III.

I lied about my age so I could work at the supermarket pushing carts and cutting apart cardboard boxes with a razor, the triangle of its sharp head encased in a white metal sleeve. I am really sixteen when I am walking parallel to the train tracks on the back end of Minnehaha, back toward Phillips, trying to find a path through the snow. A car whips past, window open, a voice yells CHINK. FUCK YOU, I shout back into the whip of the dark. The tires squeal and a white boy jumps out, pushes me down. I recall he called me a gook and a faggot, too. I get up and slide my hand into my pocket, the metal cold, silent as I push the blade out, which promises to extend my reach. A pretty white girl is pleading from the passenger seat for him to leave me alone. He’s a fucking asshole, she explains to me, as if that explained everything. Bless her anyway. I don’t know if it’s for her or my fear of potential police that keeps my hand, curled around a sharp promise, behind my back. In all the books I love, the hero doesn’t strike first. But then again, none of the heroes look like me. In a few minutes, I’ll walk home, unbruised but defeated, and ask my oldest brother for a gun. I don’t explain why. He nods, but he never gets me one. Out of all of us, he remembers the war the most. He knows all about promises we can’t keep.

IV.

It’s not a majority-white school. In seventh grade, the tall blond tomboy asks you to dance. You have no idea all the boys have a crush on her; you’ve been busy with comic books, and the only romance you know are tragedies from Greek mythology and Arthurian legends. She’s your best friend and you’ve laughed together every day, so of course you say yes. You’re both smiling as you sway on the linoleum where, just moments before, you and other members of student council folded then cleared the lunchroom tables out for this DJ to play his slow jams in the dark. You laugh with her, as you always do, even when she puts her chin on your shoulder. Suddenly you notice three white boys looking at you two, snickering. They come right up to both of you, and whisper in her ear. Loud enough for you to hear. Everyone can see you dancing with that gook, they laugh. She responds by flicking them off, pulling you closer. Years later you’ll wonder how she created her armor. You know those gooks only want one thing from white girls, another said. He’s one of your best friends. To this day, when you think a woman just might, through whatever miracle, see any beauty in you, you can still hear them laughing through the cages of their teeth. The biggest fist you have is the one banging against the inside of your rib cage.