Jojo turns and looks at all the people who are watching him. A kid picks up a rock and throws it at him. He misses, but that’s not the main thing. The main thing is that there are adults watching too. Lots of them. And not one of them says a word to the kid.
The whole way back to his mother’s house, Jojo keeps looking over his shoulder. He disappears inside.
The day after that, the bus stops at the end of the street. Shana gets out with her baby—Jojo’s baby—in the stroller. She has two big bags with her. She stashes one on the rack underneath where the boy sits. She slings the other one over her shoulder. It bulges and looks heavy. She pushes the stroller up the street on the same side as her parents’ house. Of course everyone thinks that’s where she’s going. She’s going to see her parents.
But before she gets to Ardell’s house, she crosses the street and pushes the stroller upthe walk to Jojo’s mother’s house. She leaves the stroller at the bottom of the porch steps and takes the two big bags up to the door. She presses the doorbell, and the door opens. She hands the two bags inside and then goes back down the steps. This time she picks up the stroller and carries it up onto the porch and into the house. The door closes behind her.
Up and down the street, people are staring at Jojo’s mother’s front door. Ardell is staring the hardest. He comes down off his porch and marches himself to Shana’s parents’ house. The next thing you know, Shana’s father comes out of his house, crosses the street to Jojo’s mother’s house and presses the doorbell half a dozen times. When no one answers, he hammers on the door. Ardell is standing at the bottom of the porch steps, watching him.
“My brother is in the hospital because of him,” Ardell says. “And because of her.”
“You think I like this?” Shana’s father says. “You think I like that my grandson has him for a father? I would rather she’d never had that baby. I—”
Shana is standing in the open door. Jojo is behind her. I can see that he’s holding Benjamin in his arms.
“What are you doing here, Papa?” Shana says.
Shana’s father grabs her by the arm and drags her out onto the porch.
“What are you doing here?” he says.
Shana looks at her father. Shana is so pretty. People around here say she should enter one of those top model contests. They say she would win for sure. I know that Shana’s father thinks so too. He has always been proud of her. He always called her “my little girl,” right up until she got pregnant with Jojo’s baby. But he loves her—you can tell by the way he looks at her. And now he says all the time that the child looks just like its mother, and you can tell that makes him happy. My mother says she’s sure it would be different if every time Shana’s father looked at his grandson, he found himself looking at Jojo. She says the thing that saves that child from being an outcast in his own family is that he doesn’t look anything like his daddy.
Shana’s father says, “Get the baby and come out of there right now before everyone starts to think—”
“Before they start to think what?” Shana says.
“Just come out of there,” Shana’s father says.
“Benjamin is visiting his other family,” Shana says. “We’ll come out when we’re finished.” She steps back into the house where Jojo is still holding the boy. Benjamin reaches out and pulls Jojo’s nose. Jojo makes a funny face. Shana laughs. The door closes behind her.
Shana’s father stands there a moment, staring at the closed door like he can’t believe what has just happened. He comes down the porch steps.
“You should tell your daughter to stay away from him,” Ardell says.
“You should have a daughter and watch her grow into a woman and then try to tell her anything,” Shana’s father says.
“My brother’s in the hospital because of her,” Ardell says.
“Your brother’s in the hospital because of Jojo,” Shana’s father says. “And don’t you forget it.”
He walks back across the street and stands in front of his house, waiting for Shana to appear. He waits for more than an hour. When Shana finally comes across the street, he takes the child from her. The whole way up his front walk, he talks to Shana. I can’t hear what he says, but I can tell he’s mad. He looks at Jojo’s mother’s house before he goes inside.
That evening, Jojo’s mother is outside under the umbrella. She looks older now, but she smiles when Jojo brings her a tray of food. I hear her say, “That child looks more like you every day.”
Jojo smiles.
Chapter Eight
I hear shouting and look out the front window. It’s coming from across the street, from Ardell’s house. A lot of people are outside. Their heads all turn in the direction of the shouting, but whatever is going on is going on inside the house. Because I have nothing else to do, I go outside too.
The front door of Ardell’s house opens and Ardell’s father is propelled out, backwards. He stumbles and almost falls down the porch steps. Ardell comes out of the house.His face is twisted with anger. He pushes his father. His father grabs the railing that runs up along the steps so that Ardell can’t knock him down.
“No way,” Ardell yells at him. “No way.”
Ardell’s mother comes out of the house behind Ardell. She is wiping her eyes with a wad of tissue. She grabs one of Ardell’s arms and says something to him. Ardell shakes her off. She grabs hold of him again, and again she says something to him. Ardell shoves his father, but his father hangs on tight. Ardell kicks one of the plastic chairs his mother has set out in a row on the porch. It flies up over the railing and lands in one of the rose bushes his mother is so proud of. Then he storms down the steps, shoving his father again, hard. Heads turn to watch him stomp down the street and out of sight.
Ardell’s mother goes to Ardell’s father and says something to him. Then she starts to cry. He puts his arms around her. It’s the first time I’ve seen him do that since he moved out. They go back into the house together, also a first.
I walk down to the sidewalk, where Megan Dalia’s mother is standing with a watering can, watering the pots of flowers that sit alongside her front walk.
“Is everything okay?” I say, nodding across the street to Ardell’s house.
“The hospital says that Eden is brain-dead,” she says. “There’s no hope. They want to turn off the machines.”
“Are they going to do it?”
“I don’t think they have any choice.”
I look up at Jojo’s mother’s house. The front window is open. A curtain flutters in the breeze. I wonder if Jojo knows what’s going on. If he does, I wonder what he thinks. Does he care what he did to Eden? Does he feel bad? Does he think he’s paid for what he did? Two years—it never seemed like much for putting Eden in a coma all this time. It seems like even less now.
Chapter Nine
For the next couple of days, no one sees Ardell. No one sees Jojo either, but that’s because Jojo is going out the back way now.
There is a fence around his mother’s small backyard, just like there are fences around all the small backyards on the street. Behind the fence is an alley. The same alley runs behind all the houses on my side of the street. If you walk along in either direction, it takes you to the street. But before you get to thestreet at either end, you reach the alleys that run behind the houses on those streets.
I see Jojo leave the house by the back door, walk through his mother’s yard, go out the little gate at the back and disappear into the alley. He’s always gone for a long time, and when he comes back, his mother’s big cloth bag is bulging. I figure he is taking the bus out of the neighborhood to do his shopping now. I wonder if anyone else knows.
Then one day, Ardell’s father drives up to Ardell’s house in his car. He gets out, goes up onto the porch and rings the doorbell. Ardell’s mother comes out. She is dressed in her best, with a hat on her head. Ardell is dressed nicely too. He refuses to look at his father. He and his mother walk down to the car. Ardell helps his mother
into the backseat. Then he climbs in beside her. Ardell’s father gets in front. He looks like a chauffeur or a taxi driver, not a member of the family.
When they all come back a couple of hours later, Ardell’s mother is crying. Ardell has to support her as she walks back to the house. Ardell’s father sits in his car at the curbfor a few minutes. I see him wipe his eyes before he drives away.
That night my mother tells me, “Eden has passed. The funeral is the day after tomorrow.”
Everybody on the street who ever knew Eden turns out for the funeral. Well, almost everyone. I see Shana’s mother and father, but I don’t see Shana.
A lot of people who don’t live on our street also show up. Eden was popular. He was a good guy. People from his old school show up. So do people he played sports with. The church is packed with old people and young people and people in between. My mother approves of the turnout.
“A mother likes to know her son was well-thought-of,” she says. “It says a lot about a person how many people come out to pay their respects.”
After the funeral, people go back to the church basement, where the church ladies serve refreshments. People file up to Eden’s mother and father to tell them how sorry they are and to say how they remember Eden.Everybody has some little story about him that they tell. Eden’s mother is crying the whole time, but she hugs every person who comes to talk to her, and she thanks them for coming. That night, Ardell’s father’s car stays parked at the curb in front of Ardell’s house all night. It’s still there in the morning. Ardell sits on the porch staring at it when he isn’t staring at Jojo’s house.
Chapter Ten
Things get turned upside down. For a couple of days after the funeral, Ardell’s father’s car is sitting at the curb in front of Ardell’s house every night. The Saturday after the funeral, when Ardell’s father drives up, he opens the trunk of the car and starts taking out boxes and suitcases. He’s moving back into the house.
Ardell spends most of his time out on the porch staring at Jojo’s house. But Jojo never comes out—not the front way, anyway.
Then, the same as every week, the bus stops at the corner and Shana gets down with her baby in the stroller. She’s got a big bulky bag slung over her shoulder again and another one stashed under the stroller seat. This time she walks on Jojo’s side of the street. She pushes the stroller up to Jojo’s mother’s front walk.
Ardell comes down off the porch when he sees her. He runs across the street, but he’s wearing sneakers, so he doesn’t make a sound. He comes up behind Shana and grabs her by one arm and spins her around. He says, “You weren’t at my brother’s funeral.”
Shana looks surprised to see Ardell standing there, so close to her that she has to bend her head back a little so that she can look up into his eyes.
“You’re hurting my arm,” she says. Her voice is nice and calm.
Ardell lets go of her. “You weren’t at my brother’s funeral,” he says again.
“I know,” she says, still nice and calm. “The baby was sick. I called your mother and talked to her. Didn’t she tell you?”
“Calling someone and talking to them on the phone isn’t the same as coming to a funeral,” Ardell says. “You, of all people, should have been at that church. You should have been at the cemetery to see him get lowered into the ground.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t make it,” Shana says. She sounds sincere. “But when I woke up that morning, Benjamin had a fever. I had to take him to the doctor. I’m sorry how things turned out for Eden. I told your mother that. I’m sorry how everything turned out. And if Benjamin hadn’t got sick that morning, I would have been there. You know I would have, Ardell.”
Ardell looks down at the child, who is squirming in his stroller, demanding to get out. He probably wants to run around, the way kids do.
“Jojo was right about one thing,” Ardell says. “You should have got rid of that baby while you had the chance.”
Shana stares at him, like she can’t believe the words that have just come out of his mouth.
“He’s my son,” she says, fierce as a mother lion now. “Don’t talk like that in front of him. And don’t talk like that to me. He’s my son. He’s got nothing to do with you.”
“He’s Jojo’s son,” Ardell says. “And he’s the reason my brother is dead. If Eden hadn’t come out of the house that morning to help you, if he’d let Jojo do what he was going to do, maybe you wouldn’t have that baby. For sure my brother would still be alive.”
Shana is almost shaking now, she’s that mad.
“I’m grateful for what Eden did,” she says. “I’m grateful every single day when I wake up and see my baby. And I’m sorry for what happened—”
Smack! Ardell slaps her across the face. He slaps her so hard that her head snaps back and she stumbles. The only thing that stops her from falling is the stroller. She grabs onto the handles to steady herself.
The sound of that smack resounds up and down the street. People who had been watching Ardell step a little closer now.People who hadn’t been watching turn and look to see what happened.
Shana is clinging to the handles of the stroller. Ardell comes toward her, his fists clenched now. The child looks up at him and smiles and gurgles. For some reason, this makes Ardell even madder. He ducks down and, just like that, unsnaps the harness that’s holding the child in the stroller. He picks Benjamin up and holds him at arm’s length. Shana yells at him to put the baby down. She reaches for him, but Ardell swings around, holding the boy higher, out of her reach.
Benjamin whoops. He sounds happy. But Shana screams at Ardell. “Give me back my baby! Give me back my baby!”
A couple of the people who have been watching move toward Ardell. Mr. Jenson, who lives two doors down from Ardell and who is a night security guard at a mall, tells Ardell to give the child back to its mother. Ardell just stares at him. He looks at the child, and all I see is hate in his eyes.
I come down my front walk. I don’t know why. Ardell is way bigger than me, andbesides, my foot is in a cast. But I come down anyway. On my way to the sidewalk, I glance at Jojo’s mother’s house. The windows are open, and the curtains flutter in the breeze.
“Give her back the baby,” people are saying.
Ardell’s father appears, as if from nowhere.
“Give her back the baby, son,” he says.
Ardell turns to look at him. “Son?” he says. “Did you just call me son? How can I be your son when I don’t have a father? I haven’t had a father since you decided you wanted my brother dead.”
“Please, Ardell,” his father says. “Give the girl her baby.”
Ardell shakes Benjamin, just a little, as if he’s been wondering what the child will do. Benjamin smiles at him. Ardell shakes him again, a little harder.
Shana screams at him, “Give me back my baby.”
Maybe it’s the shaking or maybe it’s the screaming—the baby stops smiling and starts crying. He reaches out his little hands forhis mother. Everyone is telling Ardell to give the baby back.
Then the cops show up—two of them in a patrol car. They both get out. People back away from Ardell. One of the cops goes straight to Ardell. The other one hangs back, watching. The cop who’s up close to Ardell tells Ardell to give him the baby.
Ardell turns around slowly to look at the cop.
“Give me the baby,” the cop says again.
Ardell hands over the baby.
Shana is practically hysterical as she takes Benjamin from the cop. One side of her face is swollen up.
The cop asks Ardell to step over to the police car. Ardell doesn’t want to go. The cop’s face hardens. He orders Ardell over to the police car. He puts Ardell in the backseat, where he can’t get out. Then the two cops talk to Shana and to a lot of other people about what happened. When they leave, they still have Ardell in the back of the police car.
As I watch them go, I wonder how they knew to come in the first place. I wonder who called t
hem. I look at the window that’s open in Jojo’s mother’s house and at the curtain that’s fluttering in the breeze.
Chapter Eleven
Ardell hit Shana. Ardell took Shana’s baby and shook him and wouldn’t give him back. Ardell didn’t listen the first time the cop told him to hand over the baby and the first time he was told to step over to the police car. But everybody blames Jojo.
They say things like:
“A boy is dead. They should have locked Jojo up for longer.”
“If he hadn’t come back here, none of this would have happened.”
“Ardell is a good boy. He did what he did because Jojo drove him to it.”
“People like Jojo have no business in this neighborhood.”
The police charge Ardell with assaulting both Shana and the baby. Then they let him go with a promise to appear. Most of the time, Ardell sits on his porch again and stares across the street at Jojo’s house. But he also walks down to where the stores and restaurants are and talks to the storeowners and the restaurant owners.
I am in the video store when Ardell comes in. It’s one of those chain places. I am checking out the new releases. Ardell asks to talk to the manager. He asks the manager if he heard what happened to his brother, who was beaten up two years ago and who just recently died of his injuries.
“Yeah, I heard something about that,” the manager says.
Ardell pulls out a piece of paper and unfolds it. From where I am standing, I can see it’s got a picture of a face on it. I can’t actually see the face, but I know it’s Jojo.
Ardell says, “This is the guy who killed my brother. They locked him up for two years, and now he is back. A bunch of us who live around here and a lot of the people who have businesses on this street have got together. We don’t want this piece of garbage living in our neighborhood.”
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