CHAPTER 15 #3
He clicked the flashlight off and rolled onto his side, pulling the blanket up under his chin. Within minutes his breathing softened, and sleep took him quick. The innocent ones are lucky like that; their bodies know how to shut the world off.
I stayed there in the doorway. Watching them.
Saiyd’s chest rising and falling in slow heavy breaths.
Sinceer curled on his side with one hand tucked under his cheek.
That night they was still kids. Still safe inside the four walls of that room.
Still dreaming about comic book heroes and basketball games.
And I was still their big sister. Silent tears rolled down my face, I couldn’t stop them from coming.
I am only a teenager, trying to hold together a house that had cracks running through every wall.
The block was already suffocating us, and now it was starting to draw blood.
Grades of effort didn't count for much because no matter how much sweat I poured into holding the walls up, the foundation was built on quick sand.
Around here, families splintered, one quiet crack at a time, until the whole structure gave out.
But some structures don’t buckle because you lack the strength to hold them up.
They collapse because the system was flawed from day one.
You see, the ‘hood has its own gravity. The block ain't a location, it’s a law. It outranks love. It outlives family. An absolute force that crushes anyone foolish enough to think they could get away from it.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PILLOW
Mia’s Voice
Me and Summer ain’t never had to say we was best friends; it’s just been understood from jump.
From double-dutch on cracked sidewalks, from sharing sunflower seeds and secrets, from hanging on stoops watching the block like it was a movie made just for us.
That’s my girl, my ride or die. But along the way things got distant between us.
She started holding shit in. Summer used to tell me everything.
Who said what. What Shay did. What her mama was trippin’ about.
Everything. Now I ask her something simple,
“You good?” She hit me with,
“Yeah.”
Just ‘yeah.’
I ain’t stupid. I know what that means.
I heard the whispers before she ever said a word. You can’t grow up on our block and not hear the gossip.
“Denise been drinkin’ heavy…”
“I heard she was in AA…”
“Kids raisin’ themselves ova there…”
People don’t even whisper for real. They lower their voices enough to pretend they not saying it loud.
But I ain’t repeat it. I ain’t ask her straight up either.
I know how that shit feel. Having people talk about your house like it’s entertainment.
Low key, home ain’t what it used to be for me either.
See the streets didn’t introduce me to the good life, my Daddy did.
Before everything fell apart, before the sirens, before the trial, before they took him, I always knew what it was to live better those next door to me.
I knew what it was to walk into a room and people look twice.
To have new sneakers before anybody else.
To wear gold that wasn’t fake. To sit on furniture that didn’t sink in the middle.
People stepped in our house and felt it.
Power. My Daddy made sure of that. He used to come home late, energy loud before he even opened the door.
“Where my girls at?” he would call out.
I come running every time. He always had bags. Sometimes jewelry. Sometimes designer clothes. Other times food from foreign places. It wasn’t the stuff though; it was the feeling. The way he carried himself, like the world moved around him. He was untouchable.
“You don’t live a regular life,” he used to tell me.
“You hear me? You ain’t regular. You was made for the good life.”
And I believed him.
I grew up with everything and suddenly had nothing.
And I ain’t like that feeling. When they took him, my house got dark, and the money slowed down.
When my Mama started working herself into the ground to keep the lights and appearances on, it didn’t fell ‘life changing’.
It felt like something was taken from me.
Like I got robbed, downgraded. And I hate that feeling.
I missed what it used to be, how I used to live.
Now Daddy was sitting in a cell somewhere and Mama was tryin’ to keep it together.
I’ll give her that. She got an office job downtown now.
One of them tall buildings all glass and reflections, where everything looks clean and put together from the outside.
She dresses the part too. Pressed blouses.
Heels clicking across polished floors. But Mama is working overtime now.
Fuck survival mode, she trying to hold onto a life that was slipping through her fingers.
The life we used to live without thinking.
Back when lights stayed on without stress.
Back when dinner didn’t come with silence. Back when laughter didn’t feel rare.
Now every dollar got a destination before it even come in.
And Mama carrying all of it. In her hands.
In her back. In the way she curses when she think I’m not listening.
But I see it all. I see her coming home late, door opening slow, like even that takes effort now.
Her face don’t even relax no more. Not really.
She sit down at the table every night, same spot, same stack of envelopes spread out in front of her like they got something to say.
Maybe they do. The numbers don’t lie, they just add up.
Legal fees. Court dates. Retainers. Payments that don’t care if you tired, if you hurting, if you barely holding it together.
Daddy had the best lawyer money could buy.
And it worked, I guess. He was looking at forty years, they got it down to twelve.
People say that like it’s a blessing. Like we supposed to feel lucky.
Shit, maybe we are. Still, twelve years is long enough to empty out a house.
Still long enough to turn a family into voices over the phone and visits behind glass.
Still long enough for everything to change.
Mama tries not to let it show. We both do.
But no matter how fly she dress it up, no matter how hard she work to keep things looking the same, it ain’t the same.
We miss him. Not the idea of him. Not the lifestyle he gave us.
Him. The way his voice filled the house.
The way life was handled when he was around.
And no amount of money, no lawyer, no jail sentence cut down can give me that back.
That’s why I view the corner opposite of Summer.
It’s not new, not exciting. It’s more familiar, like home.
The hustlers getting money. The way people moved when certain names got said.
It reminds me of my Daddy. It’s like the same energy with different faces.
The more I watch, the more it feels reachable, like maybe that life ain’t gone.
It just moved locations and I could find my way back to it.
But I can’t explain that to Summer. She sees danger when she looks at the block. She sees everything her mama be warning her about. I see everything I used to have. And I’m not trying to lose it forever. I don’t care if I gotta step into the fire to get it back.
I be in the house alone most nights. Big room full of nice things, with nobody to talk to. Summer got noise. The twins running around, her Mama always yelling. I got nothing. Just silence. And silence make me think too much.
I keep my mouth shut around Summer though.
Not because I don’t got nothing to say. But because everything I could say feels like it would break something we ain’t ready to lose.
She still looks at me like I’m the one with the life everybody else trying to get to.
‘The good life.’ That’s what she always called it.
But that life ain’t sitting the same no more.
It’s cracking in places nobody else can see.
But I can’t tell her that. I can’t tell her that things getting tight in ways we never had to think about before.
That the silence in my house starting to sound too loud.
I can’t tell her that the block been talking to me.
Little whispers when I pass by. The music, the laughter, the flash of cash.
The way people move like they belong to something bigger than what they got. I love dat shit.
I can’t tell her what I saw. Her mama on the corner, body swaying just enough to tell the truth she was trying to hide.
Cussing out some man like he owed her something.
I stood there long enough for it to settle in my chest.
Long enough to know I wasn’t supposed to see it.
And I damn sure ain’t supposed to be the one to say it.
So how I’m supposed to help her when I’m holding things I can’t even bring myself to speak about?
How I’m supposed to be strong for her when I feel like I’m slipping too?
And to top it off, I feel like she holding me back.
The way she always wanna stay close to home.
The way she flinch at certain streets. The way she play it safe all the time, like safety ever stopped anybody from wanting more.
I look at her and I see fear. But I don’t wanna be scared.
I want my life back. The one I had before everything started tightening up.
Before I had to notice things. I miss not thinking. I miss just having.
The block ain’t scary to me, and the pull is getting harder to ignore.
But I always think about Summer. My best friend.
My day one. My ride or die. The one who knows me better than anybody.
Or at least she used to. And I love her, I do.
But lately when we sitting next to each other, it feel like we standing at the edge of two different roads.
And I don’t know if we still walking the same path anymore.
One afternoon we sat on her steps like we always did. Sun hitting low, music drifting through the block. She was quiet. I was too.
“You eva feel like everythang changin’?” I asked.
She shrugged.
“Everythin’ always been like dis.”
I looked at her and I know we both felt that space. That small gap between us that wasn’t there before.
As the streetlights flickered on the corner got louder. The night started pulling people into it, and I felt it tugging me too. I leaned back on my hands, looked down the block, then back at Summer.
She still my best friend. Still my sister in spirit. But the block lit a fire in me….and I didn’t know how to tell her that.