Chameleon (4 page)

Wait.

Wait.

Don’t go. The fellas were still on the other side of the window, their twisted faces no longer silent.

Trent started in: “Shawn and Marisol sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g . . .”

“Ah, I gotta go.”

I slid from the booth to muffled chants of . . .

“GO, SHAWN . . . GO, SHAWN . . . GO, SHAWN . . .”

Marisol waved as I stumbled out.

“See you later, Shawn.”

I pushed past Passion and Ivy, then turned to see Marisol smiling at me as I rushed out the door.

Wait, was she smiling at me . . . or laughing?

Hot air hit my face as my name hit my ears.

“GO, SHAWN . . . GO, SHAWN . . .”

I snatched the ball from Andre and hustled toward the intersection.

“Shawn. Hold up. Where you going?” Andre said, chasing me down.

Lorenzo huffed his way over and took the ball from my hands.

“I know you ain’t mad about Marisol,” he said.

Trent strolled over and slung his arm around my neck.

“Come on, Shawn, you know we was just messing with you. You act so serious about her. You need to relax. We was just having fun,” he said.

“Did it look like I was having fun with you guys clowning me?”

I snatched the ball back.

But it’s hard to stay mad at these guys because that’s just the way it is. We always have each other’s backs. But still. Marisol? Dang!

“Looked like you were having a good time to me. Sitting there acting all serious, knowing you can’t even look her in the eye,” Lorenzo said.

Bass beats from overworked car speakers serenaded us as we hustled across the street to continue our stroll.

How does he know I can’t look her in the eye?

“Can you blame him? Marisol does have some pretty eyes. Kind of greenish blue with . . .” Andre started.

Hold up . . .

“What you doing looking at her eyes?”

Lorenzo joined in, “And that hair, man . . . umm. That hair is something else! Reaching all the way down to . . .”

“Y’all better stop. Right now. I’m serious.”

My forehead felt like a hot tamale.

“Look at you, Shawn. All serious. Again. See, we was just messing with you,” Trent said, pushing one shoulder, “again.”

Lorenzo bumped the other and added, “But only because you make it so easy.”

FORWARD. Our sneakers scuffed the sidewalk in the direction of DuBois. Storefront sights and sidewalk sounds mixed with each bounce of the ball.

Liquor store. Chinese takeout. Check cashing. Church. Fish-fry shack. Fried chicken shack. Mexican food. Bar. Barbecue shack. Liquor store. Check cashing. Barber shop. Market. Chinese takeout. Church. Beauty parlor. Liquor store.

“Ay, y’all see that?” Lorenzo said.

His fat finger pointed in the direction of a woman squatting behind a large Dumpster about half a basketball court away. Shards of broken green glass dusted her tainted pink fur coat while Fatburger wrappers hung on the hem for dear life. Her head swiveled away from us for privacy.

“Aw, man, I don’t wanna see that,” Trent said. He brushed past me to turn the corner.

Andre bounced the ball faster. “Man, that’s nasty. Taking a crap in front of everybody,” he said, more to himself than the rest of us.

Lorenzo cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Why don’t you go someplace else to do your business!”

She shouted back, telling him to go do something with himself that made us cup our hands to our mouths and shout, “OOOOOHHHH!”

“She told you,” Andre said.

“Shut up, ’Dre. I don’t care. That’s nasty, man. Have some respect for yourself. For real. Y’all just too scared to say anything.”

“You think I haven’t seen that before? Man . . . if I had a nickel for all the weird stuff I done seen out here, I’d have enough money to buy each of you guys about three mansions,” Trent said.

I can say the same: women hiding behind Dumpsters; men dropping their drawers to passing traffic; junkies swaying in their walk, fightin’ gravity with twitchy hands; teenage girls wildin’ out on each other, scratchin’ faces with way-too-long fingernails; grown men gettin’ whipped with extension cords in the street by their much bigger wives. And of course the war between the red and the blue.

That thought turned my mind from Dumpster squatters to the coming school year. What’s it gonna be like? I’d heard a lot about Marshall, but I didn’t know what to believe. Or who. I trusted Passion, but what did she really know? I mean she’s going there for the first time just like me.

What am I gonna study?

Will the four of us have classes together?

Do they have French? Or just Spanish? I know some Spanish, but I wanna learn French so I can go to France someday. Dad’s been there and said I should go when I’m older.

How big are the classes gonna be?

How often do teachers get swung on with a knife?

Is the “pink slip” for real?

“You guys ever heard of the ‘pink slip’ at Marshall?” I floated to the wind.

About four steps in front of me, Andre weaved the ball between his legs while Trent tried to steal it from him. Lorenzo stood staring at a poster of a caramel-colored Colt 45 malt liquor girl when his ears picked up the question.

“What? My eyes were occupied by Ms. Thang right here so I didn’t catch everything you said. Did you say something about a pink slip?” Lorenzo replied.

He peeled his eyes off the faded poster and rested them on me. I nodded.

“Yeah, I know all about that. My brother Dayshaun brought his home a few years ago, and my mama signed it with a big smile on her face.” His eyes recalled that memory on the ocean-blue screen above our heads. “She hoped Principal Simms could knock some sense into that rock-hard head of his,” he continued. “Believe it or not, he never got the paddle. But some of his ’bangin’ friends did.”

“Is it true about the assemblies and stuff? I heard he has them just to paddle the knuckleheads,” I told him.

“From what I hear. Who told you that?” he asked. His wide body stopped to block my path.

The words came out of my mouth before I could stop them: “I was talking to Passion and Marisol at . . .”

“Marisol, huh?” he said. A grin spread across his face.

He moved, so I followed. Our sneakers were on autopilot as we crossed the intersection and strolled south. DuBois was only a block away.

Lorenzo finished giving me the lowdown on “pink slip” assemblies and the slip itself. First of all it had an official name: “Permission Form to Discipline.” It was handed out the first day of school and had to be returned by the end of the week. I was surprised to hear it didn’t have to be signed. But, he said, most parents did sign it because they felt if they couldn’t knock some sense into their hardheaded child, maybe Principal Simms’s paddle could by smacking their behind in front of the whole school.

But the last words out of his mouth made the most sense: “If your mama is signin’ the pink slip and she got a smile on her face . . . then you must be a knucklehead. You don’t get smacked for shooting spitballs at the teacher — you get smacked for swinging knives at the teacher.”

Passion’s story popped into my head.

Yeah, that made sense. Unfortunately, it made perfect sense. But still. How much fun is it gonna be going to a school where on the first day the first thing you get is a form saying my mother gives my principal permission to whack my butt in front of the whole school?

“MANNN, SHAWN, next time can you please remember to wear some shorts that ain’t blue?” Andre said. “I hate playing on these rickety rims,” he added in disgust as his first shot bricked off the backboard at DuBois.

“Yeah, you lucky ain’t nobody even here ’cept us. A couple of ’rus show up and it’ll be last year all over,” Lorenzo said, chasing the rebound.

“I know, I know, but what y’all want me to do?” I shrugged. “I told you I don’t have any shorts at my auntie’s.”

Even if I did, I definitely wouldn’t take them there; I’d rather deal with the possibility of Pirus than a definite drunken auntie.

“Don’t even sweat it, Shawn,” Trent said. “We got plenty of time to figure something out. The day’s just getting started.”

“Speaking of which, let’s get this game started,” Andre said, tossing the ball to Lorenzo. “It’ll be me and Shawn against you and Trent.”

“No, no, no, no, no. It’s always you two against us two. Let’s switch it up. Let’s start with me and Shawn against you and Trent,” Lorenzo replied.

“Whatever. You gonna get dusted either way. I’ll just let it be with Shawn first,” Andre said. He stepped back to swish a shot from the top of the key.

“Don’t I have any say in this matter?” Trent asked.

“No,” we said in unison.

Trent is probably the weakest player of all of us, but he plays hard D and doesn’t call ticky-tack fouls. Lorenzo, on the other hand, calls all kinds of fouls. You would think the biggest player on the court would be causing more fouls than calling them, but nooooo. If any of us even brush him the wrong way: “FOUL!” Otherwise he uses that big body of his to get rebounds. He may be big, but he can jump with the best of us. Andre is a whole different story. Where do I start? The boy can play. Period. Whenever we play in a pickup game, whoever guards him shows no respect for his jumper by giving him too much space. That’s when he splashes it in their eye. Every time. When they finally step up to guard him closer, he crosses them and takes it to the hole. He’s almost unstoppable. Almost. That’s where I come in. I’m the only one who can stop him. That’s why they call me “Lockdown.” Because that’s what I do: lock you down on D. When I say “lockdown,” I mean you won’t even touch the ball. But that’s on defense. On offense I been working on my jumper with Andre and can splash it from the key now. Not all the time, but if I’m open.

“Straight to eleven. Make it, take it. Check up,” Andre said, tossing me the ball.

“Hold on. Do we have to take it back?” Trent asked.

“Only if it hits rim. Then you gotta take it back to the free-throw line. If it hits just backboard, you can put it right up,” Andre answered.

Let’s go. What you gonna do, Andre? Try to set me up with the crossover and splash the J? I don’t think so. All I gotta do is wait till you get low and try to go left and . . .

“Nice steal, Shawn,” Lorenzo said.

He parked underneath the basket on the right side and raised his arm for the ball. I lobbed it over Trent’s head and cut to the basket hard. ’Zo spun left and dropped a sweet bounce pass to me. Andre played me tight, so I pump-faked to put him in the popcorn machine, then put in the easy layup.

“One–zip, us,” Lorenzo said.

He flipped a quick pass into me, and I flipped it right back. ’Zo’s silhouette bounced near the top of the key with Trent bouncing around him. I cut back and forth across the court until he made his move. Dribble left, dribble right. ’Zo charged to the basket like a bull, but Trent stepped in front of him and got knocked onto his back.

“Foul!” Lorenzo shouted.

Trent jumped up and shouted back, “What? You gotta be kidding me! I’m the one on the ground, and you calling a foul on me? I know you don’t think you getting the ball back, because that ain’t about to happen.”

I sighed. This was gonna be a long game.

“I’ll let it slide this time, but next time you foul me, Trent, you better respect my call,” Lorenzo said.

“Respect your call? Are you serious? I’m the one who should be yelling foul, not your Buddha belly,” Trent shouted. Again.

“Come on, you two. Can we get this game going, please?” Andre said.

We scored. They scored. Lorenzo called more fouls, and finally the game was over. We had taken it 11–9, and we all hit the fountain for a quick break. Andre went back to swishing shots as the rest of us wandered over to a bench on the side of the court. A handful of people were sprinkled throughout the park, including two older men in fedoras playing dominoes on a bench.

A little girl with a rainbow of barrettes in her hair squealed in a swing pushed by her father.

A honey-colored toddler wearing only a sagging diaper ran around, chased by his young mother.

A tall, slender man in an all-black Chinese outfit practiced karate kicks on the green grass beneath one of the larger trees. He reminded me of a black Bruce Lee. . . . WAAAA-TAAAAAAA.