by Paul Griffin
José snored.
‘Git up.’ Ray yanked the window shade.
José pulled up his shirt to cover his eyes.
‘Always takin off your shirt,’ Ray said. ‘Even in your sleep. You only wear a shirt to take it off. In the house, in front of the chicks in the park, anywhere. ’Ey, you hear what I’m tellin you?’
José snored.
‘Narcissistic punk.’ Ray was sick at the sight of José’s hair, long black loops braided perfectly into shiny cornrows. The J-man had perfect skin too, the skinny bastard. Husky Ray was zitty where he wasn’t freckly, had lousy hair that frazzled and broke when he tried to cornrow it, dark red Brillo when sun-stroked. Ray kept his hair short and his shirt on.
He left the fish on a shelf out of dog reach for José and left. Halfway uphill Ray heard the door open behind him. In the door frame José scratched his armpit, yawned, ‘Yo, what up?’
‘Lazy punk.’
‘Me?’ José said. ‘Why I’m a lazy punk?’
‘Y’all said you was gonna help me cook the goddam fish.’
‘Jesus, he’s mad now. Look at ’im.’
‘Y’all better have them dishes cleaned up, the time I get back. Loafin around all your life, can’t even pick up your own dag clothes off the floor.’
‘Son, that’s the whole point of livin like this, no parents style,’ José said. ‘So I can leave my dag clothes on the floor. Pick up my clothes? Y’all lost your mind, yo?’
‘Them dishes better be sparklin, yo. I’m serious, yo.’
‘Goddam girl, you are, yo.’
‘Fuck you, yo.’
‘Jesus, Ray. What’s wrong, man? You a’right, man? C’mon back, man. Let’s talk this out, brother.’
‘Fuck you.’
‘I don’t get it,’ José said. ‘What’s your problem all of a sudden?’
Ray didn’t say what was his problem. He didn’t know what was his problem. He was at the street now. He dropped his skateboard, pushed his giant body uphill.
José punched through the weeds after Ray. ‘Yo, where you goin, son?’
‘Haircut.’
‘Again? Ha!’
‘Shut up, man. Serious. I’ll lay your shit out. No mood today.’
‘Ray, I jus playin wichou, dawg. C’mon home, son. Ray? Yo, Ray!’
Ray kicked his board up the Drive and sweat. On a muggy morning like this one he’d have loved to take off his goddam shirt.
3
Ray skid-stopped in front of Yolanda’s Braid Palace, his once-a-week haircut spot. He popped his board off the street, caught it, told himself, ‘You are one cool moth-erfucker. Play this right and today’s the day she’s gonna let you kiss ’em. You can do this.’
He was in love with Yolie’s tetas, especially when she leaned them onto his shoulder to clip the top of his head. She wore tight T-shirts that went just halfway down her stomach, a sapphire stud in her belly button, tight jeans, brown lipstick, sparkly blue eye shadow. She smelled like cotton candy, vanilla and sometimes, when the day was hot, salt. Even though she was old, like forty or something, she was the most seriously fine woman in Washington Heights.
Ray figured Yolie loved him back a little, because why else would she stick her big brown breasts in his face when she was gelling down his ugly red hair? Then again, she stuck them in everybody’s face. But Ray wasn’t past taking charity teta. A man’s gotta have dreams. He’s gotta eat, dream the charity teta, maybe throw in a cool pair of sneakers, and the rest is gravy.
He parked his skateboard by the door, plopped into a folding chair and waited for Yolie with six other kids in love with Yolie’s breasts. He pulled his Scientific American out of his back pocket and pretended to read an article about something called string theory but really he was checking out Yolie’s booty. He waited until the other kids got their cuts and left, their hands in their front pockets to hide their chubbies. They didn’t really love Yolie, not like Ray did. Ray dreamed not just of sexing Yolie up but of marrying her too. In the dreams he was saving her from tragedy, bandits raiding the wedding or a flood. Lots of slow-motion action scenes, his dream hair perfect, his dream body ripped, no need to wear a goddam shirt.
Gradually the string theory article pulled him in to the point where he forgot about Yolie, a feat as amazing as string theory itself, which suggested that down at their core, things weren’t really made of anything. That atoms were nothing more than strings of energy. The guy who wrote the article thought this was cool. Ray didn’t. ‘How’s that possible? Nothing solid about life?’
‘You talkin to me?’ a kid leaving the shop said.
‘You’re up, amor.’ Yolie called everybody amor. She patted the salon chair.
Here we go. Kid Ray, you’re the dawg. Be suave now. ‘’Lo, Missis Y-Yolie,’ he whispered, afraid to look Yolie in the eyes. He sat in the chair, his heart bashing his ribs. Somewhere in the last ten minutes the sky had turned black and puked a downpour of summer hail, and now the shop was empty except for Ray and Yolie. Ray didn’t expect he’d survive this haircut. His heart was really slamming now. But what a way to go.
Yolie wrapped Ray in a smock. ‘Y’all know there’s a barber shop across the street, right?’
‘Yes ma’am.’
‘Okay. It’s just, this is a braid shop, you know? I don’t know how it got out that I cut hair. I ain’t even licensed to cut hair.’
‘I don’t mind.’
‘That’s what the last kid said.’ Yolie’s wristwatch alarm went off. ‘I gotta go to housin court, chico. You know how it is.’
Dag, Ray thought. ‘I’ll come back later.’
‘No no, you stay. This one is free if you let my niece practice on your head. She’s up from the island, cut heads down there. She real good.’
‘Um, gracias, Señora Yolie, pero está bien.’ Ray hopped out of the chair.
‘Sit.’ Yolie pushed Ray back down with her hands some but mostly with her breasts. Ray caved into the chair. Yolie yelled to the back of the shop, ‘Amor, y’all finish up the bookkeepin later. I got a sweetie pie waitin on a haircut here.’ She mussed Ray’s head, made for the door. ‘That gorgeous red hair, so thick. I don’t know why you won’t let it grow. We could roll it to dreads and put red bead shells in it.’
Ray imagined how long hair and red bead shells would make him look. He figured he’d look pretty much the same, fat, except with long hair and red bead shells. He was sweating under the plastic smock. He closed his eyes and dreamed of Yolie. She was kissing him on the mouth, caressing his neck—
She caressed his neck. Ray opened his eyes to the mirror and saw behind him a girl, fifteen, maybe even sixteen. She wasn’t really caressing his neck but dusting it with powder before she put the paper towel around it. ‘Hi.’
Hi, Ray almost said, his voice lost who knew where but nowhere he could find it for speaking use. This chick was too beautiful. She was like Yolie but young. She even smelled the same. Her hair was long black loops. Her eyes were black.
‘How you want me to do it?’ she said.
‘Huh?’
‘Your head.’
‘My head?’
‘Maybe the same but shorter?’
‘Um, the same but shorter.’
She went to work on Ray’s head. ‘You’re funny-lookin kind of.’
‘I am so.’
She laughed. She had a great laugh, loud and warm like goddam José’s. ‘That came out bad,’ she said. ‘Like, you look like you’d be funny, I mean.’
‘I’m like not that funny, though.’
She laughed through her nose, cut Ray’s hair. ‘Hold still, sweetie pie.’
You did not just call me sweetie pie, he almost said. Yolie called him sweetie pie all the time, but that was an old lady saying it. This was a real chick saying it now. Oh. My. God.
The girl spun the chair so that Ray faced her. ‘You a’right? Your head’s turnin all red and you’re breathin funny. You havin a heart attack on me?’
‘
Swallowed my. Gum. It’ll pass. Don’t worry, no need to break out the defibrillator just yet.’
‘What?’
‘No, like I’m sayin I won’t go into cardiac arrest on you, you gotta start the cardiopulmonary resuscitation.’
‘You a smart-type dude, huh?’
‘Psh, nah.’
‘Yeah, then what’s this?’ She grabbed the magazine he’d rolled into his hand. ‘Scientific American, eh? String theory? Most boys your age be readin Hustler.’
‘I read Hustler too.’
The chick winked. ‘I got the feelin you’re one of those brainiacs, tries to hide it so your boys don’t give you bad play. It’s in your eyes.’
His eyes? Her eyes. He wanted to speak differently with her, to use almost proper English, maybe even half-decent grammar, God help him. He couldn’t speak, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He chewed his gum to work up some saliva to unglue his tongue.
‘Came back up, huh?’ the chick said.
‘Huh?’
‘The gum you, ahem, swallowed.’
Shit. ‘Can’t keep a good gum down.’ Do not talk anymore. Do, not, be, a, loser. For five seconds. Try.
She offered her hand for a shake. ‘Trini.’
Ray stared at this Trini chick’s hand. He’d never touched a woman before except for when he’d accidentally bump into one in the crowded street or when one cut his hair, and those times he knew the chick was just touching him because she had to. But here this chick wanted to touch him, to hold his clammy overgrown paw. ‘Trini?’
‘That’s my name,’ Trini said.
Ray nodded as he shook Trini’s hand. Static electric shocks numbed his fingers. He wondered if she felt them too.
‘I don’t suppose you have a name?’ she said.
‘Yup.’
Trini laughed an aria. ‘What is it then, your tag?’
‘Ray. Mond.’
‘Mond? That’s a slick last name, boy. Ray Mond, James Bond. P.S., you seen that new Bond boy? He’s off, the, hook fine, ohmygod.’
‘No, I mean like R-Raymond. All one word.’
‘Oh, Raymond!’
That laugh. That music. Them eyes. Ray’s legs shook. He was going to wet himself. ‘I got to go to the can.’
‘Go ’head, sweetie pie. It’s in the—’
‘I know, thanks.’ He’d only tossed off in there a hundred times while waiting for haircuts. He ran to the bathroom, his legs so shaky he had to sit to pee.
4
José was working the Grand Theft Auto stick when Ray kicked in the door, his arms full of supplies, a hundred bucks worth of Cap’n Crunch, roach spray, dog food, cigarettes, scratch tickets, and Hershey’s syrup. Ray dropped the stuff to the floor, sank down against the wall. ‘My life is over.’
‘Whatever happened to Hi honey I’m home?’
‘You gotta see her. She’s so fine she makes your guts squish.’
‘Whatever that means. And that’s what you said about that chick what bags groceries at the bodega. Woman won’t even let us steal gum, selfish hag.’
‘J, look at me. This is serious. She’s Playboy pretty.’
José spun from the TV to Ray. ‘Where she at?’
‘Yolie’s.’
‘Tt, Yolie.’ José spun back to the TV, worked the joystick, killed two guys with head shots. ‘Hell, son, I seen that old lady. She ain’t all that.’
‘Not her. She got a niece.’
José spun back to Ray. ‘You’re messin up my game here.’
‘She’s better-lookin than Miss Febs. Last year’s calendar.’
José dropped his joystick and all interest in the video game. ‘I’m gonna ride all the way up there in the rain and I’m not gonna wanna kill you when I see her? Dag. Then let’s go.’
‘Now?’
‘No, next year. Grab your board.’
‘Lemme grab my board then.’
‘I just said that.’ José rummaged his clothes pile, did the sniff check on a shirt, decided it passed, headed out and uphill.
Ray looked at the fat dope dog that had settled at his feet to slobber all over its paws. ‘Why’d I do that, Fatty? Why’d I tell him? Now she’s gonna fall in love with him. She liked me, man. She thought I was smart. I’m a goddam idiot.’
‘Yo Ray!’
‘Comin, dammit!’
Yolie’s was closed, the door sign flipped to WE’LL BE BACK AT…and then there was a paper clock that had lost its hands. The hail stopped and left behind a muggy-ass drizzle.
José took off his shirt, wiped the rain off his trick bike.
‘Wipin down his bike with his goddam shirt. It’s okay to wear your shirt once in a while too,’ Ray said. ‘They got rags for the bike wipe.’
‘Then you got a rag on you, Mom?’ José ran his fingers over the nicks he’d earned during his overcareful, twenty-eight-minute shave that morning. He was shaving goddam near once a week now.
Ray shaved once a month. He didn’t need to. He fussed with a zit.
‘Let’s swipe us some cold beer,’ José said.
‘Let’s.’
They swiped beer, coasted double on José’s trick bike down the Drive to Ten Mile River and crashed the bike in the high grass. They drank and José fell asleep.
Ray lay back and watched the last clouds hustle east. The breeze picked up and bent the grass over him. The sun was strong but the air had dried out. Seeing this peacefulness, Ray got the feeling he was on the edge of understanding something big, but he didn’t get past being on the edge. He sipped his beer, drifted, slept, dreamed of the Trini chick. She was putting her hand into his shorts—
He woke up, José’s finger poking at the bulge in his shorts. Ray stood up fast. ‘Yo, get off, man. The fuck? Yo, this ain’t juvie, son.’
‘You’re funny, Ray-man. You’re yellin at me and you’re still hard, man.’
‘Am not either. That’s normal.’
José fell over laughing, thrashed in the high grass. ‘That’s normal,’ he says. Then we gotta put you out to stud, homie. That or the circus. Check it out check it out check it out, Boner Man! G’head, homeboy. Tame that snake. Go do what you always do ten times a day, “Yeah, I’m-a go check out the river,” he always says. “Be back in like five minutes.” Ha!’
‘Yeah, and what about you, all them trips to the woods. “Gonna go pitch a stool.” Right. Bringin your readin material with ya. Can’t even read, ya bastard.’
‘Don’t need to know how to read to git the gist of Miss Febs’s story.’
‘Pokin my package. Hell is wrong with you, man?’
‘Look at the way he’s lookin at me,’ José said. ‘Yo, I’m a proven matador, man. I been with chicks. You ain’t even kissed one.’
‘You ain’t been with chicks, lame-ass liar.’
‘Have so. I even sucked titty. I got milk.’
‘Look at this bullshit artist. A chick got to be pregnant to lactate.’
‘Lackate?’ José said.
‘Make milk. Or else she got to have just birthed a kid.’
‘No she don’t.’
‘I read it in a book.’
‘Damn readin,’ José said. ‘Really? Maybe it was my spit mixin with the baby powder she sprinkled into her bra.’
‘Maybe it was her roll-on, you was suckin her armpit. Breast milk, he says. Li. Ar.’
‘I tolt you, that one chick who works the ice cream truck with her pops, that time I helped her wash the truck, I sucked her titties for like at least twenty seconds.’
‘You sucked your mama’s titties for twenty seconds,’ Ray said.
‘I sucked your mama’s titties and made her take me shoppin after.’ José sucker punched Ray, a gut shot.
Ray body slammed the J-man. They rolled themselves filthy in the riverside clay. José wiped himself off. ‘Hoo… Dag, I ain’t laughed like this since yesterday.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Yeah.’
The boys caught their breath. José slapped the b
ack of Ray’s head. ‘How much money we got, kid?’
‘None.’
‘Sounds about right. Let’s go get us some money and hit the flicks, Ray-Ray.’
‘Sounds about right. Y’all keep your hands to yourself from now on.’
‘Relax, son. You kill me, you just about do.’
5
‘Back so soon?’ Jerry said. The shop was cranking, new windshields going up assembly line style.
‘Buck fifty this time, Jerry, and I mean it.’ José folded his arms.
Jerry laughed. ‘Kid, you gotta wait a while before you pop more shields. People’ll get suspicious.’
‘No they won’t. We’ll do the other side of Gun Hill, you know, Woodlawn, over by the seminary. Right, Ray?’
‘Cemetery,’ Ray said.
‘Nah nah,’ Jerry said. ‘They got too many shops over by Gun Hill Woodlawn for anybody to come down to my place. Nah look, come back next week.’
‘C’mon man, we gotta see the new Spider-Man. Give us twenty bucks.’
‘Yous kill me, you know that, right? Yous frickin slay me. The movies they gotta see now. Frickin Spidey.’ Jerry sucked his teeth, squinted at the boys. ‘Tell yous what. Here.’ He flipped them a fifty. ‘That’s a tip there for yous, for this mornin.’
José took. He looked at Ray. Ray shrugged.
‘Yous don’t say thanks?’
‘Way I see it,’ José said, ‘that’s what you owe us.’
‘You kids are too much. ’Ey, c’mere.’ Jerry took them into his greasy office, shut the door. ‘Yous wanna make some real money?’
‘As opposed to fake?’ Ray said.
‘Round Face, calm down, okay? I’m tryin to tell you something here.’
‘Tell it,’ José said.
‘You know how all the pimps park on the park there, by Jerome Ave?’
‘We seen ’em.’
‘You see the same cars there, right, night after night, maybe not in the same exact spot but close, right, a block north, south, either way, right? Tonight go pick out a new Escalade or a Navigator, you know, somethin that goes like eighty, eighty-five long, like all souped up.’