I think back to Meechie’s days of whistling and playing with action figures, and I wonder how things would’ve been different if someone asked him what he wanted. If someone demanded he make some choices for himself, the way Mama Pearl did for me that summer. Maybe the worst part about growing up in public housing is that people think your body is public too. That even before you are born, your Black body already belongs to the owners of the land. That night, Meechie spent about two hours in jail, and that’s all it took to cement his identity.

Minutes after the raid, we were dressed and out in the darkness, headed to get my brother back.

A high steel counter hit us in the face once inside the police station. Immediately I felt as if I had entered an alternate universe. It was too cold for living bodies, like we were in Moo & Oink, a meat locker of a grocery store where Mama used to shop. Moo & Oink sold meat wholesale and froze me to the bone every time we went there. Maybe that’s why the police at the station wore so much clothing. They had on the same things as the police who swept our apartment. At the station, where it was freezing and there was paperwork and staplers, shirts with collars, pockets, that metal star and stiff hat, it made sense.

I’d later learn about the appearance of power.

“Name?” the man at the counter asked Mama.

“Janice Stevens.”

The man just shook his head from side to side, blinking all slow, and blowing out a puff of air like he had a headache and we were making it worse. “Son’s name?”

“Demetrius Stevens,” Mama said, then looked at me and said, “Go sit down.”

I sat on a cold chair against the wall and watched her standing there filling out papers until one of the police pointed and said, “Over there.”

When Mama came over, and sat next to me, I didn’t look at her right away. While she had her head low, I snuck a peek. She wasn’t wearing her Ebony Fashion Fair pressed powder, and she looked saggy all over; her expression made her face seem droopy, her shoulders slumped down, and she wasn’t even wearing a bra.