At the Crossroads

by Travis Hunter

  Nigel was standing on the front steps of the school building waiting for them. “You all set?” he asked with a smile once they stepped outside.

  “Yeah! They’re putting me in ninth-grade classes,” Franky said with a huge, infectious smile. “But the lady said I have to take a few tests before they’ll know for sure.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem for you, Einstein,” Nigel teased. “I’m glad things are working out. We should’ve done this a long time ago. But it is what it is, right?”

  “It’s all good,” Franky said, swatting his cousin’s guiltaway like a fly. “Man, it’s like a zoo up in there. I’ve never seen anything like that in my life. Those kids are buck wild. They are screaming and cussing and everything else, and the adults don’t even say anything. I’m telling you, cuzzo. It’s crazy.”

  “Welcome to public schools in the hood,” Nigel said with a shrug. “You’ll be fine. Stand tall and don’t let nobody punk you, ya heard. Somebody try to swing at you, you make sure you send a message to anybody else who might wanna follow them. I mean, you try your best to break something. I got your back, ya heard?”

  “Yeah,” Franky said, confused. Was he going to prison or school? He couldn’t help but think back to the last time he was in school and how gravely different this pep talk was from his mother’s.

  Franky, make sure you sit in the front of the class and pay close attention. Take good notes and always do your best. Have a great day, son. I love you.

  Franky’s parents were all about education, and they preached to him about the importance of being black and educated. They pushed him to do his best in every class. If he ever struggled in a class, they hired a tutor. Now here was his cousin telling him to swing for the fences with his fist. The word study never came out of his mouth.

  “A’ight, well, I better get back in there and find these classes,” Franky said. “Thanks for everything, Mrs. Bertha.”

  “No, chile,” she said. “Thank you. I love to hear young black boys acting like they got some sense. I’m eighty-six years old, and I marched with Dr. King, and it wasn’t easy. We got hit with rocks and all kinds of things, but we believed that black schools should be just as nice as the white ones. Now look how we act. Dr. King must be turning flips in his grave over the way our people are down here carrying on.”

  As if on cue to validate Mrs. Bertha’s words, two girls walked by, both with red and blue hair and shorts so short they should be outlawed, calling each other the B word.

  Mrs. Bertha shook her head. “Shameful. But, Franky, I’m proud of you,” she said. “I swear I think you put a few more years on my life. There is hope after all.”

  “That’s good to hear. We need you around. Who else is going to make sure we get a nice Sunday meal each week?” Franky said with a smile as he helped the old lady down the twenty or so steps that led up to the school.

  Once they had Mrs. Bertha situated in the passenger seat of the same old car that brought the boys from New Orleans, Nigel walked around to the driver’s side and got in. He threw the peace sign to his cousin and pulled off.

  “Yo, boi,” a familiar voice said from across the yard as Franky walked back toward the school. He turned around and noticed two guys from his neighborhood, Bubba and Bernard.

  Bubba was already six feet three inches tall and was about one hundred and ninety pounds of pure muscle. The fact that he was only in ninth grade had every AAU basketball coach in the city vying for his services. He was a beast on the basketball courts and wasn’t anything to sneeze at on the gridiron, but there was something about the street life that had his nose wide open.

  Nard was the complete opposite of Bubba. He was short, fat, and had already been held back to give the ninth grade another try. He was also throwing rocks at the penitentiary, begging for them to let him in. His mother was a drug addict, and there was never any mention of afather. He was angry at the world for dealing him a bad deck of cards. In order for him to feel good about himself, he bullied smaller and weaker kids and was always on the prowl for his next victim. Franky tried to keep his distance from him, but now that they attended the same school, that wasn’t going to be as easy anymore.

  “What y’all doing out here?” Franky asked for lack of having anything else to say.

  “ ‘Bout to go get something to grub on,” Nard said. “You roll?”

  “Nah,” Franky said. “This is my first day here. I’m not about to skip. What’s up, Bubba?”

  “What’s good with ya, boi?” Bubba said as he walked over to Franky and gave him a brotherly hug. “So you up here now, huh?”

  “Yeah, man,” Franky said. “It’s about time. Tired of sitting around that house all day, ya heard.”

  “I feel ya,” Bubba said. “We got basketball tryouts today. You coming?”

  “Nah,” Franky said. “I can’t shoot that rock. I’m a football kind of guy.”

  “You a’ight,” Bubba said. “You’ll make the team if I tell Coach to pick you.”

  “Why you ain’t tell him to pick me for the lil b-ball squad?” Nard asked.

  “ ‘Cause you suck. At least Franky can ball a lil bit. Plus, they ain’t got no uniforms that wide,” Bubba teased.

  “Oh, you think that’s funny, Franky?” Nard snapped.

  Franky laughed as he imagined Nard’s fat body wobbling up and down a basketball court. “Yeah,” Franky said. “That was hilarious.”

  “Man, y’all always clowning. Anyway, I’m hungry. Comeon, man. Roll with us. We’ll be back before it’s time to go to class. The late bell ain’t gonna ring for a few,” Nard said.

  “Y’all go ahead,” Franky said. “I’ll see y’all when y’all get back.”

  “Okay, lame boi,” Nard said, staring Franky up and down to see what his response to the slight diss would be.

  “I got your lame right here,” Franky said, grabbing his genitals and thinking about his cousin’s warning.

  Sensing that this little situation could escalate into something bigger, Bubba stepped in. “A’ight, boi,” Bubba said, reaching out to shake Franky’s hand. “We’ll holla atcha later. I’ll see you around. Hold up a second. Who you got next period?”

  Franky looked at his schedule and ran his finger down the paper to see who his teacher was. “Mrs. White, I think. Next period is third, right? I missed the first two getting registered.”

  “Yeah, Mrs. White is cool. Let me see if we got any classes together,” Bubba said, scanning the paper.

  “We’re together for first period, but that’s about all. They got you in the slow classes, brah.”

  “Slow classes?” Franky asked. “I need to get that changed, then.”

  “Well, they’re not slow as in special ed, but the people you with ain’t the sharpest knives in the drawer. If you know what I mean,” Bubba said, sneaking a look at Nard.

  “Aww, man,” Franky said as the wind left his sails.

  “We got physical ed with Coach English. He’s the football coach. He’s cool, too, but he don’t play,” Bubba said.

  “A’ight, man. I’ll holla atcha, lady, whoadie,” Franky said, still pissed about being with the slow kids.

  “A’ight, boi, we out,” Bubba said.

  Franky slapped Bubba’s hand and winked at Nard.

  “Don’t let your mouth write a check that your lil narrow butt can’t cash, boi,” Nard said with a sinister snarl, showing the top half of his gold-covered teeth.

  “Yeah, I’ll remember that,” Franky said as he turned around and walked back up the steps for his first official day of high school.

  6

  “Thank you, Mrs. Bertha,” Nigel said as he parked on the street in front of their house. “We appreciate you doing that for us. And you know to call us if you need anything. One of us will be right there for you.”

  “Oh, no problem. Y’all some sweet boys. I don’t mind at all,” Mrs. Bertha said as she got out of the car. She grunted and huffed until she was up and out of the car. She stepped onto
the sidewalk and took a deep breath as if that alone was taking the wind out of her.

  Nigel noticed the front curtain move in the old woman’s house, and he could’ve sworn he saw a figure behind it.

  “Mrs. Bertha,” he said, staring hard at the curtain. “Is anybody in your house?”

  “Better not be,” she said, fiddling around in her purse for her door keys as she walked up her driveway.

  “Do you mind sitting tight for a minute?” Nigel asked. “I think I just saw something move in your house. I hope my eyes are playing tricks on me, but I wanna be sure.”

  Mrs. Bertha frowned. “Oh, don’t say that. Here,” she said, handing her keys to Nigel. “You go on in there and check it out for me. I’m too old for surprises.”

  Nigel walked up on the porch and opened the screen door. He could hear footsteps inside. Someone was definitely in the woman’s house. And he was pissed that he didn’t have any kind of weapon on him. He took a deep breath before unlocking the door. He had no idea what he was walking into, but he would rather it be him than Mrs. Bertha. He pushed open the door just in time to see Stick running down the hallway with something in his hands.

  “Hey!” Nigel said as loud as he could. “Get out of here.”

  He halfheartedly ran after the neighborhood superbum as Stick made his getaway out the back door. Nigel quickly walked through the other rooms to see if Stick had an accomplice. Once satisfied that the coast was clear, he turned around and walked back outside.

  “Mrs. Bertha,” he said. “I just saw somebody run out of your back door. You should call the police.”

  “Oh, Lord,” she said, walking up toward her house. “I gotta move from round here. I’m too old for this mess. People just ain’t respectful no more.”

  “Yeah,” Nigel said, feeling bad for the old woman who had been nothing short of an angel to them since they moved in. “It’s pretty bad around here.”

  Mrs. Bertha walked into her house and went straight to her bedroom. She was gone only a few seconds before walking back out to the living room carrying an empty wooden box. The pained and defeated expression on her face bothered Nigel.

  “They took my husband’s watches. He left those watchesfor Jason,” she said, shaking her head. “He got those things when he was in the war, and he was so proud of them.”

  Mrs. Bertha plopped down on the sofa, her chin on her chest and the empty box sitting on her lap. She reached up and pulled the wig off her head and sighed. She looked up at Nigel with tears in her eyes. “Lord, what happened to my people?”

  Nigel felt like someone had robbed his own grandmother. He understood the streets were a cold place to be, but old ladies were always off-limits. They were walking angels, and he couldn’t tolerate anyone who would cause them any harm. He made a mental note to kick Stick’s head into the ground the next time he saw him.

  “I will look around and see if I can find out who broke into your house. Maybe I can even get your stuff back,” Nigel said, but the old lady was wailing loud now. Seeing her like this broke his heart into a million tiny pieces.

  Mrs. Bertha rocked herself back and forth. She was in a daze now, and she mumbled what Nigel believed to be her dead husband’s name over and over.

  Nigel walked out of the woman’s house and ran across the street to his own place.

  “Rico,” he called out. “Rico.”

  Rico wasn’t answering, and the fact that he was gone pissed him off even more than he already was. That meant he was probably with Stick when they broke into Mrs. Bertha’s house. Nigel opened the door to Franky’s room and noticed that all of his little cousin’s belongings were on the floor.

  “That boy has lost his mind,” he said to himself. “Not only did he come in this room after I told him not to, butalso I’ll bet he was in that woman’s house with Stick. That’s two heads I need to crack.”

  Nigel grabbed his baseball bat and ran out of his house just in time to see a black and white police car pull onto his street. The officer didn’t look his way as he sped by, and he ignored the officer. His sights were on the ugly yellow house at the end of the street. He walked up the driveway leading to Stick’s house and took the steps two at a time. He knocked on the door and waited. He placed his ear a little closer to the door that had seen better days and heard a television. He knocked again.

  “Yo, Stick. Open this door, man,” he said.

  A few seconds later, the door jingled and then opened. Before he could say anything to Stick, Nigel turned around to see an ambulance flying down his street toward Mrs. Bertha’s house.

  “What’s up with ya, playboy?” Stick said with his usual raggedy-toothed smile, as if they were old buddies.

  “You see what you did?” Nigel said, pointing at the ambulance. He opened the screen door and walked into the house without waiting for an invite.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow your roll, playboy,” Stick said, no longer smiling. “Don’t be coming up in here with all that. You don’t know me like that.”

  “Where’s the stuff you took?”

  “I don’t know what you talking about, playboy,” Stick said, rubbing his beard. “I ain’t never took nuttin’ from nobody in my life. I’m a good, God-fearing man.”

  “Man, I saw you,” Nigel said, “so give it up.”

  “Saw who? Man, I been in here sleeping all day. Done missed two episodes of Judge Mathis and The Price Is Right. My momma will vouch for that. Want me to go get her so you can ask her?” he said with a straight face.

  “I’m not the police,” Nigel said. “But I do know that old lady never bothered nobody, and I’m not letting you have this one, you heard?”

  “Like I said, I’ve been up here sleep,” Stick said, sticking to his story. “And if you don’t mind, I’d like to go back. I think it’s time for you to leave, playboy.”

  Nigel shook his head. What a waste of a human life. This guy was the worst sorry excuse for a man he’d ever seen. He was almost forty years old and still living at home, but to make matters worse, he was using his mother as an alibi so that he could continue his dirty deeds.

  “Now you know I’m not leaving here without that lady’s stuff, right? So how you wanna do this, Stick?” Nigel said, taking the bat and hitting his free hand with it.

  “Like I said. Slow your roll, playboy,” Stick said. “Tell you what. I’ll give you a lil piece of the action. Just calm down. No need to get violent. I’m a peaceful brother. That’s the problem with us—we always wanna fight each other. Can’t we all just get along?”

  Nigel thought about the man’s proposition and decided to take a different approach. “You’re right. My bad.” His demeanor instantly changed from menacing to calm. “Where is Rico?”

  “There ya go, playboy. See,” the bum said with his hands spread wide. “Stick ain’t selfish. I don’t mind sharing the wealth with my people. If you come at me right, then I come at you right,” Stick said, falling for Nigel’s change of heart.

  “I see. What was I thinking?” Nigel said. “I got a lot on my mind. Where is my brother?”

  “I ain’t seen Rico today,” Stick said as he walked toward the back of the house and motioned for Nigel to followhim. “We had a lil lick last night that didn’t work out too well. Ran my old car scam on this young buck, but the fool got away. He had some wheels on him, boy. You should’ve seen that joker get out. We wasn’t catching him. Then your crazy brother had to go and start shooting. Walking around like we in the wild, wild west or something. I ain’t fooling with him no more. He’s too reckless, and like I said, I’m a peaceful brother.”

  “Yeah, he’s a handful,” Nigel said as he followed Stick to the back porch of the house.

  Stick walked over to an old freezer and opened it up. He reached in and grabbed a white pillowcase that he had just taken from Mrs. Bertha’s house. It was the same one Nigel had just seen him run with. He tossed the pillowcase to Nigel and smiled.

  “You can go through there and get a few things to pawn. Th
at’ll put a lil money in your pocket,” Stick said as if he was doing Nigel a huge favor. “I’m a generous guy if you come at me right.”

  “Easy to be generous when you’re not giving away your own things,” Nigel said, taking the case and slinging it over his shoulder. “I’m taking this back to Mrs. Bertha. This stuff don’t mean jack to you, Stick—it’s just another hustle. But to her this is everything. These are things her dead husband left her and Jason. He’s dead now, so he can’t just run out and replace them, ya heard. Do you get that?”

  Stick stood there with a mean scowl on his face, but he was a coward, and he wouldn’t dare make a move toward the man in front of him. Even though he had about fifteen years on Nigel, he didn’t want any part of him. Nigel’swords had no real effect on him other than the fact that he just lost out on another hustle. Stick stood there huffing and puffing, and Nigel couldn’t help but want to punch him in the face.

  “Oh, okay. You got it. Go on and take the old woman her stuff back, man. But you know that’s messed up, don’t you? I’ve been watching that house for years, and when I finally catch her leaving, you go mess it up. That’s ‘bout a good ten grand you holding there, but I’ma let you have it.”

  “You ain’t gonna let me have jack,” Nigel said. “I’ma let your head stay on your shoulders, so say thank you.”

  Stick fanned him off.

  “I said say thank you,” Nigel said, dropping the pillowcase onto the floor and lifting his bat into a swinging position.

  “Thanks,” Stick mumbled, but then got loud. “You’re good but please don’t mention my name. It’s too hot to be locked up.”

  Nigel tightened his grip on his baseball bat and was tempted to have a little batting practice with Stick’s cranium but decided it would be a waste of his energy. Stick was a bum and was always going to be one.