Imani All Mine (14 page)

Brooklyn say, I'm trying to quit, man. He started patting his pockets. Looking for a lighter, I guess. I seen him reach deep into his front jeans pockets. And just for a second, I seen it. A gun. A big gun. Sticking in the elastic of his boxers next to his beeper. I don't think Omar seen it. If he did, he ain't act like it.

I tried not to act like it neither. My mouth had fallen open, and I closed it. Tight. Pressed my lips together. Silent. There wasn't going to be no words sitting in my mouth to be stole. Nothing Brooklyn could read on my face. No words he could hear just by looking at me. No story to be told in the wilderness by nothing or nobody.

I turned my eyes away. Turned them right where they should've been all along. To my baby. Except I ain't see her under the blanket. She had started crying, trying to kick it off. I know she wanted to see. Imani nosey. She like to see. But she might have been thinking something else.

Mrs. Poole say a baby have such a little mind. If you play peek-a-boo with them and they cover they eyes, they think the world go away. I don't know how she know a baby think like that. How anybody know. Maybe Imani was thinking the world on the other side of her blanket had went away and me with it, so I stuck both my hands under the blanket for her to hold. For her to know the world was still real. To let her know I was still there.

I wanted to get out the store, but I ain't want to leave before Brooklyn. So I stayed next to Imani, with my back to him. Pretending I was still getting her ready to go out.

Omar say, Hey, hey, come on now, no smoking.

Brooklyn say, Damn, man. You just sold me this cigarette, Omar, but you won't let a brother smoke it.

Omar say, I sold you some condoms yesterday and I won't let you use them in my store either.

Brooklyn bust out laughing. You all right, Brooklyn say to Omar. Then he say, Damn, there my ride. I got to roll, dog. He ran out the door trailing smoke behind him that floated right into my face. I waited until I seen the car pull out before I went.

Imani had started screaming by then. Her cries was little under the big open sky. I walked past the dealer who was still out there. Thinking he probably had a gun too. Walking faster when I hear him whistle, and a whistle come back. He probably had a gun too. Every day I seen dealers, in the light, I guess I knew they had guns. But I ain't think about it. I never seen the guns, so they wasn't real to me. But I seen the one Brooklyn had, with its long black handle. I was running by the time I got to the top of my street. Imani became quiet then. Maybe she knew I was scared. Knew I'd been drawn to Brooklyn, like I could swirl around the light and heat of him.

Running, I threw away the bag. Running, I let go into the wind the paper he give me. Running, I seen it catch in the air in front of me. Dancing in the night. I passed it, heading for home. Running.

June Bug come out his mama house, walking to his car, as I was putting the stroller up on the porch. He say, I ain't never seen you move so fast. Was somebody chasing you?

I was so out of breath, I could only shake my head. June Bug looked at me a little while. Then he got in his car and drove off.

I was sleep on the couch when Mama come home, even though I'd tried to stay up. Mama come in turning off lights. I had them all on downstairs, plus the TV.

Mama say, Girl, I don't know what's wrong with you. This ain't the goddamn projects. I got to pay electric.

I say, Mama, can I ask you something?

Walking into the kitchen, walking away from me, Mama say, If you going to ask me about my date, it was fine and none of your business. Mama turned the kitchen light off.

When she come back in the living room, I say, I ain't going to ask you about that. I want to know can I sleep with you tonight?

Mama laughed. Sleep with me! Girl, you been sitting up in here watching scary movies while I was out? That's why you had all them lights on?

No, Mama, I say.

Mama nodded. She ain't believe me, because she say, Tasha, you too grown to be sleeping in the bed with me. Whatever you seen ain't nothing to be scared of. It ain't real.

She went upstairs. I went behind her. Close in the dark. In my room, I turned the light on, got into bed, and pulled the blanket over my head, shrinking the world to the space I was inside.

Maybe I am getting too grown to want to sleep with Mama. But like a baby, I still have this smallness to my mind. I don't need her hands to convince me the world I can't see from under my blanket is real. I need her hands to do more than her words. Convince me the world I see outside it—ain't.

SEVEN

J
ESUS WOKE ME
this morning way before the sun come up. Poking me all in the back. I had him under my pillow, but somehow he got loose from there in the night. The thing is, I never set out looking for Jesus, never set out wanting him. It was the last angel I went looking for last night when Mama was out with Mitch, I went rummaging through the Christmas box down the basement. I felt like I needed the angel. Like I needed something, someone to look in the face of and see eyes with love in them. Eyes with protection. Eyes to remind me my blessing had took. That it ain't fall away like water.

Since the angel wasn't there, I decided on Jesus. I started out with him on the dresser. He could see both Imani and me real clear from there. Look right at us and have no doubt about who he should be watching, but then I thought I better hide him. If Mama seen Jesus on my dresser instead of where he belonged, she'd ask what he was doing up there. I know Mama. She can take Jesus for a week at Christmas staring out his manger, but then she want him back where he belong, in the dark in the basement in a box. I took a long look at Jesus before I put him under the pillow, set his eyes in my memory so I could see them still staring at me after I put him under the pillow. I felt better knowing he was there after I had seen that body.

Day before yesterday there was a body laying on the sidewalk in front of the store by Lincoln. It wasn't covered up or nothing. I ain't know it was there at first. I was rushing with Imani because I was running late. From down the street, I could hear first bell ringing, which meant it was five minutes until second bell. I still had to drop Imani at the nursery on the first floor, go to my homeroom on the third so I wouldn't be marked absent, and then get down to the basement for Latin so I wouldn't be marked tardy. One more tardy and I'll get detention. Imani too. So I ain't pay much attention to the two police cars and this cop at the corner acting like he was directing traffic. Except he was directing kids.

Keep moving, he say. That's your bell. You're late, keep moving. Kids usually be on both sides of the street, but everybody was on this one side, so I looked to the other side and seen the body laying right out in front of Abdul's. I slowed down. And I looked. Not because I wanted to see, but because my eyes wanted to know there wasn't some trick being played on them. That they wasn't looking in on some nightmare instead of out on the world.

Seeing all the blood in front of Abdul's made everything real to my eyes. More than the body. The body could still be a person, still be a boy who fell. A boy playing a trick. But all that blood making the sidewalk in front of Abdul's red red made me turn my eyes away and look down at Imani, wishing I'd put the blanket over her face that morning. It wasn't real cold and the wind wasn't blowing, so I hadn't. She ain't act like she seen nothing. She seen me looking down at her and looked back at me, smiling like it was just another day.

There wasn't no need for me to worry about being late. Mr. Diaz had the whole school come to the auditorium for the beginning of first period.

It was all loud in the auditorium like some party was going on. Mostly every seat was filled when I come in, except them in the front. Don't nobody like to sit in the front, but I had to go down there. Coco seen me and waved for me to sit next to her in the very first row. She done got her hair braided and have all these clear beads strung on the braids. She asked me how I think it looked. I told her it looked nice.

Coco say, You know what Kente say? He say my head look like some kind of damn chandelier.

I sucked my teeth. You know he ain't got no sense, never did have none, but you love him.

And you love Peanut, she say. With his big head.

I say, For your information, I do not.

A quiet rolled down toward us as Mr. Diaz come in from the very back. He was his usual cool self when he spoke. He say the shooting had happened long before school that morning. The police say it might have even happened in the middle of the night, and the victim was a young black man. That's all he knew. He say he know some of us was upset because we might have seen the crime scene. If we want to talk to counselors, he'd call in some extra ones. We was to go to our first-period class and then we could get a pass to talk to a counselor if we needed to. Only if we was upset, not to just get out of class.

As we was leaving, Coco say, Girl, I'm going to see one of them counselors. I been traumatized.

You ain't even traumatized, I say.

Coco laughed like she was nervous. For real I am, she say. She told me she had been there when the police ask the principal if he could identify the body, but Mr. Diaz couldn't, because the boy had been shot too many times in the head. Mr. Diaz just made the sign of the cross over the body and prayed. Coco say she ain't think he supposed to do that. Pray. On account he a principal. But she say she guess it was all right, because he wasn't on school property. Even though Mr. Diaz ain't say it, Coco say everybody know it was a Lincoln student.

Right then I got to thinking that it might be
him
. I put it out my mind, though. Even though I ain't see him all day. When the six o'clock news come on that evening, I found out it wasn't him. It was a boy named Stephan Richardson. He was nineteen. The announcer say the police thought his killing was gang-related.

Miss Odetta wasn't there, so Mama was free to say to me what she wanted to say with her mouth instead of with her eyes. That's what he get, Mama say. The little bastard was probably just getting paid back for something he did. He probably killed somebody hisself.

I say, Mama, you don't know that.

Mama say, Don't tell me what I don't know. What them boys don't know is they doing the work of the white man.

I was sitting far away from Mama, so I ask, They working for Mitch?

Mama cut her eyes at me. You know what I mean, she say. Just don't you never bring one of them little thugs up in this house.

I say, Come on, Mama. I don't even like boys like that.

Eboni called me later to tell me Stephan lived one building over from her in Fairfield. Everybody called him Sweet. She say she ain't really know Sweet, but he was running with a gang. My mama went to a prayer vigil his mama nem had for him, Eboni say. Out in front his building. They was going to have it at Abdul's, but he ain't want them there, driving away business.

I was up in my room with Imani, supposed to be doing some homework for Mr. Toliver. I filled in answers while I talked. I told Eboni about what Mama say, about him deserving it, about him probably killing somebody.

Eboni say, Maybe he did. I just hope he asked for forgiveness in time.

I ask, In time for what?

Eboni say, For his soul to be saved. He was already saved right in our church, but he stopped coming.

I ask Eboni then if God forgive you no matter what you done.

She say, Reverend say he do. It ain't easy for God. It's as hard for him to forgive people as it is for people to forgive people. But if you ask and you be serious, God forgive you.

I shook my head like Eboni could see me. I ask, You mean if you took out a gun and killed ten people, and then say, Oh, God, I'm sorry, he going to forgive you?

Eboni say, He will, but you'd probably have to ask and keep on asking. Reverend say God a mystery.

God
is
a mystery to me. Maybe that's why Mama don't have nothing to do with him. It could be like she say—God ain't done nothing for her. But maybe Mama don't want him to. She don't like the way he do his business in mystery. She ain't got time to be trying to figure him out. What Eboni say ain't make much sense to me. How come you going to forgive somebody for anything they do?

No matter what God might do about
him
, I ain't never going to forgive him. Maybe he went to God later that night. Got down on his knees to God the way he had me on my knees. In the dark. In the night. Full up with shame. When there was nobody around to see. If he ain't have it in him to lay hisself out in front of God, maybe he prayed in his mind. Did he ask God to forgive him? And if he did. If he asked like he was serious. If he asked enough times. Like he was some child begging his mama for candy. Like he was a child begging his mama for cookies. Did God forgive him? Did God see something in him that looked like sweetness? Something that shined out of him like love?

That night after I talked to Eboni, when I was in bed with the covers over my head, I was wondering if God seen me with
him
that night. If I was somewhere in his eyes. I didn't see him nowhere in the tops of the trees. Nowhere in the dirt. I got to think God was there somewhere. Far past the stars. Did he look at me and just look away? Did he close his eyes and I just disappeared? Maybe God couldn't stop him because Imani had to come to me that way. But why couldn't she come another way? That boy could've loved me. He could've acted like he did. Said sweet words like he did when we was inside the Skate-A-Rama. Words I knew was lies. Words I wanted to hear. He could've poured them into my ears until he filled up all the empty spaces in my head and I believed them. Then I would've loved him even if God was watching. Silent.

I looked out from under my covers that night. Opened my face to the dark, hoping I would see God. Hoping I would see his eyes shining in the dark. But I ain't. And I ain't see them in the light yesterday morning when I went to school and seen the front of Abdul's. The sidewalk was cleaner than it's ever been. It ain't look like nobody died there. The only way you could tell Sweet was killed there was because somebody had put up a memorial on the side of the building.