The tears blurred my vision and the anger blotted out any rational thought. I snapped my head up and down the line of dudes looking for my brother. I didn’t see Roady either. None of the faces looked familiar, and that’s when I realized that those guys were from the Low End, and that they were the ones shooting at us.

Three paddy wagons rolled down State Street and turned into the lot, wailing and flashing red and blue. A cop jumped out and walked around back to unlock the doors.

“Inside!” another one yelled, and the boys rose up, formed a line, and one by one they climbed up into the wagon. Mr. Brown, who was double the age of the other guys and dressed up like someone with business matters to attend to, stood with his shoulders back and a calm demeanor and gave me a look as if to say, I’m okay. His white dress shirt was caked with filth from the ground, the collar lifted up on one side as if he had been fighting.

I ran toward him, screaming, “Let him go! He’s a pastor!” but someone grabbed me from behind and pulled me away. It was Mama.

An officer pushed him into the truck with all those gangbangers. I scanned the block for my brother and still didn’t see him. The sirens were painfully loud as the ambulance arrived, and that’s when I knew for sure that they were coming to get his body.

Mama walked me back into the building where we saw Ms. Patty and Precious huddled together, crying. I had to find my brother. I wiggled out of Mama’s grip and ran through the breezeway. I heard Mama behind me, hollering, “Felicia! Get back here!” but nothing could stop me from searching for my brother.

On the other side, the police had a second group of boys cuffed at the curb by the high school. I scanned the group, and that’s where I found him. I ran toward Meechie, screaming his name. The police looked over at me, and I saw that it was one of the cops who had been in our house earlier that summer.

He put his hand out to stop me. Meechie said, “Go home, Fee.” All I could do was call his name.

Then the police officer said, “Listen to your brother.”

I looked at him and asked, “We just pick him up from the same place?” He didn’t answer me, just made the face of someone who had bad news to deliver. What he didn’t tell me was that my brother wasn’t headed to a holding cell in the neighborhood lockup, but rather, to the county jail to await a court date that would send him to prison for six years.