When I Was the Greatest

by Jason Reynolds

  I strolled down Decatur, back toward my house, thinking about what Malloy said. I walked at a medium pace. Not too fast. I had to spend the rest of the day inside, so there was no point in rushing back to my apartment prison. But not too slow, either. Doris was known for having spies on the block, clocking my every move whenever I was on punishment. If it looked like I was stalling, the neighbors would snitch, and she’d jump down my throat and tack on another week for lollygagging.

  When I got to Needles and Noodles’s house, I glanced over at the stoop. No one was there, which was rare. One of them was always sitting out there. But on this day the stoop had no stoopers. Or as my mother called us sometimes, stoopids.

  I looked up at their window, the one in the kitchen. One of those cheap plastic white fans sat on the sill, spinning, circulating hot air from outside, inside, and from inside back out. I wondered what they were doing in there. Was Needles okay? Was Noodles looking after him, making sure the swelling was going down, and keeping that sprained wrist stable? I hoped so. Was he reading Needles comics, maybe? Were they talking? Had Noodles said he was sorry for being a punk and letting his brother take a beating? Maybe I should just go check on Needles to make sure everything was cool, I thought. But I really didn’t want to see Noodles. At all. So, I kept on walking.

  Once I got back in the house, Jazz was sitting right where I’d left her, sunken deep into the couch. Her legs were tucked under her, which always seemed like the most uncomfortable position to me. The TV was on, but now she was busy flipping through magazines and cutting out old photos, working on her scrapbook.

  Eric, you are NOT the father!

  Jazz never looked up but shook her head and tightened the sides of her mouth, just like our mother does whenever she thinks something is ridiculous. If Jazz wasn’t Jazz, and was old enough to cuss, this look would be followed by “That’s a damn shame” or something like that. That’s what Doris always says.

  The smell of breakfast was now overpowered by the suffocating but fresh smell of ammonia and bleach.

  “Stink in here,” I said, walking behind the couch. I rested the hand that wasn’t all wrapped on one of Jazz’s skinny brown shoulders. She had glued a picture of Doris and John onto a Jamaican cruise ad.

  “I know.” She tilted her head back. “I cleaned everything up for you.”

  “What you mean?”

  Jazz slid her hand between the couch cushions and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper and held it up in the air so I could grab it. She grinned. It was the note Doris had left for me with my punishment on it. Jazz had checked off every assignment she had done. Bathroom. Check. Kitchen. Check. Living room. Check. Bedroom. No check there. She knew better than to go into my bedroom. Dust, sweep, mop. Check, check, and check.

  I wanted to ask her why she did it, but I didn’t because I already knew what she would say. She would say something about being my sister, and that it’s no big deal, or something like that. Then she would’ve cracked a joke about it taking me a million hours to do forty-five minutes’ worth of work, which is why Doris assigned it to me. Doris would never ask Jazz to do anything like this for a punishment. A punishment for Jazz would be more like keeping her from watching TV. Something like that. But this kind of stuff, house chores, was nothing to her.

  I leaned down and kissed her on top of her head for the second time this morning.

  “You said the living room was clean too, right?”

  “Uh. Yeah,” she said.

  “But it ain’t.”

  She glared at me.

  “What you mean, it ain’t?”

  “Your dirty butt still in here,” I said, laughing.

  Jazz jumped up and stood on the couch, play-swinging her arms at me all wild for my face. My reflex kicked in, and I blocked her hand with mine, but I used the wrong hand. The fractured one. A bomb blew up in my knuckle that I could feel in my elbow, and then in my neck. It was like an exploding train traveling through a subway tunnel, on fire, and the last stop was right under my chin.

  I jumped back in pain and started bouncing up and down and flicking my hand like Michael Jackson. I sucked air in between my teeth, making that hissing noise that people make whenever they are in pain but don’t want to yell. I didn’t want to yell. I knew Jazz didn’t mean it. We were playing. She looked at me, frightened and guilty.

  “I’m so sorry, Ali. It wasn’t on purpose.”

  “I know, Jazz. I’m okay, I’m okay,” I whispered, crouching down like someone had punched me in the stomach. Jazz rubbed my back and kept apologizing while the sting slowly drifted away. She felt so bad.

  “Listen, if scrapbooking don’t work out, you can always take up scrapping,” I joked to make her feel better. “You hit hard!”

  Jazz smirked. “Whatever. Shoulda never called me dirty.”

  “Oh yeah?” I straightened up and flashed a slick grin. “But you are dirty!”

  Jazz sprung up, ready to swing again. I pretended to be scared and broke out running down the hall.

  • • •

  Around 5:15 Doris came home. I was in my bedroom straightening up things, shooting left-hand jumpers with pieces of trash into my garbage can on the other side of the room. Kobe or LeBron, ten seconds left, fourth quarter, game seven of the finals. Or like John would say, Air Jordan time. But when I heard Doris come in, I called a timeout and started making up my bed.

  She poked her head in the room, looked at me, then at my hand and saw it was wrapped, shook her head, closed the door, and headed off to job number two. No speaking. That was her way of saying she was still kinda pissed about everything but not really pissed. If she was really pissed, then the tongue-lashing would’ve started again. Round two. She was famous for remembering something that she forgot to yell at you earlier, and dropping the wrath right back on you.

  Around 5:45 John came in.

  “Ali!” he yelled from the living room.

  When I got there, Black was sitting on the couch next to Jazz, and John was leaning on the arm of the sofa.

  “Hey,” I said, sort of confused as to why Black was in our house. I gave him a pound. “Wassup, man.”

  “Sup, Ali.”

  “Ali, you know Black, right?” my father asked.

  Obviously. “Yeah. Why? Wassup?”

  My father glanced at Jazz, who was pretending to watch TV, but she was really waiting to hear what was going on. John knew this, I knew this, and Black knew this.

  “Jazz, could you excuse us for a second, sweetie? Go hang in your room just for a few minutes.”

  Jazz huffed, but she got up and headed toward the back.

  “Close the door, and keep it shut, Jazz! You hear?”

  “Yes,” she grumbled, huffing louder.

  I sat in Jazz’s spot on the couch, and Black moved over to create some space between us. My father stayed put.

  “Tell him, Black,” my father said, like he was some sort of gang leader, and Black was one of his loyal goons.

  “Ali, I was at Brother’s today,” Black started. I instantly thought about the fact that Black knows how to cut hair but apparently not his own. “And you know, I was sitting there getting a cut, when a couple of dudes came in looking crazy. All black and blue like they had just been in a car crash or something. There was another guy already in there who knew the two guys who came in. They all dapped up and started talking.”

  “Okay,” I said, waiting for why I should care about any of this.

  “They started talking about MoMo’s party, Ali. They started talking about you—about y’all. But mainly about you.”

  It felt like a rock was all of a sudden stuck in my throat.

  “How you know they was talking about me?”

  “Come on, Ali. They were talking about how some kid caught them slipping when they were jumping some other dude, and lumped them up, pretty much. And how now they needed to find him. At first I didn’t know it was you because I had no idea that you could fight, not to mention, what would you be
doing at a MoMo party? But then they started talking about how the dude they were jumping had yarn with him. Said when they first hit him, a ball of knitting yarn flew up in the air. The other dude they were talking to thought that was hilarious.” He paused, then added, “Only one guy in this hood got yarn. Needles. And I peeped Noodles’s card when y’all were at my house. Dude’s all bark and no bite. I know he can’t fight. That leaves one Musketeer. You. Sound right?”

  I looked at him for a second, stunned. “Yeah.”

  “Brother heard all the crap they was talking, and he recognized the part about the yarn too. He told the dudes that if they was gonna talk that mess, they had to leave—that his shop wasn’t no thug meet-up spot. The boys gave Brother a little lip on their way out, and when they were gone, Brother and I talked about it. He knew the dudes from when he used to have a shop over in Brownsville. He said they were pretty raw cats, man. No games, all business. Bad business. He said he knew it was you they were looking for too. Had to be. So, I called your pops.”

  I felt like I was choking, but I managed to say, “I didn’t even know y’all knew each other.”

  After I said it, I realized that, yeah, it actually makes perfect sense that they know each other. They are pretty much in the same line of work. Hustling. Not drugs or anything like that. Just everything else. My father, clothes. And Black, services. Birds of a feather.

  “So what now?” I must admit, the rock in my throat had now become a brick. And my heart had become the broken washing machine at the laundromat. The one that jumps all around and makes all that noise. And my stomach, the big dryer on spin cycle.

  “Now I stay close,” my father said, tough.

  “What you mean, close?”

  “Close. If you need to go anywhere around here, I go too. At least for today.” John wiped his face and took off his Yankees hat. Not the one he gave me but another one, and set it on top of the TV.

  “I’m punished today, anyway. But what about tomorrow?” I asked nervously. The situation had gotten real. Somebody was looking for me. Somebody older and far meaner. And even though I beat them with my fists, I knew why my dad was sticking close—they were coming back with fire.

  John scratched his head. For the first time, I realized that his hair was thinning at the top. He very seldom took off his hat, if ever, so I had never noticed his scalp peeking through. He old, but not in an old man kind of way. Just older. More grown-up, which, I know, is weird to say about a middle-aged father.

  “Tomorrow,” John started, picking at his beard. “Tomorrow I’ll take care of it.”

  Instantly, my mind shot back to John’s car. Not all the expensive clothes in the three suitcases in the trunk. Not the blanket or the cup with the toothbrush in it. Not the duffel bag with his knickknacks and Yankees hat in it. But that gun. The gun handle I saw sticking up, jammed between the driver’s seat and the middle console. That handle was now knocking against my mind, like an angry fist on a wooden door.

  I wanted to ask him what that meant—I’ll take care of it—but I’ve learned over the years dealing with Doris that sometimes it’s best to not ask. Sometimes you just got to keep your mouth shut. Something told me that this was one of those times, even though it was scaring the hell out of me.

  We heard the creak of Jazz’s door, and then her little feet slide to the bathroom. Black, John, and I fell silent. The toilet flushed. The sink ran. The bathroom door opened, and her feet went tipping back to her room. We waited until we heard her door click closed.

  “Brother told Black where those dudes hang, over in Brownsville. I know that area. Used to do business over there. I’ll handle it,” John continued, now almost whispering.

  I nodded.

  “Oh, and Black’s girl . . .” My dad paused.

  “Kim.” Black helped him out.

  “Yeah, Kim. She over at Noodles’s and them’s house right now, checking on Needles.”

  “Yeah, man. She’s studying up to be an EMT. Wanted to make sure he was all stabilized and whatnot. No concussion and stuff, y’know? Those things can kill you if you ain’t careful,” Black explained.

  “Yeah,” I said, even though I was thinking, Concussion? You can die of a concussion? Now I was panicking at the thought of Needles dying from something that I hadn’t known how to do anything about.

  “Kim should be over here in a second. I asked for her to come and give us—well, really, give you the rundown on what’s happening with him,” Black said as compassionate as he could.

  Moments later my father was opening the door. It was Kim, all smiles, though she wasn’t really smiling. But she kind of was. I got the feeling she was one of those people who was so nice that even when she didn’t mean to be smiling, she was. She was carrying a leather shoulder bag like a professor. I could tell it was heavy by the way it was digging into her arm, plus she was leaning a little to the left like she had a crooked spine or a gimp leg or something.

  “Hey,” she said as she stepped inside.

  Black got up and took the bag from her, and gave her a kiss. Then he took her by the hand and led her over to the couch and gave his seat up so that she could sit down. It was all pretty sweet. And corny. Black treated her like she was the flyest girl alive. Kim wasn’t bad, but she wasn’t as hot as Candace, but obviously Candace wasn’t the kind of girl for me. But if I had a girl like Kim, I’d probably be acting like a cornball too. And I’d be cool with that.

  “So wassup? What’s going on over there?” Black asked while setting Kim’s overloaded bag on the floor.

  I braced myself for the worst. I just knew that Kim would say that Needles is bleeding to death on the inside, and that he’s got something wrong happening in his brain, and that I better rush over there right now if I want to see him one last time.

  “Not much. Needles will be fine. His wrist is sprained and bruised pretty bad, but the bone didn’t break, thank goodness,” Kim said. She looked over at me, grinning. “He had a pretty unique bandage on it—kept it stabilized. I didn’t get any sign that any of the bones in his face were broken either, just a lot of bruising. I checked his eyes, and asked him about his stomach, if he felt light-headed or queasy, and he said no. I asked him if he felt dizzy or had headaches at all, and he said no. So I don’t think he has a concussion, either. He’s just all bruised up. He seems to be a pretty tough kid. But he was lucky to have Ali there to look after him, and make sure he was taken care of.”

  That made me smile, but I turned my head. Didn’t want anyone to think I was a show-off.

  “Well, thank God for that,” my father said, relief in his voice.

  “Was Noodles there?” I asked.

  “He’s the one who let me in.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “About what?”

  “I don’t know, about anything?”

  I couldn’t help it, it was stupid, I know! But I was worried about Noodles, even though I tried not to be. But I knew, now he was all alone too. The two people who he always knew would put up with his crap had decided to bow out. I mean, it was his own fault, but still. And I wasn’t sure what kind of guy Noodles was when he was depressed and alone. I wasn’t sure he was the type who could handle it or not. Some people out there feel like when life gets tough, they can’t cope, and next thing you know, crazy things happen. My mother said she sees it happen with her clients all the time.

  “Yeah, he did when I asked him was everything all right, and if he was going to be able to take care of his brother while his mom was gone. She wasn’t there, and I kind of got the sense she was almost never there. What’s that about?” But Kim kept on talking, running away from the “Where’s their mother?” conversation. “Well, whatever. Anyway, so I asked him that, and he told me yeah. And then he started spilling about how he’s really blown it, and that Needles won’t speak to him or even look at him. He said every time he goes in the room to check on him, Needles rolls over, even though it obviously hurts like hell to do so. I could tell he was t
rying to be tough and not cry, and I didn’t know what to tell the poor kid, so I just gave him a hug.”

  I didn’t say nothing. I just sort of let the words bounce around inside.

  “Oh, and when I was leaving, he apologized to me—to us, Kenny—for how he acted the other day when you were cutting their hair. He seemed genuine about it, so I told him not to worry about it.” She looked at Black—Kenny, as she called him—and gave him a sweet grin. “So babe, if you see him, treat him regular. He’s forgiven. He’s got enough on his plate, and something tells me he’s learning his lesson in a much harder way than he ever thought.”

  Like a phantom, Jazz came popping up from around the corner. I knew she would show up as soon as she heard the voice of a woman who wasn’t Doris. She was protective in that way. Or maybe just nosy.

  “Who’s that?” she asked.

  My father looked shocked, as if he didn’t see this coming. As if he didn’t know there was no way Jazz was going to let the voice of another woman in our house slide, without finding out what was what, and who was who, and what was who doing in our apartment.

  “Jazz,” he called to her, waving her closer. “This is Kim. Kim is Black’s girlfriend.”

  “Oh. Hi, Kim.” Jazz held out her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Nice to meet you, Jazz,” Kim said, flashing that smile.

  Jazz looked Kim up and down in a split second.

  “Nice shoes.”

  Kim chuckled. I glanced down at Kim’s shoes. They were nice. Hadn’t even noticed them.

  “Thanks, Jazz. They look a lot better than they feel! These things are killing me!”

  “Is it pinching in the toe or rubbing on the heel?”

  “Girl. It’s—”

  “Uh. Excuse me,” Black interrupted with perfect timing. “We gotta go.” Jazz and Kim both looked at Black, shrinking him down to nothing.

  “Anyway, nice meeting you, Jazz.”

  “You too, Kim,” Jazz said, wrapping her arm around John’s waist again.

  John bent down and kissed her forehead, and told her that he would be right back, that he needed to speak to Black outside for a second.