When I Was the Greatest (10 page)

Black started from the back again, cutting upward toward the top of Noodles's head. What Black said about watching Brother cut became obvious, because while he was cutting Noodles, I realized that he cut exactly like Brother did. His posture. His facial expressions. His movements. Brother, Brother, Brother.

After he finished, he held the hand mirror in front of Noodles. Noodles looked and looked, and looked some more. He turned his head to the left and to the right. I couldn't understand what he was looking for. His cut looked crisp. His hairline looked perfect, and in the hood, that's a big deal. That's like a fresh pair of shoes.

Noodles kept analyzing it, and for some reason, for some strange reason, I just knew what was about to go down.

Noodles twisted his face. “Yo, man, what's this?”

Black was dusting off his clippers. He came around to the front of the chair.

“What's what?”

“This.” Noodles took his hand and traced his hairline. “It's crooked.”

Black looked concerned. He knew he had done a good job, and I did too.

“Where?”

“Are you blind? Here!” Noodles ran his finger along his perfectly straight hairline again.

“It ain't crooked, man,” Black said, looking as hard as he could.

“Yeah, man, it don't look crooked to me, either,” I said, trying to squash this before it got too far.

“Me either,” said Needles.

“What? Man, this thing is crooked! Look like you shaped me up with your eyes closed. Like you drunk. Better yet, like you gotta syndrome!” Noodles jumped up from the chair and snatched the smock off. I already knew what he
was doing. He was pulling the same crap he always pulls. I stood up to make sure he didn't try to do nothing crazy, like swing on Black, though I didn't really think he would go that far.

“I ain't paying for this crap!” Noodles said. “You butchered me!” Then he looked at me and howled, “He butchered me, Ali! I can't go to the party like this!”

“Calm down, Nood,” I said in my calmest voice.

Black picked the smock up off the floor. “I don't know what your deal is, man, but that's a mean cut. And you owe me ten bucks.” He laid the smock on the back of the chair. He was moving in such a relaxed way that it kind of scared me. He didn't seem put off by any of this. That made me believe that he knew something we didn't know. Like, nobody was leaving until he got his money. Like, in all this junk in this room, there might've also been a gun.

“Yeah, man, just pay him his money,” I pleaded with Noodles. “Just give it to him.”

“I ain't giving him ten bucks! Maybe five for Needles, but he ain't cut me right! Mine is messed up!”

I glared at him. Why'd he have to pull this now? I mean, he had money—me and Needles's money. He just was trying to get over on Black and get something for nothing. But I knew for sure, Noodles wasn't gonna win this one.

“Listen,” Black said, taking a step toward him, “I'm not playing with you. Ten bucks, homie.”

“You not playing with me? You not playing with me?” Noodles started, his voice rising to another level each time
he said it. “I'm not playing with you!” He balled his fists up tight, but I knew he really didn't want no parts of Black.

I grabbed Noodles and started pulling him back. Kim came into the room, and after some more yelling from Noodles, she asked us to leave. Noodles took five of the dollars he had, five of our dollars, balled them up, and threw them at Black. Black bit down on his jaw, trying his best to hold in the butt-whooping he surely had ready for Noodles. Needles, shaking his head, ran over and picked the dollars up and handed them to Black. I realized he wasn't surprised at Noodles's performance either, and was just as prepared for it as I was. I pulled an extra five from my pocket and dropped it on the church pew while yanking Noodles out of the room.

It's funny. Another one of my mother's rules was to never let anyone know what you're holding. Not even your friends. I had more than eight dollars in cash. But somehow I knew it would be a bad idea to let Noodles know that. I knew I would have to have a reserve messing around with him. And I'm glad I did.

I apologized to Kim on the way out, and asked her to please apologize to Black on behalf of the three of us. I also told her to make sure he got the extra five I left on the pew for him. She was upset, but still sweet enough to smile at me while closing the door.

“Yo, what's your deal, Noodles?” I laid into him as soon as we hit the sidewalk. I was mad, and this time I wanted him to know it. “Why do you insist on being such a jerk, man?”

“Whatever, Ali. I just ain't feel like paying that fool. Figured
we could use that money for something else,” Noodles said proudly.

I shook my head in disgust. “Trippin'.”

“I'm trippin'? What about you, Mr. Moneybags? You was holding out.”

“And you wasn't holding at all, so who are you to count my coins, man?” I almost snapped on him, but I caught myself. “Yo, just forget it. The haircuts are fresh. That's all that matters.”

That's all that mattered. But I was starting to understand what my mother said about getting tired of bailing people out. I wasn't ready to quit on my homeboy yet, but he was pushing me, and pushing hard.

6

Doris always says that the worst thing ever is a man dressed up in a sharp suit, wearing dirty shoes. And since we don't wear no suits, that's like saying the worst thing is a dude with a fresh haircut, wearing a wack outfit, which we agreed could not be us. Not for a MoMo party. So we sat around knocking our heads together, trying to figure out a way to get clothes. Good clothes. A fresh white tee right out of a three-pack wouldn't cut it. We needed something with some flash to it. Something with a name so hard to pronounce that people don't even try. The kind of clothes that would cost more money than any of us had, or ever had. There was no way for us to get it unless we did something crazy, which I wasn't down for. Noodles, on the other hand, as usual, was all about pulling a caper.

“We need money to get these clothes.” Noodles sat in my living room drinking a soda, stating the obvious. Needles stayed outside on the stoop. I told him to come in, but I guess he didn't want to, and I was starting to get it. I think he felt
safe on the stoop. I couldn't blame him. His brother knew how to make things real unsafe, real quick.

“That's all, man. Money. Lots of it,” he continued. I sat at the window. Didn't really have much to say to Noodles. I was still upset about what went down at Black's. I was trying to move past it, but it was really bugging me. Plus, he'd jumped all over Needles for picking the money up off the floor and giving it to Black.

“You ain't no dog! You don't gotta pick nothing up off the floor, stupid!” he said, slapping Needles in the back of the head.

“What you gotta hit me for?” Needles yelped. He rubbed the back of his head. “And I ain't stupid either,” he said.

“Tell him again, bro,” I said, backing Needles up.

“Yeah, whatever,” Noodles said. He turned to me. “Stay out of this.”

I should've said, “Hit him again, Noodles, and I'll show you what Black should've done to you.” But I didn't. For some reason I just didn't feel like I had the right to step that far into family business, because family business is family business.

Now Noodles tapped the soda can on the kitchen table.

“Man, we can't rob no bank, but we could jack a bodega, easy.”

Just the thought of robbing a corner store made me cringe, especially knowing all the drama it caused my family when my father did it. But I didn't say nothing.

“Or go into the city where the fancy folks live with their little dogs, and snatch a purse. Probably be straight just from
one bag. Take whatever cash is in it, and if it's not enough, we could sell the bag and get Needles some fly clothes too.”

Nothing.

“Or we could just take Needles to a church and do the whole, my brother is sick with a syndrome and we don't have no clothes, please help, bit.”

Nothing.

“Naw, that's probably not a good one, because they won't give us money, they'd probably give us clothes. Church clothes. And I ain't wearing that mess to the party. Corduroys and whatnot.”

I still said nothing. He went on and on about different ways to steal money from this person and that person. How we could somehow cheat and either make a fistful of cash or a closet full of clothes suddenly appear. He even suggested that I ask my mother to somehow “get” some stuff from the store she works at, as if Doris was just going to say, “Of course I'll get you and your little knucklehead friend a boatload of expensive clothes” without asking what we needed the clothes for. Or without yelling my head off for asking her something so ridiculous.

As Noodles made suggestion after suggestion, I looked out at Needles, sitting on the stoop, weaving the black yarn in and out with the needles just like my mother taught him. I could see that something had started to form. Something was being made, and even if it wasn't anything specific, it was something, and I thought that was pretty cool. He was making progress. You could tell he was concentrating on
every stitch and loving every moment while this black, messy glob of together-yarn was being created. And suddenly, without warning, he jerked. His left arm shot out, sort of like a toy with a spring-loaded karate chop. And just like that, the messy glob of together-yarn came loose again.

“Or we could just go see Dog and ask him to put us down for a trial run, see how good we can make a flip.” Noodles was still tossing out ridiculous ideas. Ideas like going to see Dog, the block's dope boy, and asking him if we could sell for him. At that point it became pretty clear that Noodles was going crazy. He was willing to risk his life over an outfit for this party. “You hear me?” he asked.

I heard him, but I definitely wasn't listening.

“Yeah, I hear you,” I said, straight and to the point.

“So, what you think about any of those ideas?” Noodles was finishing off his soda. He turned the can up to his mouth and took the last few swallows. Burp. Then he put the can on the table, broke the aluminum tab thing, the thing you open it with, off the top, and popped it in his mouth like it was candy.

“I think they're terrible,” I said.

Noodles's eyes looked like they were ready to fall out his face.

“You got something better, genius? Oh, I mean, moneybags,” he asked, all huff and puff. If he was a girl, he would've rolled his eyes. And his neck.

The aluminum tab in his mouth made it sound like he had a mouthful of loose teeth. I could tell he was trying hard not to drool when he was talking.

“Let me ask you something,” I said. “Why you so mean to Needles?”

I don't know where it came from, but it came. For some reason I just couldn't hold it in no more.

Noodles squinted his eyes like he didn't know what I was talking about. “What?” he said in his usual grouchy tone.

“You heard me. Why are you always so mean to your brother? He's your brother.”

Noodles took the tab from his mouth and dropped it into the empty can. He then grabbed the can and crushed it between his hands.

“You don't know what you talkin' about, Ali.”

“Just answer the question, Nood. You smack him around and give him all kind of flack for nothing. You shut him down every time he says something. It's ridiculous. And all these folks around here don't wanna say nothing, 'cause they not trying to be bothered with all your mess.” I could feel my voice starting to get a little more intense. “I know you, the real you, and I don't care about your mess, so now I'm calling you out on it.” I wanted to say that I knew Noodles the comic book nerd.

“Ali, I think you crossing the line,” Noodles said, as if he was trying to say I better chill before he does something.

It's not really like me to go off, but I couldn't stop.