How It Went Down (10 page)

“Are you mad?” she says.

I feel it rising in me. A fierce, churning ball in my gut. A building on fire. “Nah,” I lie.

“It feels like you’re mad at me.”

“Why would you talk to any reporters?” I ask.

“We’re not supposed to. I know we’re not supposed to.” She pets my shoulder and my chest. Tries to kiss me. “I didn’t talk about you. Maybe they won’t even put me on.”

Of course they will. Looking like she does, and talking good on top of it? Please. Of course they’ll put her on. I’m going to have to watch it. I don’t want to.

“Fuck,” I say. “Talk to whoever you want.”

“I want to talk to you.”

“Well, I don’t want to talk,” I say.

“I’ll make it up to you.” Her hand slides across my thigh, inward. “I can do anything you want.”

Her face is close to mine. Stunningly gorgeous, even through the pain I see in her face. “Show me,” I tell her.

She’s very good with her hands, with her lips. She kisses me, works some kind of magic until the frustration and the sorrow rushes from me and she sinks into my arms. Over her head I smoke.

We sit in the front seat for a while, watching the headlights of the passing traffic glide into a blur. I light another joint while Jennica drains whatever’s left in the flask. Until she’s all soft and slumped against me.

“You feel better?” I ask her.

“Not really,” she says.

“Let’s go to Brick’s,” I say. He always has plenty more.

JENNICA

Noodle helps me out of the car and I realize that whatever was in that flask was strong. It’s hard to keep upright. My feet miss the curb. Noodle catches me with one strong arm around my waist. He might be thin and loose-looking, like his nickname, but every inch of him is muscled and sleek. I love how it feels when he scoops me like this; there’s no way to fall while he’s holding me.

No point in looking for my balance, either. I spin into him, throw my arms around his neck.

“Dang,” Noodle says. “You got fucked up fast.”

The last time I ate was about a day ago. Which makes me stupid for drinking. And it probably hasn’t even caught up with me all the way yet, which is bad because when it does we’ll already be at Brick’s and someone will put a drink in my hand and I’ll forget that it’s stupid to be drinking. Because I don’t want to think.

Noodle laughs. “You’re feeling good now, right?” he says.

Wrong. It just feels like I swallowed the fire that was burning all around me. Now it’s in me.

I shake my head against his neck. “Let’s not go to Brick’s.”

“I already told him we were on the way.” Noodle says. “Let’s walk.” He leads me along the sidewalk. Putting one foot in front of the other seems like a lot to manage.

In a more perfect world, I could just say no and go home. But the world grows less and less perfect by the minute. I know I can’t make it on my own.

Noodle keeps his arm around me, firm and tight and safe. I lean against his shoulder and let the lights turn fuzzy in front of my eyes.

“Don’t cry,” Noodle says. “We’re gonna have fun.”

BRICK

“Whatta you make of this mess?” Noodle says. He looks across the coffee table at me. He’s on the couch and I’m in my chair—high-backed red leather with wings like a fucking throne. No matter how wild the party gets, no one sits in this chair but me. That’s respect. I earned this position.

I got all the windows open to let in the night breeze, but it’s still hot as a mother up in here. It’s okay though. My party’s where it’s at. Always. Can’t do no wrong, can’t get too hot. Music’s pumping. The honeys be dancing and sweating—that glisten on their skin, all sexy—usually I’m content enough to sit here, watching them move.

Tonight I can’t get my mind off the shooting. Whenever a King goes down, it shakes up the world a bit, but it being Tariq this time cuts a deeper kind of way. He might’ve been dragging his feet on stepping into the Kings, but hell, he was already a brother.

“I said, whatta you make of this mess?” Noodle repeats. I heard him the first time.

By “mess,” I imagine he means the vigil. Even more people showed up tonight than last night. Through the window screens, from eight floors up and a couple blocks away, under the jam that’s playing, you can still hear the sounds of singing. Some low, sad thing that’s meant to conjure angels out of the concrete. How long you got to walk these streets before you know? Ain’t no angels coming.

“Tariq liked to screw with us while he was alive, and now he’s doing it dead,” I answer.

Noodle laughs. “It’s a fucking circus.”

“Even Sloan’s here now. The story’s not going away.” I put my foot on the coffee table. Over Noodle’s shoulder, the honeys bob and swerve their hips. Off-the-hook sexy.

“It shouldn’t have gone down like that,” Noodle says. “Maybe they’ve got a point.”

“We should get into it,” I tell him. “Let people know that Franklin up and shot T for no reason.”

Noodle looks confused. “Now you think T didn’t have a gun?”

“Naw, I gotta figure out the gun, but that’s just between us. Ain’t you been watching the news?”

Noodle shakes his head.

“What matters is why Franklin got out of the damn car. Why’d he come running up on us in the first place?”

“I don’t know,” Noodle says. “He had some crazy in his eyes, that’s for sure.”

“I hear that. Listen, we need to set the record straight on this. That cracker was in the wrong, and we all know it.”

“Sure.” Noodle sounds a little wary.

“If it was the Stingers that came for T, it’d be over. We’d find them and take them out, if they weren’t already locked up.”

“You want to get revenge on Franklin?”

“They arrested his ass. And let him go. That ain’t right.” If the Stingers did the shooting, or us, someone would be halfway to the state pen by now. “We gotta let people know it ain’t right.”

“So say whatever you want,” Noodle shrugs. “There’s reporters all over the hood right now.”

There’s the rub. “Naw, I can’t. You’re gonna have to do it.” No way I can admit I was at the murder scene and left. The cops already think they got a few things on me, they’re just waiting for another shoe to drop.

“What?”

“They already know you was there. You backed up Jennica’s statement that T was unarmed—it’s bullshit, but it’s the better narrative.”

“Narrative?” Noodle echoes. I grit my teeth. I’m losing him. Between the weed he’s smoking, and the weeds that just live in his idiot head … I don’t know if he can even do what I’m asking.

“Story. Letting Franklin walk is bullshit. He’s a murderer. T ain’t deserve to go down like that, gun or no gun. You tell it to the reporters. Make sure they know.”

“What good would it do?” he says. “We call attention to ourselves, we get more trouble.”

“No press is bad press.”

“Huh?” Noodle says.

“I saw that somewhere.”

He nods, but I can see he ain’t getting it. He might be my number two, but he’s not the one I wanted.

“Hey, we’ll talk about it tomorrow,” I tell him. “Don’t even worry.”

Noodle’s girl, Jennica, lays with her head in his lap, wasted drunk. She’s usually better company. Everything with Tariq is just messing with her head. I get that. But I wish she wasn’t out of it. She’d feel me. Maybe even have an idea about it. She’s the right kind of smart.

Me, I’ve got any number of girls. In my phone, favorites four through eight and twelve through fifteen. Call ’em up and any one of them will come running. That’s how I like to play it. But I’m still looking for one I want to keep around. I glance down at Jennica again.

“I woulda cut Franklin,” I tell Noodle, “If I knew he was gonna fire on T.”

“What?” Noodle says, voice all fog. He tilts his head toward me.

“He was right next to me.” The things I coulda done rise up around me like smoke from Noodle’s joint. He’s so high now, he’s barely with me. He won’t remember what I’m saying. So I just say it, plain out loud.

“I feel bad,” I say. “Franklin was right next to me. I could have cut him. I coulda saved Tariq.”

“Fuck, bro,” Noodle says. “Tariq had it coming.” He draws deep on the joint and sinks lower into the couch. I hate him for a minute, hate both of them, for taking the easy way out, leaving me to sit in the smoke, watching Tariq fall over and over before my eyes, while I do nothing.

I sip a beer, but I know I got to keep my head on straight. Someone’s got to be in charge.

WILL BRAND (AKA EMZEE)

It’s dark when I slip out the rec room window. I catch the midnight bus from Steve’s ritzy part of town over to Underhill. The other people on the bus are mostly workers, on their way home. I recognize some of them. We nod. It’s like a routine.

I wear the hoodie, but I won’t cover my head unless I start a mural and I want to hide my face.

I like to mural, but I don’t usually have the time or want to take the risk of it. It’s not always that easy to find a big space when no one’s looking. I got a couple murals up, but most of them have been tagged by other people, which is whack. I tag, but I don’t tag other people’s art. It’s just disrespectful.

I tag walls and windows, mailboxes, manhole covers, sidewalks, doors, poles—anything that doesn’t move, plus buses and boxcars, which do. You ask anyone in Underhill whose tag is hottest. They’ll know.

My scrawl is up all over this town—the curls behind an M sharp like mountains with a Z cut like a lightning bolt. I once overheard someone saying it’s the most recognizable tag to come along in a decade. Every night I’m out spraying. I own these walls. I own this hood.

I’ve never been caught. Not so much as a petty vandalism rap against my name. I’ve had to run a couple times, but I’m light and fast. I always get away. No one knows who I am, but everyone knows me. I like that.

It’s my way of putting my stamp on the neighborhood.

This is where I’m from, and I miss it. These streets are still a part of me. I don’t want Underhill to forget me.

DAY
FOUR

8.
LOCKED DOOR

EDWIN “ROCKY” FRY

Six AM, I pull in the papers, like always. Today I’m dreading it. The news hasn’t passed, it has only heated up.

FRANKLIN’S RELEASE STIRS CONTROVERSY; CITIZENS PROTEST

The cover image in the local paper is a crowd of people with hand-lettered signs camped outside the police station where Franklin was brought and released hours later. “
‘What kind of message does it send to the people of Underhill, when one of their own can be taken down with no consequences to the shooter?’ one protestor wondered.
”

MOM: “TARIQ DESERVES JUSTICE”: SLAIN TEEN’S FAMILY PROTESTS ALLEGED SHOOTER’S RELEASE

The national news printed his mother’s full statement decrying the violence that took her son’s life, and demanding justice. In the same article, Rev. Sloan calls for further investigation and suggests race bias. There’s something to that. I remember how those police were in here, acting like they already knew what had happened, waiting for me to come around and agree.

POLICE CHIEF: “SELF-DEFENSE A PROTECTED RIGHT”

“
‘We have no grounds on which to hold Mr. Franklin,’ said a police department spokesman in a statement. ‘The right to self-defense is protected under local and federal law. The tragic loss of one so young to violence renews our resolve to quell gang activity in Underhill.’”

Their “resolve” is evident, glancing out the front window. Cruisers have been rolling by with more frequency in the last seventy-two hours than ever before.

MELODY

For a Sunday morning, there’s a heck of a lot of cops milling about Underhill. Tariq’s shooting made them want to “crack down” on the neighborhood, my dad said. He was going on and on about it last night. “Why doesn’t anybody crack down on the shooter, huh? Maybe those cops all secretly want to be like Jack Franklin.”

People will talk, but not much has really changed. There’s always been cops hanging around, looking askance at everyone. I mean, that’s just how it is.

Anyway, I’m not doing nothing wrong, so I go on past them and try to act like it doesn’t matter. I’m on my way to Starwood House, the assisted living residence where I volunteer. It’s not technically in Underhill, but it’s close enough to walk if the weather is good.

Starwood’s a big old place, all decked out to look like a mansion. I can’t even guess how much it costs to live here, but it must be a lot. It’s real fancy inside. They got a buddy program for some of the younger residents. I want to be a nurse practitioner, so I figure it’s a good gig to warm up on.

I jog up the stone steps, and wave to the security guard/receptionist as I skip in the door. I poke through the rooms looking for Sheila, the developmentally-delayed girl I usually play with. She’s fifteen, but seems a lot younger. We’re a good buddy match, because she likes to listen and I like to talk. Her brother pays for her to be here, they told me, on account of her needing full-time care. She’s smarter than people think, so she goes to school and everything, but she’s not very physically coordinated so she needs a lot of help with basic things.

I find her scream-crying in the corner of her room, huddled in a ball, with an activities staffer sitting on the end of the bed watching her. Sheila’s typically very happy. Unflappably so.

My heart starts pounding extra hard. “What happened?”

“Someone told her about Tariq Johnson,” the staffer tells me. “We can’t calm her down.”

“Did she know him?” I ask, although I suppose even the idea of what happened might be enough to set a person off.

“Their brothers are friends, or something.”

That’s not quite right, I’m sure. “Tariq didn’t have a brother.”

The staffer shrugs. “I don’t know. That’s all we could get out of her.”

“Oh.” Her constant wail’s alarming, like a siren screaming through town toward an unknown disaster. Makes me shiver, remembering the real sirens for Tariq a few days ago.

“You can take the day off, if you like. Obviously she’s not in the mood to play.”