After Tupac and D Foster

Jayjones starts getting college acceptances and scholarship offers from a lot of schools, but he is most excited about Georgetown because Patrick Ewing played there. The family is thrilled about his bright future, and they invite friends over to celebrate.

Tash has a new keyboard and begins to play. He asks Neeka and the narrator to sing “By and By,” a traditional gospel hymn about overcoming hardship and understanding one’s purpose. The narrator listens to how her voice sounds alongside Neeka’s and realizes that their voices have grown and changed to make a new harmony. She thinks that maybe their Big Purpose is to figure themselves out so they continue to grow together, just as their voices have done.

The narrator and Neeka go back to school, and they are a little embarrassed that Neeka’s mother still walks them to and from school every day now that they are 13. The narrator complains to her mother that she and Ms. Irene still treat them like babies, but her mother tells her they are just trying to protect the girls.

The narrator goes outside and sits on the front steps. She sees Tash walk down the street and watches a few men laugh at him derogatorily because of his “effeminate” mannerisms. She wants to distract him from their cruelty so she calls out, asking why he’s not at church with his family. He is startled and comes to sit with her on the steps. The narrator asks if he ever wonders what happened to Mr. Randall after Sly assaulted him and Sly and Tash went to jail. Tash tells her that he knows what happened to Mr. Randall because he is the reason he was released from jail. He tells her that after a while, Mr. Randall was able to recall the events of that night more clearly and told the authorities that it was just Sly and his other friend who assaulted him, not Tash; it was a hate crime, too, because Mr. Randall is gay.

Tash warns the narrator that she and Neeka better stay away from people like Sly, whom he calls “wannabe gangstas” (39). He says they’re worse than real gangsters because they try harder to prove how tough they are. The narrator realizes that if Mr. Randall had died, Tash would still be in jail. She asks if he’s seen Sly since that night and he says that he hasn’t; if they had put both Tash and Sly in the same jail, Tash is the only one who would have come out alive.

Later that week, Jayjones runs home and tells everyone that Tupac has been shot again, four times in the chest in a drive-by shooting. He had to have a lung removed and everyone listens to the radio for more news.

After Tupac is shot, D finally calls the narrator. She whispers that she doesn’t think he’s going to make it. The two girls try to process the idea of Tupac dying, telling each other that their moms say that people die in order to make room for new people on earth. The narrator tells D that she and Neeka have been missing her. D gives her the phone number for her mom’s place but says she can’t call Neeka because she is running out of money on her phone card. Before they hang up, the narrator makes D promise that she’ll come back and see them soon.

On Friday, September 13, Tupac dies, and his fans, including the narrator and Neeka, are devastated. They go outside and sit in the rain, feeling shocked and hurt. They think about D, but when they try calling the number she gave the narrator, the phone just rings and rings.

That winter, Jayjones tours Georgetown and comes back wearing Georgetown gear from head to toe. He gives Georgetown caps to the narrator and Neeka, and the narrator watches him as he spins his basketball and looks around him. She thinks he looks sad and wonders what he’s thinking about. She thinks maybe he’s thinking about his future playing basketball at Georgetown, or maybe he’s thinking about the past two years, which were full of fear and loss as he, his brother, his friends, and Tupac became victims of racist policing, gang activity, and gun violence.

The narrator reflects on the two-year period of her life during which the events of the book take place. During this period, she and Neeka go from age 11 to 13, a very formative time in a person’s life. They become close friends with D and then lose her when her mother comes back for her.

She says that it’s hard to think back on that time and not have memories of both D and Tupac. They were both such essential figures in her life and contributed to the way she developed her identity and awareness of the world around her.

Many people believe that Tupac never really died and is just hiding somewhere. The narrator wants to believe that somehow D and Tupac found each other and are living happily somewhere.