Avenging Fucking Angel
By Amy Lane
I am not a good parent. My oldest had a communication handicap and was picked on often, and his sister has always been good at defending his honor. And no, she didn’t get in trouble once. From us. My favorite moment, though, was when a kid got in her face in the playground, and the two of them got in trouble because all the yard duty saw was my big guy sitting on the other guy, screaming, “Don’t hurt my sister!”
I think the point was gotten because that never happened again. And, yes. He got ice cream when it was over.
“ANTHONY!” RIVER called out, her voice furious and hurt. “Go! Get Diamond out of here! Go!”
But Anthony Cameron—that was his last name now, and he loved it—took one look at his sister’s face, streaked with blood and tears and snot and rage, and knew he wasn’t going anywhere . It had been more than a year since Anthony had needed to fight for a meal or a toy or a place to sleep—but those muscles tightened up in his thirteen-year-old body, and he knew they were poised, waiting to be unleashed.
“Let go of her!” he shouted, charging forward. Two boys—his and River’s grade, eight—held River’s arms, and one of them had been slapping her, taunting her, as he’d neared. He glanced to Diamond, their little brother, who had dragged him out to the back soccer fields of the school when they were supposed to be meeting to be picked up by River and Diamond’s mother, Rhonda.
“Go get your mother,” he ordered Diamond, who was two years younger than him and River. “Go get her now.”
Once, a year or so ago, going for an adult authority figure would have been the last thing on his mind, but not now. Not after Diamond and River’s parents had brought Anthony into their home and treated him like family. Not after their uncle—as white as Anthony but just as loyal to the Camerons, who were Black—had taken Anthony to this place where he was treated like a person and cared for and forgiven for his fuckups as he learned to forgive others.
Nope—they definitely needed Rhonda and Kaden, and since Rhonda would be waiting for them in front of the school, that was the safer bet.
“Go get your mother,” one of the boys—Stef Salter—mocked. “Go get your mother, you little—”
And then he said a very bad word. A racist word. A word that Anthony, in a million years, would never let anybody call his family.
“You take that back,” he growled, his vision turning red.
“Oh, get off it, you little faggot,” Stef taunted. His buddy, Arnold, got really creative then.
“Isn’t their uncle a faggot? So you’ve got a whole family full of n—s and f—ts!” And that’s how Anthony heard the words too, by then. Not the actual whole word, but the beginning and end of the word, because the actual word was sort of whooshed out by blood rushing through his ears.
“Yeah,” sneered Stef. “So if your whole family is n—s and f—s, what the hell does that make you?”
Anthony had gotten close enough now to see the bruises on River’s arms and that her nose was bleeding and that the pretty pink-flowered blouse that had been her favorite was now torn.
And when he spoke, he sounded older and angrier and meaner, and all those muscles from all those fights before he’d met the Camerons were bursting in his arms and his legs and his neck and his heart.
“I’m an avenging fucking angel, that’s my family, and I’m gonna kick your ass to hell.”
“SO,” RHONDA asked Jackson, her voice sounding worried over the phone, “do you think I handled it right?”
Jackson was trying hard not to drive all the way up to Forest Hill and find the little pukes who had dared touch his namesake, and Jade’s, and the boy who had become family in the last year, so he could administer some old-fashioned family justice.
“Was she okay?” he asked, probably for the millionth time.
“Yeah, baby,” Rhonda said, her voice soothing like it had been in junior high when it had been Jackson, Jade, Kaden, and Rhonda, having each other’s backs like a Doom Squad to survive daily. “She was fine. Once Anthony got there, she got some good licks in—I got there in time to see both of them kicking ass. If the other kids hadn’t started it three to one, they never would have gotten her in the first place.”
Jackson smiled slightly. Rhonda was a teacher now, at the same school her kids attended, but he noticed how proud she sounded that her kids were nobody’s meat. Rhonda had never belonged on the streets—an accident of school placement had put them in one of the shittiest schools in the district, and Jackson and the Camerons had helped keep Rhonda alive until they’d all made it to high school and the honors classes to help keep them safe—but Rhonda had learned to be tough all the way through graduation.
“Just like her mother,” he said fondly.
“That’s kind,” Rhonda told him, “but seriously—do you think I handled it well? Jackson, this is important. I don’t want him to feel like he can get involved in violence on a regular basis, but….” She got a little sniffly. “I was really proud of our boy.”
“Well, did you take him out for ice cream?” Jackson asked.
“We did. And promised him pizza during the suspension.”
Jackson still couldn’t believe the “both sides” bullshit of the suspension.
“Did you promise him pizza in front of the administration?” Jackson asked.
Rhonda’s laugh was low and mean. “You bet your ass I did. I also told them that I knew the editor of the local paper, and there would be a big fat article on the backward standards of education in this week’s issue.”
Jackson had a moment of misgiving. “Rhonda… do you have tenure?”
“No,” she said with a sigh. “But there’s a district not too far away from Foresthill—you’ve heard of Colton?”
“Didn’t they have all those guys stuck in a gravel pit this summer?” Jackson asked, racking his brains.
“Yeah, honey. And two of them were the school principal and the local sheriff’s deputy, both men, who got married in August. So I’ve got an application in there if this place doesn’t want me. I’ve already got nibbles. I’ll be the belle of the ball, don’t worry. But right now we’re worried about Anthony.”
“So you’ve done ice cream, pizza, any gifts?”
“Mm… yes. Kaden got him—well, all the kids, really, but Anthony was working toward this with chores—one of those video game expansions.”
“Nice,” Jackson said, glad because it meant he could play Kaden and the kids on the expansion as soon as they practiced a little. “Okay, then—no, I think you’re good.”
Rhonda let out a breath. “But… but Jackson. I was so proud . I mean, besides standing up for his sister, and having his brother come get me—a grown-up—he was so brave. And did I mention the kicker?”
Jackson grinned. “Yeah. Man, that was some class A banter right there.”
“Right?” she said. “I want him to know he was appreciated .”
Jackson had an idea. A wonderful, awful idea.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said happily, pulling up his laptop as he spoke to Rhonda and worked on dinner for Ellery. “I’ve got just the thing.”
“ARE YOU sure we won’t get into trouble?” Diamond asked. Well, he was young, and Anthony understood how somebody who worked hard at being good would not be excited about doing what they were doing.
“You don’t have to,” River told him. “You weren’t in the fight—nobody will expect you to come back with ’tude.”
Diamond furrowed his handsome little brow. “No, no,” he said. “It’s fine. Anthony stood up for our family. The least I can do is wear the damned T-shirt.”
“Heh heh heh heh heh heh,” River laughed, the sound a little bit evil, but Anthony approved. “Our uncle Jackson is the best ,” she said, zipping her hoodie up over the T-shirt. It was March, and there was still a crust of snow on the ground, and the hoodie—and the T-shirt—were both brand-new.
“He is,” Anthony said, grinning at his T-shirt before zipping up his own jacket. They both looked at Diamond, who stared back and then caught the hint and zipped up his jacket.
“This way,” he said, like the idea was just dawning on him, “Mom and Dad can’t see.”
“Yup,” River said. “They have plausible deniability.”
“And we can show the kids not to mess with our family,” Diamond said smugly.
“Nobody messes with our family,” River affirmed. “Right, Anthony?” She stared at him meaningfully, because she knew of some of the struggles he’d had, letting down his guard to be family.
“Right,” Anthony said. Then, a little quieter, “I hope you guys don’t get into trouble.”
“If we do, we can blame Jackson,” River told him.
“He won’t mind,” Diamond said, blithe as a spring day.
“Kids!” Rhonda called from downstairs in the Cameron home, “get down here and get your toast and let’s get this show on the road!”
“Listen to your mother!” Kaden told them, and they all ran to their own rooms to grab their backpacks, now that their conspiracy was solid and all.
“SO,” KADEN said as the kids ran for the car, jackets zipped securely up to their chins, “are we supposed to not know they’re wearing the shirts to school?”
“Yup,” Rhonda said, kissing him on the cheek. “We shall be surprised.”
“Think they’ll be suspended again?” Kaden asked.
“Heh heh heh heh….” Rhonda laughed, and Kaden loved that she and his brother had the same laugh. “Not after that newspaper article hit the stores. Boy, people were mad. Mark Troyar hasn’t gotten that many pissed-off phone calls in his entire worthless career.”
“I love it when you’re evil,” Kaden said, his kiss landing on her mouth. “Go out and kick some asses and take some names, Buttercup.”
She gave him a happy wave as she grabbed her own book bag and ran to the minivan so they could all get to school.
“YOU READY?” River asked, and Anthony and Diamond both put their fingers on their jacket zippers as they stood at the hall entrance. It was not their imagination—the entire junior high was staring at them to see how they’d enter after the three of them had been out for the week. Would they keep their heads down? Would they be the next bullies? Were they predators or fresh meat?
Anthony’s family would not be meat.
“Zippers down,” he said.
Their jackets parted dramatically, and the two hundred or so students caught their breath as they read the big white letters on the specialized shirts.
I’M AN AVENGING F—G ANGEL.
HANDS OFF MY FAMILY.
They didn’t even need to see the rest of what was printed on the backs of the shirts to know that the Cameron kids should be well and truly left alone.