As a kid, I didn’t know that Mama was scared we’d get put out. In her mind, we had nothing to hide, and it would be over before we knew it. What she didn’t realize was that things were changing, that me and Meechie were growing up, and though she looked at us and saw her babies who couldn’t harm anyone, the cops looked at Meechie and saw a gun-toting, drug-slinging criminal.

Mama rushed by my door, a blur of pink terrycloth. I swung out of bed and ran after her. In our hallway, I could hear more voices down the porch; it was so loud, it sounded like the neighborhood in the middle of the day. Flashlights cut through our living room window from the porch. There had to be ten or eleven of them on our end of the floor, banging on doors. Meechie hadn’t left his bed and was still asleep. Mama hurried to the door, as if she’d left a good friend waiting too long.

“Mama, don’t,” I said, talking to her back. She didn’t say anything, just kept moving, an obedient citizen. “Stacia said they can’t come in without a warrant.”

But Mama, used to opening the door during these sweeps, did what they wanted and let them in. It hadn’t occurred to her that her son was now sixteen, and that the police might accuse him of being a gangbanger. She saw her sweet, curious boy and didn’t view him through their lens.

Meechie wasn’t a gangbanger, but even I knew he might be mistaken for one by the police, so I ran to the door to stop her, but it was too late. I put my hand over hers, already touching the knob. We got knocked back into the stove as they pushed into our space, fast and loud, an el train of law enforcement.

Combat boots dragged the outside into our kitchen, streaking the bleached-white tile with muddy crumbs from the stairway. Two of them stomped into the living room and dirtied up the thick rugs reaching out from under the couch. They jogged through the tunnel of our hallway, the only place we’re safe when there’s shooting. We ran after them, watching them kick open doors, going in our rooms, flipping over our mattresses and looking under the beds. They behaved as if they were hot on the trail of a fugitive they’d watched run into our apartment. One of them went in my room, his hip knocking over my globe as soon as he walked in, cracking the Earth.