Double Deuce

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For Karen Panasevicla, who taught me about youth gangs, and about commitment.

And for my wife and sons, who have taught me everything else that matters.

PROLOGUE

Her name was Devona Jefferson. She was going to be fifteen years old on April 23, and she had a daughter, three months and ten days old, whom she had named Crystal, after a white woman on television. Crystal had the same dark chocolate skin her mother had, and the large eyes. She probably looked like her father too, because some of her didn’t look like Devona. But Devona didn’t know which one the father was, and she didn’t care, because Crystal was all hers anyway, the first thing she’d ever had that was all hers.

She loved carrying Crystal, loved the weight of her, the smell of her hair, the soft spot still in the back of her skull, where the white lady doctor at City had told her the skull hadn’t grown together yet. They were together most of the time, because there was no one to leave Crystal with, but Devona didn’t mind much. Crystal was a quiet baby, and Devona would carry her around and talk with her, about their life together and what it would be like when Crystal got bigger and how they’d be friends when Crystal grew up, because they’d be only fourteen years apart.

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