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Anyway, around this time, a week after the shooting incident, I’m sitting at a cafeteria table with Cedric (mac and cheese, bag of chips), Mateo (salad with way too much blue cheese dressing, two apples, Little Debbie coffee cake), and these two girls I sorta know, Ava and her girlfriend Deidre (they’re sharing a large order of fries and two Cokes that they snuck in). I’m about to dive into the tuna on whole wheat toast that Nana Mama packed for me. Then, just like I’m in a prank TikTok video, I’ve got my mouth wide open, the sandwich about to enter, and just before my teeth chomp down, out of the corner of my eye, I see two guys and a girl standing right at my shoulder.
I’ve never seen these three kids before. It’s easy to figure out that they’re older than me and my friends. Maybe they’re a couple years older, maybe even from the high school.
“You’re Ali Cross?” the bigger of the two guys asks me.
The guy doesn’t sound tough or mean. In fact, he’s pretty soft-spoken. Even so, I decide I’d be better off standing up. I think I read somewhere that it’s always safer to be on eye level with someone who might give you trouble.
“Yeah, I’m Ali,” I say. “What’s up?”
The second guy talks.
“You’re the cop kid?” He’s nowhere near as soft-spoken as the first guy.
“So that’s what this is about?” I ask.
I’d better stop right here and tell you the truth. I am scared as hell.
Like I said, these guys are big, not super-big, but big enough, two or three school years bigger than me, if you know what I mean.
“Let me explain something, tiny man,” says the first guy, this time loudly. (He calls me “tiny man.” This is not a good sign. So much for being soft-spoken.)
I’m still scared as hell, but for some reason I’m notmorescared, which I guess I should be.
It could be that, standing up, I see that realistically he’s only about one or two inches taller than me. The weight difference between us? Not much. We’re both pretty scrawny.
But even with all that, and even with a year of good judo lessons, and… oh, who am I kidding? I can’t take these guys. As for Cedric and Mateo… like I said, who am I kidding? All three of us couldn’t take these guys on.
And anyway, the last thing I want is a fight.
Then the first guy says, “I want to introduce myself. I’m Jayden Walker.”
The name means nothing to me.
Then he adds, “I’m Grady Walker’s older brother.”
This is bad. Really, really bad.
The name Grady Walker does mean something to me. In fact, it means a lot to most people I know.
Grady Walker was a seventh-grade boy from Southeast who was climbing through the front porch window of his mother’s house two years ago. The TV inside the house was so loud that it’s likely that Grady did not hear the officer yell “Stop.” The officer says that he yelled “Stop” twice.
Yeah, you can guess the really bad rest of the story. The officer shot once. Grady died.
It was awful. Maybe the worst thing I ever heard about in my very bad neighborhood. There was heartbreak. There was anger. And we all found out fast that heartbreak and anger are not a fine mixture. There were protests and memorial services and rivers of tears.
Turns out that the officer who shot Grady was Black. But that didn’t make any difference. Grady was shot by a cop. Grady was dead.
I say, “I knew your brother. Not well. But I knew him. He was a good kid. I mean that. I’m sorry for your loss.”
I hold my hand in the air, expecting Jayden Walker to hold up his own hand and slap it against mine. He does not.
Jayden and I just stare at each other. Then I look away and I see that a small crowd has assembled right around us. I mean: this is cafeteria prime time. A possible fight. Go ahead, let your pizza slice get cold. Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got a sold-out stadium here today.
For the first time, the female member of this trio speaks. Her voice is strong, serious.
“Look, man. We’re talkin’ about Jayden’s little brother. Maybe you don’t understand. So, I can do the explaining you need. We heard that you’re going around defending cops. And Jayden and his group have had a project going on for about two years. They are trying to get this town to understand that the cops are nothing but a pack of killers. Killers. You understand that?”
I am both confused and angry. Why do two such different emotions always seem to show up at the same time?
