How It Went Down (3 page)

How you gonna be a King and not sport the colors? What kinda half-ass join is that? I agreed with Brick on that point.

But T was all set on the way he wanted to do it. So he woulda been stupid to have a gun on him, just walking to the grocery store. Real stupid.

T wasn’t stupid. That much, I’ll tell anybody.

We was walking down the sidewalk, heading to meet Noodle, when T come up the other way. He started trading words with Brick, real vicious, but that was to be expected. It was all gonna blow over fine in a minute, until the light dude ran up on us.

T dropped his shit to fight the guy. Dropped everything, except the candy. I knew it was for Tina. Always with them Snickers, that girl. Anytime she could get her hands on one.

I looked away, because I didn’t want to see T get his ass beat. I looked out over the street and saw Jack Franklin come running. Had his arm outstretched. “Shit,” I blurted. “He’s got a gun!”

The pale brother let go of Tariq and threw up his hands. Jack Franklin kept on coming. Tariq turned around. He put his arms out in front of him. “Back off, cracker,” he shouted. “Mind your own damn business.”

Jack Franklin shot him in the chest. One shot—
BOOM
—and Tariq folded. His arms flew upward as his body went down, like a creepy winged thing. When I close my eyes, it’s all I see.

BOOM.
The second shot was just a sound; I must have closed my eyes, then, too.

Everyone better stop asking me if T had a gun in his hand. They better stop wondering: if he did, what ever happened to it. All the cops found at the scene, by his body, was that goddamn bar of Snickers.

Franklin only thought he saw a gun.

3.
RIPPLE EFFECTS

KIMBERLY

Oh, good lord,” says the woman in my styling chair. “Is it ever going to stop?” She plugs her ears with dainty fingertips, impeding my progress at trimming her ends. I was barely aware of the sirens until she pointed them out.

“Careful of your nails,” I remind her. Coi just gave her a manicure.

The woman lowers her hands and looks. As if her nail would ever chip. She’s that kind of woman, the impossibly put-together kind. She comes in once a month, like clockwork, for a trim and blowout.

“What do you think happened?” she says, slightly craning her neck. The painted words on the windows make it impossible to really see much out there. I like it that way. The salon is a nice oasis from the city’s grit and grime and noise.

But, come to mention, it is kind of a lot of sirens. They go rushing past our windows, swirling and screaming full tilt. Cop cars first, and after a minute, an ambulance. After the sirens fade, the strobe lights still pulse up the block. Whatever happened, it wasn’t far away.

There’s always something crazy going on, between the cops and the Stingers and the Kings and their corner dope guys, turf wars and so on and so on. All hell breaks loose just often enough to remind everyone how screwed up this neighborhood is. As if we could forget we live in the beating heart of the ghetto.

The woman settles back in the chair and re-smooths the magazine in her lap. “I can’t see anything,” she says. “Anyway, I should try not to be one of those people.”

“What people?”

“You know, the ones who rubberneck at car accidents.”

It wasn’t a car accident. You get maybe one cop for a car accident. But she’s a fancy type of woman, from another part of town. The type who only comes down here to get her hair done, because everyone in the city knows if you want black hair done right you come to Mollie’s Manes. Under the salon cape she’s wearing a business skirt suit and hose with smart, expensive looking heels. Maybe she can’t imagine needing a cop for anything other than a car accident.

“They say it’s human nature,” she says. “To try to see what happened. Natural curiosity. Everyone does it.” She gazes at me in the mirror, slightly guilty, silently asking me to agree.

“Sure, I guess.” My fingers lift and fan her locks. The customer is always right. Except she isn’t. Some of us look away when bad things happen. Some of us don’t want to see.

The ambulance is the first to retreat. It rolls away quietly. No flashing. No siren.

False alarm, maybe.

Either that, or somebody died.

NOODLE

The cops come, and we’re the only ones still here. Us and the light skinned big man, the one who got into it with Tariq.

The paramedics come, too, with their scissors and gauze. Ease Jennica out of their way. I lift her against me. Tariq’s blood on her gets on me and that makes it realer. I mean, I don’t take it back, what I said about him having it coming. Tariq was a hot mess. But it hurts now, that that’s what I been thinking.

The cops come, try to separate us. “We need to take your statements,” they say.

“We been together all along,” I answer. “We saw it the same.” Jennica could have picked any guy, any King. I color myself lucky, that she’s got her arms around me. I’m not letting her go.

Cops shift and mutter, but that’s just how it is. I wonder if they know we’re high, if they’re looking past it. Jennica leans against me, lays a bloody hand on the skin of my arm. I think: this was one good, sexy high ruined.

Jennica tells it how she saw it. I say, “Nothing to add. The white guy did it.”

They ask questions.

“No,” she’s saying. “Tariq didn’t have a gun.”

I keep a hold on her, keep my mouth shut. What do I care if the cops get the story straight? I don’t know where she was looking, though. Tariq sure as shit had a gun in his hand. Where it’s got to by now? Anyone’s guess. I wonder, too, why he didn’t pull the trigger. He coulda saved himself. He shoulda.

Damn. Maybe I do take it back, at least a little. He had it coming, but it didn’t have to come.

Cops hand us paperwork, asking us to sign.

Damn. Tariq shoulda smoked that cracker. Then we coulda bugged out, all together. Woulda spared us all a lot of trouble.

TYRELL

I’m at the dinner table, by the window, doing homework. Math’s the easiest, so I saved it for last. After this I can go out and hang. I’m doing calculus problems, differential equations. Plus x, minus two.

TV’s on in the background. I like that low sound—makes me feel less alone.

Shooting.
I hear the reporters say.
Downtown. Peach Street.

I look out the window, not at the TV, because I live on Peach. The street looks quiet. Whatever happened must be farther down.

I reach for my cell, at the edge of the placemat. I call Tariq’s number, see if I can get the skinny. T always knows what’s going down.

Phone just rings and rings.

TINA

Tariq goes,
I’ll pick you up some candy. If there’s change.

I go, “Yeah, right.”

Tariq goes,
You think I won’t?

I go, “You always say that, and you always forget.”

Tariq goes,
Nu-uh.

I go, “What you gonna bring me?”

Tariq goes,
I know what you like.

I go, “Shoot. You gonna forget.”

Tariq goes,
Naw. But if you keep talking trash,

I just might get hungry on the way back.

Bring you home a wrapper.

I go, “Tariq!”

Tariq goes.

I wait.

I wait.

I wait so long, I’m sure he forgot.

VERNESHA

Tina’s bouncing off the walls, wondering where’s Tariq. I am wondering that myself. I sent him out an hour ago, for an errand that should have taken ten minutes. I don’t generally mind it when he stays out with his friends, but he’s due back for supper, and I sent him because I needed those things.

Milk for Tina to drink with supper. Salsa for the tacos for the rest of us. We’re down to about five squares on the toilet paper roll.

I can count on Tariq. Sure, he’s a goof most of the time, but I can count on him.

The food is ready. All the plates laid out.

“Vernie,” Mama says to me. “We best just eat, ’fore it gets cold.”

I don’t want to eat. There’s a lurching wave in the pit of my stomach. It doesn’t go away, especially when someone starts pounding at the door.

REDEEMA

Cops got a special way of knocking at the door. With the meat of the fist, sets the whole wall a-shaking.

Next thing that comes—it ain’t never good news.

MELODY

Peach Street is messy and crowded this evening. I shoulda gone another way. Yellow police tape, flashing sirens. Barricades closing the block between Simpson and Roosevelt. It’s just cop cars, no police vans or SWAT-looking guys. It’s not a drug bust. Maybe a robbery, or a shooting? Something to avoid, anyway.

I turn off of Peach, take the long way. Better than wading through a sea of law enforcement. I wonder what happened, of course, but it’s always better to mind your own business.

Miss Rosalita sits in her usual lawn chair, in front of the fence at the community garden. It’s unusual for her to be all alone; usually there are several elders from the neighborhood sitting there.

“Melody, baby. What’s going on over there?”

I take her wrinkled hands in mine. “I don’t know, Miss Rosalita. Something pretty bad.”

She closes her eyes and the folds in her face seem ancient. Her lips move in a silent prayer.

I head on into my building. The elevator door is about to slide shut.

“Hold the elevator,” I call, but the door keeps closing. I put on some steam, because if I miss it I’ll be waiting ten minutes. Jam my foot in the crack, with no time to spare.

“You ain’t hear me?” I scold, pushing the door back open.

It’s Sammy Neff standing in there. He’s got on low dark jeans and a long red t-shirt. Arms crossed over his chest, held tight.

“Hey, Sammy.” I get in the box with him. Push my floor. And his. Doofus ain’t even pushed the button yet.

He stares at the mish-mashed elevator floor tiles.

“You okay?” I ask him. To be honest, he looks kinda deep-fried.

He jumps like he just now seeing me. “Oh. Hey.” He drops his arms and puffs up his chest.

I shake my head. Boys. Always fronting.

The door glides closed again. Slowest elevator in the world. We’re gonna be in here for a minute.

“Tariq Johnson got shot,” he whispers. “They’re saying he’s dead.”

DAY
TWO

4.
COLORS

TYRELL

I wake up annoyed. I sent Tariq about a dozen texts last night, trying to find out what went down on Peach Street. Knowing T, he was right there in the mix of it. Why is he ignoring me? It ticks me off. He probably knows everything, and he’s not telling. Sometimes he likes to get dramatic and tell it all in person, but the least he could do is text back.

Except he doesn’t. I drag myself into the kitchen and put in some toast. While it crisps I go in the living room and flip on the news. I have the house to myself this time of the morning. Both my parents go off to work before six, which is when I get up. So I make the toast and slice up an apple and listen with half an ear as the morning show people chat about something to do with floral arrangements. I wash my hands and shove the apple core down the disposal. When I shut off the water, I hear:

“
… neighborhood known as Underhill. Police have finally released the name of the teen slain there last night … and I believe we have a picture? Just a second here…”

That’s weird. This is a national newscast. Why would they be talking about Underhill?

I carry my breakfast into the living room, listening. This’ll show T—I don’t need to get all my info from him.

REVEREND ALABASTER SLOAN

“Turn on the TV.” My assistant’s voice rattles through the phone speaker before I even have a chance to say hello. “This might be the one.”

I should be used to these wake-up calls by now, but Kelly usually manages to catch me by surprise.

“What time is it?” I croak, rolling toward the nightstand. “I mean, what channel?”

“Yours.” She means the 24-hour news channel that frequently invites me for guest appearances. “It’s after six. You weren’t up yet?”

“Getting there,” I lie.

“It’s on the early wires,” she says. “I got it from Moira, my friend at
The Washington Post
, you remember her?”

“Uh, yeah, Moira. From the thing that one time?” I remember sizable breasts and the need to speak solely on the record.

“Exactly.”

“What are we talking about?”

“A shooting. Inner-city teen shot by a white guy. It’s gonna blow up later today.”

“How so?” Forgive me the morning cynicism, Lord, but black kids get shot all the time and no one looks twice. I’ve been shouting about it at the top of my voice for going on twenty-five years now, and they all just cover their ears.

“You can get a jump on this thing,” Kelly says. “Not that many people know about it yet.”

“You just told me to turn on the TV.”

“The full story hasn’t broken yet,” Kelly says. “Moira thinks this is only the beginning. She’s got a friend who works the police beat for the local news out there, and she…”

The phone drops away from my ear as I stretch. My wife is frying bacon; the smell wafts up to me. Something’s baking, too. Fresh muffins? God Almighty. Women are something holy.

“… gang-related, but it turns out the kid might not even have been armed,” Kelly continues. “They released the shooter from custody early this morning, on the grounds that it was self-defense. But it can’t be, because the shooter was barely on the scene before the shooting occurred. This story has race bias coming out of its ears.”

“Uh-huh.” I scroll through the channels.

Whatever Kelly wanted me to see is over. Now it’s a toilet paper commercial. Looks like a good lead to me. I shuffle into the bathroom.

WILL (AKA EMZEE)

“Underhill’s been on the news,” says my stepdad. “The national news.”