He even tells Will that he doubts its even loaded, something Will didn’t even think about, but wait a minute, Buck is dead! Just as soon as he realizes this the doors open again and in walks a girl around his age.
First it’s his brothers friend Buck who reveals that he actually gave Shawn the gun Will now has tucked in his pants. Each time the doors open a new “person” gets on with Will. Locked and loaded, tunnel vision has set in and its time avenge his big brother, the only problem is the elevator stops on the 6th floor, then the 5th and every single floor on the way down. Especially things like this! With his brothers gun tucked into his waistband Will enters the elevator and presses his desired distention. You don’t call the police, you don’t snitch and you certainly don’t let things go. It’s a vicious cycle that ravages Will’s neighborhood, but those are the rules. Growing up in the neighborhood Will is no stranger to the use of violence that he is ready and willing to give out, or is he? The story written in verse all takes place within the sixty seconds it should take the elevator to get from Wills apartment on the 7th floor down to the lobby where he is ready to use his brothers gun to kill the man who killed him. The story follows 15 year old Will as he seeks revenge for the murder of his older brother Shawn.
But what happens when we know the risk greatly out weights the reward of a certain decision but decide to make it anyway? Can we still be shocked by the outcome? Are we allowed to feel outrage? Can we even beg the question “how did this happen to me? how did I get here?” The incredible writer Jason Reynolds takes on these questions and more in his extremely poignant novel “The Long Way Down”. By putting ourselves in certain scenarios we not only increase the chances of a specific thing taking place in that situation we actually unknowingly more or less welcome it. I think we can all agree that one decision effects the next, which effects the next and so on.
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