by Tom Sheridan
The blue Mustang groaned to a stop front and center of the school. The whip sheltering father and son from the whipping wind. Franco was dressed nicer than usual. Blue jeans and a short-sleeved collared polo. A little light for the cold weather but the petite polo was the perfect mix of professional and imposing. He knew the odds were that he’d be seeing Principal Mulligan soon enough and didn’t wanna look like a bum. He was even clean-shaven and had his hair all set. The kid from Proper looked so proper, he had half a mind to apply ta Princeton. Maybe he’d ask Mulligan for his transcripts.
TJ didn’t even care to brush his hair. Had the hood up on his black hoodie with the red W emblazoned on it. Along with track pants and sneaks. The fledgling fighter collected himself for a sec before running down to the octagon.
“Till I Collapse” faded out. Franco had let TJ’s boy Em do the talking on the way over. Starting with the military sound off that set the song off. The jump-off verses. And Slim’s parting words. To not fall. To stand tall. All Franco had for T beyond that was a fist pound and a nod. And a stomach full of butterflies he barely kept in the conservatory.
TJ crossed the quad with pace. Found his hustle odd considering his odds. But as the winter wind whipped his face, he realized spring was only two days away. It was all going to blow through. One way or another. All TJ had to do was survive. And what luck, the teacher on-duty was one who actually took it seriously. His meticulous math teacher with the glasses and the dry classes. Mr. Lee.
TJ usually felt like a fraud wearing the Woodbridge Classic: the black hoodie with the red W and the hood thrown up. Didn’t feel tough enough. It was the kind of thing someone like a Ray wore. But fuck that. Not today. It was T’s town, too.
Ray spotted TJ crossing the quad. Sensed something was up. T-gay never wore the hood up. Little bitch had to have his spiky hair on full display all day every day. Ray took off “his” gray hoodie. Donned an XL T as big as T. Still, Ray’s broad shoulders filled it out in full as it dangled about his waist. A human coat hanger ready to hang T. Ray stood stalwart in his steel-toed Timbos. A battleship ready to blow away the kamikaze headed right for him.
TJ’s brave advance belied his inner monologue. Think David and Goliath. Wait, how’d that go again? David slingshot Goliath in the head with a rock. How the fuck is that heroic? A slingshot back then was like having a gun! I don’t have a gun! What do I got? Oh. Right. The teacher who can break up the fight. Fuck getting pounded to a pulp at Pearl Street. I gotta do this shit right here right now. Get my few moves in and get out. Stick and step. Nail then bail. Hit n quit. Wait, are those sex terms? Biggest moment of my life and that’s what I’m thinking about. Ah fuck it—
While TJ ran through those thoughts, he had run up on Ray. He cut through Dragon, Lenore, UN, Screws, and all of Ill Co like he was Moses parting the Red Sea. TJ’s final steps were faster and faster but processed in his head slower and slower. With every last step he took, Ray got bigger. TJ threw his hands up and said, “Let’s go!” Hoped only in his head did it sound like Frank the Tank tranq’d. “L e t’ s g o o o o…” TJ, even after all the bullying, felt obligated to give Ray a fair fight. Fuckin power dynamics.
Ray put his hands up.
TJ telegraphed a left hook—Ray’s head shook, Fuckin rook—POP. Ray’s smirk was burst open by a right jab from T. It worked! TJ was so delighted and dumbfounded, he laughed. Then it registered, as if on delay, what heads were yelling around him— Fight! Lil nigga hit Ray!
TJ followed it up with another fake, followed by shooting for Goliath’s legs. The giant fell! TJ knew what was gonna happen next. He had seen A Christmas Story. He was gonna ground and pound the bully into oblivion. T teed off with his best Ralphie impersonation. But Ray’s Timbo booted him in the abdo. Blasted his ass to the asphalt. Apparently, Ray had never seen A Christmas Story. The raging bull was more a fan of Raging Bull. While DeNiro was paid dinero, Ray came at T for free.
T checked Mr. Lee—busy redirecting a bus! Busting the driver’s balls about rules and regulations. Fuck! T did some math of his own: It was him, Goliath, and no gun. TJ improvised a new move not covered with Dad. The backpedal. The backpedal overlaid with an apology. “Ray, my bad yo. It was an accident.” Accident? Good one, T!
The towering teen before T uncorked a right like he was Tyson from Punch-Out. And Little Mac went down. Not in the traditional sense. TJ still had his wits about him. It was just that Ray hit so hard, TJ flat-out fell down. His left cheek split open.
Ray pounced. Told his own version of A Christmas Story. Once upon a time there was a right hook. Then a left hook. Then another right. Then another left. Then another right. Then another left. (Ray wasn’t the best storyteller.)
One benefit to being small was that TJ covered up well. He shrunk into his shell. While he got beat to hell. But like Rocky, he didn’t hear no bell. So T cracked back. His punches packed. With just enough to disrupt. He pulled himself up.
T and Ray squared up bloody face to bloody face. Fist to fist. Breath to breath. About to go again when faculty descended.
Principal Mulligan himself twisted TJ’s arm behind his back. Hauled the mauled kid in. But TJ scooped up a commemorative keepsake on his way. A hoodie. Gray.
Franco held a needle and suture over the stove flame. “How ya feelin?”
TJ sat on the stool before Dad. Rubbing alcohol stung the gash below his left eye. His head pulsated. His stomach panged. “Good.” TJ’s grin gave way to a wince as a needle dashed across his gash. Dragging a suture to limit the scar in T’s future. “Tell your mother I took you to the ER.”
“Why not just use Mom’s insurance?”
Franco prepped the next suture. “Between the deductible and the wait at the ER…forgetaboutit. And besides, I can take care of you.” Still, Julie was eventually gonna find out about the suspension one way or another. Three days for a first-time offender. The standard policy Franco had already been familiarized with as a 14-year-old himself. System never made sense to Franco. Do something bad at school and they give you a vacation. Not to mention get you behind on your work and set you up for more failure. “Fuckin Mulligan.”
Franco’s scowl turned to a grin as he sewed the second stitch. TJ wanted to know what was so funny. Franco told him forgetaboutit. But TJ insisted. After the millionth “don’t tell your mother” warning, Franco was off…
“When we were freshman, me and Joey Yo bookied bets. Mulligan finds out about it. Calls us in his office. Then he calls my foster father, who’s twisted, of course. And Mulligan calls him. Right on speaker phone wit this smug face. Like nothin could make his day more than embarrassin a fuckin freshman kid. And I’m waitin for my father to go off any second. You’re in the fuckin principal’s office, what the fuck, you’re no good. So Mulligan says to him, ‘Do you know that your son has been bookie’ing bets for March Madness?’ And my father goes, ‘Yeah. I got Duke!’ I swear ta God me and Joey laughed so hard, we fell out of our chairs.”
TJ was laughing so hard, he almost did the same. Was so wrapped up in the tale that Franco got two more stitches done.
As Franco wrapped the last few, he wrapped the story. “Then my father goes, ‘And he’s only layin six!’ Mulligan’s face was beet red. He didn’t know what to say. And my old man goes, ‘Who you got?’ Me and Joey had to hold onto each other. Hold our mouths shut. So Mulligan just hangs up the phone. And Joey has the juice to say to him, ‘You hear that, Mr. Mulligan? We’re only layin six. You want in?’”
Franco and T were laughing so hard, Franco was wiping away tears. Delirious like he was watching Eddie Murphy’s Delirious. So spun, he had a blurry vision of Julie through his tear-soaked eyes. Like a desert mirage in the heat wave on the horizon. Franco grabbed his kitchen rag, wiped away his tears. But the mirage remained.
“I work around the clock for four days. I get one day. Before heading to another mess altogether. And this is how I have to spend it?” With every rhetorical question, Julie stepped
forward. “Suspended?” Her heels landed on the linoleum tile. One by one. Like a pissed-off pirate’s peg leg. “Homemade stitches? Modeling your lousy teenage behavior?” Captain Julie rolled up on the taller deckhand like TJ rolling up on Ray. Only this time, the little one instilled fear in her foe.
Franco absorbed her opening barrage. Came back with a dodge. “You say somethin about me bein a model?”
Julie shook her head. Franco’s funnies had flamed out. “It’s sad that you don’t know what modeling means. You’re a thirtysomething father. You, of all people, should appreciate the importance of that.”
TJ, the recurring ref of their ring bouts, registered a potential low blow. He’d keep an eye on it. Fight on.
Franco fired back. “Did you know TJ was being bullied?”
“No.” Julie supported herself with a hand on the counter. Franco had landed his counter.
She fired back. “There are other ways to deal with it. Now he’s gonna miss the rest of the school week.” Julie moved in for a closer look at her son’s stitched-up cheek. “And now I don’t have a leg to stand on with Miss Lane and getting him into Future Problem Solvers.”
Franco waved off her inspection of T’s cheek. “Maybe it’s time he manned up and took care of things like that himself. Instead of having his mother call the school all the time.”
Oh no he just didn’t. TJ leaned so far back in his stool, he again almost fell off.
“Right. Okay. I’m out of the equation for four days and look where we’re at.” Julie motioned to TJ’s stitches.
T fingered the stitches on his fileted face. “They feel pretty good.”
Julie cut the flame on the stove. “Get your stuff. I’m taking you home.”
“You’re done with?—” Franco and T said at the same exact time.
“You owe me a Coke—” Franco and T again said at the same exact time.
Having again said the same thing at the exact same time, T rushed in with another, “You owe me a Coke!” a second ahead of sire.
“Ohh!” Franco crowed in defeat.
“I’m not done in the field. I have to head right back out. Thank you two very much. I’ll have my neighbors keep an eye on him.”
TJ tagged into the ring that was now WWE wild. “Keep an eye on me? Who? That Peeping Tom across the street?”
Franco tacked on two cents. “Come on, Julie. You can’t leave a 14-year-old kid home alone.”
Julie hit the tag-teamers with their own words. “Well, TJ can man up and take care of things himself!” Double clothesline.
Franco and TJ lay on the canvas. Out cold. The victorious Julie had no time for a gloating strut around the ring. She hustled around the arena, collected TJ’s things.
TJ might as well have returned to the role of ref and slapped Franco’s kitchen table. One. Two. Thre—
“Hold up.” Franco threw Julie off the pin like The Rock stonewalling Stone Cold. If only Jerry Lawler was there. “Let him man up then. T. Where you wanna stay?”
TJ stood at the entryway between Franco, focused in the kitchen, and Julie, livid in the living room. Between a tough guy trying to sew up much more than T’s eye. And a storm manager who had sheltered TJ from day one. Between a deckhand on the HMS TJ. And the captain of the ship.
“I think… I wanna stay with Dad.”
The captain stood near the front door with her arms crossed. Paced from bow to stern and gave a stern warning. “You’ve got one more chance.”
Franco responded with a line from “One More Chance.” Told Julie he had that good love. She didn’t know?
TJ bit his fist. Took everything he had to hold in a laugh.
“I’m not kidding. One more. Take care of my boy.”
The deckhand could’ve just given the captain another aye aye. But he had bigger ambitions. “He’s my boy, too.”
The captain steeled her steel-blue eyes on the insubordinate. Then did an about face. Laid a hand on her baby’s face. Got a sense of the patchwork the deckhand had done. Then got a sense of something much more sinister. She sensed a mutiny about.
TRACK 8. YOGI
NOBODY’S A KILLER until they have to. The line ran through Franco’s head as he showered off another early-morning mat session with Coach Nelly. The line steaming him worse than the shower. He had docked the Dock Thing for four days. The Frog wouldn’t stand a fifth.
Franco shut the shower to lather himself with soap, the shoulder-wide stall leaving no room to otherwise evade the agua. Meanwhile, a second line haunted his head. One back from Lane’s class no less. The Frog was once the only guy Franco could trust. And now he was asking Franco to do dirt no amount of soap would ever wash off. Whether Franco got away with it or not, the act would effectively kill him and all he stood for. It was Wednesday, March 19. Four days since The Frog stuck him with the murderous plan. Like Brutus sticking Caesar. Beware the Ides of March.
But paying his own way was also what Franco stood for. With the Eddo fail, the dock lockout, and the killer he’d face in the cage the following Saturday, Franco needed an umbrella for possible thundershowers ahead. He ran through The Frog’s plan as he dressed in front of his dresser. Head down Atlantic City. Guy’s name is Yogi. Runs a trucking outfit that’s an outfit for something else. Human traffic. He’s in bed with Arturo. Tell him he’s got two choices. He can pay the twenty large he owes us thanks to his bets on the Nets. Or he can give us Arturo.
TJ was at his flea-market desk. Wanting to flee the assignment Lane pressed. A presentation. A prompt: Our high school is one of diverse influences. Describe a cultural movement in the United States that has helped weave the fabric of the nation as we know it today.
TJ had seen versions of this prompt before. To him, it was code for: write about Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King. Not that he didn’t have love for them. But by the third presentation in a row delivered by freshmen without one millionth the speaking ability of either man, even old Abe would tip his hat down and take a nap. Worse, T was gonna be with the last group of presenters. On his first day back from suspension. Which, on the bright side, wouldn’t be until after the weekend.
So T skated on the assignment as he surfed the Web. Spaced on MySpace. Then popped onto that new Facebook joint popping off. Where all of Ill Co was popping off. Obsessed with yet another new kind of thing. An image. A still shot of TJ popping Ray! Even TJ had to laugh over how high he had to punch. Jumping to jab. So affixed on the punch, TJ didn’t even notice the photoshopping at first. The jeans around T’s crotch hung down to the ground. He read the captions. Across the top: LITTLE MAN. Across the bottom: BIG BALLS. TJ did an internet search and figured out that this thing was called a me-me. And this one was all about him-him.
All of Ill Co weighed in with comments…
UN: littel mack!
Screws: crunk
Dragon: Five-foot ferocious!
Lenore: Wow (Neutral as fuck, TJ thought.)
And on and on as TJ scrolled comments from kids across the school. TJ ate them up like Pac-Man eating pellets. Even reached a Power Pellet—
Ray: respek
Pac-T kept reading. Gulped ghosts until the Power Pellet’s time expired—
Ray: i did endup woopin his ass doe
Still, Pac-T was satisfied. He may not have topped it all off with eating the cherry, but he had beaten the board. And now? It was time for some next-level shit. TJ turned off his monitor. Turned for the door.
Franco turned the tuner in his groaning car in need of a tune-up. Kanye’s “Stronger” was killin it on Hot 97. Franco was wishin it was ’97. Sure, this new kid could spit game. Mad game. Maybe even be the face of the new generation on Bill Simmons’s Mount Rapmore one day. If you wanted to go beyond founding fathers. Franco didn’t even have that part down. Could barely calculate a consensus on the gangsta rap era alone. Figured it was probably Dre. Biggie. Pac. Jay-Z. If you were okay with icin out the Ices. And Franco would personally give a nod
to Nas. If he ruled the world. Or would he give the last spot to the last great gangsta rapper? Yeah, he was 50/50. He’d give it to Nas. Or 50.
Franco figured that’s why he wasn’t feeling this new cat. This new cat that T probably had on the slimmest of lists. With Slim. It’s just, he wasn’t… Street, Franco concluded as the Stang protruded onto Green Street.
Franco flipped the station. Looking for that Jersey Haitian. A ’90s rap refugee. In search of a Fugee. But Power 105 was popping more of the day’s top hip-hop. And 100.— was so thick, it was playing Robin Thicke. The whole thing made Franco thick. Rap had gone mainstream. Corporate. Materialistic. As cumulus accumulated above, he flipped through all the New York stations. Still, he couldn’t find any playing songs from the only recent album he liked. Nas’s Hip Hop is Dead.
As his pony galloped onto the Parkway South, Franco wondered if it was him who went south. While rap rose up from the projects to the penthouse, Franco was still living on Bunns Lane. Living like it was still Nineteen Naughty Three. Still tryin to keep his head up like he had a pact with ’93 Pac. Meanwhile, Curtis Jackson was giving the gat up. Turning fifty cents into fifty million while Franco was checking in with a .45 and forty-five cents in checking. Ready to chump someone off for chump change. Damn. The chump had to change. Had to win that next fight. And the sooner he took care of the day’s business, the sooner he could get back to focusing on the fight. Franco stepped on the gas, passed on the right. Almost ran over a dead fawn. Its shoulders shimmied out past the shoulder. Marshall Mathers on the mind of the Mustang’s rider as he passed the blood splat. Wondered where the parents were at.
But as the Mustang stole away from The Steel Cage, Franco felt more and more at ease. Free on the freeway, he put in an old CD. Bruce’s Live album. The right choice for sure as he ripped down the shore.