Short Story-Good Kid Blues

On Friday, I completed Daniel Jose Older's skillshare class on Storytelling Fundamentals: Character, Conflict, Context, Craft. It was very helpful, beneficial, and provided great skills for any type of storytelling. As a way to put the skills into practice, attendees were encouraged to complete a short story prompt, telling a story that takes place in one hour, in your hometown. Below is the story I wrote, inspired by an incident I witnessed as a teenager, while I just happened to be looking out the window of my grandmother's home. I welcome respectful feedback!

It was almost 1:00 pm when Darnell finally woke up, hungover with a massive headache, after coming home at 3 am from a night of partying at The Point, the neighborhood club where both millennials and old heads gathered to dance, drink, flirt and even sometimes get into fights. The club hadn’t changed much since it first opened in the early 70s; wood paneling on the walls, small round high top and long rectangular tables, and a long bar staffed by Charles and Ann, who look like they’re still stuck in the 70s. Last night was one of those nights where folks wanted to fight, almost causing the club to shut down early. The fight started over some petty shit as usually, when these two 20 something niggas got into it when one of them purposely bumped into the other twice while on the dance floor. Apparently, they have an acrimonious history with each other. Even before that shit between them two went down, some old head nigga tried to talk shit to Darnell, but he wasn’t about to risk getting locked up again, so he just walked away. Memories of the hell hole that is the county jail flashed in his mind, the moldy food, guards who try to provoke you into a fight, and the screams he heard at night as he tried to sleep, not allowing himself to think about the horrific violence someone is surely suffering. Plus, Darnell also didn’t want get blood on his white button down shirt this girl he was messing with got for him with her employee discount at Banana Republic, and the nicest shoes he owned, black Stacy Adams Oxfords.

Slowly rising out of bed, Darnell yawns, rubs his low cut fade, and starts to get up to go the bathroom when his mom Lisa opens his door, leading with her loud voice.

“Bout time you got up outta bed. You know I don’t like you coming home at all hours of the night; it’s getting crazy out there, all these shootings, plus you scared me to death sneaking in here in the middle of the night, almost grabbed my gun until you said it was you coming in.”

"I know ma; I didn’t mean to scare you and I’ll be careful when I go out.” Darnell leans down to kiss his mom on the cheek, then walks to the bathroom.

In the shower, Darnell thinks about the frustration of the job hunting he has to do today. There’s not too many legal jobs that pay enough to live on for a 21 year old black man with a high school diploma, 10 college community college credits, and criminal record. They want mufuckas to stop selling drugs so they arrest us, but because we now been to jail, one of the only jobs we can get that actually makes real money is selling drugs. Darnell didn’t plan on getting into the drug game, he just saw how hard his mom worked and struggled to take care of them after his father died in a freak accident on the construction site he worked at, and he wanted to help her out in a real way, not with just a paltry $100 every two weeks from a minimum wage paycheck. Well here I am, about to go begging for one of those minimum wage paychecks at the mall.

Tall, with skin color his grandmama still calls high yellow, and a smattering of freckles on his cheeks, Darnell resembles a young Harry Belafonte, dressed in a light blue button down shirt, black slacks, and the cheap dress shoes from Target (the Stacy Adams are reserved for the club). In the kitchen, Darnell and his mom are eating a breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, and biscuits, with maple syrup drizzled over everything, just like Darnell liked it.

“What jobs you applying to day?”

“Pretty much all the stores in the mall.”

“Even Victoria’s Secret?” Lisa chuckles.

“Shit, if they offer me a job I’d take it; finding a sexy woman there would be a bonus.”

“Boy, you crazy”, laughs Lisa. “Just focus on finding a job and enrolling back in school; get yourself together first before you start thinking about getting a woman.”

“Don’t worry ma, getting a job is my first and only priority right now; conveniently ignoring mentioning school because he’s not sure he wants to go back. You think there might be a job opening at the pharmaceutical company Uncle Henry work at?”

“I don’t know baby; you gon’ have to ask Henry. You know he can be real bougie at times, so if you talk to him about a job, you better make sure you dress and talk like you’re going to an interview.”

“Yeah imma do that.”  

“Well, let me get on up and finish getting ready to go to work.”

Lisa sighs as she slowly rises from her kitchen chair, dressed in dark blue jeans, tennis shoes, her hospital scrub shirt, with her medium length dark brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. She works a second job as a home health aid on the weekends, to supplement her earnings as a CNA at Wishard Hospital.

“Ok ma, I’m about to head out to. See you tonight.” Darnell gets up and hugs his mom goodbye.

“Ok baby, good luck and be careful out there. I heard Marilyn say yesterday that the police out here bored, just looking for folks to mess with, now that they not supposed to be stopping and frisking people any more.”

“I’ll be careful ma.”

What Darnell’s mom says reminds him of the stare downs and smirks he gets from the cop who arrested him 8 months ago, whenever he drives down the street in his neighborhood. Ever since he got arrested and was jailed, it feels like he sees cops everywhere now, not knowing if he’s just paranoid or if he’s just now noticing the number of police that ride through his neighborhood, Brightwood, on the east side of Indianapolis. He rarely saw the police when he rode through Greenwood last week, on his way to apply for a job at the electronics store. Nope, Greenwood gets two story homes with large manicured lawns, pretty parks, and fancy grocery stores. And what do we get? Liquor stores, check cashing places, and old food sold to us in the grimey grocery store.  

As Darnell walks down the steps onto the sidewalk, inwardly sighing at the sight of the three boarded up houses down the street, a cop car flies up to the curb, and two white cops storm out of the car, with their guns drawn.

The tall cop with icey blue eyes: “Stop and put your hands up right now!”

Darnell quickly puts his hands up while asking “what you stopping me for? I just walked out of my house!”

Darnell starts to point to his mom’s house when the shorter, stocky cop with blond hair screams “Put both of your fucking hands back up!”.

“Ok, ok, they’re back up!”, fear inching into his voice.

The taller cop: “get down on the ground!” and both cops surround him as Darnell lays powerless on the ground as they point their guns at his head and back.

“Why ya’ll doing this man? I haven’t done shit”.

Short cop: “Shut up! You match the description of someone who robbed a liquor store last night. Want to tell us where you were?”

Lisa walks out of the house, flinging her purse down as she runs down the steps. “What are ya’ll doing to my son?!”

The short cop points his gun at her. “Stay back ma’am! We’re just asking your son a few questions about a robbery that occurred last night”.

“A few questions? About a robbery? My son ain’t had nothing to do with robbing nobody, he went out with his friends and then came home”

“We’ll find out if he’s involved or not. You stay put or go back in your house”

“No!” “This is not right!” “You can’t treat us this way!” “We don’t pay the taxes that pay your salary to keep getting harassed in our own neighborhoods.”

While Lisa is yelling at the short cop, Darnell continues to invoke his right to remain silent as the the tall cop interrogates him about a liquor store robbery he knows nothing about. What he does know is to keep his mouth shut and to not tell this cop anything, thanks to the know your rights workshop this community group put on a couple of months ago.

The tall cop handcuffs Darnell and pulls him up, dragging him to the police car, while never reading him his Miranda Rights. “We’ll see what you have to say down at county. We’re taking you in for resisting arrest.”

The only thing Darnell is thinking is that they have to let him go; they got nothing on me. The thought of spending even one night back at the county is enough to make him shiver.

“How are you gonna arrest my son for doing nothing?!” Lisa continues to yell to the short cop as tears roll down her face.

“Ma’am if you don’t calm down, I’m gonna take you in too for interfering with an arrest.”

“You see what these cops do to us?!", she yells at the growing crowd of neighbors that have formed outside to witness Darnell’s arrest. Murmurs and yells from the crowd include “racist ass cops” “fuck the police” and some people traded stories of their experiences with racial profiling and getting searched by the police for no reason other than being Black.

Marilyn, Lisa’s good friend who lives across the street, hurries over to Lisa as soon as the cop car pulls off. She puts her arm around Lisa to both give her comfort and keep her from crumbling to the ground.

“Let’s go inside and call the lawyer” Marilyn says softly to Lisa as she helps her back up the steps into the house. Still crying, Lisa prays, “please don’t let them kill Darnell.”