I go to my room. Both my old and new laptops are on my desk, which is a mess. There’s a huge pair of Daddy’s Jordans next to my old laptop. The yellowed bottoms of the sneakers face the lamp, and a layer of Saran Wrap protects my concoction of detergent and toothpaste that’ll eventually clean them. Watching yellowed soles turn icy again is as satisfying as squeezing a blackhead and getting all the gunk out. Ah-maz-ing.
According to the lie I told Daddy, my homework is supposed to be done, but I’ve been on a “Tumblr break,” a.k.a. I haven’t started my homework and have spent the last two hours on Tumblr. I started a new blog—The Khalil I Know. It doesn’t have my name on it, just pictures of Khalil. In the first one he’s thirteen with an Afro. Uncle Carlos took us to a ranch so we could “get a taste of country life,” and Khalil’s looking side-eyed at a horse that’s beside him. I remember him saying, “If this thing makes a wrong move, I’m running!”
On Tumblr, I captioned the picture: “The Khalil I know was afraid of animals.” I tagged it with his name. One person liked it and reblogged it. Then another and another.
That made me post more pictures, like one of us in a bathtub when we were four. You can’t see our private parts because of all the suds, and I’m looking away from the camera. Ms. Rosalie’s sitting on the side of the tub, beaming at us, and Khalil’s beaming right back at her. I wrote, “The Khalil I know loved bubble baths almost as much as he loved his grandma.”
In just two hours, hundreds of people have liked and reblogged the pictures. I know it’s not the same as getting on the news like Kenya said, but I hope it helps. It’s helping me at least.
Other people posted about Khalil, uploaded artwork of him, posted pictures of him that they show on the news. I think I’ve reblogged every single one.
Funny though: somebody posted a video clip of Tupac from back in the day. Okay, so every video clip of Tupac is from back in the day. He’s got a little kid on his lap and is wearing a backwards snapback that would be fly now. He explains Thug Life like Khalil said he did—The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody. ’Pac spells out “Fucks” because that kid is looking dead in his face. When Khalil told me what it meant I kinda understood it. I really understand it now.
I grab my old laptop when my phone buzzes on my desk. Momma returned it earlier—hallelujah, thank you, Black Jesus. She said it’s only in case there’s another situation at school. I got it back though, don’t really care why. I’m hoping it’s a text from Kenya. I sent her the link to my new Tumblr earlier. Thought she’d like to see it since she kinda pushed me to do it.
But it’s Chris. He took note from Seven with his all-caps texts: OMG!
THIS FRESH PRINCE EPISODE
WILL’S DAD DIDN’T TAKE HIM WITH HIM
THE ASSHOLE CAME BACK AND LEFT HIM AGAIN
NOW HE’S HAVING A BREAKDOWN WITH UNCLE PHIL
MY EYES ARE SWEATING
Understandable. That’s seriously the saddest episode ever. I text Chris back: Sorry :(. And your eyes aren’t sweating. You’re crying, babe.
He replies:
LIES!
I say:
You ain’t gotta lie, Craig. You ain’t gotta lie.
He responds:
DID YOU REALLY USE A LINE FROM FRIDAY ON ME???
So watching nineties movies is kinda our thing too. I text back: Yep ;)
He replies:
BYE, FELICIA!
I take the laptop to Seven’s room, phone in hand in case Chris has another Fresh Prince breakdown. Some reggae chants meet me in the hall, followed by Kendrick Lamar rapping about being a hypocrite. Seven sits on the side of the lower bunk, an open computer tower at his feet. With his head down, his dreads hang loosely and make a curtain in front of his face. DeVante sits cross-legged on the floor. His Afro bobs to the song.
A zombie version of Steve Jobs watches them from a poster on the wall along with all these superheroes and Star Wars characters. There’s a Slytherin comforter on the bottom bunk that I swear I’ll steal one day. Seven and I are reverse HP fans—we liked the movies first, then the books. I got Khalil and Natasha hooked on them too. Momma found the first movie for a dollar at a thrift store back when we lived in the Cedar Grove projects. Seven and I said we were Slytherins since almost all Slytherins were rich. When you’re a kid in a one-bedroom in the projects, rich is the best thing anybody can be.
Seven removes a silver box from the computer and examines it. “It’s not even that old.”
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Big D asked me to fix his computer. It needs some new DVD drives. He burnt his out making all them bootlegs.”
My brother is the unofficial Garden Heights tech guy. Old ladies, hustlers, and everybody in between pay him to fix their computers and phones. He makes good money like that too.
A black garbage bag leans against the foot of the bunk bed with some clothes sticking out the top of it. Somebody put it over the fence and left it in our front yard. Seven, Sekani, and I found it when we came home from the store. We thought it may have been DeVante’s, but Seven looked inside and everything in it belonged to him. The stuff he had at his momma’s house.
He called Iesha. She said she was putting him out. King told her to.
“Seven, I’m sorry—”
“It’s okay, Starr.”
“But she shouldn’t have—”
“I said it’s okay.” He glances up at me. “All right? Don’t sweat it.”
“All right,” I say as my phone vibrates. I hand DeVante the laptop and look. Still no response from Kenya. Instead it’s a text from Maya.
Are u mad @ us?
“What’s this for?” DeVante asks, staring at the laptop.
“Daddy wants you to have it. But he said let Seven check it out first,” I tell him as I reply to Maya.
What do u think?
“What he want me to have it for?” DeVante asks.
“Maybe he wants to see if you actually know how to operate one,” I tell DeVante.
“I know how to use a computer,” DeVante says. He hits Seven, who’s snickering.
My phone buzzes three times. Maya has responded.
Definitely mad.
Can the 3 of us talk?
Things have been awkward lately.
Typical Maya. If Hailey and I have any kind of disagreement, she tries to fix it. She has to know this won’t be a “Kumbaya” moment. I reply: Okay. Will let u know when I’m @ my uncle’s.
Gunshots fire at rapid speed in the distance. I flinch.
“Goddamn machine guns,” Daddy says. “Folks acting like this Iran or some shit.”
“No cussing, Daddy!” Sekani says from the den.
“Sorry, man. I’ll add a dollar to the jar.”
“Two! You said the ‘g-d’ word.”
“A’ight, two. Starr, come to the kitchen for a second.”
In the kitchen, Momma speaks in her “other voice” on the phone. “Yes, ma’am. We want the same thing.” She sees me. “And here’s my lovely daughter now. Could you hold, please?” She covers the receiver. “It’s the DA. She would like to talk to you this week.”
Definitely not what I expected. “Oh . . .”
“Yeah,” Momma says. “Look, baby, if you’re not comfortable with it—”
“I am.” I glance at Daddy. He nods. “I can do it.”
“Oh,” she says, looking from me to Daddy and back. “Okay. As long as you’re sure. I think we should meet with Ms. Ofrah first though. Possibly take her up on her offer to represent you.”
“Definitely,” Daddy says. “I don’t trust them folks at the DA office.”
“So how about we see her tomorrow and meet with the DA later on this week?” Momma asks.
I grab another slice of pizza and take a bite. It’s cold now, but cold pizza is the best pizza. “So two days of no school?”
“Oh, you’re going to school,” she says. “And did you eat any salad while you’re eating all that pizza?”
“I’ve had veggies. These little bitty peppers.”
“They don’t count when they’re that little.”
“Yeah, they do. If babies can count as humans when they’re little, veggies can count as veggies when they’re little.”
“That logic ain’t working with me. So, we’ll meet with Ms. Ofrah tomorrow and the DA on Wednesday. Sound like a plan?”
“Yeah, except the school part.”
Momma uncovers the phone. “Sorry for the delay. We can come in on Wednesday morning.”
“In the meantime tell your boys the mayor and the police chief to get them fucking tanks out my neighborhood,” Daddy says loudly. Momma swats at him, but he’s going down the hall. “Claim folks need to act peaceful, but rolling through here like we in a goddamn war.”