Tutored

by Allison Whittenberg

  Kids were grabbed and shoved. The women at the front desk didn’t seem to be making note of it, though, and if they weren’t going to say anything, Hakiam sure as hell wasn’t.

  Keep your eyes front.

  “Is there a water fountain in here?” Hakiam asked.

  Leesa gestured to the wall and Hakiam walked over to the fountain there. The pressure was low. There was no gush, just a trickle. He sucked in as much as he could; then he heard Leesa’s name called.

  He met up with her and the baby by the counter. Leesa spread several forms and documents out on the desk. The intake worker paged through the pile and said, “State or federal ID?”

  “I’m looking for it,” Leesa said.

  The woman finally looked up to see Leesa still rooting through her bag while hoisting Malikia onto her shoulder.

  “You came without ID?” the woman asked.

  “Shit,” Leesa said.

  The intake worker pointed to a sign. “What does that say?”

  Hakiam read aloud, “ ‘Federal or state ID is required.’ ”

  The woman threw a glare at him. “What’s your name?”

  “Hakiam.”

  She checked the sheet. “You’re not listed.”

  “I know I ain’t,” Hakiam said. “I’m just with her.”

  The woman shook her head. “You have to be on the sheet.”

  “Look, I have everything else,” Leesa said. Malikia began slipping and Leesa gave her another boost.

  “I’m not losing my job over you. You need to have everything,” the woman said.

  “No one’s asking you to lose your job,” Leesa told her.

  “Well then, come back when you have everything.”

  Hakiam saw his cousin lunge for the woman and he reached out to brace her arm. “Just forget it,” he said.

  “I ain’t forgetting nothing,” Leesa said, stepping up her voice. “Who do you think you are, lady? Can’t you see I got a goddamn baby here—”

  At that point, Hakiam really got hold of her. He ushered her toward the door. “Why didn’t you inventory your stuff before you were called by the caseworker?”

  “What am I supposed to be, perfect? Do you know how many things I have to think of? Malikia was wailing her head off before you came—”

  Hakiam blocked out the rest of what she was saying. This was her way. She was a crisis frog; she hopped from one lily pad of trouble to the next. She was never prepared.

  Hakiam glanced back at the packed waiting area. There were paternity handouts on a side desk. “Every Child Has the Right to Know Who His Legal Father Is,” one pamphlet’s cover read.

  “It’s nearly time for me to be at work. It’ll be next month before I get another appointment. Shit. Do you know how much time I’ve wasted here just to end up with jack?” Leesa asked him.

  Hakiam didn’t answer her; he was too busy eavesdropping on a client being asked by a caseworker, “Are you registered to vote?”

  Back on the outside, a group of boys were going at each other. Hakiam couldn’t tell if they were playing or not. In the navy blue tie and slacks and crisp shirt of his school uniform, the one in the center was being smacked in the face. The other four were hitting him this way and that.

  The group moved and Hakiam stepped out to block any blow to the baby as she was handed off to him.

  Leesa asked him for his bus pass.

  “I don’t have one. I walked here.”

  “Didn’t they give you a bus pass at the GED place?”

  Hakiam shook his head.

  “Did they at least give you tokens?”

  “Nope.”

  “Everybody else I know got at least that from them. Make sure you get what you’re supposed to get,” she told him.

  Leesa booked it to the corner to catch the number 21 bus downtown.

  “I’ll be home the usual time,” she said before she left them. She raised a hand to wave goodbye, more to him than to her baby.

  Hakiam stood there for a moment, the eight-and-a-half-pound infant twitching in his arms. It was clear now that those kids were in the thick of a beat-down. Another vagrant went by in yellow-stained jeans, rolling a shopping cart filled with tin cans and scrap metal. Hakiam thought for a moment about why he had moved in with his cousin. His fresh start was quickly turning to an SOS (same old shit), and God was he ever thirsty.

  4

  The ghetto. Wendy’s father’s comment was typical of him. His favorite saying was “I help poor people all the time—by not being one.” He was very proud of the fact that he had yanked himself up by the proverbial bootstraps, and he wanted the world to know it. Though he was raised in one of the don’t be there sections of the city, he had been able to not only stay out of trouble with the law (not so much as a parking ticket) but also go to college (Indiana University of Pennsylvania on a one-thousand-dollar minority scholarship; the rest he made up with work-study and loans) and become gainfully employed (bringing home the high end of five figures yearly).

  Wendy knew it was one of her father’s goals in life not to look back, and certainly not to give back. She was just the opposite, which usually put them at odds. Like last term, when Wendy was involved with a volunteer organization that cleaned and painted inner-city schools. Her father had insisted on picking her up after these sessions, although it would have been fine with her to ride public transportation.

  One day when they’d swung by Tannery Duckery Elementary School on Diamond Street, he had surprised her by suggesting they grab a bite to eat.

  “You want to eat out here?” Wendy asked. “You must be starving.”

  “I am.”

  He decided on a Broad Street eatery that was on the cusp: the Temple University students in one direction, neighborhood people in the other.

  “This looks decent,” he said.

  Wendy’s father ordered a strawberry malt and a quarter-pound burger cooked rare with guacamole, jalapeño jack, and pico de gallo. Wendy ordered a mini-hamburger, well done, and a cherry Coke.

  They sat near the front and were just starting to make small talk about the weather when a ruckus started.

  From where Wendy was sitting with her back to the counter, she heard raised voices and turned to see what was going on. A man who looked about her dad’s age was arguing with the restaurant’s manager.

  “I saw you fill it up with soda. Water is clear.”

  “No it ain’t, sucker.”

  “That’s stealing. I saw you.”

  “You think that just because a black man comes up in here he’s looking for trouble.”

  The other man spoke in a calmer, more even tone. “You don’t have to bring race into this.”

  “Race been in this, you goddamn cracker!” he roared.

  “Calm down, please.”

  “I hate stupid crackers like you.”

  “That man is certainly loud enough,” Wendy’s dad said.

  “Dad, shhh,” Wendy told him with a here-we-go roll of her eyes. The last thing she needed was for her dad to get into this scuffle.

  “He could pay for his drink like everyone else,” her dad told her.

  Wendy was watching the rest of the patrons. She marveled at how this man had single-handedly changed the mood of the entire restaurant.

  Two people had pulled out their cell phones and started recording. Everyone watched in complete silence, not moving a muscle. If the accused soda thief was looking for hand-to-hand combat, he would have done something by now, Wendy figured. He also had no buddies with him; he would have called them for backup. Still, all seemed whipped into a near panic by this guy who wanted a free soda. What was everyone afraid of?

  Wendy eyed a man with a strawberry sundae whose forehead was tense with alarm. Then she turned to watch another woman, who was hastily packing up her belongings. The woman slipped out the door, leaving a half-finished turkey club behind.

  All at once, the man at the center of everything left, and there was a collective sigh of relief. Peop
le went back to enjoying their meals.

  Then it started again.

  Wendy saw a little boy’s eyes widen. “Ma, he’s back,” he told his mother.

  Someone asked, “What’s he want now?”

  Wendy turned around.

  “Listen, you goddamn racist, I want to speak to the manager!” the man shouted.

  “I am the manager.”

  “That figures, you old racist goddamn cracker!”

  “I’m going to call the police in five seconds.”

  “I am not going to let you push me around, don’t tell me that a nigger can’t get no water when he wants some water.”

  “Please leave.”

  “I’m gonna kick your ass.”

  “Please leave.”

  “I should have known that we shouldn’t come here,” Wendy’s dad mumbled.

  Just then the irate man began taking his message straight to the people.

  He eyed Wendy’s dad and zeroed in.

  “You with me, brother?” he asked Wendy’s father, as if he was already assured of the affirmative answer.

  Wendy’s dad straightened his shoulders, looked him dead in the eye, and enunciated two words: “Hell, no.”

  The man stepped back. “Oh, so it’s like that, Uncle Tom?”

  “You must be out of your mind to think that I would take part in this foolishness in the presence of my daughter. If that makes me an Uncle Tom, then I’ll be one gladly.”

  Now Wendy’s heart pounded. She had no idea what was going to happen next. Would the man take his anger out on her father? Would her father be dumb enough to incense him further?

  She never found out. Before the man had a chance to react, the police burst into the restaurant and hauled him away.

  During the ride home, Wendy had had to listen on and on about how “this” was “proof.”

  “And you wonder why we live in the suburbs?” Wendy’s dad asked. “That was exhibit A right there.”

  “Dad, one bad apple doesn’t spoil the whole bunch.”

  Her dad laughed at that as he turned onto the highway. “Where I grew up, I had to deal with poor excuses for human beings like that all the time.”

  “Maybe he really didn’t have the money for a soda, Dad.”

  “Then he shouldn’t have a soda. There’s no need to terrorize a restaurant like that.”

  “Terrorize?” Wendy asked. “Don’t you think that’s a little strong? He’s not Osama bin Laden.”

  “Don’t make excuses for that idiot. And remind me to never let myself get hungry in the slums.”

  “Dad, something like that could happen anywhere.”

  “Oh, sure, Wendy, sure.”

  “It could.”

  Wendy’s father switched to cruise control.

  “I don’t want to hear it, Wendy. All your life I have tried to keep you in a nice, quiet, safe place, but you seem hell-bent on putting yourself in harm’s way. We could have been shot!”

  “He didn’t even have a gun. All he did was talk. How could we have been shot?”

  “Well, he could have been. When we get home to Bryn Mawr, I am going to kiss the ground.”

  Ever since that afternoon, Mr. Anderson had amped up his tirades against “those areas” and “those people.” This was of course the main reason Wendy sought out more opportunities to volunteer. Now that Wendy was working at the center, with a whole new group of so-called hoodlums, she and her dad were fighting more than ever.

  5

  There were GED classes back in Cincinnati, but Hakiam had wanted a fresh start. He was totally burned out on Ohio. He knew every back alley. Every one-way street. Every dead end. It was time for a change.

  The day he decided to leave, he had just finished serving a juvie sentence for shoplifting. That day his counselor, a tweed-blazer-patch-on-the-elbow-professor-looking-with-the-bright-yellow-shiny-happy-button-down-shirt-wearing, underfed forty-something white man, signed him out.

  “What are your plans now, Hakiam?” the counselor had asked.

  “Philadelphia.”

  “Who do you know there?”

  “A cousin and an aunt. They used to live here but then she got divorced. My aunt did.”

  “So you know her pretty well?”

  “Five years ago I did. They used to live two blocks away from my old house.”

  “Do you have a job lined up? Are you going to finish your education? Enroll in a high school there?”

  “Yep,” Hakiam had said by reflex. He knew it was what the counselor wanted to hear.

  The man handed Hakiam the paperwork he needed.

  “I’m done?” Hakiam asked, just to make sure.

  The man nodded and Hakiam took his folding chair to the wall.

  “Just one more thing,” the counselor said, holding up his pointer finger for emphasis. “Remember: an open palm gets more than a closed fist.”

  Hakiam had almost busted out laughing. What kind of advice was that to send someone off to start a new life with? That was a formula for disaster. In Hakiam’s experience, the few times he’d chosen to be nice and trusting he’d gotten stepped on and crushed.

  Hakiam wanted a new life. He never wanted to return to the one that he’d had.

  At the end of the week, he paid seventy-five dollars to Greyhound and boarded a bus headed east.

  He started feeling low immediately.

  All around him, he saw failure. As each passenger climbed aboard, emptiness filled the bus. Hakiam saw the unshaven and the unshowered. The angry and confused dragging their duffel bags. Beside him, an old man took out his plastic-wrapped sandwiches.

  Hakiam stared out the windows like a peeping Tom. Riding the bus never meant passing City Hall or going by the nice restaurants or boutiques. There were no businessmen with wedding bands checking briefcases, no friendly pedestrians strolling past. No, instead he saw a squeegee man dirtying clean windshields.

  Many hours later, he was in Philadelphia.

  6

  While cleaning up after dinner, Wendy gave her best friend, Erin, a call. She wedged the phone between her ear and shoulder as she placed her cup, small dish, and spoon in the dishwasher.

  “So what happened at the center today?” Erin asked. She was still at the skating rink where she worked. Wendy could hear the eighties rock in the background.

  “Nothing much, it was really slow. There was a new guy who came in. I don’t know how long he’s going to last.”

  “Hey, aren’t people who work with the disenfranchised supposed to be optimistic?”

  “Yeah, but I can tell. When I see someone roll in coppin’ a ’tude—”

  “Talk that talk, sister,” Erin interrupted.

  “You mean ‘sista,’ ” Wendy corrected.

  “Sorry, I flunked Ebonics in middle school,” Erin said.

  “Don’t let that hold you back. There’s a tutorial every night on Sucker Free.”

  “Whoa!”

  “I don’t mean to be cynical, but the dude seemed really immature and snarling and arrogant and insulting and weird—”

  “So when are you two going on your first date?”

  “That’ll be the day. I hate people like him.”

  “How bad can he be? If he made his way in there, he must want help. He must want to ‘improve his station in life,’ as they say.”

  “Erin, why aren’t you interning at the center instead of me? You seem like the one who drank the Kool-Aid.”

  “What’s Kool-Aid have to do with anything?”

  “Jim Jones,” Wendy said. “You know, that cult leader who took all his followers to Guyana and got them all to drink Kool-Aid.”

  “What’s so bad about that?”

  “It was poisoned.”

  “I don’t follow, Wendy.”

  “I’m not going to allow myself to be brainwashed. I’ve been at the center for two weeks—”

  “Well, that’s a lifetime.”

  “I’m not a true believer, Erin, I never was. It’s ju
st as insulting to excuse away bad behavior from a person just because he comes from the streets—”

  “That’s right! It’s their fault. Who makes the streets the streets anyway? It’s the people who live there,” her father shouted from the next room.

  It frosted her when her father eavesdropped. “This isn’t on three-way, Dad.”

  “What did he say?” Erin asked.

  “Never mind,” Wendy said, “he’s taking me off point. All I’m saying is that if you come into a new environment, why do you have to have a chip on your shoulder? Why do you—”

  “Tell Erin I said hello,” her father said.

  “Okay, Dad,” Wendy told him. “Erin, he says hello.”

  “Oh, tell him I said hello,” Erin said.

  “This is not a three-way call!” Wendy said.

  “Boy, you are strung out, Wendy. Maybe you need a vacation from volunteering.”

  “I like the center fine most days. I just don’t like dealing with everybody’s attitude.”

  “So what’s his name, Wendy?”

  “Hakiam. And you wouldn’t find me going out with him. If he were the last man on earth, I’d date a tree first.”

  7

  Whoever thought up the saying “sleeping like a baby” had lied. As far as Hakiam could tell, babies rarely slept. Here it was, after midnight, and Malikia was squirming and whimpering and whimpering and squirming. She showed no sign of letting up.

  Hakiam decided to take her out to the fire escape, thinking the night air would soothe her. The air was warm, but the noise started almost immediately. A dog barked. Footsteps echoed from the sidewalks and bounced up the stairs. Someone started arguing about someone running off with their shit. Next came a steady stream of “your mother this” and “your mother that.”

  Malikia cried a tearless cry like the world was coming to an end. Hakiam was inclined to agree, but instead of weeping he took out a blunt. Smoking did two things for him. One, it cleared his mind, and two, it gave him something to do with his other hand. So he jiggled tiny, wrinkled Malikia and blew smoke into the blue-black night sky. His mind drifted to more pleasant thoughts, like how good the bed would feel when he finally got to it and could close his eyes.