The Scammer(9)

Vanessa is the closest thing we got to a music historian, thanks mostly to her brother.

“So wait, did your brother really roll with Snoop Dogg back in the day?” Legacy asks.

Vanessa whips out her phone. “Check this!”

She shows us a few photos. Everyone oohs and aahs. Her brother looks young, maybe fifteen. But he’s really there.

“Damn! Your brother been everywhere!”

“Come on, y’all,” Kammy calls, wiping her hands. “Let’s say grace and thank the Lord for this food. Amen, amen!”

Vanessa goes on to talk more about her brother’s music industry dealings. Everything I know about hip-hop I learned from rich white boys who used it as fodder in their privileged lives. They’d come to school, rattling off one-hit wonder artists as proof that I had the personality of dry bread.

“You don’t know XYZ? HA! See, that why I’m blacker than you.”

But here at Frazier, no one knows that version of Jordyn. Just assumes we’ve all had the same Black experience when really, I’m here to learn and feel everything I didn’t at home.

“Hey hey! Hold up, y’all. Listen!” Legacy stands, plays a news clip on Twitter from his phone.

“‘Tonight, we have shocking news out of Southeast DC. Footage of an unarmed man shot by an off-duty police officer last spring has been released. The officer claimed he was—’”

“Damn, not again,” Kareem mumbles. “I swear, shit like this happens every day.”

“You think there’re gonna be riots and stuff?” Kammy asks.

“Why you ask like that?” Vanessa snaps.

“It’s just . . . you know how folks get and I’ve lived through enough of these,” Kammy says. “They burned down my auntie’s hair shop after a kid got killed in our neighborhood.”

“Pfff! Who you telling,” Vanessa says. “Not one of us are in here without a story.”

“Breonna Taylor in my city,” Legacy agrees. “They did her so dirty. I remember the curfew.”

“Ahmaud Arbery in mine,” Kerry says, shaking her head. “They burned down a CVS around the corner from my house.”

“I was in kindergarten when Trayvon Martin happened,” Loren adds. “New York was on fire. I’ll never forget it.”

Everyone looks at me and I don’t have a specific story to share.

“Uhhh, George Floyd,” I whisper.

The room nods. Not one person in the room doesn’t remember those days during COVID.

“Damn. It’s like nothing ever changes,” Kareem grumbles, taking a sip of his drink, his eyes hard. “Can’t ever get a break. Even at school.”



* * *



JOIN THE FRAZIER U STUDENT ASSOCIATION

First Town Hall of the School Year

Meet Your Student Executive Leaders



The large yellow flyer is pinned on a bulletin board in the lobby outside the Rec Center. It’s been just shy a month of classes and between keeping up with assignments and bouncing from party to party with the girls, I haven’t had time for much else.

But I’ve been a part of student government in one way or another since middle school. Freshman year I lobbied to have more snacks added in our school’s vending machines. By junior year, I was being invited to school board meetings and was already planning a presidential run.

Of course, I abandoned most of my extracurricular activities once Kevin happened. Maybe this is a chance to start over. Something to ground me in reality. It’ll also look perfect on my law school résumé. That’s what my parents would say. Every step I’m supposed to take should be toward their ultimate goal.

Lost in my own thoughts, I don’t hear Loren sneak up beside me.

“Helllllloooo?! What you doing? Didn’t you hear me calling you?”

“Oh . . . uh, my bad. I was in my own world,” I say, shouldering my backpack.

“Sure was. Ready to go?” she asks but her breath seems a little labored.

“Hey, are you okay?”

“Uh, yeah,” she croaks with a staggered step.

I hold out my arms. “Whoa, Loren! You don’t look so good.”

“No I’m . . .” She trails off, her eyes widening, as if she realizes what is happening to her, before they roll back. Then, she tips over, collapsing right into my arms, and we fall backward to the ground.

“LOREN!”





Four




“Loren, are you sure you’re okay?”

Loren, Kammy, and I amble from the Malcolm Center like drifting leaves in the evening breeze. Loren insisted she didn’t want to go to the infirmary but agreed to eat dinner in the café instead.

“Yeah,” she says in a groggy voice, flashing a sleepy smile. “That was mad embarrassing tho. Can’t believe I forgot to eat today.”

Despite her words, she still looks gray in the face.

“Why didn’t you tell us you were diabetic?” I ask.

She shrugs. “I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it and y’all treat me all different.”

“We would never,” Kammy insists, rubbing her shoulder. “You’re one of us.”

Loren nods, her eyes glassy. “Thanks, boo. And I promise, I’ll keep my shit in check. No more fainting.”