Tasha stared me down. She didn’t think I meant it. Either that, or she was sure that Noodles wouldn’t allow it, or I would lose my nuts and steer clear of trouble. And that would’ve normally been the case, but this was a pretty big deal. This was a MoMo party.
“When is it?” I asked. Noodles had totally backed out of the conversation at this point. I could smell his panic.
“Wednesday night. Eight, until. He likes to start early.”
“Wednesday night?” I asked. I couldn’t believe it was on a Wednesday. Who has parties on Wednesdays? They’re supposed to be on weekends. “No sweat,” I said, trying to recover.
Tasha stood there with “Are you serious?” smeared across her face. I guess she was waiting for me to yell “Sike!” and then we’d all laugh about it. But I didn’t. Once she realized I wasn’t going to back down, she just walked away. No good-bye, no see y’all later, no nothing. She just left, almost as if she was in some sort of trance—a she-just-couldn’t-believe I-on-behalf-of-the-three-of-us-agreed-to-bring-Needles-to-a-MoMo-party trance.
5
Huge. Major. Insane. Supreme. Mega. Ultra.
“Bro, this is ginormous! Next-level large!” I said as soon as Tasha was far enough away, trying to use every word I could think of to convince Noodles that we had made the right decision. “I’m talking, freakin’ Juggernaut!”
Noodles looked at me crazy. I figured throwing in a comic book character was worth a shot. I almost wanted to say, “Come on, bro, the X-Men would do it,” but I knew that would be pushing it. I was trying anything to convince him of how great this was—a MoMo party, and all we had to do was bring Needles. Nothing to it.
“What if he starts spazzing?” Noodles asked, giving me a dark look. We were still sitting on the stoop. Well, this was uncomfortable—Needles was sitting right there! Second step from the top. A few inches away from us.
“I won’t,” Needles said lightly. Thankfully, he seemed totally unfazed.
“How you know you won’t? You don’t even know that,” Noodles said, cold. Real cold.
“Because I won’t. I just know, man.” He looked over at me, his eyes bugging, begging me to bail him out. “Ali . . .”
“Because it’s a party, Nood. Everybody will be partying and dancing and drinking,” I cut in. “Ain’t nobody gonna be worried about none of us. Period.”
Noodles clearly wanted to talk to me alone about the whole situation, so he made up an excuse to go inside, telling Needles that we were just going up to their apartment to get something to drink, while giving me the signal to play along.
“Yeah, man, you want me to bring you something out? It’s hot,” I said, trying to act normal.
Needles said he was fine, and then I realized that he had to have known we were lying because, long as I’ve known them, they’ve never had anything to drink in their house. Never. Except water. New York City’s finest. And Needles knows Noodles don’t drink water.
Their place was nothing like mine. There was no Jazz yapping on the phone to her girlfriends, convincing them not to have crushes on her older brother—me. No Doris at the kitchen sink covered in hard work. No pictures of old times and kids, bucktoothed cheesing. No boxing trophies (just for participating in Malloy’s training, not for actually fighting and winning). None of that. Noodles and Needles’s apartment was cold. Not cold like the temperature cold, but cold like the feeling cold. Like there was no life there. Like there was just a sad vibe all around. The air was thick and musty. It was hard to breathe in there sometimes, especially on a hot day like that one. The paint was peeling off the wall. It kinda reminded me of a snake shedding its skin, but there wasn’t nothing new underneath.
Whenever I came over, we never went to their room. We just stayed in the front and sat at an old card table they had set up in the middle of the living room. It was just big enough to fit a small TV on it and a few plates, but their apartment didn’t exactly seem like a “sit at the table and eat” kind of place. The TV was connected to an orange extension cord that was plugged in on the other side of the room. It was on when we came in. A snowy Channel 1 News talked about something bad that they were being overdramatic about.
I’ve only seen Noodles and Needles’s mother a few times. I don’t really know what to say about her—plus, I don’t like talking about folks’ moms. All I know is, most of the time she’s not there.
I assumed she was gone as usual, but then I started smelling smoke coming from the back.
“Roland, somebody here with you?” Her voice, rough but still sweet, came down the hall. It’s always weird when I hear anyone call Noodles by his government name, Roland.
“Yeah, it’s just Ali,” Noodles mumbled, shaking his head.
“Oh. Hi, Ali.”
“Hi, Ms. Janice.” She made me call her Ms. Janice. Actually, she’d prefer just Janice, but I always called her “Ms.” just because you never know when Doris might pop up, and she ain’t play calling elders just by their first names. Ms. Janice didn’t seem to mind the “Ms.” as long as I didn’t call her Ms. James, which was her last name, or “ma’am.”
“Roland, come close my door,” she said, coughing. Noodles disappeared into the smoky hallway. I peeked around the corner. I could see a mattress on the floor and brown skin, but I couldn’t make out what part of her body it was. Then I sat down on a fold-up chair with the plastic torn off the seat part, so the yellow foam stuffing was out. The foam had gotten pretty nasty from all the butts that had sat on it.
I heard Noodles’s mother’s bedroom door click shut. Then I heard another door open. Noodles was digging around for something. A few seconds later I heard that door shut, and Noodles reappeared from the hallway. I don’t even know how he could breathe with all the smoke back there, but I guess he was just used to it. He was holding a loose page of a comic book. Just like the first day I’d seen him. The colors were bright, and the edges were raggedy from the tear. He sat down on the other chair and pulled up to the card table. Then Noodles reached over and turned the TV off.
“What’s that one?” I asked, nodding at the comic.
“Spawn,” he said, all serious. “Black superhero. Don’t take no BS.”
He dug down in his pocket and wiggled out the mini notepad. He flipped through the sketched pages until he found where he had tucked another folded-up comic book page. He took the tightly folded rectangle from the notepad and set it on the table, and judging by the little bits of cartoony blue and gray, it looked like Batman, but I wasn’t sure. Then he started to fold up the Spawn comic as a replacement.
“Yo, so about Needles,” he reminded me. “Are you crazy? I just don’t think it’s a good look, man. You know how he is.” We plucked the folded Batman square back and forth—a lazy game of table football.
“He’ll be fine, Nood. He’s not dumb. The syndrome don’t mean he’s nuts. Just different, but not really even that much different.” I couldn’t figure out a better way to explain it.
Noodles put one hand on top of his head. He scratched it only when he was about to speak.
“I guess you’re right.” He dug his fingers into his scalp and conceded. “And it is a big deal. A MoMo party.” His turn to pluck.
“Right. It’ll be good for him too,” I said, still trying to justify Needles coming with us. But I really did believe that he’d be fine and that it was no big deal. Needles had his yarn, so he won’t be shouting nothing, and even if he did, the music would be so loud, no one would even care. Not to mention, Needles is such a shy dude, I figured he’d most likely find a corner to sit in and knit while Noodles and I scope the scene.
“Yeah, maybe you right.”
“Needles might find him a pretty lady. Who knows?”
“To do what with, knit?”
“To knit for. And to kick raps about!”
We both laughed.
“So we in?”
Noodles nodded while still scratching his head. “Yeah, we in.”
The fridge buzzed like there was a beeh
ive in the freezer. And something was clicking. Not sure what. Then there was a bunch of horn honking coming from right in front of the house. Noodles and I got up to see what the fuss was, but before we could get to the window, Ms. Janice came dashing from the back, tugging at her shirt and buttoning her skintight pants. She carried a purse in one hand and an overnight duffel bag in the other.
“Aight, Roland, I’m off to work,” she said, scrambling around. She looked good but not good for a young woman, if that makes sense. “See y’all tomorrow.”
Noodles didn’t say nothing.
“Bye, Ms. Janice,” I said to make it less awkward.
Her heels clicked on the wooden hall floor, out the door, and down the steps.
Me and Noodles watched out the window as she ran down the stoop, passed Needles, and into the black cab. She didn’t even acknowledge him. I didn’t say nothing. I never asked what work she was going to do because it was none of my business, and honestly, whatever it was, Noodles didn’t seem like he liked it, which means he probably wouldn’t want to talk about it.
Once the cab pulled off, we went back downstairs.
“Yo, Needles,” Noodles said in his usual gruff tone as soon as we got to the stoop, “you partying with us or what?”
Good enough, I thought. Actually, I was pretty psyched because since Noodles asked, that meant he was now totally into the whole idea.
Needles smiled, and ticked a little, his left arm jerking just enough for the yarn to slip off the needle. “Sure, guys, I’m down”—he paused, then smiled and continued—“like the ground, from here to downtown.” Then he let out an “Ohhhhhhhh!” He was his own biggest fan.
I felt good. I felt like, somehow, we all were winning.
Now came the next problem. The party was only three days away, and the trickiest part about it was figuring out what we were going to wear, how we were going to look. I mean, it’s not like we’re girls or nothin’, primping in front of the mirror for hours, but like I said, this was a big deal.
The issue was, Needles was sixteen, almost seventeen, and Noodles and I was fifteen going on sixteen. But MoMo was twenty going on thirty; his party was going to be jam-packed with a bunch of folks who broke out their best fits to show off. People were probably going to rent cars and spend a few hundred dollars on a slick pair of shoes. Every dude was going to have a haircut so fresh that he was still going to smell like the oil and the spray the barber always puts on your head afterward, to give it that shine and make the waves pop out. It was going to be quite a sight, and we couldn’t be the only three lames in there looking like we still played with blocks.
First on the agenda: haircuts.
The next day, Monday, I went to do some work over at Malloy’s early in the morning, wiping down all the boxing equipment, taking out the trash, and doing whatever other little odd jobs he needed me to do, since he wouldn’t let me do it the day before. It usually only took about an hour, and he always gave me twenty dollars for it. Twenty bucks, three times a week, can add up, and I wish I would’ve done a better job at saving some of it, because then I’d be able to at least buy some fresh kicks for the party. But who knew we would end up going to a MoMo party? Plus, I always used some of my cash to help out around the house, just to take some of the load off Doris.
• • •
I came bopping down the block, swinging a bodega bag. Needles and Noodles were sitting on the stoop, waiting for me. We would just pool all of our money and see how much we had and what we could afford. We knew we wouldn’t have enough for fly outfits, but at least we might be able to get haircuts.
I dug in the black bag and pulled out a greasy brown paper one. Then I wiggled a golden beef patty out and broke a piece off. I passed the patty to Needles, who cracked off a corner and then passed the rest to his brother.
“How much you got,” Noodles said, sucking in his breath—the patty was hot!
“I got eleven bucks,” I said. I took my money and held it in my hand like it was a wad. “Here’s eight of it, and the rest of it is in change.” I patted my pocket so they could hear the jingle.
“Okay, cool,” Noodles gave his approval. “You?” He turned and looked at Needles, who was sitting on the second step from the top as usual. Needles put the yarn down and wiggled his hand into his left pocket. He pulled out a few dollars.
“Here you go,” Needles said, happily handing it over.
“One, two, three, four. Four bucks.” Noodles looked disappointed. “That’s it?”
“Yeah, that’s it,” Needles said, now looking bummed.
Noodles was always coming down on Needles, and it was really starting to piss me off.
“Man, how much you got?” I said.
Noodles looked at me strange.
“I could probably get us a couple of bucks. I just gotta wait for Ma to get back from work,” he said, which meant he had nothing.
“So you got nothing? Not one dollar? Not a quarter? Not a penny? Even bums got pennies!” I knew this would make him angry, and I didn’t care. I looked up at Needles and he was giggling. That’s all I cared about. “Well, fifteen bucks ain’t gonna be enough for all three of us to get cut,” I said.
“Welp, sorry, Needles.” Noodles looked at his brother and shrugged his shoulders.
“Naw, naw, he can get one. I was just gonna get a shape-up, but I can pass.” My hair was in braids. I knew that I could get away with not having a fresh shape-up easier than they could get away with not chopping that Sunday dinner off the tops of their heads. “I’ll just get Jazz to braid me up fresh. No biggie,” I added.
“Fifteen still ain’t enough to get both of us cut, man.”
“Brother will hook it up. He’ll look out because he likes Needles. Should be fine.”
I really wasn’t sure if Brother would look out for Needles, but I knew he probably would just because everyone in our neighborhood kind of looked out for him, as long as he wasn’t bugging out.
We started heading up the block toward Brother’s. Once we got halfway up the street, we realized Needles wasn’t behind us. He was still sitting on the stoop. He just wasn’t used to ever coming anywhere with us, I guess. It was like his mind had gotten used to us, and everyone, leaving him right there on that stoop, second step from the top. We called out to him, and he looked kind of startled.
“Come on, man!” Noodles shouted, waving his arm.
Needles scrambled to gather his stuff, his yarn and needles, and ran to catch up.
We walked up Fulton like three cool dudes, one of which was holding yarn. For some reason this particular day Fulton Street felt like Broadway, or Fifth Ave, one of those kind of streets. Not because anything on the street was different, because it wasn’t. Same old hood shops, and hustlers on the corner. People on pay phones and the smell of burnt halal meat and dog mess. No white people. At least not many. So it wasn’t actually like Broadway or Fifth Ave, but in my mind it just felt like we were walking high and mighty like I guessed they did on those streets. Like we were going to do something very important. Get haircuts for a very special event we’d been invited to. An exclusive night at Chateau MoMo.
Once we got to Brother’s Barbershop and Pet Store, there was a blue and white sign on the door. SORRY WE’RE CLOSED. Closed? Closed? How?
I checked the hours on the sign.
“He’s closed Mondays,” I said.
Noodles put his forehead against the glass door and peered in. Darkness.
“You gotta be kidding me. What about the pet store? Brother gotta be in there. People need pet stuff on Mondays, don’t they?”
“Guess not.” I stared at the sign as if trying to change it from closed to open. Needles leaned against the wall, quiet.
“Yeah, all barbershops, for the most part, are closed on Mondays, young fellas.” A familiar voice came from behind us. I looked in the glass before turning around. I could see the reflection and knew exactly who it was.
It was this guy named Kendall who lived all the w
ay down at the end of our block. Everyone called him Black. I’m pretty sure he was twenty-something. Definitely not over thirty. He was known for being a hustler but not your typical hustler. His hustle was that he could do a whole bunch of stuff pretty good. He wasn’t great at anything, though. Just pretty good. My mother says he’s a jackass of all trades, and a master of none. He would hang out on Fulton, and whatever stores were closed, he would lurk around and wait for customers to show up and be disappointed about the store not being open. Then he would offer his services. So if a law office wasn’t open on Sundays, Black would just pop up and say he could represent someone in court. Or if a restaurant was closed, he’d appear out of nowhere and offer to make people lunch for half the price. I guess it was our day.
“But whatever you need done, I’m sure I could hook you right up. And for cheap, too.”
Noodles looked at him from head to toe. Then looked at me. I knew I wasn’t getting a haircut either way, because I have braids, so it didn’t matter too much to me. And even if Black said he’d braid it, I would’ve said no, just because nobody does my hair but Jazz. She does it the best, and it’s free. I gave Noodles the “why not” face. I mean, we were in a jam. What other options did we have? Sure, we could wait until the next day, but we figured all the barbershops on this side of Brooklyn would be slammed with all the other guys trying to get fresh for MoMo’s party, plus barbershops are just generally pretty busy places in our neighborhood. The black man’s country club, as they say.
“Aight, man,” Noodles said to Black. He put his tough face on. “What you talking?”
Black smiled a hustler’s smile. “What you need?”
“Me and him, caesars.” Noodles pointed over to Needles, who was still leaning against the wall.
Black looked at Needles, and you could tell he recognized him from the neighborhood.
“Oh, cool,” Black said. He took a second to think of a price. It looked like he was punching a calculator in his head. He was counting his fingers, too. It was all very stupid. He knew what he wanted to charge, he was just stalling to make it seem like he was cutting them some kind of deal.
When I Was the Greatest Page 6