The Hate U Give(47)

“Yeah. They pulled them out their patrol car and stomped them. Gray Boys.”

The code name for King Lords. Damn.

“I heard what happened at y’all school,” Daddy says. “Everything cool?”

“Yeah.” I give the easy answer. “We’re good.”

Mr. Lewis adjusts his clothes and runs a hand over his Afro. The reporter says something, and he lets out a belly-jiggling laugh.

“What this fool ’bout to say?” Daddy wonders.

“We go live in five,” says the camera operator, and all I can think is, Please don’t put Mr. Lewis on live TV. “Four, three, two, one.”

“That’s right, Joe,” the reporter says. “I’m here with Mr. Cedric Lewis Jr., who witnessed the incident involving the officers today. Can you tell us what you saw, Mr. Lewis?”

“He ain’t witness nothing,” Daddy tells us. “Was in his shop the whole time. I told him what happened!”

“I sholl can,” Mr. Lewis says. “Them boys pulled those officers out their car. They weren’t doing nothing either. Just sitting there and got beat like dogs. Ridiculous! You hear me? Re-damn-diculous!”

Somebody’s gonna turn Mr. Lewis into a meme. He’s making a fool out of himself and doesn’t even know it.

“Do you think that it was retaliation for the Khalil Harris case?” the reporter asks.

“I sholl do! Which is stupid. These thugs been terrorizing Garden Heights for years, how they gon’ get mad now? What, ’cause they didn’t kill him themselves? The president and all’a them searching for terrorists, but I’ll name one right now they can come get.”

“Don’t do it, Mr. Lewis,” Daddy prays. “Don’t do it.”

Of course, he does. “His name King, and he live right here in Garden Heights. Probably the biggest drug dealer in the city. He over that King Lords gang. Come get him if you wanna get somebody. Wasn’t nobody but his boys who did that to them cops anyway. We sick of this! Somebody march ’bout that!”

Daddy covers Sekani’s ears. Every cuss word that follows equals a dollar in Sekani’s jar if he hears it. “Shit,” Daddy hisses. “Shit, shit, shit. This motha—”

“He snitched,” says Seven.

“On live TV,” I add.

Daddy keeps saying, “Shit, shit, shit.”

“Do you think that the curfew the mayor announced today will prevent incidents like this?” the reporter asks Mr. Lewis.

I look at Daddy. “What curfew?”

He takes his hands off Sekani’s ears. “Every business in Garden Heights gotta close by nine. And nobody can be in the streets after ten. Lights out, like in prison.”

“So you’ll be home tonight, Daddy?” Sekani asks.

Daddy smiles and pulls him closer. “Yeah, man. After you do your homework, I can show you a thang or two on Madden.”

The reporter wraps up her interview. Daddy waits until she and the camera operator leave and then goes over to Mr. Lewis. “You crazy?” he asks.

“What? ’Cause I told the truth?” Mr. Lewis says.

“Man, you can’t be going on live TV, snitching like that. You a dead man walking, you know that, right?”

“I ain’t scared of that nigga!” Mr. Lewis says real loud, for everybody to hear. “You scared of him?”

“Nah, but I know how the game work.”

“I’m too old for games! You oughta be too!”

“Mr. Lewis, listen—”

“Nah, you listen here, boy. I fought a war, came back, and fought one here. See this?” He lifts up his pants leg, revealing a plaid sock over a prosthetic. “Lost it in the war. This right here.” He lifts his shirt to his underarm. There’s a thin pink scar stretching from his back to his swollen belly. “Got it after some white boys cut me ’cause I drank from their fountain.” He lets his shirt fall down. “I done faced a whole lot worse than some so-called King. Ain’t nothing he can do but kill me, and if that’s how I gotta go for speaking the truth, that’s how I gotta go.”

“You don’t get it,” Daddy says.

“Yeah I do. Hell, I get you. Walking around here, claiming you ain’t a gangster no more, claiming you trying to change stuff, but still following all’a that ‘don’t snitch’ mess. And you teaching them kids the same thing, ain’t you? King still controlling your dumb ass, and you too stupid to realize it.”

“Stupid? How you gon’ call me stupid when you the one snitching on live TV!”

A familiar whoop-whoop sound alarms us.

Oh God.

The patrol car with flashing lights cruises down the street. It stops next to Daddy and Mr. Lewis.

Two officers get out. One black, one white. Their hands linger too close to the guns at their waists.

No, no, no.

“We got a problem here?” the black one asks, looking squarely at Daddy. He’s bald just like Daddy, but older, taller, bigger.

“No, sir, officer,” Daddy says. His hands that were once in his jeans pockets are visible at his sides.

“You sure about that?” the younger white one asks. “It didn’t seem that way to us.”

“We were just talking, officers,” Mr. Lewis says, much softer than he was minutes ago. His hands are at his sides too. His parents must’ve had the talk with him when he was twelve.