Milkman

Milkman is shot and killed by state forces the following day. Eldest sister relays this information to middle sister expecting the latter to be upset, but she instead feels intense relief: “My body was proclaiming, ‘Halleluiah! He’s dead. Thank fuck halleluiah!’ even if those were not the actual words at the forefront of my mind” (302). Hoping to put the entire ordeal behind her, she goes out to a club that night, only to be cornered by Somebody McSomebody in the women’s restroom. McSomebody, who has a gun, begins ranting about middle sister’s treatment of him. She manages to get the gun away from him and hits him with it, only to be overpowered once again. At that moment, however, a crowd of women enter and begin beating up McSomebody for being in the women’s restroom. Later, middle sister learns that a paramilitary court convicted McSomebody not of any kind of assault, but of “taking guns unauthorised from dumps to use for getting dates with girls purposes, which was not, they admonished, what guns were supposed to be used for” (312).

Meanwhile, ma and seventeen other women from the neighborhood have been visiting real