by Paula Chase
It was a daylong commercial for the Marauders. When it ended, only the best would stand and every one of them would wear that label like a badge of honor. After spewing their guts on the court, burning under the spring sun, and running for four hours, they wouldn’t just be ready to play, they’d be ready to go to war for Coach Tez.
Knowing that, Simp had made a decision. Angel had given him the idea. If Raheem had told Tez no, then so could he. At least for his little brother he could.
It had been on his mind ever since Angel told him the story. He just hadn’t known what to do with it . . . until Rollie got shot.
It still blew him. Shot. Over an imaginary safe.
Simp hadn’t known anybody still really believed that stuff about the shed having a safe or money in it. It was street talk, always had been. But those fools from the Crossings had believed it and got Zahvee’s dumb butt to stick it up, promising him he could be down with them if he did. Rollie had just been in the wrong place. It could have been anybody. It could have even been Dre.
Simp grit his teeth back and forth. Revenge still wired his body every time he thought about it. It wasn’t going to be Dre.
Telling Tez hadn’t been easy. Maybe in the end, he’d only agreed because he was still so high on the ’Peake win. Simp didn’t know. Didn’t care.
He watched his brother on the court. Dre must have forgotten he was in a tryout. He was street balling, dribbling the ball in between his legs and taking chances that most coaches would have whistled him down for. Not Tez. Tez hadn’t taken his eyes off Dre. He kept dapping up Coach Monty anytime Dre did something. Anybody watching knew Dre was a favorite.
Simp was cool with him being the favorite as long as it was just on the court.
He still couldn’t believe he’d stood up to Tez. He’d texted him 10.10, not sure how else to let him know he had business to talk about. When he’d gotten back to the shed, he’d had to step over Rollie’s dried blood still in front of the door. It made his stomach flip. But it gave him the courage he needed. He couldn’t have his little brother’s blood on somebody’s sidewalk over drug money.
Tez had this smirk on his face. Had his elbows on his desk, his head resting on his hands, like he was in for a good show. He’d practically been chuckling when he asked, “What’s up, little soldier?”
Simp had hit him with it straight.
“I don’t want Dre hustling.” Tez’s head had reared back. Simp filled in the space left by his surprised silence. “He wanna be down with the team. You already said he good enough for that. But I don’t want him hustling. I just don’t, Coach.”
His chest had been heaving from the effort. He ignored his own fear. This was for Dre. Dre, who didn’t know he was doing this. Dre, who was probably going to be mad he was doing this.
Tez had gestured to the one chair open in front of the desk. “You amped right now, huh? Didn’t come in say hey, how you doing or nothing. Just putting me on notice about who can or can’t work for me.” His eyebrow slid up. This was when Simp was supposed to back down. He knew it. But he hadn’t.
He sat down. Took a few breaths. “It’s plenty of other cats who can run for you. I just don’t want my brother being one of ’em.”
“You the last word on that?” Tez asked.
And for a second, Simp wondered if his mother had already talked to Tez. She didn’t know he was doing this, either. And it shook him that she would undo what he was trying to fix.
He couldn’t make it right for Rollie. He could for Dre, so he’d lied and confirmed he was the last word, praying his mother wouldn’t make him look cracked by overruling him.
Tez had sat back, hand still folded under his chin. For the first time, Simp felt anger at his coach. He wasn’t asking Tez to leave Dre alone; he was telling him. His anger must have shown on his face because Tez had put his hand up before Simp could open his mouth.
“Look, if you don’t have the stomach for this no more. That’s cool. The game—”
“Ain’t for everybody,” Simp finished for him, relishing the look of openmouthed shock on Tez’s face. “Yeah. I know. And it’s not for Dre. That’s all I’m saying.”
Tez’s head fell back as he laughed. “You serious, huh?”
“Dead,” Simp had said.
A few awkward silent moments followed before Tez’s head bobbed up and down. “It’s good, little soldier. It’s good. You still my general, right?”
It was the one moment Simp would play over again in his mind. Had Tez really been offering him a way out or had it been another test?
He wasn’t the thinker. Thinking wasn’t what had him in the shed speaking up for Dre. He loved his brother. His job was to protect him. Protecting him was as built into him as dribbling down the court for a layup. Thinking was different. It wasn’t always easy for him. He’d hesitated, but only a second before he’d answered, “Yeah, Coach. I’m still your man.”
The order was back after that. Tez was the teacher. Simp was the student.
“It’s a lot of people around here who don’t want their kids playing for me. They’re the ones who the rec league take. Sloppy seconds.” Tez shrugged, like he really didn’t understand why anyone would pass up his team. “But there’s this kid from the Kay. His mother wouldn’t let him try out last year or the year before. But guess who already signed up for spring tryouts?” His deep laugh filled the small shed. “That’s right. Little shorty be there this year. Heard he bad, too. But that ain’t the point. I’m cool with Dre only putting in work on the court. ’Cause the point is, for every kid that don’t want get in the game with me there’s five, ten others that will. It’s about that cream, little soldier. All about that cream.”
C.R.E.A.M.
Simp knew it meant cash rules everything around me.
Where was the lie?
Cream was why he’d just signed up for a new tour of duty under Tez. He wasn’t going anywhere, no time soon. But maybe one day. For now? For now, keeping his brother out the game was the only win he needed.
Epilogue—
Rollie’s April
Forty.
That’s how many times Rollie had heard the phrase, “It could have been worse.” And every time he felt like screaming, “Then you try getting shot.”
It wasn’t that he didn’t understand that it could have been worse. Nobody was going to get an argument from him that a broken leg from a bullet was better than death by a bullet. Still, people could miss him with that “could have been worse” mess. People who said that had never had their leg catch fire. Had never sat in their own blood freezing to the ground. Had never experienced seeing their leg flop where it should have been upright. And now, he also had a gift he’d have forever—a metal rod in his leg. Already he’d had to take a note to school to explain why he would always set off the metal detectors. So yeah, it could have been worse, but it wasn’t no party, either.
A thought he kept to himself around his g-ma. Every blessing at dinner included an extra two minutes dedicated to how thankful she was that He had spared Rollie. And Rollie wanted to believe He had something to do with it. But, secretly, he felt like Zahveay had gotten scared or had bad aim. He didn’t know which. Didn’t want to know. Thinking about quiet, tap-dancing Zahveay shooting him made him feel . . . stupid. He should have listened to Simp. Should have paid attention to Zah talking him up, the way he had.
Now look at them—the jailbird and the gimp.
Zah was in juvenile lockup awaiting trial on attempted murder. Seeing that in the papers and knowing it was his life Zah had attempted to take shook Rollie. He had avoided newspapers and the TV for two weeks because he couldn’t hear about it anymore. That had been hard to do since he’d been laid up in bed with nothing else but TV and his phone.
Now he was on crutches for the next six weeks. He even needed help in the shower. No amount of explaining made his mother understand that he did not want it to be her. He’d stay dirty for six weeks if that was his only option. It was a lit
tle better having his cousin Michael help him. But only a little.
The mess was embarrassing.
In three more weeks he’d get the cast off. The doctor had warned him—no basketball next season (he hadn’t planned on it) and that he’d have to ease back into drumming. At that, Rollie had protested. He hadn’t been shot in the leg he used for the bass drum (okay, that was a good thing, so he gave Him that one). He didn’t understand why he couldn’t get right back to it. But there had been a whole bunch of talk about possible damage to his nerves and giving the leg time to truly heal. He didn’t have time. The Rowdy Boys were waiting on him. If he took too long to heal, they’d move on.
They’d picked him. Said he was the one. This chance would never come back a third time.
He explained that to his mother. To G-ma. Even to the doctor.
Of course, G-ma’s answer was, “If that’s His will, Ro, then they’ll wait.”
Ever since then he’d had a short talk with God every night. “If You really up there, please let this be Your will. I need them to wait. I need this dub.”
He wondered if God knew that he was on the fence about believing in Him? Hoped he didn’t because then He might not be as willing to grant Rollie this solid. All he could do was wait and see.
Meanwhile, him and his mother were living with G-ma’s sister in the Woods until his mother could get everything straight for them to move from the Cove. He shared his older cousin Michael’s basement bedroom. If you could call him sleeping on the couch sharing.
On one whole side of the room, sketches of clothes Michael had designed were posted all around. He even had one of those headless mannequins draped in fabric. That was definitely creepy. But Michael was mad talented. Some nights, the two of them stayed up late talking about how famous they’d be one day—Michael in fashion, Rollie in music.
Rollie didn’t even care if he got famous as long as he could keep drumming. He missed it.
He thought he’d miss the hood, too. He’d been wrong. The Woods was a predominately Black neighborhood. It was like the Cove’s fraternal twin—different in a lot of ways, but also a little familiar. And he still got to see the squad, for now, because his mother dropped him to school every day.
He’d already made her promise that no matter where they moved, he could stay in TAG. He felt a little bad for making her promise. She was already doing so much to get them out of the Cove. No way she was going back to live where her baby had almost been killed—words that made Rollie’s skin break out in goose bumps. He knew she meant it, but he still hadn’t rested until she’d promised.
Michael’s voice came to him from the other side of the room. “Did you hear anything I said, man?”
Rollie shook the cobwebs off. “My bad. Naw.”
“I was saying that Cinny’s little sister should be a model. She’s the perfect height. Ask her if she’d come over here and let me try some stuff on her.”
“That’s word,” Rollie said, pretending that mention of Mila didn’t make his heart dance a little bit. He pulled out his phone and texted her right away, glad to have a reason to.
He’d talked to Mila more than anybody since moving. Her sister and auntie were just down the road from his cousin Michael’s house. She’d spent a whole summer on this side of town. They talked about that a lot. That and TAG and summer, never about the night he’d been shot. Right now, she was the only person who seemed to understand he didn’t want to spend every second of the day remembering it. He didn’t want to spend any part of the day remembering it, but some things slammed it into his head anyway—loud noises, footsteps behind him, and the cold. Even when he was wrapped in a blanket, he could feel the freezing concrete of the sidewalk seeping into his bones.
He shuddered, stamping out the feeling before it took hold.
Everybody didn’t get that he wanted to move on. Definitely Tai didn’t get it. Once he’d finally gotten off painkillers and wasn’t off in la-la land half the time, Tai had burned his phone up. But all she wanted to talk about was how it had felt to get shot (it hurt) and how the streets were talking about how it was Zah that had done it (sometimes rumors be right). It was like she was trying to be the first to get the scoop. Then she’d gotten all in her feelings when he bassed on her with, “Look, if that’s all we gonna talk about, I need go.”
She’d cut back calling after that and now barely texted him. When he was out of sight, he was out of her mind. How messed up was that?
When he’d first gotten back to school it went from her appointing herself his personal nurse—walking with him to class—to her being annoyed that he took too long on the crutches and made her late for her class. It had been at least a week since they’d talked outside the squad’s chats or lunch. And he was good with that.
He’d had a lot of time to think while he was laid out on the basement sofa. One thing he was starting to understand—little things connected people, but they didn’t always make you real friends.
He hoped that wouldn’t happen with Simp. So far, Simp was still his boy.
The way Simp had held him, that night, crying, still made Rollie want to cry sometimes. If he had died . . . His throat closed up.
From across the room, Michael wasn’t paying him any mind as he sketched something. Rollie turned the channel, pretending to be looking for something to watch until the lump in his throat went away. The thing was, Simp could have been the last person he heard before he died. He thought about this more than he wanted to. Simp had his back that night. Rollie would always love him for that.
He hadn’t been allowed a lot of visitors, but Simp had visited him in the hospital almost every day. Rollie had been pretty drugged up on the meds, so his memory on the visits were fuzzy. Some might have been dreams. One day stuck with him. He figured it must have really happened.
Simp had come to tell him that leecee had gotten Zah, who had been hiding out at a relative’s. The news didn’t make Rollie happy. It meant more talk at school. More news clips. But he was glad it was over. He figured Simp was telling him because he was glad, too. Instead, Simp had been annoyed. “Did you ever tell ’em who shot you?”
When Rollie admitted he had, Simp had glowered. “Man, me and Cappy was gonna take care of that for you. You should have just said it was too dark to see.”
Rollie remembered feeling angry as he explained, “My mother was here when the cops talked to me. She wouldn’t have been down with that no snitching mess, man.”
The hard scowl on Simp’s face crumbled. He turned his head and swiped at his eyes. When he turned back around his eyes were dry. He had a smile on his face, but it looked like it hurt him to do it. “That punk got lucky, then. Know what I mean?”
He reached for Rollie’s hand and gripped it lightly, like he was afraid Rollie would break if he held on too tight. Yet, he held on a few more seconds before knocking elbows with Rollie. “Be all right, hear?”
“Naw, you be all right,” Rollie had said, wishing like a kid on a star that something, somebody would protect his friend out there on the streets.
“Oh, I’mma be all right.” Simp’s platinum cap shone at him. “Check on me sometimes, though.”
Rollie had dazed out after that. Half remembering, half dreaming about how his mother absolutely wasn’t about to let him follow some code of the street. When the cops talked to him, he had been too busy praying they didn’t have any kind of information about his work with Tez to worry about not snitching. They hadn’t. They had seemed genuinely interested in solving the case and had been surprised when Rollie said he’d known who did it. Or maybe they were surprised that Rollie had told. Everybody else sure was.
Some of his old “friends” were treating him differently. Probably some of it was because he’d told. Some of it though, was because he wasn’t in the Cove with them anymore and wouldn’t be back. Five weeks and he was already an outsider, it seemed. If he’d been back in the hood, he would have been a hero probably. Leaving meant he wasn’t Cove anymore. Mov
ing was for suckers.
He didn’t spend time worrying about it. Simp and the squad (most of the squad) was still checking for him. Right now, that’s all that mattered. Everybody else?
Anybody who wasn’t checking for him because he’d had the nerve not to die in the street and be the story they talked about, the “in memory” patch they wore on their jerseys, the “RIP Rollie” messages on social media—as far as Rollie was concerned, those people were cobwebs. He’d walked into them and for a while they stuck to him, stuck to him good. But once he finally brushed them away, they lost their hold.
The Cove had lost its hold on him. He almost didn’t get out alive. But as Mr. B had told him, almost doesn’t count.
He wasn’t looking back anymore.
About the Author
Photo credit ADELMA GREGORY
PAULA CHASE is the cofounder of The Brown Bookshelf, an organization that increases awareness of African American voices writing for young readers. She is also the author of So Done. She lives with her family outside of Annapolis, Maryland.
www.paulachasehyman.com
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used to advance the fictional narrative. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
DOUGH BOYS. Copyright © 2019 by Paula Chase. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.