The Letter

Miss Yasmin,

You visited my school last month in Southeast, DC. I was the girl sitting way in the back with long braids. You probably don’t remember me. I didn’t say one word during your whole speech. But since you gave us your MySpace address, I checked you out and decided to connect. All that stuff you were saying about choosing the life you want and being positive, it sounds good, but it doesn’t work around here. In my ‘hood we have people fighting that live two blocks from each other. I live in the Deuce Trés (23rd Street) and we’re at war with Deuce Five (25th Street.) If somebody from Deuce Five sees someone from Deuce Trés, a fight can jump off right on the spot. Hearing guns pop off is an every day, every hour situation. I used to have friends in like 3rd grade that lived in the Deuce Five area, but now if I see one of them, they act like they don’t know me, and I gotta act all rumble tumble or they’ll try to punk me. And that’s just when I get home. At school, girls are fighting each other over boys, what you look like and what you wearing. I’ve always tried to be cool with everybody. Ugly girls, pretty girls, best dressed and bummy, they’ve all been my friends--until nine days ago, when I was coming out the mini-mart and this girl and two of her friends jumped me. I don’t know why they jumped me, not really. I would tell you, but it’d make this letter too long. My point is you said we could choose the life we wanted, and I didn’t choose to be jumped. I didn’t choose to live in a neighborhood where people are dying everyday. But that’s exactly where I am. If you say we can choose our life, you gotta help me choose something different. ‘Cause right now, I’m carrying a switchblade everywhere I go. And if the wrong person steps to me, I’m choosing death- for my enemy.

Your girl,
Tashera


Chapter 1
Monday, April 2

For the latter part of the day at Marion Barry High School, Tashera Odom dreamt about an oatmeal crème pie and a grape soda. When the school bell rang, she couldn’t wait to get on the bus and jet to the store for her coveted snack. Her trademark invisible braids – with a red braid in the front and all of them in a ponytail – bounced as much as she did as she walked into Meha’s Mini-Mart on R Street in SE, Washington, DC. When Tashera reached the counter, Mr. Cho asked her about her family.

“Shee Shee, you here by yourself today? No brother with you today?”

“Nah, I’m rolling solo. But I had to get my snack on.” Tashera’s brother Khalil was confined to a wheelchair and stayed at home until she returned from school. He mostly played video games all day. Tashera knew he’d be mad that she didn’t get him before she walked to the store, but her cravings didn’t want her to go home first.

As Mr. Cho took her money, Tashera heard loud music outside. She turned toward the front door and saw an old car, like a Chevy or a Ford with dark tinted windows.

“Those windows are so dark. They’ll mess around and get arrested if the police catch ‘em,” Tashera said. Mr. Cho just looked at Tashera and nodded.

Tashera exited the store, turned up the volume on her iPod and took a left up the street. Her house in Barry Farms was a short five-block walk away. At the end of the first block, the car with the tinted windows began to follow her. Tashera cut through an open parking lot and the car pulled in front of her.

“What the…?” Tashera said almost dropping her oatmeal crème pie from her hand. Three girls in hoodies and black sunglasses jumped out of the car and surrounded Tashera who took her ear buds off and put them deep into her jeans pocket.

“Yeah, we got you now,” the short girl said. The girls circled Tashera, who tried to cut out of the circle, but the biggest girl out of the crew kept pushing her back.

Tashera stared at the girls’ faces. One of the girls looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t remember where she’d seen her. I gotta find a way outta this, Tashera thought. I gotta come up with an escape route. Tashera had run track from sixth grade through eighth grade. She’d even competed in the state finals. The three girls, one tall and muscular, one short and dumpy, and the other tall and slim wouldn’t really have a chance if Tashera started running. No way she’d let them catch her.

“I don’t know you,” she said. “You got me confused with somebody else.”

“Nah, it’s you. Everybody says it’s you, now you gon’ get yours.”

Tashera dropped her bag with her soda and her brother’s pork rinds inside. She tugged at the straps on her book bag. She didn’t want her book bag falling when she bolted the scene. She decided it would be easier to knock the skinny girl down and run the rest of the way home because the two heavier girls wouldn’t be able to catch up. As the clock struck three in her head, Tashera ran toward the skinny girl as hard as she could, throwing a hard elbow toward the girl’s rib cage. The shorter girl, almost foreseeing Tashera’s move, stuck her stubby leg in front of Tashera, and they watched as she fell face first to the ground. All three of the girls took turns kicking Tashera in the back, legs, and belly.

“You ain’t gon’ be able to have no babies now,” the big girl shouted and kicked Tashera as hard as she could just below her belly button.

Tashera passed out.

****

Paramedic Ashe Thurgood had been visiting his elderly grandmother when he looked out the window and saw three girls kicking and yelling at a girl who lay motionless on the ground. He picked up his cell phone and called police though he didn’t believe that they would come to Barry Farms in a rush to save a girl who had been jumped. He grabbed his medical bag and ran through the parking lot.

“Y’all need to step away from her,” Ashe yelled as he flashed his paramedic’s badge. The three girls looked at him. Tashera let out a moan on the ground.

“What you gonna do with that?” The big girl asked while looking at Ashe’s badge.

“Nothing. But I’m a fifth degree black belt, and if you don’t get back in your vehicle and get away from this girl, I’ll be forced to subdue you.”

“Calia, let’s go. Let’s go,” the skinny girl said to her crew.

“Don’t say my name,” uttered the big girl.

Ashe kneeled down and felt around Tashera’s abdomen. He could tell at least two of her ribs were broken. He picked up his phone, ready to dial 911. Instead, he called one of his friends who was still at work driving an ambulance and told him to come pick them up. He hoped that the girl’s internal bleeding wouldn’t kill her before the ambulance got there.

****

Khalil Odom wheeled himself to the window in the living room and waited for Tashera. Though he was five years older than her, Khalil liked spending time with his 17-year-old sister. Besides, he needed her. The area along his spine where the bullet had entered was especially sore, and his little sister Shera would put a heating pad on it to make the pain go away.

Every time that pain resonated, Khalil thought back to his life just a few short years ago. Four years ago, he was 2nd lieutenant of the Deuce Trés crew. In a robbery gone bad, Khalil was shot by a part-time security guard who was determined to prevent the neighborhood electronics store from getting robbed. It was supposed to be an easy inside job. Darren had sweet-talked a lady supervisor at Eddie’s Electronics to give him a copy of the key that unlocked the bars and gates in the front of the store. After the gates opened, the Deuce Trés crew had planned to go into the store and take at least three flat screen televisions. But the lady supervisor failed to mention that Eddie’s Electronics had an undercover security guard patrolling the store every thirty minutes. When Khalil attempted to load his television into the trunk of their Escalade, the security guard started shooting. The back window of the truck shattered and so did Khalil’s spine.


****

Khalil had gone to therapy for the past four years and every doctor told him that he’d never walk again. They also told him that he wouldn’t be in any pain, but as a person who’d been paralyzed from the waist down, Khalil felt pain in his back every day that he opened his eyes.

Khalil took out a cell phone that was strapped into a pouch on his chair. He didn’t normally worry about his sister, but today his hand began to shake around the time that Tashera would have been home. He called Tashera’s phone and it just rang. Khalil hung up and went back over to the video game console. He shut the TV off just as his phone rang. He looked at the Caller ID. It was Tashera.

“Where you been all day?” he said when he answered the phone. “You know we’re supposed to go to the store.”

“Sir, I’m with the girl who had this phone in her backpack. She’s unconscious. We’re on the way to Greater Southeast Community Hospital. She was jumped by a group of girls. A couple of her ribs are broken and she’s bleeding internally.”

“No,” Khalil screamed and threw the phone against the television. “This can’t be happening,” Khalil cried.