All American Boys
By Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely
4.5/5
()
About this ebook
In this New York Times bestselling novel, two teens—one black, one white—grapple with the repercussions of a single violent act that leaves their school, their community, and, ultimately, the country bitterly divided by racial tension.
A bag of chips. That’s all sixteen-year-old Rashad is looking for at the corner bodega. What he finds instead is a fist-happy cop, Paul Galluzzo, who mistakes Rashad for a shoplifter, mistakes Rashad’s pleadings that he’s stolen nothing for belligerence, mistakes Rashad’s resistance to leave the bodega as resisting arrest, mistakes Rashad’s every flinch at every punch the cop throws as further resistance and refusal to STAY STILL as ordered. But how can you stay still when someone is pounding your face into the concrete pavement?
There were witnesses: Quinn Collins—a varsity basketball player and Rashad’s classmate who has been raised by Paul since his own father died in Afghanistan—and a video camera. Soon the beating is all over the news and Paul is getting threatened with accusations of prejudice and racial brutality. Quinn refuses to believe that the man who has basically been his savior could possibly be guilty. But then Rashad is absent. And absent again. And again. And the basketball team—half of whom are Rashad’s best friends—start to take sides. As does the school. And the town. Simmering tensions threaten to explode as Rashad and Quinn are forced to face decisions and consequences they had never considered before.
Written in tandem by two award-winning authors, this four-starred reviewed tour de force shares the alternating perspectives of Rashad and Quinn as the complications from that single violent moment, the type taken directly from today’s headlines, unfold and reverberate to highlight an unwelcome truth.
Jason Reynolds
Jason Reynolds is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, a Newbery Award Honoree, a Printz Award Honoree, a two-time National Book Award finalist, a Kirkus Award winner, a UK Carnegie Medal winner, a two-time Walter Dean Myers Award winner, an NAACP Image Award Winner, an Odyssey Award Winner and two-time honoree, and the recipient of multiple Coretta Scott King honors and the Margaret A. Edwards Award. He was also the 2020–2022 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. His many books include All American Boys (cowritten with Brendan Kiely); When I Was the Greatest; The Boy in the Black Suit; Stamped; As Brave as You; For Every One; the Track series (Ghost, Patina, Sunny, and Lu); Look Both Ways; Stuntboy, in the Meantime; Ain’t Burned All the Bright (recipient of the Caldecott Honor) and My Name Is Jason. Mine Too. (both cowritten with Jason Griffin); and Long Way Down, which received a Newbery Honor, a Printz Honor, and a Coretta Scott King Honor. His debut picture book, There Was a Party for Langston, won a Caldecott Honor and a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor. He lives in Washington, DC. You can find his ramblings at JasonWritesBooks.com.
Read more from Jason Reynolds
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Reviews for All American Boys
295 ratings26 reviews
What our readers think
Readers find this title to be a thought-provoking exploration of racism and the choices individuals face. While some reviewers felt that the execution could have been better, overall the book is praised for its powerful message. It is considered one of the best reads by some readers.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is probably the most important YA novel of the last few years. There, I said it. If your students (7th grade , I'd say) want to understand Black Lives Matter -- either because they see the issue in the news, or because they live it -- they need this book. This is possibly the best book I've ever read about the process of awakening to the idea that some people are treated less fairly by the world than others, and what's scary about facing that and engaging with it.
Same recommendation goes for adults. Read it, read it. Or better yet, listen to it; the two actors who perform the audiobook add a powerful dimension to Rashad and Quinn's stories. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Powerful and emotional. Rashad is absent again today. It's spray painted on the sidewalk in front of the high school after Rashad is beaten up by a cop on a Friday afternoon. Some people take the cop's side and say Rashad was stealing, pointing to his sagging jeans as evidence. Other people take Rashad's side, saying he'd never break the law, pointing to his ROTC uniform as evidence. No matter who's side you take, the proof is in the video footage sweeping the internet: Rashad is restrained while he is being beaten, accused of resisted arrest. But how can you resist if you're already cuffed on the ground? Who knows how the case will turn out once it hits the courts, but before that, Rashad's high school classmates are hitting the streets for a good old fashioned protest, and they hope other citizens will join the cause.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Smartly told from two unique point of views, all dealing with the same earth shattering event, the book is smart to let readers come to their own conclusions on the issue rather than stump for one side over another. Ultimately, communities come together through adversity and the truth comes out in the end.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Quinn and Rashad go to the same high school. One is black, one is white. When Rashad is beaten by a white police officer the community takes sides. Quinn witnessed the beating. Quinn is a close family friend of the police officer involved in the beating. Very well written and appropriate in light of modern America and police brutality in the news. How will Quinn react? Will he just keep quiet and go on living? Or will he bow to his conscience and do the right thing? Makes you stop and think about the America we live in today. Excellent book written in alternating perspectives of Quinn & Rashad.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Very good, thought provoking book that should be required reading for high school students
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A woman tripped over Rashad at the corner market, sending the chips he was about to purchase flying. A cop in the store accused him of trying to steal the chips, dragged him outside and beat him. Suddenly, the school seems to divide into black and white
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Things start getting real in high school, whether it's watching out for your basketball career or being abused by a cop. Rashad and Quinn are beginning to finally see the modern world of racism. They have all known it's happened, the question is what now? Who is going to pretend that he just doesn't see? Who will speak up, even if it truly hurts? Rashad was a normal kid, but he's going viral. Quinn and Rashad have got to choose what next.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The subject this novel tackles is, without doubt, one of the most important issues in America today. This book sucked me in, and I found it hard to put down. It comes off as preachy at times, and while some anvils need to be dropped and indeed the preaching itself is well written, it makes the dialogue feel occasionally awkward and unnatural. This book also introduces a lot of conflict but very little resolution, appropriate because the true problem is far from resolved, but slightly unsatisfying to read. This may be another novel that is useful for opening the eyes of the people opposed or indifferent to the Black Lives Matter movement, and I would recommend it to anyone, but I hope what ground this novel broke proves fertile for more complete and moving works.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I would argue that this is the most important young adult novel I have ever read in my life. It is heartrending in a way I never thought possible and so very important. If you read nothing else this year, please read this book.
#RashadIsAbsentAgainToday - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This story is told from two perspectives - from two All-American Boys. Except one is white and one is black. Their lives become entwined when Quinn (white boy) witnesses a police officer beating up Rashad (black boy) without cause. Quinn and Rashad are both forced to confront race and racism in their community and in the country. Very well written and heart wrenching and beautiful.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5teen fiction (race issues, all too real), Coretta Scott King Award winner. This didn't get really good until about halfway through, when Quinn starts really thinking about whether he can stay neutral, and characters start revealing their layers. A truly complicated issue and something that needs us all to take a good honest look at before things can improve. Thank you, Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It was a really good book and it sent a great message, but the execution could’ve been better. Everything seemed like it was a written for a movie with its scenes and dialogue and actions. Of course there was character development, but not the entirely wholesome one you can only get through books.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Amazing, one of the best reads of my whole life!!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Jason Reynolds has written a powerful book here with a powerful message. Rashad Freeman is a young African American who has stepped into a local store to buy a snack. His trouble begins when a white lady trips over him. The store owner causes him of trying to steal and the cop in the store takes things a little too far. Rashad is beaten to the point of being hospitalized.Quinn Collins is a white boy on his way to a party with friends when he heads to the local store to get some beer. What Quinn gets is a front row seat to a young boy being beaten. The problem is that it is someone he knows and looks up to. What struck me was how the events that happened could have been ripped right out of the headlines today. As a teacher I could read how the teachers were feeling knowing they were told not to talk about it. I've been in their shoes where we've been told not to discuss certain incidents with students in the classroom. I felt like some of the teachers were told how they were supposed to feel.I was happy the way the author handled the tensions within the school and community. Awesome book everyone should read.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summer 2021 (July);
Fall School Book Club pre-read
Another pre-read this one from two viewpoints, one of a black student and a white student at the same high school dealing with the ramifications of unlawful violence visited on the first of those two and witnessed by the second. This is such an honest portrait of where the world finds itself on both sides and I love how complicated and vulnerable, honest and confused, the navigating is.
I'm really excited to see how the students take this read. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This bold and compelling YA novel tackles a sensitive and potentially incendiary topic—police violence against people of color—in an effective and realistic manner. Told from the alternating perspectives of two adolescent male narrators, the story demonstrates quite vividly the vast differences that exist between the worlds that each teen inhabits despite the school and community that they share.Rashad, an African-American ROTC student, narrates most of his story from a hospital room, where he’s recovering from the brutal violence he suffered at the hands of a white officer, who suspected him of attacking a woman and robbing a convenience store. The officer is a close family friend of Quinn, a white, well-respected son of an Iraqi War vet who was killed in action. Quinn, who is Rashad’s classmate but doesn’t know him well, witnesses the assault and spends most of the novel struggling with questions of racism, privilege, and inequality.Reynolds and Kiely wisely keep Rashad and Quinn apart for most of the novel—and the effect is powerful. This technique highlights the disparity in their worlds and the impact that each boy’s race has on his life experience. Very much a contemporary novel, the story alludes to fairly recent and well publicized acts of police violence against Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and others. The novel is a quick read, yet that does not detract one iota from its impact or the authenticity of its social commentary. Reynolds and Kiely have crafted a gripping, trenchant narrative featuring believable characters coping with current social problems that have real consequences. This novel belongs in the hands of every teenager and secondary English teacher in the country.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5With All American Boys, Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely have written a moving, timely story about police brutality toward young Black men in America. I listened to this book as an audiobook, and it was outstanding.This story is really two stories: the interconnected experiences of Rashad Butler, a sixteen-year-old Black boy who is beaten at a convenience store, and Quinn Collins, a white boy who witnesses it. After school one day, Rashad stops to buy some chips at a local store. While reaching for his cell phone, which is in his open bag on the floor, a white woman accidentally backs up into him and trips. As Rashad and the woman apologize to one another, the store manager looks over, sees Rashad’s open bag, and assumes he is trying to shoplift. He alerts a white cop in the store, Paul Galluzzo, who sees the woman on the floor and assumes that Rashad is harassing her. He pulls Rashad out of the shop, throws him onto the ground, and beats him mercilessly.Rashad spends several days in the hospital with serious injuries. Meanwhile, his school is in an uproar. Students have created a hashtag, #RashadIsAbsentAgainToday. A video of Rashad being beaten is all over the news. His older brother wants to make sure that people know what happened to him.At first, Quinn feels torn–Paul Galluzzo is like a father to him, someone he loves and looks up to–but Quinn knows that what he saw wasn’t right. Throughout this book, he learns how to be an ally to Rashad, even if it means losing some of his closest friends.This is an incredible story of two young men and their community struggling to face what has happened to Rashad, struggling to call it what it is—racism—and learning how to fight this injustice.Quinn and Rashad are believable, well-developed characters. The story manages to come across as genuine, not condescending or didactic, and the ending gave me chills. It’s an honest portrayal of teens learning how to acknowledge and protest police brutality and racism in America, and it’s excellent.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This book addresses some important points about racism and activism in our current society. While the found the writing style to be just ok, the juxtaposition of dual perspectives was a good choice. This book has the potential to stimulate thoughtful conversations.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Two authors here, librarything! Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely - one black, one white. Two points of view on an incident of violence at a local convenience store in a "changing" neighborhood: Rashad, black teenager, is profiled, attacked, and beaten by a police officer who accuses him of shoplifting. Quinn, white teenager, is the witness - a classmate and high school basketball teammate of Rashad's and the surrogate son of the police officer who brutalized Rashad.The incident and community reaction are up-to-the-minute. More importantly, we are plunged into the inner thoughts and outer lives of the two boys and their circle of friends and family. Intimate thoughts and public actions are portrayed with a searing combination of outrage and sensitivity. Rashad, in particular, will awaken any white reader who "doesn't see color" to the fact that not only do Black Lives Matter, but that each black girl and black boy is a singular and unique growing human, just like white readers see white characters. Black readers will recognize many members of their community. All readers will be memorably enriched.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Should be required reading for everyone. Loved every page. Cried three times.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jason Reynolds could rewrite the phone book and I would read every word. Rashad and Quinn go to the same school, their circles of friends and teammates have slight overlap, but only one of them is beaten by a cop under suspicion of theft while the other watches. This book touches on many of the issues that we have had in our local and national conversations about race, power, and control.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Rashad Butler and Quinn Collins are students at the same high school, just typical high school kids. Quinn is a star on the school basketball team. Rashad's not an athlete, but several of his friends are on the team with Quinn.
Rashad is black and Quinn is white.
One day, Rashad stops at the local bodega to pick up a bag of chips. A white woman accidentally trips over him, knocking them both to the floor. A cop sees them, and Rashad's backpack on the floor where it fell open, and leaps to the conclusion that Rashad was shoplifting. He seizes and starts beating on Rashad.
Quinn doesn't see what happens inside the store, but he sees the aftermath, when the cop, Paul Gallucci, has Rashad down on the ground, his face ground into the pavement, beating on him even after he's handcuffed. There's another witness also, a woman who records the whole thing on the phone once they're outside.
The cop, Paul Gallucci, is a friend of Quinn's family, the man who has been in many ways a substitute father to him since his own father was killed in Afghanistan.
Rashad and Quinn each tell their own stories of the days that follow, with different narrators voicing them. For Rashad, much of that time is in the hospital, as he recovers from his injuries. He's painfully aware that he could easily be dead, and despite what his lawyer tells him, he's not convinced being innocent is going to get him acquitted of shoplifting and resisting arrest.
Quinn has to square what he saw with what he's always thought and felt about Paul Gallucci, and decide what he's going to do about it. Rashad also learns some painful truths about his own father, an ex-cop.
This is a fascinating and moving novel, examining very real issues that affect us all, whether we all realize it or not. Rashad and Quinn, their friends, and at least some of their families learn a great deal, and it is a genuinely powerful story.
Highly recommended.
I borrowed this audiobook from my local library.1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A black boy is unfairly accused of theft by a white store owner and a cop, and then brutally beaten by the cop, to the point where he spends five days in the hospital. A white classmate witnesses the beating, and has to decide how to respond. Written by two authors, one black, one white, this book honestly explores the reactions of both boys and their friends and families. Definitely a good read. Recommend to boys who are reluctant readers.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rashad and Quinn alternate chapters in this story that explores police brutality and contemporary racial issues. Rashad is in a store trying to buy chips and some gum on a Friday after school. He finds himself accused of shoplifting and getting a severe beating by a police officer. Quinn witnesses the beating from the police officer, who happens to be a neighbor and Quinn's older brother. Rashad is hospitalized with internal bleeding and traumatized. His friends and family rally around him. Soon there is a protest march planned and racial tensions simmer on the basketball team. A timely book. Some strong language peppers the book but it is used in realistic ways as the teens navigate issues of police brutality, dealing with trauma, and forging a path even when it is controversial.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This novel is a response to the protests that have occurred across the United States in the last couple of years. Jason Reynolds writes the black-side of the story, and Brendan Kiely writes the white-side of the story. For those of you sensitive to language, you will want to skip this novel.The novel is told in alternating points of view between Rashad, a young black teen and Quinn, a young white teen. Rashad is brutally attacked by a white cop and Quinn witnesses the attack. The problem is that the cop is a father-figure for Quinn. Paul, the cop, has helped him ever since Quinn’s father died. Seeing him commit such violence leaves Quinn feeling lost. He doesn’t understand how someone he knows well and has been so good to him could have so much violence within. Everyone plans on partying this Friday night, but Rashad doesn’t make it because he’s in the hospital. Video is released to the press, so when students return to school on Monday, they find a new atmosphere. Rashad only knows pain. He hurts from the beating and from his father’s assumption that he did something wrong and didn’t follow his father’s advice. When Rashad’s brother finds and releases the video to the news, life changes. Rashad sees his image on the news constantly. He’s a good teen and certainly doesn’t deserve what happens to him and finds life changing as he stays in the vacuum of his hospital room as the world and others take over making him a cause.The novel truly isn’t about Quinn and Rashad; it’s about the entire student body as a microcosm of America. Quinn and Rashad are the symbols of “white” and “black.” As to everyone else, the students at Rashad and Quinn’s school are left trying to do the right thing by understanding what happened and trying to change the world with understanding and ending with a lawful protest; they don’t want to be bystanders but people who advocate change for the better--at least some of them. Sides are taken, but most in the novel are on one side. There are enough characters placed in the novel to have “others” who disagree.At one point, there’s a moment of solidarity in a class where the students read Invisible Man, the novel they are reading in class, aloud. Somehow, this novel is mis-titled. If an author is going to cite a piece of literature and publishers are going to publish it, they should know the true title. The title they quoted was a book by a white English man instead of a book by a black American author. Beyond this gross negligence of editing, the book is a political statement. The ironies, unfairness of life, assumptions, prejudices, and anger that split people are all present. The characters are mostly stereotypes with little character development. Ironically, the authors’ point is that people need to know the facts and the true person instead of expecting a stereotype.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is the story of two teens, one black and one white. Rashad is on his way to meet friends when he stops at the local corner market to purchase a soda and chips. While this is a normal occurrence, something different happens that day, and through a minor misunderstanding, balck kid Rashad is accused of stealing and beaten badly by a cop who happens to be white. Outside the market observing all of this transpire it Quinn, a white kid who also plays basketball with Rashad and is best friends with the white cop’s brother. The result is Rashad, a talented art student and ROTC kid, ends up in the hospital while the film of the beating circulates everywhere. The community becomes divided along lines of race. Accusations of racism and police brutality are everywhere. Quinn finally has to acknowledge and stand up to describe what he saw as well as admit that racism and prejudice still exist in today’s society. This is a compelling and timely novel where all of the characters are compelling, making this look at these issues relatable.
Book preview
All American Boys - Jason Reynolds
Friday
RASHAD
Your left! Your left! Your left-right-left! Your left! Your left! Your left-right-left!
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I left. I left. I left-left-left that wack school and that even more wack ROTC drill team because it was Friday, which to me, and basically every other person on Earth, meant it was time to party. Okay, maybe not everybody on Earth. I’m sure there was a monk somewhere on a mountain who might’ve been thinking of something else. But I wasn’t no monk. Thank God. So for me and my friends, Friday was just another word for party. Monday, Tuesday, Hump Day (because who can resist the word hump
?), Thursday, and Party. Or as my brother, Spoony, used to say, Poorty.
And that’s all I was thinking about as I crammed into a bathroom stall after school—partying, and how I wasn’t wanting to be in that stiff-ass uniform another minute.
Thankfully, we didn’t have to wear it every day. Only on Fridays, which was what they called uniform days.
Fridays. Of all days. Whose dumb idea was that? Anyway, I’d been wearing it since that morning—first bell is at 8:50 a.m.—for drill practice, which is pretty much just a whole bunch of yelling and marching, which is always a great experience right before sitting in class with thirty other students and a teacher either on the verge of tears or yelling for some other kid to head down to the principal’s office. Fun.
Let me make something clear: I didn’t need ROTC. I didn’t want to be part of no military club. Not like it was terrible or anything. As a matter of fact, it was actually just like any other class, except it was Chief Killabrew—funniest last name ever—teaching us all about life skills and being a good person and stuff like that. Better than math, and if it wasn’t for the drill crap and the uniform, it really would’ve just been an easy A to offset some of my Cs, even though I know my pop was trying to use it as some sort of gateway into the military. Not gonna happen. I didn’t need ROTC. But I did it, and I did it good, because my dad was pretty much making me. He’s one of those dudes who feels like there’s no better opportunity for a black boy in this country than to join the army. That’s literally how he always put it. Word for word.
Let me tell you something, son,
he’d say, leaning in the doorway of my room. I’d be lying on my bed, doodling in my sketch pad, doing everything physically possible to not just stop drawing and jam the pencils into my ears. He’d continue, Two weeks after I graduated from high school, my father came to me and said, ‘The only people who are going to live in this house are people I’m making love to.’
I know, Dad,
I’d moan, fully aware of what was coming next because he said it at least once a month. My father was the president of predictability, probably something he learned when he was in the army. Or a police officer. Yep, the old man went from a green uniform, which he wore only for four years—though he talks about the military like he put in twenty—to a blue uniform, which he also only wore for four years before quitting the force to work in an office doing whatever people do in offices: get paid to be bored.
And I knew what he was trying to tell me: to get out,
Dad would drone. But I didn’t know where I was going to go or what I was going to do. I didn’t really do that well in school, and well, college just wasn’t in the cards.
And so you joined the army, and it saved your life,
I’d finish the story for him, trying to water down my voice, take some of the sting out of it.
Don’t be smart,
he’d say, pointing at me with the finger of fury. I never managed to take enough bite out of my tone. And trust me, I knew not to push it too far. I was just so tired of hearing the same thing over and over again.
I’m not trying to be smart,
I’d reply, calming him down. I’m just saying.
Just saying what? You don’t need discipline? You don’t need to travel the world?
Dad—
I’d start, but he would shut me down and barrel on.
You don’t need a free education? You don’t need to fight for your country? Huh?
Dad, I—
Again, he’d cut me off.
What is it, Rashad? You don’t wanna take after your father? Look around.
His voice would lift way higher than necessary and he’d fling his arms all over the place temper-tantrum style, pointing to the walls and windows and pretty much everything else in my room. I don’t think I’ve done that bad. You and your brother have never had a care in the world!
Then came his favorite saying; it wouldn’t have surprised me if he had it tattooed across his chest. Listen to me. There’s no better opportunity for a black boy in this country than to join the army.
David.
My mother’s voice would come sweeping down the hallway with just enough spice in it to let the old man know that once again, he’d pushed too hard. Leave him alone. He stays out of trouble and he’s a decent student.
A decent student. I could’ve had straight As if I wasn’t always so busy sketching and doodling. Some call it a distraction. I call it dedication. But hey, decent was… decent.
Then my father’s face would soften, made mush by my mother’s tone. Look, can you just try it for me, Rashad? Just in high school. That’s all I ask. I begged your brother to do it, and he needed it even more than you do. But he wouldn’t listen, and now he’s stuck working down at UPS.
The way he said it was as if the lack of ROTC had a direct connection to why my older brother worked at UPS. As if only green and blue uniforms were okay, but brown ones meant failure.
That’s a good job. The boy takes care of himself, and him and his girlfriend have their own apartment. Plus he’s got all that volunteer work he does with the boys at the rec center. So Spoony’s fine,
my mother argued. She pushed my father out of the way so she could share the space in the doorway. So I could see her. And Rashad will be too.
Dad shook his head and left the room.
That exact same conversation happened at least twenty times, just like that. So when I got to high school, I just did it. I joined ROTC. Really it’s called JROTC, but nobody says the J. It stands for the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps. I joined to get my dad off my back. To make him happy. Whatever.
The point is, it was Friday, uniform day,
and right after the final bell rang I ran to the bathroom with my duffel bag full of clothes to change out of everything green.
Springfield Central High School bathrooms were never empty. There was always somebody in there at the mirror studying whatever facial hair was finally coming in, or sitting on a sink checking their cell phone, skipping class. And after school, especially on a Friday, everybody popped in to make sure plans hadn’t been made without them knowing. The bathroom was pretty much like an extension of the locker room, where even the students like me, the ones with no athletic skill whatsoever, could come and talk about the same thing athletes talked about, without all the ass slapping—which, to me, made it an even better place to be.
Whaddup, ’Shad?
said English Jones, making a way-too-romantic face in the mirror. Model face to the left. Model face to the right. Brush hairline with hand, then come down the face and trace the space where hopefully, one day, a mustache and beard will be. That’s how you do it. Mirror-Looking 101, and English was a master at it. English was pretty much a master at everything. He was the stereotypical green-eyed pretty boy with parents who spoiled him, so he had fly clothes and tattoos. Plus his name—his real name—was English, so he pretty much had his pick when it came to the girls. It was like he was born to be the man. Like his parents planned it that way. But, unstereotypically, he wasn’t cocky about it like you would think, which of course made the ladies and the teachers and the principal and the parents and even the basketball coach even more crazy about him. That’s right, English was also on the basketball team. The captain. The best player. Because why the hell wouldn’t he be?
What’s good, E?
I said, giving him the chin-up nod while pushing my way into a stall. English and I have been close since we were kids, even though he was a year older than me. We were two pieces of a three-piece meal. Shannon Pushcart was the third wing, and the fries—the extra-salty add-on—was Carlos Greene. Carlos and Shannon were also in the bathroom, both leaning into the urinals but looking back at me, which, by the way, is a weird thing to do. Don’t ever look at someone else while you’re taking a piss. Doesn’t matter how well you know a person, it gets weird.
You partying tonight at Jill’s, soldier-boy?
Carlos asked, clowning me about the ROTC thing.
Of course I’m going. What about you? Or you got basketball practice?
I asked from inside the stall. Then I quickly followed with, Oh, that’s right. You ain’t make the team. Again.
Ohhhhhhhhhhh!
Shannon gassed the joke up like he always did whenever it wasn’t about him. A urinal flushed and I knew it was him who flushed it, because Shannon was the only person who ever flushed the urinals. I swear that’s never gonna get old,
Shannon said, laughter in his voice.
I unbuttoned my jacket—a polyester Christmas tree covered in ornaments—and threw it over the stall door.
Whatever,
Carlos said.
Yeah, whatever,
I shot back.
Don’t y’all ever get tired of cracking the same jokes on each other every day?
English’s voice cut in.
Don’t you ever get tired of stroking your own face in the mirror, English?
Carlos clapped back.
Shannon spit-laughed. Got ’im!
Shut up, Shan,
English snapped. And anyway, it’s called ‘stimulating the follicles.’ But y’all wouldn’t know nothin’ about that.
But E, seriously, it ain’t workin’!
from Shannon.
Yeah, maybe your follicles just ain’t that into you!
Carlos came right behind him. By this point I was doubled over in the stall, laughing.
But your girlfriend is,
English said, with impeccable timing. A snuff shot, straight to the gut.
Ohhhhhhhh!
Of course, from Shannon again.
I don’t even have no girlfriend,
Carlos said. But that didn’t matter. Cracking a joke about somebody’s girlfriend—real or imaginary—is just a great comeback. At all times. It’s just classic, like your mother
jokes. Carlos sucked his teeth, then shook the joke off like a champ and continued, That’s why we gotta get to this party, so I can see what these ladies lookin’ like.
I’m with you on that one,
English agreed. Smartest thing you’ve said all day.
Off went the greenish-blue, short-sleeved, button-up shirt, which I also flung across the top of the door.
Exactly. That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout,
Shannon said, way too eager. ‘See what these ladies lookin’ like,’
he mimicked Carlos, the slightest bit of sarcasm still in his voice. If I picked up on it, I knew Carlos did too.
I can’t tell you what they’ll be lookin’ like, but I can tell you who they won’t be lookin’ at… you!
Carlos razzed, still on get-back from Shannon being slick and for laughing at my basketball crack. It had been at least three minutes since I made that joke, and he was still holding on to it. So petty.
Shut up, ’Los. Everybody in here know I got more game than you. In every way,
Shannon replied, totally serious.
I kicked my foot up onto the toilet to untie my patent leather shoes. Just so you know, patent leather shoes should only be for men who are getting married. Nothing about patent leather says war.
Argue about all this at the party. Just make sure y’all there. It’s supposed to be live,
English said, the sound of his footsteps moving toward the door. He and Shannon didn’t have mandatory basketball practice like usual, but were still going to the gym to shoot around because, well, that’s what they did every day. For those guys, especially English, basketball was life. English knocked on my stall twice. Look for me when you get there, dude.
Bet.
Later, ’Shad,
from Shannon.
Aight, ’Shad, hit me when you on your way over,
Carlos called as the door closed behind them. Carlos grew up right down the street from me, and, like English, was a senior and therefore could drive, and therefore (again) was always my ride to the party. We smoked him with the jokes all the time because he’d tried out for the basketball team every single year, and got cut every single year, because he just wasn’t very good. But if you asked him, he was the nicest dude to ever touch a ball. What he actually was good at, though, was art, which is also why he and I got along. He wasn’t into drawing or painting, at least not in the traditional sense. He was into graffiti. A writer.
His tag was LOS(T), and they were all over the school, and our neighborhood, and even the East Side. Whenever we were heading to a party, for him it was just another opportunity to speed around the city in his clunker, the backseat covered in paint markers and spray cans, while he pointed out some of his masterpieces.
Really they were more like our masterpieces, because I was the one who gave him some of the concepts for where and how to write his tag. For instance, on the side of the neighborhood bank, I told him he should bomb it in money-green block letters. And on the door of the homeless shelter I suggested gold regal letters. And on the backboard of a basketball hoop at the West Side court, I suggested he write it in gang script. I never had the heart to do any actual tagging. I mentioned how my father was, right? Right. Plus Carlos was a pro at it. He knew how to control the nozzle and minimize the drip to get clean tags. Like, perfect. I never really told him, just because that wasn’t something we did, but I loved them. All of them.
When I walked out of that stall a few minutes later, I was a different person. It was like the reverse of Clark Kent running into the phone booth and becoming Superman, and instead was like Superman running into the booth and becoming a hopefully much cooler Clark Kent, even though I guess Superman might’ve been more comfortable in the cape and tight-ass red underwear than an ROTC uniform. But not me. No cape (and for the record, no tight-ass red underwear). I stepped out as regular Rashad Butler: T-shirt, sneakers that I had to perform a quick spit-clean on, and jeans that I pulled up, then sagged down just low enough to complete the look. My brother had given me this sweet leather jacket that he had outgrown, so I threw that on, and bam! I was ready for whatever Friday had in store for me. Hopefully, a little rub-a-dub on Tiffany Watts, the baddest girl in the eleventh grade. At least to me. Carlos always said she looked like a cartoon character. Like he could ever get her. A cartoon character? Really? Please. A cartoon character from my dreams.
But before I could get to Jill’s and get all up on Tiffany, I had a few stops to make. It was still early, and I had a couple bucks, so I could get me some chips and a pack of gum to kill the chip-breath. Can’t get girls with the dragon in your mouth. But other than that I was flat broke, and it was never cool to party without cash, just because you always had to have something for the pizza spot—Mother’s Pizza—which everyone went to either after the party was over or when the party got shut down early, which happened most of the time. Plus, you had to have money to chip in for whoever’s gas tank was going to be getting you to and from the party, like, for instance, Carlos. So I caught a bus over to the West Side to first pick up my snacks, then meet Spoony at UPS, just a few blocks from home, so he could spot me a twenty.
The bus took forever, like it always did on Fridays. Forever. So at Fourth Street, I got off and walked the last few blocks toward Jerry’s Corner Mart, the day darkening around me—crazy how early it gets dark in the fall. Jerry’s was pretty much the everything store. They sold it all. Incense, bomber jackets, beanies, snacks, beer, umbrellas, and whatever else you needed. It was named after some dude named Jerry, even though nobody named Jerry ever worked there. Jerry was probably some rich old white dude, chillin’ on the East Side, doing his thing with some young supermodel with fake everything on a mattress made of real money. Lotto-ticket money. Cheap-forty-ounce money. Bootleg-DVD money. My money.
I pushed the door to Jerry’s open. It chimed like it always did, and the guy behind the counter looked up like he always did, then stepped out from behind the counter, like he always did.
Wassup, man,
I said. He nodded suspiciously. Like he always did. There were only two other people in the store. A policeman and one other customer, back by the beer fridge. The cop wasn’t a security guard, the weaponless kind with the iron-on badges. The kind my dad tried to get my brother to apply for because they pay decent money. Nah. This cop was a cop. A real cop. And that wasn’t weird because Jerry’s was pretty much known for being an easy come-up for a lot of people. You walk in, grab what you want, and walk out. No money spent. But I never stole nothing from anywhere. Again, too scared of what my pops would do to me. Knowing him, he’d probably send me right to military school or some kind of boot camp, like Scared Straight. He’d probably say something to my mother about how my problem is that I need more push-ups in my life. Luckily, I’m just not the stealing type. But I know a lot of people who are, and there was no better playground for a thief than Jerry’s. I guess, though, after a string of hits, Jerry (whoever he is) finally decided to keep a cop on deck.
I bopped down the magazine aisle toward the back of the store, where the chips were. Right by the drinks. Grab your chips, then turn around and hit the fridge for a soda or a beer. Boom. I looked at the chip selection. Like I said, Jerry’s had everything. All the stank-breath flavors. Barbecue, sour cream and onion, salt and vinegar, cheddar ranch, flaming hot, and I tried to figure out which would be the one that could be most easily beaten by a stick of gum. But plain wasn’t an option. Seriously, who eats plain chips?
While I was trying to figure this out—decisions, decisions—the other person in the store, a white lady who looked like she’d left her office job early—navy-blue skirt, matching blazer, white sneakers—seemed to be dealing with the same dilemma, but with the beer right behind me. And I couldn’t blame her. Jerry’s had every kind of beer you could think of. At least it seemed that way to me. I didn’t really pay her too much mind, though. I figured she was just somebody who probably had a long week at work, and wanted to crack a cold brew to get her weekend started. My mother did that sometimes. She’d pop the cap off a beer and pour it in a wineglass so she could feel better about all the burping, as if there’s a classy way to belch. This lady looked like the type who would do something like that. The type of lady who would treat herself to beer and nachos when her kids were gone to their father’s for the weekend.
Now, here’s what happened. Pay attention.
I finally picked out my bag of chips—barbecue, tasty, and easily beatable by mint. That settled, I reached in my back pocket for my cell phone to let Spoony know I was on my way. Damn. Left it in my ROTC uniform. So I set my duffel bag on the floor, squatted down to unzip it, the bag of chips tucked under my arm. At the moment the duffel was