by Paula Chase
Simp watched it over and over.
Everybody but Rollie stepped in.
Everybody.
Rollie
G-ma pointed to a big black bag. Then a box. “Put those next to the door on your way out, please. Somebody from the church be by later to get ’em.” She fanned herself.
Rollie had no idea why she was always hot. The heat felt like it was on five degrees. But her forehead was dotted with sweat. He grabbed the bag, toed the box with his foot, and headed for the stairs. Her voice stopped him. “I know it hurts, Ro, but it’s not up to you to question God’s will. He didn’t want you in that band. He got something else in store for you.”
His grandmother was always talking about God’s plan and how everything happened for a reason. Why would God want him hustling instead of in a real band? It didn’t make sense. Rollie wasn’t so sure He had as much control as G-ma thought. And he’d keep that to himself, for sure.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, hefting the bag in one hand, the box in the other.
His grandmother was on his heels as he balanced his way down the stairs. “Did Brother Monroe ever ask you about the Choral Review?”
“No, ma’am,” Rollie said.
“He wanted to know if you could play for them. Brother Carl can’t play that day. So, he was asking about you.” Rollie heard the smile in her voice. “Now think about that. He want you cover for the regular drummer at the Choral Review. That service draw about two hundred people, Ro.”
Rollie’s eyes rolled. He was glad G-ma was behind him. He dropped the bag and box, careful not to slam it. G-ma detected any kind of attitude like it was her job.
“When is it?” he asked, scooting the junk out of the way of the door.
“Friday. Since your basketball games be on Saturday, I told him you could do it,” she said. “You can even ask some of your little friends to come. They having activities for the youth before the singing.”
It took everything for Rollie not to go off. Why would she just say he could do it without asking him? He held his breath and counted to ten, waiting for the explosions in his head to die.
“My friends not trying sit in church on a Friday, G-ma,” he said.
“Now how you know?” she asked, deadly serious.
Because I don’t feel like being in church on Friday, Rollie wanted to yell. He knew better. And it wasn’t G-ma he was mad at anyway. He didn’t feel like drumming at all, definitely not for a Friday church event.
Whenever the youth choir got invited to do a special program, the services went on forever and his church always seemed like they got stuck as the last choir to perform. Not that it mattered. It wasn’t like he could leave early if they went first. That’s why he hated going.
Right now, drumming just reminded him he hadn’t gotten the Rowdy Boys gig. He had barely gotten through TAG sessions that week. During ’nome drills he’d been behind the beat one day and ahead of it the next. No wonder the Rowdy Boys hadn’t picked him. He sucked.
Worst, Mr. B kept trying to lift his spirits. Rollie appreciated it but he also wished he’d stop. Then when he got home, his mother started in asking was he all right. They acted like he was ready jump off a bridge or something. He just wanted everybody to stop talking about it. He tried out. He failed. It was over.
There was a knock at the door. He absently promised his grandmother he’d ask his friends about going to the Choral Review date, not meaning it, as he opened the door to Simp’s face.
“What up?” Simp said, then immediately smiled when he heard G-ma ask who it was. He clicked on his manners. “How you doing, Ms. Matthews?”
“Deontae, come on in. You haven’t been around in a long time,” G-ma said, her arms opened for a hug. “Where you been?”
Simp walked into the embrace then quickly stepped back as if embarrassed by the affection. “I usually have to watch my brothers or I’m at practice. So—”
G-ma was ready to start with the “how’s your mother” line when Rollie grabbed his duffel bag and turned foot to the door. “All right, we heading to practice,” he said.
“Is your homework done?” G-ma asked.
Rollie was already outside, willing to risk the wrath he’d catch later. Simp said a hasty good-bye and was right behind him.
Only a handful of kids were outside in the darkening evening. They made enough noise for a gang of people.
Three boys ran past them, racing in the street. One of them had taken his jacket off, in the cold, and was blowing past the other two, his head up, arms pumping.
’Rauders material, Rollie thought bitterly.
“You good?” Simp asked, when the boys had flown past them.
“Yup,” Rollie said.
“Can I holler at you for a second?” Simp asked.
“Long as it don’t make us late. You know how Tez is,” Rollie said.
If Simp caught his sarcasm, he didn’t let on.
“If I came off wrong last weekend when I asked you if you dimed us out to Chris, that’s my bad,” he said. “I mean it. I wasn’t trying say you was a rat.”
“It’s swazy,” Rollie said.
“Naw, but it ain’t swazy between us, Rollie.” Simp looked toward the rec like he was gauging how much time they had. He stopped walking. “I came off wrong. I’m coming at you admitting that. But if things between us was good, why ain’t you jump in the other day when me and Chris almost got scrapping?”
“You serious, right now?” Rollie asked.
“Yeah, I am,” Simp said. “I keep coming to you man to man about stuff and it’s like you playing me.”
Rollie’s lips screwed to the left. He bit the bottom of his lip thinking. All he wanted to do was get to practice. Ball. Go home. He started to say that then walk away, but Simp pushed it by adding, “You ain’t being real, son.”
Anger blossomed in his belly, making it work for Rollie to keep his voice under control. “Why? ’Cause I don’t feel like being your shadow while you big man on the court?”
Simp frowned. “It don’t gotta be all that. I—”
“Son, look,” Rollie said, raising his voice before lowering it to normal. “Whatever beef you got with Chris ain’t my beef, Simp. Period. That’s all and that’s it.”
Simp’s eyes were bugging out of his head. “So, if we had got into it you was just gon’ stand there and watch?”
“It didn’t get to all that, though,” Rollie said.
“But if it had?” Simp said, challenging.
“I ain’t even going there, yo,” Rollie said, walking again.
Simp was at his side in an instant. “’Rauders ride or die. How you not gonna have my back? Even Cappy ’nem was ready jump in.”
“That’s Cappy ’nem. You and Chris was ready brawl over a Ping-Pong game. I wasn’t wit’ it,” Rollie snapped.
“Oh, so now we only got each other back if it’s over certain stuff?” Simp’s voice was high-pitched and unbelieving.
“Whatever, man,” Rollie said, done with the conversation. Done with everything.
Simp grabbed his shoulder, pulling him around. “It’s like that?”
Rollie resisted the urge to swing.
They were stopped in front of the rec center. Some of their teammates were inside the lobby, joking around with some girls. For once, Rollie didn’t want anything more than to be in practice, not talking, not thinking. He couldn’t keep doing this. Not with Simp. Not with Chris. Not with anybody.
“Is it like what?” he asked.
“You gonna pick and choose when you have my back?” Simp said.
“If that’s what you want believe,” Rollie said.
He stayed staring into the rec’s lobby as Simp went on talking loyalty.
Rollie knew he was wrong. He should have jumped in. But everything had popped off too fast. Cappy didn’t even know what the ruckus was about and he’d been ready to jump in. If he had, it would have been bad. The rest of the team would have done the same. Chris was wrong for renegi
ng, no doubt, but it was a Ping-Pong game. It wasn’t worth stomping him for. He wanted to say all that to Simp.
There wasn’t any point, though. Holding up for somebody going back on a bet was up there with snitching. It wasn’t done. No matter what he said, he’d be wrong.
Simp’s locs shook and shivered around his face as his voice rose. “All I got is what I saw, Rollie. You ain’t try jump in. Is that how me and you rock now?”
“I left it between y’all to handle,” Rollie said, refusing to raise his voice.
“That’s a punk move,” Simp said.
The slow ticktock of Simp’s head, like he was a father disappointed in his son, angered Rollie.
“All right then, I’m a punk,” he snapped. Simp’s mouth opened and closed without sound. Rollie put his hands up in surrender. “So, I’m good off that.”
There was hurt in Simp’s eyes, but his words were bitter. “Naw, I know you good. You always good, right?” He took a step back like he’d catch Rollie’s rattiness if he stood too close. His chin stiffened. “And, like you said, I woulda handled Chris if it came to that. I ain’t need you.”
Everything in Rollie wanted to stop before it came to blows. But he couldn’t stand down.
“Good, ’cause I can’t always be babysitting you or the team. I got stuff going on.”
“Then maybe you got too much going on,” Simp said.
Yeah, thanks to you, Rollie thought bitterly. He clamped his teeth down hard on his tongue to stop himself. Simp was the one that got them caught up in this whole mess in the first place, but now it was somehow on Rollie that he couldn’t handle it all?
The silvery taste of blood dotted his tongue. His hands itched to punch Simp in the face. His eyes slid over to the glass, watching their friends talk, unaware their two best players were ready to get into it. If they got to fighting would anybody be on his side? He doubted it. It deflated him.
“Yup. I do got a lot going on. We done?” he asked, his face blank. “I wouldn’t want to be late and have to do sprint drills.”
He walked past his teammates and sat in the gym alone. Anger and loneliness made his face hot the way it did when the only thing that could cool it down was tears. He gulped them back. Stamped the loneliness away and let the anger simmer.
Later that night, still stewing in bitterness, he made a new group chat with everybody in it except Simp: y’all can joke me later all u want but I promised my grandmother I would ask if anybody want come to Mt. Ezekial’s choral review. So I asked.
Embarrassment and shame crept up his neck. He didn’t really even want his friends to see him playing gospel music. But a part of him wanted to get at Simp. Show which one of them had the squad’s love.
He guessed he had their love.
Slowly they buzzed in. One message. Two. Five. He didn’t pick up the phone and look until he’d counted twelve messages.
She-da-Man: Ayyy I’m praise dancing at the review. So I’ll be there
JahMeeLah: Is this the same thing you dancing in Sheeda?
JahMeeLah: Oops just saw ur message. I’ll be there already @Roll-Oh gotta be there for my girl
Chriss-E: We not doing anything. I wanna hang.
Yo’MChris: Church? Friday night? I think I hear my mother calling me
Mo’Betta: He wrong. I be there too.
DatGirlTai: How ya’ll getting there doe?
Mo’Betta: Umm when Sheeda asked u earlier u said u couldn’t go. pressed now that Rollie asked u to go?
DatGirlTai: W/e Mo. I couldn’t go at first. But 4 Yo Information H3 rehearsal got cancelled that night.
Mo’Betta: Sure you couldn’t.
She-da-Man: Wait . . . why Simp not in this chat?
DatGirlTai: For real Sheeda? Obvs Rollie didn’t put him in dis chat. And bt-dubs y’all got too many chats. I’m ready start getting ’em mixed up. Don’t even say nothing Mo.
Mo’Betta: Simp probably not trying be in church anyway fr fr
Rollie pushed through the guilt stabbing at him for leaving Simp out. It was done now so . . .
Roll-Oh: y’all just made my g-ma very happy
A barrage of messages hit the chat as the squad dog piled, teasing him for being pressed for them to attend. He took the jokes in stride, happy but a little nervous about the squad seeing him play at church.
Simp
Simp sat on the front stoop of the row. It was like sitting on a block of ice. He zipped up his Angel-approved puffy jacket, burying his head into its hood, and sunk his hands into the pockets, willing the little bit of warmth to travel to his legs. Part of him wanted to go back inside where it was warm. Where he was in control. At least usually he was in control.
His brothers were too restless today. He couldn’t keep fussing. He needed some air or space. Or both.
Things between him and Rollie hadn’t gone nothing how he had wanted. He hadn’t even came off wrong and still Rollie shaded him, not even giving Simp a chance to let him know that in the end he was just hurt. They went too far back for all this beefing. But he didn’t know how to make it right no more. And Rollie didn’t seem like he cared if they did. Except in practice, they were barely talking to each other.
As long as they’d been friends they had lived by the same code—having each other’s back wasn’t nothing new. Simp didn’t understand why it was changing. No music program, not even some new kid should have changed that.
He wanted to stay mad that Rollie hadn’t jumped in. He couldn’t, though.
Rollie was the only friend he had who would understand how he was feeling about keeping Dre out the game. And Simp hadn’t been able to say nothing about it because either the squad was around or things were blowing up between them.
On top of that, the more he had to be out for ’Rauders business, the worst things got with Dre.
He was sitting out in the cold waiting on Angel instead of inside the house because the second he told Dre he had to make a run, his brother’s eyes had gone dead. He sat in that corner chair, mouth clamped tight, staring through the TV. Simp wanted to blow up on him, tell him soldier up and deal with it. But he didn’t have the heart, this time.
If Dre had a buddy he could call and chop it up with, it would be different. Maybe a lot of things would be.
As the cold froze his skin, Simp wondered if Dre would care about playing for the Marauders if he could be outside ripping and running with his own friends who played for the Cougars. Simp remembered when Dre used to want to play for them, but somebody had to be home when Simp wasn’t. After a while, Dre had convinced himself that the rec league was for scrubs. He made peace with getting to middle school, knowing it meant he could be like Simp and hoop with the ’Rauders.
First, Simp was cool with it. Who wouldn’t want their little brother to want to be like them?
He shuddered.
He didn’t want Dre to be like him no more.
By the time Angel pulled up, his Civic purring like a tiger, Simp was frozen in place. The car’s heat, still blowing cold, attacked his face. He wiggled in the car’s seat, trying to get blood to return to his thighs.
He watched the scenery change from strip malls and bus stops to wooded communities with names like Ridge on the Bay as they drove the six short miles out of the hood and over the DRB Bridge. They got silent permission from the big houses standing guard. Once they were over the bridge, the trees surrounding the houses seemed to give him and Angel cover.
When Angel had hit him up, letting him know about the next run, Simp hadn’t slept that night. He was ready this time. Ready to be Angel’s eyes. His ears. Whatever he needed. He had to learn the game in and out.
Low-key, he was nervous. Angel was probably going to make him pump the gas soon. What if he messed it up?
He sat back in the seat, his eyes probing the road ahead of them, waiting for the first stop. He didn’t realize he was blowing his breath out, hyping himself up, until Angel asked, “You good?”
Simp felt Angel’s eyes o
n the side of his face. He soldiered up by slumping in the seat, like he was just cooling out.
“All day,” he said. He was nervous and that was bad enough. But his mind wasn’t clear, and Angel asking was he good made everything weigh on him heavier.
Dre’s future.
Him and Rollie not talking.
And even though it felt stupid that he cared—the squad hadn’t hung out since the Ping-Pong game. He had a feeling maybe they had and just hadn’t told him. He sunk down farther in the seat, depressed at the thought they were icing him and mad that it mattered.
Angel knocked him on the shoulder. “I told Unc you be ready soon.”
Simp glanced over, felt his eyes get big, and narrowed them. “To pump the gas?”
Angel’s laugh was easy. “Yeah.”
Simp looked straight ahead as Angel started the day’s lesson. “Hardest part is looking like you ain’t doing nothing.” He cranked the radio up, nodding to the beat, and raised his voice over the music. “These White boys over here love partying. Shoot, I be running out of gas stations to hit soon.”
“You scared of getting caught?” Simp asked. Angel was sixteen, not old enough to be put in the clink, but Simp had heard plenty stories about Boys Town—the juvenile center—he didn’t want end up there, either.
“Not no more. Far as anybody know, me and these dudes just ran into each other and chopping it up.” He shrugged. “You do it right, that’s all anybody gonna think.” He eyed Simp head to toe. “Before I let you do it, we got get you hooked up, though. Hoodies and locs hiding your face be making people pay attention to you.” He laughed. “They assume you ready jack ’em or something.”
Simp touched his thick hair. “I got cut ’em?” A slice of panic went down his heart.
“Naw. But probably put ’em up or something. Or wear a band so they held back,” Angel said. “Just sayin,’ you got look more like somebody one of these White dudes might really know from school or whatever. That’s all.”
Simp soaked it in. He stayed rocking T’s, hoodies, and boots. Angel was always clean looking like he went to private school or something with polos, jeans, and super icy sneaks—never ever a blemish on his shoes. He couldn’t see his self going school like that, but he’d do it for the run.