“Back up off me, crazy n****r!”
Jeff Green was annoyed that, of all things, a vision of his mother’s shocked and angry face loomed, interrupting his moment of triumph as the forbidden word tap danced out his mouth in real syllables.
Drunk and high at a house party in Chula Vista, one of the guys in Jeff’s group had gotten into it with a black guy—who knows how the argument got started. Maybe it was over a girl, or perhaps it had been about the virtues of ska versus metal? Who knows? Jeff had rushed into the fight to back up his friend. Only he hadn’t thought that it would move beyond words—unspeakable words he knew his parents never would have approved.
Blood: carmine, rich as spun gold, spread out in a decadent puddle on the sidewalk. Before he ran off, the young black kid split Jeff’s
