by Sharon Flake
They stared at him. And something inside him made him say what his father wanted him to say all along. “I’m too young to be married.” His stomach bubbled. “And I hate this suit.” He opened the window for air. “I’m only in eleventh grade. Who gets married at my age?”
Cindella started crying. Her mother started yelling. Tow-Kaye said he was sorry, but he couldn’t do this.
Her dad stepped in. “Driver, let’s take a little ride through the park.” He looked around the car. “What a mess.” So when the car pulled off and they rode deeper into the park, where there was nothing but trails, thick tall trees, and air so clean it smelled sweet, he told the driver to stop. “Come on, boy.” He opened the door and told the women to stay put.
They walked on the gravel and watched dust hug their rented shoes. “Talk to me,” Cindella’s dad said, loosening his gray tie.
Tow-Kaye wondered how much of the pink stuff you could take in a day. He wanted a little more, wanted to get drunk really, and he didn’t even drink.
His father-in-law said it again. “Talk to me, son. You want out? You can get out.”
Tow-Kaye loved Mr. Bentley. Before he ever told Cindella he loved her, he said it to her father first. Tow-Kaye’s father called him every week, but he lived in California and they never did talk about much. Once he got sick with cancer and lost his job, he couldn’t pay for Tow-Kaye to fly out there. Neither could his mother. Which was okay, because Tow-Kaye always had Cindella’s dad. He was the one who taught him to ride a two-wheeler. He was the one who showed him how to use a hammer, how to lay concrete so it didn’t crack. He went to Boy Scout meetings with Tow-Kaye and taught him to fish; told him when to wear a tie: why he shouldn’t eat everything on his plate; how to act if the police ever rolled up on him; and why he always needed to have some money in his back pocket and in the bank, too.
“Be responsible for your actions. That’s what you always taught me.” Tow-Kaye looked at the gravel while he talked. Walked over to a tree and started pulling off the bark. “I’m trying to be . . . responsible . . . trying to do what’s right.”
His father-in-law was behind him, scratching the bald spot in the center of his head. “I love you . . . Gonna love you no matter what you do.” He held on to his shoulder, squeezing it. Wondering if he had screwed everything up for his daughter, for his only son, too. “Maybe I’m too old to have a kid your age. . . .” He took off his jacket.
“You ain’t old.”
He kept talking to Tow-Kaye’s back. “I know kids don’t get married no more.” He loosened his tie a bit more. “The first time I did it, though, I was your age. When she passed,” he said, “I found another one. Emily.” He listened to the birds talking to one another from tree to tree. “I don’t know . . . I figured between me and Emily, and you loving Cindella and her loving you . . . it could work out right.”
Tow-Kaye started walking, slow, so Mr. Bentley could keep up. And he told him what his dad had said. What his boys told him in school, at gym—on the court. Mr. Bentley helped Tow-Kaye out of his jacket. “But this ain’t about them,” he said, holding his coat for him. “It’s about you two.” He stopped. Picked up an acorn and pitched it as far as he could. Tow-Kaye did the same. They walked over to the pond—the one people fished in even though it looked like it was filled with mud. “Sit down,” Mr. Bentley said, ignoring the dirt.
Tow-Kaye stood. “It’s not like I don’t love her.” He took off his tie and cummerbund. “Only . . . I just . . . can’t . . .”
Mr. Bentley stared at the green slime moving across the water like oil. He had to, otherwise he’d cry.
“I can’t stop thinking,” Tow-Kaye said, swallowing in between every word. “Can’t . . . shut . . . my . . . head . . . off . . . you know?” His father-in-law laughed. “Marriage is some scary stuff, man.”
“No lie. I swear.”
The birds got quiet. “All I can think about . . . is . . . is . . . man, I’ma be a father . . . be a husband . . . be all used up before I’m eighteen.” He looked over at Mr. Bentley, then took his time sitting down next to him. “I love her . . . but I don’t know. . . .” He didn’t mean to cry. Didn’t mean to cry so hard he wet up Mr. Bentley’s shirt and got snot on his sleeve. “I wanna be married to her, you know. Wanna be with her forever and be a good dad like you, but . . .”
Mr. Bentley held him like he held Cindella when she was little. He wiped his own nose and cleared his throat and tried to figure out what to say; what to do. But all he could think about was his daughter, how hurt she’d be. And about himself, how this was all his fault. So he said it, even though he cried while he said it. “We can get it annulled. Make it like it never happened.”
The sun was hot and bright, but Tow-Kaye felt a little chilled, so he put his jacket back on. “But I’m having a baby.”
His father-in-law stood up. “You’ll be a good dad.” He looked away when he told Tow-Kaye that he’d always be welcome in their home. “Better not try staying away.” He hugged him so hard the chain he’d given him for his wedding day left an impression on his chest. “I love you, boy. Forever. And nothing’s ever going to change that.”
They started walking, and wiping away what they didn’t want their wives to see. Tow-Kaye picked up stones and skipped them up the road. He thought about food. He didn’t know why. They had walked farther than they wanted; stayed longer than they should, so he knew Cindella would be upset. “Her friends are waiting to take pictures.”
“Let ’em wait.” Then Mr. Bentley said he’d explain everything to everyone—even her, if he wanted.
Tow-Kaye wanted to chicken out. But he couldn’t. “Naw.” He put his cummerbund back on. “I’ll tell her.” Then he thought about something else. That’s what made him stop in the middle of the road. “She’s not gonna want me after this, huh?”
His father-in-law was honest. “Probably not.” But he told him things between her, him, and the baby would be good. “That’s just the way she is.”
They kept walking. Talking. And Tow-Kaye kept asking himself, How am I gonna live without her? How is she gonna make it without me? “You ain’t gotta marry her.” He heard his father say it again.
“Fix yourself up.” Mr. Bentley stopped him. He brushed a spiderweb from Tow-Kaye’s hair with his fingers. He leveled Tow-Kaye’s tie, then bent down to dust his shoes. When they turned the corner, the limousine was sitting there. Tow-Kaye smoothed out Mr. Bentley’s jacket; made his shoes shine again. Then he rubbed dried salty tears from his own cheeks. “Bentleys don’t break,” his father in-law said. “She’ll be alright.” Only deep down inside he wasn’t so sure.
“I don’t know . . . we already did it now . . . got married, I mean.”
He held both of Tow-Kaye’s shoulders. “Don’t stay just to stay. That’s worse than leaving, most times.”
Tow-Kaye looked up the road at Cindella, leaning against the car, belly pocked out. He stared at her girlfriends, who had found her. He knew just what they had been saying: Where’s Tow-Kaye? Girl, he’s acting up already. I knew you shouldn’t a married him.
His knees wobbled. “You think we can make it, Mr. Bentley? Think we’ll be okay?”
His father-in-law took his hand. “She’s my daughter, right?” he said, taking his time heading toward the limousine.
“Yes, sir.”
“And you’re my son, ain’t you?”
Tow-Kaye squeezed his hand tight. “Yeah.”
“I got your back, just like you got hers,” he said. “It’s gonna be hard, I won’t lie to you. You’ll want to run again someday, too. But all the support you need, all the love you want is here. You’re with family. And family’s always gonna find a way to make sure you’re okay.”
His boys pointed, laughing a little, watching the two men coming up the road, holding hands. The girls didn’t whisper when they told Cindella she needed to go set her man straight.
Cindella started running his way. She knew he was scared. But he was hers a
nd she loved him. And she knew he had leaving on his mind; but staying was something they were both really good at, so she figured it could work, had to. So she ignored her friends, the hard gravel between her toes, and her mother saying she’d ruin her gown.
Cinderella. That’s what he thought when he saw her coming toward him, brown and beautiful.
“I love you,” he said, holding her tight. “You’re my wife.”
“I love you too,” she said, right before he kissed her, right before the sun turned the stones in her crown the color of the ring he gave her in fifth grade—golden yellow with flecks of red.
Put it in a text
Say it with your tongue
My boys might not believe it
But I know I’m the only one
Yours
Forever
Always
A boy who became a man
The one who said he’d die before he’d hold some stupid girl’s hand
They say you’re not so pretty
They ask what I see in you
I’ve explained a million times
I was born loving you
So
I’ll put it in a text
I’ll say it with my tongue
My boys may not believe it
But I know you’re the one
Mine
Forever
Always
A girl who understands
That a boy who never learns to love
Will never be a man.
HE’S GOT A KNIFE. A BIG ONE.
“If . . . if . . . ahhhh . . .” he says, almost stabbing me in the back.
I turn the corner, trip over a beer bottle and a bum, jump up and keep running. My left leg cramps. My arms hurt. But if I stop, I’m dead.
“Who . . . who . . . you think you are. Knocking on my door. A-a-accusing me,” Melvin yells, chasing after me.
I’ve been running for five blocks. And I still have three more to go. I don’t think I’ll make it . . . home . . . to my grandparents’ house. Not without getting cut.
And it’s like he can run forever, even though I’m way younger than he is. But somebody killed my grandfather. I just wanna know who.
I fly up the street faster than a hot motorcycle; feel my sneaker come off and pieces of glass sticking to my feet like sprinkles on a cake. I cross myself, because this might be it. Then all of a sudden he stops. Just like that. And sits on some steps, wiping sweat and giving me the finger.
I can’t go no further either. I sit down just a few houses up, ready to die if I have to. “He . . . he . . . I liked him . . . your grandfather,” the guy shouts, holding his chest. “That the only reason you still living.”
I’m breathing so hard I have to hold my chest too— hurts too bad otherwise. But my grandfather didn’t raise no fool, so I start walking away fast, toward home, even though I still don’t know who shot him.
I’m not on the block two minutes before Kareem asks me if the store is open. Before I can tell him, he asks where my sneaker is. “Gone,” I say, staring at my bloody toes.
Kareem’s house has the most steps on the block: twenty-two. He’s sitting on the top one, squirting me with his water gun. “I’m coming with you. To open up the store,” he says, standing.
I’m wet and tired. I need a shower. And time to get the store set up, I tell him. So he shoots me in the back of my head and stays where he is.
When I get up the street my legs are still shaking, so I sit down at the curb in front of my grandfather’s store. They killed him in there. It happens a lot in this neighborhood, so the police are taking their time figuring out who did it. The neighbors put flowers and teddy bears out front, and spray-painted his name on the pavement outside the place, so they think they’ve done their part.
My grandmother and me argue a lot over this store. She wants it shut down. So instead of going inside the house where she is, I go in through the garage—his store. There’s a shower in the back.
Once I’m clean and back in the clothes I had on earlier, I start putting cookies and candy in jars. I bought this stuff with my own money, since she won’t give me any. But as soon as I unpack the Oreos and Twizzlers, here she comes, pointing at me with that cane.
“I told you what I wanted you to do, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“So just do it.”
“No.”
“Didn’t he get shot? Didn’t they just walk into this here store,” she says, stabbing the floor with her cane, “and shoot him dead?”
“Yes, ma’am, but—”
“Then shut it down. Today.”
“I . . .”
“Don’t sass me. And don’t think I don’t know what you been doing out there . . . behind my back.”
I stand over her. “I been doing just what you did. Going after them,” I say, kicking the stool so hard one of the legs cracks.
She scratches underneath her wig, then straightens it. Then takes a pinch of snuff out the bag and sticks it between her orange lips; shoving it between her gums with her tongue. “You do what I did and . . . You not from around here, boy. Quit doing things like that . . . please.”
After my granddad died a few months ago, my grandmother sat at the window every day and yelled at guys walking by. “You know my husband? Who shot him?” Or she would be at church—her friends would tell my mom— asking boys my age what they knew about the killing. She quit doing that after I came three weeks ago. Didn’t want to make me no target, she said. But I just took over where she left off, only in my own way. Now she says for me to quit it, before something bad happens to me, too. I usually do exactly what I’m told. But not lately. Lately I feel like getting even. Paying back. Only I guess I need to be smarter. Going empty-handed doesn’t make any sense. I’m not sure why I thought it would.
My granddad didn’t make any money in this store. Nothing cost more than a dollar and a half, and lots of time kids got candy for free. How could anyone hurt an old man like that? And everybody who says they loved him keeps quiet about who did it. Now my grandmother is telling me to let sleeping dogs lie, and shut down the store. That’s not right. They got the money, even the shoes off his feet. Now they get the store—everything he was working for—if we close it.
My parents, my uncles and aunts want it shut down too. The neighborhood’s bad. The people are getting what they deserve, they say—no place for their kids to buy candy or soda or to hang out when it gets hot. I’m fourteen. And I’ve never spent a full summer at home. Here in his store is where I like to be. They’re wrong for trying to take it away from me.
My grandmother and I keep going at it. Before I know it, she’s doing what she did yesterday, asking for her inhaler. “You alright? You okay?” I say, coming back from the house with it.
“Help me to that chair, baby,” she says, holding on to me and her throat at the same time.
This is what happened three p.m. yesterday, right before she ended up in the emergency room. I don’t want her dying because of me. So I give in, right after she sits down and can’t get up for a whole hour. Then I put her to bed, and watch over her for thirty minutes. I say it again: I’ll close up the store. Her breathing gets better then. “But I’m staying with you all summer,” I say, swinging a bat my grandfather kept at the store for protection. “Let ’em come after me, too, if they want. I got something for them.”
After she’s asleep, I go back to my granddad’s place. Kareem’s waiting there.
“Y’all open?”
“Go home, Kareem. We closed, for good.”
He walks in anyhow.
“But what you gonna do with all them cookies?” His tongue sticks out the side of his mouth. “And how ’bout those?” He’s pointing to the Slim Jims and cheese packs in jars on the counter.
Kareem is like I was when I was little—always here at the store. But he don’t just come for candy. He comes and tells me things. They found one of my grandfather’s shoes, thanks to him. It was in a vacant
building; cut wide open, toe to toe. Grown-ups in this neighborhood don’t snitch. But little kids sometimes do. I never asked Kareem how he knew the shoe was there. He just told the police he was playing and he saw it. So anything he wants from me, he can have. I remember that and reach for the cookie jar.
Kareem is nine, and little for his age. He wobbles when he walks. My grandmother says he’ll be a little person when he grows up. She’s wrong. He’s already a little person. He was born that way. Because he’s little he overdoes everything, like driving his dad’s car five miles once and crashing it. Or sneaking out the house one night, and ending up in the police station with some guys twice his age. Kareem is the one who gave me Melvin’s name and address; the guy who almost cut me today. “Don’t do me no more favors, Kareem. I almost got killed today because of you.” I sit on a stool and tell him everything.
“I thought it was him,” he says, finishing his cookie. “You sure he ain’t do it?” He sits on my grandfather’s stool and tells me that we’re gonna find the right person for sure if we don’t give up. Then he asks me to open the big jar on the counter.
“Pickled eggs never rot or nothing. They keep ’em in the store like for a year before they throw ’em out.” His short, fat fingers go straight for the biggest, slipperiest egg. Then he tells me about the time he put six eggs in his mouth at once. Kareem makes things up sometimes. He lies, I guess you could say. But he’s a kid, so I figure it’s okay. And he wants to be big inside, my grandfather used to tell me. He would let him run the cash register, since the thing about Kareem is that he knows more about money than the people who run the numbers house six blocks away, I bet. And he knows everybody and all the streets around here, too.
I get to work, standing seven grocery bags in the middle of the floor and putting candy in them. Here’s what I figure: I’ll give some to Kareem and his sisters, then knock on doors and just give the rest away.
“What about Llee?” Kareem asks. “He wants some.”
It’s like Llee and Kareem planned it, because right then Llee shows up. “You giving stuff away today?” he asks.