The sudden freezing air as Quan was whisked outside in his thin Iron Man pajamas with no shoes or jacket…and the subsequent strange warmth running down Quan’s legs when he saw Just. How. Many.

       Police cars.

   There were.

   Outside.

   Barking dogs, straining against leashes. A helicopter circling overhead, its spotlight held steady on the team of men dragging Daddy toward the group of cop vehicles parked haphazardly and blocking the street.

   Quan had counted six when his eyes landed on the van no less than five officers were wrestling his dad into.

   Wrestling because Daddy kept trying to look back over his shoulder to see what was happening with Quan. He was shouting.

        It’s gonna be okay, Junior!

          Get in the goddam van!

    It’ll all be fi—

   One of the officers brought an elbow down on the back of Daddy’s head. Quan watched as Daddy’s whole body went limp.

   That’s when Quan started

              Screaming.

   Two of the officers climbed into the back of the van and dragged Daddy’s body inside the way Quan had seen Daddy drag the giant bags of sand he’d bought for the sandbox he built in the backyard when Quan was younger.

                    Kicking.

    Cut it out, kid!

          Wait…are you wet?

   They rolled Daddy to his back, and one of the officers knelt beside him and put two fingers up under his jaw. He nodded at the other officer, who then hopped down from the back of the van and shut the doors.

              Flailing.

     Screaming.

     Kicking.

   The taillights of the van glowed red and Quan wished everything would STOP. He was sobbing and twisting, and the officer holding him squeezed tighter and locked Quan’s arms down.

   As the van pulled off, Quan screamed so loud, he was sure his mama would hear him back home some twenty miles away. She would hear him and she would come and she would stop the van and she would get Daddy out and she would get Quan. All the blue-suited Dad-stealing monsters and blue-lit cars would POOF! disappear and everything would go back to normal.

   Better yet, Mama would bring Dwight-the-black-Olaf, and she’d toss him in the back of the van in Daddy’s place. And they’d lock him up in a snake-filled cell and throw away the key.

   Quan screamed until all the scream was outta him. Then he inhaled. And he screamed some more.

       His own voice was all he could hear until—

   “Hey! You put that young man down! Have you lost your ever-lovin’ mind?!”

   Then the officer holding him was saying

        Ow! Hey!

   And

        Hey! Stop that!

   And

        Ma’am, you are assaulting a police officer—

   “I said put him DOWN. Right now!”

        Ma’am, I can’t—

          All right! All right!

   The grip on Quan’s body loosened. His feet touched down on the porch floor just as a wrinkled hand wrapped around his biceps and a thin arm wrapped around his lower back, a sheet of paper in hand. “You come on here with me, Junior,” a familiar voice said.

        Ma’am, he can’t go with you. Until further notice, he’s a ward of the state—

   “Like hell he is! You can call his mama to come get him, but until she arrives, he’ll be staying at my house.” The woman shoved the paper into the officer’s face. “You see this? This is a legally binding document. Read it aloud.”

        Ma’am—

   “I said read it aloud!”

        Okay, okay!

       (The officer cut his eyes at Quan before beginning. Then sighed.)

        “In the event of the arrest of Vernell LaQuan Banks Sr., Mrs. Edna Pavlostathis is named temporary guardian of Vernell LaQuan Banks Jr. until…”

   But that was all Quan needed to hear. (Did Daddy know he would be snatched away from his son in the dead of night?)

   “Come on, honey,” she said, and as she ushered Quan away from the tornado of blue—lights, cars, uniforms, eyes—that’d ripped through everything he knew as normal, everything clicked into place.

   Mrs. Pavlostathis. The fireball old lady who lived next door to Daddy.

   “Let’s head inside and I’ll go over to your dad’s to grab you some fresh clothes so you can get cleaned up. How dare those so-called officers treat you that way. The nerve of those whites—”

   She trailed off. Or at least Quan thinks she did. He can’t remember her saying anything else. He does remember thinking that under different circumstances, that last statement would’ve made him smile. He’d known Mrs. Pavlostathis since he was seven years old—she was close to eighty and used to babysit him when Daddy had to make “emergency runs” on weekends Quan was there. Despite her skin tone, Mrs. P let everyone know she was Greek, not white.

       She was also one of Daddy’s clients (“A little ganja’s good for my glaucoma, Junior”) and, Quan had noticed over the years, the only neighbor who didn’t look at him funny—or avoid looking at all—when Quan would play outside or when he and Daddy would drive through the neighborhood in Daddy’s BMW.

   It was something Mama always grumbled about when she’d drive the forty minutes out into the burbs to drop Quan off. I don’t know why your daddy wants to live way out here with all these white folks. They’re gonna call the cops on his ass one day, and it’ll be over…

   As he and Mrs. P made their way over to her house, Quan wondered if Mama’s prediction was coming true.

        And in that moment: he hated his mama.

    For saying that. Wishing the worst on Daddy.

          For staying with duck-ass Dwight. Putting up with his antics.