“Just give me ten and we square,” he said.
Noodles looked over at me. I gave the same face I gave him before. Why not? I mean, the truth is, I had seen Black’s work. Not his barber skills, but I saw him fix Mr. Malloy’s gate down the block, and he patched a leak in my house one time, for Doris. And he brought me and Jazz bootleg movies to watch. Pretty good. Good enough. Oh, and he put braid extensions in some girl’s hair once. I can’t remember who, but I remember them looking pretty good, and her bragging about only paying him thirty bucks or something like that. He had proven to be a decent knockoff guy.
In order to get the haircuts, though, we had to go back to Black’s apartment. None of us felt like walking back to the block, but luckily, Black had a car. A cab. I guess another of his hustles. We jumped in the backseat and headed back down Fulton.
Black’s place was interesting. He lived alone, which was cool and unexpected. I don’t know why, but I always thought he lived with his mother. I guess all his hustles were paying off. The walls were painted a cool light blue, and the room seemed brighter than it really was. The living room was the first room you walk into. He had a supernice couch and table in there, and even had a flat-screen TV. A sweet one. They’re all sweet, but his was sweet. Black actually had pretty good taste, from what I could tell.
“Come right through here, gents,” he said while leading us toward the back of the apartment.
You know how when you see movies where people have attics in their houses, and that’s where they keep all their junk, and sometimes scary things go on up there? That’s how this back room was in Black’s house. He had welding masks, paintbrushes and empty paint cans, a barbecue grill, a chainsaw, curling irons, a flute, blades from a ceiling fan, old TVs with the wires coming out the back, a mannequin, high-heel shoes, and who the hell knows what else. I had no clue why he brought us back to this room until I looked in the corner. A barber chair.
“Are you serious?” Noodles barked.
“What?” Black seemed confused.
“Why do you have all this crap?”
“This is my office. This is what put that flat screen out there, and this is what’s gonna get you and him a haircut for cheap,” Black boasted.
There was nothing anyone could say after that.
Black cleared some space around the barber chair. There was a black box on the seat. He opened it and began pulling out his clippers and his smock, and the oils and sprays and all that. He had the whole setup. If you didn’t know better, you’d have thought Black actually went to school for this. He sprayed the clippers down to clean them and then stood behind the chair.
“So, who’s first?”
“Needles,” Noodles said with no hesitation. Somehow I knew that was coming.
“Yeah, I’ll go first. I don’t care,” Needles said.
Needles, yarn in hand, stepped over the mess to get to the chair. He plopped down, and I could tell he was happy. He didn’t smile or anything, but I could just tell. It was his eyes. It was always his eyes. They were beaming. Black took the smock and waved it over Needles to cover him, tying it around his neck.
“Y’all can have a seat over there,” Black said, pointing to an old church pew. What the? I didn’t even want to know what he was doing with that. Clippers on. The motor inside was buzzing at the exact same level as the fridge in Noodles and Needles’s house. Black started with the back, moving the clippers up Needles’s neck in sweeping motions like he was painting. He looked pretty pro.
Still, I had to warn him. “Black, be careful,” I said. “Needles sometimes has a tick. Don’t want you to put a bald spot in his head. That wouldn’t be cool.”
“Gotcha,” he said. “Trust me, I’ve cut enough babies to know how to handle that kind of stuff.”
“Needles ain’t no baby,” Noodles said, tough. I understood why he said it, but I think he misunderstood what Black was saying. Black didn’t respond. Noodles just smirked.
“I’ll try not to budge, Black,” Needles said.
“You aight, man, no worries. I gotcha.”
The clippers buzzed and buzzed, and hair fell from Needles’s head like ash. Like thick black snow. Black told us about how he used to watch Brother cut when he was younger. How he would sit with his mom waiting for a cut, watching everything Brother would do with the clippers. How he would hold them when he was cutting, and even how he would whisper to himself, “Against the grain,” or “Go with the grain.” I never knew what Brother was saying, but he’s always mumbling something. I guess that’s what it was. Against the grain. Or go with the grain. Black said that’s pretty much how he learned everything he knew. He learned to braid hair from watching his mom get hers braided. He learned to fix things by watching his mother’s boyfriend. He learned to cook by watching his mother in the kitchen. Then he told us how he didn’t really do well in school because no one was ever showing him anything, so he couldn’t quite understand most of the subjects. He said teachers were just talking. Not showing. And he was a show-don’t-tell kind of guy. Black said he probably could’ve been a scientist or a doctor or a lawyer if his teachers had got that he was different. I agreed. He probably could’ve been. I told him that I bet he could be a teacher, though. He laughed.
Right when he was finishing up Needles’s haircut, there was a clicking at the front door. Someone was coming in. We could hear the door swing open and tap against the wall. Then close. Lock. The click-clacking on the floor made it clear that it was a woman. She peeked into the back room and tapped on the wall to get Black’s attention.
“Hey, babe, what you got goin’ on in here?”
“Not much. Just cutting these boys’ hair.” Black cut the clippers off and stretched out to give her a kiss. “Fellas, this is my girl, Kim.”
Kim smiled. “Hey, guys.” She shook all of our hands, classy. “Kenny, I’m gonna be out here on the couch. Gonna try to catch a quick nap before work.”
“Okay, we’ll keep it down.”
Kim wasn’t bad to look at. She was tall and slim but not skinny. She had super white teeth and she wore glasses, which I liked. From that short interaction, she seemed so sweet, which made her look even better. It was sort of amazing that a girl like her was with Black. Not that he was a bad-looking guy, but he was Black: jackass of all trades, master of none. But I was learning as we were talking that he wasn’t so bad. Still, I couldn’t believe she was Black’s girl. Pretty good.
Black didn’t really say too much about Kim when she left, just brushed off Needles’s neck and forehead, then sprayed the stuff on his head to make sure it had that shine. He pulled a hand mirror out of the black box and held in front of Needles’s face. Needles smiled big. I did too. I looked over at Noodles. He smiled too. I have to say, the haircut was fresh.
“Next,” Black said while taking the smock off Needles and snapping it in the air. Hair went flying and slowly falling to the tops of everything on the floor. Noodles jumped up, now excited since he’d seen that Black actually was a decent barber.
Black started from the back again, cutting upward toward the top of Noodles’s head. What Black said about watching Brother cut became obvious, because while he was cutting Noodles, I realized that he cut exactly like Brother did. His posture. His facial expressions. His movements. Brother, Brother, Brother.
After he finished, he held the hand mirror in front of Noodles. Noodles looked and looked, and looked some more. He turned his head to the left and to the right. I couldn’t understand what he was looking for. His cut looked crisp. His hairline looked perfect, and in the hood, that’s a big deal. That’s like a fresh pair of shoes.
Noodles kept analyzing it, and for some reason, for some strange reason, I just knew what was about to go down.
Noodles twisted his face. “Yo, man, what’s this?”
Black was dusting off his clippers. He came around to the front of the chair.
“What’s what?”
“This.” Noodles took his hand and traced his hai
rline. “It’s crooked.”
Black looked concerned. He knew he had done a good job, and I did too.
“Where?”
“Are you blind? Here!” Noodles ran his finger along his perfectly straight hairline again.
“It ain’t crooked, man,” Black said, looking as hard as he could.
“Yeah, man, it don’t look crooked to me, either,” I said, trying to squash this before it got too far.
“Me either,” said Needles.
“What? Man, this thing is crooked! Look like you shaped me up with your eyes closed. Like you drunk. Better yet, like you gotta syndrome!” Noodles jumped up from the chair and snatched the smock off. I already knew what he was doing. He was pulling the same crap he always pulls. I stood up to make sure he didn’t try to do nothing crazy, like swing on Black, though I didn’t really think he would go that far.
“I ain’t paying for this crap!” Noodles said. “You butchered me!” Then he looked at me and howled, “He butchered me, Ali! I can’t go to the party like this!”
“Calm down, Nood,” I said in my calmest voice.
Black picked the smock up off the floor. “I don’t know what your deal is, man, but that’s a mean cut. And you owe me ten bucks.” He laid the smock on the back of the chair. He was moving in such a relaxed way that it kind of scared me. He didn’t seem put off by any of this. That made me believe that he knew something we didn’t know. Like, nobody was leaving until he got his money. Like, in all this junk in this room, there might’ve also been a gun.
“Yeah, man, just pay him his money,” I pleaded with Noodles. “Just give it to him.”
“I ain’t giving him ten bucks! Maybe five for Needles, but he ain’t cut me right! Mine is messed up!”
I glared at him. Why’d he have to pull this now? I mean, he had money—me and Needles’s money. He just was trying to get over on Black and get something for nothing. But I knew for sure, Noodles wasn’t gonna win this one.
“Listen,” Black said, taking a step toward him, “I’m not playing with you. Ten bucks, homie.”
“You not playing with me? You not playing with me?” Noodles started, his voice rising to another level each time he said it. “I’m not playing with you!” He balled his fists up tight, but I knew he really didn’t want no parts of Black.
I grabbed Noodles and started pulling him back. Kim came into the room, and after some more yelling from Noodles, she asked us to leave. Noodles took five of the dollars he had, five of our dollars, balled them up, and threw them at Black. Black bit down on his jaw, trying his best to hold in the butt-whooping he surely had ready for Noodles. Needles, shaking his head, ran over and picked the dollars up and handed them to Black. I realized he wasn’t surprised at Noodles’s performance either, and was just as prepared for it as I was. I pulled an extra five from my pocket and dropped it on the church pew while yanking Noodles out of the room.
It’s funny. Another one of my mother’s rules was to never let anyone know what you’re holding. Not even your friends. I had more than eight dollars in cash. But somehow I knew it would be a bad idea to let Noodles know that. I knew I would have to have a reserve messing around with him. And I’m glad I did.
I apologized to Kim on the way out, and asked her to please apologize to Black on behalf of the three of us. I also told her to make sure he got the extra five I left on the pew for him. She was upset, but still sweet enough to smile at me while closing the door.
“Yo, what’s your deal, Noodles?” I laid into him as soon as we hit the sidewalk. I was mad, and this time I wanted him to know it. “Why do you insist on being such a jerk, man?”
“Whatever, Ali. I just ain’t feel like paying that fool. Figured we could use that money for something else,” Noodles said proudly.
I shook my head in disgust. “Trippin’.”
“I’m trippin’? What about you, Mr. Moneybags? You was holding out.”
“And you wasn’t holding at all, so who are you to count my coins, man?” I almost snapped on him, but I caught myself. “Yo, just forget it. The haircuts are fresh. That’s all that matters.”
That’s all that mattered. But I was starting to understand what my mother said about getting tired of bailing people out. I wasn’t ready to quit on my homeboy yet, but he was pushing me, and pushing hard.
6
Doris always says that the worst thing ever is a man dressed up in a sharp suit, wearing dirty shoes. And since we don’t wear no suits, that’s like saying the worst thing is a dude with a fresh haircut, wearing a wack outfit, which we agreed could not be us. Not for a MoMo party. So we sat around knocking our heads together, trying to figure out a way to get clothes. Good clothes. A fresh white tee right out of a three-pack wouldn’t cut it. We needed something with some flash to it. Something with a name so hard to pronounce that people don’t even try. The kind of clothes that would cost more money than any of us had, or ever had. There was no way for us to get it unless we did something crazy, which I wasn’t down for. Noodles, on the other hand, as usual, was all about pulling a caper.
“We need money to get these clothes.” Noodles sat in my living room drinking a soda, stating the obvious. Needles stayed outside on the stoop. I told him to come in, but I guess he didn’t want to, and I was starting to get it. I think he felt safe on the stoop. I couldn’t blame him. His brother knew how to make things real unsafe, real quick.
“That’s all, man. Money. Lots of it,” he continued. I sat at the window. Didn’t really have much to say to Noodles. I was still upset about what went down at Black’s. I was trying to move past it, but it was really bugging me. Plus, he’d jumped all over Needles for picking the money up off the floor and giving it to Black.
“You ain’t no dog! You don’t gotta pick nothing up off the floor, stupid!” he said, slapping Needles in the back of the head.
“What you gotta hit me for?” Needles yelped. He rubbed the back of his head. “And I ain’t stupid either,” he said.
“Tell him again, bro,” I said, backing Needles up.
“Yeah, whatever,” Noodles said. He turned to me. “Stay out of this.”
I should’ve said, “Hit him again, Noodles, and I’ll show you what Black should’ve done to you.” But I didn’t. For some reason I just didn’t feel like I had the right to step that far into family business, because family business is family business.
Now Noodles tapped the soda can on the kitchen table.
“Man, we can’t rob no bank, but we could jack a bodega, easy.”
Just the thought of robbing a corner store made me cringe, especially knowing all the drama it caused my family when my father did it. But I didn’t say nothing.
“Or go into the city where the fancy folks live with their little dogs, and snatch a purse. Probably be straight just from one bag. Take whatever cash is in it, and if it’s not enough, we could sell the bag and get Needles some fly clothes too.”
Nothing.
“Or we could just take Needles to a church and do the whole, my brother is sick with a syndrome and we don’t have no clothes, please help, bit.”
Nothing.
“Naw, that’s probably not a good one, because they won’t give us money, they’d probably give us clothes. Church clothes. And I ain’t wearing that mess to the party. Corduroys and whatnot.”
I still said nothing. He went on and on about different ways to steal money from this person and that person. How we could somehow cheat and either make a fistful of cash or a closet full of clothes suddenly appear. He even suggested that I ask my mother to somehow “get” some stuff from the store she works at, as if Doris was just going to say, “Of course I’ll get you and your little knucklehead friend a boatload of expensive clothes” without asking what we needed the clothes for. Or without yelling my head off for asking her something so ridiculous.
As Noodles made suggestion after suggestion, I looked out at Needles, sitting on the stoop, weaving the black yarn in and out with the needles just li
ke my mother taught him. I could see that something had started to form. Something was being made, and even if it wasn’t anything specific, it was something, and I thought that was pretty cool. He was making progress. You could tell he was concentrating on every stitch and loving every moment while this black, messy glob of together-yarn was being created. And suddenly, without warning, he jerked. His left arm shot out, sort of like a toy with a spring-loaded karate chop. And just like that, the messy glob of together-yarn came loose again.
“Or we could just go see Dog and ask him to put us down for a trial run, see how good we can make a flip.” Noodles was still tossing out ridiculous ideas. Ideas like going to see Dog, the block’s dope boy, and asking him if we could sell for him. At that point it became pretty clear that Noodles was going crazy. He was willing to risk his life over an outfit for this party. “You hear me?” he asked.
I heard him, but I definitely wasn’t listening.
“Yeah, I hear you,” I said, straight and to the point.
“So, what you think about any of those ideas?” Noodles was finishing off his soda. He turned the can up to his mouth and took the last few swallows. Burp. Then he put the can on the table, broke the aluminum tab thing, the thing you open it with, off the top, and popped it in his mouth like it was candy.
“I think they’re terrible,” I said.
Noodles’s eyes looked like they were ready to fall out his face.
“You got something better, genius? Oh, I mean, moneybags,” he asked, all huff and puff. If he was a girl, he would’ve rolled his eyes. And his neck.
The aluminum tab in his mouth made it sound like he had a mouthful of loose teeth. I could tell he was trying hard not to drool when he was talking.
“Let me ask you something,” I said. “Why you so mean to Needles?”
I don’t know where it came from, but it came. For some reason I just couldn’t hold it in no more.
Noodles squinted his eyes like he didn’t know what I was talking about. “What?” he said in his usual grouchy tone.
When I Was the Greatest Page 7