All American Boys Read online

  “Game ready,” he lectured. “The team that makes its free throws when everyone is tired and strung out is the team that wins its games.” Then he broke us into groups at the six baskets around the gym and told us to keep score. Ten free throws each, switching shooters every two shots. The score mattered. He didn’t say it, but this was part of the evaluation to see who would be a starter. Who could get points on the board at the beginning of the game, and at the end of the game, when his legs were jelly and his lungs a fire collapsing. A scout might be the key to your future, but you had to be on the court, in a pressure situation, sticking it to the other team, in order for the scout to even see you. Then you had to make the shot. I missed my first shot, but it was the only one I missed. There were plenty of seven out of tens, some lower. Only English scored a perfect ten.

  We spent another hour practicing some plays, putting them into action in little scrimmages, and then Coach sent us to the weight room in pairs. We didn’t have to keep score here. Not for his sake, at least. Of course we kept score among ourselves.

  Nobody could press or lift or squat nearly as much as Guzzo and Tooms and Martinez, so they always had their own competition, and the rest of us had ours. I paired up with English, and we started on the leg machines while the big guys hit the bench. He and I didn’t say much at first, but as we moved around the room to different machines, we got into what was really on both our minds.

  “Hey, man,” I asked. “You know who wrote that graffiti?”

  “Why are you asking me?” he said.

  “He’s your friend, man.”

  “He has a lot of friends.”

  “Come on, man. I’m just curious. I’m just asking.”

  “Nah. It can’t be ‘just asking.’ It never is.”

  “Fine.” I put another five pounds on either side of the bar for him, and then kept my voice low as I continued. “Guzzo’s pissed. He thinks someone did it to make a statement.”

  English cocked half a grin as he lay down beneath the bar and began his set. “Of course. That’s the point.”

  “No, but like, it’s saying that Rashad is innocent, so that makes his brother guilty.”

  English put the bar back up on the rack and sat up. He looked at me like I was nuts. “Man, Rashad didn’t do shit.”

  “Yeah, but what if Paul was just doing his job? Then no one’s guilty.” But even as I said it, I felt like I was Guzzo suddenly, or someone in the family, his family, and I wished I wasn’t. “Ah, never mind. Let’s just forget it.”

  “Forget it? Forget my friend is in the hospital?” English stared at me, pissed. “Since when is beating the shit out of somebody who hasn’t done a damn thing just doing your job? Man, there’s no way I’m going to pretend it didn’t happen.” He leaned back, looked at the ceiling, and pressed the weight back up. “I can’t.” He brought the weight down, and then up again. “I won’t.”

  He lifted the bar again quickly, but on the eighth rep, he struggled.

  “Look,” I said, reaching out, ready to help him with the next rep. “I just wish this wasn’t happening. I mean, for everyone’s sake.”

  He fought to get the ninth rep more than halfway up.

  “You need a hand?” I said, putting my fingers beneath the bar, helping him lift it slightly.

  “Fuck no,” he spat. I pulled my fingers back but kept them close. He pushed the bar up slowly, then lowered it and began the last rep. He grunted and got the last one up and onto the rack.

  “Maybe he got out of hand?” I just had to say. “Maybe he was on drugs.”

  “On drugs? What are you? Seventy-five? Since when have you ever gotten off your ass, let alone thrown a punch, when you were stoned, man?”

  “Meth?”

  “Only white people do that shit.”

  “Fuck you, man.”

  “No, fuck you, Quinn.” He stood and pointed at me. “Why does it automatically gotta be Rashad’s fault? Why do people think he was on drugs? That dude doesn’t do drugs. He’s ROTC, man. His dad would kick his ass. You do drugs, asshole.”

  “Just a puff here and there, man, come on. I don’t do drugs.”

  “I’ve seen you smoking a blunt. Metcalf sold you that shit. Metcalf—a white dude, by the way. Man, that shit could have been laced with crack, or fucking Drano. You don’t know what you talkin’ ’bout.”

  “Look, man, I’m not trying to say anything bad about Rashad. I’m just saying that spray painting ‘Rashad is absent again today’ on the concrete in front of school is like, I don’t know, extreme. He’s not dead.”

  “But he could be. You have no idea. You have no idea, Quinn. The point is, he could be. Then what? Is that what it would take to look at this thing differently? You need him to be dead? Shame on you, man. I had no idea you were such a dick. You want to forget all this. Maybe you can. But I won’t.” He stood and caught his breath. “What do you know, anyway? White boy like you can just walk away whenever you want. Everyone just sees you as Mr. All-American boy, and you can just keep on walking, thinking about other things. Just keep on living, like this shit don’t even exist.” He waved his hand in my face and blew a breath out the side of his mouth. “Man, I’m done with you.” Then he sauntered off slowly, making sure I knew he was dismissing me, leaving me looking like the idiot I was.

  When Coach called us back out to the court, I was now not just physically wiped, but mentally wiped too. I was getting a drink of water at the fountain and Guzzo came up behind me. He jabbed me in the back and I coughed up the water. He laughed. “Thanks,” he said, grinning. “I mean it. I heard all that with English. Thanks for having Paul’s back.”

  An unexpected wave of anger surged through me. That hadn’t been my intention at all. I’d seen what Paul had done. I didn’t think it was right. But I hadn’t thought the spray paint was right either.

  “Maybe somebody should spray paint something else tomorrow,” Guzzo said. “Whaddya think it should say?”

  “Don’t,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Don’t be an asshole.”

  Guzzo slapped the wall with his open palm. “I don’t fucking get you, man. One minute you’re in there defending my brother and the next you are basically telling me to fuck off. You’re demented.” He stomped off to join the huddle at half-court.

  Thank God Coach didn’t try to get us all together in a rallying cry, because I sure as hell wasn’t up for it, but neither was anyone else, probably. Instead he broke us into two teams of five and put the others on the bench, ready to sub in. I was on the same team as English, and before we began I pulled him aside.

  “Look,” I said. “I’m sorry, man. I sounded like an idiot.” He didn’t say anything back. “No, seriously. I’m sorry. I don’t want to be a dick. I’m just trying to figure this all out. Rashad’s your friend. But I get what else you’re saying too. So—I’m sorry.”

  “Man, you have no idea how many times you’ve sounded like a dick. You think it was just today? Look,” he said, passing me the ball hard. “Just don’t miss when I give you the ball.”

  But I did. When we got into the scrimmage, I popped free and missed the first open shot. I got another chance on a fast break, and I could have passed, but I forced a difficult shot because I’d missed the last one. I missed that one too. Coach called me over. “Where’s your head?”

  “Up my ass,” I blurted.

  “What?” He grabbed my arm. “What did you say?”

  “My head,” I said. “It’s up my ass. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”

  “Maybe a couple suicides will wipe the shit off your face. Do them. Two. Along the sideline. Now. Go.”

  I didn’t have to look at Guzzo to know he was smiling all smug, watching me out of the corner of his eye while he continued playing. I think English was maybe smiling too.

  And for the first time since I could remember, as I sprinted up and down the court, I didn’t have my father’s voice in my head. I heard my own. I wasn’t telling
myself to PUSH, or to go FASTER. Instead I thought about the guy who’d just said all those things to English. The guy who hadn’t meant to sound hurtful. The guy who was just trying to walk down the middle and not disturb anybody, basically give some meaning to what I’d seen in the street outside Jerry’s. And here’s what I realized I was saying beneath it all: I didn’t want my life to change from the way it was before I’d seen that.

  When I finished the suicides, I had to hold my hand against the wall to catch my breath. English was frigging right. The problem was that my life didn’t have to change. If I wanted to, I could just keep my head down and focus on the team, like Coach wanted, and that could be that. Isn’t that what I wanted?

  Then why did it feel so shitty?

  I had to squat down and touch the floor, feeling suddenly nauseous, nauseous at the idea that I could just walk away from everything that was happening to Rashad, everything that was happening to Paul, everything that was happening to everyone at school, everything that was happening to me, too. I could just walk away from it all like a ghost. What kind of a person did that make me, if I did?

  Those were Ma’s words, and when I got home, I found myself, for the first time in a long time, also admitting that I wished she was home and not working. Of course, that made me feel like a goddamn kid, so I made myself feel like I was worth something by helping Willy with his homework. He was glad for it, but probably not as much as I was that he needed me and I could actually help him figure out his fractions.

  Later, though, my mind drifted back to Rashad, and I totally blew dinner. It should have been simple. I’d made mac and cheese with tuna, peas, and hot sauce more times than I could count, but I overcooked the pasta and there was way too much hot sauce. Willy fanned his mouth after the first bite.

  “Ahhh,” he said. “Are you trying to kill me?”

  I improvised by shredding some extra cheddar cheese into our bowls, and guiltily, I felt glad that he had his headphones on—though Ma would have killed him for that stunt at the dinner table—because my thoughts would not let up. Now I was thinking about how, if I wanted to, I could walk away and not think about Rashad, in a way that English or Shannon or Tooms or any of the guys at school who were not white could not. Even if they didn’t know Rashad, even if, for some reason, they hated Rashad, they couldn’t just ignore what happened to him; they couldn’t walk away. They were probably afraid, too. Afraid of people like Paul. Afraid of cops in general. Hell, they were probably afraid of people like me. I didn’t blame them. I’d be afraid too, even if I was a frigging house like Tooms. But I didn’t have to be because my shield was that I was white. It didn’t matter that I knew Paul. I could be all the way across the country in California and I’d still be white, cops and everyone else would still see me as just a “regular kid,” an “All-American” boy. “Regular.” “All American.” White. Fuck.

  But then, after dinner, as I was helping Willy with the last of his math homework, I realized something worse: It wasn’t only that I could walk away—I already had walked away. Well, I was sick of it. I was sick of being a dick. Not watching the damn video was walking away too, and I needed to watch it.

  I borrowed Willy’s headphones, plugged them into my phone, loaded up YouTube, and I watched it right there at the kitchen table. It was the shaky video taken from across the street at Jerry’s and I was immediately back at Friday night, watching it happen all over again. There were two other videos too. I watched Rashad’s body twisting on the concrete sidewalk. The video was taken from too far away. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, I couldn’t hear Paul. I heard the noise of the street just as I’d heard it that night, and I felt a zip line of fear rip right into the pit of my stomach. On Friday I’d been down the street, watching. But there, at the Formica table, I had a front-row seat. Close to Rashad and Paul. I could almost see myself hovering just beyond the frame of the shot. I texted Jill and told her how bizarre it was to see it.

  TUESDAY 9:43 p.m. from Jill

  FINALLY. NOW EVRYBDYS SEEN IT

  We went back and forth a few times, and then I just got fed up.

  TUESDAY 9:55 p.m. to Jill

  HEY. CAN YOU TALK?

  TUESDAY 9:56 p.m. from Jill

  WHA?

  TUESDAY 9:56 p.m. to Jill

  NO. I MEAN IT. ON THE PHONE. TALK?

  TUESDAY 9:57 p.m. from Jill

  WHATEVER

  TUESDAY 9:57 p.m. to Jill

  LIKE, I NEED TO TALK.

  She buzzed a second later, and I got up, slid the headphones across the table to Willy, and left the kitchen. We said our hellos and all that as I walked into the living room.

  “I feel so gross,” I said. “I keep telling myself it isn’t my problem. But it is. It is my problem. I just don’t know what to do.”

  “Yeah, but it isn’t only your problem. It’s everyone’s problem.”

  “But I still don’t know what to do. Like, tell the police?”

  She paused, and I heard her breathe. “Maybe.”

  “Jesus.” Telling the police meant telling Paul’s friends. Meant Paul’s friends telling him what I was doing.

  “But everyone’s seen it, Quinn. It’s all our problem. But what is that problem?” Then it was my turn to be quiet, and I shuffled over to the couch and sat down. “What is it?” Her voice rose. “Excessive violence?”

  “I don’t know. Unnecessary beating. Uh . . . shit, police brutality?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And, you know. The way it’s all working out. It’s more.”

  “Like who was sitting where at lunch?”

  I looked at the carpet between my feet. “Yeah.”

  “And whose lockers they looked in first for spray paint cans?”

  “Yeah. Shit, really? That happened?”

  “That’s what I saw. Three black students, boys, in a row. Then Martinez. They skipped me!”

  “Fuck!” I let the air in my cheeks fill and then slowly blow out. “So yeah. Like all that.”

  “Like Paul’s white and Rashad’s black.”

  I just sat there staring at the door to the kitchen like a dumbass zombie trying to find some words.

  “Paul says he did what he did because he was protecting some white lady in the store,” Jill added.

  “What?”

  “Yeah. That’s what my mom says. But, uh, really?”

  “Seriously.”

  “You think it would have been the same if the lady wasn’t white, or if Rashad wasn’t black?”

  “Seriously.”

  “Seriously, what?”

  “Why is it taking me five minutes to say the word racism?”

  “Maybe you’re racist?”

  “Don’t joke. This is serious.”

  “I’m not.”

  “I’m not racist!”

  She hesitated, and I sat there, stinking in my own sweat, needing her to say something. Eventually she did.

  “Not like KKK racist,” she said. “I don’t think most people think they’re racist. But every time something like this happens, you could, like you said, say, ‘Not my problem.’ You could say, ‘It’s a one-time thing.’ Every time it happened.”

  I wanted to say something, but it was like my head just pounded and every word that came to mind just shook and fell back into my throat.

  “I think it’s all racism,” Jill said for me.

  “And if I don’t do something,” I finally mustered, “if I just stay silent, it’s just like saying it’s not my problem.”

  “Mr. Fisher spent our whole history class talking about it. If anybody wanted to talk about it more after school, he would. Me and Tiffany talked about it all day, so we went. There were a bunch of us there, and Fisher’s helping us figure out what to do.”

  “I wish I could have gone. But I had basketball. But I have to do something!”

  “Let’s see what other people are doing tomorrow.”

  We said our good-byes, and I sat there on the couch, staring into the ki
tchen looking at Willy. His head bent down so close to the paper he was scribbling his answers on, the red headphones like beacons on either side of his head—it was like he was buried deep within his own little world. I felt like I’d been doing the same damn thing the last couple days—trying to stare so hard at my own two feet so I wouldn’t have to look up and see what was really going on. And while I’d been doing that, I’d been walking in the wrong direction.

  I didn’t want to walk away anymore.

  As the story of sixteen-year-old West Springfield native Rashad Butler develops, the city seems to be split in terms of which side of the argument they fall on in this case. Was it about race? The abuse of power? Or was it just another case of a teenage criminal, caught red-handed? For those who are just joining us, we’ve been covering this story for a few days now. Last Friday, Butler was accused of shoplifting, public nuisance, and resisting arrest. The officer involved, Paul Galluzzo, is shown here forcibly removing Butler from Jerry’s Corner Mart. Butler seems to be cooperating with the officer, but as you can see, he is taken to the ground. Warning: The rest of the scene is a bit graphic. We were able to catch up with Claudia James, the person who actually shot this footage from her phone.”

  “It was just like y’all saw it. That boy was being manhandled, and he kept saying that he didn’t do nothing. He kept trying to explain. But the officer was just yelling, ‘Shut up! Shut up!’ And then slammed him. Then once he had him on the ground he started, like, punching and kneeing him in the back. He shoved his forearm on the back of the boy’s neck. It was crazy.”

  “But had he been handcuffed?”

  “Once he was on the ground, he was. I mean, how could he have been resisting?”

  “But not everyone shares Ms. James’s view. Some people feel that whatever it takes to clean up the community, so be it. Like Roger Stuckey.”

  “We don’t know what happened in that store, so I’m not gonna sit here and just say this kid is innocent. He might not be. I’m a cabdriver, and I work nights, and the truth is, if that kid was trying to hail me down, and it was dark outside, I would keep on going.”