by Randy Ribay
My smile fails. “Don’t know about that.” We start down the steps toward where her car’s parked on the street. The other team’s bus is already gone. There are a few cars out front with their hazards flashing, probably waiting for their kids.
After a few steps, she says, “You know, he went to your game the other night.”
I nod. “I thought I saw him. He say anything to you about it?”
“Only that he went.”
I nod again as we reach the street and head right along the sidewalk.
“You haven’t talked since then?”
I shake my head.
“Hmm. Maybe he’s coming around. But you all are going to have to talk eventually if you want to be cool again.”
I scratch the back of my head. Run my coat zipper up and down its track with my free hand. “I don’t want to stir up anything that might cause more noise.”
Keyona shakes her head. “Things won’t magically get better. You need to have it out eventually, Bunny. You. Need. To. Talk. To. Each. Other.” Those last few words she punctuates with kisses to make sure I’m listening.
Once we reach her car, she turns me so my back’s against the passenger door, and then she leans into me. Goes up on her tiptoes and presses her lips to mine. We start making out and my heart starts thumping like it’s about to jump out of my chest. I start feeling warm all over as our lips continue to trace each other and my hands slide down her back, and I can’t even believe I tried to break it off with her.
Some passing car beeps its horn, and then another car honks at us, and then another, like it’s become a thing everyone’s doing. We start laughing even as we’re still kissing.
22
Nasir
It’s Friday night and I’m with Wallace, headed to a party for some reason. We’ve been driving around for approximately a decade looking for a parking spot, but the cars are packed tight along every curb in a five-block radius. I’ve already suggested we head back—especially since we’ve wasted so much time that my curfew’s only about an hour away—but Wallace straight ignored me. He’s in one of his moods. His jaw’s set, grinding a cigarette between his teeth as he guides the car down the street in a slow roll.
“There,” I say, pointing up ahead at a break between two vehicles. Wallace pulls up. We both groan when we spot the fire hydrant.
Wallace slams his fists on the steering wheel. “Goddammit, motherfucking, bitch-ass motherfucker,” he mutters around the cigarette. And that’s a lot of cursing, even for him. “Man, how many goddamned fires they having up in here that they need these jawns, like, every three feet?”
I stay quiet.
We drive up a couple more blocks and then start to circle back around for about the thousandth time. And I know it’s Friday night and I’m a teenager, so I’m supposed to be all excited about going out. But honestly, it’s never really been my thing. My ideal Friday night is a few uninterrupted hours of video games. Anyway, the black hole of happiness that is my cousin isn’t helping.
“Maybe it’s a sign,” I say, “that we should go home.”
Wallace exhales a thick cloud of smoke out the cracked window, spits, and then holds up his middle finger. “Here’s a sign for you, cuz. What’s it mean?”
I’m thinking about how I need my own car when I spot someone pulling out half a block down. My head whips back as Wallace guns it, then my body lunges forward against the seat belt a couple seconds later when he slams on the brakes.
But the other car doesn’t pull away completely. Just sits there, half in, half out. Wallace lays on his horn, forgetting that it hasn’t worked since that one time someone cut him off and he held it down until it ran out of noise. Rolling down his window all the way, he leans his head out and shouts, “Yo, hurry the fuck up, man!” through cupped hands.
But the car still doesn’t budge.
“Probably plugging an address into their GPS or something,” I say, hoping to calm my cousin down.
Wallace starts breathing hard through his nostrils, eyes fixed ahead on the back of that car like he didn’t even hear me. His hand goes to the door handle—but he doesn’t pull it. My guess is he’s deciding whether or not he should step out, yank the driver from behind the wheel, and beat him senseless. I wouldn’t put it past him tonight, with the mood he’s in.
But a moment later, he moves his hand to his cigarette and takes one long drag like it’s holding him together before flicking the butt out onto the street. He turns the music back up until I can feel the bass rattling all the loose pieces in his car and in my body, and then he leans back.
When the other car finally drives away, Wallace pulls the world’s quickest parallel parking job, tapping the bumpers of the cars in front of and behind us. I glance around for witnesses, but Wallace isn’t sweating it. He kills the engine and steps out without a word, slamming the door behind him and leaving me in the lonely quiet.
To be honest, I spend some time wondering if I should chill there on my phone while Wallace gets this funk out of his system. But I can’t shake this feeling like I’m the only thing standing between him and trouble. After a few moments, I get out and spot Wallace ahead, turning the corner at the end of the block. I’m not about to run for no reason. Even if I lose him, I’m betting it won’t be hard to find the party by the noise alone.
Sure enough, I start to feel the steady thumping of bass before I hear it. I pass a few clumps of people in the streets coming from the same direction, stumbling and laughing. All loudness and liquor.
I follow the pounding bass to a stoop crammed with people. They’re spilling out the doorway, down the steps, and into the street. I don’t recognize anyone. Most look like they’re college age, and most have a drink in one hand and a cigarette or blunt in the other. Some don’t. But everyone’s chatting it up and nodding their head in time with the bass beat.
I take a deep breath like I’m about to plunge into a churning ocean, and then head inside. Some lineman-looking dude stops me at the doorway and says there’s a ten-dollar entrance fee. Wallace didn’t tell me about that, but luckily I have some cash on me. I hand over a ten, and then he lets me slide past him into a small living room packed with bodies, the furniture pushed to the walls. The light is low, and the hot air is thick with the scent of smoke, alcohol, a mixture of perfumes and cologne, and BO. The Sixers game is playing on mute on a huge flat screen but nobody’s watching. Everyone’s swaying with the beat of a Kid Cudi track, which is blasting from a couple of standup speakers set up in the corner of the living room. Some people are rapping along, drinks raised into the air, while others are in their own world grinding on each other. I move to the wall and make my way around as I scan the crowd for Wallace. Eventually, I catch a glimpse of his lopsided fade heading into the kitchen. I call his name, but the music drowns it out. I push through the crush of dancing bodies, doing my best to catch up with him.
The kitchen’s as packed as the living room and nearly as loud, except instead of dancing, most of the people in here are trying to make conversation by shouting directly into each other’s ears. No sign of Wallace, though. Someone I don’t know gives me a fist bump, points at the fridge, and says something I can’t hear. I ask him if he knows Wallace, but I don’t think he can hear me either, because he smiles and nods and hands me a cup before walking away. There’s some red liquid inside. I sniff it, and even though it looks like juice, it’s definitely got alcohol. I’m not trying to go home drunk, but I hold on to it so I maybe I’ll appear more like I belong than I feel.
I stand there for a while scanning the room. I start feeling claustrophobic, so I make my way to the back door and slip outside to catch some fresh air. The backyard’s long and narrow, without any grass, and surrounded by row houses looming over the fence.
It’s quieter, cooler, less crowded out here. A few small groups of people stand around smoking and chatting. It doesn’t take me long to spot Wallace at the far end of the backyard near the gate that leads to the al
leyway. Except he’s not drinking or smoking or dancing. He’s arguing with some dude. More accurately, he looks like he’s pleading, gesturing wildly with his hands. The other dude stands there as impassive as a mountain, muscular arms folded over a barrel chest, looking like his patience is running real thin. I hang back.
Eventually, the dude must be tired of Wallace, because he starts to walk away toward the gate. Wallace grabs his shoulder like he’s trying to stop him, and then the guy turns around and swings. His fist cracks into the side of Wallace’s jaw, and Wallace drops to the ground like a sack of bricks. A few people standing around call out, “Daaamn!” and “Yoooo!” but nobody moves to help—not even me. Before Wallace can recover, the big dude disappears through the gate and into the alley.
I put my drink down and walk over to where Wallace is pushing himself off the ground. I reach for his arm to help him up, but he brushes my hand away.
“You okay?” I ask.
Rubbing his jaw, he gets back to his feet and spits blood. “Fucking golden, cuz.”
“What was up with that, Wallace?” I ask.
Wallace straightens his hat and brushes the dirt off his jeans. People around are watching us and snickering. Someone’s holding up a phone, probably recording in hopes Wallace will do something funny that he can post online.
“Wallace,” I repeat, “why’d that dude hit you?”
“Lost a bet,” he says quietly, touching his fingers to his lips and then looking at the blood shining on them under the street lamp. “And couldn’t pay up.”
I open my mouth to ask another question, but he cuts me off.
“You ready to roll?” he asks, and walks away before I can answer.
23
Bunny
When I come through the door after practice on Saturday, I find my entire family on the sofa in the living room watching WALL-E. My dad’s got his arm around my mom. Justine and Ashley are gazing at the screen like they’re hypnotized. Jess is sitting on the floor with her back against the foot of the sofa and her computer on her lap.
Everyone together like this is a rare enough sight these days, and I’m just about to throw my stuff down and join them when I notice Nasir sitting at our kitchen table staring at his phone.
Except for the twins, everyone looks up at me. Jess stops typing. I pull down my headphones as Nasir slips his phone into his pocket.
I turn to my parents about to ask, What the hell is this? but my mom shoots me a look that makes me keep my mouth shut.
“Look who stopped by,” my dad says.
Nas gets out of his seat and comes over to me. He stands there for a moment while everyone pretends like they’re not watching us. Then he asks, “Hey, man, can we talk?”
Seeing him in our house after all these months is throwing me off, and I’m trying to process why he’s even here. It seemed clear when I tried to catch him at his place the other night that he didn’t want anything to do with me. Then again, he did go to my last game, so maybe Keyona’s right about him coming around.
“Yeah, okay,” I say.
Nasir follows me upstairs to my room. I didn’t expect company, so I’ve got clothes here and there, and an unmade bed. At least the sun is shining through the blinds, making things look kind of nice. I drop my gym bag onto the floor, slip my headphones off my neck, and set them on my bookshelf. When I turn back around, Nas is still standing in the doorway, looking around my room like he’s not sure if he should step all the way inside.
And then I find myself looking around, too, trying to imagine what he’s seeing. Most everything is the same as the last time he was here. Besides the Nike team gear St. S gives us for free lying around on my floor, the only new stuff I can think of is a few things I tacked onto the wall above my bed, a St. Sebastian’s team photo next to our Whitman shot from last season, a ticket stub from the first movie I went to with Keyona next to the photo strip we got from the photo booth there.
“Your squad ready for tomorrow?” he finally asks, hands in the pocket of his hoodie and eyes still everywhere but on me.
“Yeah,” I say. “Think so.”
He nods. Wanders over to my desk. Leans forward to get a better look at that photo strip of me and Keyona. I almost apologize about getting with her, but then I stop myself after I remember all Keyona said when I tried to break up with her about how nobody could claim her.
Eventually, Nasir speaks again. “Bunny Thompson, State Champion . . . has a nice ring to it. Yeah?”
I sit down on the edge of my bed. I lean forward, rest my elbows on my knees, and start cracking my knuckles. “Might be a bit early to say that. Besides, a win tomorrow only makes us the non-public state champs. Still need to win three more to take the state for real.”
“I think you got it, B,” he says. “But I wish it would have been with us.”
I’m not sure what to say to that, because it gets me feeling both proud and guilty, so instead I say, “Thanks for dropping by the game the other night.”
Nasir pulls out my desk chair and sits down. Then he reaches over and picks up this little standup figure I’ve got of Kevin Durant next to my desk lamp. “My mom made me,” he says, turning little Durant over in his hands.
“Oh,” I say, like hearing that doesn’t hurt.
Downstairs, I hear footsteps move across the house. Cabinets opening and shutting. Pots and pans clanging together. Faraway laughter.
“There was supposed to be, like, a big blizzard or something this weekend,” I say. “But it looks like they were wrong.”
“Yeah,” he says, and leaves it at that.
Nasir’s not saying anything else. And this feels wrong. Not wrong as in bad, but wrong as in not how it used to be. Just to do something, I unzip my gym bag and throw my practice clothes into my laundry hamper. Then I grab my phone and plug it into my charger. Finally, I pull out the new sneakers St. S gave everyone for the playoffs. Soon as I do, though, Nasir looks over and raises his eyebrows.
“Damn,” he says.
I stuff them back into my bag and zip it up. “Nike hooks us up.”
“That legal?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “I guess they think it will promote their brand if the team’s good enough, and they hope that if one of the players makes it and becomes an all-star, they’ll keep wearing that same brand.”
“Seems sketchy,” he says, as if accusing me of something.
I shrug.
And now I’m wondering if his mom made him come over like how she apparently made him come to my game. He definitely isn’t acting as though he wants to be here, and if he’s going to keep on like this, part of me would rather he go on home.
But another part of me is glad he’s here, even if he is acting salty. I remember what Keyona said about how me and Nas will have to talk about these last few months to be cool again. I know she’s right.
“How’s Wallace?” I ask after a couple more moments of awkward silence.
He shrugs. “Going through some stuff right now.”
I wait for him to tell me more, but he doesn’t.
“Too cool for Pokémon?” he asks instead.
“Huh?” I say, caught off-guard by the question.
He puts the little Durant standup down and points at the corner of my desk, where I’ve got a shoebox filled with college brochures. That’s the maybe pile. It takes a moment, but then it hits me—he’s talking about the Pokémon figurines that I used to keep there. The ones he got me for my eleventh birthday. Guess that’s one difference in my room I forgot.
“Nah, just put them away,” I say. “Had to make space.”
He lets out a sarcastic laugh. “Yeah, of course you did.”
“Why you say it like that?”
“You know why.”
“So we’re going there?”
“Guess so.”
I take a deep breath. Measure my words before I say them. “I didn’t push you out of my life, man. You stopped speaking to me.”
He
shakes his head. Starts bouncing his leg up and down like he does when he’s getting upset. “You decided to transfer without even telling me, Bunny. How was I supposed to take that?”
“You could have been happy for me.”
“Why?”
“I had a chance to go to a better school.”
“Better?” He lets out a bitter laugh and stands up. “Yeah, I get it. You think you’re too good for us.”
“I didn’t say that, Nas. You know why I had to do it—I don’t have a dad with the GI Bill waiting to pay my way through college like you do.”
He pushes the chair in hard enough that it bangs against the edge of my desk. “Man, those are excuses. I know exactly why you did it, but you won’t even acknowledge it.”
“Oh, really? Why don’t you go ahead and tell me why, then?”
He laughs again. “You’re looking out for yourself so hard you forget that everyone else exists. So it’s nothing to you to leave us behind.”
And before I can ask him how wanting to help my family is selfish, he’s out. I hear him stomp down the steps and then I hear the front door swing open and slam shut. I know if I looked out the window, I’d see him crossing the street back to his place, but I don’t.
“Bunny?” my mom calls up the steps. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Nas had to go.”
Before she can ask me any more about it, I duck into the bathroom and turn on the shower. As it heats up, I stare at my reflection in the mirror and wonder if Nas was right.
24
Nasir
“Damn,” I say to Wallace, glancing at the scoreboard one more time as we shuffle out of the gym in the crush of the crowd.
64–30, St. Sebastian’s.
I shake my head and can’t help smiling, even though things still aren’t right between Bunny and me. “A thirty-four-point win in the state tournament,” I say. “That’s nasty.”