When I Was the Greatest (16 page)

Another crazy thought running through my head was whether or not I was going to lie to Noodles about it, or if I was going to tell him I was scared to go all the way. Probably lie. He's the type who would tease me about it until I was sixty, and then lie about how he had already done it before.

I had to figure out how to stop her. There was only one way I knew. As she pulled at my belt, I grabbed her hands and whispered, “Ah. I want to. But I don't have a rubber.” I pretended to be bummed. Truth is, I don't really know how I felt. Maybe I really was, maybe I wasn't.

“It's all right,” Candace whispered. “MoMo keeps them in here.” What?!? She leaned over and slid her hand in the drawer of a night table beside the bed that I hadn't even noticed was there. When she pulled her hand out, she was holding a condom.

“Look what I found,” she chirped, and at that moment I knew I was a goner. This is the story I was going to have to tell about my first time. A MoMo party, with a gorgeous drunk older girl, that for some reason I wasn't really comfortable with. Maybe Doris's training had made me soft, I thought. Naw, not soft, just safe.

Candace stared right at me while pulling her tank top
over her head. I wondered if she could see how nervous I was, if it was in my eyes. I wondered what my face looked like as I tried to play cool, like I had done this before. I wondered if I would have to unsnap her bra, something I definitely would not be good at. She reached for my belt again, and as soon as she got it undone, someone came running down the hall screaming.

“They fighting! They fighting!” the voice yelled. The music was loud, but those words cut through the throbbing bass.

I don't know what it is about the hood that when a person yells “They fighting!” everybody stops what they're doing and runs toward the fight. Logic says to run away from the fight, but there's nothing more entertaining than a good brawl.

Candace jumped off me and reached for her shirt. I didn't wait for her to put it back on because to me, this was more than just a fight, it was my excuse to bail. So I ran out of the room and into the hallway, where people were crowded and yelling. I jumped to try to see over the crowd. I couldn't. I could hear the skin-on-skin contact, though. The punches sounded clean, and painful. I pushed through the crowd to get closer to the action, at the same time trying to spot Needles and Noodles to make sure they were okay. It didn't seem like anyone was trying to stop the fight, so I guess there were no bouncers or security guards like I expected. If they weren't careful, this thing could turn into a free-for-all, I thought. I didn't want Needles to have to be involved in nothing like that, and I didn't want to be involved either. Once I got close enough to see, I couldn't tell who was getting pounded on, but whoever
it was would thank God for life if they made it to the morning. I looked for Needles and Noodles. I glanced over to the corner where I'd seen Needles last. Not there. Maybe he had gone outside. Looked to the front. Didn't see Noodles, either. Tasha was standing just enough inside the party room to see what was going on. Her hand covered her mouth, and her face was wet with tears. Then I looked to another corner. There stood Noodles—looked like he had seen a ghost. I made my way over to him to see if he knew where Needles was.

“Yo! Where's Needles?” I put my hand on his shoulder.

He didn't respond. He just stood there, like he was going through some kind of shock or something. Like his head was empty.

“Nood!” I yelled. “Nood!” I stepped directly in front of his face. “Where's Needles?”

Noodles looked at me, and his face crumbled. All of a sudden, my legs felt funny. I felt like I was going to pass out. That look on his face told me that Needles was the person getting pounded on in the middle of that brawl. And his punk-ass brother was just standing there like a freakin' sissy, scared, watching it all unfold.

If I could've burned a hole in his face with my eyes, I would have. But there wasn't time to try. I turned toward the fight and thrust my way through the crowd. I normally would've been terrified, but I didn't have time to be scared. I had to get to Needles.

Once I entered the danger zone, all I could do was imagine myself training with Malloy. I'd never even had a real
boxing match. And the way I always got my ass handed to me in spars was enough for me to know I wasn't the best. But I couldn't let them kill Needles, so I had to hope the training worked better outside the ring than inside. Fists tight, thumbs down. The guys beating on Needles didn't see me coming up from behind. I grabbed one by the shoulder and spun him around. Once he faced me, I gave him a stiff jab right to the nose. Didn't put too much arm into it. Snapped it just like Malloy said, and put him right to sleep.

One thing Malloy always joked about was how guys who fight in the hood only know one punch, and that's a hook. They throw it wild and free, and because everybody does it, everybody gets caught with it. It's silly, but it's the way it is. Once I knocked the first guy out, the second guy turned around and noticed me. He did exactly what I expected him to do. A right hook. Before his fist was halfway to reaching me, I had already zapped him—boom boom boom—three times in the face. The hook never landed. Another one down.

I tried to scan the room as quickly as possible. I could see there was somebody else about to come at me, but another guy held him back. I couldn't recognize who he was. Maybe someone who recognized me from the neighborhood? No time to think. Somebody else came out of nowhere and snuffed me across the face. It stung, but surprisingly, my recovery time is pretty good, especially for such a lightweight. I stumbled but didn't fall. Somebody tried to hold him back as well, but he broke away and threw a few haymakers at me, missing. I could tell people were trying to break it up, but no one knew how.

He kept coming, but I switched to southpaw, which I could tell confused him. Malloy always said it would. Dude threw a jab but was way off. I gave a clean hook. I felt my hand meet his jawbone, and I knew that one of my knuckles was broken right then and there. It was my own damn fault—my fist wasn't closed tight enough and I knew it. Dude threw another jab, and I hit him with the same punch, followed by an uppercut. That might have been the first combination I had ever landed in real life. The pain shot up my arm, making my elbow and shoulder tingle, but I put it right on his chin, and through all the noise, I could still hear his teeth click. Out.

One guy left, which I was glad about because I was getting tired. He was a big guy. Much bigger than the other three. When people saw him coming, everybody just stepped out of the way. Nobody tried to stop him. He just football-tackled me. There was nothing I could do at that point but try to block my face. My lip busted right open when he landed on me. He caught me a few times right above the eye. I could feel a few random feet kicking me in my side, sideline suckers trying to get free licks. It felt like a house was on top of me; I could barely breathe. But I kept trying to punch him in the back and give everything I had to his ribs. A rib shot hurts like nothing else. I gave him what seemed like ten blows to the breadbasket, but they didn't faze him! I was outweighed big-time and was scared that if he didn't get off me, I would suffocate. Finally, out of nowhere, I heard Tasha's voice yell out, “Cops! Cops!”

The cops must've been called from the inside, because
the whole place was soundproof. Somebody could've started shooting in there and no one would hear it outside, which now, when I think about it, is pretty scary. The lights flicked on and everybody panicked, running like roaches. Big guy jumped off me and started scrambling, and I ran after him and hit him straight across the teeth. I pulled the punch from a special place, a place I didn't even know I had in me. I really wanted him to remember me every time he saw his gappy smile. It brought him to one knee, and I was good with that. I ran over to Needles and almost backed away again—he was lying there in a spreading puddle of his own blood. Oh my God. Oh my God. He was hurt bad. He wasn't moving. Oh my God. I fell to my knees.

“Come on, man! We gotta go!” I yelled to him. “Come on!” He rolled his head from one side to the other, and all I could think was, at least he's not dead. At least that.

Somehow I got Needles up and threw his arm around my shoulder.

“Nood, come on!” I shouted. He looked like he was drifting somewhere, having some sort of out-of-body experience. “Noodles!” I shrieked.

This snapped him out of it. He ran to his brother's side and swung Needles's free arm over his own, and together we propped Needles up, practically running him back across Lewis Ave, where we felt safe.

“You're gonna be okay, man. You're gonna be okay,” I repeated over and over again. Needles kept trying to talk, but he couldn't get the words out. He kept spitting blood and
grunting in pain. I kept looking to make sure his eyes were open—make sure he stayed conscious. He was barely moving his legs. We were practically dragging him.

Once we got to their house, we had a helluva time getting him up the steps. He could hardly move any part of his body. First we tried to drag him. He moaned in pain. No good. Then we tried carrying him, Noodles gripping under his arms, and me at his feet. Too awkward, and I was afraid Noodles would let go and Needles would bust his head on the steps. So I ended up just carrying him over my shoulder, like men always carry their wives in the old-time movies when they first get married. Needles was heavier than he looked, and I could feel his blood seep through my shirt as I took the steps, one by one. And judging from the smell coming from him, he had also pissed his pants.

After what seemed like forever, we got into their apartment. We took Needles straight to his room and laid him down.

“Help me get his clothes off,” I ordered Noodles, who was just standing there looking at his broken-up brother with teary eyes. “Everything we do is gonna hurt him, so try to take it easy.”

I leaned over Needles and slid his blood-soaked shirt up, wiggling it up his back slowly, and gently pulling it over his head.

“You get his pants, Nood.”

Noodles looked at me like I asked him to kiss Needles on the mouth.

My hands started sweating. My mouth got dry. I was going to explode.

“Noodles! Take off his damn pants!” I barked.

Noodles jumped, now afraid of me, and started gingerly unbuckling Needles's belt. He looked so uncomfortable, as if this weren't his brother, his family, that I nudged him to one side and helped him shimmy Needles's jeans down. The blood made them look tie-dyed.

Needles twitched and grunted, as if his clothes had become full of tiny, invisible knives, shanking him with every tug of a pant leg. Expensive clothes should protect you from pain. They should be bulletproof, and bully proof, I thought, looking at all the gear John gave us, now a pile of damaged goods.

I told Noodles to get a wet towel so we could wipe the blood off Needles and I could see where the damage was.

“And y'all got some alcohol?” I asked as he started to run out of the room.

“Alcohol, like liquor?” Noodles responded.

“Naw, man. Alcohol like, the kind you clean stuff with. The kind you put on a cut.”

Why the hell would I be asking for liquor?

“I don't know, let me look.”

Somehow I knew they didn't have it, but while Noodles went to look for it, I spoke as encouragingly as I could to Needles.

“You gonna be good, man. We'll take care of you,” I said, my voice starting to crack and slip into a cry. Needles opened
his eyes for a moment, and then the lids fluttered closed again. “I'm so sorry. I swear. This shouldn't have happened. I shouldn't have left you alone.” I felt so damned guilty. I was so ashamed. I felt like I had let my own brother down. I should've stayed close. I should've protected him. Instead I was off kissing some random girl.

Needles lifted his head just a little, maybe a half of a half of an inch off the pillow. His body jerked every few minutes, the syndrome, which seemed to be sending him into even more pain. Then I realized he was trying to tell me something. Tears were coming from his eyes. His head fell back down to the pillow, exhausted.

“It's okay, man. Just rest.”

“Yo, he aight, Ali?” Noodles came running with a dripping towel. He stood by the door, too afraid to come any closer.

“Yeah. Get the alcohol?”

“Naw, man,” Noodles said, defeated. “Not that kind.”

I thought for a second as I looked over Needles's body, now starting to blue and purple up, the bruises looked like they were made with bats, not fists. Like tattoos of inkblots all over him. The cuts were mostly flesh wounds, but they still needed to be cleaned, or they would get infected and then who knows what could happen. I saw on TV once, a guy had to get his whole leg cut off just because he never treated a wound he got from a bike accident.

“Man, just get whatever alcohol you have. It'll have to do,” I said to Noodles.

A few minutes later we were ready to baptize Needles in
Johnnie Walker. I took the towel and covered the mouth of the bottle. Then I turned it up, and back down, just to dampen it.

“This is gonna sting just a little, but I promise you, it'll help.”

Needles wouldn't take his eyes off me. He never glanced at his brother, once. It was like Noodles wasn't even in the room anymore. Like he didn't exist. Looking Needles in the eye, I dabbed the rag on the first cut. He made a painful sizzling noise with his mouth. I knew the feeling—I did this every time I got a cut, but I always hollered. But my boy Needles took it like a man.

Then I checked to see if any bones were broken.

“Look, man, we can't take him to the hospital,” Noodles said as I felt up and down Needles's arms and legs, searching for fractures or anything that seemed out of place. He was right. Nobody in our neighborhood could go to the hospital. A trip to the hospital could mean the end to a roof over your head. Can't pay hospital bills and rent. One time, this girl who used to live down the block, Sasha Lee, got hit by a car. I think I was around ten. The car hit her so hard, she flew up in the air and landed on the other side of the street. Everybody knew she was dead. She had to be. Her mother came flying down the block. We all ran over to help. By the time I got down the block, Ms. Lee had Sasha up and was half carrying, half dragging her aimlessly down the block, toward Lewis Ave. Somebody shouted, “Call the ambulance!” Ms. Lee quickly shouted, “No! No ambulance! She'll be okay. We'll catch a cab to the clinic tomorrow.”