After Tupac and D Foster

The narrator enters the jail with Neeka and her family. She thinks about how loud the clicks, slams, and clanks of each gate are and how they lock immediately—you have to depend on someone else to unlock them and let you out. She imagines that the guard watching them is thinking that they better watch out, or they’ll be in jail, too.

While Neeka’s family visits Tash in jail, the narrator stays quiet and makes observations. She watches all of the different kinds of families visiting their loved ones. Tash is confident that he’ll be released in a few months, but his family is not as positive. He is playful and fun, but he has lost weight and is quick to warn Jayjones and the little boys that they better not ever end up in jail.

His behavior is flamboyant, and he sometimes refers to himself with she/her pronouns, which bothers his mother, especially when he does it in front of his little brothers. No one else seems to mind, though, and when Tash asks his mother, “Ain’t I good enough?” and pleads with her to “let me be this way” (101), she relaxes and agrees to let him be.