The Voting Booth

by Brandy Colbert

  “Ma made us go to therapy, and she went, too,” Ida says, not missing a beat. “We all talked to somebody, except for you. You can’t just be okay.”

  Dad scowls down at the pavement. “People process things differently. Talking about it doesn’t make me feel better.”

  “But you don’t talk to anybody.” My sister bites her lip. “Not me or Duke or Ma.”

  “Ida, you need to stay out of grown folks’ business,” he says, his eyebrows pinched tight. “I’m your father, not your friend.”

  “Dad, it’s true.” I crack a couple of knuckles, almost afraid to look at him. But I do. “I don’t know how to talk to you anymore. You’re not the same person.”

  “None of us are the same person, Duke.” He doesn’t meet my eyes, but I can tell the storm in his is fading. His voice sounds like it’s lost some of the fight, too.

  “I know.” I nod. “I think about him all the time. I miss the hell out of him.”

  Ma doesn’t even yell at me for cursing, and when I look at her, she’s blinking rapidly, her eyes damp.

  I take a deep breath. I can’t believe how much I’m talking right now, especially saying things I know are going to piss him off. But…if not now, when?

  “Dad…telling Ida to give up activism is like telling me to give up drums at this point. It’s too late. She’s already an activist. It’s what she believes in. It’s her therapy, helping people. Just like music is mine.”

  Ida stares at me, surprised. I’m surprised at myself, too, but I go on.

  “That’s what people want—for us to be too scared to stand up for ourselves and what we believe in. I think that’s more dangerous than trying to change things. Julian wouldn’t want you to keep her on a tight leash. He’d want his little sister to show people that she was just as tough as he was.”

  Dad doesn’t say anything. But his breathing looks like it’s going back to normal instead of the quick, short breaths he was taking earlier, and that’s gotta be good.

  “We’re not unreasonable,” Ma says, pushing a piece of hair behind her ear. “But what if something had happened, Ida? You’re growing up, but you’re not grown yet. And I am a feminist, but you’re my daughter. I can’t stop myself from worrying about you.”

  “I just don’t want to be treated like a baby,” Ida says. “I want to be able to express myself. Like Duke said, this is me. I’m not doing it because I think it’s trendy or makes me look good. It feels like something I can’t not do.”

  Dad shakes his head, but he doesn’t look pissed anymore. Well, not so pissed. “All three of you kids are so damn hardheaded.”

  “Gee, I wonder what the common denominator is?” Ida says, looking back and forth between him and Ma.

  “Look, we can talk about this.” Ma briefly touches each of our shoulders. “If you promise not to keep any more secrets from us, we’ll sit down and have a real conversation about all the ways you can get involved. Pros and cons. All of it. Maybe we can call up some of Julian’s old friends and see what advice they have. This doesn’t mean you can run off to whatever protest or demonstration that you want, because you are still fifteen years old. But we can talk.”

  “Yes,” Dad says slowly. “We can talk.”

  Ida nods. “That sounds good.”

  Ma looks at me. “And no more covering up for your sister.”

  “Okay,” I reply. I think that’s a promise I can keep, as long as they keep their promise to talk to us about things.

  She looks around the neighborhood as if she’s just seeing it for the first time. “Now, whose cat is it that brought us out here?”

  “Mar-va,” Ida says in a singsongy voice. “Duke’s new friend.”

  Ma eyes me. “The girl you’re skipping school with today?”

  “We didn’t technically skip school, Ma. I mean, not on purpose.”

  “We can talk about that later, too,” she says, eyebrow raised.

  Ma and Dad step away a few feet to talk.

  “That was…not what I expected,” Ida says, watching them walk off together.

  “Yeah, me either. You okay?”

  She nods. “I think so. What about you?”

  “I’m okay. I’m good.” And I am.

  “You should go for Marva,” she blurts.

  “What?”

  “Marva! You should totally go for her. She’s a little uptight, but she’s supersmart. And kind of funny, even if it’s mostly online. I mean, some of those Eartha Kitty posts are genius.”

  I stuff my hands in my pockets. “She’s funny in person, too. But she just broke up with her boyfriend.”

  Ida purses her lips, looking just like Ma. “Wait, when? Like, today? After you’d been hanging out? Duke, that has to mean something!”

  “It doesn’t mean anything except that today is the day they broke up. Besides, who says I like her?”

  “Uh, literally every part of your body language?”

  I shake my head. “Stop making shit up. We’re just…”

  What? Friends? Can you become friends with someone in a matter of hours, or is that still an acquaintance? Kendall and I became friends pretty quickly, but that was different. There was a computer screen and then a phone screen between us.

  “You’re totally into her,” Ida says.

  I throw up my hands. “Even if I was, what am I gonna do about it? I can’t just ask her out right after they broke up.”

  “Well, who broke up with whom?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t there. I just know he pulled up, saw us together, and when I got back to the car, they were broken up.”

  “He saw you together?” Ida’s face lights up like an arena. This is probably the greatest thing that’s happened to her in weeks, and it has nothing to do with her.

  I clear my throat. “It’s not like that. We were just walking. Talking.”

  “Mm-hmm.” Ida can’t stop grinning. “Well, I think you should keep in touch with her so you can be together when it is appropriate to ask her out.”

  I laugh. “You are trippin’, sis.”

  She bats her eyelashes at me. “You love it.”

  “That all you need to bug me about? I gotta get going so I can vote and warm up for my show.”

  “Well…” Her foot traces a swirly pattern on the sidewalk. “I just wanted to say thanks. For going with me, and bailing me out, and talking to Ma and Dad, and…you know, everything. You’re a good big brother.”

  Well, damn. Sure wasn’t expecting this. It makes my ears hot when people say nice things about me.

  “Yeah, it’s cool, Ida.” I shrug. “Gotta step up since it’s just the two of us.”

  “You were always there,” she says, tilting her head to the side. “You know that, right? Even before Julian was gone. I know he was, like, the world to you, but…” She pauses, glancing down at the ground before she looks at me again. “That’s what you are to me.”

  Wow. It’s amazing how someone you want to kill half the time can also say something that makes your throat get all lumpy.

  “Even though I’m not like Julian at all?”

  “That’s the point, knucklehead,” she says, flicking me on the arm. “You are who you’re supposed to be.”

  A smile turns up the corner of my mouth. “Someone pay you to say that?”

  She points her chin at me. “No, and if you ever tell anyone, I’ll deny it forever.”

  I bend down and give her a hug—something we almost never do. “You’re not so bad yourself, little sis. Love you.”

  Marva shows up at her car ten minutes later, looking so gloomy that I frown as I get in.

  “Any news about Selma?”

  “Nothing new. The search party is posting about it and taking pictures of where they’ve been, but nobody’s seen her yet.” She pulls away from the curb, steering us back into the world for what seems like the hundredth time today. “How was your family meeting?”

  “Good. Productive, I think? Ida and I are still alive, anyway.”r />
  “That is productive. Ida’s okay?”

  “Yeah, she is.” I smile. “I’ll tell her you asked.”

  She nods. “Thanks.” Then: “So, we are finally, totally, definitely on our way to vote. Do you need anything before we go? You have your ID, right?”

  I pat my wallet in the back pocket of my jeans. “Got it.” My drumsticks are in my lap. My kit is at Anthony’s, where we practice, so I’ve got everything I need for now. I clear my throat. “I know you got better things to do, but our show is at eight if you wanna come.”

  She doesn’t say anything for what feels like forever and that makes me wish I’d never said anything. I’m wondering when someone is gonna finally invent a contraption that swallows you from your seat and shoots you into a portal far, far away to get you out of embarrassing situations when she says, “That sounds fun. Are you nervous?”

  Only when I think about you being there.

  “Usually, but today? Not really. We’ve practiced a lot, so we’ve kinda done all we can do, you know? Rest is up to the performance gods.”

  She nods like this makes total sense, and then we’re both quiet as she drives toward the church. The silence is good, though. Chill. Like we’re definitely friends and not just acquaintances.

  The green light ahead changes to yellow when we’re just a few yards from the intersection, and Marva puts her foot on the gas to speed through it, same as she’s done a half dozen times today.

  But this time, there’s a whoop of a siren behind us. This time, there’s flashing lights.

  My stomach lurches.

  And this time, Marva looks in the rearview mirror, her eyes wide as she says, “Fuck. We’re getting pulled over.”

  I look in the mirror on my side of the Volvo. See the cop car slowing behind Marva’s as she pulls off to the side of the road. I look around. We’re on a major street. But I keep peering at the mirror, not brave enough—stupid enough?—to turn around. And all I can see is the cop pressing the radio to their mouth in the front seat.

  My hands shake and my throat goes dry as sand.

  I’m gonna throw up.

  OUR DAD GAVE JULIAN THE TALK WHEN HE WAS seven, the same year that I was born.

  My brother never did grow as tall as me, but he’d always been a big kid. Always looked older than his age. Dad told him that people would look at him as older, no matter his size. That, to a lot of people, Black boys never really get to be boys. He told Julian that if he was stopped by a cop, by foot or by car, he was to never talk back. That, if he was on foot, he should keep his hands up and in clear view, away from his pockets; if he was in a car, he should keep his hands on the steering wheel or dashboard unless explicitly directed to reach for his license and registration—and that he should do whatever it took to stay alive.

  Not safe. Alive.

  I know this because Julian gave me the same talk, seven years later.

  “You my little homie, but you a big dude, Duke,” he said. “Tall for your age.”

  We were shooting hoops at the park, because back then, even at the age of seven, everyone swore I was gonna be a basketball star. I liked playing, especially when Julian let me hoop with him and his friends, but I didn’t love it.

  “So?” I said, shooting the ball to him.

  “So?” He shot it back at me fast. Too fast. The ball looked like it was gonna bounce right up and hit me under the chin, and I jumped out of the way.

  Julian shook his head, jerking his thumb toward the runaway ball. “Go get that.” When I dribbled it back to him, he said, “People gonna look at you different. Like you’re older than you are. Like you’ve done things.”

  I didn’t get it. “What kinda things?”

  “Bad things. Things Black men and boys get blamed for all the time, even if they didn’t do them.”

  “Like not taking out the trash?” I couldn’t think of anything worse than Ma yelling at me when I forgot to take out the garbage.

  Julian sighed, dribbling the ball in place. “Worse, okay? Way worse. So you gotta listen to me when I tell you what to do if a cop ever stops you.”

  “Why would a cop stop me?”

  He wiped sweat from his brow with his nondribbling hand. “Because…sometimes they think bad things about us, even if they don’t know us.”

  “But why would they think that?”

  “That’s a real long story, little homie. Hundreds of years long. You just need to know what to do now, okay?”

  And he went through the rules. One by one. Then he quizzed me.

  I told him I’d do what he said, and I memorized his instructions, but I didn’t know why he was being so serious. I was seven. And he seemed so old to me then, but he was only fourteen. He couldn’t even drive.

  But two years later, he could drive. And I was in the car with him when he got stopped not a month after he’d gotten his license.

  He swore under his breath and, eyes flicking back and forth from the road to the rearview mirror, slowly pulled us to the side. We weren’t too far from our house. The car didn’t stop rolling until it was a few feet in front of the entrance to a gas station. People were pumping gas and filling the air in their tires and running into the station for snacks and lottery tickets.

  I was nine by then. I knew more than I’d known two years ago, but I didn’t realize until I was older that Julian was making sure we were as close to a highly visible spot as possible. Where people would see us if anything happened.

  The police officer took his time getting out of the car, and Julian sat stock-still, hands clamped to the steering wheel.

  “Don’t say a word,” he muttered from the side of his mouth. “I got this.”

  But he didn’t look like it.

  I stared straight ahead like Julian, even when the officer tapped on the window and asked him to roll it down. Julian’s left hand reached slowly for the automatic window button. He pressed it until the glass was all the way down, letting in a blast of warm July air.

  “Evening, boys,” the officer said, craning his neck to see who all was in the car. I could feel his eyes on me before they went back to my brother. “Where you headed?”

  I frowned. Why was that any of his business? It was a free country, wasn’t it? My tongue itched to say so, but I hadn’t forgotten Julian’s instructions: Never talk back.

  “Home, Officer,” Julian said, turning his head just slightly toward him. His hands were still on the steering wheel, gripping it tight. “We live a few blocks east of here, off Williams Avenue.”

  “Mmm. License and registration, please.”

  Shouldn’t he have said why he stopped us? Was Julian speeding? Hadn’t seemed like it. Julian didn’t like to drive fast anyway. I pressed my tongue against the backs of my teeth.

  Felt like it took a hundred years for Julian to grab his wallet and pull out his ID. He handed it to the officer, then said in a clear voice, “Just reaching for my registration.” His arm stretched across me in the passenger seat to open the glove box. His hand was shaking, and his fingers trembled as he rifled through the compartment for the car registration.

  I’d never seen my brother so freaked. And I hated it. He was always the calmest, most confident person in the room. But right now? I barely recognized him.

  I took this opportunity to look over at the officer. His head was still tilted so he could watch Julian. He was younger than I figured he’d be. Or maybe it was just his baby face, with chubby cheeks and wide blue eyes. My gaze quickly slid down to where his hand rested on his hip, inches away from his gun.

  I felt sick.

  The car was so quiet I heard Julian swallow as his fingers finally found the piece of paper he was looking for. He gave it to the officer and sat straight up in his seat, hands back on the steering wheel.

  The officer took Julian’s ID and the paper to his car. I looked in the passenger mirror, watching as he sat half in, half out of the driver’s side, talking on his radio.

  “Why did he—” I began, but
Julian’s voice cut through mine in an instant.

  “Shut. Up.”

  I did.

  The officer came back after what felt like an hour but was only about four minutes when I dared to glance at the clock on the dashboard. Julian hadn’t moved.

  He gave my brother the paper and driver’s license. “Get that taillight fixed,” was all he said before he sauntered back to his car, whooped his siren one more time, and sped off.

  Julian’s body collapsed into the seat, like all his bones were gone.

  “Julian?”

  He shook his head, eyes closed.

  I looked over at the gas station. It was still full of movement, same as before. I wondered if anyone had noticed the cop pull us over. Nobody was even looking our way.

  After a moment, Julian swore again and turned on the ignition, car still in park. He threw off his seat belt and jumped out of the driver’s side, stalking to the back of the car. I turned around to look at him. He was inspecting the car, looking from left to right. Again and again.

  When he got back in, he buckled his seat belt. Ran a hand over his face. When he turned to look at me, his eyes were red.

  “Ain’t nothing wrong with that taillight. I just checked it last night. That asshole stopped me because he could.”

  I just looked at him. Now that it was safe to talk, my mouth felt like it was full of marbles.

  “This shit happens all the time. And we were lucky. He could’ve said I looked like a suspect and I would’ve been on the ground in a second. He—” Julian’s voice was so thick that it broke. He slammed the heel of his hand against the steering wheel. “This shit has gotta stop.”

  He didn’t say anything else. A few moments later, he put the car into gear and drove us home. When we parked in front of the house, I opened my door to get out, but he just sat there. I saw a tear fall down his cheek, then another one, and another.

  “Julian?”

  “Little homie, don’t you ever forget what I told you, okay? You do exactly what I did back there.”

  “Is this gonna happen to me?”

  He let out a long, shuddering breath and put his hand on the back of my neck. He didn’t answer me, and I didn’t ask again.