We (me and my bros) decide on a game of crunch and I toss the ball to Canaan for him to check it up top. He rubs the ball and he sizes us both as if he really believes he can win. If I was more magnanimous, right now I’d go lace these dudes with keen secondhand coach encouragements: Ain’t nobody giving you shit. Always outwork the next man. The only thing to fear is not having practiced enough. But that’s if I was more magnanimous, key word: if!
If you played ball like I played ball, you’d know it’s every man for himself, so don’t go to blaming me for pushing, for hand-checking on D, for tagging them with semi-benign elbows. KJ goes up and I whack the ball and him out of the air, as if we ain’t got (so says the hoop gods: Spare the hard foul, spoil the sibling) the same DNA. It’s first game: Me. Next game: Me. Third game: Who you think? We ball till there’s a reef of sweat in the front of my tee, till my boxers are stuck to my legs. A win is a win is a win is a win, I tell myself as I’m bent over gasping. We watch the old heads at the other end while I catch my breath for rematch a million. They’ve got another game going and all you can hear is the squeak of old high tops and the backboard reports of a bricked-jumper jubilee. Watching this sad show of basketball skills inspires me (maybe I’m more generous than even I thought) into a jump-shot tutor session.
I send Canaan to the free throw line. All right, I say. Elbow straight and fingertips. Snap your wrist and follow through. See the rim and nothing else. I school Canaan first and then KJ. We shoot an hour so, me shagging most of the balls. Canaan nets a shot and I carry over and ask him if he’s talked to Mom since we rode out to the falls.
What’s there to talk about? he says.
You need a reason? I say. About what’s going on.
It don’t matter, he says.
Don’t matter? I say. What the fuck you mean? I rush him and slap the ball out of his hands. It dribbles away but Canaan shags it and carries it over and the three of us meet in the free throw circle. That’s our mama, I say. Our mama. She needs us and we need her.
But Champ, if we live with Mom, where we gone stay? Canaan says.
In the house, I say.
Which house? he says
Our house, I say, assured overmuch, though not forreal.
KJ bends and stretches his shirt over his knees. Canaan hugs the ball to his chest.
How’s that? Canaan says.
Grown folks’ shit, bro, I say. Leave it to me and stick to being a kid.
They vote for pizza when we leave, so I drive to the parlor near the mall. Been here a gazillion times and always the same thought bubble hanging above my head: Who was the genius who okayed parking a big-ass fire truck (complete with a varnished wooden ladder and a barefoot mannequin frozen for good on a fireman’s pole) dead center in the floor?
This is the thought, but I don’t know why, cause we’ve never come for the sights. We’re here for the thin-crust, the paragon of thin-crust pizzas. We order a thin-crust with extra everything we like, find seats, fix our table with plates and a fizzing pitcher of pop. KJ pours us each a full mug, and I set my pager on the tabletop just in case. If you’re wondering, we’re still wearing our hoop gear; yep, we brothers fine-dining with sweaty balls and all.
What’s this I hear about more trouble at school? I say to Canaan. He turns a worried face to KJ and back to me, his diffidence amped up.
Miss H always on me, he says. He reaches for his drink, but I catch the handle of his mug and hold it.
So what? I say. That’s her job.
The boy nods a weak-ass nod; he’s always resorting to weak-ass nods; if he keeps on he’ll be the pubescent prince of weak-assness. Look, man, you can’t be tripping in class. You want to get back to regular school, don’t you?
But she only be sweatin me and no one else, he says.
That’s a favor, I say. The fact that she gives a shit is a gift. You best check yourself for me and you got problems, patna. Serious problems.
Okay, Champ, okay, he says.
Okay, my ass, I say. Don’t fucking okay me.
A clique of juveniles troop in vociferous as shit and my bros and I can’t help but look over, can’t help but eyeball them till they find their seats.
So ya’ll tryin to hit that game room or what? I say. I fleece my sweats for cash. Spend some and put the rest in your sock, I say, but already baby bro is trucking off for heaven.
What about you? I say, and peel off KJ’s loot.
I’m good, he says, waving his hand.
Oh, like that? I say.
Yeah, I don’t feel like playing, he says. He wipes dried sweat from his forehead. He looks more than ever like Big Ken, who, as I’ve said, is his and Canaan’s biological pops, but was my pops in every other way that counts.
Suit yourself, I say. But tell me this: What we gone do about our rockhead baby bro?
You’re the big brother, he says.
Before Canaan was born, Mom and Big Ken brought me and KJ here on Saturdays. Big Ken would cop extra-large pizzas with extra pepperoni and iceless pitchers of off-brand pop. Mom, for her part, would bless us with handfuls of quarters and tell me to keep an eye on KJ in the game room; KJ, who, the minute he got his issue, would fall over himself trying to land first game on his favorite game, an intergalactic joint he couldn’t play for shit. He’d plow through his stock of quarters, burn through whatever was left of mine, which mattered less to me since, whenever we got to our last, Mom, the patron saint of extra coins, would appear with cuploads of replenishments. Sometimes she’d hit us with a refill and vanish, others she’d watch until we’d spent our last and/or a kid stretched his face from being sidelined diutius.
What I wouldn’t give for a rebirth of those blithe days.
What’s the deal with spring league? I say. You ballin?
Nothing, he says. He pours salt on the table and finger-swirls a design.
Tryouts is soon, right? I say. You got action at JV if you play tough D.
The high schoolers climb into the fire truck and howl as if it’s the funniest moment on earth.
Don’t know if I’m playin, he says.
Why? I say. Thought you was a hooper. Is it grades? Please tell me you ain’t not fuckin up in school too, I say. You fuck up now and you’ve fucked up. You ain’t no little kid.
I know I ain’t, he says. You the one who thinks I am.
Yo, don’t get clocked, patna, I say. You wanna get slugged?
He turns away. I touch my face and rub circles under my cheeks.
Is it grades?
No, he says.
Well, how are they? I say.
All right, he says.
Just all right, I say.
Yeah, he says.
Here we go with this one-word-answer melancholy shit, I say. I’m trying to have a dialogue.
My pager buzzes but I don’t bother to check who it is. Yeah, I need what I need, but there must be a time that’s off-limits.
What about the broads? I say. You got a girl?
Yes, Champ. I got a girl, he says.
Those years when me and my mom were still an inseparable tag team tandem, the years before my brother was even born, Big Ken pimped for our bread and meat, and though by the time KJ came along Big Ken was ebbing into retirement (maybe the smartest move he ever made), that nurture might of turned my bro into a super-bathetic anti-pimp.
Only one girl? I say.
Yes, one, he says.
Damn, well, have she gave you some womb? I say.
I don’t have to tell you, he says.
You don’t, I say. But check it, you’re already a year older than I was when I hit my first, so if you ain’t knocked one down, you best get crackin.
He squeezes his lips and glares. We’ve got the same dark brown eyes, the same long wild lashes. Champ, he says. Who says I want to be you? I don’t want to be like you.
They call our number over the speakers—a motherfucking boon—and I grab the marker and push away.
Right, I say. Right. If only you knew.
My bros when we leave slug out in tandem slow and rebel-like. Steps through the lot, KJ falls back and when I look to see where, I don’t know what to make of his face. I stand beside the car and track him over the roof. He stops to look at what I can’t see, stalls until I walk out to meet him. What’s the holdup? I say and catch him by the arm. He yanks away, jerks so tough he sends a small package tumbling. He breaks to pick it up.
What they’d told me for most my life is life has options.
But whose life, and when?
What’s that? I say.
Nothing, he says. It’s nothing. He looks shook and keeps the bit balled in his fist. Meantime, Canaan climbs out and gawks.
Let me see, I say. As if I need to see.
No! he says. He backs away, but trips in a pothole, and lands on his ass. I pounce on him, pry open his fist, and find the bit wrapped and clipped just like mine.
What in the fuck is this! I say. What in the fuck are you doing?
Mr brother stands on his own and brushes gravel from his ass and elbows. He tugs his shoulders, and as if by some sort of supernatural gift, he’s heads taller—has never looked this big, nor this sure, nor this doomed.
Answer me! I say.
He twists to look at Canaan and swings to look at me. His eyes and my eyes dueling.
What I’m doing what you do, he says.
Right now, now, it takes nothing to see me beating him half to death. Though when I wind up to swing, I can’t swing. My kith as my witness, I drop the bit, and stomp and stomp and stomp until I’ve crushed it all to dust.
Chapter 45
Sometimes you have the strength to face them;
sometimes you don’t.
—Grace
A Kinky-Head boy runs up beside me while I’m in the store searching for snacks. He asks if I can buy him a pack of Capri Suns. His dimple is in the same cheek as Champ’s. There’s only one other person in the aisle, a pitiful-looking something, somebody’s baby herself, her arms tattooed to murals, who I suppose is the boy’s mama, but hope she isn’t, since she hasn’t noticed how far the boy has roamed. I take a knee and explain I’d love to, but we’d have to ask his mother. He leads me to her, and as soon as he’s within reach, she slaps him as though he’s grown. What I tell your mannish ass bout runnin off?
This is the time to turn and scoot off before I say something I shouldn’t. Rather, something I should.
The checkout line could trick you. Ahead of me kids fidget with handfuls of bagged candy and ahead of them a frosty-haired woman a few weeks by the looks—God knows I don’t say it to be facetious—from needing a wheelchair or walker. The woman slumps over the counter and so slow, so so slow, trawls her purse for change with a stack of coupons slabbed on the counter for signing checks. There’s a thin girl right beside her—an aide or something, I guess, since they don’t resemble—bagging the lady’s trickle of buys. The woman finds a second, thicker stack of coupons and starts to sort. Patience, patience, I say to myself. Though I can say for true: It won’t be me worrying a cashier or a manager over the small print of the weekend special. Will never be me but how could I ever know?
The woman moves snoozy against the life of the store. Carts squeak, tills open, a glass jar breaks in an aisle close by; a man calls a special that’s off special by the end of the day. I sift through my snacks, picking a choice for my one night off this week. The boy, my friend, wanders up, with his pitiful mama groping after him.
You buy Capri Sun? he says.
It hurts too much anymore—which is I why I can’t, won’t let Kenny win—to be a boy’s disappointment, overmuch. I ask his mama if she minds and she curses him and twists his arm and tells him to say sorry for asking. He apologizes. His face a face that makes me wish he was mine. I tell her it’s no trouble. That I’d love to do it, that I’ve got boys, and know how it is. Then, shit, I guess, she says, which is all the consent I need.
It’s misty when I leave the store, but we can’t let that stop us. I toss my bag in the backseat and climb in. The car clicks cold the first turn of the key—I’ve got to get this checked—but catches the next try. I drive blocks down to a roadside flower stand owned by a man who used to work at one of my old jobs. He crushed on me for years, used to offer lunches and buy flowers for no reason at all. Then one late night he saw me at the end of a binge. Since then, the few times we’ve seen one another, he talks to me soft and makes it a point to ask how I’ve been. Sometimes you have the strength to face them; sometimes you don’t. I get out and pick a bouquet. He gives it to me for discount and says he hopes I’m doing well, that it looks to him as if I am.
The ride to the cemetery takes you by the zoo. The zoo should be the next outing for the boys and I.
It’s been too long, much too long, since my last time here. There’s a new sign at the entrance, or else an old sign I’m first seeing. The first time I came, I came alone and got lost, and all these years since it’s easy to get turned around, to lose the route that leads easiest to his marker. The surest, fastest way is to find it on foot. I hike past the mausoleum—muddied patches suck at my heels—push over slopes, wend through cypress trees and mini-gardens of blooming yellow tulips. I tread the maze of markers, stepping around and between but never over a stone. The grounds crew has set up a tent, dug a new plot, laid straps across it. The man stacking chairs under the tent calls a twangish Howdy, and waves for me to stop. He wipes his hands on overalls stamped with islands of dirt, tips a checkerboard conductor’s cap, and dabs his face with a stained cloth. He asks if I need help finding a stone and I tell him I’m fine, that who I came to see should be just over the next hill.
All righty, he says, and goes back to his business. I feel his eyes at my back as I leave.
By the time I reach my godson’s marker the bouquet has leaked a rose-sized stain on my blouse. I take a knee—feeling the wet grass soak through my pants—and clear loose grass and dirt from his birth and death dates. I take out the flowers one by one and lay them around the border and when I’m done I bow and pray. Not sure how long this lasts but when I look up the overalled man is standing nearby.
Oh, I say. Didn’t hear you walk up.
It’s an ancient Shaolin secret, he says. Or is it Alabama? He simpers. It’s the smile of an honest man. Not a church man, but an honest man—the toughest to find. He asks if Dawn’s boy is my boy.
He’s my godson, I say.
He snaps the straps of his overalls. Excuse the manners, he says. My name’s Henry. I’m the head groundskeeper here.
Grace, I say. Good to meet you.
Grace, he says. I got a cousin named Grace. And she’s a beauty just like you.
Thank you, I say.
No thanks due, he says. I’m just a bystander is all. Miss Grace, let me guess, you’re from someplace else original?
What makes you say that? I say.
Where I come from we honor the dead. But not much here, from what I can tell. Got me to thinking that it’s the place, that it’s the way folks are reared up north. But here you are visiting alone, paying respect, restoring my faith.
He helps me to my feet. He refits his hat on snug, checks his watch. Welp, I better get a move on, he says. My shift’s about done. He asks if I can find my way out, says it’s hecka easy to get turned around.
Thanks for the offer, I say. But I can find the way myself.
Hurrah for independence. Have a good day, he says, and moseys off. For as far as I can see, the man rambles between and around markers, but never over a single stone.
Chapter 46
Mom and I are alike that way.
—Champ
The details, the details would about bore you to a three on the old Glasgow Scale.
But read on if you don’t mind taking the risk.
The basics: Each week we’ll meet at the bank and I’ll give Jude the cash (a buck less than what they’re required to report to the Feds) and he’ll deposit the funds. This will go on until we reach the figu
re (a month or so, by my count) we need for the down payment. Jude will cut the owners a check, buy the house in his name, then post the close of escrow (who says the average white man means us new Negroes no good?) and will transfer me the deed by quitclaim. Then, bam, I’m making the mortgage, and me and mines are legal and rightful owners of our very own piece of terra firma, our slice of the American Dream.
Peoples, are you with me? Still awake? Cool.
You may be wondering how I’m going to raise the bread to pay Mister, raise what I’ll need for a down payment on the house—and futhermore how I’ll support my sweet, newborn baby girl when she arrives. Well guess what, I’ve been wondering too. Nah, I’m bullshitting. I got a plan. What’s the plan? My plan is no plan for now. Winging it. But how about I promise (you never know when there’s a vitriolic superhater afoot) to share a plan when and if there is a plan after we (the we being you and I) have spent at least a jug more time together? Won’t knock you specific, but we all know a nigger can’t be sure about human beings in general. Add to that what’s been happening to me in recent times, and forgive me for not being the most trusting brother around.
The bank is on a busy street, close by my old school, and right across (of all the branches) from the Northeast Precinct. To top it off, I got my pistol stashed (I’ve suffered the first and last of five-digit mishaps) in the armrest. I’m strapped and don’t you know every other white sedan spooks me to the brink of mashing out the lot. Not that I’d have the nuts to lead police on a high-speed. Me, who’s never pushed to triple digits a ride with 180 on the speed dial, me the same trepid dude who yields on yellows. But please don’t bust me down about it too much. Admitted, most days I’m percents of a stone-cold fraud, but which one of us is authentic 24/7?
Stayed up late last night counting and recounting this first payment. All of which, to be safe, I should be using to pay Mister. The whole time I counted, Kim sat by looking pugnacious. Whole time too, I pretended not to notice and kept right on counting. Fell asleep on my nth recount, woke up this morning on paranoid, and called Half Man. Called the homie hoping his natural born hatetrocity would push me to scrap the plan. Surprise! But he didn’t pick up. I wasn’t lying what I said about dude being the CEO of the year of Never-There-When-Needed, Inc.
The Residue Years Page 24