by Mark Oshiro
“We’re not criminals,” Reg finished. “We’re not getting on an airplane. We’re not goin’ to court. We goin’ to school!”
The group murmured agreements at that one.
“I bet it’s against our rights or something,” Rawiya suggested, then looked around the group for validation. “Right?”
Without a beat, Kaisha said, “No, unfortunately, it’s not. At least not anymore.”
Rawiya groaned. “I should learn not to have any optimism.”
“Look,” Kaisha said, leaning forward into the circle. “In a post-9/11 world, we couldn’t get a single legal authority to agree with us on this point about ‘safety.’ Plus, we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves with that battle. Our goal should be to attract the attention of the people who have the power to revoke the permits for the metal detectors.”
“Wow,” Esperanza said. “I’m impressed.”
“I’m tellin’ y’all,” she said. “Find me on Tumblr. I been learnin’ a lot there.”
“Seriously, y’all need to follow Kaisha,” said Njemile. “I wouldn’t have learned half the stuff I know about asexuality if it wasn’t for her blog.”
Reg grabbed Kaisha’s hand and squeezed. “It’s true. I wouldn’t have figured out that there was a name for who I am if Kaisha hadn’t blogged about being biromantic.”
Kaisha smiled ear to ear at that.
“But how do we do … well, whatever Kaisha just described?” Moss asked, shifting position in his chair. “I want to do whatever I can, but who are we going after?”
“It’s gotta be Mr. Elliot,” Rawiya said. “And not just because I hate him.”
“Wait, I must’ve missed that,” Esperanza said. “What?”
“Oh no,” Kaisha said, looking up from her phone. “How do you not know?”
Esperanza shrugged. “Sometimes, even I forget I don’t go to your school. I guess I just missed talk of it.”
Moss looked to Rawiya, who nodded, letting him know she was cool telling the story. “At the end of our sophomore year, during a school assembly, he told me to take my hijab off. During the Pledge of Allegiance.”
“And when she says ‘during,’” Kaisha added, “she literally means that in the middle of it, he stopped and told her it was disrespectful to wear anything on your head during the Pledge.”
“I still get shit for that day every once in a while,” Rawiya continued. “But I was pleased by how many people sat down once I did.”
“Maybe you should focus your attention on the principal, then,” said Esperanza.
“But won’t he go on one of those freak-outs again?” Moss asked. “Remember how pissed he was when a bunch of kids tried to meet with him over the assembly thing? If we push him, won’t he just push back harder?”
“Probably,” Njemile said. “At the same time, what if he pushes too hard? What if he does something that’s so ridiculous that the school board has to intervene?”
“So, you think we can more or less troll him into reacting terribly, and he’ll do the work for us?” Moss asked.
A smile spread across Bits’s face. “That’s a funny thought,” Bits said.
“Damn, that’s not a bad idea,” Reg said. “But how?”
Moss saw that Shawna had her hand up, and he gestured to Esperanza to make sure she saw it. “What is it?” Esperanza said.
“Yeah … maybe we don’t troll Mr. Elliot,” said Shawna. “Given how badly he treated Rawiya here, and how much anger he must have towards me for upsetting his day … I’m guessing that won’t go well.”
A bolt of shame ran through Moss. Damn, he thought. He hadn’t considered that. Rawiya nodded at her. “Yeah, I agree with Shawna,” she said. “We gotta go bigger than him. We shouldn’t target one person.”
“Well, first of all, we have to get more people to agree to whatever plan y’all come up with,” Esperanza said. “I don’t know that we should organize anything until this group is a lot bigger.” They nodded their agreement to her. “So, we need to branch out. And not just on campus!”
“Facebook,” Kaisha said, looking up from her phone again. “Tumblr. We need to find ways to spread this in places where they’re not looking. I’m pretty sure that Mr. Elliot nor a single assistant principal knows what Tumblr is, and I’m mutuals with a lot of people from school. I can post some things.”
“Okay, that’s a good start. What else?”
“I like the Facebook idea,” Njemile replied. “Maybe a private group to reach out to people? And we can make ourselves admins so that we can approve every person who is invited. Just to make sure.”
Esperanza clapped her hands together. “Brilliant, I love it. Who wants to do that?”
Reg, Kaisha, and Njemile all raised their hands.
“We’ve got to do stuff at school, though,” Kaisha said. “We can’t just recruit people online.”
“I can definitely talk to people on the basketball team,” Shawna said. “A lot of the girls aren’t into protesting or anything, but they’re all going to hate the metal detectors once they’re in. Every bobby pin they wear is going to set it off, right?”
“That’s perfect, Shawna!” Njemile said.
Shawna imitated a bow while sitting. “Why, thank you.”
“I got the Book Club,” Bits said.
“And I got the Anime Club,” said Reg. “Nerds are gonna be pissed, too.”
“Moss?” Esperanza said. “What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not in any clubs or anything.”
“Well,” Esperanza said, trying to defuse the awkwardness, “Kaisha, once you get the Facebook group set up, let me know the name and URL. I’ll make sure everyone else has it. We should make sure to keep this limited just to students at this point, okay?”
“Of course,” said Kaisha. “You want to set up one for Piedmont High or use the same one?”
They continued to hash out how Esperanza could contribute, but Moss remained silent, unsure how to help, uncertain he should get too involved. He pulled out his phone and saw a text from his mother.
DINNER TONIGHT AT 7. YOU GONNA BE HERE?
He texted back:
YA. SEE U IN A FEW.
He closed his phone and Esperanza was standing in front of him. It gave him a start, and she snickered. “Wow, why are you so jumpy?” she said. “Was that Javier?”
“Ha ha,” he said. “Nah, it was my mom, just asking about dinner. You heading back home first, or do you wanna come over now?”
“I’m free all day, so if you don’t mind, I’ll come with you,” she said. Moss smiled at her and the two of them grabbed their empty cups and headed downstairs, dropping the cups into the nearly full tub of dirty dishes. Moss waved to his friends as they left. As they walked out the front door of Farley’s, Esperanza was quick to cut right to what she was thinking.
“So, you don’t think we can do this?”
“Wow,” he said.
“You were pretty quiet back there,” she said softly.
“I’m fine. It’s just a lot to take in, you know?”
“We’re just getting started, though,” she said. “It’s gonna be overwhelming at the start.”
“It’s just so … ambitious. Do we actually have a plan?”
She pursed her lips. “No, but it’s not like we’re pretending we do. We just need to recruit more people.”
“You say that with so much certainty,” Moss said as they turned onto Grand, heading toward 19th Street BART. “Like you know it’s going to happen.”
“I think people are going to hate those things, after even just one day of having to use them. And I think you should capitalize off that as soon as possible if we’re ever going to have any success in organizing this.”
Moss sighed, and Esperanza leaned into him as they walked. “I wish I had the kind of hope you have,” he said.
“Like my name?” she said, her head resting on his shoulder.
“Ha ha,” Mos
s said. But he wondered what it would be like to be named after a concept like that, instead of a father who wasn’t here anymore. Maybe his name had cursed him. That sure would explain his life better than anything else.
Moss and Esperanza descended the stairs into the BART station, and he was glad to be heading home. He pulled out his phone as they neared the fare gates and shot off a text to Javier:
I NEED TO SEE U SOON. MISS U.
Maybe that was a bit too clingy, but right then, he wanted to cling to something true. In a couple of days, he’d have to walk through metal detectors just to go to school. It was too strange to visualize, too bizarre to even consider. Yet he had no choice: this was now his life.
They boarded a train. It wasn’t until he sat next to Esperanza that she broke the silence. “You realize we’re right back at the same place as before,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Back on BART. Dreading school on Monday.”
“Jesus,” he said. “How has it only been a week since school started?”
“How have things escalated so quickly?” She sighed. “Remember when all we were worried about was just getting through another year?”
“And now we gotta worry about so much more,” he added. He sank farther into his seat in despair.
“Well, let’s see how it goes on Monday, and then we’ll take it from there,” Esperanza said, her hand on his arm. “One struggle at a time.”
Moss wished he had her optimism, too. He couldn’t avoid the darkness flooding his mind. Deep down, he knew this was going to get worse.
12
Moss was surprised when he walked into Martin’s shop to see Reg sitting at one of the other chairs. “Yo, man, what’s up?” Moss said, claiming one of the few empty spots left in the waiting area. “You get here early?”
“You know you gotta,” said Reg. “It’s a Sunday. Why you crawlin’ in here around noon? You’re gonna sit there for like five hours.”
“Guess who actually made an appointment?” Martin said, coming up behind Moss. Moss gave him a bump as he passed by.
“Wow,” said Reg. “Why you gotta embarrass me like that?”
“I’ll be right with ya, Moss,” said Martin. He adjusted his bright red cap in the mirror, ran a hand through his thick beard. Martin had a husky build and the kind of facial hair Moss would kill to have. If he hadn’t known him for most of his life, Moss probably would have found him attractive, but the man was like family to him, especially in the years after his father died. Anytime Wanda or Moss needed a ride somewhere, Martin was ready with his beat-up Honda. “Consider me your personal Uber,” he said once. “Without the terrible service and business practices, of course.”
He watched Martin move about the barbershop, exchanging words with the customers and the other barbers, and it mesmerized Moss. The man was so good at being social, and Moss was glad he never went to any other shops to get his fade. He’d heard horror stories from Bits before about how toxic the environments could be, but Martin was always quick to leap to Moss’s defense if needed.
Martin waved him over to the chair next to Reg. “Get over here, boss,” he said. “You want the same?”
“Yep,” he said, sitting in the chair. “A little off the top, fade on the sides. I’m dependable that way.”
Martin spun the chair around and Moss faced Reg. “How’s your leg today?”
“Eh,” said Reg. “Comes and goes, you know. The crash was two years ago, man! I thought I’d be better by now, but my physical therapist said that’s not how all bodies work.”
“Sounds like my therapist,” he said. “You nervous about tomorrow?”
“Trying not to be,” said Reg.
“What’s tomorrow?” Martin said.
Moss ran the story by him quickly, and Martin whistled. “Your mom know about it?”
“Yeah.” He leaned his head to the side so that Martin could get the hair that grew down by his neck. “Told her the day they announced it.”
“What’s she gonna do about it?”
“What you mean?” Moss asked.
Martin moved Moss’s head gently to the left and ran the clippers up and down the side of his head. “Well, you know your mama’s got a knack for causin’ trouble. I just figured she was already camped outside the principal’s office, threatening to rain down hell on him.”
He heard Reg laugh and tried to keep his own head still. “I think she’s just waiting this time,” said Moss. “Nothing’s happened yet, so it’s not a priority for anyone.”
“Yet,” said Reg. “I’m kinda expecting a disaster tomorrow, and it will be sweet, sweet vindication.”
“You think so?” Moss said. “You got more hope than I do.”
“You’ll see,” he said. “I just hope I feel up to using my crutches tomorrow. Don’t wanna take my wheelchair through those things.”
“Has anyone actually been by the school to see what they look like?” Martin asked, pushing Moss’s head forward to line him up.
“Nah,” said Moss. “Least I don’t think so.”
“Sounds like a rush job,” said Martin. “Shouldn’t they take a few days to be installed?”
Reg’s barber whisked the cape off him and shook it out. Reg shrugged at Martin. “I don’t know anything about that stuff,” he said. “If it ain’t football, I don’t know a thing.”
Martin laughed. “Li’l Reg here likes to think of himself as an expert,” he said loudly, and some of the older men in the shop snickered at that.
“You’re just mad that my fantasy-league team destroyed yours last year,” Reg shot back, grabbing his crutches and limping over to the waiting area. That got a reaction from everyone, and Moss loved the pleasure on Reg’s face.
Martin grumbled to himself as he continued to work on Moss’s fade. Kaisha stopped by a few minutes later to help Reg get home, and Moss let himself relax in the chair as Martin worked his magic. He appreciated that sometimes Martin knew not to engage him in small talk, and this was one of those times. Moss found haircuts to be soothing and figured it was related to the fact that his head was so sensitive to touch. Thankfully, he hadn’t fallen asleep in the chair yet; his fear of the embarrassment he would feel kept him awake.
Nearly a half hour later, Martin brushed off the last few stray hairs, pulled off the cape, and handed Moss a mirror, though Moss trusted Martin so much that he rarely gave his cuts more than a cursory examination. He handed Martin a twenty during his handshake and then made his way home, desperate for a shower to get rid of the itchy hairs that always seemed to find a way down the back of his shirt. Martin’s shop was only a block and a half away if Moss went the quickest way, but that brought him right past Dawit’s shop, so he usually took a more roundabout route. He was so lost in his thoughts about Javier, hoping that they’d hang out soon, that he was slow to realize he’d taken that route. He stopped on the corner of 12th, and it was impossible for him to look at anything except that stoop.
Moss had once asked his mom if they could move to another street, anywhere that wasn’t just a few hundred feet from where Morris had collapsed. But they’d learned the hard way that funerals were expensive, that hiring lawyers was even worse, that when you lost a loved one, it sucked your finances dry. So they were stuck without much of an option aside from Wanda quitting the job she’d had for over a decade and uprooting themselves from the neighborhood where they’d built up a network. Of friends. Acquaintances. Activists. People and places that were important to their family.
Moss crossed over to the side of the street where the market stood, and he knew that there was a part of him that didn’t ever want to leave. He’d attached so much of himself to those three concrete steps, and he couldn’t imagine moving somewhere far away. What if he unraveled? What if he couldn’t visit those concrete steps and remember what he had lost?
The calm and comfort Moss had found in Martin’s shop slid away, replaced with a nagging terror and panic. He headed straight home. He ru
shed inside, shouting a quick greeting to his mother, who must have been in her bedroom. Moss bolted into the bathroom and peeled off his clothes, started the shower, and then jumped in before it warmed up. The cold water shocked him, jolted his emotions, and sent a chill over his skin. He let it pour over him and he wiped at his face, desperate to push this fear away from him. Not now! Moss thought. Please go away.
He’d learned to talk to his brain as if it were a person, and there were times when he couldn’t accept that it was a part of his body. If he thought of it as an invader, he could conceive of it. Compartmentalize it. Fight it. But standing in the shower, the water temperature rising faster and faster, he knew the darkness was here to stay for a while. He let the water wash off the excess hairs and then shut it off. He toweled himself off and put his boxer briefs and jeans back on, but headed to his room for a fresh shirt. He pulled out his phone and sent Esperanza a text. You around? Could use the company.
By the time he threw on a Beyoncé tee that he’d bought at the swap meet across from the Ashby BART station, Esperanza had already replied. Sure, she had texted. Fentons in thirty?
He knew he shouldn’t have ice cream for lunch, but he sent her back a confirmation. I deserve to feel good, Moss thought, channeling his therapist.
He found his mother curled up in bed reading the same Butler book she had been a few days before. “Gonna go get some ice cream with Esperanza,” he said, pulling on some socks while in the doorway. “You want me to bring you back anything?”
She shook her head. “I’m good. You’ll be back for dinner, right?”
“Yeah,” he said. “And I finished all my homework last night, so I am responsibility-free for the rest of the day.”
“Glad you take after me,” Wanda said, then returned to her book.
He grabbed his lock and shoved it in his bag, then attached his helmet and slipped into his biking shoes. He was about to dart out the front door when he heard his mother call out to him. “Make sure to take the trash out before you leave!”
Apparently not responsibility-free, he thought, then headed back into the kitchen to the sound of his mother chuckling to herself.