At-Risk

by Amina Gautier

  “Why don’t you take them off for me, woman?”

  Jason hadn’t known that a woman her age could still blush. Miss Charlotte led him down the hallway to the bedrooms and apologized, “You’ve got to excuse his language, Jason honey.”

  The voice shouted, “Don’t make excuses for me. I don’t need them.”

  “Don’t pay him no mind, Jason. He’s pleased as punch to have you here. He’s been talking about your coming the last three weeks. Cal, look at what I brought you,” she said, pushing Jason forward as if he was a gift.

  The overpowering smell of Ben-Gay made Jason’s eyes water. The two windows in the room were both closed and the smell of the liniment mixed with the musty, stale air. The room was sparsely furnished and everything seemed to be in precise order. One lone bottle of cologne sat on the dresser next to a short hairbrush and a nail clipper. A wheelchair was positioned to the left side of the bed and the man who was his grandfather half sat and half reclined in the bed with his back against the headboard. He wore a white sleep shirt with faded blue stripes. A heavy gray blanket, the kind Jason had seen in Army-Navy stores, was spread over the bed.

  “So you’re here,” the old man said, staring. Jason stared back, surprised to see that his grandfather’s face was his own. He looked nothing like his own mother and father, and although he had seen pictures of his grandfather, he’d never noticed any resemblance. But it was here in the uncompromising features of the old man staring back at him as intently as he was staring himself, the same seal-brown skin, aggressive nostrils, bushy eyebrows that almost connected above the bridge of the nose, the same full lips and pugnacious chin.

  Jason didn’t like the way his grandfather talked to him. He didn’t like the way the old man sat there, looking legless, as if he ended at his torso. “Yeah, I’m here,” Jason said. “Where are your legs? You lose them in a war?”

  His grandfather rolled his eyes. “I still have them, Youngblood, but I can only count on one. The stroke affected the left side of my body. My left leg is basically useless.”

  “Oh.”

  “I guess that’s not cool enough for you.”

  Jason shrugged, not caring one way or the other. “Nah, it’s okay.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, for as long as you’re here, why don’t you just pretend that one of my running buddies, my homeboys as you’d call it, didn’t like the colors I was wearing one day or didn’t like the way I rolled my joint and decided to smoke me but missed and only caught me in the leg. Is that any better?”

  “Whatever,” Jason said.

  The old man asked, “Is it true that they shot those two boys down and killed them?”

  “Calvin!” Miss Charlotte’s exclamation broke the silence. “What a way to begin—”

  The old man cut her off. “Well, boy?” he demanded. “Is it true?”

  He knew that his grandfather knew the answer to that question. Surely his mother had told him. Surely the old man had been forewarned. His grandfather’s blatant disregard angered him. His mother carefully stepped around the issue. They had never actually discussed the death of his friends since the funeral except for a few cryptic sentences in passing. But this old man who surely must know better had no sense but to bring the subject up right away. Jason didn’t know what to think, except that he would have liked nothing more than to wheel the old man out into traffic. Since the funeral, he’d felt only numb indifference; now he claimed a pleasurable anger. His palms itched to hurt the old man. His grandfather smiled as if he could read his mind, as if he welcomed the challenge. Somehow, with his sunken body, the old man managed to give the impression that he could spring at any moment and kick ass.

  “Anyway. Can I use the phone? I told my mom I’d call.”

  Miss Charlotte called them to dinner. The chair was removed from the head of the table to accommodate his grandfather’s wheelchair. The sight of his grandfather sitting there, the back of his wheelchair making him seem like a king seated on a throne, brought back the anger.

  “What’s for dinner? I don’t know if my mom told you or not, but I don’t eat squirrel or possum,” Jason said. “I’m allergic.”

  “Boy, this is Tallahassee, not Davy Crockett’s wild frontier.”

  “Don’t y’all eat that stuff? Rabbits and deer and all?”

  “Rabbits and squirrels are just as much rodents as rats. You’ll never see me putting any of that anywhere near my mouth. Come here, Youngblood.”

  Jason rose and approached him. His grandfather began to pat Jason’s chest and pockets. Jason jumped back. “Man, what you think you doing?”

  His grandfather said, “Checking for weapons.”

  “You’re crazy. I ain’t carrying nothing.”

  “You gonna get in my car and go do some drive-bys? Or maybe sell me some drugs? Or are you gonna wait till I’m good and asleep and then steal my basketball sneakers to sell on the corner?” his grandfather asked.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You want to indulge in stereotypes, I can oblige you. Now sit down.”

  Jason sat. He shook his head. “You need to stop watching rap videos. It’s not all like that up there.”

  He had begun to eat when his grandfather’s hand shot out and grabbed his wrist, applying pressure. “We give thanks for our food before we eat it,” his grandfather said quietly.

  “I don’t do church.”

  “Then just be still while I say something over the food.”

  The boy thought about it. He could refuse. This man was not his father, he didn’t have to obey him. But the pressure of his grandfather’s good arm told the story of strength. Veins, thick and prominent straining from knuckle to wrist, reminded Jason that this was the same man who could split a watermelon as easily as a head, the same man who had snapped the necks of chickens, blown the heads off rattlesnakes, and torn the hide off his mother’s behind when she misbehaved. Jason released his fork.

  His grandfather and Miss Charlotte bowed their heads.

  “Lord, I don’t have much, but I thank you for what I have been given. Please bless this meal and all who come under this roof. Bless us all with a nourishing meal and a good night’s sleep.”

  Jason refused to look up when his grandfather mentioned sleep. He waited until his grandfather began to eat, then he followed suit. After some time, his grandfather spoke again.

  “You play any sports, boy?”

  “Nah, not really.”

  “Watch any?”

  “Just basketball,” he said.

  “Who do you like? Bird? Johnson? Thomas?”

  Jason thought of Michael Jordan’s Gatorade commercial with everyone singing “I wanna be like Mike.” What he wouldn’t give to be like Michael Jordan, have Michael Jordan’s money, his skill, his arrogance and confidence, his nobody-can-touch-me bravado. What he wouldn’t give to linger in the air like he was free from all restraints, switch hands middunk, and keep everyone constantly guessing, constantly watching, waiting for his next move, hanging on him, all eyes reflecting his image so that he saw himself wherever he went. What else was there for him if he didn’t want to be like Mike? All of his friends wanted to ball or rap. No one believed in school anymore. It was just a free version of day care. Just a place to contain society’s knuckleheads and keep them off the streets for a few hours. In school, he was expected only to pass the tests that would move him into the next grade. He was supposed to memorize, regurgitate, and repeat. He was not supposed to think. All of the students who could think had been weeded out and parceled into magnet schools, gotten scholarships or vouchers to private and boarding schools, or tested into Brooklyn Tech, Bronx Science, or Stuyvesant. He and his friends were leftovers.

  He said only, “I like Jordan. He’s nice on the court.”

  “I always wanted to be Satchel Paige myself. Or Jackie Robinson.”

  The boy looked confused.

  “Baseball,” his grandfather said. “Don’t look at me all cross-eyed lik
e that. Don’t stay up too late. We get up early around here. No exceptions.”

  “What are we gonna do? Milk the cows? Go fishing or something?”

  “Boy, you’ve been watching too much TV.”

  He dreamed the first night. He was back in Brooklyn, back on his stoop. Howie, Smalls, Dawud, and Justice weren’t there, but Kiki and Stephen were. They were sitting at the top of the stoop, and Stephen was holding a forty. Stephen and Kiki rose and gave him a pound when they saw him. Kiki took the bottle from Stephen and twisted the cap off. He tipped the bottle and poured the first few drops onto the concrete stoop. Kiki said, “This is for you, son,” and Jason woke up covered in sweat.

  By night, Jason dreamed, unless he could manage to stay awake. By day, he avoided his grandfather, spending the bulk of his time holed up in his room, listening to music and trying hard not to fall asleep. Sometimes he wandered outside, looking for something to do. He wore his headphones throughout the house, listening to his music. When his batteries ran down and he had to recharge them, he watched television. Music videos and stand-up comedy if he had the living room to himself. He pretended that he lived alone, maneuvering around Miss Charlotte and his grandfather as if they were furniture. There was nothing to do in his grandfather’s house. Nowhere to go and nothing to see. Watching TV wasn’t the same when there was no reason to turn the volume all the way up. His grandfather’s street was quiet. There were no noises to silence and ignore. There was just him and his grandfather, a man he didn’t know at all.

  So it went.

  His grandfather gave him chores the first week he was there, saying, “It’s time you started doing something to earn your keep. This here is not one of Koch’s welfare hotels.”

  “Ain’t this what you got Miss Charlotte for?” Jason asked, balking at being used for manual labor, especially when a home attendant was present.

  “She’s a home attendant, not a housekeeper. She just helps me do the things I need to do for my daily survival. She helps me bathe, prepares my meals, and does the food shopping. Everything else is extra. If I want the mirrors polished, the tables dusted, I have to do that myself. She’s not my personal slave, you know?” his grandfather said. “Huh. I wish she was a harem girl. Then maybe me and her could have us some fun.”

  Jason was to polish the old man’s shoes every day, even though his grandfather went out only every other day to the doctor’s. His grandfather wore his good shoes all day long in the house, even though Miss Charlotte kept a pair of brand new slippers by the side of his bed. Jason had to scrub the bathtub if he was the last one to use it. And he had to sweep the long hallway and sweep the living room. He had to bring in the newspaper and wash the dishes after Miss Charlotte cooked. There was no fried food anywhere in the house. Everything was steamed, boiled, baked, or broiled. And he was responsible for dinner. Miss Charlotte cooked their breakfast and lunch and left instructions for dinner. There were certain things his grandfather could eat and certain things he couldn’t. A diagram with cartoon drawings of mustard, salt, red meat, soda, ketchup, and many other foods crossed out with big black Xs was fastened to the refrigerator with a magnet. The diagram had been drawn to be cutesy. The forbidden foods all wore diabolical grins and raised eyebrows.

  He also had to make both his and his grandfather’s bed every day and tidy his grandfather’s bedroom, which included dusting down a dresser that was never dusty. He came to hate that chore. Standing in front of that dresser, he was forced to see himself in the big wide mirror, forced to lift each item and wipe the wood beneath it to make it gleam. First the Bible, then the heavy brush with no handle, then the bottle of cologne. He always sniffed it although he meant not to. His grandfather would wheel in and check on him to make sure that he had really cleaned the dresser and Jason had to stand there with the reflection of his grandfather’s head and torso next to him in the mirror, reminding him each time of whom he looked like and who he was.

  The dreams were vivid but not nightmarish. He saw no bloodstained bodies. His boys had not turned into effigies or zombies. They appeared in his dreams as they had appeared in life. Kiki full of bravado and clad in the newest fashions, Stephen slightly shy and hanging back. They always met him on the stoop in front of his house. He’d never been alone with just the two of them in real life. Howie and Dawud or someone else from their crew had always been there. In Jason’s dreams, Kiki held out a forty to him and Jason tipped it back and drank without thinking. Kiki and Stephen watched him, and when he wiped his mouth and handed it back, Stephen said, “You’re next,” and pushed him. As Jason stumbled backward off the steps, Kiki always said, “Better you than me,” and Jason would wake up with his body leaning halfway out of the bed and one palm flat on the floor.

  The boy and the man lived near each other but not together. His grandfather demanded his presence at meals; other than that they kept apart. Jason pretended not to notice the physical therapy sessions, where it took all of his grandfather’s strength to squeeze a small red ball, where the therapist laid his grandfather’s hand palm up and exercised each finger. All the therapist did was massage and rub each finger separately, then try to bend it at the joints, but his grandfather made faces as if the woman were cutting his hand off at the wrists. When it was time for the therapy, Miss Charlotte stood at his grandfather’s side with her hands on his shoulders. Jason tried not to walk by the kitchen when the therapist was there. His grandfather had caught his eyes once and held him there until he felt something like guilt pouring through him. In that arrested moment in the kitchen, Jason could guess at the things his grandfather must have had to go through in his life to get him to that point in the kitchen where he could sit and quietly endure the pain, which was clearly excruciating, with a quiet acceptance that this, too, like everything else, would pass. Jason was no great student and had gotten much of the history that he learned in school mixed up. He wasn’t sure how old his grandfather was; he didn’t know if he had lived long enough to have fought in any of the major wars, but he guessed that just the plain simple living of getting from one day to the next might have been something like war for the old man.

  He didn’t like to think of the old man, but he did anyway. He wondered what his grandfather had done before he arrived, if he was intruding, if his grandfather liked being alone. He had never really thought about what it meant to be by one’s self. He knew that, in coming here, he had left his mother alone for the first time, and he wondered if she was missing him, if she was lonely without him. He tried not to think about his boys at all and he barely spared Chanelle more than a passing thought. By the time he got back, she would be with somebody else, and she’d cut him with her eyes and act like she didn’t even know him.

  But he did think of Kiki and Stephen.

  Stephen’s body had worn a black suit with a tie. He’d looked as if he were dressed for graduation or picture day at school. He had looked alive. Jason hadn’t wanted to get close but his mother dug her nails into his arm and made him. “Take a good look,” she’d said. “Any day now, that’s you.”

  Her prediction terrified him. She had not said “This could be you” or “See what can happen to you?” She had spoken without subjunctives and conditionals, without mercy. Her unrelenting words made him see that when it came down to it, really came down to it, there was no difference between him and the boys in his crew, even though he had tried to cultivate one. It was him in the casket. Any day now, it was him. He’d looked at the corpse then. No longer Stephen Townsend, his boy, his friend, his ace. Now, a black body, a black boy, a statistic, a number, as in “one less on the street,” a corpse, a cadaver, an absence.

  They had taken the bodies to Merritt Green. There had been no trees near the twin plots, just the hot June sun shining straight on everyone. The heat left damp circles in the armpits of his suit. He and his friends served as the pallbearers. They’d slipped on the white gloves and lifted the coffins. As they’d marched, Jason remembered things Stephen had told him about his f
amily. He remembered Miss Townsend’s own mother had passed two years earlier and now, without Stephen, she was all alone. At the funeral, she’d looked gaunt and brittle as if a strong wind could knock her over. She’d sat there so still, hands folded and head bent, that Jason wondered if she was really there or if she had just left the shell of herself. Seated in the pew behind the immediate family, Jason remarked to his mother that Miss Townsend didn’t cry, and his mother said, “Maybe she’s done with crying. Maybe she cried for him all the while he was living and doesn’t have any tears left now that he’s dead.”

  When it was her turn to view the body, Miss Townsend fell out on the casket, crying without sound. She cried and her eyes were terrible and her mouth opened and closed around words as if she were talking, but not a single sound came out. It had felt like a trick, like watching a favorite TV show with the sound turned all the way down. Try as he might, Jason couldn’t forget that.

  The day his mother told him she was sending him to see his grandfather, he’d asked how she could afford it and she told him about the savings bonds she’d been holding for him since he was a baby. “I was saving them for you to go to college,” she’d said. “But if I don’t get you out of here and away from them, you might never live to see the day.”

  The dream was different this time.

  Kiki looked at him as he approached the stoop and asked, “Yo, where did you get those kicks, son?”

  “I got them downtown at Dr. Jay’s.”

  “For real? I ain’t even see those the last time I was in there.”

  “They’re brand new.”

  “How come I ain’t see them then?”

  “You were dead by the time they came out,” Jason said.

  Kiki and Stephen backed away as if Jason were holding a gun on them. Stephen said, “I gotta get back to my grandmother.” Then he was gone, but Jason didn’t see him leave.

  Kiki wound his arms around the stoop’s railing and pulled himself up to sit on the top rail. He motioned for Jason to join him. “At least I ain’t go out like no punk. At least I went out like a man.” But he hardly looked like a man at that moment with his feet hooked around the bottom railing to keep him steady.