The discovery that his favorite librarian is no longer at the branch—that she retired—is what pushes Quan over the edge. His last (relatively) safe-place gone.
And he knows it’s gone because the lady now standing behind the main desk frowned at him when he came in, and a different lady has walked past the castle nook in the children’s section where he’s balled up with Unfortunate Events #13—The End—three times since he started chapter four.
And like…why? She think he’s gonna steal damn library books? Stuff ’em in ziplock baggies and sell ’em outta his middle school locker for $10 a pop or something? Get your dime-bag literature here!
He turns a page.
This isn’t a welcoming place. Not anymore.
It sucks.
He closes the book and grabs his backpack.
Walks out without a backward glance.
If nothing else, now they have a reason to give him dirty looks:
* * *
—
He left the book on the floor instead of putting it on the reshelving cart.
February 8
Dear Justyce,
First: yo, thanks for them graphic novel joints you sent. Them things have made me the coolest dude on the (cell)block. Everybody is especially into the black girl Iron Man ones. And the black Batman and black Robin one is also a hit.
I got your other “gift” as well. Bruh, what kinda dude sends a whole-ass teacher to his incarcerated homie like it’s a box of commissary snacks? You clearly need to be president.
Anyway, I do have to admit: your boy Dr. Dray—“Doc,” he said you call him (and I call him now too)—is pretty dope. He got on my nerves a little bit the first few times he came, asking all them damn questions and making me think about shit I didn’t really want to. (Who the hell wants to sit around pondering all the ways this wack-ass country “is currently failing to uphold the standards set forth in its foundational documents”? That was a for-real question on one of the homework sheets!)
But then today he noticed your Martin notebook in my stack of stuff, and he started smiling. That’s when he told me the truth: he’d been you and Manny’s teacher, and you talked to him about me. About my other tutor deciding to quit on me.
I was mad at first knowing you told homeboy something I shared with you in confidence. But then I started really thinking about it, and I decided to write this letter. To thank you.
Well, partially to thank you.
The other part has to do with something Doc and I talked about in our class session today (and the fact that he said I should write to you about it).
Last time he was here, Doc brought this book for me to read. Native Son, it’s called, and it’s about this black dude who accidentally kills this white girl and then shoves her dead body in a furnace and starts a whole plot to try and blame her white boyfriend (shit’s brutal, but roll with me). When he gets found out, he runs and tells HIS girl, but then panics and winds up killing her too.
They catch him, of course, and he’s eventually convicted of murder and sentenced to death. (Bloop! SPOILER ALERT!) But the wildest part was even though it’s set in like the 1930s or something, I really felt like I was reading a book about NOW.
Dude had all these obstacles he couldn’t seem to get past no matter how hard he tried, and it was almost as though falling into the life of crime everybody expected from him was (sorta) unavoidable? I know it probably sounds crazy to an upstanding young gentleman such as yourself, but for real: based on the systems in place—the “institutions of oppression,” as my former mentor, Martel, would say—homie’s situation and how he ended up kinda seemed like destiny.
(Don’t tell nobody I used the word “destiny.”)
As I was telling Doc today, I could relate for real. I look back at my life, and though people like my wack-ass ex-counselor think I’m making excuses, I can’t really see where I could’ve just “made different choices.”
It’s not like I didn’t try. I remember this one time a teacher accused me of cheating because I got a good grade on a test. And my mama believed HIM. I know I also told you about that one prosecutor who called me a “career criminal” the second time I got arrested. I’d stolen one of this white dude’s TWO phones. And only because I hoped to sell it so I could get my brother and sister some new shoes for school.
I reread your response to my very first letter where you admitted to busting up on some white boys at a party, and it made me wonder if that felt inevitable to you. I flipped back through the Martin journal, and there was even a reference to my cuzzo, may he rest in peace, using his fists at one point. Were these “incidents” bound to happen?
Anyway, I told Doc all this, and he goes, “Hmm,” and rubbed his beardy chin all scholarly-like. Then he says, “So considering all that, would you say Bigger Thomas” (that’s bruh from the book) “is a killer?”
“I mean, he definitely did some killing,” I said, mulling it over, “but ‘killer’ just sounds so…malintentioned. Like it’s something dude decided to do after giving it some serious thought.”
Then he got me, J. Locked me in with them weird green-ass eyes and said: “What about you, Quan? Are YOU a killer?”
Thing is, I couldn’t really answer. Part of me wanted to flat out say “No, I’m not,” but there was still this other voice saying “What if you are, LaQuan? What if it’s inevitable?”
And of course “inevitability” isn’t an excuse, and the consequences are (obviously) still the consequences, but I dunno. In a weird way, the whole shit makes me feel kinda better about my situation and how I got in it.
But it also makes me wonder: How did YOU do it, Justyce? I still remember when we met in that rocket ship (MY rocket ship that YOU invaded, by the way). We’d both left our houses after the streetlights were on because of stuff going on with our mamas. We grew up in the same area. Went to the same elementary and middle school. Even had a class or two together.
Why’d we turn out so different?
Was it “pure choice” like that counselor would say?
These questions are probably pointless now, but that’s what’s been going through my head.
Imma get back to this World of Wakanda joint you sent. I’ll tell you one thing that’s inevitable: pretty sure Ayo and Aneka are gonna hook up.
Looking forward to your next letter. (But you better not tell anybody I said that.)