The Shooting

by James Boice

  Sneaking out tonight with Raul and Kenny, parents think he sleeping over at Kenny’s and technically he is, but first they getting pizza, and then they standing in line outside the store waiting for those new Jordans to drop at three A.M.. Raul’s giving an in-depth account of this girl who let him fingerbang her last night, this pretty Jamaican girl named Tiyah—she was moaning all loud and I had my hand over her mouth because her grandma was right out there in the living room—but Clayton thinking about nothing but getting those shoes on his feet. More accurately, he thinking about getting them on his feet and seeing Stacey tomorrow night. She invited him to her friend’s birthday party. He gonna take the train across the river and he thinking maybe he’ll get a cab from the station and pick her up in it. Like a man. Yeah, he gonna hold her hand back there while he give the driver directions. He gonna pay for it using some of that money he buying these Jordans with, scratch his dad been throwing his way out the Christmas gifts the tenants give him each year, and supplemental scratch he himself been earning delivering for the diner on Greenwich Ave. weekends, and then when they get to the birthday party he gonna get out his side, hustle around to hers, and open the door for her. He gonna help her out, close the door behind her. He gonna tell her she beautiful and offer his arm and walk her into the party.

  Stacey. Stacey Magnolia. Met Stacey Magnolia at her dad’s hardware store on the corner where she was working the counter. He and his pops were painting 13F and they ran out of paint, Pops sent him to the corner for more. That apartment nasty. An old rich dude name Max been living there alone forever. Max act like a little kid, Clayton first thought he retarded or something, but Dad said that just how you get when you drink too much. Max used to make commercials, but now he just sit around his house smoking cigarettes and drinking and watching TV and telling whoever there to listen about when he used to make commercials. Dude smokes so much that the once-white walls were now brown, so Clayton’s pops had to come paint them. Dirty dishes in the sink, old fuzzy-ass food up in the fridge (Clayton peeked). It was middle of the summer. Hot. Humid. The paint took forever to dry. What should have been a two-day job took three days, then four days.

  —Shit, Clayton said in the middle of the third day, taking a water break and toweling off his dripping head, —this is stupid, we shouldn’t be doing this.

  His dad didn’t answer.

  —Ain’t our fault dude smoked so much his damned walls turned brown.

  —No, it’s not.

  —We could hire it out, send Dave the bill. He won’t mind, we’ve done it before.

  —We could.

  —Then what we doing it for?

  —I don’t know.

  —What you mean you don’t know?

  —I mean, there is reason. I just don’t know what reason. It has not made itself apparent. But it will, when it wants. Now get yourself to the store before it closes, we need that paint.

  His dad. Straight up batshit sometimes. Used to be a doctor, back in his home country. They won’t let him be one here. Has to be a janitor instead. Who knows why he left. Things couldn’t have been that bad over there to go from doctor to janitor, could they?

  He bounced down to the store, feeling like a doofus in his painting clothes. He was dressed like Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction, after they clean up the bloody car and trash their suits, and the Wolf sprays him and John Travolta down with the garden hose and they put on random T-shirts and old gym shorts. You guys going to a volleyball game or something? People in this neighborhood are fancy, dress nice, always, everyone always looks like some sexy person from the movies.

  When he got to the store, instead of ugly old Hector behind the counter there was this banging girl. Body incredible. Face so pretty, with these big, shiny, dark eyes and juicy lips. Clayton could barely look at her, she so fine, but from what he could tell she was about his age. One thing he learn from his dad aside from how to be a doormat for the rich and the white is to never be afraid of anyone. So as she rang up his can of paint, who care if she outta his league? He chat her up, ask her about herself. —What’s your life story? he said. Something else he picked up from his dad. His dad always saying that to people. She seem so sweet and nice and smart, and they were definitely vibing, you could feel that. When Clayton returned with the paint, he must have had a big dumb grin on his face because his dad looked at him all suspicious, came over and got real close and started examining his eyes and smelling him. —What did you do? Who got you high?

  —I ain’t high, Dad. I’m in love.

  And his dad turned back to the wall he was painting and, smiling a little, said, —Aha. Now we know reason for job.

  Hippie-ass dude.

  That was last summer. She live across the river in New Jersey, they been talking on the phone all year, writing letters and chatting and texting. She had a boyfriend for a little while and that hurt, he was depressed for a week, but then they broke up. Every Saturday he find a reason to go in there in case she there. Went to see Fast and Furious together. Kissed for the first time during it. Few weekends later her parents were going to be out of town the whole day, did he want to come over? She hadn’t gotten the sentence out her mouth before he was outside her house knocking on her door. Took him two hours on subways and PATH train and buses and it felt like four, but he’da gone to Mars if that’s where she lived. They got naked together. Naked. It was the greatest thing that ever happened to him. When he left they were a couple, it was official, boyfriend and girlfriend. That journey back home felt like it took eight seconds.

  —My friend, she said on the phone that night when he called, —he gonna have a birthday party end of summer. His parents are gonna be gone. It’s gonna be real. And, baby? That night? I want to do it. With you.

  —Do what? he say.

  She laughed. —You so stupid.

  Then he understood. He a real idiot sometimes. For real. He go, —Really? All excited, voice all high.

  She say, —Really.

  He wanted to run around outside telling everybody: She wanna do it with me, she wanna do it with me! Ever since then, whenever he sees them, he been grabbing handfuls of those NYC condoms they put out on counters in bodegas. He must have fifty of them stashed in a shoe box among his Jordans.

  —You ever done it before? he say.

  —Nuh-uh. Have you?

  —Nuh-uh.

  —Yeah, right.

  —I’m serious. You believe me?

  —Yeah, I believe you. You believe me?

  —I believe you. I’m kinda nervous.

  —Me too.

  —It’ll be all right.

  —I know it will. I can’t wait.

  He on the phone, playing some game he addicted to. Kenny brought a lawn chair and Bluetooth speakers, playing Kendrick on repeat; Raul think Kendrick trash, he call it white-girl shit, he say street niggas don’t listen to that skinny-jean motherfucker, but Kenny can’t get enough of it and Clayton agree with Kenny but act like he agree with Raul. It two A.M. Shoes drop at three. Kenny and Raul are gonna turn around and sell theirs, already have buyers lined up online, but Clayton would never sell his—well, maybe he would if the birthday party wasn’t tomorrow.

  Drunk white people stumble by, asking what everyone standing in line for. Smiling men, pretty women. Raul answer them with a straight face, —Gang bang, and Kenny and Clayton crack up, white people continue on they way, not knowing if they serious or not. They a little high, taking out Kenny’s one-hitter when they sure the coast is clear. This city ain’t nothing but cops. Everywhere you go a cop telling you what to do, trying to ruin your life. Last spring Raul got popped with a joint and they arrested him and everything, nearly broke his wrist doing it. They put him in jail for the whole weekend. On a little weed. It was only juvie jail but Raul still said it was the scariest shit he ever been through. And Raul the biggest, hardest dude Clayton know. And now Raul supposed to get into school, supposed to get a job, with that shit on his record?

  Something, man—so
mething trying to crush boys like them.

  There are things Clayton can tell Kenny that he could never tell Raul, and things he can tell Raul that he could never tell Kenny. One of the things he can tell Kenny is that he scared for tomorrow night. Another is that sometimes he stand around looking at things, like the world, for example right now, out here on the street, in the heart of New York City, watching everyone, watching cars, seeing the people and the cars in the glow of all the lights, and he can’t tell where they come from, the lights, he know there are streetlights but the lights don’t seem to come from just the streetlights, and he know there are lights on stores and from windows, but the lights don’t seem to come from there either. Like what is supposed to be making light don’t in fact make it. Like in fact it make darkness. And the darkness make light. And he don’t understand it, he don’t understand life, why people are how they are and do what they do, but he want to, and he just know he can, one day, he think once he do he can make things better somehow, like maybe he has something to offer all this. He want to live a big magnificent life. He got this vow he made to himself. It seem like everyone between his age and his pops’s age, somewhere along the way they get so tied up doing what they think they got to do that they never do what they really got to do. And they get crushed. But he ain’t gonna get crushed. He gonna survive. He’ll be the first. Like his pops always say: You just never know.

  If he told all this to Raul, he’d just grunt and be all quiet and awkward, not knowing what the fuck he talking about. He and Raul once got busted at Atlantic Center in Brooklyn for trying to steal Blu-rays from Target to sell for Air Jordan money. Clayton don’t like to steal but Raul do, and Clayton too afraid to stop him. Raul all, —Stop acting superior, nigga, and stand here in front of me so they can’t see. Clayton don’t like being called nigga or calling other people nigga, but it one of those things you have to do sometime, along with standing guard while Raul peels off the plastic from copies of Poseidon and Transformers 2 and Taken 2 and shoves them down his pants to bring them back to sell around the project.

  Five security guys came, white dudes in red Target polo shirts. Clayton froze, Raul ran—both were caught. Took them into some little room in back of the mall that smelled like beer and made them sit there for hours, saying how the cops were gonna lock them up for years and years and what a good thing that would be for everyone. Four of the guys lost interest after a while or their shifts just ended and they left, leaving Clayton and Raul with just the one who seemed to be in charge, old white dude in his fifties or something, clearly a cop moonlighting. Had a gun. It was in a holster on his hip. Cop sat there the whole time with his back against the door, his hand over the gun like he might pull it any second and start firing. Clayton never been so scared.

  —Let us go, yo, Raul said.

  The cop gestured with his chin to the door and said, —You want to go? Go for it. Please.

  His hand on the gun, making no effort to move aside to give them space to pass. They weren’t idiots. They stayed. Stared at his gun the whole time. Clayton started losing it, was begging forgiveness, mercy. He could tell the cop enjoyed it. Clayton even cried a little—cop loved that. Raul scowled at Clayton, disgusted with him. But when Clayton was done, the cop took his hand off the gun, opened the door, and said, —All right, get outta here.

  On the D train back home across the river into the city, Raul was saying, —What you beg him like that for, C? I was ’bout to fuck a nigga up, man. Fuck his badge and fuck his gun, nigga. He not on duty, and think I scared of a gun? Think I ain’t neva seen a gun? Think I can’t get a gun? I can have a gun tonight. Tonight.

  And Clayton just staring out that train window. It was the part where you come up from underground into the daylight, and you going over the bridge and can see on one side the gray river going up the side of Manhattan and all the bridges and the water towers like pinecones on all the rooftops and the wall formed by all the towers of Raul’s housing project greeting you into Manhattan, and on the other side of you the open horizon, endless water, like an old painting, and the sun on the water, the Statue of Liberty visible way out there but only if you know where to look and only if you squint hard enough and only if you look past all the rusted spray-painted steel beams of the bridge and all the big cranes and all the other ugly things blocking it. And if you ever get out there to see it up close—ain’t no boats to take you, you gotta swim—you gonna find it ain’t even really there, you gonna find that all this time it’s just been an illusion projected from one of those big skyscrapers, some kinda prank or advertisement or something.

  That night he went sleepwalking again. First time in years. He must have got out of bed, opened his front door, went out into the hallway, and gotten in the elevator and gone up to the sixth floor, started trying to open the door of this family who’ve lived there as long as his has, the Mendelsohns, white people, rich. Lawyers or something. They know him and his condition. They’ve had him and his parents over for dinner, always stop to chat when they come across him in the building, asking him about his life, trying to be nice, he guesses, but coming off like just more cops. That is what must have happened. As far as he knows, one minute he falling asleep in bed, then next minute he waking up to Mrs. Mendelsohn’s voice gently saying, —Clayton? Clayton? Wake up, Clayton... and looking at Mrs. Mendelsohn’s face. She was standing in the open doorway in her pajamas, she was putting her arms around him, putting her head in his chest, he was so much taller than she was, and he was sobbing, he was so scared—it scary enough when it happens, but he also scared because he think now his dad gonna get fired. And Mrs. Mendelsohn was saying, —It’s okay, Clayton, it’s okay. She helped him back down to his apartment and would not hear it when his dad thanked her and apologized and thanked her again, and when he begged her not to tell his boss she assured him she would not, and his pops say of course she kept her promise, but Clayton wonders, to be honest he don’t know.

  His phone rings. His dad. Seeing that name on the incoming call screen drive him crazy. Such an intrusion. It’s embarrassing, he know what he gonna say and he gonna say it, that man always the same, predictable as a dog: Hello, how are you doing, where are you?

  Where am I? Where I told you I’d be—at Kenny’s, sleeping over.

  Okay, so that’s not where he is, but it’s still annoying as what.

  What did you have for dinner? What time will you be home in the morning? Why are you still awake, you should be in bed...

  Whatever, man.

  Be home early tomorrow, we need to fix dryer. Be home at eight.

  And Clayton will say, Eight o’clock? In the morning? On a Saturday? That’s too early, Dad, come on, Dad. Ten, I’ll be home at ten. Me and them maybe gonna get breakfast.

  And his dad will say, Okay, ten, but ten sharp.

  It’s astounding how easy his pops is to lie to. He feels guilty about it but it’s what you gotta do. His pops believe everything he say. Sometimes it makes Clayton mad, like, don’t he care? But what he gonna do, press the issue? Say, Be tougher on me, Dad? His dad a trusting type of dude, he trust everybody, he believe everything everyone tell him. To a fault. Always saying, You gotta have faith in people, you gotta trust people. Why he gotta be so damned weird? Why can’t he just be a normal dad? Like the kids Clayton go to school with. Those rich white kids. Their dads never say that kind of shit. Those dads never just believe whatever people tell them. They ain’t naive. They’re suspicious and smart and that’s why they CEOs and attorneys and hedge fund managers and have money and power—and why they ain’t no maintenance men always scared of getting fired and deported. Always the same voice, the same tone, the same words. Faith. Trust. Fearlessness. You get tired of it after a while. You want your dad to be different. Especially when you with the crew, puffing weed and talking shit in the middle of the night in the city. You feel like your life with the man is a lie sometimes. Studying, working, all that Eagle Scout shit—it all feel impossible and fake sometimes. That ain�
�t you. This is you. What you are right now, tonight, with the crew. Clayton hits IGNORE, puts his phone back in his pocket.

  A bunch of preppy Upper East Side Gossip Girl-looking dudes roll up in a taxi all wearing tuxedos and drunk. They like the kind of kids he go to school with, those swooshy haircuts, cocky, strutting around like big men, like they think they their dads. They try to cut in line. They act all nonchalant about it, first just acting like they standing near the line, then slowly drifting closer and closer until they right in it, right up in front behind where Clayton and them been camped out for hours.

  —Yo, Raul say to them. —Line end back there.

  They act like they don’t hear him so he repeat himself. Then they act like they can’t understand him so he repeat himself again and they say, —What are you talking about, bro? We were here. We’ve been here.

  Raul smiles at them. —Come on, now. We all just watched you roll up in that taxi, don’t try to tell me y’all been here.

  —We were here, bro.

  —No, you were not.

  —Bro, why don’t you mind your business?