The Black Kids(36)

“How’s Uncle Ronnie doing?” I say.

“He’s all right… he’s doing Ronnie.” My father sighs. “You know how he is.”

I don’t, not really, but I nod anyway.

The fighting continues. President Bush comes on screen and tells everybody that anarchy will not be allowed.

Next, we watch footage of a bunch of Koreans firing guns at the looters.

“Good for them,” my dad says. My dad is a man who values order. He and Lucia talk in rapid-fire Spanish about the rioting, and my mom stands there trying to figure out what the hell they’re saying. I could translate for her, but I don’t.

Latinos are out there rioting and looting, too—this is what Dad and Lucia are talking about. Her friend’s son came back with a big television, and her friend beat the crap out of him for doing it but kept the new TV, Lucia tells my father, and they laugh.

On television, the people cluster in ant mounds around storefronts. There’s almost a collaborative effort in it, the passing of goods between friends and neighbors, until the police come and everyone scatters. I look carefully at the screen for my sister.

“Have you spoken to Jo?” I ask.

“She’s letting all my calls go to her answering machine.” My mother’s hand shakes a little as she sips from her wineglass.

“I spoke to her,” I offer.

“What’d she say?”

That she’s fomenting rebellion.

“She’s okay,” I say.

“Good,” my mother says, and leaves it at that, even though I know she’s worried sick.

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 as hell. Even to me. And I’m not burning anything here in my living room overlooking the ocean.

On another channel, they show everyone in line at this gun store in the South Bay; people like us who don’t live anywhere near South Central. California’s gun rules mean that not any old person can go out and get a gun and ammunition whenever they feel like it, so some of the people on TV are mad. Besides, the only guns left are antiques, like World War II–surplus rifles.

I think about the Parkers on their lawn, lying in wait for something or someone that Mr. Katz says isn’t coming. The only gun we have in our house is a pellet gun. My father said he bought it in case of mountain lions. Sometimes they crawl through the hills and into backyards, where they eat people’s precious pets.

Once Jo had to take care of the class hamster, Giggles, and left her outside to get some fresh air.

“Be free!” Jo said, and left her to wander around the backyard, and Giggles got so free she disappeared. After Giggles may or may not have gotten eaten, my father decided to get the pellet gun. For our safety, he said, and he and my mother have been arguing over it ever since.

My mother and my father argued over the gun yet again last night. But this time it felt different.

“It’s more dangerous to have that gun out to all of us than it is to anyone or anything that might be out there.”

“It’s a pellet gun,” my father said.

“Somebody could lose an eye.”

“The kids made it all the way to adulthood and didn’t neither of them shoot the other one’s eye out,” he said.

“Technically I’m not an adult,” I said. “It could still happen.”

“Be quiet, Ashley.”

“How many times have I told you I don’t want that thing in my house?” my mother said.

This morning, my father took it out and placed it by the front door.

“Just in case,” he said.

My mother said nothing and walked away.



* * *




I leave the television to go upstairs and call Jo from the roof. The air tastes faintly of char, even all the way over here. On the news, they were telling everyone to stay inside. The National Guard has even shut down the beaches as a precaution. The beaches!

I enter Jo’s number into the pink phone.

“Hello, this is Jo… and Harrison! Leave a message… or don’t.”

“Yo. It’s your sister. Pick up. I just want to know that you’re safe.… Don’t be an asshole,” I say into the phone.

I linger, hoping that Jo will finally answer, but she doesn’t.

Before I can crawl back inside, the phone rings.

“Jo?”

“What? No. It’s me,” Courtney says.

“I haven’t done the homework yet,” I say.

“I don’t only call you for homework!”

“Yeah. Kinda. Now, anyways. Not before, maybe.”

“I’m sorry. It’s… this shit’s, like, really hard for me,” Courtney says. “Like, harder than I think it’s supposed to be… I can barely make it through high school. If I’m this stupid, how the hell am I supposed to make it through college?”

She sounds genuinely afraid.

“You’re not stupid, Court. Nobody’s gonna ask you about trinomials after this.”

“It’s not just math. It’s everything.” She sighs.

“College is different. They’ll let you major in watching and writing about movies and TV and shit if you want! Plus, there’s more to life than being smart.”