Read Online Bang! by Sharon Flake - Free Book Online Page B

Hold on to the walls while it leans on the back of my legs. I take one step at a time and listen some more.
    My father’s talking again. Saying that a man is put on the planet to do two things—protect his family and make his boys into men. “Jason ain’t never gonna be no man. But he is.” He points my way, then pulls more bags into the hall. “But if he’s gonna make it to manhood, he’s gonna have to drop them daisies I put in his hand.” He cuts his eyes at me. “Forget what I said about treating people right and holding his tongue.”
    “William!”
    My dad points directly at me. I step aside and let the bag roll down the steps. “If he’s gonna grow into a man, he’s gonna have to learn to chew nails and hold a gun in his hand, maybe even shoot somebody.”
    My mother’s running down the stairs behind him. “William! You raised a good boy—good boys!”
    My father ignores her. He heads for the living room and starts dumping bullets into a brown bag. My mother grabs the phone.
    “Ma Dear,” she says, dialing up my grandmother.
    My father slams down the phone. “Ma Dear don’t run my house!” He starts loading his gun. “How you gonna stop a man from protecting what’s his?” He drops more bullets in the bag. “How a woman gonna teach a man how to raise a boy?”
    My mother looks up when he says that. She stares at the phone, then goes to the kitchen. After my dad’s done loading the truck, she comes back into the living room. She’s got a box full of candy, chips, pretzels, and pop. “Here. Take these.”
    He hugs her, but before she lets him go, she asks him to promise her something.
    “What?”
    “That we will move to Kentucky if this thing you’re doing with him doesn’t work out.”
    My father always said it was hard for him to say no to my mother. I guess that’s why he says yes. “But you gotta give me two weeks, Grace.”
    She looks at me and nods her head. “That’s all you get, William. Two weeks. Then you’d better bring my boy back to me in one piece.”
    “In one piece,” he says, walking over to her and holding her to him. “Maybe now’s the time for you to go to Kentucky.”
    She’s shaking her head no.
    “I wouldn’t hurt my own, Grace.” He’s whispering in her ear, saying he’s just gonna teach me to box and hunt. “Toughen him up a little. That’s all.” He cuts on the porch light, then walks out the door, telling her to call my therapist and say that I’m sick.
    One of Jason’s soldiers is standing on the porch swing, with his rifle pointed at my father’s back.
    My mother hugs me and won’t let me go, even while I’m trying to push her away.
    “Go,” she finally says, covering her mouth.
    I don’t move.
    “Go,” she whispers.
    I swallow air.
    Then Jason speaks up. Go.
    I take a baby step.
    Go, he says, giggling.
    I take another step.
    Go, dog. Go, he says.
    I take off running across the floor with my eyes closed. Jumping. Flying high over the porch, landing on the concrete step on my own two feet. Like a man.

Chapter 21
    MY FATHER IS not a talker. He can sit and be quiet for hours, so it’s good that he talked Kee-lee’s mom into letting him go too.
    Kee-lee’s in the backseat with the bags. “I’m tired.”
    I try to give my dad the hint. “Me too.”
    We been driving for four hours, nonstop. We’re not in our city no more. We’re on a highway passing trucks full of dirty chickens, stinking pigs as big as cows, and horses that shine like their coat’s been greased with hair oil. “Mr. Adler,” Kee-lee says. “I gotta pee. Now.”
    My father pulls the truck over to the side of the road. Kee-lee unzips his pants and hops out.
    My dad points to a field full of grass. “Do your business over there.”
    Me and Kee-lee are looking at things flying and hopping around, and we don’t move.
    “Y’all go do your business. Now.”
    I’m not in that grass two minutes before three grasshoppers take a ride on my pants. Kee-lee hates bugs,