And then lunch. You know who ate lunch the same time I did? Brandon Simmons. Jack from Lord of the Flies. A power-hungry dummy and the single most annoying dude in the seventh grade. He owned that record, a record that’s really hard to own because there are a lot of annoying dummies in the seventh grade. Trust me, I know. But none like him. Brandon was a year older than everybody, because he stayed back a year. Dude was as dumb as dirt, and that wouldn’t have been so bad if he was at least cool, but he wasn’t. Plus he was taller than most of us, so he treated everybody like chumps. Especially me.
Just made it to the cafeteria (11:44 a.m.). Got in line. Brandon came in after me, bumped me, and then, seeing that I ignored him, decided to step in front of me.
“Shack,” he said. Shack was what he called me as his lame way of making fun of the fact that my name is Castle. “You don’t mind me butting in front of you, right? I mean, it’s not like you haven’t had cafeteria food before. You probably had some last night, right?” He shrugged and hit me with another one. “Right?” The only reason Brandon even knew about my mother is back when we were in the fourth grade—yes, I’ve known him that long—my mother thought it would be a good idea to come speak at Career Day. And Brandon has used it as fuel ever since. He grinned, then looked around to make sure other people had heard him, which was always the most important part of his jerkness. Then a few more. “Right? Right?”
I sat at the table (11:50 a.m.). The same table I sat at every day with my two friends Dre Anderson and Red Griffin. I met Dre this year, and we hit it off because he’s a ballplayer too. Plays for the Boys and Girls Club, and he told me I should’ve played, but I missed the tryouts. On purpose. Thing is, Boys and Girls Clubs don’t ever really cut nobody. Everybody can just sign up and play, but who wants to be on a team with a bunch of pity-players? I didn’t wanna bust Dre’s bubble because that ain’t cool. But for me, I’m too good to play on a team like that. I mean, I didn’t really know that, but . . . I knew that, y’know?
And Red, well, I’ve known him for a long time. We’ve been cool since fifth grade, mainly because even though we’ve never really talked about nothing bad, we both kinda knew something bad had happened to us. Like, for me, the best way to describe it is, I got a lot of scream inside. And I could tell Red did too. He was a white boy with red hair who everybody was friends with mainly because people were scared that he was crazy and it’s better to be on crazy’s good side. Jessica Grant said her mother said the only reason people have red hair is because they’re red on the inside. Red like violent. But I got black hair, so does that mean I’m black on the inside? Anyway, Brandon came and sat next to Red at the table. He usually sat farther down by the other gas-mouths, but not today. Today he sat right next to Red, and right across from me and Dre.
“Yo, Red, you ever been to Glass Manor?” Brandon asked while chomping on a chicken drummy.
“Nope,” Red said, dry, just before taking a sip of his juice. He wasn’t paying Brandon no mind.
“Oh man, you should go. It’s something to see,” Brandon said, now looking right at me. We caught eyes for a second, but then I darted mine to my french fries and ketchup. Dip, then bite. Dip, then bite. Don’t look up. Don’t pay him no attention. Dip. Then. Bite. Brandon continued, “You really get to see where they got the name Glass Manor from, because dude, everybody who lives around there is freakin’ shattered.”
Dre let out a big sigh, like a here we go again sigh, and Red glanced at me because he knew I lived there. Everybody knew I lived there, and even though I wasn’t the only kid at school from that neighborhood, it seemed like I caught the most mess about it. At least from Brandon. Red looked back at Brandon, disgusted, then went on eating. What a dumb joke.
Brandon was talking to Monique, who sat next to him (12:02 p.m.). Really he was snatching food off her plate and teasing her about her acne. But the thing was, everybody knew he had a crush on Monique, no matter how many moon-face jokes he cracked. Everybody also knew that he tried to get her, but she kept rejecting him, which was the real reason he snapped on her. Her acne wasn’t even all that bad.
“Hey, Shack,” he called out. “All you gonna have is fries?” Again, I didn’t say nothing. I didn’t have to explain that I always got just fries so I could save a dollar to get sunflower seeds later. So I just ignored him. Just sat there with my empty tray and shook up my chocolate milk. Lunch would be over in a few minutes. A few minutes. I was so close. So close. Then Brandon grabbed a drummy off Monique’s tray. “Here, take this. It’s my good deed for the day. Feeding the hungry.” And he threw the chicken wing at me. It hit me in the chest, the grease instantly staining my T-shirt, and if my insides really were black, at that moment they were definitely turning red.
Red and Dre looked at me, both their mouths open in disbelief. I could tell they could see the anger in my face, in my eyes. Dre slid down, and Red got up from the table, moved away from us. I brushed the over-fried wing off my lap, opened my milk carton, took a swig, and then, with all my might, beamed the container at Brandon’s head. He moved just in time and the open milk box smashed into the table behind him. Brown liquid exploded everywhere, and everyone at that table whipped around to see what was happening. Brandon sprang from his seat, but before he could even make a move I had picked up my plastic tray and whacked him upside the head. He fell backward, and I kept coming. I dove across the table and after that, it was just like it was when I was sprinting. I didn’t hear nothing. Not even Monique squealing. And I didn’t feel nothing either. I just lifted my arms, fists tight, and lowered them like hammers down onto Brandon’s face. I had been good. So good. Altercation free. For seventeen hours and two freakin’ minutes.
The third, fourth, and fifth minute of the seventeenth hour were the altercation minutes. But the sixth was the longest minute of them all—the embarrassing walk to the principal’s office.
“You wanna tell me what happened, or should I tell you?” Principal Marshall closed his door behind him and took a seat at his desk. Arms folded across his chest, he waited for me to answer. But I didn’t. I just slouched in the chair and stared into my lap, biting on my bottom lip, trying to turn the red inside back to black. I was just so mad, and I couldn’t get it to go away. Mr. Perham, or as everyone called him, Big Perm, because of his last name and because he had bone-straight permed hair, is who pulled me off Brandon. He yoked me up in some kind of full nelson armlock and practically dragged me to a corner until I calmed down enough for him to let me go. Of course all the other students were screaming and cheering and all that, like I was putting on some kind of show. Another one. But it was never a show for me. It was serious. It was always serious.
Next, Perham helped Brandon. And as he started leading him to the nurse’s office, no smack was coming from Brandon’s stupid lips. No mom jokes. No poor jokes. No name jokes. None of that. Just blood and ketchup.
Still, I said nothing to the principal. I wasn’t about to just snitch on myself. “Okay, Mr. Cranshaw, let me tell you what happened,” Principal Marshall continued. He leaned forward, and rested both hands on his desk, fingers woven. “You just got yourself suspended. Again.”
Dang! “I didn’t even start it,” I couldn’t resist muttering.
“What’s that?” the principal asked with some extra bass in his voice.
I lifted my head. “I said, I didn’t start it. Brandon was talking about me. He kept going on me.” I tried to keep a stone face, which is hard to do when you’re desperately trying to explain yourself. “About how my mother works in a cafeteria, and about my neighborhood, and all that. He always trying me, and he don’t even know me like that. Just wouldn’t shut up.”
Marshall leaned back in his seat. “So instead of telling a teacher, you jumped on him?”
Well, yeah. Brandon needed a beat-down as far as I was concerned. Somebody had to do it, and well, this wasn’t the first time I had been in this kind of an “altercation.” I mean, there was the time I yelled at Mr. Crue, because
he kept being mean about us not understanding Spanish well enough to speak in the perfect accent or whatever. He was just riding us too hard for not rolling our r’s, and one day I just lost it. After class everybody told me he deserved it, but I still caught a detention for it. And then another time Damon “DW” Woods told everybody that I kissed this girl named Janine, who was the only pretty girl who liked me, but I hadn’t, and I hadn’t told DW that lie. I just told him that me and Janine exchanged phone numbers. Once she found out, Janine said I was disgusting and stopped talking to me. So I punched Damon in the stomach. He cried and ran to Marshall and I got suspended for that one, and then Janine liked me again. But I was already over her. And me and Brandon had a bunch of other moments, but it was mostly just a lot of yelling—really just me yelling and him laughing, but not no more. No more getting the Brandon runaround. Then it hit me—run . . . around. Running. The team! Coach made a deal with my mother. I only had one shot. No mess-ups, no do-overs, no . . . altercations! But what was I supposed to do?
“What would you have done?” I asked Mr. Marshall. The tears were teetering in and out, in and out, and I was trying my best to keep them in. “You ain’t never been pushed before, to the point you just couldn’t take it?”
Principal Marshall cocked his head to the side and studied me. Then he hunched forward again and put his face in his palms, as if he was remembering a time he went through this. Then he wiped his hands down his face like he was washing that memory away.
“I’m gonna deal with Brandon, but you . . . ,” he said, his voice now a little softer, “you gotta get it together, Castle. I know you’ve been through some things, but you just can’t keep doing this.” He stood up from his desk and came around to the front. “I’m not gonna give you a full suspension this time, but you do have to go home for the rest of the day.” He reached behind him for the big black telephone. “Here.” He held the phone toward me. “Call your mom.”
Now, I knew that Principal Marshall was letting me off the hook, big-time, but there was no way I could call my mother and tell her that I needed her to come get me from school. No way. I hadn’t even really been on the track team and I was already about to be kicked off. I hadn’t even been to a practice yet! Plus what was I gonna say? That I punched a jerk for talking trash about me? I mean, that is what happened, and as awesome as that sounds, my mother would’ve hit me with the “How many times do I have to tell you to be the bigger person!” followed by some crazy punishment that involved me coming to the hospital with her, which was always wack.
“I can’t,” I shot back at the principal.
“You can’t what?”
“I can’t call her.”
He looked confused. “And why not?”
“I don’t know,” I said, trying to think of a good reason. A good lie. But nothing came. “I just can’t.” Then it hit me. “But I can call my uncle.”
“Your uncle,” he said matter-of-factly, like he knew that was impossible. The other thing I should tell you about files is that sometimes they have way too much information about you in them. Stuff that don’t be nobody’s business. “And where is this uncle?”
“He’s working, but he can come get me.”
“Why haven’t I ever heard of this uncle before?” he asked suspiciously.
“He’s been gone,” I explained, trying to keep a straight face. Looked him dead in the eye. “But he’s back now.” Yikes. Not really that smooth of an answer.
Mr. Marshall just sat there squinting at me, one eye slightly more closed than the other, tapping his leg. Then he humphed and handed me the phone.
“Call him.” He sighed.
I unzipped my backpack and dug around for the card that said THE DEFENDERS, COACH, in black block letters. I dialed and waited while it rang. Come on, come on, pick it up, I thought. Please, pick it up.
“Yes.” It was Coach’s voice on the other end of the phone, but he didn’t say hello or nothing so it caught me off guard.
“Hello?” I said.
“Who’s this?”
“It’s me, Castle, um, uh . . . ,” I spoke low into the phone. “Ghost.”
“Ghost? Boy, what are you doing calling me at”—he paused, I guess to check the time—“at twelve twenty-two? Ain’t you in school?”
“Yeah, but I need you to come get me,” I said, looking up at Principal Marshall, who was staring a hole in my head. I was trying not to say “uncle,” which was what he was waiting for. “I got in trouble.”
“What?” Coach said, and before I could say anything else, he told me to hold on. “Nine seventy-five, ma’am. Uh-huh. Thank you so much. Have a good day.” Then the sound of a door slamming. “Now, what you talking about, Ghost?”
“I got in trouble and they’re suspending me for the day, so I need you to come get me.”
“Why you calling me? Why don’t you call your . . .” and before he could even finish his sentence, he answered his own question. “Oh. I see. Kid, you’re already killing me.”
I glanced up at Principal Marshall again. He was getting antsy, and I knew I only had a few seconds before he snatched the phone. Turns out I had even less than a few seconds.
“Give me the phone,” Principal Marshall said, getting up and grabbing it from me. Then he aired everything out. “Hello, Principal Marshall here. Is this Castle’s uncle?”
I dropped my head and waited to pretty much be body slammed.
“Uh-huh. Yes. Well, I need him off the premises as soon as possible. Just for the rest of the day.” Principal Marshall sat on the edge of his desk, waiting for me to look him in the eye. But I wouldn’t. I just looked around the office at all the posters that said stuff like EXCELLENCE and DISCIPLINE. And he had pictures of past students, probably kids who did excellent things. Disciplined things. Holding ribbons at a science fair. Clutching a trophy. Some kid giving the camera a thumbs-up like a cornball. Probably all good students, not kids like me. Mr. Marshall was uh-huh-ing Coach. “Uh-huh. I see. Okay.”
Then he handed the phone back to me, but Coach had already hung up. Principal Marshall walked back behind his desk and took a seat.
“What did he say?” I asked, bracing for the slam.
“He said he’ll be here in a minute.” It would’ve been the worst mistake ever to smile, but I sure wanted to.
I sat there in the office while the principal went on about his business, flipping through folders, clicking at something on his computer, scribbling in a notepad, when I finally asked him about the pictures of the different students on the wall.
“Who those kids?” I asked, biting a fingernail. Must’ve snagged it in the scuffle.
Principal Marshall looked up from all his busywork. “You don’t get to ask me any questions until tomorrow,” he snapped. His tone was sharp, and I could tell he wasn’t playing. “I don’t want to hear your voice. Your job right now is to sit there and wait for your uncle. Got it?”
I just nodded and sank into myself. Thankfully, it wasn’t too long before Coach came marching up the hallway. The look he gave me was just as bad as the look Mr. Marshall had given me, which were like the looks my mom gave me whenever I was in these situations. The I’m so disappointed in you look, which is way worse than the I’m mad look.
“I’m here to get Castle,” Coach said to the secretary, Mrs. Dickson.
“Okay, just sign him out,” she said.
Coach scribbled something on a piece of paper, checked his watch, jotted the time down, met the principal, shook his hand, apologized to him for what I did, and we were out of there. On the way down the hall, Coach didn’t say a thing. Not a word. But as soon as we got in his cab, he lit me up.
“What were you thinking telling those people I’m your uncle? Do you know that’s probably against the law? I’m not sure if it is or isn’t but it probably is, and if it is, you got me out here committing crimes. I’ve known you for one day. One day! And I just kidnapped you!”
I kept quiet because Coach was really mad. Plu
s, I was super grateful that he came and got me, and I didn’t want to say anything to mess that up. Shoot, he might’ve turned around and took me back to the school if I said the wrong thing.
Then finally, after a few minutes, he calmed down a little and asked, “What happened anyway?”
“I got in a fight.” I stared out the window as we passed Mr. Charles’s store.
“Care to elaborate?” Coach pried.
“Okay. So there’s this dude, Brandon Simmons. He’s always getting on me about my mom and where I live and how I look and all that. And today, I just couldn’t take it no more.” I faced Coach. He glanced at me and then back to the road. “So I jumped on him. Beat him down.”
“And what, you think that makes you tough?” Coach scoffed.
I thought about it for a second. “I don’t know.”
“Does that make it right?” he asked.
What is it about adults that makes them all just say the same things? Like they all studied the same book about grown-up-ness, memorizing phrases like, Does that make it right? and Be the bigger person.
I just shrugged. Spoke with my shoulders. I kinda wanted to say, Yes. Yes, me punching Brandon in the face makes it right, because he had been begging for it for forever. It made it right for everybody he joked on, and those kids would’ve given me their honor roll certificates for what I did. That wasn’t the answer Coach was looking for. But man, that’s how I felt.
Coach drove through town, and eventually we ended up at Martin Luther King Park. He said that since I had cost him a half day’s worth of fares—the front seat wasn’t even all junky yet—I would have to make it up to him by putting in extra work at the track, which was fine with me.
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