The Black Kids: Chapters 6–12

Without the police, there’s nobody’s around to stanch the bleeding.

We fast-forward through the weird courtroom sketch about piracy and throw ourselves right into the diner dance floor 1950s nostalgia rendered in flashes of neon.

Repairing vacuums isn’t as lucrative as it once was, not that my grandma Shirley ever made all that much to begin with.

The first things I notice are his feet. LaShawn is rocking a pristine, fresh-out-the-box, newest-edition pair of Air Jordans.

She returns to perusing the latest issue of Sassy.

...Heather flips them off and yells at them about the patriarchy.

My English teacher said Emily Dickinson never left her house, and yet somehow she was crazy prolific.

She’s a very stolid woman with a stentorian voice who wouldn’t be entirely out of place at a Russian work camp—certainly not anyone I would’ve thought of as “cool as hell.”

She’s a very stolid woman with a stentorian voice who wouldn’t be entirely out of place at a Russian work camp—certainly not anyone I would’ve thought of as “cool as hell.”

I think back to last night, the images of the protestors turning over the parking kiosk in front of the Parker Center, standing on it, fists raised in the air, and lighting it on fire, like those photos you see of coups in faraway countries.

“Don’t be willfully obtuse, Ashley. I could’ve been Latasha. Or you. If there’s not justice for one of us, there’s no justice for any of us.”

“Don’t be willfully obtuse, Ashley. I could’ve been Latasha. Or you. If there’s not justice for one of us, there’s no justice for any of us.”

Honestly, I wouldn’t mind being a sentient blob at the moment.

BLACK-OWNED, the handwritten yellow placard says.

His pain is visceral as he yells at everyone around him.

That she’s fomenting rebellion.

Bill Cosby appears via a prerecorded PSA and tells the rioters to stop what they’re doing and watch the final episode of the Cosby Show on NBC. And I know everybody loves Cosby because Dr. Huxtable and Jell-O or whatever, but it’s condescending...

Mr. and Mrs. Katz run out into the cul-de-sac.

Now Ronnie’s a single dad trying to make it in the world, which I guess during the middle of a riot means making sure his livelihood doesn’t burn down.

So instead we refused to share our toys and got into a fistfight the last night before they left, which may have culminated in some biting, and Uncle Ronnie and Auntie Eudora never left them at our house again.

I wonder what kind of cheese Jo is. I’d like to be a robust brie or Manchego, maybe, but I’m afraid I might actually be a sharp cheddar. It’s better than being a Kraft Single, I suppose.

She leaned toward me, stared into my face, and said very somberly, “Courtney Two is a Demon of Insincerity.”

White Brian is Goofy come to life—long limbs, awkward gait, and a laugh that sounds like an infectious hiccup.

He smiles wanly.

The boy our school paper actually described in earnest as “one of the brightest shining stars to ever grace these hallowed halls.”

If anything, this has now made LaShawn that much more attractive to a certain faction of the girls at school.

“Don’t be pedantic; it’s unattractive.”

Even when everybody’d stopped cheering and laughing, they kept kissing, until finally Kimberly pulled away and Courtney burned incandescently.

People have been not-so-sneakily going into the office to check on where everybody else got in, to compare their good fortunes or to commiserate...

All the other kids trickled out of their respective activities to their rides home as the air started to get nippy.

The black kids are resolute, all eight of them in the quad together.

Maybe she’s imploring me to join them.

“Welcome to my humble abode,” Lana says as we enter.
Usually when the people I know say this, it’s ironically. In Lana’s case, it really is quite humble.

An old stove abuts the cabinetry like an afterthought.

The kitchen table is a deep brown, its legs carved in ornate shapes, its top marked up from a child’s carelessness with a pen.

Matching bright-green cushions fight to unite cacophonous chairs.

Wine still in hand, Lana begins to flail with wanton disregard for the actual beat.

It’s intoxicating, being around people who see the whole damn world as something to inhale.

She is small and blond and already imperious, with her natural curls and chocolate-covered fingers.

She walks up to me on the playground, the new girl, and, with a compliment, anoints me: “I like the way your lips are two different colors.”