Anger Is a Gift Sneak Peek

by Mark Oshiro

  He laughed, but Mrs. Torrance cleared her throat at that moment, so he didn’t get to continue. The class focused their attention on one another as she began to take attendance. When Mrs. Torrance got to Moss’s name, he could have sworn she winked at him.

  This is going to be a very strange week, he realized.

  * * *

  Tuesday morning. A searing sun already sat in the sky, and Moss wiped the sweat off his hairline before putting his fitted cap on his head. “You ready for this?” Moss said.

  Reg shuffled in his chair, his right hand massaging his thigh just above the spot where the gauze ended. “I hope so,” he said. “I don’t want to sit at home any longer.”

  “We got you,” Kaisha said. “Anything you need.”

  “I’m just glad those detectors are off,” he said, and then he sighed loudly. “I wish they weren’t even here, though.”

  “Maybe they’ll come to their senses,” said Moss, “and actually get rid of them.”

  Kaisha and Reg scoffed at that simultaneously, then fell into a fit of giggles. Those two are made for each other, Moss thought.

  “Well, no sense delaying this,” said Reg. He put his hands on the wheels on either side of his chair and gave himself a forceful shove forward. Kaisha stood behind him to help him up the makeshift ramp, and Moss stayed to the right. A crowd of students still milled about on the front lawn of campus, but Reg had wanted to give himself extra time to get inside, just in case he needed it.

  He never made it to the ramp. Moss heard the applause first; then someone yelled out Reg’s name. The students of West Oakland High converged on Reg, and before Moss could react, they had grabbed ahold of his wheelchair. “What are you doing?” Reg yelled, but he was drowned out by the chants of his name, repeating over and over. He was lifted up the stairs and deposited at the top, and the applause rang out again.

  Moss scrambled up the stairs after him, shoving his way past people he’d never interacted with before at school. Kids were patting Reg on the shoulder. “Welcome back,” one of the guys said before darting into the building. Another sprinted up the steps to get next to Reg. “We’ll fight for you,” they said. Then they were gone.

  “Well, I didn’t expect that,” Kaisha said, her breath ragged. “At least we know they’re on his side!”

  Reg reached up and grabbed Kaisha’s hand, but said nothing to her. Moss watched him as he acknowledged each person who came up to him in the hallways as he slowly rolled toward his homeroom.

  Maybe this won’t be such a bad turnout, Moss thought. Given the circumstances, it was strangely comforting, and Moss felt better by the time he entered Mrs. Torrance’s classroom.

  * * *

  “Sorry I couldn’t make anything tonight,” his mother said, tearing open the plastic bag that held their Thai takeout that night. “I didn’t expect this promotion would suck up so much of my time.”

  Moss grabbed his red curry and a box of jasmine rice. “Don’t worry about it, Mama,” he said, walking back to the dining room table. “I’m surprised you ever have the time or energy to cook.”

  “Finally, someone appreciates me,” she said. “Shamika has her hands tied with one of her bigger clients, and Ogonna said she’s got to spend the night calling people for the rally, so we’re on our own.” She grabbed her pad thai and flipped open the container. The steam rose rapidly, and she breathed in the sharp scent. “You know that one lady down on Adeline I’m always talking about?”

  He groaned. “Oh god, the one who gets mad at what mail you deliver?”

  She picked at her pad thai with her chopsticks, mixing it up. “Yep, that’s the one. Guess what she yelled about today?”

  Moss tried to spoon some curry into his mouth, but spat it out. Too hot. “I dunno,” he said. “The possibilities are endless.”

  “You would think so, but no, Moss. Today, she spent five minutes shrieking about junk mail. Why I deliver it. How I’m personally wasting trees and am dooming the world to ruin. All by myself, Moss!”

  “It’s good to know that you’re ending the universe, Mama. Maybe we do need to start from scratch.”

  She laughed and took a huge bite of noodles, slurping up a stray one. “God, I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of this place,” she said. “Enabling my laziness one noodle at a time.”

  “Says the woman who worked twelve hours today.”

  She grunted in response to that. “Don’t remind me. My feet already have been.”

  The conversation ceased as the two of them shoveled food into their mouths. Moss was nearly finished with his curry when his mother pointed her chopsticks at him. “I meant to tell you,” she said in between chewing. “Spoke to a lot of folks since this weekend. I think the administration at your school is gonna be overwhelmed on Friday.”

  “What d’you mean?” Moss said. He tipped the bowl up and drank down the last of the curry at the bottom of it.

  “Well, Martin, Dawit, and Shamika have all been telling anyone who’s been in their businesses about the rally. And I reached out to a lot of my old activist friends. They’ll be there, too.”

  “No way!” Moss said. “They really want to help?”

  “Yeah, they do. This community matters to them, too.”

  “I guess,” said Moss. He pushed his empty food containers away from him. “It’s just weird to think that people could care about someone they don’t know.”

  Wanda scraped at the sauce left. “I know,” she said. “But what happened to Reg, to Shawna … I’m worried about what comes next. What happens if we don’t stop this now.”

  “You really think it’ll get worse?”

  She raised an eyebrow at him. “If your school has no problem hurting its own student body over and over again, they’ll never learn.”

  “Well, then we gotta teach them,” said Moss, standing to gather their empty containers. “And soon.”

  Only three days left, he thought. His nerves rattled his stomach in a brief burst, but he dismissed it. Breathed through it. This is happening, he told himself. He couldn’t stop it if he tried, and he knew he just had to let the momentum take him forward.

  His mom kissed the top of his head as he stuffed the containers in the trash. “Your father would be so proud of you,” she said before she disappeared into the living room.

  Moss believed her.

  20

  Moss picked at the steps again in front of West Oakland High on Wednesday afternoon. “How do your parents feel about all of this?”

  Rawiya leaned back on her elbows and sighed. “You know, my dad was pretty excited to move here last year,” he said. “We’d been in Detroit for so long, and he just wanted to move somewhere warm.”

  “Is that why y’all went to the desert in August?” Moss asked, laughing.

  “Uggggghhh!” She drew the groan out. “Don’t remind me. Dad loved it so much, but I’d rather be anywhere but the desert in the height of summer.”

  “So what did they say about the walkout? You told them, right?”

  “Of course,” she said. “I can’t keep anything from my mom. That woman lives in my head.” She paused. “They’re … nervous. And I’m sure you get this, but they just don’t want me getting into trouble.”

  “Trust,” he said. “You don’t have to convince me.”

  “My dad is just worried because this place isn’t what we thought it was,” she said, and she sat forward, her elbows on her knees, her hands under her chin. “Like, isn’t this supposed to be one of the most progressive cities on the planet?”

  “Yo, I was just talking to Javier about that this weekend!” Moss exclaimed. “It’s wild, isn’t it?”

  “He still on his way?” Rawiya asked. “I didn’t really get to talk to him at Esperanza’s house.”

  Moss nodded. “Yeah, we’re getting boba over on 40th. You wanna come?”

  “Nah, I gotta get home,” she said, and she stood up and brushed off her skirt. “I have a paper for Mr. Riordan due on Monday.
Already! The year just started.” Rawiya sat back down and sighed. “Yeah, my parents are glad I’m getting involved with something, but they are also convinced that the school is gonna single me out.”

  “Well, it’s not an entirely irrational thought,” Moss admitted. “Given that Mr. Elliot did that once already.”

  She shook her head. “I know, I know,” she said. “You just try to be yourself and get through your day, and punks always gotta hassle you.” She gave him a look of concern. “How do you do it, Moss?”

  “Do what?”

  “Exist. When the world hates you so much.”

  He whistled at that. “Well, that’s a hella deep question, girl. What is this, my NPR interview?”

  She cackled and held up a pretend microphone to Moss’s mouth. “Our listeners would love to know what you, a gay black teenager, do to make it through each and every day. Please, Morris Jeffries, Jr., describe for them in detail all the pain that you go through.”

  “Well,” he said dramatically, “if that will placate your white listeners and make them feel as if they’re not personally complicit in any corrupt systems, then why would I ever dream of keeping my life to myself?”

  They fell into each other laughing. “What’s so funny?” Javier said as he approached them. “What did I miss?”

  “Oh, this is too good,” said Rawiya. “We’re practicing for Moss’s inevitable NPR interview. He’ll become a superstar of tragedy porn.”

  “Hey, as long as they’re paying you.…” He shrugged. “Get that white money, Moss.”

  Moss stood and kissed Javier. “How you doin’, boo?”

  Javier smirked. “Am I your boo now?”

  “We can talk about that later,” said Moss, winking at him.

  Javier turned around and glanced across the street. “So that’s where the rally is gonna be, right? That parking lot?”

  Rawiya nodded. “Pretty weird to think about, isn’t it?”

  “And you’re all coming out the front here?” Javier asked.

  “Yep,” said Moss. “Right at two P.M.”

  “I don’t know how we’re gonna last through classes on Friday,” said Rawiya. “I’m already impatient.”

  “Well, you can count me in,” said Javier. “Me and some of my friends are ditching school to come support y’all.”

  “Wait, really?” Moss put a hand to his chest.

  “Moss, this dude is hella punk rock,” said Rawiya. “Props. That’s legit.”

  “You’re serious?” Moss asked.

  “Yeah! Of course.” He shuffled in place. “Look, I care about you, and my friends think that what happened to Reg and Shawna was bullshit. So … we’ll be here.”

  “Have you already proposed marriage to him?” Rawiya said. “I know I’m like the millionth person to say this, but maybe you two should assimilate as soon as possible.”

  “Shut up, Rawiya,” Moss said, but it was playful. He gazed at Javier, saw that bashful sincerity on his face, and knew he wouldn’t trade it for anything. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go get boba.”

  They bid Rawiya goodbye and left her behind. Javier slipped his hand in Moss’s and they walked away from the campus, the impossible now real. This was his life now.

  Not bad, he thought. Now he just had to get through classes on Thursday and Friday, but with Javier at his side, it seemed all the more possible.

  21

  But when Friday morning rolled around, that hope had dissipated. “I hate how I’m feeling,” Moss said to Njemile. “Like everything is going to go wrong.”

  They could see Kaisha at the end of the block, her face buried in her phone, and Moss wasn’t sure he wanted to voice his uncertainty in front of her. This week had been bad enough for her, he guessed. She’d spent a lot of time with Reg and his family, running errands when they couldn’t, sticking by Reg’s side otherwise. She has to be exhausted, he thought. But there she stood, typing away on the touch-screen keyboard, and she seemed as energetic as ever. Moss couldn’t take that away from her, despite the dread that had sunk deep into him.

  It must have been all over his face. Kaisha smiled briefly at him. “I’m sure it’ll go fine,” she said, and then she looped her hands into the straps of her backpack. She greeted Esperanza. “We convinced a lot of people to participate. You should be proud of that.”

  “I almost can’t believe it,” Moss said. He removed his black snapback and wiped away at his sweat. “I guess I won’t until I see it happen. Where’s Reg?”

  “His mom dropped him off early,” she said. “He didn’t want to deal with the stress of getting on campus.”

  They headed toward school, but Moss welcomed the sight of Memo, the man who made fruit cups from his cart on MacArthur. Njemile skipped over to him and greeted him in Spanish, and soon Moss’s favorite part of the morning began. Memo chopped up mango, honeydew melon, strawberries, and orange slices, some with intricate patterns. He coated them in chili powder in a clear bag, then arranged them all delicately in a paper bowl. There was a purpose to the way he moved, a sense that this was all second nature to him, and Moss admired how quickly he was able to carve those pieces of fruit.

  “I swear, that man is an artist,” Kaisha said. “Mind if I take a photo for Instagram?”

  Njemile was more than delighted to. “Just make sure to credit Memo! And maybe mention that he’s at Jack London Square on the weekends.”

  “I got you,” Kaisha said. “I always give credit.”

  By the time they were finished with their impromptu photo shoot, Bits and Rawiya had found them. They said their hellos, but conversation was clipped. Sporadic. The tension flowed between all of them, and so their walk to school was not as cheery or social as it could have been. The dread began to fill the vacancy. What if this was a mistake? What if they came to regret this?

  He didn’t vocalize his concerns, out of fear that he’d just make everyone else feel as miserable as him. But as the group came in sight of their campus, Moss no longer had to worry about that. The image they saw outside their school guaranteed that misery would have some company.

  “We’re screwed,” said Njemile.

  Two men in jet-black uniforms were patting down a student who stood outside of the metal detectors. There was no exposed skin on any of the men. Their gloves were black, their long-sleeved undershirts stretched tight over large arms, and their boots glistened, even in the shade. Their heads were adorned with matte black helmets, and they reminded him of characters in one of those shoot-’em-up military games. They wore leather utility belts about their waists, and Moss couldn’t recognize a single object attached to them. He thought one was a billy club, but it was too short, too thin. He saw the holster, and the anxiety threaded into his veins, pulsed from his chest up to his throat, and he couldn’t breathe. Guns. Lots of them. Each cop had one. His mind took the image and transported him back to Dawit’s store, to the guns raised upon his father, and he froze. The fear was like cement blocks on his feet.

  He could see OAKLAND POLICE DEPARTMENT across the back of one of the uniforms. He knew then that it was over.

  The hum of the metal detectors could be heard from the bottom of the steps. The machine on the right blared loud and clear as a young black girl—some underclass student he’d only seen a couple of times before—went through it. Within seconds, she was pulled off to the side and pushed up against the wall, her legs spread, arms pinned, the cops ignoring her cries of protest.

  “Oh, no,” Kaisha said. Moss could hear the dread in her voice, too.

  “What is it?” Moss said. “What?”

  Kaisha stuffed her phone in her pocket. “They know.”

  “What?” said Njemile. “What do you mean?”

  “They know,” she repeated. “They figured it out.”

  “But how?” said Njemile. “How could they possibly know?”

  “I don’t know, but they know about the walkout. That has to be why they’re all here. They’re just trying to intimidate
us. Right?”

  There was an uncomfortable pause, right when Moss heard a student shout loudly, “Man, stop touchin’ me there!” The yell continued—it was Lewis, one of the running backs for the football team. Lewis swatted one of the cop’s hands away as another went in for the student’s leg. “Don’t do that, man. Don’t.”

  Lewis’s hands were forced behind his back in an instant. Two cops had him in cuffs a moment later, and pulled him off toward the front office. “Man, leave me alone!” they heard Lewis yell, and then he was gone.

  “Well, this looks bad,” said Njemile. She sucked a gulp of air into her lungs and let it out with force. “But I don’t care. We have to do this.”

  “I’m not letting them stop me either,” Kaisha said, and she marched up to the stairs, defiant. Moss looked at Bits, who shrugged and followed her.

  Rawiya locked her arm in Moss’s and led him forward. His heart raced, a constant pounding underneath his sternum, and he felt his mother’s waffles from that morning surge up his throat. Moss wanted to call her now and have her come get him, and yet the thought filled him with a weird sense of shame. Was he a coward for wanting to bail? Was he weak because of the terror that washed over him whenever he saw a cop or a gun? His legs wobbled as he took another step toward the school.

  “You got this,” Rawiya told him, and she led him closer.

  He watched Kaisha. She looked so fearless, and he admired that. She dropped her bag on a folding table, and one of the cops immediately began to search through it. She passed through the metal detector without a sound, but the cop on the other side put a hand up. “Additional screening,” he said.

  Kaisha delivered one of the most vicious glares Moss had ever seen from her, but she said nothing. She raised her hands above her head, her face a mask of disinterest and quiet rage. They all watched as a cop roughly ran his hands over Kaisha’s body, lingering far too long on her chest and on her legs. But the men said nothing to her, and the eeriness of their uniformity finally crept under Moss’s skin. They all looked like the exact same person. Their build was identical, they all stood around six foot, and there was not a single detail anyone could have used to differentiate them at all. No badges. No names. No numbers.