I realized that my Walkman was gone.
Understand this. I did not care about the mother-of-pearl earrings from my aunt that even my mother admitted were cheap. I did not care about the gold charm bracelet that my mother gave me when I turned sixteen—the other girls in my class had been collecting tennis racket and Star of David charms since they were eight. And of course the future value of nonfunctioning Swatches was just a theory. But Dahani, who had once harangued my mother into buying him seventy-five-dollar stereo headphones, understood what my Walkman meant to me.
Every summer since eighth grade, the nonprofit where my mom worked got me an office job with one of their corporate “partners.” I spent July and part of August in freezing cubicles wearing a garish smile, playing the part of Industrious Urban Youth. This summer it had been a downtown bank, where the ignoramus VPs and their ignoramus secretaries crowed over my ability to staple page one to two and guide a fax through the machine. If you think I was lucky I didn’t have to handle French fries or the public, you try staying awake for six hours at a desk with nothing to do except arrange rubber bands into a neat pile. It was death.
Most of the money I made every summer went for new school uniforms and class trips. The only thing I bought that I cared about was the most expensive top-of-the-line Walkman. I had one for each summer I’d worked, and all three were gone. I turned on my lamp, folded my arms, and decided that I could wait up even if my mother couldn’t.
The next day I hovered around the living room window waiting for Aja to appear on my block and also hoping that she wouldn’t. I needed to tell someone about my brother. But on the other hand, Aja had the potential to be not so understanding. She had two parents: a teacher and an accountant who never drank beer from cans. They went to church and had a Standard Poodle called Subwoofer. It was true that sometimes we were so lonely that we told each other things. I had told her that I liked my brother’s dirty magazines and she told me that she didn’t like black guys because once her cousin pushed her in a closet and pulled out his dick. But whenever we made confessions like these, the next time we met up it was like those mouthwash commercials where couples wake up next to each other embarrassed by their breath. Besides, I didn’t want her to pronounce my crack-smoking brother “ghetto,” not even with her eyes.
He lied, he lied, he lied. Dahani, who used to make up raps with me and record them, who comforted me the one time we met our father, who seemed bored and annoyed, and once, back when we were both in public school, beat up a little boy for calling me an African bootyscratcher. That brother, said calmly, “I didn’t take any of your stuff, Nzingha. What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking: what the hell is going on? I’m thinking: where are my Walkmans? I’m thinking: where are you all the time?”
“I’m out. You should go there sometimes.” He laughed his high-pitched laugh, the one that said how absurd the world is.
“Okay, so you supposedly went to the movies tonight, right? What happens to Gator at the end of Jungle Fever?” I asked.
“Ossie Davis shoots him.”
“That’s right. The crackhead dies. Remember that,” I said.
“Crackhead?” Dahani sounded his laugh again. I didn’t realize how angry I was until I felt the first hot tear roll down my cheek.
I stomped out, leaving his door open. That was an old maneuver, something we did to piss each other off when we lost a fight. But then I thought of something and went back in there. He wouldn’t admit that he’d taken my things. But he agreed that if I didn’t say anything to our mother, he’d take me to the pool. He could only take me at night after it closed, and only if I kept my mouth shut about going.
That night, a Friday, we made our mother’s day by convincing her we were going to hang out on South Street together. Then, as it was getting dark, Dahani and I walked silently toward 47th Street. A clump of figures looked menacing at the corner until we got close and saw that they couldn’t have been more than fifth graders. We slowed down to let a thin, pungent man rush past us. Even though the night air was thick enough to draw sweat, the empty streets reminded me that summer was ending.
“Is anybody else coming?” I asked finally. “Jason?”
“I haven’t seen that nigger in months. Ever since he pledged, he turned into a world-class faggot.” Jason, my brother’s best friend from Friends Select, the only other black boy in his class, had started at Morehouse the same time my brother had gone to Oberlin.
“So it’s just going to be us and the security guard?” I had worn a bathing suit under my clothes, but felt weird about stripping down in front of the character Aja described.
“Look,” my brother said, “be cool, okay?”
“Cool like you?”
“You know, Nzingha, this is not the best time of my life either.”
“But it could be. You could go back to school,” I said, teetering on the edge of a place we hadn’t been.
“It’s not that fucking easy! Do you understand everything Mom’s done for me already?”
“Don’t talk to me like that.”
“Let’s just go where we’re going.”
We passed under a buzzing streetlight that could die at any moment. I had a feeling I knew from nightmares where I boarded the 42 bus in the daytime and got off in the dark. In the dreams I heard my sneakers hit the ground and I thought I would die of loneliness.
We finally reached the tall wooden gate with its warning about getting towed. In a low voice that was forceful without being loud, Dahani called out to someone named Roger. The gate opened and Dahani nearly pushed me into a tall, skinny man with a tan face and eyes that sparkled even in the near dark.
“Hey man, hey man,” he kept saying, pulling my brother in for a half-hug.
“What’s up, Roger?” said Dahani. “This is my sister.”
“Hey, sister,” he said and tried to wink, but the one eye took the other with it.
I looked around. It was nicer than the dingy gray tiles and greenish walls at the Y pool, but to tell the truth, it was nothing special. I’d been going to pool parties at Barrett since sixth grade and I’d seen aqua-tiled models, tropical landscaping, one or two retractable ceilings. This was just a standard rectangle bordered by neat cream-colored asphalt on either side. There were a handful of deck chairs on each side and tall fluorescent lamps. This is what they were keeping us out of?
A bunch of white guys with skater hair and white-boy fades drank 40s and nodded to a boombox playing A Tribe Called Quest at the deep end near the diving board. Then nearby enough to hover but not to crowd, were the girls, who wore berry-colored bikinis. I thought of my prudish navy-blue one-piece. There was a single black girl sitting on the edge of the pool in a yellow bathing suit, dangling her feet in the water.
“Aja?” I called.
“Nzingha?” she replied, sounding disappointed.
Then I recognized Jess, who seemed not to see me until I was practically standing on top of her. Actually, this happened nearly every time we met. “Hey,” she said finally. “I thought that was you.” She always said something like that.
“What are you doing here?” Aja asked.
“My brother brought me.”
“That’s your brother?” Jess gestured with her head to Dahani, who stood with his hands in his pockets while Roger pantomimed wildly.
“You know him?” I asked.
“He’s down with my boys,” she said. I tried not to wince. “Speaking of which, hey, Adam! Can you bring Nzingha something to drink?”
We looked toward the end of the pool with the boys and the boombox. One of them, with a sharp-looking nose and a mop of wet blond hair sweeping over his eyes, yelled back: “Get it for her yourself!”
Jess’s face erupted in pink splotches. “He’s an incredible asshole,” she said.
“And this is news?” said one of the other girls. She had huge breasts, a smashed-in face, and a flat voice. Suddenly I remembered the name Adam. Aja had a flaming crush o
n him for nearly a year, and then Jess had started going out with him on and off. Last I heard they were off, but now Aja liked to pretend she’d never mentioned liking him.
“I don’t want anything to drink anyway,” I said.
Aja asked if I was going to swim and I don’t remember what I said because I was watching my brother walk down to the end of the pool where the boys were, trading pounds with wet hands. He reached into a red cooler and pulled out a 40. Roger stayed at the tall wooden gate.
“They think they’re gangsters,” Jess said, rolling her eyes in their general direction. “They call themselves the Gutter Boys. All they do is come here and smoke weed.”
“That’s not all,” the girl with the smashed-in face said with a smirk.
“Is my brother here a lot?” I asked.
“I’ve only seen him once. But this is only the third time I’ve been here, you know, after hours.”
My brother didn’t seem interested in swimming. I didn’t even know if he was wearing trunks. Instead he walked with a stocky swaggering boy toward the darkness of the locker room. Don’t go back there, I wanted to scream. But all I did was stand there in my street clothes at the water’s edge.
Adam cried out, “Chickenfight!”
“Not again,” said smashed-in face. “I’m way too fucked up.”
Adam swam over to us. “Look, Tanya, you’ll do it again if you wanna get high later.”
Tanya’s friend murmured something to her quietly. Tanya laughed and said, “Hey, Adam, what about this?” Then she and her friend began kissing. At first just their lips seemed to brush lightly, and then the quiet girl pulled her in fiercely. I stepped back, feeling an unpleasant arousal. The boys became a cursing, splashing creature moving toward us. “Dayummm!” called Roger, who began running over.
“Keep your eye on the gate, dude!” yelled one of the boys.
“Okay, you big lesbians get a pass,” said Adam when they finally broke apart. Then he turned to Jess. “What can you girls do for me?”
“I think we’re going to stick with the chickenfight,” said Aja, giggling. She still liked him. I could not relate.
While they sorted out who would carry whom, my brother emerged from the locker room. I waited until he and the stocky boy had parted ways before I began walking over.
“Dahani,” I called in a sharp voice.
“You ready to go?” he asked. I examined him. He didn’t seem jittery and he wasn’t sweating. This was what I knew of smoking crack from the movies.
“What are you looking at?” he asked.
I glanced back at the pool, where Adam, laughing, held Jess under the water. Aja sat forlornly on the shoulders of a round boy with flame-colored hair waiting for the fight to start. “I’m ready to go,” I said.
When Roger closed the gate the pool disappeared, and though “Looking at the Front Door” sounded raucous bouncing off the water, I couldn’t hear anything at all.
“Are you smoking crack?” I blurted.
Dahani came to a full stop and looked at me. “This is the last time I think I’m going to answer that dumb-ass question. No.”
“Are you selling it?”
He sighed in annoyance. “Nzingha. No.”
“But something isn’t right.”
“No, nothing is right,” Dahani said. “But this is where I get off.” We had reached my mother’s house. He kept walking up the dark street.
It wasn’t until a couple of nights later that Dahani didn’t show up for dinner. My mother, who barely touched the pizza I ordered, kept walking to the front window and peering out.
When it began getting dark, I slapped my forehead. “Oh my God!” I said.
My mother looked at me with wild round eyes. “What?”
Without biting the inside of my cheek, I said, “I totally forgot. He said to tell you he wouldn’t be home until really late.”
“Where is he?”
“Don’t know.”
My mother folded her arms. “Thanks for almost letting me have a heart attack.”
“Mom, he’s a grown man.”
“Nzingha,” she said, “what is this thing with you and your brother?”
I didn’t answer.
“You don’t seem to realize that he’s having a really hard time. I mean I’m the one stuck with loans from his year at college. I’m the one supporting his grown-ass now and I’m the one who’s going to have to take out more loans to send him back. So what’s your issue?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Can I go upstairs?”
“You really need to change your attitude. And not just about this.”
“Can I go upstairs?” I said again.
My mother and I sometimes had strained conversations. It was she and Dahani who had fireworks. But now she looked so angry she almost shook. “Go ahead and get the hell out of my sight!” And I did, hating this.
That night I wasn’t sure if I was sleeping or not. I kept imagining the nightmare bright scene at the pool, those girls kissing, my brother disappearing into the back. Night logic urged me that I had to go back there. After my mother was in bed with her TV timer on, I climbed out of bed and dressed. Then excruciatingly, silently, I closed the front door. I plunged into darkness and walked the three blocks as fast as I could.
“Roger,” I called at the gate, trying to imitate my brother’s masculine whisper. I tapped the wood. There was a pause and then the tall gate wrenched open.
“Where’s Dahani?” Roger said, waving me inside. His clothes were soaked and he was in stocking feet. “Oh God. You didn’t bring Dahani?”
I felt my legs buckle, and only because Roger’s sweaty hand clamped over my mouth was I able to swallow a scream. I had seen only one dead body in real life, at my great-grandmother’s wake. Though with her papery skin and tiny doll’s limbs, she’d never seemed quite alive. I’d never seen a dead body floating in water, but I knew what I was seeing when I saw Jess’s naked corpse bob up and down peacefully. I ran to the water’s edge near the diving board. There was a wet spot of something on the edge of the pool that looked black in the light.
Roger began pacing a tiny circle, moaning.
“Did you call 911?” I asked him.
“It was an accident. They’re gonna think—”
“What if she’s alive?” I said.
Roger suddenly loomed in front of me with clenched fists. “No cops! And she’s not alive! Why didn’t you bring Dahani?”
In the same way I knew things in dreams, I knew he hadn’t done it. Not even in a Lenny in Of Mice and Men way. But I needed to get away from his panic. I spoke slowly. “It’s okay. I’ll go get him.”
“You’ll bring him here?”
Before I let myself out through the tall gate, I watched Roger slump to the side of the pool and sit Indian style with his head in his hands. I took one last look at Jess. Later I wished that I hadn’t.
I found myself at Aja’s house. It was after midnight, but I rang the bell, hoping somehow that she might answer the door instead of her parents. I heard the dog barking and clicking his long nails excitedly on the floor.
Aja’s dad, a short yellow man with a mustache and no beard, answered the door. “Zingha? Now you know it’s too late. Does your mom know—”
“Mr. Bell, I really need to see Aja.”
“Are you serious, girl?” Then he started pushing the door shut. The dog was going crazy.
“Aja!” I screamed.
Her mother appeared. She grabbed Subwoofer’s collar with one hand and pulled him up short. He whimpered and I felt bad for him. All I’d ever known him to attack with was his huge floppy tongue.
“Shut up and get in here,” she said.
Aja’s father moved off to the side but he wasn’t happy about it. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked her.
“Quiet, you!” she responded. She was nearly a head taller than he was, with eggplant-colored lips and very arched eyebrows.
“Look, Nzingha,” she sai
d, “Aja’s not here. We don’t know where she is.”
I shook my head frantically. “We have to find her! You don’t know what’s going on. There’s a—”
“Stop talking and listen,” she said, getting louder. “If anyone comes around asking where my daughter is, tell them the truth. That she has disappeared and that we are very worried. Mr. Bell will walk you home.”
Mr. Bell fumed as he escorted me. “I guess there’s no point in any more stupid fucking shit happening,” he muttered. I didn’t answer; he wasn’t talking to me.
I let myself in as quietly as I had left, shocked by the thick silence of the house. I tried not to imagine Jess’s closed eyes, her blood on the asphalt. I had to remind myself that she was dead, so she couldn’t be as cold as she looked. I tried to tell myself that her floating body, Dahani, and Aja were in another world.
But the next morning I learned that my mother hadn’t been home. She’d been down at the precinct with my brother.
By the time the police had arrived at the pool, Roger was nearly dead. He had tried to drown himself. He couldn’t answer questions about Jess from his coma, but the police knew he hadn’t done it.
It seemed to me, from what I managed to read before my mother started hiding the papers, that Jess’s death had been an accident. But her dad was a lawyer and Aja was dragged back from an aunt’s house in Maryland to do eighteen months in the Youth Detention Center. I went to visit her once that winter, in the dim, echoing room that reminded me of the cafeteria at our elementary school. I didn’t tell my mother where I was going. She hadn’t let me go to the trial.
Aja and I made painful small talk about how the food was destroying her stomach and about her first encounter with a bed bug. She said fuck more than usual and her skin looked gray.
Then she blurted, “I didn’t do it.”
“I know,” I said.
“Things just got crazy.” She told me about that night. Everyone had been drinking, including her, and Adam called for another chickenfight.
“First I fought that girl Tanya and I beat her easy. Then it was me and Jess. But I had won the time before, the night you came, you remember?”
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