Or my mother, who by the way, when she says the thing about lightning striking, don’t even be talking about real lightning. I mean, what was he thinking? Knowing him (I don’t really know him, but I know people like him so that’s basically the same thing), he was probably listening to a meteorologist. One time he told me about this guy-name start with a R-who holds the world record for getting struck by lightning, not once, not twice, not three times, not FOUR times, not FIVE TIMES, NOT SIX TIMES, but… SEVEN TIMES! If I was Ray or Ron or whatever his name is (or was, because he gotta be dead), I would’ve stayed in the house after the second one.

You know who really made me know my mother was wrong? Ghost. And I’m supposed to just believe lightning don’t never strike the same place twice? Ever? Right. Talking about it’s a 50 percent chance it might rain. Plus, how would she even know that? I mean, she know a lot of stuff about stuff because she’s a mother and mothers gotta know stuff, but the people who went to school for that kind of thing, like weather people and meteorologists (who should be studying meteors and not weather), they don’t even be knowing (because they should be studying meteors and not weather).

I swear, sometimes she just be talking to be talking. Don’t believe lightning won’t hit the same tree, or the same house, or the same person more than once. And I like the nickname, but I don’t believe that. Or as my mom calls me, Lu the Lightning Bolt, because lightning so special it don’t never happen the same way or at the same place twice.

Jason reynolds patina