“So what? I don’t give a fuck.”
On the next push-up, he dipped his chest to the ground, and then again, and then again, until he was back on his feet and lined up beside his teammates for another round of blocking drills. Ramsey asked who wanted to go next, and Oomz’s hand shot into the air. He drove Marquis five yards back with a bull rush, then drove him back even further on the next go, and after he knocked him to the ground on the third try, he peeked at his father standing behind him.
Something had changed in Oomz. He was running hard now, jumping to the front of the line for each drill, counting louder than everybody else during push-ups. When the coaches excused the boys for a water break, Oomz called for his teammates to gather in a circle first. “Yo, break it down! Hard work on three! One, two, three!”
“Hard work!” they shouted in response.
As the boys gathered by the light post, passing around water and Gatorade bottles, Big Oomz approached them.
“Y’all need to come together as a team,” he said. He looked around at them, a serious and urgent look on his face, his hands still in his hoodie pockets. “Y’all lazy. Y’all don’t do push-ups. Y’all don’t stretch right. Y’all don’t do drills right. Y’all don’t even listen to the coaches. You won’t ever start for no high school team. You don’t got no energy. You don’t work hard.”
The boys looked up at him with reverence. They’d heard of him. They’d witnessed Miss Elsie point to Oomz and say, “His father, man, his father was a legend. He was so fast.” They nodded their heads as Big Oomz spoke, their faces open and trusting, as if they were taking in some new, revolutionary gospel.
“Y’all gotta run hard. Run hard. Hard. You gotta work hard. You got the ball in yo hand, you gotta run all the way to the touchdown.”
Twenty yards away, on the other side of the fence, Repo, Mr. Hart, Dwight, and the rest of the usual group of fathers looked on silently, shooting knowing side-eyes at one another. The man hadn’t attended a single practice all year, they couldn’t help but notice, and now suddenly here he was after the biggest win of the season, standing on the field, rambling on about some nonsense.
BIG OOMZ KICKED a foot up on the porch’s wooden railing and sunk lower into the lawn chair parked beside the front door. It was good to be back, out in the cool autumn air, watching the day pass. Motown soul jams poured out from inside his mother’s house on Strauss Street, loud enough to carry to the end of the block. He closed his eyes and soaked in the music and the breeze, and he tried to push the stress out of his mind.
He was working now, but only part-time construction gigs. Many employers had turned him down for full-time jobs once they learned of his felony record. He tried not to think about the job applications he’d sent out and never heard back about. He tried not to think about the bills his mother and girlfriend were paying, and the shame he felt for not being able to help out as much as he wanted. He tried not to think about the years he had lost. He thought, instead, about his son, and this eased his mind into a calm satisfaction. His son was not as hard as he was at that age, but a boy didn’t need to be so hard these days, Big Oomz observed. There was virtue in hardness, he believed, but it was also a heavy weight that a boy had to drag with him wherever he went.
It was a weight Big Oomz had carried since before he could throw a spiral. Coaches and parents often told him he’d be a football star one day, and he kept this dream in the back of his mind even in the years after he had stopped playing. He had never much thought about his future. Death or prison seemed inevitable to many teenagers growing up in Brownsville in the ’90s. But now his future had come, and he wondered where his place was. He felt lost. In his life, he had found success in two endeavors: football and hustling. And he could no longer play football.
His son had more ambitions. Oomz talked about science, medicine, law, business. Big Oomz was proud of his son, maybe prouder than he would admit to the boy. There were nights when he thought about going to Betsy Head and watching his son’s practice, but he was embarrassed to see the coaches, who’d once expected so much of him, and to see the other fathers, whom he did not know but who knew him, fathers who provided for and brought stability to their families. He stayed away those nights, and on the night he did go, he didn’t want to stand with the fathers, but instead on the field, where he’d always been most comfortable.
He wondered if his best days, his happiest and most fulfilling days, were already behind him. He was not yet 30 years old. But how many people could point to a time in their life when they were at the top of their world? He gripped those memories tightly, the long touchdowns, the big hits, the nights in the upstate hotel rooms with his teammates. Mo Better had cheerleaders back then, around the same age as Big Oomz, and on those road trips, 13-year-old Big Oomz and his teammates would sneak the girls into their rooms. One time, a coach caught Big Oomz and Pup with girls in their room, and on the next trip, the coaches ordered that the doors had to stay open until lights out. The kids just broke that rule and locked the doors anyway, so on the trip after that, the coaches announced that they would patrol the hallways. Big Oomz and Pup climbed out their balcony and jumped to the next one, and the next one, until they reached the right room. A parent saw the balcony hopping, and the next season the coaches decided that Mo Better would not have cheerleaders anymore. “We couldn’t look these girls’ parents in the eyes if we kept bringing them on trips and all this kept going down,” Coach Vick said.
Vick remembered those thrilling times too. He was a young man then, surrounded by young women whose sons adored him, and sometimes those sons would see Coach Vick drop by their houses and their mothers would tell them it was time to go to bed. Vick wasn’t the only one. “Sometimes there’d be drama,” Vick said. “Sometimes you could tell something was going on. Like, why is coach so-and-so giving that kid so much playing time? Other times you’d have no idea. All that would go on at the hotels during trips and no one would have any idea, and then a parent would pop up the next season pregnant and a coach is over there with his head down and everybody is like, ‘Oh coach was on that?’”
Sometimes Vick and a few other coaches would stay out all night partying and manage a big game hungover the next day. One night, Vick was out so late that he decided to go straight to Betsy Head, where the team was meeting for a 7 a.m. bus trip. He nestled himself at the top of the red steps to catch a couple of hours of sleep. When he woke up, the park was empty. It was nearly 9 a.m. “Luckily, one kid showed up late and I got a ride with him and his mom,” he said.
Those were fast times, hard times, good times. They won many games and championships. Big Oomz missed those days. He knew they were long gone for him, at least, but perhaps this was the year the Mo Better Jaguars returned to glory.
The week after Brick City, the Pee Wees beat the Orange Tigers to improve to 5–1. The week after that, against the Jersey City Gators, there was Isaiah in the backfield taking a pitch on the right side. Three defenders predicted the play, converged on him seven yards behind the line, wrapped their arms around him—and then, somehow, Isaiah twisted his body out the tangle of limbs, pirouetted to the outside, ran three yards backward, looped around an oncoming defender, stiff-armed another to the ground, and sprinted past a third. Gone. Before he even reached the end zone, the spectators were on their feet, raising their arms in awe, laughing at the absurdity of what they had witnessed.
LOWER MANHATTAN’S SKYLINE shined in the distance. It was dark inside the bus, and the coaches in the front slouched in their seats and closed their eyes, satisfied with the team’s decisive win in Jersey City. The steel bars of the Manhattan Bridge whipped by as the old school bus rattled and hummed. Donnie prowled up and down the dark aisles. He snuck up beside a boy and punched him in the shoulder, then scurried to the back, before sneaking up beside another boy and punching him in the shoulder. Donnie snickered each time. The boys he punched rubbed their arms, gritted their teeth, and hoped Donnie was done messing with them.
/> In the second-to-last row, Oomz observed him with weary eyes. There were times when Oomz considered Donnie a kindred spirit, another moody boy who struggled to suppress a simmering anger. But Donnie couldn’t control himself like Oomz could. Oomz’s anger tended to be simple and predictable, igniting when a coach yelled at him or a boy teased him. It was often a restrained anger, one that he tried to keep within himself, seeping out in the tone of his voice, the slump of his shoulders, the fury of his tackles and blocks. Donnie, on the other hand, swung from euphoria to rage and back within minutes. At the start of the bus ride, he had gone up and down the rows telling jokes and trying to stump the other boys with brain teasers.
“I bet I can make you say black,” he’d said to one boy.
“OK.”
“What color is the sky?”
“Blue.”
“I told you I could make you say blue!”
“Nuh-uh, you said you could make me say black.”
“Ha ha! Got you! I told you!” Donnie cackled with a big gap-toothed smile, looking around to see if the other boys had noticed.
But soon the jokes and brain teasers seemed to bore him and his mood darkened. He stopped talking. “It’s not as bad as it used to be, but sometimes I still just get angry for no reason,” he later said. Sometimes his anger manifested as relentless shouting. Sometimes he simply shut down, staring blankly ahead, refusing to engage anybody who tried to talk to him. Sometimes he picked on people. He’d grab a boy’s hat off of his head and make the boy chase him for it. He’d slap a Gatorade bottle out of a boy’s hand. He’d go around telling other boys that a certain boy had lice. Tonight, he punched.
“Man, quit playing, Donnie,” Oomz commanded, not the first time he’d said that to Donnie on a bus ride back from a game.
Oomz was leaning back against the window, his legs stretched out across the seat, watching Donnie’s shadowy form shuffle up and down the aisle. Donnie ignored Oomz and went up to another boy and snatched the handheld Nintendo DS video-game console out of his grasp. Donnie held it behind his back.
“Yo, give him his DS back!” Oomz said. “You play too much!”
“Yo, I didn’t do nothing!” Donnie contended, giggling as he looked at Oomz.
Donnie returned the device to the boy, then smacked him in the head with an open palm.
“Don’t hit him!” Oomz said, his voice louder now.
Oomz sucked his teeth, stood up, and stepped toward Donnie, then punched him in the stomach. Donnie doubled over and Oomz grabbed him in a headlock and pulled him down onto the seat, pinning Donnie’s head under his armpit to free his hands. He unleashed right and left hooks into Donnie’s body, as Donnie tried to slip free.
“Chill! Chill! Yo, Chill!” Donnie groaned. “I didn’t do nothing!”
Donnie swung his arms wildly into Oomz’s sides, but Oomz kept on pummeling him.
“Yo, why you punching me?!” Donnie shouted.
Oomz pounded away without saying a word, beating on Donnie’s kidneys and stomach.
“Time-out! Time-out!” Donnie shouted.
“Nah, no time-outs,” Oomz replied calmly.
The boys’ bodies banged against the bus’s metal siding and slapped against the seats. The commotion got loud enough that it reached the front of the bus, and when Oomz saw Coach Esau walking down the aisle, he pulled Donnie to the floor, hidden from sight behind the seat backs.
“Yo, y’all keep it down,” Esau said. “Why y’all can’t be quiet?”
“Oomz fighting,” a Pee Wee spoke up.
“Stop fighting,” Esau said, before turning and heading back to the front.
Oomz let go of Donnie. Donnie retreated to his seat and slouched down with his arms crossed and an angry look on his face.
“Who said that?” Oomz said in a harsh whisper. “Who said my name?”
Nobody responded, but Oomz already knew the answer. He walked up to the boy, a normally gregarious and unassuming 11-year-old named Howard. “Don’t put my name in ya mouth,” he said. Then he started punching Howard in the body, wailing on him repeatedly, as the other boys looked on in silence. Howard curled up and took the punishment. When Oomz finally let up and returned to his seat, Howard began crying. He sobbed quietly all the way back to Brownsville.
BY THE TIME Donnie got home, he seemed to have forgotten about the fight. He was a veteran of middle school fights, and by his standard, the tussle with Oomz barely qualified. Nobody was hurt or bleeding and nobody got in trouble. As always, the front door to the Castle was unlocked. Donnie dragged his feet through the lobby and into the elevator. The panel with the buttons was covered with a thick red paste, which Donnie identified as tomato sauce. “Some kids rubbed a pizza on it,” he said, shaking his head. “Stupid-ass kids.” Music thumped from an apartment above—a Saturday night house party, Donnie guessed. His family lived on the fourth floor, but Donnie pressed the button for the third because the landing on the fourth was broken. He climbed a flight of steps and reached his door. Donnie didn’t need a key because the door was broken. He grabbed the handle and shoved his shoulder into the door, and it popped open into a long, narrow hallway. The hallway led into a room. In one corner was a bed without sheets. There was no other furniture in the room, but on the floor were three large garbage bags with clothes spilling out. On the far side of the room, opposite the hallway, a doorless opening in the wall led into another room. On one side were a twin-size bed and a dresser with a small rabbit-ear TV on top. On the other side was a bunk bed, which is where Donnie and Tarell slept. Donnie dropped his shoulder pads on the floor and changed into basketball shorts. He sang along with the white man in the music video playing on the TV.
“Staaaaaay with meeeee,” he crooned. “Staaaaay with meeeee.”
The 3 train rumbled by out the open window. Donnie sang louder. Tarell didn’t know the Mitey Mites had a game the next day, so the brothers stayed up until 3 a.m. They watched TV. They wrestled. They slap boxed. They played bloody knuckles, slamming their fists together until somebody’s skin broke. They tried to hush their laughter because the rest of the family was asleep.
Their mother had recently gotten a job with the city’s parks department and was saving up to move them out of the Castle. The family’s long-term financial hopes seemed to rest on the broad shoulders of Donnie’s older brother, a star running back at Grand Street High School. They were often reminded how tenuous these hopes were. A few months after his junior-year season ended, Donnie’s brother had a kid pull a gun on him in front of the school. Things might have turned tragic, but a football coach standing nearby stepped between them and calmed the situation. “It can be dangerous out here sometimes,” Donnie said. “Like, you can have no control over it. Stuff can just happen.”
Donnie hadn’t thought much about what he wanted to be when he grew up. “Maybe a football player or a lawyer,” he said. “I heard lawyers make lots of money.” He hadn’t thought about what high school or college he wanted to go to. He lived day-to-day, finding fulfillment in the small pleasures he was able to scrape together: a handful of sunflower seeds from a teammate, beating his brother at one of their games, playing a prank on one of his friends. He was a decent student, but easily distracted, according to a counselor who worked with him. He avoided going to school whenever he could, staying home when he was too sleepy to get up or when it was raining too hard.
Late in the night, just as the boys were getting ready to go to sleep, the train once again rumbled by. “It used to bother me, hearing the train all the time,” Donnie later said, “but it doesn’t anymore.”
DONNIE AND TARELL were still asleep in their apartment when the Mitey Mites filed onto the bus at Betsy Head the following morning—a rare weekend when the three age groups didn’t all play on the same day. Prowling the aisle, Vick greeted the boys with smiles, jokes, and high fives before working his way to the back, where he found a seat next to Coach Oscar.
“Ay, Vick!” Oscar said warmly. “How’s the n
ew place working out?”
Vick laughed excitedly and fished his flip phone out of his jeans pocket. He was still looking for a job and still living off of welfare checks, but he’d caught some luck. He found a small apartment in southeast Crown Heights for $250 a month in rent. For many years, he’d lived with a string of girlfriends, bouncing from one apartment to the next as each relationship ended. Now, for the first time in his life, he was living by himself. He was happier than he’d been all year.
“It’s great, Oscar, it’s great,” Vick said.
“Nothing like having a place of your own,” Oscar said.
“I’m loving it, man, I’m loving it.”
He showed a photo on his phone of a small, dim room with chipped paint on the walls and plaster debris all over the floor.
“That’s how it used to look,” Vick said. “These are the walls when I first started.”
He clicked to the next photo: a small, clean room with freshly painted maroon walls and a few pieces of furniture.
“Oh, got a lil’ flat-screen there,” Oscar said.
“Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I’m putting it together. Bad part about it is that now everybody wanna come over.”
The bus went a few blocks then stopped in front of the Castle. A light wind blew stray papers and Styrofoam containers onto the street. Several of the garbage bags in front of the building had been ripped open. The sidewalk was covered in trash but empty of people this early on a Sunday—except for Donnie and Tarell stepping out from the Castle’s front door.
Coach Chris had called their mother earlier that morning asking her why Tarell wasn’t at Betsy Head for the game. Their mother said that Tarell thought that the game was canceled. Chris told her that they needed every boy to show up, and that the bus would pick Tarell up in about 15 minutes. She woke Donnie and Tarell and they groggily dressed and gathered Tarell’s equipment. They slept on the bus all the way to Rahway, New Jersey.
Never Ran, Never Will Page 30