In the Paint (7 page)

“Matt, come here and talk to your brother for a minute,” his mom called from the downstairs hallway

“I can't now,” Matt stammered. “I'm in the middle of something.”

The truth was, Matt didn't feel like talking to anybody. He could only think about the mess he was in.

Then a thought came to him. Mark! Maybe he could talk to his brother about this. Mark was older, he hadn't always been an angel growing up. Maybe he'd know how to handle it.

“Wait, Mom, I'll take the phone,” he called, running downstairs.

After making small talk for a few minutes, Matt stepped into the kitchen, just out of his mother's hearing. “I need to ask you something,” he said to Mark. “But I'll send you an e-mail, okay?”

“Sure, Mats,” his brother said.

That night, Matt wrote to his brother, explaining the situation and how he felt. He hoped Mark would have an idea on how to handle this. He pressed “send” and the e-mail disappeared. There, he had told somebody. There was no turning back now. All he could do was wait.

After supper, while his mom was out showing a house to clients, Matt signed onto the computer. In his e-mail in-box, there was already a return message from Mark.

It read: “Hey Matt, you're right. You have to do something about this. You have to tell the Wongs who did the graffiti. They deserve at least that much. You have to tell Mom too. She might be mad, but she'll support you. Believe me, I've done worse. If you don't tell anyone, this will be tough to live with. Let me know how it goes. Good luck, Mark.”

As Matt read the e-mail, he realized his brother was right. Telling the Wongs was the right thing to do. No matter what the cost.

Matt had to wait until Monday night for the chance to hop on his bike and make his way the eight blocks through the biting wind from his house to Wong's Grocery. It had bothered him all day at school. During basketball practice he couldn't concentrate properly and could barely bring himself to look at Jackson and McTavish.

As he rested the front tire of his bike in the store's black iron rack, Matt felt panicky. How was he going to do this? How was he going to tell his friend what he had done? How could the Wongs possibly understand?

Phil had seen him ride up. “Hey, Matt,” he smiled, opening the store's front door with the familiar 7-Up logo on the wide, white handle. “What's up? You want to stay for dinner? Grandma made lots of noodles.”

“I'm not really hungry,” Matt said, casting his eyes downward as he stepped through the front door and into the dim glow of the tiny corner store. “I just need to talk to you.”

Matt and Phil made their way down the center aisle filled with bright cereal boxes, cans of soup and bags of potato chips until they reached a pair of stools near the curtain that marked the entrance to Phil's grandmother's living quarters. They had sat on these stools for hours at a time, discussing major league baseball, Phil's primary passion, and eating penny candy. The memories now seemed so far away.

Phil's grandmother was at the front counter, selling a customer a lottery ticket, and well out of earshot. This was the time, Matt thought. “Phil, I don't know how to say this,” he started.

“What is it, man?” his friend replied, a concerned look crossing his broad face.

From there, it all spilled out. Matt told Phil about hanging out with Jackson, White and McTavish and about the spray paint and about how he didn't know what building the guys were going to hit until it was too late. He told Phil how sick the racist graffiti had made him feel, how ashamed he was, and how he hoped they could still be friends.

When he had finished, Phil was silent for a few seconds, staring down at the floor and gathering his thoughts. “Don't worry,” he said quietly. “We'll always be friends. As long as you aren't hanging around with Jackson and those other idiots anymore, that is.”

Matt felt a rush of relief. Just getting the secret off his chest made him feel alive again. But he knew he wasn't finished. “I want to tell your grandmother, Phil,” he said solemnly. “I feel really bad that she was so scared by this.”

“Let me talk to her,” Phil said. “She doesn't speak English that well, so it could get mixed up if you do it. Don't worry, I'll go talk to her now.”

Matt watched, feeling helpless as Phil walked to the counter toward his grandma, a stooped and wrinkled woman in her late-sixties who seemed to be always dressed in a long colorful skirt, a sweatshirt and white tennis shoes. “Grandma,” Phil began, followed by a blur of Mandarin words. Even after years of hanging around in the store, Matt couldn't begin to follow their language. He could only judge the conversation by the looks on their faces.

Phil's grandmother glanced slowly in Matt's direction and then back to her grandson. There was no mistaking the hurt in her round, heavily lined face as she turned and walked slowly toward the back room. Phil motioned for Matt to come to the front of the store. “Grandma is going to bed now,” he said. “You better go.”

Matt passed by Phil's grandmother in the aisle as he walked to the front of the store. She didn't look at him as she headed through the red curtain.

“Phil, I'm sorry… ,” Matt began, waving to his friend. There was nothing else to say.

The next morning, Matt rose at 5:45, went directly to the basement and grabbed a can of white exterior paint and a brush that had been there since he had coated the fence the previous summer. He hung the paint can over his handlebars as he pedaled his way into a brisk headwind toward Wong's Grocery.

He felt a little better after talking to Phil the night before, but as he reached the back of the store, the shame returned. The Wongs had scrubbed off most of the graffiti, but you could still clearly make out the outline of the horrible messages scrawled by Jackson and his friends.

There was no snow this morning, but it was cold and windy as Matt opened the can and slowly began to paint over the wall. He erased any trace of the graffiti, so it was as though the ugly incident had never happened. But Matt knew better.

The back door of the store opened and Phil's grandmother stuck out her head. She glanced at the paint can, then at Matt and the freshly painted wall. When she realized what he had done, she flashed the warm smile and sparkly eyes that he had seen so many times before. “You lucky boy,” she said and she ducked back inside.

Matt returned home just in time to catch his mom at the kitchen table eating a bagel and reading the
Post
. “Where did you get off to so early this morning?” she asked.

Matt gulped. This was it, he thought, his chance to tell his mother. And once he began, the story again poured out of him. He didn't stop, or even attempt to read his mother's soft brown eyes, until he had finished.

She cleared her throat and looked directly at him. “Well, Matt, I have to admit I'm disappointed you would agree to go along with boys who were planning to do something like that. That is somebody's property, and you should know better. But I am proud of the way you've tried to make it right. Please, just promise me you won't hang out with those guys anymore.”

Matt nodded. He had absolutely no plans to do that.

chapter ten

For the first time since the graffiti incident, Matt's mind was finally clear, and he was looking forward to basketball practice the next afternoon. But when Coach Stephens blew his whistle to start the session at precisely 3:55 p.m., two players were missing.

“I have an announcement to make,” said the coach, speaking slowly and clearly. “And I'm going to make this simple.

“Grant Jackson is no longer part of this basketball team. He was suspended earlier this year for a game and then given one second chance. Last week, as some of you might have heard by now, he did some tagging with Andrew McTavish — a really stupid, senseless, hurtful thing to do. As you know, I only give my players one second chance. Jackson is now off the squad.

“And that's not all,” the coach continued. “McTavish has been suspended for one game for his part in it. He will be allowed back after the Churchill game and he, too, will get one second chance.”

Matt couldn't believe his ears. Jackson had been punished and so had McTavish. Phil's grandmother must have gone to the principal. But she must have kept quiet about Matt being there that night too. All this came as a shock. Matt had been so overwhelmed with personal guilt since Friday night he hadn't even thought about the implications for the basketball team.

There were more surprises. Coach Stephens informed the team that he was elevating Jake and Phil from the junior varsity to fill the vacancies created by the permanent loss of Jackson and White and the temporary absence of McTavish. Matt's two buddies were going to join him on the Stingers. Normally, he would have been ecstatic to hear this news, but something new was now gnawing on his conscience.

Coach wasn't finished yet. “Hill, you're now the starting point guard,” he said. “I know you can handle it.”

At that moment, Matt didn't feel like he could handle much of anything. He was still a part of the team, even though he had also been a part of the tagging. As practice continued, he increasingly felt as though he was lying all over again. The final whistle of the afternoon couldn't come soon enough for him.

Grant Jackson was waiting for Matt outside the gym door after practice. His arms were folded across his chest and he wore a bitter sneer.

“Narc,” he growled, nearly spitting in Matt's face. “If you hadn't opened your stupid mouth, we'd all still be on the team. But maybe getting your little buddies on the squad was the plan all along.”

Matt flushed with anger. “It wasn't my idea to tag that store, to write that stuff. It was yours.”

Jackson moved in front of Matt to block his path. He began to raise his arm and Matt tensed, preparing for the blow. But before it was even launched, the door opened and out of the gym strode Coach Stephens.

“Jackson, what are you doing here?” he barked. “Go on home. You're not to hang around here. Do you understand?”

Jackson didn't answer the coach. He just turned away and began walking, but not before casting a menacing glance back at Matt. “We're not finished, Hill.”

Coach Stephens looked at Matt quizzically, a wrinkle coming to his forehead as his eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched firm. “What's this all about, Matt? Why is Jackson in your face?”

Matt was speechless. He wanted so badly to just spill the truth to Coach Stephens and get it all out in the open. But he just couldn't bear to have the coach think badly of him. Not when things were going so well on the basketball court.

“I don't know,” Matt said quickly. “The guy's just got a problem, I guess.”

All the way home, Matt felt lower and lower. Not only had he escaped punishment, but now he had just lied to the coach too. By the time he arrived home, his mom had already come and gone, leaving him a note: “Matt, I have two showings tonight. I'll call you between them. You can heat up the chicken and rice that's in the fridge for dinner. Love, Mom.”

Matt was almost relieved that she wasn't home. It would have been impossible to talk to her about school or friends or the house deal she was hoping to close. He didn't feel like talking to anybody.

After finishing his English homework, Matt headed to his room. He flipped the headphones for his MP3 player over his ears and tried to use the pounding of the music to get his mind off his dilemma. But it didn't work.

Whenever he had a problem like this, he went over the problem thoroughly and then over the possible solutions just as carefully. Then he weighed those solutions and chose one.

This time, there were only two choices. Either keep quiet and keep playing basketball, or go to the coach and admit that he had been part of the tagging at Wong's Grocery. That would surely mean some sort of punishment, and he could say goodbye to the starter's job. But the more Matt thought about it, the more he knew it was the only thing to do.

When he woke up the next morning, Matt decided that he would head straight for the school gym and see if Coach Stephens was there. He skipped breakfast, left a note for his mom, who was still sleeping, and jumped on his bike.

Coach Stephens was in his office, going over some Phys. Ed. class attendance sheets when Matt arrived. He looked up and smiled. “Getting some early shooting in today, Matt? That's great. The gym's free.”

“No, Coach,” Matt replied. “Actually, I need to talk to you.”

Moments later, the coach had heard the whole story. “I'm glad you came to me with this, Matt,” he said. “That was a good decision. It doesn't make up for what you did, but it's a positive sign.

“Unfortunately, I'm going to have to suspend you,” the coach continued. “It's only fair that if McTavish has to sit out a game, you do too. You will be reinstated after the Churchill game. And like McTavish, this is your second chance — the only one you will get with me.”

“Okay, Coach,” Matt nodded. “I understand.”

As Matt walked out of the office, it felt as though a thousand-pound load had been lifted from his chest. It hurt that he wouldn't get to play against Churchill, but he wasn't hiding a dark secret anymore. And besides, Amar, Jake and Phil would all be suiting up. It would be great to see those guys play varsity together.

Matt didn't see Jackson and McTavish waiting by the boys' washroom as he made his way down the hall after his first class of the morning. But by the time he did spot them it was too late. Jackson crossed the hallway and stood in Matt's path while McTavish circled behind him. There were no teachers in sight.

“Hill, you're a major kiss-ass,” Jackson said, his dark eyes brimming with bitterness. “Must be nice to be the coach's boy, seeing as you get to play tomorrow and we don't.”

“I'm not playing, either,” Matt shot back. “I'm suspended for one game, just like McTavish.”