Epigraphs
“The future belongs to young people with an education and the imagination to create.”
—President Barack Obama
“I want a person to come into my life by accident, but stay on purpose.”
—Adele
Dedication
To my Book-in-a-Day students, especially North Charleston High School, whose voices inspire mine
Contents
Epigraphs
Dedication
Omar
Claudia
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About the Author
Back Ad
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Omar
Kym King > Tdiddy Smalls congratulations to my boo. mr. football 2011.
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“Why does your grandmother put plastic on the sofa, dawg? My butt is itching and sweating at the same time.” This is the main reason we don’t watch TV at Willie Mack’s house. Plastic on a couch. Who does that?
“Then sit on the floor, B. She’s trying to keep the couch from getting dirty,” Willie Mack says.
“Well, she ain’t doing a good job, ’cause it’s dirt all up under this joint,” I say, and lift up a torn piece of the plastic. “Whoa! B, tell me I didn’t just find a fifty-year-old Froot Loop.”
“She need to go green and recycle this ish,” Belafonte says, tearing off a dangling piece of plastic.
“GoGreenRecycle. OhSnap! That’sSomeFunnyIsh,” Fast Freddie says, talking as fast as he runs.
“Save the planet, Miss Mable. Save. The. Dayum. Planet,” I add to a barrage of laughter.
“IHopeYouDon’tBringNoBroadsUpHere. TheyMightGetCut.” We laugh, ’cause we’ve all bled on this frickin’ couch.
My phone buzzes, but I don’t answer it. I know who it is, and so does everybody else.
“YouHittin’ThatTonight,T-Diddy?” Fast Freddie asks.
“C’mon, son” is all I say, because everybody knows that’s a stupid question.
“Bong bong!” says Belafonte.
My girl, Kym, won’t let me touch her hair when we’re kissing. “Not my weave, T-Diddy; please, not my weave!” But she loves it when I place her hands on my chest, melts when I blow on the back of her neck. And tonight, after the party, there’s a strong wind coming on. Believe that!
For real, though, I must be off my game, ’cause we started talking right before Thanksgiving break, and it doesn’t usually take me a whole month to bong bong! I even had to buy her a Christmas gift. Those sterling silver bangles cost me forty-eight dollars. She better be worth it, especially since she’s number twenty. Real talk, since I moved down here from Brooklyn, I’ve smashed nineteen girls—one from the college. It’s not even like the girls down south are easier than up north, it’s just the perks of being the star quarterback on the state championship football team. Not to mention, T-Diddy looks gooooooooood.
“WhatTimeWeLeavingForThePartyT-Diddy?”
“It’s the end of the game. Sit back. Chill, Freddie. Pass the bag.” The game we’re watching is the shaky-cam video that Willie Mack’s mom made of the state championship. The painful plastic-covered couch we’re sitting on in Willie Mack’s living room is his grandma’s. And the bag is roasted sunflower seeds, my favorite.
“How many times you gonna watch this, T-Diddy? Let me tell you how it ends. You throw it to Fast Freddie, he catches it, dodges three linebackers, and runs—”
“C’mon, son, stop hating ’cause I didn’t throw you the ball. I can’t help it if Freddie is faster than you.” Willie’s last name is Howard, but that joker is built like a Mack truck, so we call him Willie Mack. It doesn’t matter whether he’s playing defensive end or tight end, he will hit you, run you over, and never look back. Hit and run, real talk.
“AndBetterLooking.” Me and Fast Freddie dap each other.
“Willie Mack, did your moms get the part where that fat-ass left tackle tries to slam T-Diddy at the end of the game?” Belafonte says, then grabs my bag of sunflower seeds from Willie Mack.
“And then you hurdled that woadie like what!” Willie Mack says to me, laughing.
“ThatWasClassicT-Diddy.”
“If the refs didn’t get there sooner, might have been a good old-fashioned West Charleston–Bayside rumble, real talk,” I add. I don’t even know when the rivalry began, but I know it’s crazy intense. At one of the games before I came here, I heard, most of their whole school wore referee-style shirts and flashed fake dollar bills, trying to say that we only win because we pay off the referees. Last year, somebody from our school graffiti-painted their bus during the game. Those jokers were pissed to the highest level of pisstivity when they saw the big Panther on the side of their bus. That joint was classic!
“IfWeSeeThemJokersAgainIt’sOn!”
“Can I please get my seeds?” Fast Freddie hands me the almost-empty bag. These jokers are greedy. “Now y’all shut up and let me watch this.” I fast-forward the game.
“Hole up, T, stop right there,” Belafonte hollers. “That’s the halftime show. I don’t want to start nothing up in here, you know, on your grandmother’s freezer-bag couch, Willie, but I know he didn’t just skip the best part of the game.”
“FreezerBag. What!” Fast Freddie laughs it up.
Belafonte is the drum major in West Charleston’s marching band. Before T-Diddy arrived, they were the talk of the town, the numero uno, the primo luciano. Their rep was unchallenged, unstoppable. Still one of the best bands in the south, but T-Diddy put the gridiron on the map. Now, football rules. Believe that.
Belafonte’s cool and all, but if he wasn’t Fast Freddie’s cousin, I wouldn’t be hanging with him. Don’t get me wrong, he goes hard. That Katrina tribute they did last year to Lil Weezy’s “Tie My Hands” was straight gangsta. They got like 200,000 hits on YouTube.
They have cheerleaders and dancers, but nobody really pays attention to them, especially when the band starts high-stepping. I can’t really get with the uniforms—feather plumes and capes and whatnot—but they do bring down the house fo’ sho. But, like I said, they no longer run West Charleston. T-Diddy does. So no, I won’t be stopping to watch the marching band.
My phone buzzes again. Dang, Kym. I’m coming.
“How you gonna be late to your own party?” Willie Mack asks.
“Next year, when I’m playing for Miami in the Sugar Bowl, maybe you’ll be the state player of the year, then you can be as early as you want for your wack party.”
“Maybe y’all will get an invite to the Toilet Bowl, ’cause y’all squad be getting flushed every Saturday.”
“OhSnapHeSaidTheToiletBowl.”
“C’mon, son, you know T-Diddy at the U is gonna change all that. Peep the plaque on my wall at the crib: SOUTH CAROLINA’S MR. FOOTBALL. Recognize.”
The only thing I love more than girls, and sunflower seeds, is football. When I was in New York, our team won a lot of games,
but I wasn’t getting any real love. The Apple is a hoops town. Down south is where football reigns. But it wasn’t even my idea to leave New York.
Some kid tried to steal my MetroCard one day after school. He pulled a knife out, but I punched him before he could even think about using it. I got arrested, but the charges were dropped since I was just defending myself. On the way home from the police station, my dad says to me, “If you’re young, black, and male in New York City, chances are you’re either on your way to jail or coming back from it.” After Mom finished crying, she told me it was going to either boarding school in Connecticut or down south. That was two years ago.
I was hoping to live with my cousin Jerome in Atlanta, but when we Skyped that joker, he sounded drunk, looked high, and started bawling like a baby over his missing cat, Roberta Belle. Apparently she’d crawled through an open window, while he was working. At the strip club. I didn’t have a problem with it, but Mom was like hells naw.
Next, Mom asked me if I wanted to stay in Orlando with her sister, who worked at Disney World. As a clown. C’mon, son.
Finally, Pop called his mother in Beaufort, South Carolina. Grandma told him that his brother Albert had just bought a big place in Charleston.
Uncle Albert is the coolest uncle in the world. When I was little, he’d give all the kids envelopes with cash for Christmas. Before the motorcycle accident, he used to host the annual Smalls family Christmas football classic. We didn’t play touch football either. That woadie was hard-core.
When Uncle Albert agreed to let me live with him during the school year, I was amped, until he told me I couldn’t bring Muppet. That was a deal breaker for me. We ain’t been apart since Dad brought him home from animal rescue like five years ago. But my options were limited. I miss that dawg.
Uncle Al also made me promise I’d attend Howard University, his alma mater. Mom said, “Yeah, whatever, Al,” even though she and Pops were sure I was going to Syracuse, like them.
Funny thing is, I’d decided in the seventh grade where I was playing college ball. The minute after I saw Ed Reed, Clinton Portis, Jeremy Shockey, and the rest of them Miami ballers storm Nebraska in the Rose Bowl, I knew I wanted to be a Hurricane. I know they kinda fell off lately, but T-Diddy is bringing back the funk and the noise to the U. Plus they got some beautiful waters down there. And a bunch of beautiful women swimming in them. Holla!
“Okay, here it comes,” I say, turning up the volume. “T-Diddy’s about to show y’all why he’s Mr. Football.”
“Kym texted you like thirty minutes ago.”
“Shhhhh! She ain’t going nowhere.”
“BeCarefulSheMightBreakUpWithYouAgain.” Kym breaks up with me like every other day over something stupid. Then she’s all up in my face the next day. She needs so much damn attention. If it wasn’t for that colossal booty, it’d be deuces.
“Good, ’cause her birthday is next week, and I really don’t want to have to get her nothing.”
“SheGetsNuskins.”
“Pass me them sunflower seeds and pay attention,” I tell them.
We watch the last play of the last game of my high school career. State championships. West Charleston High vs. Bayside High. And even though I’ve watched it like a million times, I want to see it a million more.
Fast Freddie lines up on my right.
I yell, “Red-23-4-17-23-hut.”
I hand off the ball to Willie Mack. He tosses it back to me. Flea flicka.
On my left, I glimpse a six-foot, three-hundred-pound monster charging at me like he hasn’t eaten in days. And T-Diddy is dinner.
I dodge out of his way. The Matrix.
I Peyton Manning that joint. Throw a perfect thirty-yard bullet to Fast Freddie.
The entire crowd at West Charleston High School jumps to their feet and yells. . . .
Claudia
“‘Touchdown’ by T.I. is okay,” I say, slipping out of my sweatpants, “but how about we do something a little classier?”
“Whath abouth Christh Brownth?” Tami squeals, the day-old silver stud in her tongue making her sound like Mike Tyson. Or a pigeon. Or Mike Tyson talking to a pigeon. With a lisp.
“Eminem and T.I. ripped it on ‘Touchdown,’ but a Chris Brown song would be hella nice,” Eve translates. “What y’all think?”
“I was thinking we should add a number with a strong message,” I add, and all the girls, except the freshman twins who agree with everything, smack their teeth.
“Girl, why you always talking that message stuff? This ain’t the Civil War movement,” Eve yells, and the rest of the girls laugh.
“You mean the civil rights movement,” Blu, the captain of the dance team and my best friend since West Charleston Montessori, corrects her.
“I mean we got the Battle of the Bands next month, and Belafonte said there’s forty-five seconds at the beginning of the show for us to do something. So we need to add a fresh routine. Represent for West Charleston with a brand-new Panther dance. Something real fly,” Eve adds.
“Well, let’s take a vote,” Blu says, “at practice on Monday. Now, who’s ready to par-tay?”
“I need a drink for real. Whose dumb idea was it to practice over Christmas break anyway?” Eve asks, looking at me.
Saying Eve and I don’t get along too well is like saying that there’s homeless people in New York. Freshman year, we used to be tight—me, her, and Blu—until she told everybody that Blu was a lesbian. It wasn’t that big of a deal to Blu, because she didn’t and still doesn’t care what anybody thinks. But for me it was nothing short of evil betrayal.
“You are coming to the party, aren’t you, Claudia?” Blu asks, ignoring her. “The whole dance team is coming.”
I’ve danced since I could walk. Two things my parents made me and my sister do since we were little: go to church and take dance lessons. Since they’ve been doing missionary work, we haven’t really kept up with the church tradition, and the truth is, I’ve been bored with dance ever since I discovered words.
Freshman year, when I started writing for our school paper, the Panther Pride—back when it used to be a real paper—I told Blu I wasn’t going to try out for the dance team. She got all upset, yadda yadda yadda, and practically guilted me into it. The best thing I can say for it is it keeps me in shape, and it looked good on my college application. Hanging out with these girls in practice is drama, though. And hanging out with them after practice, well, that’s trauma. For real.
“Nope, too much work to do.”
“Girlth, youth canth doth that shith thisth weekendth,” Tami says. Eve shoots the twins a mean look when they start to giggle in unison.
“Actually, we need to finish tonight, so it can be edited tomorrow.”
“Come to the party. Enjoy yourself before school starts on Monday. I’ll help you after,” Blu says.
“Girl, I want to, but I’m still working on that piece about the arts budget cuts the school board proposed.”
“Can’t wait to read that thrilling piece of journalism,” Eve says. “You ought to be writing an exposé on the football team and how they beat Bayside for the state championship. Whoop whoop! And make sure you post lots of pictures of my girl Kym’s dude, T-Diddy.” T-Diddy is the West Charleston quarterback who led the Panthers to victory against the powerhouse Bayside Tornadoes. He’s also the resident ho at our school. I did not stutter.
“Ith knowth thatth righth, girlth.” She high-fives Eve.
“For real, nobody cares about arts funding and budget cuts. Do something on them rappers who got caught robbing banks. Now, I’d read that ish.” Eve laughs.
“You won’t be laughing if the funding for our dance team gets cut.”
“Maybeth youth couldth doth somethingth onth girlsth gettingth knockedth upth andth havingth abortionsth.”
Blu and I look at each other, but not at Eve, who we both know had an abortion last year. Trifling.
“I read that the school board has, like, a six-million-dollar
deficit,” Blu says, trying to quickly switch subjects.
“What paper did you read that in?” I ask.
“I read it on Cruella’s Facebook page.”
“Are you serious? Dr. Jackson has a Facebook page. O frickin’ MG!”
The only way I can figure that Dr. Brenda Jackson got the principal job at West Charleston High School is that they required someone who a) never smiled, b) hated teenagers, and c) bathed in a vat of perfume every morning before she came to school to torture us. Ugghhh!
“Claudia, she’s got like a thousand friends. She’s always posting pictures of all her crusty puppies,” Blu adds.
“Sheth tweetedth abouth ith tooth.”
Tweetedth. “What’s that?” I ask.
“For somebody who got accepted to Harvard early, you sure don’t know ish. It’s called Twitter,” Eve says, smacking her teeth all the way to the shower. “You need to come out that cave.”
“Ignore her. So just come to the party for a minute, and then we’ll go do your work.”
I nod to Blu, because I know she’s not going to take no for an answer. She never does.
“Plus, my mom just got a new pair of Louboutin red bottoms that will go perfect with those skinny black jeans I gave you for Christmas. Can you say diva!”
“Really, our principal is on the Facebooks?” I ask, still dumbfounded.
Omar
Tdiddy Smalls is Panther till I die baby. Just rolled up to the after-party. Poppin’ that Polo collar. Now ’bout to pop them bottles. LOL.
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Willie Mack, Freddie Callaway and 9 others like this.
It’s not Brooklyn, but it’ll do. Music is blasting from somebody’s iPod. More girls than guys. Kids from all over the county show up. Tonight is special, ’cause the whole Panther football team is up in here celebrating. So when three guys from Bayside’s losing football team show up in the front yard, loud and drunk, things get a little out of hand.
“Y’all ain’t Panthers, y’all is cheaters,” the fat guy who tried to slam me in the championship game says.
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