Response (7 page)

“How she look at you?” Bonds asked him.

“Like a prince. No, check that—like a strong African king,” Asa answered.

“That's how she looks at me. And I'll bet she's even nicer to Noah,” said Bonds. “Know why? That's the law game—keep the witnesses walking around with a hard-on, so we'll say what they want. She probably smiles at that Rao cat, too.”

“I don't know,” I argued, stabbing at a dried-out slab of cafeteria meat loaf with a spork. “She seemed
real
, and representin' from East Franklin.”

“Yeah? She tell you that she had a date with Rao and
his
father, right after you and
your
pops?” Bonds asked. “Or did you catch her on the sly?”

“Sister done two-time me with the wrong dude,” sparked Asa. “I get the chance now, I'll just do her and bounce.”

“What chance you got, car thief?” Bonds laughed.

“Better than you, Slim Jim,” Asa said. “Least I got wire-cuttin' skills, and a GED that's coming.”

“You bragging on a
GED
?” cracked Bonds.

“When you flunk your last few classes, you'll be going for one, too. Only you'll be a year behind me,” said Asa. “And the new test is hard.”

I listened to all that crap, looking at the rows of mostly solid black or white tables, including ours. And I wondered how much we really learned from everything that went down. We were still slinging the same old shit at each other, getting older and further behind the eight ball every day.

 

After more than a month of school, all the drama over that T-shirt had mostly died down. But every day I'd see at least one or two kids still wearing it.

Then one day, in Mr. Dowling's social-studies class, there was a “Do Now” question up on the board—HOW WOULD LIVING IN AMERICA BE DIFFERENT IF EVERYBODY WAS THE SAME?

“Do you mean if everybody was white?” a girl from Hillsboro asked.

“Nah, if everybody was black,” somebody shot back from the other side of the room. “Right, Mr. D?”

Dowling just shook his head and answered, “Try your best with this one on your own. No direction yet from me.”

I wasn't sure what to write. But all around me, for something like four or five minutes straight, I never heard so many pens flying across papers. A couple of kids even filled up whole pages, flipping them over fast to write even more.

“Okay, who wants to read what they wrote out loud?” asked Dowling, and hands went up high in every row.

“If everybody was the same, Joe Spenelli would be home on bail right now. Why? Because people who are charged with robbery and assault get bail,” a girl read all excited, with her blonde bangs hitting into her eyes on every word. “So if he got accused of doing that to someone the same color as him, it couldn't be a phony charge like a hate crime.”

“Let me stop you right there, thank you,” said Dowling. “Who's next?”

“If everybody was the same color—black,” read a dude from East Franklin, “Noah Jackson wouldn't have a steel plate in his head. Not unless he said something about somebody's mother or—”

“Everybody's the same color in Africa,” a kid cut in. “Why don't
you
all go back there?”

“'Cause white people kidnapped us here for slaves!” somebody shouted. “That's why!”

Then Dowling shushed everybody down, taking control.

“What do you mean go back to Africa? What would America be without black culture?” Dowling asked the kid who'd cut in.

“Less crime. Less welfare. No projects,” he answered, counting off on his fingers.

Then a black dude waved his hand wild, like he'd shit in his drawers if Dowling didn't let him say something back.

“How about no NBA, or almost any pro sports,” he blurted out as Dowling pointed to him. “No fly dancing, no rap music, no jazz, no soul music, and no soul food.”

“How many people in this room have ancestors from Italy?” asked Dowling.

Almost every white kid in the room raised their hands.

“You know that Sicily's part of Italy,” Dowling said. “It's so close to Africa you could almost stand on Sicily's shore and hit the northern tip of Africa with a rock. Lots of Sicilians mixed with Africans, and then spread that blood all through Italy.”

“But I'm not black, not even close,” said a Guido dude, sitting two seats away from me. “All I wanna know is, how come they can't be more like those kids on
The Cosby Show
. Because all I ever see in this school are the low-rent kind from
Good Times
.”

If I could have got away with it, I would have leaned over and smacked that guy good to shut his mouth.

Then I looked down at my own paper.

Besides my name at the top, the only words there were: NOT NEARLY AS GOOD, BUT LESS VIOLENT.

Chapter
SEVEN

WHENEVER WE WERE AROUND SPANKY in gym, Bonds and me kept our grills set to chill, and wouldn't even think about cracking a smile. We'd both stand our ground, too, making him move over a step anytime we passed close to each other. Then one day, Bonds and Spanky wound up at the water fountain together.

I was shooting hoops at the far basket, so I didn't see it start.

“Asshole's going for water the same time as me. He puts a little hop in his step, like he's gotta get there first. I know what he's thinking—doesn't want to drink after my black lips been there. Well, I wasn't gonna suck up after his racist cracker-mouth, either,” Bonds told me after school that day. “I swing my shoulders around first, right in front of him. Only he don't stop coming. So I stiffen up hard and let him bounce off me—give him a good ride, and he hits the floor.”

That's when I heard kids making noise over it and saw for myself.

Spanky popped right up, but Bonds stuck his chest out and knocked him back a few feet. I thought they were about to start throwing bombs.

All my muscles tensed up, like I was standing in the middle of it myself. Not out of fear of fighting Spanky or anybody else. But from knowing that drama was about to jump off because of what happened to me that night in Hillsboro.

I was scared that feeling would follow me for the rest of my life.

Out of nowhere, Mr. Hendricks came flying in between them.

“Stop it! The two of you!” Hendricks hollered.

But he was facing Bonds and grabbed
him
by the arm, while Spanky was still looking to throw down.

Bonds yanked himself out of Hendricks's grip, to make sure Spanky didn't get in a free shot. But when he did, Hendricks's fingernails scraped a long ribbon of skin off Bonds's left forearm, from his elbow down to his wrist.

“Shiiiit!”
cried Bonds, shaking his arm in the air trying to stop the sting.

Another gym teacher must have radioed for the deans and school security, and they came running on the double inside of the next minute.

In the end, the deans didn't suspend either Bonds or Spanky, because neither one of them threw a single punch. But Bonds's mother made a real fuss to the principal about her son's scratches. The Board of Education came down hard on Hendricks. They made him take off three days without pay and apologize to Bonds in front of the whole gym class.

On the first day of his suspension, Hendricks came in to apologize, standing in front of us in his street clothes.

“It's a sad day for teachers,” Hendricks said, so steamed he was red-faced. “We're supposed to keep you all safe, even if that means putting ourselves in the middle of something dangerous. I put my hands on somebody here, trying to do just that. And I'm sorry he got scratched up a little. I was wrong, Mr. Bonds.
Forgive me
.”

Nearly every black kid there was grinning wide to hear Hendricks eat crow like that, and have him call Bonds “Mister.” Spanky and the kids he hung tight with were either staring at the high ceiling or the wooden boards in the gym floor. But there were plenty of white kids who hated Hendricks—kids he'd nailed with a dodgeball or barked on for not being strong enough to climb the thirty-foot ropes. And they were all enjoying that show, too.

Hendricks was walking towards the door when he turned back around and said, “And you can all bet that's the last time I get involved in anything. If you twist an ankle, jam a finger—just go running to some other phys ed instructor, or maybe the school nurse. I got a
hands-off
policy from now on.”

At lunch, Bonds told Asa and me, “Yeah, it was pretty much a suck-ass apology. But I loved it anyway. Best day I ever had in school.”

“I wish for anything I could have seen it,” said Asa, “You gonna sue?”

“I want to, but my mother says we already got money for iodine and Band-Aids,” Bonds came back. “Noah's the one about to hit it rich. Start a civil suit for money against Charlie Scat—the way those people did on O.J. Simpson.”

“Yeah, right,” I said. “That Scat dude owned nothing but his Land Rover, and I read where he sold that to pay for his lawyer.”

“So maybe the judge will sentence him to be your butler,” said Asa, cracking up. “He'll have to pick up after you in the hood. Then you'll make him bend over on the street corner, and brothers passing by can take turns booting him in the ass.”

That didn't sound half bad to me.

This dime-piece of a shorty named Tiffany came over to our table and gave Bonds a high five for grounding Hendricks.

“I hate that gym teacher. I hope he gets fired and has to collect cans off the street,” she said. “You got it goin' on, too, Noah. The way you're standing up to those Hillsboro thugs.”

Then she gave
me
a high five and let her sweet palm sit flat against mine for more than a second.

“I'm a part of this crew. I don't get no love?” asked Asa, with his open hand out in front of him.

Tiffany just left Asa hanging, sitting herself down right next to me.

My eyes hooked up with hers and I felt a fire spark. Bonds must have picked up on it, because he bounced right away.

But Asa's head was hard as wood, and he was still running game at her.

Then two of Deshawna's homegirls came walking past. They stopped right in front of us grilling Tiffany, like I was Deshawna's private property. So I knew that whole scene would get back to Deshawna, who had a different lunch period. Only it was sure to get blown up bigger, with them telling it like Tiffany was sitting in my lap.