Texts from Bennett by Mac Lethal Read Free Book Online Page A

them onto a cherrywood palette of skin complexion that mixed hues of obsidian, charcoal, hot magma, and ink-bottle blacks with the Earth tones of melted chocolate, spun gold, polished doubloons, and pungent cinnamon powder, and the textures of brushed suede, ripe mahogany, and crispy, burnt auburn. Her eyes were the color of gilded honey, and her lips lightly enveloped into an irresistible, swollen pucker.
    Yeah, I’ll admit, I thought she was pretty cute.
    They were immigrants from the ruins of Juba, a war-torn village in the southern region of the Sudan. Once they met and fell in love, they decided to elope and fled to Senegal to avoid the seemingly endless genocide that had devastated the Sudan for so long.
    Edgard worked on a tobacco farm while Mariam was allegedly a coquette of some kind and entertained a couple of powerful Senegalese politicians to supplement an attractive amount of income. This particular part of the story is murky and is largely based onneighborhood hearsay, so I can’t confirm how much truth there is to it. However, I do know that Edgard and Mariam had been deeply passionate about saving enough money to move to America so they could start a family here.
    The state of Kansas has the largest population of naturalized Sudanese people in the entire United States—a vast majority of whom are hardworking people who have, or should have, in my opinion, the right as human beings to aspire to experience the peaceful state of living they could find here in comparison to the Sudan. Which is something Edgard and Mariam wanted at any cost.
    Edgard’s brother Samir Amsalu had already moved here eleven years ago and attained citizenship by marrying his wife, Minoo—an American citizen of first-generation Sudanese lineage. All four of them lived in the tiny but cozy ranch across the street, one house to the right. Minoo was a registered nurse at Saint Luke’s Hospital, Samir and Edgard both worked at a local nursing home, caring for elderly tenants, and Mariam stayed at home caring for her and Edgard’s seven-year-old son, Jean Paul. The star of the neighborhood.
    Jean Paul was a pure boy. Soft-spoken and gentle. Polite and allergic to bee pollen. He was slender, with a bony, unathletic frame, and wore khaki shorts pulled up to his belly button with a collared shirt tucked into them. He had thin-framed glasses and hyperextended his knees when he walked. He rarely played ball or ran around the neighborhood causing ruckus. Instead, he liked to draw and carried around with him a Big Chief paper tablet and a large box of assorted colored pencils. He drew exceptional pictures of suburban nature, clouds, and African wildlife.
    Whenever I was outside, he loved to curiously stare at me from the edge of my driveway, quietly observing whatever I was doing. He always had a pocket full of Dum Dums, and gave me one every time I saw him, before showing me his newest drawings. Every person on the block loved him and would always honk and wave at him when driving by. He was unsurprisingly enrolled in gifted classes, which he only attended four days a week, so he was home with his mother a lot.
    Currently, his parents were watching him attempt to ride his bike without training wheels.
    “Look at dat young ghetto child, learnin’ how ta ride his bike,” Bennett said, full of compassion and warmth. “I bet dat lil’ nigga gonna be a gangsta when he grow up!”
    “Bennett, he’s from the Sudan. He doesn’t act like a ‘gangsta,’ ” I said.
    “What? You racist, huh? Don’t even know yo own neighbors!” Bennett said, disgusted. “Dat kid is black. Can’t you see the color of his skin? To know da lil’ niggas struggle? And y’all wonder why so many black folk in prison.”
    He then cupped his hands over his mouth and yelled across the street.
    “Keep hustlin’ on dat bike, young playa! You’ll make it out da hood one day. Smokin’ weed helped me learn how to ride my bike, young ni —”
    I slammed my hand