Alfonso wanted to know, “Are you wearing your suit to church?”
Until now Xavier hadn’t thought about it. His devil horns and tail started to show. It would seriously piss Noah the hell off if Xavier came out to the car at the last minute dressed in jeans. But he had to hide his clothing first so that after church Noah wouldn’t arrive back home on a mission to seek and destroy.
Today, Xavier was getting ready to wage a large-scale holy war against his father.
5
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3
11:00 A.M.
Xavier was at his hall locker, putting away his lab biology textbook and getting ready for lunch when his potential baby mama rolled up on him.
“What’s up with you wanting a paternity test on my baby? Ninja, you know damn well that this baby is yours, so I don’t want to hear none of that garbage, boo-boo.”
Xavier was sleepy and cranky. “Don’t come in my face popping off. I don’t feel like hearing anything from you today, you feel me?”
Monday night, Xavier had waited until his dad went to sleep after one a.m. and spent a couple of hours hauling his clothing into the upper bedroom of a vacant bungalow four doors down. It was risky but he had no choice. Noah had gone haywire Sunday morning before church and couldn’t be trusted with Xavier’s clothing. He’d made sure that no one saw him. Xavier had taken extra security measures by nailing up the front and side doors. In Noah’s toolbox Xavier had found a couple of huge padlocks. He used those on the bedroom and back door of the vacant bungalow. This morning Noah had asked Xavier about his missing clothes. Xavier never replied, but instead he walked out of the house.
The black ty-zillion braids, featuring red highlights, complemented Brenda Sanders’s soft brown skin. “Don’t try to play me, Xavier. I’ll give you trouble if you don’t take your responsibilities seriously, boo-boo.”
Xavier shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. “Not right now, Brenda. I can’t do this with you right now. Look at all the students looking at you.”
Brenda yelled, “I can give a good damn about the students in this hallway. My baby needs a father! You better not try to pull that deadbeat dad crap on me!”
Xavier closed his locker and made an attempt to walk off.
But Brenda was all up in Xavier’s stuff, playing for the crowd of students walking the hallways.
She walked behind him, saying, “Don’t be actin’ like you don’t hear me, baby daddy. You’re not gonna be like my other worthless baby daddy. Child support will straighten you out.”
Xavier kept walking, trying to get away from her.
“Baby daddy, you hear me? Don’t walk away from me,” Brenda said at his back. “I hope it’s a boy. I’m gonna name him Xavier Hunter Jr.”
There was no use in saying anything to Brenda. Xavier didn’t feel like throwing gasoline on an already hot fire.
Brenda got the last word. “You walk away then, fool! Do what you do best, sucka. But once it’s all said and done you will be on your knees begging for my forgiveness, sucka!”
Xavier was sitting at his favorite table in the back corner of the cafeteria, but he wasn’t alone. The Coleman High Wolverines’ sophomore sensation, starting middle-linebacker Calvin “Bigstick” Mack, was chilling to Xavier’s left. The boy rocked a baldy and was the color of toffee. At six-foot-six, weighing in at nearly three hundred pounds, Bigstick’s body was a freak of nature, muscles on top of muscles.
Directly to Xavier’s right—his new nerdy buddy, Simon Templeton. Xavier had felt sorry for the kid, and let him hang out so everybody could see who Simon was rolling with and wouldn’t mess with him.
Students broke into laughter as Dex entered the lunchroom. His outrageous outfit was attracting lots of attention as he walked through the crowded cafeteria toward Xavier.
Xavier started in on Dexter as soon as he saw him. “Man, what the hell do you have on this time?”
Dexter didn’t answer right away. He seemed to allow some time to go by, sucking up the attention. The boy stared down at his outfit like everybody around was sucking his socks. “Sweet, ain’t it?” Dex bragged, pretending like his right hand was a hand broom sweeping away imaginary dust from the left sleeve of a polka-dot, double-breasted capri-pants suit. No socks. Black hard-sole shoes, trousers stopping mid-shin. The sleeves of the jacket stopping inches from the wrists.
Xavier peeped the attention Dex was getting. “Homeboy, the colorful Kanye West clothes you were sportin’ last week think you’re wrong for wearing stuff out of Dwayne Wade’s closet.”
Bigstick spoke in his deep, bass voice. “Fam, you better be glad you ain’t in the penitentiary with that outfit on.”
Everybody around was cracking up laughing.
Even nerdy, soft-spoken Simon got in on the clowning session. “Like I needed to see all of that while I’m grubbing.” He pushed the banana pudding cup away with disgust.
Dex cracked on Simon. “Freshman, you’re new to the table. You won’t even have a voice until your sophomore year, so zip it, punk.”
“Don’t hate on Simon, Dex,” Xavier said, barely able to maintain his composure. “You’re the one steppin’ up in here looking like the gay version of Captain Crunch.”
Some dude named Andy Hudson, sitting with friends two tables away, heard Xavier’s comment and responded. “So, Xavier, what are you trying to say? I’m gay and proud of it. But even I wouldn’t be caught dead in that getup.”
It seemed like the entire lunchroom crowd rocked the roof with laughter on that one.
The joke didn’t faze Dex the least bit.
“Y’all fools just don’t know what the style is these days,” Dex said. “In my sophomore year I had my gangsta swag on beast mode, you feel me? This year I make my own rules, a trendsetter, you dig? This style of dress is catching on, got some of the hottest NBA players rocking it. Watch. By homecoming I’m gonna have a lot of you fools trying to dress like me.”
Xavier said just five words to Dex—“Sit your happy butt down.”
Dex sat across the table from Xavier. “Have any of you fools peeped this?” He struggled to get his hand into his tight pants pocket. When Dex finally pulled a folded-up flyer out of his pocket, he was winded.
Bigstick cracked on Dex. “Fam, you gotta get in shape if you gonna wear pants like those.”
Dexter ignored Bigstick, and with his thumb and middle finger, he flicked the folded flyer across the table to Xavier.
Xavier unfolded and read it. “Where’d you get this from?”
“Alice Walker. Felix Hoover’s cousin was passing them out in the south lobby this morning.”
Bigstick said, “The flyer is advertising a memorial party for Hoover this Friday night at the State Theater, after his noon funeral service.”
Xavier shook his head. “That’s still messed up about Felix, man. I can’t believe the homeboy is gone. Nobody knows what happened?”
Dex said, “Whoever murked out Felix is keeping it on the hush-hush.”
“Which is leaving room for these clowns around here to speculate,” said Bigstick. “Everybody and their mama—from Zulu, Dutch Westwood, Dylan Dallas, even some members of Hoover’s own crew, on down to the janitors—are rumored to have had fam erased.”
Xavier had his own theory about who was responsible. But he couldn’t be sure. Living the life that Felix had chosen did come with its fair share of enemies. Could’ve been any number of scumbags.
Dex asked Xavier, “Let me holler at you out in the hallway, homeboy. I got something personal I want to talk to you about.”
“No doubt,” said Xavier.
On the way out they ran into Big Ray Taylor and Clyde McElroy, the two senior captains of the football team, and the ones who were responsible for assembling the team behind Felix Hoover’s Second Street crew that had rescued Xavier from Dutch Westwood and Dylan Dallas’s Straight Eight gang that day in the parking lot.
Clyde was meaner than a honey badger and sha
red the same physique as a muscle-bound King Kong on steroids.
Big Ray Taylor was a Goliath at left tackle. The boy also flossed a hilarious sense of humor. He burst out laughing at Dex’s outfit. He said to Xavier, “X, I didn’t know you rolled in the same circles as Russell Westbrook.”
Clyde McElroy was laughing his butt off. “Don’t pay no attention to this fool, Dex,” he said.
Dex insisted, “Y’all will see—this look is gonna be popular up here at Coleman. Skip y’all lames.”
Ray Taylor asked Xavier, “You going to Hoover’s funeral and that thing at the State Theater they’re having for him?”
“I’m there—doing both of ’em. Felix was my dude. He straight had my back, you feel me?”
Big Ray Taylor gave Xavier five. “You know I feel you. He kept it real with me too. Me and McElroy made it mandatory for the entire football team to show up in support of the homie Felix Hoover one last time.”
Dex butted in, “How’s that golden-boy quarterback of yours, Harvey Wellington, doing since he’s been sober? I see the last two games that boy threw for more than five hundred yards.”
Ray Taylor answered, “Harvey’s taking it one day at a time, little homie. Thanks for asking, though.”
Xavier and Dex were about to step off when Ray Taylor said, “X, like I told you in the bathroom that day when we were about to take it to Dylan Dallas and his goons: I got your back.”
Xavier put his left fist up to his heart to show the love. “Thanks, big homie.”
On his way out the door Xavier bumped into Heather Larkin, who sat behind him in English. She smiled at him and he politely smiled back but kept it moving. There was something about the girl. He just couldn’t put a finger on it though.
Outside in the hallway, Dex put Xavier up on game.
“Y’all distracted me with jokes. But I knew it was something I forgot to tell you. Don’t know how to say this, but I’m just gonna come on out with it.”
“Cut the crap and bring it to me straight.”
Dex looked away for a second, like he was collecting his thoughts. And then he blew Xavier’s wig back. “I just saw Samantha out in the back parking lot with that kid Sean Desmond.”
“Sean Desmond as in Calvary High’s former all-American baseball shortstop, now a senior at the University of Michigan and the hottest thing going in the college ranks, Sean Desmond?”
“We still talking about the same cat, X.”
“What is she doing with him?”
Dex shook his head. “Don’t know. But from the looks of it, homeboy seemed like he was dropping her off in a brand-new Corvette.”
Xavier was a master at hiding his emotions from people, but he couldn’t lie to himself. The searing flames of jealousy he was feeling couldn’t be contained. They swiftly spread like wildfire inside of his soul and burned with a smoldering intensity.
Before Dex knew it, Xavier stormed off down the hallway.
“Come on, X,” Dex pleaded, following behind Xavier. Dexter knew damn well where this was going. He just hoped that Sean Desmond had already vacated the scene.
All the way out of the school, Dexter begged Xavier to chill out.
The temperatures outside weren’t bad for a fall day. Mild. Slight breeze. Cars all over the parking lot. Some students were outside mingling, and Sean Desmond was leaning against the right front fender of a shiny red Corvette Stingray, talking to Samantha with a smirk on his face.
Xavier walked right up and started in. “What the hell is this mess?” he asked Samantha, pointing at Sean.
Sean stood erect and tried to boss up. “First of all, check yourself, dude! My name is Sean Desmond. Soon to be one of the highest paid major league baseball players in the country.” Sean was average height, but was built. Pretty-boy looks, curly hair, light skin, and carried himself in a dignified manner.
At this point words were useless. Xavier went to swing on ol’ boy and would’ve solidly connected if Dex hadn’t grabbed his arm.
Sean stood tall. Didn’t even flinch. Just tauntingly laughed at Xavier.
“Xavier!” Samantha screamed, pushing her ex-boyfriend away. “Excuse me, but you should be out shopping with your little hood rat for baby clothes, shouldn’t you?”
“Baby,” Sean said to Samantha as he opened the door of his car. “You deal with this”—he waved disrespectfully in Xavier’s direction—“and give me a call when your little Get Rich or Die Tryin’ friend over there learns his place.”
Xavier went off but Dex grabbed him up again.
“Don’t make me use one of your baseball bats against you,” Xavier said, trying to break loose, as Sean started up his car.
Sean mashed down on the accelerator, loudly revving the engine to drown out Xavier’s voice. He powered down the passenger window of the car.
“Yeah yeah yeah.” Sean mocked Xavier. He looked at Samantha, winked, and stopped revving the engine long enough to say, “Samantha, your parents are rich and soon I will be too. When you stop slumming, call me and we can eat things and go to places that boyfriend over there couldn’t begin to pronounce or afford.” He then peeled backwards out of the parking space and burned rubber down the asphalt.
“Punk—” was all Xavier could get out before breaking away from Dexter, spotting and grabbing a chunk of cement and hurling it at the car, barely missing the rear end of the Corvette.
Samantha was pissed. “Do I have to get a restraining order on you?”
Xavier ignored her question by asking one of his own. “Sam, where did homeboy come from?”
“Not that it’s any of your business. Sean Desmond is just a friend.” She stepped right into his face. “I suggest you take care of yours and not become another deadbeat dad.” Samantha headed back toward the building without saying another word.
Xavier walked off by himself in the other direction, pissed. There was no competing with Sean Desmond, and he knew it.
Where’d this fool come from all of a sudden? Xavier thought. It was just one more problem for him to deal with.
Ms. Scott was explaining the homework when the bell rang. The rustling sound of the kids collecting their belongings caused the English teacher to raise her voice.
“Remember, your first paper is an opinion paper and it is due this Friday. And please, don’t forget to bring in your copy of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. We will begin our reading this coming Monday. Until tomorrow, everybody be safe.”
Xavier was still heated. Less than an hour ago he’d lost his manhood. Never before had he been pulled out of his square like that. Wanting to hurt a man over a woman. But his ego was more than bruised and he was looking for something—anything—to let him know that he was still a warrior.
Heather couldn’t have timed her approach any better. She walked out behind him.
“You look like you could use a friend, Hunter,” Heather said. She was carrying her English books and was all decked out in a green top, gray skirt with green square patterns, and dingy, worn-out white sandals, looking like her whole outfit came from the Salvation Army.
Xavier wasn’t feeling a need for somebody being friendly right now. He looked at her like she was an irritating, pesky fly buzzing around his dinner plate. She wouldn’t let up, though. She followed him right into the hallway amongst a sea of students.
“I hope I’m not being intrusive when I say you deserve better,” she explained.
That line caught Xavier’s attention. “How do you know what I deserve?”
“Caught the theatrics involving you and Samantha in the parking lot. Everybody knows what you’ve done for this school. You deserve somebody who’s gonna treat you like a king.”
“I guess you’re the one who will, right?”
“All I’m saying is that a woman should be a little bit more understanding when it comes to human flaws. So you made a mistake and knocked up that Brenda chick.”
Xavier casually said over his shoulder, “Anybody ever tell you, you talk too much?
”
“Come on, Hunter. Don’t act like nobody knows your business. And yes, I’ve been told that my mouth never closes, like Seven-Eleven, but I admire you and want to be your friend.”
Surprisingly, Xavier stopped and grabbed Heather’s butt in front of everybody.
Heather Larkin did not offer any resistance. “Ooo-ee, you have nice, firm hands, Hunter.”
Xavier had to admit that it was disrespectful to the girl, but he didn’t care. His manhood had been damaged by Samantha and her new creep. He needed this to feel empowered again.
The feeling was so good that Xavier was going in for two handfuls when down the hallway, by a door marked with an illuminated overhead exit sign, towering above the students walking around him, was Tall and Husky. The big-eared goon that Xavier had locked eyes with in the lunchroom on the first day of school.
The dude looked to still be wearing the same dark Rocawear hoodie. Anybody and their mama could see that this creep was an outsider. How the hell could he have penetrated this far inside the school? This dude was a grown man and wasn’t any type of faculty member Xavier could remember. Tall and Husky smiled and pointed at Xavier, making his fingers into a gun and pretending to take a shot at him.
It was official. There was no more guessing. The dude was after him.
Heather broke Xavier’s concentration. “Hunter, I’m waiting for you to do it again. I love a man with strong hands,” she begged.
When Xavier looked back up Tall and Husky had disappeared. Through the exit door, Xavier assumed. He stood out in the crowd and would’ve been easily spotted walking the hallways. This was the second time dude seemed to come from out of nowhere. Xavier had to do a better job of watching his back if he didn’t want to get himself done up like Hoover.
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