“Roady, give me five dollars,” I heard Stacia say. Me and Tonya hung back, standing in a space between the candy truck and where Stacia had gone. Roady puffed on a cigarette and didn’t move. His little sister buzzed around him for a while, talking at him, but he stood there like a statue, his gaze fixed down the street. I didn’t want to leave Stacia and Tonya, but everything in my body told me that something was about to happen and that I should go upstairs.

Roady tossed his cigarette behind him and pushed Stacia toward the building. He walked by me, and I saw a gun holstered on his hip. He turned around, still walking, and said, “Get yo’ lil ass in the house, we in war.”

He joined the huddle of dudes, and we broke for the building.

This is how we usually found out that the block was in war. Anybody could warn you: a wino, a store owner, a crackhead, a gangbanger. You would be minding your business, and somebody would say, “Better get in the house, we in war!”

Before we could make it into the building, we heard the shots. That huddle of guys cracked open and rushed in all directions, including ours. In the tunnel leading to the stairway, somebody had killed the lights, so it was hard to see in front of you, and though you could still hear the shots, they were muffled, since we were engulfed in brick and concrete.

I slipped on something and fell into the darkness, my pieces of candy and snow cone smacking me in the face as I hit the ground. Tonya tried to come back and help me, but this older dude named Nook told her, “Tonya, go!” while he lifted me off the ground and hurled my body toward the stairway. A flock of white tees caught up with us, and some dudes pushed us out of the way, while others jumped over us, the sounds of bullets motivating us all to keep going.

We ran hard up those few flights of stairs. On the third floor, I told Tonya and Stacia, “Come on!” and dragged them toward my door. We met Mama halfway down the porch. One by one, we ran into my apartment, then curved around the corner and hunched down in the hallway. My brother, Meechie, crouched at the living room window, his face pressed against the bars. Mama said, “Get out that damn window. You want to get shot?” His shoulders sagged, and he joined us in the hall. Mama examined us. “Everybody okay?” she asked, but reading her face, I could tell that she was suppressing panic at who I’d brought into our home: Tonya, some unkempt kid she’d probably never seen before, and a Buchanan.