The paper was thin, with flecks of gold.
Min Song was born in Fuzhou, China, the son of a fisherman known for his elaborate tales. His mother died in childbirth. His father never remarried. As a young man, he came to the United States to seek his fortune. In New York City he was known as Simon.
Simon was a well-respected man who helped build thriving communities in New York City and Fuzhou. His sense of humor was well known, and he loved surprising strangers with his knowledge of many languages, including three Chinese dialects, English, Vietnamese, Spanish, French, and Russian.
The program kept going, talking about Grandpa meeting his wife, and Dad getting born, and Dad’s mom dying, and Dad marrying Mom, and finally me.
The way to Simon’s heart was his granddaughter, Claudeline.
There was a great picture of him too, all dressed up in his hat, scarf, and eyeglasses, smiling at the camera like he was about to tell you a secret. The same way he used to smile at me.
Tell me the secret, Grandpa. Tell me why you’re gone.
Did you mean it when you said I should follow in your footsteps?
Tell me what I’m going to do without you.
Tell me what to do.
On the back of the program was a quote:
When the desires of men are curbed, there will be peace,
And the world will settle down of its own accord.
—Lao Tzu
All I had was orange construction paper, but that was fine. I took out a pencil and wrote a letter to someone who was waiting for one. I couldn’t find an envelope, so I folded the letter in half. On the outside I drew one of the few Chinese symbols I know how to make, the one that means love. Before I could think twice, I left it under the bag of fortune cookies on that person’s stoop.
I almost turned around and grabbed it, but I didn’t. I chucked a rock at his window, and then I crossed back over the eons toward home.
I didn’t feel like going inside yet, so I sat on our stoop, watching the sunset reflected off buildings and cars. The edges of the neighborhood blazed orange and gold, like the sun wanted to remind everybody, Don’t forget: I’m a big ball of fire.
The funeral-program version of Grandpa’s story matched the one I liked telling myself. He traveled around the world talking to people in all different languages. He helped build thriving communities.
But there were some key details that version of the story left out.
When I’d looked the Thing in the eye that night in the park, the truth about it had flooded into me and washed my brain clean. To defeat it, I couldn’t play its game. I had to starve it of light, and breath, and getting its photo taken.
I didn’t know anymore if I was a bad kid, a good kid, or plain old Claudeline, but I could tell you this much. If I was the Thing, I would not want me as its enemy. People in my family don’t go down without a fight. We swing first.
And my version of swinging first was gonna be not swinging at all. It might not be what Grandpa meant by me taking over his business, but I was the one calling the shots now.
I wrapped my arms around my knees and looked at the sky, at the rooftops that went on and on, making a patchwork of shapes to cover so many lives, so many lives you could keep yourself busy forever trying to imagine all of them. In a city like this, I wasn’t doomed. I was sure of it.
SCOTT JONES
The sage is guided by what he feels and not by what he sees.
—Lao Tzu, philosopher
Carnival day was hot. The kind of hot that makes your eyes burn. When I got to the top of the hill in the park, somebody was already sitting on our bench, somebody who resembled an Antarctic bird stranded in the wrong climate. I hadn’t said anything about meeting up in my letter—Lala must have invited him. I wasn’t sure I was ready to face Brett yet. I strongly considered turning back and running a few miles to the edge of the borough and over the Verrazano Bridge. I saw no reason why I shouldn’t start a fantastic new life on Staten Island.
Money clomped up the hill from his side of the park. He was wearing khaki pants and a red Hawaiian shirt with those mushy brown shoes dudes wear on yachts, carrying a cardboard box with shells and balls sliding around inside and panting like he was all out of breath.
“No way, Andy,” said Brett. “A shell game? Are you setting that up at the carnival?”
“If Lala’s forcing me to be here, the least I can do is make it profitable,” said Money. “Uncle Sal turned the dining room table into a taco bar! Do you have any idea what I’m missing?”
A shell game is a classic big-city rip-off. A guy hides a ball under some shells and moves the shells around. People bet money on where the ball is. No matter how closely you watch the shells, you can’t find the ball, so the guy takes your money. If the cops come, the guy cleans up the game and disappears into the crowd. It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book.
Lala ran toward us, coughing. She wore a sundress with huge orange flowers, sunglasses, and a braid like the one Alma wore in the drawing on her flyers. She plopped on the bench beside Brett and sniffled. “Excuse me; I’m getting sick. Nice glasses, Brett.”
When Money dropped his box, the balls and shells clunked. “You don’t sound sick, babe.”
“You best believe I’m sick,” said Lala.
“Are you pretending to be sick to compete with Alma?” asked Brett.
“Listen. If that girl exists, she’s about to find herself in a freestyle battle. Then we’ll see who can rhyme. And she’s not winning just because people feel sorry for her. Have you ever heard of leveling the playing field? They do it in sports.” Lala sniffled again. “Anybody got a tissue?”
Brett tried to catch my eye.
I pretended that my fingernail was fascinating. “Lala, you’re losing it,” I said.
“We all know you ain’t sick, babe,” said Money. “And we all know Alma ain’t sick. Let’s hope whoever shows up puts on a better act than you. Gotta keep people amped about helping sick kids. Mine’s a dude. Scott Jones. No diagnosis yet. I’m gonna drop the hammer when this Alma thing blows over. He’s got three hundred fifty friends and counting. I stay in constant contact with them. I’m building relationships. Well, Scott is.”
“Scott Jones?” I said.
“People ain’t smart enough to investigate, they deserve to get ripped off,” said Money.
“Excuse you?” said Lala.
“Is it Alma’s fault you guys were so desperate that you forced her to listen to your drama?” said Money.
“Real nice, Andy,” said Brett.
“If you’re so sure Alma doesn’t exist, Money, why do you keep calling her Alma?” I asked.
“Shorthand,” said Money. “What should I say? The person or people pretending to be Alma probably wish they were flipping burgers instead of scrolling through your incomprehensible chick problems? Waste of breath.”
Lala took off her sunglasses and glared at Money. “I like writing down what’s in my heart. I actually feel better after I write to that girl, even if she doesn’t exist. And I’m starting to get a certain feeling about you, Scott Jones. A bad feeling.”
“On that note: Being,” said Brett, “is born of not being.”
He handed each of us a slip of paper. I was still too nervous to look at him. But he was really trying, which was a good sign . . .
That’s all it said: Being is born of not being. I checked the other side—nothing.
While everybody read the message, birds tweeted summer songs. A group of girls playing soccer thwacked the ball and grunted.
I got the feeling nobody had a clue what this meant.
Well, I hadn’t understood what Brett was about for a long time. It was going to take me a while to catch up. If he wanted me to catch up.
“‘Being is born of not being,’” said Lala. “I like that, I think. What does it mean?”
“It sounds like a business philosophy,” said Money. “I’m getting pumped about seeing this in poster form, something I cou
ld sell online to other business dudes, but I have no idea what it means, so tell me in five words or less.”
Brett pushed his glasses up his nose. “Something like trust your gut.”
“Ew,” said Lala. “That means trust your intestines. What do they know? Besides, my intestines are about to get busy with some food-truck junk! No, seriously, I like it, Brett. It’s poetry.” She folded her note into an accordion and glued it to her bottom lip with her spit. “Look, Claude. I got a beard. Like that dude who makes the peanut-butter noodles.”
I snickered.
“Lala—c’mon,” said Brett. “It means you have to stop thinking about yourself for long enough to experience the world around you. Stop wanting everything to be different from how it is. You have to be someplace, just be there, and feel what it feels like. And that’s when you know.”
“Know what?” asked Money.
“How things actually are,” said Brett.
Lala twanged her paper beard, which made it fall on the ground.
“Never mind,” said Brett.
“I’m sorry, Brett,” said Lala. “I’m not trying to be rude. I’m still thinking about what you said. It’s kind of confusing.”
“Look. I’m just trying to tell you what I’m gonna do,” said Brett. “What I think might help us figure out what is up. We have no idea who Alma is. We need to observe the situation carefully, without interfering, to establish the facts.”
I felt Brett look at me again. I’d mentioned the FBI in the letter. Not because of me. So he’d know my parents might not be Alma. Brett was almost never wrong about things, but this time it seemed like he was, and I knew he’d want to know about it. Having his facts straight is the most important thing in the world to Brett. He loses patience when people ignore information that doesn’t fit their version of a story. I also told him about my parents and the flyers, because that piece was still confusing. And I knew Brett would want all the facts, not just some of them.
Brett went on. “We don’t know who’ll show up to meet Alma, or who’ll show up to be her. Say some girl shows up and introduces herself as Alma Lingonberry. If she seems legit—fine. Great. But say you guys don’t like how she looks, or talks. Say she doesn’t seem sick. She seems like a scam artist to you. Don’t . . . don’t . . .”
“Don’t what, man?” said Money.
“Don’t immediately start a riot!” Brett pulled on his curls to calm down. “I’m saying people have invested a lot in this girl. Feelings will be raw.”
“Since when do you care if there’s a riot, Brett, as long as the truth comes out?” asked Lala.
When I looked up, Brett was looking at me the way he used to. Like I was the only one in the world who understood what he was thinking.
For an instant I let myself look back. Then I looked down and kicked the bench: tink, tink, tink.
“He wants to protect his mother, Lala,” I said.
We both did. Getting obsessed with helping Alma was probably filling the hole in the old lady’s life where all the people who never helped her were missing from. Now even the person she thought she was helping might break her heart.
I hoped not.
“All I can say is I’m gonna find out who’s running the sound system,” said Lala, twisting her braid.
“Why do you need to know that?” asked Brett.
“For the freestyle battle,” said Lala.
“I’m gonna scout for secret exits,” said Money.
“Why?” I asked.
“In case people discover that my shell game ain’t an official fund-raiser,” said Money, fanning himself with his phone. “At least not for the community. Definitely not for the poetry dork.”
“I’m over you, Scott Jones.” Lala took off down the hill singing rhymes and dancing and coughing. Money ran to catch up with her. I followed them and heard Brett’s footsteps behind me.
THE CARNIVAL
You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear.
—Sherlock Holmes, detective from a book
The basilica is part of the movie set of my life. From the outside, its big, round stained-glass window looks like the neighborhood’s personal man-made sun. I’ve never been inside, but I walk past the place almost every day. On carnival day, its parking lot always feels bigger than usual, with the rides, games, and food trucks. Big enough to hold anything that might happen. I watched volunteers fill barrels with balloons, set up tents, and stock cotton-candy machines.
Money ran off to find his secret exits. Laliyah ran off to find her mother, who was the emcee.
Cutie Cat strutted up to me, and I pet her. Mrs. Ramirez must have brought her. I heard myself say, “Thass my ol’ frieeend,” in that goo-goo voice that automatically comes out when you talk to cats and babies. Then she headed toward Brett. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Brett pick her up, and I decided to follow a salty-sweet-fried scent wherever it led.
After I’d poured my heart out to him in that letter, saying his father was losing out on a son who would change his whole life, and that I knew—
And how much I missed sharing our observations about the world, because nobody saw things like he did—
And signed it love, instead of from, and everything—
You might be wondering why it was so important for me to get away from Brett.
Or maybe it’s obvious.
Before long the carnival was in full swing, and it. Was. Packed. People of all shapes and sizes crammed together elbow to elbow like plastic toys in the Eighth Avenue dollar stores. Groups of grandmas in pastel outfits scuttled through clusters of businessmen in baseball hats. Mobs of laughing teenagers lifted food over each others’ heads. Kids crawled through their parents’ legs. Heavy, ancient-looking rides plastered with chipped paintings of clouds spilled over with screaming passengers as they spun around; carnival callers yelled, “Step right up!” through plastic bullhorns; music and lights blared.
Mother Fingerless, wearing pink lip gloss and an electric-blue muumuu, glowed like a twenty-four-hour diner behind her table, which was piled with striped, sequined, buttoned, fabric-painted, hot-glued animals like giraffe-raccoons and gopher-elephants, which existed only right here, right now, where Mother Fingerless was the ringmaster of a zoo from a science-fiction movie. Her lip gloss matched her giant pink flag, which flapped from the top of a stick stuck in a vase full of marbles. Frank Sinatra’s voice poured out of her portable CD player. I made a show of pretending to steal her strongbox of money.
Mother Fingerless screeched and dropped her hot dog. She slapped my hand and shook my wrist. Her curls bounced. “Claudeline, my baby girl! You kept your promise!”
“What, you’re surprised? Mother Fingerless, my fine young . . .” I bit my lip. My new goal with jokes was to make them funny to both people. I hadn’t quite figured it out yet. “Friend.”
She pouted. “Friend? Hmm. Come here, you bad kid; let me love you.”
Before I could get away, Mother Fingerless smooched me on the lips.
“Enough already!” I said.
Mother Fingerless gripped my wrists like she was holding on for dear life. “Say something rude, you devil! I been lonely.”
“I can’t think of anything,” I said.
“Of course you can!” She pounded a folding chair. “Sit!”
I sat.
“Say something!”
“Honestly, it’s lovely seeing you. How are you feeling today?”
Mother Fingerless practically shoved me off my chair. “Come on, you won’t be funny for me? What, you don’t like me no more?” Then she smooched my forehead, and I yelped. “Mm-hm,” she said. “You got a fever.”
I grumbled. The only time I ever hear the word “scowling” is when a teacher is reading out loud from a tale about swashbucklers. But that’s the best word to describe what my face was doing while Frank Sinatra sang about being the king of New York and I wiped lip gloss off my head with my T-shirt sleeve. I tried to stay out of kissing dista
nce as I rearranged the pile of mutants into an attractive display.
“Hope it’s not too warm for Alma,” mumbled Mother Fingerless, with one eye searching the crowd. “Or too cold. Do you think she’ll find my flag? What time is it?”
“It’s four thirty,” I said. “Hurry up, young lady! You’re gonna be late for the bikini competition!”
Mother Fingerless whacked my arm. “HA!”
“Easy now,” I said.
“If you’re not coming around to see Brett anymore, you can still come around to see me. I miss you, and it makes me realize: You’re my only daughter, Claudeline. I promise you I’m going to save your soul.”
“I’m gonna round us up some customers,” I said. “Save me a salami cookie, okay? I know you’re holding out on me.”
Mother Fingerless laughed her saucy laugh. “I got you, baby girl.”
Oh well. If the old lady couldn’t save Alma, at least she’d always have me.
Mother Fingerless ran out of stuffed creatures in fifty-seven minutes flat. It turned out all I had to do was drag over potential customers. Then, with the help of Frank Sinatra, her sales pitch was irresistible. “Every single creature has its own special flaw,” she’d say while she dusted dandruff off somebody’s shoulder or wiped mustard out of their mustache. “They are all unique and individual. Like you.” After a couple of teenagers with black lipstick bought her very last mutant, she gave me one more fat kiss on the head, and I didn’t even fight it. Forget saving one dying kid. That woman is so full of hope and dreams she should have her own talk show. She could turn millions of lives around.
I took a seat in a folding chair across from the stage, where the band was gonna play, and kicked my chair. Think, think, think. That’s what I heard when I kicked my chair. Think, think, think. Was somebody gonna show up that night, saying she was Alma Lingonberry? What if it was like Brett said? Some girl showed up, but she didn’t seem sick. She was faking a cough, like Lala. Then what? Brett had said not to make a scene, but what if I couldn’t help it?
The Bad Kid Page 13