He blinked and saw Daddy’s body go limp.
When they reached the squad car, the guy shoved Quan against it and yanked his hands behind his back.
Then dude put Quan in handcuffs.
And for the second time since pre-k,
Quan wet his pants.
Swole Cop spun him around.
And noticed.
“Did you just piss yourself?”
The tears started then.
What would Mama say? Was there a way to keep Dwight from finding out Quan got himself arrested? He’d certainly see this as “disrespect.”
What would Dasia think? She definitely had opinions now—and would certainly share hers with Quan when she found out about this.
And then there was Gabe. Despite having way fewer damns to give than in the past, this wasn’t exactly the example Quan wanted to set for his baby bro…
“Whatcha cryin’ for, huh?” Swole Cop spat. “Not so tough now, are ya? You delinquents strut around like you own the goddamn world—”
“It was just a deck of cards!”
“Deck of cards today, some lady’s purse tomorrow. Get your ass in the car.”
And he opened the back door and pushed Quan in.
* * *
—
Two hours, Quan was at the precinct.
Alone.
In a room with a table and two chairs and a mirror he was pretty sure was a window from the other side—he’d watched plenty of Law & Order: SVU.
The cuffs had been undone for all of fifteen seconds so they could take his backpack off, but then Swole Cop just cuffed him in the front. Led him to the sterile-ass space, plopped him in a chair, and left the room.
Nothing but his churning thoughts, gnawing fear, and growing rage to keep him company.
How had he even gotten there? What was he supposed to do? Was anybody coming for him? Would he go to jail? Would that mean arraignment-indictment-plea-trial-verdict-sentencing…all the stuff Daddy had to go through?
It was a deck of cards.
Cards.
Fifty-four.
Stacked.
Against him.
Four suits.
Two jokers.
Joke…
was on him.
What was he supposed to do?
…good in school
got him a cheating accusation and in-school suspension.
…his very best
wasn’t ever good enough.
…what he could
felt as limited as his hands did in the cuffs.
What
Was
Quan
Supposed
To
Do?
Mama wasn’t gonna get rid of Dwight no matter how often he hurt her (though Quan didn’t get WHY), but Quan knew telling somebody else would not only hurt her, but him and Dasia and Gabe too. Because they’d get taken away.
Split up for sure.
Both of Mama’s folks were gone, so Quan would probably go to some random relative of Daddy’s he’d never met (since Daddy’s folks were also deceased).
No clue what would happen with Dasia and Gabe. Quan wasn’t sure Dwight actually had parents—seemed more likely he was the spawn of demons or the result of some test tube experiment gone wrong—so whether there were family members they could go to on their dad’s side, he didn’t know.
Only shared living relative Quan could think of was “Aunt” Tiff, and though she seemed nice, he doubted she’d want to open her nice-ass house to three little hood kids (though he didn’t doubt she had the spare rooms). He was sure his salmon-on-a-river-eating cousin didn’t want anything to do with the likes of him.
And wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. About any of it.
He was in a police station.
In handcuffs.
Arrested.
The deck of cards he slid into a pocket sealing his fate.
“Delinquent Junior,”
Dwight had been calling him for years.
Was that who he was for real?
There was no denying the impulse to take what wasn’t his. Was the D in his DNA for delinquent? The Jr. shorthand of “Junior” for just repeating?
Maybe Daddy had been wrong. Ms. Mays too.
There was no way out.
No way up.
Maybe a way through…but he had no idea what to.
Could he really be anyone different than who he was?
Who even was he?
The door to the room opened, and an officer in slacks and a button-down, badge clipped to his belt, stood aside so a brown-skinned woman wearing dark sunglasses could lean her upper body into the room.
“Let’s go” was all Mama said.
And as she and Quan stood waiting for a cop who clearly was in no rush to retrieve Quan’s meager-ass belongings, the doors to the lobby opened, and a commotion ensued.
There was shouting—
“Man, get your filthy hands OFF me. I ain’t even do nothin’!”
—then feet shuffling and a bit of a struggle as two cops pulled a darker-than-Mama brown-skinned boy into the booking area. He wasn’t quite kicking and screaming, but—
“Y’all always be comin’ at me! Tryna pin some shit on me!”
“Let’s go, LaQuan.” (From Mama.)
“Get on my damn nerves!”
That’s when the boy—because he was definitely a boy; maybe a year or two Quan’s senior: age fifteen at most—caught sight of Quan.
And smiled.
“Hey, I know you!”