“Well then, why did the cops say you did?” Dad replied, narrowing his eyes and taking a sip of his coffee. A slurp.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” Dad scoffed. “Really, Rashad? You don’t know?”
I felt a cough coming on and did everything I could to pinch it back, knowing that if I let it out, my entire body would feel like it was being hit by a million tiny hammers on the inside. I managed to get it down to a single, closed-mouth grunt, and guess what? It didn’t matter. Every bone still seemed to tremble, and my head suddenly felt full of helium.
“No, I don’t know,” I repeated after getting through the cough.
“Look, baby, just tell us what happened,” my mother said, calming my father down as usual. “From the beginning.”
I started the story but didn’t get very far before the nurse came in, interrupting everything with breakfast.
“Good morning,” she said in a singsongy way after a light knock on the door. My mother greeted her pleasantly. My father forced a hello.
“Got you some oatmeal, and some orange juice, and a little bit of fruit cocktail.” The nurse set the food on the tray by my bed. “Is everything else okay?”
“What’s your name, hon?” my mother asked.
“Clarissa.”
“Clarissa, everything is fine, thank you,” Ma said. “But do you think we can raise the back of the bed up just a little, so he’s not lying so flat?”
“Of course,” Clarissa said, sliding the tray away and coming to my side. She pulled out a remote that was wedged between the mattress and the frame. With the push of a button, the bed started to reposition, which meant my body started to reposition, which meant . . . ooooouch!
“Is that good?” Clarissa asked. I just nodded, which was hard to do because now my chin was smashed into my chest. I had literally been folded up.
She moved the food tray back so that it was close enough for me to reach, and after telling us that the doctor would be in shortly, she left, and my mother helped me situate myself on the bed so that I could look and feel normal. As normal as possible. Normal enough for my father to get back to business.
“So walk me through this, son. You got to the store . . .”
“I got to the store, just to get gum and chips. I picked the bag of chips I wanted, and then I bent down and dug in my bag to try to get my phone so I could call Spoony. This lady didn’t see me squatting behind her, and tripped over me. Then I lost my balance, and the bag of chips went flying. The cop assumed I had done something to the lady, which I didn’t. The dude who works the register looks up and thinks I’m trying to put the chips in my bag, but I wasn’t. Then the cop rushed me and yoked me up all crazy.” I paused, then added, “And that’s it.”
My mother sat quietly and my father paced back and forth, from the door to the window. Ma was clearly horrified. But Dad, he had on that Son, you aren’t telling me everything look. It was clear that to him, I had to have done something wrong to bring this on.
“Were your pants sagging?” Dad interrogated, now back over by the door.
“Were my pants sagging?” I repeated, shocked by the question. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Oh, it matters. If it walks like a duck, and it talks like a duck . . .”
My mother glared at him. “David! This is your son we’re talking about. The boy’s never even been suspended.”
“But they don’t know that,” Dad said. “What they see is what he presents. And it sounds like he presented himself as just another—”
“Another what?” Ma cut in again, this time her voice spiking to that Don’t start level. Dad swallowed the rest of his statement.
“Well, they said you resisted arrest,” he continued in another direction. “If you didn’t do anything wrong, why would you resist arrest?” His voice began to rise. “And how many times have I told you and Spoony, I mean, since y’all were young we’ve been going over this. Never fight back. Never talk back. Keep your hands up. Keep your mouth shut. Just do what they ask you to do, and you’ll be fine.”
That was another one of those way-too-familiar songs Spoony and I were forced to sing when we were kids. Every time Dad said it, it was always the same. Just like the army talk. But this one was even worse, because it had a rhythm to it, like a poem, or a chant. Never fight back. Never talk back. Keep your hands up. Keep your mouth shut. Just do what they ask you to do, and you’ll be fine.
“I know, I know. And I did all that,” I said, running through the scenario in my head again. “I didn’t fight back; I couldn’t. And I didn’t say jack besides trying to explain that I hadn’t done nothing wrong, but before I could even get a word out, he was all over me.”
“You couldn’t have,” Dad said, matter-of-fact. He looked at me as if he didn’t know me and shook his head. As if he was disappointed. As if I asked for this. That really pissed me off. That really, really got me going, because I was being blamed for something I didn’t do, not just by that stupid store clerk and that asshole cop, but also by my father. A burning sensation rose in my chest and stomach, the fractured ribs sizzling. My eyes began to water with frustration.
“I did.” My voice shattered in my throat and came out pitchy and emotional. “You don’t gotta believe me. But I did.” I turned my head away.
You know who did believe me? My brother Spoony. He showed up a few minutes later, after working an overnight shift at UPS and catching a quick nap. And let me tell you, when he arrived, he was full of fire.
First was the obligatory mother hug. Spoony ran over to our mom and gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Made sure she was all right. Then came the “Dad.” That’s all Spoony said to him. Just an acknowledgment of his presence. It’s not that he was beefing with our father or that they didn’t get along—I take that back. They really didn’t get along. They just couldn’t see eye to eye on most things. Dad was all about discipline and believed that if you work hard, good things happen to you no matter what. Of course, part of working hard, to him, was looking the part, dressing the part, and speaking the part, which Spoony didn’t really vibe with.
Spoony had, I don’t know, maybe eight or nine locs sprouting from his head like antennae. Thick and matted like strips of carpet, but I always thought they looked pretty cool. Dad . . . not so much. They’ll think you’re doing drugs, he’d say. Spoony’s clothes were always two (or three or four) sizes too big. That was just his style. That was pretty much his whole generation’s style. Nineties hip-hop, gritty, realness. Wu-Tang. Biggie. Hoodies and unlaced boots. They’ll think you’re selling drugs, Dad would say. Why can’t you get a haircut? Why can’t you dress like a respectable adult? Why can’t you set an example for your brother? Huh, son? Why? And because Spoony was tired of explaining himself, and Dad was tired of asking him to change, they kept their conversations short and sweet. Like Spoony greeting him, “Dad,” head nod. Followed by Dad saying, “Spoony,” head nod. And that was that.
Spoony came over to my bed.
“Li’l bruh, you good?” he said, something grape-flavored on his breath.