Black Boy Joy

by Black Boy Joy (retail) (epub)

  “What you getting so buck for?” Brandon cocks an eyebrow.

  “You been ghost for days, fam. Something’s up, so can you stop frontin and tell me what the problem is?”

  It’s quiet in the room then, aside from the drumming of Brandon’s pen against the desk as we stare at each other. My heart feels like it’s trying to punch its way out my chest, and I have that too-much-steam feeling in my head again. Honestly, me and Brandon never beef. I don’t even know if this is beef, I just know I’ve never had to beg him to let me in like this. Finally, his shoulders slump.

  “I got nothing, fam. The song, I got nothing. Like, zero.”

  “Dang.” I feel a wave of heat pass under my skin and my mouth go dry. “I mean, how many times have you tried?”

  “This many.” Brandon’s voice is stiff as a board as he gestures around the floor. “But they all keep coming out just…flat. Like I don’t want to write one of them verses where it’s like ‘Things are messed up, whole country falling apart, but also jazz exists so it’s all good!’ y’know? I just don’t know, Kel. Words just…never been so hard to find, you feel me?”

  “I do,” I mumble, remembering that sawdust in the throat feeling I get when I can’t get the right words for my own rhymes, and I don’t even show those to anybody. I wish I knew how to help. I’ve never seen Brandon’s eyes so bloodshot. If only…

  Wait.

  “What if I helped you?” I hear myself ask.

  “With what?” Brandon cocks an eyebrow. “With the song?”

  “Yeah, maybe I could write some bars for it, and you could build on it. You already got Prodigious working on the beat, right?” I feel pins and needles all over my body as I get more excited about the idea.

  “I don’t know, Kel.” He sucks his teeth and drums the pencil harder. “Your pen is wild, but we only got a couple days.”

  “Which is all the more reason you got nothing to lose by letting me at least try. Plus, Pastor Sweat never said you had to do it by yourself, he just said he needed a song. You’d do it for me,” I shoot back, crossing my arms and accidentally dipping a finger into my kinda sweaty left armpit.

  Puberty is so wack.

  “Aight, fine, you can help, dawg,” Brandon mutters. “I’mma stay on it, tho. We’ll talk on this more at family dinner tonight.”

  I nod, we do our secret handshake, and I step out into Aunty Toni’s living room, where the first creamy rays of a new day crack the gray open like trumpets where there used to be quiet.

  * * *

  Later that night, me and Brandon finish washing the dishes in silence and trudge back into the living room to sit next to our moms. I tried all day to write the song but it felt like there was static gumming up my brain every time I tried putting a pen to it. I didn’t have to ask Brandon—it was all in his eyes the minute Aunty Toni opened the door. What were we gonna do? The song needed to be in by Saturday so Pastor Sweat could go over the rhymes.

  But as soon as we step out into the living room, horns burst out of the scratchy speaker like we’re the president or something. Momma and Aunty are in the middle of the room dancing like there’s no tomorrow. I look at Momma, and for once she’s not just Momma—she’s something about to take flight. Both of them are laughing, shining, dipping, swerving—they’re a whole ocean of cool! My mom is…dope?!

  “I told you we’d teach you something ’bout Earth, Wind and Fire, boy!” Aunty Toni booms.

  “This is ‘September’! It’s my favorite song!” Momma chimes in, spinning and two-stepping.

  “And one of the world’s few perfect songs!” Aunty spins Momma, her dress kicking up around her ankles like a blooming flower. “You boys write anything like this, you good for life.”

  Watching them, I feel a surge of joy like a perfect seventy-seven-degree day, like I got the best parts of June on a loop. Sometimes you forget how much you love someone until you see them laugh. Right now, Momma isn’t swollen joints and tired smiles, and it has me smiling ear to ear. Even I almost want to dance but I jam my hands in my pockets before Aunty can grab them and start spinning, because I only have rhythm on the page, feel me? Besides, it’s enough just to watch all of us become the song one way or another. Brandon’s foot tapping like a high hat and Aunty Toni’s laugh blaring like trumpets, I’m humming a song I’ve never heard before. I know somehow, whenever I hear it again, it’ll be able to take me right back here.

  And then I feel a sharp elbow to my ribs.

  I’m ’boutta glare at Brandon, but he’s got that wide grin on his face like when he’s got a plan forming. It dawns on me too, a warm feeling like Aunty Toni’s cinnamon candles, like the first light of a good day: we gotta write the track about this, this feeling right now! We duck back into his bedroom without another word, and Brandon tosses me a spare notebook. I start writing before my pen even hits the page. It feels breezy, like what I imagine birds feel when they skim the surface of a lake, so fast and free that nothing can pull you down, not even your reflection.

  “Kel, this verse is absolute flames!!” Brandon crows, punching the air. “I mean, I knew your pen was mad strong but, fam, this is absolutely your best work.”

  “Yeah, it all just sorta came to me.”

  “This is love, Kel. I think it even fits with some of the verse that I got on mines.” Brandon flips through the pages, eyes darting between each notepad. “I can’t take credit for this on my own, fam. You gotta come onstage with me to do this for the church concert!!”

  The room goes fuzzy, and I can hear my heartbeat in my ears, ginger ale in my skull. The idea of me onstage in front of all those people steals all my chill. I try harder and harder to get a grip, breathe normal, but it’s like trying to catch a lightning bug with your hands full.

  “Kel? Kel?” Brandon is shaking my shoulder softly. “Hey, hey, I’m sorry. I forgot how you feel about being onstage. I just was trying to say thank you, but that don’t mean you gotta do what I wanna do, aight? No matter what, we a team now. You got your superpower, and I got mines.”

  I know he means it, and I start to feel better. He’s right—we don’t both have to be onstage to make an impact. My words are enough.

  I imagine Brandon spitting the new verse for the Black joy track in front of everyone from the congregation, the way Mr. Duke’s little constellation of moles will crinkle and Aunty Toni will gleam with pride from head to toe. Brandon stomping from end to end of the stage with his hand swimming in front of him to keep time while the crowd sways their arms from side to side like they caught the spirit.

  Our people with palms the color of elm and oak and not an ounce of ash, waving back at Brandon; our people, a whole forest that loves him back.

  I think about how my verse and Brandon’s flow will make the people we love most dance and grin and sing along, just like Momma and Aunty Toni out in the living room right now.

  It’s not jazz music but it is a kind of jazz, I think, to help people improvise, transform into a place where there aren’t mistakes, only a masterpiece changing directions, and that makes the joy bloom in my chest all over again.

  Brandon daps me up and I love his warm, sure palm in my smaller one. I’ve looked at him my whole life, and we’ve always been enough. Sure as the moon needs the sun and the sun needs the moon, sure as birds think their reflections are swimming below them and the ocean thinks it can finally fly, we that kind of tight. And it makes the whole world feel a little more beautiful and a lot less quiet. The way I know my words will help Brandon move a crowd until they all bloom into bright teeth and swirling limbs—I love that the most.

  Nothing will stop us. We everywhere now.

  OUR DILL

  BY JUSTIN A. REYNOLDS

  It all starts when I lose my head.

  No, I don’t mean I lose my temper like Ugh, I’m so mad Netflix canceled my favorite show AGAIN—which a
ctually did happen by the way; thanks, Netflix. When I say I lost my head, I mean I literally can’t find my head.

  I know what you’re thinking—Jay, you probably just misplaced it. Your head will turn up. Except it’s not that simple. I’m on the clock here—any minute and the basketball team will race out onto the court for warm-ups and they’re gonna announce me and I gotta race out there and do my mascot thing. And look, I get it, some people don’t care about the mascot, and those that do basically just wanna see me clown—like when I “accidentally” trip into the stands and fall into their laps, or when I toss a bucket of water onto our opposing fans (don’t worry, at the last sec, I swap out water for blue confetti). The point is, it’s important I locate my furry head immediately.

  I’m in the middle of tossing my second large dirty-towel cart when a familiar voice says my name, temporarily pausing my frantic locker room search for my missing noggin.

  “Gross, what are you doing walking around without a head, Jay?” Mia asks.

  “You didn’t get my text?”

  Mia laughs. “I did. That’s why I’m here. You know, in the boys’ locker room.”

  “So then why aren’t you freaking out with me?” I ask her. I point to the last dirty-towel hamper. “C’mon, if we work together we should be able to tip that one over and—”

  Mia looks me up and down, then rotates her gaze around the now-ransacked locker room.

  “Wait, what’s that?”

  “What’s what?”

  “I think there’s something on your…”

  “There’s what on my what?” Listen, I love Mia. I really do. She’s my best friend. But right now, Mia has me doing that thing where I’m spinning round and round trying to see what in the world she’s pointing at from six feet away—which is time I can’t really afford to waste because, umm, hello, I’m supposed to be head-hunting.

  Mia takes a few steps closer, and motions toward my back. “That. Stuck to your…” She pauses and gives me a weird smile as she purses her lips to let the final word rip. “Booty.”

  And I’m sorry but I can’t help it; I explode in hysterical laughter because…booty. Look, I know you’re all super eye-rolling me like Really, J, dang, how immature can you be. But I have never, ever been able to resist breaking out into uncontrollable, full-body-shaking, everybody-within-a-two-mile-radius-turn-around-to-look-at-what-all-that-noise-is-about, stomach-aching laughter at that word. Naturally, Mia, being my aforementioned best friend since the first day of kindergarten, knows this better than almost anyone and she likes—no, LOVES—to take advantage of my weakness. But also, say “booty” out loud and tell me you don’t think it’s funny.

  When I finally regain control of my mouth and brain, I stop spinning long enough for Mia to pull off the object stuck to my butt and, surprise, turns out it’s a half-eaten protein bar.

  “So, do I even want to know how you’ve got a protein bar attached to your furry boo…bottom?” Mia asks, catching herself in time to spare me the bellyache.

  I shrug. “Focus, please. What am I gonna do without my head, Mia?”

  But before she can answer, before she can even part her lips, clear on the other side of the room we hear the loud grating screech of the boys’ locker room door swing open, followed by an even louder, super confident, mysterious voice calling out:

  “Hey, is there anyone in here missing a head by chance?”

  Yep, that’s when this whole thing officially began.

  And by whole thing officially began, I mean when everything officially started turning to crap.

  * * *

  The owner of our ultra-cool mystery voice?

  “Hi, I don’t believe we’ve met,” he says, smiling as if he literally just invented smiling right in this very moment. And already I don’t like this dude’s energy. I mean, who—under the age of seventy-eight—even talks like that? No, wait, that’s an insult to old people—I know for a fact that my nana would not say that. Yet here this kid is—he can’t be much older than Mia and I, if he’s older at all—acting like he just stepped off the set of some 1920s black-and-white screwball comedy and into our lives.

  “No, wait,” he goes on, “I definitely know we haven’t met. There’s no way I could ever forget a face like yours.” Yes, he actually said those words in that order. But the thing is, no matter how much I hate to admit it—and trust me I really, really hate to—somehow the kid pulls it off. It takes me all of three seconds to realize this guy has everything going for him.

  First Thing Going for Him: his smooth, dark brown skin. Once upon a time, my skin was smooth—some might even say cocoa-buttery—but lately it’s Acneville, population: me. It makes no sense, but my right cheek keeps breaking out into a pattern of three pimples in the same upside-down triangular formation as the finger holes in a bowling ball.

  Second Thing Going for Him and probably the most important thing: overflowing confidence. I mean, the kid just said I could never forget a face like yours and it sounded not stupid! Yep, he definitely knows he’s cool, exuding that easy confidence that I imagine all ridiculously attractive people are born with. Me, I don’t know how to judge my looks except to say I’m probably the classic definition of EXTRAORDINARY. Wait, oops, that didn’t come out right. I meant I’m the definition of EXTRA ORDINARY. See that space between those two words? All the difference.

  “My name’s Banks,” he says, taking Mia’s hand in his own.

  Banks? His name is Banks? What kind of name is that? Okay, well, that partially explains his vibe. With a name like Banks, of course he’s into himself. Of course he’s—

  “Will Banks,” he adds, still holding Mia’s hand. For a hot second, I half-expect him to bring her hand to his lips for a black-hand-side smooch. Not that Mia would let him do that; Mia, the same girl who told off Jason Miller, the most popular kid in school and an eighth grader after he tried slipping his arm around her shoulders and asking for her math. At the time, I was confused why Jason wanted Mia’s prealgebra homework—as far as I knew he was in eighth grade algebra—but apparently, Mia knew exactly what he meant because she replied: I’m not giving you my number, Jason. And do not touch me without my permission, thanks.

  What do you mean I can’t have your number? You serious? And then, looking at me, he’d cracked a big grin and a look of disbelief. Please don’t tell me this dude’s your boyfriend.

  And I was thrown off—not just because, to my knowledge, no one had ever accused Mia and me of being together as anything more than best friends—but also because rather than fire back a quick reply as she’d done only seconds earlier, Mia hesitated and looked at me. But why? What did she want me to say? She knew as well as I did that we weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend—not even close. I mean, there’d been that one time in second grade when we’d been each other’s school valentines but that was about it. And yes, we told each other everything; there were no secrets between us. If one of us was in trouble, we came to the other. When we had good news to share, we couldn’t wait to tell each other before we told anyone else. And yeah, when she starred in the school production of My Fair Lady, of course I’d sat front-row center for every weekend show that month. And yes, she rode all the roller coasters with me at Cedar Point every summer, even the whirly ones that sometimes made her dizzy. But even still, I couldn’t tell what she wanted me to say—did she want me to say something at all?

  Of course she did, you silly boy, my sister, Jules, told me later when I recounted the story to her.

  But what was I supposed to say? I protested.

  Whatever was on your heart, Jules said. Which I admit is kinda genius, but also easier said than done. Ugh.

  “I’m Mia Landry,” Mia says, seemingly not very bothered by the fact that this Will Banks guy was still clutching her hand. What was going on—did he have superglue on his palm and fingers? Did they need me to unstick them?
Should I offer?

  I wait for Mia to introduce me—because that’s what we always do, intro each other. But that doesn’t seem to be on her mind.

  “Hey,” I say, with a small wave. “I’m J—”

  But Will interrupts me. “Mia, that’s beautiful.”

  Okay, too far. This guy has no idea who he’s talking to—he’s definitely crossed the line of no return. No way Mia is gonna let this slide when she—

  “Thank you,” she says, her cheeks suddenly rosy. Since when did her cheeks get rosy? I’ve known her for seven years and this is the first time I’ve seen this happen—maybe it’s just a coincidence. Maybe Mia’s cheeks glowing is a once-every-seven-year phenomenon like some comet falling or a planet suddenly appearing brightly in the sky. “I’ve never met a Will before.”

  “It’s actually William…,” he begins.

  Maybe I should jump in. Maybe that’s what Mia’s waiting for. Maybe she already signaled me to intervene but I missed it in all of my missing mascot head anxiety. Maybe I should interject right now with Sorry, Will, William, whatever you call yourself, but Mia’s not interested…

  “Five, five, five, eight, three,” Mia’s saying. Wait, those numbers—so familiar. Did she just—that’s her phone number. But why is she saying it out loud? And why is he typing into his phone? Obviously I’ve missed something. Something super important.

  “Seven, five,” I blurt.

  And Will gives me a look but I watch his fingers tap the 7 and 5 on his screen.

  “Uhh, that’s not my number,” Mia says. “Seven, six. You don’t know my number by heart?”

  “Oh, you know how I always mix up my fives and sixes.”

  Mia gives me a look that says, No, you don’t.

  “Anyway,” she says, turning back to Will. “Just text me.”

  “Wait, what are we texting about?” I ask.

  Neither Will nor Mia answers me, so I grab Will’s phone. “Here, let me just put my number in, too, so we can group text.”