The Kid (30 page)

“Well?” I say.

She raises her head. “Well.” Like she hadn’t missed a beat. “One mornin’ I waked up next to Beymour, we here in dis room, I tol’ you dis useta be my room. Shake, shake, shake, Beymour don’ wake up. Scare me. He breathin’ but don’ wake up. Scare me. What to do? Call Big Black, Betsy say. You got de number? I ask. She head to de parlor, ain’ like nowadays folks got a phone in dey pocket.”

I look at my suitcase, think that’s next, a cell phone. I look at the windows, the one shade left dusty brown with age. Can I take this?

“Out de window I see a black Lincoln Continental pull up. Thas him, Betsy say. Well, Big Black a midget, a albino, big lips like liver. He walk in de room, up to de bed—Everybody out! Who he talkin’ to? Ain’ nobody in dere ’cept me ’n Betsy. Eloise at de door, but she ain’ in de room. OUT! he scream. Betsy ’n Eloise walk down de hall. I stand dere a second outside de door, den sink down on my knees look in de keyhole. It’s de weirdest feelin’, like air down in Mississippi befo’ a storm, emptied out ’n dangerous. I look see Mary ’tween de partin’ in de panels of de Chinese screen. She standin’ up. Don’ move, don’ say nothin’, I wanna tell her. Keep yo’ mouf shut! I guess she feel my words, ’cause she don’ even breathe hard. Big Black pull de sheets off Beymour, turn him ovah so he face down in de pillow. Big Black take off his pants, I see why dey call him Big Black, his thang bigger den Beymour’s, ’n it’s hard. He climb on top of Beymour’n start fuckin’ him in de ass. One hand holdin’ Beymour’s head down in de pillow. Dis is crazy I think. How dis helpin’ Beymour? Beymour cain’t breathe, can he? How can Beymour breathe Big Black doin’ dat! Now Beymour’s whole body buck like a fish no water, den, I mean Lord Jesus how is dis helpin’ Beymour! Beymour still now. I look over at de Chinese screen, don’ see Mary standin’ up, maybe she done laid down in her crib. Den I don’ remember. Entirely. Jus’ rusty kinda sticky smell of blood. All over everywhere.

“I’m already on my knees I stay down ’n start to crawl to Betsy’s room. Inchin’ hand knee hand knee hand knee. I’m soakin’ wet shakin’ as I crawl. Footsteps behind me. Get up! De floor so shiny I can see his shoes’n pants legs reflected. I rare back to come up off my hands ’n knees jus’ when his tan shoe is comin’ dead in my face again ’n again. Beymour! Beymour! I hollers, but don’ nothin’ come out ’cept blood ’n tooths.

Betsy open her door ’n run up to me screamin’, Stop! Big Black, STOP! I push mysef against de wall away from him. Big Black pull a razor out his pocket ’n slice it cross Betsy’s throat. I nevah hear a scream like dat in all my life. I close my eyes, it’s Mississippi fo’ a second, sky blue. I open my eyes it’s Big Black’s hand comin’ down steady like a hoe choppin’ cotton, but it’s Betsy he choppin’—again ’n down again ’n down’n again ’n again.

“Blood everywhere. Later people tell me de screams I heard was my own. Betsy’s throat cut past de bone die immediately. Guy say he heard me screamin’ on 145th Street. He nevah heard no screamin’ like dat befo’, not sirens on fire engines, elephants in movies, not nothin’ nobody.

“Dat was . . . oh, I don’ know forty, fifty years, yeah forty, forty-five, fifty years ago. Super, he was startin’ to be one of my regulars, tell de owner Beymour my husband. Dey let me keep de apartment, put a lease in my name. Dat was Rodriguez, he dead now. Blood was everywhere. Still smell it sometime.”

It’s like a movie only it ain’t. I close my eyes, pictures, the pictures is screaming. All around me blood, Beymour, the brothers, Richie Jackson. Fifty years. I start crying. Rocking. Sorry. So sorry. I get up off the bed. I feel so sorry love her so much. She’s noddin’, someplace else, her story over. Water is rolling down my face. I take the kaleidoscope out of the suitcase and lay it at her feet. Bye, Toosie. Bye, Great-Gran’ma. I close the suitcase. Where? I don’t know—I don’t want to live like her, I don’t want to
be
like her—I do know I’m outta here.

. . . making me dance
Inside
Your love is king

—SADE ADU

Whenever I see anyone hauling one of those oversize cheap suitcases on the subway, I think about that day, me holding on to my shit for dear life, everything else gone. Slavery Days went off at 805 and never really came back. I had come from Roman’s class that night with his card in my pocket,
“téléphone-moi”
on one side,
“CALL ME”
on the other. She was still sitting in roaches talking to herself, and I’m rapping to myself: My mother died in a car accident, my father died in the war. I’ll work out the details later. I canNOT be related to somebody ate dirt—Slavery Days, Nigger Boy—No. Maybe in the movies or a book or some shit. Big Black? Albino midget?
He climb on Beymour.
NO.

The first night I went home with him was maybe the end of the second or beginning of the third week of classes. I don’t remember. What I remember now is it was the end of his class at the Y, and I was leaning against the barre, and he walked over and said, “I have another class on the Upper West Side at Stride. If you serious about dance, you should be dancing every day. What other classes you is taking?” I told him about Imena on Thursday nights and Saturday afternoons. “That sounds good. If she’s who I think she is, she’s good. But whatever kind of dance you do, you need a strong foundation. Ballet is good for that. I like you, youze a hard worker.” I was looking down on his shiny pink scalp and his hair that looked like it had been planted in neat little rows.

“What happened to the side of your face? You has such a pretty face.”

My hand flew up like a girl’s to the side of my face. “It don’t mess you up, you know,” he says. “Roman just ask. After all, you is his pupil, isn’t you?”

I didn’t answer. My shoulder still hurt when I did port de bras, and the stitches on the top of my head ITCHED! When the cold hit my cheek, the whole side of my face throbbed. Pain. I was still trying to figure out what was going on with his hair. I had never seen implants before. Stride, yeah right, I thought, how was I gonna pay them double digits for classes at Stride? Stan had said Bureau of Child Welfare was paying for me at the Y through the City Arts for Kids Project.

“You was fighting with those boys uptown? Roman don’t want that. You become a dancer, you got to let them things go. You know what I mean?”

I knew what he meant.

“You could be my guest at Stride. Just use another name so City Kids don’t know. How old are you? Seventeen. Wait for me in front of Gourmet Fare.”

 

 

“CRAZY HORSE!
What kinda stupid shit is that!

“Stop being silly, you know what I mean. I mean something like Jim Jones, or Robert Johnson, or something like that. You is no Indian. I don’t know where you get all that from. You boys need to come to France sometime and see. Abdul is no name for you either. You is no Arab. Where you get that name from—Hey! Hey! Where you going! Come back! OK, OK, no more. I’m just saying a nice name like John or Robert bring you luck. You is a beautiful black boy, like . . . like
art,
you is so beautiful.”

I like the Upper West Side, it’s easier to steal food. I shouldn’t have let him see me pull a big Ghirardelli chocolate bar out my jeans, but shit, I was hungry. I had walked all the way from 150th and St Nicholas to 75th and Broadway to class.

“So you want to go to jail?”

“No, I wanted something to eat.”

A red and gold leaf lands in front of my feet. I’m sick of this fucker already. I’ll be fourteen in January. I got to survive my own life until I’m eighteen. I can do that being Crazy Horse, thinking these streets is hills and I’m lightning flying over them. I don’t know if I can do that being some nigger named Jim Jones; sound like a body-bag tag to me. I can’t stay at 805. I could roam, but not and study dance. Kick the leaf, I remember riding the bus upstate with my mother. She’s so tired she’s dozing off, but I’m nose to the window looking at the crazy-colored beautiful leaves. Every time she would wake up, she’d tell me, “Look at the leaves now. I want you to write me a report about
everything.
” We went to an inn for dinner and sat near a big window and watched the sky turn dark. We walked back to the bus station and sat outside looking at all the stars. “Why are there so many more stars up here, Mommy?” “There aren’t, it’s just the air is less polluted so you can see them better up here.” It was so cold, but my mother was warm and smelling of apple cider, clean sweat, and the sky was starry starry. We caught the last bus and saw every star in the world out the window on the way home. “Give your report to your teacher.”
We See the Trees Be Different Colors,
I had written. “Turn,” the teacher said, “
turn
different colors.” Whatever, I think, kicking the leaf out of my way as if it was some big obstacle. I don’t want to roam. Boys who roam end up weird, killed, or worse than killed.

Yeah, or worse, maybe that’s why I’m following this butt sniffer home. At his apartment on Riverside Drive I’m sitting on a cream-colored leather couch looking out on the river, watching the sun disappear, and the city lights come on like stars. I’m drinking cognac. I like drinking, it opens me up. Not like Jaime, he drink and all he wants is another drink and another, till he’s fucking wiped out. I drink something and I am, umm,
more
. . . more nice, more funny, smart. I’m thinking about the McDonald’s we passed on the way up here. I’m going to get three Super Value Meals, that’ll give me three Quarter Pounders with Cheese, three supersize fries, and three sodas, all for almost cheaper than three regular-size meals. And some donuts. And some protein energy bars from the convenience store, cinnamon-oatmeal and the peanut butter ones. I wonder how much he’s gonna give me, should I ask or just take it if he don’t act right? Where is it? He pours me another glass of cognac. I like the glass; if I had a bag, I would take it. Where’s the money, that’s what I’m thinking when he appears like a nurse with all these test tubes, little sticks, and shit.

Brother John always gave me stuff—my jacket, Timberlands, the best jeans from the box—but no money. Brother Samuel never gave me shit. I was never a . . . a
kid
to Brother Samuel, maybe because I was almost as big as him, but what about the kids who were littler? Because I was black? Most of us was. I wasn’t the blackest. Bobby, Etheridge Killdeer,
blue
-black, even though he was from Indians and had straight hair. Delete that shit! I ain’t there no more: My mother died in a car accident, and my father got killed in the war. After that, I went to live with my grandmother. Then I got a job and started to live by myself. I’m a normal person I’m a normal person I’m a normal person just like everybody else just like everybody else
just like everybody else.

I’m sitting on the side of his bed now, which is like ridiculous high, the mattress must be two feet deep or some shit. I think of my bed at St Ailanthus, plastic-covered black-and-white-striped mattress, number six under the window between Alvin Johnson and Malik Edwards. Who’s sleeping in my bed now? Roman has a little timer on the tray with the test tubes and strips of paper.

“Nurse Roman,” he says.

What’s this all about?

“This is my little home testing kit for you, you know, the virus.”

He can test for AIDS with this shit? The whole bedroom—walls, bedspread, furniture—is all the same white cream color as the couch in his living room. I never been in a room that’s all one color before. The bedspread is like satin or something. All I have on is my jeans, still zipped up but the button above the zipper is undone. How do I look, my black chest against all this satin cream? What’s he seeing? Brother John liked me because I was black, “You’re the only one,” he said. But I wasn’t. I
saw
. It still confuses me, but I think I see it now, what excited him, but why? He didn’t excite me, Jaime excited me, but then he’s not white, he’s beige. The pictures of the girls like Britney Spears, one hand holding their tit and licking their nipple, the other hand spreading their pussy, excited me. Excited me a lot. “You like
that,
” Brother John would say. “Well, take a look at
this,
” and show me more big white titties, pink tongues, yellow hair. He would get hard watching me get hard. But Brother John was so doofy-looking, all them pimples on his butt. Maybe only white people in magazines is exciting.

“You know you too tall to be a ballet dancer. Too tall and too big. Balanchine used to keep all those tall guys around because of all those giraffes he had in the company. But no more. How tall is you? Six-five, six-six, I bet?”

I don’t think so unless I grew overnight. Yeah, unless being told your great-grandfather’s name is Nigger Boy, unless being lied on and getting your arm twisted to shit causes you to get taller overnight, I’m six feet. But I guess in this little dude’s head I’m some kind of giant. Of all the kids in the class, he picked me. Or does he pick ’em all one by one? No, that’s sick. I’m special.

It never crossed my mind I might be HIV-positive. I look at Roman fiddling with his tubes on the tray. We’re kids, Jaime, Bobby, Malik, Richie, and us—thirteen, twelve, five, six. Kids don’t get it. You see the skeleton-looking addicts that got it, walking around humped over canes and shit till they die. You could look at those shits and tell they got it—

Well, I was right! I ain’t got it. Where was I going to get it from? St Ailanthus? We’re Catholic people, the brothers, they’re like priests, they don’t be in the Village or doing dope. The kids? We’re not homos. The park? I just unzip, pure vanilla, that’s it.

Roman seems all happy as he walks out the bedroom with his little chemistry set. He has on pink ballet slippers; I guess that’s how these types relax.

He puts on some dinosaur rap. I don’t know why, but I’m starting to get mad.

“You must tell me what you like. I know you boys—”

I jump up. “Shit, how many of us is in here!”