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    Doing Right
    Doing Right
    Doing Right
    Ebook69 pages47 minutes

    Doing Right

    By Patrick Jones

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    About this ebook

    Every adult wants to give DeQuin advice. His father, who's serving a life sentence, thinks DeQuin needs to toughen up. His uncle wants DeQuin to work hard and keep his head down. Then there's his grandfather, lecturing DeQuin at every turn―when he's not rambling about his glory days in the 1960s civil rights movement.

    DeQuin is doing fine without their help―until a fun night with friends gets out of control. Now he has to deal with the fallout. Should he fight, as his dad suggests? Should he run and hide, as his uncle would do? Or should he follow his grandfather's example of peaceful resistance? Whatever he chooses, he's still just one confrontation away from losing everything.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLerner Publishing
    Release dateJan 1, 2015
    ISBN9781467776899
    Doing Right
    Author

    Patrick Jones

    Patrick Jones lives in Minneapolis and is the author of many novels including the Support and Defend series. A former librarian, Jones received lifetime achievement awards from the American Library Association and the Catholic Library Association.

    Read more from Patrick Jones

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      Book preview

      Doing Right - Patrick Jones

      —P.J.

      PART ONE: SEPTEMBER

      1

      You have a collect call from Oak Park Heights, will you accept the charges? The operator’s tone is flat, cold.

      Yes, I say.

      DeQuin, how you doin’? Dad asks a few seconds later. There’s noise behind him. Other voices. Prison’s not a place where you go to get privacy, unless you’re in solitary.

      A’right, I answer. And then there’s that familiar pause of two people who have no idea what to say to each other, even though they’re related.

      What you up to? Dad asks.

      Not much. The usual.

      I’m always at a loss for what to say when Dad calls. If I talk about working at KFC, Dad resents it because it reminds him that his brother—my uncle Lee—is a success, while he’s a prisoner. Lee’s the general manager for a string of KFCs around St. Paul. I’ve been working at one of ’em for almost two years. With school starting this Monday, I’ll cut to twenty hours a week instead of the forty I did all summer. Still, I’ll be putting a good chunk of money in the bank for college.

      If I talk about school, Dad resents that too, since he’d already dropped out before tenth grade. I’d talk about a girlfriend, except I don’t have one at the moment. Dad’s always game to discuss females. He was a player back in the day, which is probably why my mom left. She’s something else we don’t talk about.

      Me and Martel and Anton are ’bout to head to Valleyfair, I say. Just to be saying something. And also so that Dad will know my friends are waiting on me. They’re in the kitchen right now, putting up with Gramps and his stories.

      In fact, I can hear Gramps from the other room: Why you boys dressed like that? Pants hanging down like that. Show some respect for yourselves...

      Good, good, says Dad. He’s heard all about Martel and Anton, even though he’s never met ’em. The three of us have been cruising around together since we were in kindergarten, ’bout the same time Dad started his life sentence. Usually, when I can’t think of much to talk to Dad about, I’ll talk about Martel and Anton. Not this time, though. Lately I’m getting the sense that Martel and Anton only care about living day to day, and if I hang with them much longer, I’ll be retracing Dad’s footsteps.

      So...more silence. Like those gray walls that stand between Dad and me have somehow made their way into the phone lines.

      When you coming to visit? He makes his questions sound like orders.

      Soon. Whenever Uncle Lee decides to take me. Usually it’s every few months, but Lee’s been working a lot lately, hasn’t had much time off. And since I’m still only seventeen, I can’t go on my own. Even if I wanted to. Which I’m not sure I do.

      I hate these calls. They’re just reminders that Dad and I barely know each other. And that’s another thing I can’t talk to him about: the reason we’re strangers.

      It’s not just because he killed a guy in some messed-up gang stuff. He could’ve done less time, he said, if he snitched on his squad, but real men protect their own. So he saved guys who wore the same colors from doing time, and he left his five-year-old son without a father.

      Well—my time’s ’bout up, DeQuin. You take care.

      OK, I say. You too.

      It’s how we always end these calls. It fits. Dad never took care of me, but he expects me to take care of myself.

      Anyway, I’m glad the call’s over. Unlike Dad, I’ve got places to be.

      2

      He pulled out a gun! Gramps yells as I walk into the kitchen. Martel and Anton have been stuck at the table with Gramps while I was talking to Dad.

      Was it a choppa? Martel asks Gramps, who gives him a blank

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