LESSON 1.1
Violence Is Not the Answer. But It Is an Answer.
I didn’t make it through the first month of 11th grade.
I heard Ma’s voice in my head saying mind your business … but everything happened so fast. Tracy had been talkin’ cash shit since the end of summer, after I stopped him from picking on LJ. Imagine Tracy, about to be in 12th grade, bullying a rising 9th grader. Like, for real?
The whole thing didn’t last that long. It wasn’t like fights in the movies. Honestly, the movies always get it wrong. Real fights last, like, thirty seconds—a minute, tops. That’s more than enough time for somebody to make a wrong move and get knocked out. Real fights take everything you’ve got. All the energy you could ever gather. All the strength, fear, hatred. Every single second is life-or-death.
And then, nothing.
Your body is done. Completely shut down. By the end, you’re either a champion or some dude who has to watch his back forever. Because everybody was there. Everybody saw. And everybody knows you can’t handle yourself.
“Yeah, li’l bitch! You thought I forgot?”
Tracy rushed me and pushed me up against the lockers, holding me by my shirt. His hands were rough and calloused, probably from football workouts. His grip was strong. I could feel the metal cutting through the back of my shirt and pressing into my skin as I writhed against the locker. He tried to choke me, but before he could get a good grasp on my neck, I put my knee in his stomach. He stumbled backward, and I shoulder-rammed him into the lockers on the other side of the hall. I connected on a right hook to Tracy’s jaw, but it was like he didn’t even feel it.
Would you believe he grinned at me after I hit him? I swear I saw it.
Tracy pushed me across the hallway and we squared off. This was it. He barreled toward me again, like he wanted to grapple and overpower me. What Tracy didn’t know, though, was that I used to be small, same as my pops. He hadn’t taught me much over the years, but he for sure taught me all about how to get to it, especially with big dudes.
“The bigger they are,” he would say.
“The harder they fall,” I would reply with my tiny palm up against the glass barrier, his on the other side, during our visits. It had been so long since we’d had one. I remembered the maneuvers. Pops would shadowbox, demonstrating the moves for me. I’d never forget him saying that when you’re smaller, trouble finds you, because people think they can get the best of you.
And that’s the exact sort of trouble I was in with Tracy.
I sidestepped the 12th grade Hulk Hogan, and he lost his footing. That’s all I needed. I leaned into the hardest uppercut I’d ever thrown—I mean, put my entire back and shoulder into it. Caught him square under his chin and flattened him out. A chorus of “Oooooh!” and “Daaaamn!” erupted around us.
What’s a fight without an audience in a circle?
Tracy hit the ground and I jumped on top of him with full fury. Right. Left. Right, left, right, right, right, right, until his eyes glazed over and blood streamed from his nose and lip. A wet-floor CAUTION sign was nearby—the plastic kind that folds up. I grabbed it and smashed it into Tracy’s face while he lay on his back. The crowd gradually hushed into silence, the echo of the plastic smacking against Tracy’s body the only sound in the hallway. I swung the sign down on him over and over again, until I lost feeling in my arms. I dropped to my knees and panted, chasing my breath, and looked down at Tracy’s glassy eyes. I watched the slow heave of his chest. Big man, huh? Tough guy. Thought he could do whatever to whoever and never have it bite him back.
But what’s up now?
* * *
I sat in the splintered wooden chair with the stale upholstery, holding an ice pack against my face. Principal McGuire’s door opened behind me, welcoming in the sound of her quickly shuffling feet and another set of clunky, determined steps that I’d know anywhere, from a mile away.
Tameka, my ma, sat down in the other musty seat next to me. Principal McGuire skittered around her desk and plopped down in an office chair much too big for her. I shifted the ice pack over the bruise near my eye, wondering how often our principal got mistaken for a student at Central High School. Or maybe even Central Middle School.
My ma glared at me. You know that mom look. She hadn’t had to come up to school to see about me since I was in, like, 3rd grade, when I took another kid’s snack and ate it. Things had been pretty mild with my permanent record since then. But even I had to acknowledge the severity of my school crimes after hearing the blaring sound of the ambulance rushing Tracy off to the emergency room.
It was worth it.
“Let’s cut right to the chase,” said Principal McGuire, sounding like a mouse trapped inside a human body. “Why did you do this, Xavier? You’ve never done anything like this before. And definitely nothing so … violent. How did we get here?”
Tameka twisted around in her chair to face me, crossing her legs. Her skin was deep brown, smooth and soft. Not like my splotchy beige complexion. Tan in the summer if I was lucky. She stared at me with narrow eyes and a puckered mouth, just waiting to rip my logic to shreds. That’s my ma. It wasn’t going to matter what I said. She had already decided I was wrong. You’re so stupid, Zay. You’re making bad decisions. You’re going to ruin your life. I got annoyed just imagining having to listen to the same old speech again.
I thought about explaining to Principal McGuire that Tracy had been bullying LJ, a new freshman at Central High, the whole summer since he finished 8th grade. LJ’s brother and some other Central grads had gotten in big trouble for an armed robbery not far from our neighborhood. For all we knew, he was gone and not coming back. Serious jail time. And LJ really loved his brother—he was taking it pretty hard.
All the kids on our street watched him go from this goofy, fun kid to being mopey and depressed all the time. Sometimes we’d catch him crying for no reason at all. Most of us tried to pretend we didn’t see it, but not Tracy. He picked on LJ constantly. He even talked shit about him when he wasn’t around. Tracy and I did six weeks of summer school together (I had missed too many days during the year), and I swear he found a new way to make fun of LJ, like, every day.
And I don’t know … I just got sick of it.
What could LJ do? He was just a scrawny freshman. Which is, in my opinion, the only reason Tracy felt like he could just keep going on, and on, and on … So, finally, that morning before the big fight, I decided I’d had enough. Tracy made some joke about LJ and I told him that if he didn’t shut up, then I was going to shut him up. And you don’t back down from a challenge at Central. He said he’d see me after the last bell.
The rest is history.
I thought about telling Ma and Principal McGuire all of this. About how bad I felt for LJ. About trying to stick up for someone who couldn’t stick up for themselves. That I didn’t mean to hurt Tracy so bad, but when my adrenaline started flowing, it was like all my anger at other things in life—school, my ma, myself—turned into anger at him. Honestly, the whole scene was blurry in my mind. I was sorry. But like I said. Neither of them cared. Teachers and parents never care. So I didn’t say that. Any of it.
Principal McGuire asked me again why I did what I did, and I looked at her, then at my ma, then back at her, and I shrugged. She dropped her head and removed her rectangular glasses, wiping the lenses on her shirt.
“Xavier, this is grounds for expulsion. This wasn’t just any fight. You seriously injured another student. There could even be a lawsuit.”
“Don’t worry,” my ma said, speaking for the first time since she entered the room. “Do whatever you have to do with him. He’ll be home with me until further notice. And I’ll get him to talk—don’t worry at all about that. He’ll apologize to Tracy and his family too.”
Ma stood up and shook Principal McGuire’s hand, then yanked me out of the chair by my right arm. Her eyes burned a hole in me. I kept my mouth taut in protest, but I had to break my gaze from hers.
“I can’t believe you made me leave work early for this shit,” she growled, pulling me alongside her as we exited the school. We didn’t live far from Central, but I already knew I was in for the longest car ride of my life.
* * *
Yeah, so … I didn’t make it out of the first month of 11th grade. I knew how to be careful. I knew how to avoid trouble. But I also knew that what happened with me and Tracy would happen eventually. When I was little, Pops told me that in life, you can’t really run from a fight. You shouldn’t even try. Because by the time it catches up with you, it will have grown into something much more. I’m a lot of things, but I ain’t never been scared. Won’t ever be.
LESSON 1.2Secrets, Secrets Are No Fun
“You’re just like him. I mean, it’s crazy. Barely spent any time around the man but, the way you act, you’d think he’d been the one raising you instead of me. Just stupid! Don’t ever stop and think. What is wrong with you, Zay? Why would you be acting like that at school? Do you know how embarrassing it was for me to have to come down there and do that?”
Blah, blah, blah. Ma had been on my back all day with the usual. I could expect this whenever she got mad at me. Comparing me to my pops, who I had barely even seen or talked to since he started his prison sentence twelve years ago. Screaming at me in random outbursts every time she thought of a new insult. And worst of all, looking at me with that look. That look.
When Tameka got really fed up, she’d stare at me with her head tilted slightly to the side, her mouth clamped shut, her jaw tense. Her eyes would go from bright and searching to narrow, suspicious. When my ma was mad at me, she’d look at me like she saw a stranger. So many times, I wanted to tell her that whatever she saw when she stared at me like that was the same thing she would see if she looked in the mirror for once.
But I wasn’t that crazy.
* * *
I slinked out of my room, yawning and wiping the last of the drool from my mouth with the back of my hand. The narrow hallway leading to the living area was lined with eclectic frames and art pieces—all my ma’s handiwork. Splashes of color on canvas here, folds of fabric hanging there. Tameka was an artist once upon a time. But then I came along, as she liked to say. A new creation. One that never hung straight or folded up neat enough. Now she only had time for her real art during the moments in between moments.
Ma sat at our dining room table, a small, dingy, secondhand thing with peeling vinyl, laying pictures beneath a laminate film before closing them up. After she delicately placed each picture, she scribbled in a notebook. I squeezed by her and noticed lines and lines of words filling up multiple pages.
“Good morning.” I only mumbled it so she wouldn’t claim I came into the room without speaking. She didn’t respond or even look up from her writing.
Whatever. I shrugged and made my way over to the refrigerator, opened it up. Orange juice and a half loaf of soon-to-be moldy bread. It was about time for some grocery shopping. Principal McGuire said it would probably take a week for the school to determine my fate, which meant I’d be at the house all day, every day, until then. I’d definitely need some snacks. I poured myself a small glass of orange juice and tried to remember if I had any cash left in the secret stash in the back of my closet.
“Do you want to talk to your father today?” my ma said, her voice floating from across the room. I aspirated my orange juice and choked a little bit.
“Huh?” I coughed out.
“Your father, do you want to talk to him?” She lay another photo down and smoothed it out with precision, never taking her eyes off her task.
“No,” I responded.
“Why not?” she asked.
“Why are you asking me?” I said defensively. I had stopped coming to the phone for prison calls years ago, when I was, like, eleven or twelve. What was the point? I got tired of talking to an invisible person in some faraway place that I’d probably never see again. At least, that’s what it felt like. Besides, Ma went through her own phases with it. Sometimes she wanted to answer his calls and sometimes she didn’t. At least I stayed consistent. We used to visit him when we could drive to his facility in thirty minutes. But after he got transferred to a prison farther away, we never went. I couldn’t even really remember his face.
A hot flash of guilt, and nerves, and probably some other feelings washed over me as Tameka looked up from her project and glared at me, giving me the stare. I didn’t hate my pops. He just wasn’t real. He was more like … an imaginary friend that I had outgrown and tucked in the back of my memory—a safe place to keep him. I liked it that way. It was easy that way.
“I think you should talk to him. And today would be a good day to do it,” she said finally, after a long pause.
“Well, I think you’re wrong,” I returned.
She took in a deep breath with her eyes closed and exhaled, trying to calm herself. She set her pen down and looked at me.
“Zay, do you want to know a secret?”
I scrunched my face up. “What are you talking about?”
“I have a secret. It’s something I think you’d like to know. I’ll tell you if you agree to explain the situation with Tracy to me in full. I’ll also need you to apologize to him and his parents. Deal?”
I sucked at my teeth. “No,” I said. “Keep your secret. I don’t care. I’m not apologizing to Tracy. If anything, he should be apologizing for getting me suspended.”
“Xavier—”
“What are you working on over there, anyway?” I deflected.
“Never mind, Xavier.”
“A gift for that man you love? He’s not coming back. You know that, right?” I said. Silence for a moment.
“What did you say to me?” Ma’s voice was cold, sharp.
“He’s never coming back. You’re wasting your time. Probably writing some kind of happily-ever-after love story. Well, that’s not our life. We live here in this shitty place and he’s not coming back to us. You should give up.”
Copyright © 2024 by H. D. Hunter
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