Dear Justyce

by Nic Stone

  that he eventually

  wants Quan to work

  for. Because Quan’s

  good at math.

  I have a hunch you’ll be able to expound and make the numerical concepts relatable to the disenfranchised populations I intend to serve, Quan can imagine Doc saying.

  (Except he’s not imagining it.)

  (Doc really did just say that.)

  “Quan…you falling asleep on me, man?”

  A hand touches down on Quan’s shoulder, and his drooping eyelids SNAP wide. “Huh?”

  “You’re getting drool all on your brand-new materials.” Doc gestures to the open Principles of Economics textbook on the table in front of Quan.

  And when Quan looks down at quite the saliva stain, what word leaps off the page at him?

  DEBT.

  (Why the hell is there a B in it? he thinks.

  Is it for unnecessary burden? Bane of his existence?

  Maybe it’s there to remind him who’s boss—)

  “What’s going on, man?” Doc startles Quan again. “You’re drowsy. Unfocused. Bags under your eyes could carry my groceries.”

  Quan snorts.

  “You’re not sleeping well, I presume.”

  Now Quan looks away. Which, in this case, is its own answer.

  “You been talking to Tay?”

  About this stuff? No.

  “Yeah.”

  Doc doesn’t reply to Quan’s reply, so Quan knows Doc’s doing the laser-beam-eye mind-read thing. Where he stares at Quan all hard with his freaky green eyes all narrowed and reads—or so it feels—all Quan’s thoughts and shit.

  Quan can’t look at Doc now because if he does…well, there’s so much swirling around his head—a lot of it in the shape of dollar signs—there’s a chance some of it will leak out the corners of his eyes in the shape of

  wet drops.

  And Quan can’t have that, now can he?

  He does wonder what Doc can see. The sleeplessness, sure. But can he also see the four prongs of fear, worry, helplessness, and hopelessness propping the sleeplessness up?

  Can he see the bizarre letter Quan received from Mama last week, telling him that she, Dasia, and Gabe were moving out to the suburbs?

  Or maybe he can see the conversation Quan had with Liberty where she let it slip that she turned down a job offer so she could stay on his case file.

  Perhaps, though, he can see what’s really been keeping Quan awake at night…because two days after the family relocation letter, Quan received an envelope that had one of Martel’s drop houses—the one Trey used to stay (still stays?) in—as the return address.

  And inside that envelope was something so eerily familiar, Quan dropped it as soon as he got it unfolded.

  A ledger.

  Using the template Quan created when he used to keep Tel’s books.

  Stuffed to the edges with delineated dates and details and costs.

  All related to Quan’s family.

  There’s

  cash and

  fuel fill-ups

  groceries and

  prescription meds

  home services and

  hot meals.

  Any reference to Dwight is notably absent, a relief considering the twenty-two months Quan’s been locked up on these charges. Good to know that debt is settled.

  But still.

  The ledger has a total.

  What Quan owes a man who now wants nothing to do with him.

  Because with that ledger came a one-word note:

  Exactum.

  It’s the same one-word note that was delivered to Tel’s clients when he no longer wanted to be in business with them. A command and threat in one: Pay up and disappear, or else.

  And while Quan was certainly shocked—and he’ll admit, hurt—to receive one of Martel’s famous “severance statements,” what’s really got his goat are the numbers.

  His debt.

  Because if he’s in monetary debt to Tel, he’s gotta be in some kinda debt to Tay.

  He’s definitely in debt to Attorney Friedman, so certainly also to Liberty.

  Ain’t no telling how much debt he’s in to Doc.

  And Justyce?

  It’ll be a miracle if he’s able to look that guy in the eye (ever) again.

  He hates it, but that damn ledger keeps shoving Quan’s least-favorite questions right to the forefront of his consciousness:

  WhyIs​Anyone​HelpingHim? ​WhyDoes​Anyone​Care? ​WhatAre​They​Expecting​InReturn?​ How’sHe​Supposed​ToPay​Anyone​Back?​ WhenWill​TheReckoningCome?

  Then the worst one of all:

  H o w L o n g T i l l T h e y R e a l i z e H e’s N o t W h o T h e y T h i n k H e I s?

  Because he isn’t.

  He’s no scholar or visionary or future leader of America.

  He’s a dumb kid who made a bunch of dumb decisions that have put him so deep in debt with EVERYONE, it feels like drowning.

  Yeah, he loves his family more than life and is good with numbers. But that don’t compute to “worthwhile investment of time, energy, and resources.”

  But flip the script, LaQuan, he can hear Tay saying in his brain the way

  she did in his last session:

  If you were

  ME,

  and I was

  YOU,

  would you invest in

  ME as YOU?

  “Yes,” he said without thinking twice.

  But why?

  “Because it’s you. Obviously.”

  (She rolled her eyes. A nonverbal you’re missing the point, LaQuan.)

  What if it wasn’t me? What if it was a kid LIKE you?

  One with your exact history?

  Quan had to think then. But not for long. Because that answer was obvious too. “I’d still invest.”

  Invest what?

  “Time. Energy. Resources…” The next word shocked him as it popped off his tongue; it bounced around the room in an echo-ish way that the others hadn’t: “Belief.”

  Belief?

  “Yeah. Everyone should have somebody who believes in ’em. Like no matter what they’ve done. Somebody who won’t give up on them.”

  Then:

  “No strings attached.”

  He did get the point then. HE was willing to do for someone else what was being done for him. At no cost and with no strings. It was the right thing to do.

  Period.

  And yet…

  “So you planning to tell me what’s going on, or should we—”

  Doc doesn’t get the rest out because there’s a BUZZZZZ and then the door to their classroom space flies open.

  “MA’AM, you can’t just barge in, there are PROTOCOLS for a reas—”

  But that brown bowling-ball-headed bark gets cut off too.

  “Jarius, LaQuan, I need you both to come with me,” Attorney Friedman says with such authority, the air in the room would get in line if she told it to.

  Quan and Doc look at each other, wide-eyed.

  “Ma’am! I’m gonna hafta ask—”

  “There’s something you need to see,” she continues, lifting a hand. (Quan’s never seen his least-favorite guard’s mouth shut so fast.)

  “Right now.”

  Quan almost trips over his own feet when he follows Attorney Friedman through the open door of the Fulton Regional Youth Detention Center conference room and sees the likes of Justyce McAllister seated at the long table.


  Justyce, who gives Quan a brief nod before facing back forward. And who’s wearing a suit. Quan can tell Justyce is trying real hard to stay in Professional Negro mode—and he’s sure Justyce knows how intensely Quan is roasting Jus in his head. But the fact that he’s here expands the space around Quan just enough for him to breathe a little easier.

  Still doesn’t know what he’s doing here, though. What any of them are doing here.

  “Jarius, Quan, if you’ll have a seat, please.” Attorney Friedman has moved to the top of the room and leans over to say something to a guy at the head of the table with a laptop open.

  And as soon as Quan’s butt hits the chair, an image appears on a screen he didn’t notice behind laptop dude. A screen that takes up half the wall.

  Quan’s eyes dart around and then shoot up to the projector, his mind kicking into scheming high gear as different ways of smashing the clunky white device to pieces, destroying it irreparably, spin through his head like a highlight reel. Because on the giant screen is a grainy image of a sparse room with a table and two chairs.

  And sitting in one of the chairs is Quan. With his hands cuffed behind him.

  A sharp pain shoots through Quan’s shoulder as the memories stampede into his head. He can feel his chest begin to tighten, so he shuts his eyes and does some deep breathing, knowing it’s better for everyone to see this than one of his signature panic attacks. Takes himself away (mentally at least).

  The feeling of warmth jolts him back into the room after who knows how long, and as Quan’s eyes latch on to the contrast between his brown forearm and the pale hand resting there, a woman’s voice speaks:

  “You okay?”

  More of the room comes into focus, and despite all the damn eyes on him right now, the thing Quan is most aware of is his “high-risk/violent” orange jumpsuit compared to the other clothes around him. The normal clothes (though Jus in a suit is a little outta the ordinary).

  Man, what he wouldn’t give to wear normal clothes again. Jeans. Cotton shirts that aren’t rough and scratchy. Jordans instead of the standard-issue Jesus-style flip-flops.

  In the image on the screen, Quan can see the upper third of a white hoodie that he knows has the Champion logo printed on the front in red and blue. A little ironic considering where he’s sitting, but still: it was his favorite hoodie.

  And he misses it.

  So damn bad.

  “I’m good, Ms. Adrienne,” he says to Attorney Friedman, who is kneeling beside him in her nice suit. “Just caught me off guard, is all.”

  Her hand moves from Quan’s arm to her own forehead. “I am so sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I should’ve warned you—”

  “It’s cool, it’s cool,” Quan says. He glances at Justyce, who nods as his brown thumb appears just above the lip of the table. “I’m good. For real.” Pretty much to the room. “We can keep going.”

  Attorney Friedman bobs her head once and rises to her high-heel-clad feet to click her way back to the front of the room.

  “Thank you all for being here,” she says, popping right back into lawyer mode. “As both Justyce—who has seen it—and Quan here are aware, the footage you’re about to watch was captured the night of Quan’s arrest almost two years ago. An intern at my law office was kind enough to condense the nineteen-plus hours’ worth of tape into the twelve or so minutes you’re about to see.”

  She presses Play, and Quan watches, rapt, as a dude that both is and isn’t him morphs, over the course of three visits to the small room where he was questioned, from a young man with resolve to a little boy who just wants to be left alone. Round one, he sat tall, his shoulders pulled back, but by the time they shoved him into the chair for round three, Quan was done: he immediately slumped down and put his forehead on the table.

  Quan knows the whole thing’s been “condensed,” as Attorney Friedman said, but it still blows him away how quickly they were able to break him down. Especially considering how long he’s been up in here—and how long he could be in actual prison if this case goes forward and he’s convicted.

  Just as quickly as the video starts, it’s over.

  Twelve minutes of footage.

  Anywhere between a decade and life locked away.

  So why is Justyce grinning like somebody just slid him a platter with all his wildest dreams on it?

  “I was right, dawg!” Jus says, his suited persona slipping. “Based on that story you told me, I had a hunch—”

  “What are you talkin’ about, man?” Cuz Quan’s getting mad now. (Though seeing Justyce’s face morph makes Quan wish he could take it back.)

  “Were you not watching the tape? Your Miranda rights were clearly violated, Quan.”

  Now Quan’s the one whose face is morphing. “Huh?”

  “LaQuan, every time you stepped into that room, you invoked your right to remain silent,” Attorney Friedman says. “Literally. And the questioning officers bulldozed right through that. Considering how much time elapsed between the first and final questioning, I also suspect coercion—”

  “Coercion?”

  “Were you given food?”

  “No.”

  “Water?”

  “No.”

  “Allowed to sleep?”

  “No.”

  “Permitted to use the restroom?”

  “No…”

  She smiles. Which seems inappropriate, but Quan gets it. “Coercion,” he says.

  She nods. Just once. “Correct.”

  Justyce jumps back in: “But even without the coercion, your confession would be inadmissible—”

  “Should be inadmissible,” Attorney Friedman says. “I’ve filed a motion to suppress it.”

  “Considering the look on the DA’s face when he called us in to get the tapes, though?” Justyce winks at Quan.

  “Justyce,” Attorney Friedman says with a warning edge, but she’s also fighting a smile.

  Quan looks around the room, trying to take it all in. “So what…does this mean? Exactly?”

  “Well, sounds to me,” Doc chimes in, his voice cutting through Quan’s confusion like a sword through butter, “like one step closer to freedom, Mr. Banks.”

  July 23

  Dear Quan,

  Look, don’t tell anybody (hopefully they don’t open this letter before giving it to you), but a document from the state lab was delivered to Mrs. F’s—Attorney Friedman’s, my bad—office this morning that I think you might find real interesting. I’ve included a photocopy. She’s probably gonna be mad at me when she realizes I opened mail while she was out, but when I saw that the return address on the envelope was the DA’s office, I couldn’t resist.

  Anyway.

  As the document shows, you were right: the ballistics don’t match. Two bullets were pulled from Castillo’s body, and neither matches the caliber of the pistol found with your prints on it.

  I believed you, obviously, but this proof should help to advance our case. I’m sure you’ve been at least a little nervous since entering that not-guilty plea, so I thought maybe this would offer you some comfort.

  Attorney Friedman’s been hounding the judge to set a trial date. I think you made a good call, going with the bench trial—not having to select a jury should make things go faster. At this point, the state has no concrete evidence and zero eyewitnesses, so unless the prosecution has a trick or two up its sleeve that we don’t know about, there’s no way they have enough to convict you. We expect to hear back on that motion re: the confession any day now, and once the court rules to suppress it—deciding not to would be a flagrant miscarriage of justice—the state will have nothing to go on.

  Hopefully you’ll be outta there soon.

  Keep your head up, all right, dawg? We’re almost there.

  My girl says “Hi!” by the way. She’s sitting rig
ht here and wants me to tell you she can’t wait to meet you.

  More soon.

  You have my word.

  Sincerely, your friend,

  Justyce

  August 27

  Dear Justyce,

  I feel kinda wack writing to you already—it’s only been two days since you left—but I’m struggling today. Liberty came to tell me she’s also headed back to school, and even though hers is local, the end of her internship means the end of her being on my case. Shit sucks.

  On top of that, I found out this morning that they’re cutting my lessons with Doc to once every other week. Something about budget changes and labor laws.

  Also sucks.

  I dunno, man. Trying not to be all dramatic, but knowing I’m not gonna see three of you who were keeping me afloat makes me feel like I’m going under. Still no word on that motion to suppress the confession, and still no court date.

  I’m tryna keep my head up like you told me to the last time you visited with Attorney Friedman. (I’m clearly a changed man cuz that poke you gave me in my damn forehead woulda gotten you punched in the past.) But it’s hard.

  With each day that passes, it’s getting harder.

  I did talk to my moms the other day, though. She told me my sister’s hair is starting to grow back. So that’s a relief. I knew her little feisty ass wouldn’t let that shit beat her.

  Sure wish she could come dump some of that optimism on me.

  Hope you made it back to school safe.

  Write back soon?

  Sincerely,

  Quan

  For the past five nights, Quan’s been having wild-ass nightmares. From being hauled from his cell, dragged down a dark hallway, and tossed into a pit full of the bones of dead black boys, to watching Tomás Castillo crawl out his grave and chase Quan to Martel’s house, where all of his boys are waiting to shoot him dead.