At-Risk Read Online Free PDF Page A

stoop when the city workers didn’t come fast enough to suit her. He was the one who had to beat mice senseless with the broom, carry the groceries, and fix the storm windows and realign them back into their grooves. So yes, it was her job to love him. He had earned it, paid for it. He had not deserved to be sent away.
    â€œHelping out is a small price to pay when somebody works to feed and dress you and keep the lights on and the cold out. It’s a small price to pay for those sneakers on your feet, those jeans hanging halfway off your ass, and that little gold ball in your ear. It’s a real small price to pay to have somebody watching out for you and waiting up for you when you don’t even have to say thanks. No, all youhave to do is tell her your whereabouts and show your face every once in a while.” His grandfather looked down at his hands, running the thumbnail under the other nails to clean them. He continued to survey his nails as he talked, making Jason feel small. “Yeah, you got it real bad. Got somebody to love you and here you are complaining about the thing that’s keeping you alive, keeping you from being laid out there like your little dead friends.”
    The old man snatched a small orange pill bottle off the counter and wheeled himself out of the kitchen.
    Jason turned to Miss Charlotte. “Damn, what I do? He’s been coming down on me since the moment I got here and I ain’t do shit to him. The day I walked in the door he started in on me and he’s always talking about my boys!”
    For some reason the old man had it in for him. All he ever did was bring up the murders. Jason thought a man his grandfather’s age should know better. After all, wasn’t that why he had been sent here? To get away from it? To forget?
    Later that day, after Miss Charlotte had gone home for the evening, Jason went to his grandfather’s room. The door was wide open. The old man was seated in his wheelchair, polishing his black shoes, a chore that Jason had forgotten to complete.
    â€œDon’t lurk in the doorway, Youngblood.”
    â€œI just want you to know that I’m gonna call my mom and ask her to change my ticket so I can be up out of here. I don’t know why you so mad at me when I ain’t do nothing to you.”
    â€œI’m not mad at you.”
    â€œThen what’s your problem?”
    â€œWhat’s yours?”
    â€œI don’t have one,” Jason said. “I just wanna go home.”
    â€œYou think everything down here is small and beneath you, but I can’t see how what you have back at home is so much better. At leastI can say I have what I want. Nobody gave it to me and that means nobody can take it from me.”
    â€œLook, I ain’t come in here for a lecture. I just wanted to let you know how I felt—”
    His grandfather stopped him. “You ever stop to think that maybe one of those boys could have been you?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThat you should be grateful it wasn’t you? No, you just want to jump right back in, doing what you were doing, going nowhere fast. Your mother wanted you to come down here so you could get away from all of that mess and I guess I felt sorry for you when I heard that your little friends died. Your mother thinks you got smarts. She thinks you can turn yourself around before you end up like your little friends.”
    â€œStop saying that! You don’t have the right to be talking about them all the time—”
    â€œI have the right,” his grandfather said. “Last night was not the first night I heard you.”
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œI’m up every night you are. I hear you every time you have one of those dreams.”
    â€œNo, you don’t!”
    â€œThose boys, the ones in your dreams or the ones out on the street, can only take what you give.”
    â€œShut up! What do you do know about them? You don’t know nothing about