by Dwayne Reed
“Can I come talk to you some more tomorrow, Sunny?”
“Mi casa es su casa, my boy,” he jokes with a new mouthful of fried fish and white bread, one arm opened across the bench. “You know where to find me next time. I just gotta make it through the night. Thanks for the grub, big man.”
CHAPTER 16
“SO I TOLD ’EM… I TOLD ’EM I AIN’T getting onstage without my special microphone! I told ’em they gon’ have to get another lead singer if they can’t find it.” Sunny high-fives one of his friends.
“I know that’s right!” At one in the afternoon, Sunny has a whole audience of homeless friends in the dining hall of Creighton Park Community Outreach surrounding him for story time. Everybody’s leaning in to listen to him talk about his younger days as the lead singer of a blues band.
“So what they do?” one lady asks, staring at Sunny like his story was her favorite movie ever.
“They found them another lead singer!”
Sunny’s whole table busts out laughing as crumbs of food fly through all the empty spaces where their teeth used to be. From across the room me, C.J., and Maria walk toward his table while he catches his breath. The sound of Sunny’s wheezing after laughing at his own stories is funnier than the stories. I feel happy just seeing Sunny be Sunny again.
“Moral of the story: Keep yo’ microphone in yo’ pocket at ALL times!” Sunny is the life of the party, and it’s strange hearing him talk about his old life. It makes me even more curious. “So you could be… How that song go? Irreplaceable…,” Sunny sings, trying to use the words of that Beyoncé song I heard playing the other day to finish telling his story. I walk toward him with Maria by my side while C.J. wanders around, dapping people up at different tables like everybody is now his friend after meeting some of them only once before. Whatever his dad told him about staying away from someone who is homeless seems to be melting away.
Maria’s never been to the shelter with me, so she stays close, walking with her left arm linked into my right. It feels kind of good to be showing another best friend the place Dad showed me just a few days ago. A place I didn’t even know was so close to us, down the street from my house, where so many people in our neighborhood have to eat because they don’t have money to get food from anywhere else.
“Rhymin’ Simon! You’re back!”
“Hi, Sunny,” I say, feeling proud that he’s so happy to see me.
“Maria, Mariaaaaaa,” he sings, swaying and two-stepping toward Maria. She smiles back at him but looks around for a minute at everyone else, squeezing my arm tighter. Usually I’m the one who gets nervous, but I guess even though Sunny isn’t new, everyone else is too many strangers for her at once. Maybe how Ms. Estelle feels about people who are homeless has rubbed off on Maria a little.
“Hi, Mr. Sunny,” Maria finally squeezes out while using her pointer finger to push her glasses higher up on her nose. Today the frames are lime green.
“I like those glasses, Miss Maria,” Sunny says back to her softly. I can tell he’s trying to make her feel comfortable being somewhere she’s never been before.
“Bruh, everybody in here LOVES me,” C.J. yells to us across the dining hall, already sitting squeezed all cozy in between some of Sunny’s friends at a table where they’re playing chess. I turn toward C.J., making sure he sees me rolling my eyes at him, even though I’ve always thought it was so cool how C.J. makes people love him everywhere he goes. Maria lets go of my arm and runs over to him to get in on the action. I turn back around and sit down across from Sunny. Maria will make sure C.J. doesn’t do anything he isn’t supposed to while we wait for Ms. Estelle to pick us up in an hour.
“Came to tell me about how that new teacher of yours done gave you a ONE HUNNEDT on that project, didn’t you? I just know your whole class gave you a round of applause!” Sunny’s smiling way too hard for me to tell him the truth right away. He’s in too much of a good mood for me to tell him I’ve already freaked out and the actual big day still hasn’t come yet.
“Um… something like that… err… the whole class made… a lot of noise when I was done.”
“That’s my guy!” Sunny raises his hand in the air to high-five me, and the rest of the truth splurts out just like my guts did all over the bathroom floor yesterday afternoon.
“I don’t know what I got on my project, Sunny. I don’t really present until Monday, but I ran out of the room before I could even say anything for real yesterday when we were practicing in our groups. Everybody… everybody was laughing at me before I could even get my words out. One of my partners made fun of me and then everybody was looking at our group and laughing. I don’t know what happened. But it was like everything just disappeared out of my head like a magic trick.” I feel Sunny’s eyes on me even though my head’s down as I try to tell him how I lost my voice in front of the whole class. That I couldn’t do it even though I knew what I was supposed to present was important.
I LET SUNNY DOWN YESTERDAY, AND I CAN FEEL IT.
I KNOW HE BELIEVED I WOULD ABSOLUTELY KILL IT!
INSTEAD, SCAREDY SIMON MESSED UP AND BLEW IT.
NOW THE WHOLE HOMELESS SHELTER’S GONNA KNOW I LOOKED STUPID.
I WISH I COULD CRAWL AWAY FROM THIS CONVERSATION
LIKE I WISH I COULD WALK AWAY FROM MY PRESENTATION.
I WISH I COULD RUN, BUT THE DAMAGE IS DONE.
GOTTA BE A BIG DOG AND ACCEPT WHAT’S TO COME.
WOOF WOOF
“Oh. You didn’t say nothin’ at all?”
“Well… I did say… something.” I don’t want to tell him the word. I don’t know if he calls himself what we call him.
“And what is that?” he asks, scratching the top of his head, making me wonder what his hair used to look like before he got old.
“Um… um…”
“Go on, spit it out, son. You ain’t in class now. I ain’t nobody.” I want to tell Sunny that isn’t true. I want to tell him that’s why I’ve been feeling like I’m failing at this project. Sunny is somebody.
“Homelessness.”
“What’s that, now?” He leans in, sticking a finger in one ear and wiggling it like he’s clearing out wax. “Speak up.”
“I said homelessness.” Saying the word so loud in front of Sunny makes me want to hide under the table. He’s old like Grandma Lucille, who has a house on the South Side. I like going to Grandma Lucille’s house because she always has all kinds of food in her fridge and something baking in the oven when we come over. And she has a room in her house with a bed made up just for me and my brothers to stay the night when we feel like it. She has a car and a dog named Lucky, too. I thought that was what all old people had. Homeless doesn’t sound like the right word to use for Sunny. Saying it in front of him makes me feel like I’m calling him a rude name. Like something Bobby might call me.
“Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” is all Sunny says at first.
“It was,” I whisper.
“I don’t know why, my boy. That’s what the topic is, ain’t it? And that’s what I deal with every day. I ain’t ashamed of it, son. And it ain’t a bad word,” he says as if he just read my mind. “I know why you’re here, Simon. And you know what? I’m glad about it.”
I finally lift up my head, looking at him for the first time in the past few minutes.
“All these times y’all came to see me this week and all those questions you been asking make me feel real good inside. Like people really care about me. It’s nice knowing somebody cares about your story.”
Sunny smiles hard with all his teeth, and I sit there not knowing what to say. All this time I’ve been scared to say the truth about Sunny, and having someone care about his story is what’s making him feel so happy.
“You be eatin’ that food over there, Mr. Sunny?” Maria asks, plopping back down at our table, with C.J. coming to sit down right behind her. She doesn’t look so nervous about being here anymore, and that means Sunny will see how much she can talk. I didn’t ev
en hear them coming, and her voice snapped me out of it. “If my ’buela Estelle was here, she’d say it needs a lot more sazón! And where is the—”
“Maria!” I growl, elbowing her in her side before she can say anything else. She’s already found time to hang with C.J.’s table and inspect the food being served. The table shakes and doesn’t stop for a few minutes. Me and Maria think it’s C.J. getting comfortable in his seat, but when we look up it’s Sunny. Tears falling down his face, laughing at us hard. It seems like a long time before he finally stops and wipes his face.
“Y’all remind me of my Patti,” he says, still breathing loudly after laughing so hard at us.
“Who’s that?” C.J. asks.
“My wife,” he tells us, smiling and looking down at his left hand, rubbing on one of his fingers. The same finger my mom and dad wear their wedding rings. “Couldn’t nobody stop her from speaking her mind. She said what she had to say and asked whatever she felt like asking, but I couldn’t ever get her on that stage with me no matter what I tried. We met when we was kids. Just like y’all. Getting in all kinds of trouble all over Creighton Park back when it was still safe to play by ourselves out there and kids could walk home from school by themselves. One day I watched her climb up a tree to rescue her old cat, Paw Paw, and the rest was history. I ain’t seen a girl climb a tree like that before. I ain’t never climbed a tree before and there she was, all the way up in a tree like it wasn’t nothing. I didn’t leave her side after that.”
Old people are always talking about history, but I look at C.J. and Maria and can tell, just like me, they’re surprised to hear Sunny’s. When Dad brought me to the shelter the first time to serve, I just thought maybe I’d ask Sunny about what it’s like not having a house. I never really thought to ask him about his family and the things he likes. It’s strange thinking maybe he had all the things I have now and still ended up here. Somehow. It’s even more strange to think of Sunny ever being little like me.
“That’s right. I was eleven years old once. Hard to believe, right? I know you been thinking about climbin’ them trees outside. Don’t do it!” Sunny got jokes, raising his hands up in front of us while his eyes get all big like he’s really trying to stop us.
“I’ve never seen anybody climb a tree in Creighton Park,” C.J. says, like it’s the craziest thing he’s ever heard.
“Yeah,” Maria adds. “I’d be grounded till I was sixty-three years old!”
“Well, this city ain’t what it used to be. Can’t play the same way around here,” Sunny says, getting all serious, which makes the three of us get super quiet.
“Did you have to do presentations in front of your class when you were in the fifth grade, Sunny?” I know it’s time for me to ask Sunny some real questions. Joking is fun and all. But something reminds me I don’t have a lot of time. Who knows where Sunny might be tonight or the next day?
“Of course, man. I wasn’t too much of a good student, though. Except for in music class. Me, I knew I wanted to be an artist.” Sunny’s long, spacey yellow teeth shine in the light when he says that. This must be what Moms be talkin’ about when she tries to tell me what’ll happen to my teeth if I don’t brush and floss twice a day.
“All the other boys wanted to be engineers and doctors and mechanics like their pops told them they should, but not me. All I wanted to do was sang,” Sunny continues, looking out across the dining hall like he’s daydreaming right in front of us.
“You sing so nice, Mr. Sunny. My mama look like her head hurts when I sing in the house.” We all laugh, thinking about Maria’s mom having to plug her ears at Maria’s voice.
“Thank you, little sis. Too bad sangin’ ain’t pay my bills. I learned that the hard way when I got older. And since I ain’t pay enough attention in school, there was less for me to do.”
“So what’d you do?” Everybody’s into this. Even C.J.
“I got me a job! Walked down there to Booker T. and put in an application to clean them toilets and mop them floors back at my old elementary school! Figured I ain’t know a lot but I knew my way around that place.” Whaaaat?
All three of us sit there with our mouths hanging open, not believing what we just heard, so Maria makes sure we didn’t imagine it.
“YOOOU WENT TO BOOKER T.?! That’s crazy, Mr. Sunny. ’Buela is always talking about how different school was for her as a little niña in Puerto Rico and how grateful we should be. I told her all the tables in the cafeteria is broken and she said everything looks so new and pretty. I’m gonna tell her Booker T. has been open for hundreds and HUNDREDS of years!”
“Whoa whoa whoa,” Sunny says, chuckling and raising his hands up for Maria to slow down. “I ain’t that old, baby girl.” Sunny’s hands send a little breeze over to our side of the table that reminds me of how he smelled when I handed him the box of food yesterday in the park. It kind of smelled like something that was in the air yesterday morning walking into school just before everything went sideways. Maybe I’m imagining it. Sunny wasn’t even around.
“So you gave up your dream to be a singer?” I have to know. How did Sunny get here? If he did the right thing by getting a job, how is he sitting in the shelter with us right now?
“Never. Crazy part about being a janitor is that nobody ever really talks to you. It got lonely sometimes, but I sang through those halls every day until it was time to clock out. I ain’t have no stage to get on or even know the first thing about how to be a singer in the world, but I did what I could. That school had the best acoustics, man,” he says, shaking his head like what he’s telling us is sad.
“What about what you were telling everybody earlier?”
“Oh, that band I used to sing wit’? Can’t sing to yourself too long before somebody else who likes music finds you. Before I knew it I was jamming with the other folk who did thangs around the school after we got off work. I had a good thing goin’ on for a while.”
“So then what happened, Sunny?” C.J. asks.
“What you mean, my boy?”
“What happened to you, if you had a job?” Leave it up to C.J. to be rude. I give him a look and he raises his hands the way you do when you tell somebody you don’t know something. I guess I do want to know.
“Budget cuts. School got a new principal and all of a sudden all the jobs they said wasn’t important started getting cut. Back then I ain’t know that much about money, so it got real hard after that, kiddo. Real hard.” Sunny drifts off the same way he did the first day I got to hang out with him here. I don’t like how sad he looks, but this time I feel kind of happy to know more about him. “Sang for a while out here, ya know. I had a real good voice and people paid money to see me, here and there. Learned I could use it to help take care of me and Patti for a while. It was real hard, but all I knew was that it felt good when I was singin’. All them people comin’ out to hear me made me feel like something.”
“Did you ever get scared?” Maria sneaks a quick look at me before looking back at him.
“All the time, lil sis.” Then he looks back at me. “But I had to remember that, besides my gal Patti, all I had was my voice at the end of the day. Nobody else has this voice. It’s what makes me me.”
“I know what you mean,” I say, almost whispering. I’m talking to Sunny but keep my eyes on the table. “I be getting nervous sometimes when this kid Bobby at school tries to mess with me. A-a-and like when I gotta do stuff in front of the whole class… but when I’m rhyming… I don’t feel so scared or so little anymore. I feel good about being me.”
“Then you should keep doing it, my boy. Do it all the time till you feel that way about yourself all the time.” I try to think about what Sunny is saying. About how I can use my skills to help me really feel like the Notorious D.O.G. Sunny never stopped singing, and even though a lot of bad stuff has happened in his life he’s still Sunny.
“Now you know I ain’t forget about that promise you made me, right?” Sunny says. I smile back at Sunny even thou
gh I feel a little gurgle coming on deep down in my belly.
“Wanna tell me about what happened yesterday, again?” Then Sunny starts clapping slow like he’s giving me a beat. Maria sways to it while C.J. becomes my hype man, moving his hands around to the beat in the air, doing his best Notorious B.I.G. impression the way his dad taught him.
UHN… UHN… YEAH… LET’S GO…
I AIN’T REALLY PLAN FOR ANY OF THIS TO HAPPEN
BUT I MADE A PROMISE, I’D LET YOU HEAR ME RAPPIN’.
USUALLY I DO THIS AT THE CRIB IN FRONT OF FAMILY,
NOT IN FRONT OF PEOPLE, SO YOU GOTTA UNDERSTAND ME…
WHEN I SAY I’M NERVOUS, AND Y’ALL CAN PROBLY HEAR IT.
VOICE IS KINDA SHAKY, SUPER BASIC LYRICS.
BUT IT’S GETTING BETTER AS I GO, THIS I KNOW,
CUZ I CAN SEE THE WAY Y’ALL ARE ROCKIN’ TO MY FLOW.
ALL THANKS TO SUNNY, I’M RAPPIN’ OUT IN PUBLIC.
NOW WHEN I’M AT SCHOOL TALKIN’, I CAN CRUSH IT!
SO LOUD AND FREE, I’M SO PROUD OF ME,
NOT SIMON, BUT NOTORIOUS D.O.G.
WOOF WOOF!
CHAPTER 17
“ALL HANDS OUT, PLEASE,” MS. ESTELLE demands once we walk out of the shelter. Globs of hand sanitizer squirt from the small bottle that’s always clipped to her purse. “And make sure you rub it in real good. You’re not comin’ en la casa with all those outside germs.” Me, C.J., and Maria make sure the gooey stuff touches every corner of our hands long enough for us to smell like rubbing alcohol. Which basically means we all smell like Grandma Lucille’s medicine cabinet. Ms. Estelle checks all of our fingers even though you wouldn’t really be able to see germs if they were still there. “You need to clip those nails, niña,” she tells Maria before we walk back toward our apartments.
