Long Way Down PBA Unit 3

Jason Reynolds

2017

THE RULES

Long Way Down

No suspect has been identified as of current, as there were no security cameras around and no witnesses got a look at the perpetrators face. The Holloman family has been shaken with grief, although Shawn's 16 year old little brother, William (Will) Holloman. believes he knows exactly who did it. On multiple meetings with the police, he is addament that Carlson Riggs, a proclaimed enemy of Holloman is the killer.

Shawn Holloman

One unfortunate October night, local citizen and student Shawn Holloman was pronounced dead at the scene by gunshot wound. Police officers suspect that Holloman was a victim in a gangwar, a common occurance in their small town.

Carlson Riggs

William Holloman

Carlson Riggs, better known as just Riggs around the neighborhood, is part of a gang called the Dark Suns.

Will is positive in his accusation and on many occasions has said if police don't do anything, he will.

October 25, 2017

Hey. I don ever really expect anything out of life, it’s unpredictable and mine was never stable. But when I left the apartment today I think this was the last thing I had expected to write. It's hard to believe, y’know. Can’t even say it out loud. My hands are shakin. But still, he's dead. Shawn's dead. He's dead and I can't do nothin bout it, I can't bring him back, I can't take back the bullet. Can’t reverse time and stop the gun from firing, or distract him long enough that I could trick fate. It’s a sick feeling, like the feeling I get after Shawn makes me laugh so hard I feel sick to my stomach. Except the sweetness of the moment has been sucked out of my lungs. The only thing left is a bitter ball in the bottom of my stomach. I can’t do anything to make his heart beat with mine again. The admittance of it is strange enough, but the words together look wrong. Shawn and Dead. They don’t belong together. I always knew that bein able to see death comin was a blessin but it still never hit me till now how fast it hits. How hard it stings, how bad it leaves you reelin. Me and Tony were walking together, stopped to talk about whether we’d get any taller since we’d finally hit 15. Tony was talkin bout how even if he was the best ballplayer round here, his height wouldn get him nowhere if he aint grow no more. The shots themselves weren the scary part, the rumble of the ground only left my heart beatin a lil faster than usual. But I ran, I ducked, I hid, like I’d been taught too. The scary part was the body on the concrete. The scary part was the screamin of two women. The scary part was the fact that one woman screaming was Leticia, Shawn’s girlfriend. The scary part was the fact the body she was cradlin and wouldn stop kissin on the forehead was my brother Shawn. The scary part was the other woman moanin my brother’s name over and over again was my own mother. “Not my baby. Not my baby. Not my baby.” She’d cried. I saw the light drip from her eyes, pooling on my brother's cheeks, her face dim like a dead bulb. The sirens came next, a death sentence, really. The whine and shriek of the red and blue wasn’t unfamiliar but it left a slash through my heart anyways. It was the end of the action, the end of the movie scene. I waited for him to stand up and laugh and joke that it was just a prank. He never did. I don’t remember much after that, just the flash of the lights and the fact my brother’s blood soaked through his jeans looked a lot like syrup even though there aint nothin sweet about it. Maybe the cops asked me questions? Ion know. All I know is they prolly aint got no answers from no one. Aint got no answers for me or my ma. For shawn. The thing is when the sound of sirens follows the death of someone, most go blind and mute. Even Tony had left. The only things I know are this: Shawn is dead. I have to follow The Rules, and Carlson Riggs did it.

October 26, 2017

I hadn’t planned on comin back tonight a failure of a man. But here I am. I had planned on coming back and bein able to tell you I did it. To be proud of me. That I killed him. I killed Riggs and I got revenge on my brother and he could rest easy in heaven now. I wish I could tell you that I had followed The Rules. That I one, hadn’t cried, two, aint snitched, and three, got revenge. But I cried, I snitched, and I aint get no damn revenge. The only rules that had been drilled into my head since as long as I could remember aint help me at all when I was confronted with faces that shoulda been nothin but skulls by now. Last night, I made my decision. I jammed open the crooked middle drawer on Shawn’s side of the room and slipped out the gun. I tucked it under my pillow and I knew I was gonna get him. I was gonna get Riggs and aint nothin gon stop me, not even my Ma. So I woke up this mornin and I snuck out the apartment with a gun in my hand lookin like a zombie as my mother slept at the table. Lemme tell you somethin. I aint never shot a gun before. A cannon, a strap, a burner, a gat, a hammer. Whatever you wanna call it. My brother never taught me, never had to, never needed to. So even though I’d never shot a gun and I was shakin out my skin because damn was it heavier than I expected, I walked down the hallway a determined man, Not a man, not yet. A boy. Hopefully a man by the end of it all. But even now, I’m no man. Just a boy drowning in his own silenced grief. I got on the elevator and pressed the L, and backed myself to the wall, praying my tail wasn peekin too bad. I stood there silent as a man got on and checked to make sure the right button was lit. He asked if I remembered him and I freaked and he showed me the back of his shirt and in front of me was a man who shoulda been long gone. Buck, the only other man that’d gotten any close to being a brother to me who was shot dead years ago stood in front of me with his nasty grin. I got scared he was gon take me with him. That I was dead somehow and he was gon drag me to Shawn. But not before I got to Riggs. Instead, he came to check on his gun, he told me. The same one tucked into my waistband, a cold line against my sweating back. A promise carrying death with its whisper. He laughed in my face when I told him I had a job to do and he took the gun from me and handed it back with a bark of a cackle when the elevator finally came to another damned stop. The woman who got on the elevator was beautiful. Flower dress a relief from the cigarette smoke that Buck clogged the room up with. I thought her a living being jus like me, but she saw Buck. So either we were both buggin or she was dead too. Turns out it was my childhood best friend Dani. The same girl who died on the playground the same day she kissed me. We was only 8. She deserved better. She looked gorgeous now, or I guess, would’ve been breathtakin. She questioned me, thought me a fool like Buck did. Asked, eyes genuine, “But what if you miss?” I told her I wouldn and she looked disappointed like my Ma woulda been if she saw me now. She took a cig from Buck and the elevator came to a stop again. The ding that echoed through the air a slice at my patience and sanity.

October 26, 2017

I coughed and tried to swipe the cig smoke out the box but it stayed stagnant, a thick cloud like the heaviness of my guilt in the air. Two hands had grabbed my shirt and I was underwater all a sudden, and the man holdin me down was laughin like it was the funniest thing he’d done in years. Wonder if the water know there aint nothin funny bout drownin. When I surfaced, I still stood in that damn elevator and my Uncle Mark stood before me. Another ghost in the room, another person to question me. I got there before him but still, he answered back with a question. Asked me what I was doin there. And he doubted me like Dani and Buck did and I explained to him the rules is the rules and aint nothin gon stop me. Not even 3 ghosts in the room wit me. He led me through the scene like it was one of his old damn home films and not my life. And he told me to say it. I couldn. I couldn finish it, I couldn say I’d shoot Riggs. When I did say it, it felt like blood in my mouth and the knot in my stomach only got worse. Mark got shot too, got his business stolen from right under him. I didn need to hear his disappointment in me, I smelled it in the cigarette he lit as the elevator came to another stop. The face that met me when the elevator doors was one I’d been waitin on since the day I was 3. Mickey Holloman, my father. I aint got no memories of my Pop, Shawn always tried to get me to remember small things bout him but I never could. I wonder then why the hug we shared peeled back the ;ast 13 years and left me bloody and raw? The only thing I really remember bout him is that my Ma said he died from a broken heart, and that he really died from killin the guy that killed his brother. He asked me how I’d been and his voice was deep and scratchy, unfamiliar in it’s entirety. And I wanted to tell him everythin but it seemed he knew every damn thing already. He told me about his own journey and how he aint kill the guy that got Mark. He just killed some young kid that aint do nothing wrong. And I could see what he was tryna tell me, what he was tryna show me. Was tryna tell me not to make the mistakes he did but I couldn see it. I turned away. I refused to see it. And he wouldn take that, he snatched the gun from my jeans and put the barrel to my head and I cried so hard I soiled my pants. He hugged me after I freaked and put the gun back into my waistband but I only freaked more. The smell of my fear reeked in the air like shame and the cig smoke curled around my lungs like a curse. Some white guy came in next, I aint know him but Buck did. The guy’s name was Frick. Frick killed Buck. I aint understand how they could laugh like they were old buddies. Buck said Shawn knew it was Frick but Shawn still aint say nothin to the cops. I asked how Shawn coulda known and he told me some kid was at the ball court the same time every night, not just tryna shoot some hoops but tryna fly. Tony. I asked Frick if he knew a kid named Riggs, had to have, they were in the same gang. And still, Frick looked at me like I was crazy. He pulled out his own cigs and pulled out his own light and struck it as the elevator finally came to the last stop. It was my brother who stood in front of me and the sight of his face almost brought me to my knees. I broke the rules for who knows what time. I cried and I hugged him and I cried some more. He aint say nothing till everyone got out the damn box. I saw my pop behind me still and Shawn asked, “You coming?” I closed the elevator door before I could regret it. I kept my eyes closed so I couldn’t see my brother’s face. I aint know what to expect. Aint know how Shawn would react. I pressed the button that glowed 8 and I kept my back to the wall as the box went, up, up, up. My Ma was up when I got back to the apartment. Held me so tight I thought I might pop as she cried bout how she thought she’d lost me too. It was a miracle she aint notice the gun on my back. I went back to our room. My room. And put the gun back in the drawer. Jammed it shut so hard there aint no chance of me gettin it back unless I blew the whole thing up. Aint no take backs. Aint no second guesses. I laid in bed till the moon came back. I aint think bout that gun one more time.