I crunched over the hard, dry dirt that was supposed to be grass but contained broken bottle shards, and just before I was at the swings, I heard pop, pop, pop, and a bullet, like an insect, buzzed by my left cheek. I didn’t slow down or hit the ground; I just ran right into the building and up the stairs. My chest hurt, and tears made it hard to see. I didn’t look back, but I knew that I was alone, that no one ran behind me. I wondered if one of the Browns got shot. Before I could get out of the stairway, and run down the porch, I heard more shots coming from both the playground and the front of the building. I worried that my brother was dead. If this scent of death was an omen, if I would lose him that day. I always think about how he yanked me out of that Camry before all the bullets started flying again, how he probably saved my life.

I ran and ran until I reached our apartment and attacked the door with both my fists and feet. I heard Mama’s house shoes scraping the floor all fast. She assumed I was already at church and, when she opened the door, looked shocked to see me. “Mama, Meechie downstairs” was all that I could breathe out as we rushed to the hallway. We heard more shots and she froze—her reflex was to run outside, after her boy, so her body jerked in that direction, but then she looked down at me, making the tough decision of choosing one kid over the other.

“Come on,” she said, and pulled me toward the hallway, where we curled into a position that I knew too well. Instead of tucking into Mama in my protective stance, I sat up straight, my brain trying to make a decision about what I was about to do.

The thought came back again. Did Meechie get shot? Did he die for me? Are the Browns dead too? I popped up and ran out the door, down the porch, down the stairs, taking them three at a time, then swinging over the rest. I heard Mama behind me, in pursuit, calling my name, but I couldn’t stop. I ran through the breezeway and out into the lot. I didn’t expect to see the police everywhere. They’d cuffed so many boys, and I arrived just in time to see them slam Mr. Brown onto the ground, and one cop had a knee on his back and his collar gripped tight in his hand.