The First Part Last

by Angela Johnson

  The damsel is all in black, dark glasses, and a smile ’cause she doesn’t have to stay in her royal bedchambers anymore. The royal doctors just said not too much stress and watch the blood pressure.

  The hero rides down the elevator with the damsel to meet his buddies on the street to go into the city kingdom and have the best time.

  They go to the magical forest and watch the skaters, skateboarders, and other subjects laughing, talking, reading, eating, kissing, hugging, screaming. It’s perfect that the magical forest runs right through the kingdom.

  There’s even a castle in the magical forest. They sit around the castle, eating popcorn, soda, and franks. The hero is happy with the damsel, who glows when the sun hits her curly hair and smiling face.

  The buddies spend most of the time cracking on people and laughing at just about everything that moves. They each run around the magical forest, getting different foods for the damsel.

  One even brings back a rock he swears looks like the super in his building.

  He gives it to the damsel, saying, “Hey, girl, it’s not Elvis, but you could keep it on top of some papers and think of my super.”

  The damsel says, “I don’t know your super.”

  “So?”

  “Shouldn’t you keep it?”

  “I don’t want it.”

  The damsel eats another pretzel and laughs, “But it looks like your super.”

  The running buddy says, “Yeah, but I don’t like our super.”

  So the damsel says, “We shouldn’t be taking rocks out of the park anyway,” and throws it across the grass into the trees. I forgot that the damsel has some arm.

  The damsel sits back down and leans against the hero. She’s asleep in one minute. The hero covers her with his jacket.

  And because this is a fairy tale, the hero and his running buddies lay back and talk about battles that they’ve won and places that they’ve seen.

  There have been a lot of dragons.

  More damsels for some than others.

  They swam a lot of moats and ate many feasts. And mostly they’ve all done it together, ’cause a long time ago in the kingdom they became blood brothers, and that’s what blood brothers do. Especially in a big kingdom like this one, on a good day that could be like a fairy tale.

  now

  I GOTTA CATCH A BREAK.

  The cop who brings me in is on the phone, and looking through some file like she’s got nothing to do but slowly look through paper.

  We walk up tiled stairs past gray walls to a squad room.

  She points to a chair and says, “Sit, kid.”

  I sit.

  And when I look at the clock over the window facing a brick wall, I feel my stomach turning over. 7:30 P.M. Coco must be buggin’ with my mom beside her, burning up every phone on the island.

  By now my dad—who always thinks that way anyway—is imagining me cold in a Dumpster. It started as a real bad dream, but it’s turning into a freakin’ nightmare.

  Then somebody is talking about night court and putting me in a holding cell till they get a hold of a parent.

  All I’m thinking about in the gray cell, nasty ’cause I can tell somebody was sick a minute ago, is my baby. And how if I’m lucky I won’t be murdered by her grandma if I get out of here in maybe—ever.

  On the other side of things, I’m pretty scared about being dragged out of the station and being treated like I had been doing something dangerous and insane.

  Doesn’t Five-0 have anything to do besides bust underage artists? I want to ask, but I’m not talking ’cause that’s what everybody says you should do.

  Anyway, the cops can’t do anything as bad to me as my mom can, and she never has to put a hand on me. All she has to do is walk around with a mom badge and her arms folded up serious tight in front of her.

  Busted.

  Mom lives by the rules and doesn’t take bull-shit—which is what skipping school, getting arrested for street art, and leaving Feather with Coco is.

  Since both of Mom’s parents were serious alcoholics, she can’t take the crazy stuff. So we were dragged to meetings in church basements and school cafeterias. I guess she wanted to be ready when me and my brothers were on the street with forties in paper bags.

  My one phone call is to my dad. I know he’ll be in the restaurant, and he won’t be nasty mad like my mom probably will. At least I think he won’t.

  8:45 P.M.

  It’s been fourteen hours since I dropped my baby off at Coco’s house and I stepped into this. So I’m waiting for whoever to come get me so I can see just how big everything’s been nuked.

  He doesn’t say anything to me in the station, but when we get into the cab he says, “Have you eaten?”

  “No,” I say, and try to look real interested in the raindrops on the taxi window.

  “Do we need to stop by someplace and pick up takeout?”

  “I’m not hungry, Dad,” I whine.

  “When was the last time you ate, anyway?” he says, looking real concerned, like he just picked me up from a hospital ’cause I passed out from lack of lunch, instead of the police station.

  It’s the way he deals.

  Mom says if they could have just eaten the food he cooked twenty-four seven, and not’had to deal with each other any other way, they’d still be married.

  Whatever.

  It’s raining hard now.

  “You left a mess at home, Bobby.”

  I feel like I’m going to throw up, again.

  “You didn’t call the sitter in Brooklyn to tell her you weren’t going to show, so she got nervous. I guess there’s about twenty messages from her.”

  “God.”

  “And since Coco couldn’t get you on your cell … You know I got it for you so anyone who had the baby could stay in touch with you.”

  “I know, Dad. I know. I just didn’t think about it being off.”

  He looks sad for me, but I must have been hallucinating ’cause the next second he’s saying, “You seriously messed it up today. Coco couldn’t get your mom, and I was out of the restaurant most of the day. She was on the verge of calling the cops.”

  “Shit,” I say, then sink down lower in the seat when I can feel my dad’s eyes shooting holes through me in the dark taxi. “Sorry.”

  “There’s going to be a whole lot of apologizing going on tonight, kid.”

  “Yeah, I guess so. All I want now is to go home, curl up in my bed, and sleep for two days.”

  Fred turns away from me.

  “There’ll be no sleep for you. There’s ten pounds of I need my daddy, a pissed-off mother, and a disappointed neighbor waiting at home. You ready to deal?”

  I say, “I guess,” and sink farther into the seat.

  My dad’s shoulders come to the same part of the seat as mine, but I got longer legs. His face is kind and he’s got laugh lines that don’t crinkle like they used to. I guess I’ve taken a lot of his smile away.

  And right now, besides a gurgling stomach and the look I know my mom is going to give me along with the hell, I feel worse because I’m taking my dad’s smile and probably some more things he’ll never talk about.

  The taxi pulls up to the apartment. I look up to the third-floor window and see my mom’s outline in the window. She’s holding Feather.

  My dad doesn’t go in with me.

  I think about how Feather is probably asleep and will wake back up in two hours, and how she loves to be held. I climb the stairs and think about holding her, or maybe I’m really thinking about just holding on to her.

  then

  K-BOY STARTS LAUGHING in his sleep, then almost kicks himself awake. Something in his dreams is so funny he even shakes his head from side to side and acts like he’s about to hold on to his stomach.

  He’s always laughed in his sleep, where J. L. doesn’t move at all. He’s in the same place from the time he goes to sleep till he wakes up in the morning.

  I know how they sleep ’cause we used
to nap together at preschool. We got in trouble more than we slept. Everybody is sleeping now, though.

  We’d all stayed up late, first hangin’ out at Mineo’s till he’d kicked us out and told us to find a home or something. Then we’d gone up on the roof of K-Boy’s building to play some new CDs he’d just got, till one of his neighbors started screaming that she was gonna call a cop if we didn’t turn it down.

  We didn’t, till she came up to the roof She was seriously scary, so we left to hang out at my house ’cause my mom was gone for the night. We could eat most of the stuff in the icebox, then order Thai food if we were still hungry.

  I still felt full and had slept like a pig when I finally did sleep, and now the phone’s ringing.

  “Hello,” I say, and knock K-Boy’s foot out of the way so I can get a bottle of water that rolled under my bed.

  Nia’s sleepy voice is on the other end.

  “It’s me. What did you do last night?”

  “Hung with K-Boy and J. L.”

  She starts to eat something while she’s talking. Then she burps real loud.

  “Jeez, Nia. Did you get any on you?”

  “Yeah, I did. If you were big as a house and had something living inside you, you’d burp out of control and make other disgusting noises too.”

  “Thanks for sharing that with me.”

  “I’d like to really share the whole damned experience with you. How about the swollen ankles, or the aching back?”

  “No, thanks.”

  She’s getting started, I can tell, ’cause she takes a deep breath.

  “How about the hemorrhoids or the constant peeing? How about how normal smells can make you sick or the way I can fall asleep in the middle of a sentence?”

  I say, “Naw, that’s okay.” But I know it’s not a joke anymore ’cause I can hear her voice getting high. It’s like I can almost see her jangling the phone cord and shaking her leg.

  I leave my room and go out in the hall. By the time I’m leaning against the wall outside of my mom’s bedroom, Nia’s crying. She does it so much now, but I’m still not used to it.

  I whisper, “Sorry, Nia. I’m sorry everything is so messed up. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

  “Neither did I.”

  “I know it was my fault.”

  Nothing.

  “I can ’fess to it. I was stupid.”

  I start to think that she’s hung up the phone. I hear J. L. and K-Boy waking up in my room. My stereo comes on too loud for ten o’clock on a Sunday morning.

  “Turn it down, man,” I holler out to whoever turned it on in the first place. They turn it down.

  “Nia.”

  Nothing.

  “Nia.”

  Her voice is soft and low. “My parents are talking about sending me to my grandma’s house in Georgia. They say I wouldn’t be under so much stress there.”

  I want to cry. I want to cry a whole lot these days, and sometimes I do, and this makes me crazy.

  “The doctor says my blood pressure is still too high. School and everything. They’re talking about a tutor.”

  “In New York or Georgia?”

  “Wherever, Bobby.”

  K-Boy must have seen someone out on the street ’cause I hear the window going up and him laughing and calling to somebody downstairs.

  Nothing’s changed and everything has. Whoever K-Boy called out to is doing the same ole same ole. I hear J. L. up, complaining about what’s for breakfast. But Nia is talking about going. And even if she’s not going, she’s talking about it all being different.

  “Bobby.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you want me to go?”

  The music is getting loud slowly. K-Boy takes off the rap he started with and puts on some techno. I feel better when I say to Nia, “Don’t go, okay? Don’t leave.”

  She says, “Can we go out for pizza later? You can have anchovies on yours if you want.”

  “Cool with me.”

  “Cool with me too, Bobby. I’ll see you later.”

  I walk into the kitchen to make breakfast, and even though nothing’s changed yet, I miss her already.

  now

  HER EYES ARE THE CLEAREST EYES I’ve ever seen.

  Sometimes she looks at me like she knows me. Like she’s known me forever, and everything I ever thought, too. It’s scary how she looks at me.

  And she’s so new Been on the planet for only a few months. I been thinking about it a whole lot lately. I feel old.

  I feel old when I wake up at three thirty in the morning and change her diaper, then change it again when she pees right after I put her sleeper back on.

  I feel old when I stroll her into Mineo’s, park her by my table while I eat a few slices and catch up on the comics I haven’t read in weeks.

  I really feel old when I’m holding her on the subway and some lady tells me what a good brother I am and how I’m so good with her. I feel stooped over then. You’d think I’d feel young.

  For that one time on the way home I could pretend my baby is my sister. I could smile at the lady and say:

  “Yeah, she’s easy to deal with, my sister.” “She looks just like me and my brothers.” “I like to help my mom with her.” Even if I’m feeling old when this stuff happens I just change her diaper, put my food down and hold her when she cries, and tell the woman on the train that she’s mine.

  Afterward I always kiss her, my baby, and look into her clear eyes that know everything about me, and want me to be her daddy anyway.

  then

  “YOU GONNA DANCE, Bobby?”

  “Yeah, in a minute.”

  My head’s hurting. Never got a damned headache from music before. Too, too loud. The music is making the walls jump. I guess it’s a good party.

  Jess’s parents are out of town for the weekend and most of the school is here. Actually I see more people at this party than I ever see at school. Nia leans down and hollers in my ear. “Now, Bobby?”

  It’s cool, I think, that she still feels like she wants to dance. She looks good dancing, even though she’s really far along. She’s been dancing with everybody.

  Her and K-Boy haven’t sat down all night.

  Some girl trips over my feet and falls onto the couch beside me, spilling her diet soda all over my shirt. I don’t think I’ve ever come home from a party without food or drink on me somewhere.

  But that’s okay.

  I watch everybody dancing, laughing, talking, and stuffing chips in their faces. I’m feeling like an alien. And it goes way past me feeling like I don’t belong here. I feel like I don’t even know who all these people are or where they came from, and I’ve known most of them all my life.

  Then Nia grabs my hands and we’re dancing in the crowd. Somebody knocks over one of Mrs. Halem’s vases and is trying to hide it behind a big-ass plant in the kitchen.

  No way would I have even half these people in our apartment, but Jess isn’t sweatin’ it. She’s over in the corner shaking her head at something “Moss” Green and J. L. are saying. Then she shrugs and goes off to dance with one of her friends who looks like she’s had too much party.

  She waves to Nia and screams over the music, “Haven’t been this many people in the place since my Bat Mitzvah. Less fights, too.”

  Nia starts giggling and yells back, “Definitely less fights.”

  Then to me, “Two of her uncles seriously threw down in the kitchen. Her aunt ended up throwing a punch bowl, and her mom got so upset she threw up on the caterer.”

  “Good time, huh?”

  “Oh yeah, too bad you missed it.”

  Then Nia smiles and I remember why I think of her all the time.

  We slow dance even though the music is techno, rap, then techno again. She looks tired now, and dancing any faster would probably knock her out.

  I take her hand and pull her toward the door. The smoke’s starting to get to me. We walk down the hall toward the stairs. One of Jess’s neighbors gets off the
elevator, pulls a grocery cart behind him, stops and listens to the party. He shoots me and Nia a nasty look, and then goes into his apartment.

  It echoes when I close the door, and we sit on the tiled green stairs. Nia leans against me, and for a minute I think she’s asleep. She starts to breathe in and out in time with me. She’s been so quiet she scares me when she says, “So what are we gonna do, Bobby?”

  “About what?”

  She puts my hand on her stomach and the baby kicks. Her question probably scared it, too.

  I can’t answer, ’cause I really don’t know what we’re going to do. I’m thinking about what’s going to happen, but I don’t know what to feel.

  I can’t imagine a real baby.

  Can’t imagine going over to Nia’s parent’s house and holding the baby while they look at me and make me sweat and my stomach hurt. As it is, I make sure they aren’t home when I see Nia now.

  Can’t imagine changing diapers or even feeding a baby ’cause I never had before. I’m the youngest in my family. People fed and put diapers on me.

  I say, “We’ll be okay. Our parents are gonna help.”

  “Yeah, I know—but in the end it’s all up to us.”

  “I guess it’s always been up to us.”

  She leans against me again. “I don’t want to do it.”

  “Do what, Nia?”

  “I don’t want to be anybody’s mother. I’m not done with being a kid myself. I’m way too young and so are you.”

  “No choice now.”

  She gets up and walks toward the door.

  “My mom talked about adoption, but I don’t know if that would make me bug. I mean the idea that I could be passing my own kid every day and not know it. And what about college? A baby, then?”

  I get up and wrap my arms around her ’cause we’d made the decision by waiting so long. We didn’t want to face it, but now it’s all in our face. Nothing to do but get on with it ’cause it’s happening no matter how freaked out we get.

  Nia tells everybody that they have to take her like she is.

  I always have.

  I still do.

  Nia opens the door, but backs up when cigarette smoke hits her in the face. The party’s getting louder.