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“I read that. Quite a story.”
She nodded. “It’s real.”
It was real, all right. The memoir was a mature selection for a 13-year-old girl. Cupcake Brown (her real name) had run away from a dreadful foster home and ended up in a gang, addicted to drugs—before her eighteenth birthday. She hit rock bottom, living in a dumpster at one point. With some support from other recovering addicts and the law firm that employed her, Cupcake turned it all around and became an attorney. An uplifting story about possibilities that casts a positive light on lawyers—and you don’t get to hear many of those.
“Are you reading that for class?”
“Naw. Jus’ for fun.”
“It’s refreshing to meet a young person who reads.” I winced at my choice of words, those of an old fart. Tina didn’t seem to notice. “You do any after-school stuff?” I asked.
“I played softball up ’til last year, but I dropped outta that.”
“How come?”
Another shrug. Maybe she was trying to work out knots in her shoulders. “I dunno. Just don’t feel like it no more.”
“Ever do any volunteer work?”
She shook her head.
“Go to church?”
Negative.
“Your mom go to church?”
“Naw. She work Sundays.”
I was fishing for the kind of “give-her-a-break-your-Honor-she’s-a-good-kid-with-a-bright-future” stuff that defense attorneys routinely trot out, in the hope their clients will get off with lighter sentences. Unfortunately, this approach tended to work better for middle-class kids who had been fast-tracked for success as early as nursery school. By high school, they were already padding their future resumes with internships and other extracurricular activities that would set them apart from—or at least keep them abreast of—their career-driven peers. Unfortunately, the neighborhoods that fed Silver Hill Middle School were far from middle-class, and many of the students were busier building rap sheets than resumes. So the “bright, shiny future” stuff seemed less workable than the “let’s-not-make-things-any-worse-than-they-have-to-be” approach.
With that in mind, I asked, “Have you ever been suspended?”
“Nuh-uh. I done some detentions.”
“What for?”
“Bein’ late, talking in class.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “Once for getting in a fight, but the other girl started it.”
I looked at her. She stared back, daring me to say otherwise. “How’d it start?”
“I was eating lunch in the caf with my friends. This heifer named Lakeesha, she step up, start dissin’ my friend, Rochelle. She always raggin’ on her. She jus’ jealous, is all. Anyway, she start in on Rochelle again. Rochelle say, ‘Girl, you got a mouth on you. You want to back your noise with some action?’”
Tina snickered. “That heifer was frontin’, big time. She back down. I kep’ a eye on her, anyway.
“Then, when we was getting up to leave, Lakeesha get up, too. I saw her come up behind Rochelle wit’ a razor in her hand. So I shoved Lakeesha and knocked her ass down. Then Rochelle and this other girl start wailin’ on the bitch for sneakin’ up on her like that. I started kickin’ her, too.”
“So you were the one who knocked her down?” Just like the old woman with the purse. “Why were you kicking her, if she was already down?” And would you have beaten up the old lady if the cops hadn’t been there?
“Lakeesha the one wit’ the razor,” she said, in a soft voice. “I couldn’t just let her try to cut Rochelle up and get away with it.”
Sounded reasonable, assuming it was the truth, and you could never be sure about that. But if Tina were going to lie to me, why mention the fight at all? I’d represented a handful of viol
ent juveniles—all boys. They'd had more attitude than brains. Tina didn’t seem to fit that profile, even if she did talk tough. Or maybe I was letting her gender, baby face, and slightly nerdy overbite fool me.
“Have you been in fights before?” I asked.
“No. But I ain’t scared to fight or nothin’.” Her voice took on a petulant, defensive tone.
