The body hits the ground while a three-year-old boy watches from his car seat.
"Daddy?"
Only three, but old enough to understand that his father would never get up again. The headline reads; 'Suspicious black man shot during confrontation with police'.
The four-year-old boy stands at the grave. Grass is starting to grow on the soil that is as brown as his skin. His mother tries not to cry, while the four-year-old boy remembers the last thing his father told him: "I'll be right back."
The seven-year-old boy sits by the window doing his schoolwork. His mother won't let him go to public school; she says it's too dangerous. He hears shouting on the streets and looks out his window. Two brown boys and a man wearing a uniform yell at each other. One boy puts his hand into his pocket. A loud BANG! makes the body fall. The seven-year-old boy trembles and looks back to his papers, tears smearing the math problem that can't be solved.
The fifteen year old boy walks down the street, keeping a brisk pace.
Head up, don't look suspicious.
Keep your hands out of your pockets and at your sides.
Don't put anything in your pockets that bulge.
Don't make eye contact but don't look suspicious.
The fifteen-year-old boy passes a black and white car, his chest tight and his heart racing.
Nod.
Be friendly.
Don't look suspicious.
The fifteen-year-old boy reaches home and takes prescription meds for the crippling anxiety that leaves him shaking in the hall.
The twenty-two-year-old man parks along the side of the street, blinkers on. His two-year-old son dropped his sippy cup. The twenty-two-year-old man reaches back to pick it up just as flashing lights catch his eye.
His chest tightens.
He straightens, putting both hands on the wheel.
Hands visible,
Look straight ahead,
Don't look suspicious.
The two-year-old boy is crying for his drink, ignored as the man in uniform approaches the window. The twenty-two-year-old man waits until he's at the window before slowly reaching over to lower it.
Don't look suspicious.
Words exchanged. The man in uniform steps back so the twenty-two-year-old man can get out.
The two-year-old is still crying for his drink.
The twenty-two-year-old man carefully unbuckles, stepping out of the car slowly and deliberately.
Don't.
Look.
Suspicious.
His anxiety meds are in his pocket. A bulge. His heart races as the uniformed man asks, the twenty-two-year-old answering as he fumbles into his pocket to show him.
The body hits the ground while the two-year-old watches from his car seat.
"Daddy?"
The mother reads the headline of the day; 'Suspicious black man shot by police during a routine traffic stop'.
A five-year-old boy asks his mother why he's not allowed to carry anything in his pockets.
"Because you'll look suspicious."
"But Jimmy carries things in his pockets all the time at school!"
"Jimmy ain't black."
