Let Me Hear a Rhyme

“Like, damn, don’t murders make the news no more? Don’t they know who Steph was? I mean, yeah, folks die every day. But it’s not every day you lose your main man. Guess I’mma have to be the reporter and tell his story. […] Bet a real reporter would set up the scene better than I did. Probably something like:

Headline: Funeral Held for Slain Teen On Saturday, roughly a hundred friends and family filled the victim’s home in Brevoort, the notorious housing projects in the heart of Bedford-Stuyvesant, to celebrate the life of Stephon Davis, Jr. Suspect still at large.

‘Heard she almost requested a closed casket,’ someone whispers, but doing a shit job of it. ‘Poor thing, just been through so much.’”

This passage illustrates the inability of traditional news articles to articulate The Complexity of Grief and the depth of someone’s life. The segue from the fake news article to the actual situation—Steph’s body was so badly damaged that his mother considered a closed casket—highlights how much more complex real murders are than how they’re reported about in newspapers.

“Everyone’s watching, waiting to see if Mom, Carl, and I will crack so they can open us up and see our insides. The hood is filled with nosy people, sucking up all the air, standing in the buffet line snaking out of our kitchen. How could anyone eat after seeing a body lying in a casket?”

This quote highlights The Complexity of Grief. Although funerals and funeral receptions are community events for grieving, Steph’s funeral and reception and are counterproductive for Jasmine’s grieving process. She’s not able to grieve properly people are too concerned with gossiping and being nosy.

“Whenever we chill on the corner, we got to play our positions: me, posted up against the wall; Quady sitting on milk crates; and Steph leaning against the lamppost outside Habibi’s bodega […] The spot Steph would’ve been standing in is looking mad empty now that he’s gone. […] Never thought my first funeral would be for someone I really knew like that. I thought it would be a random kid from school or some great-aunt back in Jamaica. Not my main man hundred grand. I used to wonder what Peter Parker felt when Uncle Ben was killed in Spider-Man. How it felt to lose someone you looked up to, someone you cared about. Now I know. The shit aches, and the thoughts are giving me ruthless bubble guts.”

This quote also underscores The Complexity of Grief by showing how death and grief defy expectations. Jarrell is caught off guard when his best friend, someone his own age, dies, illustrating his own naivete of youth in the reflection.