Long Way Down

by Jason Reynolds

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.

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.

I’m wishing I would’ve laughed more at his dumb jokes

but if the blood inside you is on the inside of someone else, you never want to see it on the outside of them.

So strange to say. So sad. But I guess not surprising, which I guess is even stranger, and even sadder.

Did what we’ve all been trained to.

me and Tony waited like we always do,

NO. 1: SCREAMING

NO. 2: SIRENS

The screams are always heard over everything. Even the sirens.

NO. 3: QUESTIONS

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.

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.

But I know ain’t nothing sweet about blood. I know it ain’t like chocolate syrup at all.

IN THAT BAG, special soap for my mother’s eczema.

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.

Stay put, I whispered to him. Stay strong, I whispered to me. Because crying is against The Rules.

THE RULES NO. 1: CRYING

NO. 2: SNITCHING

NO. 3: REVENGE

If someone you love gets killed, find the person who killed them and kill them.

ANOTHER THING ABOUT THE RULES They weren’t meant to be broken. They were meant for the broken to follow.

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.

Same letters, different words, somehow still make sense together, like brothers.

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 know you’re young, gotta get it out, but just remember, when you’re walking in the nighttime, make sure the nighttime ain’t walking into you.

People always love people more when they’re dead.

I’ll never go to sleep again believing him or believing he will eventually come home, because he won’t, and now I guess I should love him more, like he’s my favorite, which is hard to do because he was my only brother, and already my favorite.

A tool for RULE No. 3.

That I was scared of to death.

ALIVE = A VEIL

Might as well relax, Buck said. It’s a long way down.

I said, feeling myself, my macho between my shaky legs, masking my jumpy heart.

BUCK LAUGHED, AND laughter, when it’s loud and heavy and aimed at you, I think can feel just as bad as a bullet’s bang.

Six foot four, Six foot five. (Six feet deep.)

UNCLE MARK PULLED ME IN for a hug, but how you hug what’s haunting you?

AND YOU KNOW it’s weird to know a person you don’t know and at the same time not know a person you know, you know?

A BETTER QUESTION, he said, eyes up at me is, why are you here?

So he did what a lot of people do around here.

Unfortunately, he never shot nothing ever again. But my father did.

HI, WILL. My father’s voice brand-new to me. Deep. Some scratch on the tail of each word. How I figured Shawn’s would’ve sounded someday.

How do you small-talk your father when “dad” is a language so foreign that whenever you try to say it, it feels like you got a third lip and a second tongue?

WHAT YOU THINK YOU SHOULD DO? he asked. Follow The Rules, I said just like I told everybody else. Just like you did.

Knew I could get him. The Rules. Taught to me by Mark. Taught to him by our pop.

HOW TO BECOME A DARK SUN 1 TURF: nine blocks from where I live. 2 THE SHINING: a cigarette burn under the right eye. 3 DARK DEED: robbing someone, beating someone or the worst, killing someone. Note: Apparently, you also gotta be corny.

GANGSTAS always respect older (original) gangstas (OGs) and preachers who act like gangstas.

THE RULES ARE THE RULES

Just two words, like a joke he’d been saving. YOU COMING?