If I Grow Up

  “Guess you could always get a job at King Chicken,” Terrell said with a chuckle.

  NO CHOICE

  Back home I was a big hero. Gramma, Nia, and I sat around the TV and dug in hungrily while the twins played on the floor. The funny thing was, the three of us together couldn’t finish that one bucket of chicken. I guess that’s how much our stomachs had shrunk from hunger.

  After dinner I headed upstairs. As I climbed, I thought about Lightbulb being yelled at in King Chicken. I thought about Tanisha and the smelly mattress we had to share in that drafty, cold building. I thought about school, where kids spent all day clowning and socializing, most of them there only because there was no place else to go. I thought about all the pregnant girls having babies. I thought about all the gangbangers living for the minute because they might be dead in an hour.

  The people who sat around tables on TV, wearing suits and talking cracker English, might say there was a choice.

  The teachers who came for a year and then disappeared forever might want to think there was a choice.

  The politicians looking for excuses to get on TV might want people to believe they were going to give folks like us a choice.

  But everyone knew the truth: There was no choice.

  Not when the only world you knew was the projects.

  Upstairs Jules was sitting on the steps, the sawed-off rifle across his lap, with his chin on his hand, looking bored. “What do you want?”

  “Marcus here?” I asked.

  “He’s busy.”

  “Tell him it’s DeShawn.”

  One of Jules’s eyebrows went up and the other went down. “So?”

  “You don’t tell him, I will.” I started to go around him. Jules sprang to his feet and aimed the rifle at me. I stopped, but I didn’t feel scared. I was sick of people aiming guns at me. I was sick of not having money and being hungry at the end of each month. I was sick of being alone in the world and being the man of the house with an ailing gramma and a widowed sister with two babies, and having a girlfriend I could only see on the down low.

  “You gonna shoot me?” I asked, and realized part of me almost wished he would put me out of my misery.

  “I told you he’s busy,” Jules said.

  “And I’m telling you I don’t care,” I said, and continued past him.

  “Don’t,” Jules said, keeping the gun trained on me.

  “I saved your sorry butt twice,” I said, and kept going. “You ain’t shooting me.”

  Jules followed. “Marcus is gonna kill you for bothering him. And he’s gonna kill me for letting you.”

  Music was coming from inside Marcus’s apartment. I rapped my knuckles hard against the door. Jules hung back as if to stay clear of whatever mayhem was about to come.

  There was no answer. I knocked again and glanced at Jules. It seemed like his grip on the rifle had gotten tighter.

  “Don’t get nervous and accidentally pull that trigger,” I said.

  “You don’t know what you doing,” he hissed.

  I knocked again. This time harder and longer. I heard a door bang inside and then the thud of footsteps across a floor. “Who’s there?” Marcus’s voice was loud and annoyed.

  “DeShawn.”

  There was a moment of silence, then bolts on the other side of the door clinked. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jules take another step back.

  The door swung open, and Marcus stood there bare chested with bare feet and his big black gun in his hand. It looked like he’d taken just enough time to pull on a pair of pants but not enough time to buckle the belt. Behind him a woman wrapped in a white sheet stood in the bedroom doorway. Marcus scowled at me, then turned and glowered at Jules.

  “I tried to stop him,” Jules stammered. “I swear.”

  “He did,” I said. “But I told him he’d have to shoot me.”

  Marcus’s thick eyebrows dipped. He told Jules to go back to his post. I took a white envelope out of my jacket. With a frown, Marcus slid the gun into his waistband. He blinked, almost as if he’d forgotten about it. “Never told a soul, did you?”

  “No, sir.” I held it out for him to take. “You said it couldn’t be kept by a Disciple.”

  Marcus stared at me for a moment.

  “You sure?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “All right, but you can keep that.”

  “But—”

  A crooked, knowing smile broke through his lips. “Open it.”

  I did as I was told. Except for the fifty and the one-hundred dollar bill he’d shown me the day he had given it to me, the rest of the bills were all ones. It took me a moment to understand—it had been a test.

  “Stay here.” Marcus went back into the apartment, then returned. “Turn around.”

  A string of black-and-white beads went around my neck, and Marcus tied them in the back. It reminded me of the day he’d tied my tie. “Come back in an hour and we’ll talk.”

  Downstairs in our apartment, Gramma and Nia were watching TV. My sister had the twins beside her, both sucking hungrily at bottles of sugar water. I gestured for her to join me in the kitchen and gave her the hundred-dollar bill from the envelope.

  Nia’s eyes widened. “Where’d you get this?”

  I pulled down the neck of my T-shirt and showed her the beads.

  SIXTEEN YEARS OLD

  Young, unemployed black men murder one another at nine times the rate of white youths. In 1965, 24 per cent of black infants were born to single mothers. By 1990 the rate had risen to 64 percent. In 2005 it was just under 70 percent.

  “Still I’m sayin’ why do we reside In the ghetto with a million ways to die?”—from “Every Ghetto” by NAS

  SHOOT OUT

  Tanisha and I continued to see each other. William moved in with a girlfriend, and Tanisha hardly saw him anymore. At my place the twins were crawling now, and the apartment felt even smaller and more cramped. None of the promises the politicians made on TV came true. I heard somewhere that the ten-and nine-year-old shooters had been charged with murder and were being held in juvie.

  Laqueta died from an overdose. Darius, the Disciple and wannabe rapper, was arrested for armed robbery. Precious and Imani both had babies, but now Terrell was hanging around a girl named Ambrosia.

  “Who needs ammo?” Jamar asked at a meeting on the fifteenth floor. Since gangbangers were shooting almost every day, they always needed more. Even though we were all in the same gang, we still had to pay.

  “A dollar a bullet?” Jules sputtered. “How come we got to pay so much?”

  “You got to pay that much because I got to pay that much,” Jamar said.

  “That why you’re driving a new Escalade?” Tyrone asked.

  “You don’t like it, get your ammo somewhere else,” Jamar said.

  “Whose side you on, anyway?” asked Jules.

  Jamar began to move his lip, but then stopped and stared at the doorway. Marcus had entered the room. He looked at everyone and his eyes settled on Jamar. “A dollar’s too high,” he said.

  “But—” Jamar started to protest, then caught himself and gave Marcus a hard look.

  Marcus ignored him. “You heard me.”

  Marcus had me sit in on meetings with Jamar and other high-level gang members, while street-level souljas and dealers older than me were kept out. My job was to be quiet and listen.

  “How much?” Marcus asked one night in his apartment when Jamar brought in a gun dealer who had three AK-47s to sell. The dealer, Jamar, and Marcus were sitting in the deep, black leather chairs in front of his flat-screen TV. A basketball game was on, the sound muted. I sat in a corner, playing Underground Racer on my cell phone.

  “Twelve hundred each,” said the dealer. “But I can hook you up with all three for three g’s flat.”

  “It’s a good deal,” Jamar said. “These guns got a Hellfire switch to turn ’em automatic. You can empty a fifty clip in five seconds. Nobody gonna mess with that kind of firepower. Nobod
y.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Marcus said.

  From my seat in the corner, I glanced up, curious to see how Jamar would take that reply. I expected that he’d be looking at Marcus or the dealer or the TV screen. But he wasn’t. He was staring at me with a frown on his face. I looked back down at my cell phone.

  Jamar told the dealer to go out into the hall and wait. He closed the door and returned to the couch and Marcus. “We don’t buy those guns, you know who will,” he whispered urgently. “The Gentry boys get a hold of those things, they’ll walk right over us.”

  Marcus nodded gravely.

  “So?” Jamar asked impatiently.

  “Go out in the hall and give me a minute,” Marcus said.

  “What?” Jamar sounded surprised. I couldn’t remember Marcus ever sending him out before.

  “You heard me.”

  I kept my gaze on my cell phone, but I had a feeling that if I’d looked up, it would have been into Jamar’s eyes.

  Marcus waited until Jamar left, then picked up the clicker and turned up the sound. The roar of the basketball crowd filled the room while he went into the kitchen. Returning with two beers, he gestured for me to join him. “What do you think?” he asked in a low voice. Anyone out in the hall trying to listen would have heard only the game.

  I twisted the top off my beer and took a gulp. “I’m thinking maybe that dealer has more than three AKs. Maybe he has six.”

  Marcus tapped his knuckles against his chin. “If we don’t buy three, what stops him from selling all six to the Gangstas?”

  “He sells six to the Gangstas, those’ll be the last guns he’ll sell around here for a long time,” I said.

  Marcus kept tapping. “So you think the only way he can keep selling guns is if he keeps the sides even? And I think maybe you’re right, but what if you’re wrong?”

  I had an idea and leaned close, whispering.

  A few moments later, when Marcus invited Jamar and the dealer back into the apartment, I was once again sitting in the corner, playing with my cell phone. Marcus and the others sat down in the chairs near the TV.

  “I want six,” Marcus said.

  Jamar and the gun dealer exchanged startled glances.

  “He’s only got three,” Jamar said.

  Marcus ignored him and spoke to the dealer. “And I’m willing to pay fifteen hundred each.”

  Seeing big dollar signs, the dealer took the bait. “I might be able to get three more.”

  “You sure?” Jamar challenged him with obvious disapproval.

  The dealer hesitated, as if sensing he’d made a mistake. “Well, uh…”

  “Nine g’s for the six,” Marcus said.

  The dealer’s eyes darted at Jamar, who stared back coldly at him. But the lure of an easy nine thousand dollars was too much. “Half now, half on delivery?”

  Marcus got up and went into the bedroom. I kept my eyes on my cell phone. A few moments later he came back, and I heard the slither of dead presidents being counted.

  Thanks to the Disciples, I had money now. Enough to pay the rent and make sure the twins had Pampers and baby food. Gramma had gotten over the shingles, but instead of going back to cleaning houses, she took care of the twins. Nia went to school once in a while, but she spent most of her time with Tyrone, her new boyfriend. When he wasn’t gangbanging, Tyrone was scratching out lyrics—yet another wannabe rap star.

  Tanisha and I saw each other at the abandoned building, and now and then in school, although I hardly showed up anymore. On Saturday nights we would take separate buses and meet downtown to have dinner and go to clubs.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked at dinner one night when she was being quiet. We were sitting in a dark red leather booth at the back of an Italian restaurant. A candle flickered on the table between us. I was wearing a new, pin-striped, gray suit and a black shirt. Tanisha was wearing a black dress.

  She glanced down at her plate. Her veal Parmesan was untouched. In the candlelight, her skin glowed warmly and her hair had a sheen. To me, she was the most beautiful girl in the world.

  “Come on, Tani, tell me.”

  Her eyes met mine. “William knows something’s going on. All of a sudden he’s coming around. And calling at strange times. If I get home late from school, he wants to know where I’ve been. If I say I’m going babysitting, he wants to know for who. I’m scared, DeShawn.”

  “Of what?” I reached across the table and took her hand.

  “You know.”

  “That he’ll come after me?”

  “That he’ll kill you,” Tanisha said in a low voice. “You heard him say so yourself.”

  “That’s what he has to say.”

  Tanisha leaned forward and cupped my hand with both hers. Her face took on an urgent expression. “It’s what he’d have to do, DeShawn. The Gangstas would insist on it.”

  That was true. It was unacceptable to have a sister dating the enemy. Especially when you were as high up in the organization as William. It was the only way he could prove his loyalty. But I didn’t want Tanisha to worry. “I can take care of myself.”

  Her eyes grew glittery. “If anything happened to you…”

  I squeezed her hands in mine. “Nothing’s gonna happen.”

  “You don’t know.”

  “I never take the same route two days in a row,” I said. “I hardly ever leave Frederick Douglass except to see you.”

  Tanisha pressed her lips together hard. “Couldn’t we go away?”

  That caught me by surprise. “You mean, take a trip?”

  “No, I mean, for good. Some place where there are no gangs.”

  “Where?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Don’t you have any relatives anywhere?”

  All the relatives I had were right in Frederick Douglass. The only life I’d ever known was Frederick Douglass. I couldn’t imagine leaving Gramma and Nia and my friends and going off to some strange place.

  “We’ll be okay,” I said, trying to reassure her. “I promise.”

  Tanisha bowed her head. We didn’t say anything more about it. But she hardly touched her food.

  After dinner we went to the Cheeta Club. We’d been there a few times before, and it was a good place to dance and have a few drinks. While the Italian restaurant wouldn’t serve us wine with dinner because we were underage, we had no trouble getting served in the club.

  The Cheeta was loud and dark except for the flashing lights that burst on and off. I led Tanisha to the bar.

  “What do you feel like?” I asked.

  “Ginger ale.”

  “That’s all?” Usually she had a Seven and Seven or a rum and Coke. “Come on, loosen up. This is the only night of the week we get to have fun. Nothing bad’s gonna happen.”

  But Tanisha insisted on ginger ale. Afterward we danced until it was time to go, then squeezed into a dark doorway near the bus stop and kissed. It was late and the streets were empty. The night air was warm, and a few of the brighter stars were visible in the dark sky. When the bus’s headlights appeared several blocks away, our kisses grew more passionate.

  The bus arrived. I began to let go, but Tanisha held on tightly.

  “I love you,” she whispered. It was the first time.

  “I love you, too,” I whispered back.

  The driver looked at us impatiently. Tanisha eased her grip and backed away. “Be careful.” She climbed on and took the closest seat to the bus driver. The doors closed. Tanisha waved through the window and blew me a kiss.

  Having made sure Tanisha got on her bus first, I stood alone at the dark bus stop. Fortunately the bus would stop right in front of her building, so she wouldn’t have a long walk in the dark when she got back to Gentry. A siren wailed in the distance and some car horns honked. Tanisha was right. We couldn’t keep going this way. Sooner or later the wrong people were going to find out.

  A dozen yards away, a car pulled up to the corner, its headlights illuminating a graffiti-covered
store gate across the street. A cab passed, then an old man with a scruffy beard rode by on a rickety, old bike singing to himself.

  It grew quiet again. The car at the corner hadn’t moved. The engine was running and the lights were still on. As I watched out of the corner of my eye, a window came down, and I saw the silhouette of someone inside. My heart began banging and rattling. A faint glimmer of something metallic appeared.

  I dived.

  Pow! It was too loud to be a handgun or a rifle. Only a shotgun made a burst like that. If I had any doubts, the “Zing! Ping!” of ricocheting buckshot confirmed my suspicion.

  Screech! Tires screamed as the car tore around the corner and came down the block toward me.

  I jumped to my feet and thought for an instant about running, but the car would beat me wherever I went. Instead, I stood sideways behind a lamppost and pulled my gun, a ten-shot TEC .38.

  Pow! Whizz! Clink! Ping! Clang! The second shotgun blast was a flash of light, and more buckshot zinged past my head. Pellets ricocheted off the lamppost. Blood pounding in my ears, I slipped the safety off the TEC, worked the slide back, and jacked the first round into the chamber. Then, hands locked together, I raised the gun, arms sweeping with the movement of the car, my heart banging almost as hard as the gunshots themselves. Bang! Bang! Bang! I fired three shots. A window shattered. The car skidded sideways, out of control, fishtailing left and right, then came to a stop in the middle of the street. I stayed behind the lamppost, trying to hold my gun steady despite my shaking hands and thudding heart.

  Someone moved inside the car, but it was too dark to see. I heard muttering and curses. The windshield wipers went on and off, as if someone had pushed the wrong lever. Then the car started moving again. This time, away, down the street.

  JUST A BOY

  I spent the rest of the night curled on the floor under a staircase in some building. Couldn’t risk going back out into the dark. The shooters in that car might have come back, or they might have called in their friends. I kept thinking about the way Tanisha had acted at dinner. How worried and scared she’d been. Almost like she knew something bad might happen.