Prologue

North Atlanta Twelve Years Ago

Clayton Jamison  age 16

"Hey, Clay.  C'mere," yells the red-headed kid.

He's sitting in the shade under a big tree.

I told him not to call me that. I fight the urge to swing around and stab him with my mulching fork.

Then I reconsider.

If I stab him, I won't have any help mulching all five million miles of these flower beds. I won't be walking back to the Marta stop when the rich rebellious boys—you know, the ones that are edgy and emo, the ones that don't have Saturday tennis practice or lacrosse practice or soccer practice or whatever the fuck whiteboy sport season it is right now—anyway, I won't be walking to the train stop at the right time, and I'll miss those counter-culture whiteboys blasting through the speed bumps in their neighborhood, blaring their Green Day and gunning their Jeeps with Grateful Dead stickers, looking for the guy to help them get their party on.

I'm the guy.

It's why I'm here. It sure as shit ain't for the measly eight bucks an hour I'm making shoveling dirt.

I hear the red-head kid gulping down something sugary and flicking a lighter. I want to get this done, but the call of a smoke break must be answered.

I throw my mulching fork like a spear and it lands in the pile. I sprawl out in the shade of the tree beside...what's his name? Oh yeah.

Leed, he said.

"Want one, Clay?" Leed shakes out a Marlboro. Light. I fight the urge to snicker at his cigarette choice.

"I told you, Dawg, don't call me that."

I do, however, say thanks for the cigarette. Cause, you know, a free cigarette is better than no cigarette, and I'm out. No cigarette, no lunch, and the change in my pocket is for the Marta ride home. My momma had to pay car taxes this month and the light bill was already behind so it took everything we had to keep the lights on and the car legal.  Expired tags on a hooptie as old as hers is the easiest way to get hassled by a bullshit pull over. Especially if I'm in the car with her.

I can't afford to get searched. I'm always trappin' now.

I relax  a little as I smoke. The money situation will be all right by tonight, if we get this damn mulch thrown and I make a few connections on my way out of this hood. Which I will, cause these boys up here know me now.

See, that's  why Dae has me working this job with these landscapers. So I have a reason to be up here in these rich neighborhoods all the time. Well, he could have sent someone else, but he said that I'm approachable and these kids up here wouldn't feel as intimidated by me. That's a nice way for the leader of my gang to say I ain't really a brother. Cause, you know...I'm biracial.  He said these kids will look at me and think I could be the adopted mixed kid next door.

I ain't. But they can think that.

"What the fuck am I supposed to call you, then? It's your name, isn't it?" Leed takes a draw and grins at me. "You like Clayton better?"

"Man, y'all white people always wanting to call somebody by they name. Where I'm from we just  say "Dawg" or..." I look at him, then snicker, realizing he can't call me by the other word. I adjust my accent to sound like a whiteboy as I continue. "You know what, Leed? You can call me Clay if it makes you feel better. I wouldn't want you to feel  awkward. We couldn't have that. That's like...the worst thing in your world, right? Social awkwardness?"

Leed laughs. "Not by a long shot, but you're pretty fucking funny, Dawg." He smokes and looks at me speculatively. "Why don't you like your name?"

I shrug, drawing on the cigarette. "It just...don't fit. Don't sit on my shoulders right. Clay sounds like a whiteboy name and Clayton sounds too serious. Or like I'm Clayton Junior or something, and I damn sure don't have a Clayton Senior to be named for."

"I get that." He thinks on it. "So pick one. A nickname, I mean."

"You can't just pick a name."

He tosses me a Gatorade out of his little cooler. "Sure you can. If you pick a good one. Pick one, and I'll start calling you that, real casual, and if it suits, it will just...stick. It will spread. That's how you know you picked the right one."

I guzzle down the Gatorade because I haven't had anything but water in days, then I say, "Naw, it don't work like that. Somebody else has to pick for you. That's what we are, you know. All we are. How someone else sees us."

Leed gives me a sharp look, but it eases as he ties a bandanna around his bushy mane. He kicks his very long legs out and looks down at his work boots. Soles all coming unglued, cheap fabric, probably came from Wal-Mart. "Fuck that. I reject that, man."

I laugh at him and raise my cigarette in salute. "Good for you. You can. You're white."

He looks me over thoughtfully, but he doesn't get defensive. "Yeah, you're right. Discrimination sucks ass. Poverty is also not much fun." He gestures at his Wal-Mart shoes.

I take another cigarette without asking. He's kind of right. I am sort of being a shit, I guess.

"Alright Leed, you wanna go there? Let's trade sad stories. Never met my dad, my mom works two jobs and we still live below the poverty line. I have a perfect GPA, but it don't mean shit because I go to a crap school and all my courses are basic, and I have no athletic skills to speak of—you're right, I'm about three quarters white, the way I figure, so I guess that's why I can't jump—" Leed laughs "—so I can forget about colleges looking twice at me for scholarships. Oh...and I have to sell a crap-ton of weed today. I got into that because my momma and I were in a bind, but now if I don't unload my product every day, I'll probably get beat out of the gang I just got beat into."

"Bullshit. You didn't get beat in, you ain't got a lick on you," Leed says, rummaging in his backpack and handing over half of a sandwich to me.

"Fine. I didn't get beat in. It was...a different kind of initiation."

"What did you have to do?" he asks.

I think about the girl. How pretty she is. How much I liked her. How I thought she liked me. I should have known, man. A girl like that? I should have known it was all a set up. That was some fucked up shit, and I still can't wrap my head around it. I don't get her. I damn sure don't get Dae. But whatever, man. Apparently, I passed the test—I kept my cool.

I make an irritated noise. "Man, why you care? Anyway, what's your sad story?"

"Well...my parents are fucking crazy. And I don't mean like I live in a neighborhood like this and my mom is a cougar who drinks a bottle of wine at night and my dad is a verbally abusive workaholic. I don't mean regular crazy. I mean, crazy crazy. My mom constantly switches lanes and now lives on a hippie commune—sometimes with a woman, and others times I go there she's with men. I have to live there every summer and make yogurt and garden and it's hot as fuck because they think saving the planet means no air conditioning. Also there's no Internet yet. Or cell phone service."

"Shit, that IS crazy! No internet? Fuck!" He grins, and I grin, and that's how it happens. Me and this cat are friends now.

"Naw, besides having to go dark every summer, that's the good part of my life. It's weird that she's a lesbian but at least they have good drugs there. My dad's place is where I live in perpetual anxiety."

"I'm so sorry. Is that worry over not keeping your room clean, Leed?" I say again in my whiteboy voice. Which really isn't all that fake, actually. When I'm with white people, the way I sound sort of...changes. My aunt is white, and I spent a lot of time with her as a little kid, hanging with my cousins. I'm like a vocal chameleon...I just pick up the shade of the situation I'm in. Another reason I'm good with these rich kids.

"No, it's worry that I'll wake up to blue lights and my dad being hauled off, and that my little sister will finally realize what I know. See, Dad's a con-artist. He's also on his third wife since my mom. They leave him when they figure out his whole lifestyle is pretty much a sham. It's only a matter of time before he goes to jail for credit card fraud or never paying taxes or something worse, because I swear to fuck I can't figure out where he gets his money." Leed gestures with his sandwich. "He could very well be the importer for your organization for all I know. Probably not though, because half the time we are broke as shit. Like right now. And it's a bad time to have no cash, no available credit, and no health insurance. Because I got some bad news at the doctors and it's going to cost a lot of money to deal with it, maybe."

I look at the red-headed kid who is chewing morosely on his sandwich. I feel a pang of something I can't understand. I really hope this kid's not dying. I kind of like him. "Fuck, man. You got...cancer or something?"

He raises an eyebrow and smiles. "Or something. But thanks for reminding me it could always be worse. I'll be alright...I guess we'll do the assistance thing, you know? What's it called?"

"Oh. Medicaid. Shit.If it ain't cancer, you'll be fine, they'll fix you up," I slap him on the back. "You right, sounds like your ass is broke as me, and your family is...way crazier than my momma." I take a bite out of the sandwich. The bread is like cardboard and it's filled with all kinds of weird crunchy seeds. And a crap ton of vegetables and some flavorless, unsalted turkey, I think. "What the hell is this? Goddamn Leed, you are way worse off than me. At least my momma can fucking cook."

He laughs, and throws the sandwich back in the cooler. He lays back, looks up at the tree.

I pick up the book that's stuck in Leed's backpack. I used to like books. You know, when I was a little kid.My momma always read to me at night, and then when I could read, I would stay up with a flashlight and a book long past my bedtime. All that kid stuff faded, though. I still pick up a book now and then, and think about reading it, though. I miss...the smell. And the moment when you don't know what the book is about. And when you finish, and realize what it was all about.

This book of Leed's  is old. White cover, blue writing. "Sidhhartha. What's this?"

"Some bullshit I have to read for school. It's not that bad, though. At least it's...different. It's set in India, I guess. The guy in the book is supposed to be a metaphor for the Buddha."

"Buddha?"

"Yeah, you know...as in Buddhism? Buddha was a Prince in India or China or some fucking where near there. When he left his palace and saw how shitty the world outside really was, he gave up all possessions to wander and learn about suffering. He taught other people to accept suffering. They say he found the answers to how to suffer in peace sitting under a tree. Just like us. The place where he learned to accept suffering was the Bodhi Tree."

"Accept suffering? Fuck that. You are going to suffer if you accept it or not. Might as well party like a rock star whenever you can. You know...balance that shit out."

Leed lifts his head up and looks at me for a long, long time. Like, creepy long. "Party like a rock star. Yeah, I feel that. That's a much better plan. I mean, why not? Be a rock star? I can sing, how fucking hard could the rest of it be?" He throws his head back again, looking up at the tree. "Thanks for the enlightenment, Bodie."

"Bodie?"

"Yeah, you wanted a nickname...that's your nickname. Like the Bodhi tree. Cause you just enlightened me. Fuck suffering. Let's be rock stars."

"Sure, why not?" I say. Either to the nickname or being a rock star. "You white boys are weird." I pick up my mulching rake. "Come on, let's get this done. I got more important shit to do."

"I'd buy off of ya', but we don't get paid til Friday," he says.

"Can't spot ya," I tell him tersely, "I have to turn my take over daily or I will get my ass beat." Or worse.

"Friday, then," he shrugs and goes over to the mulch trailer, where our boss, who is a decent dude, has left us a CD boombox and a bunch of CD's. "What kinda music you like?"

I thrust the pitchfork into the ground again. For whatever reason, I decide to be honest. More honest with this weird red-headed kid than I have ever been with any of my boys in the West Ward. I paw through the CD's. Ah. Perfect.

I pop in Vampire Weekend.

Leed raises his eyebrows at me.

"Fuck you, " I laugh. "Just because I'm black doesn't mean I can't listen to some white boy college music. Listen to that percussion. Hear that island beat? That's the shit."

"You play percussion?" Leed asks.

"Yeah. I mean...I don't have a kit, but you know...I play...some...percussion..."

Leed crows, doubling over, laughing at me. "Fuck, man! Are you in the high school marching band!?!?!"

"Dawg, don't make me whup your ass. I can't put petty weed dealer as an extra-curricular activity on a college application, can I?"

"You right, Bodie. You right."

—————-----

"Bodie" Three months later, South Atlanta

The air is thick with the smell of marijuana and barbecue as I make my way up the back steps of Daemon's stash house. I remember how crazy nervous I was the first week I was doing this, walking into this house where glocks are layed out on the coffee table and drugs are being packaged in the backroom--the kind that could send everybody up in here to prison for a long time.

Now I'm used to it. I mean...the house changes every few weeks, but the people, the guns, the drugs, hell even the barbecue, it's exactly the same.

Andre-at-the-door looks me up and down like he's never seen me—like he does every night—but then stands aside. The room is cramped and harshly lit with one overhead light, music blaring. I give respectful nods to the guys on the couch—guys in the gang and up the chain—and swing to the kitchen, looking for TJ.

TJ is Dae's younger brother. He's my boy and was my entrance into this organization. He's a year ahead of me in school, and we are about the only two brothers up in this place still showin' up there. Dae won't let TJ quit, and I tell everybody my momma won't let me, but really, I ain't ready to close that door.

This thug life? I'm sort of hoping it's just temporary, but I'll do what it takes to get my momma and me up out of here.

'Cause I ain't a little kid anymore. Now, I understand how fucking exhausting poverty is. I'm tired of being broke as shit. Tired of beans and rice. Tired of seeing my momma work two jobs. Tired of seeing her sit at the kitchen table with a stack of bills, checking which ones have to be paid cause they are already a month overdue, and which ones are caught up and can ride a little. Tired of seeing her face go carefully blank so I don't see the frustration and helplessness when the car won't start and needs a new battery, or when it rains and the roof leaks and we rush to put pots down.

As as tired as I am, my momma is ten times over tired. So it's my turn to do the heavy lifting. She don't know what I'm doing.  She probably suspects what Dae is, but he promised her I was only working legit.  Moreover I promised her, and she believed me.

Yeah,  I'm a liar. And a drug dealer. But I'm also a good son, which is why I have to do this.

"Dawg," TJ rises from the kitchen table and claps hands with me. He's alot like me...light-skinned, clean-shaven, working on some neat braids, no visible tats. Young. Innocent-looking. Daemon says we can go more places without raising suspicion. I say it's pretty shitty when people judge you not just on your race and your neighborhood, but the shade of your color.

"Sup," I say but we both know there's no response needed. What's up is the same shit every day.

Except as I scan the room...it's not.

Jasmine is standing by the fridge, listening with a guarded expression as Dae speaks to her, casually gesturing at her with a finger pointed straight out from his beer. At one point, he lifts her chin to make her look at him, and she pulls away, but she nods and gives him a weak smile.

What the fuck is she doing here?

She's never here. Dae doesn't bring her around the stash house. She stays at his place, and I've never even seen her at Dae's momma's house, either. Dae always says you don't shit where you eat. He keeps his business, his Shawty, and his momma separate.

She's not much like the other girls here. She's biracial like me, I'm pretty sure, but that's not what makes her different. The girls here are all shades of sexy and her looks are actually pretty much the same as the others. She's got a pretty face and pretty braids and pretty nails and pretty teeth and lots and lots of makeup, and nice clothes and an even nicer booty.

It's something else that makes her different. Her...outlook is different. It's like she's not from around here. People say that about me too—that I don't act like I'm from here— and I think it's just because when I was a kid, I  read a lot. Harry Potter and shit. I kinda liked that fantasy world stuff when I was a kid. The idea that you'd find that one special thing about yourself and a whole world you didn't know existed would just open up in front of you?

Yeah, I more than kinda liked it.

I kinda liked Jaz, too—the first time I met her. Thought maybe she and I had something in common. The first time I saw her was at Ms. JJ's perpetual yard sale three blocks over. She was looking through the pile of used books,  paying special attention to the books that had their covers ripped off—reading the first pages.

I liked that. That she would take the time to found out what the damaged books were about? You don't see that everyday.  I watched her read three first pages while I haggled with Ms. JJ for a toaster oven because ours caught fire. I watched as the girl I didn't know yet bit her lip thoughtfully at one paragraph she read, made a weird, disgusted face at another, and then outright laughed—a goofy, snorty laugh—at a third.

I thought...that girl is special. She's got...character.

I was wrong.

It turns out, Jaz is shady as fuck.

TJ follows my gaze. "You better look away before my brother catch you."

"I ain't looking at nothin'," I say resentfully.

"You need to let it go, man. That was initiation. To teach you a lesson, cause you needed it," TJ says gruffly.

That was a bitch of a lesson Daemon thought I needed. Maybe he was right because I sure as hell won't forget it.

"What's wrong with her?" I ask narrowing my eyes at her. She looks like she's been crying.

TJ slaps me on the back of the head. "Nunya damn business cause she's Daemon's Dimepiece. It's like you didn't learn nothin'."

"I'm schooled, believe me," I say coldly and head toward Dae's office to turn over my take for the day to one of his lieutenants.

Later, I'm hanging around on the porch nursing a soda, because I have school tomorrow, when Jasmine edges toward me. She's peeling the label off her own full beer and looking very red in the eyes.

I don't want to know why she's been crying. I don't care.

"Hey," she says softly.

"Sup," I say and turn from her, staring off into the lamp-lit street.

"You're still mad." It's a statement, not a question.

"Girl, please. It was...nothing."

Jaz steps forward to the railing. She sits the full beer down and gathers her braids to one side, smoothing them like she's trying to compose herself. In the dark, her fluorescent green nails glow slightly, but I can't really see her expression anymore. "It was...not nothing. I'm just...sorry it wasn't what you thought it was."

All my cool evaporates. Yeah, I was an idiot. Goddamn...just thinking about how stupid I was makes me furious.

I drag her off the porch and around the side of the house, away from eyes and ears. "I want to hear it from you. You tell me what it was."

In the bright moonlight, her face looks pale—almost white. "I'm just trying to say...I'm sorry, okay?"

We stare at each other. If I were smart, I would just say, "Okay, Jaz." Last thing I need is for the gang leader's Shawty to tell him I'm holding a grudge over my "initiation."

But it ain't okay. She messed with my head. Or my heart. Or whatever.

"Hey, anybody seen Bodie?" Somebody yells from inside. "Daemon want him."

Leed was right. Not only did the nickname stick, it spread like wildfire.

Leed and I have been landscaping together all spring up in those rich North Atlanta neighborhoods. He always says Bodie is my rock star name cause we've had enough suffering. He never calls me anything else. My whiteboy clients overheard him calling me that, then they started calling in asking for 'Bodie' to make another trip to Buckhead and now that's who I am. It's my rock star name and my dealer name, I guess.

I turn to go, to see what Daemon wants. It's never good. Last time he wanted to see me he changed my deal from weed only to weed and pills cause the kids up North A were asking for Bodie to bring some "better party shit."

"Gotta go. Your man wants me."

Jasmine grabs my arm. "I'm really sorry, okay? It wasn't my idea, I swear."

"Oh, so you are finally going to admit it? That you were part of the set-up?"

"It was...an initiation."

I rub a hand over my braids. "He put a gun in my mouth, you know. Told me he was gonna put my body on my momma's porch with my face blown off. That she would have to sweep my brains off her steps." I say tersely, and turn to leave. Again. She holds on tight to my arm.

"He was never going to kill you. You know that. He says you're like a little brother to him. Like TJ. He said you didn't cry. He said you didn't beg. He said you never changed your story."

"I didn't know what the hell he would do...especially...the way it all went down. And it wasn't a story. I didn't know who you belonged to. I would never have talked to you all those times. I would never have touched you."

"I know. That was part of the..."

"Set-up."

"Initiation." Jaz puts her manicured fingers to her temples, like she's frustrated. "I don't get it. Why you are so...upset. Surely you know better than me. That's how it works. Boy, you gotta know that. You grew up in this. It was just a way for him to see what you are made of. "

To see what I'm made of. I'm looking at this girl right now, wondering what the hell she is made of. She ain't made of the stuff of girls around her. Girls around here would not put up with Dae's shit, they would go right off on him and then go right off to see his momma and she would set him straight on how to treat his woman, even if she can't tell him how to run his business. This girl? She's got some fairy tale idea of what it's like, being with a guy like Daemon. I want to tell her Trap Queens end up in jail doing time for their man, and the gang leader? He just gets a new queen.

Christ, what the fuck is wrong with this girl? I know Jaz is older than me...she told me she was seventeen...but she's so naive.

"Fine. Daemon wants to see his boys under pressure. But what about you? That's fucked up—what he asked you to do, Jasmine. You know that, right? He doesn't care about you..."

"Oh, like you do?" she laughs at me. "You don't know Daemon. Not like I do. I've been with him for almost two years now."

Wow, since she was fifteen? And I never seen her around here? He's kept her separate from his thuglife, this whole time? Where the hell did she come from?

"It has nothing to do with him not caring about me," she continues, her voice earnest. "He loves me. But to a dude like him, loyalty and love are the same thing. You think it's just you guys dealing for him that have to prove your loyalty? It's not. He's a serious player running serious shit with serious consequences. He has to know that I'm ride-or-die. That I'll do anything for him."

"Ride-or-die? Girl, you been watching too much Sons of Anarchy or some shit. This ain't no goddamn tv show. This kind of shit," I circle the house, "don't have a happy ending. I know you ain't from around here. You're from up North somewhere, right? Somewhere nicer than this? Somewhere in Connecticut or some shit? What'd you do...run away from home in the suburbs? You came to the A to escape your overbearing parents and found Daemon? This ain't what you think it is, rich girl. This is real life for those of us shit out of luck. If you got a better place to be...my advice is go back. Now."

I think from the way she rolls her eyes, I'm not getting through. This girl and me? We ain't the same. She's mind-fucked into this whole situation. Me? I'm just fucked. I'm just one of his bitches. She's his Shawty; I'm just his bitch.

Surprisingly, Jasmine makes an exasperated sound, somewhere between a sob and frustration. "I...I can't go back. Especially not now...even if he let me go...I...I can't go back. My parents...they would never take me back. You don't know what it's like. They don't understand. I...I can't go back.

I grab her forearm. "Are you sure, girl? Cause this is the kind of place where trouble comes for you."

Just then, like the Universe is dying to prove me right, blue lights blaze. Everywhere. In front of the house and on the street behind. Cops are slinging open doors and drawing weapons. My heart starts pounding and my muscles start screaming to run as  people are throwing themselves off the sides of the porch and fleeing.

The side window of the house opens and Daemon thrusts his upper body through it. Seeing us down below, his face lights in relief.

"Go, go, go!" he yells as he tosses a briefcase at me. I catch it automatically. Jaz stares up at him blankly. This isn't her scene. She's not usually a part of this. "Fucking go!" Daemon yells at me. "Take her!"

I sprint away, but Jaz is still standing there. Christ, the girl is like a deer in the headlights. I rush back, grab her hand, and drag her off behind the neighboring house just as cops round the side of the house yelling at us to drop. She stalls, like her body is automatically trying to obey.

I tug her harder. Shots are fired way back near the house and Jaz skids to a stop, freezing in terror. Damn this girl. Where is she from that she don't run from gunfire?

"Da fuck is wrong with you? You wanna get shot!?!?! RUN!" I scream in her face and she lets loose with her feet, keeping pace with me.

We bust it hand in hand for blocks. I think we're good. We're running down the back-alley between the houses, and the shouts from behind fading. I'm still running as hard as I can, dragging Jaz with me, but I'm starting to think what comes next. We have to get inside, hide this shit. Where? Not my momma's. Not Dae's momma's, he'll kill me. The place he stays with Jaz, then. The place I had never been til she took me there three months ago and—"

A cop car careens across the yard and right toward us. I manage to shove Jasmine out of the headlights and into a hedge. "Go!" I yell at her, pivoting to sprint in the opposite direction, but the cop in the passenger seat has already flung his door open and has the drop on me.

"STOP! DROP THE CASE AND SHOW ME YOUR HANDS OR I WILL FIRE!"

Shit. I'm turned away from him. Does he have a fucking taser or a gun?

God, I'm a dumb fuck. I want to risk it. I want to run and hope either way, he misses me in the the dark.

I think about my momma. She's gonna fucking kill me, but she wouldn't want me dead.

I stop. I drop the case. Before he even tells me to, I'm getting on my knees and putting my hands on my head. In the bushes, I hear Jaz whimpering as she does the same, but I don't see her again. I only hear her crying softly, somewhere out of my line of sight. I hear her when the cops take me down to the ground. I still hear her when they throw me on the hood, but when they open the case and pull my head so that I can see it, and they tell me they know it's not mine and it's time to go downtown and cut a deal, I can't hear her anymore.   All I can hear is the blood rushing in my ears. All I can feel is nausea and my guts twisting inside. I can't cut a deal. I won't last a day when they let me out, if I do.

I feel like I'm going to die, staring into that case.

I was hoping for weed. Even a gun with the serial number marked off, and I might be okay.

The case is full of blocks of white powder.

Fuck my life.

I just did.