When You Look Like Us

by Pamela N. Harris

  Before I can hit ignore on my phone, Nic hangs up. A couple seconds later, she shoots me a text:

  Never mind. All good.

  All good? Of course she is. She’s always good when she’s buzzing. Hell, she’s good even after the buzzing goes away because I’m always here to help quiet the storm, like the dope I am. I shove my phone under my pillow and get back to work on Meek’s paper. Nicole won’t remember any of this in the morning. Why should I?

  I go to sleep that night and dream of snakes. It’s Nicole, not Pooch, outside my window, and the braids in her hair have been replaced by snakes. They curl around her neck, squeeze at her throat until she can’t even choke out my name. Every time I reach for her, one of the snakes strikes at me—so close I can feel its venom spritzing my skin.

  Two

  THE ALARM ON MY PHONE GOES OFF AT 5:57 A.M., PER usual. The sanitation truck beeps down the street, collecting the week’s trash, per usual. I hear my neighbor through the walls, trying to wake up her three boys for school. Per usual. Canal Street lives on.

  No lie, sleep was thin last night. Every creak, every tap, every whistle my apartment made during the night, I assumed was Nic. Tiptoeing into her bedroom, sleeping off her latest head trip. She’s probably in bed now, snoring the bliss away. We have things to iron out, but I’ll let her catch some extra z’s before I begin my Q&A session.

  “Jay!” MiMi taps, taps, taps on my door. “Jay! I know you heard that alarm go off. Get up.” I mouth along to her follow-up threat: “If you miss the bus, I’m not driving you!”

  I peel away from my mattress and let my feet graze the carpet. Scratch the side of my face. “Easy, MiMi,” I call out. “Can’t a brother take a moment to collect himself?”

  “A brother can collect the crust out his eyes and come eat this breakfast. Get a move on. That bus driver of yours is crazy. Showing up all early, making y’all miss the bus so folks gotta waste gas to get y’all to school. Ain’t got time for her shenanigans today.” She knocks against my door one last time—as if I could still be sleeping through all her killjoy-ing.

  I grab my phone, expecting to see my usual morning text from Camila. Nothing. Great. She’s pissed about how I ended the call last night. I send her a winking emoji before pulling up my calendar, glancing through all my alerts for the day: meeting with Meek before first bell, Taco Bell interview right after school, then hitting up the CVS around the corner for MiMi’s meds. Now I have to find time to check in on Nic, make sure all that bliss she smoked up with Javon last night is not seeping through her pores before she heads to school. Last thing we need is for her to get suspended. Just another Friday for me.

  Before I hit the bathroom, I poke my finger through the slit I cut in my box spring. Let my fingers run across the bills I’ve collected so far. Can’t start my day without touching them, seeing if they’re still there. $4,210 so far. I have a long way to go until I reach $112,000. Not even sure if MiMi has seen that amount of money in her lifetime. But she’s had to. After a Google search, CNN told me that it costs about fourteen grand a year to raise a child. Multiply that by the eight years I’ve been here, and MiMi has spent over a hundred grand making sure I’m fed and still breathing. Money that could’ve gone toward her retirement. That’s not even including Nic’s expenses. I don’t care how long I have to hustle. If I have to stuff burritos or write Meek’s English papers until his dumb ass graduates—MiMi is going to retire in Florida, or wherever the hell else she wants to.

  Florida was always my dad’s endgame. “Soon as I hit sixty-five,” he’d always say. “Mornings with Mickey, and sunsets by the sea.” I found out that Mickey Mouse and the sea aren’t near the same city in Florida, but it didn’t matter. Dad never made it to sixty-five. The cancer barely allowed him to make it to thirty-five. It ate away at his smile, his laugh, his everything, until Dad was nothing but an outline with a pout. Did the same to my mom even though she never had cancer. She was a different kind of sick. Mornings with her were the toughest after Dad passed. Nic making me pause at Mom’s bedroom door so she could be the first to peek in, see if Mom was sleeping in her own vomit or worse. I can still hear the loud sigh that tumbled out of Nic’s mouth when Mom got caught behind the wheel with too much booze in her system for the last time. Nic wasn’t disappointed—hell, she wasn’t even sad. That breath was relief.

  Once again, I pause outside a bedroom door, but this time it’s Nic’s. MiMi’s distracted, clattering away in the kitchen, humming to a hymn that Reverend Palmer insists the choir sings every Sunday. I’ve lost count of how many times I had to be reminded that Jesus’s blood saved me. My hand lingers on Nic’s doorknob before I take a deep breath and twist it, peek inside her room. I deflate just a little when I notice that her bed is fresh to death, not a crinkled sheet or rumpled pillow in sight. She probably crashed at Javon’s last night. He’s an ass, but at least he won’t let her roam the streets when she’s off the chains like that. I slink into her room, pull her comforter and sheets down. Plop down on it and make it look real lived-in for MiMi. The last time MiMi found out that Nic had crashed at Javon’s, the second civil war almost got started here in the Ducts. I’m talking tears, threats, and lamps busting against the walls. Our plaster couldn’t take another argument. Nic’s favorite rapper, Travis Scott, glares back at me from the poster next to Nic’s dresser. I glare right back. Why the hell is he so pissed? I’m the one that’s losing shower time to cover Nic’s ass. Yet again.

  “Jay!” MiMi booms from the kitchen. “I don’t hear any water running!”

  I close Nic’s bedroom door behind me and make my way to the bathroom. Take a five-minute shower, knowing MiMi would twist if I take any longer. Once I dry off, I put on my threads, top them with my favorite gray hoodie, then head to the kitchen. MiMi has two plates of eggs and a fried bologna sandwich sitting at the table, waiting for me. Waiting for Nic. If my sister gave me a dollar for every time I had to lie to MiMi for her, I wouldn’t have to consider this Taco Bell gig.

  “Milk or orange juice?” MiMi asks, her head buried in the fridge.

  I curl my lip. “Can’t I just munch on some Cap’n Crunch? My stomach gets all jazzy this early in the morning.”

  MiMi pokes her head out of the fridge, two rollers eating up half of her forehead. “Your stomach gets jazzy because you like eating junk for breakfast. Now sit down. You got five minutes.” She decides for me and pours a glass of orange juice, sets it down in front of my plate. “Check on your sister?”

  “Yeah.” I take a huge chomp of my bologna sandwich, way more than needed. But a full mouth is a muffled mouth, and a muffled mouth can sell lies to MiMi. “She got picked up early. Grabbing breakfast on the way.” I take a swig of orange juice to swallow down my fable with the fried meat.

  MiMi shakes her head and sits across from me, smoothing out any wrinkles from her khaki pants, pressed and ready to go for the packing plant. “I better not get another call from that school telling me she’s a no-show.” She slides the plate meant for Nic in front of her. “Can’t win for losing with that child.” She pokes at her eggs with her fork, eyes on her plate but mind somewhere swaying with Nic’s. What little bit Nic has left.

  Pretty sure Nic lost most of her mind three years ago. I know the exact moment. It was the summer before I started high school. Nic had a full year on me, so she felt it was her duty to make sure I didn’t walk into school looking like a sucker. We took the city bus to Ross to buy name-brand threads on the cheap. Nic spent most of her allowance on me but made sure to buy a pair of red mini shorts to beat the summer heat. She insisted on wearing them on the way back home.

  “I’ll take them off before MiMi gets home,” Nic told me.

  “What if she wants to see what we bought?” I asked.

  “I’ll just hold them up real swift-like for her. She won’t even notice how short they are.”

  I raised an eyebrow as I scanned her shorts. She’ll notice all right, I remember thinking. Javon Hockaday noticed, too.<
br />
  No sooner than we stepped out of Ross to head to the bus stop, he happened to be leaving the Verizon store, picking up the latest phone that took pictures when you blinked your eyes. Or something nifty like that.

  “Ms. Murphy’s people,” he said to us, but not really. He spoke to Nic’s legs. His eyes traced every muscle and curve that my big sister wasn’t supposed to have.

  Nic giggled, made some kind of noise to affirm him. I stared down at my shoes. We weren’t supposed to bump gums with the likes of Javon Hockaday. MiMi made that very clear when she rolled up her car windows every time we drove past his building.

  “If y’all heading home, I can give you a ride.” Again, this was directed at Nic. Hell, not even sure if he knew I was there.

  Nic looked at me, bit on the cross dangling from her necklace. I knew she always thought Javon was cute. Most of the girls in the neighborhood do. He has the look of one of those rappers who knows how to bang out both party anthems and baby makers—high yellow skin, good hair, and enough tattoos to make him look dangerous. Only thing, I heard enough stories to know that Javon really was dangerous. I shook my head at Nicole. She chewed her cross even more and I shook my head three more times. Finally, she dug in her pocket—handed me some change for the bus. “Don’t talk to anybody,” she said. “Go straight home and lock the door behind you. I’ll be there in a few.”

  Before I could even protest, she was trailing behind Javon toward the parking lot. She glanced at me one last time before entering his car. Straight home, she mouthed. She went her way and I went mine. We haven’t been on the same path ever since.

  “Can’t Win for Losing,” I say to MiMi at the kitchen table. “Isn’t that the name of one of those plays on the chitlin’ circuit?”

  MiMi looks up and tries to hide her smile with a smirk.

  “Not to be outdone by my personal favorite, Mama, I Want to Twerk. Coming to a concert hall near you.”

  MiMi laughs and reaches over to smack one of my hands. “Boy, you are too much.”

  I take one last swig of orange juice and leap from my chair. “Gotta fade. Can’t miss the bus, right?” I peck MiMi on the cheek, then snatch my backpack from the floor by the front door.

  “Jay, when you see your sister, tell her to—”

  I close the door behind me. I have lots of things to tell Nic once I see her. Like this is the last time I cover for her. Like it’s either the bliss and Javon, or me. Like I’m too scared to know who she’d choose.

  The thing about Youngs Mill High is that there is no thing about Youngs Mill High. You got students that come from the shitty parts of Newport News like me, and you got students who live in the bougie neighborhoods. Three-car garages, white picket fences, fireplaces in master bedrooms. All the jazz that would run cats close to a million dollars, but costs half that in Newport News because who wants to live in Newport News? Even the Youngs Mill football team isn’t special, but fools will still sell their first-born child to get and keep a spot. Feels good to have a purpose in this hellhole. Plus, it’s the golden ticket out of here for some of us. Exhibit A: Meek Foreman.

  “How it do, Jay?” He presses his broad frame against the locker next to mine, eclipsing my view of the rest of the hall.

  I give him a nod. “Meek.” I pull out the books I need for the first two periods, real crushed ice–style. Thing is, you can’t let clowns like Meek see you sweat, no matter how much they resemble a bouncer in a ratchet hip-hop club—all biceps, no brain. Meek and his kind run the school, and guys like me just try to stay in the race. My hustle at Youngs Mill keeps me in the game, but only if I feign power. So if this deal is going to go down, I need to keep my cool and keep it brief.

  Meek pounds fists with a couple of fans. Spottiest record for a running back in Youngs Mill history, but still has fans. That takes real talent—or lack thereof. “Thought I’d wish you a good morning before running off to English.”

  I slide my red folder from my backpack. The most obvious color, hence why I chose it. People never dwell on the obvious. “Right on. Hope you did your homework.”

  Meek digs into his pocket, coughs into the baseball mitt he calls a hand, and then reaches inside my locker—leaving a crumpled twenty-dollar bill on top of my binder.

  I cock my head, stare down Andrew Jackson’s wrinkled face. He stares right back. I chew on the inside of my cheek to keep it from twitching. To keep myself from blurting out: “Twenty dollars? Do you know how long it took me to type this up and pretend you actually know the difference between allegory and metaphors?” I don’t because: A.) Smart businessmen don’t crack under pressure, and B.) Meek is anything but meek, and having my ass whooped in front of my peers is definitely not on my To-Do List for the day.

  “He’s missing a friend,” I say to Meek, slowly and measured. As if his girth doesn’t make me want to crawl into my locker and hide until the coast is clear.

  “Bowie told me I’d get a discount. Being a first-time customer and all.”

  Fickin’ Bowie. First spilling my wax to Camila, and now making deals behind my back? He and I need to have a conversation that doesn’t include many words. “Is Bowie the one doing the actual work?”

  Meek shrugs his mammoth shoulders and the world shrugs right along with him. “Seems like you and Bowie don’t understand the art of communication, but that’s not my problem. The bell’s about to ring, so . . .” He takes a step closer to me because that’s what big guys do when they want to make a point.

  I nod. Point taken. I slide Meek’s English essay out of my red folder and rip away the final three pages. I shake out my hand to keep it from shaking on its own. Try to pass the rest of the essay to Meek with my you-can’t-rip-out-my-spleen-in-public smile.

  “The fuck, Jay?” Spit flies from Meek’s mouth and lands dangerously close to my upper lip.

  It’s my turn to shrug. “Third of the price, third of the work. Better than nothing, right?”

  Meek’s nostrils flare in and out, in and out—keeping time with my heartbeat. I think about the desert, sandpaper, Nic’s meatloaf. Anything dry enough to stop me from melting right at Meek’s feet.

  Alarms go off in my head, telling me to flee. Run for cover. Except Meek seems to hear them, too, and takes a step back. Thankfully, it’s the warning bell, letting everyone in the hall know to carry their asses to class now. I’ve never been so appreciative of Youngs Mill High’s tardy system. “We’ll chitchat later, Jay.”

  “Any moment with you, Meek, is always a pleasure.”

  Meek swings his bulky body away from me and sideswipes some kid minding his business, trying to get to class. The kid tumbles against a locker, but still feels compelled to apologize to Meek. Meek’s too pissed to even respond with a grunt, which means I won’t be taking the bus home today. He’ll be waiting for me near the bus ramps, and then everyone will have a video of him stomping my face in. I’ll have to keep it low-key until Meek blows off steam on some other unassuming punk. No offense.

  I head toward first period, make sure to take a swift sip of water at the fountain right across from the girl’s restroom. Nic’s usually in there every morning when she decides to show up to school. She sheds MiMi’s approved attire and squeezes into something that barely covers her ass. “Javon likes when I show off my legs,” Nic always throws out as an excuse. Apparently, Javon also likes when his girlfriend is late to school because I’ve had too many gulps of water and Nicole and her legs are nowhere to be seen. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and take one last look at the bathroom door. The New Jay wouldn’t be worried, I think over and over until I believe it. So New Jay moves his feet toward first period.

  “Clock’s ticking, Jay,” my Math Analysis teacher, Mr. Branch, says to me outside his classroom door, sipping from his Black Power coffee mug.

  “Wouldn’t be a problem if y’all would let us sprint to class,” I call out to him.

  “Coach Vines told me your mile-run time last year. You’d get to class quicker with a
powerwalk, homey.”

  I pretend to duck from the shots he just fired. Mr. Branch is one of the only teachers I’d let bust my chops like that. He always finds a way to quote Jay-Z, even when preaching about distance formula. Who knew math class could be so turnt?

  The final bell rings just as I slide into US History class. Mr. Booker’s at his desk, nodding along to whatever Missy Johnston’s complaining about this morning. I can tell from his hooded eyes that he hit the town too hard last night and hasn’t yet had his first sip of coffee. Camila’s at her usual seat by the window, already jotting down Mr. Booker’s icebreaker question like a good little student. I linger a beat at her desk, gauge her temperature toward me.

  “Hey,” I say.

  Camila peeks up at me through her bangs, then shifts her whole body to the window.

  “We’re doing this today?” I ask.

  She continues scribbling a response in her notebook, pretends I’m not there.

  “Come on, Mila. I said bye before I hung up.” At least, I think I did. I had so much Red Bull running through my veins that my fingers were still twitching this morning.

  Camila smirks and looks up at me again. “I’m trying to get my work done. Don’t you have other people’s work to do?” At that, she raises her hand and flutters her fingers at me, sending me away. Okay, she’s salty about my side hustle—which means instead of answering Booker’s time filler of the day, I’ll be drafting my epic apology note to her. Camila’s old school, likes to watch old Boyz II Men and Jodeci music videos on YouTube. She’ll want to see my sorrow in handwriting. I’ll lay it on extra thick.

  “Yooo,” Bowie says as I take my seat in the back next to him. “Cold front this a.m., am I right?”