Show and Prove (17 page)

The way I square my shoulders and jut out my chin, you'd think Sean were standing right in front of me instead of on the other end of the line. “Allah Youth Academy of Hebron.”

“The Ali what? Is it some kind of boxing program?” I repeat the name, hitting every word like a slap across the face. Sean laughs, “Yo, Ray, don't tell me you gonna come back to school rockin' a dashiki and shit. 'Cause you know that's against the dress code.” It takes Sean a minute to realize that he's laughing at his own joke by his lonesome. “No, seriously, what kind of school is it?”

I'm done with him, though. Just like Q warned me, Sean isn't the exception that proves the rule. “I have to book.”

First, silence. “All right,” Sean sputters. “So let me call you later in the week.”

“Yeah, let you.”

“Maybe we can catch a flick.”

“Maybe.” Sean and I both know what time it is. He's not calling me, and I'm not calling him. It's like that, and that's the way it is.

“Later, Ray.”

“Bye.” I hang up the phone and stare at it, shaking my head. Sorry, Run, we're not all written down on the same list. That's OK, though. No loss. Seriously. It isn't.

“N
o more laundry today?” Not only do I want to see Sara again, this heat wave is killing me, and Miss Rhi has AC at the Laundromat. Somebody downstairs is blasting “Just Be Good to Me,” so I shut the window since there's no cool breeze to save me anyways.

“We just did three loads two days ago,” Sara laughs. “Can you give us a week?”

“What about groceries?” She laughs again, but I'm serious as a heart attack. “The refrigerator's full?”

“Yes, Willie.”

I crawl back into my bed and switch the phone to my other ear. “Guess I have to wait until tomorrow to see you.” I pick at the tape I used to put up the Roxy flyer on my wall. “So, like, what do you do when you come home from camp and are done with your chores?”

Sara scoffs. “There's
always
chores. Don't you have any to do? Your mother spoils you.”

“Ha! I wish.” I almost ask Sara how am I spoiled when every little thing I want I have to buy myself. “I take out the garbage.”

“That's it? You grab a Hefty bag and bring it to the alley. Someone call the Bureau of Child Welfare.”

Damn, she makes me sound like a bum. “Ain't my fault I'm a guy. I'd rather wash dishes any day.” No, that's not true, but it creates an opening. “Let's swap. You come take out my garbage, and I'll wash your dishes.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Ah, see, you know the deal. Taking out the trash is treacherous. Ain't no telling what you going to find in those alleys. Crackheads…”

“…rapists…”

“…drug dealers…”

“…child molesters…”

“…rats…”

“Did you say rats?”

Now I'm stupid embarrassed for making us sound like a bunch of cochinos over here. “Look, we can't help that. Critters don't discriminate, so if your neighbors are pigs…Mr. Clean would have rats and roaches, too.”

“It's not that people are pigs, Willie. It's that the city lets the garbage pile up for days before they come get it. By the time the sanitation truck comes, the rats have gotten into the bags and dragged the trash all over the street.”

“And on them days when it's really hot?” I gag. “Oh, my God, it smells so nasty.”

“And let me tell you something. It's not a citywide thing either. I can tell you from experience that they don't let every neighborhood get as dirty as this one.” Sara exhales. “I hate living here.”

I don't know what to say to that. This neighborhood is awful, with all the drugs and gangs and pollution. The teachers think you're stupid, and the cops think you're criminals. But the truth is that ain't no different than where I used to live in Williamsburg. Same shit, different zip code. And while there are some wack people around ruining it for everybody—Junior, Cutter, Dee Dee, and them—there are also really cool folks. Whatever beef I got with Smiles, the Kings are good people. Cookie's family, too, for that matter. And my mom might be a welfare queen, but I got a job. That's what's really bothering me. As bad as it is, I still want Sara to like this neighborhood because
I'm
here. “I guess your old neighborhood in Queens was really different, huh?”

Sara hesitates. “Yeah, except…”

“What?”

“Forget it.”

“Nah, tell me.”

“We had to move because of, you know, prejudice.”

“For real?”

“My parents would kill me if they knew I told anyone…. ”

“Why? Y'all were the victims. What they do to you?”

“We used to live on the first floor of a two-family private house. Somebody made, like, a firebomb and tossed it through our window.”

“Damn, that's messed up!”

“The worst part is my parents swear the couple who owned the house and lived upstairs had something to do with it. We had been there for almost a year with no problem. Then suddenly their daughter stopped inviting me over. They complained about the smell of our food, went through our mail, and took a year and a day to make the simplest repairs. If we played the radio or TV, no matter how low, they'd bang on our ceiling with a broomstick.”

“Assholes. Didn't they know you were Puerto Rican when y'all moved in? Not that it should matter, but you know what I'm sayin'.” Sara doesn't say anything. “I guess that's one good thing about moving here, huh? You're with your own kind, and no one's going to mess with you on account of that.”

She still doesn't say anything, but I get it. Even though her family was done wrong, stuff like that is hard to admit. It hurts to hold it inside when you know you're innocent, but by the same token, it makes you all sensitive to reveal it. Like, why, of all people, you the one it done happened to? What's wrong with you that you couldn't put yourself in a better situation to avoid that crap? You think maybe whatever happened, you deserve it.

Then it hits me. “Were you home when they threw that bomb in your window?”

“Yeah. We were dead asleep and just heard this loud crash, then a boom in our living room. The bomb landed on a chair, which caught on fire. My dad was able to snuff it out with his pajama top, so that was the only thing that was damaged, but…yeah. We wasted no time getting out of there. My parents just knew it would happen again, so we packed up and moved in with friends in another part of Queens until we found this place.” Sara sucks in a deep breath, then says, “Willie, please…don't tell anyone.”

That just makes my chest swell. Proof positive that Sara truly likes me. That it ain't just about my looks, my clothes, my moves, or anything like that. You can like someone in that way but not really trust 'em. Trust is a whole other level of like—it's halfway to love.

“Man, Sara, we got so much in common,” I say. “We kind of moved for the same reason.”

“Really?”

“You not going to believe it, though.” For a second, my skin rings thin, and I wish I had not said anything. There's a big difference between being chased out of your home by racist neighbors and getting burned out by the person that's supposed to protect you. “We got burned out of our apartment in Williamsburg, too.”

“I've been reading about that in the paper a lot. It looks like the crack addicts are accidently setting fires while getting high, but landlords are actually paying them to set fires on purpose. I'll show you the article tomorrow.”

“What a stupid thing to do!”

“Not really. Think about it. They'll get more money from the insurance than rent.” We're quiet for a while. Then Sara says, “Willie, if you want to see how far people will go to drive someone out of their homes, just look at what's happening in the Middle East.”

I half listen to Sara while she's on her tangent about Beirut and refugees and whatever. I get that she's into international affairs, and it's kind of cute, but I'm about local events. You know, my own life. Ask me if I don't wish it was our landlord who done sent some crackhead to burn up our apartment. I wanted to trade secrets with Sara, but this makes my skin feel like it wants to crawl off my bones.

Then Sara mentions Puerto Rico, and my head comes back from Brooklyn to the Bronx. “Say that again—Puerto Rico.”

“I said that on some level, the situations in Puerto Rico and Palestine are similar, right?”

“Right.” What situation in Puerto Rico? I didn't know Puerto Rico had a situation.

“They're both colonies in a way. There are even Palestinians in Puerto Rico. Willie, are you listening to me?”

“Yeah, bring me that article, and let me ask you something.”

She hesitates. “Sure. Anything. What do you want to know?”

“About you?” I lower my voice and pause for maximum rap appeal. “Everything.”

The long silence at the end of the phone makes me smile. I imagine Sara as if she's right in front of me, her eyelashes fluttering while she giggles behind her hand. “Willie…” Finally, she says, “My mom's home, so I gotta go.”

My heart sinks. “OK. See you tomorrow at work.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

I hang up the telephone. I change out of my cutoffs into my track pants, grab the roll of linoleum and my boom box from my closet, and head up to the roof to practice my routine for the competition at the Roxy.

Sometimes my dreams are so vivid I believe they're real, only to wake up to my disappointing life. Other times I think I'm dreaming to awaken to Sara stroking my hair while I nap with my head in her lap by the pool. I finally finished this routine and have been practicing it for the past three days. Each time I do it, I feel like I'm waking into my dreams of dancing around the world as a member of the Rock Steady Crew. That dream no longer seems somewhere out there but at my fingertips.

I used to think about all the girls who would be screaming my name, imagining that my crush of the moment—Kelly from
Charlie's Angels
or Phoebe Cates—was there and I'd choose her to become my girlfriend. That movie in my mind has changed, too. Now I only imagine Sara there, cheering me on and proudly telling all the girls that I'm her boyfriend. That dream feels within reach, too. By the time my birthday comes, it'll be official, and Sara will be by my side when I rock that competition.

But first things first. I have to nail this swipe-to-windmill transition. It's the one combination that I know Hazardiss can never do.

T
he weather said a high chance of rain, so Barbara made us stay in. Nike, Cookie, and I teach Sara how to play spades. Of course, Nike sticks me with Cookie as a partner. “Don't get your hopes up, mami,” he tells Sara, “ 'cause we ain't ever going to beat these two.”

“What you tryin' to say?” I ask. “You calling us cheaters?”

“Stop diggin' your bony-ass elbows in my side, yo.” Nike slides to the edge of the bench. “I meant it as a compliment, geez! Everybody knows Black people throw down when it comes to spades.”

Qusay warned us to question all stereotypes, but especially those presented as flattery. “That's stupid,” I say. “And Cookie's not Black.”

“How you figure?” says Cookie. “Puerto Ricans come from three races—”

“And one of 'em is African,” says Nike, interrupting her. He eyeballs me, and knowing Nike, he's more worried about looking ignorant in front of Sara than considering that maybe what he had said was racist.

Then Cookie plays him. “Africa is a continent, Willie. That's like saying North Americans or Antarcticans.”

“You know what I mean, and for the record, we
do
say North Americans.”

“Not as a race, doofus.”

“Who you calling a doofus, acheface?”

“Will you both please stop?” says Sara as she turns up the volume on Nike's boom box. “I can't hear the news.”

Secretary of State Shultz continues to urge the Israeli government to withdraw its troops from Beirut in an effort to compel Syria to agree to the peace agreement brokered in May.

“Yo, we should just blow all those A-rabs off the map already,” Nike says. Then he asks Sara, “How many books you've got, Princess?”

Sara says, “What are you talking about?”

“There are thirteen possible books, four cards apiece—”

“No, not that. What you just said about Arabs. Why would you say something like that?”

“ 'Cause it's true.” Nike shrugs. “The U.S. should just bomb all our enemies and be done with 'em. The Communists, the Muslims—”

“Not all Arabs are Muslim, ignorant!” yells Cookie.

“And not all Muslim are Arabs, never mind the enemy,” I say. “You know my uncle Naim is Muslim.”

Sara's eyes open wide. “Really, Smiles?”

Nike's face betrays his thoughts.
First time he agrees with Cookie the Crab and it's against me and in front of Sara.
“First of all, your uncle's name is Nathan.”

“Not anymore.” Nike knows this, too, so I don't know why he's playing the role. “He legally changed it.”

Nike slams his cards on the table. “Which brings me to number two. He only changed his name because he converted to that stupid religion. Number three—”

I slap down my cards. “I don't know a whole lot about Islam or what's going on over there in the Middle East, but let me tell you something.” I stand up. “My uncle fought in Vietnam. He put his life on the line to spread democracy for a country that doesn't practice what it preaches. When he came back all strung out after doing the white devil's handiwork, the government turned its back on him. Muslims saved my uncle's life. They helped him survive prison, got him off the dope, and found him a job and an apartment when he got out of Sing Sing.” I'm one wrong word away from housing Nike, homeboy or no homeboy.

“Yo, take a chill pill, B. The Muslims in Iran and Libya and Lebanon or wherever aren't the same, OK?” Nike says. “Those Nation of Islam cats are some Malcolm X Muslims. I mean, they're way out, too, but at least they're trying to help people.”

“So long they're not Caucasian,” says Cookie.

“Shut up, Cookie,” I say. “You don't know what you're talking about.”

“Don't tell me to shut up!”

“Look, Smiles, no disrespect. Your uncle's a patriot. And Muslim or not, he's an American who served his country. But that lunatic who drove the truck into the U.S. embassy a few months ago and killed sixty-three people? Those crazy Muslims are Arabs, and they're our enemies, and we should just get rid of 'em, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.”

“Half the people killed in that suicide bombing were actually Lebanese employees of the embassy,” Sara says. “Do you actually know any Arabs, Willie?”

Nike sucks his teeth. “Hell no! Don't want to neither. The lot of 'em can kiss my American ass. We should nuke the Russians, too.”

“That's stupid.” Cookie says, “How would you like it if people judged all Catholics because of the Crusades? Or because of the part we played in slavery?”

“
We
didn't do squat,” says Nike. “And that was back in the Middle Ages, when people still thought the world was flat. If Arabs think it's copacetic to blow up things in 1983 over some beef that happened a thousand years ago, then let them kill themselves and each other.” Nike plays a card as if to signal that he's done with this conversation. I throw in my card, too. He asks Sara, “What you got, Princess?”

Sara lays down all her cards and shoves them toward the middle of the table. Then she stands up. “I don't feel so well.” And then Sara runs out the cafeteria.

“Sara!” Nike jumps up to chase after her.

Cookie grabs his arm. “Nike, don't. Just…” Then she calls to Sara and runs after her herself.

“You don't want to get involved in that,” I say. “That sounds like girl trouble, if you catch my drift.”

Nike still looks concerned, but he eases back into his seat. “I'll buy her a Charleston Chew and catch up with her later. That's what Gloria likes to eat whenever her ‘friend' comes.”

“Can we not talk about this, please?” I sweep up all the cards into a stack and start to shuffle. “How 'bout I whoop you in a game of spit.”

We play a few games, but neither Cookie nor Sara comes back. I actually wish one of them would. The silence between Nike and me is awkward. No trash-talking, no rhyming along with the radio, not even any arguing over who's finer—Daisy from
The Dukes of Hazzard
or Thelma from
Good Times.
Not that he could ever win that one. Even Stevie Wonder could see that Thelma is the finest girl on TV.

The tension between us puts me back on my feet. “I need to take a whiz. Then I'm going to see if there are any sandwiches left. Want one?”

“Bet.”

Before I can step into the boys' room, Cookie grabs my arm. “Smiles!”

I shake her off. “Step off already!” When I walk into the bathroom, I catch three Rookies giggling over a
Mad
magazine with that Howdy Doody look-alike dressed like Tootsie on the cover. “Busted!” I yell, and hold out my hand for it. “Fork it over.”

“Aw, Smiles, don't be like that.”

“Y'all too young for
Mad,
and you know it. Whose magazine is it?”

“He's a Famer,” one kid says.

Another says, “And he'll murder us if we don't give it back to him.”

“Don't worry about that.
I'll
give it back to him.” That and a talking-to about corrupting the Rookies. After I read it myself.

Then crazy-ass Cookie busts into the boys' room. Of course, the Rookies start with the oohing and pointing. One finally starts singing, “Cookie and Smiles sitting in a tree…”

“What are you doing?” The kids take advantage and run out of the bathroom, still singing that dumb song. “You're a trip, Cookie. You pull stunts like this, then wonder why people talk about you behind your back.”

Cookie's face drops, and for a second I wish I could take back my words. Does she really have no clue what they say about her? Then Cookie juts out her chin and says, “They can talk behind my back all they want, 'cause that means I'm ahead of them. Let 'em gossip about me. I can take it. So long as everyone leaves Sara alone.”

“She your girlfriend now? Is that why you're jumping on Nike's case? He stole her from you.” I laugh, but my joke doesn't seem funny, even to me. Instead I feel these pangs of guilt. What's going on here?

Cookie bends down to look under the stalls. The girl's certifiable, and I'm calling Bellevue. Once she's sure we're alone, she says, “Can you keep a secret?”

“No. The second you finish, I'ma run out of here and announce it over the PA.” Of course, I wouldn't do that, and Cookie knows it.

“Why you gotta be so sarcastic?”

“Why you gotta be so annoying?”

“Nike needs to lay off the prejudice.”

“What prejudice?”

“All the bomb-the-Arabs talk.”

“What do you care?”

Cookie runs to the bathroom door to make sure no one is coming and then returns. “Sara is Palestinian, and she doesn't want anyone to know.” The second it comes out her mouth, the guilt spreads across Cookie's face like a rash. “Smiles, you have to swear not to tell anyone. The only reason I even told you is because Sara really likes Nike.”

“He likes her, too,” I say, still confused by what she just told me.

“But the doofus just assumed that Sara's Puerto Rican. She's afraid that if he finds out she's not—let alone Arab—he's not going to like her anymore.”

That's bogus, but it dawns on me that for someone who prides himself on being such a playboy, Nike has never even gone out with a Black girl. And all his celebrity crushes are white. “So she lied when she said she goes to some Catholic school in Queens.”

“No!” Cookie sounds as if I just called
her
a liar. “She never said Saint Demetrios was a Catholic school. Again, y'all be assuming. It's a Greek Orthodox school.”

Now I'm more confused than ever. “Why's an Arab going to a Greek school?” I'm behind on my homework.

“Shhh!” Cookie checks over her shoulder. She wants to close the bathroom door, but Barb doesn't allow it. “Why you have to be so loud?”

“That's the pot calling the kettle black.”

“Think of it like this. Sara is a minority within a minority within a minority, OK? And she never meant to lie about anything.” Cookie puts her fists on her hips. “People make assumptions and say ignorant comments like
somebody
I know.”

“Hey, he didn't know.” Why am I defending him? Nike's always saying dumb stuff, and usually I get the brunt of it.

“So what, Smiles? That's no excuse. He wouldn't like it if somebody said all Puerto Ricans are on welfare or in gangs.”

No, he wouldn't. Especially that welfare thing. Nike'd fly someone's head over that one. “What do you expect, Cookie? Nike's just being Nike.”

“Nike is not Nike.” Here she goes with the finger wagging and neck rolling. “Nike is Willie. Willie is pretending to be Nike—”

“OK, OK, OK! Damn, Cookie, why you gotta run everything into the ground?” I throw my hands up. “What you expect me to do? How am I supposed to make Nike chill out without warning him that he's blowing it with Sara?”

Cookie's mouth drops open. “For serious, Smiles? Nike is such a dog, he makes a Rottweiler look like a Chihuahua! Honest guys don't two-time every girl they meet.”

“Hey, Nike has never told any girl that she's the only one he's rapping to. You girls be assuming, too. Until he asks someone out, she shouldn't believe that they're going steady.”

Cookie flaps her hands against her thighs in despair. “What's the big deal, Smiles? I'm not asking you to hide it forever. Believe me, I've been getting on Sara's case to tell Nike the truth. If you're really his friend, you'll keep him from making a complete ass of himself, 'cause you know he really likes her.”

“He does go too far sometimes,” I admit. And be impossible to talk to. I was dreading going to Port Morris High, our zoned school. I was supposed to go to Cardinal Hayes or Fordham Prep, but Mama's illness ruled that out. Her social worker's salary covered my tuition at Saint Aloysius, but not only was high school far more expensive, sickle cell saw to it that she worked less yet paid more in medical bills. I had taken the test for the specialized high schools like the Bronx High School of Science and Stuyvesant in Battery Park City but missed getting into one by a handful of points. Having already graduated from the eighth grade, I was too late for programs like A Better Chance and Prep for Prep.