by 50 Cent
“Oh,” I said. “That’s cool.”
Nia was looking curiously at Malik, as if trying to figure out who he was to me, but I was feeling way too unsteady to get into it right then.
“C’mon, Malik, let’s go,” I said, and he followed me like a little puppy dog.
About a block past Irving, he said again, “That was really cool what you did back there. I mean it—I really, um, owe you for that.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. I already had some ideas of how he could pay me back. “Hey, when we get back to Palace, would you mind showing me some of those moves again?”
31
“It was all right,” I said the next afternoon when Liz had asked me how my week had gone. “I had a cool movie idea yesterday.” Now that I had my computer, I was already thinking bigger: I didn’t just have to stop with those quickie two-minute videos I shot on the street.
“That’s fantastic news, Butterball!” Liz exclaimed. “I’d love to hear about it.”
“Well, I wouldn’t love to talk about it,” I said. But then, realizing how that had sounded, I added, “I mean, I’m just kinda superstitious about that shit. Like talking about it too early might end up cursing the whole project, you know?”
“I understand,” Liz said, and she didn’t seem offended at all. “If you ever need anyone to sound ideas off, you can always try me out, all right?”
I nodded. “Sure, sounds good.”
“And speaking of ideas,” Liz said carefully, “I was sort of playing around with one I had about your future.”
She waited, and I looked at her, no idea what she was talking about. “Are you about to bump me up to even more sessions a week?” I asked.
“No, actually, Butterball,” she said, “I think we’ll cancel our Friday appointment and meet again on Monday, and take it on a week-by-week basis from there. What I was actually wondering was if you’ve ever considered a magnet school for next year.”
“A magnet school?” I snorted. “You mean like Bronx Science where all the nerds in Harlem get shipped off to?”
Liz thought about this. “Well, yes and no,” she said. “There are other types of magnet schools all over the place, for all sorts of different students—people interested in entering law enforcement, all types of things. The particular one I was thinking of is in Floral Park, for kids interested in careers in the arts.”
The woman had my attention, even if I still couldn’t figure out why she was telling me all this.
“Now, the deadline for most of these schools has passed,” she was saying, “but I do have some pull in the Nassau County school district. So if you were interested in having a look, I might be able to, you know, put in a good word for you.”
“But why would you do that?” I asked, more confused than ever. “It’s not like I make good grades or anything, especially this past semester when shit’s gotten all messed up.”
“It’s not really about grades at Cunningham,” Liz said. “I mean, certainly, grades help, but the bigger emphasis is on creativity. And, you know, creative—direction. Kids who have big dreams and who’d benefit from an environment that supports those dreams.”
“But you’ve never even seen my shit before,” I said, more and more baffled by her gibberish. “I mean, you don’t even know if I’m any good or not.”
“But I do know that you’re serious,” Liz said, “and at this point, that counts as much, or even more, than anything. I mean, you’re in eighth grade, Butterball. No one expects you to be Ingmar Bergman at this point, or even Christopher Nolan.”
I raised my eyebrows, surprised old Liz had even heard of Ingmar. I was also kinda flattered she’d remembered what I’d said about Christopher Nolan. Sometimes when I’d sit on that nasty couch rambling on and on, I’d wonder how much Liz was actually absorbing from behind those librarian glasses. In a way, thinking she might be tuning me out the way I tuned out Mrs. Fleming in math sometimes made it easier for me to talk.
And then I thought of something else. “But didn’t you say the school was in Floral Park? Isn’t that like halfway back to the city? There’s no way that’d fly with my mom, especially if she passes all her nursing exams this summer and gets put on an official rotation.”
“Yes,” Liz said, “Cunningham—the school’s official name is the Merce Cunningham High School for the Performing and Visual Arts—is about a forty-five-minute drive from here. But there are trains that go right there, and the school also provides some limited transportation subsidies if they want you enough.”
I sighed. There was the problem right there: wanting me enough. Seemed like no one ever did. Liz must’ve seen the look on my face because she got up off her chair and started moving toward me. I instinctively shrank into the couch, but it turned out Liz didn’t have hugging on her mind. She reached out her hand and passed me a stapled-together stack of papers.
“Here,” she said, “I’ve printed out the prospectus and a bunch of application materials. You can have a look over the weekend and talk it over with your mom to see what she thinks. I’m not making any promises, so don’t get your hopes up. But I do think Cunningham could be a good opportunity for you. A fresh start might be just what you need.”
I looked down at the pages she’d handed me, and my eyes blurred up. Afresh start: the exact same words my mom kept repeating the summer after sixth grade, when she’d moved out on my dad without even settling on where we were going next. Yeah, well, look at all the good my last fresh start had done me.
But all I said to Liz was, “Yo, thanks. I’ll definitely have a look.” Because when it came down to it, I really didn’t have much to lose anymore.
32
I spent the whole weekend just reading that brochure, over and over again. I didn’t know public schools like that even existed. The place had a budget and teachers—the brochure kept calling them professors—who were “real leaders in their fields,” and they gave kids grants to put on theater productions and dance performances and, yes, even film movies, and they set up internships with real professionals in the city, people I’d actually heard of. The place was unreal.
Now, if only I had a chance in hell of getting in there.
The application was like fourteen pages long, way more detailed than the packets Mom had filled out to get into nursing school. The first night, I filled out all the easy stuff: name, address, Social Security number, that kind of thing. But after that I got stuck.
There were all these questions, page after page of them, that I was supposed to answer “in my own words,” whatever that meant. Why did I want to go to Cunningham? Well, two hours earlier I’d never even heard of the place, but now ... What did I think I’d gain from the experience? Pretty much everything and then some. What were my artistic aspirations? Huh?
But the hardest part of all was the work sample they required all applicants to submit. Still photographs, paintings, a short film ... Were there really thirteen-year-olds out there who had professional artists’ portfolios?
I lay on my bed, staring up at the ceiling, before the idea came to me: Malik. I’d already shot some stuff with my downstairs neighbor, but why not draw it out a little, make a whole movie out of it? I jumped off my bed and went over to my laptop to start mapping it out. First thing the next morning, I was dressed and waiting outside the door of Malik’s apartment.
33
I’d done a lot of shit I wasn’t proud of these last couple of months, but I was proud of the film I finally managed to pull together as my work sample. I knew as much as I knew anything that it was solid, maybe even good. I called it The Superhero of Suburbia, and it was about a quiet, friendless kid who’s always struggling to keep his superpower—the ability to fly in broad daylight—a secret. The stuff he did with his superpower wasn’t all that heroic, but that was part of the joke: Instead of rescuing babies from burning buildings, S.o.S. would save suburbanites from getting their cars towed and keeping dogs from crapping on perfect lawns.
I used fancy editing tricks to show my downstairs neighbor Malik leaping over sprinkler systems and dancing down mall escalators. And I gotta admit, I’d had a good time working with Malik, who could act as well as he could dance. Maybe when the time came, he’d apply to Cunningham, too.
It’d been Malik’s idea to film a bunch of the scenes in Maurice’s neighborhood—the big houses there worked a lot better with the plot than the crumbling building where Malik and I lived. All those afternoons we spent in Roydon Oaks, and I’d never run into my old friend, not even once. And that, I’ll be honest, was a big relief. I wasn’t looking forward to crossing paths with Maurice again, but I knew exactly what I’d do if it did happen.
I’d walk right up to him, look him straight in the eyes, and say, “I’m sorry.” I’m not sure what would happen after that, but it was a start, right?
As for the other kids at Watkins, well, no matter where I went next year, I was pretty much glad to be done with them once and for all. Except for maybe Nia. I’d barely seen her in the last few weeks, but I guess I was the one to blame for that. I’d been so obsessed with getting my movie done—and making sure it was good—that I’d pretty much fallen off the face of the earth. I bought a Kryptonite lock for my locker and spent every free period and lunch holed up in the library, reviewing the footage Malik and I had shot the afternoon before.
About a week before school let out, I came home one afternoon to find my mom sitting on the couch with a big smile on her face. “Let’s go out to celebrate when Evelyn gets back in a few minutes,” she said. “Should we try Houston’s again?”
“Sure, that sounds good,” I said, a little taken aback. “But what’re we celebrating exactly?”
My mom smiled even wider. “Do we really need an excuse? I don’t know, I just . . . Well, you’re almost done with junior high, and you’ve been working so hard on that movie of yours. And I heard from Liz this morning, and she’s been very pleased with the progress you’ve been making. She said that after next Monday’s session, you could wind it up for the year, take the summer off.”
“She did?” I said. And I’m not sure why, but I wasn’t completely flooded with relief the way I’d expected. I mean, all I’d wanted these last few months was for Liz to cut me loose, and now she was doing exactly that—so why wasn’t I jumping up and down for joy? For real, what was wrong with me?
“Yep,” Mom said, “though she said she’ll always be around if you ever need some additional sessions. She also mentioned this Cunningham school you’ve been talking about, honey, and Liz is very optimistic. Or, at least, she said she was really pulling for you.”
“Well, I gotta turn in my application first,” I said. “But I’m almost there; I really am. Hey, hold on, I gotta do something really quick.”
I took the cordless phone—another addition from Evelyn’s apartment—into my bedroom with me. All of a sudden I was possessed with the urge to call my dad and tell him about my movie and ask him to cross his fingers for my application. I hadn’t seen him since the sneakers trip, which was maybe good since I wasn’t all the way prepared to answer any questions he might have about what was going down in our Garden City apartment these days.
This Cunningham thing felt big, I thought as I waited for my dad to pick up. It was hard to put it in words exactly. But for once I wasn’t just running away from somewhere, which it felt like I’d been doing, in some form or another, these last two years. This time I wanted to go to somewhere. And it felt ... good. Scary, but good.
When I told my dad about the school, there was a }little silence on the other end of the line. “An arts school?” he said. “Say what? That sounds like it’s gonna cost me a shitload, and you know I ain’t trying to hear that.”
“No, no,” I said, “that’s the crazy part. It’s a public school. A magnet school, but free like all the others.”
“Well, all right then,” my dad said, “so long as it’s not just some other way for your mom to go digging into my paycheck again.”
The music behind him was still blasting real loud, and I knew he had to be at home in his bedroom. The sound system in there was sick.
“You need anything else from me?” my dad asked after a pause.
“No—what do you mean?”
“I mean, why else you call? You been too busy for me these days, so I figured you had to want something out of me.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “That was it. I just wanted to tell you I was gonna apply, that’s all.” For some reason I couldn’t bring myself to tell him about the movie after all.
“All right, well, if that’s really it,” Dad said, “then I’d best be getting off the line now if you don’t mind. I got a date with destiny tonight, and her name is Angela.”
I didn’t bother asking him what happened to Diane.
I guess I didn’t really care. My dad obviously didn’t give a shit about anything I did, so from then on the feeling would be mutual. All of a sudden it stung me hard, the way he’d talked to me, the way he was always talking to me. I’d laid it all on the line about Cunningham, talking to him just like a little kid about how bad I wanted to get in there, and he couldn’t even find it in himself to say “Good luck”? Well, screw him then. I was done trying. There were plenty of other places my energy could go.
I hung up and went back into the living room, feeling less than great. All the fizz seemed to have gone out of me. My mom and Evelyn were sitting there dressed and ready to go.
“Oh, I didn’t realize you were back,” I said to Evelyn, who just nodded in reply to me. She and I still didn’t talk all that much, but it wasn’t as strained as it used to be.
My mom suggested Houston’s again and I wasn’t about to disagree, even if my appetite hadn’t exactly returned after that phone call. Mom, Evelyn, and I were following the hostess to our booth when my eyes landed right on Nia. She was sitting at the end of a long table surrounded by all her little brothers and sisters.
“Hey!” she called out to me. I had no choice but to stop. I saw no sign of Nia’s Aunt Cora, so that was something.
I could tell my mom and Evelyn were curious, so after Nia introduced me around, I stood real still and braced myself. In the most normal voice I had, I said, “Nice to meet everyone. This is my mom, Sheril, and this is her girlfriend, Evelyn. We all came down here to celebrate graduation, I guess just like y’all did.”
Nia let out a little gasp. Then she made a sound like “Ah!” as her face broke out into a big smile. Like everything made sense to her all of a sudden.
I shuffled over to her end of the table while our moms and Evelyn made small talk. “So, uh, what’re you up to this summer?” I asked Nia.
“Not much,” she said. “Just the usual babysitting and hanging out at the Y pool. What about you?”
“Yeah, same,” I said. “Nothing big. I’m hoping to work on some movies and, you know, sort through my shit a little.”
Nia nodded, but before she could say anything else, I burst out with, “Hey, Nia? Can I say something? I’m sorry I ruined your party, I really am. I don’t know what happened. It’s just been ... well, it’s just been a really hard year for me is all. But that’s no excuse. I shouldn’t have done what I did. I’m doing a lot better now, and I’m acting better, too.”
Nia smiled at me—she really did have the prettiest smile in the world. “I understand, Butterball,” she said. “At least I think I do. And honestly ... it’s okay. If you hadn’t been the one to ruin the party, I’m sure someone else would’ve, you know? That’s what my aunt said, anyway, and Cora’s usually right about everything. I was really mad, I’m not gonna lie. But ... I know you didn’t mean it deep down.”
It felt like this huge weight was lifted off my chest. The leftover anger and misery of that phone call with my dad finally trickled away, probably to return sometime, but not as long as Nia was smiling at me. “All right then, cool,” I managed to say. “So it was really good to see you, Nia.”
“Yeah, you, too,”
she said. She paused as if considering something, then added, “And hey, since we’re both stuck in town all summer, maybe we could get together sometime if you want. Maybe you could help me babysit one of these days?”
“I’d like that,” I said. I couldn’t help it; my whole face broke out in the widest grin of my life. “I’d like that a whole lot.”
A few minutes later, as I followed my mom and Evelyn over to our booth, I felt almost sick with happiness. Right then I didn’t care who knew what about my mom and her relationship anymore.
“I think that girl likes you,” my mom whispered as we continued on to our table. She was giggling and seemed a lot younger than usual.
“Ah, shut up, Ma,” I said. “She’s just nice, that’s all. She’s like that with everybody. A girl like that, she’d never go for a fat kid like me.”
“But Burton,” my mom said, “I know you’ve been too busy to notice, but you’re not all that fat anymore.”
I looked down at the new pants she’d bought me for the graduation ceremony and shrugged.
“Yeah, well, see if you still say that after all the damage I’m about to do to this menu,” I said, and even Evelyn cracked a smile.
34
“So here it is,” I said when I got to Liz’s on Monday. On my way over to the couch, I dropped the application packet—complete with DVD—right onto her lap.
Liz looked excited as shit. “You’ve done it? You’ve filled everything out?”
“Yep,” I said. “It’s all good to go now. I worked my ass off on the work sample, but I’m pretty sure I got it right.”
“That’s wonderful,” Liz said. “I can’t wait to hand it over.”
Liz spent the next few minutes looking over the pages I’d given her. Watching her read my application made me feel a little uncomfortable, like when somebody unwraps a present you’ve gotten them in front of you. For some weird reason, I just really wanted Liz to like it.