The Shooting (20 page)

He duck off the avenue onto Twelfth Street, lean against a wall recently painted to cover up writing. Take out his phone. He text her: Can't wait for tonight. Watch the nice town house across the street, the front door is closed but they left their keys in it. Flowers are in tree beds out front. The brick is bright and stoop is clean, heavy black iron railings painted recently. Stacey write back, Me too;). He lift the phone to his mouth and he kiss her text. Then he dash across the street and up the steps of the town house, ring the bell. No one come. He ring again. Still nothing. Ring a third time, knock too. He lean over and look in the window. Inside, someone standing at the top of the stairs. Seeing him looking in, they duck around the corner to hide.

—Yo, he call through the glass, tapping on it. —Your key in the door!

He tap again, ring the bell yet again. They keep hiding. He like,
You for real? Maybe I'll crack the door and toss the keys inside and close it, that'll at least be better than just letting them dangle like this for anyone to take.
He put his hand on the knob, turn it, it open. Before he push it all the way open he thinks,
Hold up—
the fuck you doing?
This how you gonna get
shot. Sometimes he forget what he is to them. It hard to always keep it in mind, to keep track of their perception of you, to consider how you are seen by them. That something he learning better and better: you can't just live. They can, but you can't. You can't just behave naturally, as a human, and just do things you naturally do, like tell someone they motherfucking keys in the door. You always got to remember that you exist as two people—the
you
you and the
they
you, meaning the thing white people want to see when they look at you. You don't get to just live. Not if you want to live. Okay, then. He remove his hand off they doorknob, he turn and hop down the steps.

Has a thought as he walks away, a sort of moment of clarity in which he see everything in ultrahigh definition, a million megapixels per inch: That sums a lot of people up right there, don't it? Crouched inside they house, holding they breath, scared out their minds of whoever is knocking on their door and they don't even know who it is.

Get home, Pops's out front the building sweeping up other people's trash off the sidewalk, just where Clayton expected him to be. He hate when his pops's exactly where he expect him to be. And he's
always
exactly where he expect him to be.

—How are the rugrats? Pops say.

For a minute Clayton has no idea what he talking about—rugrats?—but then he remember he told his parents he and the boys were volunteering last night as counselors at an overnight church camp for little kids.

—Oh, it was fine, he say, enjoying the image of Raul trying to chase after a bunch of little kids. —Those brats though, man, they exhausting, they never get tired.

—Don't take nap yet.

—I know, I'll be right there, I just need to change and wash up.

—Hurry up.

—I
will.
Damn, why you gotta tell me to hurry up? Do I ever not hurry?

—Don't stop to use bathroom. You'll be in there all day.

—What are you even talking about?

—We should take a look.

—At what?

—Your digestive system.

—Why?

—Something wrong with it maybe. Always in bathroom. Hours and hours and hours. Your mother is concerned.

—Oh my God, you need to stop. For real.

His dad's grinning but trying not to, tip of his tongue sticking out from between his rows of teeth.

—Ain't even funny, Clayton say.

—It start beginning of last summer, no? Your medical condition? The day we painted apartment. After you went to store to get new paint. Met Hector's daughter.

—Ain't even funny, Clayton say again.

—You caught stomach virus there maybe. His dad snickering, going back to his sweeping.

—Whatever you say, Clayton say, opening the door, going inside, mortified.

He go in, holding the door for Ms. Larson coming out, a tall pretty lady always dressed up and whose high heels always clack. She had cancer a few years ago, almost died. His pops had Clayton water her plants and take care of her cats and keep the place clean for her while she was in the hospital. Momma cooked for her. Ever since then on Clayton's mom and dad anniversary, Ms. Larson make his mom a new dress to wear to dinner. It ain't just a dress either—it's a
gown.
Like
Oscars
shit. Mom look like Halle Berry in them. He tell her that too and she smile and you can tell she love it. Mom's friends always telling her to turn around and sell them after she wear them. Custom-made, one-of-a-kind Elana Larson gown? She'd get
thousands.
She always say no way, my friend made me this, a gift from my friend. Nobody else knew Elana Larson had cancer, only Clayton and his folks. She told nobody else in the world, not even her assistants. As far as the fashion world knew she was off on some crazy-ass Buddhist retreat where she had to keep a vow of silence, so she couldn't talk to or see anyone for months. It helped explain how skinny she was when she came home.

Always say she going to write Clayton a college recommendation when the day come he start applying, just let her know. He got three years to go still and it might as well be thirty, but she went to Yale and knows a lot of rich people who went to other schools like that and serve on advisory boards, and knowing she in his corner inspired him to boost his GPA last year from 3.1 to 3.6. She say, —Clayton, I encounter a lot of very successful, effective people in what I do and I see in you the same qualities that they have. You can be one of those people. You can live that kind of life. Just let me know if there's anything I can do to help you get there.

She always seem lonely, Ms. Larson. Whenever he see her, like now, for a second before she see him, when she in her own world stepping off the elevator, rounding the corner, she look sad, like she a million miles inside herself, like she crouched down in a great big empty house with her fingers in her ears, praying no one looking in through her window ringing her bell to tell her her keys in the door. Then she see him and, whoosh, she light up, burst out of herself, smile, call to him in her rich loud voice, —Good morning,
Clayton! He can't imagine what it must be like to feel like you can't tell nobody but your super that you dying. Why do people live like this? He always want to be like,
Why you like that? All you adults
,
all you grown-ups: Why you like that? Why don't you just stop?

The doorman Lucien standing behind the counter flirting with Frank the UPS guy again, Clayton say what up to them. Lucien got hair like
Saturday Night Fever
but it graying. When Clayton first met him when he started working here three years ago, Clayton assumed the man was an actor who couldn't make a living at it or a recovering drug addict or an ex-drag queen or all the above, but his dad found out Lucien was in the Secret Service for twenty years, protecting President Bush, then Clinton, then the other Bush, that crazy one who fucked up all kinds of shit and nowadays just sit around all day painting pictures of cats. Lucien saved his money all his career and retired here to NYC, took this job to have something to do and a way to meet people. Chose NYC because, as Lucien say, it the greatest city in the world. —I never want to see a gun again, let alone carry one, Lucien say. —I just want to live and love, baby. Spends his off nights at bars in Chelsea doing exactly that. Dude got game. For real. Clayton gotta hand it to the man.

Some odd creatures show up in that building lobby off the street sometimes, there are some scary cracked-out drunk people out there, but Clayton feel safe knowing Lucien down there keeping everything on lock. He a bad muthafucka. Clayton seen him wrestle a big ol' drunk dude to the ground, must have been six-foot-six, 350 pounds, and keep him down until the cops come, and he also seen Lucien break up fights between girlfriend and boyfriend that look like they about to get violent, but charming them, talking to them and listening to what they say, keeping the peace.

Clayton take the stairs to the basement. Down in the basement he pass the laundry room where Art stands scowling in his underwear, no pants on, growling at the washing machine like an animal.

—What's the matter, Art?

—Damn thing ate my money again, he say.

—Pssh, Art, man, I told you, it didn't eat your money, it just don't start till you put the lid down. See? Look. Clayton go to the washer
trying not to look at Art's nasty-ass dirty laundry in there, shuts the lid. It's now supposed to switch on and start filling with water but it don't.

—Damn thing, Art says. —Damned
conmen running this place.

—No one's a conman, Art. These buttons probably just aren't pushed in all the way. You never push them in all the way.

—I push them.

—Not all the way though. Clayton push them, nothing happen.

—Classic con, say Art.

—Okay, what about your money, Art? You put money in it, right?

—Hell no, I didn't.

—Art, you didn't put any money in it?

—Why would I do that? It's only gonna eat it.

—You crack me up, Art. Here. This one's on the house. Clayton pull out his keys, there's a special one that opens up the maintenance panel on the washers to get at the circuits. He pop the panel open, hits a button to turn on the machine. The washer comes to life, water comes pouring out.

—Temperamental machine, Art grumble.

—Sure is, Art. All right, I'll see you. And Art, man, you gotta put pants on, man. For real.

—Don't tell me about pants.

—I won't tell you about pants, Art. I won't. I'll see you, Art.

Clayton go down the hall to his door at the end of it, near the freight entrance and the trash. He unlock it, go inside. His mom making breakfast, he smelled it from down the
hall, fit-fit
and
fatira,
damn his stomach
growling.

—Is that you, baby?

—What up, Momma.

His mom wild, she still have that thick heavy accent and always bungling her words—she ain't making breakfast, she's
making the breakfats.
Clayton pretty sure sometime she do it on purpose, just because she think it funny, but over her fifteen years in America, in New York City, she assimilated into her vocabulary all kinds of ways of talking—from kinda street or hip-hop like how he talk to little bits of Spanish, some Korean, even Arabic she pick up from the bodega
man. She that quiet kind of smart, the kind where she don't have to say nothing smart for you to know she smart. You wouldn't be surprised to learn she was a professor back in the day in their home country, before they had to leave.

His folks don't tell him much about all that. When he ask how they did it, how they got out of there alive—that place is
still
on the news, satellites keep turning up secret concentration camps, people still going missing, seem like there always war going on or an entire village getting slaughtered—and how they made it to America, how they got in, because you can't just show up at JFK and get made an American, you need papers, you need connects—but all they ever say is
Strangers. We were not afraid of strangers. Including you.
He never know what they mean by that:
including you.
He always ask, they never tell him.

—Clayton, do you want the breakfats? she call from the kitchen as he duck into his room to sit on his bed and open the shoe box and look at his Jordans.

—Gotta help Dad.

—Don't be punk. You have to eat.

He put his hand over his face.
Don't be punk.
That some funny shit. He take his phone out real quick, tweet that, toss his phone aside, pull his shoes off, take out the new Jordans. Damn, they smell
good.
They all stiff and bright and the insides are soft like something an astronaut would wear. Yeah, these are engineered by the elite, man, and you can tell—they feel like they should be part of a spaceship. He smell them again. He addicted to that scent, that new Jordan aroma. Laces them. Even the laces are premium, got these glittery woven flourishes that seem like would hold up a suspension bridge for a hundred years without breaking. Now for the big moment: he put them on his feet...
Ooooooooooo-we!
They feel
gooooood,
they grip that foot, they wrap that foot in comfort and warmth and softness, it feel like a girl, it feel like
Stacey.
He put on the other one. Shivers are going up and down his spine as he tie it and stand up in them. They so light, he feel like nothing on his feet. He feel powerful in these shoes,
indomitable.
Like he can go outside on the court right now and drive the lane like LeBron, drop eighty-foot threes like Steph Curry.

Wears them into the kitchen to show his moms. —Check it out, he say.

—Where did you get those?

—Bought them.

—When?

—Last night. She narrow her eyes, knowing something up. —I mean, last
afternoon
, like, on my way to the church. I had some time to kill. I had money saved up from making deliveries. These are limited edition, Mom. Only a thousand in existence.

She raise her eyebrows, turn her mouth downward, nodding in approval. —They bang, she say. He bend over cackling. —What's so funny? she say, pretending to be confused, but she smiling too.

He put his arm around her, smooch her cheek. He go back to his room to get his phone. To his tweet Kenny say: lol. Stacey say, awww she so adorable. hi clayton's mom! and a little blinky smiley face with flowers. He say back, I kno right? love her. Then he take the shoes off, wipe them down with the piece of cloth that came with them, stuff the paper and plastic form holders back in them, place them carefully into the velvet bag that came with them too, and set it in the box, place the box in proud top position on his dresser, next to his chess tournament trophy. The rest of his Jordans are in the closet, in their original boxes, precisely stacked according to release date. Five pair. Each one worked for and earned dollar by dollar. That's why he take such good care of them—appreciates them more than those rich kids do. But these, these new ones here, these his favorite. The prize jewel in the crown, for sure. He kiss the box and change, brush his teeth, eat breakfast, then hustle back out to help his pops.