by Coe Booth
But them public school kids ain’t what I’m thinking ‘bout today. I’m just looking to make sure Novisha is safe from that nigga that think he can just write her and call her when he wanna. My opinion, he getting too bold. Next thing, he gonna try to follow her home or something. And, man, if something happen to my girl, I’ma hafta kill somebody.
Then I see her. She come out the building looking so cute in her short red jacket and red hat, all warm and shit. But she ain’t alone. She with a whole group of kids. I know her best friends Shanice and Ana, but they got three guys with them too, and it kinda look like they three couples or something. ‘Specially ‘cause two of the guys is Black and the other one is Dominican like Ana.
I’m just standing there watching them come down the walk, just talking and laughing and shit. I know Novisha ain’t ask me to come pick her up today, but she looking too happy with them other guys and, straight up, I don’t like what I’m seeing.
Course I look them brothas over real fast, not like they competition or nothing, but ‘cause I wanna make sure none of them is the guy writing her them letters and calling her at home. But can’t none of them be him. Not only ‘cause they look like three punks, but ‘cause Novisha look too comfortable with them. I just hope none of them is trying to step to my girl ‘cause I’m not having that.
When Novisha see me she smile real big, but I can tell she surprised I’m there. But, still, she do run over and give me a big hug, even though it’s only the good girl hug. “Ty, what are you doing here? What’s going on?” I know she ain’t mean it like this, but it kinda sound like she ain’t all that happy to see me.
I slip one hand ‘round her tiny little waist and cop a feel of her ass with the other. Not only ‘cause I like feeling her up, but ‘cause I want them chumps she with to see that she mines. “I wanna walk you home,” I say in her ear.
She let go of me. “I can’t. I’m not going home now. I’m going to the nursing home.”
“It’s Tuesday,” I say. She only do her volunteer work on Mondays now that she got a lot of other kids to help out on the other days.
“I know, but yesterday, you know, there wasn’t any school, and I don’t want a whole week to go by without seeing the residents. They’ll miss me.”
I take her arm and kinda move her away from the other kids so we can talk. “Who them boys?”
She look at me like I’m acting crazy or something. “Them? They volunteer at the home on Tuesdays, so we decided to all go together today. We’re gonna have fun.”
“That dude write you today?”
“No.” She sound like she tired of me asking her that. “Why are you bringing that up? C’mon. They’re all waiting for me.”
“Let them go without you. I wanna talk to you.” I put my arm ‘round her again and lean over to kiss her on her neck, which ain’t easy with that thick jacket she got on. Her skin smell clean and peachy, and all of a sudden there ain’t nothing I wanna do more than just be alone with her.
She kiss me back, but she pulling away at the same time. “This is embarrassing, Ty. My friends are watching us.”
But I can’t even see straight no more. “I love you,” I tell her. “You look so beautiful today.” And she do. I’m looking at the short uniform skirt and her legs in them thick black tights and I just wanna touch her and feel her touch me. Her lips taste so sweet and my mind is spinning with nasty thoughts.
She grab hold of both my hands. “I love you too,” she say with a little smile. “But I have to go. Don’t be mad.”
I wanna keep her there and convince her to stay with me, but I don’t. I want her to wanna be with me. I don’t wanna beg. So I take a deep breath and tell her I ain’t mad. “I’m a’ight,” I say. “Go on. Go with your friends.”
She look at me for a few seconds like she still ain’t sure if I’m mad or not. Then she turn and go back over to where her friends is standing. She look back one time, smile, and wave at me. But I don’t wave back. And I don’t go nowhere for a while. I just watch them walk down the street, talking and having a good time. I know she doing something good, spending her time with them old folks that don’t got no family visiting them or nothing, but at the same time I’m, like, damn, who more important to her, them or me?
I gotta say, since she started high school, things ain’t the same no more. When we first started going out, we was tight. We was always together or on the phone with each other. And if I showed up at her middle school, she always used to spend time with me.
Now she into so much, she don’t be making time for me no more. The only day she save for me is Wednesdays ‘cause her moms work a double shift and we can be alone. But on the other days, it’s like everybody and everything come first. Instead of me.
I ain’t sure why, but shit between us don’t feel right no more.
From Novisha school, I go straight over to see Cal. He out in front of his building where he usually at. Myself, I don’t get how he can just stand there everyday ‘specially in this kinda weather.
“Yo, son,” he say. “That jacket keeping you warm?”
“Oh, you got jokes?” I kinda ain’t in the mood for Cal shit today, not after what just happened with Novisha. Not only that, but he know the only reason I’m wearing this old jacket is ‘cause my pops got locked up before he could get me a new one. And ‘cause the little money we did have, we wasted trying to keep him outta jail and hold on to our apartment. I give Cal a look that say don’t mess with me today.
“Damn, man. What’s your problem?”
“You my problem, asshole,” I tell him.
“Well, fuck you too,” Cal say, and start laughing ‘cause he don’t really mean what he saying. And ‘cause he know that even when I’m mad at him, he still my boy. We been through too much together for that to change now.
We go inside and stand in the lobby. The whole floor is wet and nasty with black puddles of water from the front door all the way to the elevator. Someone put big pieces of cardboard down so folks won’t slip, but even the cardboard is soaking wet now.
Man, when I used to live here in the projects, I thought buildings with wet lobby floors and pee in the elevators was normal. It wasn’t ‘til we moved to Pelham Parkway that I found out landlords is s’posed to hire people to clean they buildings and keep things safe. Over there, if our lobby ever looked like this, folks woulda lost they minds, ‘specially with all the rent money we was paying to live there.
Me and Cal stand there talking for a while, and when buyers pull up in front of the building, I just wait in the lobby while he go outside and do his business. When Cal selling, he a different guy. Nigga be macking like he be running things at Bronxwood. Like he ain’t the asshole doing all the work out there in the cold while his brothers ain’t hardly doing shit.
After ‘bout a hour, we go upstairs. His brothers ain’t home, so we just chill in the living room watching videos on BET, getting high and drinking forties. To be honest, I don’t think even Cal and them got weed strong enough to make me forget ‘bout Novisha and how she just walked away with her friends and left me standing there like a chump. Man, I’ma hafta be real fucked up for that not to mess with my head.
I fill Cal in ‘bout Leon and all them places he showed me. “The bus depot is the best spot,” I say. “So Leon gonna set it up.”
“How much he charge?”
“I had to give him the whole hundred fifty y’all gave me, and he said he want another two at the party. I’ma hafta tell Regg to give him the money when he show up to collect.”
“Damn.”
“Nigga kept telling me he was giving me a break ‘cause of my pops, but three fifty ain’t cheap.”
Cal shake his head and keep drinking. “So he gonna make sure we don’t get caught or what?”
“I don’t know, but when my pops went to him, we ain’t had no kinda trouble.” I’m on my second forty now, and I’m really feeling buzzed. “We was shitting our pants the whole time, but we ain’t got caught.”
We don’t say nothing for a while. I don’t know why, but between the weed and the beer, I’m getting mad depressed. Like, I’m starting to think this party ain’t gonna make me no money, and we ain’t never gonna get outta Bennett, and me and Novisha ain’t gonna end up together.
Finally Cal say, “I got this letter from my pops last week, talking about they transferring him upstate somewhere and he wanna see me before he get sent up.”
Cal don’t never talk ‘bout his pops so I’m kinda surprised he telling me this. His moms and pops wasn’t never married so even the one time his pops got out, back when we was in sixth grade, Cal hardly ever seen him. I swear, that man was out for like five, six months tops before he was right back in. And this time he got like twenty years for killing a guy over a bad drug deal or something. Before that, he did eight years for attempted murder. Man, Cal has a pops so bad, he make my pops look like one of them TV fathers.
“What you gonna do? Go see him?”
“And waste my time? For what? Ain’t like he getting out no time soon.” Cal reach down for his forty on the floor. “And even if he did get out, you know he going right back in. My pops don’t even know how to act when he ain’t locked up. Last time they let him out, you shoulda seen him, walking around in clothes from, like, fifteen years ago, trying to pick up young girls with his old-ass self.” Cal drink the rest of the bottle, then his face get kinda serious. “And he never did nothing to help my moms out with us, even after he was making money on the streets again. Remember how broke we was back then?”
“We was all broke back then,” I say. “I’m still broke.”
“Yeah, but when your pops get out, he coming back home to y’all. I ain’t never had a pops like that. My moms was my pops. But your pops, he real.”
“Word.” I must be drunk ‘cause Cal almost sound like he making sense. Okay, yeah, my pops keep getting hisself locked up, but I know he really wanna be home with us. He a good father that way.
“You believe in a couple weeks I’m gonna be some kid pops?” Cal shake his head. “Man, that shit is wild. I don’t even know what a father s’posed to do.”
“You scared?”
“Nah, I ain’t scared of nothing. But, damn, them babies is mad small when they come out. I ain’t even gonna touch that kid ‘til he old enough to shoot hoops.” He start laughing. “I just hope it ain’t no girl ‘cause when you got girls you always gotta be worrying about them and chasing dudes away from them. Man, I’m gonna be one of them fathers boys is scared of. Nobody never gonna ask my daughter out ‘cause they gonna hafta get past me first.”
He laugh again, but I can only work up a smile ‘cause I ain’t feeling all that happy right ‘bout now. Cal a happy drunk, but I’m like one of them sorry-ass drunks you see crying on theyself on the train.
“What your problem, man?” Cal ask me.
“Nothing.”
“How long I know you? Man, you ain’t look this bad since you and Lynette broke up.”
“I wasn’t like this when me and her broke up,” I tell him. “I’m the one that dropped her for Novisha.”
“Yeah, right,” he say.
“Fuck you, bitch. What you know?” I look at Cal and just wanna hurt him all of a sudden. “I’m tired of you trying to tell me shit you don’t know.”
“Man, you bugging.” Cal shake his head and get up to go to the bathroom, and I just rest my head back on the couch.
Lynette. Damn. I ain’t thought ‘bout that girl for a long time but, the truth is, me and her had a nice time together back in eighth grade. Lynette wasn’t only real pretty, but she was real smart too.
My pops liked Lynette, but he ain’t think she was the right kinda girl for me. I was forever trying to defend our relationship to him, telling him she a nice girl that do good in school and all that, but he wasn’t hearing none of it. He would just shake his head and be like, “The girl too smart.”
One time I got mad and asked him, “What, you saying she too smart for me?”
“I didn’t say that,” my pops said. “You need to listen to your father. Listen. What I’m saying is, I know the kinda man you gonna grow up to be ‘cause you gonna be like me, and me and you is strong men. We need women we can take care of. Now Lynette, she a nice girl, but smart girls like that ain’t gonna let a man take care of them. They independent. They wanna take care of theyself.”
Of course I ain’t listen to him, and me and Lynette kept going out. She was the girl I was with before I flipped the script with Novisha and started being her man instead of just one of the guys she grew up with.
When my pops found out I was with Novisha, all he said was, “Another smart girl.” I knew what he was thinking. Novisha another girl that ain’t gonna let me take care of her, but I still ain’t listened to the man. Course now I know how right he was.
Cal come back in the living room. “You wanna talk about what the fuck bothering you? Novisha and you still kicking it?”
“Yeah. Pro’ly.”
“What that mean?”
I can’t stand talking to Cal ‘bout Novisha ‘cause they live in the same projects and I don’t really want him knowing nothing personal ‘bout her. But for some reason I start telling him what’s going on. “Novisha got some dude at her school writing her letters and calling her at home, like stalking her and shit.”
“Let’s go kick the nigga ass then,” Cal say right away, like he ain’t even have to think ‘bout it.
“She don’t want me knowing who the guy is. She trying to protect me. Or him.”
I tell Cal how I’m trying to keep her safe, but she making it real hard. “She don’t want me pickin’ her up from school no more. Matter of fact, she actin’ like she don’t even want me ‘round her when she with her friends. And she be writing in her diary that she don’t want me there with her when she go to college, like she wanna go somewhere for four years without me.”
Cal lean forward on the couch. “The problem is, you still ain’t hitting that, you know what I mean? She don’t need you ‘cause you ain’t doing the right thing where it count. Now the first time she give it up to you, she ain’t gonna wanna go nowhere without you. That’s how you gonna get to be her man for real.”
“I am her man.”
“You keep telling yourself that, but females need you to show them that. Show her, man, then she gonna be hooked on you and things is gonna change, watch.”
I rub my eyes. Damn. Cal is making mad sense today. But the problem is, Novisha ain’t gonna give me none. She told me that from jump. I knew that shit even before I broke up with Lynette, who was giving it up on the regular. But I had to have Novisha.
I mean, me and Novisha was always friends, but we ain’t get real close ‘til the summer before she started eighth grade. Her pops stepped out on them in, like, May, and her moms was a mess. The man left them with nothing. And I ain’t never seen Novisha madder at nobody than she was at him.
Then when her school gave her a scholarship to some Bible camp, her moms just sent her away. For six weeks. Ms. Jenkins said she needed to get herself together and all that, but Novisha was just madder then.
Me and her got real close when she got back. We would have some deep conversations ‘bout everything, and I stopped looking at her like the little girl from Building G. Yeah, I’m older than her, but it ain’t matter no more. I mean, she was always pretty and all that, but we connected that summer, and there wasn’t no way I could be with Lynette no more.
My cell ring and I reach in my pocket for it. It’s Novisha. Like, she musta knew I was thinking ‘bout her or something. But, to be honest, I ain’t in the mood to deal with her now. And the second she hear me, she gonna know I’m high and drunk, and I don’t feel like hearing shit from her. The cell keep ringing.
“Who that?” Cal ask.
“Novisha.”
“You ain’t gonna talk to her?”
“Nah.”
“Take my advice, man. You start giving it to her, all your
problems is over. Trust me. I know what I’m talking about.”
“How you know?” The cell stop ringing and I put it back in my pocket. “You and Tina back together?”
“Yeah, man.” He put on one of them Kool-Aid smiles. “She gonna be the mother of my kid. How I’m gonna stay mad at her?”
“When she gonna drop that kid?”
“Two weeks, man. Two weeks.”
He look kinda happy, too, but that couldn’t be me. I ain’t trying to be no fifteen-year-old father. Shit, I got enough to worry ‘bout taking care of Troy everyday.
“Check that out,” Cal say, pointing to the TV. Two girls with the biggest asses I ever seen is dancing in some video, and they look real good. “Where they find girls like that?”
“I know a female at Bennett with a body like that. You should see this girl.” I shake my head, thinking of Jasmine in them red panties.
“And you ain’t doing nothing with her?” Cal look at me like I’m stupid.
“Nah. We just hanging out. She real nice.”
“Something wrong with you, man,” Cal say, smiling. “I don’t even know you no more.”
Then, all of a sudden, the door fly open and Andre and Greg come busting in like they the police or something. I know I’m high, but I can tell by the wild look in Andre eyes that something ‘bout to go down. “Cal,” he say, “you got a minute to get up outta here. Starting now.”
Cal sit up straight on the couch. “Where I’m s’posed to go?”
“Go to Ma’s.”
Cal start smiling, actin’ all cool and shit, probably ‘cause I’m there. “Nah, man, I ain’t going nowhere.”
“Look, I ain’t playing with you. You don’t need to be here.”
Cal face get a little more serious now. “Why? What up?”