Page 22 of Keyoni & Sage
“Ain’t no side. Just right and wrong. And stealing a car and going on a joyride is wrong.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“See, that’s your problem. I’m trying to tell you right and you’re not even listening.” He sighed dramatically. “You’ll get itthough…one day. And if you don’t…” I shrugged. “Oh well. It’s on you.”
Domani only listened when he wanted to. If it wasn’t DP, he took what was said with a grain of salt. Still, I tried to get through to him, knowing Ms. Pat, his mother, would want me to. She’d been good to me over the years since I was friends with her older sons. We all used to run the streets together, doing shit just to be doing it. But I calmed down after Keturah was born. My friends didn’t. Now that one was locked up and the other was in the ground, Ms. Pat’s biggest fear was losing her baby boy too.
The ride turned quiet, giving Domani time to think. Eventually, reality set in.
“You really taking me to jail?”
“What do you think? You in handcuffs, ain’t you?”
“Come on, Keyoni. You know me. I was trying to get home, that’s all. I was fucking stranded.”
“You switched the plates.” I refused to let him downplay what he did. “Then went on a damn high-speed chase. That shit ain’t cool, Domani.” His bowed head and closed mouth told me he was listening. Maybe I was getting through to him. “You had me and half of Diamond Falls PD risking our lives trying to stop your ass. There were kids out there and people minding their own fucking business and here you come rolling through…literally.” I glanced in the mirror again and saw him looking out the window. “You better be glad nobody got hurt.”
“Cole switched the plates.” Out of everything I said, that was what he chose to counter. “I was just the driver.”
“Andthe dummy that got caught.” Domani would stay in trouble hanging with friends like Cole. He was a lost cause, racking up charge after charge as a juvenile. “Where he leave you at?”
“He didn’t leave. I dropped him off.” I shook my head. Common sense wasn’t so common. Domani continued. “On Rosier. With his son’s momma.”
Cole had two. Two kids and two baby mommas at just seventeen. They both lived on Rosier.
“Now you’re stuck facing everything alone while Cole’s probably laid up making another baby. That’s real smart, Domani.” He sat quietly. “You’re eighteen now. You gotta make better choices.”
“I know…and I will. After you help me out of this?—”
I hit the brakes hard, almost running the red light because of his nonsense. I shifted forward slightly, but my seat belt kept me restrained.
“I ain’t helping you with nothing. You’re on your own.”
“But…Keyoni…”
I continued through the green light, tuning him out.
People took my kindness for weakness, often trying to use it in their favor. I did my job well, but my main objective wasn’t about getting criminals off the street. It was about educating—especially young black boys—because without the right voice in their ear, they could get lost in the system set up to make them fail.
And it was easy to do. Life automatically made them criminals based on the color of their skin. But it didn’t mean they were destined for failure. They just had to work harder and put in the effort. Otherwise, they would fall victim to a system set up to work against them.
I was close.
I saw so much of myself in Domani that I just wanted to pull over and knock some fucking sense into his head. He had so much potential and it was going to waste.
“Does Ms. Pat have dialysis tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” Domani said lowly. “In the morning. I’m supposed to be going with her. They’re gonna teach me how to help her do it at home.”
“How you gonna do that in jail?”
“I guess I can’t.”
The fact that he’d done something so stupid when he had responsibilities to handle pissed me off even more. The only person who was going to suffer was Ms. Pat. Domani was all she had left.
I pulled into a gas station and parked off to the side.
“What’s going on?” Domani asked.
