Show and Prove (15 page)

“But he does have experience in getting through to certain people,” I say. Nike's the worst counselor in the history of Saint Aloysius, but he's not Pooh. And as much as Pooh is my least favorite of the homies who come to Q's storefront, spending time with him there has reminded me that Pooh isn't just Pooh either. “The people everyone complains about and no one wants to help.”
But Mama used to. Unlike you.

Barb ignores that. She has to. “That's why I could afford to hire only one senior counselor,” she says. “And Cookie actually applied for the job. You didn't.”

“I didn't think I had to!” I yell. “You already knew I wanted it and made me believe I had it in the bag. First day of camp, I came here expecting to fill out whatever paperwork to make it official.” I stand up. “So you admit it? You promoted Cookie over me because she's Puerto Rican. You discriminated against me because I'm Black.”

“Smiles, lower your voice,” Barb warns me. “I'm saying no such thing. What I'm telling you is Cookie wanted the job bad enough to follow the protocols, and that said something to me about her leadership and initiative.”

“This is bullshit.”

“You're being disrespectful when you could not have a job at all.”

“You want my respect?” I bum-rush the door. “I would've had more respect if you had just fired me.”

“Raymond…”

I storm out of her office and into the cafeteria. I make my way through the tide of kids and counselors, their bodies blurry and voices muffled as if I were swimming underwater. Only when I finally get to the exit that leads to the alley between the church basement and the avenue can I breathe.

And there's Cookie playing double Dutch with a group of girls from the Famers. Those girls turn for her while she spins around, crisscrossing her legs, touching the ground, and showing off as usual. She has them all impressed. Instead of letting them play, Cookie has taken over their game, but she's Barb's choice for senior counselor. Puerto Ricans looking out for each other.

“P
romise not to laugh?” I dig into my back pocket for the Polaroid I found, and I hand her the picture.

Sara clamps her hand over her mouth. “You guys are so adorable! Was this for Halloween? How old are you?”

“Yeah, we had to be about twelve, thirteen.”

Sara reads the caption that Cookie scripted across the white border in red Magic Marker. “ ‘Smiley Smiles, Cookie Cee, and Willy Will'?” She almost keels over in a fit of giggles.

It
is
funny, corny even. It feels like far more than four years ago, though. “I wanted to be Chill Will, but some other dude beat me to it,” I say. “Can you guess who we're supposed to be?”

Sara points at Smiles's huge 'Fro, bow tie, and white shirt. “He's obviously Michael Jackson.” Her brown finger travels across to me and my fluffy hair and satin shirt. “No wonder Big Lou is always calling you Deney Terrio.”

“Not him!” My mother bugged out when I told her I wanted that shirt for my birthday. She lit candles at Saint Aloysius for a week, praying that I wasn't some fairy. No way am I telling Sara that. “I'm John Travolta from
Saturday Night Fever.
”

“OK, I see that. And Cookie…” Sara squints at Cookie's long, loose hair and big hoop earrings. “The
Flashdance
girl? No, that just came out.”

“She's Donna Summer. We're all dressed up like our favorite album covers.” Then I laugh at another memory. “Ask Cookie to tell you about her ‘Bad Girls' rap. You see this?” I point to the tiny bald spot in my left eyebrow where Cookie scarred me for life. “Your homegirl gave me an oops upside my head when I told her that ‘Bad Girls' was about hookers.” I crack up now, but back then I acted like I was dying. Not because it hurt so much, but because I was getting blood all over my fly new shirt. “I'm like,
Why you hit me?
Cooks says,
You should've told me that before I wrote it.
”

Sara leans in so close that I can smell the Violets I brought on her breath. I should've shown her my scar weeks ago. I'm just about to steal a kiss when the buzzer goes off on the washing machine. Sara jumps up and rushes over to add fabric softener to the last cycle and check on the progress of her whites.

I remember how it all began, how it used to be, and how sometimes I wish it still was. I always was a well-dressed kid, even if I couldn't afford the brand names. Problem was my flyest gear was destroyed in the fire in Williamsburg. All I had left were a few old things at my grandmother's apartment at the Mill Brook Houses, where we were staying until we found another place. None of the clothes at Mamá's fit, but they were all I had, and no way was I going to spend my entire summer hiding out in her stuffy project apartment.

I'd see the guys sitting on the stoop of Smiles's tenement, and I wanted so bad to just hang out with them. I stood to the side, keeping to myself except to laugh at everyone's jokes, even though only Smiles's were funny. One night when the streetlights came on and Pooh had to go home, I made a mad dash for his spot on the stoop next to Smiles, accidentally stepping on Booby's dogs. I would've said sorry had I been given half a chance, but Booby started dissin' me, snappin' on my clothes. He shoved me and pointed at the hems of my corduroys. “Watch where you going,” he said. “You and your high-waters!”

And then Pooh doubled back just to put his two cents in it. “And who the hell wears corduroys in the middle of July?”

“This wack nigga, that's who.” Booby seemed satisfied with that, but Pooh egged him on instead of making himself scarce before he got the belt. I guess dissing me was worth the powpow waiting for him at home for missing curfew.

Pooh said, “And look at his shirt.” He flicked my collar. “What are you, homeslice? One of 'em belly dancers?”

“All right, leave him alone,” Smiles said. I remember how he always had a smile on his face and dressed pretty cool himself. Everybody liked him—guys, girls, kids, parents, everybody. Although we weren't really homies yet, when Smiles walked past me with the rest of the fellas, he'd give me a single nod while the others saw right through me. I thought,
If he became my friend, then living here could be cool.

But I hadn't dared try to make friends with Smiles. What if he was cool so long as I kept my distance? What if I said,
What's up?
and Smiles dissed me in front of everyone? What if he really wasn't as nice as he seemed?

But then Javi jumped on the bandwagon. “Yo, Willie, where's your pops at?” Kids whiffed static and dropped their games of box ball and colors to gather around us. Javi elbowed Booby and then said, “Do you even know who he is?”

“Why you breakin' on him for?” asked Smiles. “He ain't do nothing to you. Leave 'im alone already.”

“Shut up, Smiles.” Then Javi cackled at me. “I know who Willie's father is 'cause he's named after him. El Wilfredo!”

That's when I snapped. I jetted off the stoop and landed on Javi's throat. In my mind's eye, his head bounces when it hits the curb like it happened yesterday, and I thank my lucky stars that I didn't kill him. Then Booby jumped in for Javi, giving me a rabbit punch, and that's when Smiles jumped in for me. I didn't even realize it until Cutter—he was Mr. Cutter then and not no alky dope fiend—broke us up. Booby's nose was bleeding down his shirt, and for a moment I thought,
Wow, when did I hit him?
But I hadn't hit him. Smiles had. Mr. Cutter was holding on to Smiles by his shirt because he was still gunning for Booby.

Mr. Cutter was sending us all home to cool off when he realized that I lived in the same direction as Javi. “No way, José,” he said, grabbing me by the arm and spinning me in the opposite direction. “You take a walk around the block first. The long way.”

I didn't want to, and Smiles immediately understood why. What was to stop Javi, Booby, and them from going around the block and jumping me on sight? Then I would be even farther away from the Mill Brook Houses, where we were staying four to a room with my grandmother to avoid the homeless shelter. “He's supposed to stay with me until his mother comes home,” Smiles told Mr. C. Then he motioned for me to follow him upstairs.

Before he opened the door to his apartment, Smiles said, “You got to be quiet because my mom's not feeling well and might be asleep.” When he let us into the apartment, I was surprised at how modest but colorful it was. For some reason I had it in my head that Smiles was kind of rich. Not like his pop was a millionaire or anything, because if that was the case, why live in the South Bronx? But Smiles was just so happy all the time that it never occurred to me he ever wanted for anything. His apartment reminded me of the one time I visited my father in Puerto Rico. Although I was real little, I never forgot it. I'd catch fragments of the island in Williamsburg and even the Bronx, but nothing like the peace I felt that week. Smiles's apartment was the closest I'd come to the same colors and rhythm, and I immediately felt like I belonged there.

I even asked Smiles, “Yo, you Puerto Rican?” I mean, I had a great-uncle who was darker than he was. It was totally possible.

But Smiles looked at me like I asked if he was from Mars. “I'm Black, homeboy!” he said proudly. Then, in patois, he added,
“Jamaican on mi mudda's side, memba me tell you.”
He knocked gently on his mother's door and went in to check on her. I waited in the hallway for a few minutes before Smiles called, “Willie, come here.” I stopped at the doorway, but he motioned for me to come into the bedroom. “My mother wants to meet you.”

Smiles was the spitting image of his mom, from the high cheekbones to the single dimple in her chin. Her small Afro smelled of coconut, and she wore gold hoops and lip gloss even while sick in bed. She put aside the book she was reading—something about colored girls and rainbows—and offered me her hand. I took it and just held it, afraid to hurt her. “Nice to meet you, Willie.”

“ 'Lo, Mrs…. ” I didn't know Smiles's last name.

“Mrs. King.” Then she inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. Her head rolled as slow as the moon until she was facing Smiles again. Mrs. King opened her eyes and said to Smiles, “I hate to break it to you, son, but you're no longer the most handsome boy on the block.”

“This clown?” Smiles thumbed at me. “He could never take my crown.”

“My son the poet,” she said. “And he doesn't even know it.”

And they laughed as if nothing were wrong. Even though she was sick, I wished Mrs. King was my mom from the moment I met her. I knew from jump street that the fire was my mother's fault, so in my daydreams I killed her off and got adopted by the Kings without any guilt. When we were getting along, I'd include Gloria in my fantasy, but most times, I shipped her skinny behind off to Puerto Rico to live with those relatives so I could become a King all by myself.

I don't know if the idea was Smiles's or Mrs. King's, but when we got to his room, he immediately opened a drawer and started pulling out clothes. “These should fit you.” He gave me four pairs of pants and twice as many shirts. When my grandmother asked my cousins to give me some clothes, they whined as if I were taking their best gear off their backs instead of relieving them of last year's hand-me-downs. Not once did Smiles pass off to me anything he wouldn't have been caught dead wearing. I tested him, grabbing for his Wrangler jeans even though they were still stiff and tagged. Smiles shrugged. “OK, take 'em.”

“Nah, man, I was only messin' with you,” I said. “I hate bell-bottoms.”

“Maybe your brother can use 'em.”

“I ain't got no brothers. I wish! All I got is a bratty little sister.”

“How old is she?” Smiles grinned. “She cute?”

“Whoria? Hell no.” I laughed at my own joke. “My sister's Gloria. Get it? Whoria!”

Smiles laughed a little, but then he said, “That's wrong, man. She's older or younger?”

“She's ten going on twenty.”

“Damn, that's even more foul than I thought.”

“You must not got no sisters.”

“Nope, I'm an only child, but when I have a sister, even if she were the biggest brat in the world, I wouldn't call her no ho.”

I remember feeling relieved when Smiles finally shook off the seriousness. “I mean, after my mother slapped me into next week, my father would snatch me back to today.” He cracked me up. Then Smiles said, “ 'Sides, how're you going to call your sister out her name and then expect not to be fighting with dudes out here when they try the same mess? You got enough problems fightin' your own battles.” He tossed a jacket at me. “Here, try on this.”

“It's too hot for no jacket.”

“For when school starts, genius.”

As the clothes piled up on the bed, it already felt like Christmas. I pulled my arms into the sleeves relieved to finally be wearing something that covered my wrists. “I guess your mom doesn't work.”

“Sure she does. Whenever she's healthy. She works, swims, and everything.” The question must have scrawled across my forehead like subtitles in a movie. “You ever heard of sickle cell anemia?” Smiles asked. “They teach y'all about red blood cells in your country?”

I smirked at his wisecrack. “In Brooklyn we got the same wack public schools you do here. The red ones fight infections, right?”

“No, those are the white ones. The red ones carry oxygen throughout the body. When a person has sickle cell, those blood cells aren't shaped right. Instead of full circles, they're more like quarter moons. Because of that, they jam up the flow of blood.” It sounded like it hurt, but I fought the urge to cringe so as not to offend Smiles. “We never know when Mama is going to get sick,” he continued. “All we can count on is that she
will
get sick from time to time, and when she does, she has to take it real easy 'cause her immune system's fragile.”