Say Nice Things About Detroit Read Online Free PDF Page B

talking about some neighbor. He figured he’d head back to Eric’s while it was still light, maybe watch a video or something.
    â€œMarlon Booker!” his mother yelled.
    â€œSorry, Mom.” He was supposed to ask to be excused. He put on his best hangdog look and slunk back to the table. “May I?” he asked. “Please.”
    â€œYes,” she said.
    â€œNo,” said his father.
    â€œBut . . .” His father never said no.
    â€œI want to talk to you. After you help your mother clean up the kitchen.”
    â€œWhat the—”
    â€œWatch your mouth,” his mother said.
    He stopped talking. He wasn’t going to win with these two. Better to stay quiet and try to save the buzz.
    â€¢ • •
    â€œ Y OU’RE STONED,” his father said. They were in Marlon’s room, the place he went to be alone. Marlon hated it when his father came in like he owned the place.
    â€œWhat?” Marlon said, stalling.
    â€œYou heard me. Thirteen years old, Marlon, and you’re showing up to dinner stoned out of your mind. You think that’s cool? Where’d you get it, that McCall kid?”
    â€œDad, there’s so much smoke on the street, it’s like we in Mexico.”
    â€œ We’re in Mexico,” his father corrected.
    â€œShit.”
    â€œMarlon!”
    â€œWhat are we talking ’bout here? English grades or drugs?”
    â€œDrugs.”
    â€œWell, it’s not like it’s crack. Weed never hurt no one.”
    â€œSmoking,” the old man said, “hurts everyone.”
    Marlon just waited, and longed for this talk to be over.
    â€œWhat do you want to make of yourself?” his father asked. Always that question: a week didn’t go by without that question getting asked. It was as if his father couldn’t stand the suspense of not knowing what his son would do for work twenty years from now.
    â€œDon’t want to work in no steel plant,” Marlon said. This was true. No way, no how did he want to go to that horrible place, hot and loud with machinery that sounded like metal breaking. Not that he had any idea where he did want to go. His friends all thought they’d make it at b-ball or rap, which Marlon thought was just stupid. The world already had too many stars, and not enough people doing useful things.
    â€œSmartest thing you’ve said all night,” his father said.
    Marlon waited for him to say more, but nothing came. “We done?” Marlon asked.
    â€œYou’re grounded,” Everett said. “You’re not to leave the property without a parent. One month. At night, no TV. You stay here in your room.”
    â€œDad!” He made fists, squeezed them so tight he could feel his nails digging into his skin. It was the only way to keep from shouting.
    â€œThis is serious,” his father said.
    â€œWeed, Dad? You can’t stop that.”
    â€œI can try.”
    â€œYou gonna lose.”
    His father left on that. Marlon flopped back on his bed, but the buzz was gone.
    II
    E VERETT DIDN’T KNOW if he would beat this cancer thing—the doctor said there was a decent chance—but what kept him awake at night was Marlon. He knew a man couldn’t control the cancer cells in his body, and perhaps the same could be said of his son. Still, he reasoned it had to be otherwise; God, he thought, wouldn’t have given us sons if we couldn’t have an impact. He wouldn’t have sent one to us himself. Everett just needed a little time. It was important. There was some shit in the world now; it was easier to go astray, and more dangerous when you did. If he could just get another five or six years he could see the kid off right.
    He climbed into his truck, a ’68 GMC pickup with three on the tree, touchy as hell when you wanted to find reverse and half junkyard under the hood. The odometer was broken, which was fine with Everett, because he didn’t