Dear Justyce

by Nic Stone

  The darkness is so thick, he feels like he’s drowning in it. Maybe he is. Maybe Quan can’t draw breath because the darkness has solidified. Turned viscous, dense and sticky and heavy. That would also explain why he can’t lift his arms or swing his legs over the edge of this cotton-lined cardboard excuse for a “bed” that makes his neck and back hurt night after night.

  What Quan wouldn’t give to be back in his queen-sized, memory foam, personal cloud with crazy soft flannel sheets in his bedroom at Daddy’s house. If he’s going to die in a bed—because he’s certainly about to die—he wishes it could be that bed instead of this one.

  He shuts his eyes and more pieces of that night fly at him:

  Daddy yelling

  Don’t hurt my son!

  before being shoved out the front door.

  The sound of glass breaking as the unfinished cup of ginger ale Quan left on the counter toppled to the floor. His foot hit it as the officer with his dumb, muscly arm crushing Quan’s rib cage carried Quan through the kitchen like Quan was some kind of doll baby.

  The sudden freezing air as Quan was whisked outside in his thin Iron Man pajamas with no shoes or jacket…and the subsequent strange warmth running down Quan’s legs when he saw Just. How. Many.

  Police cars.

  There were.

  Outside.

  Barking dogs, straining against leashes. A helicopter circling overhead, its spotlight held steady on the team of men dragging Daddy toward the group of cop vehicles parked haphazardly and blocking the street.

  Quan had counted six when his eyes landed on the van no less than five officers were wrestling his dad into.

  Wrestling because Daddy kept trying to look back over his shoulder to see what was happening with Quan. He was shouting.

  It’s gonna be okay, Junior!

  Get in the goddam van!

  It’ll all be fi—

  One of the officers brought an elbow down on the back of Daddy’s head. Quan watched as Daddy’s whole body went limp.

  That’s when Quan started

  Screaming.

  Two of the officers climbed into the back of the van and dragged Daddy’s body inside the way Quan had seen Daddy drag the giant bags of sand he’d bought for the sandbox he built in the backyard when Quan was younger.

  Kicking.

  Cut it out, kid!

  Wait…are you wet?

  They rolled Daddy to his back, and one of the officers knelt beside him and put two fingers up under his jaw. He nodded at the other officer, who then hopped down from the back of the van and shut the doors.

  Flailing.

  Screaming.

  Kicking.

  The taillights of the van glowed red and Quan wished everything would STOP. He was sobbing and twisting, and the officer holding him squeezed tighter and locked Quan’s arms down.

  As the van pulled off, Quan screamed so loud, he was sure his mama would hear him back home some twenty miles away. She would hear him and she would come and she would stop the van and she would get Daddy out and she would get Quan. All the blue-suited Dad-stealing monsters and blue-lit cars would POOF! disappear and everything would go back to normal.

  Better yet, Mama would bring Dwight-the-black-Olaf, and she’d toss him in the back of the van in Daddy’s place. And they’d lock him up in a snake-filled cell and throw away the key.

  Quan screamed until all the scream was outta him. Then he inhaled. And he screamed some more.

  His own voice was all he could hear until—

  “Hey! You put that young man down! Have you lost your ever-lovin’ mind?!”

  Then the officer holding him was saying

  Ow! Hey!

  And

  Hey! Stop that!

  And

  Ma’am, you are assaulting a police officer—

  “I said put him DOWN. Right now!”

  Ma’am, I can’t—

  All right! All right!

  The grip on Quan’s body loosened. His feet touched down on the porch floor just as a wrinkled hand wrapped around his biceps and a thin arm wrapped around his lower back, a sheet of paper in hand. “You come on here with me, Junior,” a familiar voice said.

  Ma’am, he can’t go with you. Until further notice, he’s a ward of the state—

  “Like hell he is! You can call his mama to come get him, but until she arrives, he’ll be staying at my house.” The woman shoved the paper into the officer’s face. “You see this? This is a legally binding document. Read it aloud.”

  Ma’am—

  “I said read it aloud!”

  Okay, okay!

  (The officer cut his eyes at Quan before beginning. Then sighed.)

  “In the event of the arrest of Vernell LaQuan Banks Sr., Mrs. Edna Pavlostathis is named temporary guardian of Vernell LaQuan Banks Jr. until…”

  But that was all Quan needed to hear. (Did Daddy know he would be snatched away from his son in the dead of night?)

  “Come on, honey,” she said, and as she ushered Quan away from the tornado of blue—lights, cars, uniforms, eyes—that’d ripped through everything he knew as normal, everything clicked into place.

  Mrs. Pavlostathis. The fireball old lady who lived next door to Daddy.

  “Let’s head inside and I’ll go over to your dad’s to grab you some fresh clothes so you can get cleaned up. How dare those so-called officers treat you that way. The nerve of those whites—”

  She trailed off. Or at least Quan thinks she did. He can’t remember her saying anything else. He does remember thinking that under different circumstances, that last statement would’ve made him smile. He’d known Mrs. Pavlostathis since he was seven years old—she was close to eighty and used to babysit him when Daddy had to make “emergency runs” on weekends Quan was there. Despite her skin tone, Mrs. P let everyone know she was Greek, not white.

  She was also one of Daddy’s clients (“A little ganja’s good for my glaucoma, Junior”) and, Quan had noticed over the years, the only neighbor who didn’t look at him funny—or avoid looking at all—when Quan would play outside or when he and Daddy would drive through the neighborhood in Daddy’s BMW.

  It was something Mama always grumbled about when she’d drive the forty minutes out into the burbs to drop Quan off. I don’t know why your daddy wants to live way out here with all these white folks. They’re gonna call the cops on his ass one day, and it’ll be over…

  As he and Mrs. P made their way over to her house, Quan wondered if Mama’s prediction was coming true.

  And in that moment: he hated his mama.

  For saying that. Wishing the worst on Daddy.

  For staying with duck-ass Dwight. Putting up with his antics.

  For working so much.

  For not being there.

  Especially right then.

  “I’ll run ya a salt bath,” Mrs. P said as they stepped into her house, and fragrant warmth wrapped around him like a hug from a fluffy incense stick with arms. “I know you’re not a little kid anymore, but it’ll do ya some good. I just made some dolmas, and there’s some of those olives you like, the ones with the creamy feta inside, in the fridge. Put something in your belly. I’m sure you’re starving.”

  In truth, food was the furthest thing from Quan’s mind…but one didn’t say no to Mrs. P. So he did as he was told. He stuffed himself with Mrs. P’s world-famous (if you let her tell it) dolmas—a blend of creamy lemon-ish rice and ground lamb rolled up into a grape leaf. He ate his weight in giant feta-filled olives.

  And when the salt bath was ready, he stripped down and climbed into the fancy claw-foot tub in Mrs. P’s guest bathroom.

  Quan closed his
eyes.

  Swirling police lights and Daddy’s collapsing body flashed behind them.

  Van doors shutting.

  Taillights disappearing.

  Would Daddy go to prison?

  For how long?

  What would happen now?

  Quan wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.

  So he sank.

  It was easy at first, holding his breath and letting the water envelop him completely. Even felt nice.

  But then his lungs started to burn. Images of Dasia and Gabe popped into his head. He remembered telling Gabe he’d teach him how to play Uno when he got back from Daddy’s house this time. Little dude was four now and ready to learn.

  Quan’s head swam.

  Dasia would be waiting for Quan to polish her toenails purple. That was the prize he’d promised her if she aced her spelling test. And she did.

  His chest felt on the verge of bursting, and everything in his head was turning white.

  And Mama…

  Dwight—

  Air came out of Quan’s nose with so much force, he’d swear it shot him up out of the water. As his senses returned to normal, he heard water hit tile and the bathroom at Mrs. P’s house swam back into focus.

  He took a breath.

  Well, more like a breath took him. He gasped as air flooded his lungs, shoving him back from the brink of No Return.

  It’s the same type of breath that’s overtaking him now.

  Here.

  In his cell.

  And as oxygen—a little stale from the cinder block walls and laced with the tang of iron—surges down his throat and kicks the invisible weight off him, Quan knows:

  He won’t die now just like he didn’t die then.

  * * *

  —

  He can breathe.

  January 12

  Dear Justyce,

  Look, I’m not even gonna lie: this shit is weird. I don’t write letters to my mama, but I’m writing one to you?

  Smh.

  (Wait, can I even write that? This ain’t a text message…)

  (See? Weird.)

  (You better not tell nobody I wrote this.)

  Anyway, I had this dream last night and when I woke up, the first thing I saw was that notebook you gave me with all the Martin Luther King letters in it.

  Sidenote: I really do appreciate you popping by to see ya boy before you headed back to that fancy college you go to. Ol’ smarty pants ass. But for real, it was good to see you. It, uhh…did a lot for me. Gets more than a little lonely in here, and I don’t get many visitors, so you coming through was—well, that was real nice of you, dawg.

  Now back to this notebook you left. At first I thought it was wack (“THOSE” black guys, huh?), but the more I read, the more interested I got. Like it was a lot of shit in there about Manny—my own cousin!—that I didn’t know because I ain’t really KNOW him, know him. That was kinda wild.

  And YOU! Man, we got way more in common than I woulda thought.

  It was one letter in the notebook that made me wanna write this one to you. Not sure what happened (you mentioned doing the “wrong thing”), but there’s a line you wrote: “Those assholes can’t seem to care about being offensive, so why should I give a damn about being agreeable?”

  I don’t know what it is, but that shit really got me.

  I’ve never told anybody about the night my dad got arrested. It was a couple years after you and me met in the rocket ship. I was eleven. Cops busted up in the house in the dead of night like they owned the place and just…took him.

  And I haven’t seen him since. They gave him 25 years in prison.

  It’s only one other time in my life I ever been that scared, J. It all happened too fast for me to figure out what I could do. I think deep down, I knew he was prolly going away for a long-ass time—I was fully aware of his “occupation,” and while I was sure the cops wouldn’t find any contraband in his actual house (he was real careful about that), he dealt in more than just green, and the net was wide, so it was only a matter of time.

  I really miss him, though.

  I dream about the whole scenario a lot. Did last night, in fact. And when I woke up and looked at the date? Today is the sixth anniversary.

  Shit hit me harder than it usually does. Probably because it also means I’ve been up in here for almost sixteen months. It’s the longest stretch I’ve ever done, and I don’t even have a trial date yet. I do my best to just cruise—not really think about where I am and what it’s actually like to be here. But today I couldn’t help but notice how bad the food is. How heavy the giant iron doors are, and how…defeated, I guess, everyone up in here seems, even though a few of the others talk a good game about getting out.

  I keep thinking, like: What would my dad say if he could see me now? How disappointed would he be?

  Yeah, what he did for a living wasn’t exactly “statutory,” as he used to say. But if there’s one thing he was hell-bent on, it was me NOT ending up like him. We talking about a dude who used to drop my ass at the library when he had to make some of his runs. (Head librarian had real bad anxiety and was one of Dad’s clients so she took good care of me.) Don’t nobody know this, but I used to eat up the Lemony Snicket “Unfortunate Events” joints like they were Skittles. You ever read those? Them shits go hard. Kinda wish I had my collection here.

  Anyway, that was all him. Vernell LaQuan Banks Sr. He’s the reason they tested me for Accelerated Learners and I wound up in that Challenge Math class with you.

  He wanted me to do good. To go far and be better.

  But then he was just…gone.

  (Sorry for getting sentimental, but like I said before: you better not tell nobody I wrote all this. Or that I used to read books about little rich white kids.)

  That night he got arrested turned everything upside down. I knew things were about to get bad because my dad had been like the duct tape holding our raggedy shit together. He paid for a lot and gave my mom money, and he really was the reason I stayed out of trouble. The minute that van drove away with him in it, I felt…doomed.

  It’s why I stopped talking to you. Everybody else too, but especially you. I woulda never admitted this (honestly don’t know why I’m admitting it now…), but I kinda looked up to you. Yeah, you were only a year older and you were dorky as hell, but you had your shit together in a way I wanted mine to be.

  I knew if I could just be like you, my dad would be proud of me.

  Seeing what you wrote in that post-whatever-the-hell-set-you-off letter…I dunno, man. If YOU felt that way, maybe everything my dad tried to push me toward really was pointless.

  Don’t really matter now anyway. I’m prolly gettin’ WAY more time than my dad did.

  Guess it’s whatever.

  I don’t even know if Imma send this. Maybe I should. You better write back, though. Cuz otherwise I ain’t never writing you another letter again.

  Got me over here pouring my heart out and shit.

  Smh.

  (There I go again!)

  Later,

  Vernell LaQuan Banks Jr. QUAN

  P.S.: I know you already knew my government name, but don’t ever call me by it.

  P.S.S. (or is it P.P.S.? Yo, you ever heard that song “O.P.P.”? I love that song.): REMINDER—don’t tell NOBODY I wrote this!

  It’s not like Quan didn’t try to keep it together at first. He really did.

  Yeah, he kinda withdrew into himself a little bit. Didn’t talk or interact with people as much. But that’s because he was trying to stay focused.

  It was the only way he knew how to cope: control what he could, ignore what he couldn’t. So for a while, he did his homework. Kept his and Gabe’s room straight—even though sharing
space with a little kid meant cleaning every single day. Played Connect 4 with Dasia. Took both of them to the playground as often as possible. And even there, he was working: keeping the rocket ship cleaned out. He knew some of the stuff he found inside it suggested some not-so-playground-appropriate activities, but he did his best to make sure at least that part of the play area stayed kid-friendly.

  Weekends he was supposed to be at Daddy’s, he spent with his nose buried in books. No matter what else he strayed to, he always returned to A Series of Unfortunate Events. Something about watching those kids escape by the skin of their teeth over and over again helped Quan keep his head above water even when everything around him seemed to be crashing down.

  Because everything did.

  Seem to be crashing down.

  Crashing and tumbling downhill like good ol’ Jack and Jill.

  Shortly after Daddy’s arrest, Dwight moved in. Which Quan figured would happen eventually: the only reason he wasn’t living with them already was because Daddy told Mama he’d stop giving her money if she

  let that piece of shit occupy the same space as my son.

  With Daddy gone, though, money was getting tight. And Olaf-ass Dwight used that to his advantage. Told Mama he’d help with the bills—

  But I can only do that if I don’t have my own rent to pay.

  (Quan overheard the whole conversation. When it was over, he climbed down from his hiding place up on the high shelf in the coat closet where Mama kept the extra bed comforters and went straight to his rocket ship, kicking the hypodermic needle he found inside it right out the entrance even though he knew a little kid might find it.)

  (He used a discarded Takis bag to pick it up and put it in the trash can later.)