In a sea of all those people, Riley was the first person I saw, or the back of her head, really. I fixated on her sleek French twist the entire service so I could avoid making eye contact with anyone around me. The few faces I glimpsed looked wounded or angry.
When the uncle stood to speak, his eyes had been wide with fury. It was like he was speaking directly to me when he asked, “Why, why, why?” in a voice so desperate I had to look away.
The middle-aged Black woman sitting beside me in the back row moaned like she had a hurt deep in her bones. “When will they stop killing our boys?” she said. It was almost exactly what one of the LEO wives, a white woman, had said back at Jamal’s funeral.
“When’s it going to stop? When are these streets going to be safe for our boys?” Same streets, different boys.
During Justin’s funeral, each time I caught Riley glancing over at Tamara, all distressed and concerned, was like being stabbed with a dagger. I get that this is unfair, horrible of me, petty even, but sometimes it’s easier to be angry. It’s easier to let myself think, Fuck Riley.
At the end of the service, as I was walking out, emotionally exhausted, I sensed her eyes on the back of my head. I even had this pathetic hope that she’d call out to me, that maybe we could talk for a few minutes, though I know this was stupid of me—dangerous even—on a lot of levels. I’d hoped to at least see that familiar affection on my friend’s face, but there was only her blank canvas stare, her mask, as I raised my hand, a hello and a goodbye at once.
I pick up the picture of the casket and slowly tear it in half, then in half again. I’m furiously ripping it into smaller and smaller shreds. The white flecks litter the floor around me like the snow outside. When I’m done, I reach for the other envelope, ready for something else to destroy. What will it be this time? A death threat? Anthrax? I’m surprised to find a personal check made out to Kevin from something called the Order of Kings. For $10,000. I must be seeing things. I hold it up again, closer this time, and the numbers are right there: $10,000. The note is one line in a handwritten scrawl.
We protect our own.
Who the hell are these guys? I google “the Order of Kings” on my phone. Their website has a hazy description, but its imagery （a skull made of the Confederate flag） and their mission statement （“righteous people, fighting to preserve White Western culture”） tell me everything I need to know.
I’m about to click on the menu to learn more about “Our History” when an Instagram notification appears on the screen.
The fact that I’ve kept my Instagram account is a dirty secret. Julia Sanchez made it clear that we’re supposed to be completely off social media. It makes sense to protect myself from the online equivalent of shit on my doorstep. I deleted my Facebook account altogether after it filled up with vile rants. Annie says I should have kept it just to log in to the police wives FB group so that I would have support, but I still haven’t been active at all, really, since I posted a couple of cute pictures of Kevin in his uniform back in the early days. Annie sends me screenshots sometimes of the messages, which is nice. A woman named Barb I met at the FOP coat drive last year wrote, God made strong women police wives, you know. If He didn’t think we could handle it He woulda given us accountants or dentists. But He gave you and me cops because he knew we could take it. When other people walk away from danger our men walk toward it. And we have their six. And all of us have yours too, Jennifer. But the couple of times I logged on myself before I deleted my account, there were a few messages that made me queasy. Like one chick who said, Hey, they’re either with us or against us and we’re the ones with guns.
But somehow I can’t quit Instagram. From time to time over the last few weeks—mostly in the middle of the night—I force myself to look. The pain is like pressing on a bruise as I read endless rants about the police, or look at happy carefree families on stupidly gorgeous beaches, or see ads for extensions that make me miss my long hair—the usual terrible but addictive schizophrenic medley. It’s all a bunch of empty bullshit, like everyone’s just trying to outdo each other for the likes. If only we could keep it completely real. Like, what would happen if I posted right now, bloodshot eyes, ratty hair, a caption that reads, “I give up. We ARE monsters.” How many likes would I get for that? My fingers keep swiping. Don’t do it, I tell myself, even as the app opens.
I navigate to the home feed, the most recent photo, and I’m overcome with that disorienting feeling you get when you see someone out of context, your teacher at the grocery store, your doctor in a public restroom. I know the person is familiar, but I still can’t quite place her. It’s an old black-and-white picture from the sixties—a tall Black woman leans against an old car, wearing white gloves, a pillbox hat.
Gigi.
But Gigi isn’t on Instagram. In fact, one of her favorite things to say is, “Why do they call them smartphones when they’re really making you dumb?” I swipe to the next image. It’s from her eighty-fifth birthday party, which I know because I was there. Gigi’s holding court on the big old red armchair we’d pulled out into the stamp-size backyard of the Wilsons’ house like she was a queen. The picture reminds me how much I miss her. I gotta find a way to get to the hospital. Then I see Shaun’s caption.
Rest in Peace, Gigi.
No, no, no. It’s not possible. Once all this settles down, I am going to visit her in the hospital. She’s going to rub my belly and tell me my baby’s future. I squeeze my eyes closed, trying to process the news—first that Gigi’s dead, and then that I had to find out about it on Instagram. It’s like I’ve been slapped across one cheek and then the other. I pick up my phone, start scrolling through missed calls and texts. Maybe I missed a call from Riley or Mrs. Wilson, a text from Shaun… something. There’s nothing. Nothing but the usual string of unfamiliar numbers. No one bothered to tell me that Gigi died. That fact is devastating, almost as devastating as the death itself.
I return to the first photo, stare at it for a while, Gigi leaning up against the car, full of swagger, an expression like she’s discovered all the secrets in life and might share them with you if you’re lucky. I start drowning in memories, they just keep coming—all the nights I couldn’t sleep, would creep out of Riley’s bed and find Gigi, also an insomniac, sitting in her La-Z-Boy crocheting an afghan or watching old movies.
“How’s my little firecracker? Can’t sleep either?” she’d say as I crawled into her lap, ready for another one of her stories. My favorites were the ones about her “heyday,” when she moved to Harlem for a few years in her twenties and got a job selling cigarettes at a jazz club called Bill’s Place, and how she almost married a professional boxer named Z, but then she met his cousin Leroy, who was visiting from Tennessee. Leroy grinned at her with a gap in his teeth “as wide as the East River” and told her they didn’t make women like her in Kingsport, and the rest was history.
“Chile, he swept me up like a Hoover. Didn’t know what hit me.”
Leroy was hit too, literally. Z broke his nose. It was never straight again after that, but according to Gigi he’d always said it was worth it. Was there anything more glamorous than the image of young Gigi working in a nightclub, out on the town with Leroy, drinking martinis in smoke-filled bars? Not to me.