For all the young brothers and sisters in detention - WPMU DEV

1 For all the young brothers and sisters in detentioncenters around the country, the ones I ve seen, and theones I haven t. You are T nobody believe nothingthese dayswhich is why I haven ttold nobody the storyI m about to tell truth is,you probably ain tgon believe it eithergon think I m lyingor I m losing it,but I m telling you,this story is happened to so NAME to my friendsand peoplewho know meknow me,just call me Will,because after I tell youwhat I m about to tell youyou ll eitherwant to be my friendor notwant to be my friendat way,you ll know meknow M ONLY WILLIAMto my motherand my brother, Shawn.

2 Whenever he was tryingto be m wishing I would velaughed moreat his dumb jokesbecause the daybefore yesterday,Shawn was shotand DON T KNOW YOU,don t knowyour last name,if you gotbrothersor sistersor mothersor fathersor cousinsthat be likebrothersand sistersor auntiesor unclesthat be likemothersand fathers,but if the bloodinside you is on the insideof someone else,you never want tosee it on the outside SADNESSis just so hardto waking upand someone,a stranger,got you strapped down,got pliers shovedinto your mouth,gripping a toothsomewhere in the back,one of the bigimportant ones,and rips it the knockingin your head,the pressure pushingthrough your ears,the blood the worst part,the absolute worst part,is the constant slippingof your tongueinto the new empty space,where you knowa tooth supposed to bebut ain t no S SO HARD TO SAY,Shawn strange to I guessnot surprising,which I guess iseven stranger,and even DAY BEFORE YESTERDAYme and my friend Tonywere outside talking aboutwhether or not we d get anytaller now that we were Shawn was fifteenhe grew a foot, maybe a footand a half.

3 That s when he gaveme all the clothes he couldn t kept saying he hoped he grewbecause even though he wasthe best ballplayer around hereour age, he was also the everybody knowsyou can t go all the way whenyou re that small unless you canreally jump. THEN THERE WERE ,ducked,hid,tuckedthemselves what we ve allbeen trained our lips to thepavement and prayedthe boom, followed bythe buzz of a bullet,ain t meet THE SHOTSme and Tonywaited like we always do,for the rumble to stop,before picking our heads upand poking our heads outto count the timethere was only VE NEVER BEENin an t know if this waseven close to how theyare, but the grounddefi nitely felt likeit o pened upand ate THAT ALWAYS HAPPEN WHENEVER SOMEONEIS KILLED AROUND HERENO.

4 1: SCREAMINGNot everybody justmoms,girlfriends, this caseit was Leticia,Shawn s girlfriend,on her knees kissinghis foreheadbetween think she hopedher voice wouldsomehow keep himalive,would clot the I thinkshe knewdeep down in thedeepest part ofher downnessshe was kissinghim MY MOMmoaning low,Not my my over mybrother s bodylike a dimmedlight 2: SIRENSLots and lots of sirens,howling, cutting throughthe sounds of the the screams are alwaysheard over the 3: QUESTIONSCops flashed lights in our facesand we all turned to anybody see anything?a young officer looked honest, like heain t never done this can always tell a always ask questionslike they really expect anybody see anyone?

5 I ain t seen nothin ,Marcus Andrews, the neighborhoodknow-it-all, he knew better than toknow CASE YOU AIN T KNOW,gunshots make everybodydeaf and blind especiallywhen they make to become invisiblein times like knows Tony flew M NOT SUREif the cops asked me t hear filled up with heartbeatslike my head was being heldunder I was holding my I I washoping I could give someback to maybesomehowjoin BAD THINGS HAPPENwe can usually look up and seethe moon, big and bright,shining over always made me feel there s something up therebeaming down on us in the the day before yesterday, whenShawndied,the moon was told me once a monththe moon blacks outand becomes newand the next night be backto ll tell you one thing,the moon is lucky it s not down herewhere nothingis STOOD THERE,mouth clenchedtight enough to grind myteeth down to dust,and looked at Shawnlying there like a pieceof furniture left outside,like a stained-up couchdraped in a gold fuckers ain t evensnatch THOUGHTB lood soaking into aT-shirt, blue jeans.

6 And bootslooks a lot like chocolate syrupwhen the glow from the streetlights hit I know ain tnothing sweet about know it ain t like chocolate syrupat HIS HAND,a corner-storeplastic bagwhite withred lettersTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUHAVE A NICE DAYIN THAT BAG,special soapfor my mother ve seen herscratch until at the pusbubbles and the invisiblething trying to THERE S SOMETHING INVISIBLE tryingto eatall ofus asif weare passed down like name-brandT-shirts around here. Always too ironed inherited like a trunk of fool sgold or a treasure map leadingto knocking on my brother s life,kicked the damn door down and tookeverything except his gold THE YELLOW TAPE that says DO NOT CROSS gets put up, and there s nothingleft to do but go tape lets people knowthat this is a murder scene,as if we ain t already know crowd backs its way intobuildings and down blocksuntil nothing is left but the was zipped into a bagand rolled away, his blood addedto the pavement galaxy ofbubblegum stars.

7 The tapeframed it like it was art. And the nextday, kids would play mummy with ON THE EIGHTH FLOORI locked myself in my room and puta pillow over my head to mufflethe sound of my mom s sat in the kitchen, sobbinginto her palms, which she peeledaway only to lift glass to each sip came a briefsilence, and with each briefsilence I snuck in a FELT LIKE CRYING,which felt likeanother persontrapped behind my facetiny fists punchingthe backs of my eyesfeet kickingmy throat at the spotwhere the put, I whispered to strong, I whispered to cryingis RULESNO. 1: CRYINGDon matter 2: SNITCHINGDon matter 3: REVENGEIf someone you lovegets killed,find the personwho killedthem andkill INVENTION OF THE RULESain t come from mybrother,his friends,my dad,my uncle,the guys outside,the hustlers and shooters,and definitely not THING ABOUT THE RULESThey weren t meant to be were meant for the brokento BEDROOM: A SQUARE, YELLOWY PAINTTwo beds:one to the left of the door,one to the dressers:one in front of the bed to the left of the door,one in front of the bed to the the middle, a small s side was the left:perfect, , the right.

8 Pigsty, s wall had:a poster of Tupac,a poster of wall had:an anagram I wrote in messed-up scribblewith a pencil in case Mom made meerase it:SCARE = when you take a wordand rearrange the lettersto make another sometimes the wordsare still somehow connectedex: CANOE = letters,different words,somehow still makesense together,like MIDDLE DRAWERwas the only thing ever out of placeon Shawn s side of the room,like a random, jagged toothin a perfect mouth,jammed tight between thetop drawer of shirtsfolded into neat rectanglesstacked like project floors,and the bottom drawer of socksand track.

9 Stuck. Forced in at an like the middle drawerwas jacked up on purposeto keep me and Mom outand Shawn s gun WON T PRETEND THAT SHAWNwas the kind of guywho was home by kind of guywho called and checked inabout where he was,who he was with,what he was wasn after eighteen,which was when our mothertook her hands off him,pressed them together, andbegan to praythat he wouldn t go to jailthat he wouldn t get Leticia pregnantthat he wouldn t MOTHER USED TO SAY,I know you re young ,gotta get it out,but just remember, whenyou re walking in the nighttime,make sure the nighttimeain t walking into Shawnprobably had hisheadphones or USUALLYI ended up going to bedat night, curled upon my side of the room,eventually falling asleep staringat the half-empty bottles of cologneon top of Shawn s the jacked-up middle I NEVER TOUCHED nothing because it s no funhiding from headlockshalf the night,which is why I never touched nothingof hisno USED TO BE I was twelve and he was sixteenwe would talk trash till one of us passed would tell me about girls, and I wouldtell him about pretend girls, who hepretended were real, too.

10 Just to make mefeel good. He would tell me stories abouthow the best rappers ever were Biggie andTupac, but I always wondered if that wasjust because they were dead. People alwayslove people more when they re WHEN I WAS THIRTEENS hawn welcomed me into teenage lifewith a spritz of his almost-grown cologne,said my girlfriend my first girlfriend would like she hated itso I broke up with her,becauseto meher nose wasfunny THOUGHT THATwas stupidand funnybut worthyof joking me,calling a headlockthat felt likea THE COLOGNE will never droplower in the I ll never go to sleep againbelievingthat touching themor anything of hiswill lead to an armaround my it feels like an armaround my neck,wrenching.