Slapboxing with Jesus (Vintage Contemporaries Original)

by Victor Lavalle

  —Shut up, I told it.

  It repeated the noise. I walked closer and it moved forward. The fur was gray. Again, the noise. The fur was matted down. I got closer, maybe if it was played with it wouldn’t do that. It wasn’t the normal sound of goats; the others used their throats in the usual way. Tones I didn’t love, but I could bear. This goat was on some other shit.

  I thought of putting my hand on the thing, but its whole body seemed ready for a fight. Not a big animal, still its tight form looked like it could generate some power. I tilted my head and one watched the Other. Aunty Lucille called for me, telling me to wash my hands. Some chickens in the next yard started their clucking. The chorus was alarming. Confusing. Every animal sounded ugly. Then the goat came down on my naked toes with one of those motherfucking hooves.

  A twenty-five-pound weight had been dropped purposely on my foot once and it had felt better than this. The hoof rifled down at me quick, then the goat was off with its friends. I was on my back, clinging to my toes. I yelled and Aunty Lucille appeared with ice. Blood spilled over the cubes as she rubbed them on the busted skin. I curled my toes and the pain was worse. The blood rivered down my elevated foot, to my ankle, my shin. My friends had been inside watching television, but came out to survey the damage done. Even Vaughn, who never admitted it, was impressed.

  I thought to myself, this isn’t so bad. In a month this goat had been my only attacker. The other twenty-nine days had been solid peace and safety. This isn’t so bad, I reassured myself again, in the kitchen, as Aunty Lucille cut greens and told me jokes. I sipped a cup of Milo, my foot was up on a chair. When it came time for the meat I asked Aunty Lucille if I could pick the goat.

  IV

  Malik and me with five dollars to spend was a wonderful, wonderful thing. Malik revealed that Lincoln occasionally on the way to the store; I was young enough to believe that it alone was the source of a certain freedom. That five hundred pennies made us affluent.

  I told him, —At Manaro’s they got Now & Laters for cheap.

  He had almost no eyebrows. He frowned often. He asked, —What the fuck you want to go out there for?

  —I just told you. Now & Laters. Cheap.

  Malik waited on the corner. Down the block was GinaRose, where candy was higher priced but safe to buy. Six blocks to Manaro’s. I could convince that kid to do anything if I smiled enough. I was persuasive.

  The Italian kids ran blocks as well as the rest of us. Manaro’s was theirs; a place that sold candy, magazines, deli food and drinks, most neighborhoods have a few. But in Flushing everything was tightly packed so that from the air you’d think integration, but down at sidewalk level, segregated was the rule. No one complained about borders except when they were crossed. That shit was suicide.

  So me and Malik were suicidal over candy.

  We passed the little businesses: pastry shops and liquor stores. Old women paced the blocks in groups of two to four, staring at us in simple amazement because everyone knew the general rules. By the time we reached Manaro’s we were moving at a slow jog.

  Inside, old men were talking in their various native tongues; only the trained ear could detect the momentary pause and assessment when Malik and I entered. We proceeded to fill our hands. The man behind the counter counted what we gave him, told us a price. I put some of the candy in my pockets. Malik knew the routine: put the five in the man’s hand, forget reciprocal courtesy and pick up the change dropped on the countertop. This shit had been the practice since my Aunty Pecola was a girl. The store smelled of the egg-plants being cooked in the back. The gathered men talked louder and we were reminded, in this way, to go.

  We were out man, ghost.

  Everything would have been fine, we’d have been back on our street laughing at how simple it had been if they hadn’t opened a comic-book shop.

  —Fuck.

  Who said it first? I don’t know, but there we were, pressed to the front window, chins against the light splotches of dirt that had not been washed away. Malik had three dollars left. His face, reflected in the glass, was as happy as mine. The kind behind us were less cheerful.

  I turned. Malik turned. One of these boys started talking shit. I knew him. From school. We were better friends there than on the street, most of us were. This kid had very short arms, a face like the back of a fridge; he did book reports that made teachers cry—with illustrations and legible handwriting. Danny.

  We got running.

  We ran.

  Fast.

  Them catching me was the sensation where you feel the pain before it gets there. These kids who were all boredom or brainlessness had me around the neck, on my legs. They led me and Malik down the streets like we were trophies. We passed the GreenPoint Savings Bank where my mother often did transactions. When with her, I was safe; adults were your traveling papers, signed, the only way you were going to fly out of Casablanca.

  As we came to Flushing Meadows Park it seemed, in my limited vision, that their numbers had doubled. I had been trying to escape, but the kid with his limb around my throat only held tighter when I moved. More when I screamed. It was the same for my boy, so eventually we lay in their arms limp and silent.

  You could look forward to a specialized torment depending on who got their hands on you. If you were on our block, the Universal Beatdown was the practice: seven-on-one, thirteen-on-three; fair fights had gone out of style in ’78, when I was six. By ’82 we had all developed, grown. And these kids, the Italians, had the pole.

  It wasn’t a specific one, any basketball court had the proper equipment. Some silver twelve-foot monster. This bunch was talking but I was not eavesdropping. I was hearing only me and my concerns: those Now & Laters spilling from my pockets, their light taps on the concrete almost lost in all the footsteps.

  So we got the poling. The whole thing: legs spread, a guy at either foot, pulling; another boy lifting your shoulders, pushing; the pole and nuts connecting. The pain. The screaming. The more pain as pole and balls were reintroduced. The crying.

  They left.

  On my back the world above seemed infinite. I lay there understanding how I might exist as an eight-inch man: the planet would not be big, it would be colossal; there would be no exploration of the outer atmospheres, the tops of trees might suffice. From here I could see out of the park, to the intersection nearby—to the arm of that pole reaching out over the road and at its tip the traffic light shining like a terrific gold medallion.

  My face was under tears; I managed to roll left, see Malik, who was similar. His eyes were closed. My dick was so full of heat I thought it might be bleeding. The throbbing attacked my stomach, the tops of my legs. I tried to explain this to Malik for some reason, but couldn’t find any words. I had lost my breath.

  This was the give and take of all our ethnic wars. We were the future janitors and supermarket managers, plumber’s assistants and deliverymen of the United States. Flushing is not like this anymore. A civilization has been lost. Minor Herodotus I will be, in remembering it all; our lives, to me, are important artifacts.

  My mother walked in on us rubbing each other on my tenth birthday. I was supposed to see a movie with my uncle. There was no party because it was a weekday. To her it must have looked like Malik and I were dancing, his back against the wall. We weren’t touching, not most of us. That’s what it was like.

  When the door opened I didn’t hear it. The sound the carpet made brushing up against the door bottom didn’t warn me of anything. There had never been a lock, but when my mother pulled at my arm I fell onto my bed, thinking, How did she get in here? Malik stood against the wall with his eyes closed and his lip bit. Like silent movie reels, scenes skipped by: my mother putting her arm around Malik’s neck, my mother and Malik leaving the bedroom, me following them; my mother slamming the front door and locking it, pushing me into the bedroom and pulling the door closed from the outside. —Stay in there, she said woodenly through the wall; I crawled backward, wrapping my sheets around m
e.

  I didn’t realize I had fallen asleep until Uncle Isaac was shaking me awake.

  He sat on the edge of my bed with his back to me. He turned and looked over his shoulder. —Your mother tells me something happened today.

  I stared at his short afro my mom said all jobs found acceptable. He moved like he was going to face me but then he wouldn’t. I wished I had heat vision so I could burn a hole through his skull and all the things he’d been told could leak out onto my bedspread. Then I could soak it all up and throw the cover out the window, out of our lives forever and he wouldn’t have to look at me the way he did when he finally turned around. —Instead of a movie, he said, let’s go play some basketball.

  I nodded, tied sneakers in silence; he watched me.

  Outside, my uncle bounced the ball like a pro. He wore his loafers, slacks, a button-down shirt, but he moved like a kid.

  —Anthony!

  My friends were climbing the parking lot fence across the street. It was the place kids could go to do football or stickball without having to stop every time a car came crawling down the block. I waved. They forgot about me as they disappeared over the chain-link. I looked up at my uncle, thought of asking him if I could go with them, but I was afraid of this motherfucker when he was in a good mood. It seemed like the same fat garbage floated before all the apartment buildings; in snowy winters when the mounds were covered in white, we’d scale them like tiny Matterhorns. I waved away some flies.

  —Come on, Uncle Isaac called to me as he stood at the mouth of the park.

  People were coming and going, it was chilly. The older ones sat on the benches that circled the park, all concrete and not any grass, talking to one another out of the sides of their faces and wiping their necks. We passed the small brick building that once had open bathrooms, when I was seven. The only thing that worked now was the water fountain. My man Dennis was holding his little sister up so she could get a good mouthful. I waved at him; he nodded.

  Near the handball walls one tired-ass rim hung limply, begging for someone to notice. I clutched my balls at the sight of another pole. We stood at the thing, Uncle Isaac stretched his legs. —You should warm up, he said. You’ll hurt yourself.

  I moved in different directions, but my body felt so closed up I was surprised I could lift my hands above my head. He passed me the rock. —Shoot it. Let’s see what you’ve got. I held the ball like it was a punchline.

  —Shoot the goddamn thing.

  I threw it, watched it sail over the other side of the backboard. Sounded like thunder when it landed on the ground, echoing among the buildings that surrounded the park on all sides. —That’s okay, Uncle Isaac said. He ran the ball down and threw it back at me. I shot again, missed. Run it down, he insisted. I walked it back. He put out his hands, I tossed it to him. He dribbled at the free-throw line, rocked back and forth, stared at the basket like he was in the Final Four. Anthony, he said. What happened today, with your friend. With Malik. It can’t happen.

  I couldn’t lift my head for anything; I stared at his shoes, the toes a little nicked.

  —Did you hear me?

  —Yes, I said.

  —Well?

  —It won’t happen again. I started to cry.

  He stopped bouncing the ball. Watched me. —Turn those off.

  I wiped my eyes and sucked it in.

  —Now this kid Malik, I think you should keep away from him.

  —He’s my best friend!

  —Well, you know what he’s going to become?

  I didn’t answer.

  —He’s going to turn out funny.

  —Funny?

  —You know. A faggot.

  —Oh, I said.

  He bounced the ball a little easier. —And do you know what faggots do?

  —I don’t want to know, I said. Can we go home Uncle Isaac?

  —Faggots put their dicks in each other’s mouths.

  I made a face. Then I said, —What?

  —That’s right. Is that what you want?

  I knew the answer to that one, fuck no. —No.

  —Good.

  He took me to Baskin-Robbins, where he let me put two scoops on a cone. He was still a little worried so he mentioned this island, Trinidad. I listened as we walked by apartment buildings. If I was remembering right, we passed the one where four girls had hurled glass bottles at us as we stood in their courtyard. When Uncle Isaac was through, he’d explained that they didn’t want to send me away, but would if I kept acting wrong. I was sold.

  So I planned it. Both our families watched us closer. But one afternoon Mom and Grandma had gone to the doctor and I convinced Malik to come use my Atari. We played Dodge ’Em furiously because it was the only game that worked. I’d taken the others apart to learn of the brittle mechanism inside, had expected more than a wafer-thin board of green and silver. I kept going to the living room, spying out the window until I saw the two ladies returning. Then, back in my room, I pawed at Malik. He had a small head shaped like a cashew nut; he was good looking and we loved each other the way boys often do. He hesitated, said that his father would be taking him to Chicago if we were caught again, that he should be going. I thought of Trinidad and how it wasn’t Flushing. Malik was my truest friend. I smiled. And I persuaded, showed him I was willing to go further than before. When I heard the keys at the door I coughed loudly so Malik wouldn’t be warned. This time, when they found us, we were in our underwear.

  V

  My mother came to get me.

  My mother with a vacation, off from typing letters and filing things. End of August and here she was: the dress was new and Aunty Barbara was complimentary.

  —Thank you, my mother said. Sitting in the living room Mom sipped tea like she was a part of Aunty’s set: the pinky out, the ankles together as well as the knees. It was afternoon, my bags were packed, the new bike had been given to Orpheus. I walked outside and onto the front porch. Down to the black gate, its paint dried over little clumps of dirt, I rubbed those raised bumps against the back of my hand.

  My mother came out with laughing Barbara, both walked down the stairs. Aunty turned to me, her appropriate gold earrings framing her stern face. She smiled and threw open her arms. —Come give your Aunty a hug. I grabbed around her middle as she laughed and held me tight. Her earring, sharp at the corners, was cutting into the side of my face. I wasn’t going to move until she let go; I liked the way she felt when she laughed.

  My mother admired the plants.

  —Are we going now? I asked Mom.

  —No, but soon.

  —Can we see a movie? I asked.

  She took me, after dinner and in Aunty’s car. Driving it, there was a pleasure on my mother’s face I hadn’t seen before. It was that face that enjoys ownership, even temporarily.

  My mother chose the flick; I bought the candy and giant soda. She paid for everything. The theater was a place that should have been for royalty—giant ceilings, carpets everywhere, all the things. We climbed two sets of stairs, weighed down with food. At dinner my mother had put her hands on my face as though she wanted something from me.

  —What’s wrong? I asked as we found two good seats.

  —You really going to eat all this? she asked, pointed.

  I nodded. —Of course. This is nothing.

  The lights died and the screen -blip-, -blip-, -blipped- to life. Projector noise filtered down to us. On with the film: the first one was easy, some violence, more violence—a guy taking the streets back from the vermin (human). I got through it fine; my mother was quiet, covered her eyes when people were being shot and when an old lady had her finger pliered off by some kid in a mask.

  This wasn’t a popular place so to get any money they had to do a double feature. The second was as bad as the first, this one had a lady with a giant chest. She was a spy and a martial artist; she got in fights over and over. Ten seconds into every melee something tore her shirt off—a knife, someone’s hand, a strong wind. Any chance for
this woman to pop out a tit. I was enthralled.

  But you know how it is, I was watching this shit with my mother.

  I was rocking a hard-on like you wouldn’t believe—I was impressed anyway. But I couldn’t sit back and let it go, next door was the lady who’d cleaned my ass once. I was leaning forward so my waist wasn’t exposed, but the thing kept groaning against my little shorts; it was so persistent I thought it was making noise. By about the third breast explosion I stopped thinking about my dick and looked at my mother, offered her some candy. The lady was in tears. I mean the big stuff, the ugly stuff. —Mom, what’s wrong?

  She touched my head, grimaced. —Don’t you think she’s pretty? Mom motioned, the screen. Do you?

  I was lost. —What?

  —Well, you’re just sitting there. Like it’s nothing.

  I shook my head, laughed at what she didn’t know; funny wasn’t how she was feeling.

  —You have to stop, Anthony. You have to stop being like this.

  —What are you talking about? I leaned into her weeping face.

  —You can’t live this way. You don’t want to do this. I don’t know why you would do this to me. To you. Stop it. It’ll be bad.

  But they were silly tears and I had the erection to prove it. I wanted to thank her. She’d thought that sending me here was a punishment, as though I were banished. I never wanted to go back to Flushing.

  —I want to hear you promise me, she said. Promise you won’t be Malik’s friend anymore.

  Each night, going to bed, I remembered why I hated home, the response that had been trained into me: expect the awful, revel in it. In Trinidad I was another boy, not so quick to be venal and petty. I cared some. But when my mother arrived the reality that I would have to return was exhausting, made me panic. In the theater I tried to think how I might stay longer, even a day, an hour. If she was content here, felt at ease, I thought she might relax into this island, quit her job and stay. Here, she wouldn’t be the woman who’d ask a ten-year-old for such a pledge. I hadn’t asked about Malik those three summer months. I never mentioned his name. I didn’t want to return and find out, though I missed him enough that I could cry. I thought, How can I make this woman happy? —That’s not too hard, I told her.