All American Boys Read online

  “How were you planning on carrying this all out there on your own, anyway?” she asked.

  I had two giant slices and two Cokes by the necks of the bottles; she had two slices and a Coke. “Guess I was just waiting for you,” I said.

  She frowned, but in a cute way, like it was really a smile. “Oh, yeah. I bet you were.”

  Willy had managed to save two seats, but when he saw us, he got up and offered Jill his. “Please,” he said. She tried to protest, but he wouldn’t let her. He stood at the end of the picnic table and glanced back and forth at us while he shoved pizza into his face.

  “One of us is what you’d call a gentleman,” he informed us.

  “He’s hilarious,” Jill said to me. Now what kind of world did I live in where my twelve-year-old brother was the cooler flirt than me?

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m supposed to be his role model. But maybe it’s the other way around.”

  “Nah,” she said. “I bet he learned all this from someone. But this someone needs to sit down today, huh?”

  “I’m old and broken. He’s got his whole life ahead of him.”

  “Yeah,” Jill said. “And you’re hungover, right?”

  “I knew it!” Willy yelped. “I knew you were going to a party last night.”

  “Oops,” Jill said.

  I pointed at Willy. “Between us. Got me?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Willy said. “Until I need the ammo.”

  “Willy—”

  “Will, please.”

  Jill laughed. She put her hand on Willy’s wrist, and his face changed. His whole body probably blushed as deep red as his face. He gave her the dopiest smile. Had I looked like that when she’d asked me to get her a slice? Jesus. But Jill didn’t mind. “Will,” she said. “Don’t get him in trouble, because then it will be my fault, and he’ll never speak to me again.”

  I stared at Will, and he knew exactly what I was saying with my eyebrows: Don’t fuck this up, dude.

  “Whatever,” Willy said. “I’m only kidding.”

  Willy and I shared the extra slice as Jill and I talked about the party. I tried to get a sense of whether or not she and English had hooked up, but I wasn’t going to ask outright because it really was none of my damn business. She was being super flirty, but not in the way I wanted her to mean it. This had happened before. Sometimes I got the feeling she thought of me more as a brother, but no dude wants to be thought of as a brother when he is sitting across from a girl who is not his sister and who makes his stomach flip when she says his name.

  While we were talking, though, things were getting a little heated over by the corner. A couple of guys had walked up to two other guys in line and started barking. They kept at it to the point where the rest of us outside couldn’t even hear ourselves. People started yelling around them, and when one of the guys pushed one of the guys in line, they broke into punches. I jumped up and stuffed Willy into the seat behind me. People yanked out their phones, calling the cops, but somebody must have called the cops already, because the berry lights flashed down the block. The guys in the fight tried to swing a few more punches, but people in the crowd had pulled them apart and locked them in arm holds. One cop car pulled up and then another and everything happened so quickly, we all just stood around watching like dumb idiots until the cops had grabbed the four guys who’d been fighting, pinned them to the hoods of the two cars, and cuffed them.

  I, of course, was back at the night before, when I’d seen Paul arrest the kid outside Jerry’s. But this was different. Another cop car pulled up and then another, then all eight cops started asking the crowd to disperse, only holding a few people back to ask questions. This kind of thing happened all the time at Mother’s; it sat right between neighborhoods, and kids from one block might beef with kids from another or some other shit, and while I tried to stay out of it, it was impossible not to watch it explode right in front of you.

  The crowd outside Mother’s was white, black, Latino, Asian, just like Springfield. The four guys being cuffed were white. The cops, almost all of them were white, but two of them were black. It was impossible not to think about this as Paul slamming that black kid into the sidewalk the night before replayed in my mind. It wasn’t like watching one of my brother’s video games or a movie. You hear bone. You see real blood. And you taste the rust of it and it makes you sick.

  I broke into a sweat like I might puke. I turned to Willy and Jill. “Should we get out of here?” More people began to shout at the cops from the crowd. I was done with this. “We’ll walk you home,” I told Jill.

  We busted back down the street away from the scene and took the long way around the neighborhood to Jill’s house. I could tell Jill was as distracted as I was, as if we both had private conversations going on in the back of our minds, and we used Willy, sandwiched between us, as the focal point of conversation. But when we got to her house, she said over Willy’s head, “There’s a barbecue at my cousin’s tomorrow. You must be going.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Weird, right? The sudden party?” She looked at me, and I realized we might not have been having private conversations in our minds the whole way home. They might have been the same one.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I don’t know, but I think I have an idea what this is about.”

  “Me too,” she said.

  As she jogged up her front steps, something ugly and awful was forming in my mind, but I couldn’t quite find the right words for it—or I didn’t want to. I wasn’t sure.

  Sunday

  Sunday. I slept late and woke up to an empty room. Silence. No one. So nice.

  Sunday TV is just as bad as Saturday TV, so I left it off and laid there in the cold space, staring at the wall, thinking about everything.

  I was supposed to have been at Jill’s party on Friday. Me, English, Shannon, and Carlos—three-piece and fries. I was supposed to be all up on Tiffany Watts, giving her the business because even though I was soldier-boy when I was in school, everybody knew I was nice with the moves. Rhythm ain’t never been an issue for me. I was the kid Spoony made dance in front of his friends when we were younger. Show them the latest steps that I picked up from music videos. I owned the block party dance contests. So Jill’s party, like every party, was my time to two-step without it being a march. My time to be at ease, and let the soul seep back into this soldier. Damn shame I didn’t make it. Instead some big-ass cop decided to have a fist party on my face. Y’know, normal stuff. No biggie. I’m just a punk-ass kid. I have no rights. Just got body slammed for no reason. Just got my life threatened, while lying flat on the sidewalk. A broken nose, broken ribs, and a knee in the back is way more exciting than fine-ass girls checking for me (after they finished checking for English).

  Fuck.

  Knock, knock. The door opened and there was Clarissa pushing my lunch cart in.

  “Good afternoon, Rashad,” she said. She had one of those voices that no matter what, was nice. Like, it could never sound mean. You know how some people have those voices? Like kindergarten teachers or librarians? “How we feelin’?” she asked, and I was momentarily confused by the “we” she was referring to.

  “I’m fine,” I said, forcing a small smile.

  “Good. Make sure you try to get yourself up today. You can’t just lie there on your back. Also, I need you to blow into this, as hard as you can.” She held up a strange-looking plastic thing with a hose sticking out of it.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s called an incentive spirometer. Because of your ribs, you’re going to do everything you can to not cough. But you need to cough. You gotta make sure you’re getting all the nasty stuff out of your lungs, because if it all stays in, it might turn into pneumonia and we don’t want that.” Then she broke it all down to me as if I was a child, which I appreciated because I had never heard of a spirometer before. Luckily, it was a simpler process than the name suggests. All I had to do, a few times every hour, was breathe in through the tub
e slowly, hold it, and then breathe out.

  As she set the spirometer on the side table by my bed, she announced, “For lunch today we’ve got chicken tenders, and fries, and a small salad,” while setting the tray down. Then she went through the routine of checking my vitals. Blood pressure, and whatever else. Who ever really knows what all those machines and stuff are anyway? I just know the one they put on my arm is for my blood pressure, but who, besides old people, even knows what blood pressure is? Just make sure I ain’t dying, was what I was thinking as the cuff tightened around my arm.

  Once she left, I got myself up, which was way more painful than I thought it would be. Who the hell knew broken ribs could make everything hurt? Or maybe it was that everything I did made the broken ribs hurt. Seemed like even blinking was painful.

  I waddled slowly to the bathroom so I could handle my business—the post-sleep pee—which was interrupted by another knock at the door. This time, it was my family. Of course.

  “Rashad?” my mother called through a crack in the door before pushing it open. I had just flushed and washed my hands while performing the strange task of looking at my bruised and broken face, but only in glimpses. That’s all I could take. A few seconds at a time. Three seconds, then back to the sink. Then back to the mirror for three more seconds before darting my eyes over to the paper towels. Anything longer than that made me . . . uncomfortable. Anyway, I was making my way back to the bed when my mother and father came in dressed in their Sunday spiffs. Behind them, even more Sunday. As in, Sunday himself. As in, Jerome Johnson. As in, Pastor Jerome Johnson.

  “Son, Pastor’s here to see you,” my father said as I eased back into bed, flashing my ashy butt at everybody, including God.

  They brought the pastor? I sort of fell quickly onto the mattress and whipped my legs around until they were on the bed. Pathetic. My mother helped me adjust, fluffing the pillow behind my head and pulling the sheet over me, up to my chin, which was way too far. She kissed my forehead and stared at me as if she was trying to recognize the kid beneath the bruises and bandages. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, short. She nodded, then glanced at the food tray. She lifted the plate cover, the condensation dripping all over my chicken tenders. Damn. Soggy chicken tenders suck. “You haven’t eaten?”

  “It just got here. I just woke up.” I said in a take it easy tone.

  She kissed my forehead again, then leaned back so I could get a clear shot of my father, three-piece suited and shiny-shoed. And the minister, Pastor Johnson, dressed in an oversize suit, a gold chain with a gold cross lying perfectly in the middle of his fat satin tie. In his hand, the Bible. What else.

  “How you feelin’, Rashad?” the pastor asked. Everybody was asking that, as if I was ever going to tell them the truth. Nobody wanted to hear the truth, even though everybody already knew what it was. I felt . . . violated. That’s the only way I can put it. Straight-up violated. And now, to make it worse, I had to have church. Well, sorta church. I had to have prayer.

  Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t have a problem with a good prayer. I mean, I believe in God. At least I think I do. I just wondered where God was when I was being mopped by that cop. And I knew that’s what the pastor had come to tell me. That God was there. That God was always there. Which, to me, is the wrong thing to say, because if he or it or whatever was there and didn’t do nothing, then that would make God my enemy. Because he let it happen. I would much rather Pastor Johnson say that God wasn’t there. That he was busy. That he turned his back, just for a second, to check on somebody else, and that asshole officer snuck right by him and got me. But . . . nope.

  “Son, I just stopped by to tell you that God is with you. He’s always with you,” the pastor started, predictably. “And everything happens for a reason.”

  Reason? This felt like a good time for me to grab my spirometer, because I was in need of a deep breath. I mean, seriously, what reason could there have been for this? Let me guess, I was too good-lookin’ and needed an extra bump on my nose, a reminder that only English Jones runs the school?

  “Now we’re going to offer up a prayer for your healing, son, believing that God’s gon’ mend you,” the pastor said. “Let’s all bow our heads and look to the Lord.”

  My mother and father lowered their heads and closed their eyes. I didn’t do either. Kept mine open, and my head up, looking at the three of them, wondering if any of this mattered. I knew it mattered to them, my parents, and maybe that should’ve been enough for me to participate, but did it matter to me? I’m not so sure. The prayer was long and dramatic, full of the preachy punches in between each point. The pastor mentioned how Jesus was persecuted (heh) and Saul was made blind (heh) and Job was tested (heh) and David beat Goliath (heh). My mother followed right behind the pastor, accompanying his rhythmic prayer with hallelujah whispers, and my father’s manly but, I guess, godly grunts, all eventually—finally—leading to an amen.

  “Amen.” Spoony stood in the doorway, nodding his head, and clapping his hands, a sarcastic look on his face. Man, was I happy to see him. Ma was too. Dad, well, not so much.

  “Pastor, you remember my oldest son, Randolph,” he said, caught off guard.

  “Yes, yes, of course I do.” The pastor reached out and shook Spoony’s hand. “Ain’t seen you down at the church in a while.”

  “That’s ’cause I can’t afford to come.”

  “Spoony!” my mother gasped.

  “Sorry,” he said, shrugging and smirking at me.

  “No, no, that’s okay,” Pastor Johnson said kindly. “Nothing wrong with the boy having a mind of his own. God gave him that.” Spoony just looked at Dad like, See? “Well, listen, I better be going. But we’re gonna keep you lifted up in prayer, Rashad. And we’re going to add you to the blessing list for the sick and shut-in.”

  But I’m not sick or shut-in. I’m beat down. Is there a list for that? But I didn’t say that. I was hoping Spoony would do some kind of big brother ESP thing and say it for me.

  “Thank you so much for coming, Pastor,” my mother said, clenching Pastor Johnson’s hand. My dad gave him a firm shake and a tight-lipped nod, and the churchman headed out.

  Five seconds couldn’t have gone by before Spoony sat gingerly on the side of the bed and grabbed the remote.

  “Come on, man. It’s Sunday. Ain’t nothing on but reruns of what we just experienced,” I joked.

  “Oh, there’s something else on. Trust me,” Spoony said pointedly.

  “You know, you don’t always have to be so damn disrespectful!” Dad started in on Spoony with a bark, settling into a chair on the other side of the room. Cursing right after the pastor left, tsk, tsk, tsk.

  Spoony ignored him and turned the TV on. He nodded up to the screen. “Check it out.”

  I looked up at the glowing screen. And there it was. There I was. On the freakin’ news.

  “Again, this is footage that was taken from a smartphone Friday night, of a police officer shoving a young man through the door of Jerry’s Corner Mart on Fourth Street. As you can see, the officer already has the young man subdued. He doesn’t seem to be resisting, but is still slammed to the ground, where the officer proceeds with what looks to be unnecessary force. Jerry’s has experienced a string of robberies, but as of now we are uncertain as to whether or not this was another one of those cases. We attempted to contact Jerry’s management for a comment but to no avail. The Springfield PD has also declined making a statement at this time. What we do know is that the young man in this video is sixteen-year-old Rashad Butler of West Springfield. We’ll keep you updated as we learn more.”

  My mother’s mouth gaped. “What? I mean, how . . .”

  “Spoony, how’d they get my name?” I stared at the TV in disbelief.

  “I told you, li’l bruh, there are always witnesses. Berry kept checking online all night, YouTube, Facebook, everything, and eventually, the video surfaced. So we sent it to the news. Told them who you were.”


  At this, my dad lost it. “I mean, seriously, have you lost your damn mind? Are them things on your head affecting your thinking? Rashad doesn’t need this kind of attention, Spoony. He doesn’t need all this craziness. None of us do.”

  Spoony jumped to his feet. “You think me sending it to the news is crazy? The crazy part is what happened to ’Shad. What’s happening all over this country. You of all people should know that!”

  My father glared at Spoony and I mean he held it there, as if there was, in fact, some kind of father-son ESP thing, and he was beaming the cuss-out of the century straight to my brother’s brain. Then, like he always did, Dad stormed out of the room, followed by Spoony throwing words at his back. “Yeah, run away, as usual.”

  “Spoony!” Ma shouted.

  My throat dried. My stomach boiled. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I mean, it was me, but it wasn’t. But . . . it was. I didn’t know how or what to feel. Like, how could I be that boy—a victim. Me. It was just . . . I don’t know . . . surreal. But we kept watching as the story looped. Sunday, aside from being a wack TV show day, is also apparently a slow news day. Every few minutes, the footage of me being crushed under the weight of the cop played, the newsperson talking about the “string of robberies” and not being able to get a comment from Jerry’s management or the police department. Then a picture of me dressed in my ROTC uniform flashed across the screen.

  I glared at Spoony. “Where’d they get that?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Man, listen, I had to make sure we controlled as much of the narrative as possible. If I ain’t send that photo in, they would’ve dug all through the Internet for some picture of you looking crazy,” Spoony said. “Trust me, man. I’ve seen it time and time again.”