No good choices

I was fourteen the first time I saw someone get shot. Not on TV. Not in a movie. Right there on Crenshaw and 83rd, maybe twenty feet from where I was standing with my cousin Marcus outside the liquor store. It was a Tuesday afternoon, still light out. I remember that because I kept thinking afterward how it shouldn't have happened in daylight. Like there were rules about this kind of thing. There weren't. The guy who got hit was older, maybe mid-twenties. I didn't know his name. He went down hard, just dropped, and for a second nobody moved. Then everyone moved at once. Marcus grabbed my arm and we ran. We ran all the way back to his apartment on 79th, didn't stop even when my lungs were burning, didn't look back. When we got inside Marcus locked the door and we both just stood there breathing hard, not saying anything. His mom came out of her bedroom asking what was wrong. Marcus said nothing. I said nothing. She looked at us for a long time, then went back to her room and closed the door. That was four years ago. I'm eighteen now and I've seen it happen three more times since then. You'd think you get used to it but you don't. You just get better at not thinking about it after. My name's Jamal. Jamal Carter. I live in South Central LA, born and raised, never been nowhere else except one time we drove to San Diego when I was nine. My mom wanted to see the ocean. We stayed for like four hours and drove back the same day because she had work the next morning. I remember the ocean was cold. I thought it would be warm like bath water but it wasn't. Mom works two jobs. Days she's at a dental office doing reception and nights she cleans offices downtown. Sometimes I don't see her for two, three days straight. She leaves before I wake up and comes home after I'm asleep. Or supposed to be asleep. Most nights I'm still up, playing games or just sitting there thinking about nothing. We live in a one-bedroom apartment. She takes the bedroom, I sleep on the couch. It's not a bad couch. I've had worse. When I was younger we stayed with my aunt for almost a year and I slept on the floor. The couch is better. My dad's not around. He's alive, I think. Last I heard he was up in Oakland but that was two years ago and who knows now. He left when I was six. Just left. Went out one day and didn't come back. Mom doesn't talk about him. She's got one picture of him in a drawer in her room, I found it once when I was looking for something. He looked young in it. Younger than I am now, probably. He was smiling. I don't smile much in pictures. I don't take many pictures. School's okay I guess. I mean it's school. I go most days. I'm a senior at Jefferson High, supposed to graduate in June if I don't f**k it up. My grades are alright. Bs and Cs mostly. I could probably do better if I tried harder but I don't see the point most days. College isn't really in the cards for me. You need money for that. We don't have money. Mom wants me to go though. She talks about it sometimes when she's home, when she's not too tired. Says I'm smart, says I could make something of myself. I don't tell her that I don't think I'm that smart. I don't tell her that most days I'm just trying to get through without something bad happening. The neighborhood's not as bad as it used to be, people say. I don't know. Seems bad enough to me. You still hear gunshots at night. You still see the memorials on the sidewalk, the candles and flowers and teddy bears. You still know which blocks to avoid and which ones are okay and which ones are only okay during certain times. I've got friends. Marcus is family but he's my friend too, my best friend probably. We've known each other our whole lives. His dad's not around either, different reason though. His dad's in Corcoran doing fifteen for something I don't ask about. Marcus doesn't talk about it. There's also Darnell and Keyshawn. We've been tight since middle school. Darnell's funny, always making jokes even when nothing's funny. Keyshawn's quiet, plays basketball, real good at it too. He might actually get out of here with that. Might get a scholarship or something. I hope he does. Then there's guys I know who aren't really friends but aren't strangers either. Guys from the block. You grow up around people, you know them even if you're not close. You nod when you pass them. You know their names, know their business mostly. Know who's cool and who's trouble and who's somewhere in between. There's this one guy, DeShawn. He's trouble. Everyone knows it. He's twenty-two, twenty-three, something like that. Been in and out of jail since he was sixteen. He runs with the Hoovers, least that's what people say. I don't know for sure. I stay away from him when I can. But sometimes you can't stay away from everybody. It was a Friday, about three weeks ago. I was walking home from school, taking my usual route down Western. I had my headphones in, not playing anything too loud because you need to hear what's around you, but loud enough that I could zone out a little bit. I saw DeShawn on the corner near the bus stop. He was with two other guys I didn't recognize. I thought about crossing the street but that seems obvious, seems scared, and you can't look scared around here. So I kept walking, kept my eyes forward. "Yo, Jamal." I stopped. Took out one earbud. "What's up." "Come here for a second." I didn't want to but I walked over. The other two guys looked at me but didn't say anything. "You know Anthony, right? Anthony Williams?" DeShawn asked. I did know Anthony. He was a year ahead of me at Jefferson, dropped out last year. "Yeah, I know him." "You seen him around?" "Nah, not recently." DeShawn nodded slow, like he was thinking about it. "If you see him, you tell him I'm looking for him. You do that for me?" It wasn't really a question. "Yeah, alright." "Good looking out." He dapped me up and I left, put my earbud back in, walked home trying not to walk too fast. I didn't want anything to do with whatever DeShawn wanted with Anthony. I didn't want to be in the middle of that. But now I was, kind of. Not really but kind of. I haven't seen Anthony. I hope I don't. That night Mom actually came home for dinner. She looked tired but she made spaghetti and we ate together watching some show on Netflix she likes. She asked about school. I said it was fine. She asked if I'd been staying out of trouble. I said yeah. "You sure?" she asked, looking at me in that way moms look at you when they know something's up. "Yeah Mom, I'm sure." She kept looking at me. Then she nodded and went back to eating. "I'm working doubles this weekend," she said. "There's money on the counter for food. Don't spend it on nothing stupid." "I won't." "And Jamal?" "Yeah?" "Stay inside. I don't like you being out there late." "I'm always careful." "I know baby. Just... stay inside if you can." I said I would. I probably wouldn't, not the whole weekend, but I said I would.