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“Noah, look at what that girl's got on,” she said, jutting her jaw towards a corner table.

There were some white girls sitting there, and one of them was wearing a T-shirt that read FREE SPENELLI!

“I feel like tearin' the shirt right off that snow bitch,” growled Deshawna.

But I wouldn't let her. And I got us out of there quick before she started something, or somebody recognized me.

“What's with you, Noah?” she asked. “I know you ain't scared of those girls.”

“I seen enough drama lately,” I answered. “And we don't need them calling the cops on
us
now.”

I took Deshawna home, and her dad watched me tight all the time I was there.

When I got back to my place, my father was sitting in his chair reading the newspaper.

“Looks like the city's gonna let the detective's son—that Rao kid—walk for testifying,” said Dad, scowling.

Only it felt more like a swipe at me, like I was supposed to do something about it. So I didn't even tell him about the T-shirt, before I took the blame for that, too.

I knew part of that anger from him was about me planning to steal that car.

“It's just a big game to them,” I said, heading for my room.

“But it's about
our
lives—what
we're
worth in this city that's hanging in the balance,” I heard him say from behind me.

I was already feeling a ton of pressure and I didn't even think about saying something back.

There was a night-light on in my room, by Destiny Love's crib. The light was in the shape of a black angel with wings blowing a horn.

I kissed my daughter on her forehead while she was sleeping. Then I wrapped my hands around the wooden bars of her crib, watching her chest rise up and down, breathing peaceful.

It was just after midnight, and I set the clock-radio alarm on low for 6:00 A.M., to make the breakfast shift at those damn golden arches. My head hit the pillow and I was out cold. But at 3:31, Destiny Love shook me out of my sleep when she started crying for her bottle. Only that formula wasn't enough. She needed me to hold her, too. And every time I put Destiny Love back down, she screamed like the whole world was coming to an end.

I tried to leave her be. But I couldn't.

“Noah?” Mom called out. “You taking care of that?”

“Right away,” I answered.

Whenever Mom got woke by Destiny Love in the middle of the night, she'd say things like, “Now if I wanted more children I'd have had them myself,” or “I thought I'd get a longer break in between being a mother and a grandmother.”

I had to walk the floor with Destiny Love on my shoulder for almost forty minutes, looking at the clock and trying to figure out how much more sleep I could get if I got back into bed that second.

Finally, Destiny Love fell asleep. Then I laid her down in her crib and went back to bed.

Less than two hours later, I woke up to the alarm, half dazed.

I left Destiny Love sleeping and the door to my room wide open so Mom or Grandma could hear if she needed anything.

But I'd got dressed in the dark and didn't realize I put on a regular T-shirt and not a blue uniform shirt till I'd closed our apartment door behind me and was halfway down the stairs.

Chapter
FIVE

THE WEDNESDAY AFTER LABOR DAY, SCHOOL started up, and there were kids from Hillsboro wearing that FREE SPENELLI! T-shirt. Not a lot of them, but enough so I couldn't miss it. I started wondering which other white kids thought the exact same way but didn't have the guts to wear that shirt to school, or their parents wouldn't let them.

Some kids from Hillsboro were just the opposite and even told me things like,
It's wrong what happened to you. I'm ashamed the way some people from my neighborhood act. We don't all think like that, Noah.

I believed them, all right. But I wasn't sure how many of those kids would really have my back if the shit ever hit the fan in front of them.

Maybe they'd just take the easy way out, closing their doors and disappearing on me, knowing they'd have to face their racist neighbors every day after that.

That's the way Carver High was. Everybody seemed to play the lines already painted out for them. And few kids ever crossed them.

My social-studies teacher was a light-skinned black dude named Mr. Dowling. All I knew about him was that some black kids called Dowling an “Oreo cookie”—black on the outside and white on the inside—because they said he played every racial thing at Carver down the middle and never really leaned over to
our
side much.

I began to feel that way, too, when I complained to him about those T-shirts after class.

“Remember, I'm supposed to be a teacher to
all
the students here,” he said. “I don't agree with those stupid shirts. But it's free speech. So you better get used to it and stay focused, Noah. Anyway, I shouldn't discourage my students from taking a political interest in anything.”

But maybe Dowling went home and took a long look in the mirror. Because when three white kids showed up to class wearing those shirts the next day, Dowling changed their seats. He moved every one of them to the back row and made me sit up front.

“Just because you're exercising your constitutional rights, that doesn't mean Mr. Jackson should have to look at you all period long,” he told them.

Those kids complained about it like anything, saying Dowling only did it because he was black, and that it was “reverse discrimination.”

“I'll tell you what,” Dowling answered. “I'll move any black students wearing that same shirt to the back row, too.”

That put an end to all the arguing, right there.

I was making up eleventh- and twelfth-grade physical education, after failing them both for being unprepared—coming to class without my gym clothes ten or fifteen times during those semesters, because I was lazy and thickheaded. So I had Mr. Hendricks, who'd already failed me once before, for a double period every day. And I almost couldn't believe it when he gave students the okay to wear that FREE SPENELLI! shirt in place of the gold Carver High gym top, after a Hillsboro kid had asked him.

“I don't care what kind of T-shirt anybody wears as long as it's clean. That's my new policy,” said Hendricks, who'd lived in Hillsboro all his life. “I don't find this one offensive. That's just what some people in my community think. It's an opinion. A few states down South still fly the Confederate flag over their capitol building.”

I would have called Hendricks a racist to his face, but I needed to graduate on time.

There were nearly one hundred and twenty kids in those two gym classes combined, and one of them turned out to be Charlie Scat's cousin, Spanky.

Spanky was built short and squat, and his head sat square on his shoulders, like he didn't have any neck at all. Except for the extra weight that Scat carried, there wasn't much difference between them. And I could have picked those two out of a crowd as being related.

Hendricks had set up a batting cage in the corner of the gym and was pitching softballs underhand to kids. Everybody had to take six swings apiece.

He'd made me and Bonds go into the closet and drag out two big canvas bags. When I heard the bats rattling inside of them, I tensed up supertight.

“I'll take ten of you over here at a time, till everyone's had a chance to hit,” Hendricks announced.

When my group got called over, I stayed clear of every white kid with a bat in his hands taking practice swings.

I was supposed to hit next, and Bonds was waiting right behind me.

That's when Spanky crashed our group, grabbing a metal bat with the letters R-E-S-P-O-N-S-E across the barrel, just like the one I got jumped with.

But Hendricks never asked Spanky what he was doing, and he never told him to leave.

“Come on, Teach. Lay a few watermelons over the plate for me,” said Spanky, tapping the bottom of both his shoes with the bat.

Hendricks just smiled wide, lobbing one in.

Then, as he nailed the first pitch, Spanky said, “Jamel,” like he was cracking somebody's skull.

“Jammal,” he grunted as the next ball exploded off his bat.

Bonds got up closer behind me and I could feel his hot breath on my neck.

Hendricks let go of another pitch with an easy motion.

“Kareem of wheat,” said Spanky through the ping of the ball off the bat.

I squeezed the bat I was holding, thinking I could choke the life out of him.

He smacked another one, calling out, “Tyrone.”

“Tyree.” He grinned on the next.

Then Spanky smacked one last pitch, and said, “Tylenol—or whatever made-up medicine-chest names their mamas give 'em.”

I wanted to really thump his ass. So did every other black kid who was listening, I could tell.

“You're up next, Jackson!” barked Hendricks.

“Here, man. Try this one for size.” Spanky smirked, shoving the bat at me.

I wasn't about to back down from that bastard. So I dropped the bat I'd been holding. Then I grabbed the one from his hands, and could feel the heat in it.

“Show him, Noah,” said Bonds. “Show him how we play East Franklin cracker ball.”

Then some other kids from my hood started trash-talking, too.

I set myself at the plate and took a fierce practice swing.

I could feel my mouth go bone-dry as Hendricks pulled his arm back.

“You got nothin',” said Spanky, low.

Hendricks's pitch floated up high in front of me.

I set my feet and swung with all my might. But the pitch fell a half foot short of the plate. I hit nothing but air, and my arms wound up like a corkscrew with the bat nailing me hard in the back of the head.

For a few seconds, I saw stars. And when I started to stagger, Bonds rushed in to hold me up straight.

I heard Hendricks and Spanky laughing out loud.

“That's the way it's gonna go for you in court against my cousin, Jackson,” laughed Spanky. “A big swing and a miss.”

I changed my clothes in the locker room with every black face looking at me like I'd let them down. And that's exactly how I felt, with a headache that pounded nonstop for the next couple of days to remind me.

 

Two weeks later, I walked through our apartment door after school, and Mom had a serious look on her face. A grand jury had indicted Scaturro and Spenelli on hate-crime charges a few days before, but now the pressure was going to be building on me.

“The DA called today, Noah,” she said. “The trial date's set for three months from now, right around Christmas. But they say they need to start prepping you on all the questions you're gonna hear and the answers you need to give on the witness stand.”

“Oh, yeah?” I asked, my voice fading low. “What if those dudes just cop a plea?”