This Is My America(41)

“Don’t play me. I can’t choose my family.”

Quincy tries to egg me on more but I’m back out, looking at the track. The team is finishing up, and I notice Scott is missing. He’s the one who told Chris about Jamal and Angela messing around. I need to work up a plan to talk to Scott. Maybe check his response, or even learn how Chris reacted to Scott’s news. I try to spot Dean, because he might be able to speak to them in a way I can’t.

Dean is packing up his things. I didn’t even think about him being here until now. As close as we are, he never talks about track with me since I quit. He didn’t get why I knelt during the anthem because I knew the coach wouldn’t let me get away with it. He didn’t get I don’t care if I had the clout to influence change. I wanted people talking about it, then maybe it would start a conversation. That didn’t work for Dean and me, so we just let it go. That meant letting go of talking about track, too. I hadn’t thought about how that’s an unspoken part of our friendship.



Dean waves at me, and I wave back. Normally I’d run to Dean, say what’s up, but Cuddy and Demarcus are now joining us, and they won’t talk in front of Dean. Quincy’s saddled up next to me, so Dean disappears down the breezeway.

“Yo.” Quincy goes in for fist bumps and side hugs with Cuddy, then Demarcus.

I stand back, waiting for the rest of the team to go into the lockers and get ready for school.

“Cuddy. Demarcus.” I give them a nod, handing out my Know Your Rights workshop flyer I’m running later tonight. This should warm them up and put their guard down.

“Yo. Heard from Jamal?” Cuddy runs a pick through his high-top fade and grooms the suspect beard he’s trying to grow. I’m immediately deflated at his question. I didn’t want his first response to be a question about whether I’d heard from Jamal. I want him avoiding talk about Jamal, so then I’d know that they’ve been in touch.

“You still doing these?” Demarcus looks at the flyer. “Are they any good? Seems like they’re not much help when it’s shoot now, ask questions later.”



“It’s mostly not like that, but you still gotta stay fresh on this stuff.”

“I’m always ready.” Cuddy towers over all of us.

I look away. I froze at the sight of the officer’s gun aimed at me at the Pike. I was able to keep my hands up high, out and in view. But I was terrified. Even armed with the knowledge about my rights, all that went out the window. I couldn’t replace the fear with my life on the line.

“What do you know about Jamal and Angela?” I ask.

“This why you out here so early?” Demarcus shakes his head.

“I caught them together, so it’s not like you’re telling me something I don’t know. I’m trying to clear my brother’s name. If the word is out about Angela and Jamal, that means Chris knows. You know I saw him at the police station the day after she was murdered, and he had a black eye.”

“I trust Tracy,” Quincy says. “Maybe not anything else but trying to free a Black man. Yeah, you can trust her.”

“Is that a compliment or…?” I try to say it with a straight face, but I feel my cheeks going red.

“Probably both,” Quincy says. “But for real, if you know something, you gotta say.”

“What about you? If anybody knows anything, it’d be with you,” Cuddy says.

Quincy shakes his head like he knows nothing, and I don’t give a clue, either. The less people who know we’ve been in touch with Jamal, the better.



“Chris’s black eye might not have had anything to do with Angela,” Cuddy says. “Scott and Chris got into a fight at lunch. I saw them down by the Pearl Coffee and Tea shop off East.”

“The same day Angela died?”

“I think so,” Cuddy says.

“Was Scott at practice the next morning?”

“Nah.” Demarcus sips his Gatorade. “He off the track team.”

“Why?” I’m shocked.

“Some shit he did. Coach kicked him off a few weeks ago. He’d been wanting to for a while because Scott was skipping practice, complaining about not being in the four hundred when Todd was out,” Cuddy says. “No loss. He was always trying to train without us.”

The ten-minute-warning bell rings.

“We still gotta shower.” Demarcus nudges Cuddy.

“All right,” I say. “If you think of something, let me know.”

They nod and leave me and Quincy trailing behind.

“They probably don’t know nothing,” Quincy says. “You know how Jamal was. After your dad, it’s hard to get close. If he had something he wanted to share, I’m guessing it’d be with me.”

I nod. It’s true, but I was hoping it wouldn’t be.

Walking into school with Quincy, I can’t help but smile. It feels like we’ve reset our friendship to where we left off years ago.



Dean and Tasha wait by my locker.

“Hey,” I say.

“You’re back,” Tasha says. “Heard you ditched yesterday.”

I see Dean look at me, then Quincy.

“Mom tell you?” I ask Tasha.

“Yeah. You know she’s gonna call me first, but maybe I should tell her to call Quincy next time.” Her response is soft but flat.