Hoodie

by S. Walden

  “What? How you gonna be laughin’ that somebody stole my bike?” Anton asked, his face filled with mock incredulity.

  “I’m so sorry,” Emma said between giggles.

  “That little punk finally took it back,” Anton said to himself as the realization dawned.

  “What?” Emma asked.

  Anton shook his head then hung it shamefully.

  “I stole that thing. It wasn’t even mine to begin with.”

  “You stole someone’s bike?” Emma asked.

  “It’s not like it was even a good bike. If you’d of seen it, you’d understand.”

  “Is this something you do a lot? Steal people’s things?”

  “Take it easy. It was some punkass bitch who was talkin’ shit about me and my friends and how we was losers for not havin’ no ride. Like he had a ride. Shit. Rollin’ around on that piece of shit, fallin’ apart, handles broken, chain-draggin’-on-the-ground bike. So I took him out then took his bike. That shut him up.”

  Emma looked nonplussed. “Why did you steal it if it’s so bad?”

  “To make a point.” Anton continued to look in the direction of the bike rack. He was afraid to look at Emma. He had no idea why he revealed that incident to her. Now he was afraid that the hard won politeness and even mild flirtation between them would completely disappear and never return.

  He finally turned to look at her. She was walking towards the parking lot.

  “Hey!” he called after her. “Where you goin’? Can I get a ride?”

  “I don’t think so,” she called back, and he saw the hint of a smile on her face.

  “Oh okay. I see how it is. You gonna teach me some lesson about consequences or some shit. Yeah, okay. Well, it ain’t even a big deal. I just live right around the corner. Five-minute walk tops. Yeah, go on and get in yo’ car. Ignore what I’m sayin’.”

  He watched her wave to him as she pulled out of the parking lot and thought for a split second that he’d like to pin her up against the lockers again. He shook his head and started his six-mile walk home.

  CHAPTER 3

  SATURDAY, APRIL 17

  “Hey, you busy?” Anton said into the phone, lying sprawled out on his bed. It was eleven on Saturday morning, and he had just woken up.

  “Who’s this?” came a voice on the other end of the line.

  “Girl, you know who this is. It’s Anton.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know an Anton,” was the reply.

  Confused, Anton pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at the screen. He cross-referenced the number he dialed to the number on the piece of paper Emma had given him. The numbers matched. It was then that he heard a stifled giggle.

  “Oh, you funny,” he said, his heartbeat quickening.

  “I’m just messin’,” Emma said. “What are you up to?”

  “I’m callin’ to ax you about gettin’ together today,” Anton replied. “You busy?”

  “Not at all,” she said. She, too, was in bed but not because she had just woken up. She had gone for a long run in the early morning hours, had come home to shower, then crawled back into bed once the deliciously languid feeling of complete exhaustion overtook her body.

  “So how you wanna do this?” Anton asked.

  “Well, that’s a good question. I guess the first thing is learning about each other’s cultures,” Emma said. “But how do we do that?”

  “I don’t know. I guess maybe we gotta hang around each other?” Anton offered.

  “Hmm. I guess,” Emma said thoughtfully.

  “Well don’t sound too excited about it,” Anton replied laughing.

  “Sorry. I was just thinking,” Emma said. “Do you want to meet at the library?”

  “For what?”

  “To work.”

  “How we gonna learn about each other at a library?” Anton asked.

  “Yeah, I suppose you’re right,” Emma said. “You wanna come over here?”

  “To yo’ house? Please. I’d get arrested.”

  Emma laughed.

  “You come over here,” Anton decided. He was unsure, but he figured that eventually she would see where he lived anyway.

  “To your house?” Emma asked doubtfully.

  “Don’t worry. Ain’t nobody gonna try to sell you drugs or nothin’. Least I don’t think so.”

  “I’m not sure,” Emma said.

  “What you mean? You offered me a ride home the other day?” Anton reminded her.

  “Yeah. I was just being polite,” Emma admitted.

  “Girl, you killin’ me. Look, we gonna do this thing or not? Sixty percent of our grade, remember?”

  “I know.”

  There was a brief pause.

  “My mama gonna be here. Do that make you feel better?” he asked.

  He waited, imagining that he could hear the thoughts running wildly about in her head. She was scared, he knew, and he didn’t know what bothered him more: the fact that she was scared of where he lived or the fact that he was scared of actually showing her where he lived. He constantly felt trapped between feelings of loyalty to his neighborhood and feelings of embarrassment. He wondered if other black people felt the same way, and if that was just a condition of living in the ghetto. He was jolted out of his contemplation by the sound of her voice.

  “What’s your address?”

  ***

  He sat out on his front stoop watching for her. He thought that she should have been there by now and wondered if she changed her mind. He looked at his surroundings and snorted. She had no idea what she was about to learn, he thought.

  After hanging up with her earlier, he went outside to clean up the trash littered about his duplex. It wasn’t his or his mama’s. She always complained about the trash, but they lived beside the worst tenants imaginable, and nothing was ever done about it. Beer bottles, burger wrappers and napkins from fast food restaurants, even used condoms were strewn everywhere. He wouldn’t touch the condoms, but he still wanted them out of sight. It was embarrassing enough having her see the actual buildings of his housing project without them being decorated with used contraceptives. Well, at least they’re practicing safe sex, he thought amused.

  He found latex gloves in the house and armed himself for the work ahead. His mother watched him from the living room window walking about slowly and methodically, picking up trash, collecting it in a plastic bag. He kicked at the ground to push dirt and leaves over the condoms. She smiled to herself even as her heart tightened. I’m getting us outta here, baby, she thought. And she was. She was going to school to be a nurse and was a few months away from graduation. She worked constantly—often the night shifts at the local hospital—and when she wasn’t working she was studying. It took her many years to get to where she was, but she did it, and she was almost finished. They were almost out.

  He came in after awhile and saw his mother at the sink. She was washing dishes. She turned to him and smiled.

  “I dusted a little,” she said. “You wanna run that vacuum through right quick?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You make your bed? Put your clothes away? I’m always yellin’ at you ‘bout them clothes,” she said. She placed the remaining dishes in the draining rack and scrubbed down the counter tops.

  “Yeah, Mama.”

  They finished the chores in silence then Anton went back outside to wait for Emma.

  She was already fifteen minutes late. He didn’t know if he felt angry that she wasn’t there or relieved. When he saw her pull up, his heart dropped. He wished for a moment that she had never come. But it was too late now. He stood up and walked towards her car, trying for casualness even as his nerves jumped.

  “I’m so sorry,” Emma said exiting her car. She looked frazzled. “I got lost.”

  She slammed the car door in frustration and looked at him.

  “Freakin’ GPS, right? I’m all over No Man’s Land. It’s taking me down roads that don’t exist! What the hell?”

  Al
l of the tension he felt vanished immediately. He expected her to get out of her car with a frightened look on her face. He expected her to look at his house and then look at him with pity in her eyes. He expected that she would try too hard to act like she wasn’t feeling awkward being in a neighborhood so clearly foreign to her. But she did none of those things. In that moment, he was glad that her GPS malfunctioned.

  “Come on. My mama inside. She wanna meet you before she gotta go to class,” Anton said.

  Emma followed him up the stairs to his apartment and was greeted by a short, stout woman. She wore her hair cropped and accessorized her earlobes with large oval hoops. When she smiled, the tops of her cheeks nearly hid her eyes, eyes that sparkled with friendliness.

  “I’m Ms. Robinson,” she said, extending her hand.

  “Nice to meet you. I’m Emma, Anton’s classmate,” Emma replied politely, shaking Ms. Robinson’s hand. She was expecting someone much taller, tall like Anton, but apparently he inherited his height from his father.

  “I’m so sorry I’m late,” Emma continued. “I’m never late for anything.”

  “That’s alright,” Ms. Robinson said. “Would you like something to drink? Iced tea?”

  “Yes, thank you,” Emma replied.

  She looked around the living room. It was clean and orderly with yellow slip-covered furniture and an old boxy Magnavox television. She had never seen a television like that in someone’s house. On old T.V. shows, yes, but not in someone’s house. She thought of her own flat screen television opposite her bed and blushed. She hoped Anton could not see.

  The kitchen was just off of the living room, large enough for a small table and chairs. There was no dining room, she noticed. A short hallway led to what she thought were two bedrooms and a bathroom. The whole apartment couldn’t have been more than 900 square feet. That was the size of her garage, she thought shamefully.

  “You wanna sit down?” Anton asked, noticing her looking around. He didn’t want to know what she was thinking. He already had a pretty good idea anyway.

  “Yeah, thanks,” she answered making her way to the couch. She sat down next to an end table overflowing with framed pictures. She picked one up.

  “Is this little Anton?” she asked grinning at him.

  “Girl, put that down. Mama, why you gotta have those pictures out all the time? They embarrassin’!” he called to his mother who was in the kitchen pouring three glasses of iced tea.

  “Oh hush,” she called back. “You were a cute baby.”

  “You were,” Emma agreed, studying the rest of the pictures.

  Anton blushed as he sat down in a chair across from her.

  “So what happened?” she asked playfully.

  “Oh, you funny.” He turned to look at his mother in the kitchen. She was getting something out of the refrigerator and probably would not hear him if he spoke softly.

  “Please girl, you know I’m fly. I can’t help you wanna stare at me all the time.”

  Now Emma blushed. She fingered the picture frames for something to do until his mother returned to the living room with a tray of sandwiches and iced tea. She placed the tray on the coffee table and sat down next to Emma on the couch.

  “I don’t know how long you’ll be here today, Emma,” she said handing her a glass of tea. “So I made some sandwiches for you and Anton. If you anything like me, you get hungry doing school work.”

  “I do,” Emma replied. “And thank you.”

  “Mama goin’ to school to be a nurse,” Anton said. There was a note of pride in his voice. “She almost finished, right?”

  “Yep,” his mother replied. “And thank goodness. I’m so tired of working all the time and goin’ to school. It wear me out.”

  “Speakin’ of workin’,” Anton said. “I got a job.”

  “You did? Where?” his mother asked. And then she added more excitedly, “You get that UPS job?”

  “You know it,” he replied. He flashed a huge smile and did a little upper body dance with his head and shoulders. “I’m’ll be loadin’ them boxes all day long.”

  “Baby, I’m so proud of you,” Ms. Robinson said. “But I don’t want you workin’ too much. You still got school, even after you graduate.”

  “I know, Mama,” Anton said.

  “Do you have a job, Emma?” Ms. Robinson asked.

  “I lifeguard during the summer,” Emma replied. “My parents won’t let me work during the school year.”

  “Well, they want you to focus on your grades,” Ms. Robinson said. “And that’s the most important thing when you in school.”

  Emma smiled and took a sip of her iced tea. It was deliciously sweet. She fell into an easy conversation with his mother, Anton interjecting with comments here and there, all the while stealing glances in his direction from time to time. She wanted to judge for herself how “fly” he thought he was. And she realized that he was not joking.

  He was tall—at least six feet four inches, she judged—with long legs and large hands. She thought that he could fold her hand in his completely, making it disappear from sight. He was lean and muscular and had the silkiest, most perfect dark skin she had ever seen. It surprised her. Shouldn’t he be dealing with acne like every other senior at their school, she thought? Perhaps he had gotten over that earlier in his life.

  She couldn’t help but notice his lips. They were plump with a faint pinkish hue—very kissable she thought then quickly disregarded it. His lips were fascinating, but his eyes were captivating. She had never seen eyes that color and didn’t quite know how to describe them. They looked like honey—a dark, rich honey near his pupils and a lighter amber color around the edges. She was scared to let him look at her with those eyes believing he could draw out her secrets with them against her will.

  Ms. Robinson was commenting on Anton’s shorts when she came out of her musing.

  “Baby, I told you time and again to pull up those shorts. I don’t understand why you boys walk around all the time lookin’ like you gotta load in your pants.”

  Anton had taken his empty glass to the kitchen.

  “Mama, what you want me to tell you? It’s the style,” he said.

  “Whose style?” she asked.

  Anton ignored her.

  “Emma, it was so good to meet you, and I do wish I could stay longer, but I’ve got class,” Ms. Robinson said.

  “No, I understand. It was nice meeting you, too,” Emma replied. And she meant it. She wasn’t sure what to expect before meeting Anton’s mother, but she found that she liked her immediately. Ms. Robinson was warm and funny and comfortable.

  Anton’s mother collected her bags at the front door and kissed her son goodbye. She turned to Emma once more and said, “I’m sure I’ll be seein’ you again.”

  When she left, Emma looked at Anton who was still standing in the kitchen.

  “Your mother is so nice,” she said.

  “I know it,” he replied. “My mama’s the best in the world.”

  “You know, I think you may be right about that,” Emma said in all sincerity, and he found it a peculiar statement.

  “So tell me what you really think of this place,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Girl, please. I know where you live. This apartment prolly the size of yo’ bedroom,” he said.

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “Nothing. Forget it. I ain’t tryin’ to make you feel uncomfortable. Come on. I’ll give you the grand tour.”

  She followed him down the hallway and poked her head inside when he pointed out his mother’s room. She noticed a lot of lavender. Directly across from his mother’s room was his bedroom, and he opened the door for her to go in. She hesitated at the threshold.

  “What? Nothin’ gonna jump out and bite you,” he said.

  When she still didn’t move, he asked, “You never been in a boy’s room before?”

  “Actually no, I haven’t,” she replied.

  “Yo
u think you ‘bout to do somethin’ wrong walkin’ into my bedroom, huh? Yo’ mama and daddy teach you never to go in a boy’s room, didn’t they?” He looked down at her shiny hair and knew he was absolutely right.

  She ignored him, raising her head in defiance, and walked inside. It looked like a typical boy’s room. He had several posters of rap artists on the wall. She thought she recognized one of them. His clumsily-made bed had a dark blue duvet cover on it. She could see a hint of plaid sheets underneath. There was no headboard and footboard. She didn’t know why she thought that was odd. A desk beside the bed held stacks of CD’s and books along with disorganized papers and a few pictures. A chest of drawers opposite the desk was piled high with paraphernalia as well. She was curious to go through it.

  “Well, this is it,” he said.

  She stood in the middle of the room looking around. It was then that she noticed several piles of books stacked in the corner—so many books, in fact, that it put her small collection to shame. She wasn’t prepared to see something like that in his bedroom and heard herself address him a bit snobbishly.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve actually read all those,” she said pointing to the teetering piles.

  “Why you think I haven’t?” he asked. “You think I can’t read or somethin’?”

  “I didn’t say you couldn’t read,” she replied. She walked over to the books and picked up a worn copy of Huckleberry Finn. She laughed and showed Anton.

  “Why you think that’s so funny? Ain’t nothin’ wrong with bein’ well read,” he argued. “And anyway, that shit is good.”

  Emma replaced the book and picked up another. “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?” she asked.

  “Girl, just read that book and you ain’t never want to do no hard drugs ever,” Anton replied. “You can borrow it.”

  Emma nodded and searched for another book.

  “You think cause I’m black I don’t read. Or maybe you think I only read black shit like A Raisin in the Sun. Girl, I’ve out-read you a hundred times over. I read everything. Like Frankenstein,” Anton said pointing to the book in Emma’s hand.