2021 Nonfiction Winner: "How to Prepare..." by N. Norwood
Thumbnail photo credit: CHUTTERSNAP (@chuttersnap), obtained and licensed through Unsplash
How to Prepare…
For this recipe, you will need the following ingredients:
1.5 cups of pent-up anger
2.5 ounces of generational cycles (unbroken)
1 ounce of black boy joy (watered down of course)
A nice white neighborhood
Two very black pee-wee football teams
And finally, the wrong place at the wrong time
Chef’s note: I came home for the remainder of the semester because my mental health had been on a steady decline for some time, and being home meant safety, security, and free food. That night fog hung heavy like a sullen blanket on my very suburban neighborhood. A type of mist you only see in horror movies. My mom told me to meet her at my brother’s football game so I could help with the snacks. So, I gathered up my little sister, myself, and a newfound spirit of calmness that settled over me. I felt like I was finally on the up and up. No more bad thoughts for me.
I never liked my brother’s football team. The coach had spent the last week cyber bullying the opposing team’s coach. Nasty Facebook comments, Twitter fingers laying on metaphorical triggers.
STEP ONE:
18-20, we lost.
“Oh look, there’s Mom. Let’s head over to her and help her hand out snacks.”
STEP TWO:
Four shots
Running feet
Screaming voices
Chaos
STEP THREE:
“Hanna, grab my hand and run, run, run…. PEYTON!!!! RUN WITH ME.”
Peyton wouldn’t come. He wouldn’t follow me; why wouldn’t he follow me.
“MOMMM!” Peyton ran towards the shots.
STEP FOUR:
I look forward as I run, through the mist, fog, thick, dense. There is a hill; if we get there, we can roll down and shield ourselves.
But Peyton. Mom. Peyton. Mom.
We slid down the hill, the wet grass soaking our pants,
Hanna, grasping my hand, tears falling down her face,
My heart. My breathing.
STEP FIVE:
“Hanna, get down, stay down.”
STEP SIX:
Mist, fog, thick, dense, heavy, wet.
“Run, run, where’s Peyton, mom, Peyton, mom…”
STEP SEVEN:
What if…he’s…hurt…shot…like Earnest,
19…shot…dead…
Peyton,
Earnest,
Black,
Boy,
Live.
Later that night, as we sat around the dining room table, I was still shaken and the little blue pill that my mother had slipped under my tongue wouldn’t stop the horror, the what if’s, the why’s, the how’s. I looked at my brother, who was safe. Then to my mother, who was safe. And then to my sister, who was safe. We sat, waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the dust to settle. And it did. It did. Coach was killed.
The next morning, I had to take my mom to the airport. The drive there was silent. I was
still in shock.
“Was that the first time you’ve heard gunshots?”
She asked.
“Yes.”
“Yeah, it can be traumatizing.”
I sat, stuck on her question. First time? As if it were written in my destiny to be in the middle of a shootout, horrified, grasping onto life itself, praying it wouldn’t be snatched away. First time? As if it would be the first of many.
Step Eight:
The bitter flavor of trauma may be too overbearing for some to handle.
Make sure to sprinkle “grief counseling” on top,
Enough to cope with the pain,
But not enough to break the generational curse.
Touchstone Undergraduate Creative Writing Awards are an annual award series open to current undergraduate students at Kansas State University. In each of the following genres: poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction, two submissions are chosen by the editors at Touchstone. Winner in every genre receives a cash prize of $75, and the runner up receives $50.
N. Norwood is a current college student majoring in English Lit. She has a passion for writing and sharing her voice to those who are willing to read and listen.