The Revolution of Birdie Randolph Read online

  “I take it you’ve been here before,” I say when Booker heads straight down the hall and stops in front of a door.

  “It’s my boy Jackson’s house.” He turns the handle. “I used to play football with him.”

  The room is dark, but moonlight spills in freely through the windowpanes, the curtain panels pushed to the sides. It’s small: a little kid’s room with a toy chest in the corner, a twin bed, and a bureau on one end. Booker sits on the edge of the bed, his cup still in hand.

  “Where is his family anyway?” I ask, standing by the still-open door. Stalling again.

  “They went to see his grandma in Indiana, but he complained about needing to study so much, they let him stay.” He shakes his head. “Let me try to throw a party when my dad is out of town.…”

  “Is he strict?”

  “Not too much, but he keeps tabs. Him taking this graveyard shift was a big deal. He’s still worried—” Booker stops and looks at me. “Why are you standing all the way over there?”

  I haven’t budged from the doorway. I open my mouth and close it. When I open it again, I say, “I can’t have sex with you tonight.”

  He laughs that deep belly laugh of his that I love, though I don’t know how to feel about it right now. Is he laughing at me?

  “Sorry,” he says when he sees my face. “I just like how serious you are. How you say whatever you’re feeling.”

  “I’m not like that with everyone.” I’m not like that with most people. I do say whatever I’m thinking with Mimi and Laz, but definitely not my parents.

  “I like that you’re that way with me. And we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, Dove. We don’t have to do anything.… I just want to spend time with you.”

  I take a long sip of my drink, shudder, and then take another one before I close the door and join Booker on the end of the bed. “I want that, too.”

  “Good,” he says with a small smile.

  “Can I ask you something?” My drink is strong enough that I feel it almost immediately, feel my body and mind relaxing bit by bit. The alcohol makes me hazy but brave.

  Booker nods.

  “What did you do to get in trouble?”

  “Oh.” He swallows a long drink and looks down at the cup. “I was going to tell you, it just hasn’t seemed like a good time to bring it up.”

  “Laz told me you went to juvie, but I don’t know what happened.”

  Booker started to say something once—the second time we met up, when it was clear that we liked each other. We’d been hanging out with Laz, and we were finally alone for a few minutes. I could see how difficult it was for him to get it out, so I told him it was okay. Laz had briefly mentioned something after I first met Booker, so I knew he’d been in trouble, but I told him he didn’t have to go on.

  I need to hear it from him now, though. All of it, not just vague details from Laz.

  “I’ve been this size since I was twelve,” he says, gesturing to his solid form. “The football coaches went after me hard as soon as I got to middle school. The first year, sixth grade, was good. Coach Reed was our main coach and he was always cool to me. He worked me hard, but it felt like he did it because he just wanted me to be better. But then I got to seventh grade and had to play under Coach Gibson, too.… He hated me from the minute he saw me. I could just tell.”

  A bad feeling settles in the pit of my stomach like a seed. All Laz told me is that Booker was expelled from his old school and served time in a juvenile detention center.

  “When you’re as big as I am, some people are intimidated, but other people like to fuck with you, just to see how far they can push you. Gibson was like that. He yelled at everyone, but he’d scream his fucking head off at me. Every practice, every game. Like he was trying to break me.” Booker clears his throat and doesn’t quite look at me, but turns his head, just a bit, as if it’s the best he can do in lieu of eye contact. “My mom got sick and I started playing like shit and everyone noticed. Coach Reed could tell something was wrong, but when I didn’t say what, he was cool with it. Just told me I should take a break if I needed to. But Gibson wanted to get to state that year—real bad. And he thought they could do it for the first time in years with me on the team.”

  I didn’t know his mom had been sick. I just knew that he lived with his dad and she wasn’t around. Now that my eyes have adjusted to the dark, I look at his face, try to find the emotion in his big chocolate-brown eyes or in the angle of his mouth. But I see nothing—just his blank gaze focused on the rug.

  “One week, Gibson was really riding me… just saying whatever he could to get my mind back on the field. Brutal. I wanted to kill him, but I just kept playing because at least if I was playing, I wasn’t thinking about how my mom wasn’t getting better. Then, for some reason… Coach Reed… he never usually went there, but one of the guys had pissed him off and he just started screaming at whoever he could see. He said something—he didn’t know my mom was sick. I didn’t tell anyone. Not until… But he said something like, Bet your pansy-ass mom could play better than the shit you’re pulling out there, Stratton. And I fucking lost it. Everything went red. I don’t remember any of it.”

  “What did you do?” I ask, trying not to cringe. I am the one who asked him to tell me, after all. “I mean, what did they say you did?”

  “I tore away from the game and went right up to him and punched him in the face. Over and over and over. Then I blacked out.” He runs a hand over his face, over his eyes, as if trying to remove the image from his memory. “I broke his jaw and a couple of his ribs and—shit.” His voice breaks and he stops.

  His words feel out of place in this room around all the little-kid furniture—and around me. I like how sturdy Booker is. How, even though I don’t know him very well, I have never thought he would use his size against me. But this doesn’t sound like your average fight. It sounds like an attack.

  Still, as much as what he’s saying scares me, I feel like it’s scaring him, too. The memories. Slowly, I put my hand on his arm, and he looks at me for the first time since he started talking.

  “It’s like it wasn’t me. Like it was someone else. And when I realized what I’d done…” Booker shakes his head. “I just couldn’t believe it until I looked down at my hands. At my shoes. Coach Reed’s blood was on them. And I just kept looking back and forth between him and Gibson, wondering how I snapped on the wrong one. Coach Reed forgave me, but Gibson… he was so pissed that his chance at state was shot, and it wasn’t enough for me to be expelled. He got the school to press assault charges and I ended up in juvie the last few months of seventh grade.”

  “I’m sorry, Booker.”

  “It was my old man’s fucking nightmare. All my life, I’d grown up hearing him talk about how nobody wanted to be sent to the Audy Home. How teachers and parents used to scare the shit out of him and other kids by saying they’d have to go there if they fucked up.”

  My parents grew up in Chicago, too, and they’ve said the same things about the Audy Home. It’s not officially called that anymore, but I’ve heard the stories, and whatever the name is, nobody wants to go there.

  “I’ll get it if this is too much,” he says when I don’t say anything. “If you don’t—”

  He doesn’t continue.

  A part of me, the one that’s so sheltered it fights against everything that breaks the rules, like lying about where I am and drinking rum-laced Coke, thinks it is too much. That I should be with someone who has a clean record, like Mitchell. Someone who never gets in trouble. Like me.

  But the other part is stronger. The one that wants to touch Booker and kiss Booker and maybe even one day be with Booker. The part that reminds me he has only ever been gentle around me.

  He blinks. “I went to anger management, too. My dad made me quit playing football because he read a bunch of articles and thinks getting hit so much fucks up everyone’s brains. That CTE thing. And I haven’t done anything like that again. I promise I
wouldn’t—I’d never hurt you, Dove.”

  “I know,” I say quickly, giving in to the strong part. “It’s not too much.”

  “It’s not?”

  I nod and he smiles and I move my hand from his arm to his shoulder, big and muscled. He flexes involuntarily, then relaxes against my hand. He’s looking at me and now his eyes are full of feeling: softness and sadness and what I am sure is a bit of relief.

  He touches his forehead to mine.

  I lift my hand to his face, and I lean forward and kiss him first. His emotions transfer to his kiss. The sadness is in the urgent way he presses his mouth to mine, as if he’s never needed anything so badly. The softness is in how he coaxes my lips apart, slow and almost questioning.

  I wonder if he can taste the alcohol on my tongue like I can taste his or if it has all mingled together in the sweetness of this kiss.

  I wonder if this feels a bit dangerous to him, too, after his confession, or if it is just the other part of me thinking that. The sheltered, weak part.

  My phone vibrates and I pull away briefly to make sure it isn’t my mother. The movie I’m supposedly seeing should be wrapping up about now.

  It’s Laz.

  Still here? Should head out soon if you want to make it home by curfew

  “Sorry. It’s Laz,” I say to Booker as I quickly text back. I don’t want him to leave without me.

  Ten more minutes. Meet you downstairs

  A few moments later, his reply comes.

  Your mom, your funeral

  But what he doesn’t understand is that for once in my life—maybe for the first time—I am not worried about what she thinks.

  I am finally living.

  I TURN MY KEY IN THE FRONT DOOR TWO MINUTES BEFORE CURFEW.

  My mother is sitting in the living room, pretending like she’s heavily invested in a true crime documentary and isn’t watching the clock instead.

  She pauses the TV and smiles when I walk in. “How was the movie?”

  “Good. Longer than I thought, and then Laz and I ran into one of his friends on the way out.”

  The lie rolls off my tongue, sweet and easy. I sit with it for a moment, but it never turns sour.

  I yawn. “I’m going to get ready for bed.”

  Laz and I got a ride home from Greg, and I fell asleep in the car, even though I tried to stay awake to spy on them from the back seat. I’ve never seen Laz with anyone he likes. Ayanna doesn’t have rules like my mother, but he’s afraid that she won’t love him if he’s honest about who he’s into. Greg and Laz were talking about their physics final as my eyes closed; Laz had to shake me awake when we pulled up in front of my building.

  Carlene waves from the dining room. She’s hunched over a table full of paperwork, a pair of chunky black-framed glasses perched on the edge of her nose.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “I have to apply to schools for the hair-braiding license since your mother won’t let me set foot in her shop until I have my three hundred hours.”

  “That’s not true, Carlene.” Mom sighs. “You’re welcome to come down every day and help me out around the salon. But I can’t break the law. I’m not letting you get us shut down because you’re desperate to do a set of box braids.”

  Carlene’s lips pull tight, but she remains quiet. She must have known long before me that it’s almost never worth fighting with my mother when she’s made up her mind. I think back to that day long ago, when they were arguing out back. I didn’t make it up—I’m sure of that.

  Still, it’s nice to see them spending time together. Mimi and I practically became one when we were relaxing—our arms and legs draped across each other as we watched movies and shared bowls of popcorn, huddling together under blankets on frigid winter nights. This is the first time I’ve seen my mom and her sister anywhere near each other when they weren’t in the kitchen, and it feels good, like maybe they don’t actually hate each other.

  “You can practice on me,” I say to Carlene, pushing a hand into my curls.

  “I have to go through a school for it to be official, but you let me know anytime you want me to hook you up, Dove.” She smiles.

  “Good night,” I say to them both, and I’ve almost reached the hallway when Mom stops me.

  “Too old for a good-night hug?” she says.

  I’m not too old, just tired, but I walk back over. Drop down on the couch next to her, and fold myself into her arms. She squeezes me and kisses my hair and says, “Sleep tight, Birdie.”

  Then she freezes.

  Pulls back and looks at me with disbelief. “What’s that smell?”

  Fuck.

  She sniffs at me. “Is that alcohol?”

  I don’t respond. I stare at the smooth skin of her never-been-pierced earlobe.

  “Open your mouth,” Mom says. “Breathe out.”

  Her voice is scary quiet, and when she sounds like that, I follow her instructions without thinking. Greg gave me a piece of minty gum to chew on the way home, but it doesn’t mask the sips of rum and Coke I drank when I was with Booker.

  She stands and walks a few feet to the window that overlooks the street below. When she turns around, the look of disbelief is back. “You were out drinking? What in the world would possess you to do something like that?”

  From the corner of my eye, I see Carlene shift in her seat. When I don’t say anything, my mother continues.

  “Have I not made it very clear that you’re to stay away from alcohol? You’re sixteen. You have plenty of time to try it when you’re older. When you’re of age. When you know how to handle yourself.”

  “I only had a couple of sips.” But now that I’ve felt what it’s like to let myself relax—to let go, even just a bit—I wonder what I’d be like if I’d finished my drink. I wonder what I would be like with Booker.

  “What has gotten into you, Dove?” My mother shakes her head at me, and I realize that I’ve stumped her. Mimi never broke her rules, and I haven’t, either—until now.

  I stand, too, because I don’t like looking up at her from the couch. It makes me feel small. “It’s summer,” I say. “I got a perfect GPA this year. Same as last year.”

  “This isn’t the time to get lazy.” She exhales so loudly the sound fills the entire room. “We make these rules for a reason. You need to stay motivated this summer. The SATs are practically around the corner and—”

  “Mom—”

  “Give me your phone.”

  “What?” I stare at her, so shocked by the demand that I forget to be afraid.

  She holds out her hand. “I want your phone.”

  “How am I supposed to talk to anyone?” Anyone is just Laz and Booker, but that doesn’t make it any less important.

  “That’s exactly the point. You’re grounded. From hanging out with Laz, and from your phone.”

  “Why do you need to take it? My phone is private.”

  “Maybe privacy is what got you into this mess.”

  I frown at her. “What mess? Mom, I’m fine. Look at me.”

  My aunt’s chair pushes back, scraping against the hardwood floor. “Come on, Kitty. Her phone? Don’t you think that’s a little harsh?”

  Mom’s head whips toward her. “Stay out of this.” Then back to me. “Phone.”

  “No.”

  I don’t know where I get the courage. I didn’t have enough of that drink to feel this brave. But the thought of my mother looking through my texts with Booker and scrolling through my pictures makes me queasy. I am so good for her all the time; I shouldn’t have to negotiate my privacy.

  Her mouth drops open. “I don’t know who you think you’re talking to, but—”

  “Kitty, you need to chill. Having a few sips doesn’t make her a drunk. She’s a teenager.”

  “Yeah? Well, so were you.” My mother’s voice could chisel ice. “And if I were going to ask for parenting advice, it certainly wouldn’t be from you, Carlene.”

  The room is so quiet
I can hear my mother’s breathing. Then, downstairs, the door to the building opens and closes behind my father. He’s just back from working a Saturday night Bulls game at United Center, which always makes him tired. He trudges up the exterior hallway stairs and then he’s inside. Finds the three of us standing in the two front rooms, perfectly still.

  He looks at each of our faces, trying to piece together what’s happening without upsetting us further. Slowly, he latches the apartment door closed and sets down his medical bag. “Everything okay here?”

  “Oh, sure,” Mom says with a sharp laugh. “Your daughter has been drinking and my sister thinks it’s perfectly normal.”

  “Kitty, I did not say—”

  “Can you give us some space?” my mother cuts her off. “This is between the three of us. We don’t need any more input.”

  My aunt glares at her but says nothing. She slides on her sandals. Picks up her pack of cigarettes. And seconds later, she’s out the same way my father came.

  I am grounded, for a month, but Dad persuades Mom to let me keep my phone when I tell them I was with Laz the whole time. Being in trouble with Laz isn’t good, but it’s better than trouble with someone they don’t know. I text to tell him what happened; say that I’m sorry and I’ll make it up to him. I know Mom will give Ayanna an earful, who will pass that on to Laz.

  I consider it a small triumph. I’ve thought about defying her so many times, but I was never brave enough.

  Like when she made me quit soccer; it wasn’t just that she made me quit, it was the way she did it. I got a B-plus on a social studies test and she freaked out—even though I was in eighth grade and it was an honors class. The next day she made me wash and turn in my uniform and gave my cleats away to Goodwill without telling me. All before the season was over.

  Or how she wouldn’t let me go to Lollapalooza with Mimi and her friend Ariel two summers ago, even though they got a ticket just for me, because she said I was too young to be “in a place like that” with “those people”—whatever that’s supposed to mean.