A Song Below Water (A Song Below Water, #1)

by Bethany C. Morrow

Sirens, they say, and anyone listening knows it’s a dirty word. Danger, they report, and they’re talking about the danger she posed, never the danger we face.

What else is there to say when someone still thinks they can prove anything to the rest of the world. When they think there’s a way to behave to avoid being brutalized.

Whenever I get lost in some thought, my mom starts saying purposely ridiculous things to see how long it takes me to notice. She thinks it’ll lighten the mood, but that’s never how it feels. It’s more like the person who should know—who you really hoped would—thinks whatever’s eating you alive is a joke.

Because that’s what’s gonna heal the world. If we’re the only ones crying, offering unlimited love no matter what’s done to us. No matter how obvious our distress and discomfort.

When I get home—if I get home—this is gonna be my fault. Why didn’t you show him the registration, Tavia? Not, why did he pull you over in the first place? Not, why didn’t he ask to see it? Why didn’t you apologize, Tavia? Not, you didn’t do anything wrong. Not, I’ve been there before. Did you speak respectfully? Did you prostrate yourself, did you lie facedown and show submission, did you make them feel like they were overseers rather than civil servants?

Black girls do have attitude. We don’t know when to quit. We never back down. Which is a quality everybody benefits from when it comes time to organize or sit-in or climb a flagpole because it’s past time for terror to come down. But when it’s time to stand for us … it feels like it’s just us.

In the picture his mother points to while standing on a ladder held steady by the crowd, he looks like … someone. He looks like someone young enough for his murder to disrupt the national news. Someone whose death could not possibly go unanswered. And because we’re here, it won’t. Today the rules don’t apply and the street belongs to him because we weren’t dissuaded by the photo circulated on the TV screens. We don’t think his low-slung jeans and shirtless brown skin cancel out his right to jaywalk without a death sentence. We don’t think there is one kind of Black boy worthy of life, or that in the wake of his murder we need to prove him that one, elusive kind.

Is that the thing holding death at bay? Etiquette, and an ever-present fear of being shot? Because the fear is in all of us.

The fear gets quiet but it doesn’t disappear, and that might be what sets us apart. When we smile or we dance or we march or we win, it isn’t because we didn’t have reason to be afraid. It isn’t because the uncertainty is gone. It’s because we did it anyway. Because we cannot be exterminated.

What is it about mothers and their ability to find the weak spot in our armor?