I be trippy about this journal from the get-go, and that get-go was just yesterday when I open this Word doc and then zombied out. Lost in the sauce. I ask if I can just use a dig recorder or a video app when I get a new blower. That way, you know, I talk my thoughts out.

But they tell me to type this shit down cause a teacher at BrightFutures School for juvies — the Brights — think I got writing talent, which def ain’t what the teach at the norms school say, the one who call me unliterate. But how to start?

Yo journal! Sup?
Yo JJ! Sup wid you?

Something like that, then?

But that why I seriously cranking gears cause this be like talking to my own damn self. And I write too white. I am white. But I don’t want to write white. I lose points for that in the hood.

So, this not the way I talk. Know that. Who should know that? Me. JJ — Jonathan Jackson. JJ from Kill-A-Delphia. But I already do know that. That’s why this so Ohio, like I be shading me. Who listening? Who talking? Same JJ, but not the same JJ.

“That’s actually a profound observation,” the Brights shrink tell me. She gas me up, conveying that spilling the tea this way help me figure things out.

Fuck she talking about?

Aunty Liz tries giving me the lowdown. “Your counselor is saying that you have — and that we all have — various levels of consciousness.”

Fuck she talking about?

Aunty Liz lays this on me in the living room when I come downstairs early one morning. It’s winter, right after the holidays and outside the dark holds firm. She set aside her Bible and I’m shook cause Aunty Liz never let anything interrupt her prayer time or, as she call it, her lifeline.

She used to be a junkie. She say she still a junkie, just that she won’t be chasing the tiger this particular day thanks to God’s love.

Whatever.

I never seen her have a day that she didn’t call particular, but those times when she frowns through the hours and her lips be a line and she looking like she arguing with somebody in her noggin might be a tell that she busting a gut.

That morning, I start rappin’ before I actually see her sitting on the living room couch and putting in her request to the spirit in the sky. This only happened twice before — me accidentally interrupting — and on those two other times she holds up her hand like a crossing guard and says “come back in a few minutes.” But not this once.

I say, “Levels of consciousness?”

“You’re just 14, JJ.”

As if I forget.

“I can explain a little, but I’m no counselor,” say she.

Aunty Liz a nurse. I give a sort of goodbye wave to shut this off cause come right down to it, I don’t really give a shit. But she not finished.

“We were just discussing you, JJ.”

We?

I hit mute, but she play it through.

“Me and the Lord, JJ. I ask that grace finds you. That the Spirit moves you.”

Well Aunty Liz is church; heads out every Sunday. So, I’m not that surprised she say this. But up until this here talk, props to Aunty Liz cause she never, ever try to missionize me, and good thing, too. I outgrow Jesus like I outgrow Santa.

I hear the van that takes me to the Brights pull up and for once I think that’s my lifeline.

“Gotta bounce, Aunty Liz.”

She ain’t my real aunt. Still, she tells people I’m her nephew cause it’s just easier than explaining. She black — like raven black — and because I’m white, people think she marry in; that Aunty Liz be somebody who take the plunge with a brother or sister of one of my white parents. But ain’t like that.

Aunty Liz sponsors Moms in Nar-Anon but Moms relapse every other week, and when that asshole landlord wants to street me, Aunty Liz swoops in and now I live with her in this big old house in the Logan section of Brotherly Love.

Aunty Liz trying to be my legal guardian but DIE-FUST not so sure cause of her baggage. That DYFS and that how I pronounce it, journal. So, for Aunty Liz, it’s fill in them forms, wait a month or two, meet with the DIEF, more forms, another wait, another meet. Meanwhile, I be living with her cause the DIEF swamped. By the time they decide, I’ll be 18 and on my own anyway.

Yo journal! Sup?
Yo JJ! Sup wid you?

We be reading this Anne Frank diary in English class and Anne Frank pretend like she be writing to a friend named “Kitty.” Teach already give up the ending, so we know it depressy. Hitler kill her when all that shit happen.

Me? I ain’t never gonna let homies near this. They will put the kibosh on it. Maybe even merk me. Because writing shit down gets you in trouble cause you never know what the cops will use against you, or how they connect dots that ain’t there and somebody doing time cause you spill.

And Anne Frank put a date on all her journal entries. At first I was going to, but then I forget. Then I remember, but then think maybe that not the best way to go. Like a lot of this shit I write about, I really don’t know when any of it happen exactly. Plus, a lot of it never did happen. I make it up. Fiction. Kaboom!

But if I had to give this journal a name that I pretend I writing to…. Well, first off, I wouldn’t write “Dear.” Fuck that come from anyway? Mine be like “Yo Drake!” Or “Yo Jay-Z!” Maybe “Yo Eminem!” But prob not Eminem cause he white like me and the JJ who I “talk” to right now might think that the JJ writing this is a poser.

This computer spellchecks and grammars, but I unspellcheck and ungrammar. “Gonna,” like I write up above? Grammar wants “going to” but that’s not how I yak.

Keeping it real.

So, I stick with “Yo journal? Sup?” I know that incorrect English. Well, incorrect white English, anyway. It should be “what is up with you.” No, scratch that. Should be something like “Drake, my good fellow. Allow me to provide you with an update on my comings and goings.” 

I know “wid” ain’t no word. Know it should be “because,” not “cause.” But the Brights shrink say write like I talk to a friend. I do use the quote marks, though. They kinda dope. Italics dope, too.

The Brights shrink yesterday asks, “Do you wish to talk about your family, JJ?” She jaws through her nose like she got a cold, and no, I sure as hell don’t wish. Fam straight up awkfuncional.

Like I say, Moms tweeks. Beginning, middle, and end of story. She appears, ghosts, appears, ghosts. Detox, relapse, detox, relapse. They even send her on a grippy sock vacation. Twice.

Moms call herself a tattoo artist and she all inked out: arms, legs, back, front, prob on places I don’t want to visualize. She not always like that. I see pictures a few times of her when she young. They be stashed in a drawer in that one apartment, cause she don’t want to be reminded.

I can see it Moms — barely. No ink. Not scrawny, like she be now. But not no chunker, neither. Blue eyes and blonde hair. I even find like newspaper and magazine ads with Moms. Yeah, she be modeling. Long time ago, but still, it her.

So, why she hit the skids?

“Because your mother sustained a very serious back injury pole vaulting in junior college,” Aunty Liz explain. “Spinal fusion. Diskectomy. Four operations and she’s still in pain. She said no more operations. They gave her OxyContin.”

And when the docs stop the Ox, Moms switch to horse and Pops her connection. My earliest recall is of Moms hands shaking, or of her and Pops zonked on a couch and maybe I be crying but nothing wake them. They argue like nonstop when not stoned and Pops hits her. Pops a girl-beater. I too little so I can’t kill him. She never leave him, even after he hit me those times.

I try to account for all she been through. That Moms not always be the Moms I know now. The Moms I know most of my life. The hopeless Moms. The streets Moms. “Skank.” “Critter.” Yeah, I hear what assholes say. I just want to become invisible. She never really hurt me, cept hurting herself is hurting me.

Yo journal! Sup?
Yo JJ! Sup wid you?

Earlier this week Moms come around again swearing she clean, but Aunty Liz not fall for it and stop Moms at the door. Moms smelly and look greasy and banged up from wherever she been or whoever she been with. Her hair look painted on. No coat. She prob sold it. Just some ratty looking sweater she picked out of somebody’s trash. She want cheddar, like always.

Aunty Liz say no.

As they be jawing, Moms spots me over Aunty Liz’s shoulder. “Hello my baby!” Meltdown time. Moms always close to crying. Then, to Aunty Liz: “You ain’t going to let me hug my own son?”

“Mm-mmm,” say Aunty Liz. “Not today.”

I back into the kitchen out of sight. But I can still hear.

“I’ll make some calls,” Aunty Liz tell Moms. “Go stand by my car. I will drive you.”

When Aunty Liz come into the kitchen for her coat she don’t look at me.

“Nothing ain’t changing,” I say.

“Who’s nothing?”

She know what I mean, or who I mean. She jangle her keys, gives me a quick look as she wrestles into her coat.

“Saint Augustine said ‘Do not despair; one of the thieves was saved. Do not presume; one of the thieves was damned.’ And he was black!”

And off she go, riding Moms out of my life for the millionth time and I lately wish it be the last time.

So, that Moms.

And Pops? He what they call a ward of the state since killing somebody in a bar fight. They call it manslaughter. Yeah, he in the big house for a long time. And he go full-on Aryan nation. Everything be N-word this, N-word that, N-word the other.

Now, I sometimes use the N-word with my bros to fit in cause they use it all the time, but I need to be cagey about it. I drop it the wrong way at the wrong place, someone opens a can of whoop-ass on me. I don’t ever visit Pops. He departed far as I’m concerned.

That’s the lowdown on my parents so no wonder money always scarce. I got no cell, bro, so I might as well journal til I get me some Benjamins somehow for a new blower. Cause Aunty Liz put all kinds of stops on this computer. No porn or chats or games or even email. No nothing, bro.

Damn.

My life’s vanilla enough as is, bro. They always want to know why. Why I do this, why that, or why the other. Simple. Don’t want to die from terminal boredom.

Cars?

Yeah, I do drive, but it ain’t legal. (That’s when they juvie me up; when I boosted for the third time. Well, that and dealing.) I will try boosting again, since I am juvie and can’t be big-housed. But word: I ain’t taking no girl out on no SEPTA bus. I wait til my parole expire.

Girls?

I got girls who like me, hundred percent, but I don’t like them, cept just as friends. (Maybe.)

But wait. I know all this already. I already know everything that I just wrote down. Know it before I write it down cause I already noodle it. Still getting used to this. Still waiting for some pushback but it don’t come cause who be doing the pushing back?

Yo journal! Sup?
Yo JJ! Sup wid you?

Aunty Liz house only five blocks from the old apartment and I still see the posse on the sneak cause Aunty Liz works all sorts of shifts at Einstein Medical Center. It’s a dicey neighborhood, but I’m drawn to the roll. I don’t exactly dip out, but I don’t always let her know what I’m up to neither. But she sus it out.

“This continues and you’re out of here, JJ,” she warns.

But she never follow through, cause she feel that somehow she let Moms down instead of the other way round, which is how I testify.

She will indeed throw my ass out for anything connected to drugs, though. But luckily, I left that life behind. Or I should say it left me behind. For now.

I used to plug for a dealer in Germantown. He call me Amby, for Ambassador to White People. Easy money. Good money. And I leave no crumbs. He like me cause maybe I use once or twice but it don’t trap me and he don’t work with junkies. But cops shut him down anyway and he’s birding in the same cooler Pops at. He gone all Muslim on me so he and Pops sure as hell ain’t vibing if they even ever figure out that they both know me, which they prob won’t.

Yeah, I feel a little bad about dealing, but not mondo guilt. They head they way regardless, and if they don’t score off me they score from somebody else, prob dipping from a bad batch that would have pegged them out nasty. Do bartenders feel heavy cause some of they customers killing themselves fast or slow with the hooch?

Luckily, Aunty Liz got friends galore: work friends, recovery friends and heaps of church friends. But no boo far as I can tell. A grown daughter on the West Coast who don’t speak to her and won’t let her see her grandkids. And — almost forget — two ex-husbands, both dead.

The daughter’s initials are L.V. I sus that out cause that what Aunty Liz write in marker between number 8 and 9 on the alchy detox sheet magnetized to the fridge. You know them 12 steps? She highlight one part.

8. Make a list of all the people you have harmed and be willing to make amends
    to them.

9. Make direct amends to such people, except when to do so would injure them
    or others.

In the margin, she write: “Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.” Sure, I Google it, and no surprise. Aunty Liz def got this thing for Saint Augustine.

Yo journal! Sup?
Yo JJ! Sup wid you?

Aunty Liz turned 52 this week. She thin, though she loves to cook and eat. She sprints full-on through each day. I get three hots and a cot. No, not a cot. My own room, not just a mattress next to some rusty-ass radiator. And the food is nice. I’m not hangry all the time. So, it be Gucci for now. And I do try to rectify in my own way, but it never last.

“Let the counselor help you,” Aunty Liz say.

So, journal, it be me and you.

“Wrestle with it,” the Brights shrink say.

But I don’t wrestle it. I wrestle me — JJ.

Brights shrink fall back on “you can do anything.”

They all hand you that bullshit. All these people on my case to not go hoodlum. No, I can’t do any thing. Maybe some things. And most of the things I can do — like using correct English? — I don’t want to do, so I ain’t even gonna waste the time. Plus, I don’t trust do-gooders who make things worse.

“You gonna drop this journal on my sworker?” I ask the Brights shrink.

I get out of juvie hall a few months ago.

She flips a squint and talks about confidentiality again like I’m supposed to ignore the ginormous loopholes. You know the ones: Confidential unless she thinks I can be a danger to myself or others or … whatever.

“Don’t worry,” she say.

I do worry, though. I’m thinking lots of dudes can be a danger to theyselves or others at any time. Dudes who never spend even one minute in juvie. Brainiacs who wake up one day and just start drilling. You do hear about that shit.

Brights shrink say, “You absolutely do not have to share it with me or your social worker.”

She about 35 and sit like she got a broomstick up her ass, ready to bolt the hell out of the room. Got these big Coke bottle glasses, and she blinks like a goldfish. Pictures on her desk — probably fam — face her.

I must look thrown cause she adds that writing will help me sort things, but maybe she be capping.

“Or we can discuss whatever you discover.”

“Discover?”

“Just continue trying this, JJ.”

She cheugy, looking for some cannon event, but ain’t gonna happen. So, I do this for the plot. Pretend that this just ain’t me writing to me.

She one of the people who need to sign off on me getting the fuck out of the Brights so I can go back to a district school, be with the basics. Explore my horizons, like they say.

“JJ, have you ever thought about what you might want to be when you grow up?” she ask.

“Be?”

“An occupation. It’s not too soon to at least try to imagine yourself as an adult and what you might be doing with your life.”

“You mean a job.”

Aunty Liz that night tells me, “A job, yes, that’s part of it.”

I don’t know why, journal, that I even tell her what happen between me and the shrink. I never do that. Still, I don’t tell Aunty Liz everything that go on in this day’s session.

Like I hear the other night one of the bros in the hood come home from Middle East and seem to be doing fine but then he ups and sewerslides with a gun.

So, that’s prob why I say it; that I tell the Brights shrink that I think I might have PTSD. But she stomp right on that. Only time she ever go salty. Tells me about bros that fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, or cops or firefighters and says that they have PTSD. True PTSD. Asks if I have flashbacks, nightmares and … well, she got this list and tells me I def don’t got no PTSD.

I can tell she a vet, the way she talk, and I’m tempted to salute for laughs, but hold cause all of a sudden the tears flow down her face and drip, drip, drip onto her desk. Sort of tears you might see from somebody bawling at a grave or something. But her look don’t change cause she too savage. She don’t notice until finally she do, and waves me out.

“Same time next week then, JJ,” she say.

I want to say something but can’t. I look back once when I get to the door, and she got her head on her arms like the kids in kindergarten do at nap time.

“Close the door, please,” she say.

I do.

Yo journal! Sup?
Yo JJ! Sup wid you?

Sup wid me? Everything change! Everything! And changes still coming. I don’t know where all this change be heading neither.

Somebody call Aunty Liz landline the other day when she not home? I know right off it be a cop. This lady talk cop-talk. Low voice. Flat voice. Seen-it-all voice. Bit beaten down voice. I tell this lady that Aunty Liz not here and she give me a number for Aunty Liz to call and I memorize it, write it down when the cop over-and-outs.

This happen when I bounce home from the Brights Thursday afternoon. Aunty Liz not due for another few hours so I leave the message on the coffee table. I would have just texted her if someone just give me a blower, but Aunty Liz always say she get around to it, but somehow never do.

One of the posse say he’ll get me a burner on the sly. And that’s where I go Thursday after I leave the message for Aunty Liz. To meet my main man. But he don’t got it yet.

He tell me news from the hood. Who in juvie now. Who getting out soon. Who dealing. Who not dealing. Who think they be getting a sport scholarship. We just yak — meandering — and it feel good.

I get home, and Aunty Liz car in the driveway.

When I come in, she usually call: “That you JJ?”

Not this time, though.

It be dark and Aunty Liz like the light. I know right off something up. I be shivery, feel the blood pump in my neck.

I peek about the corner into the living room and I see Aunty Liz legs spread like they do on someone who get shot. Them white nurse shoes pointing opposite directions. Her head back on the couch eyes on the ceiling.

“Aunty Liz!”

“What?”

Groggy. I flick on the lights, stand over her. I poke her shoulder.

“Aunty Liz!”

“JJ.” Then a long sigh like people do in movies when they take they last breath. “Sorry, JJ.”

Then I see the spike on the couch next to her, with the sling. On the coffee table be the cotton, the spoon, the lighter, her phone, and the note I leave earlier with the cop number.

I do something I never done before and never thought that I’d ever do. I grab Aunty Liz cell and call 911. I call cause I know the look of an addict about to peg out. I call and try to answer all them stupid questions.

“Is she conscious?” Yeah, she awake. “Can you put her on the phone?” Ain’t that awake. “Is there anyone else there?” No. “Could you repeat the address?” I do. Three times. “Her name?” Twice for that one. “Your name?” Again, twice. “How do you know this person?” I live here. “Are you her son?” She my aunt. “Where exactly in the house is she?” Like I tell you. The living room. “Don’t hang up Jonathan. And keep talking to her. Tell me if she doesn’t respond.”

I put the phone on speaker, lay it back on the coffee table. I shake Aunty Liz shoulder again. “What happen Aunty Liz?”

Aunty Liz slap my hand away. “Just let me be!”

“Don’t fall asleep, Aunty Liz. Keep awake.”

“I’ll never get to see her again!” Aunty Liz cry out.

“Who Aunty Liz?”

“What do you mean who, JJ?”

“Who?” I ask again though I begin to sus it out.

She moan, “My child. My only child. My beautiful baby girl. She cut me off. Don’t talk to me. Can’t blame her.”

I hear the sirens. And as they close in, I pull more from Aunty Liz. The phone call from the cops that afternoon had been about her daughter dying from a brain aneurysm. (Had to Google that.) Sudden. Just like that.

“Only 34 years old,” Aunty Liz moan. “I thought I had time. That the wound could heal. I pray and pray that she forgive me. That she and her husband…. Her husband! The funeral! He won’t even let me go! I know it!”

Her cellphone crackles. “Help’s almost there,” the dispatcher say.

Aunty Liz too quiet. I shake her again.

She whimpers, “Saint Augustine.”

“What Saint Augustine say, Aunty Liz?” Just to keep her talking.

Her eyes pop open and she say, “God speaks to us in the great silence of the heart.”

Another one for Google.

“What else he say, Aunty Liz?”

Aunty Liz say, “I don’t know and I don’t care. Listen. I’ll be gone for about 30 days, JJ. Maybe more. I am so sorry.”

I forget my next exact words. I try to tell her that it’s really not her fault what happen to her daughter.

“How would you know?” Like she gonna smack me upside my head.

“I don’t know,” I say.

Aunty Liz say, “The sin of pride, JJ. The sin that sneak into heaven itself. Every time you think you got it all figured out, God comes along and sweeps everything off the table and says, ‘You don’t know nothing.’”

I say, “You told me that God never gives you more than you can handle, Aunty Liz.”

“Well, turns out that that’s a lot of bullshit isn’t it?”

I don’t say nothing. Can’t think of nothing to say. The sirens stop. They here. I let them in and they clamoring and working fast. They stick Aunty Liz with Naloxone right off and then lift her onto the gurney.

“Pray for me, JJ!”

“I will, Aunty Liz,” but that’s bullshit too cause I don’t pray. But what am I going to tell her? No? Part of me, word, wishes I could believe. Like how Aunty Liz does or Moms, when she not relapsing.

A lady cop who talk like a sworker ask Aunty Liz if there be any adult who can watch over me until Aunty Liz get back (“And you will get better, ma’am!”), and Aunty Liz say something that I can’t hear because they wheeling her out. In a minute, the sirens start again and then fade. I slump on the couch, suddenly tired as if I just dead lifted.

Another lady cop with a face like she eating lemons stay with me. She stand by the front window shaking her head every few seconds, maybe disgusted wid Aunty Liz or maybe disgusted wid me or maybe just disgusted wid life.

“Yo,” I say.

She don’t answer.

“Yo.”

No answer.

“Yo miss.”

Nada.

“Yo police officer.”

She slow-turn to me.

“What now?” I ask.

She slow-turn away.

I about to press when I hear footsteps coming up to the door. I figure it might be the sworker-like cop come back to ask me more sworker-like questions but in steps Moms.

She not gushy like usual.

“Hello, JJ!”

I don’t know what to say. Moms glow up.

The foul cop say, “let’s go into the other room,” and Moms follows.

Yo journal! Sup?
Yo JJ! Sup wid you?

BREAKING:

I be staying here in Aunty Liz house with Moms ever since. Been three weeks since that night.

Moms still my Moms and it ain’t impossible for them to take me away from her, but it be hard especially since she fixed for now and her sworker clear her. There so much bad shit going on in this city that it just be easier for them to let some things ride.

“You clean,” I say.

“I’m still a junkie, JJ. But I don’t intend to use on this particular day.”

This don’t come out the way it come out when Aunty Liz say it. Moms shout. She loud when not using. Like someone who not that good a musician banging a keyboard making noise.

So, it be day-to-day. I be like that for Aunty Liz, too, though I never, ever expect her to relapse.

That be that. Except the story continues and they still be twists. Even now, as I be journalling. Even now. There’s me, the JJ writing this down, and there’s the other JJ, the one I writing this down for. But Aunty Liz and the Brights shrink talk about layers of consciousness. Layers. There somebody else here. I feel eyes on me. Is it another JJ?

The other day Moms put a magnet on the fridge.

Propior Est Tibi Deus Quam Tu Tibi

“What language that?” I ask.

She give me a smile that seems to belong to somebody else’s face. A smile like she don’t live like she live, see what she see. Smart person smile. Reminds me of the Brights shrink smile.

She say, “Google it” and I do.

It mean, “God is closer to you than you are to yourself.”

Guess who that quote from? Or sort of from. They be different versions on the Web.

Like I say, as I write in this journal I feel those eyes on me but don’t really know who it be.

Here’s the thing of it. I feel those eyes even when I not journaling. I feel them even in my dreams. They show up in dreams they have no business being in. I don’t tell the Brights shrink about them. That might make it harder for me to get back to the norms school.

Here’s the other thing of it. Sometime calm wash over me almost like everything going be OK though I know that bullshit. And sometime panic strike and I think about what I hear about hell.

Other night I wake up shouting, “Let go of me!”

Moms don’t hear. She in the front bedroom. Aunty Liz bedroom. Like she not on planet earth cause when Moms zonks she zonks deep, at least when she kicking.

And those eyes upon me right now, journal JJ. They on both of us. Both of us layers. They come into focus and they blink slow, waiting, waiting, waiting. What does it want from me? From us?

Only one way to find out.

Sup?