The walls in our house didn’t have MoMo sucks dick sprayed on it, and there were no gang stars. No writing, just pictures of family, and a Jesus clock. You didn’t smell pee or weed when you walked in the door, just potpourri and maybe some fried chicken. We weren’t pretending that we didn’t live around crack addicts, or that people didn’t get beat up and shot just floors below us in the playground. We kept all of this in the back of our minds as we walked around our apartment, drinking hot chocolate with marshmallows and playing Sorry or UNO.
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I stayed in the bed for a minute after I heard the banging, scared of who might be on the other side. Our wooden door rattled against the its frame. I didn’t want to get up, but when mama rushed past my door in her robe, I hopped out of bed and ran after her. Meechie, who sleeps like a drunk, didn’t get up and follow me. When mama yelled “Who is it?” we heard someone say “Puh-leece.” She opened the door, and before she could ask “What seems to be the problem, officer,” they pushed past her, filing into our house fast and loud like the Red Line el. Some of them kept moving, turning the corner and going down the hall without permission. Mama yelled as she tried to follow them, thinking about her sleeping son. They were on her quick. “Ma’am, stay right there,” they said, stopping her like she can’t move around in her own home. Mama ignored him and moved again, but this time he grabbed her arm. I’m on him, quick. “Get off of my mama,” I said, kicking him in his shin, not really thinking.
I got this feeling like somebody had come bursting into the bathroom just as I’m stepping a foot out of the tub, wearing nothing but water. It was the middle of the night, and since I’d hopped out of the bed without dressing for company, I was standing in the kitchen in a T-shirt that barely covered my thighs.
“His” was the word that sent them zooming to the back of the apartment. Mama tried to follow, thinking about her son. One officer said, “Ma’am, stay right there,”
His face was hard, and his mouth, the one that impersonated Archie Bunker and Fred Sanford and kissed mama before school was twisted up and mad. They had even handcuffed him. “Where you taking my son?” mama asked, tears in her voice and eyes.
