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Back Last Summer on State Street Save as PDF
Chapters (43)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. Prologue
  5. OneThe Square
  6. TwoIn War
  7. ThreeLease Compliant
  8. FourTonya from the Ten
  9. FiveSummer School
  10. SixSweeps
  11. SevenMakeovers
  12. EightBombs Bursting in Air
  13. NineProject Kids
  14. TenName-Calling
  15. ElevenCowboy Camp
  16. Twelve1502
  17. ThirteenThe Elevator
  18. Fourteen301
  19. Fifteen304
  20. SixteenSanctuary
  21. SeventeenPlans
  22. EighteenSalvation
  23. NineteenThe Wild
  24. TwentyLivestock
  25. Twenty-OneLast Tag
  26. Twenty-TwoThe Vanishing
  27. Twenty-ThreeAway
  28. Twenty-FourSheeping
  29. Twenty-FiveProject Mentality
  30. Twenty-SixLetter to Meechie
  31. Twenty-SevenA Reunion
  32. Twenty-EightRelocating
  33. Twenty-NineThe Whole Story
  34. ThirtyThe Happiest Place
  35. Thirty-OneEd’s House
  36. Thirty-TwoWhat Mamas Do
  37. Thirty-ThreeThe Living & the Dead
  38. Thirty-FourHaunted
  39. Thirty-FiveSnapshots
  40. Thirty-SixInvitations
  41. Acknowledgments
  42. About the Author
  43. About the Publisher

Mama Pearl moved out a few weeks after the start of the seventh-grade school year, relocating to a high-rise for elderly residents in the South Loop. She liked it there. When me and Mama went to visit her, she’d introduce us to her new friends, and they loved me because I was her special friend. Most of them thought that she was my grandma, and I never corrected them. She was my partner in crime. That’s why, when I told her one day that I missed Meechie, she said, “Well, let’s go see him.” My mouth fell open because I was so excited. Mama didn’t want me to go to the jail to visit him, but here was Mama Pearl willing to take me anyway, knowing how Mama felt about it. We both knew this had to be a sneaky mission, and that it had to happen on a church day so that Mama wouldn’t find out.

Twenty-Five
Project Mentality

After Mama Pearl and I talked about visiting Meechie, I wondered if Mama had already gone. I snooped around her room for any paperwork about the jail, and instead of finding any documents, I stumbled upon something else: an opened envelope, postmarked August 14, 1999, that was addressed to me. It had arrived a little over a week before, and Mama apparently didn’t want me to have it. For a time, she thought Meechie would be a bad influence on me and considered cutting off our communication.

I tucked it in the side of my pants and went into the bathroom. There, I took out the letter and read.

August 14, 1999

Dear Fee,

First thing I want to say to you is dont worry about me. I know this a bad situation but Im gone be okay. Just like back at the building, I got people watching my back and I keep a lookout for them too. This place a lot like the way we grew up with people stacked on top of each other and the law popping up telling you what to do.

Its hard to explain why I started banging, maybe one day I can find some words so it make sense to you. I cant even say if I got another chance I would do something different. Probably hard for you to understand because you a girl and girls don’t get run down the way dudes do. I aint saying its easy for girls. Yall got it hard in other ways.