by Ibi Zoboi
Cologne Kiosk Cameron sat again. “I know, dude. It’s funny how I can’t keep them off me. Hope you taking notes on that little phone of yours.”
What was his deal with everything being “little”?
“I mean, unless you smashing already. I didn’t get that impression because your shirt. If I misread the situation, get me up on game.”
Best I could tell, this dude misread every situation. Quick draw with my own finger guns, I pointed somewhere—anywhere—else, ejected from the booth. I moved to midfloor where Ben, Brian, and the Far East Emporium dudes battled on Pac-Man. Did a slow spin, desperately searching for Dayshia.
Pia stomped up, lugging a tray full of waters with lemon. “Guess you don’t want these anymore.”
“Have you seen the girl who was in my booth?”
“Nice to see you’re thirsty for something. She out by the fountain.”
Beyond the Mall-Stars entrance, on the fountain’s edge, Dayshia scrolled through her phone. I moved that way, a dull pinch in my lower abdomen registering. I took a few more steps, and it became sharper, more urgent, stopped me cold. Those ice waters!
Ignore my pulsing bladder to resume conversation with my dream girl? Tempting. Except she was sitting by a freaking fountain. All those spouts continuously splashing the surface, the ripples. I’d be squirming the whole time.
Maybe it was dumb—maybe I misread the situation—but it seemed like me and Dayshia connected back in the booth, if only for a minute. You know what would super ruin that vibe? Me pissing myself.
Quick detour, then.
The universal man/woman symbols were visible over a corridor between the Mall-Stars bar and the main gaming floor. I slipped through, took a sharp turn, and found myself in a long, darkly tiled hallway that ran the length of the restaurant. So familiar with the mall layout, I knew if I punched through the outer wall to my right, I could snatch a Father’s Day card for my pops off a shelf in Hallmark. Beyond that, a hobby shop. Crafts, and paint, and artist papers. Beyond that, my jam, GameStop.
Whenever I wrote stuff about the mall, it always struck me how all of it, all of us, were connected even if we didn’t know it—or didn’t want it (looking at you, Far East Emporium). A bunch of stores, and people, and reasons for being there underneath the big Briarwood umbrella.
Pushing into the men’s room, I tugged my phone from my back pocket, intending to jot that down, and . . . what the entire hell?
Inside the harshly lit bathroom was a party separate from the soft-open celebration.
A couple of infamous weed heads from the Regal 14 Theater puffed a blunt right under the smoke detector that now dangled, deactivated, from a single wire. Beyond them, Amir, DeMarcus, and other guys I knew from the mall grind. DeMarcus threw a pair of dice in a way I’d never seen dice thrown—overhand, flick of the wrist, something like a Navy SEAL tossing a knife at his enemy’s throat. The dice bounced off the wall beneath the plastic folding baby-changing table, settled on a piece of cardboard in the floor.
“Seven!” DeMarcus whooped over the collective groans of those on the losing end of that bet. He snatched his winnings, a loose grouping of fives and ones.
“How long y’all been shooting craps?” I asked.
Amir said, “You mean how long we been winning? Awhile. How else we gonna afford this expensive-ass food. How things go with Dayshia?”
Before I could answer, Cologne Kiosk Cameron exited the big end stall reserved for disabled customers. “Great!” He smiled, his spit-slick canines like fangs. “I think me and her really hit it off.”
My head whipped toward the entrance. I’d left him in the booth. He hadn’t passed me in the corridor. Where’d he come from? How?
If he wasn’t the devil, he was certainly in the training program.
The bathroom was oversize. Mr. Beneton must’ve expected a lot of drink sales, thus, a lot of pee. I used the ninth urinal in the far corner, away from the dice game and the funk permeating the air. Not the usual bathroom funk. A toxic mix of colognes Cameron was getting dudes to sample in the accessible stall, his new makeshift kiosk.
“I’m telling you,” Cameron droned, sales pitch cranked, “people sleep on Trump’s Empire cologne, but a true connoisseur will recognize those velvety oaken notes as the literal smell of money. You got a lady you interested in, this be like a hostile takeover of her nose.”
The telltale bottle spritz sounded like a cobra spitting venom. Jarrel from the Books-A-Million burst from the stall, clawing at his eyes and throat.
Cameron followed, grinning, holding the Empire bottle like a smoking gun. “My bad, homey. Guess the nozzle was turned the wrong way.”
At the sink, Jarrel thrust his whole head beneath the faucet, frantically waving his hand near the motion sensor, with no luck triggering the water. He convulsed over to the next sink. That motion sensor didn’t work either. He went for the next.
I finished at the urinal and washed my hands. Cameron watched me in the mirror.
He approached the movie theater guys, their blunt burned to the midpoint. “Let me hit that.”
High and generous, they passed the stubby cigar to Cameron, who took two puffs and never gave it back. “I’ll hook you up with something that’ll cover the smell so you don’t get in trouble with your boss. Be a shame if he caught a whiff of this, right?”
Neither of the theater workers seemed to love involuntary cologne-for-ganja barter, but Cameron moved on before they objected. “Shawn”—he jerked his head toward the stall—“come here.”
“For what?”
“You want to see this.” He held the accessible stall door wide, blunt dangling on his lip, its tip fiery red.
Everyone else continued their activities—craps, rolling a new blunt, eye-flushing—as if in a different reality from me and Cameron. I entered his domain cautiously.
Inside the stall, resting in the corner farthest from the toilet, was an open bag of assorted cologne bottles. Various shapes, sizes, colors, and levels of fullness. Label-gun stickers reading “Sample Not For Resale” were affixed to at least half of them.
Cameron rummaged through the bag, his goods clinking together. Streamers of earthy smoke snaked from his nostrils. He produced a white bottle adorned with a green crocodile from the stash. “She’s a Lacoste Blanc lady. I can tell.”
Removing the cap, he angled the bottle away and triggered a fine mist that drizzled over the U-shaped toilet seat in a citrus burst. “Smell that? That’s you getting what you want. Only cost you twenty bucks. Steep discount, my dude.”
Was twenty bucks for a stolen half bottle of cologne a good deal? Didn’t know. Didn’t want to. “Naw, I’m good.”
It couldn’t have been more than five minutes since I came in. That was five minutes too long. Dayshia could be gone, and I was screwing around with Bargain Beelzebub. I exited the stall, on my way out.
Cameron said, “Think you dropped something.”
I turned and felt the full horror of that demonic asshole’s power.
He had my phone.
Reflexively, I patted my back pocket, praying for the familiar bulge that meant what he held only looked like my phone. Naw. How many Rick and Morty iPhone cases were really in circulation at Briarwood? My heart bulged against my sternum, dragged me forward with my hand extended.
He scuttled back, staring at the screen. “And it’s unlocked. Yo, you a writer?”
“Give me my shit, Cameron.”
The rattling dice, the betting cheers, went silent.
Amir said, “Shawn.”
He straightened in my peripheral. As did DeMarcus. I made a chopping motion with one hand. I got this.
Did I, though? My hands shook. My vision vibrated with the force of my slamming pulse, making Cameron bounce in front of me. Most of my fighting was done from a PlayStation controller, but I’d never felt more like punching someone in. My. LIFE.
Cameron inhaled around the nearly gone blunt. “Why you acting so aggro? I like readi
ng. Unless you’re really frustrated about something else. Ole girl from Nordstrom?”
I willed my face still. Held eye contact past the point of discomfort.
Cameron wasn’t fooled. “Wow. For real. Bro, this the mall. I take advantage of this week’s coupon, you catch next week’s sale. Feel me? Nordstrom got plenty for both of us.”
I smacked that blunt from his mouth. The ashen tip blazed gray and molten as it flipped end over end, its trajectory unknown.
At the time.
“Ohhh!” The bathroom morphed into a fight-night crowd.
Despite his slick talk, the shady comments, Cologne Kiosk Cameron seemed uncertain. His eyes cut quickly to all the witnesses. Mine, too. The mouths that would carry this story to every corner of the mall and beyond. They were from different neighborhoods, and schools, and cities. All anticipating the birth of a new “yooooo, remember that time . . .” story.
My last fight had been on the playground in second grade. I lost due to an inescapable full nelson, and it was horrifying to learn the ritual hadn’t changed. There was a tipping point after the trash talk, after personal space had been violated, when a physical gesture so offensive was made that to not fight was dishonorable. A punk move.
“Steal on him!” DeMarcus, the most lighthearted of my friends, ordered me to sucker punch our workplace’s Prince of Darkness.
“You think you got it in you!” Cameron bumped chests with me. “Swing if you man enough.”
Dishonor. Shame. Punk. My right hand curled, hardened, the knuckles protruding like Wolverine’s claws. My eyes flicked to Cameron’s right, a distraction, intended to leave the left side of his chin unprotected, I tensed, and—
The bathroom door swung open with force, crashed against the wall.
Yankee Candle Santa Claus burst in, clutching his stomach as if being torn apart. “Crab . . . poppers.”
Clawing open the first available stall, not even taking the time to lock it, he rustled loose whatever clothes needed to go . . . and . . . and . . .
Oh God! The sound. Like a pudding balloon dropped off a skyscraper. Over and over.
The exodus began immediately, not fast enough to escape the—what could only be called devastating—smell. Amir grabbed money and dice. The theater dudes collected their weed. DeMarcus grabbed my arm, and I snatched my phone from Cameron’s limp grip before moving to the exit.
Not one of us thought about the bag of stolen cologne samples, or that lit blunt I’d knocked to wherever.
Cameron yelled, “That’s what I thought. You ain’t want none.”
My desire to argue was sapped by the Crab Popper Apocalypse. We spewed into the corridor, Cameron on my heels, threatening violence where we both knew there could be none.
Fighting? Back on the main floor with everyone else? Naw. I wasn’t losing my job and store discount over his bitch ass.
We emerged into Mall-Stars proper, unnoticed by the dwindling soft-opening crowd. Ben, Brian, and the Far East Emporium guys were battling on Dig Dug. Mr. Beneton had the bartender counting the till in front of him while his goons loomed. Dayshia remained at the fountain outside, like no time had passed.
Cameron kept yapping, “I’ma take your chick, homey. Activating all my swag. Look at you, look at me.”
I looked at him. Looked at me—Chewbacca was still on my shirt.
“You don’t have more game than me, Shawn. No way you winning.”
Amir heavy-sighed. “Let’s just take this dude out behind a dumpster.”
Cameron’s mouth snapped shut, weighing the odds. You didn’t have to work at Kumon to know they weren’t in his favor. “So now you gonna jump me? Over a girl.”
No. We weren’t. Nobody here—except maybe Desdemona Bloodbayne; that girl was scary—was a back-alley brawler. Still, Cameron was insisting on a battle for Dayshia.
How do you win a fight you shouldn’t have in the first place?
That’s when it hit me. “Amir, DeMarcus . . . he’s right.”
“Pardon?” DeMarcus said.
Amir was like, “The fuck?”
To Cameron, I said (maybe in the voice of a 1980s computer simulation; I won’t confirm or deny that part), “Shall we play a game?”
He rapid-blinked, unsure where I was going.
“WarGames? 1983? Starring Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy?”
Everybody in earshot shuffled, confused.
Amir leaned in, whispered, “Is now the time to be bringing up those old white-ass movies you be making us watch?”
My usual response whenever he said shit like that. “I would’ve watched the Black WarGames if anyone made it.”
Cameron’s face creased, confused. “I don’t know what whack language you even speaking right now.”
“You’ll wish you did.” I left him steaming, exited Mall-Stars, eyes on Dayshia. She sat her phone facedown in her lap, eyebrow arched, observing the large congregation of guys hovering at the restaurant. “What’s all that about?”
Deep breath, Shawn. “Stupid guy shit.”
“Ooookay? You about to tell me something that’s gonna make me think of you as a stupid guy?”
“We’ll know in a minute. You ever see a movie called WarGames?”
She shook her head. “Is it good?”
“I like it. It’s about hackers and artificial intelligence trying to set off a nuclear war.”
“Should you have said ‘spoiler alert’?”
“Spoiler alert. The point of the movie was the only way to win an all-out nuclear war is to not have it. You win the game by not playing.”
With a dramatic head sweep, she motioned to all the beeping, tweeting game cabinets nearby. “I don’t think Mr. Beneton would agree with you there.”
“I don’t mean—”
Her smile shrank. “Did y’all make some kind of bet? Is that the stupid thing that got you over here to talk to me? They’re all staring.”
“No. Yes.”
She huffed, shifted her weight as if to leave.
“Wait a second, please.”
“I have been waiting. I don’t want to wish I hadn’t.”
She was waiting? For me?
“No bet,” I said fast, sensing somehow that time was not on my side. “I wouldn’t do that. There’s other stupid guy stuff. Cameron wants to kick it with you. I do, too. He tried to make a thing about it in the bathroom, some let-the-best-man-win shit. I almost went for it.”
Dayshia swept her phone into her purse. “I should probably go. If you want to return your mom’s necklace—”
Rapid fire. “There’s no necklace. Game isn’t real. I have Chewbacca on my shirt.”
“You’re not making any sense, Shawn.”
My phone was still in my hand, still unlocked with the Notepad app open. I showed her. “My thoughts get all over the place sometimes, so I write them down. My friends are always on me to say stuff and not be in my own head. Dudes like Cameron, I think, are the opposite. You follow so far?”
“Cameron talks too much and doesn’t think enough. I understand and agree.”
“So, like, normally I would say nothing to you at all. But Amir made up that necklace thing, and you talked to me, so I’d be stupid if I sat back while a loudmouth with not one solid thought in his head yammered at you, possibly piecing together the right combination of words to make you think he’s more worth your time than I am. Whew!” I was gasping. “Forgot to breathe.”
Dayshia locked eyes with me, her brow creased. “Shawn, listen to me carefully. It’s important that you understand what I’m about to say.”
I waited a three-heartbeat eternity for the sad trombone signaling how big a mistake me getting all outspoken had been. It didn’t come.
Dayshia said, “Cameron is ass.”
Inside Mall-Stars Ben and Brian Lin erupted in cheers. One screamed, “Suck it, Far East Emporium!”
My breathing stabilized, though speech was tough going. “I . . .”
“Cameron’s the worst
, Shawn.”
“Somebody say my name?” Cameron sat on the opposite side of Dayshia, licked his lips. I stopped wondering how the fuck he teleported like that. He wasn’t that interesting anymore.
“I did,” she said. “Did you hear me call you ‘ass’?”
His grin flickered. “What?”
“Look. Me and my friend are trying to have a conversation. You’re being rude.”
“Girl, come on. We was vibing at the bar earlier. All them grins and chuckles.”
“No. I’m a Nordstrom ambassador, and you were asking me about our Shiseido skin-care products. It was funny because you obviously knew way more about the shit than I do.”
Oh. She’d been laughing at him. Not with him.
And so was I.
Cameron sneered and brushed fingertips across his greasy, baby-smooth cheek. “This don’t happen magically.”
I found my breath and words. “Bounce, dude.”
Cameron rose, plucked at his lapels. “Dayshia, clearly I mistook you for someone with taste. I guess a child with a dog-man on his shirt—”
“It’s a Wookiee. And Shawn said bounce.”
From Mall-Stars, Amir yelled, “Go exfoliate, ninja!”
The laughter—from my peeps, and Dayshia, and me—gave Cameron the fight he’d been looking for; one he lost. For the first time ever, I watched dude leave, shoulders slumped, as mortal as the rest of us. And Chewbacca was still on my shirt. “You said ‘Wookiee.’”
“Yeah, my big sister loves those movies, so I got it through osmosis. You said ‘yammered.’ You must’ve crushed your SATs.”
I waved a hand in the air. “Eh.”
This was banter! We were hitting it off. With Cameron finally out of the picture, nothing could possibly mess this—
Yankee Candle Santa Claus shoved through my boys hanging at the Mall-Stars entrance, barely holding his pants up. “It wasn’t me!”
Then the burning smell.
Then the shrieking fire alarm.
Then hell breaking loose.
DeMarcus rushed to us. “We gotta go.”