He Said, She Said

by Kwame Alexander

  Without you, my world is damp and dark, Claudia. At night I walk on wet sand, tumbling toward your arms. But you are not there. I cannot find breathing room outside your arms. Until you talk to me, I am waiting to exhale. . . . You make me want you to kidnap me. On a beach. At midnight, hands bound, perfect. Lips held captive by lips. . . . I am sorrier than sorry. I am lost in this darkness. Come back, light. Come back!

  Yadda, yadda, yadda. No way he wrote that. I may forgive him eventually, but I will never forget. That ship done sank, homeboy.

  “Girl, if SWAT comes out of the back that truck, I’m outta here,” Blu says at seven thirty, pointing to a big white truck that the cops let pull up in front of the sit-in.

  “No way that’s SWAT. This is West Charleston, not Beijing,” I answer, trying to convince myself more than her.

  “I’m just saying, remember what they did to those students out in California.”

  “Hey, everybody hold tight, something’s about to go down,” Omar shouts, and we lock arms even tighter. We make eye contact for the first time since my birthday. He mouths something to me, but I don’t acknowledge him. And then I hear somebody down near the truck calling my name.

  “Is there a Claudette Clarke here?” says the pudgy guy exiting the truck. I’m not being arrested, unless police now wear shorts, a T-shirt, and flip-flops. Several people sitting on the steps near him point to us. The guy starts walking toward me.

  “If he pulls out a pepper-spray can, I’m knocking his ass out and running. You with me?” Blu whispers.

  I nervously laugh as the guy approaches us.

  “Who’s Claudene Clarke?” he says.

  “What do you want with her?” Omar says, breaking the line and walking toward me.

  “Special delivery. They told me to ask for, uh—”

  “It’s Claudia Clarke,” I say, correcting this dude who is no more SWAT than I am.

  “Okay, cool, I just need you to sign this.” He shoves a piece of paper at me.

  “Don’t do it,” Blu screams. “Could be anthrax on that receipt!” Sometimes Blu can be insane in the membrane.

  “Chill, Blu, I got this,” I tell her.

  “We’re kind of in the middle of something, mister,” Omar says to the guy.

  “Sir, you can give whatever it is you have to me, thank you,” I say, letting Omar know that I no longer need him to come to my rescue.

  “You may need some help with this, Ms. Clarke. It’s a pretty big delivery. Here, this is the note that goes with the order,” fat dude says. He hands me an envelope and heads down to his truck.

  “Be careful opening it,” Blu says. I roll my eyes at her. Most of the Panther Twelve, except Omar, Blu, and me, are still locked down. A few kids from the steps have come up to see what all the commotion is about.

  “Hey, look,” Belafonte hollers, pointing at the big U-Haul truck. “It’s eating time.” He and a few others break the line. Omar, Blu, and I look at the truck in complete shock, then immediately get back in formation so we can keep the doors blocked.

  Pudgy dude is passing out pizza boxes, from Monza, Sabatini’s, and Mellow Mushroom. Even though these are the most bougie pizza joints in Charleston, the kids are grabbing them like it’s spring water in the desert.

  I open the expensive-looking envelope. And read aloud what’s printed on the cream-colored note card.

  I know you don’t need my help,

  But even the natives have to eat. . . .

  P. Conroy

  For a split second, I try not to laugh. I don’t want Omar feeling that I’ve let my guard down. But I have, and I do, and he does too, and everybody who heard the note looks at us like we’re loons.

  In all the excitement, I fail to notice the change in position in the Panther Twelve line. Blu is now next to Luther Lee, who’s in the middle. Standing next to me, locked arm in arm like we’ve just walked down the aisle, is none other than Omar Smalls, smiling like he’s about to score.

  Now, I want to sleep. After eating three slices of pizza, I have caught the itis.

  It’s eight o’clock when the poet laureate of South Carolina shows up with a bunch of her writer friends. They saw us on the news and they really believe in what we’re doing and they want to show support and yadda yadda yadda.

  The pretty poet lady asks us can she read a poem to the group. Omar looks at me, and I nod. I’m ambivalent, because on the real, we’re already tired, and the last thing we need is for pretty poet lady to read us some poem that nobody understands.

  Omar hollers at the protesters, dwindled in number to about two fifty after dinner, and wakes a lot of them up. He introduces pretty poet lady, who looks so small standing next to him. He stands back in line, and the crowd, most of whom are this close to going back to sleep anyway, give her their attention.

  She begins like this: “‘Keeping Quiet’ by Pablo Neruda. ‘Now we will count to twelve/and we will all keep still. . . .’” And, with these few words she has my attention. When she says, “‘Life is what it is,’” Omar and I look at each other.

  It’s like this poem is for us. It’s for me. It’s for Omar. It’s for West Charleston High School, it’s for students everywhere who are tired of being treated as invisible, as unspoken, as unheard. More students pay attention now, and this small pretty poet lady has a voice of a hundred lions.

  And then she starts counting, measured and assured.

  And with each number, students begin to stand up, and raise their hands, counting in silence. Some students are holding up their iPhones, displaying their candelight apps. This is better than the best frickin’ concert I’ve ever been to.

  I have no idea where we’re going with this, but I am compelled to take my arm from inside Omar’s and raise mine too. So I do it. He raises his also, and when she gets to seven, Omar’s powerful hand clasps mine. I let it stay there. I have no idea what this means, but it feels right. I have no idea what any of us will do when we get to twelve. I never find out.

  The doors behind us open.

  “Step aside, step aside,” says the cop in front. Behind him are Mayor Deal, Superintendent Rooney, Cruella, Dr. Gwen Hinton, my old middle school teacher who’s now on the school board—she winks at me—and, surprisingly, her majesty, our governor. Whoa, this should be interesting.

  Dr. Jackson rolls her eyes at me. I curse her out in French. In my mind. And then kind of laugh to myself. Omar looks at me, and still having not spoken to him, I just shrug.

  “We’re fired up, can’t take no mo’,” he says. Then, he says it again, louder. Blu joins him. Then the poet woman starts hollering it, and before long, the whole crowd is chanting.

  “Okay, okay, let’s calm down. The governor has a few things to say.” This directive from the mayor only makes us yell it louder. Cruella whispers something to Omar. He looks at me, then stops chanting and puts his finger in front of his mouth.

  “Shhhh!” he says to the crowd, and everyone follows the leader.

  “Thank you,” the governor begins. “For your consideration, and for your passion. Here in South Carolina, we aim to bring out the best in our students. We educate you because we want you to make something of yourselves, to play a significant role in the betterment of our society, not just here in Charleston, but across this beautiful globe of ours.”

  Globe, really? Jeez!

  “You students have exercised your democratic principles, and while I can’t reward your specific actions, your community I’m sure respects you. You have made your point. I’ve received calls from worried and angry parents. Your peers from other schools around the state have called to express support for your concerns. I’m sorry I couldn’t get here earlier, but Mr. Rooney and Dr. Jackson and I had to sit down and discuss your demands.

  “Today, a school board meeting was called by Dr. Hinton, and they have proposed new legislation that will allocate some discretionary funds to keep a few more of your arts classes and reinstate all ninety-five teachers from your city who were la
id—”

  She can’t even say the word “off” before the crowd goes frickin’ bananas! Kids are whistling, throwing empty pizza boxes in the air, hugging, barking, high-fiving each other, screaming “YEAH” at the top of their lungs. I look at Omar, expecting a full-on smile to match mine, but his eyes are focused on something in the crowd.

  “Okay, calm down kids. I know this is good news, but let’s not cause a ruckus,” Superintendent Rooney exclaims.

  I look in the direction of where Omar is looking and I see some guys in Bayside jackets body dancing like they’re at a rock concert. It looks like the kids they’re slamming against aren’t too appreciative. But this isn’t what’s got my eye.

  “Now we’re going to ask you all to go home. The protest is over; your demands have been met. Let’s all go home and have a peaceful end to the night,” Rooney continues.

  I didn’t see them at the rally, and I sure didn’t expect to see them here, but walking my way like they’re a gang of two are Kym and Eve. I glance over at Blu, but she and the rest of the Panther 12 are already being escorted down the steps by the police.

  “I’m going to ask all police officers to help us clear the area. Good night, students,” the superintendent adds, then follows the governor and the rest of the delegation back inside.

  “I told you it wasn’t over, bish,” says Eve, her eye black and blue and swollen like a rotten peach.

  “Ain’t no bitches around here, Eve, why you trippin’?” Omar says, and I notice for the first time that we’re still holding hands.

  “I got this” are my first words to Omar. “Look, Eve, I’m sorry for hitting you. That was wrong and immature. And Kym, I don’t have beef with you. I’m willing to squash, if you are.” I’ve had a lot of time to think these past four days, and I realize that I may be a little snobby and arrogant and yadda yadda yadda.

  “You ain’t special, trick. I had him—now what,” Kym says. Did you not hear what I just said? Jeez!

  “Now what? Well, now you go back to your pitiful, fake, unfulfilling, odious life, and me and my man will go off into the night. Bish.” What can I say, I’m a work in progress. I got so caught up in the word “odious” and that she probably didn’t know what it meant that the whole “my man” thing just kind of slipped out.

  “Titty is the only bitch I see,” says one of the Bayside boys I saw body-slamming earlier. He passes a brown paper bag to another guy, who chugs it.

  “Yeah, what you gonna do now, quarterblack?” the other says, reaching into his coat pocket. Omar lets my hand go.

  “Claudia, get outta here. Run,” he says. Eve and Kym swing on me at the same time. Kym connects with my ear, and it hurts like hell. I see Willie Mack bum-rush one of the Bayside boys, and like a slow-motion movie, Eve comes at me all wild style. Omar tries to block her, but he gets hit with the brown paper bag.

  “Police!” is the next-to-last thing I hear. The gunshot is the last.

  Omar

  When I was twelve, me and some of my friends used to play streetball. We called ourselves the Presidents. We weren’t very original, seeing as how we lived on President Street.

  In Brooklyn, every block had its own team, and we played on Sundays. Well, this one particular Sunday, we were playing a group of kids from Nostrand Avenue, over on their street. Me and my friend Malcolm couldn’t understand why they wanted to play us again, given that we’d squashed them twice already.

  So we’re in the middle of the game, beating them again. I think the score was like 21 to 7, and we were about to score again. While we’re in the huddle, I see one of their guys kneel down behind the wheel of a car on the street and pick up a gun. I yell, “GUN!” and my whole squad turns around and looks, when what we should have done was run. The dude points the gun in our direction and fires. That’s when we take off running. Everybody except Malcolm.

  When I turn back to look, the guy who fired and the rest of his team are running in the opposite direction, and Malcolm is on the ground holding his arm and screaming. Blood is shooting out from it all over the ground. I run over to him and ask what I should do. He looks me in the eye, crying, and asks, “Omar, am I dying?”

  Some old lady comes out of her house with a rag that she ties around his arm, which makes him scream more. A few minutes later, a couple police cars show up, and an ambulance. This was the first time somebody I knew, somebody close to me, was ever shot.

  Today was the second.

  I see the doctor walking toward the waiting room, which is filled with a bunch of Panthers and her family. I intercept him before he gets here.

  “Is she okay?” I ask. “Is she alive?”

  “I need to see the family first, young man,” he responds.

  “Doctor, I need to know that she’s okay,” I say. He walks past me into the waiting room. Everyone jumps up when they see him.

  “Is the family here?” Why does he keep asking for the family? Is he going to tell them that she’s dead? The doctor walks over to her family. I follow him, as do a lot of kids.

  “She’s going to be okay. She’s stable. Luckily the bullet went in and out. Let’s let her rest; the surgery was a little taxing on her body.”

  “OmarKym’sGonnaBeFine,” Fast Freddie says.

  “It’s my fault. They were after me. It’s my fault.”

  “It’s those goons’ fault,” Willie Mack says. “Let’s get some air, dude. Give her family some space.”

  We walk outside the hospital, and I see homegirl coming our way.

  “Fellas, give me a sec,” I say. I just want to hug her. So I do, only she doesn’t really hug me back.

  “You all right?” she asks. Maybe she still cares.

  “I’m good . . . you? That could have been you, Claudia. I’m so sorry,” I say, and try to hug her again, unable to hold back the tears. “If you had been shot, I would be in jail right now, ’cause I woulda kilt them all.”

  “Killed, not kilt,” she says, and smiles.

  “Look, I’m sorry about the whole Kym craziness. I’ve been trying to tell you for like a week.”

  “I got your fifty messages and your emails and your letter.”

  “So we good?” I say, sniffling. She hands me a tissue.

  “No, Omar, we’re not good.”

  “I said I’m sorry. I mean it. It was a mistake.”

  “It was more than a mistake. You betrayed me. You played me. Sorry doesn’t cut it when you say you’re feeling me, and the next thing I know, your supposed ex-girlfriend is going down on you,” she says, a little too loud.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Claudia,” I say.

  “No one ever means to hurt you, but they do. I’m just gonna need some time to get over this, Omar.” She hands me another tissue. “T-Diddy’s crying in public. Let me get my camera out.”

  “Oh, so now you got jokes,” I say, in between sobs.

  “On the bright side, we did it.”

  “Yeah, I guess we did. This semester has been kind of out of control.”

  “Kind of? Try way out of control,” Claudia says.

  “At least the teachers got their jobs back, and we got some of the arts funding back.” Finally, a smile.

  “You going inside?” She doesn’t answer, just stares at me like she wants to say something. This may be a moment. Our moment.

  “Is it wrong that I want to kiss you right now, Claudia Clarke?” I say, getting some of my swagger back.

  “Not wrong at all, but it’s not happening,” she counters.

  “What about tomorrow?” I say.

  “You should just be glad I’m finally speaking to you,” she answers, walking past me and into the hospital.

  I love you, Claudia Clarke.

  Claudia

  Claudia Clarke It’s Complicated.

  Like · Comment · Share · 30 minutes ago ·

  Tdiddy Smalls Bonjour mademoiselle

  Wednesday at 9:34 pm · Like

  Claudia Clarke I’m studying for Mr. W’s test t
omorrow. You should be too.

  Wednesday at 9:34 pm · Like

  Tdiddy Smalls I was just wondering if you’re coming to see me play at Miami.

  Wednesday at 9:39 pm · Like

  Claudia Clarke #random

  Wednesday at 9:39 pm · Like

  Tdiddy Smalls I’m serious.

  Wednesday at 9:39 pm · Like

  Claudia Clarke If y’all play Harvard, sure #CrimsonTide

  Wednesday at 9:40 pm · Like

  Tami Hill Claudia, I just want you to know, I ride with you. Me and Eve don’t get down like that anymore #PantherDance

  Wednesday at 9:40 pm · Like

  Freddie Calloway Hole up, how y’all be getting down, for real.

  Wednesday at 9:40 pm · Like

  Willie Mack ROFL!

  Wednesday at 9:40 pm · Like

  Claudia Clarke Y’all silly. Thx Tami.

  Wednesday at 9:40 pm · Like

  Blu McCants T-Diddy crazy in love.

  Wednesday at 9:40 pm · Like

  Belafonte Jones Word.

  Wednesday at 9:41 pm · Like

  Tdiddy Smalls Why y’all up in here?

  Wednesday at 9:42 pm · Like

  Blu McCants Don’t make it easy on him, girl.

  Wednesday at 9:44 pm · Like

  Tdiddy Smalls Haters.

  Wednesday at 9:44 pm · Like

  Freddie Calloway Word.

  Wednesday at 9:44pm · Like

  Tami Hill Great idea! Anybody wanna play words w/ friends?

  Wednesday at 9:45 pm · Like

  Freddie Calloway Bwahahahahahaha!

  Wednesday at 9:45 pm · Like