Holler back at me,
Quan
Quan was hungry the First Time he did it. So were Dasia and Gabe.
It’d been a good year and a half since Dwight moved in, and Mama hadn’t worked in four of those months. She said she’d been laid off, but Quan wasn’t stupid. He knew one could only take so many “sick days” before a company decided to tell them to take off permanently.
In addition to taking his frustrations out on Mama, the COAN had started withholding access to money in response to “disrespect.” (That’s Count Olaf-Ass Negro, a name Quan secretly took to calling Dwight.) Anything could qualify: disagreeing with him in any way (this was the offense Mama was most often guilty of); moving something from where he’d left it (Quan’s cardinal sin—which he couldn’t seem to help after years of Mama drilling that “everything has a place” and “if you take it out, put it back!”); even failing to step over the groaning spot in the living room floor when he was watching TV.
Quan hated Dwight with every ounce of his being.
And Quan couldn’t just take Dasia and Gabe and leave the house anymore: Dwight suddenly decided he didn’t want
my damn kids spending too much time with Delinquent Junior.
(Clearly Quan wasn’t the only one in the house capable of negative nicknaming.)
Of course, if Quan disappeared by himself for too long, Dwight also felt disrespected. Which is how everything that led up to that First Time got started.
Mama had applied for assistance (she always said the word like she was trying not to gag on it as it left her throat), and they got a special debit card they could use at grocery stores—EBT, it was called. Electronic Benefits Transfer. Apparently back in the day, the system involved actual slips of money-sized paper everyone referred to as food stamps.
But she made the mistake of sending Dwight to the store with the card on one of the days she was incapacitated.
And he’d refused to give it back.
It was probably the Olaf-est thing he’d ever done at that point. He was controlling. Conniving. And based on something Quan overheard Dwight say that day—
I know you know where that son of a bitch was keepin’ all his shit!
—Quan was convinced Dwight thought Mama had access to some treasure trove of cash and jewels that belonged to Daddy.
He needed a break, Quan did. From the shiver of unease that permeated the whole house like some awful supersonic vibration. From Dasia’s newfound grown-ness to Gabe’s insistence on being a baby brother-barnacle, gluing himself to Quan’s side as often as possible. From Mama’s anger-cloaked weariness. From Dwight’s…
existence.
So he told Mama—who for the first time in weeks wasn’t actively healing from a COAN encounter—that he was going out.
And he headed to his former favorite playground place.
Stepping over the latest evidence of unsavory activity inside his rocket ship (at least there wouldn’t be any babies or diseases?), Quan climbed up to the observation deck. Largely to hide himself from anyone who might take issue with/make fun of an almost-thirteen-year-old hanging out in the grounded space vessel.
But once he got up there, Quan relaxed so much, he fell asleep.
And by the time he woke up—
the
sun
had
gone
down.
It was a cloudy night, so the streetlights—the ones that worked anyway—were his only source of illumination as he sprinted home. He wished they would all go out. That he could run straight into a darkness so thick and complete, it would swallow him whole.
* * *
—
Dwight wasn’t there when Quan arrived.
But it didn’t matter: the damage was already done.
Mama was on the couch, eyes glued to the television…which would’ve been unremarkable if not for the busted and puffy left side of her mouth and the fact that her left arm was cradled in her lap like she maybe couldn’t use it.
Quan stopped a good distance away from her. He couldn’t figure out what to think or how to feel. “Ma?”
She didn’t respond. Didn’t even shift her eyes away from the TV.
Quan dropped his own eyes. “Ma, I’m sorry. I fell asleep on the playground.”
Nothing.
Quan sighed and forced his feet to carry him to his bedroom, where he knew he was gonna find something that would morph the guilt hanging over his head into something solid that would drop down onto his shoulders like a cape made of lead.
And he was right.
His siblings were in his closet.
Dasia was cradling Gabe, who’d fallen asleep. She wasn’t crying, but not three seconds after Quan pulled the door open, Gabe’s body shuddered with an aftershock from what Quan could only assume was quite the sob session.
“Great, I can go to my room now,” Dasia said, rolling her eyes as she shifted Gabe off her so she could get up.
Quan knew there was no point in asking her if she was okay. He knew all that attitude was her porcupine skin. Her way of letting people know they needed to
back
the
hell
up.
She shoved into his ribs in passing with her bony eight-year-old shoulder, and he took it. Absorbed that bit of her anger and let it throb without making a sound. He knew if he spat out the I’m sorry turning sour in his mouth, she would suck her teeth and say something like Don’t nobody need your wack-ass apology, and right then, there was no way Quan could’ve dealt with how grown-up she was.
So he scooped Gabe up—little dude’s body shook with another post-cry series of rapid-fire sniffles—carried him to his bed, and climbed in with him.
* * *
—
Dwight stayed gone for over a week.
Under normal circumstances, this would’ve made Quan the happiest dude maybe on all of earth.
But the COAN had taken the EBT card with him.
He’d also somehow found the minor cash stash Mama kept in one of the shoeboxes on the top shelf of her closet. There’d been a note in its place: