by Randy Ribay
So, yeah, I knew.
And still.
When I reach the top of the hill, I wish it kept going, that I could run uphill to the sky and then disappear in the clouds. But it doesn’t and I can’t, so I do another ten burpees, turn, and race back down. I run the hill a few more times, until my leg muscles are screaming, until I feel stronger, until I’ve made up my mind.
If I want to be cool with Nas again, I need to break up with Keyona.
14
Nasir
After I spent all day Saturday helping Wallace fill out applications at places like McDonald’s and Walmart, he comes over Sunday morning for day two of his job search. He uses our shower since his hot water isn’t working, we down the Filipino breakfast my mom cooks for us—rice and eggs with a sweet fried sausage called longanisa—and then my dad tries unsuccessfully to convince Wallace to wear one of his old suits.
Our first stop is over at Justin’s, where Wallace claims he’s got a lead. Justin’s is this corner store bodega a few blocks down from my place. It’s owned by this Vietnamese dude not that much older than us whose dad handed the place to him a couple years ago when he got tired of America and decided to move back to Vietnam.
We push through the door, past the handwritten sign at eye level that says in big, bold letters NO HOODIES. The bell overhead jingles as we step inside the claustrophobic store. The place is empty except for us and Justin, who’s in his usual spot behind a thick pane of bulletproof glass. His arms are folded over his chest as he watches the Weather Channel on the small TV behind the counter, surrounded by cigarettes, condoms, and batteries. I guess he’d be all set for the zombie apocalypse.
He greets us without taking his eyes off the screen. “No hoodies, amigos.”
“My bad.” I lower mine and smooth my hand over my hair.
Wallace leaves his hood up and saunters to the counter. He knocks on the glass, even though Justin’s already acknowledged our presence. “Yo, Teddy here?”
Justin nods his head toward the rear of the store.
“I’ll be back,” Wallace says to me over his shoulder as he walks away, leaving me to wonder who the hell Teddy is.
“No hoodies, Wallace!” Justin calls after him.
“Yeah, okay,” Wallace calls back, and then disappears down the narrow aisle, past shelves stocked with all the chips and candy and Cup Noodles. He turns out of sight, and a moment later, there’s the sound of a door opening and then slamming at the back of the store.
I try not to think about how sketchy that is.
“Sorry about my cousin,” I say to Justin, because I’m pretty much always sorry about my cousin. I should go ahead and get that tattooed on my forehead. Or maybe printed on a T-shirt.
Justin shrugs and continues watching the weather report.
I scan the candy bar rack that’s in front of the counter, and my eyes land on the Necco Wafers. I can’t believe the dude still stocks them. They’re basically the worst candy in the world, and Bunny was the only person I knew who ever ate them willingly. Always had a roll of those chalky-ass medicinal tablets in his pocket growing up. I remember when we were, like, six or seven, I asked why he liked them, and he said that since nobody else did, he never had to share.
I wonder if he still likes them, and I realize that’s one more thing I don’t know about Bunny Thompson. Didn’t know he was going to transfer to St. S, and definitely didn’t know he was with Keyona until that awkward as hell run-in at the movies.
I pick up a Snickers bar and place it on the counter. As I pull out some cash, I raise my eyes to the TV, which is showing the weather radar.
“Spring coming?” I ask.
“I wish, man.” Justin rings me up. “They’re talking about a ‘polar vortex’ on the way.”
“Yay,” I say, and slide a couple of dollars through the tray that dips under the bulletproof glass.
Justin passes me my change. “Where’s your friend been? Haven’t seen him around in a while.”
“Huh?” I look toward the back of the store, wondering why Justin would ask after Wallace when he saw him walk by a couple minutes ago. Then I realize he’s talking about Bunny. “Oh,” I say. “Busy.” With Keyona, my idiot brain adds inside my head.
Justin nods like he understands what I mean and then goes back to watching the TV. I slip the Snickers into my back pocket and wander into the next aisle looking for that rear door I heard Wallace walk through. There’s only three aisles in the place, so it doesn’t take me long to find the door. It’s gray and heavy-looking, every inch covered with stickers advertising various cigarette and liquor brands.
I imagine the seedy dealings going on back there. Dice games? Dogfights? Russian roulette? Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s full of sweaty men with fistfuls of cash, half lit by a single bulb dangling from the ceiling.
As I’m trying to decide whether I want to see for myself, the door bursts open and Wallace emerges, stuffing something inside his jacket pocket.
“We out,” he says.
He walks toward the exit, and the aisle is so narrow I have to squish up against the shelves so he can pass. I start to follow him out, but he stops and doubles back, making me squish up against the shelves one more time. He goes over to the refrigerator cases and pulls out a carton of eggs.
“You baking a cake?” I ask.
“Huh?” he says.
He misses the joke. Maybe he doesn’t know that a cake requires eggs. “What’s with the eggs?”
He grins, placing them on the counter. “Easter’s coming early this year.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’ll see, cuz.”
“Four dollars,” Justin says.
Wallace reaches into a pocket inside his jacket and pulls out a crisp twenty. He slides it under the glass to Justin.
“Where’d you get that?” I ask.
Wallace shrugs, takes his change, and leaves. I follow.
As soon as we step outside, I turn to the sky. A few thin clouds moving fast across the blue up there beyond the tangle of wires and bare branches.
“So what was that all about?” I ask as we walk back toward my house, where Wallace’s car is parked. There’s a few people out on the streets, mostly families in their Sunday best headed to church.
“Made a little deal,” he says, cradling the egg carton under his left arm.
“With who?”
He spits. “Some dudes who like to make little deals.”
“What kind of deal?” I ask.
Wallace lets out an exasperated sigh. “Man, who are you? The police?”
I put my hands up in mock surrender. “Sorry. Just wondering.” Maybe it’s for the best I don’t know exactly what Wallace is doing. I decide to let it go but stay somewhat on topic. “So where do you want to go today? The mall? There must be at least a few stores hiring there. Get that employee discount action.”
“Nah, man, I don’t need to put in any more applications.” He pats the chest of his jacket where that inside pocket is. “I’m cool. For a couple weeks, at least.”
“And then what?” I push.
“Then I’ll figure out something else.”
I almost leave it at that so I don’t make him mad. But then I think about what Keyona said after class a few days ago, about how I think I’m helping Wallace when I’m not. I take a deep breath and ask the question I think she would want me to ask him right now. “You slinging?”
“Slinging?” He laughs for a few moments and then gets serious. “Nah, man.” He spits. “You think I want to end up in jail, sharing a cell with my old man?”
“Sorry,” I say. “You were talking about making a deal . . . I just . . . I just want to help you. The right way.”
He stops and looks me in the eye. “You serious about that, cuz?”
“Of course, Wallace.”
“Cool, cool. Then here.” He flips open the top of the egg carton and holds them out to me.
“Huh?”
He gestures with his chin toward the eggs and then toward a house a little way down the street. It clicks—he wants me to egg someone’s house. I look over and realize he wants me to egg not just anyone’s place, but Bunny’s. I was so lost in trying to figure out what was going on with Wallace that I didn’t even notice we were back on my block.
And I can’t believe he wants me to do this.
“I can’t believe you want me to do this,” I say, head swiveling up and down the street for witnesses. There isn’t anyone out, but we’re standing in broad daylight. Who knows who’s peeping out their windows? Not to mention my parents are right inside my house.
“I told you we’ve got to make things right,” he says.
“By egging Bunny’s house? How’s that going to help you out?”
He chuckles and grabs one of the eggs. He cradles it in the palm of his right hand while still holding the rest of the carton in his left. Its white shell practically glows like something holy. “I was awake in English class for a couple minutes the other day,” he says, feeling the weight of the egg, “and Mr. Okoye started talking about something called catharsis. You know what that means?”
I nod.
He cocks his arm back and chucks the egg. It hits the brick of the Thompsons’ row home with a small but oddly satisfying splat. “Catharsis,” he declares.
Bunny’s parents are both probably working, but a rush of guilt floods through me as I imagine them coming home from a long day to find a splatter of yolk cemented onto the side of their house like dried puke.
I pull my hood over my face and say, “Glad you got that out of your system, man. Can we go now?”
But he’s already launching a second egg. This time it smashes against the front door, the sound more thud than splat. The urge to duck inside my house courses through me. I’m waiting for one of the neighbors or even Bunny himself to pop his head out the window to see me out here standing next to big-ass Wallace and his carton of eggs. My parents will straight up kill me.
All right, maybe Wallace isn’t such a great influence on me.
He holds out an egg. “You got some feelings about Bunny I think you need to deal with, cuz.”
“Nah, I’m cool,” I say, even though deep down I know he’s right about something for once.
“Get this shit out of your system, or I’ll empty the rest of this carton on his house myself.”
“Ha. Ha.”
I turn to go, but his free hand grips my wrist like a vise. I try to pull away, but I think I’ve mentioned he’s a second-year-senior center and I’m a second-string sophomore point guard.
“Damn, Wallace. Let me go.”
“Catharsis, cuz.” He’s still grinning, but his tone’s gotten real serious. And for a moment, it’s like he’s no longer my goofy cousin, but already another ghost on the corner.
“He’s still my friend, Wallace.”
Wallace lets out a sarcastic laugh. “He ain’t your friend. He up and left to go play ball with some rich-ass white boys. He doesn’t care about you. Bunny Thompson’s looking out for Bunny Thompson. That’s it, Nas. That’s fucking it. If you didn’t know it before, I know you knew it when you saw him with Keyona. And you know what? Someday he’s gonna peace out and walk away from this whole goddamn city like it’s a toilet full of shit he just flushed.”
And suddenly there’s a lump in my throat and I feel like a little boy about to start bawling in the middle of the street, because maybe Wallace is right. I always knew Bunny was on his way to the top. But I always thought he was going to take me with him.
“Fine,” I say. Wallace releases my wrist, so I take an egg and fling it toward Bunny’s house just to get the whole thing over with. It hits low on the brick.
Wallace makes a stink face. He hands me another egg. “You can do better than that.”
“I’m done, man.”
“That first one was for him transferring. Make this one for him taking your girl.”
“Fine.” I take the egg and throw it higher and harder this time. It hits Bunny’s window dead center, more of a thunk than a thud or a splat.
“See, cuz? Don’t you feel awfully catharted?” he asks.
“That’s not really how—” I start to say, but we both notice a curtain move behind one of the windows and hoof it around the nearest corner.
15
Bunny
Something hits the window.
“What was that?” asks Keyona, from her spot on the floor where her homework’s scattered all around.
“Maybe a secret admirer,” I say from my bed, where I was thinking about the semifinals later this afternoon.
She gets up and pulls back the curtain. “Ugh.” She steps aside so I can see the egg yolk oozing down the windowpane real slow, probably because it’s so cold out. She peers into the street and sucks her teeth. “They’re gone. What the hell’s wrong with people?”
“Probably some bored kids,” I say. “Be right back.”
I disappear and then return a moment later with a handful of toilet paper. I pull the window up a few inches, and a rush of cold air pours into the room, which is a shame since the landlord finally got the heat fixed. Keyona wraps her arms around herself and moves to the corner farthest from the window. I reach my arm up and around to wipe as much of the egg as I can.
Of course, I don’t really think it was some bored kids. I know it was meant for me, and as I clean it off, I think of all the people who called me Oreo or Sellout, all the shit people posted online that made me stop going online so much, all the side-eyeing I got whenever I walked around the city ever since switching schools. I hoped that stuff would die down as time went on and people got over it—and it looked like it was starting to—but here we are.
I clear off some of the egg, but mostly I end up spreading the smear around. I give up, close the window, and dump the soggy bunched-up toilet paper into the small trash can in my room.
Keyona’s moved to the bed, where she sits with her legs drawn up to her chest and her back against the wall. I notice she put on my St. Sebastian’s hoodie while I stepped away. I love it when she wears it, because then it smells like her for days. Maybe I should open up the window more often.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“Why? You throw it?” I sit on the edge of the bed, facing away from her.
She moves so we’re back to back. Then she starts pushing against the wall with her feet, trying to shove me off the bed. “You know what I mean. I’m sorry that people can’t let it go. That you still have to deal with this ignorant shit. I mean, it’s only high school.”
I shrug, starting to laugh as she keeps pushing. But I’m holding my own.
“Anyway.” She gives up, puts her feet down, and flips around so she’s sitting right next me. “You said you wanted to talk about something?”
Did I mention that I love her smell? Not the shampoo or perfume, I mean, but her natural scent, what she smells like underneath all that stuff. Breathing it in makes me want to bury my head in her shoulder and fall asleep. But I don’t.
I’ve got to do this.
“Um,” I say. My heart’s racing. I think my palms start sweating, and I can’t even look at her. But this seems as good a time as any.
“Well?”
I practiced this a thousand times, saying it over and over again in my head so I’d remember the right words. But when I reach for them, it’s like air-balling a shot I thought I’d drop.
“Um,” I say again.
“You breaking up with me, Bunny Thompson?” Keyona asks. I don’t know how to answer that, especially with how she says it all flat. Like she’s asking for the time. She laughs. “If you’re breaking up with me, you need to tell me why.” Again, her voice is calm.
I lean forward and rest my elbows on my knees. I take a deep breath and keep my eyes on my hands, regretting not doing this over a text or a phone call. It would have been wrong, for sure, but it would have been mad easy.
; “It’s just . . .” I start, not knowing where to go. “I don’t know. It’s like . . . I don’t know. You know?”
She laughs again. “You have to do better than that.”
“Sorry, Key. I guess . . . I’m not feeling it anymore. Us, I mean.”
“Why not?”
I clench my jaw. I love Keyona, but I hate how she’s always trying to make me talk like this. I know how I feel, and I wish she’d just believe me. Why’s everything got to be all drawn out?
“Because,” I say. “I’m just not.”
She nods, as if working this out in her mind.
“When did this start?” she finally asks. “You ‘not feeling this anymore.’” She puts air quotes around that last part.
I think of lying, but I decide against it. “I don’t know . . . I guess, you know, when we went to the movies Friday.”
She nods. “Ah.”
“‘Ah,’ what?”
“I thought this might have something to do with you seeing Nasir again. What? You feel like you betrayed your boy by getting with me?”
“What? Nah,” I say. But, yeah, that’s pretty much it.
“I know he’s had a crush on me forever, Bunny.”
“Oh?” I say.
“So what?”
I shrug. I don’t want to say anything else, but she keeps on staring at me. I try to stay strong, but I give in. “I guess I still see you as his girl,” I say. “Since he’s liked you for so long, you know. Way before I did.”
As soon as the words leave my mouth, I wish I could hit Rewind. I know better than to say something like that to Keyona.
“Excuse me?” she says. “What makes me his? You know I’ve never been into him like that.”
I hold up my hands. “That came out wrong. But you know what I mean.”