The Hate U Give(95)

“Are you up for this, Vante?” Chris asks.

DeVante straightens up. “Yeah. I got beat worse than this when I got initiated.”

“How’d they get you anyway?” I ask.

“Yeah. Uncle Carlos said you walked off,” says Seven. “That’s a long-ass walk.”

“Man,” DeVante groans in that DeVante way. “I wanted to visit Dalvin, a’ight? I took the bus to the cemetery. I hate that he by himself in the Garden. I didn’t want him to be lonely, if that make sense.”

I try not to think about Khalil being alone in Garden Heights, now that Ms. Rosalie and Cameron are going to New York with Ms. Tammy and I’m leaving too. “It makes sense.”

DeVante presses the towel against his nose and lip. The bleeding’s slacked up. “Before I could catch the bus back, King’s boys snatched me up. I thought I’d be dead by now. For real.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re not,” Chris says. “Gives me more time to beat you in Madden.”

DeVante smirks. “You a crazy-ass white boy if you think that’s gon’ happen.”

Cars are up and down Magnolia like it’s a Saturday morning and the dope boys are showing off. Music blasts, horns blare, people hang out car windows, stand on the hoods. The sidewalks are packed. It’s hazy out, and flames lick the sky in the distance.

I tell Seven to park at Just Us for Justice. The windows are boarded up and “Black owned” is spray-painted across them. Ms. Ofrah said they would be leading protests around the city if the grand jury didn’t indict.

We head down the sidewalk, just walking with no particular place to go. It’s more crowded than I realized. About half the neighborhood is out here. I throw my hoodie over my hair and keep my head down. No matter what that grand jury decided, I’m still “Starr who was with Khalil,” and I don’t wanna be seen tonight. Just heard.

A couple of folks glance at Chris with that “what the hell is this white boy doing out here” look. He stuffs his hands in his pockets.

“Guess I’m noticeable, huh?” he says.

“You’re sure you wanna be out here?” I ask.

“This is kinda how it is for you and Seven at Williamson, right?”

“A lot like that,” Seven says.

“Then I can deal.”

The crowds are too thick. We climb on top of a bus stop bench to get a better view of everything going on. King Lords in gray bandanas and Garden Disciples in green bandanas stand on a police car in the middle of the street, chanting, “Justice for Khalil!” People gathered around the car record the scene with their phones and throw rocks at the windows.

“Fuck that cop, bruh,” a guy says, gripping a baseball bat. “Killed him over nothing!”

He slams the bat into the driver’s side window, shattering the glass.

It’s on.

The King Lords and GDs stomp out the front window. Then somebody yells, “Flip that mothafucka!”

The gangbangers jump off. People line up on one side of the car. I stare at the lights on the top, remembering the ones that flashed behind me and Khalil, and watch them disappear as they flip the car onto its back.

Someone shouts, “Watch out!”

A Molotov cocktail sails toward the car. Then—whoompf! It bursts into flames.

The crowd cheers.

People say misery loves company, but I think it’s like that with anger too. I’m not the only one pissed—everyone around me is. They didn’t have to be sitting in the passenger’s seat when it happened. My anger is theirs, and theirs is mine.

A car stereo loudly plays a record-scratching sound, then Ice Cube says, “Fuck the police, coming straight from the underground. A young nigga got it bad ’cause I’m brown.”

You’d think it was a concert the way people react, rapping along and jumping to the beat. DeVante and Seven yell out the lyrics. Chris nods along and mumbles the words. He goes silent every time Cube says “nigga.” As he should.

When that hook hits, a collective “Fuck the police” thunders off Magnolia Avenue, probably loud enough to reach the heavens.

I yell it out too. Part of me is like, “What about Uncle Carlos the cop?” But this isn’t about him or his coworkers who do their jobs right. This is about One-Fifteen, those detectives with their bullshit questions, and those cops who made Daddy lie on the ground. Fuck them.

Glass shatters. I stop rapping.

A block away, people throw rocks and garbage cans at the windows of the McDonald’s and the drugstore next to it.

One time I had a really bad asthma attack that put me in the emergency room. My parents and I didn’t leave the hospital until like three in the morning, and we were starving by then. Momma and I grabbed hamburgers at that McDonald’s and ate while Daddy got my prescription from the pharmacy.

The glass doors at the drugstore shatter completely. People rush in and eventually come back out with arms full of stuff.

“Stop!” I yell, and others say the same, but looters continue to run in. A glow of orange bursts inside, and all those people rush out.

“Holy shit,” Chris says.

In no time the building is in flames.

“Hell yeah!” says DeVante. “Burn that bitch down!”

I remember the look on Daddy’s face the day Mr. Wyatt handed him the keys to the grocery store; Mr. Reuben and all those pictures on his walls, showing years and years of a legacy he’s built; Ms. Yvette walking into her shop every morning, yawning; even pain-in-the-ass Mr. Lewis with his top-of-the-line haircuts.