Slapboxing with Jesus (Vintage Contemporaries Original)

by Victor Lavalle

  —You don’t think so? she asked, so much hope in her voice, dying to be convinced.

  I told her, —It’s nothing. I conceded, Malik is just a faggot anyway.

  who we did worship

  Olisa said she loved me and she’d eat glue to prove it. In sixth grade she went around saying she wanted a boy who was like her and that left only me and this African kid, we called him Ojigatoo but that wasn’t his name. So really, in our school, that left me because the only thing anyone did with Ojigatoo was chase him, throw rocks and call him an African Bootie Scratcher. And when I say anyone, I mean everyone.

  Me and her weren’t friends. In school or out. With her short afro like mine, she came up to me in the schoolyard, told me and the world how she felt. They all heard, from the wall where boys played handball to the fence where girls jumped rope.

  —What? I asked again, surprised.

  She repeated herself. —I said, I love you.

  —Who the fuck are you? I screamed, more for the crowd. I didn’t want to admit I’d ever seen her, knew her name.

  Other kids laughed. Someone called out, —That’s one ugly bitch, and I thought, she sure is. I’m not talking plain, but the kind of ugly where you wanted to slap her parents for having fucked. She smiled like I should be happy too. I thought that if an ugly girl liked me that meant I looked as bad as she did, that ugly people stuck together like the middle class.

  —Leave me alone, I said. Probably it sounded a bit like begging.

  —No. Single-family homes surrounded our school; they had porches bordered by wobbly iron railing painted white, black or green. I expected people to come out and gaze at us from there, a show for the world. So I did what an eleven-year-old boy does, I ran.

  She came after me. She was slower, so the farther I got the louder she screamed my name, —Anthony! Anthony!

  Even the older women who played monitor during lunch and in the mornings came to see us running around, a traveling coon show right in their town. Ojigatoo was perched in his lonely corner, laughing. I wanted to stop long enough to throw a rock at his ass, remind him of the hierarchies and his awful position within them. Finally she couldn’t run anymore. I passed near the sidewalk outside our gated schoolyard, my reflection revealed in a car window. My expression.

  Some little kid gets me thinking about Olisa. The memory comes as easy as a cookie with your tea. In a pizza parlor, me inside the bathroom, his seven- or eight-year-old hand twisting the doorknob on the other side. I shook my dick off, called to him, —I’ll be done in a second. Stepped out, rubbing my hands on my jeans because there were no paper towels by the sink. I looked down at the boy’s face: beautiful, brown like mine; his eyes grew wide as he moved backward, could have broken into a run in an instant, to his father who was placing a little green jacket on the back of a chair. A pair of red gloves hung from the sleeves, connected to each other by a red string that ran inside the arms and across the back so he would never lose them. —I don’t need to use that bathroom anymore, Papa.

  The father was surprised, tired and angry. He looked up to find me staring, the object of his son’s disaffection. The kid snaked himself between his father’s legs, looked like he would have crawled right up his dad’s asshole if he could. Anything to get farther from me. —Kids, the father muttered to me. He was trying to play it off and I appreciated the act. He had a mustache and a beard going gray in small amounts. His hands were thick, he gripped his chair tight, then released. He and his son wore an expression I’d seen before.

  I pictured this man writing a letter to his family back in Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic, telling them how cold it gets in February here in New York City, not thinking to mention how crazy the boy acted one afternoon getting pizza when confronted with some kokolo who could have easily been a cousin. Why explain to them what they already knew? The father wiped his expression away because by that age you know how, but his son was unable to hide and I thought of me and Olisa. And Nancy, her too.

  Now you want to talk about beautiful?

  Then you had to discuss Nancy Salvino. There was no one prettier in school. Loved by every boy from first grade to sixth. I would watch her on my own; sometimes fellas got together to stare.

  —I would fuck the shit out of her, Mark said, fingering that messed-up tooth of his, the one that bent in slightly and had gone brown. It had happened after a very bad fall; he’d run away from a beating, so fast he lost his footing close to his home.

  Sanjay, who hardly hung around us, stood there rapt, said, —She’s so pretty. I wish she were my girlfriend.

  I stopped, pointed and announced sincerely, —You are one big fag.

  Not just for that statement did I call him that, also he was a milk monitor once a week, stationed at the end of the lunch line by the big refrigerated metal milk mausoleum. He took it serious. He wore a mustard yellow vest over his button-down shirts every day. He wore slacks. After he’d handed out all the milk, he had to wipe down the insides of the apparatus with a rag; he’d lean into corners and conscientiously scrub. When he did we’d run up on him, push him inside, pull down the top and shove a pen in the space meant for a lock. He would be inside yelling, banging, while we kicked the sides of the box, screaming, —Sanjay! You fucking Hindu!

  Later, after his release, he’d come to us, explaining, —You know, I’m not a Hindu. Hinduism is a religion.

  Our standard response to all intelligent assertions was a barrage of punches in the shoulder or chest.

  In class we learned of the Untouchables—lowest caste in India. Miss Bernstein showed us slides: images of people bathing in a river and wonderful country-sides, a whole family of blue-black Untouchables standing before a tiny hut. Kids laughed at that sight, but I stared at the old man smiling wide and looking like my grandfather.

  After that lesson, we would chase Sanjay on the days we weren’t friends, screaming after him that he too was an Untouchable, laughing as we said it. When we did this I’d imagine Sanjay in the bathroom, at his mirror, running hands across his skin, wondering why he was dull brown and not a lighter shade. I thought, Why should I be the only one asking myself that question? Sanjay did not hang out with us too much.

  After her announcement, the days with Olisa were awful. She wouldn’t stop, reminded me incessantly of what I had not at all forgotten. I expected a break only in Gym, when we had to change and guys swarmed into the locker room. In there I thought I was free of her, but then One-Eyed Chuckie asked, —So, Anthony. You got a girlfriend?

  —Shut up, you fucking cyclops, I said. Everyone laughed; One-Eyed Chuckie, who was sensitive about it, slammed his locker shut and left.

  —Seriously, Ant, Mark said while sliding on shorts. You going to go out with Olisa?

  I was shocked, angry at the suggestion. —No fucking way. I looked down, my face warm. She’s so ugly.

  —Yeah, someone added. You see that hair? Does she comb that shit or what?

  I sat and pulled on my sneakers. Mark asked me, —How does she get her hair like that?

  —How would I know? I hopped up like we might fight.

  —Okay. Don’t get mad. Mark tapped me on the arm. She is fucking ugly though, he said as though that was an apology.

  We walked out to the yard. Kids were choosing up sides for kickball. The maroon ball lay on the gray, pebbled yard waiting for someone to direct some energy toward it. The sun was well above the fence line and its glow felt like a pressure against my forehead, not heat, something physical. —It’s kind of windy, I said.

  —Okay, Mark agreed.

  —I better go get my hat, I said and ran inside.

  But about Nancy.

  I was watching her on my own as she stood, with Miss Bernstein, going over a spelling test. Nancy was into that Madonna look back then, as much as she could afford—the layers of cut-up clothing. She was close too, her brown hair framed her face well; it was all a mass of strategically messy curls. Nancy wasn’t allowed to wear makeup yet.

&
nbsp; Mostly, watching her, I wanted sex. In my head a whisper asked, What if she did let you fuck her? What if she said yes and showed you her pussy? I had seen only magazines by this point, porno movies were a year away; in the snapshots I’d pawed, the way women had to hold themselves open made me think there was a complicated system of flaps to undo before you got inside. I was afraid that when I was finally close to one I’d have to sit back and ask the girl to work the shit for me.

  Todd, droopy ears and big teeth, saw me staring, came and said, —I dare you to grab her ass. He didn’t say it quiet so other guys left what they were breaking to swarm around me like I was giving away quarters for video games. For twenty minutes, in the afternoons, Miss Bernstein gave us free time and Todd’s challenge was indicative of how well we used the period.

  —Go ahead, look at her ass in those jeans.

  —Man, you should just go and sink your teeth into it.

  —Just go over there and fuck her in the ass! Rich joked; someone smacked him for the rest of us—serious plans were being made.

  —I’ll do it.

  Guys laughed.

  —Yeah, bullshit.

  —You won’t do it you faggot.

  I stood. I walked at her. The chairs behind me scraped the green floor as my friends arranged themselves into an auditorium audience, row after row. Why couldn’t Miss Bernstein walk away?

  Next to them now, Miss Bernstein smiled pleasantly. I was a good student. Twice she had hugged my mother after parent-teacher nights. Nancy did not turn her head to me. Her ass however, spoke: Go ahead, it goaded. What’s the big whoop? My hand began its trajectory and I cheered it on. Started low and I envisioned a perfect cup of the right or left cheek, but then my five fingers had their own plan, wanted something else. Up her back, close but not touching, to the shoulder, over the other side and finally the motherfucker perched there on Nancy Salvino’s left breast.

  I was scared to move or squeeze. Miss Bernstein’s eyes darted from my hand to my face. Her grill lit up like magnesium flares. I was smiling, then, fuck it, I squeezed.

  Miss Bernstein stuttered out, —What the shit are you doing? The laughs, behind me, were an explosion—so powerful I would have ducked if I wasn’t hypnotized. Girls stopped writing their friends’ names on the covers of their notebooks. Nancy turned, looked at me, didn’t seem angry. We asked so much of that girl, like she was the God of All Our Needs. She looked at me like I was stupid, like I could be sure this was the closest I’d ever get.

  Miss Bernstein yelled as she led me from the class. She was tall and had long, frizzy brown hair that she often wore up; she was in her forties and none of us had ever had a crush on her. She squeezed my hand too tight as we moved; instantly I got an erection. The way her wedding ring rubbed against my wrist bone, she was really trying to hurt me.

  In his office Principal Kurdick talked to me so slow and precise that I got drowsy. He said, —I can tell you feel awful. I looked around the room for whoever he was addressing. You can go back to your class now, he said. Miss Bernstein watched him, waiting for more; when nothing came we went together, she angrier at the principal now than me. She told me, in case I hadn’t understood, what I’d done wrong. As we moved my hand throbbed with power, heat and majesty that would have been called bragging if my mouth were doing it.

  After school me, Frankie, Jung and Mark walked home. We stopped at the Carvel across the street from Booth Memorial Hospital, which had a horror story attached to it, a caution for all children who might hurt themselves. Its ambulances were slow.

  —You’re stupid, Frankie said to me as he licked the chocolate ice cream dripping down his hand. The walk home was nice; gas stations across the street leaked so much intoxicating fumes there was no way you couldn’t inhale a bunch.

  I assured him, —Metallica is much better than Iron fucking Maiden. I was eating a strawberry Flying Saucer. I took a bite.

  Jung shook his head. —Judas Priest. Fucking Judas Priest.

  —What do you know? I laughed. He gave me a shot in the shoulder, it hurt, but I smiled. You punch like a girl.

  —Faggot, Mark added absently.

  The four of us walked on, debating in this manner, passing the black gates of the Botanical Gardens. We reached Tony’s building, his was like most: dim hallways and piss on the stairs. Mark lived in a rented home with his mother and two brothers; they’d had me over one weekend and taken me to their synagogue. Frankie lived with his dad somewhere farther. I’d see his father around in his old clothes, a fading denim jacket, looking impotent and angry about it, the world already poised to forget him and his hard work.

  We rang the bell five times before Tony got to the door, sweating. He was out of breath, stooped forward with his elbows on his knees. Jung asked, —You jerked off so much you got tired?

  —My mom’s birds got out, Tony said.

  Jung leaned back against a wall, we were all inside, said something in Korean; Tony nodded, sadness on his face. I nodded for him too, understood, Your mom is going to kill you, in Korean, Urdu, Pakistani, Spanish and Italian.

  —Take off your shoes, Tony commanded.

  Mark laughed. —This ain’t Japan. Me and Frankie went to the living room couch, my sneakers and his boots cutting like knives across the carpet. Tony still looked worried.

  —Why don’t we catch them? I asked.

  Frankie went to the kitchen and returned with five garbage bags. —We each take one and hunt these fucks down.

  All armed, we moved together, through the living room. We passed the television (on), the bookshelf, the couches, the small table where new mail was dropped. There was birdseed, small pebbles of it, lying on surfaces. Tony explained that he’d tried to lure them with it, get them to stop and munch long enough to catch them, but they were pretty fast.

  They were little parakeets. They rested on a curtain rod; not quite green, they seemed only half ripe. The rest of their bodies was a very light gray. A pair. Their chirps and whistles startled me only because I was used to the deeper, less whimsical sounds of pigeons. —So tiny, I whispered.

  —You don’t have to keep your voice down, Tony said. They can see us right in front of them.

  —Let’s think about what we’re gonna do, Mark said. He dropped his bag because he needed his hands free to think, to scratch his ears, rub his neck—his body needed that kind of stimulation to work, even during tests. Teachers often thought he was cheating.

  Frankie asked, —Couldn’t we just throw books at them? I got good aim. And Anthony.

  Jung said, —His mother doesn’t want dead birds, dick.

  Frankie pointed down. —His mother wants what your mother already got: my fat one.

  —If we scare them into moving, I said, and we have the other three or four stand close with their bags open I bet we could catch them.

  Jung volunteered to be frightening because he had the shortest arms, smallest reach. While he walked forward, slow and crouched, we four raised our bags in the air. The birds were oblivious, hopping two feet to the right with an ease that suggested nothing but absolute stupidity. They burst into joy again and the sound was irritating. Jung pounced and they flew. Like a fire had been lit, they went that fast. I knew I wasn’t getting one, thought for sure we’d all missed out, but Mark had his bag closed tight at the top, from inside came a muffled twitter. Tony moved cautiously, saying, —Okay, okay. Just give me that one and I’ll put it back.

  Mark would not agree so he, Tony and Jung went together into the mother’s room.

  Frankie looked at me, finally said, —Let me see that hand.

  I brought it close to him, he touched the palm and the fingertips. After some more perusal he went to the kitchen, returned with two Korean beers, brown bottles with a gold label, red letters. We drank them though I hated the taste. I couldn’t say no to a toast. Then Frankie went to the bookshelf and began tossing paperbacks.

  The bird was agitated. It flew by my face and Frankie almost hit me. I joined in. It flitte
d from pace to place: it dallied at Tony’s sneakers, which had been set neatly by the door, their soles worn down from all the running he did in a day. When it landed it dropped its beak down like it was ducking. It flew to the stack of three empty pizza boxes in the living room, sat there as though there was time to reminisce, through the open bathroom door, perched itself on top of the mirror, until I sent an old summer reading copy of Animal Farm in there. At the wooden rack on the wall where a string of hats hung, it hopped to the Mets cap, moving one peg left as each of us sent something at it. On the dining-room table was a blue plastic box for clothes, a wash just done—the parakeet stopped there, dug its claws into Tony’s mother’s bra, a black one, which sat on top. On a stack of red oak tag paper it gave out a significant sound, directed at us. A shattered single note. The parakeet’s movements seemed random, bred from confusion, desperate and without any narrative, but when I looked where it had been going I saw that at each station there lay some of those seeds Tony had set out, so few you might not notice from afar. It had been feeding itself; where I’d thought gleefully that we had it on the run, the bird’s whole trajectory now seemed deliberate and precise. Mark joined in; Jung pounded against walls to add some noise. We ran out of softcovers after the Bible had gone up; we moved to hardcovers.

  Jung then got dinged in the face with a sharp-edged red cookbook and started crying. He was deceptive, you’d see the tears and think he was some big pussy, but once he started swinging his arms like sledgehammers you knew you’d better run because he just might kick your ass. —Alla you get the fuck out of my house! Tony yelled. He turned off the blabbering television.