The Boy in the Black Suit by Jason Reynolds Read Free Book Online Page B

with flowers on it. Somehow I remember that. She flipped on every light in the apartment in what seemed like two seconds.
    I knew we were about to get a whole lot of the “rough side of a belt,” as my mother always said, but I couldn’t even worry about that.
    Ms. Hayes looked upset, but then she took one look at our faces and came rushing over. She wrapped us in her arms, her pink robe like a cocoon for us to feel safe in.
    â€œWhat happened?” she asked. But neither of us could answer.
    Ms. Hayes was now on her knees, breathing hard, and the sleep on her breath stung my nostrils.
    â€œWhat happened?” she asked again.
    â€œThe . . . the . . . the . . . ,” Chris tried to explain, tears rising in his eyes. “The man, the man outside . . .” he stuttered. That’s all he could get out. His mother cracked the door, peeked out, then slammed it shut, quickly. She cussed to herself.
    â€œYou boys get on away from the door,” she said, pushing us back. “Matter fact, go back to your room and stay there, you hear me? Stay there!” she added in a shout. No problem , I thought. I wouldn’t have minded if we had to stay in that room for the rest of our lives, the way I was feeling.
    We got back in the bed. Head to foot. I didn’t care about Chris’s stinky feet anymore, and our friendship was pretty much sealed, forever. We just laid there wide awake, listening to the neighbors in the hallway, the police officers and their fuzzy walkie-talkies asking questions (but nobody saw nothing), the ambulance sirens, the screams of what sounded like a little girl, and Mr. Staton’s dog, barking all night long.

Chapter 3
    THE BLACK SUIT
    â€œD EAR M AMA. ” T HAT WAS MY bedtime song after my Mom died. It was like Tupac was singing—well, rapping—some kind of ghetto lullaby to me. I laid on my back with my earbuds in and that song on repeat, staring up into the darkness, imagining there was no ceiling, or roof, or clouds, until there really was no ceiling or walls, and I was no longer in my small bedroom, but instead in some strange dream. The kind where you swear it’s real because everything looks real, and feels real, and you don’t even remember ever falling asleep.
    In the dream I was at a church, the same church my mom’s funeral was in, except this time the air conditioner was cranking. The same people were there. The greasy preacher. Ms. Wallace, my mom’s co-worker. The same usher women with their ashy-looking stockings and white shoes. But my mother wasn’t in the casket.Instead she was sitting on my left, with her arm around me and her face smushed against mine. In the dream, even though the casket was empty, everyone was crying. The preacher was crying. The family friends and neighborhood folks were crying. Everybody. And I’m not talking a little whimper. I’m talking an ugly, snotty, loud sob. A painful cry, like the one I had. And while all the weeping was going on, my mother and I just sat in the pew smiling, until everything faded to black, and sleep faded back into awake.
    I laid there for a second confused and a little pissed that the dream was a dream. It seemed so real that I could even feel the AC blowing in the church. At least I thought I could. I rolled over to see what time it was. Four in the morning. Tupac had probably said Mama made miracles every Thanksgiving at least a hundred times, and my father was just getting home.
    Normally, I wouldn’t have heard him come in over the music, but he didn’t tiptoe up the steps and slip into his bedroom like I would’ve done if I stayed out way later than usual. Nope. Dad made it clear he was home by making a whole bunch of noise.
    A loud thump. Then, the sound of glass breaking followed by my father howling like a sad dog.
    â€œDad?” I called from the top of the steps.
    â€œMatt,” he said, surprised.