by Sapphire
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!”
“What?” He’s looking all alarmed.
“You keep saying ‘you boys’ this, ‘you boys’ that.” I dash to a door I guess is a closet, fling the door open. “They in here?” I feel like a fool for letting him give me that test. What made him think I would just sit still for that? He had me figured out?
“You gonna pay for that test,” I try to growl, but my voice just comes out loud and high. Like a girl?
“Ah, sweetheart, do not be angry. Roman is trying to stop this dreadful disease that kills so many young boys and so many of your people. And us too. So many is dead.”
Half the time he sound like some old movie actress with that “you is so beautiful” shit. Other times he’s talking I hear something else, but I can’t put my finger on it. What would Jaime think of this guy? I take off my jeans.
“Give me the cookies and a condom.”
“Huh?”
“The dough, bread, money.”
“But we have tested for each other.”
We. I can’t believe this dude. I’m a kid so I’m dumb? He better have some money, or I’ll crack his motherfucking head open, take everything I can carry out of here, and show for ballet class in the morning. “You boys.” Please!
I take the condom from him, it’s weird to put it on, I never wore one before. Your dick is supposed to be hard? I s
ee the white girl’s hand in the video as she opens the square package and gives it to the boy, but I don’t remember how they put it on, just that she points at the little peak left at the tip, room to come. Video is different from real life. Row row row the boat, roll it down the dick. Hah! I’m a poet. I can’t let this old dude think I don’t know what I’m doing.
“Let me lubricate you, dahling.”
I’m rolling this shit, trying to get it on my dick. I know this hurts this dude more than if I stomped his head. He had his program laid out. Wonder what he do with the “you boys” that test out shitty. He’s pouting. I finish rolling it down. Revenge. Roman is different from the brothers. He ain’t no man, dude. But then Brother Samuel wasn’t no man with the pit bulls down at the police station. And Brother John disappeared. I look at the turquoise film of latex over my penis. Ha! I look at a picture on the wall in front of me. He turns to see what I’m looking at.
“Oh, Picasso! You know Picasso?”
“I heard his name before.”
“You should know him. He’s the most famous artist. You know he claim he have African blood.”
“They said that about him?”
“No, the fool say it about himself! I don’t mean he’s a fool to say that, just he’s a fool in general, how he treat all those girls, and his son, don’t like gay people and all, but talking about his ‘Moorish ancestors.’”
Moorish ancestors?
The white people called her Lucy, but the Ethiopians called her Dinquenesh. What does Dinquenesh mean, Mommy? Baby, I don’t know.
“Where you is, boy?” He waves his hand in front of my face.
“Look we got to work this ‘boy’ shit out.”
“You is a boy. How old are you? Tell Roman the truth.”
“Thirteen.”
“Stop lying! Making a fool of me!” He touches the turquoise.
“I told you I was seventeen, so why keep asking?”
“I is not ‘keep asking.’ I ask you once and ask one more time because I is concerned about you. OK, now when one is seventeen, he is a boy. He should go to school, not drink whiskey or go to prostituée. A boy need help, protection. A boy is not a man, even though he be a man one day. Don’t no mens come here to Roman.”
He has on a pair of faded jeans, one knee out and a fluffy pink sweater, like what ballerinas wear to warm up in, and leg warmers. When he takes off the sweater and the torn T-shirt he had on under it, his body is a shock. It’s like Michelangelo drew his muscles for him!
“First position!” he barks, turning his legs out from his hip sockets, his bulging thigh muscles pointing to the side of the room along with his feet.
“I made this body! I was not you—look what you got! God is give you everything! You boys always crying racism, my mother, my father, the police! Nobody give you anything in this goddamn world! Suffer? I could tell you about what happen to my family in Europe, but you don’t care. My family experience it all. You want to dance? You dance. You better built than Alvin or Arthur. I tell you I know them? I was very close to Alvin before her died. Arthur too. I could tell you stories.”
About what, and who is Alvin, and I don’t care about his parents and Europe. Maybe I’ll get an order of chicken nuggets too. He’s still standing in first position, looking more like a soldier than a dancer. So where was he born?
“You got more than three or four people put together! No one thought I would dance—bad body, short. But I did. Roman been around a long time. I run into some of them people every now and then, not many left, most of them dead, you know, the plague. Them not dead is fat, same thing, right?”
I think of the big girls in Imena’s class dancing their asses off; I try to imagine Roman in that funky gym with no mirrors getting down in front of the drums. I can’t. He turns his little legs back in, walks toward me. What I see now is me getting up, picking up the lamp on the table by the bed, and walking slow, like I’m walking through water, toward him—Then I see myself onstage, the corps lined up behind me. Holding my head up, I walk downstage, I port de bras, bow, the stage is bathed in light. People are screaming my name. I see the newspaper headlines: NOT SINCE THE GREAT SO-&-SO! Ladies are crying. I hear one lady over the roar of the crowd: “You dance like an angel!”
“You will let Roman suck you without thee condumb,” he begs.
Now that he’s safe, he want to play hardball, “without thee condumb.” Fuck him. But I do get confused about head; you can’t get AIDS from that shit. Chocolate, yes, vanilla, no. It ain’t gonna be a thang even if he was thinking about riding, which girlfriend ain’t. He’s going to work on my nuts. Testicles, Abdul. His tongue playing me, feels good. My dick gets hard. It’s your body—Shut up. It’s your fault. I feel like crying. His finger touches my asshole, I flinch, forget it, Roman, I think of Brother John, Brother Samuel, at least they was men. He’s kissing the inside of my thighs, ooh. He’s also trying to roll the condom down. Ping! On the side of his head with my thumb and middle finger. He looks up all puppy-dog innocence. I wag my finger, playing but not really, even though I don’t care about the condom, I don’t want to give in.
“How much?” I taunt.
“Roman does not have a lot of money.”
“Then what you gonna do?” I wanted my voice to come out way deep, but it squeaked.
“Roman wishes you was his boy. His big black boy. You could live here.”
He reaches up, touches a cut on my chest from where a piece of the mirror fell on me.
“Who, your father beat you like that? Whatever.” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “You could be Roman’s man.”
He unrolls the condom, his tongue following it down, the air hitting me makes me shiver. The condom is a blue spot on his white carpet. He swallows me.
“You are a good clean boy. You like for Roman to take care of you?”
He swallows me again. I thrust slow in his mouth. Hail Mary full of grace. Eeee! Feels so fucking good what he’s doing with his tongue, the Lord is with thee, on the tip, whoa! I keep thrusting. He’s holding my booty. Blessed art thou among women, I’m breaking like firecrackers going off, fucking Fourth of July. Fucking Jesus Christ Holy Mary Mother of God! My skin is lighting up all over, I’m kneading my nipples, blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus! Thinking of Christ and the D train going across the bridge, me and my mother, January night the whole city cold and lit up, fireworks going off across the water like the end of loneliness. For a minute I’m who I was and who I will be, a little boy and a man, in the last inning and I’m winning, coming, it’s my birthday, Mommy is bringing me ice cream and cake. Mostly ice cream down his throat. Oomph ump! Blow out the candles now make a wish on a falling star. I don’t see a falling star, Mommy. Well, pretend you do! I wish I may I wish I might be the dancingest star in the sky tonight! Ha!
THAT WAS MY first night with Roman, how it began. Now I’m leaving.
“So what’s with all the questions?” I ask.
“You is the one told me to move the stuff around to make room for your sneakers. I didn’t go looking for nothing. They fall in my lap! Now, yes, Roman is curious.”
“They just fell out of the suitcase into your lap? Yeah, right!”
“The suitcase wasn’t locked. Stop being an idiot!” he snaps.
“Oh, I’m being an idiot now?” I snap back.
“You wanna fight rather than answer me. You mean you never read them? I don’t believe you!”
“I don’t have to lie to you.” Fuck him!
“I can’t believe I never know any of this before, all I hear about is this book, that exhibit, Herd, Basquiat! You never tell me any of this before!”
“You never asked before. You didn’t want to know. You’re asking now because . . .”
“Well, finish. You asking now because? Well, go on! Because . . . ?”
“Forget it!” I shout.
“You always do that, talking out the side of your mouth. You can’t answer me in a decent conversation.” He pouts.<
br />
Here we go again.
“I can’t even finish a sentence, you ask me so many fucking questions.”
“So finish the story,” he insists.
“You keep inter—”
“Well, because I never hear anything like it,” he interrupts again.
“And you ain’t gonna hear nothing ‘like it’ if you don’t shut up. I have a rehearsal in a little while.”
“Don’t get grand, dear. I know what you got. You forget who introduce you to those people in the first place.”
“Introduce me to who?” I say.
“You meet Scott and Noël in my class; you don’t think I remember,” he says.
“I’m glad you remember something,” I say.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” I say.
“See how you is,” he says in his most injured voice. “Go on with the story, please.”
“So anyway, I’d only been there a few—”
“Where’s ‘there’? I’m sorry, go on.”
“So anyway, I’d only been there a couple of weeks or so and there was all this . . . this confusion. Some of the priests had been messing with the kids, and evidently one of them had moved on me—”
“Evidently?”
“Yeah, one of them tried to mess with me—”
“Ooohh, I wish it had been me!”
I glare at his stupid ass.
“It’s a joke, silly. You has no sense of humor.”
“It’s all over the news now, but back then no one believed that shit. So here I am a kid in the hands of these . . . these perpetrators. They got custody of me by saying I was an orphan with no living relatives. But they tell that shit to me too—everybody’s dead, you ain’t got nobody, right? No, wrong! I had a grandmother, great-grandmother, some of my dad’s people in the Bronx, a sister—”
