth. He’s thrown to the ground.
I can’t look.
I can’t help but look.
A gun.
Emmett isn’t moving.
Seeing his body on the ground, I see myself.
The husband fires the gun, sparks fly.
Emmett’s spirit rises.
With barbed wire, the men lash Emmett’s body to a large wheel. They drag, shove the wheel into the river. Watch it sink.
Blood stains the riverbank. Emmett’s hat rests. Amazingly, it’s clean. Off to the side, brim up.
“I’m sorry, Emmett. Really sorry.”
Ghost boys reappear, hovering, studying Emmett’s face. And mine.
“For all of us,” says Emmett, waving his hand outward. “We’re all sorry for each other. Somebody decided they didn’t like us.… We were a threat, a danger. A menace.”
The ghost boys nod, waiting for something. Waiting on me. I feel it.
The ghost boys are my new family.
Then, I feel an urge. Deep inside me. A recognition.
Injustice. Tragedy.
My mouth opens. A sound I didn’t know I could make keens out of me. Terr
ifying, mournful. Only the dead hear it. My wail rises and falls, rises and falls.
Emmett’s spirit blends with mine. Merging, we cry, “Not fair. I died too young. Too soon.”
Ghost boys scream, holler, echo, “Not fair. Died too young. Too soon.”
We exhaust ourselves.
The real world sleeps. Maybe somewhere, someone sings “Amazing Grace.”
Is Kim dreaming? Is Grandma muttering in her sleep? What about my parents, all the parents of murdered boys? Do they rest quiet? Did Emmett’s mom ever rest? Is she dead now?
One by one, two by two, in small clusters, my ghost crew roams.
Emmett murmurs, “Bear witness.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Everyone needs their story heard. Felt. We honor each other. Connect across time.”
Dumbstruck, I watch Emmett wander, zigzag down the middle of the street.
I wait and wait and wait until the sun rises. Until the neighborhood stirs.
I feel like I’m a hundred years old. I feel like I’ve just woken up.
SCHOOL’S OUT
Winter. Spring. Summer.
Every time I see a black kid, I yell, “Be safe.” They never hear me.
Walking my neighborhood, I wonder how anyone can laugh, be happy. The streets are dangerous. Gangs. Bullies. Drive-bys. Police with guns.
But people need to be happy. Or else “Be like me,” I shout. Dead. Listless, weighted down with hard stories.
Strange, though, I feel something’s in the air. Like a shift; something I’ve got to do.
Lately, I’ve been lingering on my street. Nights, wild sunflowers in the vacant lot close up, scents of chicken and collards blow through kitchen windows. I wish I could eat. Play. Hug my sister. Pat a dog. Stroke a cat.
Ghost Boys Page 6