by Paula Chase
Dedication
To those who are judged
before they’re truly seen and heard
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Simp
Rollie
Simp
Rollie
Simp
Rollie
Simp
Rollie
Simp
Rollie
Simp
Rollie
Simp
Rollie
Simp
Rollie
Simp
Rollie
Simp
Rollie
Epilogue—Simp’s April
Epilogue—Rollie’s April
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
Simp
On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday he was a sucker, 100 percent—sitting in the house waiting on his boy Rollie to get home from his talented and gifted classes like he couldn’t haunt the streets of Pirates Cove on his own.
He could. It just wasn’t the same.
Deontae “Simp” Wright’s four younger brothers fussed over the video game they were playing. Even Little Dee, who was only two, clamored for the controller, and all he knew how to do was push buttons and freeze the screen in the middle of a play or turn the game off just as somebody was ready to score. Their screeching got on Simp’s nerves.
“Ay,” he yelled, staring at ’em.
Derek, the seven-year-old, closed yap. Dre and Dom, eleven and nine years old, muttered under their breath. Simp didn’t retaliate. Muttering meant they respected him enough not to come out of their face wrong.
Most days he played with ’em. But he was too keyed up waiting on Rollie. They were supposed to run a little ball when the rec opened for free play at seven. The twin, Chris, would probably be there too. Dude had only lived in Pirates Cove for six months, but he acted like he was all that just ’cause he could rap and sing.
Before Chris moved in, all Rollie had cared about was balling. Now all he talked about was playing the drums. And it wasn’t like he ain’t play drums before. Shoot, he was always banging on something and coming up with new beats. But once Chris moved into the Cove and started talking about how the TAG program was gon’ help him get put on in the music industry, it was like all of a sudden Rollie thought that was gonna happen to him, too.
A hundred million people was out there trying get put on to rap, sing, or be in a band, and these two fools was acting like being in some little after-school program was gon’ put them in front of super producers or something. It was crazy to Simp.
He wasn’t trying to dead Rollie’s dream, though. That was his boy. He just wished Rollie would remember there was other stuff out there important, too, like balling with the Cove Marauders and trappin’ for their coach, Juan Martinez. Shoot, trappin’ for Tez was even more important than balling ’cause they got paid for it.
Dough boys doing their thing, Simp thought with a big grin.
He knew that technically all him and Rollie were was lookouts. At least for now.
Simp was the one that got them put on. He was the one who Coach Tez had approached with “What’s your name, little soldier? You good with the rock. I think I need you on my team . . . you and your little partner.”
Coach Tez ain’t mess with dummies. And low-key, it was one of the reasons Simp had agreed so fast to hustling. Everybody thought Rollie was the smart one just ’cause he was always all quiet and serious. Nobody ever told him he went too far saying what was on his mind.
Whatever. Closed mouths didn’t get fed. Simp couldn’t help that he told stuff like it was. He wasn’t trying hurt nobody’s feelings, but he hated how everybody always acted like they had to find a polite way to tell the truth. The truth was just the truth. Coach Tez trusting him with the rock, on and off the court, was proof that he wasn’t as dumb as people thought he was, even if his nickname gave people the right to assume that.
And that was thanks to his mother and one of her trifling boyfriends. One day Simp didn’t move fast enough when she called him so she yelled, “Get your simple butt over here, boy.” After that, ol’ dude was always, “Ay, little Simp, come here.” He had only been maybe five years old. Ol’ dude was long gone. The nickname never left. Simp never tripped off it. Hood nicknames had a way of sticking, especially when it was your own mother who gave it to you.
It didn’t help that he had failed sixth grade. Then he had to take summer school that next year to get into seventh. It didn’t make him dumb. School just wasn’t that important to him. Not like basketball. Or making paper.
Still, one of the reasons he let his massive head full of locs dangle down his face was ’cause it helped hide that his hairline looked like somebody had taped it too close to his eyebrows. It made it seem like he was always squinting, trying to figure things out. He couldn’t help that. People was gonna say what they was gonna say about him.
All he knew was once him and Rollie joined Coach Tez’s basketball team, they also was part of his hustle, first as errand boys, now as lookouts working the front. Dumb could get you hemmed up by the police. So, trust, he wasn’t dumb one bit.
Working the front made Simp feel like he’d swallowed electricity. To anybody else they just looked like they were chilling out front near the entrance of the hood. But they were watching, signaling to the runners that cars coming in were either all right or leecee. Sometimes, when more than one cop car rolled through they’d slink away, separating as they whistled or hooty-hooed. He never wanted nobody to get caught up on his watch. He loved knowing he had the runners’ backs.
Now he wanted to be one of the dudes Coach Tez trusted the most. He just had to keep it up.
Naw, we gotta keep it up, he thought.
Him and Rollie were a team, and if they did it right, they could be heading a crew—with five or six dudes doing the work for ’em—by the time they were sixteen.
Him and Rollie each got 60 dollars every time they worked the front. So Simp knew crews had to make big bank. That’s where he needed to be. At thirteen, he was the oldest and had to help take care of his brothers. He was the one who taught them how to handle their business at the bus stop or school if somebody stepped to them. He was the one who made sure they got something to eat. Shoot, he was even the one who picked up Little Dee from the bootleg babysitter, Ms. Pat.
Her house always stunk like crappy Pampers and something burnt. He hated how five or six kids was always playing some game whose only rule was run and scream. Dee was even starting to join in. All he knew was if somebody ever hurt Dee, he was gonna go off. He told his mother they should put him in a real day care. Hint, hint—one near her job so she could do pickup. But she had hit him with “And who paying for a ‘real’ day care, Deontae?”
He had started to say he would. ’Cause he definitely could have helped. But he didn’t need her knowing how much money he had.
The memory of the first time he handed his moms a stack of bills filled him with warm purpose. She had side-eyed him. “Boy, where you get this money?” And before he could stop the words, he’d said, “Don’t worry ’bout it.”
He had steeled himself for the smack coming his way. Instead his mother, Niqa, had stood there for a few seconds staring at the ball of scrunched-up bills he’d handed her. Then she’d sniffed and said, “Hmph, how your little peasy head gon’ tell me not to worry about it. I worry ’bout what I want, Deontae . . . but, thank you.” She’d kissed him on the cheek and walked off. It was the closest she ever got to saying he’d done something right.
Now he slid her money regularly and they had an understanding. She ain’t ask where he got the money and he ain’t tell her. She still w
ent upside his head every now and then, talking ’bout “Don’t go thinking you grown just ’cause you give me some ends now and then, boy.”
But that was for show. He saw how her eyes always got wide when he passed her some money. And then once she came to his room, standing at the door, her mouth pursed like she was mad but her voice gentle, “Deontae, you got a few dollars? I need get Dee some Pampers.”
He’d reached into one of his shoeboxes and pulled out thirty dollars like it wasn’t nothing. And it wasn’t. He had money stashed in different places throughout his bedroom, hidden from her and his brothers.
“This good?” he’d asked, the bills fanned out in his fingers.
Her eyes went from the bills to the box. She nodded and plucked them out of his hands. What Simp remembered most was how she stopped at the door and said, “Thanks, baby,” before she walked away.
That’s what was up. He was taking care of his. His mother got on his nerves, always expecting him or Deondre to watch their younger brothers. But the fact was, he’d do whatever he could to help her keep the lights on. Rollie ain’t have brothers to chase after, toughen up, or feed when they got hungry. Maybe that’s why he had so much time to daydream.
All Simp was really good at was basketball and counting. Playing for the NBA would be cool, but it wasn’t nothing he thought about all the time, like Rollie did music. Real talk, he had a better chance of being like Rock Jensen, one of Coach Tez’s top earners, than LeBron. That was messed up. But it was real. And he was about the real. Rollie could go ’head and daydream.
His brothers was a pain but he loved ’em. They would never be hungry or get punked by anybody if he had anything to say about it. And on that he was the last word.
He checked the clock on the cable box.
5:00 p.m.
Thirty more minutes and Rollie would be home. He stood up and pulled one smartphone out of his right pocket and another out of his left. The two phones looked almost exactly alike, except his real phone was in a shiny silver case with his basketball number, 8, emblazoned on the back. He got it made at one of the stands in the middle of the mall. The dude had said it was real silver. Big ballin’, baby.
The other, a burner phone, was in a simple black case. The front was cracked like it had been dropped a few times. It was always on or near him, in his pocket or under his pillow when he slept—just in case his coach sent a message. He threw it on the coffee table, sat back on the sofa, and toyed with the idea of texting Tai, the only other person from their squad who wasn’t in TAG. But he didn’t know what he’d say and whatever he did say she’d probably be all, “Simp, why are you texting me?” Just like that. Not “y u texting me” but full-out “why-are-you-texting-me?”—writing out every word like he was too stupid to understand any other way.
Tai was always giving him a hard time. He played it off like he ain’t care, but the more Tai put him down, the harder he worked to make her like him. Every time he wanted to be like man, forget her, he’d think about her in a pair of tight jeans hugging her curves like they loved her and he’d be right back laughing at anything she said or agreeing with her when she went off about something.
He forced his fingers away from her number and instead recorded himself lip-syncing. It was his favorite app and one of the only things that passed time while he did what he did all the time lately: wait on Rollie.
Dom gave him a look. Before his mouth was barely open enough to form a sound, Simp smacked him in the head. “What, you got jokes?”
Dom turned back to the game, glossy eyed but wordless and without tears. “That’s what I thought,” Simp said.
Secretly, he was proud of his brother for not crying.
The burner phone skipped a few inches across the coffee table as it buzzed. He grabbed it just before Little Dee’s chubby fingers enclosed the phone. He checked the text as he scooped Dee into his arms to head off his wailing.
10.10
“Gimme, Thimp,” Little Dee demanded. He squirmed, reaching for the phone and kicking to get down at the same time. “Lemme see.”
“Stop, man.” Simp squeezed him tight. Dee behaved but kept reaching. Eyes on the coded message, Simp dropped him gently onto the couch, ignoring his outstretched arms.
He texted back 9 and grabbed a knit cap.
“Dre, watch everybody till I get back. I need make a run.”
Deondre sucked his teeth. “Mommy ain’t home yet. You can’t leave till she get home.”
“Don’t be telling me what I can’t do,” Simp snapped. Babysitting was wack. But he had to go. “Look, if Mommy ask, tell her Coach called for me.”
Dre’s lip drooped. Simp couldn’t blame him. He’d always hated when their mother would rush out the house with some half-ass instructions, never saying how long she’d be gone or even where she was going. Worse, when something went wrong—and it always did with boys running wild—she went upside his head like it was his fault he was only nine years old and couldn’t stop his five-year-old brother from leaping off the sofa and cracking his head on the entertainment center. And that was before Little Dee was born. Now, half the time, between Derek and Dee, it was like running a day-care center.
Being shackled to his brothers was what it was, and Dre was next in line for the cuffs. “Yo, look, you second-in-command. Just hold it down.” Simp dug in his pocket and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. “When Mommy get home, you, Dom, and Derek walk up to the Wa and get y’all self something. All right?”
Dre’s eyes lit up. “All right.” He stuffed the money in his pocket and let Little Dee crawl into his lap.
“I want a chili dog from the Wa,” Dom said, never taking his eyes off the game.
“Can I get a slice of pizza?” Derek asked, pumping his fist as his character on screen pummeled Dom’s.
“You gon’ have to ask Mommy. Ouno if she cooking or not,” Simp said. He knew she probably wouldn’t. But dinner wasn’t his problem, right now. He grabbed his jacket, anxious to beat feet. “Dom, Derek, help Dre watch Little Dee. Hear?”
There was a chorus of “yeah”s as Simp zipped his jacket. He turned his back on Dre’s stony face. If it had been any other message, he would have waited for their mother. But it was a 10.10—get here soon as you can. No telling when his mother would show up. She got off work at five but that ain’t mean nothing. She might get in at six; she might get in at eight. Making sure her older boys took care of her younger boys was the only rule Niqa Wright enforced on a regular basis.
Dre would be all right, Simp told himself.
He let the cold air clear his head. It wasn’t even five thirty and the streetlights were already on. It was still people out. Some called out his name, throwing up a hand or fist in hello.
People was always out in the Cove. Even three-bedroom rows weren’t that big inside. To stretch out, people milled out on their stoops, found reasons to linger around their cars talking, or started dice games under the streetlights.
The Cove had eleven courts—all named by the alphabet, like whoever had made the community didn’t think it was important enough to give the streets real names. He lived in fifth court. But the hood was deep, every bit a mile. And once you got past fifth court, everybody called ’em by their letter. He guessed it sounded crazy to say you lived in eleventh court.
His legs took him past the three basketball courts and the rec center into the Kay. Most times people didn’t go beyond the rec center when they visited the Cove, leaving the Kay forgotten and, low-key, forbidden. It was backed up by an even thicker band of woods than the front of the hood. If you walked far enough through the trees, there was a ravine that fell off into a small stream.
Any and everything went down in those woods. People hung out near the Kay to do their dirt ’cause if you didn’t live in that court, it felt like you were doing something in private. That was hardly true in the rest of the Cove, where news spread quick.
More fights broke out in the Kay than any other court. Mo was the only one in the
ir squad who lived in the Kay. She always had something to say, like she wanted you to know she wasn’t the one to mess with. Also, Mo stayed forever on his case. But, low-key, he had mad respect for her. It wasn’t easy living on the street that had such a bad reputation that even the police didn’t bother with it unless it was bad bad. Like murder bad.
It was where Coach Tez’s main girlfriend lived. Where he spent more time than at his own house. Where Simp had been summoned by 10.10.
As he got closer, he took a few deep breaths to get his pounding heart under control. You never knew what Coach wanted when that 10.10 came through.
His mind went down a quick list—had they let the wrong car through last time they worked the front? Had Simp missed an earlier call?
He wondered if Rollie had gotten it, too. Maybe they were ready to get their crew. Simp already knew what he wanted it to be called—the EC Boys, named after the courts him and Rollie lived on. Plus, EC sounded like easy, so people knew they was so good they was chill.
Maybe it was finally time for the EC boys to run game.
Still, he knew better than to assume anything with Coach Tez.
He counted the doors as he walked past, forcing his mind to be blank. He came to door number seventeen, a green door, and knocked.
Rollie
If there was anything better than a pickup game of basketball, Rollie wasn’t sure what it was. The scraping of everybody’s sneakers as they started, stopped, and hustled around one another trying to get their shot off had a beat—scut, scut, screeeech . . . pat, pat, pat, pat. Their hard breathing made a cloud of wispy smoke in the cold January night, before disappearing up into the lights illuminating the court.
Then there was the ting of the ball as it hit the ground, only broken up by somebody’s “man, get that outta here,” or “ay, ask about me” when the ball sailed over everybody’s head and satisfyingly sank into the net.
Five of them fought for the right to score. Every man for himself. Your point was your own. Just like missing was your own. As long as you could take some teasing over missing a shot, nothing was at stake if you lost. Only one person could win anyway. So at least you weren’t a loser by yourself.