Street God

CHAPTER 1

SCHOOL DAYS

The alarm bark through the apartment before the sun even think about coming up.

Vanessa jerk off the couch like the sound personally offended her, blanket sliding to the floor, feet already moving before her eyes catch all the way up.

Newark mornings ain't never been gentle, and this one wasn't fixing to start.

She hit the kitchen in three steps. Coffee pot clicking on, frying pan snatched out the drying rack, fridge door yanked open on a squeak it been making for two years now. Eggs, butter, a water jug sitting half-empty like it lost the will to be full. She grabbed what she needed and got to moving.

Time caught her eye and her whole body changed gears. Plates hit the table quick, hot, no ceremony. She took a pull off her coffee hot enough to burn and shuffled down the hall, flicking the bedroom light on without warning.

"Varnell!"

Tangled up in the blanket like it owed him money, the boy groaned something that ain't even qualify as words yet.

"Get up! Get to the table and eat! Before you be late!"

He rolled out slow, clumsy, still half in a dream somewhere better than this.

Changed out his night clothes, dragged his feet to the bathroom.

Cold water on the toothbrush 'cause the hot never came in fast enough to be worth the wait.

He brushed like it was a chore assigned by the government, rinsed, looked at himself in a mirror that had more truth in it than most people round here wanted to hear.

Pale skin. Curly hair he ain't got round to cutting in months.

He looked like a question nobody in this building wanted to answer.

Egg sandwich and a glass of water waiting when he came out. Vanessa was a blur — sandwich, keys, coffee, phone, all four things fighting for the same two hands. She kissed him on the forehead on her way past, doubled back at the door to remind him about his key, lock it tight, don't be slow.

Varnell nodded and ate. Forty-five minutes on the clock. He posted up in front the TV, flipping till the cartoons found him, and let the noise fill up the quiet the way it always did.

Second alarm went off — five minutes left.

He shot up, grabbed his bookbag and jacket, patted every pocket he owned looking for them keys like his life depended on it.

Couch cushions. Kitchen counter. His room.

Panic climbing up his throat before his hand landed on his own chest and felt the string round his neck.

Keys been there the whole time. He let out a breath and headed for the door.

Winter air hit different out here — it ain't just cold, it get personal.

He kept his pace even, breath short, thirteen blocks between him and the schoolyard.

People drifted past him on the sidewalk talking to themselves, pacing in place, eyes somewhere he couldn't follow.

He ain't looked too long at none of them.

Kept his bookbag strap tight in his fist and his head low, moving through it the way you move through weather.

Eight blocks in, the block filled up with kids his age, backpacks and breath fogging the air, and something in his chest loosened. He fell in behind them, close enough to feel safe, far enough to still be alone. That was about as good as it got for him most mornings.

School wasn't no different. He found a seat in the back, put his head down while the teacher called roll, invisible the way he liked it — except to one particular somebody.

Rodney Smith sat right behind him on purpose. Finger to his lips, eyes cutting side to side at his boys, stirring something up before the day even started proper. He started kicking the back of Varnell's chair, slow and steady, testing to see how long it'd take.

"Yo, stop it!"

"What you gon' do about it, white boy?"

"I'm not white!"

"Pale skin and curly hair? If you ain't white, you gotta be some Spanish nigga."

The back row cracked up. Teacher came over before it could go further, split them into the hallway with a book and a chair apiece, told them to sit and think about what they did.

"I ain't even do nothing," Rodney muttered, arms crossed.

Varnell pointed him out plain, said he started it. Rodney just shrugged, jaw tight. Teacher put her hand up — that silence that mean more than any yelling — and went back inside. Varnell dropped his head to the assignment. Rodney stared off, tapping his pencil against his knee like a countdown.

"I should fuck you up for snitching."

Rodney locked eyes with him, full of something Varnell wasn't expecting. He held it, didn't blink, didn't back down. Rodney rose slow out his chair. Varnell rose right with him, eyes never breaking. Neither one of them noticed how close the whole thing was to blowing up.

Rodney shoved first. Varnell answered with a jab, clean and quick, catching him off guard.

Rodney leaned back dazed but Varnell followed with a right hook, no letup.

Rodney found his footing and started swinging back, trading blow for blow.

Varnell kept his rhythm tight, weaving, looking for the opening — and Rodney found his first, ducking low and wrapping his arms round Varnell's legs, flipping him over his shoulder. Varnell hit the floor hard on his hand.

The teacher heard it and ran.

"Stop! Stop! Help! Help!"

She bolted back in the room for security, and boots came thundering down the hall like the building itself was under attack.

Neither boy even registered the men arriving — one second they was swinging, the next their faces was pressed to cold tile, ears ringing too loud to hear anybody telling them to calm down.

They got hauled to their feet and marched to the principal's office, throwing glances back at each other the whole way.

Rodney grinding his jaw. Varnell breathing hard through his nose.

They got planted in two chairs far enough apart that the air between them still felt like it could catch fire.

A heavyset man came out from the back office, moved behind the counter unhurried, and looked over the referral the teacher sent down.

He read it twice, looked up a few names in the system, and something in his face shifted.

He let out a long breath, decided who to call back first, and waved both boys behind the counter into his office.

They sat in front his desk — big, dark wood, older than both of them combined — while he sorted through papers.

"I know you're new here, so I'll address you first, Varnell. I'm Dr. Arthur Richardson, the principal."

He fixed his glasses, flipping through the file, and something didn't sit right with what he was reading. He looked between the two of them and sighed.

"So it seems we've got an interesting situation. A smart student with a string of expulsions from some of the better schools in the last two years, and a young man who's been written up more times than I can count."

He set the papers down and looked out the window at the block below — same block that ate up half the kids that came through this office.

He'd sat across from hundreds of Varnells and Rodneys, watched a good number of them turn into somebody the streets could use.

He decided, right then, this wasn't gon' be one more suspension added to a pile.

"Alright. I'm going to work with you two. No suspension — but you're doing peer mediation."

Both boys let out a breath, neither one happy about it, both knowing better than to argue.

Dr. Richardson called the secretary in to draw up the paperwork.

The boys sat in silence, glares thick enough to touch, tension building with every second that passed.

The door opened. Slips got handed over, detailing the terms. Varnell read his fast — starting today — and felt his stomach drop.

If he wasn't home before his mother, there'd be hell to pay.

Last time it happened almost cost her the job.

"Is there any way this could be another time?" Varnell asked, careful. He knew what waited for him if he came home late again.

"No," Dr. Richardson said, not unkind but final. "Unfortunately, you don't dictate the terms of your punishment. But it won't be long — this is just an introduction. Fifteen minutes, no more. If it runs longer, that'll be on you and Rodney."

The secretary led them down a side hallway to a smaller room off the main office — a peer mediation room, four chairs circled up around a low table, some poster on the wall about "conflict resolution" that ain't nobody read past the title.

A woman was already sitting there, clipboard on her knee, waiting on them.

Ms. Odom. Young, but with the kind of tired eyes that come from doing this job too many times a week.

"Have a seat, gentlemen."

Varnell and Rodney sat far apart as the room would allow, arms crossed, both still carrying heat from the fight. Ms. Odom looked between them, unbothered, like she'd seen this exact posture a hundred times before.

"We're gonna talk this out. Nobody's leaving till we do. So we can do this the short way or the long way — up to y'all."

Neither one said nothing. She let the silence sit a minute, then leaned forward.

"Rodney. What happened?"

"He snitched," Rodney said, flat, like that explained everything.

"I ain't snitch," Varnell cut in. "You was kicking my chair. I told you to stop."

"To the teacher. In front everybody."

"'Cause you wasn't stopping!"

Ms. Odom raised a hand, and both of them fell quiet, though Rodney's leg kept bouncing, restless. She wrote something on her clipboard, unhurried.

"Rodney, why you messing with him in the first place?"

Rodney shrugged, eyes on the floor. "He be sitting there all quiet. Thought it was funny."

"Funny how?"

He didn't answer right away. Varnell watched him, waiting, some of the anger draining out his shoulders now that the fight wasn't right in front of him no more.

"I don't know. He be by himself. Errybody be by theyself sometimes, but he be by himself like he want it that way. Thought I'd mess with him a little, see what he do."