Rue Bennett
I was on the couch when the knock came.
Two cops. A man and a woman. My mom answered and I heard her voice change before I could make out the words. That shift. The one that means something has already happened and the only question now is how bad.
They said there had been a shooting. They said Jordan was involved. They said he was alive when the paramedics got there but he had been shot twice, arm and chest, and he had lost consciousness before they arrived. He was in surgery. They would know more soon.
My mom asked if he was going to be okay.
The cop said they did not know yet.
Gia was standing next to me. I do not know when she got there. I just looked down at some point and she was there, and I put my arm around her, and she grabbed my sleeve with both hands and held on.
My mom was already getting her keys.
* * *
He made it through surgery.
That was what the doctor said when she came out. He made it through. The chest wound had been the serious one, close to something important, they had to work fast. The arm was secondary. He was stable now but he had not woken up. They were calling it a coma and they did not know how long. Could be hours. Could be longer. They would monitor him and let us know if anything changed.
My mom sat down in one of those waiting room chairs and did not move for a long time.
Gia cried quietly into my shoulder. I held her and looked at the wall and thought about Jordan's face the last time I saw him. That morning at breakfast. He had been normal. He had been completely normal.
I kept thinking about that. How normal he had been.
We were allowed to sit with him for a few minutes. He looked smaller than usual, which was a strange thing to think about someone who is six foot two. The machines were doing their thing. His arm was wrapped. His chest was wrapped. He was breathing.
I sat next to his bed and did not say anything for a while.
Then I said, real quiet so only he could hear it if he could hear anything at all: you better wake up.
He did not respond.
I stayed until the nurses asked us to let him rest.
* * *
Maddy Perez
She found out from Kat at 11pm.
Have you seen the news.
She had not. She opened Twitter and typed his name and stood in her kitchen reading without moving for about four minutes.
Shooting in East Highland. Multiple fatalities. One survivor from the initial vehicle, in critical condition. Identity not released. Two of the attackers also survived and were in custody.
Critical condition.
She called him. It went to voicemail immediately. She texted: are you okay. Then: please respond. Then she just stood there holding her phone waiting for something to happen.
Nothing happened.
She looked at the top of the thread. His message from that morning. We are going out tomorrow. She had read it and not replied because she had not decided yet what she wanted to say. She had been holding it at arm's length the way she did with things she was not ready to deal with.
She sat down on the kitchen floor.
* * *
Twitter / Reddit — @boostedjay
boostedjay_updates: sources saying Boosted Jay is the sole survivor from his side of tonight's East Highland shooting. currently in a coma. praying hard.
reply: wait THE boosted jay?? the one who just dropped Stay Down???
reply: he had TWO label meetings scheduled. interscope and atlantic. and now he's in a coma. i can't process this.
reply: everyone else on his side died. he's the only one. two of the shooters survived and are in custody. that's it.
reply: still cap btw. boosted jay makes car videos and bedroom pop. he's not in the streets like that
reply: bro is literally in a coma from a shooting and you're saying cap. what is wrong with you
reply: the song literally says jordan bennett east highland. where did you think he lived
reply: i hope he wakes up. genuinely. the music has been too good this year for this to be how it ends
—
Reddit r/hiphopheads: Boosted Jay reportedly in a coma after East Highland shooting — only survivor from his side
Top comment: I've been following this kid since Song Wars. His music always had something real underneath it but I didn't want to project. Tonight answers that and I really wish it didn't.
Reply: He never rapped about the streets directly. It was always underneath. The way he talked about certain nights. Certain decisions. You could feel it without him saying it outright.
Reply: Girl of My Dreams. Stay Down. High For This. This dude was making the most romantic, most vulnerable music of the year and living a completely different life at the same time. The duality is hard to sit with right now.
Reply: Everyone else died. He's in a coma. Two of the people who shot at them survived. That's the whole box score. I don't have anything to add to that.
Reply: Just want him to wake up. That's it. Just wake up.
* * *
Rue Bennett
I drove home at 2am with my mom and Gia asleep in the back.
I had been on my phone in the waiting room. I had read all of it. Every tweet. Every Reddit comment. Strangers debating whether my brother's pain was real while he was in a coma twenty feet away with machines breathing for him.
It was real.
I drove and did not turn the radio on and thought about the last thing I said to him. You better wake up. Quiet, into the side of his face, not even sure he could hear me.
I meant it.
Jordan has spent his whole life moving too fast for anything to catch him. Outrunning things. Staying ahead of whatever is coming. I have watched him do it since we were kids. He is the best I have ever seen at it.
But you cannot outrun this one. This one you just have to come back from.
So come back.