white-passing- jamal turner

twenty

"I think I should dye my hair black. Maybe get bangs. What do you think?"

I was talking to a girl on the cheerleading squad, Becca, about her upcoming haircut during class. It was a free period, so we were just talking and not doing anything. 

"Sure! I think it'd look good," I said. 

I looked at the door and saw Monse out in the hall, looking at me and beckoning me toward her.

"Hold on," I said, getting up and walking outside, "What's up?"

"I ran into Officer Hammell," Monse said, "He said Latrelle's back."

"What?" I said, "Shit, this isn't good."

"I talked to Ruby and Jamal about it just now," Monse said, "We need to come up with a plan at lunch to get Cesar out of town and actually clean this money."

"Monse, I have no idea what we CAN do," I said, "And I'm pretty sure the boys don't either."

"What class are you in right now?"

"Geometry, but it's a free period, so I'm just doing assigned work."

"OK, so you have no excuses! Think about ideas before lunch!"

Before I could say anything, she walked off, and I groaned.  

Lunchtime came, and Monse got a text from Cesar.

"ICE might be raiding the church," Monse said, "Cesar's gonna have to vacate or he might end up in the system."

"Shit!" Jamal said.

"What's the local news say?" Ruby said.

Monse groaned, "I hate these ads. They're so annoying."

Jasmine came and sat down with us. 

"This shit's my jam!"

"What are you doing?"

"Chopping it up and chopping it down with my crew!" Jasmine said, "Is it my pits?"

Jamal and I cringed as she explained how she switched to natural.

"We need a rain check," Ruby said.

"Nothing personal, but it's personal," Monse said.

"What's on the agenda? Cleaning some green?"

"How do you know?!" I said.

 Jasmine showed us Jamal's agenda which said in bold CLEANING THE GREEN.

"I'm a visual thinker!" Jamal said. 

"Nobody's worried about a few dollars," Jasmine said, for no one to respond, "It's not a few dollars?"

Jasmine started telling us about this Freeridge savings heist, which wasn't useful at all.

"How are we gonna clean the money?" Monse said.

Jasmine suggested Money Bunny. At first, Monse was against it, but then she agreed to it. I wouldn't have agreed if we had another option. But we'd need a fake ID. Jasmine said she knew a guy. When we arrived, we realized we were at Chivo's.

"NOOOOOO!!!!" Jamal and I screamed.

"You want two IDs?" Chivo said.

"I texted you. We need four," Jasmine said.

"I only see two people."

"Oh, I see how this is!" I said, "Once a rat bastard, always a rat bastard!"

"I'm ghosting you two," Chivo said, looking away.

Eventually, we got Chivo to acknowledge the two of us and get started on our fakes.