Life Is Funny (14 page)

“Sorry,” I answer. “I was spacing out.”

“Jesus. I was telling you something.”

“Yeah. The family tree.”

“Forget it,” Monique says.

“No. Come on. I want to hear.”

“Where the fuck
were
you just now?” she complains. “You looked like Mom on Sundays.”

“Fuck
you
,” I snap. “I'm sick.”

A wave of nausea rises in my throat. I want to stand up over the railing again, but I'm too tired. So I lean forward instead.

“I'm sorry,” Monique apologizes. “Okay?”

I fight the nausea until it backs off.

“I'm nothing like her,” I say. “Sundays or any other day.”

“I know,” she agrees. “I'm sorry.”

“That was such a shitty thing to say.”

“I'm
sorry
.”

I watch an ant crossing an island of pebbles for a while, and then I blink and lose it.

“So the family tree,” I ask finally. “How did you make it up?”

“I pretended I was Caitlin, and I did one that I thought would fit her.”

“What fits her?”

“Her parents are married, together and healthy. Both work in Manhattan. Her father's a lawyer, her mother's a banker.”

“That's all true.”

“Yeah, but I had to make up everything else. I went back three generations. No divorces, no addiction. I gave her an albino great-aunt just for kicks. I gave each parent a couple of brothers and sisters and the grandparents a bunch. I gave her one pair of identical twins from way back who nearly died of the flu when they were ten but miraculously recovered. Two of her ancestors on her mother's side are true blue
Mayflower
Americans. Her father's side all came over from Europe. They were all poor farmers at first and worked their way up.”

“Your teacher must have known it was fake.”

“She gave me an A.”

I smile.

“It's a great family.”

I start to laugh.

“Caitlin got a great life,” Monique says.

I laugh harder.

“It's not that funny,” Monique says, and then I can't stop. It comes out of me from somewhere hidden and deep, like a fountain or a geyser, soothing the bitter mess of the sick before it, easing the burn and sting.

“It wasn't that funny,” Monique complains again, after my laughing fades to hiccups and then to quiet.

“There they are!” we hear Hector call, and I spot him waving at us and trying to get Caitlin's attention at the same time.

Caitlin's hair is sweaty, and her white T-shirt has a chocolate ice-cream stain on it. She's recognized little Linnette, and they're looking at each other sideways, shy, trying to figure out how to be friends again, probably. A couple of years in the life of a little kid is a long time.

When a Frisbee from the uniformed school group sails over their heads, Hector grabs it out of the air, and everyone at once notices his eyes. That's all Caitlin needs.

In about two seconds flat she has Hector kneeling down so the kids can look up close and see that his eyes are the real thing. I watch Linnette getting trampled until her brother grabs and pushes her forward through the tiny crowd.

“Let her see,” he yells. “Let her see!”

“Thanks for staying down here with me,” I tell Monique, watching her watch Hector and Caitlin again.

“She's got everything a girl could want,” Monique says, while Caitlin bosses Hector around in front of her crowd. He's such a good sport.

“Yeah,” I agree.

“Except a sister.”

*  *  *

On the ferry back I try to think about my assignment. Try to think about Freedom and Opportunity and Streets Paved with Gold. Immigrants birthing generations' worth of stories. Family trees, branching out, dividing, sweeping into horizontal and vertical shapes that equal whole lives. The thing is, nobody tells you the details. Nobody talks about what those lives were really like. How they were actually formed. Nobody describes sisters holding your head while you puke or cursing you out when you make them fold underwear. Nobody notices older kids stuffing gifts into baggy jeans for younger ones, or brothers showing off soccer juggles and crowd control, protecting and insulting and joking and worshiping with voices that share the same cadence, expressions that share the same secrets. The only ones who know what you know. The only ones who can ever really understand.

I think about how Monique believes I saved her when really she saved me.

I think about what I will write for my professor. That much can be made of metal and stone monuments, but they weigh nothing, compared with my sister's arm across my shoulders for the first time.

Gingerbread

Keisha

Drew

DeShawn

Mara

Tory

Nick

Ebony

Grace

China

Sonia

Carl

Mattie

Elaine

I GOT A round head, and round eyes, and a round nose and little bitty ears, and sunset skin, and they call me Gingerbread because that's what I look like: a gingerbread cookie man, and I don't care. I got hyper blood and bad concentration and I got to take my
riddle-in
every day, but I don't care. I got a crackhead mother somewhere on this earth, or maybe dead, but I don't care because I got my real mama and my real daddy since my little gingerbread face came into this place. My mama is white and my daddy is black, and fools try to make shit out of that, and I don't care.

“You act like you popped right out of a cereal box,” Keisha tells me the first week of tenth grade, and I smile my gingerbread smile at her pretty self, and she laughs and laughs the way people do, and I love being here on this earth.

“He's a virgin,” my friend DeShawn lets her know, and I don't care.

“So am I, fool. What's your problem?” Keisha tells him, but I see the flicker behind her eye, and I care, because I'm what my mama calls “sensitive.” And so is my mama. She had me washing my own clothes and sheets as soon as I turned eleven, and at the time I was mad, and a couple months later I was glad because the joy of a boy was messing up cotton like you've never seen, and that shit isn't for your mama.

“You want to chill later?” I ask Keisha.

She goes, “I have to pick up my cousin right after eighth period. How about later after school?”

And I go, “Cool.”

*  *  *

My daddy gets home right when I do, as usual. He trades stocks on Wall Street, and they start at the crack of day and finish the same time as teachers, maybe even earlier.

“I met an important girl,” I tell him, and he tosses our basketball to my chest.

“You ditching me?” he asks, and I smile and smile.

He helps me get my homework done first, which is hard because I'm always wanting to get up and look around and tap my pencil on the table and jitter my feet on the floor and sing a tune, and it's hard, but my daddy helps me. Fifteen minutes of math, five of ball out back, fifteen minutes of English, five of ball out back, fifteen minutes of social studies, and I've got a hard-on the size of a baseball bat. Oh, please, Daddy, I hope you can't see that. It's time to go meet Keisha, but I want to jerk off, but then I'll miss her at McDonald's, oh, Daddy, what do I do with this thing, and thinking about Keisha just makes it poke up worse.

“You got money?” my daddy asks, even though he's not supposed to because I get my allowance once a week on Sunday nights.

“I'm telling Mama,” I joke him while he throws me ten, and I'm out of there, bumping into my hard-on, praying it down so I can walk the street with my head up. Oh, Keisha, here I come, sweet thing.

*  *  *

The usual crew is there, biting straws and sucking on fries and everybody trying to impress everybody the way we do, and everybody playing and play fighting and making the place hum the way it does wherever we are, and there's Keisha.

“Why they call you Gingerbread?” her friend Mara asks me, and I frame my face with my skinny hands and say, “Why do you think?”

And they all titter off like popcorn, girl-style.

“You want to walk?” I ask Keisha.

She goes, “Yeah,” and they all go, “Ooohhh,” and I go, “Ooohhh,” right back.

And DeShawn goes, “You got your hat, my man?” and Keisha goes, “We're talking, not raining, De
dong
,” and they all laugh.

When me and Keisha get away a little bit, she says, “You're real funny,” which makes me grin up the world, and in a minute we're dodging cracks and dog shit and baby strollers and stomping on leaves the color of the gym floor, and it's good the way our legs go together.

Pretty soon we're way far away from McDonald's, and there's a playground, and we go in there, and Keisha sits on a tire swing and tips some with her feet. She's got big old boots, the size of my daddy's almost, and when I start to poke with a stick, she tries to hide them up under each other.

“Come on,” I say. “Let me see.”

“They're too big!” she argues.

I go, “They're big all right. They're mad big, and real cute, too,” and she kicks her pretty knees right into me, knocking my butt down, and I roll over and over on playground padding, like an action hero all injured.

I stay there awhile, staring up at the sky, cool blue, like my mama's favorite bowl she calls Fiesta ware, which is like saying party ware in Spanish.

“You could be a model,” I say, turning my head to look at her better after a while. “You could be a boot model. A shoe model. Sandals and slippers and—”

“Shut up,” she says, but she's laughing, too. So I shut up and just keep grinning at her, checking out that curvy mouth and those cheeks up high on her face and smooth skin, like a new piece of soap, and I feel my dick moving around, and I sit up fast.

“So for real, then,” I say, all serious. “What do you want to be one day?”

“President.”

“No, for real,” I go. “What do you want to be?”

And she goes way soft, “Happy,” and then she slips off that tire and climbs up a slide, and I hop myself into a seat swing and push off to a glide.

“You think I'm stupid?” she asks, and I fly high, making the whole thing shake and squeak and rock and creak, and then I jump out far and land in a stand.

“You care what I think?” I'm asking her, and she sit-swooshes down to the ground, and in a minute we're chest to chest except her nose is only as high as my breath.

“You care if I care?” she asks me back.

I'm so busy trying to keep my hands to myself I can't hardly answer, and I think I'm going to pop into a million pieces, each one of them laughing and bouncing all on that playground, and she steps back, and I go, “You want to come over sometime?”

And she goes, “That's fine.”

*  *  *

Mama can't ask me about it during dinner because they're at it again next door. The man screams mean to his wife, and my daddy shakes his head, and my mama says, “What a life,” and we listen for smashes or crashes, hoping the cops will come again, and they do, and I think of their kid, Drew, who finally got away, a freshman at some ivy school. And my daddy rubs my head, and my mama holds his other hand, and we listen to the clink-clatter of our forks and knives and let out some sighs, and I think I might have a funny round face, but I got a good mama and a good daddy, and I'll take the trade any day.

It's only later, during dishes, Mama asks me about Keisha, and I want to say,
She makes good grades but she doesn't kiss butt, and she's pretty but not stuck up, and she's got the same best friends since sixth grade, and she doesn't ever talk them down, and she lives with her aunt Eva instead of with her mama, and she's got a laugh like a little kid, and behind her eyes, she cries,
only it comes out like “She's mad nice.” And we clear the table, and I wash, and Mama dries, and we get into our rhythm, like a dance, or a conversation, or a basketball game, and my mama says,

“Invite her over sometime if you want,” and I nod and ask her how she met my daddy, and she starts about how they had their mailboxes next to each other at college, and they used to rap and play and say hey, and she talks over the clatter and rub of plates in a sink and under a towel, and my daddy's pretending to pretend not to listen with his face in CNN, and I start thinking about Keisha, and I know I'm going to jerk off just as soon as I leave the kitchen, and I do, and thank the Lord, Jesus, God, Allah, Buddha, Whoever for making it feel so good.

*  *  *

DeShawn's all in my face today, because he's got it for Mara and wants me and Keisha to do a thing for him, any how, any way.

“Me and Keisha are something special,” I let him know, even though I've said it before. We're barely touching the edge of our seats, ready to jet, expecting the lunch bell to ring any second. “You want to get in Mara's pants, you plan it out your ownself.”

“'Bread, man, I want to have something special with Mara, too. I'm just saying, help me out,” and the bell dings, and we're gone, spinning through the mix of locker slams and sneaker squeaks, hair gunk and perfume-covered girl sweat underneath new leather, canvas, cotton smells. Bodies everywhere, every shape every size and thank you Above for baggy boy pants, and there's Keisha and the crew in the corner stair-steps chomping on Doritos and fruit rolls and peanut butter crackers with a red rectangle knife for flicking at the pigeons when you're done.

“What did you get for number eighteen?” Keisha asks me.

And DeShawn yells, “Isosceles triangle.”

And Mara goes, “Nuh uh. It was a trapezoid.”

And I go, “Bureaucracies freakazoid wrong and wrong again. Octagon.”

And Keisha smiles and goes, “Yeah, me, too,” and we just know we're meant to be.