Ghost Boys

The judge hearing the preliminary case against Officer Moore apologetically concludes there isn’t enough evidence to bring a case against him.

The bullies who made Jerome’s life difficult when he was still alive declare a truce with Carlos and Kim in the aftermath of the shocking outcome of the preliminary hearing. Jerome has mixed feelings. He is happy about the truce, but it seems unfair that he had to die for it to happen. Afterward, Kim dances to a rhythm Carlos taps out on the way home, bringing needed joy to the neighborhood. She suddenly stops dancing and tells Carlos that he needs to tell Grandma Rogers the truth about where Jerome got the toy gun.

Jerome has an epiphany: what makes his neighborhood a community is that everyone has a story to share. Reflecting on this truth helps Jerome to see that Carlos needs to tell Grandma Rogers the story about giving the gun to Jerome. Jerome also realizes he needs to face up to reality as well to move one: He needs to hear the full story about how Emmett died. Jerome recognizes that perhaps his own death is just part of a larger story about the ghost boys.

Jerome is finally ready to hear Emmett’s story. Emmett first takes Jerome to the Chicago apartment in West Woodlawn—not far from Jerome’s neighborhood—where Emmett grew up. Jerome is surprised to discover that the neighborhood was poor even then. The neighborhood was dangerous then as well, so Mrs. Till never allowed Emmett to wander around. The only place Emmett could ever roam at will was in Mississippi during visits with his cousins.

In late August 1955, Emmett went to Money, Mississippi, to visit his cousins. Emmett puts Jerome in his story of this fatal visit through the act of storytelling. One day during the visit, Jerome decides to go into town with his cousins. Before they head to town, one of the older cousins explains to Emmett that he must be deferential to White people—address them with titles, do not look them in the eye, step off the road or sidewalk to let a White person pass. Emmett thinks these rules are ridiculous and tells his cousins he interacts with White people in Chicago all the time without such rules, but his cousins insist that White Mississippians don’t even see Black people as human.

The cousins go to Bryant Grocery Store and Meat Market, where Emmett does three seemingly harmless things: He places the money for his gum directly into the hand of Mrs. Bryant, a White woman at the store counter. He smiles at her when he departs and directly addresses her with a goodbye as he leaves. Mrs. Bryant follows him out of the store, possibly to retrieve a gun to punish him for daring to touch, speak, and look at her. Puzzled, Emmett asks what is wrong, but his speech impediment causes the first word of his question to come out as a whistle; in the segregated South, any hint that a Black person (especially a boy or man) is flirting with a White woman is sure to enrage White people to the point of violence. The cousins and Black and White bystanders flee because they sense danger.

Emmett and the cousins run home to escape this threat, but a mob led by Mr. Bryant arrives at the house that night, drags Emmett from the house, lynches him, executes him by shooting him, and dumps his body in the Tallahatchie River, leaving bloodstains and Emmett’s hat on the riverbank as the only evidence of their crime. In the aftermath of this story, all the ghost boys, including Jerome, moan and wail to mourn the injustice of their deaths. They mourn together, and Jerome at last feels like he is one of them. Afterward, Emmett explains to Jerome that “[e]veryone needs their story heard. Felt. We honor each other. Connect across time” (161).

Jerome continues to haunt his old places and reflect on his death. He yells at other Black kids to keep themselves safe and comes to recognize that Carlos was only trying to make Jerome happy for just a moment in an unhappy world. 

Jerome wanders to watch over Carlos. Carlos is crying as he rests on his bed. Jerome sees that Carlos has made a memory altar (a personal spot to grieve and worship) with a newspaper picture of Jerome, drawings of Carlos and Jerome together, drawings of scenes leading up to the confrontation in the bathroom and the gun, a silver cross, and candles Carlos probably lights at this altar, much like Grandma Rogers does for her husband in a similar space. Seeking to comfort Carlos, Jerome reaches into the physical world to disturb the newspaper picture of himself. Carlos recognizes that this is Jerome acting on the world.

The sound of Carlos asking if Jerome forgives him brings Carlos’s father to Carlos’s room. Carlos’s sense that Jerome forgives him allows Carlos to at last pour out to his father the whole story of the bullies and giving the toy gun to Jerome. Mr. Rodríquez tells Carlos that he is sorry he had to be in fear at school. Furthermore, there is nothing wrong with being afraid. The important thing is how you respond to your fear. Carlos decides that he must tell the Rogers family the truth, and he decides to do it on his own despite his fear they will blame him. His father also agrees that they will honor Jerome on the Day of the Dead, bringing a small piece of their San Antonio traditions to Chicago.

Jerome tags along as Carlos goes to talk to Grandma Rogers, and he is surprised to discover that his old home seems small and confining now that he is a ghost boy. In Kim’s presence, Carlos tells Grandma the truth and apologizes. The three of them cry together, and one by one they share how guilty they feel. Grandma wishes she had kept Jerome in the day he died. Kim wishes she had told her parents and grandmother that Jerome had the gun.

They forgive each other, and Grandma gets Carlos to play the old game of three good things. Instead, Carolos asks for forgiveness and praises Kim for being a good enough friend to help him to do the brave thing of telling the truth. This encounter is healing to Jerome, who hopes the closeness between three important people from his life will help his parents to heal as well.

Jerome believes he has one last task before moving on—reconciling Sarah and her father. He goes to her room, which has shifted from pink and girlish to plain, and Jerome also recognizes for the first time that her middle-class neighborhood is far quieter and lonelier than the block where Jerome lived.

Sarah is hard at work on a website to document the killing of Black people by law enforcement. Jerome is worried because Sarah seems deeply unhappy and still is not talking with her father. He tells her to stop with her project, but she believes having the website will force people to remember those who have been killed, to tell their stories. Jerome tells Sarah to talk to her dad to help him overcome his fear of Black boys, but he also recognizes that the website is part of bearing witness.

Sarah is struggling with the question of why her dad never tried to help Jerome after he shot Jerome. Jerome helps Sarah remember what she loves about her dad by asking her to play the three good things game. The conversation makes Jerome think about White people and how their fears and stereotyping of Black people make the world dangerous for Black boys. Even White people who harm or kill Black boys never think they are in the wrong because of these beliefs. Sarah, Jerome imagines, will always be troubled by her father’s belief that he was in the right when he killed Jerome, but being troubled will allow her to be a force for change.

Sarah goes to her father to ask for his help in building her website about Black people killed because of racial stereotypes and prejudice. He is emotional because she is at last reaching out to him. Seeing this reconciliation allows Jerome to be free of one of the last tasks he needs to complete to move on.