Buck
Page 11
I walk home alone, thinking about the last time I saw Amir.
* * *
* “Summertime,” DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, 1998.
24
Homegoing
In Loving Memory of Our Beloved …
* * * *
AMIR SMITH
June 21, 1982–July 13, 1998
Thursday, July 16, 1998
Wake: 8:30 p.m. Funeral: 9:00 p.m.
In the Sanctuary of New Refuge
1101-A N. Division Street
Philadelphia, PA
OBITUARY
Suddenly, in a senseless act of violence, Amir Jackson was called home. He was born June 21, 1982, in Philadelphia, PA, to Carleen Jackson. He attended various schools in the public school system. He leaves to hold on to his memory mother Carlee Smith and countless friends.
ORDER OF SERVICE
Opening Hymn—“Blessed Assurance”
* * * *
Prayer—Elder Dukes
* * * *
Scripture—Psalm 23:4
* * * *
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”
Scripture—John 14:27
* * * *
“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
Acknowledgment of Condolences
* * * *
Eulogy
* * * *
I don’t know what happened that night, but things happen for a reason. I don’t know why it happened to you, Amir. I’ve been looking for you to come in the house and say, “Where is that old woman?” Fear not, my dear son, your pain was only temporary. You are now one of God’s soldiers. I will always love you.
—MOMMY
I keep asking myself why it had to be you. It seems like a nightmare. I feel I can’t go on, but I know I must. Remember what Mom always said: “Go look for a job because the job won’t come to you.” So when I get a job, I’ll tell Mom we have one. I’ll be working and you’ll be looking down to make sure I go all the way, making the big bucks. I’ll miss you and I love you.
—YOUR SISTER, DENA
I love you and will never forget the things you taught me. 1LOVE.
—YOUR BROTHER, MALO
25
Killadelphia, Pistolvania
A gleaming black casket lined with satin cream ruffles. The smells of talcum powder, oil sheen, and death float through the tight room.
Tears explode from dark sockets, streak across puffy brown cheeks, and run under veils.
“When are y’all going to wake up?” the funeral director asks us. “Y’all got to wake up now … or rest in peace.” After the service he calls all the young people to the back of the funeral home.
Ryan leans over to me. “I don’t even care who, Malo, but somebody got to pay.” He tells me to keep my suit on. “Or whatever you might want to get buried in.” He’s got two gats on him like Face/Off.
“While revenge weakens society, forgiveness gives it strength,” the director says.
I’m numb to the world. A chunk of my soul is gone, and even offing the ngh that did it—if we knew who did it—wouldn’t bring my best friend back. I hear his funny voice—Malo, you so black you showed up to my funeral naked—but a cold, pained grimace is as close as I get to laughter. I know his playful self would want me to laugh, to smile, but I can’t. Amir’s mom sobs with a veil over her face, eyes as thin as paper cuts. I pull out the chain Amir left at my house the other day, the one he always wore, hand it to her.
She gives it back. “He wanted you to have it,” she whispers under soft piano sounds. I put it on and tell myself I’ll never take it off.
Long barrel automatics released in short bursts
The length of black life is treated with short worth*
“I know y’all are hurting, I’m hurting too. Every week I’m burying kids. Babies in boxes. Younger and younger each year: twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. Virgins! A young person dies and us old folks imagine all of the experiences we would have wished for you … You aren’t even giving yourselves a chance at life, a chance to be lawyers, doctors, teachers. You’re giving it all up to be statistics!”
He shows us the coffins and tells us, “The little ones, for teenagers like y’all, are my best sellers and business is booming! Booming!… But I want you to put me out of business. Put me under! I’d rather sink than to have to keep burying babies.”
I think about how we used to brag about Philly being the murder capital—da murda cappy—and how this year, in Philly, we got more dead bodies than days. Shit ain’t cool. Anybody can get it. Amir wasn’t even the target. Nghz can’t even aim ’cause they got no direction.
Some kid behind me says, “I can’t die yet anyway, ain’t got nobody to pay for my funeral.”
Me and Ryan spark a blunt and hotbox the car on our way home. Smoke curls through the whip as we drive through the city, buzzing by faces. I study each one. The cops don’t have a suspect, so everyone we drive past, pull up next to, or see on the street is a possible suspect. The cops are suspect for not having any suspects. They never have any suspects when we die. Tupac gets shot, dies, no suspects. Biggie gets shot, dies, no suspects. Big L gets shot, dies, no suspects. Amir gets shot, dies, no suspects. My soul weeps for Amir, for all the Amirs in this city.
We blaze until our eyes bleed.
* * *
* “Thieves in the Night,” Black Star, 1998.
26
The Pipeline
We pour into Fels High like syrup, steady and slow.
This school looks just like jail. I wonder why mad schools look like jails. Or do jails look like schools? The jail Uzi’s in actually looks nicer than this. If schools look like prisons, and prisons look like schools, will we act like students or prisoners? Police roam the hallways whirling nightsticks like band directors. The windows are tinted with bars. No sunlight like a casino and you never win in here either.
At my old school, Friends, the teachers always fucked with me. At Fels, the teachers don’t know who the fuck I am. Overcrowded like Amistad. Fels is the opposite of my old school, Friends—Foes. They say Foes is one of the best schools in the city. They say Fels is one of the worst. Foes, private. Fels, pub. Foes, mostly white. Fels, mostly black. Foes kids’ parents got tuition money. Fels kids’ parents ain’t even got lunch money.
The metal detector line is long like the line to get into Club Dancers on Saturday nights. A bucket full of lighters, nail files, pocket knives. Everybody beeping, police digging through bags like moles. It takes forever to get in.
The hallway is a fashion show. Muhfuckas won’t even come to school if they ain’t got something fresh to throw on.
The bell goes off like we’re in some factory somewhere. Here.
First period—
I think this is homeroom. The teacher never shows up so no one really knows. Girls just sit and do their makeup and hair. I dip in and out of the pissy hallways.
“Take your hat off … Pull up your pants … Where’s your hall pass?” The guards yell every fifteen seconds like a recording. I act like I’m going to take my fitted off, then pull it down. I pull my pants up and let them fall back down—kiss my ass, toy cops.
I spill Remy on imaginary graves
Put my hat on my waves*
The pyros light the trash cans on fire around this time. The smoke detectors don’t work, so the bathrooms are on Amsterdam, smoke clouds thick enough to hold rain. The first fight always jumps off around this time, either in class or in the hallway. We chase the fights like Action News reporters run after stories. Motherfuckers get their ass beat coming into school in the morning and leaving in the afternoon.
Sometimes this Chinese teacher, Mr. Lee, comes in and takes roll.
“Yo,” this kid Lamont says real loud after Mr. Lee calls my
name on the first day of school. The whole class turns to hear what he’s about to say. “What the fuck is a Malo?” Everybody laughs. Lamont is strong but he’s slower than a tar drip, too slow to see it coming. I show him what a Malo is, right there in the middle of the class, hit him with the punch my uncle Jabbar showed me, make him swallow and spit at the same damn time.
Second period—
“Turn off your beepers and cell phones” is how Ms. Mackey greets us every morning. Nobody turns shit off. My jawn vibrates like an engine on my hip. I don’t even know what class this is or what Mackey teaches. The flickering fluorescence over our heads reminds me of hospitals and nightmares. There’s never enough seats, so if you don’t snag one early, she makes you stand up against the wall like a wallflower at a house party. This one day, when there are no seats, she gives me the evil eye ’cause I sit on the desk.
“Whatever your name is—off the desk!” she barks. She doesn’t know anybody’s name. When she calls roll, she just listens, never even looks up.
“My leg hurts,” I say, all in my I-shall-not-be-moved Rosa Parks bag.
“Off the damn desk!”
“Don’t talk to him like that.” My homegirl Tamara jumps up. “You need to get some more seats up in here.” Tamara is always rumble ready. Sometimes she comes to school in her fight gear: sweatpants, beat-up Reebok Classics, fake Gucci scarf, Vaseline face.
Mackey grabs the phone and, within seconds, police with crooked mugs and big black boots are dragging us out. Her class is stupid anyway, you just copy whatever she writes on the board, which doesn’t usually make sense. If someone asks a question, she calls them “ulcers” and starts talking about how she doesn’t even want to be here and how she gets paid either way. Sometimes she’s too lazy to come and we get a sub—fresh meat.
Every period I think about Amir. Sometimes it feels like he’s right there, sitting next to me cracking jokes and sunflower seeds.
Third, fourth, and fifth periods—
Lunch, lunch, and lunch. Every student is assigned a lunch, either third, fourth, or fifth period. I don’t know which lunch I am … so I always hit up all three. The cafeteria guard doesn’t say shit because he’s a customer, buys an eighth of Sour Diesel from me every other week.
The cafeteria: bananas, pure chaos. The benches and tables are bolted down and midget-low from when this used to be a middle school. There’s always a couple fights during the first lunch, mostly girls, haymakers and windmills, boobs popping out like Jell-O, spinning, spitting, a lot of hair pulling. The fights leave weave tracks and braids scattered on the floor, right there with the spilled milk, baked beans, and textbooks facing down, pages open like dead birds.
Fourth lunch is live because that’s when my homies Q-Demented, QD, this Puerto Rican rap crew from Olney, come through and murder the cypher. They roll into lunch mad deep like Wu Tang. It’s usually Apathy, Blacastan, Block McCloud, Celph Titled, Crypt the Warchild, Demoz, Des Devious, Doap Nixon, Esoteric, Journalist, Jus Allah, King Magnetic, King Syze, Planetary, Reef the Lost Cauze, Vinnie Paz, and V-Zilla. I huddle with them and kick freestyles:
King Syze
In Philly don’t let nothing but the Uzi spray
My only concern really, is who got paid
QD
One by one you all fall in this game
Comin with the wild out style you can’t tame
QD no matter where we going all, we all for it
Don’t step in the path when the plan’s in full orbit
Jedi
Illadelph is like the sun ’cause we shine with rhymes
Underground is like the moon, you only see us at times
Planetary
Out for the green, I’ll make you scream
Like chicks gettin tag-teamed in porno scenes
Jus Allah
I like to fight with the hammer, south side of the camera sight,
And I stand by my words like Vanna White
Boom box, beat box, or table drum, don’t matter—the beat goes on like life does. Girls come around, dance, back it up for us real quick, and stomp away laughing.
Fifth lunch is the Wild West.
I shoot dice with the get-money boys in the corner. I shake, roll, then jump back fast like bacon’s popping.
“Door blow … head crack … faded … bet, bet, bet …” as red dice tumble around fresh Timbs, Air Maxes, and Jordans. Sometimes I come up a couple hunnit, sometimes not. That’s the game, like life, mountains and valleys, ups and downs.
Fifth lunch is like a slaughterhouse, the killing fields. Gang fights, knives, all-out food fights, even race wars: Cambos vs. blacks, Puerto Rocks vs. blacks, whites vs. everybody. Me, I’m cool with all the races. My favorite color is green.
I don’t know what classes I have after fifth period; I never stay longer than the last lunch. There’s really no point. There’s no learning going on at Fels, just rules and yelling and chaos and screaming correctional-officer teachers. I feel like I can learn more outside of these dead school walls.
Every day I dip out the back door of the cafeteria, hop the metal fence, and speed away from the school that looks like jail, feels like jail. They do what they always do, the only thing they know how to do, what jails do: punish me with detention and probation, like the judge did Uzi.
* * *
* “Take It in Blood,” Nas, 1996.
27
Shape-Up
—“ ’Sup, this Malo. Right place, wrong time. You know the drill …”
—*10
—“Welcome. You have eleven new messages …”
In Fresh Cutz barbershop getting my weekly shape-up, checking the voice mail on my new Motorola StarTAC. I give everybody my new number, even my school so they don’t stress my mom with their BS. I keep my hair in a low, dark hustla jawn with long sideburns. In Philly, a fresh cut is mandatory. Jawns be like, Damn, ngh, you wolfin, if your shit ain’t sharp.
—“What’s up, Malo? Dis Keisha from the other night, at Gotham. Hit me up, boo.” Message deleted.
—“Son, it’s your father. I’m trying to connect with you. How are you? Call me back, please. I want to see you, need to see you, it’s been way too long.” Message deleted.
Fresh Cutz is around my old way in Olney. They sell everything: DVDs, water ice, birthday cards, socks, incense, whatever. They’re always selling random shit. When I walk in, Mike, my barber, asks me, “You know anyone who wants to buy some vending machines?” Mike is a cool old head hustleman. He’s pigeon-toed, which makes all his sneaks lean.
“Vending machines?” I laugh. “Nah.”
—“This is a very important automated message from the School District of Philadelphia; please listen carefully … Hello, this is Samuel Fels High School calling about your child’s attendance who was absent today, missing all scheduled periods. Please call the office—” Message deleted.
The crackheads outside the shop are wiping down my new whip: a baby-blue Ford Explorer coupe, eighteen-inch Asanti wheels, 5 percent limo tint, an Xtant/JL Audio system so loud you can hear me coming from a block away.
“That muhfucka bad,” the smokers say when I pull up. I can feel all the girls in the salon next to the shop checking for me when I pull up. Driving this car, hanging with Scoop, and getting paid has got grown-ass women throwing the panties at me. MILF jawns with mortgages and kids my age.
—“I don’t even know why I would even believe that you would call me back after I let you hit. You’re a trifling-ass person but it’s cool ’cause karma’s a bitch and I wish I could be there when it bites you in the ass! Fuck you, you stupid lying-ass bitch … Oh, and I’m not trying to make you feel some type of way because I’m sure you don’t even give a fuck but—” Message deleted.
—“Son, it’s your father. Please call me.” Message deleted.
I’m blowing money faster than a hollow-tip. I get it, I spend it. It takes my mind off the bullshit: off the fact that my best friend is gone, my mom is in a coma, m
y dad left, my sister’s on the funny farm, and my brother is locked in a dog kennel in Arizona. I run through Vizuris and Bloomingdale’s and Neiman Marcus with Scoop. Versace. Iceberg. Moschino. Ralph Lauren Purple Label. Tommy Hill. YSL. Jordans. Timbs. Air Maxes. DKNY. Gucci. We walk out of the mall swinging bags like bandits.
My Moschino hoe, my Versace hottie
Come to find out you was fuckin everybody*
I’m like my mom in that way, I like all the finer things in life. Everything I want is expensive. It’s crazy that people only say hello and thank you in this city when you’re in a store buying shit. When you’re spending money, everyone is your friend. People open doors, smile at you, laugh at your jokes, apologize all the time. Let me get that for you … Can I help you?… May I? … Fake fucks.
New Jack City is on in the barbershop. Nino’s like: “I’m not guilty. You’re the one that’s guilty. The lawmakers, the politicians, the Colombian drug lords, all you who lobby against making drugs legal. Just like you did with alcohol during the prohibition. You’re the one who’s guilty. I mean, c’mon, let’s kick the ballistics here: Ain’t no Uzis made in Harlem. Not one of us in here owns a poppy field. This thing is bigger than Nino Brown. This is big business. This is the American way.”
—“Stay away from my girl, dog, forreal. Keisha’s mine. I’m not gon’ tell you again, man, she mine.” Message deleted.
I realize you can spend any amount of money too. The more you get, the more you spend. I used to think a thousand dollars was a lot of money, but me and Scoop blow that in a night now. My Versace jacket cost a G. No matter how much I spend, though, the pain is still there, it never goes away, like a tattoo.
—“Malo, it’s Bone. Hit me up, let’s get this paper.” Message deleted.