Anger Is a Gift Sneak Peek Read online

  Javier pulled his phone out, but Moss waved it away. “Let’s get downstairs first,” he said. “I just wanna get out of the station before…” He didn’t finish the sentence. How do I finish that? How do I tell him?

  They silently made their way down the stairs, the red and blue lights from the police cruisers on site bouncing off the walls. Two of the station operators stood outside their booth, their eyes locked on the scene to the south of them. Moss turned to head out of the north exit, his bike hoisted up on his shoulder, but Esperanza stopped and grabbed his free arm.

  Signs were held high above the snarling crowd. One was of a photo of Osner Young, and it hit Moss: Osner could not have been more than a few years older than himself. His face was open in a joyous smile, and Moss recognized where the photo was taken: Martin’s barbershop, the one not far from where he lived.

  There were more signs. STOP KILLING US, read one. There was a tall white man off to the right, his messy hair gray and black, who carried a poster that read, I STILL HAVE TO PROTEST THIS? Moss frowned at that one; it left him with a bad feeling, as if the guy was more concerned with being witty than caring. But then lining the sidewalk outside the station, blocking the entrance to the turnstiles, was a row of cops in riot gear. They stood with their batons hanging at their sides, their helmets gleaming in the lights of the parking lot. Moss had to get out as soon as possible.

  “Come on,” Moss said, turning to walk away. “Please.”

  He bumped right into someone. Moss excused himself, but the guy examined him, looking him up and down. “Morris?” The man gave him the same look again. Was he from Martin’s shop? How did this man know his name? “Yo, I haven’t seen you in years. How are you?”

  Moss backed away. “Um … I think you have me confused with someone else,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve ever met.”

  “Maybe you don’t remember me,” he said. “Last time was … damn, musta been five years ago. You were a kid still. It was at that rally outside City Hall!”

  Please not now, Moss thought. He hunched down and tried to move toward the exit, but someone else stepped up, an older man with a crown of white hair. He looked more familiar, but Moss couldn’t place him now. “Hey, Moss,” the man said, raising a hand. “You here for the protest?”

  Moss tried to form the words, but the darkness appeared. It started around the edges of his vision, it clutched at his chest, and he couldn’t see an escape route. He forgot about Esperanza, about Javier, about anything other than the brightness beyond the turnstiles of the station. He reached into his front pocket and pulled out his Clipper card, held it tightly. But there were more people in front of Moss, asking him about the rally, asking him about his mother, asking him to stay and protest with the others, asking him too many questions, asking too much of him always.

  A woman rushed up to his side, her cornrows a tight and intricate pattern on her head. “Hey, we got Morris Jeffries’s son with us!” she shouted out. He tried to focus on her face, but it began to blur, to slide out of his vision, and then it seemed impossible to breathe.

  “Please, I just need to go,” he slurred out, and then he was lost, the panic slipping over his whole body. He let go of his bike, heard it clatter against the floor, the echo reverberating in his head. He felt someone grab at him as he pitched forward onto the gray concrete of the BART station, and he hoped the darkness would consume him.

  2

  Moss’s hands slammed into the floor, and his Clipper card jarred out of his hand and flew across the concrete. He chased after it, but then couldn’t pick it up. His fingers felt wrong. Too big. Too round. Irritation flared in him, then turned to rage, and then he was screaming at a card on the floor that he couldn’t grab ahold of, and the terror spread. It washed out from his chest and up into his head, so total and so complete, as if he were under a waterfall that flowed the wrong way.

  “Moss!” Esperanza shouted, and he felt his friend’s arms under his. She tried to pick him up, but he was too heavy, and the shame of it pushed him further under. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. It was all too much.

  “Give him some space,” a voice said, deep and smoky. Moss felt a hand at the back of his head, and then an oxygen mask passed in front of him and was fastened behind his ears. “Breathe,” the voice said. “Just breathe deep for me, can you?”

  Moss sucked the air in, and the coolness filled his mouth, spilled down his throat and into his lungs. Someone’s hand ran up and down his back, and it felt good. Comforting. He breathed deep again and slowly lifted his head, then shifted his weight backward. He sat on the cold concrete and sucked in another soothing breath. His vision was blurred; he hadn’t even realized that he’d been crying.

  Esperanza knelt in front of him and reached out, grasping his shoulder. “You’re all right,” she said.

  “How do you feel?”

  Moss looked toward the sound of the voice. The man’s facial hair was delicately styled around his lips and chin. His nose was wide, as was his mouth, and when he smiled, Moss felt a pang hit him in the chest. The paramedic’s smile was inviting. Don’t be silly, he told himself.

  “I’m okay, I guess,” Moss said, his voice muffled by the mask. “Thank you.”

  “You get panic attacks often?” the man asked. “That one was pretty bad.”

  Moss shook his head. “I’m usually better at stopping them,” he said, and the embarrassment pumped through his face. Oh god, did Javier see all of this? he thought. He began to look around him, and most of the people who had surrounded him had disappeared. But there was Javier, a few feet away, worry and concern all over his face.

  “There’s no need to feel ashamed,” the man with the oxygen said. “I just want to make sure you’re okay. Is there anyone I can call?”

  Moss fished in his right pocket and pulled out his phone. Who should I call? he thought. Shamika might be home, and he’d relied on her before when he needed help during the day. Was his mother home? It’s a Sunday, he reminded himself. The mail wasn’t delivered on Sundays. With relief pouring over him, Moss unlocked his phone, scrolled down to “Mama,” then handed it over to the EMT. When the man took it from Moss, his fingers grazed the side of Moss’s hand, and he felt that childlike giddiness again. Pathetic, he thought. Knock it off.

  The man pressed the button to call his mom and lifted the phone to his ear, winking at Moss as he did. His mother must have answered on the first ring, as the man began talking shortly after that. “Ah, hello? I’m sorry if this seems alarming, but my name is Diego Santos, and I’m here with your son at the West Oakland BART station. No, no, he’s okay, I promise. He just had a panic attack.”

  Pause. Diego handed the phone to Moss. “She wants to talk.”

  Thanks, he mouthed to Diego, then took the phone. He lowered the mask. “Hello, Mama?”

  “Moss, baby, are you okay?” Her voice wasn’t pitched higher, wasn’t full of terror. Just smooth. Interested. His heart rate began to slow down.

  “Yes, Mama, I promise. It wasn’t that bad. I just got … flustered. That’s all.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing, Mama…” The sentence died before he could add any more.

  “Morris Jeffries, Jr., you need to be honest with me.”

  Damn, she used my full name, he thought. He relented. “I got recognized again.”

  “By whom?” Her voice did spike higher this time.

  “I dunno,” he said. “The first guy said he was there at that big rally at City Hall. You remember that one, right?”

  There was silence for a few beats. He knew his mother was pissed. “Yeah, I do. He say anything else to you?”

  “Not really. It wasn’t really his fault, Mama. There’s a rally here for some guy who got shot last week, and a bunch of people from the old days were here. They…” He paused and took a deep breath. “They surrounded me. I just freaked out a little.”

  She swore. Loudly. He could tell she was holding the phone away fro
m her. “Don’t repeat that, honey.” A pause, and then she swore again. “Or that.”

  “I’m sorry, Mama, I didn’t want to upset you.”

  “Oh, Moss, it’s not your fault, I swear. I just wish people were more sensitive, you know?”

  “I know.”

  “You need me to come get you, baby?”

  “Nah, it’s not far. I’ll head home right now, I promise.”

  She was quiet again. “We can talk more when you get home, okay?”

  Moss agreed, telling his mom that he loved her, then hung up. When he looked up, both Esperanza and Diego wore expressions of concern.

  “You sure you’re okay?” Diego asked, reaching down to take the oxygen mask from Moss. “I can stay if you need me.” He handed over Moss’s Clipper card.

  “No, it’s okay,” Moss replied, and he made to stand up. Diego darted behind him and swiftly lifted him from the sitting position.

  Diego clapped him on the back. “Whatever you say, jefe.” The man left an awkward pause in the air. “If you don’t mind me asking before I leave … what was that all about?” He gestured vaguely about the station. “That crowd that surrounded you.”

  He saw Esperanza shake her head at Diego, and the EMT threw his hands up in a gesture of forfeit. “No worries, never mind. It’s not my business.”

  This time, Moss reached out as Diego backed away. “No, it’s okay,” he said. He swallowed, hard, then cast a glance at Javier, who still stood off to the side. Moss could see the uncertainty in the other boy’s body, and Moss jerked his head, gesturing to Javier to join them. If this has to happen, he thought, it might as well be now.

  He sucked in a lungful of air before starting. “I guess I got this hella weird celebrity status here,” he said. “Usually at rallies or protests cuz a lot of folks attended rallies for my dad years ago.”

  “Rallies for what?” Javier asked.

  Moss looked up at him, saw that the pity was still all over his handsome face. This is it, he told himself. Javier’s gonna run screaming in the other direction.

  So he focused his gaze on Diego, hoping it would distract him enough. “My dad was shot by the Oakland police six years ago. They said it was a mistake.”

  Diego ran his hand over his mouth, which hung open a bit in shock, and then his eyes went down to the ground. Shame. Then the pity came next. Moss was used to it at this point. People stumbled into this revelation all the time. He was surprised, though, that he had not been recognized by either of the men in front of him.

  “I’m sorry, man,” Diego said. “I didn’t know.”

  “Are you not from here?” Esperanza asked.

  He shook his head. “Moved here from New York coupla months ago.”

  “Well, that explains that,” said Esperanza. She turned to Javier. “But what about you?”

  “Relatively new to the area, too,” said Javier. “Me and my mama got here like three or four years ago.”

  Moss could still see the pity in Diego’s eyes as he spoke. “You know,” Diego said, “I lost a brotha back when I lived in Philly, in the eighties. Cops broke into the wrong house, he pulled a gun on them, they shot him right where he stood. He didn’t stand a chance.”

  “Doesn’t sound too much different from my dad,” Moss admitted. “He was coming out of a convenience store, a little market not too far from here.” He pointed off to the side in the general direction of his home. “Had headphones in, didn’t hear the order from the cops to put his hands up. Got shot, and died right there.” His voice dropped. “Turns out they were at the wrong market. Wrong end of 12th Street.”

  “It’s a messed-up world, man, that people can die like that,” Diego said.

  “Yo, man, I’m sorry I asked you to go to the rally,” said Javier, his eyes downturned, a portrait of embarrassment. “I had no idea, and I wouldn’t have mentioned it if I’d known.”

  Javier ran his hand down Moss’s arm, and Moss knew it was just to comfort him, but he still wanted more. That momentary connection made him feel, if even for a second, like he was less alone in the world. But it passed. Moss missed the sensation immediately.

  Diego cleared his throat. “Well, I gotta get back to monitoring this,” he said, gesturing behind him to the rally. “Y’all take care of yourselves.”

  They raised their hands to him and watched Diego disappear into the crowd beyond the line of cops, protest signs still raised, joining voices still punctuating the early evening air. Moss leaned over and picked up his bike, which had been lying haphazardly on the concrete. When he looked back up, Javier was staring, his phone in his hand.

  “So, I don’t know how to make a good segue here, so I’m just gonna go for this,” he said. “If you’re still interested … you wanna swap numbers?”

  Responses flared in Moss’s mind. Even after all of that? he thought. But he gave Javier a weak smile instead. “Yeah,” he said. “Sure.”

  In another situation, Moss would have been overjoyed at the idea of a cute boy giving him his number. But he just wanted to be out of the station and in the arms of his mama. After giving Javier his number, Moss raised a hand to wave, then turned and walked north into West Oakland. Esperanza trailed behind him at first, but she caught up quickly, a sloppy grin plastered on her face.

  He slowed down and shook his head at her. “What? What is it?”

  “So he was cute,” she said. “Moss, you got your first number on the train! How does it feel? You’re practically an adult.”

  He chuckled at that. “I dunno. I feel weird. Still wired, I guess.”

  “You know we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” she said. “We can just walk in silence, if you want.”

  He smiled at her. “No, it’s okay,” he said. “I think that talking might be a good idea.”

  She reached down and squeezed his hand. “What do you want to talk about? What would make you feel better?”

  Moss loved this part of Esperanza. She understood that his ability to socialize after an attack was erratic at times, and she never pushed him to do anything he felt uncomfortable with. As they turned north on Chester, Moss pointed across the street. “There used to be a man there during the summer. Don’t know what happened to him. But my dad used to take us over here when it got super hot and the guy sold piraguas that were so good. You know what those are?”

  She nodded her head. “Girl, just cuz I’m adopted doesn’t mean I don’t know about the culture,” she joked. “The Puerto Rican snow cone. I haven’t had one in ages, though.”

  “This guy used to make ones with piña juice, and they were dope.” He went quiet. “I miss them.” Another beat. “And him.”

  “I know,” she said. “And it doesn’t help when people constantly remind you that he’s gone.”

  “Right?” Moss shook his head. “It’s like people want me to be this version of a person that isn’t me. Like, always ready to fight and march and rally, and I don’t even get to be myself.”

  They found a silence again for a few moments, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was a routine of theirs, one that felt normal and intimate. How many times had Esperanza been there when Moss had an attack? How often had she helped fend off odd questions from strangers who recognized him? More than she should have had to deal with, but Moss appreciated it nonetheless.

  He bumped into her and gestured with his head across the street. “We used to make up stories,” he said. “About all the people on the street whenever we walked home from the train station.”

  “What kind of stories?” Esperanza asked.

  “Weird stuff, sometimes.” He pointed at a flat, off-white house to his left. “Shamika lives there now, but years ago, there used to be this one dude who would always work on his cars in the driveway. And I was convinced that he was a robot.”

  “Men who work on cars all the time are robots.”

  “True,” he said, giggling. “Papa never discouraged me. He always made the stories weirder.”

 
He put his hand on Esperanza’s back and turned her slightly to the right. “You ever see the guy who lives there?” They stared at the muted brown home, a tall chain-link fence rising up around it. It looked like a miniature penitentiary. “We used to make up all kinds of stories about him especially. My dad said he was an alien from some distant galaxy, and that’s why he always yelled at everyone who walked too close to his fence.”

  “Isn’t he the guy who got that garden up the street shut down?”

  He huffed at her. “Probably. We never found out for sure. Apparently it violated some code no one’s ever heard of. Can’t have a garden in the hood!”

  She sighed, and they fell back into a stillness. Moss examined each of the houses as he walked, trying to remember who lived in them, trying to remember the stories he used to make up with his father. There was Rosa’s home, with her three boys, Rafael, Luis, and Ramon, and her trim painted bright pink, a Big Wheel long abandoned in the front yard. The two oldest boys, Ramon and Luis, were usually in the middle of the street, kicking around a soccer ball. But last week, Moss had seen Rafael put on his mother’s heels on the front stoop and confidently walk down his driveway, pretending that the world was flashing cameras at him. Moss liked that memory, even if his father wasn’t in it.

  Rosa’s family lived next door to Tariq and Eloisa, whose purple house leaned sadly but proudly to the right. They had tried to have a kid for years; then Tariq ended up putting his energy into adopting a blue-nose pit bull from the local shelter. Another memory: Morris letting Moss crouch down in Tariq’s yard while Ginger jumped all over him. Moss loved dogs, and petting Ginger always lifted him up.

  They continued up Chester, past the barbershop where Martin did Moss’s fade, then past the only other duplex on the block, the one where a Korean family who owned three squawking chickens now lived on the bottom floor. Moss’s mother’s friend Jasmine lived by herself on the top floor. Moss had seen plenty of people visit Jasmine, but knew that she always lived alone. Moss liked her because she seemed so comfortable being by herself.