Secret Saturdays

by Torrey Maldonado

  I was about to say, “This is hot, right?” but I noticed Sean’s eyes were closed. He inhaled real deep. Maybe he was thinking about something. I closed my eyes and did what I thought he was doing.

  “Justin, it’s cool,” Sean said.

  “What’s cool?”

  “I won’t tell anybody we came up here.”

  For years me and him kept stupid dares we did secret, so I felt I could trust him now. Still, those were little dares. Climbing the Grey House was different. This was one of the craziest things to do in Red Hook. Kids mainly went in the Grey House to brag about it. Me and Sean hadn’t just made it in. We’d almost died plus made it to the roof. Sean would be even more The Man if he told kids what happened. For life. I hoped I could trust Sean not to tell. My mom would flip if she found out.

  Sean’s Secret Trip

  AFTER LEAVING THE GREY HOUSE, me and Sean shoved our way through the weeds and junk to a tiny, half-grimy, half-nice beach on the other side of the building. Me and Sean went down to the water but didn’t go in. Sean pulled out a shiny metal disc with fancy designs on it from his pocket. After he wiped the dust off, it looked even more rare. Like the cover of a small expensive pocket watch.

  “It’s from inside,” he said. “I snatched it. It’s maybe steel, but if you bend it, it might . . .” Sean folded it and it snapped in two. He handed me half.

  I ran my thumb over its design and felt the sharp metal edges where it had broken.

  “Don’t lose that,” Sean said. “I’ll keep mine.”

  “Me? Lose mine?” I said. “You’ll lose yours before me.”

  “Want to bet?”

  “Bet,” I said.

  We smiled at each other and headed back to our block.

  The door to our building was supposed to stay locked, but as usual the door was open a crack. Drug dealers who didn’t live in our building propped a soda-bottle cap in the doorway to keep the door from slamming shut. That way they could get in without a key, handle their business, then leave. I wanted to move the bottle cap so the door could close, but I didn’t. What if one of the guys hustling saw me? They might have approached me. So we just went in, stepping over a puddle of piss. It stank. Ammonia strong. Tiny piles of tobacco on the floor here and there. People who smoked weed in our building bought cigars, emptied them, and used the cigar skins to roll blunts. They tossed the cigar tobacco on the floor wherever. They threw their empty nickel bags of weed on the ground too.

  Every floor had litter. Graffiti was written on walls with markers or keyed into the paint. On the second floor, a half-drunk Snapple bottle and a Styrofoam coffee cup were on the little bench near the window. Cigarette butts floated in them.

  The bottom of my sneaker stuck a little on the floor. I lifted my foot and heard it peel out of whatever sticky liquid it had touched. Maybe spilled Snapple or coffee. Hopefully not piss.

  I tried pretending the messiness of my building didn’t bother me. Sean did too. In my heart, I wished cops or housing workers kept our stoop door locked and my building safe and clean. Why’d my building have to smell like beer, weed smoke, and piss? At night, people hung in the halls and did their dirt. When I passed them, they looked at me like I was bothering them. My moms and old folks had to walk through this crap. That got me heated too.

  Ma told me we were lucky. She said most Red Hook buildings were worse than ours. The worst we ever saw was somebody once got stabbed. But he lived. In a few other buildings, guys were shot and killed.

  “It never bugs you how our building is?” I asked Sean.

  “Nah,” he said. “If it did, I’d go live with my pops in our house in Puerto Rico. It’s mad clean there. Like heaven. It’s too boring, though.”

  Right now, I wished I had a cool dad and a house in a nice clean place where me and my moms could live.

  My apartment was on the second floor. Sean was on the sixth. When we were in my room, Sean said, “I can only stay an hour or two.”

  “What?” I said. “I thought I was grabbing my stuff. For our sleepover at your place.”

  “I forgot to tell you,” Sean said. “I can’t do our sleepover. My moms said I’m on punishment for not doing my chores.”

  That was bugged. It wasn’t like Sean to cancel a sleepover. I tried not to look upset. Most weekends, me, Sean, and Kyle took turns staying over each other’s apartments. The sleepover idea started with me and Sean. After a while, Kyle joined in. Vanessa didn’t spend the night at our apartments because a girl staying over boys’ houses made her look like a ho. So Vanessa missed out on playing games until three, four in the morning. Us prank-calling kids who went to our school. Watching music videos until we fell asleep.

  “Next time,” Sean said.

  “Word,” I answered, but I was confused. I hoped nothing was wrong. It was big for Sean’s moms to make him cancel on me and Kyle.

  In my room, Sean sat in my beanbag chair and flipped through one of Kyle’s rap magazines. Kyle wasn’t into rapping as much as me and Sean, but he got rap magazines mailed to his house because his father read The Source, XXL, and Vibe. Kyle knew Sean liked these magazines because they had rappers’ rhymes written out. Every month he let Sean borrow the latest issues. They been doing that since fourth grade. That was a way Sean and Kyle were close.

  Sean took those magazines and wrote down the rappers’ rhymes, twice. A copy for him and one for me. That’s how we were close. He could’ve looked out for just himself but he didn’t. Since forever, he hit me off with whatever he got his hands on.

  I stood at my CD player. Pressing the skip button and trying to find this battle Black Bald had on BET this past summer.

  Black Bald was ill. Me, Sean, Vanessa, and Kyle loved this rapper. We saw him at a free concert in Prospect Park. He battled two other rappers at the same time and he slayed them.

  Killah Kid, this rapper I couldn’t stand, once popped up on BET and challenged Black Bald right on the show. Killah was a rapper in high school. He had a six-pack stomach and took off his shirt in all his videos. He probably thought he could model. His raps were just okay, but he said he was as good as Jay-Z. Yeah right.

  I didn’t know who let Killah interrupt Black’s interview on live TV. And I didn’t know how Killah got a microphone, but he did.

  “Killah,” the pretty, Serena Williams-looking host said, surprised. “What you doing here?”

  “Why you interviewing this fake?” Killah asked. “Black can’t freestyle. He don’t even write his own raps.” Killah didn’t even make eye contact with Black. He turned to the audience instead. “You want to hear me battle this punk?” he asked.

  They went crazy. “Battle!” they yelled. “Battle! Battle!”

  The female host asked Black, “So you accept Killah’s challenge?”

  Black took his microphone and waved to the deejay. “Throw on a hot beat. A’ight, Killa. Show us what’s good. You first.”

  Right there on BET, Black ended up ripping Killah. I was fiending to hear that battle again.

  “Black killed Killah on what track?” I asked Sean.

  “Seven.”

  I skipped tracks until I got there.

  Killah went first:Hos be flocking me, tricks be jocking me.

  I go down the street and chickenheads stay stopping me.

  What about you, Black? You can’t bag dimes to save your life.

  With a ugly face like yours only a blind ditz would be your wife.

  The audience went “Oooh” and clapped for Killah.

  “Rewind that track,” Black said to the deejay. The beat began again.

  Killah, you stay dissing women. Calling them hos, ditzes, and tricks.

  Then you wonder why your last album sold no units. Why? Because the females you dis didn’t go out and buy your garbage.

  Why you need to brag about the women you bag? And you really shouldn’t be coming on BET to challenge me.

  You ain’t a real MC. You’ll see. You’ll get beat. Plus, I got females in my crew old
er, taller, and harder than you.

  I should invite one out here to punch two black eyes on you.

  The audience went crazy. Everyone cheered loud. Through their sounds, I heard the host say to Black, “You got it. You got it. The audience says you The Man.” That’s how that song ended. It faded out to her voice and claps for Black. I skipped to Track 9. Black rapped:I didn’t have a pops. Just a moms to admire.

  She loved me nonstop even when I made her

  stressed and tired.

  I skipped to Track 12. Black went:Gina from my way liked guys who gave her strife. If Gina was my girl, I would’ve shown her the good life.

  For some reason I thought about Sean. Maybe because I never heard him dis girls. Or probably from how he treated Vanessa. Never put her down. I asked him, “Why you think Black never disses women the way other rappers do?”

  Without taking his eyes off Kyle’s magazine, Sean said, “Probably because he knows a cool female he trusts.”

  “You trust girls?” I asked.

  “I trust Vanessa.”

  “Really?”

  “No doubt.” Sean strained hard at something on a page. “Vanessa’s good people.”

  I knew Sean had something with Vanessa but he wouldn’t admit it. But I didn’t know he felt close enough to her to trust her with stuff. I thought he trusted only me. What Sean had just said about Vanessa made me think. What little side conversations did they have that I didn’t know about? Did things I told Sean get back to Vanessa? I asked Sean, “What kind of stuff you trust Vanessa with?”

  Sean flipped Kyle’s magazine shut. I could tell he realized he’d slipped and now was wondering how much to tell me. Sean scratched the back of his head and said, “Nothing big. Remember last year? When my moms was sick for all them days?”

  “Yeah.”

  “On the first day she felt bad,” Sean said, “she sent me to the store to buy medicine and I bumped into Vanessa. I told her my moms didn’t feel good. She went with me to the supermarket and then came back to my apartment. She sat that day with my moms, the next day, and every day after that. Vanessa checked on my mother until she got better. From then on, my moms loved Vanessa. And I learned Vanessa is all right. Now and then, I trust her with little things. With nothing major, though.”

  The way he said “nothing major” made me wonder if Sean had any big secrets I didn’t know about. I thought he told me everything, but what he’d just said made me feel like he was keeping stuff from me.

  “You should ask her out,” I said.

  Sean’s face turned so serious it wasn’t funny. “Black probably respects females because he knows someone cool like Vanessa,” he said, then went back to reading the magazine.

  I watched Sean for a second. His face was still a little red and he obviously didn’t want to talk no more so I took the Black Bald disc out and put the radio on.

  Sean said he couldn’t be around for our sleepover, and later that night he wasn’t. It was just me and Kyle in my room at two in the morning.

  “Do you urinate frequently?” the man on TV asked. The wildest commercials came on TV late at night. “If you’re sixty-five or older and you can’t control your bladder, this commercial is for you.”

  I sat on my bed with my back against my wall. “What you think about this commercial?” I asked Kyle.

  He was in my wheelie chair at my desk, playing on my computer. Kyle stopped, spun toward the TV, took one finger, and pushed his glasses up his nose. He did that whenever he was figuring something out. Kyle nodded twice. “It’s whatever, whatever.” He got back on the computer.

  I switched channels.

  Trying to stay up with Kyle without Sean was kind of wack. Kyle was the quietest of us. Laid-back. He didn’t rush into things and didn’t get excited fast. He thought maybe three times before speaking or acting once. I respected how he thought deep about things because I could be that way too. But Kyle was that way 24/7. His mood was “Do you, I do me. Mind your business, I mind mine.” At other times, I liked being more like Sean. Sean could just be wild. Since Kyle couldn’t be that way, trying to bug out with him right now was tough.

  “Fifty-two shots and all you cats drop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Don’t even step on my block.”

  Finally! I found something good on television. Black’s new video. “Yeah, Black!” I said.

  Kyle was feeling the video because he nodded to Black’s beat. He made his voice low like how Black sounded and rapped Black’s rhyme:You wanna come to where I rest and disrespect? Punk, you’ll get checked, wrecked. I’ll break your neck.

  I made my voice as deep as Kyle’s and jumped in to rap Black’s next part with him. Kyle turned around to face me, and it was almost like we were battling, barking Black’s words at each other: You on the wrong side of the tracks.

  Trace back your footsteps to where you live at Before you get smacked and jacked.

  On that last word, me and Kyle started laughing. I didn’t know why. We just did.

  “Oh man,” Kyle breathed out hard. “That was fun.” But then he went back to playing his game.

  But I was still pumped from rapping and wanted to keep going. You corny, Kyle, I thought. Back on the computer. If he’d been Sean, he wouldn’t have done that. Me and Sean probably would’ve started freestyling. Made up our own rhymes. Had a rap battle.

  I wondered if Sean was up right now. I had energy and didn’t know what to do with it. I changed channels until I found another video I liked.

  “Kyle, you saw this one?” I was about to raise the volume when I looked at my digital clock. It was 2:15 in the morning. My mom would flip if I turned it up.

  I left the volume alone.

  Out my window I heard the stoop door slam, but nobody was there when I checked. Sometimes, at four, five in the morning, you didn’t need to watch TV to stay up. Just watch my stoop. People argued and fought down there. Drunks, crackheads, drug dealers. Right now, I couldn’t tell if the stoop door slamming meant drama.

  Kyle was laid out on my bed. Asleep. Even though the television was on. His eyes half open and rolled up in his head. He maybe could sleep through a fire. I turned off the television and there was another slam. I went back to the window. What I saw bugged me out.

  “Sean, baby.” Sean and his mom stepped off the stoop. “Wake up.”

  Sean was half asleep and standing wobbly like he was about to fall over. His mother put one hand under his arm to hold him up. She had a small suitcase in her other hand. Tiny enough for a weekend trip. I backed a bit out of the window so they wouldn’t see me.

  What’s up with that? Sean had told me he would be around this weekend on punishment. Why were they leaving? Did they have a family emergency?

  “Come on, Sean,” Jackie said. She took him by the hand and led him off the court. They disappeared behind a building.

  I wanted to wake up Kyle and tell him what I had just seen, but all these thoughts were going through my head. Did Sean know he was bouncing this weekend? Yes or no? He never went somewhere without telling me first. Where were they going at so early the morning? With a suitcase?

  I let Kyle sleep and decided not to tell him what I had just seen. Maybe because I didn’t want to hear Kyle say something like, “We should mind our own business.” I wasn’t in the mood to hear that, because I was worried about Sean. He didn’t look like he knew where his mom was taking him. Was she taking him somewhere to leave him?

  The Morning After

  THE NEXT MORNING, Kyle didn’t stay for breakfast. He pitched for a Little League team and they had a game that day. His parents were the coaches and picked him up early from my place.

  After brushing my teeth, I sat at our breakfast table while Ma cooked. I was there with no video game. No nothing. Just me hunched, confused about why Sean had snuck out last night and hadn’t said where he was going.

  “What’s bugging you?” Ma asked.

  “Nothing,” I said, but she wasn’t stupid.

  The pancakes on the sto
ve sizzled. Usually I couldn’t wait to eat them. But right now Ma’s food didn’t faze me.

  “Justin, if I looked like this”—Ma puffed her cheeks and folded her arms—“would you say nothing is wrong with me?”

  I smiled. I didn’t think I looked like that.

  “At least I’m not wearing slippers five sizes too big for me,” I joked.

  “If you want me making pancakes and eggs for you like I do every Saturday morning, I’m cooking them in my clown slippers.” Ma stuck her tongue out at me.

  I laughed.

  Ma’s black hair was curled in rollers. Pink ones. Matching her pink, fluffy bathrobe. Ma liked her pajamas loose-fitting. Her collar was turned up and the sash around her waist was tied in front.

  She scooped two pancakes from the pan, slid them onto a plate of steaming scrambled eggs, and set that in front of me.

  “So what’s bothering you?” There. Ma was picking at me again.

  “I just feel like being quiet.”

  But Ma hated it when I didn’t speak for a long time and sat angry.

  “Guys out here get taught from little to act hard,” she would say. “They’re supposed to pretend nothing is wrong with them. They think they can’t ever be sensitive because that’s considered soft or gay. So these boys and men out here bottle in their real feelings. Wearing armor and fronting. But being hard only leads to trouble. Feelings explode out and lots of guys are in jail, hooked on drugs, and dead for being hard.”

  Ma used to have three brothers. It was her, Robby, Craig, and Josh. My uncles were hard. Now all of them are dead or locked up. Robby sold drugs and got shot in the head when he was in high school. Craig caught HIV sharing needles and died at twenty-two. Uncle Josh is alive and in jail for life because he was a gang leader out here and had somebody killed. He was my only uncle and once Ma took me upstate to see him, but on the bus ride home she told me, “I’m not taking you back to see him. I’m not getting you used to being inside a jail. Josh chose that life for him. I didn’t choose jail for you.” And just like that, we never visited Uncle Josh again.