The Colours of August MxM (Staten Krown)

9

The knocking on the door is getting harder and harder. Two days have passed since the party. The tension is getting thick. It's getting real thick. Real thick. After the threat to two white girls in Birmingham people were pissed. I didn't understand how things had escalated so quick. When I open the door I'm surprised by who is standing out there. I'm surprised when I open the door and see who it is. It's Stevey.

"It's the middle of the night Stevey, what the hell are you doing here?"

He's been running. Sweat is glistening down his forehead. He's breathing heavy. Really heavy.

You would think he knows by now to stay away from the Crawfords. You would with all this drama he would find another job or something. I'm wrong. He's here. Again. In the midst of all of this.

"Ms. Carol called for Sissy. I came with her."

"Why'd she bring you here? It's not safe here..."

"I need your help," he states.

"For what?"

"I need to stay away from it all...all of it..." he states.

The look on his face scares me. I'd never seen Stevey like this. I can see from his face that something had changed. He was panicking.

I grab him, "Sit down. Take a breather. You need some water..."

"Yeah. Water. Water please..."

Something had gone wrong. Something terrible had gone wrong. It's written all over his face. I can see it just in the way that he's presenting himself. For two days I had not heard from him. I was too afraid to ask why Chuck and June left the house everyday. A part of me just wanted to ignore it all. But it's clear I couldn't. The drama was literally showing up right on my doorstep.

"What's wrong Stevey?" I ask, "Talk to me."

"Where you been?" he asks.

He squints when he asks it. It's this weird way. It's almost as though he's trying to accuse me of something without saying the words.

"I've been here. I've been minding my business. Keeping a low profile."

"Must be easy for you," he responds rolling his eyes, "Nobody brings trouble to a white boy."

This boy had literally come to me for my help and now he was getting an attitude with me? I didn't understand it. A part of me wants to tell him off. A part of me wants to put him in his place. I don't though. I just stay patient with him. It's clear he's emotional right now.

"You going to tell me what the issue is or you going to keep acting like a needy brat?"

"Needy brat?" he asks, "Is that what you think of me? Maybe I came to the wrong place."

He was sensitive. It had come out of nowhere. All I knew was that he was on 10. There was this fear in his eyes. It's real fear. I hadn't seen real fear like this up North before but something was going wrong and I knew the trigger had gone off at that party.

"White folks are mad..." he explains.

"Your friends," I ask him, "You can't tell me it wasn't Beau? This has him written all over it. I saw how angry he was. That was real anger.They attacked Mary Flannery. They killed her dog. What did ya'll people expect would happen?"

"Y'all people?"

Dammit. It's like every word I said to him now was being nitpicked.

"You know I don't mean it like that," I explain to him, "All I'm saying is there was already tension after Carol. Things only got worse with your friends. Can you honestly tell me you still believe they didn't rape Carol?"