How It Went Down (9 page)

“We?”

“My boyfriend and I.”

“What’s your boyfriend’s name?”

I shift my feet. “Do I have to say that?” Noodle wouldn’t like it.

“Well, it would—”

“No,” Cliff says, from down the counter. “You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to.”

The reporter glares at him. “Please go on, Miss Brewer. What happened next?”

“After he was shot?”

“Yes.”

“The guy got in his car and drove off.”

“The alleged shooter, Jack Franklin?”

“Yes. And Tariq was just lying there.” I can see him now, in my mind’s eye.

“It must have been awful,” the reporter says softly.

“It was,” I say. “I tried to save him. You know, CPR. But there was a lot of blood. They told me later he was gone right away. There was nothing I could do.”

“Still. You must be very brave,” she says.

“I don’t know about that.”

“Do you think Jack Franklin should be prosecuted?”

Yes.
I shrug. “I don’t know about those things.”

“Surely you have an opinion, though? Having seen what you saw.”

I shake my head. “I don’t know what else to say,” I tell her.

“Thank you for your time,” she says. “Would you just pronounce and spell your name for the record, so we can be sure to get it right?”

“Jenni— Jen Brewer,” I say. If I’m Jen at the diner, I guess I should be Jen on TV. “J-E-N-B-R-E-W-E-R.”

The light on the camera clicks off. The reporter slides off her stool, and in the same move slides a business card across the counter. “If there’s anything you’d like to add, feel free to contact me.”

I clear her untouched cup of coffee as the cameraman leads the way out the door.

When I go to warm his coffee again, Cliff says, “You really saw it?”

I nod.

He covers my hand. “I’m sorry.”

“Do you think it was wrong?” I blurt. “To talk to them.”

“Wrong was what happened to Tariq,” Cliff says. “You just gotta do what you gotta do.”

KIMBERLY

I can’t believe I kissed the Reverend Alabaster Sloan. I watch him on TV, again, disbelieving.

It was reckless and impulsive. Two things that I definitely am not. I am neat and organized, every hair in place. I mean, it’s my job to be like that.

It must have flustered him, because he left his briefcase behind when he went out to the press conference. It was leaning against the stool in the room where I did his makeup, but after his speech, he never came back inside. I guess the crowds rushed him away. I have it now, and have to figure a way to get it back to him. Hopefully without making a fool of myself again.

We always have the TV on in the salon. We sit in the styling chairs and watch it when business is slow, which isn’t really that often. But I can see it even when I’m working. Usually we watch mostly talk shows and fashion news, lighthearted things that people find relaxing. But lately no one can turn away from the news about Tariq.

It’s not like anything new has happened. They just keep bringing on new experts to talk about different aspects of the case. A sociologist who explains the way gangs work. A legal scholar who explains why Jack Franklin hasn’t been arrested, and why he might not ever be. Another lawyer opposite him argues for why Franklin should be held accountable. Journalists scream about the racial injustice, as if it’s new and unfamiliar. A problem that can be solved overnight, all because of Tariq.

It’s fascinating, maddening, a train wreck you can’t pull your eyes away from, however morbid. They announce that Reverend Sloan plans to stick around town until after Tariq’s funeral. Plenty of time to figure out how to return the briefcase.

I can’t believe I kissed him.

“I’m here to provide what comfort I can to Tariq’s family and his community,” Sloan says. They’re replaying footage from last night. Flashbulbs going off in his face during the interview cast his skin in various shadows. He seems to glow, but no more so on television than he did up close. “And I’m here because this type of incident deserves national attention. We need to look hard at our laws, and at the prejudice in our own hearts, so that what happened to Tariq Johnson never happens to anyone else again.”

My lips touched those lips. Mind blowing.

TINA

Things that can never happen now:

Hear Tariq’s voice through the wall

Go to Rocky’s store again

See Mommy smile

Walk down Peach Street and not feel like crying

Eat Snickers anymore

7.
MONSTERS

TYRELL

My skin is slick, the room pitch black, but my eyes are open. All this old stuff floats at me, out of the darkness.

When we were seven the leader of the Kings was a guy called Sciss. As in scissors, I think. Sciss was a big guy, bigger than Brick, even. Or maybe he just seemed it because we were small.

Usually they left kids like us alone, which was fine because Sciss was pretty scary. On the day I’m thinking of now, we were more or less minding our own business too. Well, at least as much as we were minding everyone else’s. Walking down the street, you can’t help but notice things that are happening. We were strolling—me and Junior and Sammy and T—we were heading down Peach, in fact, when Sciss and some of his guys came bursting out of a building and running up toward us.

T grabbed my arm, and Junior’s. I took hold of Sammy and we collided into each other, a small knot, afraid. But the Kings blew right by us, straight into the street. Their wind whipped around us, cold as the blades that glistened in their hands. They streaked between the parked cars, over the asphalt, and took hold of some guy getting out of his car.

They started beating him. A storm that swirled and pounded.

Someone help him
, I thought. Through the flailing fists and legs, I could see the man, struggling and small. Bleeding.
Someone help him.

But there was no one else around anymore. Just the Kings and the man and the four of us, frozen.

Sciss came toward us. Fast as a flash. No time to think, let alone flee. “Get along, now,” he said. “You didn’t see nothing.”

“We didn’t see nothing,” Tariq repeated, the rest of us clustered behind him.

My eyes fell to the knife in Sciss’s hand. The blade long and jagged in a hilt of red and black and steel.

“You like that?” He held it up, close to me. “You want a knife like mine? Maybe someday.”

The only thing not trembling was the earth beneath my feet. Sciss laid his knife along the side of my face. The blade wasn’t cold, like I’d have thought it would be.

“You know what happens to snitches, don’t you?” he said.

We nodded, as sirens started up in the background.

Sciss growled at us. “Go!”

We ran.

“To the clubhouse,” Tariq called as we dashed toward safety.

Our clubhouse was a tiny clearing inside the circle of bushes behind the gazebo in the community garden. It started out being the gazebo itself, but that only lasted as long as the day we invented it. There was almost always some old lady with a sack of bread crumbs sitting in there, feeding a flock of disgusting-ass pigeons.

We hunkered down in the clearing, sitting cross-legged, knees to knees. Sammy was crying, but we all pretended he wasn’t. We didn’t even talk about it. We just put our hands in the dirt in front of us so our fingers overlapped like box flaps and made a pact.

“We won’t be like them,” Tariq said. “Let’s never join.” There was no discussion of any other gang. We live in Kings territory.

“All for one and one for all,” Sammy sniffled. We had just watched the movie of
The Three Musketeers
.

“All for one,” I said.

“One for all,” Junior added.

Then Tariq went “One … two … three.”

“I swear,” we chorused.

It’s one of those huge moments in my memory, when for a little while, we became all-powerful. We’d stared down certain death at the hands of Sciss and the Kings and proved we could survive. For a while it was like we were invincible as long as we stuck together. I don’t think I’ve ever felt bigger than I did in that instant. I’ve gotten smaller and smaller ever since.

TINA

It’s scary to go to sleep now.

The sounds in my room are the same.

The look of the dark is the same,

and the glow of my Mrs. Smurf nightlight.

But if there are monsters under the bed,

I won’t know about it.

I won’t be safe.

Tariq cast a magic spell to keep them out.

I don’t know how long it will last,

Now that he’s gone.

KIMBERLY

My shoes shush along the hotel carpet, on the seventh floor. I’d meant to leave the briefcase at the front desk, but when they called Reverend Sloan’s room, he asked for me to be sent on up. My palms sweat against the leather handle of the case he left at the vigil.

This is uncharted territory. I’m not even sure how loud to knock. I raise my fist and rap the wood gently with my knuckles.

He opens the door. The room is dark, apart from a slit of light from the bathroom door, and one from the bedroom. He flips a switch on the wall, brightening the foyer with overhead light.

He is still beautiful.

I hold out the briefcase. He takes it.

“Thank you. I appreciate your taking good care of it. I usually have staff that manages my things.”

“You’re welcome.” I push down my embarrassment and offer him a small smile. My foolishness overwhelms me. Shocking, the things you do when you’re sure you’ll never see someone again. I seized what I thought was a fleeting moment, only to have it prolonged.

“Kimberly,” Reverend Sloan says. “I’d like to talk to you about something.” He holds the door open, and I walk into the center of his suite. The door closes behind us. We are alone. The room is calm and quiet, and Sloan looms large in the center.

Not once, all through school, was I ever called into the principal’s office, but that’s how it feels now.

There is a couch, an arm chair, a coffee table, a dining table with chairs, a small kitchenette, and a desk. The bedroom is behind a whole separate door. It’s the fanciest hotel room I’ve ever been in.

“My assistant had to remain in D.C. since this trip was so spontaneous,” he says. “I could use some help while I’m in town.”

“Help?”

“Managing my schedule. The makeup, like before,” he says.
Exactly like before?
I wonder, thinking about the kiss.

“I don’t have any experience. Except for the makeup. I could also do your hair, if, you know…” …
you had any.
I let my voice trail off.
Stupid.

He clears his throat, on a half-laugh. “Trust me, you have the necessary skill set. It’s a lot of holding my briefcase during interviews.”

Inside I’m leaping and bounding and twirling. “Maybe,” I hedge.

“It would be a paid position,” he offers. I didn’t think I could be bouncing any higher.

“I’d have to talk to Mollie,” I tell him. My boss is pretty cool, but I don’t know how she’d feel about me taking time off. Then again, she did send me to go make him up. “I don’t know how much time I can get.”

“She can call me if she wants to. I wouldn’t need you full-time, and it’d just be a couple of days,” he said. “But you seem quite capable.”

“Thanks, Reverend Sloan.”

“Al,” he says. My face must look confused, because he clarifies. “My friends and colleagues call me Al.”

I want to kiss him again, but I can’t. I know I can’t.

REVEREND ALABASTER SLOAN

It’s flirting with danger, I realize. But I do need someone. There’s always a temp agency or consulting firm which can farm out someone, but it’s hit or miss with temp hires, who typically don’t really care. They’re not always reliable. And there’s no guaranteeing they’ll be so pleasing to the eye.

“Come by in the morning, give me a touch-up,” I tell Kimberly. “Then just go about your business tomorrow, talk to your boss, and we’ll take it from there.”

“Okay,” she says.

“Tariq’s funeral will be the following day. That’s when I’ll really need someone.”

“Sure, that makes sense.” She tips her face up. My gaze drops to her smooth throat, expanse of chest, deep cleavage I can see down into. She isn’t dressed immodestly; she just has the kind of stunning figure that cannot easily be contained.

“Kimberly, thank you for coming by. And for the briefcase. I truly appreciate your diligence.” I place my hand on her hip and steer her toward the door. So soft, so beautiful. She gazes up at me with admiring awe. It leaves me heady.

I’ll be happy, having her around. Temptation keeps me on my toes.

God, help me.

NOODLE

There’s no parking close to the diner, so I idle in front of a hydrant and wait for Jennica to come out. When she does, she’s moving slow, kind of dragging.

“Hi.” We kiss. Then she moves to sit on her side of the car, instead of sliding up close to me like usual. I pull away from the curb. “What’s wrong?”

She looks out the window. It’s dark and late, but not that late. Hours to go before either of us has to be home.

Brick’s place isn’t far. Street parking’s good; we land about a block away from his building. I kill the engine, lay my arm over the back of the bench seat. “You gonna tell me?”

“It was a rough day,” she says. “These reporters came by.”

“They bothering you?” In other words, do I need to knock some skulls together?

“It wasn’t that bad,” she says. Which was it, I wonder—rough or not bad?

“Here.” I pop open the glove compartment. I’ve got a couple joints in there—literally tucked into a glove, which has saved my ass two times for sure when I’ve been pulled over and searched—and a flask. She reaches for the flask, which is unusual.

“I might be on the news,” she says. “I guess we should watch later.”

“Whatever you want,” I answer. I’m starting to get pissed at this whole mess. Tariq goes down, and now the rest of us have to suffer.