by Marcus Burke
As I walked to Mattapan Square all of Ma’s flyers blew in the wind. Some of them had been tagged over by this point. People had started drawing penises and tits and anything else that went against the idea of a Bible study. The flyers were faded and worn, flapping against the telephone poles and laughing at me. I started hearing a chorus singing the words “Church Boy” in my head and I wanted it to stop, but I couldn’t shake the thought. I’d reached the point of no return. I had seventy dollars in my pocket, twenty of which I didn’t need in the first place, and about a half ounce of bud tucked in my sock. I always walk with at least fifty bucks on me to make sure I’m good for the day. I really ain’t need their change.
When I got to the shop, it was empty and my barber Keon was sitting in the chair half asleep. He wiped his face all fast and got me in the chair and scraped me up sharp. He asked me if I wanted a design in my hair and I said yeah and told him to surprise me, and he carved the three-stripe Adidas logo on the side of my head and I asked him to write my street ball name. He wrote “Dreidel-17” in cursive. I think he tried to carve out an actual dreidel but it ended up looking more like a tornado.
Aldrich got to the shop a few minutes later. He kept telling Keon how “cool” my cut was and I heard Keon ask him if he wanted a design too and he blurted out, “Yes!” I rolled my eyes. The shop was starting to fill up and I watched ESPN on the big screen in the front. Before I knew what happened, Keon was spraying Aldrich’s head down with hair sheen and as he spun Aldrich around in the chair and the spray cleared I looked at the side of Aldrich’s head and the dick-rider really got the same exact haircut as me, only his said “Big Al.”
It was too late to do anything. Aldrich smiled at me all stupid. I iced Keon and looked him off, shaking my head at the floor. Clippers in hand, Keon tossed his arms up and said, “Ay, youngblood.” I looked at him as he dropped the clipper heads in some disinfectant cleaner and turned his back to me. “He asked me for one too. Don’t look at me like that.”
Aldrich grinned at me.
“What? You don’t like it?” He paid Keon and got out of the chair and walked over to me. “Wanna get a slice before Bible study?” I wasn’t really hungry but if the bitch-nigga was paying, why not? It’d give me a minute to figure out how to ditch his ass. I couldn’t show up with the asshole having matching haircuts, that’s suspect like shit. Nina does that kind of stuff with her girls. They have certain days when her and all her girls wear the same outfit in different colors. Reggie and them already think Aldrich’s a nut-rider.
We walked to Mattapan House of Pizza, got a couple of slices, and sat down to eat. I’d already cemented my decision to walk over to Mattapan station so I could catch the trolley over to Ashmont and catch a bus from there and court-hop the night away. It didn’t matter if I wasn’t there in Nana and Papa Tanks’s living room to defend myself from the whispers and name-calling that I knew was coming. In the tangle of the grapevine my name’d been steady collecting dirt.
As we sat eating our slices of pepperoni, I debated whether I should ditch Aldrich or try to convince him not to go to Bible study and to ride out with me.
It was five thirty and Bible study started at eight. Ma wanted me home by six forty-five. Then the bells above the door jingled and I looked up and in walked Beezy with Tunnetta’s bucket-head ass seesawing up to the counter all awkward, acting like they didn’t see us.
Aldrich laughed and whisper-shouted, “Cupcaking,” and then he put his cap to the side of his face like Beezy and Tunnetta wouldn’t know which one of us said it. He was looking guiltier than O. J. Simpson. He looked at me laughing like I was supposed to laugh. See, Beezy ain’t really a fighter but he’d fold Aldrich’s punk ass and I really didn’t want to have to explain what happened to Aldrich to his dad. Beezy turned around and flashed us a look and I could tell he was ready to start putting on and acting stupid, like he was down to fight a nigga for trying to pull his card in front of the wifey. Aldrich wiped a greasy napkin stained red with pizza sauce across his mouth and leaned in toward me, whispering, “Seriously, though, she ain’t half bad, man. She’s a good look for him.”
I felt a jolt in my veins, tried to leave it alone, and wagged my hand at the wall. I couldn’t. I sighed and said, “Man, Beezy share that girl. Who ain’t been wit’ her? A girl like Tunnetta is more for niggas than a nigga’s girl. Ya dig what I’m saying?” I said it just loud enough for Aldrich to hear me, and his eyes lit up. He thought about it and then his lip folded down low, stretched the length of his jaw and got crowbar stiff, and he said, “Really?” He began picking at an island of pimples that covered his left temple, and then he squinted at me all skeptical. He started biting his fingernails.
“You hit it?”
I waved him off again. “C’mon, man. Don’t ask me no damn questions.”
Aldrich started laughing and leaning in, looked me all in the face, cackling like a fucking weirdo. He kept repeating, “Didya? Didya?” I moved back but he stood up leaning at me and when I smelled the sourness of his breath I reached out and smacked him in the forehead. He yelped out “Owwww!” and held his face. Beezy and Tunnetta both turned around and I made eye contact and she smirked at me. Aldrich caught her little smirk and kept laughing. “I saw that. What was that? You hit it, didn’t you? She ain’t half smile at me.”
I clamped my jaws and growled, “Dawg! Cut. The. Shit.” He stopped laughing.
See, this is when urges start to boil up and all that “Fuck-you” in my blood begins to turn me cold and I feel like I’m the hardest motherfucker alive. I try to think of good things, and I hear Nana Tanks’s little voice bouncing wall to wall in my head saying, “Andre, be a nice boy,” but then them urges quiet her and something inside me screams, “What the fuck for?” Then I recall a line that Bishop Jackson said during church a couple months ago: “It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.” And I added a line of my own: “Right, wrong, or in between, who defines that shit anyway?” The voice screams louder and louder until I find myself just doing what I feel. For a second I stopped and thought about me and Tunnetta, what we were and what we weren’t. How things started out so sweet and simple, then how time oh-so-gracefully revealed our situation for what it really is, and regardless of our attitudes, what mean-mugs get exchanged or what we say and don’t say. Me and Tunnetta got an understanding, and that’s just how we do.
When Tunnetta walked back from the counter with her food, I belched and she looked at me. We made eyes and she smiled like she ain’t already see me. She put down her food and I waved to her and like a boomerang she started to walk over to our table. And Beezy tucked his dick between his legs and watched Tunnetta walk away. Aldrich was so thirsty, giggling and looking back and forth between me and her. He damn near drooled on himself when Tunnetta said, “Hey, y’all,” and put her cell phone on the table. She had a pink scrunchie around her wrist and she reached up and pulled her hair up into a ponytail. Then she smiled and picked up her cell phone.
“Y’all going to Bible study? I’m excited about it.” She said it with that sweet Southern drawl and gave me one of them syrupy looks that got me caught up messing with her in the first place.
Aldrich blurted out, “Me too, I’m pumped. We’re walking there right after we finish our slices. Wanna walk with us?”
Of all the shit in the world he could have said, he had to say that. She grinned and looked back at the pout on Beezy’s face and sighed. She said, “Maybe,” then popped her hips and poked out her ass as she walked back over to Beezy. She sat down and opened up her Pepsi and gently placed her hand on top of Beezy’s and they locked eyes and he smiled. She had Beezy roped, he was her little bitch. Guess some niggas’ junk really is the next nigga’s treasure.
We stood up to throw our crust away and Beezy looked at me and said, “See you at Bible study, Andre.” And he chuckled and then coughed and said, “Altar boy,” under his breath. I heard what he said and froze. It seems he’d grown balls. I walked over to
their table and Tunnetta started fidgeting with her purse. Beezy looked away, all suspect and shit, and said nothing. Aldrich must have heard it too because I could hear him chuckling behind me. I reached down and snatched Tunnetta’s cell phone off the table and said, “You ready?” I picked up her Pepsi and swigged down the lump that was swelling in my throat. She looked at the floor, stood up, and the three of us started walking toward the door. And, like a true bitch, Beezy threw out the rest of his slice of pizza and trailed behind us.
We got outside and started walking back toward Milton. I looked at Aldrich and whispered, “See, he share that girl.” Aldrich started laughing like a fucking idiot, jumping up and down in front of me on the sidewalk, blocking my way. I pushed him and he turned around and I looked at the back of his head and remembered the asshole got the same haircut as me.
Tunnetta looked and said, “Dang, y’all are too cute,” and then said to me, “Can I have my cell phone back now?”
Beezy caught up with us and chimed in, “Yeah, nigga, give her her phone.”
Beezy smiled at me and his bitch ass still thinks he can give me that smile. It irks me that after he wanna act all cute for the whole fuckin’ pizza shop he still thinks our shit’s sweet. Aldrich shut his mouth and stood next to Tunnetta as Beezy stepped up in my face. I remember seeing the roundness of Beezy’s fat face and it’s like I blinked and all the “Fuck-you” spilled over and the urges weren’t just urges anymore. I swung at Beezy so fast he didn’t even have a chance to put his hands up. He fell to the ground and Tunnetta screamed, “Oh my God, Andre, stop!”
She ran over to Beezy, who was splayed out on the concrete kicking his right leg and making a weird groan. Tunnetta knelt down and cradled his head in her lap and she started crying, calling all kinds of attention to herself as she shook Beezy until he started blinking. Tunnetta helped Beezy stagger up to his feet and before he could even stand he was running his mouth.
“You done fucked up now,” he yelled.
Tunnetta stepped up and cried, “Andre, gimme my damn cell phone!” and charged at me like she’d lost her marbles. To avoid the crowd that was slowly starting to gather, I ran across Blue Hill Avenue into Mattapan station and waited for the next trolley leaving for Ashmont. Aldrich, Beezy, and Tunnetta chased after me the whole way there, and Beezy busted his ass and fell when him and Tunnetta made it to the platform. She helped him up and they sat hugging each other on the bench. Tunnetta pretended like she could really hold Beezy’s ass back if he wanted to get up and do something, and he let her.
As the trolley pulled up Beezy yelled, “I’m telling Smoke, nigga. You watch.” He kept repeating it. I turned around and looked at them both. Tunnetta was pink-faced and puffy-eyed and Beezy’s left eye was already starting to swell. Aldrich stood next to me waiting for the trolley, breathing all heavy, saying, “Dawg, what happened back there?” The trolley stopped and the doors dinged open and the people flooded out. Tunnetta screamed, “Gimme my phone!” and I pushed past Aldrich, got on the trolley, and took a seat. The doors closed and the trolley’s engine revved up and the driver rang the bell. As we pulled off I took one last glance at the three of them looking like bums in the station, Beezy and Tunnetta sitting on a bench and Aldrich at the edge of the platform screaming, “Where you going?”
I sat up and looked forward as the trees canopied overhead and cast a green darkness on the trolley. I didn’t answer him because I didn’t know the answers myself. I had no idea where I was going or what happened back there. I thought hitting Beezy would have felt different. For as long as I’d wanted to slug him for all those times he gave me that grin and all the times he tried to style on me with Tunnetta, I didn’t feel too much better. It felt like I jammed every single joint on my right hand. When I saw Beezy struggling with Tunnetta in the train station and heard her scream, I felt like a monster.
I’d also never felt more alone. Beezy knows better than to jump up in my face like an idiot. There’s no way I could show my face inside that Bible study now. I just wanted to go somewhere and smoke some bud—someplace where nobody knew anything about me, not even my name. The last thing I heard Aldrich yell before the trolley got completely out of the station was, “Man … Dre! What am I supposed to tell your mama?” He was asking all the right questions. I just didn’t have answers. Big vines, shrubs, and weeds overgrew the rusty metal fence running alongside the track. The driver touched the brakes and the trolley’s wheels screeched a hiss of metal kissing metal.
The driver slowed down and rolled through the Capen Street stop, a request-only stop. As we picked up speed it sounded like the power went out or something. There was this stillness in the car. Nobody was talking louder than a whisper and for some reason as I sat breathing the musty trolley air it felt like someone had just died. Everybody looked tired, defeated, and unfriendly, like they’d really rather be elsewhere.
Someone pulled the line to request a stop and I flinched when I heard the ringer go off. I squeezed Tunnetta’s cell phone with my right hand and it felt like a bunch of little needles were rolling around inside my knuckles. I tucked my hurt hand in my lap as the trolley powered down and we swayed into the Valley Road stop.
I kept flexing my hand and balling it into a fist, but the pain only got worse and my wrist felt stiffer. I started trying to figure out how to work Tunnetta’s phone so I could read her text messages when an old brass-skinned coolie man limped up to me with his cane and stopped. He smelled like something fried and curried with a hint of mothballs and I looked away, but he tapped my shoulder.
“Can I beg you a seat, my youth?”
I didn’t answer him, I just stood up and let the little man into the seat beside me. I heard a loud sports muffler burn rubber and a car cut off the trolley as we began to pull out into the busy intersection on Central Avenue and Eliot Street. The trolley driver tooted his horn and pumped the brakes, and the whole car stutter-stepped and everyone jolted forward. I reached for the bar on the chair in front of me but I grabbed with my hurt hand and lost my grip. My weight shifted and I wobbled onto the old brass-skinned white-haired coolie man sitting next to me. The old man’s cane clacked against the wall and then he sighed like I’d crushed all the wind out of him.
The trolley straightened out and I still had my arm snugged around the old man’s shoulder as I regained my balance. I looked down at his little trembling body and I held the man’s bony frame still, like I was steadying a bag of golf clubs.
“Sorry, sir,” I said, looking down at all the sharp silvery white hair growing out of the old man’s ears. He flapped his elbows and slithered out of my grip and gave me a strange look, like I was trying to do something funny to him. He looked me off and cleared his throat as he shrugged his shoulder, tossing up a hand to acknowledge my apology. Tunnetta’s phone vibrated in my lap and I used my good hand to click open a new text message from Beezy.
You done fucked up now. Nigga you know you shouldn’t of did that. You know that’s coming right back around.
I closed the text message.
I looked across the trolley at a woman with bald-headed twins sitting on her lap. They were both letting out the sound of pure baby joy. They weren’t angry or tired, they were both intrigued, the boy trying to steal the keys from his mother’s red leather purse and the little girl completely consumed with trying to get the cap off of her mother’s green bottle of Mountain Dew. Both of their big bald doughy heads bobbled in different directions as we trolley-chugged along. They looked at each other as they played, almost like they were racing to something, but it was a friendly race because they were giggling with their unformed wiggly slack baby smiles.
The phone vibrated again, and again it was Beezy.
… and MY girl wants her phone back, dickface.
At first I chuckled ’cause he called me a dickface. Who says that? Beezy’s always been a clown, since we was kids. But Smoke’s a live wire, and then I thought the only reason Beezy be acting tough is ’cause this only pours f
uel on the fire I already had with Smoke.
As the trolley rolled along I looked out at the thick patches of pine trees whizzing past in the window and I sat wondering to myself, What would Reggie do? Reggie’s the realest cat I know. He always has the right answers even when I don’t want to hear them. He always holds me down. He could’ve tripped on me ’bout how I starting dealing with Smoke before him, but instead he held me down and blew a cloud of smoke in my face and said, “Hardheaded niggas learn the hard way,” and he tossed me the product.
The driver rang the bell and the overhead speakers scratched and squealed PA fuzz as the driver announced, “Butler station. Please exit to the right.”
The trolley doors stayed open, letting in all the hot air as the trolley driver got out to help an old man get his wheelchair onto the handicap lift. I watched the overweight white man slowly rise into the car. The trolley began to vibrate as we pulled away from the Butler Street stop. I’d seen the cemetery on the trolley ride between Butler and the Cedar Grove stop before, but now it gave me a bad feeling as I looked at all them tombstones.
We pulled into Cedar Grove and the trolley idled a second without the doors opening. The trolley’s engine let out a big sneeze and then the doors opened. I don’t know how the fuck he’d pulled it off, but when them doors opened I saw Beezy standing there with his swollen eye turning all kinds of weird colors. He was standing next to Smoke. His boy Kendrick and Tunnetta and Aldrich were all standing there behind them.
There was no games. It was straight business. Smoke hopped up in the doorway of the trolley and looked at me like we’d never met. I flinched back against my chair and looked side to side. There was nowhere to go. I caught eyes with the old man sitting next to me, and he shifted his body away from me and looked out the window, two hands on his cane.