Momma and Seven glance at me. They don’t say anything with Sekani right here. They don’t have to. All of this is my fault. The riots, gunshots, tear gas, all of it, are ultimately my fault. I forgot to tell the cops that Khalil got out with his hands up. I didn’t mention that the officer pointed his gun at me. I didn’t say something right, and now that cop’s not getting arrested.
But while the riots are my fault, the news basically makes it sound like it’s Khalil’s fault he died.
“There are multiple reports that a gun was found in the car,” the anchor claims. “There is also suspicion that the victim was a drug dealer as well as a gang member. Officials have not confirmed if any of this is true.”
The gun stuff can’t be true. When I asked Khalil if he had anything in the car, he said no.
He also wouldn’t say if he was a drug dealer or not. And he didn’t even mention the gangbanging stuff.
Does it matter though? He didn’t deserve to die.
Sekani and Brickz start breathing deeply around the same time, fast asleep. That’s not an option for me with the helicopters, the gunshots, and the sirens. Momma and Seven stay up too. Around four in the morning, when it’s quieted down, Daddy comes in bleary-eyed and yawning.
“They didn’t hit Marigold,” he says between bites of pot roast at the kitchen table. “Looks like they keeping it mostly on the east side, near where he was killed. For now at least.”
“For now,” Momma repeats.
Daddy runs his hand over his face. “Yeah. I don’t know what’s gon’ stop them from coming this way. Shit, much as I understand it, I dread it if they do.”
“We can’t stay here, Maverick,” she says, and her voice is shaky, like she’s been holding something in this entire time and is just now letting it out. “This won’t get better. It’ll get worse.”
Daddy reaches for her hand. She lets him take it, and he pulls her onto his lap. Daddy wraps his arms around her and kisses the back of her head.
“We’ll be a’ight.”
He sends me and Seven to bed. Somehow I fall asleep.
Natasha runs into the store again. “Starr, come on!”
Her braids have dirt in them, and her once-fat cheeks are sunken. Blood soaks through her clothes.
I step back. She runs up to me and grabs my hand. Hers feels icy like it did in her coffin.
“Come on.” She tugs at me. “Come on!”
She pulls me toward the door, and my feet move against my will.
“Stop,” I say. “Natasha, stop!”
A hand extends through the door, holding a Glock.
Bang!
I jolt awake.
Seven bangs his fist against my door. He doesn’t text normal, and he doesn’t wake people up normal either. “We’re leaving in ten.”
My heart beats against my chest like it’s trying to get out. You’re fine, I remind myself. It’s Seven’s stupid butt. “Leaving for what?” I ask him.
“Basketball at the park. It’s the last Saturday of the month, right? Isn’t this what we always do?”
“But—the riots and stuff?”
“Like Pops said, that stuff happened on the east. We’re good over here. Plus the news said it’s quiet this morning.”
What if somebody knows I’m the witness? What if they know that it’s my fault that cop hasn’t been arrested? What if we come across some cops and they know who I am?
“It’ll be all right,” Seven says, like he read my mind. “I promise. Now get your lazy butt up so I can kill you on the court.”
If it’s possible to be a sweet asshole, that’s Seven. I get out of bed and put on my basketball shorts, LeBron jersey, and my Thirteens like Jordan wore before he left the Bulls. I comb my hair into a ponytail. Seven waits for me at the front door, spinning the basketball between his hands.
I snatch it from him. “Like you know what to do with it.”
“We’ll see ’bout that.”
I holler to let Momma and Daddy know we’ll be back later and leave.
At first Garden Heights looks the same, but a couple of blocks away at least five police cars speed by. Smoke lingers in the air, making everything look hazy. It stinks too.
We make it to Rose Park. Some King Lords sit in a gray Escalade across the street, and a younger one’s on the park merry-go-round. Long as we don’t bother them, they won’t bother us.
Rose Park occupies a whole block, and a tall chain-link fence surrounds it. I’m not sure what it’s protecting—the graffiti on the basketball court, the rusting playground equipment, the benches that way too many babies have been made on, or the liquor bottles, cigarette butts, and trash that litter the grass.
We’re right near the basketball courts, but the entrance to the park is on the other side of the block. I toss the ball to Seven and climb the fence. I used to jump down from the top, but one fall and a sprained ankle stopped me from doing that again.
When I get over the fence Seven tosses the ball to me and climbs. Khalil, Natasha, and I used to take a shortcut through the park after school. We’d run up the slides, spin on the merry-go-round till we were dizzy, and try to swing higher than one another.
I try to forget all that as I check the ball to Seven. “First to thirty?”
“Forty,” he says, knowing damn well he’ll be lucky if he gets twenty points. He can’t play ball just like Daddy can’t play ball.