Narrative Case

In the short time that I knew him, we became really close. I only knew him for a year and a half. We met in The Urban Assembly School for Design and Construction. Kimani Gray was a young boy whose life was taken away from him to soon.

I could see him now; wearing a slightly loose hoody, while sagging black slacks he wore for school. He hated wearing uniform, especially those black leather dress shoes he wore. He would fold the back of the shoe down and wear them like they were slippers. I remember walking down the hall when I would go to the bathroom or the college offices and I would see Kimani dragging his feet with his hoody on his head. His face always lit up when I would see him.

Kimani was known for his smile. He had a baby face, with puppy dog eyes; but his smile was so big and perfect with a slightly evil grin I could never forget. He was sixteen, I was seventeen and yet some part of me just didn't mind him being younger than me. I could hear right now. "Where's Tay? I need some attention from Tay,'' he would say. I didn't have any classes with him but we sat next to each other every day during lunch. Kimani could be so rude at times, but he was always a sweetheart towards me. We sat in the corner of the lunchroom at a table by the windows. Every day, Kimani would get his lunch and return with thirty spoons ready to throw them at students from the neighboring tables. He played around like that a lot and I don't know why it never bothered me; because usually, I'm not into to people as immature as he was.

I remember every time the cafeteria would serve pizza, Kimani would always get a slice and come back to the table with his whole pizza covered in garlic powder. He'd then shake it all over the plate until there was a thin layer of garlic covering most of the pizza before he ate it. I could never understand his weird ways but Kimani always left a smile on my face. He'd throw all of his garbage in the corner by where we sat and one of the deans "Tavares of T", he'd go behind the table to the corner and see that Kimani left food there and would slap Kimani upside the head. It was so sunny to watch because it happened literally every day.

The morning I heard Kimani passed away, I couldn't believe it. My best friend and I were on our "senior trip". We were just in the middle of breakfast. I in my crocs, black polka dot pajama pants, and grey and pink hood; Kira (my best friend) in her grey short sleeve shirt and brown yoga pants and slippers. We were just discussing how well our weekend had went when Kira got the call from our friend from school Shalaina. She said Kimani was shot at eleven times, hitting him seven times in the leg, arm and stomach. He was pronounced dead in the ambulance truck. Kira and I both assumed Kimani got shot by some guys in a gang or something.

Later we found out Kimani was shot by two police officers.