Dear Justyce

by Nic Stone

Even at twelve, it didn’t escape Quan’s notice that the men in his mama’s life—Daddy included—used money to get her to do what they wanted her to. It bothered him no end. But he wasn’t sure what he could do about it.

  Which became a running theme: not knowing what he could do about anything.

  So he stayed focused.

  Nights Dwight would come “home” smashed out of his mind—and smashing things as a result—Quan would stay focused.

  Mornings Quan would wake up and find Mama’s bedroom door locked, but a note from her asking him to get Dasia and Gabe “clothed and fed and on the bus” because she wasn’t “feeling too hot,” Quan stayed focused.

  When the light would hit Mama’s face just right and he’d see the bruises beneath her caked-on makeup, Quan stayed focused.

  And it paid off. Mama might’ve been a mess, but Dasia and Gabe were just fine. Despite their daddy being a human garbage disposal, they laughed and smiled and were doing good in school…

  All because Quan stayed focused.

  Quan was also kicking academic ass and taking names. Because despite Daddy’s absence, Quan was determined (maybe now even more determined) to make the old man proud. Become the upstanding dude Daddy wanted him to be. Quan even considered going out for football once he hit ninth grade.

  Daddy had played in high school and even been offered a scholarship to college, but then Mama got pregnant and Vernell Sr. decided to stick around, take care of the son he’d helped create. Unlike my dad did, he told Quan once. What better way to pay Daddy back than to achieve the dream Daddy didn’t get to live—because of Quan?

  So Quan stayed focused.

  Then there was The Math Test.

  It’d been a little over a year since Dad’s arrest. Quan was the only seventh grader in the Algebra I Challenge Math class, and he’ll admit: the shit really was a challenge. He was averaging high Bs but was determined to do better.

  A week before The Math Test, Ms. Mays, Quan’s favorite teacher on earth, went on maternity leave. (Quan still hasn’t forgiven that damn baby for taking her away at such a critical point in his life.)

  Before she left, she held Quan after class one day and told him how much she believed in him. That she couldn’t wait to hear how well he did on the upcoming test. She knew he’d been struggling with the material, but, “I know you aren’t gonna let this stuff get the best of you. You, Quan Banks, are gonna show those letters and numbers who’s boss, am I right?”

  And she smiled.

  Even though it made him feel like a little-ass kid, Quan nodded. Because with her looking at him that way, like he could do anything, Quan wanted to prove her right.

  It was the same way Daddy looked at Quan when Quan showed him that 100 percent he got on his contraction test in first grade.

  Quan missed his dad.

  Quan wanted to—had to—ace that damn algebra test.

  So he studied. Hard.

  Harder than he’d ever studied for anything in his life.

  And you know what happened?

  98%.

  Quan almost lost his twelve-year-old MIND, he was so excited.

  He floated through the rest of the day. Anticipating the moment he would show the test to Mama. The pride that would overtake her face. He’d show it to Dasia and Gabe and tell them it represented what could happen if they worked real hard and did their very best. Then he’d write Daddy a letter and he’d put it—with the test—in an envelope and he’d mail it to the address Daddy’s lawyer gave Mama when he dropped by a few nights ago.

  Yeah, the impromptu visit had really set Dwight off—

  Your punk-ass son is enough of a reminder—

  tell that nigga’s attorney not to come by here no more!

  —but getting to send The Math Test to Daddy would make it all worth it.

  As soon as Quan was off the bus, he broke into a sprint. Wanted to get home as fast as possible. He knew Mama would be home. She didn’t leave the house when her body carried visible evidence of Dwight’s “anger issues,” and when Quan had left that morning, her wrist was in a brace and she could barely open her hand.

  The test would lift her spirits too. Quan was sure of it. She’d see what he’d accomplished, and it would give her hope that things could get better. That he’d eventually be able to take care of her and Dasia and Gabe.

  When he walked in the door, she was waiting for him.

  “Ma, you’ll never believe it—”

  “You damn right I won’t!”

  The tiniest hole appeared in Quan’s joy balloon as his mind kicked into gear, trying to figure out what she could be upset about. Had he left the bathroom light on again? He sometimes accidentally did that on mornings he had to get his siblings and himself ready for school and out the door on time. Their bus came thirteen minutes before his, so it was a lot to do.

  But he remembered turning it off.

  He hadn’t put the milk in the fridge door—Dwight hated when he did that. And he’d made sure all of his socks were in the laundry basket.

  So what could it be?

  “I’m so disappointed in you, Junior,” Mama continued, furious. “What do you have to say for yourself? Did you think they wouldn’t call me?”

  “Mama, I don’t—”

  “You had an algebra test yesterday, yes? Got it back today?”

  Things were looking up! Quan straightened. “Yes, ma’am, I did, and I—”

  “Cheated!”

  The word was like a sucker punch. “Huh??”

  “You heard me! Your teacher called. Told me you cheated on the test!”

  “I didn’t cheat, Ma!”

  “Don’t give me that BS, Junior! The man told me he saw you looking on a classmate’s paper!”

  Which…Quan couldn’t deny. There was a point when he’d looked up and seen the brawny, neckless white man who looked more familiar with loaded-down barbells than linear inequalities glaring at him. But the sub had it all wrong. Said classmate was actually trying to cheat off Quan. He was an eighth-grade dude named Antwan Taylor. Bruh flat out whispered to ask Quan what answer he’d gotten for number six and then turned his paper so Quan could see the (wrong) answer Antwan had written.

  “I really didn’t cheat, Ma! I promise you!”

  “Lemme see the test,” she said.

  Quan removed it from his bag. Held it out to her.

  “Ninety-eight percent, huh?” She looked him right in the eye. “You really expect me to believe you didn’t cheat, LaQuan?”

  Quan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Are you serious?”

  “You ain’t never brought nothin’ higher than an eighty-seven percent up in here. I’m supposed to buy this sudden improvement hook, line and sinker, huh?”

  “I studied—”

  “Yeah. Your neighbor’s paper.”

  “The MATERIAL, Ma! I studied the MATERIAL!”

  “They gave you two days of in-school suspension. And you have to retake the test.”

  “But I didn’t cheat, Ma!”

  “Yeah, and my ass ‘fell down the stairs.’ ” She held up her injured arm, and all Quan’s other rebuttals got snatched right out of his throat.

  His mouth snapped shut. Jaw clenched to keep it that way.

  “If I ever hear about you cheating again, you can forget about this football shit you been on recently. Your ass will be on lockdown, you hear me?”

  Quan’s teeth ground into each other so hard, he wondered if they would break.

  “I said DO YOU HEAR ME, LaQuan?”

  Quan gulped. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Get your ass outta my face and go ‘study’ for real this time.”

  Quan turned to head to his room, but her next words were like being shot with arrows from behind:

/>   “And best believe your father is gonna hear about this. Might even send him the evidence of your indiscretion.” Quan could hear the paper crinkle as she surely held it up in the air. “Cheating. I can’t even believe you—”

  And that was all he heard. Because in that moment everything crystallized for Vernell LaQuan Banks Jr.

  It didn’t matter what he did.

  Staying focused didn’t give Quan any control at all.

  The discovery that his favorite librarian is no longer at the branch—that she retired—is what pushes Quan over the edge. His last (relatively) safe-place gone.

  And he knows it’s gone because the lady now standing behind the main desk frowned at him when he came in, and a different lady has walked past the castle nook in the children’s section where he’s balled up with Unfortunate Events #13—The End—three times since he started chapter four.

  And like…why? She think he’s gonna steal damn library books? Stuff ’em in ziplock baggies and sell ’em outta his middle school locker for $10 a pop or something? Get your dime-bag literature here!

  He turns a page.

  This isn’t a welcoming place. Not anymore.

  It sucks.

  He closes the book and grabs his backpack.

  Walks out without a backward glance.

  If nothing else, now they have a reason to give him dirty looks:

  * * *

  —

  He left the book on the floor instead of putting it on the reshelving cart.

  February 8

  Dear Justyce,

  First: yo, thanks for them graphic novel joints you sent. Them things have made me the coolest dude on the (cell)block. Everybody is especially into the black girl Iron Man ones. And the black Batman and black Robin one is also a hit.

  I got your other “gift” as well. Bruh, what kinda dude sends a whole-ass teacher to his incarcerated homie like it’s a box of commissary snacks? You clearly need to be president.

  Anyway, I do have to admit: your boy Dr. Dray—“Doc,” he said you call him (and I call him now too)—is pretty dope. He got on my nerves a little bit the first few times he came, asking all them damn questions and making me think about shit I didn’t really want to. (Who the hell wants to sit around pondering all the ways this wack-ass country “is currently failing to uphold the standards set forth in its foundational documents”? That was a for-real question on one of the homework sheets!)

  But then today he noticed your Martin notebook in my stack of stuff, and he started smiling. That’s when he told me the truth: he’d been you and Manny’s teacher, and you talked to him about me. About my other tutor deciding to quit on me.

  I was mad at first knowing you told homeboy something I shared with you in confidence. But then I started really thinking about it, and I decided to write this letter. To thank you.

  Well, partially to thank you.

  The other part has to do with something Doc and I talked about in our class session today (and the fact that he said I should write to you about it).

  Last time he was here, Doc brought this book for me to read. Native Son, it’s called, and it’s about this black dude who accidentally kills this white girl and then shoves her dead body in a furnace and starts a whole plot to try and blame her white boyfriend (shit’s brutal, but roll with me). When he gets found out, he runs and tells HIS girl, but then panics and winds up killing her too.

  They catch him, of course, and he’s eventually convicted of murder and sentenced to death. (Bloop! SPOILER ALERT!) But the wildest part was even though it’s set in like the 1930s or something, I really felt like I was reading a book about NOW.

  Dude had all these obstacles he couldn’t seem to get past no matter how hard he tried, and it was almost as though falling into the life of crime everybody expected from him was (sorta) unavoidable? I know it probably sounds crazy to an upstanding young gentleman such as yourself, but for real: based on the systems in place—the “institutions of oppression,” as my former mentor, Martel, would say—homie’s situation and how he ended up kinda seemed like destiny.

  (Don’t tell nobody I used the word “destiny.”)

  As I was telling Doc today, I could relate for real. I look back at my life, and though people like my wack-ass ex-counselor think I’m making excuses, I can’t really see where I could’ve just “made different choices.”

  It’s not like I didn’t try. I remember this one time a teacher accused me of cheating because I got a good grade on a test. And my mama believed HIM. I know I also told you about that one prosecutor who called me a “career criminal” the second time I got arrested. I’d stolen one of this white dude’s TWO phones. And only because I hoped to sell it so I could get my brother and sister some new shoes for school.

  I reread your response to my very first letter where you admitted to busting up on some white boys at a party, and it made me wonder if that felt inevitable to you. I flipped back through the Martin journal, and there was even a reference to my cuzzo, may he rest in peace, using his fists at one point. Were these “incidents” bound to happen?

  Anyway, I told Doc all this, and he goes, “Hmm,” and rubbed his beardy chin all scholarly-like. Then he says, “So considering all that, would you say Bigger Thomas” (that’s bruh from the book) “is a killer?”

  “I mean, he definitely did some killing,” I said, mulling it over, “but ‘killer’ just sounds so…malintentioned. Like it’s something dude decided to do after giving it some serious thought.”

  Then he got me, J. Locked me in with them weird green-ass eyes and said: “What about you, Quan? Are YOU a killer?”

  Thing is, I couldn’t really answer. Part of me wanted to flat out say “No, I’m not,” but there was still this other voice saying “What if you are, LaQuan? What if it’s inevitable?”

  And of course “inevitability” isn’t an excuse, and the consequences are (obviously) still the consequences, but I dunno. In a weird way, the whole shit makes me feel kinda better about my situation and how I got in it.

  But it also makes me wonder: How did YOU do it, Justyce? I still remember when we met in that rocket ship (MY rocket ship that YOU invaded, by the way). We’d both left our houses after the streetlights were on because of stuff going on with our mamas. We grew up in the same area. Went to the same elementary and middle school. Even had a class or two together.

  Why’d we turn out so different?

  Was it “pure choice” like that counselor would say?

  These questions are probably pointless now, but that’s what’s been going through my head.

  Imma get back to this World of Wakanda joint you sent. I’ll tell you one thing that’s inevitable: pretty sure Ayo and Aneka are gonna hook up.

  Looking forward to your next letter. (But you better not tell anybody I said that.)

  Holler back at me,

  Quan

  Quan was hungry the First Time he did it. So were Dasia and Gabe.

  It’d been a good year and a half since Dwight moved in, and Mama hadn’t worked in four of those months. She said she’d been laid off, but Quan wasn’t stupid. He knew one could only take so many “sick days” before a company decided to tell them to take off permanently.

  In addition to taking his frustrations out on Mama, the COAN had started withholding access to money in response to “disrespect.” (That’s Count Olaf-Ass Negro, a name Quan secretly took to calling Dwight.) Anything could qualify: disagreeing with him in any way (this was the offense Mama was most often guilty of); moving something from where he’d left it (Quan’s cardinal sin—which he couldn’t seem to help after years of Mama drilling that “everything has a place” and “if you take it out, put it back!”); even failing to step over the groaning spot in the living room floor when he was watching TV.

  Quan hated D
wight with every ounce of his being.

  And Quan couldn’t just take Dasia and Gabe and leave the house anymore: Dwight suddenly decided he didn’t want

  my damn kids spending too much time with Delinquent Junior.

  (Clearly Quan wasn’t the only one in the house capable of negative nicknaming.)

  Of course, if Quan disappeared by himself for too long, Dwight also felt disrespected. Which is how everything that led up to that First Time got started.

  Mama had applied for assistance (she always said the word like she was trying not to gag on it as it left her throat), and they got a special debit card they could use at grocery stores—EBT, it was called. Electronic Benefits Transfer. Apparently back in the day, the system involved actual slips of money-sized paper everyone referred to as food stamps.

  But she made the mistake of sending Dwight to the store with the card on one of the days she was incapacitated.

  And he’d refused to give it back.

  It was probably the Olaf-est thing he’d ever done at that point. He was controlling. Conniving. And based on something Quan overheard Dwight say that day—

  I know you know where that son of a bitch was keepin’ all his shit!

  —Quan was convinced Dwight thought Mama had access to some treasure trove of cash and jewels that belonged to Daddy.

  He needed a break, Quan did. From the shiver of unease that permeated the whole house like some awful supersonic vibration. From Dasia’s newfound grown-ness to Gabe’s insistence on being a baby brother-barnacle, gluing himself to Quan’s side as often as possible. From Mama’s anger-cloaked weariness. From Dwight’s…

  existence.

  So he told Mama—who for the first time in weeks wasn’t actively healing from a COAN encounter—that he was going out.

  And he headed to his former favorite playground place.

  Stepping over the latest evidence of unsavory activity inside his rocket ship (at least there wouldn’t be any babies or diseases?), Quan climbed up to the observation deck. Largely to hide himself from anyone who might take issue with/make fun of an almost-thirteen-year-old hanging out in the grounded space vessel.