All American Boys

by Jason Reynolds

  Dwyer and Guzzo drank much more than I did, and they stood around the keg shouting out the lyrics of all the hip-hop songs blasting from the living room inside. Earlier that day, I’d imagined myself dancing with Jill, hands in the air and then down along her back to her hips, as she draped hers around my neck, but I spent most of the night still stuck on that sidewalk outside Jerry’s, my heart pumping fiercely in my throat, and when someone at Jill’s yelled that the cops had arrived, I almost thought I’d called them there with my mind.

  I slept terribly, but no matter how much or how little I sleep, I begin almost every day the same way: Ma’s voice in my head, telling me what I needed to do, what I needed to think about, how I needed to act. But on mornings like this one—or if Coach Carney was making us do suicides up and down the court for fifteen minutes, or when Dwyer dropped another five-pounder on either side of the bar on my last rep in the weight room—it was Dad’s voice in my head, or at least what I thought was his voice. I hadn’t heard it in so long, I couldn’t even tell if it was his or if I was making it up. Whatever it was, it got me to where I needed to get.

  PUSH! If you don’t, someone else will. LIFT! If you don’t, someone else will. Faster, faster, faster, faster, FASTER!

  I was in the living room, my feet tucked under the lip of the couch, firing through a set of fifty crunches when I heard Ma’s actual sleepy voice drift up and over the room.

  “Don’t kill yourself,” she said. I’d been so into my push-ups and sit-ups and all that I hadn’t even heard her come home. “Where’s the mat?” she continued.

  I kept at it in my head. Push 25, 2, 3. Push 26, 2, 3. Push. Ma sighed. “Boys,” she said. I heard her slough into the kitchen and open the fridge. I finished my set, sprang to my feet, and felt the room spin. Black dots popped across my vision, and before I passed out, I dropped to the couch and sat there catching my breath.

  “Water?” Ma asked from the kitchen.

  “Yes,” I whisper-shouted, but she was already on her way to give it to me.

  Ma sat down next to me and put her head on my shoulder. She was so much smaller than me now, and I liked the way she sometimes leaned into me or hugged me, like she was excited. Not in a weird way, but with something I think might have been pride. She’d already kicked off her shoes, and she’d already changed into one of the three T-shirts she always wore around the house.

  I drank my water in two long gulps.

  “Honey, you stink,” Ma said, pulling away from me.

  “Sorry. Gotta do my workouts, though. Every morning.”

  She rolled to the other side of the couch. “Get off! You’re going to make the cushions stink.”

  “Ma!”

  “I’m serious.” She pushed my shoulder and laughed and I rolled onto the floor. “Come on,” she continued. “You’ll ruin the rug.” She leaned back on the arm of the couch and crossed one leg over the other. She could have fallen asleep right there. The bags under her eyes were prunes. Loose strands of hair sprang from her head like she’d pulled a wool hat off and the static electricity still hung in the air around her. But, despite her exhaustion, somehow she still always found a smile for me.

  “What’s the matter with you?” she said, yawning. “You look strange.”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  She rubbed her face and squinted at me and I knew her mind was working to put it all together. But she was so tired. “I can trust you, right?” she asked, still slouched in the corner of the couch. “You’d tell me if something was the matter?”

  “Of course,” I said quickly, even though there was a helluva lot on my mind. But I didn’t feel like telling her about any of it. “I’m just going to rinse off,” I said. It was going to be a two-shower day. “Then I got to hit the court. Coach is picking the starters this week.”

  “You’ll make it,” she said, as if fighting for a starting spot was NBD. As if it’d just come to me because I wanted it, not because I had to fight for it.

  I left Ma slumped against the armrest and went straight to the bathroom. I got the water running hot first, then switched it to cold, just to fire up the senses and wake up. I still felt a little groggy from last night and I was pissed at myself, because after my workout I wanted to get right to the court. I thought I had a real shot at being a starter, but next week was too important to coast through. I had to hit more three-pointers when we went around the world. I had to have the higher free-throw percentage. English was so good, he didn’t have to give up the ball, so if he did, I had to make sure he felt more comfortable giving me the ball—and that meant working harder to get open, and more importantly, making the shot when I got the ball. Because the scouts were coming. Of course the stands were going to be filled, but a few of those seats at every game were the seats we were all playing for. Full ride to Michigan State. Full ride to UNC. My dad had college paid for because he’d gone through ROTC at City College, but I had to do even better. Butler, Notre Dame, Villanova. Wisconsin, Arizona, Duke. Saint Springfield’s son needed to go full ride too. Scouts paved the way—and I had to show them who I was. I had to be a starter.

  And, as I was trying to psych myself up for a day of drills down at Gooch, I stepped out of the bathroom, wrapped only in a towel, holding my stank-ass clothes in a wad, and nearly ran right into Ma. She held my jeans in one hand and my flask in the other. She jutted her chin at me.

  “Quinn Marshall Collins. You tell me the truth this minute and you start from the very beginning.” She pinched her lips tight. “Is this how you want the world to know you? Some kind of derelict who doesn’t give a damn about his actions?”

  I stuttered. It was the strangest thing. I’d never been caught before. It was like there was regular me, the one Ma smiled at and loved, the one I’d always been, and then this new guy, the one shivering in the hallway outside the bathroom, standing in his towel, wondering why Ma had gone looking through my room while I was in the shower.

  “Can I just get dressed?”

  Ma sniffed. “You have thirty seconds.” Then she turned and marched to the kitchen. I broke the world’s record for throwing on sweats and busting back to the kitchen. She sat on one side of the little Formica table, steam from her mug of tea rising up to her face as she stared out the window to the Barrows’ house next door. The flask lay askew beside the mug. She ran her hand over her eyes, and then up over her forehead like a visor.

  “You know,” she said slowly, “this stuff can kill you. I know you don’t think so, but it can.”

  “Ma—” I said, sitting in the chair across from her.

  “Listen,” she interrupted. “When you act like this—when you sit around, breaking the law, thinking it is okay—you embarrass me, you embarrass your brother, and you embarrass yourself. You have more important things to worry about, young man.” The flask sat on the table between us and she picked it up. She waved it gently. “This is going in the garbage.”

  “Okay.” Then I had to add, flat-out lying, “It was Guzzo’s idea.”

  “But you took it from our house. I just checked.”

  She’d never done that before. Plus, I only took a flaskful after she’d emptied a glass or two from the bottle, and there was always a new bottle to replace the old one.

  “And even if it was.” She waved the flask again.

  “Guzzo drank nearly the whole thing.”

  “Guzzo drank the alcohol. It was Guzzo’s idea. You make it sound like you weren’t there, Quinn. But you were. You were there.”

  Maybe it was the alcohol still in my blood, but the way she said it, I was there, in the night, that hollowed-out gutted feeling, making me nervous and stupider than usual, like I couldn’t find the simplest words. I saw Paul.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Not good enough.”

  “I’m sorry I stole the bourbon. I’m sorry I drank it with Guzzo and Dwyer.”

  “You talk about wanting to be somebody, you talk about basketball, you talk about making your family proud, but
then you act like this. What do you think people are going to think of you now?”

  “Jesus, Ma,” I said. “It’s not that big a deal. It was only one night. It won’t happen again.”

  She tapped the flask with her finger. “Remember you said that. That it was only this one time. Don’t let it happen again. And don’t ‘Jesus, Ma’ me.”

  I looked out the window. “I’m just saying that I know it was dumb, and I’m sorry. I didn’t even have that much to drink. I swear.”

  “It’s not about that, Quinn.” Ma leaned forward and grabbed my hands. She waited until I stopped looking out the window and looked at her. “It’s about how the world looks at you and when they do, who do you want them to see? What kind of a person do you want to be? Who do you think you are? You’re the one your brother looks up to. You’re a senior, Quinn. This is the year everyone looks to see what kind of man you want to become.”

  I pulled my lips tight against my teeth to try to keep calm and not tear up like a baby. I didn’t want to be a baby. I didn’t want to be a jerk-off.

  “I’m doing the best I can here,” Ma continued. “I’m on my own, honey, and I’m doing the best I can to help you, but I need your help to help your brother.”

  She sipped her tea and watched me. I sat there like a mute because I didn’t know what to say. I felt like an idiot.

  She sighed. “I was going to ask you, but now I’m just telling you. Pick up Willy from his game today. The Cambis are bringing him. In fact, go see your brother’s game. It means more to him if you’re there than me anyway, so go see his game.” She reached for her purse that hung on the back of her chair and pulled a few bills from her wallet. “He looks up to you. Spend some time with him. Take him out for pizza after. Once basketball starts we’ll never see you. Take him out for lunch.”

  So I did what I was told, and I put on some clean jeans and my light hoodie and took the bus over to the East Side for Willy’s game. Tough Will. Tough Will, who was known to sit down in the middle of his own soccer game, right there on the field, until his coach gave up and called in the sub. Tough Will spent most of his games sitting on the sidelines eating orange slices.

  When I got there, both teams were already warming up on either end of the field. I’d played soccer before I was in high school and loved it. For Tough Will, it was another story. It was only the warm-ups and I could see him dragging his feet, not chasing anything or anyone anywhere—just standing around and waiting for someone to pass him the ball.

  “Get in there, man!” I shouted. “Will! Will! Get in there, man.”

  He looked over at me and waved, totally oblivious to the rest of the players and balls around him. Still, I guess I inspired him, because he turned and chased down a red-and-white ball and dribbled it a bit before taking a shot on net. It went wide left, but at least he ran after the ball.

  My phone started blowing up with texts, but Regina Cambi had set up a folding chair beside a cooler, and she was waving me over, so I had to ignore the texts because I sure as hell couldn’t ignore her. She sat with a few other moms, and the dads who’d come to the game stood around in a circle a little ways behind them, under the boughs of the one large oak tree that gave this park its name. I chatted with Mrs. Cambi at first, but then the game began, and I started cheering Willy and his team on, using that as an excuse to pull away as if I wanted to walk down the sidelines and see the action more clearly, because my phone kept buzzing and buzzing in my pocket and I wanted to see what was going on.

  Guzzo had texted “wassup” ten times.

  SATURDAY 12:53 p.m. to Guzzo

  HOWS UR HEAD?

  SATURDAY 12:53 p.m. from Guzzo

  FCKING AWFUL

  SATURDAY 12:54 p.m. to Guzzo

  BANANAS & GATORADE, MAN

  SATURDAY 12:54 p.m. from Guzzo

  IM PUKING WATER IF I DRINK IT

  SATURDAY 12:55 p.m. to Guzzo

  DAMN. U BUSTED?

  SATURDAY 12:55 p.m. from Guzzo

  NO

  SATURDAY 12:55 p.m. to Guzzo

  FCK I AM & IM NOT EVEN HUNGOVER

  SATURDAY 12:57 p.m. from Guzzo

  ITS A SHITSHOW HERE

  SATURDAY 12:57 p.m. to Guzzo

  WHA?

  SATURDAY 12:58 p.m. from Guzzo

  PAULS HOME. ITS A BIG DEAL

  SATURDAY 12:58 p.m. to Guzzo

  IS IT ABOUT YESTERDAY? AT JERRYS?

  SATURDAY 12:59 p.m. from Guzzo

  I DONT KNO. UM YEAH.

  SATURDAY 1:00 p.m. to Guzzo

  DAMN

  SATURDAY 1:02 p.m. from Guzzo

  I GUESS WE R HAVIN A BBQ 2MRRW

  SATURDAY 1:02 p.m. to Guzzo

  WHA?

  SATURDAY 1:03 p.m. from Guzzo

  YUP. C U THEN. TELL UR MOM TO BRING THAT MARSHMALLOW PIE

  SATURDAY 1:03 p.m. to Guzzo

  SHE HAS 2 WORK I THINK

  SATURDAY 1:04 p.m. from Guzzo

  NOPE. I ALRDY KNO SHES COMIN

  I hesitated, and he wrote again.

  SATURDAY 1:06 p.m. from Guzzo

  EVRYBDY COMIN. GOTTA BUST. C U 2MRRW

  So something had to be up, because the Galluzzo family never had people over. Or rather, they never invited people over. There were so many people coming and going from the house that it always seemed like a party. But they never “officially” organized anything. I tried him a few more times, but he didn’t text back, so I gave up. I’d see him at the BBQ anyway, because of course I’d go. I always went, and wound up wolfing down Paul’s famous burgers—but now I saw that face, Paul’s, burning, a bloodred mask of rage. He’d been so focused on kicking the shit out of that guy. I’d seen him. Had he seen me? What if he had? I’d never felt nervous around Paul, and suddenly, just thinking about him made me sweat.

  As I was going through all this, I tried to watch the game, but it was slow as all hell and Will’s team was terrible. Still, Will was playing left back and he was actually running around and chasing the ball. Near the end of the first half, one of the players on the other team got around a couple guys just over midfield and seemed like he had a clean break for a shot, but Will came out of nowhere and nailed a sweet slide tackle. The parents on the other side of the field started screaming like crazy, but Will’s tackle had been legal, at least as I could see it, and that’s what the referees thought too, and so when the first half ended, Will was the momentary hero, keeping the game more respectable because his team was only down one to zero. I found him and slapped him five over the heads of a few teammates in the huddle with his coach, and then I backed off. People always felt bad for me at games because of Dad, and Ma was always working, but I liked being on my own. I liked figuring out what I had to do and doing it. No one seemed to get that, and I didn’t want to crowd Will, either, so I let him be. His coach was thrilled and put him back in for the second half.

  Guzzo still didn’t text back, and I went back and forth with Dwyer a few times, but eventually, I put the phone away because it really was more fun to check out the game—and check out Will especially. This might sound dumb to some people, but it’s actually pretty cool having a little brother. I mean, he was a pain in the ass, and that I was here and not practicing over at Gooch pissed me off, but watching him smash into the guys on the other team, watching the way he shook off his own pain, made me realize that I did the same thing—twirl my fist like I was revving myself up. He had the same crooked smile. And once, when there was a pause in the action, and he was close to me on the sidelines, and he was hunched over, with his hands on his knees, he looked over at me and nodded. And I knew he was saying thank you. Not because I’d shown up to watch him, but because I had shown up to watch him he was playing harder—and he was loving it.

  And after the game, I didn’t mind taking Tough Will over to Mother’s Pizza. On the bus back to the West Side, he kept asking me about the game and what his team could have done better. “Scored a goal,” I said. “That would have helped.”

  He rol
led his eyes. “Yeah, I know, but how?”

  “Your striker. He couldn’t run. That was his problem. And when he had a shot, he hesitated. Can’t hesitate. Like you, man. You were awesome today.” I shook his shoulder and felt bad it was the only game I’d made it to all season. I wanted to be the guy who showed up, not the one who didn’t.

  When we got to Mother’s it was slammed like always. Mother’s sits on a corner and the front door faces Spring Street and the to-go window faces Twentieth Street, and while I usually just hit the to-go window, especially when I swung by at night, the line was jammed inside and outside. So I stuck Willy on the end of one of the two picnic tables and went inside to see if it moved any faster. It still took awhile, and while I waited, I had to try to look everywhere else around the room except the one spot where I felt those eyes always watching me. That’s why I preferred the to-go window; I couldn’t see those eyes blazing into me. Those eyes. My eyes. My dad’s eyes—in the photo the pizza guys had up on the wall, two guys in greasy T-shirts with their arms up around my dad’s shoulders. Dad, a pillar of stone, dressed like usual in his Class A blues. The rest of the photos were of people in the pizza shop, but not the one with Dad. He’d gotten the guys to make pizzas for the soup kitchen at St. Mary’s. His photo looked down on me.

  When I was finally up near the front, I felt a tug at my arm. I was about to turn back to Willy to tell him that he might have lost our seats, but it wasn’t Willy at my arm. It was Jill.

  She pulled close to me, so the people behind us couldn’t hear. “Hey, Quinn, you mind getting an extra slice?” she asked. Her hair fell in two blond-brown curtains around her face, and I could smell her shampoo as she looked up at me conspiratorially, and when a girl looks at you like that, all you can say is, Whatever you want—I’ll do anything for you—is there anything else you want? “Yeah,” I somehow managed to say instead.

  “Yeah, you mind?” She grinned.

  “No. Yeah. No.” I laughed. Like a moron.

  The thing about slices at Mother’s is that they are huge, so she stuck around to help carry it all outside. She offered some money but I waved her off. Because I had it good at Mother’s. I’d grabbed us all Cokes, too, because the guys at Mother’s always gave Saint Springfield’s son a major discount, and yeah, well, I was the kind of guy who just kept taking those free Cokes, no questions asked, like I actually deserved them or something.