“Sixty?” he shouts, straightening up.
“Hell, yeah. And it would be eighty if they had icy soles.” Clear bottoms are a bitch to clean. “Cleaning kits aren’t cheap. Besides, you’re obviously making big money if you can buy those.”
Khalil sips his drink like I didn’t say anything, mutters, “Damn, this shit strong,” and sets the cup on the coffee table. “Ay, tell your pops I need to holla at him soon. Some stuff going down that I need to talk to him ’bout.”
“What kinda stuff?”
“Grown folks business.”
“Yeah, ’cause you’re so grown.”
“Five months, two weeks, and three days older than you.” He winks. “I ain’t forgot.”
A commotion stirs in the middle of the dance floor. Voices argue louder than the music. Cuss words fly left and right.
My first thought? Kenya walked up on Denasia like she promised. But the voices are deeper than theirs.
Pop! A shot rings out. I duck.
Pop! A second shot. The crowd stampedes toward the door, which leads to more cussing and fighting since it’s impossible for everybody to get out at once.
Khalil grabs my hand. “C’mon.”
There are way too many people and way too much curly hair for me to catch a glimpse of Kenya. “But Kenya—”
“Forget her, let’s go!”
He pulls me through the crowd, shoving people out our way and stepping on shoes. That alone could get us some bullets. I look for Kenya among the panicked faces, but still no sign of her. I don’t try to see who got shot or who did it. You can’t snitch if you don’t know anything.
Cars speed away outside, and people run into the night in any direction where shots aren’t firing off. Khalil leads me to a Chevy Impala parked under a dim streetlight. He pushes me in through the driver’s side, and I climb into the passenger seat. We screech off, leaving chaos in the rearview mirror.
“Always some shit,” he mumbles. “Can’t have a party without somebody getting shot.”
He sounds like my parents. That’s exactly why they don’t let me “go nowhere,” as Kenya puts it. At least not around Garden Heights.
I send Kenya a text, hoping she’s all right. Doubt those bullets were meant for her, but bullets go where they wanna go.
Kenya texts back kinda quick.
I’m fine.
I see that bitch tho. Bout to handle her ass.
Where u at?
Is this chick for real? We just ran for our lives, and she’s ready to fight? I don’t even answer that dumb shit.
Khalil’s Impala is nice. Not all flashy like some guys’ cars. I didn’t see any rims before I got in, and the front seat has cracks in the leather. But the interior is a tacky lime green, so it’s been customized at some point.
I pick at a crack in the seat. “Who you think got shot?”
Khalil gets his hairbrush out the compartment on the door. “Probably a King Lord,” he says, brushing the sides of his fade. “Some Garden Disciples came in when I got there. Something was bound to pop off.”
I nod. Garden Heights has been a battlefield for the past two months over some stupid territory wars. I was born a “queen” ’cause Daddy used to be a King Lord. But when he left the game, my street royalty status ended. But even if I’d grown up in it, I wouldn’t understand fighting over streets nobody owns.
Khalil drops the brush in the door and cranks up his stereo, blasting an old rap song Daddy has played a million times. I frown. “Why you always listening to that old stuff?”
“Man, get outta here! Tupac was the truth.”
“Yeah, twenty years ago.”
“Nah, even now. Like, check this.” He points at me, which means he’s about to go into one of his Khalil philosophical moments. “’Pac said Thug Life stood for ‘The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody.’”
I raise my eyebrows. “What?”
“Listen! The Hate U—the letter U—Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody. T-H-U-G L-I-F-E. Meaning what society give us as youth, it bites them in the ass when we wild out. Get it?”
“Damn. Yeah.”
“See? Told you he was relevant.” He nods to the beat and raps along. But now I’m wondering what he’s doing to “fuck everybody.” As much as I think I know, I hope I’m wrong. I need to hear it from him.
“So why have you really been busy?” I ask. “A few months ago Daddy said you quit the store. I haven’t seen you since.”
He scoots closer to the steering wheel. “Where you want me to take you, your house or the store?”
“Khalil—”
“Your house or the store?”
“If you’re selling that stuff—”
“Mind your business, Starr! Don’t worry ’bout me. I’m doing what I gotta do.”
“Bullshit. You know my dad would help you out.”
He wipes his nose before his lie. “I don’t need help from nobody, okay? And that li’l minimum-wage job your pops gave me didn’t make nothing happen. I got tired of choosing between lights and food.”
“I thought your grandma was working.”
“She was. When she got sick, them clowns at the hospital claimed they’d work with her. Two months later, she wasn’t pulling her load on the job, ’cause when you’re going through chemo, you can’t pull big-ass garbage bins around. They fired her.” He shakes his head. “Funny, huh? The hospital fired her ’cause she was sick.”
It’s silent in the Impala except for Tupac asking who do you believe in? I don’t know.
My phone vibrates again, probably either Chris asking for forgiveness or Kenya asking for backup against Denasia. Instead, my big brother’s all-caps texts appear on the screen. I don’t know why he does that. He probably thinks it intimidates me. Really, it annoys the hell out of me.
WHERE R U?
U AND KENYA BETTER NOT BE @ THAT PARTY.
I HEARD SOMEBODY GOT SHOT.
The only thing worse than protective parents is protective older brothers. Even Black Jesus can’t save me from Seven.
Khalil glances over at me. “Seven, huh?”
“How’d you know?”
“’Cause you always look like you wanna punch something when he talks to you. Remember that time at your birthday party when he kept telling you what to wish for?”
“And I popped him in his mouth.”
“Then Natasha got mad at you for telling her ‘boyfriend’ to shut up,” Khalil says, laughing.
I roll my eyes. “She got on my nerves with her crush on Seven. Half the time, I thought she came over just to see him.”
“Nah, it was because you had the Harry Potter movies. What we used to call ourselves? The Hood Trio. Tighter than—”
“The inside of Voldemort’s nose. We were so silly for that.”
“I know, right?” he says.
We laugh, but something’s missing from it. Someone’s missing from it. Natasha.
Khalil looks at the road. “Crazy it’s been six years, you know?”
A whoop-whoop sound startles us, and blue lights flash in the rearview mirror.
TWO
When I was twelve, my parents had two talks with me.
One was the usual birds and bees. Well, I didn’t really get the usual version. My mom, Lisa, is a registered nurse, and she told me what went where, and what didn’t need to go here, there, or any damn where till I’m grown. Back then, I doubted anything was going anywhere anyway. While all the other girls sprouted breasts between sixth and seventh grade, my chest was as flat as my back.
The other talk was about what to do if a cop stopped me.
Momma fussed and told Daddy I was too young for that. He argued that I wasn’t too young to get arrested or shot.
“Starr-Starr, you do whatever they tell you to do,” he said. “Keep your hands visible. Don’t make any sudden moves. Only speak when they speak to you.”
I knew it must’ve been serious. Daddy has the biggest mouth of anybody I know, and if he said to be quiet, I needed to be quiet.
I hope somebody had the talk with Khalil.
He cusses under his breath, turns Tupac down, and maneuvers the Impala to the side of the street. We’re on Carnation where most of the houses are abandoned and half the streetlights are busted. Nobody around but us and the cop.
Khalil turns the ignition off. “Wonder what this fool wants.”