Team Seven (25 page)

After she told Ma to host the Bible study in their place, she went upstairs and called down and told me to come up to her room. I walked into her room and there was a ten-dollar bill sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Come, sit down, babylove.” She smiled at me and whispered, “You need haircut.”

She pushed back and looked up at me from her comfy chair.

“Woiy, you getting big so. How many girlfriends you have now?” She smiled, started shaking my wrist. “Come on, you can tell Grandma.”

I laughed and said, “Other than my basketball, I don’t have any girlfriends, Nana.”

She looked me in the face and folded her arms. “No girlfriend?” Her lips sunk deep into her denture-free jaws, her eyes narrowed, and she turned her head and looked up at me sideways, “A big broad-chest boy like you, with jacket-shoulders and no girlfriend? You don’t like boys, do you?” She pointed up at me and leaned in like she was telling me a secret, “I don’t like boys that like boys.” She said it low.

I shook my head, “Whoa, no, Nana. I don’t like boys.”

Her face loosened and she said, “Good,” and perked back up and handed me the ten-dollar bill.

“Be a nice boy, Andre, and go get a haircut so you can find yourself a little girlfriend.”

I took the money and my pants sagged as I stood up and the edge of my boxer shorts peeked out from under my T-shirt.
Nana Tanks grabbed the waistband of my jeans, yanked them up, and hissed. I pulled my jeans up and she let go.

“Why you sag your pants like the ruffian on the corner? Don’ make Grandma have to vex now. Wear your pants on waist, like nice boy.” She rested her elbow on the arm of the chair, hunched over, and gave me a look that shrank me down a few inches. Then she pointed again. “Because even when I’m dead and gone, I’ll come back down from heaven and pull them back up.” She broke a grin at me and I laughed.

I stood and gave her a kiss on the forehead and she hugged my upper shoulders. She looked up at me and said, “Ya know Grandma love you, right?” and squeezed my hand.

“I know, Nana. I love you too.”

“Remember what I said, ya hear?” She leaned back and closed her eyes.

I said I would and gave her another kiss on the forehead and walked out the door heading downstairs. She turned up the Telemundo and shimmied herself comfortable so she could fade off into a nap.

Fifteen minutes after I got downstairs, Nana must have woke from her nap and forgotten she’d given me the money because she called downstairs and started complaining to Ma about my hair and Ma made Pop give me ten dollars to get a cut, which I gladly took.

I could tell Ma was nervous that nobody was going to show and that the whole thing would be a big divine joke and she’d look like a fanatic or a fool around the neighborhood. As I got ready to walk to the barbershop I heard Ma call Mr. Watson and set up plans for Aldrich to meet me at the barbershop and walk back to the house with me for Bible study. Ma’s not dumb. I think she could tell I was up to something. Aldrich grates on my nerves, but it’s not his fault his folks brought him
up so square it hurts. His parents only let him come to Mattapan when he was with me, and it was like a field trip for him. She saw me wearing my basketball gear under my clothes, but it wasn’t going to stop me. It was smart thinking on her part, put a snitch candidate like Aldrich with me. I’d never even mentioned not coming back in front of her but she’s tricky like that. But she can’t stop me. If I don’t want to come back for Bible study then I’m not going to. The worst she could do is beat me, and I take harder hits at the park.

As I walked to Mattapan Square all of Ma’s flyers blew in the wind. Some of them had been tagged over by this point. People had started drawing penises and tits and anything else that went against the idea of a Bible study. The flyers were faded and worn, flapping against the telephone poles and laughing at me. I started hearing a chorus singing the words “Church Boy” in my head and I wanted it to stop, but I couldn’t shake the thought. I’d reached the point of no return. I had seventy dollars in my pocket, twenty of which I didn’t need in the first place, and about a half ounce of bud tucked in my sock. I always walk with at least fifty bucks on me to make sure I’m good for the day. I really ain’t need their change.

When I got to the shop, it was empty and my barber Keon was sitting in the chair half asleep. He wiped his face all fast and got me in the chair and scraped me up sharp. He asked me if I wanted a design in my hair and I said yeah and told him to surprise me, and he carved the three-stripe Adidas logo on the side of my head and I asked him to write my street ball name. He wrote “Dreidel-17” in cursive. I think he tried to carve out an actual dreidel but it ended up looking more like a tornado.

Aldrich got to the shop a few minutes later. He kept telling Keon how “cool” my cut was and I heard Keon ask him if he
wanted a design too and he blurted out, “Yes!” I rolled my eyes. The shop was starting to fill up and I watched ESPN on the big screen in the front. Before I knew what happened, Keon was spraying Aldrich’s head down with hair sheen and as he spun Aldrich around in the chair and the spray cleared I looked at the side of Aldrich’s head and the dick-rider really got the same exact haircut as me, only his said “Big Al.”

It was too late to do anything. Aldrich smiled at me all stupid. I iced Keon and looked him off, shaking my head at the floor. Clippers in hand, Keon tossed his arms up and said, “Ay, youngblood.” I looked at him as he dropped the clipper heads in some disinfectant cleaner and turned his back to me. “He asked me for one too. Don’t look at me like that.”

Aldrich grinned at me.

“What? You don’t like it?” He paid Keon and got out of the chair and walked over to me. “Wanna get a slice before Bible study?” I wasn’t really hungry but if the bitch-nigga was paying, why not? It’d give me a minute to figure out how to ditch his ass. I couldn’t show up with the asshole having matching haircuts, that’s suspect like shit. Nina does that kind of stuff with her girls. They have certain days when her and all her girls wear the same outfit in different colors. Reggie and them already think Aldrich’s a nut-rider.

We walked to Mattapan House of Pizza, got a couple of slices, and sat down to eat. I’d already cemented my decision to walk over to Mattapan station so I could catch the trolley over to Ashmont and catch a bus from there and court-hop the night away. It didn’t matter if I wasn’t there in Nana and Papa Tanks’s living room to defend myself from the whispers and name-calling that I knew was coming. In the tangle of the grapevine my name’d been steady collecting dirt.

As we sat eating our slices of pepperoni, I debated whether
I should ditch Aldrich or try to convince him not to go to Bible study and to ride out with me.

It was five thirty and Bible study started at eight. Ma wanted me home by six forty-five. Then the bells above the door jingled and I looked up and in walked Beezy with Tunnetta’s bucket-head ass seesawing up to the counter all awkward, acting like they didn’t see us.

Aldrich laughed and whisper-shouted, “Cupcaking,” and then he put his cap to the side of his face like Beezy and Tunnetta wouldn’t know which one of us said it. He was looking guiltier than O. J. Simpson. He looked at me laughing like I was supposed to laugh. See, Beezy ain’t really a fighter but he’d fold Aldrich’s punk ass and I really didn’t want to have to explain what happened to Aldrich to his dad. Beezy turned around and flashed us a look and I could tell he was ready to start putting on and acting stupid, like he was down to fight a nigga for trying to pull his card in front of the wifey. Aldrich wiped a greasy napkin stained red with pizza sauce across his mouth and leaned in toward me, whispering, “Seriously, though, she ain’t half bad, man. She’s a good look for him.”

I felt a jolt in my veins, tried to leave it alone, and wagged my hand at the wall. I couldn’t. I sighed and said, “Man, Beezy share that girl. Who ain’t been wit’ her? A girl like Tunnetta is more for niggas than a nigga’s girl. Ya dig what I’m saying?” I said it just loud enough for Aldrich to hear me, and his eyes lit up. He thought about it and then his lip folded down low, stretched the length of his jaw and got crowbar stiff, and he said, “Really?” He began picking at an island of pimples that covered his left temple, and then he squinted at me all skeptical. He started biting his fingernails.

“You hit it?”

I waved him off again. “C’mon, man. Don’t ask me no damn questions.”

Aldrich started laughing and leaning in, looked me all in the face, cackling like a fucking weirdo. He kept repeating, “Didya? Didya?” I moved back but he stood up leaning at me and when I smelled the sourness of his breath I reached out and smacked him in the forehead. He yelped out “Owwww!” and held his face. Beezy and Tunnetta both turned around and I made eye contact and she smirked at me. Aldrich caught her little smirk and kept laughing. “I saw that. What was that? You hit it, didn’t you? She ain’t half smile at me.”

I clamped my jaws and growled, “Dawg! Cut. The. Shit.” He stopped laughing.

See, this is when urges start to boil up and all that “Fuck-you” in my blood begins to turn me cold and I feel like I’m the hardest motherfucker alive. I try to think of good things, and I hear Nana Tanks’s little voice bouncing wall to wall in my head saying, “Andre, be a nice boy,” but then them urges quiet her and something inside me screams, “What the fuck for?” Then I recall a line that Bishop Jackson said during church a couple months ago: “It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.” And I added a line of my own: “Right, wrong, or in between, who defines that shit anyway?” The voice screams louder and louder until I find myself just doing what I feel. For a second I stopped and thought about me and Tunnetta, what we were and what we weren’t. How things started out so sweet and simple, then how time oh-so-gracefully revealed our situation for what it really is, and regardless of our attitudes, what mean-mugs get exchanged or what we say and don’t say. Me and Tunnetta got an understanding, and that’s just how we do.

When Tunnetta walked back from the counter with her food, I belched and she looked at me. We made eyes and she smiled like she ain’t already see me. She put down her food and I waved to her and like a boomerang she started to walk over to our table. And Beezy tucked his dick between his legs and watched Tunnetta walk away. Aldrich was so thirsty, giggling and looking back and forth between me and her. He damn near drooled on himself when Tunnetta said, “Hey, y’all,” and put her cell phone on the table. She had a pink scrunchie around her wrist and she reached up and pulled her hair up into a ponytail. Then she smiled and picked up her cell phone.

“Y’all going to Bible study? I’m excited about it.” She said it with that sweet Southern drawl and gave me one of them syrupy looks that got me caught up messing with her in the first place.

Aldrich blurted out, “Me too, I’m pumped. We’re walking there right after we finish our slices. Wanna walk with us?”

Of all the shit in the world he could have said, he had to say that. She grinned and looked back at the pout on Beezy’s face and sighed. She said, “Maybe,” then popped her hips and poked out her ass as she walked back over to Beezy. She sat down and opened up her Pepsi and gently placed her hand on top of Beezy’s and they locked eyes and he smiled. She had Beezy roped, he was her little bitch. Guess some niggas’ junk really is the next nigga’s treasure.

We stood up to throw our crust away and Beezy looked at me and said, “See you at Bible study, Andre.” And he chuckled and then coughed and said, “Altar boy,” under his breath. I heard what he said and froze. It seems he’d grown balls. I walked over to their table and Tunnetta started fidgeting with her purse. Beezy looked away, all suspect and shit, and said
nothing. Aldrich must have heard it too because I could hear him chuckling behind me. I reached down and snatched Tunnetta’s cell phone off the table and said, “You ready?” I picked up her Pepsi and swigged down the lump that was swelling in my throat. She looked at the floor, stood up, and the three of us started walking toward the door. And, like a true bitch, Beezy threw out the rest of his slice of pizza and trailed behind us.

We got outside and started walking back toward Milton. I looked at Aldrich and whispered, “See, he share that girl.” Aldrich started laughing like a fucking idiot, jumping up and down in front of me on the sidewalk, blocking my way. I pushed him and he turned around and I looked at the back of his head and remembered the asshole got the same haircut as me.

Tunnetta looked and said, “Dang, y’all are too cute,” and then said to me, “Can I have my cell phone back now?”

Beezy caught up with us and chimed in, “Yeah, nigga, give her her phone.”

Beezy smiled at me and his bitch ass still thinks he can give me that smile. It irks me that after he wanna act all cute for the whole fuckin’ pizza shop he still thinks our shit’s sweet. Aldrich shut his mouth and stood next to Tunnetta as Beezy stepped up in my face. I remember seeing the roundness of Beezy’s fat face and it’s like I blinked and all the “Fuck-you” spilled over and the urges weren’t just urges anymore. I swung at Beezy so fast he didn’t even have a chance to put his hands up. He fell to the ground and Tunnetta screamed, “Oh my God, Andre, stop!”

She ran over to Beezy, who was splayed out on the concrete kicking his right leg and making a weird groan. Tunnetta knelt down and cradled his head in her lap and she started
crying, calling all kinds of attention to herself as she shook Beezy until he started blinking. Tunnetta helped Beezy stagger up to his feet and before he could even stand he was running his mouth.

“You done fucked up now,” he yelled.

Tunnetta stepped up and cried, “Andre, gimme my damn cell phone!” and charged at me like she’d lost her marbles. To avoid the crowd that was slowly starting to gather, I ran across Blue Hill Avenue into Mattapan station and waited for the next trolley leaving for Ashmont. Aldrich, Beezy, and Tunnetta chased after me the whole way there, and Beezy busted his ass and fell when him and Tunnetta made it to the platform. She helped him up and they sat hugging each other on the bench. Tunnetta pretended like she could really hold Beezy’s ass back if he wanted to get up and do something, and he let her.