Black Boy Joy

by Black Boy Joy (retail) (epub)

  And I clap two times again.

  Maya gives her head a little shake. Light bursts around me like shattered stained glass as she winks into the past.

  Six words. That’s it. That’s all I need her to find.

  Daed clasps my shoulders. “Still think it worked?”

  Maya winks back and Daed hops aside with a yelp. “Now I know you lying,” she growls. “Daed’s boo clapped before his stupid dance. Why would Royce snitch on his own team?”

  I give an innocent shrug. “So weird. Did he say anything?”

  She blinks, then flashes away and back. “ ‘With’? Make it make sense, bruh!”

  “It will, I promise. But there’s more for you to check out first.”

  She gives me a look, then she’s gone again.

  “You almost blew it,” Daed fusses at Royce. “Those moves? Trash.”

  “Whatever! I worked hard on that zombie dance. Besides, she saw it and remembered my word. What’s next, Kash?”

  Before I can answer, Maya winks back with a mystified scowl. “ ‘Me’? What kind of joke is this?”

  I offer an innocent shrug. “Only one way to find out…!”

  She winks off again.

  Three words left. I catch my breath.

  “My parts are next,” Daed is saying. “The white glove? Clutch.”

  “But he didn’t even wear it in ‘Thriller,’ ” Royce protests, holding his stomach. Oh. Right. Jalapeños.

  “I should’ve worn the glove,” Vonchi puts in. “She wouldn’t have missed that.”

  Maya winks back. My heart starts beating again. “ ‘Two.’ ‘Kwanzaa’?” she asks.

  Maya’s brown eyes meet mine, and she disappears in a flash of Fuerza. It’s beautiful and confusing, a rainbow caught in a spin cycle. If my plan holds, she’ll find her way to my backyard, the canopy, and the cake. Back where this all started, and where it ends.

  “My guy.” Daed nudges me. “You still really think this worked?”

  Can’t answer. Too busy holding my breath. I know this worked. It had to work. Please work. Time travel makes my head hurt if I think on it too long. But we ain’t called Cheat Code Squad for nothing. I like Maya, and I’m mostly, pretty sure she likes me back.

  Maya winks back—but no. There’s no cake! No corner slice! My big plan didn’t work. And I’m starting to feel real sick.

  “This was a whole mess, Kash,” she says.

  “Yeah.” Disappointment curdles in my chest, but I mumble my way around it. “I probably got us both in trouble.” I risk a glance at our folks, who are grumbling from the sidewalk, before my gaze slides back down to the street. Okay, definitely in trouble. “Sorry.”

  “Was it worth it?” Something in Maya’s voice makes me look back up.

  She’s holding my rose.

  Our friends all gather in close, cheesing hard. Daed and Royce gesture at me furiously, and I realize I haven’t said anything back to her yet.

  “Yeah—er, no—yes!” Geez! What are words right now? “I mean: Yes. It was worth it.”

  Maya twirls the rose stem in her fingers. “So I guess you want an answer, huh?”

  “Please!” Royce groans.

  “Put this boy out his misery,” Vonchi adds.

  She shakes her head, disappears, only to return with the cake. The buttercream isn’t melted as bad as I thought. There’s Maya and me with our red jackets, greenish skin, and matching white gloves. Thriller zombies in kente suits dance in formation behind us. I can still read the words in undefeated cherry-red script:

  GO WITH ME 2 KWANZAA BALL!

  Vonchi pulls out a phone to record. Royce and Daed hold the cake. Pop’s eyes are full of love and dap and pride. And Maya’s dad doesn’t boil me out of my jersey.

  I knew this would work out!

  Maya leans in so close that her whisper tickles the baby hairs on my neck. “You get points for my zombie cake, bruh. But this looks like buttercream. I hate butter, Kash.” She grabs a corner of cake and smears it across my face. My friends all howl and rain jokes that will live on forever in video; our parents dab their eyes and smile. But I don’t care about the clowning, losing the Turkey Bowl, or even getting in trouble…

  Because Maya grabbed the right corner, the one that says “yes.”

  BUT ALSO, JAZZ

  BY JULIAN RANDALL

  After the service wraps up, my older cousin, Brandon, loosens his tie and comes over to me. Suits don’t really look right on him, even if he’s prolly done growing at seventeen. Brandon’s tall and wiry with a head full of waves, and looks way more at home in a black Champs hoodie than he ever does with a suit billowing around him. Grief don’t fit all the way right on anybody, at least not today.

  This morning’s service was for Tre, who was two grades above me. I didn’t know him well, but he used to make beats for Brandon sometimes, plus his mom and mine were in the same grade at Marshall Grove High. It’s the fifth funeral since the start of June, three weeks ago. During Tre’s service, we sang the same songs as we did for Bri after 12 got her last week, and Damon on the first day of June. Routine.

  “Yo, Mikkel, you maintaining?” Brandon says in his fake-casual flow.

  Maybe he’s just keeping an eye on me. Nah, scratch that, I know that voice—something’s up.

  “Coolin, I just…” I trail off.

  What is there to say I didn’t say last week, or the week before? The whole congregation even seems at a loss for words. I look around, and all that’s changed from last week is the photo. Nobody knows if this will be how the whole summer goes; no one wants to speak it into being. But we keep ending up here.

  “It’s okay not to be okay, Kel, you know that, right?” Brandon plops a palm on my shoulder. I’m grateful, but I shrug it off anyway.

  “Yeah, no doubt,” I say under my breath, scanning the congregation for my mom.

  If everything’s going according to routine, she finna pull up in a hot second and carpool me and Brandon and Aunty Toni back to our apartment building. We’ll sit for a while in the main room of Aunty Toni’s apartment, which smells like cinnamon and old newspapers and feels even more like home to me than our spot. We’ll all sit and eat to-go plates from the block party and Aunty Toni and Momma will take turns saying “beautiful service,” and me and Brandon will sneak away to his room to watch battle rap comps until it’s time to go. The rest of the day, Momma will try to be supportive, but man, she be right up under me, following me from room to room like a really emotional Roomba.

  But today Brandon’s got a nervous look on his face. Brandon’s never nervous. Something’s up.

  “Ma says that Pastor Sweat wants to see us in his office.” Brandon strokes his waves with a small brush as he says it.

  “Both of us? What did I do??” I try to keep the cold dread trickling down my back out of my voice, but it cracks into a weird squeak. Puberty really merciless out here.

  “Aight, well, technically he just asked Moms for me, but like, y’know, come for moral support, cuzzo?”

  “You buggin.” I snort, earning a glare from a passing church elder. Everybody’s a critic. “Look, Pastor Sweat cool and all, but I ain’t even do nothing!”

  “Dawg, neither did I…that he knows about…I think!” Brandon starts going even harder with the wave brush. “Just like, stay on my hip, you won’t even have to say nothing. Be in and out, no doubt?”

  Dang, he quoted the first rhyme I ever shared with him. Back when I was a lil homie and Brandon had first started rapping, I slid him my “hottest bars” to use. The thought of going onstage like Brandon makes me even more nervous than I am normally. But back when we were kids I loved watching him take the words I wrote and make them dance in a way my mouth never has been able to. They were all trash, but he told me to keep ’em coming, so I did. I think that�
��s when he became my best friend. I’d say favorite cousin, but it’s been just the two of us for as long as I can remember. If Brandon’s desperate enough to quote my own rhymes, he must think Pastor Sweat extra hot at him for something. Now I gotta go with him—it’s cousin law.

  “Y’know, one of these days that’s going to stop working,” I say, crossing my arms.

  “Is that day today?” Brandon straightens his tie.

  “Nah, not today. But one day—”

  “I’mma worry about one day when it’s one day, then.” Brandon laughs, and then more quietly: “Thanks, cuzzo. Let’s go see what Pastor Sweat wants.”

  * * *

  The important thing to know about Pastor Sweat is that his forehead be dry as a third grader’s toothbrush. We just call him Pastor Sweat because he looks like Keith Sweat. And both our moms love Keith Sweat, so I’m kind of an expert, feel me?

  Me and Brandon knock lightly on the door to Pastor Sweat’s office and hear his deep voice rumbling through the door. Inside, the office is cramped and smells like rose-scented candles and thick church robes. Which makes sense, because besides a tiny desk with some balled-up papers on it, that’s pretty much all that’s in there. Pastor Sweat raises his eyebrows when he sees me along with Brandon but cracks a weary smile anyway and gestures at the two stackable chairs in front of his desk. His nameplate shines, the words rev. dominic sharp in clean metallic font like a discount grill.

  “Hi, Pastor,” Brandon says, voice a little tight. “Before we get to talkin, I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry?” Pastor Sweat says, stroking the gray spot in his goatee. “But, Brandon, I—”

  “It only looked like I was sleep last Sunday. Allergies, y’know? Anybody who say otherwise is, uh, bearing false witness!”

  “Brandon, you’re not in trouble for that. All I’m trying to—”

  “And I never would’ve did anything to disrespect Tre, especially not at his homegoing,” Brandon says in a rush. “He was my homie. I only started rapping because he gave me beats. I mean, he was the one who told me about decibels, and that’s how I became—”

  “Decibull,” Pastor Sweat says, pinching the bridge of his nose as he says Brandon’s rap name, but smiling at the same time. “I’ve seen your tapes from Sunday Sixteens, young brother—you’ve got the gift. No doubting that; you’ve been blessed. I’m counting on it, actually.”

  “Whatchutalmbout, Pastor?” Brandon tips his head to the side. I’m curious, too.

  “Look, y’all, it’s no secret that these have been some challenging weeks for the congregation. From where I’m standing, everyone’s feeling a bit weary. So I have a request for you, Brandon. I’d like you to write a song for the congregation, and I’d like you to perform it at the church BBQ next Sunday. Think you could handle that?”

  Both our jaws hang open. Did our pastor just ask for a rap song? Shouldn’t he want…I don’t know, smooth R and B? Jazz? What do grown-ups listen to when they feel like no one is listening?

  “You listen to rap music?” I exclaim.

  “You listen to my music?” Brandon says, slow, like he’s tasting the words.

  “Y’all gotta stop looking so surprised before I get offended!” Pastor Sweat grins. “You know I’m not that old, right? Now, about this song idea…”

  “Hol up,” I hear myself say. “You want, like…”

  “Gospel rap?” Brandon finished.

  “Not necessarily. More just, something to remind our flock that joy will come in the morning, feel me? I’ve seen your videos, Brandon, and you’ve got a way with the crowd. I want some of that lyricism to give us a shot in the arm. It’s not a death sentence to be Black, but I think the way June’s gone, sometimes we can forget.”

  I shoot a look at Brandon, who is nodding, a slight frown on his face, the waves on his head glistening in the thin beam of light from the window. Pastor Sweat isn’t wrong. Since the summer started, I’d felt heavier and heavier. I’d look at Mr. Porter, from the building next door, or Brandon’s beat-making homie, Prodigious, or Momma and Aunty Toni; between the police and all these funerals, it feels like we’ll just keep getting heavier and heavier until the summer pulls us into the ground. Whatever might give folks a break from that has to be worth trying, and if anyone can do it, it’s my big cousin.

  Pastor Sweat stands up and leans on his desk.

  “So, fellas, what do you say? Think you can help us out?”

  * * *

  Aunty Toni is the last one into our faded blue Taurus. “A song for the church?!” she booms the minute the door creaks shut. “Can you believe it? Oh, baby, I’m so proud of you. My son, making music for the community. Ain’t that something?”

  “Absolutely!” Momma says, catching Brandon’s eye from the rearview mirror, the laugh lines near her eyes expanding and contracting like wings. “What do you think you’ll do come Sunday, nephew?”

  “Not sure yet, Titi,” Brandon mumbles, thumbing his wave brush. “I’m sure it’ll come to me tonight. It always does.”

  By the time we arrive back at Aunty Toni’s apartment and open their peeling olive-green door, Mom and her are talking about the service again. I love how their apartment always has two cinnamon candles burning, how the candles drape the whole room in pinked light like a sunrise. We pick at our to-go plates for a while, and eventually Brandon excuses himself to his room to go work on the track for the church BBQ. I can’t put my finger on it, but something is off with him. Then again, he looks normal enough on the outside, and his head is bobbing up and down like it does when he’s getting ready to catch the beat at Sunday Sixteens at Duke’s, the corner spot we all hang out at. I love kickin it with Brandon backstage, because everyone else always looks mad rattled by the crowd or the lights or the fear of not knowing what beat Duke is going to drop when it’s their turn—but my cousin feeds off it. Just kicks it backstage, not talking to nobody, just bobbing his head and—

  “His eyes,” I mutter to myself.

  “What you say, baby?” Aunty Toni says. “You want some more juice?”

  “Oh.” A wave of heat rolls up my face. “No thank you, ma’am. I was just thinking about a song.”

  “Y’know what, kiddo? Me too! I was just thinking, Willow, you remember that night back in ’89 when…”

  Aunty Toni keeps talking to Momma, but I’m lost in my thoughts. When we’re backstage, Brandon’s eyes are always moving back and forth like he’s reading something, like he can see the lines in his head. But now? His eyes look out of focus, like he can’t see anything. Maybe he’s sad about Tre, maybe it’s something else, but it worries me, seeing him like this. I feel like I’m in the shower and I’ve breathed in too much steam. The inside of my head is starting to feel hot and my thoughts are sprinting past each other when Momma shakes me by the shoulder.

  “Kel, baby? Are you all right?”

  “Huh?”

  “Your Aunty Toni asked you a question and you staring off like you seen a ghost. You feeling okay?”

  I shake my head a little to clear the fog and hitch a grin onto my face to calm Momma. “Sorry, Aunty, what was the question?”

  Aunty and Momma exchange a sidelong glance that looks eerily similar to the telepathic convo look me and Brandon get sometimes. Always weird to remember that’s where we got it from. They don’t look convinced by my answer, but Aunty Toni asks again.

  “I said, what you know about Earth, Wind and Fire, nephew?”

  “They’re…all elements in Avatar?” I say slowly.

  Aunty Toni sucks her teeth. Okay, wrong answer, my bad.

  “You see, Willow, kids these days don’t know a perfect song! A perfect song lift you up from wherever you’re at to wherever you need to go. Stirs your marrow up, and wherever you were when you heard it first, it can always take you back there. It ain’t always God, but
it’s always holy. When you come back up here on Wednesday for family dinner, I’ll show you a couple things, you hear?”

  “Sounds like a plan, Aunty,” I say.

  Me and Momma pick up our plates and wave off Aunty Toni’s usual “Oh, I’ll get those” as we scrub them clean at the sink in silence. We say our goodbyes and walk the three flights of stairs down to our apartment. It’s routine again. I tell Momma I’m tired and head to my room to read. But I’m not taking in a word of it, the words swimming in front of me like confused birds. I’m thinking about Brandon and how ever since we left Pastor Sweat’s office he barely said three sentences. I’m thinking about how I’ve never seen the hard lines of his face like that unless someone brings up his dad, Uncle Jimmy. I’m thinking how a couple floors above us, the cinnamon candle must be burning low, sputtering and flickering like always. But for the first time in our sad routine, Brandon looks afraid, like the shadows over him are growing and the light is running out.

  * * *

  Wednesday starts as a gray spill of morning. I wrestle an old orange Nike hoodie over my head and slip upstairs before Momma wakes up. It’s been two whole days since I heard anything from Brandon besides “hit you back later” or just “in studio.” Not that B isn’t ever busy, but Brandon always hits me back within a couple of hours. I’m starting to get worried.

  When I get to Brandon’s room, I knock softly.

  No answer.

  I knock again. Still nothing.

  The third knock finally gets a distant-sounding “Come in.” When I do, I find the floor blanketed with crumpled up pages. I walk toward Brandon, sitting at his desk erasing something, paper crinkling around my shoes like badly drawn snowflakes.

  “Oh, Kel. What’s good, cuzzo?” Brandon smiles weakly.

  “Man, what’s good with you?” I shoot back, a little louder than I mean to.