“Mama,” I whispered. “Make them send the old Charlie home.”
Ty’ree stuck his head in the door. Bright light from the hall came in with him.
“Yo, yo, yo,” he said. “Time to get up and eat, sleepyhead.”
“What time’s it?”
“Little bit after seven. You feel like going to the movies tonight after we eat?”
I sat up, rubbed my eyes, and nodded. “See what?”
Ty’ree shrugged. “I don’t know. Figured we’d go downtown to the Quad and see what’s playing.”
“I don’t want to see no art movie. You always want to take me to see those boring old art movies. Half the time I don’t even know what they’re about.”
Ty’ree shook his head and smiled. “You’ll figure it out someday.”
“I don’t want to figure it out someday. I want to see a movie I can figure out while I’m watching it. Only reason you asking me is ‘cause nobody else’ll go with you.”
“Only reason I’m taking you to the Quad is ‘cause I’m not gonna spend eight fifty on some karate movie or action feature about some outer-space somebody wanting to blow up the Earth.”
I grinned. “It could happen, you know. We don’t really know about life on other planets.”
“And we ain’t gonna find out about it tonight. Come on and wash up. I got food almost on the table.”
He disappeared out the door, and I got up and went to the bathroom.
Going to the art movies with Ty’ree wasn’t really that bad. If we saw something that was way deep, he’d always figure out a way to break it down for me.
Ty’ree had fried chicken and made mashed potatoes and corn with red peppers in it. He’d fixed me and him a plate and put two slices of bread on mine because I eat bread with everything.
I sat down at the dining-room table. “We got any soda, T?”
“Ginger ale,” Ty’ree called from the kitchen. “You want some?”
I frowned, not even knowing why I asked. It was the only kind of soda Ty’ree bought when he went shopping. If I had some extra money, I’d pick up a big bottle of orange or grape soda. I hadn’t had extra money in a while.
“Nah. Just water, please.”
Ty‘ree came out with two big glasses of ice water and sat down across from me. We ate for a while without saying anything. Ty’ree’d learned to cook from Mama and from reading cookbooks. There were always two or three cookbooks in the bathroom, because he usually read them in there the way most people read the sports section or magazines.
“You say grace?” he asked me.
I closed my eyes. “Thank you, oh Lord and Ty’ree, for getting me something good to eat before I starved to death dreaming of fish. Amen.”
When I opened my eyes, Ty’ree was smiling. I smiled back.
“You really dreamed about fish?”
I nodded.
“Aunt Cecile would tell us to play a number,” Ty’ree said. “Fish is supposed to mean something. I remember her talking to somebody about it, saying she’d dreamed about fish one night and played whatever number it was and then two days later she hit for like three hundred dollars.”
“What number was it?”
Ty’ree shrugged. “Even if I knew, we wouldn’t play. Figure if Aunt Cecile hit for three hundred, she must
have lost about six hundred—as much as she plays and as little as she hits.” Ty’ree picked up his chicken wing, took a bite, and chewed slowly.
“In the dream Newcharlie came along and knocked the bucket of fish outa my hand,” I said. “You figure they got a number for brothers knocking fish outa your hand?”
Ty’ree didn’t say anything for a minute. He was holding the chicken wing in his hand and had a far-away look about him. I was sorry I had even mentioned it. It was only a stupid dream anyway.
“You know I don’t like you calling him that, Laf.”
“He calls me worse. And that’s who he is anyway. That ain’t the same brother left this house that night.”
“None of us are.”
“But we didn’t get evil.” I stirred my potatoes around on my plate, not wanting to look at him.
“You got quiet,” Ty’ree said. “You don’t hardly leave the house.”
“I hang with Smitty and PJ sometimes and sit on the stoop—”
“You used to play, Laf.”
“Well, I was a little kid then.”
Ty’ree shook his head. “You used to laugh all the time and make jokes and play freeze tag and handball. You used to always have something new to tell me or show me. You used to go to Poncho’s and come back with potato chips and soda and go across the street to talk to people.”
“Poncho don’t want us in there after Charlie robbed him.”
Ty’ree looked at me. “You know that’s not true.”
I stared at my plate. After Newcharlie got home, we all went around the corner to Poncho’s and Charlie apologized. Poncho said he didn’t hold any bad feelings ’cause Charlie had done his time. I loved your mother, Poncho said. You’re welcome here. All of you.
“I don’t like candy and stuff anymore anyway,” I said.
“Yes you do, Laf. Don’t lie. And what about the other stuff? What about how you used to come home and talk about everything you did and saw—”
“I was just a little kid! Little kids do that stuff.”
“Nah,” Ty’ree said. “That’s not why.”
I didn’t say anything. Ty’ree thought he knew it all, but he didn’t. He didn’t know anything.
“You changed too!”
“I know. I stuck my head into my job, raising you and Charlie. And Charlie, I don’t know. He went somewhere inside himself. You see it. See the way he sits there staring off sometimes.”
I nodded, remembering all the times I woke to find Newcharlie sitting on the edge of his bed, with his hands hanging down between his knees, just staring out the window. “What’s he thinking about anyway? When he stares like that?”
Ty’ree shook his head. “Maybe Rahway. Maybe Mama. Maybe me and you.”
“He’s not thinking about me. At least nothing I’d want to get inside his head and hear.”
“He say where he was going?” Ty’ree asked.
“Uh-uh.”
“He didn’t say what time he’d be back either, did he?”
“Nah.”
“You rather I put you in my room and share your room with Charlie?”
I looked up at Ty’ree trying to see if he was mad or serious. His face was calm, like he just wanted everything to be over with already.
“Nah. It ain’t so bad no more. He don’t speak to me is all.”
“How come you don’t just ignore him? Make like he’s not even there.”
“ ‘Cause he wasn’t here for years!” I hadn’t meant to yell. ” ‘Cause,” I said, almost whispering. ” ‘Cause I want Charlie back. I want my brother. I want him to see me. And I want him not to think I... I was the reason Mama died. I wasn’t the reason.”
Ty‘ree frowned and stopped eating. “He still saying that? I told that boy I’d—”
“No,” I lied. “He don’t say it anymore. But I know he still thinks it.”
“Look, Lafayette.” Ty’ree rubbed his hand over his head and sighed. “You weren’t the reason. Mama had—”
“I should have called somebody! I should have tried to get her breathing again. I just sat there calling to her. Just sat there waiting for her to wake up. And Newcharlie knows it. He knows I got scared and froze up.”
“She was gone before you got there, Lafayette. I don’t know what’s gonna make you hear that it wasn’t your fault.”
“Charlie would’ve known what to do. Like that time with that dog that got hit by the car. He found some cardboard and put the dog on it, real careful ‘cause he said the dog might have some broken bones. Then he got me to help him lift the dog over to the sidewalk. He made me call the animal emergency people. I wanted to stay there, but he made me go, told m
e to run.” I looked up at Ty’ree. “By the time I got back, Charlie was holding the dog’s head on his lap. The animal emergency people said that was the right thing to do. And then that stupid dog had to go and die anyway.”
Ty‘ree nodded. Every day Charlie would call the ASPCA to see if that dog was still living. And every night he’d ask Mama if we could adopt it. Mama said no ’cause me and her had allergies, and even if we didn’t, our building didn’t allow pets. Then one day the ASPCA told Charlie that the dog hadn’t made it. That’s what the guy said, The dog didn’t make it, like the dog was on its way someplace or meeting somebody for lunch. “Didn’t make it” is a stupid way to say something died. Charlie stayed in our room all afternoon. When he came out that night, Mama asked him how he was feeling.
Like nothing, Charlie said. I don’t feel like nothing anymore.
Now Ty’ree looked at me, waiting for me to say something. I shrugged and stared down at my plate. Mama had been warm that morning. Warm like a person sleeping. Warm like that dog still was when we lifted it over to the curb. And when the stupid doctor told us Mama didn’t make it, I felt like nothing, too. Like I could just dry up and disappear.
“I know I told you this a lot of times,” Ty‘ree said. “And I know other people have said it, too. But I’m gonna keep saying it, ’cause I know you need to keep hearing it. There wasn’t anything you could have done, Lafayette.”
“Miss Roberts from down the hall came first,” I whispered. “I was screaming and she came and banged on the door. I was still screaming, but I got up to let her in.”
Ty’ree didn’t say anything, so I went on.
“She tried to blow in Mama’s mouth. She told me to call 911. I was crying. I couldn’t go at first. I wanted to stay there with Mama.”
“But then you went,” Ty’ree said.
I looked up at him. “It took them a real long time to come.”
“But you called them and they came, Laf. You called them and they came.”
Me and Ty’ree sat there staring at our plates. I wasn’t hungry anymore. I wanted to be out of the house suddenly, away from that day. I wanted to be in a dark theater somewhere, far away from our apartment. Far away from those men carrying Mama down the stairs while Miss Roberts held me and cried.
“Can we go to the movies now, T?”
Ty’ree nodded. “You want to see a blow-up-the-world movie?”
I shook my head. “Nah. Not really. I don’t care if I have to think real hard. No subtitles though. Can stay home to read.”
I looked up at Ty‘ree and he smiled. I tried to smile back, but my lips felt quivery, so I got up and took our plates to the kitchen, wrapped foil around mine, and put it in the refrigerator for later. Ty’ree had pretty much finished his.
I sat on the couch and tried not to think of anything while Ty’ree got dressed. The rain was tapping hard against the window. Like somebody trying to get my attention. Like somebody trying to get inside.
EIGHT
ME AND TY‘REE WALKED THE FOUR BLOCKS TO the train station without saying anything. He bought me two tokens using a bunch of change in his pocket. He had a MetroCard for himself since he went to work every day. The MetroCard let him ride the train as much as he liked for just a one-time charge. As he stood there counting out the change, I remembered him and Mama at the dining-room table adding and re-adding and trying to make the money go further than it was likely to go. I stood at the token booth with my hands in my pockets trying not to notice the people standing in line behind Ty’ree getting impatient.
When the train finally came, I took a seat by the window and stared out at the rainy darkness until the train went back into the tunnel and took us downtown.
I tried not to think about how poor we were, but when we got off at Fourteenth Street and walked up the stairs, all the lights from the stores hit me. There were toys and clothes in the windows and people dressed in nice warm coats and hats or getting out of fancy cars. As we walked along Fourteenth Street, I remembered the first time I realized we were poor. I was in third grade and my teacher gave everybody in the class a letter to take home. When Mama got home from work that night, I gave her the letter and sat beside her on the couch while she read it. I tried to read over her shoulder, but there were a lot of words typed real small. After Mama finished reading the letter, she folded it up—again and again until it was real tiny.
“If your teacher asks about it,” she said, taking the letter to the kitchen and putting it in the trash, “you tell her we don’t need anybody’s Fresh Air Fund. You tell her we appreciate her thoughts though. You hear me, Lafayette?”
I had followed her as far as the kitchen doorway and stood there leaning against it nodding, not sure what she was talking about.
“What’s Fresh Air Fund?” I asked.
Mama sighed and started washing the dishes left over from breakfast. She ran some hot water over them then rubbed Ivory soap on a washcloth before answering.
“It’s a camp,” she said.
“I want to go to camp.”
“It’s a camp for kids whose parents can’t afford to send them somewhere else. For poor kids.”
I watched Mama wash dishes and let the words sink in.
“Are we poor?” I asked.
“Poor enough,” Mama said. She scratched her forehead with her soapy hand, then wiped the soap away with her arm. “But not that poor. And we won’t always be this way, either.”
When I was a baby, we all went to Bayamón, Puerto Rico, for my grandmother’s funeral. Ty’ree said Puerto Rico was like what pictures of Paradise look like—all green and warm and pure. Mama always promised we’d go back again one summer when we had enough money.
“We ain’t ever gonna have enough money,” Charlie had said.
“Yes we will, Charlie,” Mama told him. She pressed her hand against his cheek.
“When?” I asked, wanting to feel her hand on my cheek. Wanting her to look in my eyes and promise we’d have enough money.
“Soon,” Mama said, still keeping her hand on Charlie’s cheek. “Soon.”
But it seemed most days we barely had enough money to pay the rent, let alone fly to Paradise.
“Soon ain’t coming soon enough,” Charlie said. We were poorer now. Sometimes if Ty‘ree didn’t figure money out right or if something came up—like the time I lost three textbooks and had to pay for them before I could get new ones—we’d end up having stuff I didn’t much care to eat, like cornbread that Ty’ree stretched with flour, and powdered vegetable soup with pieces of hot dogs in it. Or sometimes Ty’ree would send me to the store around the corner for seventy-five cents’ worth of spiced ham and fifty cents’ worth of cheese—enough for two sandwiches, three if you cut the meat in half and used a lot of mayonnaise. We got food stamps from the city and a little bit of money once a month, but there was always something one of us needed that seemed to cost just a little bit more than we had.
“You wish we were rich, T?”
Ty’ree nodded. “Every day. Maybe not every day, but most days.”
“How come?”
“Life would just be easier. I could go to school.”
Me and Ty‘ree walked by a group of boys passing a bottle around on the corner of Fourteenth Street and Sixth Avenue. I eyed them, and one of them eyed me back, then said, “W’s up.” Me and Ty’ree said what’s up back. They reminded me of Newcharlie and his friends hanging out on the corner of my block. I’d seen them in the same position—huddled in a circle passing a bottle of beer around. I wondered if that’s what Newcharlie was doing right now. I missed him suddenly. He’d never come with us to see an art flick, though. He said they bored the living mess out of him.
“It ain’t my fault you’re not in college, you know.”
“Nobody’s blaming anybody, Laf,” Ty’ree said, sounding tired and old. “You just asked a question and I answered it. That’s all.”
It had stopped raining and gotten a little bit colder out now I pulled
my coat sleeves down over my hands. A limousine drove past us slowly, and I wondered if there was a famous rapper inside. Rappers and basketball players were always talking about buying their mamas houses and cars. If Newcharlie became a rapper, I wondered what he’d buy us. I looked down at my boots. They were black and scuffed. Ty’ree had promised he’d have some money to get me another pair in two weeks. The boots felt kind of tight too. They made me remember that guy David and the shoehorn.
After Mama died, we started getting some money from the state. I think we got some when Daddy died too, but I’m not sure. When the checks came, Ty‘ree usually used them to pay rent and buy food. He used the money he made at work to buy us clothes and school supplies. After the textbook thing he started trying to put a little in the bank for hard times. Sometimes I sat at the dining-room table with him and helped him figure stuff out. By the time we got through figuring, there wasn’t much left over. On pay-days, if the rent wasn’t due, Ty’ree always made sure there was some left to see a movie or rent a video. And sometimes we’d stop at McDonald’s or get a slice of pizza. I looked at Ty‘ree. He was walking with his head down and frowning, like he was thinking serious about things. He needed a haircut, so his hair kind of fell toward his forehead a little. I looked down at his sneakers. They were old and dirty-looking. He’d bought them before Mama died. They were Adidas but the kind nobody wore anymore. I moved a little bit closer to him, wondering if people could tell we were poor. He couldn’t go back to school. Not right now anyway. Because of me. Because of Newcharlie. He couldn’t quit his job, and he couldn’t go at night ’cause the caseworker would be on us talking about how me and Newcharlie were home alone too much. The only way he’d be able to go to college was if me and Newcharlie went to live down south.
“I don’t like being poor, T.”
Ty’ree looked at me. “We won’t always be this way. You know that. It’s just a temp thing.”
He put his arm around my shoulder and I nodded. But I didn’t see a way out. Just years and years of us this way. Us moving in a circle. A circle called Time.
“Ty’ree,” I said. “That guy David from Rahway? He ever killed anybody with that shoehorn?” I wanted to change the subject, to stop thinking about being poor.
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