Show and Prove (7 page)

We look at each other, then back at the diamond. I stand up, clapping and yelling, “C'mon, Rags. No batter, no batter, no batter!” Something special is taking place right before our eyes, and we need to pay attention. That's how baseball is. Even when it looks like nothing is going on, something is always happening.

I
hoist my boom box onto my shoulder and go into the kitchen for something to eat. My mother gets off the couch and follows me. “Willie, when do you get paid?”

Camp hasn't started, and already she's bumming me for money. I'll be damned if she plays la bolita or buys Kools with
my
earnings. Last week when her combination came out, Ma bought Glo a pair of jelly sandals, which she broke three days later playing double Dutch. What'd Nike get? Diddly-squat. “Why you gotta know?”

“What do you mean, why I got to know?” Ma yells. “You like to eat, don't you?” She been running that line into the ground, man. What happened to all the stupid food stamps that just came on the first? “You like to use electricity, right?”

“Totally,” says Gloria. My sister's new thing is talking like a Valley girl. As usual, she's got her hair in rolos, her scrawny legs up on the couch, and her face stuck in
People
. That baby prince is on this week's cover. Why people in the U.S. of God Bless America fuss over Princess Diana and all those monarchs? Today they's just figureheads with no real juice in their own country. Like Smiles said, if the English Parliament gave the queen her own death warrant, she'd have to sign it. Not that I have to go to Dawkins to know we done fought a revolution to get rid of those punks. Ma and Gloria, the both of them just sit on the couch all day watching telenovelas and reading bochinche while I go out and work, minding other people's brats. “He be hogging up the bathroom for hours,” Gloria says, slipping back to the way she really talks. “Running up the Con Ed bill, blowing out that nappy hair of his.”

“Mind your business, 'cause nobody's talking to you,” I snap. “You be running your mouth como si fuera la heredera de New York Telephone. And my hair ain't nappy. I got Papi's hair.” Still, I reach for the back of my neck, and sure enough, my tail curled up again. That means my DA is now an Afro. “You wish you had hair like me, 'cause yours don't do nothing but hang there like a mop.”

“No, you the one jealous 'cause I got hair like a white girl.”

My mother blocks my path. “Willie, I'm sick and tired of arguing with you about money.”

“Then don't. Gloria's fourteen now. Tell her to get a job.”

“I can't get a job, stupid, 'cause I don't have my working papers.”

“And whose fault is that?” Just because Gloria is tall and skinny, she thinks she can be a model. She has pictures of Brooke Shields and Gia Carangi taped all over her side of my mother's bedroom and is always on some diet. I done told her they ain't never going to pluck some Puerto Rican girl out the Bronx and make her a supermodel. Now my sister's walking around here saying
gnarly
this and
as if
that, like that's going to fool nobody. Vanessa tried it with all that Valspeak, but I told her that I'd quit her if she didn't stop talking like some airhead on
Square Pegs.
I dumped Vanessa anyway, but she spared herself a few weeks when she quit telling me
Gag me with a spoon!
every two minutes.

And Ma was down with all that modeling crap, too, signing my sister's application for the child model permit or whatever it's called. I told her from the giddyup that agency was bogus. If it weren't for the fact that my mother couldn't pay him with cupones, that sleazeball would've taken us for two hundred dollars for Gloria's so-called head shots.

I say to Gloria, “Ain't nobody tell you to cut school to go to that fake modeling agency instead of seeing the guidance counselor and getting your papers.” I put on my Nike cap and Cazal glasses, and head for the door. Some days the best thing about having to work is getting out of here.

B
arb calls me into work early on the first day to tell me she promoted Cookie Camacho to senior counselor over me. I'm waiting right here until she gets off the phone and gives me an explanation. That is, if I don't get so mad I start crying. I've shed enough tears in this office.

Don't count on that promotion, homeboy,
Nike warned me.
Girls be sticking together. Especially those women's lib types like Cookie and Barb.
I didn't believe that and tried to defend Barb without admitting everything to him. Nike, with his one-track mind, read that wrong and started insinuating things.
Yo, you messin' with Barb, Smiley? You can tell me. Yeah, buddy! She fine, though. Like an older, Puerto Rican version of Kelly from
Charlie's Angels. I pretended Nana needed to make a call and hung up on him.

I've been a part of Saint Aloysius since I was five years old. Not only did I go to school here from K through eight, Mama enrolled me in the summer day camp from its start. As soon as I turned fourteen, I came to work for Barb. For the past three years, I've been a counselor during the summer and a youth mentor in the after-school program she runs from September through June. No one is more qualified than me to be Big Lou's assistant.

Barb finally hangs up the telephone. “I don't know what more I can tell you, Smiles. With the last round of budget cuts, we don't have as many kids in the camp. There's no need, never mind money, to hire two senior counselors for each group like we have in the past.”

So now I'm Smiles again. Three minutes ago she was all,
Raymond, I had a very tough decision to make, and I hope you'll understand.
“You said all that already. What you didn't explain is why Cookie's going to be the senior counselor for the Champs instead of me.” Does Barb think I'm going to let her off that easy because I made the mistake of breaking down that one time? Nah, it's not like that.

Unless the breakdown is the reason she didn't promote me.

“I've been running this camp and the after-school program for seven years, and you're one of the best counselors I've ever had.” Barb always used to say that I was
the
best, but now I'm just
one
of the best. “So is Cookie. All things being equal, I had to choose her.”

Other than her being a girl, there's only one difference between Cookie and me, and I want her to admit it. “All things being equal, why Cookie?”
Just fess up already, Barb. We both know what Cookie is that I'm not.

“Look, Smiles, I promise that I'll give you priority consideration for senior counselor next summer.”

“Next summer I might be working for Qusay,” I bluff. “Now that he's forming his organization, he wants to create an after-school program.”

Barb gets uptight when she hears Qusay's name, and now I know the real deal. The other day when I was skating through Saint Mary's Park, I saw Q parlaying with Booby and some Barbarians about his new storefront until Junior sent Javi to fetch 'em. As we went back to his school, Q admitted that he was the Junior of the block back in his day. At one time he dated Barb, lying about being a hood and otherwise putting her heart through the wringer. Still, everyone swore they'd get married until Qusay got busted. While he was upstate, Big Lou came back from Vietnam, Barb fell for him, and that's all she wrote. I don't get why everyone's throwing Q shade when he came out of prison a better man than he went in. Nike jokes that it's because Qusay no longer eats pork, and no bona fide Puerto Rican is ever going to give up pernil, but it's a lot deeper than that. I would bring it up to Barb in one of our late-afternoon rap sessions in her office, but those days are over.

“You don't want to work for Qusay, Smiles,” Barb says. “No good can come to you by associating with the Five Percenters.” For a moment, she actually seems jealous of Qusay on my account. That pushes back the tears, but I can't forget that Barb favored Cookie over me for something I can't control. “We're all lucky to have jobs right now,” Barb says, “with Reagan cutting programs left and right….”

So the Gipper cut the budget. He's not the one sitting across from me playing favorites. Bottom line: I can't prove that Barb discriminated against me because I'm Black. “Forget it,” I say. Then I stand up and break out, ignoring Barb when she calls my name.

“H
ere,” I say, handing Smiles his Eddie Murphy tape. No thanks, never mind apologies for flaking out on me yesterday. He just snatches it out of my hand and shoves it in the back pocket of his cutoffs. “Bite my head off, why don't you?” Smiles admits that I was right about Barb, but now I'm too irritated to tell him
I told you so.
Instead I just shrug and say, “So sue 'er.”

Homeboy takes me for serious. “I can't sue Barb.” A hint of the ol' Smiles peeks through the grin on his face. “Would you testify on my behalf?” Before I can answer, he starts laughing. “The judge would throw me out the courtroom. You're not exactly a reliable witness, yo.”

And I was going to say I would, too. “What you mean? If you tell the judge that Barb gave Cookie the promotion over you because she's Puerto Rican, and another Puerto Rican gets on the stand and says it's true, case closed, homeboy.” Now I really do want Smiles to sue. Let 'im win a million dollars and remember who helped him.

“Your theory's credible, B, but
you're
not.” He starts counting off reasons on his fingers. “One, Big Lou is always docking you, and not once has Barb ever taken your side, so the judge might think you have ulterior motives….”

“But they married, though. That's whatchamacallit? Conflict of interest.”

“…Two, since Big Lou and Barb are also Puerto Ricans, and I'm arguing that they're discriminating against me because I'm not Puerto Rican, drawing attention to the way they treat you actually hurts my case, since they're threatening to fire you every other day. Three, why are they always docking you and threatening to fire you?”

“ 'Cause”—I spit on my finger and wipe a smudge off my Adidas—“they wack.” I don't want to play this game anymore.

“ 'Cause you're always wandering off somewhere with some chick while on the job. So when Barb's lawyer asks you what acts of discrimination against me you've actually witnessed, what evidence are you going to present, Captain Boricua?”

There he goes, pulling out all his debate-team stuff on me. “Fine then.” Smiles cracks up. So glad I could cheer him up. “You serious about quitting?”

He shrugs. “She dissed me big-time. And if Qusay's starting his program…”

“Yo, later for Q. How you gonna quit camp when he hasn't offered you nothing? Thought you needed the money.” Now I got Smiles's attention. “Just chill till Q makes good.”

“Word.” He gestures toward the Garanimals shrieking about the gym. “Which one is yours?”

“Don't know yet. Cookie taking her sweet ol' time. Probably trying to figure out who the worst ones are so she can assign 'em to me.”

“Or assigning all the girl counselors first.” Smiles points in Cookie's direction, and the girl she's talking to is none other than Sara. Yeah, buddy! Today she has on the orange camp T-shirt, white shorts, and jelly sandals. She pulls her long dark hair into a ponytail, revealing the knot of a bikini top on her neck. Cookie calls over the twins. Them girls ain't really twins—they look exactly alike but are a year apart—we just call them that. I don't remember their real names. I only got room in my head for breaking routines and girls old enough to give me play.

“Yo, Sara's working here this summer?” I get up and make my way over to her.

Smiles rolls his eyes. “Case in point.”

As I cross the gym with my boom box playing “Outstanding,” the twins run off to play hopscotch and Sara leans against the wall and opens the
New York Daily News.
I sneak up on her and stand right in front of the paper. Sara's so engrossed in whatever she's reading that she doesn't notice me. I ease up against the newspaper until my sneakers are almost toe to toe with her sandals, and the brim of my cap casts a shadow on the page. Sara looks up and whips the paper away. “Oh,” she says. “It's you.” She folds the paper and places it between her knees.

“I was just trying to help you out. You know, offering you a little shade so you can see better.” Now that the paper is no longer between us, Sara and I are face to face. She's almost as tall as I am, so the brim of my baseball cap sits right about her hairline. I point to the newspaper and crack, “What's the deal? Who got killed now?”

Without missing a beat, she quips, “A fourteen-year-old in Queens got shot on his way to summer school, a kid in the Bronx killed himself playing Russian roulette, and a bunch of children in Lebanon got bombed for being Palestinian.”

“Oh!” This girl is quick. I like that. I borrow a line from Smiles. “I guess the cops have the day off.” Then I say, “You shouldn't read all that bad news, mami.”

Sara folds her arms across her chest. “We're living all that bad news.”

“Even more reason we don't need to be reading about it.”

“So don't care about what's going on in our world?”

“I care about what I can control in
my
world. Like all the fun you and me are going to have this summer.” Sara twists her mouth, trying not to laugh. “You've been assigned to the Champs, right?”

“I think so. My girls are sisters. One's ten, the other eleven.”

“Yeah, you in the best group,” I lie. I lucked out that Barb didn't put Sara with the Rookies. That's where she usually assigns counselors if they're new to the camp or only fourteen. “The Rookies, they're so young you can't take your eyes off of them, not a second. Too much work.”

“Isn't that what we're paid to do, no matter how old they are?”

“And the Famers? Forget about 'em.” The twelve- to fourteen-year-olds think they're so big and bad, especially them boy-crazy girls. Blue Eyes was a Famer last summer, and I learned why Barb insists that all the counselors and the crew chief of that group be college kids. “This summer's going to be live! We're going to the Skatin' Palace, Coney Island, Bear Mountain, the Roxy….”

“The Roxy?” Sara bunches her pretty face. “I didn't see that on the camp schedule.”

“ 'Cause that's where I'm taking you on our first date.”

“Nike!” Cock-blocking Cookie skips over. “Here's your assignment.” She shoves the copy of the camp registration form into my hand and bounces off before I can even look at it.

I take a quick glance at the name, then yell, “Cookie, I know you're not for real assigning me Shorty Rock this summer.”

Cookie spins, then shrugs. “Don't like it? Take it up with Big Lou.”

Sara glances at the form in my hand. “What's wrong with Stevie Morales?”