As I think, Oh, dip, we’re about to be in a fight, I notice Big Will reacts completely different than most guys would. As the eighth-grade boy says “Yo” and steps toward Big Will, Big Will steps back all calm and puts his open hands up in an apologizing way, and says, “My bad.”
The eighth grader’s face slowly relaxes, and he turns to see if his friends heard Big Will. They nod and he looks back at us and nods like we’re free to go.
Okay, before I thought it was Big Will’s size that made dudes back down, but I know this isn’t the reason now.
As we leave the corner, I think hard about what Big Will just did. “That was cool,” I tell him. “How you calmed that kid down. I thought he was going to try to fight you.”
“He was getting hyped,” Big Will says. “Which is why I tried to cool him down. Bryan, if someone wants to think they’re tougher than me, I let them. I just say ‘My bad’ and that usually makes them feel boss. ‘My bad’ usually relaxes someone who is tight and starting to hype themselves up.”
“It works all the time?”
“Yeah.” He thinks for a few seconds. “But I guess if someone is really looking for trouble, no amount of ‘My bads’ will work.”
“But it always worked for you?”
“Yeah.”
My bad, I think. I like that.
Big Will and I walk to the back of our projects, then out of them to the piers and sit on a bench that faces the Statue of Liberty. It’s a new part of this piers I’ve never been to. From here, the Statue of Liberty feels just a few blocks from us, like if sidewalks magically rose out of the river’s waves, we could walk to the Statue of Liberty real quick.
We sit there quiet for the longest time, staring at stuff. The waves go up and down, seagulls in the air not too far from us do that hang-glidey thing, and I inhale deep, breathing in the fresh air. It has a saltiness in it like we’re at the beach. The sun is starting to set, and the sky is full of colors and looks like a painting.
The feeling I have now is the feeling I had in Starbucks. It’s the feeling I have with Ma at the Promenade. Just sitting, just chilling, and far away from our projects’ drama.
Just when I’m thinking this whole scene is mad peaceful, Big Will says, “Someday I’m living in a place where I can watch the sun set like this every day. From my window.”
I look at Will and say, “For real?”
He shrugs. “I hope so. This is my thing: peace, quiet, no drama. Y’feel me?”
I smile, but more at myself because I realize three things. First, Will is reading my mind and says what I really want life to be like. Second, I smile because I realize that he’s the type of friend I want more of. The third reason I smile is I just now notice Melanie from school is five benches away talking with three of her girlfriends from school. As I think it’s cool that she likes it back here too, she looks over and waves for me and Big Will to come over.
I elbow Big Will and we join them.
One of Melanie’s friends looks at Big Will like he’s familiar. “You’re . . .”
He laughs. “Big Will.”
“Big Will?” She smiles this not-mean smile and I know because some girls and boys are about that drama and smirk, giggle, and laugh at people’s nicknames. Not her. Not now. She reaches for his hand to shake. “Big Will because . . . ?”
Big Will shakes her hand and jokes, “Because I’m so tiny?”
They smile some more.
“I’m Christina.” She makes room for him. “Sit.”
Big Will and her start talking and soon I hear them chatting about Ms. Pac-Man.
Sasha, Melanie’s other friend, leans over into his conversation and tells Big Will, “You said Ms. Pac-Man? That’s my game too.”
He points to me. “Then Bryan’s the one you should play. He’s the man. I can’t play like him. He posts the new high score every time.”
It feels good hearing him say I’m the man and I realize something else is different about Big Will. He’s putting me up. If it was Mike, Mike would be putting me down.
I jump in the conversation and start sharing my Ms. Pac-Man strategies and I realize something else when Melanie, Christina, Sasha, say “Yup, yup” and “True” and “Us too” to me when I say, “Ms. Pac-Man gives me that same rush I get when I play handball.”
Melanie and her girls are like homeboys and they’re different than I expected. I knew Melanie was a nice person, but she and her friends are into handball? And Ms. Pac-Man? And Big Will gets along with her friends like they’ve known each other forever?
“This your first time coming to the pier?” I ask Melanie out of the blue.
She makes a face like back here is heaven. “What? We’re here all the time. If we’re not playing Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga, and other old-school video games in that arcade on Sullivan Street.”
“What?!” me and Big Will say at the same time.
I ask, “There’s another arcade back here?”
“Yeah,” Melanie said. “But it’s run by a family, so they keep it private because they don’t want just anyone in there. You both should come there with us.”
Yo. Melanie’s timing and her saying that is lit. First, I just was wishing I had more friends like Big Will, and now here she and her friends are acting so chill and trying to make that happen. I’m amped.
* * *
• • •
So yeah, the three weeks hanging with just Will was real good. It was three weeks of me feeling closer to where I should be and closer to who I am.
But it was also three weeks of me seeing Mike look more and more heated anytime his eyes are on me. Whenever I see him, bruh’s face looks like a boiling pot of water about to bubble over.
I should’ve known something was coming. If I were Batman, I would’ve since he thinks like ten steps ahead.
CHAPTER 33
Wednesday after dismissal, me and Big Will chill on a corner of our school and compare the powers of Nightcrawler from the X-Men to Hiro from Heroes.
“Hiro is better,” Big Will says, “because, bust it, he does more than teleport. He time-travels and can stop ti—”
Mike interrupts.
Well, not Mike. Dennis and Christian do. Mike and Little Kevin stand behind them. They’re two sixth graders I never speak to. They’re both my size. I look at Little Kevin and nod whattup at him. He stares at me with no expression like we have no history. I can’t believe him. After Mike got him arrested, he still follows him.
“Bryan,” Dennis tells me, “we gonna play handball. Come.”
Honestly, Dennis pays me no mind in school, so I wonder why he’s up on me like we tight.
I look at Mike, but I answer Dennis. “Can’t.”
Now it’s Christian talking. “Why?”
What’s up with these guys who treat me like a hole in the wall, asking me to hang out and then why I can’t?
“Ask Mike,” I say. “He knows.”
Dennis turns to Christian. “Son, you gonna let him catch that tone with you?”
What?! I think. I said “Ask Mike” with no tone.
All I can see is Dennis’s face. Then Christian’s. Their expressions match that villain Killmonger who fights Black Panther and every evil comic villain who fights anyone. Their faces match Mike’s the times I’ve caught him eyeing me funny.
Dennis and Christian came to throw hands.
Then I hear it: “Your moms.”
I swing around quick. “What?!”
Dennis says, “I said, ‘Run home to your pops and moms.’”
I look at him, then at Mike. Now his face matches theirs.
“Yo.” I step toward them without knowing it. “Keep my moms and pops out your mouths.”
I notice Dennis’s face change. His bravery is gone. Mike must’ve put him up to this. Maybe told him I’m soft. But now Dennis
doesn’t want a fight.
Christian does. “Or what?” Christian steps toward me. “Your moms. Now what?”
I want to punch his face. Nah, I want to punch through it. My heart races. But I’m not scared. I’m not.
I step toward him. “Say ‘my moms’ to my face.”
Then I feel it. These arms python-squeeze around me, pinning mine to my sides. Yo! Who is straight lifting me up off the floor and back to school?!
I turn my head to see who has me in this tight grip. It’s Big Will.
“Bring him back!” Christian yells at Big Will.
I yell at Big Will too while trying to break free. “Let me go!”
Big Will puts me down but doesn’t let go. He’s using his big body to block Christian in case he tries running up on me.
Yo! Big Will definitely has more muscles as well as more facial hair than any sixth grader I know. He’s mad strong and I bet he could handle them alone.
Now more kids are here, and a little crowd is in between Christian and me. I notice Mike looks at me and he tries to hide his surprise at my reaction. He doesn’t look evil anymore. He looks like those times he’s studied my reaction like he was collecting info for a later day. I look at Little Kevin. He’s all wide-eyed like watching this fight almost pop off was the hotness.
Mike taps Christian and motions for him to leave. Mike says something to him as they walk away, and I think I can tell what it is but I’m not sure because we’re a little far but not that far. “Chill. Bryan can’t fight. He never been in one.”
What the—? Did he just tell Christian something I told him back in the day? He’s such a—
Big Will spins me around to him, while keeping his hands gripped on both of my shoulders. “You look like you almost Hulked out over there.”
“He said my moms.”
“Yeah, well, you went psycho, bruh. I was scared for him.” Big Will wraps his arm around me. “Let’s go this way,” he says, leading me the opposite way from Mike and them. I can’t tell if he has his arm around me to seize me up in another python grip in case I try running after Christian to fight or if he has his arm around me brother-like.
Big Will laughs and says it again: “You went psycho, kid. I was really scared for him.”
I don’t speak. Because I don’t know what I would’ve done. I’ve never had a fight. I was just so mad. My punches probably are no better than when Ava teased me about them—she probably still punches harder than me.
“You have a temper,” Big Will says, interrupting my thoughts.
You have a temper. That is what Pa says.
Look at his eyes. That’s what Mike said about the fighters who win.
Could I have really hurt Christian?
Big Will keeps on. “And your whole everything just flipped. Your eyes, your body. Everything about you was just no joke. You looked hard-core, like Luke Cage, for real.”
CHAPTER 34
Ma’s eyes follow me and Big Will as we walk into her job.
Her eyes follow me as I go to my office.
“Sit wherever,” I tell Big Will as I unzip my backpack, move to my file cabinet, and look for Ma. Her eyes still follow me.
Then she comes over. “What’s up?”
She doesn’t ask who is Big Will, even though she’s never met him. She’s not asking me “What’s up?” to know about my day. She’s asks like she knows something just happened with me.
She and Big Will look for my reaction.
I give her my back so she doesn’t see my face, and I pretend to put the homework handouts in my hands in order.
“Bryan, turn around.”
I do and force a fake smile. “Uh-huh?”
Ma squints like my left eye has a paragraph in it and my right eye has a paragraph, and she reads them.
“Why do your eyes look like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like—”
She doesn’t say it probably because Big Will is in here and Ma doesn’t like putting our family business out on the street. But I bet she was about to say Like Pa’s. Hyped, kray eyes.
On the tip of my tongue is how Mike just set me up to fight. I want to tell her so bad. I hold back telling her though. I’m not a snitch. And I don’t want her telling Pa or Ava because that’ll get them thinking I’m soft and that I can’t handle Mike on my own. Plus, I don’t even think this will happen again. I think he was just hurt that I stopped hanging with him.
“So?” Ma interrupts my thoughts. “What just happened?”
“This,” I lie and hold up my stack of assignments. “It’s just OD hard to catch up on so much! It’s too much. I don’t feel like I’ll ever catch up!”
Ma cocks her head to one side, trying to figure out if this is what’s up with me.
Big Will eyes me, shocked like, Oh, you not telling her.
“Well, it’s your fault,” Ma tells me. “Take breaks and draw or read comics like you do. But you got yourself into this mess. Who is your friend?”
“This is Will. He’s in sixth grade in my school. Can he stay and do homework with me? He’s on the honor roll.”
Ma smiles friendly at him while analyzing to see if he’s a “good kid.”
“Who’s your family?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Ramos are my mom and dad.”
My moms nods like she knows them. “You’re Julianne and Juan’s son?”
Big Will nods.
Wow. Ma knows everyone.
She reaches for a handshake. “Hi, I’m Bryan’s mom. I’ve met your parents through my work here before.”
He reaches for Ma’s hand. “Nice to meet you, miss.”
They shake hands and she leaves.
I pull a stack of comics out of my desk and hand them to Big Will.
He’s too hyped and goes all the way in to reading them.
I go to my file cabinet.
I hid something in there that I never told anyone. Back when I did, I put it in a big yellow envelope from Ma’s job, then taped it shut.
I find the envelope, then eye Big Will. He’s lost in the sauce with those comics.
I look back at the envelope in the drawer and break the tape, pull what I hid in it out, and study it.
It’s a drawing Mike drew and gave me when we first became tight. It’s one of his best.
He drew me as Batman but with my face and my Afro hair. That’s because when he asked me which hero I’d be, I told him Batman because he’s the world’s smartest detective or I’d be Black Panther since he’s as smart as Batman. They figure out stuff mad fast and know what’s happening ten steps ahead. In his drawing, he drew himself next to me as Luke Cage. Back then, he chose him because “Nothing hurts him.”
I look and look at Luke Cage.
Right now, I wish again I were Luke Cage.
Mike isn’t Luke Cage. Luke’s good. The way Mike acted back at school, he should be the Joker, Batman’s main enemy, or Killmonger, Black Panther’s main enemy. That’s how Mike is acting.
I hope he stops.
I look at the lower right-hand corner of the drawing at the way he signed “Mike” like he is a for real artist, and it makes me miss him just a little.
I slide the drawing back in its yellow envelope then shut the file cabinet drawer.
I turn and Big Will is still oblivious and is SOS happy reading my comics.
I think about how different me and Big Will’s friendship is from me and Mike’s. It’s just chill and fun and there’s no drama. He gets amped about Ms. Pac-Man the way I do. He wants me to get high scores in that game and doesn’t ever flash me weird, jealous looks. And he geeks out, for real. Not like Mike, who pretends to Ma that he likes school but is more hypnotized by dudes pushing fat whips with shiny dip rims.
I look out at Ma and everyone in her job and there’s
that peacefulness again. No phones ring, just pencils and pens scratchy-scribble on papers, and there’s no drama anywhere. Right now, I listen to the sounds of my pretend-office and only hear Big Will’s breathing as he’s all into his comic. This is what I’m talking about: this comfortable feeling of chillness. A chillness I thought I could have with Mike but now I just don’t know.
CHAPTER 35
The next day, Mike strolls into Ma’s job as I knock out my homework alone in my office.
As he heads to Ma’s desk I think, Oooh. He’s about to get it! He knows Ma is mad at him.
From the way he bows his head as he speaks and how he holds his hands out, though, it looks like he’s apologizing. And it looks like it’s working on Ma. She waves for him to sit.
I’m mad curious. Why is here? What’re they talking about?
I’m Stuck On Stupid and can’t take my eyes off them for the fifteen minutes they talk.
Ma and him stand, and my eyes pop when they hug. Then, she rests her hand on Mike’s back and walks him in my direction.
Wait! What’s happening?
Ma and him arrive. “Mike wants to tell you something.”
I fold my arms because all I want to hear is sorry. Bruh got me in trouble and set me up to fight. And all this time without him, I’ve had no drama.
“I’ll leave you two to talk.” Ma goes back to her desk.
Mike slowly looks up at me. His face his straight ashamed for real. “Bryan, I was foul.” He nods at an empty chair. “Can I sit?”
I nod yes.
He gets right into it. He’s sorry about suggesting I cut school. He’s sorry about the almost fight with Dennis and Christian. The more he apologizes, the more ashamed he looks.
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