Lovers & Haters (3 page)

Xavier smiled confidently. “No sweat. I read
Hamlet
this past summer. I don't need the book.” He tapped his finger on the side of his head. “Got it all up here.”

“The only thing you got up there is a lot of fat,” Sally Peoples bitterly cut in, apparently still fuming from their earlier argument.

Xavier turned his back on Sally's comment. The girl was old news and he wasn't about to go there with her again.

“That will be enough out of you, Ms. Peoples,” Ms. Gorman scolded. The teacher looked back in Xavier's direction with an inquisitive expression on her face. “Okay, Mr. Hunter, I'm going to ask you to sum up the play, in your own words.”

“Oh, Ms. Gorman, you're trying to play a brotha out. I got this.” Xavier flirtatiously smiled at Samantha. “Peep this. Prince Hamlet takes revenge on his uncle Claudius for murdering King Hamlet, Claudius's brother and Prince Hamlet's father. Claudius then takes the throne of Denmark by marrying the king's widow and Prince Hamlet's mother.”

“Don't let that steroid freak fool y'all,” Sally interrupted by snapping on Xavier. “Anybody with Internet access could log on to Wikipedia to print the summary.”

“Sally, one more outburst out of you and I'm going to send you to the principal's office,” Ms. Gorman scolded. She then returned her attention to Xavier. “Mr. Hunter, would you please be so kind as to tell us what method Claudius used in killing King Hamlet, and what does the third guard, Marcellus, report to Hamlet that he saw one night?”

Xavier had to keep from laughing at the question. He knew Ms. Gorman was trying to set him up. “Teach, you gotta come up with something better than that if you're trying to throw me off my game. Marcellus didn't tell Hamlet anything. It was Hamlet's friend Horatio, who said he had seen a ghost who looked like King Hamlet. And as for the method Claudius used to knock off his brother—it was hemlock, a poisonous plant that he'd cooked into a liquid. One afternoon, Claudius crept on his brother while the king was sleeping and poured the poison inside his ear.”

Cheese tapped Xavier on the shoulder and excitedly yelled, “Dazam, my boy's a walking
Hamlet
encyclopedia! That's my dude—y'all get up off him!”

Cheese's energy had sparked a buzz of chatter among the students.

Xavier looked over at Samantha and winked. “Impressed, huh?”

Ms. Gorman said, “Yes, Mr. Hunter, fabulous job. We are all impressed that you took the time out of your busy summer schedule to look over this semester's required reading. So I'm going to encourage you to keep your play in front of you. And, Samantha, please feel free to look on with another student.”

The class laughed while Xavier was smiling, hoping that he made enough of an impression to catch him a Fox.

X
avier got home a little after six. He almost never went straight to the crib from school. Life at home sucked. His father was away, locked up in jail. Xavier's mother, Ne Ne Alexander, was the only one holding down the fort. At age thirty-two, she was all about herself and rarely home. When she wasn't working a swing shift at Walmart, Ne Ne ran the streets—barhopping and wildly chasing any thug who would lay down some loot on a drink. Xavier hated when he would get to his house and find his little ten-year-old brother, Alfonso, all alone playing PlayStation 3.

The family lived in a small weather-beaten bungalow on the west side of Detroit. A bad economy along with the housing market collapse had left the area in shambles. Crumbling, decayed, and vacant homes that the residents looked upon as eyesores littered the landscape. Crackheads broke into abandoned homes and stripped them from the inside out, stealing whatever they found valuable: copper wiring, water heaters, furnaces, windows, and aluminum siding. It was nothing to see a dope fiend creeping around the early morning darkness, pushing a shopping cart filled with any of these items.

Young thugs loitered on street corners and sold dope to the hopeless in an effort at building the kind of respect that commanded hood politics. Xavier wanted out. He knew if he stayed that he would eventually get caught up in the grind and follow in his father's footsteps. There was no life for him in the ghetto. Xavier especially wanted to get his baby brother as far away as he could.

Alfonso was a special needs kid who was easily influenced. The little kids around the neighborhood weren't into playing video games. They were more interested in getting tips from the older guys and establishing themselves as thugs. A few times Xavier had come home and found Alfonso running with a rough crowd of juvenile delinquents. And every time, Xavier would snatch Alfonso up by his collar and drag him home.

Xavier opened the screen door and used his key to unlock the heavy wood door, then walked in to the magnificent smell of pancakes, bacon, and eggs. He was surprised by his mother's presence.

“Xavier, tomorrow you need to come home from school early because my shift starts early,” Ne Ne explained.

Xavier walked into the kitchen with his leather book bag slung over his right shoulder, holding it by the strap. “I have to stay after school tomorrow because Ms. Gorman, my English teacher, wants to talk to me.”

“Somebody has to watch your little brother. I'm the supervisor and I can't be late. So I'm afraid that your pipe dream has to be put on hold.”

Ne Ne was in the kitchen walking around in a navy blue housecoat, slippers, and a green bandanna. She was cooking grub, and Xavier knew exactly what that meant: Her boyfriend, Nathaniel “Nate” Fisher, had stopped in for a late-evening breakfast. Xavier didn't like to use the word
hate
because it was so permanent, but he couldn't stand Nate, Ne Ne's new flavor of the month. The dude was a bum who dressed mostly in sweat suits and Air Jordan sneakers, and he was older than her by five years. Nate was always drinking and he never gave Ne Ne any money even though he ate at their house like a starved homeless man with a free pass at an all-you-can-eat buffet. Nate was using Xavier's mother and Xavier hated it.

Ne Ne was light-skinned, a little on the thick side but shapely, and she obeyed Nate like a faithful Rottweiler.

Ne Ne had finished cooking and was now stacking the dirty dishes in the sink with the rest. For as long as Xavier could remember, his mother kept a filthy house. It was one of her trifling habits that had kept his father and mother at each other's throats. Ne Ne walked over to the refrigerator and removed a tub of butter. She moved across to a kitchen cabinet over the sink and took out a bottle of Mrs. Butterworth's.

Annoyed, Xavier challenged, “Ma, why does it have to be a pipe dream? A guy can't have a dream?”

“What did I tell you about calling me
Ma
?” she corrected him, hands on her hips with attitude.

“You said some crap about it making you feel old, and for me and Alfonso to call you by your first name.”

“Right. It's Ne Ne to you. I'm too young to be a
Ma
. As far as your
dream,
Xavier, let me tell you about reality.” She spread butter over the top of the huge stack of pancakes. “The reality is that your daddy went to jail and didn't leave us with any money. This house don't operate—”

“That's
doesn't
operate—”

“—don't ever correct me again, Joe College!” She rolled her eyes at her son. “Anyway, like I was saying, this house
don't
operate on dreams. It runs by the almighty dollar. I told you, you have to get your butt out there and hustle to help me inside here—that's the only dream I'm interested in. I told you that young black males can only make it out of the ghetto by hustling, going to jail, or getting killed.” The heat from the pancakes mixed the syrup in with the melted butter, which ran over the sides, pooling into a rich and sticky deliciousness.

“Sounds like some garbage to me,” Xavier said.

Ne Ne aggressively pointed the butter knife at her son. “I will stick this in your ear if you ever talk to me like that again.”

He could easily predict in which direction the conversation was headed. Xavier glanced down at his raggedy gear.

“Don't you want better for yourself? New clothes, fresh sneakers? I'm sure you do. Well, I cannot get them for you. My job is to put food on the table and pay the bills.”

“Don't you get a check for Alfonso?”

His mother never stopped preparing Nate's grub. Xavier thought that she would fly into a rage at the mention of Alfonso's disability check. Instead, she was rather calm.

“That's right. I'm not like one of them mothers who gets a check for her disabled child and blows it at the hairdresser, shopping malls, and nail salons. If I were you I would forget about your dreams. I got some people who could put you down with some prescription painkillers. OxyContin . . . you can get ten dollars a pill for a bottle with a hundred and twenty tablets. Get your LL Cool J-looking butt out on the street and hustle. That's the way Hunter men have always done it. FYI, your landlord, your friend and next-door neighbor, won't accept your
dreams
as a rent check. The man wants cash.”

Xavier wanted to get at her about her boyfriend's lack of household contribution, but didn't really feel like hearing the noise. So he moved the conversation back to Alfonso.

“Ne Ne, do you know that your baby boy is running around with this crew of baby hood rats?”

His mother looked at him like she didn't give a damn, then she retrieved a breakfast tray from the bottom cabinet and started loading on Nate's dinner-breakfast. When she finished, the tray was set better than any dinner table Xavier had ever seen. Ne Ne even added a sports page from the
Detroit News
and a small flower vase bearing a single daisy.

“Ne Ne, did you not hear me? I said that—”

“What you want me to do about it, Xavier? I can't be everywhere at one time. Besides, the boy has a touch of autism. The doctor says that he has trouble expressing himself, he's clumsy—now how do you think somebody like that is gonna get in trouble?”

“Ne Ne, you should know better than anybody. All you buy for him are those violent PlayStation Three games. You let him watch the movie
Scarface
so much that he's memorized every line Tony Montana spit from his mouth. He's running around here wearing dark shades like he's actually Sosa's hit man. If we don't do something quick, we are going to lose him to some street BS.”

“I buy him everything that he needs, and besides, those games keep him occupied,” she defended.

“You mean they keep 'im busy and out of your hair. And speaking of clothes, why do you buy him the most expensive gear on the market? Around here, don't you know that you're setting him up to be robbed?”

“You sound jealous. You could have those things, too, if you do like I told you. I shouldn't have to buy you clothes anymore—you're old enough to do what you need to do . . . Anyway I'm done with this conversation, Xavier! You always want to play daddy to Alfonso. Now here is the opportunity. It's up to you to look after your baby brother and keep him from getting
robbed
. As for me, I have to give Nate his food—excuse me.”

Ne Ne occupied the upstairs bedroom, which she accessed through a door off the kitchen and next to the bathroom, carefully carrying the tray.

“Ne Ne, get my grub up here now and come please your man!” Nate yelled down the stairs when the door opened. Ne Ne shut the door behind her and, after hearing the locks click into place, Xavier knew that his mother was through with their conversation.

Xavier was frustrated, but he couldn't do one thing about it. He simply shook his head and opened up the basement door to the sounds of gunfire. Alfonso was down there playing
Scarface
, the PlayStation 3 version of the movie.

“Say hello to my little friend.” Alfonso mimicked Tony Montana's most famous line of the movie.

Xavier dumped his book bag in a corner and started down the dark stairwell. He had to walk through the washroom to get to the den. Ne Ne had nice furniture in the living room and didn't allow anybody to sit on it. On the day the delivery truck had driven up and dropped off the furniture, the room in the basement became Xavier's and his brother's spot.

The light was bright inside the den. There, sitting on an old worn-out sofa, was a light-skinned kid who shared Xavier's facial features. Alfonso didn't look like he had a developmental impairment, and he most certainly didn't talk like it, but Xavier knew better. He had lived with the young boy all of his life. Too many times he had watched his baby brother stumble and fall without tripping over anything. Watched him become frustrated in trying to express himself. Right now, Alfonso looked like a happy little boy enjoying PlayStation 3 behind those dumb sunglasses. Because the back of the couch faced the door, Xavier's little brother wasn't aware that he was being watched.

Alfonzo ran another line from the movie. This was usually the time that Xavier would intervene and check him for saying something stupid, but he let the youngster have his fun. Besides, half the time Xavier didn't think that Alfonso was aware of what he was saying.

With his left thumb, he guided the direction arrows on the controller, and with his right one, Alfonso rapidly pushed the fire button to shoot up a couple more gangsters on the twenty-seven-inch flat screen.

Alfonso was rocking an orange Polo shirt with the huge signature jockey and horse logo, black Levi's, and one of the hottest pairs of Air Jordans. They were the number 11 editions, the sneakers with the patent leather traveling around both sides to the back of the shoe. Xavier was brutally aware of what kind of trouble Alfonso could get in flexing them. In Xavier's hood, a twelve-year-old boy had been gunned down for his 11s a couple weeks back.

Xavier left and walked back into the washroom, the world heavy around his shoulders. The streets were dangerous and preyed on kids without a clue. He didn't know what he would do if something ever happened to his little brother. Alfonso was innocent. His only fault was being born into this trifling hood. Xavier had to figure out a way to keep him away from the bad element inside the neighborhood, and he would do it, even if it meant dying for it.

Xavier usually went down to the basement and leaned against the washer to think. Sometimes it was the quietest spot in the house. Also, it always helped him to focus when he was near something of his father's. Although Xavier was never good with a hammer and nails, his mind processed things much better any time he was near his old dude's workbench and tools. He sure missed his dad. Xavier's parents had never married. The old man had gone to jail before they had a chance to go to the altar, so Ne Ne had been left holding on to her maiden name, Alexander. Xavier was just six at the time that his father was sentenced. Ne Ne never mentioned anything about him—except when she was angry, and then she would blame Xavier's old dude, Noah Hunter, for everything wrong inside her world. Xavier could remember when he was younger, sitting by the phone for hours waiting for his father's collect phone call. But after a month or two, the calls stopped and his mother told him that his father wasn't calling anymore. Since then, he hadn't heard from the old dude. Not even one letter.

Nothing.

There was something fishy about the whole thing, and Xavier would bet that somehow Ne Ne was behind it.

Being the man of the house wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Xavier had to come up with a solution to keep his baby brother, Mr. Scarface, out of trouble, and Ne Ne was coming at him with the pressure to boot. All Xavier wanted to do was be a teenager and go to school, earn the kind of grades that would boost his GPA, and hopefully a university would break him off an academic scholarship. Maybe the life that he wanted for himself was merely what his mother quoted—a pipe dream.

The situation at school was real and driving him on a collision course to have a throwdown with Dylan, but his one shining moment was meeting Samantha. She wasn't like the other girls at Coleman High and he knew he had to move on her before the other cats started spitting their corny rap. She was fly, feisty, and dressed like her parents had loot. He was broke with dirty sneakers. One thing he knew was that girls looked at how clean a guy's sneakers were and determined from there. Coleman High was home to quite a few dudes that rocked expensive designers and some ice cold jewelry pieces. Samantha would have her pick.

The thought led to Xavier glossing over his mother's proposition. From a business angle, it made a heck of a lot of sense. Bringing more money into the crib would improve all of their lives. With that kind of cash, he could move his little brother out of the hood and into better surroundings. Xavier would also be able to compete for Samantha. With no loot, Xavier figured that his chances of getting with her would be one-hundred-percent wack. She would never hook up with the likes of a dude like him, unless he clocked mad paper.