Free Emako Blue by Brenda Woods

“Oh . . . but you grown.”
    She got up and I followed her into the living room. “Mama, where’s the phone?”
    “I dunno, ask Dante.”
    Emako went to the front door.
    “Dante!”
    “What?” Dante was standing on the sidewalk with J.T. The other two brothers were nowhere in sight.
    “You got the phone?”
    Dante held up the cordless black phone for her to see.
    “Could I use it?”
    “Come and get it, superstar.”
    Emako whispered something under her breath and stormed toward Dante and J.T. I trailed behind her.
    Just then a car drove by. It was the same caramel-colored brother in the Regal that I’d seen before. The one who’d come into Emako’s line at Burger King, looking for Dante. He stared at Dante. Dante nodded at him as he handed the phone to Emako.
    The car rolled to the end of the block. Suddenly, the brother in the Regal made a fast U-turn and drove back toward us. “Dante!” he yelled.
    Dante looked up.
    I froze when I saw the gun.
    “Mama!” Emako screamed as the bullet hit her.
    Dante and J.T. hit the ground and five more shots rang out. When they ended, I was still frozen, watching the Regal as it sped out of sight.
    Dante and J.T. stood up, examining their bodies for wounds. Emako’s was on the sidewalk, lying in a small pool of blood. Her eyes were wide open.
    Verna raced out the door toward Emako, screaming.
    She got down on her hands and knees and tried to pick her up. She couldn’t. “Call 911! Call 911!” she yelled, and started to breathe air into Emako’s mouth.
    She reached up and grabbed me by the hand. “Push on her chest.”
    I kneeled on the ground and pressed on Emako’s chest. Blood was all over my hands. “Wake up,” I said softly.
    Verna ran to a neighbor’s house, still screaming, “Call 911!” She banged on the door until somebody opened it.
    Dante and J.T. took off down the street. Marcel and Latrice ran out of the house and stood over Emako’s body.
    “Wake up,” I said again, but I knew she was dead.
    The neighbors began to come out of their houses. I heard sirens. The paramedics got there first. They formed a shield around Emako, working fast. “It’s too late. She’s gone,” one of them said.
    The police got there next. Most of the people from the block disappeared into their houses. The yellow tape went up. The paramedics put a blanket over the body. Verna looked crazy. Latrice was crying.
    Marcel yelled, “It’s all Dante’s fault!”
    I went into the house and called Daddy. I kept staring at my bloody hands.
    I watched the blood as I washed it off my hands down the drain. It looked like red wine.
    Then, my mama and daddy were there. I talked to the police and Mama and Daddy put me in the car and took me home. Mama stood outside my bathroom while I took a shower. Daddy threw my bloody clothes away.
    I felt like I was in a dream.

Jamal
    Emako and I were supposed to go to City Walk. I called her house at 5:30, but there was no answer and I figured that she was out somewhere. The answering machine was off, so I couldn’t leave a message.
    I called back again at 6:30 and let it ring twenty times before I hung up.
    At 7:00 I called a third time. It rang ten times and I was about to hang up when Marcel picked up the phone.
    “Hello?” he said.
    “Hey, little dude, let me talk to Emako.”
    “She ain’t here.”
    “Tell her to call me when she gets home, okay?”
    “She can’t,” he said.
    “Why?” I asked.
    “Cuz she got shot and now she’s dead.”
    “Stop playin’, Marcel.”
    “I’m not playin’. It’s even on the TV. They came to shoot Dante, but he ain’t dead or nuthin’. Then the ambulance came and tried to make her get better, but they couldn’t.”
    “Where’s your moms?”
    “She can’t come to the phone cuz the doctor gave her some medicine and she’s sleepin’, but my auntie’s here if you wanna talk to someone.”
    “I’m comin’ over.”
    “You can’t cuz they got that yellow tape