When I Was the Greatest (17 page)

So, yeah, I was praying that none of Needles's bones were broken, because like Noodles said, we couldn't take him to the hospital.

“I know that. But we still gotta check,” I explained.

I kept pinching at his joints, asking if this hurt or if that hurt, to all of which Needles shook his head no, until I got to his wrist. I pinched the two bones on the sides of his wrist. The ones that feel like marbles under the skin.

“Ah!” Needles cried out. He hissed and snatched his wrist away, that fast.

“Sorry, sorry,” I said. “Nood, you got anything we can wrap his wrist with?”

At this point I didn't even know why I was asking. I knew he wouldn't be able to find anything, and I wouldn't be able to find anything either.

Still, Noodles ran out of the room to go search for something we could use as bandage.

Needles lay there cradling his wrist with his other hand. His eyes were swollen. He looked sad, angry, and uncomfortable all at the same time. But at least he looked a little more alert. “Needles, good news is, I don't think it's broken,” I told him. “Probably just sprained. We'll just ice it.” I forced a smile.

“Noodles, just get some ice!” I yelled.

He came back in the room with nothing but a frown on his face.

“No ice, Ali.”

No ice. The house didn't even have frozen water. So I yanked one of Needles's socks off his foot, and wrapped it
tight around his wrist. I didn't know what it would do, or if it would do anything at all, but it was all I could think of. “Can you at least find some aspirin?”

After I helped Needles swallow the aspirin, I stepped back and took one good look at him. He lay there like some sort of insect, maybe a slug with fresh salt poured on him, disintegrating slowly. Totally weird, but I couldn't help but think that his face looked like some kind of jigsaw puzzle, the pieces not quite in the right place. Lip swollen. Nose bloody. His eyes just starting to blacken and puff up. It was gonna be a long, hard night for Needles, which sucked because it had started so good.

I sat with him as he started to drift off, and began looking around his room. He never let anyone in it, and it was a total surprise—it was nothing like the rest of the house. It was bright, and the walls were covered in posters of old-school rappers from the nineties, and pictures of him and Noodles, and their mother looking a lot less tired than I'm used to seeing her, and a man I had never seen before, who I figured was their father, judging from how much they all looked alike. The place in the pictures definitely wasn't this apartment, that's for sure. Everybody looked happy. On top of all that, Needles's room was neat. Every shoe, every shirt, every little thing was in its place.

I glanced over at Noodles and thought about whether or not I should talk to him about what happened at the party. Then I realized I had to. But I didn't want to do it with Needles right there, even though I thought it would be the perfect
opportunity for Needles to get some stuff off his own chest, if he only had the energy to talk. Shoot, all he really had to do was drop an F-bomb. Noodles would've got the message loud and clear. But Needles looked like he was falling asleep and was refusing to acknowledge his brother at all. It wasn't for me to force it. But it was my place to speak up about why I had to jump in and risk my own life when me and Needles ain't got no blood between us.

“Let's let him sleep,” I whispered to Noodles, pointing toward the bedroom door. After softly closing it behind me, we went into the living room, where I sat down on the same nasty chair, with the stuffing on the seat part. I don't know why I even sat down. I should've been going home. My work was done. Needles was safe and almost asleep. But I sat, because if I walked out of that apartment, we would most likely never discuss what happened. It would never come up. It would get swept under the rug like so many of the other weird and strained parts of our friendship.

“Yo, man, what was all that about?” I said at last, assuming he would be able to pick up from the tone of my voice that I was talking about him not defending his brother at the party.

Noodles was leaning against the kitchen counter. The tired on his face was almost as bad as the sadness. I waited to see if he would get all cocky, let his ego take control of his tongue. I was ready for whatever “You don't know about me and my brother” trash he was about to try to kick to me.

“What was what about?” he said stupidly.

I sat there for a second to collect my thoughts. I didn't want to blow up.

“Hmmm. Let me think. Your brother was getting the crap beat out of him—four against ONE—and you were off in the corner, doing JACK! You moused up, man!”

Noodles's eyes welled up, and he hung his head. It was the first time I had ever seen him do that.

“I don't know what happened, man,” he said finally.

Wrong answer. Think a little harder, I wanted to say.

“Aight. Well, let's start from the beginning. Why did they jump Needles? Last I checked, he was chilling in the corner, out of the way. So get me from point A to point Z, Noodles, because I'm really having a hard time understanding what the hell went wrong.” Man, I sounded just like Doris. Point A to point Z. That was definitely Doris. Every time something happened in the house and neither Jazz or I wanted to rat the other person out, we would stall as best we could. That's when Doris would pull out the A to Z thing, and the way she said it made it seem like if we didn't get to point Z quickly, she was going to B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, and J all up and down our butts. I wanted Noodles to feel that same threat. The threat of a Doris whooping, through the hands of her firstborn. Me.

Noodles stared at the floor, which I didn't like. I did like the fact that he was now humble, but I didn't like the fact that he was acting like a chump. I wasn't his father or the police. I was his friend. Look me in my eye, so that I know whatever you are about to say is the truth.

“It was me,” he said. His words came out like the squeak of a mouse caught on one of those nasty sticky pads.

“What was you?” God, Doris was all over me.

He raised his head, finally, like a man.

“He did it for me, Ali,” Noodles blurted out, and then, to my horror, he started to whine. Not cry, just whine. “I was with Tasha almost the whole time, and everything was cool. So cool! I told her I would be right back because I had to run to the bathroom. So I started walking through the crowd, and some dude stepped on my foot. So—”

“Wait. Please don't tell me this is gonna be one of those ‘Somebody stepped on my foot, so I had to fight him, because he smudged my shoe' stories.”

“Just listen, man,” Noodles pleaded. I could tell he really felt bad, so I just shut up and let him finish. But still, I hoped it wasn't one of those.

“So this dude, who was obviously wasted, stepped on my foot. Now, Ali, I knew what the deal was. You know that. I didn't want no parts of nobody in there because they were all older than us, plus, Tasha let us in, and I wasn't trying to get her in no trouble with MoMo. I promised her that. We all did. But Ali, my shoes were too small. My feet were killing me! So when that fool stepped on my foot, my reflex kicked in and I pushed him—just so that he would get off my foot—I swear! It hurt like crazy, my toes all bunched up in them shoes. And this fool wanna put his two-hundred-pound bear paw on it! It was like when you at the doctor's and they hit your knee with that hammer, and your leg kick out. Reflex.”

I understood what Noodles was saying, but I wasn't letting him off the hook.

“Aight, and then what?”

“The first thing I did was apologize to the dude. Me, Ali! I said I was sorry. But then the dude got all wild on me. I don't know if he couldn't make out that I was saying I was sorry for pushing him, because of all the music blasting and people shouting, but I was. Next thing I knew, he just started snapping on me out of nowhere. Like, just barking on me. And I couldn't understand what he was saying exactly, but I knew he was mad. The people next to him were gassing him, telling him this and that, and I couldn't make out what they were saying either, but I could tell they were pumping this dude up. It was almost like he was looking for trouble. Like he was just trying to find the right foot to step on, the one in the too-small shoes.

“While all this is happening, I'm steady trying to cool homeboy down. I'm screaming that I didn't mean anything, and that it was a reflex and not personal. But his goons are all around him, still hyping the whole situation. Then he pushed me. I mean, it felt like he was trying to put both of his hands through my chest. I stumbled back and fell on some other drunk dude, who then started popping off at the mouth too. At me! I didn't even do nothing to that dude, but he ain't care. He was pissed at me for falling into him. I tried to explain that the other guy pushed me, but he wasn't hearing it.

“So here I am between these two drunk beasts who look crazy enough to head-butt me, or bite me, or something wild like that. The kinda dudes who don't play by no rules.”

“So why didn't you just roll out?” I asked.

“I tried. But as soon as I was about to, Needles showed up to see what was going on. The dudes instantly assumed that Needles was there to back me up and that now we were ready to rumble or something. Like my scrawny brother had come to save me.”

“Maybe he did.”

Noodles huffed to himself.

“Yeah, maybe he did,” he conceded. “Anyway, so Needles is standing there with his yarn and all that, and I'm trying to explain to him what's going on as quickly as possible, as well as turn him so that we can sort of start at least trying to walk away from them, but when we took a step, the first guy grabbed me and spun me around.” Here Noodles paused and looked me right in the eye. “Ali, as soon as I spun around, Needles had a tick.”

“Oh no. Don't tell me . . .”

“Yep. He jerked, and jabbed one of his needles right into the dude's side!”

“Did it go in?”

“Man, I don't know. All I know is, dude started shouting something about Needles stabbing him, and then . . .”

Noodles stopped talking. It's like he couldn't say anything else. Like his throat closed up. And I felt a little bit bad for him . . . I really did. But then I kept seeing all those dudes beating poor Needles down, in my mind. And something bubbled up.

“And then you ran,” I said plainly. I wasn't going to be
easy on him with all this. I had been too easy for too long. I remembered what my mother had said about getting tired of bailing people out. People in this case, being Noodles. I was definitely tired, like I had been carrying him on my back for miles, and all he ever did was dig his heels into my ribs like a jockey on a horse.

“How could you, Nood?” I felt like I didn't know him, because as far as I was concerned, I didn't. Or maybe I did. Maybe I knew him all too well. Maybe I knew exactly who he was, but I never wanted to admit it to myself, because he was my only real friend. I pledged my friendship, and in our neighborhood your word is your bond and loyalty is everything. But Noodles hadn't been loyal, had he? I mean, he turned his back on his own brother. What if it was me being jumped?

I glanced at the microwave: 9:27. I knew that was wrong. It figures that they wouldn't set the clock. I patted my pockets for my cell phone to check the time. That's when I realized my phone was missing. Damn. I must have lost it in the fight.

I stood up. It was time for me to go. I didn't know exactly what time it was, but I knew it was late, and I could have just asked Noodles to check his phone and tell me, but I felt like if I opened my mouth to ask him anything, it would be followed up with my fist.

“Where you going?” Noodles asked, as if I didn't have a home to go to. As if I owed him something. I didn't answer. I just headed toward the door.

“Wait, Ali!”

I kept walking.

“Ali!”

The space between the raggedy chair and card table and the door seemed like the length of a football field, and I was running slowly toward the end zone trying not to let Noodles's words run me down and tackle me. I couldn't let them. Not tonight. Not after what happened.

“Ali!” he screamed, loud enough to startle me. I turned around and gave him a cold stare without saying a word.

“It's because our father left when he heard that Needles had a syndrome.”

I was confused. “Nood, honestly, I don't know what you're talking about, and tonight I don't think I care.”

“Ali—I ain't seen him in years. He bounced way before we moved around here.” Noodles's voice started cracking. “Everything was cool, but as soon as the syndrome started, he was out. He ain't want no kid with no syndrome. He figured Needles was crazy, so eventually I might be too, and we would make him look bad. This is what my mother told me. She said, when the doctors said Needles had the syndrome, my father was so mad that he punched a hole in the wall. I don't remember that, but the next morning he was gone.”

I still stood there, emotionless.

“That's why—that's why I'm so hard on him.” Noodles started looking glassy. “If he ain't have that stupid syndrome, we'd still have a father. We'd still have a family. It changed everything. Ma got all depressed, and down, and started staying out all late with strangers, and coming in looking all beat-up
and old. We had to move to this crappy apartment, with crackheads running around upstairs. Everything was ruined. And I know it ain't Needles's fault, Ali. I know it ain't, but . . .”

His voice was cracking, and I could tell he was holding back his tears, literally shaking, trying not to cry. I stood there unable to give him any of the support I guess he expected me to give. But I appreciated him finally answering the question that I asked him earlier, and could even respect him for coming to grips with the fact that it's not Needles's fault that he has a syndrome, and that they don't have a father. I still couldn't find nothing nice to say to Noodles to make him feel better, though. There was no hug in me—he had emptied me out. I couldn't do nothing else to try to help him. So I turned around, and left.