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What Lane? Page 2
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Then Chad shocks us by jumping on the fence and climbing up, fast.
One by one, kids remind him.
“You’ll get hurt!”
“There’s barbed wire!”
“Watch out!”
Chad pauses, stares down at us like he’s Batman or someone. The soles of his kicks are a foot above our heads. “There has to be a way around the wire.” He goes back to climbing.
“Chad!” Dan yells up to him. He points down the block. “Cops!”
Chad freezes. The only way he’ll make it down is if—
He jumps.
CRASH! Landing on two feet, he crumples on the ground.
For a split second he lies there and I feel grimy. I could’ve pointed the way in under the fence . . .
But then he stands, brushing himself off. “Act normal when the police pass.”
We all pretend to talk and laugh as the cop car cruises closer.
Suddenly, a thought comes to mind: Everyone here is all white except me.
“Stephen,” Jen says on the low to me. “You’re laughing fake. Laugh normal.”
The cop car gets close and the white bald-shaven cop who’s driving squints at me. Is he eyeing me different than how he’s looking at everyone else?
Dan waves at the cop. “Hi,” he yells. “Nice day, huh?”
Sergeant Baldie’s eyes slide to Dan, and he gives him a nod back.
As soon as the cop car turns, we all walk fast from the construction site, but I walk fastest.
Chad cracks on me. “You nervous or something?”
When we exit the park, we split in different directions. Except Chad. He stays with me and Dan. Ugh. Why couldn’t he have bounced too?
I wish Chad didn’t live four blocks from us now.
Better yet, I wish he’d moved to another planet.
CHAPTER 5
“SEE THIS?” CHAD wants us to look at his phone.
“What?” Dan crowds him. I hesitate, then check his phone too.
Chad points at a YouTube video of a Black man on a stage. “You know this comedian?”
We shake our heads no.
He keeps on. “Watch him joke about how Black people act when craziness happens outside.”
I’m confused. Why’s Chad bringing this up? And Black jokes? He’s white.
The comedian acts it out. “If something strange happens outside, white people act like this . . .” He makes his voice extra white and nasally and starts walking all concerned. “‘What’s happening over here? We should investigate.’” The comedian laughs. “White people walk right into the craziness! But Black people? We do this.” He switches into a hood Black voice, pretends to be in the middle of a conversation, spots another Black person running from whatever, then sprints across the stage.
Chad lets out a laugh so hard. “Oh man, that’s so true.”
Dan chuckles.
It’s legit funny to them.
To me? Maybe it’d be funny if it wasn’t Chad showing it. It doesn’t feel funny because they’re laughing at me. I smirk.
“Yesterday, Stephen, you ran that way from the super,” Dan says.
“He did?” Chad asks, too thirsty to know more.
I shake my head. “Nah, Dan—we both ran that way.”
“But you zoomed off like the Flash. I couldn’t keep up.”
“You just hating ’cause I’m faster than you.”
Chad’s watches us beef, loving it.
Why do I feel ganged up on all of a sudden? Because they’re cousins? Because they’re both white? Sandwiching me over some joke about me and Black people?
I get serious. “Wait, Dan. You say I ran like that because my dad is Black? And, you, Chad, show me this video because you racist?”
Dan’s jaw drops. He holds up his open hands like Whoa! and starts apologizing. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I wasn’t trying to be racist.”
But Chad doesn’t deny he’s acting all racist.
“This video is wack,” I say, and then try to change the subject. “You know what’s tight, though? It’s Halloween soon.” I point to a shop’s window full of costumes.
“For real,” Dan says. “It is October first today.”
“I wonder if they sell a Miles Morales costume. They’d make bank. So many kids will want to be Miles. I’m gonna see if they have him and other Black heroes.”
“What Black heroes you mean? There’s just Miles Morales. Oh, and Black Panther.” Chad talks like some cocky expert who’s glad there’s almost no Black heroes.
“Nah, there’s more. Not enough Black super-heroes, but more than Miles and Black Panther. Dan, let’s take turns naming some until we can’t.”
Dan jumps in. “Luke Cage!”
“Cyborg from Teen Titans and Justice League.”
“War Machine from Iron Man.”
I put my fist over my heart. “My bae. Storm from X-Men.”
Dan shakes his head. “Your bae! Whatevs. Anyway, that Black Green Lantern.”
We go back and forth more, and either Chad’s not into this game or he’s not feeling Black superheroes.
“I’m out.” He fist-bumps Dan and skates off.
No fist bump for me. Not even a nod.
I watch Chad roll away. The past two days have gotten me tight. Something says tell Dan why. “That video was annoying. It kinda proved I should run since I’m Black.”
“What?” Dan gets dead serious. “Why?”
“C’mon. You saw what happened yesterday, with Junior swearing I knew that bike thief just because we’re Black. Maybe the video is saying Black people stand out and we’re targets for people to think we in the wrong when we not. So we should run and not get in trouble for nothing.”
“Nah.”
“C’mon. Today isn’t more proof of that? Did you see the cop at the factory eye me differently than everyone?”
“I didn’t. And why would he do that?”
“Because everyone was white. And I’m not.”
“That’s not true. Everyone wasn’t white.”
“Everyone wasn’t white?”
“No . . .” He bites his lip. “What about . . .” It hits him. “Bruh . . . you’re right. I never thought about that before.”
I stare at him, wondering how he hasn’t. But then again, he’s not the one people act prejudiced toward.
Then a thought hits me. Are we in two different lanes? I get seen as trouble but he gets left alone?
I hate thinking that.
Dan interrupts the awkward quiet. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe I should notice stuff more. What you notice.”
And wow. Wowwowwow. It feels so good hearing Dan say that.
“Word.” I put up my fist and he fist-bumps me back.
CHAPTER 6
A FEW DAYS later, I wait outside the supermarket while Dan dips in to get stuff for his mom.
My neighborhood is cool for people-watching. Right now, a college-aged guy who looks mixed like me flies down the street on one of those expensive electronic skateboards with just one wheel in the middle. He swerves to avoid hitting a skinny white guy with a beard standing at the bus stop.
“Watch yourself!” The skinny bearded guy has to jump out the way.
He’s one of lots of young white guys on this street who my parents joke about and call beardos. I see how many I can spot.
Right now, one’s walking by with a woman carrying a yoga mat. A beardo in sandals walks his dog, and another pushes a baby stroller. One comes out of the corner café with a tray full of cups.
Me and my dad went into that café once, and when we saw that the smallest-size coffee cost five dollars, we never went back. Nowadays our neighborhood has lots of these expe
nsive cafés.
A cop car parks near the bus stop and two white male cops get out.
All of a sudden, I want to try to do what Dan did outside the factory. So when one cop makes eye contact with me, I wave and say hi.
The cop’s stare asks, You talking to me? He elbows his partner and nods in my direction. His partner shrugs.
Okaaaay, I think. No friendly nods. That did NOT work for me the way it worked for Dan.
Maybe their stares mean nothing. Maybe they’re just trying to figure me out. But they could’ve at least said hi back. I feel uncomfortable now, so I go in the supermarket.
I’m up and down aisles until I finally spot Dan at this cookie display in the bakery section. He’s at one of those glass displays where you bag the cookies you want.
He opens the case, takes a cookie, and starts chewing.
I walk up on him. “Stop.” I thumb at the white man stacking a display who eyes him. “Dan, don’t you need to pay first?”
He just keeps chewing. “My parents do this. They sample stuff to see if they want to buy it.”
The way he chews makes this cookie look extra good!
I check back, and that man has no reaction.
I guess it’s fine to sample.
I bite. “Dang. This is goo—”
The white man is up on me. “Excuse me. Did you pay for that?”
My jaw drops.
How’s he only talking to me? Dan is right here chewing too. “I’m . . . we’re just sampling this.”
That man eyes me like I’m a criminal.
“Come with me. You have to pay for that.”
He starts walking me toward the registers and talks real loud and braggy to a nearby white co-worker. “This boy tried to steal a cookie. I’m making him pay for it.”
I’m embarrassed. I feel powerless. And I can’t believe he just left Dan there, eating a cookie.
Then Dan catches up to us. “Mister, what are you doing? Don’t you see me? I was right there, eating a cookie too.”
This man stares at Dan like Dan speaks a foreign language. “What?”
“Why didn’t you stop me like you stopped my friend?”
“This is your friend?”
“Yeah!”
“How do I know you ate a cookie?” the man says. “He has one in his hand. You don’t.”
Dan opens his mouth. Cookie mush is still on his tongue. “See?”
The man is SOS.
Dan says, “If you let me go, you gotta let him go.” Then he speaks in the same tone as when he yelled at Junior to leave us alone. “Or if he’s in trouble, I should be too!”
The man waves Dan off. “Okay, take your friend. Both of you go home and don’t come back to the bakery. This is my department.”
It feels like the whole supermarket’s looking at us now, and I feel lower than dirt.
Dan acts the opposite. He might as well be the boss here. “I’ll leave after I get what I came for.” He shakes his head. “Like this is your aisle. Like you own the store.”
“It is my aisle.” The man points to his shirt label that says BAKED GOODS.
Dan waves him off. “Free country.”
I’m telling you. I would neeeeeeeever talk to a grown man that way. I whisper to Dan, “Let’s just bounce.”
He walks back into the aisle and snatches something off the shelves from his mom’s list before we head to the register.
* * *
Outside the supermarket, we wait at the corner for the light to let us walk.
“I noticed,” Dan says.
I’m still in my head replaying what happened in the store. “What?”
“What you said. About being Black. About sticking out. Being a target. I noticed.”
I nod, feeling what happened in that store was so foul.
Dan looks back at the supermarket, then at me. “I know that’s why that man did that. You want me to tell someone he did that? My parents?”
I look past Dan at the supermarket. Then back at him. “Nah. It’s dead.”
Dan had my back in there. He didn’t have to, but he stepped up for the same punishment as me. He’s always been my boy with a lot of things. It’s cool he was my boy with this too.
CHAPTER 7
JUST FROM MY face, my parents can tell when I’m upset. They’ve been reading me since forever, so I’m glad only my dad is home.
Just one parent to avoid.
But my pops maybe catches me trying to dodge him.
I head to the kitchen, and he’s following a few feet behind me.
I go to my bedroom. He’s still shadowing me.
Everywhere I go, he goes.
This could be an ill game of tag, except now it’s not fun.
I sit on the floor and pretend he’s not standing at my door. I soft-pitch my handball with the New York Yankees logo on it at the wall and catch it over and over, avoiding eye contact.
My dad’s reflexes are mad fast—his nickname when he was little was Speedy, since he was so quick in sports. So when he snatches my handball in midair as it flies fast to the wall, my eyes flick at him on instinct because his speed is whoa.
Our eyes lock and it’s a wrap.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
I mutter about that white guy.
Dad sits on my bed. “Keep on.”
I tell him the full. He nods over and over, spinning the handball in his fingers nonstop.
When I’m done, he says, “I’m not blaming you. You didn’t do anything wrong. But what made you take that cookie?”
“I saw Dan do it. Except he got a different reaction.” I pause. I want to tell my dad more—that over the last few days, lots of different people’ve been prejudiced with me. But how can I tell him about the white cop eyeing me at the factory without letting him know we tried to trespass? And I don’t want him starting anything with Junior. So instead, I ask, “Dad, why is racist stuff happening to me all of a sudden? I mean, in elementary it wasn’t like this. So much, you know?”
“You shot up. You’re not a little boy anymore. People outside are starting to see you differently.” Dad sighs. “And a lot of white people see boys with your height and they don’t see your age. They see what they imagine or what the media teaches them to think about Black men—maybe that we’re threats or troublemakers. You want to hear of something similar that happened to me?”
I pull my desk chair right in front of him and sit. “Go.”
“Do you want something from when I was in elementary? Middle school? High school? College? Or when I was getting my master’s? Maybe this week where I teach?”
I don’t believe him. Where he teaches?!
He’s the man at his high school. I know; I visited him there. I can’t see anyone there making him feel weak or wack.
I tell him, “Share from when you were young.”
“Okay, this story’s a lot like yours,” my dad tells me. “My neighborhood when I was in middle school matched here. Mostly white with only a few who were . . .” Dad pauses.
I finish his sentence. “Black. Like us.”
Dad nods a yeah, yeah.
Dad calls me straight Black even though I’m mixed. He’s always saying, You need to accept how the world sees you. As a Black boy. And I do because I know what he means, even if my mom always calls me “mixed” because she’s white.
Anyway, right now, Dad clears his throat. “So one of my best friends when I was your age was this Irish kid, Pat. We’d bike so much through our neighborhood that we got ‘bike butt’ and walked funny.”
My dad and I laugh.
“One day we go in a supermarket to get chips. Pat opens and eats from his bag before we’re at the cashier. Like you, I figured, Why not? As soon as I bite one, what happens? This lady actually yells about me. ‘He’s st
ealing!’”
“She did that in front of the whole store, right?”
“Yes.”
“How’d you feel?”
“Maybe the way you did. Low. Confused about why only I got in trouble.”
“Exactly.”
Dad points at me. “To be a boy. Voice not even past puberty—I could’ve sang in a girls’ a capella group. Bone-skinny too. But treated like I’m a grown thug.” Dad chuckles. “Crazy, huh? How you and I got the same treatment and white kids got the opposite. You see a pattern?”
“Yeah, and Dan wasn’t scared to talk back to that man.”
“I bet. Back then, my dad had one of his longest talks ever with me.” Dad changes his voice, and it’s wild how him and my grandpa sound the same. “We can’t do everything our white friends can. You have to think twice before you act once.”
Dad’s dad—my grandpa—isn’t alive. When he was, my dad joked and called him Soda Pop. He told me he nicknamed Grandpa that because Grandpa kept a lot bottled in.
Right now, I ask, “Did racist stuff happen to Grandpa when he was my age?”
“Way more than us. He grew up in a horrible time.”
“He told you about what he went through?”
Dad shakes his head. “No. And the little I do know, I only know from my mother. Because Dad was Soda Pop, you know? He never really had full talks with me—he just leaked what he wanted me to know, like rules with cops: ‘Watch it with them,’ and ‘If you’re in the front seat of a car and they ever pull it over, put your hands on the dashboard and keep them there. Even stick both hands out the window to let them know no weapons are in your hands. Don’t give cops an excuse to . . .’”
Now I’m angrier than before.
I stare at my bracelet, at the glow-in-the-dark words WHAT LANE?
I ask Dad, “So you’re saying I should stay in my lane? White boys can do stuff but I ca—?”