But Kevin won’t pay. Likely no one will pay. The facts are right there in front of me on my screen, when I close my email drafts folder. I’ve been working on background research for my story tonight, gathering statistics on cop indictments and convictions. They’re startling and confirm a truth we’ve all seen borne out: cops are almost never charged or convicted for shootings on the job. There’s always a defense, rationale, justification, wall of loyalty, or legal technicality to hide behind. There’s always something. The stat I chose for my story tonight highlights this: Since 2005, 110 police officers have been charged with manslaughter or murder for an on-the-job shooting; only forty-two were convicted, often for lesser charges, the proverbial slap on the wrist. The coils in my stomach wind tighter as I shoot that text over to the graphics department to appear on-screen in my package for tonight’s broadcast.
My work phone rings just as I’m trying to decide if I have time to escape my emails, my research, my feelings and run down to the vending machine before the afternoon news meeting. A bag of Cheetos I don’t need is calling my name. No one ever calls my work phone, just my cell; only like three people even have the number. So somehow I know it’s Gaby before I even pick up, and also that she’s going to be annoyed with me.
“I figured I could finally catch you at work. I mean, damn. What’s a girl gotta do to get a call back? I’ve been blowing up your phone.”
“I know, sorry. It’s just been crazy, Gabs.”
There’s something about just hearing her voice that makes me want to break down. I haven’t spoken to her since right before Gigi’s funeral. She was away on a family cruise for the holidays and I didn’t want to bother her with my shit as she circled distant islands most people won’t ever see.
“How are you? How were the holidays? You got my flowers?”
“Yeah, I did, thank you.” They were literally the biggest bouquet of flowers I’ve ever seen.
“Are you hanging in there? What are you gonna do for New Year’s?”
“Um, watch a marathon of old episodes of Super Soul Sunday?” The truth is, I volunteered to work tomorrow night, because what else do I have to do, but if I tell Gaby that, she’ll give me another lecture about working too much.
“We can all use a little Oprah fo’ sure, but that still sounds sad. You sound sad.”
“I’m okay, just in my head.”
“Who, you?” Gabrielle laughs.
But I’m in no mood for sarcasm.
“Okay, for real, what’s going on, girl? You’ve been a mess. I’m worried about you.”
I lower my voice, but the newsroom is buzzing along around me and no one is paying me any mind. “I know, Gabs. It’s like… I don’t know, I’m just pissed off at the whole world right now. It’s been building and building… everything that happened to me in Birmingham, more Black men dying in the streets, a president whose dog whistle is so loud you can hear it from space. I’m just so raw and on edge. Like I’m so much more aware than I ever was before about all the ways the world is so unfair. It’s getting harder and harder to let it go or to figure out how not to stay mad all the damn time. I’m even mad at Gigi for dying. Or maybe at God for taking her. I don’t even know.”
I can unload some of this anger on Gaby, like putting down a burden and shaking my arms out before I have to pick it back up again.
“Shit, Rye. I’m sorry. That’s a lot. Of course, you’re right to be mad—well, not at Gigi, that woman was a national treasure and lived a long life—but I hear you. But everything else? Yeah, I get it. I mean, maybe it’s good that you’re mad now, that you’re letting it all out; maybe you haven’t been mad enough?”
Maybe that was it. Maybe all the ways I’ve trained myself—even prided myself on being able—to let things slide, the snide comments at work, the teachers who accused me of cheating when my papers were too good, everything with Shaun, it was bound to take its toll. I’d always tried to take it in stride—a real Booker T. Washington. Work hard, excel, be respectable—that’s what we were supposed to do. It was the only way to play a game where you didn’t make the rules, a game set up to make you fail. But it wasn’t a game at all—it was survival. And to survive, you couldn’t get too mad, too upset, too defiant, because there would be consequences… a lost job, a lost mind… or worse, a lost life. It was a message that wormed its way deep inside of me, and stayed there like a clenched fist.
A memory comes: me turning to my dad after we watched a documentary together about Bloody Sunday, and I asked him, “How could you stand it?” He knew what I meant: the oppression of Jim Crow, all the slights and humiliations he’d experienced growing up in rural Georgia, drinking from segregated fountains, averting his eyes from any white person walking his way, being called “boy”—or worse. He was quiet for a moment, hands resting on his round belly, a sliver of skin showing above the waist of his pants.
“There are some things you can’t change, baby girl. White folks are gonna do what white folks do, and the way I see it you can be resentful and angry all the time and let it eat away at you, which some people do, and how can you blame them? Or you can choose to control the one thing you can: your mind-set. You can decide, Nope, I’m not going to let them get to me. I won’t be bitter, I’m going to be better—and better doesn’t mean just working hard. It comes down to character, an ability to be defiant in your joy no matter what they do. That’s what your mom and I tried to teach you kids.”
But what’s the point of the high road or of being the exception, the anomaly, of rising above, when your whole community is struggling, unable to catch a break, the thumbs of oppression on their necks?
Gaby takes a deep breath. I can tell she’s gearing up to tell me something about myself, one of her favorite activities. “Look, you need to talk to Jen. You know, she’s not necessarily my cup of tea, but I respect how close y’all are, and I’m sure if you guys talked it all out… You need to try to tell her how you feel. You’ve got to trust that on some level she’ll understand, and if she doesn’t, well, then she wasn’t the friend you thought she was.”
Maybe that’s why I have a folder full of unsent drafts. At the end of the day, I’m afraid that Jen won’t get it. Maybe I’ve always been afraid. That’s why I didn’t tell her about when Ryan left that note in my locker, or Birmingham, or even Shaun last year. She could listen, but she could never truly get it. I can’t necessarily fault her for that, but it nags at me: Why don’t we talk about race more? Gaby and I talk about it pretty much every single day, specifically some fucked-up thing in the news or our lives—like venting about ignorant BS like someone mistaking us for the sales clerk at the mall too many times. But I talk to Jen about things I rarely share with Gaby too, like my anxiety and depression and feelings of inadequacy. And besides, Jenny and I met when we were so young, during that brief, elusive period when kids are truly color-blind. We didn’t talk about race when we were five, or ten, or fifteen, and now… it’s a muscle we haven’t used. So is it that I can’t talk to Jenny or that I don’t? Which leads me to an even more gut-wrenching question: What if, when it comes down to it, there will always be some essential part of me that is unknowable to her because of our different experiences? It’s as if an unnoticeable crack between us has stretched into a chasm and our friendship risks falling right through it.