Eighth-Grade Superzero (4 page)

At least I’m a little early,
I think as I turn the corner toward school. I even wrote down a few ideas in case Vicky really wants to make a difference. But my heart still drops when I see her standing on the steps, another accordion folder cradled in her arms like some kind of crazy Vickybaby.

“You’re a little late,” she says, scary-smiling. She’s practically blocking the school entrance. “Timeliness is essential to a successful campaign.”

“It’s 7:30,” I say, looking at my watch. “And hi.”

“I was here at 7:15,” she says. “Anyway, it’s okay. I don’t know anyone else who’s able to start the day with as much alacrity as I do.”

Alacrity?
“Right. So Vicky, I picked up the School Leadership Team’s guidelines from the office yesterday — did you know the president is supposed to be the ‘student voice’ at School Leadership Team meetings? We never hear about that happening.”

Vicky shrugs. “That’s boring, a lot of people standing up to talk about nothing. Listen, I don’t see you around after school, so I guess you have a lot of time on your hands. I mapped out all of the ‘hot spots’ for posting flyers so that you can start right away.”
She smiles as she hands me a laminated color printout. “It’s color coded. You don’t have to thank me.”

“Okay,” I say slowly. “What are the colors for?”

“You know, where the different groups hang out, the vulnerable voters. The Veronica Cruzers — total clones who’ve never had an original thought in their lives. The future drug dealers, the future drug users, the drama queens, video game freaks, basic nobody losers …”

“I get it,” I cut in. “But we probably don’t want to label people like that.”
At least, not out loud.

She starts to frown, then grins. “You are so right. It’s easier my way, but it could get tricky. That’s exactly why I’m glad to have you on the V Team. Here, I got two thousand flyers printed last night; we can start posting them now. First floor’s done, I’ll do the second and third floors, you do the basement and fourth.”

I see Joe C. coming toward us.
Thank you, God.
I can escape soon. “We should talk about our platform,” I say.

“Our
platform?” She raises her eyebrows almost off her head. “Is someone trying to take over? Is someone not a team player?”

Is someone crazy? Yes, and I think it was me.

“Sorry.
Your
campaign, which you asked me to manage. Anyway. Maybe we should start surveying the students, find out what the people want.”

“That’s so cute,” she says, smiling. “And old-fashioned.”

“Okay, yeah, it’s not that innovative or, um, exciting, but we’re supposed to be all about community here. A campaign should be about bringing us together. The whole popularity
contest thing just makes the divisions worse. You could show that you’re the candidate who’s going to finally make it happen.”

“Sure, I’ll give it some thought,” she says. “You’re an ideas guy, I like that. Great meeting! This is going to work out really well.” She heads inside, turning around to wave a flyer at me. “Get those flyers up! We’ll talk about that School Leadership Team thing too — sounds very interesting! Thanks!”

“Don’t you feel a chill whenever she’s around?” says Joe C. as he climbs the stairs toward me. “How are you going to keep from killing yourself? Listen, you want to run over to the bank with me?” he asks without pausing. “We’ve still got a few minutes, and I’ve got to get some cash for lunch.”

“Yeah,” I say, and we head toward the bank. Joe C. has his own debit card — he says it’s one of the perks of divorce. He uses his card to open the door, and I wait outside.

A cop walks over. “Yo,” he says, like he doesn’t care much. “Keep moving.”

“I’m waiting for my friend,” I mutter, looking at his badge. Name: Tucciarone. Brown hair, brown eyes. My parents taught me to do quick “police scans” when I was five, just in case I got hassled. I look in the bank window and see Joe C. still in line. The cop follows my gaze, and then looks toward me, somewhere in the vicinity of my neck. He stares so hard it hurts. Usually they ask for ID at this point. Does he think I’m going to jump Joe C. in broad daylight? Or maybe I’m scamming folks on their way out of the bank, raising money for “basketball team uniforms”?

“What are you doing?” he asks.

Standing in a free country,
I think. I stand straighter.

Joe C. looks up, sees us, and waves me in. I shake my head, and the cop gives me some extra glare and moves on. I look straight ahead. Joe C. comes out, and I start walking right away so that we don’t have to talk about it.

“Hey, I have to visit my dad this weekend. Do you want to come?” he asks after a while. “There’s this guy who rented the basement apartment who’s pretty cool. He’s a DJ.”

“Like on the radio?”

“No, a real DJ, at a club. He said he would show me how to spin records.”

“Spin records?” I ask. “Don’t DJs use digital equipment now?”

“Yeah, but Gunnar is old-school. He says we have to respect the past before we tackle the future.”

Joe C. sounds like a Black History Month public service announcement. Since when does he care about DJ-ing anyway?

“Maybe not,” I say. Mr. Castiglione always invites me in like he wishes I’d use the back door. “I need to work on
Night Man.
I guess we can do stuff on our own and compare notes.”

We don’t talk too much as we head into school. Science lab instead of homeroom today, so I have to race to the fourth floor to beat the last bell. Hector, my lab partner this week, is already there, and he’s eaten the sulfur that we’re supposed to use for our experiment. Mrs. Rostawanik sends him to wash his mouth out and I start working alone.

When Hector comes back, he acts like he won something. “I don’t think you’d be able to handle the sulfur, Pukey,” he says. I don’t bother to respond. There’s not much time left, so we just
work. I’m surprised at how fast and efficient he is during the experiment. He doesn’t even look at my notes; he never takes any of his own. I don’t know what he uses my pens for. He does most of the work and we finish early.

“So you’re friends with Ruthie Robertson,” he says slowly, as though that hasn’t been obvious for years. I just look at him. “Are you guys going out?”

“Going out where?” I ask.

“Going
out,
you vomitocious fool,” he snarls. “Is she your girl?”

“What are you talking about?” I ask. “That sulfur is rotting your brain.”

“You don’t even realize how badocious she is,” he mutters, shaking his head.

“Don’t you mean ‘bodacious'?” I say.

“No, I mean ‘badocious.’ Better than bodacious. Don’t you know anything? How did you even get into this school?”

I open my mouth, and then close it.

“Forget it, Pukey. I forgot that you wouldn’t know what to do with a girl. Except maybe spill your guts.” He starts laughing so hard at his “joke” that he knocks over our experiment. Mrs. Rostawanik immediately sends him to the office and I’m left to clean up. The bell rings before I’m done.

“How’s the campaign going, loser?” Donovan “bumps” into me as I leave class.

“Leave me alone,” I mutter. Great comeback, Reggie.

“Oooh, I’m intimidated,” he says. “Like that ugly skank wouldn’t have lost it on her own. Now I get to crush you too. This is going to be so much fun. I love politics.”

Even though my next class is right down the hall, I make a sharp left and take the stairs up two flights. I can still hear him as I go upstairs.

“
V
is for
venereal disease
,” he calls. “Have fun with Vicky the Virus, punk. I know you’re desperate….”

“Okay, okay people,” says Dave. “Let’s just get to the meat of the sammich.” That’s one of his favorite sayings, along with “If you think you know everything about God, you know nothing about God.” He bangs his fist on a table, making a little coffee spill. Tiffany Parker, his unofficial youth groupie, wipes it up.

The cashier behind the counter frowns. Javalove Café doesn’t love our youth group all that much. Saturdays are pretty quiet here, but sometimes they act like that’s our fault.

“What’s the point of this story?” Dave continues. Nobody says anything. He looks at me. “C’mon. Reggie? Jesus. Walking on water. What’s the point?”

I look back at Dave; this is one I know. “You know, it’s like Peter was fine when he was looking at Jesus, but he got scared and that’s when he sank,” I say. “It’s the whole thing of letting fear mess with your head.”

“It’s kind of stupid that he got scared of the wind. Life was easier in Bible times,” says Jeff Gibson. “They didn’t have all the things to worry about that we have now.”

“Uh, yeah, Jeff. Just
survival,”
I say. Everybody laughs. I smile. I wish we could meet more often. Ruthie and Mialonie are the
only youth group kids who go to my school. Most of these kids don’t know the real me.

“What this is saying to me is that we can do great things if we focus on Him,” Dave starts.

(“Or Her,” mutters Gabriella Munson, as usual.)

Dave continues. “He can lead us to participate in miracles!”

“So all I gotta do is think of Jesus and I can walk on water? Or fly?” asks Jeff with a snort. “Come on, man. What about fate? Or working hard and getting results? That makes sense. How do you know when it’s God?”

We all just sit there for a couple of minutes. Silence is okay in this group. Dave isn’t just waiting for you to stop talking so he can start, like most adults, and you feel like you can say any stupid thing (Jeff) and it’s all good. But sometimes I
want
someone to tell me the right answer, and Dave is not about to be that person. Eventually he sighs and points to his washed-out T-shirt, which has a picture of Malcolm X on it and says T
HINK
: I
T
A
IN’T
I
LLEGAL
Y
ET
! in big white letters. Another favorite saying.

“Okay. We’ll leave that alone for a minute. We’ve got a project,” he says, rubbing his hands together like he’s starting in on Thanksgiving dinner. “A service project.”

“Oooh!” says Ruthie. “What is it?” Jeff mimics her and I give him a quick kick under the table.

A cool wind blows in when the door opens; it’s Mialonie. She slides into the booth next to Jeff, looking just like the girl on the cover of this magazine Sean was passing around last week. I put my chin in my hands and narrow my eyes, trying to look simultaneously spiritual and sexy.

“We’re going to be working with the Olive Branch Shelter,” Dave says. “It’s a temporary housing facility on Ryerson Street.”

“Oh, yeah, Ryerson,” says Precious Walters. She frowns. “Where’s that?”

“It’s right in the neighborhood,” says Ruthie. “About five blocks from your house.”

“I’m excited about this,” says Dave. “It’s the Listening Ears Project — you may have heard about this, it’s been featured on National Public Radio, NPR.” We all look back at him blankly, except Ruthie, who smiles. “Well, NPR has teamed up with a bunch of community-based organizations that serve the homeless to record and document the life stories of the people they help. We’ll interview residents at Olive Branch, and the whole thing is going to be put together into a book and documentary project.”

“Sounds depressing,” says Jeff. “Why don’t we just wait until Christmas and sing carols for the old people again?”

We ignore him. “Residents?” I say. “I thought you said it was a temporary facility.”

“Olive Branch was just a soup kitchen with a few beds, but now there are people, families, kids who stay there long-term,” says Dave. “The reality is that the homeless population has exploded. If a family is lucky, they get a shelter locker the size of a shoebox to store their entire lives in. If they’re really lucky, six or seven of them get to live in a room that was designed for one. The kids get bounced around from school to school, sometimes into foster care and group homes. And if a shelter gets too crowded or dangerous, or gets too costly for the city, it can just get shut down.”

Everyone’s quiet for a minute. I think of this guy who’s always at the subway station by our house. He’s been there for as long as I can remember. Most of the time he’s asleep and looks like a pile of old rags, but sometimes he’s awake and screaming and cursing at everyone who walks by. Once in a while, usually during the holidays, I see the cops shoo him away, but I never think about where he goes. And he always comes back.

“I don’t get it,” says Jeff. “Why does God let there be homeless people? I mean, some of them look okay, like that guy who plays the guitar in Fulton Mall — he even has CDs. But it just seems wrong. Not like the God you’re always talking about.”

I’m glad he asked it. Even here, I feel like a jerk for asking those questions, like I’m challenging God. And I don’t know if I’m up for that.

“Well, why does He?” asks Dave in his usual I-am-now-going-to-be-provocative way of answering a question with a question. He looks around. “Or why do we, for that matter? Why do we let there be homeless people?”

“It’s about what God would have us do,” says Ruthie. “That’s all up in the Scriptures, how we’re supposed to take care of the poor and old people and kids and stuff.”

Mialonie nods. “My parents always say that’s what sharing the Gospel is about. Justice, humility, serving …” Her voice is like a late night DJ’s.

“But why doesn’t God just eliminate the bad stuff?” I ask. “Why do some people have to suffer? It just doesn’t seem fair.” I look at Dave. “And I know God is just.”

“Do you?” shoots back Dave.

I’m confused. “Are you saying He isn’t?”

“Or She,” mutters Gabriella.

“I’m asking
you,
Reggie. Do
you
know that God is just? How do you know that?”

I look over to Ruthie for help, but she’s flipping through her Bible. “Uh,” I stammer. “I don’t know how to answer that.”

Dave looks at all of us. “Don’t just be parrots. Think about what you say. Are you saying God is good, God is just, only because that’s what you’ve heard?”

Nobody answers, and Jeff grabs another muffin. Dave lets the silence settle, then he writes something down in his little notebook.

“All right, y’all,” he says as he writes. “Think about this question: If God is so good, why are so many things so bad? Come back with some Scripture and some real thoughts. I don’t want simplistic catechism-type answers — and I’m not even saying that this question has a ‘right’ answer.” He glances at Ruthie as he says that. “So don’t feel like you have to come back with one. Just do some thinking.”

“When is this due? When is the next meeting?” Precious Walters asks.

“I’ll e-mail you. It’s not school. Just chew on this for a while, and we’ll talk about it. It could be tomorrow, it could be next month. You don’t know the hour or the day….” He trails off, laughing. Only Dave laughs at his Bible jokes.

“I don’t even know where to start,” I say.

“That’s good,” Dave replies. “If you think you know God …”

“Yeah, yeah, then you know nothing about God,” I finish, smiling.

“Back to the project,” says Dave. “We’re looking at a tight
schedule, just a few weeks. All this has to be done by Thanksgiving. We need a leader, someone in the group to help put together some questions, transcribe the interviews, and so on. Any volunteers?”

Quiet.

“This is an opportunity for someone to step up,” Dave continues. “And I’ll be working with you, so don’t worry about carrying a heavy load by yourself.”

This is not Clarke,
I remind myself. I’m not a joke here. And for all of Blaylock’s blustering, I’m feeling the whole community service thing. It matters.

I raise my hand. “I’ll do it,” I say. “Am I going to Heaven now?” Everybody laughs, but with me, not at me.

“I’ll help out,” pipes up Gabriella.

“Maybe we can go to the NPR people,” I say. “They can give us a few tips, maybe even lend us equipment.”

Dave nods. “That’s what I’m talking about. Let’s meet for a few minutes after this meeting, guys.” Tiffany looks disappointed. I guess she’s realizing that she’s missing extra opportunities to snuggle up to Dave.

“I’ve, uh, been doing some research on homeless people,” I say, thinking of Night Man. I remember those “Tips for Being a Top Big Buddy.” “And I’ll get started on interview questions.”

This is good. Maybe working with real homeless people will help me finish
Night Man
at last. Maybe I can be the Justin of youth group. Eighth grade isn’t all there is to life. Maybe now things will change. With a capital
C.