Chapters (47)
- Front Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Contents
- Part One
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Part Two
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Part Three
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Acknowledgments
- Excerpt from Survive the Dome
- Prologue
- 6 Months Later
- One
- About the Author
- Back Cover
“You forgot,” Mom mutters. Her words are soft, but they stick like a thousand knives. Mom is a master at that. You’d think she had a history working for the CIA as an interrogator or something. But no, she’s just a Black mother raising a Black son in America.
“You know there are going to be police there, Jamal,” she scolds. Slowly, like the weight of the world is pressing down on her shoulders and joints, she stands and frowns at me. “They are going to be looking for any excuse to throw things at you. Rocks, tear gas—”
“Rubber bullets,” I finish for her.
“Exactly.” This isn’t the first time we’ve had this talk, because this isn’t the first time I’ve wanted to go to a protest, because this isn’t the first time a cop has overstepped. Just eight months ago, there was another incident in DC. A year and a half ago, there was one in Richmond. This is just the first protest Mom has let me go to.
Let is probably a strong word.
She shuffles over to the cabinet where we keep the good linen and the plates we use for Thanksgiving. She reaches into the third drawer and pulls out a peach-colored cloth.
I know that cloth well. It’s a shawl Grandma used to wear all the time. It was only thing Mom wanted when she passed away.
Mom holds the fabric to her nose and takes a deep breath. She sighs and walks past me to the kitchen, then lays the cloth out on the table, grabs the scissors from her knitting kit, and cuts it without hesitation. The action is merciless. I don’t even have time to tell her to stop.
She hands the smaller section to me. “Betty will keep you safe while you’re out there.”
It takes me a moment to put two and two together and understand what she means. I examine the fabric, then bring it up to my nose, mimicking the inhale Mom did, like there is some sort of hidden power inside of it.
Before I can tuck the fabric into my back pocket, Mom wraps her sinewy arms around me, holding me so tightly I think our flesh might fuse together.
“You be safe, Jamal,” she demands. “You come back to me, you hear?”
I should be more afraid. I know I should. There’s no difference between me and any of the other men and women who have been on the wrong side of the police, who have been deemed a threat just because their skin is dipped in midnight. What I’m doing for a photo opportunity is dangerous. Stupid, even.