How It Went Down (16 page)

A guilty man is good for even more things. “Go get us some coffee,” I tell him. He goes.

Door closes behind him, and Mom starts in. “That man,” she wails. “That man! Who does he think he is?”

She doesn’t need to worry about me kicking him out. I’ve learned the lesson enough times. Hard. He never sticks around. It’s only for a little while.

“That bastard,” Mom thunders. “He just wants a piece of the limelight. He too twisted to see that kind of attention ain’t worth the air it traveled through.”

“I know, Mom.” But I want fresh coffee, and I don’t want to leave the house. He wants the cameras, he can have them. They’re waiting out there, like rats.

We had rats in the building last summer. Where was he?

We drove three hours to meet a new doctor for Tina the winter before that. Where was he?

Well, he’s here now, and damned if I’m not going to use him.

“You gotta fight this, Vernie,” Mom says. “You can’t let him in like this.”

The pain constricts my chest. Out of nowhere, like it happens.

“My baby is dead!” I scream at her. My fingers claw the back of the couch. For a while I can’t breathe. For a while, I don’t know. I don’t know. I can’t. I’m not going to make it.

When I come up, Mom is holding me. We are heaped on the floor. My face is wet, my skin and bones are shaking. There is no way forward. There is only this.

“Okay, Vernie,” Mom says. “Let it out, baby.”

“All the fight I got in me,” I tell her, “is just to get through this.”

REV ALABASTER SLOAN

This Terence Johnson character embodies everything that’s wrong with our communities. In and out of his children’s lives, even though he has a job and a place and, by all accounts, some sense of right and wrong. He scurries out of the building as I’m getting out of my cab. I jump back in, tell the cabbie to keep rolling until he’s down the block a ways. Let’s skip the press on this occasion.

Johnson holds his head down, tucks his jacket collar in like it isn’t summer. He recognizes me when I get out of the cab and walk toward him, but he tries to duck away.

“Let’s take a walk,” I say to Tariq’s father.

“I’m headed to pick up some coffee for Vernesha,” he says, still trying to dodge me.

“Well, I can come along for that.”

“I’m not asking for company.”

We walk farther than I expect. Past at least a dozen places likely to sell coffee. Maybe he’s trying to out-walk me. I keep pace, and get him chatting about small topics. Not the main concern on both our minds. He leads me into a small diner.

“Vernesha likes the coffee at this place,” he says. “It’s worth the walk.”

I’m surprised at that layer of consideration. By all accounts, he could be better. A better man, a better father. Instead of looking out for his own needs all the while. Does it make all his absences worse, maybe, knowing he’s capable of thinking beyond himself, even in the smallest of ways?

I try not to judge people; there’s a plank in my own eye sure enough. But these children deserved better.

KIMBERLY

I’m not familiar with the diner where Al asks me to meet. I’ve passed by it a hundred times, I’m sure, but I’ve never been inside.

Tucked under my arm is the paperwork for him. He’s sitting alone in a window booth, making his way through a plate of meatloaf and mashed potatoes. It’s a time for comfort food, sure enough.

“You want something to eat?” Al says.

“All right.”

The waitress comes over with water and a menu. I glance up, just with a smile and thanks. It’s Jennica. I did her hair the other day.

“Hi, Jennica.”

“Hi, Kimberly. I came to your job, now you’re at mine.” She smiles, and I feel like she means it but the expression is not convincing.

“How are you doing?” I ask.

She shrugs. Her eyes, both distant and haunted. She stands too long beside our table.

“It’ll get better,” I tell her, pressing her hand.

“I don’t know,” she says. “Isn’t there always something?”

JENNICA

When it gets hard to handle what has happened, I remind myself I didn’t really know Tariq. I just knew him to say hi to. We went to the same school, though he’s two years behind me. Was.

I don’t have stories about him. He doesn’t fit anywhere in the photo album of my life up until now, barely even a blur in the background or on the fringe of some forgotten frame. There’s just this one thing that binds us.

I was leaning over him when he died. My hands on his chest. My palms felt his last breath move inside him. His chest rose and fell and then kept falling, like it could carry us both straight down through the earth.

I didn’t stop pushing, but I knew. Right then. I was breathing hard myself. My lungs probably took in the last air Tariq ever exhaled. It can’t possibly be in me anymore, but it feels like it is. Like it’s weighing heavy on my chest with every breath I take, even now.

That’s it. That’s all we have. No other memories. No previous touch to cover up the feel of his hand against my arm, lightly clutching. No long-ago glance to take the place of the desperate glance we shared, or the hollow stare from his dark, empty eyes an instant later.

My lips never so much as brushed his cheek before. Nothing to eclipse the kiss I refused to give him that would have been his last … or could have saved him. His breath is in my chest, still now, and I never even tried to give it back to him.

12.
SHARP THINGS

TYRELL

It turns out I don’t remember everything. That’s just how memories are, I guess, and it never bothered me before, but it does now. Because usually, when you forget how something went, you turn to someone and go, “Remember that time we…” And they remember it and they help you fill in the blanks.

With T there was this one time—we were maybe thirteen or fourteen, so it wasn’t even all that long ago—when we scored a bag of small orange balloons from somewhere. I can’t remember how we got them, but that’s not a big deal, those kind of details. Anyway, we took them up to the roof of my building. We filled them with water first, and we had plastic grocery bags full of them. Lugging them up there was no picnic, but we got a whole arsenal of them and started throwing them down at other kids. We did a few grownups, too, although we avoided throwing them at the Kings.

We must have been up there for a couple of hours, because we were being real choice about who we went after and how we aimed, and we had to duck and cover after each shot to be sure no one could figure out where exactly it came from.

I remember all of this like yesterday. If I close my eyes I can feel the warm hand of the sun on my back, the whisper of wind through my neck hairs, which stood on end at every shot. I remember the glow of T’s wide smile and how, deep in my stomach, I was afraid we were going to get caught and hauled off the roof by my dad or someone even worse. In the middle of it, though, that underbelly feeling didn’t really matter, because of how good it all felt. The weight of each balloon, perfect in my palm, full but soft enough to squeeze and mold and play with.

T did most of the throwing. That’s just who he was, always in charge. Mostly I held the balloons and handed them to him and helped him pick out targets. I was fine with that—it was part of what made us work as friends. And anyway, I liked holding the balloons. I’d never felt a girl’s breast before, but I figured it might be kinda like that, based on the shape and the bounce and whatnot. Neither of us had much experience in that area, actually. So I made a joke about how with T’s track record with girls, he maybe should think twice about throwing all these boobs away, and T laughed. I wasn’t usually the funny one, or the one who brought up anything to do with girls, and the look on T’s face gave me props for going there.

But of course, being the funny one, he one-upped me right away. He said something back to me, something that was so funny we stopped with the balloons for like ten minutes and just lay on the gravel rooftop laughing our asses off. The kind of laugh that makes you think you’re gonna die because you can’t get a breath in. The kind of laugh that clenches your gut and works off calories like it’s exercise. The kind of joke that makes you laugh the same way two years later, just for thinking of it.

Except, I can’t remember what it was that he said. For the life of me, I can’t.

JENNICA

“You look thin,” my auntie Anjelica says. I’m just passing through the kitchen on my way out to work. She’s bent over the potted plants in the kitchen windowsill, watering them and putting her face so close it’s like she’s thinking of licking their leaves or something.

She’s right. My uniform doesn’t feel as tight as usual. I haven’t really been eating these past few days. “What are you doing?” I ask.

“The begonia is not well,” she answers, stroking one plump bud near its stem. “Eat some chicken before you go. And some rice and beans. I’ll make you a tamale. What do you want?”

“I have to go. I don’t have time.”

“Always time to eat!” she declares. She whisks chicken and rice out of the fridge. By the time I’m at the door, she’s standing in front of me with a cold plate under my nose. They should hire her at the diner.

“It’s no good cold,” she says. “You wait. I heat.”

“That’s okay,” I tell her. “You know I work at a restaurant, right?”

Anjelica clucks as she pops the plate in the microwave. “You don’t need to buy any food. We have food right here.” She punches the buttons and the whirring sound begins.

“I have to go.”

“What would your mother say?”

“My mother knew food doesn’t fix everything.” Immediately I feel bad for snapping at her. But I can’t help myself. “It’s not magic.”

Anjelica eyes me in that furious way, looking just like my mother did when she was mad. But instead of angry words she takes my face in her hands. “Then you are not eating the right food,” she says. The microwave dings.

“I’m not hungry,” I tell her as I slip out the door.

KIMBERLY

It’s harder than it should be to knock on that door. And strange, having to wade through the gaggle of press, still camped out in front of the Johnsons’ building. They’re not interested in me, though; I slip inside without even a blip on their radar. The inner door is propped, so I just head for the stairs and start climbing.

Tariq’s greatma answers the door. In the kitchen behind her, something’s simmering on the stove, and she just looks at me for a while like she’s trying to place me. Suddenly it all feels like the worst kind of intrusion. “I’m sorry,” I stammer. “I just came to pay my respects.”

“That’s all right, child,” Redeema says. “Thank you.”

Tina scampers in. Maybe she recognized the sound of my voice, but anyway, before I can excuse myself and slink away, the little girl throws her arms around me and buries her face in my middle.

“I guess you’d better come in,” Redeema says. Not unwelcoming, just matter of fact.

“Yes, come in.” Tina spins away and rushes into the living room. “Kimberly’s here!” she announces. “You can all go away now.”

I hear laughter from the next room, male and female. Leave it to a child to bring humor even in tragedy. I can’t help but smile myself. The expression freezes on my face, though, as I cross through the doorway and, sitting in the living room alongside Vernesha, is Al.

“Uh, hello, Reverend Sloan.”

“Hi, Kimberly,” he says. A hint of surprise flashes across his face. Maybe I should have told him I was thinking of stopping by.

I drag my eyes away and look at Vernesha. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“No intrusion,” she says. “You’ve met the Reverend Sloan?”

“Kimberly has been kind enough to help me with a bit of makeup for my television appearances. She’s been assisting me with some administrative duties while I’m in town. Vernesha and I were just discussing the upcoming demonstration.”

“Do you think people will come?” Vernesha says, looking at me. I can’t imagine her heartache, amid the craziness going on outside—in the press and in the neighborhood.

“Yes,” I say honestly. “Everyone is very upset about what happened. Especially how it happened.” I cringe inside, wondering if it sounded like I meant the circumstances were more upsetting to people than Tariq’s actual death. Maybe it is that way, but I wouldn’t have meant to say it to his mother.”

Tina’s small hand slips into mine, begins tugging. I’m already off balance, so she gets me moving, easy.

“Nice to see you, Reverend.”

He smiles warmly. “Likewise.”

“Tina, the adults are talking,” Vernesha says. “Wait just a minute.” The girl’s trying to pull me toward her bedroom. Which makes sense, I guess, because we used to play in there a lot.

“It’s okay,” I say. “I came to see how she’s doing. Anyway, you already have company.”

“Thank you, Kimberly.”

“Come on,” Tina declares. She stomps to the other side of me, and starts leaning with her whole weight against me.

“Okay, sweetie. I’m coming.”

Al and Vernesha watch us go, and I wonder what he thinks of me, going off to play; will he see me as a child now? Did he already?

I sit on the edge of Tina’s neatly-made bed. She’s always been such a good cleaner. I never had to cajole her to get her to put her toys away. Now she goes to the closet shelves and pulls out a well-worn box of Chutes and Ladders. We set it up on the rug.

One of her hands is not as useful as usual. It’s all bandaged up across the palm.

“What happened to your hand?”

“I cut myself,” she tells me, holding it up. “It was gross.”

“Ouch.”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry about Tariq.”

“People say sorry all day.”

“I bet they do.”

“They didn’t all hurt Tariq, did they?” she says.

I half smile. I’ve always thought there should be a different word for it, too. “It’s not always an apology. Sometimes it’s sympathy.”

She nods.

“When they say ‘I’m sorry,’ they really mean, ‘I feel sad just like you do.’”