How It Went Down: Incident–Chapter 4

Johnson sustained two nine-millimeter gunshot wounds to the torso.

Police apprehended a person of interest, Jack Franklin, who was present when Johnson was shot but left the scene in a borrowed vehicle shortly afterward.

He was kind of sprawled out, and it seemed almost right for him to be down there, like he blended in.

It wasn't clean white, like snow. More of a wispy, dirty white, like clouds on an average winter day.

My hands got dirty. Sidewalk dust, glass shards, blood.

[loud bursting sound, over static]
CALLER: Oh, God. He shot him again.
OPERATOR: Sir?
CALLER: [indecipherable muttering]

[loud bursting sound, over static]
CALLER: Oh, God. He shot him again.
OPERATOR: Sir?
CALLER: [indecipherable muttering]

I can hold my own in a fistfight, but I'm not about to get shot to save some corner store fifty bucks in loot, or whatever this thug pilfered.

I started hassling him back.

Tariq and he start tussling.

There was a whole fracas going on up the block.

Chains dangled at their waists, knife sheaths poked out of their baggy pockets.

"Mind your own business..." said this scrawny slip of a kid from the center of things.

She plugs her ears with dainty fingertips, impeding my progress at trimming her ends. I was barely aware of the sirens until she pointed them out.

She plugs her ears with dainty fingertips, impeding my progress at trimming her ends. I was barely aware of the sirens until she pointed them out.

There's always something crazy going on, between the cops and the Stingers and the Kings and their corner dope guys, turf wars and so on and so on.

As if we could forget we live in the beating heart of the ghetto.

The paramedics come too, with their scissors and gauze.

Forgive me the morning cynicism, Lord, but black kids get shot all the time, and no one looks twice. I've been shouting about it at the top of my voice for going on twenty-five years now, and they all just cover their ears.

My wife is frying bacon; the smell wafts up to me.

"They released the shooter from custody early this morning, on the grounds that it was self-defense. But it can't be, because he was barely on the scene before the shooting occurred. This story has race bias coming out of its ears."

It stops being about the color of your skin after a while and starts being about how you comport yourself.

I wear a three-piece suit to work every day. That's every single day for the last twenty years, from my first internship out of college all the way up through the ranks to vice president of sales.

It's only ten blocks, but eight of them beeline through the heart of Stinger territory.

"He paid his bill, all right? Please. I know his family. Tariq wouldn't pull a stunt like that on me."

Cops arrested and released the alleged shooter after he lodged a claim of self-defense.

Brick's never offered to pick me up before. I don't have that kinda clout in the organization.

He had that do-rag in his back pocket. Red, with them gourd shapes spread across it in black.

I always hold myself above such mess. Ain't no use in wishful thinking. That kinda brain wringing don't come to no good.

I was thinking just the other day that my campaign's been lagging.

I needed some magic potion, some pick-me-up to bring me back into the spotlight. An issue to tout, a side to stand on, a moral high ground to stomp with my righteous foot.

I flinch. It's all I can do not to drop the carafe of coffee.

"Possibly a gang member, say police, though his family has come forward to refute that claim. It seems there are more questions than answers in this story, Carl."

"Shut up!" It's a bad thing to say to Dad, but it just comes out. His step falters.

In my peripheral vision, the same still image of Tariq flashes, over and over.