For all the young brothers and sisters in detention centers around the country, the ones I’ve seen, and the ones I haven’t. You are loved.

DON’T NOBODY

believe nothing

these days

which is why I haven’t told nobody the story I’m about to tell you.

And truth is,

you probably ain’t

gon’ believe it either gon’ think I’m lying

or I’m losing it,

but I’m telling you,

this story is true.

It happened to me.

Really.

It did.

It so did.

MY NAME IS

Will.

William.

William Holloman.

But to my friends

and people

who know me

know me,

just Will.

So call me Will,

because after I tell you what I’m about to tell you you’ll either

want to be my friend

or not

want to be my friend

at all.

Either way,

you’ll know me

know me.

I’M ONLY WILLIAM

to my mother

and my brother, Shawn, whenever he was trying to be funny.

Now

I’m wishing I would’ve laughed more

at his dumb jokes

because the day

before yesterday,

Shawn was shot

and killed.

I DON’T KNOW YOU,

don’t know

your last name,

if you got

brothers

or sisters

or mothers

or fathers

or cousins

that be like

brothers

and sisters

or aunties

or uncles

that be like

mothers

and fathers,

but if the blood

inside you is on the inside of someone else,

you never want to

see it on the outside of them.

THE SADNESS

is just so hard

to explain.

Imagine waking up

and someone,

a stranger,

got you strapped down, got pliers shoved

into your mouth,

gripping a tooth

somewhere in the back, one of the big

important ones,

and rips it out.

Imagine the knocking

in your head,

the pressure pushing

through your ears,

the blood pooling.

But the worst part,

the absolute worst part, is the constant slipping of your tongue

into the new empty space, where you know

a tooth supposed to be but ain’t no more.

IT’S SO HARD TO SAY,

Shawn’s

dead.

Shawn’s

dead.

Shawn’s

dead.

So strange to say.

So sad.

But I guess

not surprising,

which I guess is

even stranger,

and even sadder.

THE DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

me and my friend Tony were outside talking about whether or not we’d get any taller now that we were fifteen.

When Shawn was fifteen he grew a foot, maybe a foot and a half. That’s when he gave me all the clothes he couldn’t fit.

Tony kept saying he hoped he grew because even though he was the best ballplayer around here our age, he was also the shortest.

And everybody knows

you can’t go all the way when you’re that small unless you can really jump. Like

fly.

AND THEN THERE WERE SHOTS.

Everybody

ran,

ducked,

hid,

tucked

themselves tight.

Did what we’ve all

been trained to.

Pressed our lips to the pavement and prayed

the boom, followed by the buzz of a bullet, ain’t meet us.

AFTER THE SHOTS

me and Tony

waited like we always do, for the rumble to stop, before picking our heads up and poking our heads out to count the bodies.

This time

there was only one.

Shawn.

I’VE NEVER BEEN

in an earthquake.

Don’t know if this was even close to how they are, but the ground

defi nitely felt like it o pened up

and ate me.

THINGS THAT ALWAYS HAPPEN WHENEVER SOMEONE

IS KILLED AROUND HERE

NO. 1: SCREAMING

Not everybody screams.

Usually just

moms,

girlfriends,

daughters.

In this case

it was Leticia,

Shawn’s girlfriend,

on her knees kissing

his forehead

between shrieks.

I think she hoped

her voice would

somehow keep him

alive,

would clot the blood.

But I think

she knew

deep down in the

deepest part of

her downness

she was kissing him good-bye.

AND MY MOM

moaning low,

Not my baby.

Not my baby.

Why?

hanging over my

brother’s body

like a dimmed

light post.

NO. 2: SIRENS

Lots and lots of sirens, howling, cutting through the sounds of the city.

Except the screams.

The screams are always heard over everything.

Even the sirens.

NO. 3: QUESTIONS

Cops flashed lights in our faces and we all turned to stone.

Did anybody see anything?

a young officer asked.

He looked honest, like he ain’t never done this before.

You can always tell a newbie.

They always ask questions like they really expect answers.

Did anybody see anyone?

I ain’t seen nothin’, Marcus Andrews, the neighborhood know-it-all, said.

Even he knew better than to know anything.

IN CASE YOU AIN’T KNOW,

gunshots make everybody deaf and blind especially when they make somebody dead.

Best to become invisible in times like these.

Everybody knows that.

Even Tony flew away.

I’M NOT SURE

if the cops asked me questions.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Couldn’t hear nothing.

Ears filled up with heartbeats like my head was being held under water.

Like I was holding my breath.

Maybe I was.

Maybe I was

hoping I could give some back to Shawn.

Or maybe

somehow

join him.

WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN

we can usually look up and see the moon, big and bright, shining over us.

That always made me feel better.

Like there’s something up there beaming down on us in the dark.

But the day before yesterday, when Shawn

died,

the moon was off.

Somebody told me once a month the moon blacks out

and becomes new

and the next night be back to normal.

I’ll tell you one thing, the moon is lucky it’s not down here where nothing

is ever

new.

I STOOD THERE,

mouth clenched

tight enough to grind my teeth down to dust,

and looked at Shawn

lying there like a piece of furniture left outside, like a stained-up couch draped in a gold chain.

Them fuckers ain’t even snatch it.

RANDOM THOUGHT

Blood soaking into a

T-shirt, blue jeans, and boots looks a lot like chocolate syrup when the glow from the streetlights hit it.

But I know ain’t

nothing sweet about blood.

I know it ain’t like chocolate syrup at all.

IN HIS HAND,

a corner-store

plastic bag

white with

red letters

THANK YOU

THANK YOU

THANK YOU

THANK YOU

THANK YOU

THANK YOU

THANK YOU

HAVE A NICE DAY

IN THAT BAG,

special soap

for my mother’s

eczema.

I’ve seen her

scratch until it

bleeds.

Pick at the pus

bubbles and flaky

scales.

Curse the invisible

thing trying to eat

her.

MAYBE THERE’S SOMETHING INVISIBLE

trying

to eat

all of

us as

if we

are beef.

BEEF

gets passed down like name-brand T-shirts around here. Always too big.

Never ironed out.

gets inherited like a trunk of fool’s gold or a treasure map leading to nowhere.

came knocking on my brother’s life, kicked the damn door down and took everything except his gold chain.

THEN THE YELLOW TAPE

that says DO NOT CROSS

gets put up, and there’s nothing left to do but go home.

That tape lets people know that this is a murder scene, as if we ain’t already know that.

The crowd backs its way into buildings and down blocks until nothing is left but the tape.

Shawn was zipped into a bag and rolled away, his blood added to the pavement galaxy of bubblegum stars. The tape framed it like it was art. And the next day, kids would play mummy with it.

BACK ON THE EIGHTH FLOOR

I locked myself in my room and put a pillow over my head to muffle the sound of my mom’s mourning.

She sat in the kitchen, sobbing into her palms, which she peeled away only to lift glass to mouth.

With each sip came a brief silence, and with each brief silence I snuck in a breath.

I FELT LIKE CRYING,

which felt like

another person

trapped behind my face tiny fists punching

the backs of my eyes

feet kicking

my throat at the spot where the swallow

starts.

Stay put, I whispered to him.

Stay strong, I whispered to me.

Because crying

is against

The

Rules.

THE RULES

NO. 1: CRYING

Don’t.

No matter what.

Don’t.

NO. 2: SNITCHING

Don’t.

No matter what.

Don’t.

NO. 3: REVENGE

If someone you love

gets killed,

find the person

who killed

them and

kill them.

THE INVENTION OF THE RULES

ain’t come from my

brother,

his friends,

my dad,

my uncle,

the guys outside,

the hustlers and shooters, and definitely not from me.

ANOTHER THING ABOUT THE RULES

They weren’t meant to be broken.

They were meant for the broken to follow.

OUR BEDROOM: A SQUARE, YELLOWY PAINT

Two beds:

one to the left of the door, one to the right.

Two dressers:

one in front of the bed to the left of the door, one in front of the bed to the right.

In the middle, a small TV.

Shawn’s side was the left: perfect, almost.

Mine, the right:

pigsty, mostly.

Shawn’s wall had:

a poster of Tupac,

a poster of Biggie.

My wall had:

an anagram I wrote in messed-up scribble with a pencil in case Mom made me erase it:

SCARE = CARES.

ANAGRAM

is when you take a word and rearrange the letters to make another word.

And sometimes the words are still somehow connected ex: CANOE = OCEAN.

Same letters,

different words,

somehow still make

sense together,

like brothers.

THE MIDDLE DRAWER

was the only thing ever out of place on Shawn’s side of the room, like a random, jagged tooth in a perfect mouth,

jammed tight between the top drawer of shirts

folded into neat rectangles stacked like project floors, and the bottom drawer of socks and underwear.

Off track. Stuck. Forced in at an angle.

Seemed like the middle drawer was jacked up on purpose to keep me and Mom out and Shawn’s gun in.

I WON’T PRETEND THAT SHAWN

was the kind of guy

who was home by curfew.

The kind of guy

who called and checked in about where he was,

who he was with,

what he was doing.

He wasn’t.

Not after eighteen,

which was when our mother took her hands off him, pressed them together, and began to pray

that he wouldn’t go to jail that he wouldn’t get Leticia pregnant that he wouldn’t

die.

READ MORE

Document Outline

Dedication

Don’t_Nobody

My_Name_Is

I’m_Only_William

I_Don’t_Know_You

The_Sadness

It’s_so_Hard_to_Say,

The_Day_before_Yesterday

And_Then_There_Were_Shots

After_the_Shots

I’ve_Never_Been

No._1:_Screaming

And_My_Mom

No._2:_Sirens

No._3:_Questions

In_Case_You_Ain’t_Know

I’m_Not_Sure

When_Bad_things_Happen

I_Stood_There

Random_Thought

In_His_Hand

In_That_Bag

Maybe_There’s_Something_Invisible

Beef

Then_the_Yellow_Tape

Back_on_the_Eighth_Floor

I_Felt_like_Crying

No._1:_Crying

No._2:_Snitching

No._3:_Revenge

The_Invention_of_the_Rules

Another_Thing_About_the_Rules

Our_Bedroom:_A_Square,_Yellowy_Paint

Anagram

The_Middle_Drawer

I_Won’t_Pretend_that_Shawn