Black Like Us

by Devon Carbado

  “It’s the style,” I told her but she just pulled her lips to the side of her face and paid for everything.

  Now I pulled the pants up a bit and stole a look at Angie. I could tell she was still mad from Ralphy messing with her.

  “Don’t listen to him,” I said softly.

  “Oh, I’m not even hearing it,” Angie said.

  We walked along silently for a while, Ralphy and Sean a few paces behind us.

  “I guess we should double-date sometimes, huh?” Ralphy said. I knew this was his way of apologizing, so I winked at him. Angie smiled and said she guessed it would be fun.

  “Yeah,” Sean said. “Why don’t you take her out on a double date with your mama and that dyke she’s seeing.”

  I turned. Please, God. Please let me be imagining this.

  “Don’t look at me like I’m crazy,” he said. “Everybody knows.”

  “Knows what?” Ralph was asking but I didn’t wait to hear Sean’s answer before I swung hard and landed a punch across his jaw. Something snapped and Sean seemed to move toward me in slow motion. I caught him around the neck, feeling my fist connect with his nose. Someone was trying to pull us apart and in the distance I could hear Angie telling me to stop. Sean’s knee landed hard in my stomach and I felt myself falling backwards.

  “Stop it,” Ralph was saying. Someone was pulling Sean off of me. I kicked into the air and connected.

  Pancho, the guy who owned the store we were standing in front of, was holding Sean’s arms, but Sean was struggling against him.

  “Your mother’s a dyke,” Sean yelled. Angie, I kept thinking, looking around for her. She was standing in front of the store, where a small group had gathered. She looked confused and angry. Now she knew. Now everyone in the whole stupid world knew.

  “Stop talking junk,” Ralph said.

  I swallowed, breathing hard to keep from crying.

  “No fighting here,” Pancho was saying. “You want to fight, go back where you live.”

  “Don’t worry, Pancho,” Ralph said. “They won’t be throwing down anymore.” He looked around at the crowd. “Did someone die?” he asked sarcastically, and reluctantly, the group began to scatter. “Man. This is one nosey hood.”

  Pancho disappeared back inside his store and Ralph loosened his grip on me but didn’t let go.

  “I’ve seen her with that white lady,” Sean said. “I saw them sitting in her car last night. Your mama touching her like they were in love or something.” He spit. Someone else said something, but I couldn’t hear anything anymore.

  I was backing away, then I was turning and running fast and hard as hell away from there. Away from everyone. I hated her. I hated her.

  BIL WRIGHT

  [1963–]

  BORN IN THE BRONX, BIL WRIGHT HAS A LONG HISTORY OF community service. While earning his MFA in Playwrighting from Brooklyn College, he worked at The Door, a youth drop-in center, and also taught English at New York’s Housing Works, a social service agency for people with HIV. Following graduation, Wright was appointed director of a performing arts program at the Martin Luther King Center for Social Change. His plays, including a stage adaptation of Audre Lorde’s Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, have been produced at Yale University, Orchestra Hall in Detroit, Dixon Place, Nuyorican Cafe, and the Samuel Beckett Theater in New York. Additionally, Wright’s drama has been published in the United States and Germany, and appears in the anthology Tough Acts to Follow. His short stories and poetry are also featured in Men on Men 3, The Road Before Us: 100 Black Gay Poets, and Shade: An Anthology of Fiction by Gay Men of African Descent. The recipient of several awards, including the 1995 Millay Fellowship, Wright teaches in New York.

  His debut novel, Sunday You Learn How to Box (2000), depicts the coming of age of Louis, an awkward African American thirteen-year-old living amid the violence of the Stratfield Housing Projects in 1968. When his upwardly mobile mother and her abusive second husband, Ben, decide that their bookish son needs to be toughened up to withstand the taunts from local bullies, Ben begins giving Louis boxing lessons. In this passage, a Christmas gift instigates further humiliation for the young protagonist, who is unable to ride his new bicycle regardless of Ben’s attempt to teach him. With this round of humiliation, however, comes an unexpected encounter with Ray Anthony Robinson, the enigmatic and sexually alluring neighborhood “hoodlum,” whom Louis eventually looks to as means for escape from his anguished existence.

  from Sunday You Learn How to Box

  [2000]

  When I first saw Jackie Wilson on Saturday Hit Parade, I was in seventh grade. Mom heard him singing from the kitchen and asked me, “Who’s singing like that, Louis?”

  “A new guy named Jackie Wilson,” I called back. “He’s black.” Before he’d come on, I’d been dancing around with Lorelle in my arms, but I put her down now, unable to do anything but stare at the television screen. Jackie Wilson was the prettiest black man I’d ever seen, with high, jutting cheekbones and skin that looked like powdered satin. He was also one of the few black men I’d seen on Hit Parade. There were groups sometimes where nobody particularly stood out, but not that many solo acts. No one like this.

  “Nothing new about Jackie Wilson. He’s just new to you. This must be his comeback,” she said. “Some woman shot him up good a few years ago. He almost died. I’m surprised he can talk, much less sing.”

  Somebody shot him?! Now I had to get down on my knees, closer to the screen. I turned the volume up. Jackie Wilson sang higher than any man I’d ever heard and wore a suit with pants so tight you could see his calf muscles. He’d take off his tie, then his jacket, singing the whole time, and you could see how much he was sweating. Shirt soaked through, his chest and stomach smooth and dark under his white dress shirt. He jerked his head from side to side until his long processed hair fell over his forehead. He looked dangerous.

  The song was a warning to somebody they better stop messing around, Jackie’s heart was breaking and he didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to take the pain. He was holding the microphone as if this was the person he was singing to, with his big, ringed fingers wrapped around their face and neck. He wanted to kiss them, but they’d hurt him so much, he might have to hurt them back. “You’d bettah stop, baby, mes-sin’, messin’ round,” he moaned, his voice swooping from a trembling soprano to a hoarse, rusty shout. He fell to his knees cradling the microphone one moment, looking like he was strangling it the next.

  Love. And danger. On his knees, sweating and screaming with his hair hanging. “You bet-tah stop, baby, messin’, messin’ round.” I wanted him to scream about me like that.

  When Hit Parade was over, Mom started upstairs. “Bring Lorelle, Louis,” she instructed. When I looked into their bedroom, she was leaning into her mirror, trying to even out the black hills she’d drawn for eyebrows. “Come in here. I want to talk to you about Christmas.”

  I went in and sat on the side of the bed where Ben slept. Leaning over onto his pillow, I imagined his face under my elbow.

  “Do you realize you have to be the only thirteen-year-old in the world who can’t ride a damn bicycle?”

  This wasn’t the first time she’d asked me if I realized everyone around me could ride a bike. What I wanted to know was, why did it matter so much to her?

  “There isn’t a child out there who can’t ride a bike unless they’re blind or crippled. Every year I ask you if you want one and you say no. This year I made up my mind I’m going to get you one and you’ll learn to ride it.”

  Other kids in the projects had bikes, but no one had one that was new. Sure, the older guys rode new bikes, but they were stolen and everybody knew because they bragged about it to anybody who’d listen. A new bike would probably get me killed.

  Christmas morning, I knew I was looking at trouble. The first thing I thought when I saw it was that it looked like a brand-new red lipstick with tires. If there was anywhere in the world I could’ve gotten away with a bike like t
his, it wasn’t the Stratfield Projects.

  Right after dinner she told me, “You can take the bike out now. Remember, they say the only way to learn how to ride is to stay on it.”

  “What about the ice? I shouldn’t take it out on the ice, should I?” “There’s not that much ice out there. I’ll bet if any other kid in the projects got one, they’d be out there, ice or no ice. Learn now. It’ll be spring before you know it.”

  I walked the bike around and around the courtyard, trying to get up the courage to jump the pedal closest to me with one foot and throw my other leg over the bar to the other side. If I could just get on it, pushing the pedals to keep it going couldn’t be that hard. When I did push off on my side, I couldn’t get my leg up and over to the other side fast enough before the bike fell over onto the ice. I jumped up, looking down to the other end for Mom, just in case. I tried a few more times. Each time, the bike crashed to the ground. Finally, I looked up and there she was, coming toward me in her coat and bedroom slippers.

  “What’s going on out here? Can you ride it yet?”

  “No, ma’am. Not yet,” I told her.

  “Well, I want to see you ride it today. I asked Ben to come out here to help you.”

  “No. Please. I don’t need him.” A lesson from Ben was the last thing I wanted. I could feel eyes on me from all over the projects. It was only a matter of time before I’d be surrounded.

  “What’s the matter with you? Maybe if you gave him a chance every once in a while, the two of you could be friends.”

  I felt trapped in a world like those glass snow scenes with the miniature houses and all the water sloshing from side to side. I would have given anything to be able to disappear through a crack in the ice, leaving the bike to whoever wanted it.

  Mom went inside and in moments Ben came out in a jacket, galoshes, and one of those hats with the bib and flaps. It wasn’t that cold, but I guessed he thought he’d be out there for a while.

  “Your mother seems to think you need help out here.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, this is usually something kids teach themselves. If it was something you wanted to do, I’m sure you’d find a way to learn it. You being as smart as you are.” He held the back of the seat and nodded for me to start.

  I ran, pushed down hard on the pedal closest to me with my outside leg, and threw my leg up and over to the other side. Ben continued to hold on to the seat, running behind me. I pumped as hard and as fast as I could, especially after he let go. For a moment I thought there’d been a miracle. I seemed to be suspended, held up by invisible strings as the bike sped forward. When I got to the corner, I panicked. I turned the handlebars sharply, feeling the bike quiver beneath me. I’d lost control. I crashed, noisily.

  In these few minutes, as I expected, several boys had gathered in the courtyard. At first, they stood in the distance snickering. Ben said nothing as we repeated the sequence. Pedal, pedal, fall. Pedal, pedal, crash. Each time, the snickers got louder. Each time, I glanced at Ben, hoping he’d decide on some way to end the whole thing.

  Finally, as I scrambled to get up from what I’d decided was the absolutely last fall I’d let any one of them witness, they surrounded Ben and me yelling, “Why don’t ya let me ride? C’mon, let me ride it!”

  Ben started to grin at them. “Hold on,” he said. “Hold on, guys.” I stared at him, waiting to see how he was going to get rid of them.

  He stood in front of them, like he was going to try to reason with them. “Who here knows how to ride?” he asked.

  They all began yelling, “I do!” “I been knowin’ how to ride!” “Please, please let me ride it, please!”

  If this was a plan to distract them, I thought, Ben was wrong. They’d never give up now.

  “Come on,” he invited the closest, whose name I didn’t even know. “Just a short one, though.”

  I stood watching as they took turns, fighting over who would go next. No one spoke to me, not Ben, not any of them. I was shaking with anger, but I couldn’t look at him. Mom had to be watching. She had to know what she’d started.

  When the last boy had taken his ride around the courtyard, Ben turned to me and asked, “Well, did you learn something by watching at least?” “Yes, sir,” I said evenly, looking past him toward the apartment.

  “You want to try again?”

  “No, sir.” I took the handlebars and slowly walked the bike home. I knew Ben was following me. I could hear the boys calling out to him to let them have another chance.

  Mom opened the door for me. I left the bike on the stoop, went in and started upstairs. Silently, Mom held the door for Ben. She closed it behind him. “Damn you, Ben,” she said, “Damn you.”

  The next morning I took the bike outside and down to the other end of the projects where it would be harder for Mom to see me from the window, or even the stoop. The day before had been humiliating, but it had shown me something after all. I’d watched boys of all different sizes and shapes ride my bike, some of whom I knew were as old as I was and couldn’t read or count. I understood the secret had to be in practice, not in intelligence. Now, I was determined.

  When I got tired of falling, I decided to hide out behind the bushes awhile to rest. Even though there weren’t any leaves on them, they were too dense for anyone to see me. When I pushed the bike through to the other side, Ray Anthony Robinson was standing behind the bushes, peeing and smoking a cigarette.

  Ray Anthony lived across the courtyard with his mother in the 4B apartment building next to where we’d lived in 4A before we moved to the bungalows. Nobody was really sure how old Ray Anthony was, but Miss Helen, Mom’s hairdresser, said she thought he had to be seventeen at least. He didn’t go to high school and by law, you had to go until you were sixteen. Miss Helen said nobody she knew could remember a time when Ray Anthony had ever gone to school, but she was sure he must have. She whispered to my mother that Ray Anthony was “an out-and-out hoodlum.” Miss Helen was always calling somebody’s child a hoodlum, but I could tell from the way she said it that to be an “out-and-out hoodlum” was more serious than an ordinary run-of-the-mill hoodlum. So I stared at Ray Anthony after that from my window wondering what kind of crimes he might be on his way to commit.

  When I pushed through the bushes to Ray Anthony Robinson standing there peeing and smoking, it felt like I’d pushed through to the other side of the world. He turned in my direction and aimed right through the spokes of my front tire. My eyes followed the arc back to where it came from, Ray Anthony Robinson’s dick. It was long, wide and the color of these cookies Miss Odessa used to give me for dessert when I spent the night. Almond Macaroons. Most likely, Ray Anthony was the color of Almond Macaroons all over, but I’d never thought about it until I saw his dick. The way he looked at me, with his cigarette hanging from his lips and his waist pushed forward at me, you’d have thought it was the most natural thing in the world for us to be there, him peeing and me watching.

  When he stopped peeing, he didn’t put his dick back in his pants. He spat the cigarette in my direction, but he wasn’t trying to hit me with it. He started peeing again, aiming at his cigarette until the smoke stopped spiraling up from it. I tried not to look impressed.

  “Who gave you the girl’s bike for Christmas?”

  “It’s not a girl’s.” It was hard to sound as forceful as I wanted, watching him slowly tuck himself back into his pants.

  “You gonna let me ride it?”

  He’d zipped his pants and I could look him in the face. I’d never been this close to Ray Anthony before, and he’d certainly never said anything to me. It was the first time I realized one of his two front teeth was chipped, just a little on the inside corner. He also had a big dent in his chin.

  “No,” I said. If I’d thought about it, I might have been scared to say no to him. But it seemed like he didn’t expect me to say yes, he’d already figured out I’d say no, that wasn’t the point of him asking. He walked closer to me and reac
hed for the handlebars. That’s when I saw his hair had a rusty, orange glow to it. I didn’t like orange or red much. But Ray Anthony Robinson’s hair was unlike any other reds or oranges I’d seen before.

  “Leggo,” he told me.

  I smelled the cigarette on his breath, kept staring at the chipped tooth. I was filling in the space to see what he’d look like if he got it fixed. “I can’t let you ride it. My mom will see.”

  “I’ll go the other way. Leggo.”

  I’d already let go. Ray Anthony pushed my bike through the bushes. I stood in the opening and watched him throw his leg over it easily without having to get a running start. He was wearing shoes with pointy toes and buckles on the sides. Pushing off, he huddled over the bars like the kids did when they raced each other. Except Ray Anthony wasn’t racing anybody. He was just riding my bike wherever he’d decided to take it. I watched his butt lifted in the air and the muscles in his legs as he pumped the pedals. All I could do was wait behind the bushes and hope he wouldn’t ride it in front of my house where Mom could see him, and that he’d bring it back. Soon.

  I started to feel the cold for the first time that morning. But I couldn’t move, playing the whole thing with Ray Anthony backwards and forwards in my mind. His cigarette was lying a few feet away. That and his footprints in the snow with the long, pointy toes were my evidence that he’d really been there.

  But evidence wouldn’t matter anyway. He hadn’t beat me up, knocked me down and ridden over me on my own bike. I was sure he’d seen me coming, sure that he’d waited till I could watch him, smoking and making bridges of piss in the air. But hoodlum or not, he’d told me only once, without sounding any more dangerous than my own mother, to let go of those handlebars. And I had. Without a fight, without even thinking about fighting him.

  It might have been a half hour, it might have been longer before Ray Anthony brought my bike back, but by now, the time didn’t matter. Whatever happened had happened already, before he left. It’s the difference between when something begins and something continues. You can’t compare the two.