When I Was the Greatest (5 page)

“Oh, nothing much. Just looking for yarn,” I said.

Hippie girl smiled.

“Of course you are.” She held her arms out like she was saying,
Duh, there's yarn everywhere
,
dummy. It's a yarn store.

“Yeah, but specifically, black yarn,” I explained.

“You know what weight?”

“We'll just look around,” Noodles snapped. It came off pretty rude.

I forced an uncomfortable grin as we turned away and
started walking toward the black yarn. The store was organized by color, so it was easy to see exactly where we needed to be.

“Why you being so mean, man? Lady was just doing her job,” I asked Noodles while squeezing different yarns like they were cantaloupes in the grocery store. I didn't even know yarn had so many different feels. Weird.

“Man, who cares about her? Just trying to cuff one and bounce,” Noodles said. “But we gotta get the right kind for Needles.”

Again, I didn't say anything. I thought it was funny how even though he didn't want to be in the store looking for yarn because he didn't want nobody thinking he was soft, he still wanted to make sure he didn't just get any yarn, but the best yarn for his brother. And I could get with that. That's how I am with Jazz. She drives me nuts sometimes, but she's still my sister.

I watched as Noodles sized up the yarns to see which black was the best black for Needles. I saw him getting ready to make his move, so I stepped over to another part of the store, just in case hippie girl was watching.

Toward the back of the store there was a bunch of ladies gathered around a table. They were all knitting and talking and snacking on popcorn. Popcorn is my favorite. There was a piece of paper folded in half, the short way. It was propped up like a tent in the middle of the table. On it said
THE CIRCLE
. I didn't know there was such a thing. A knitting circle. I wondered if they were just a group of random women or if they
were some sort of crew, like a sorority or something. Anyway, whatever they were, I figured they were just a bunch of ladies talking about lady stuff and knitting. But when I got closer, I overheard them talking about how someone named Susan got wasted the night before and that's why she wasn't there. I noticed an empty chair. Susan's. They laughed and went on about her and who she got with, and how much she drank, but they were talking about it like . . . us. Like dudes. It was cool.

“Excuse me, young man,” a deep voice said from behind me.

I stepped out of the way of one of the biggest men I've ever seen. He sat down in Susan's spot. He had a beard and didn't look like no punk. Just a regular guy. He set his bag on the table. All the ladies were so happy to see him, laughing and blowing him kisses across the table. This guy clearly was the man.

I wanted to stick around to see if he was going to do what I thought he was going to do: pull out some yarn and start knitting like a girl, in which case I would've thought he had killer game, and gets all kinds of women because he can knit. Girls like stuff like that. At least I guess they do. But I never got to see what the big guy was going to do, because as soon as he started digging in his bag, I felt a tug on my shoulder.

“Yo, man, let's skate. I got it,” Noodles said. He wasn't doing a great job at not being suspicious. He didn't even whisper. He pointed down. I looked, but I wish I hadn't. He had the ball of yarn stuffed in his pants. Not cool. Then, all nervous, he headed toward the door. He was walking so fast,
he almost tripped over the cat. As soon as he pushed the door open, hippie girl caught on to what was going on.

“Excuse me,” she said, and started coming from behind the counter. “Excuse me, young man?”

Noodles broke for it. I mean, he really took off. He couldn't run full speed because he had to hold his crotch to make sure the yarn didn't fall out. She went after him, but there was no way she was going to catch him. Not with them Jesus sandals on. I took my time and watched it all go down. Then I took five bucks out my pocket, laid it on the counter, and walked out.

3

You know how I knew Noodles wasn't really no tough dude? Two things. One, he was a comic book geek, and even though nobody else knew that, I did, and real bad dudes don't read comics, or draw them. And two, he ran his mouth too much. I don't mean just talking smack to people, even though he did do a lot of that, too. But what I'm talking about is, every time he did something bad, he would come back to the hood and tell the little kids about it, bragging like he accomplished something major. It's like he felt tougher whenever he started blabbing about it, gassing his own head up, turning the story into a much bigger deal than it really was. Bad dudes don't do that. They do dirt and keep quiet.

The worst part about Noodles always bumping his gums is that our neighborhood is like one big bubble of gossip. It's the telephone game we all played in elementary school, except not a game. Noodles tells a group of little kids playing in the hydrant about some stunt he pulled. One of those kids goes home and tells his mother about the crazy story Noodles
told him. The mother tells her next-door neighbor, who tells another neighbor and another, the story changing, becoming worse and worse, until it finally, almost always, makes it to Doris Brooks.

“So, I heard a few days ago Noodles busted up in some shop, slapped a couple of old ladies around, took a whole bunch of stuff, and took off running. Heard the cops chased him and everything.” My mother's voice was coming from her room. She was changing her clothes, getting ready to go to her second job. I was in the living room practicing my right jab–left hook combo in front of a full-length mirror I took from her room. “You know anything about that, son?” she said in that weird way that means I'm already in trouble.

My left hook went limp. It seemed like all of a sudden the sweat started to roll, and my stomach tightened up with nerves. She knew I was with him. I was always with him, ever since I met him. My best bet was to just tell the truth, but explain everything in a way that would keep me out of trouble.

“It wasn't all like that. No cops or slapping people or none of that extra stuff. Plus, I left the money on the counter,” I said with fake confidence, still bouncing on my toes, with my guard up.

“But he tried to steal whatever it was?” she asked from down the hall.

“Yes,” I replied reluctantly, feeling like I was snitching on my dude, but my mom had a way of getting the truth out of me. It mainly had to do with that cold look she always gave.

Surprisingly, she didn't get too upset about it. She came into the living room so she could see me. You know, look me in the eyes to see if I was being honest. She just stared at me for a second, sizing me up, probably thinking about whether she wanted to yell at me or not. Then she smirked and shook her head, bumping me out of the way so she could see herself in the mirror. She told me that she knew Noodles was my friend and that I was trying to look out for him. Then she said she would tell me not to hang with him because he's trouble, but that she knew it would do no good because she knew I would kick it with him anyway while she's at work. She told me she'd be kidding herself to think otherwise, and that she understood what it was like to be a loyal friend, and that she had bailed my father out time and time again the same way, until she just couldn't do it anymore. She said that when I got to the point when I couldn't do it anymore, when I couldn't take Noodles's foolishness anymore, I'd know it.

“And what exactly was that knucklehead stealing anyway?” she asked.

“Yarn. That part of the story is true,” I explained, wiping sweat from my forehead. “We were at a yarn store. He was taking black yarn. For Needles.”

She smiled, and I think she was trying to hold in a giggle. I could tell she couldn't believe it. Then she turned and walked back to her room. On the way she preached, “You know your father started off snatching small stuff too. And even though he said it was harmless, and that he was doing it for me, it didn't make a difference at the end of the day, because wrong
is wrong. I know this story too well, Ali.” She paused and then added with a sigh, “Too damn well.”

It's like I could hear her shaking her head.

• • •

About my father. He's really not a bad guy. That's one thing my mother was sure that me and Jazz understood. He's actually a pretty good dude who just made some messed-up decisions. He wasn't into no drugs or nothing like that. And he also didn't beat on my mother neither. Doris don't play that. He was just a booster. He would go to different department stores and steal a bunch of clothes and then sell them on the street for cheap. Mom said he'd have dresses and shirts and pants, and whatever he couldn't sell, he would bring home to her. She says she still wears some of that stuff. He used the money that he made to pay bills while my mother was in school getting her social work degree. He also was saving a bunch of money so that he could take my mom on a trip. Like a honeymoon.

The issue was, he just wasn't very good at stealing and would get caught all the time. So my mother spent a lot of time down at the precinct, using up their honeymoon money to bail him out, which I think is another reason she has a hard time looking through Jazz's scrapbook. Seeing them on a beach, like on a honeymoon—pretty tough. Of course, the money ran out eventually, which meant rent couldn't get paid. So, my father started robbing corner stores. More money, faster. My mother said it was winter, and he would cover his face with a scarf, go into a random bodega far from where we lived, like in the
Bronx, and slip the cashier a note that basically said, “I don't want to hurt you. Just give me the money in the register.”

And that was it. It actually worked a few times, and he'd come home and lie to my mother about where he got the money. And then one day she saw him on the news. He had tried to rob a store, and the guy behind the counter pulled out a gun and started shooting. My father shot back and hit the man in the chest. By the time my father got himself together to run, the cops were already outside.

The man in the bodega almost died, but he didn't, thank God. But my folks' relationship was pretty much over. My mother said she could not raise her kids with a man who was bound to either kill somebody or get himself killed. She says she couldn't allow herself to end up another sad story about a woman who stayed with a man who couldn't get himself together.

When all this was going on, I was superyoung, so I don't remember most of it. And Jazz was just a baby. He did three years in jail, and when he got out, my mother made it clear he couldn't stay with us anymore. She said she never stopped loving him and they still got together sometimes, but she knew she couldn't depend on him anymore. He just messed up too young. He never graduated from high school, and being in and out of jail made it hard for him to get back on course, and get a real gig. Doris says she doesn't think he ever really wanted to work a legit job. I know that's why she's so hard on me and Jazz about school and chores and staying out of trouble, and all that.

It's not like I never saw him, though. John came around all the time to check on us. He usually left a few bucks for Mom on the counter. She always split it between me and Jazz, but Jazz got the most during the summer, because once I got old enough, I worked a few mornings a week cleaning up for Mr. Malloy, so I got my own money. My dad tried not to come by when Doris was around because it was always so awkward, him knowing she loved him, but also knowing she couldn't deal with his crap. And I guess I could understand that since my mom and dad were pretty much married. That's a different kind of love. But I couldn't see myself getting tired of Noodles like that. Noodles was my main dude, and you never turn on your main dude. Really, when I think about it, he was my only dude. I knew Mom could somehow understand that.

A few days after the whole yarn-stealing incident, I went down the block to Malloy's house to clean up for him as usual, and to get some training in. The thing about Malloy is, he's one of those old-school Brooklyn dudes. One of those “Great-great-grandfather was born here, and bought a brownstone in exchange for a pair of steel-toe boots, and a pot of grits, and kept it in the family for a hundred years, and now Malloy lives in it to keep the tradition going” types of people, just like Mr. Bryson was, and actually, just like my mom is. It wouldn't surprise me if he was born in an alley, or behind a bodega. That Brooklyn. Lots of kids these days got Brooklyn tattooed on them, or talk mess to outta-towners about how Brooklyn they are, but they ain't nowhere near as Brooklyn as Malloy. Ain't nobody as Brooklyn as Malloy.