Hold Me Down

by Calvin Slater

  “You’re right, Ms. Scott,” Heather relented. “The word is ugly and it shouldn’t be used. I apologize if I offended anyone.”

  The whole scene had played out right behind Xavier. The boy didn’t know what to make of it. But Heather was a very interesting character. She seemed to like living on the edge. Xavier didn’t know what it was, but he was attracted—strangely attracted to the anger inside of her passion. This was going to be a very interesting school year—providing he could finish it without getting himself into more trouble.

  Xavier was headed to his sixth-hour gym period.

  The entire school was still buzzing about the Felix Hoover murder. The brutal killing of the former leader of the Second Street gang had warranted extensive local news coverage. Xavier was sick of seeing footage of the crime scene and hearing crazy rumors and stories.

  He entered the locker room, thoughts of Samantha and Brenda heavy on his mind. How could this crap have happened to him—and on the second day of school too? The thought of losing Samantha was horrifying to him. But the fact that Brenda might have his child in her belly scared the living daylights out of him.

  When the other boys in the locker room saw Xavier they immediately stopped chatting with each other and hurried up to finish getting dressed. It was funny to Xavier to see dudes getting the hell out, some damn near half-dressed and tripping over untied shoestrings. One punk’s gym shorts fell around his ankles but homeboy was still trying to break out. Xavier couldn’t really blame them. He would probably be doing the same thing if a dude came around him who he knew had pissed people off and now was a target for revenge.

  Rounding a set of lockers, Xavier understood clearly why the other students were moving like they had heard somebody yell “Free money!” upstairs in the gym. Unlike yesterday when he’d been angry upon seeing the threat spray-painted on his hall locker, this time he was furious. “Snitches Get Stitches” was spray-painted on his gym locker in the same red paint.

  Xavier kicked and punched the locker so hard that the punishing blows sounded like cannons going off. He cursed, kicked, and punched until the rage faded from his mind.

  Breathing heavily, he dropped and allowed himself to sit on one of many pine-top benches in the locker room. It wasn’t gonna be funny, nor pretty, when he caught up to the clown who was trying his best to not let Xavier’s fellow students forget about him ratting out Romello and the Zulus. But when he did, he would send a powerful message of his own.

  Xavier was seriously tripping, wanting to go upstairs to the gym and force a confession out of someone, when he felt somebody staring at him. Some geeky-looking kid. Standing, peeping out from behind a set of lockers off the main aisleway. Staring through the thick, aquarium-glass-like lenses in the black frames on his face.

  “Can I help you?” Xavier asked in a forceful tone. He halfway expected the guy to turn around and bolt.

  But the boy stepped into plain view. Dude was dark, short, had a high-top fade, and wore jeans and a butterfly-collar shirt. He wore the kind of cheap sneakers that Xavier had seen guys throw water on the soles just so they’d grip the gym floor.

  “Yo,” Xavier said to the boy. “You’re not some crazy, geeky kid, right?”

  The dude looked like he was about to cry over Xavier’s comment.

  Xavier apologized. “Man, I didn’t mean it. Straight up, my bad. It’s been rough the last couple of days.”

  Nerd Boy finally broke his silence, pointing to the spray paint. “Is that your locker?”

  Xavier looked at the locker, smiled, and nodded his head. “Yeah. It’s mine.”

  The dude said, “You know”—he looked around the locker room—“this really isn’t how I pictured my freshman year. The kids pick on me.” He nodded in the direction of Xavier’s locker. “They don’t refer to me as a snitch, but they call me all types of names. Since I’ve been here I’ve been locked inside of lockers, had my face flushed inside a toilet bowl, I’ve had my glasses hidden from me, and I have almost completely forgotten my mother’s real name because of all of the horrible ones she’s been called.”

  Damn. And here Xavier was thinking that he had it bad. His heart went out to the kid. He could feel shortie’s pain.

  Xavier said, “Sit down. What’s your name?”

  Nerd Boy tentatively sat down on the bench, with a nice size gap between them, and removed his backpack. “Simon. Simon Templeton.”

  Figures, Xavier thought.

  “Well, Simon, my name is Xavier Hunter.”

  The young man’s face brightened up like he had just stumbled upon the cure for his sad condition of being chronically bullied.

  “You’re Xavier?!” Simon enthusiastically asked, like Xavier was some kind of rock star.

  “The one and only,” Xavier joked, trying to lighten the mood. “Judging by that look on your face, I’d say you’ve heard of my many heroic exploits, battles, schoolyard scuffles—don’t like to brag about myself.”

  Simon had that look like he wanted to say something but didn’t want to get beat up after saying it.

  Xavier noticed the kid’s struggle. “Go ahead. Speak your mind, homeboy. I can take it.”

  “Heard that you used to be the man, but now everybody’s calling you a snitch.”

  Judging by the way sneaker soles were squeaking at a frantic pace across the gym floor above them, it was safe to say that gym class had started and the boys were on one side running hoops while the girls were on the other, probably playing volleyball. Xavier wasn’t sweating being tardy because he was owed a favor by his gym teacher, Ms. Porter. During Girl Scout cookie season, Xavier had scored the gym teacher a few boxes of thin mints.

  He didn’t see fit to answer Simon. Instead, he said, “Listen, Simon, don’t let anybody bully you. Use your head and fight back.”

  Simon’s face held the look of defeat. The freshman was about to answer before he was cruelly interrupted.

  “There’s my little Simon Templeton,” said some almond-toned dude with extremely nappy locks. The brother was about average height but he had a thick build. Not the body one would get from going hard in the weight room but the frame created by clocking mad hours getting his grub on in the dining section at a local burger joint.

  Nappy Locks ignored Xavier and said to Simon, “You know your pockets pay for my lunch. Didn’t see you in the lunchroom and I had to go hungry. Little busta, you know how I hate to go hungry. So now you owe me about a month’s worth of lunches.”

  Nappy Locks looked to be a fresh face around Coleman. Xavier had never seen him around. He knew all of his fellow students by name or face. He sat there simply amused. He couldn’t believe his eyes. His new friend Simon was being bullied right in front of him.

  The bully said, “And if you miss buying my lunch again”—he shoved a fist into Simon’s grill—“you’re going to get a taste of it.”

  How corny, Xavier thought, continuing to smile at Nappy Locks’s antics.

  Simon looked like he was about to cry. He was trembling in fear. “I’m sorry. It’ll never happen—”

  The bully said coldly, “Zip it.” Nappy Locks looked at Xavier like he was a punk. Then he said to Simon, “Can’t nobody help you. You’re my own personal ATM”—the jerk balled his fist up again and shoved it into Simon’s nose—“and this is the pin number.”

  Xavier had had enough. “Hey. What did you say your name was?”

  The guy turned on Xavier. “You don’t need to know my name, fam. I don’t know you, so just keep it like that. Just sit there and shut up until I get through handling my business. I’ll get to you in a second.”

  “Homeboy,” Xavier said, not even bothering to rise from his seated position, “I hate bullies. Even worse, I hate a bully with nappy dreadlocks who’s too broke to get ’em done.”

  “Is that right?”

  Xavier continued, “Because if you knew me, you’d know better than try to jack poor Simon right in front of me.”

  Nappy Locks raised his
arms up like he wanted to do something. “So what you wanna do, huh?” The spray paint on Xavier’s locker must’ve triggered something inside of his head. He turned his body fully in Xavier’s direction, taking steps toward him on the sly. “Snap. I know you—you’re the one everybody’s calling a snitch around Coleman . . .”

  Xavier’s blood pressure was through the roof right now, but amazingly, he kept himself composed.

  “Heard you ratted on your boy,” Nappy Locks said, pointing, trying his best to inch closer.

  Xavier wasn’t born yesterday. He knew the punk’s game plan. Dude was trying to get close enough so that he could start swinging. Xavier just sat there, a sinister smile on his face, allowing the bully to come within striking distance.

  The bully said, still inching forward, “You know what—I’m about to show you what I do—”

  That was about as far as he got before Xavier unleashed a serious right jab to the bully’s stomach.

  Dude’s eyes swelled to the size of dinner plates; his breath escaped his mouth sounding like a balloon suddenly deflating. Xavier popped up from the bench and drove the knuckles on his right hand into his opponent’s lips.

  Blood spurted.

  The bully was dazed and out on his feet.

  Simon was still trembling, but there was a little smile of satisfaction on his grill.

  Once Xavier felt he had the bully restrained, he laughed, breathing heavily. “Look at you.” He took a breath. “What’s your name, homeboy?”

  “R-R-Rudy,” the boy said, struggling, gasping for air.

  Simon stepped in and said, “Rudolph. His name is Rudolph Jamerson.”

  This crap couldn’t get any better. Here was one punk with a nerdy name trying to lay the strong-arm game down on a geek who had an even nerdier name. It just couldn’t get more comical than this.

  Xavier looked over his left shoulder. “Simon, come here.”

  Simon was shy at first until Xavier yelled at him to come now.

  Xavier ordered Simon, “Make a fist.”

  Simon timidly balled up his fist.

  “Homeboy, I’m gonna need you to ball that fist up tight.”

  Simon did as he was told.

  Rudy struggled, asking Xavier, “What you gonna do?”

  Xavier looked at Simon. “With that fist, punch this piece of crap in the face.”

  Simon pleadingly looked at Xavier, because Lord knew he didn’t want to punch Rudy. But he had no other choice. He’d rather do as he was told than go against Xavier. So he lined up his fists and swung—connecting.

  “Ouch, man!” Rudy yelled out, as if trying to sell the pain of the wimpy blow.

  The weak shot drew laughter from Xavier. “Shut up, punk. You know that didn’t hurt.”

  It was the funniest thing to see. Xavier looked like a mother eagle, trying to teach one of her chicks to fly by dropping it out of the nest. But this wasn’t a nest. It was Coleman High. One of the rowdiest schools inside the Detroit city limits, a place where you stood up for your rights or surrendered your manhood.

  Xavier looked at Simon. “Okay, homeboy, stand back.” He turned back to Rudy. “By the way, cuz, my name is Xavier Hunter.”

  Rudy pleaded, “Xavier, man, I’m sorry. I’ll never say anything to Simon again.”

  Xavier’s smile was sinister. “You damn right.”

  Xavier then pulled Simon aside. “Simon, I need you to go and get Doug and tell him this guy tried to attack you. Tell him the truth. And next time something like this happens, get Doug—he’s gonna be the one who can really help you. Aight?”

  After school Xavier walked six blocks to the parking lot of a shabby-looking two-story office building named The Hilltop. He hated the place. The hallways were dim, the carpets smelled musty, and three-quarters of the offices were vacant. But for the next year he would have to come here and check in every three months with his probation officer. He was supposed to go yesterday but because of all the drama that went down with Samantha, he was here today instead.

  Xavier took one of the shadowy stairwells up to the second floor, with Samantha heavy on his mind. He couldn’t believe the situation he’d gotten himself into. And on top of potentially losing the best thing that ever happened to him, there was a small possibility that he might be a baby daddy. To say nothing about the fire and brimstone sermon he’d surely get from his holier-than-thou old man. If Brenda was telling the truth about the baby, Noah would be the last person Xavier told. This was definitely not the life that a student with a 4.0 GPA was supposed to be living.

  His probation officer, Oliver Meyer, was a fat slob, wearing a striped button-down shirt with the sleeves pulled up over his hairy forearms. He sat his heavy, hairy body behind the small desk in his cluttered, cramped office. Xavier didn’t think the mountain of a man had legs, this being the second time he’d been there and had yet to see homeboy walk around the desk.

  Xavier took a seat on a wobbly wooden chair in front of Oliver’s desk.

  The man was buried behind a stack of paperwork. Oliver didn’t even look up when he asked in a dry, impersonal tone, “Name?”

  “Xavier Hunter.”

  “Are you selling or doing drugs?”

  “No.”

  “Any weapons on you?”

  “No.”

  “Have you taken part in any crime within the last twenty-four hours?”

  “No.”

  “I have the right to test you for any substance abuse and if you’re in violation, you have violated probation and therefore will be forced to serve out the remainder of your sentence in a juvenile detention center. Do you understand these things?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Your next appointment with me is”—the man peered at a calendar on his desk without looking up—“November twenty-fifth. Failure to appear constitutes a violation and you would be forced to serve out the remainder of your sentence in a juvenile detention center. Do you understand these things?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Have a good day, Mr. Hunter.”

  Xavier got up from the chair and left.

  3

  SATURDAY, AUGUST 30

  6:33 P.M.

  Xavier had caught the bus over to his friend and mentor’s crib. Billy Hawkins was ailing from a bad cold and Xavier rolled through to show the old dog some love.

  As usual, Billy’s front door was unlocked. Xavier entered, carrying in a recyclable grocery bag. Billy was in the living room laid out on his old mangy sofa underneath a blanket. A humidifier hummed softly on a badly worn coffee table while Billy watched an ancient black-and-white movie on a twenty-seven-inch flat screen television perched atop an old, busted prehistoric floor model color television.

  “Got you some chicken noodle soup, old guy,” Xavier teased.

  “Thank you, young’un,” said Billy.

  Xavier took the bag into the kitchen and then walked back to the front door and locked it. He stood in front of the television to playfully block Billy’s view of the movie.

  “Get your LL Cool J–looking behind from up front of the TV, you young punk,” snapped Billy, sounding like his nasal passages were completely blocked.

  “Geesh, you look and sound terrible,” acknowledged Xavier.

  Billy didn’t deny it. He did look miserable. There was a small piece of tissue paper sticking out of his left nostril and his eyes were watery, red, and swollen. The bags underneath them were huge. Billy’s sinuses were so plugged up that he sounded like he was talking through his nose.

  “I told you don’t be playing with me when there is a good World War Two movie on.” He coughed violently.

  Xavier laughed off the threat. “Uh-huh, that’s what you get. What I tell you about leaving the door unlocked in this neighborhood? You’re going senile or sump’n, geezer?”

  “Look who’s talking. The way you sound, one would think that you’ve lived a pampered, privileged life, youngster. Don’t forget that your little raggedly self lived next door on my prop
erty almost a year ago—now you dissin’ the neighborhood.”

  “Dissing?” Xavier said, making fun of Billy’s efforts to be hip. “You better stop getting slang words from watching Bow Wow and that nice-looking, breezy Keshia Chanté on BET’s 106 & Park.”

  “Whatever, you little trouser worm. All I know is that any nappy-headed boy walks up in here on me”—Billy reached underneath the sofa cushions and removed a Rambo blade—“Obama health care ain’t gonna be able to help ’im.” He sneezed violently, blowing the small piece of tissue paper out of his nostril and onto his lap.

  Xavier handed him the box of Kleenex that sat by the humidifier. “That’s nasty. You’re a nasty old man.”

  Billy jokingly pretended to run the blade over his throat from ear to ear. “This old man is gonna gut you, you little punk, if you don’t move your stump from in front of the television, youngster.”

  Xavier cautiously took a seat on the beat-up armchair next to the sofa that looked like Billy had gone Dumpster-diving for it. “Old man, if I get bedbugs on my clothes I’m burning this dump to the ground.”

  Billy laughed and blew his nose. “So, you finally came by to visit the old war veteran?”

  Xavier didn’t say anything. Just had an odd look on his face.

  Billy read him like a book. “All right, youngster, out with it.”

  Xavier exhaled to relieve the ceiling of stress that felt like it was due to come down on his head at any moment. “This girl named Brenda Sanders is claiming to be pregnant by me.”

  “What happened? The condom break?”

  Xavier dropped his head.

  Billy said, “You little irresponsible twit. Do you know if it’s yours?”

  “The chick has a little bit of a reputation. She’s had a few partners.”

  Billy couldn’t do anything but laugh.

  Xavier was offended. “Have you lost your mind, team geezer? This junk ain’t funny.”

  Billy’s laughter melted into just a smile. “Not laughing at you, youngster. The old man has gotten into some trouble himself. You know that little young gal that I let you speak to over the phone eight months ago?”