Sunday. I slept late and woke up to an empty room. Silence. No one. So nice.
Sunday TV is just as bad as Saturday TV, so I le it off and laid there in the cold space, staring at the wall, thinking about everything.
I was supposed to have been at Jill’s party on Friday. Me, English, Shannon, and Carlos—three-piece and fries. I was supposed to be all up on Tiffany Watts, giving her the business because even though I was soldier-boy when I was in school, everybody knew I was nice with the moves. Rhythm ain’t never been an issue for me. I was the kid Spoony made dance in front of his friends when we were younger. Show them the latest steps that I picked up from music videos. I owned the block party dance contests. So Jill’s party, like every party, was my time to two-step without it being a march. My time to be at ease, and let the soul seep back into this soldier. Damn shame I didn’t make it. Instead some big-ass cop decided to have a st party on my face. Y’know, normal stuff. No biggie. I’m just a punk-ass kid. I have no rights. Just got body slammed for no reason. Just got my life threatened, while lying at on the sidewalk. A broken nose, broken ribs, and a knee in the back is way more exciting than ne-ass girls checking for me (aer they
nished checking for English).
Fuck.
Knock, knock. e door opened and there was Clarissa pushing my lunch cart in.
“Good aernoon, Rashad,” she said. She had one of those voices that no matter what, was nice. Like, it could never sound mean. You know how some people have those voices? Like kindergarten teachers or librarians?
“How we feelin’?” she asked, and I was momentarily confused by the “we” she was referring to.
“I’m ne,” I said, forcing a small smile.
“Good. Make sure you try to get yourself up today. You can’t just lie there on your back. Also, I need you to blow into this, as hard as you can.” She held up a strange-looking plastic thing with a hose sticking out of it.
“What is it?”
“It’s called an incentive spirometer. Because of your ribs, you’re going to do everything you can to not cough. But you need to cough. You gotta make sure you’re getting all the nasty stuff out of your lungs, because if it all stays in, it might turn into pneumonia and we don’t want that.” en she broke it all down to me as if I was a child, which I appreciated because I had never heard of a spirometer before. Luckily, it was a simpler process than the name suggests. All I had to do, a few times every hour, was breathe in through the tube slowly, hold it, and then breathe out.
As she set the spirometer on the side table by my bed, she announced, “For lunch today we’ve got chicken tenders, and fries, and a small salad,” while setting the tray down. en she went through the routine of checking my vitals. Blood pressure, and whatever else. Who ever really knows what all those machines and stuff are anyway? I just know the one they put on my arm is for my blood pressure, but who, besides old people, even knows what blood pressure is? Just make sure I ain’t dying, was what I was thinking as the cuff tightened around my arm.
Once she le, I got myself up, which was way more painful than I thought it would be. Who the hell knew broken ribs could make everything hurt? Or maybe it was that everything I did made the broken ribs hurt.
Seemed like even blinking was painful.
I waddled slowly to the bathroom so I could handle my business—the post-sleep pee—which was interrupted by another knock at the door. is time, it was my family. Of course.
“Rashad?” my mother called through a crack in the door before pushing it open. I had just ushed and washed my hands while performing the strange task of looking at my bruised and broken face, but only in glimpses. at’s all I could take. A few seconds at a time. ree seconds, then back to the sink. en back to the mirror for three more seconds before darting my eyes over to the paper towels. Anything longer than that made me . . . uncomfortable. Anyway, I was making my way back to the bed when my mother and father came in dressed in their Sunday spiffs. Behind them, even
more Sunday. As in, Sunday himself. As in, Jerome Johnson. As in, Pastor Jerome Johnson.
“Son, Pastor’s here to see you,” my father said as I eased back into bed,
ashing my ashy butt at everybody, including God.
ey brought the pastor? I sort of fell quickly onto the mattress and whipped my legs around until they were on the bed. Pathetic. My mother helped me adjust, uffing the pillow behind my head and pulling the sheet over me, up to my chin, which was way too far. She kissed my forehead and stared at me as if she was trying to recognize the kid beneath the bruises and bandages. “You okay?”
“I’m ne,” I said, short. She nodded, then glanced at the food tray. She lied the plate cover, the condensation dripping all over my chicken tenders.
Damn. Soggy chicken tenders suck. “You haven’t eaten?”
“It just got here. I just woke up.” I said in a take it easy tone.
She kissed my forehead again, then leaned back so I could get a clear shot of my father, three-piece suited and shiny-shoed. And the minister, Pastor Johnson, dressed in an oversize suit, a gold chain with a gold cross lying perfectly in the middle of his fat satin tie. In his hand, the Bible. What else.
“How you feelin’, Rashad?” the pastor asked. Everybody was asking that, as if I was ever going to tell them the truth. Nobody wanted to hear the truth, even though everybody already knew what it was. I felt . . . violated. at’s the only way I can put it. Straight-up violated. And now, to make it worse, I had to have church. Well, sorta church. I had to have prayer.
Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t have a problem with a good prayer. I mean, I believe in God. At least I think I do. I just wondered where God was when I was being mopped by that cop. And I knew that’s what the pastor had come to tell me. at God was there. at God was always there.
Which, to me, is the wrong thing to say, because if he or it or whatever was there and didn’t do nothing, then that would make God my enemy. Because he let it happen. I would much rather Pastor Johnson say that God wasn’t there. at he was busy. at he turned his back, just for a second, to check on somebody else, and that asshole officer snuck right by him and got me.
But . . . nope.
“Son, I just stopped by to tell you that God is with you. He’s always with you,” the pastor started, predictably. “And everything happens for a reason.”
Reason? is felt like a good time for me to grab my spirometer, because I was in need of a deep breath. I mean, seriously, what reason could there have been for this? Let me guess, I was too good-lookin’ and needed an extra bump on my nose, a reminder that only English Jones runs the school?
“Now we’re going to offer up a prayer for your healing, son, believing that God’s gon’ mend you,” the pastor said. “Let’s all bow our heads and look to the Lord.”
My mother and father lowered their heads and closed their eyes. I didn’t do either. Kept mine open, and my head up, looking at the three of them, wondering if any of this mattered. I knew it mattered to them, my parents, and maybe that should’ve been enough for me to participate, but did it matter to me? I’m not so sure. e prayer was long and dramatic, full of the preachy punches in between each point. e pastor mentioned how Jesus was persecuted (heh) and Saul was made blind (heh) and Job was tested (heh) and David beat Goliath (heh). My mother followed right behind the pastor, accompanying his rhythmic prayer with hallelujah whispers, and my father’s manly but, I guess, godly grunts, all eventually— nally—leading to an amen.
“Amen.” Spoony stood in the doorway, nodding his head, and clapping his hands, a sarcastic look on his face. Man, was I happy to see him. Ma was too. Dad, well, not so much.
“Pastor, you remember my oldest son, Randolph,” he said, caught off guard.
“Yes, yes, of course I do.” e pastor reached out and shook Spoony’s hand. “Ain’t seen you down at the church in a while.”
“at’s ’cause I can’t afford to come.”
“Spoony!” my mother gasped.
“Sorry,” he said, shrugging and smirking at me.
“No, no, that’s okay,” Pastor Johnson said kindly. “Nothing wrong with the boy having a mind of his own. God gave him that.” Spoony just looked at Dad like, See? “Well, listen, I better be going. But we’re gonna keep you lied up in prayer, Rashad. And we’re going to add you to the blessing list for the sick and shut-in.”
But I’m not sick or shut-in. I’m beat down. Is there a list for that? But I didn’t say that. I was hoping Spoony would do some kind of big brother ESP thing and say it for me.
“ank you so much for coming, Pastor,” my mother said, clenching Pastor Johnson’s hand. My dad gave him a rm shake and a tight-lipped nod, and the churchman headed out.
Five seconds couldn’t have gone by before Spoony sat gingerly on the side of the bed and grabbed the remote.
“Come on, man. It’s Sunday. Ain’t nothing on but reruns of what we just experienced,” I joked.
“Oh, there’s something else on. Trust me,” Spoony said pointedly.
“You know, you don’t always have to be so damn disrespectful!” Dad started in on Spoony with a bark, settling into a chair on the other side of the room. Cursing right aer the pastor le, tsk, tsk, tsk.
Spoony ignored him and turned the TV on. He nodded up to the screen.
“Check it out.”
I looked up at the glowing screen. And there it was. ere I was. On the freakin’ news.
“Again, this is footage that was taken from a smartphone Friday night, of a police officer shoving a young man through the door of Jerry’s Corner Mart on Fourth Street. As you can see, the officer already has the young man subdued.
He doesn’t seem to be resisting, but is still slammed to the ground, where the officer proceeds with what looks to be unnecessary force. Jerry’s has experienced a string of robberies, but as of now we are uncertain as to whether or not this was another one of those cases. We attempted to contact Jerry’s management for a comment but to no avail. e Springfield PD has also declined making a statement at this time. What we do know is that the young man in this video is sixteen-year-old Rashad Butler of West Springfield. We’ll keep you updated as we learn more.”
My mother’s mouth gaped. “What? I mean, how . . .”
“Spoony, how’d they get my name?” I stared at the TV in disbelief.
“I told you, li’l bruh, there are always witnesses. Berry kept checking online all night, YouTube, Facebook, everything, and eventually, the video surfaced. So we sent it to the news. Told them who you were.”
At this, my dad lost it. “I mean, seriously, have you lost your damn mind?
Are them things on your head affecting your thinking? Rashad doesn’t need this kind of attention, Spoony. He doesn’t need all this craziness. None of us do.”
Spoony jumped to his feet. “You think me sending it to the news is crazy? e crazy part is what happened to ’Shad. What’s happening all over this country. You of all people should know that!”
My father glared at Spoony and I mean he held it there, as if there was, in fact, some kind of father-son ESP thing, and he was beaming the cuss-out of the century straight to my brother’s brain. en, like he always did, Dad stormed out of the room, followed by Spoony throwing words at his back.
“Yeah, run away, as usual.”
“Spoony!” Ma shouted.
My throat dried. My stomach boiled. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I mean, it was me, but it wasn’t. But . . . it was. I didn’t know how or what to feel. Like, how could I be that boy—a victim. Me. It was just . . . I don’t know . . . surreal. But we kept watching as the story looped. Sunday, aside from being a wack TV show day, is also apparently a slow news day. Every few minutes, the footage of me being crushed under the weight of the cop played, the newsperson talking about the “string of robberies” and not being able to get a comment from Jerry’s management or the police department. en a picture of me dressed in my ROTC uniform ashed across the screen.
I glared at Spoony. “Where’d they get that?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“Man, listen, I had to make sure we controlled as much of the narrative as possible. If I ain’t send that photo in, they would’ve dug all through the Internet for some picture of you looking crazy,” Spoony said. “Trust me, man. I’ve seen it time and time again.”
I was pissed about the photo, and to be honest, a little embarrassed by it, but I knew Spoony had a point. I would’ve hated for them to put up some picture of me hanging with Carlos, posing with my middle ngers up. Even though . . . well . . . never mind.
e story played over and over and over again, like watching a movie in virtual reality where it doesn’t really seem like you—like it’s real—but you can feel every blow, every break. You can taste blood. You can smell the
officer’s breath. And that was hard for me. To see myself, like that. ey kept saying it was a developing story. As more unfolds. As we learn more.
“Cut it off,” I nally said.
“We need to keep up with how it develops,” Spoony said.
“Cut it off, Spoon!” I reached for the remote myself and was instantly reminded that my ribs were broken. “Argkk!” My mother lied off her seat, ready to spring into mommy mode. Spoony quickly handed me the clicker.
“Okay, okay,” he said apologetically. “Take it easy. My bad, man. It’s just . . .”
“I’m ne,” I said hard, shooting down whatever reason he was about to deliver. I turned the TV off. “I just don’t want to watch it no more.”
e truth is, I wasn’t mad at Spoony. I wasn’t. As a matter of fact, he did exactly what I expected him to do. I just didn’t want to keep watching it.
My mother, trying to cut the tension, began digging in her church bag, which was way bigger than her normal bag. e church bag had to be big enough to t her Sunday service survival kit. Her Bible, some candy, and all the sins of our family. “Oh, Rashad, I forgot, I brought the stuff you asked for.”
e stuff I asked for was my phone and phone charger—my mother was given the duffel bag with my ROTC uniform and phone aer I, and it, were released into her custody. But more importantly, I wanted my art supplies— sketchbook and pencils. at’s all I really needed. at was my hospital survival kit.
She plugged my phone in the wall and put the sketchbook and pencils on the roller tray-table next to the chicken tenders I now wasn’t going to be eating. And as soon as my phone had enough juice to power on, the damn
dog started barking. Nonstop.
Let me explain.
Me and Carlos had this stupid joke that whenever we were going to a party, we would set our text message alerts to a crazy sound effect. Not for any real reason. I mean, originally it was so we’d always know where each other was, or be able to nd a phone if any of us lost one. But at a party, who would be able to hear it over the music? See, stupid. But we kept doing it because it was our thing. A tradition. Like, good luck, or something.
is week Carlos picked a dog bark, just because he thought it would be funny, or dare I say, cool, to tell a girl that there was something in his pants,
barking. I mean, it was kind of funny. But also, so wack. en he challenged me and said that he could get a girl with that bark line before I could. Truth is, I wasn’t even going to try. But I played along and changed my alert anyway. And now that my phone had enough battery to turn on, the dog was barking crazy.
“Hand me that,” I said to Spoony, who was frowning at all the stupid
noise.
I checked my messages.
FRIDAY 4:43 p.m. from Spoony
SHAD YOU STILL COMIN TO GET $$?
FRIDAY 5:13 p.m. from Spoony
??? WTF
FRIDAY 5:21 p.m. from Los
YO BE AT MY CRIB BY 7
FRIDAY 5:22 p.m. from Los
AND WATCH HOW MANY GIRLS I GET WITH THAT DOG JOKE
FRIDAY 5:23 p.m. from Los
U KNO GIRLS LUV DOGS DUDE!
FRIDAY 5:35 p.m. from Los
WHERE U AT?
FRIDAY 5:51 p.m. from Spoony
WHERE U AT?
FRIDAY 6:05 p.m. from Ma
HEY, SPOONY AND CARLOS CALLED HERE LOOKING FOR YOU. I CALLED
BUT IT KEEPS GOING TO VOICE MAIL. CALL ME.
FRIDAY 7:00 p.m. from Los
DUDE UR KILLIN’ ME. WHERE THE FUCK ARE U?
FRIDAY 8:47 p.m. from Los
I DONT KNOW WHERE U ARE BUT IM OUT. IF U CAUGHT A RIDE WITH
SOMEBODY ELSE YOU COULDA TOLD ME BRO. DAMN. UNLESS YOU WITH A
GIRL. THEN I UNDERSTAND. BUT I KNO U NOT. I’LL CATCH YOU AT THE
PARTY. BRING YOUR BEST GAME.
FRIDAY 10:03 p.m. from English
SHAD YOU HERE? ME SHAN AND LOS LOOKIN FOR U. LOS TRIPPIN! LMAO
SATURDAY 1:01 p.m. from Los
WHERE WERE U? OF COURSE IT GOT SHUT DOWN. SHIT WAS BANANAS!
SATURDAY 4:26 p.m. from Shan
YO, LOS IS TIRED OF TEXTN U SO NOW IM TEXTN U. U GOOD?
SATURDAY 4:41 p.m. from Shan
WHERE ARE U?
SATURDAY 4:49 p.m. from Los
ENGLISH JUST TOLD ME BERRY SAID U IN THE HOSPITAL!
SATURDAY 4:51 p.m. from English
U IN THE HOSPITAL? WTF
SATURDAY 4:52 p.m. from Shan
YO YOU IN THE HOSPITAL BRO? ENGLISH SAID SOME SHIT ABOUT THE
COPS?
SUNDAY 12:11 p.m. from Los
YO YOU ON THE NEWS! CRAZY!
Crazy, indeed. I scrolled through, reading them all before sending quick responses to the three of them—Shannon, Carlos, and English—letting them know that I was okay. Well, I said a little more than that.
SUNDAY 12:17 p.m. to Los, Shan, English
IM GOOD FELLAS. GOT ACCUSED OF STEALING FROM JERRY’S AND THE
COP ON DUTY ROUGHED ME UP. BROKE MY NOSE AND SOME RIBS. BUT IM
OK.
“I see he’s got his lifeline back,” Dad grumbled, coming back into the room, looking calmer than when he’d le.
“Yeah, so he should be back to normal in no time,” Ma said, trying to be positive.
“I don’t know about that,” Spoony muttered. ankfully my father didn’t hear him, because I wasn’t sure I could take another blowup. So I turned the TV back on quick. A risk, I know. But I had to do something as it looked like my folks were settling in for the aernoon. And guess what saved the day? Football.
“Ah. Football,” Spoony said. “Another one of America’s favorite pastimes, besides baseball, and beating the brains out of—”
“Chill,” I ordered. Honestly, I just wanted to take it easy for the rest of the day. I didn’t want to hear Spoony preach about how hard it is to be black, or my father preach about how young people lack pride and integrity, making us easy targets. I didn’t even want to think about the preacher preaching about how God is in control of it all, or my mother, my sweet, sweet mother caught in the middle of it all. e referee who blows the whistle but is way too nice to call foul on anyone. at’s her. She just wants me to be okay. at’s it and that’s all. So if football was going to be the thing that took our minds off the mess for at least a few hours, then ne with me. Let’s cheer and scream and cuss at the TV. Not at each other.
When the game was over, my family le. And at that moment, I thanked the God I hoped was there. Back to an empty, peaceful room. Just me and my spirometer, which, by the way, was also pretty painful to use. I mean, to inhale slowly felt like sucking in shards of glass. Yeah—not awesome.
Aer the game, the news came on. e rst story was about a kid accused of stealing from a store on the West Side. e footage of me being thrown to the ground. Again. Again. Again. My picture. My name. Again. And now, a new development. e officer’s name. Officer Paul Galluzzo. And his face on the screen.