I straighten up, wipe my cheeks.

“Members of the white-supremacist organization White Out have begun to gather in Griffith Park this afternoon…”

“You wanna see messed up?” Brick says. “Check out these motherfuckers.”

TINA

On paper

white out means

all you see is white

black type covered up

erased.

It is usually exciting

a clean slate—

the whole point of white out is

to make room for more black.

On TV, White Out means

erasing all the black in the world.

Their sign is a big paintbrush

dipped in white

because this is a white country

for white people.

They seem excited but

they do not make much sense—

white people are not

the only ones here.

BRICK

The first thought in my head is to laugh. There they stand, hundreds of white men, carrying flaming Tiki torches. It is mid-afternoon on a cloudy winter day, but it is still daylight.

The second thought in my head is that their torches are small. They don’t have the first clue what it means to be on fire. No understanding of the scope and depth of rage.

The third thought—they are pitiful, like children at play. They should be comical, except they aren’t.

“It’s okay,” Jennica says. Her hand is on my elbow. “They can’t hurt us.”

I don’t understand how she reads distress in me. I am stoic. These thoughts do not play out on my face or in my words. She strokes my arm anyway.

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” I murmur. “These assholes.” The crowd is bigger than I expected. This white supremacy thing is supposed to be fringe, a fad. But there are hundreds of them. I can’t see the far edges of their gathering. It is torches from here to infinity.

A thin blue line between us and them. Think oil and water, fire and ice. Things that react, things that destroy each other in the process of failing to mix.

Back in her room, Sheila must be watching this coverage. It has been hard to tear her away from the TV ever since Shae. My mini news junkie.

If she sees me, will she be happy, or will she be scared?

MELODY

“Big protest.” Sheila points to the TV the moment I appear in the doorway.

“Sure is.” I walk into her room and jangle her beaded braids. She’s been hooked on the news since Shae died. Baptism by fire burns hot. Sheila has never been one for news before. She likes to watch things that make her laugh, but I s’pose it’s hard to think of laughing when your best friend is dead.

The mattress dips as I take a seat next to her on the end of her bed. She has a blanket over her knees and I pull it to share the warmth. Wrap my arm around her. Sheila leans against my shoulder.