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Wow. That one hurts. Child? I bite my tongue, but this “child” ended up being better than the cops.
So, I’m grounded, for a whole week, starting the next day. It’s not that I don’t know the routine. I’ve been here before: I come home immediately after school (“No dawdling,” according to Nana Mama, the warden), and, as you might have guessed, I can’t go anywhere. No friends. No basketball. Nothing.
Look. I guess I understand it, but it sucks.
It lets me get my homework out of the way, but as soon as the homework is done, I start thinking about breaking one of the major “You’re grounded” rules. That’s the Alex Cross clause that states, “No cell phones except for absolute emergencies.” Hmmm. Okay. My first day grounded. Gotta stay strong.
One good thing about being home is I can enjoy the sweet scent of the supper that Nana’s starting to fix. I’m picking up the smell of onions, apples, and cinnamon. I gotta go check this out. I also want to tell her my version of what happened down at the Anacostia, since she probably only knows the follow-up from my dad: getting grounded. Damn.
I run down the stairs. I can hear the television playing in the living room. (Nana Mama is just about the only person I know who still gets her news from the TV.) I look in, expecting to find her sitting with a teacup in her hand and her eyes fixed on the screen.
No Nana Mama. But there is some guy on TV reading the local news.
“While it is clear that Detective Alex Cross did not participate in the actual shooting—he did not fire a gun—he remains a symbol of what troubles many citizens about dangerous police behavior. ‘Slow to respond, quick to shoot,’ as one Southeast mother put it.”
The newscaster keeps talking about the shooting, about the police, about protesters. Then he lets go a piece of information that completely shocks me.
There’s a huge anti-police protest at… the police station itself. The actual police station!
I run into the kitchen. Nana Mama is arranging apple slices in a pie shell.
“Well, well…” she begins saying. “Look who’s…”
“Nana. Can’t talk. I’ve got to go somewhere.”
I’m at the kitchen door.
“Ali, you just hold on. You’re—” she shouts.
“Sorry, gotta go.”
And I’m gone.
BEFOREIEVENget over to the police station, my phone is spitting out alerts about the protest. Then I see it all for myself.
The guy on television called it a “significant disturbance.” I’d call it something close to a riot. It’s a really loud protest against police violence, police brutality, even the police in general. The crowd looks twice as big as the crowd that showed up outside our house. We could use Nana Mama to cool down this very angry bunch.
Cell phones are recording all over the place. News cameras and boom mics are set up toward the front of the crowd.
Signs are shaking in the air. Somehow, someone has managed to string a huge white bedsheet from the roof of the police station. On the bedsheet is the following order:
DEFUND THE POLICE NOW!!!
Four other people are struggling to keep a steady hold on another bedsheet banner.
STOP THE VIOLENCE! CUT THE BACON!
Among the crowd are children and teens and lots of grown-ups. Almost all the protesters are Black. A few white folks are standing here and there. These white people are just as angry and passionate as all the others.
I stand toward the edge of the crowd.
A chant builds. Loud. Louder. Loudest.
WE WANT THE CHIEF!
WE WANT THE CHIEF!
WE WANT THE CHIEF!
