“It’s two fifteen,” she said. “Why, it’s almost tomorrow.” Then she gave me a look. I would have liked to punch her in the nose just then. Then my father jumps up and starts doing his thing.
“Look at the time! Do you realize what time it is? Do you know that it’s after two o’clock in the morning?” He went on and on about that for a while and then jumped down my throat about how I had cigarettes on my breath. Now I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my entire life, but I had to stand there and listen to him tell me about how I smelled like cigarettes. After about a half hour he finally let me go into my room. I took my clothes off and got into bed but I wasn’t particularly sleepy. Sharon went back to her room and soon I heard her bumping into the wall, which meant she was asleep. My mother came in after a while and sat on the edge of the bed.
“Were you smoking?” she asked.
“No,” I said, “I’ve never even smoked one cigarette in my life.”
“I didn’t think so,” she said. “You have a good time at the party?”
“Un-huh.”
“Think you’re a man now?”
“Well…”
She gave me a poke in the side and she kept nudging me with her knuckles until I had to laugh and then she kissed me on the forehead and went out. She was okay. My father’s okay, too, in his way. But she’s okay in a way you can deal with.
I wasn’t sleepy and I started thinking some more about the party. How most of the people were drinking or smoking or something. And I wondered how close that girl would have danced if she’d known me. She really couldn’t have danced any closer because she was right against me. At first I’d been embarrassed because I was excited and everything but she still didn’t care. When she found that out she just danced even closer. And then there was Charley. I didn’t know he fooled around with drugs or anything like that. As a matter of fact I was surprised because I had always thought that if a person fooled around with drugs you could always tell. Of course I hadn’t seen Carnation Charley for a long time, since I gave him the money at the dance contest, as a matter of fact, but still, I was surprised. Another thing that bothered me was that afterwards me, Sam and Clyde didn’t talk about it. We just all went home. Maybe they had to figure it out, too, the same as me. I hoped we’d talk about it the next day.
Then I must have fallen asleep. Because one minute I was thinking about what had happened and the next morning I woke up and there was Sharon sitting on the edge of the bed with some hot chocolate. Just like that. Poof! No dream, no sleep, nothing. Sometimes I think I don’t really sleep. I just lay down, close my eyes, and it’s morning. My science teacher said that we dream every night. If she asks it on a test I’ll put it down the way she explains it but I don’t really believe it.
When I saw Gloria later that day she told me she’d heard that Charley was a junkie. I asked her who she’d heard it from, and she said she’d heard it from Sam. That really annoyed me—that Sam would talk to Gloria about it before he talked to me. I asked Gloria if she wanted to stop at Freddie’s for some coffee and I’d tell her what had happened. She said Sam had already told her but she’d go with me to Freddie’s for the coffee. Then she asked me why I hadn’t gone to basketball practice.
“What practice?” I asked. And then I remembered. Mr. Reese had told us to be in the gym at one o’clock and that we were going to have a two-hour practice session. I told Gloria that I’d see her later. I went upstairs and got my stuff and then ran all the way over to the gym. I had to knock to get in because Mr. Reese was teaching the guys some secret plays and everybody on the team knew them but me. When I came out of the dressing room he looked at his watch and shook his head. I didn’t get into too many games anyway. They were practicing like crazy, really. I had never seen such complicated plays. Guys cutting this way and guys cutting that way and one guy starting toward the corner and then backing away just as a decoy. And everybody on the team was making their shots when they got them free. I watched for about fifteen minutes before he finally put me into the game.
“You think you know the three play?” he asked. I said yes and he put me in. I was supposed to get the ball, dribble to the top of the foul circle, and run my man into the center. Then I would either pass the ball to Sam running along the base line or shoot it if I got free. Well, what happened was that I started dribbling, took my eye off the ball for a minute, and Chalky stole it. He threw the ball to Mr. Reese and Mr. Reese just stood and held it.
“This is a serious practice, Stuff!” he said. He threw me the ball again.
This time I kept my body between Chalky and the ball and when I looked up Sam was blocked off. I threw a jump shot from way too far out but it rolled around the rim a couple of times and went in anyway. I really felt good. I asked Mr. Reese was the shot too far out and he said a little.
When the practice was over Mr. Reese told us we could stay in the gym but not to use any of our secret plays in the gym. We just shot around for a while and some other guys came in. One of the other guys was Charley. He shot a few baskets and played some three-man basketball. Clyde and Sam came over to me and said we were going to talk to Charley for a while in the locker room. Jay-Boy, who was Charley’s best friend, asked him was anything the matter when he saw the three of us go into the locker room with him. Sam told me to take care of Jay-Boy, and I went over to him and told him to mind his business. I guess I should have told him something else, like we just wanted to ask Charley something or something like that, but I didn’t. I thought I could beat Jay-Boy. Sometimes, when I found I could beat some guy, or thought I could, I’d just act differently. I’d just act tougher or something.
When I went into the locker room Charley was standing up and Sam and Clyde were sitting on the benches.
“So what you guys want to talk about?” Charley asked. He was talking tough, like I did when I wasn’t too sure of myself.
“We went to that party the other night,” Clyde said. “And we dug you nodding out.”
“Man, what you talking about? You jive dudes wouldn’t know when a cat was nodding out or not.” Charley started on out of the locker room.
“How long you been a junkie, man?” Clyde asked.
Carnation stopped and spun around real quick and his eyes were popping. I moved away a little but Clyde stood and moved real close to him.
“Look, Clyde, I don’t want to have to kick your ass,” Charley said, “but I will if I have to. You won’t always be with your boys.” He looked at me and Sam.
“That’s right, Charley. You can do me in. But listen, we got a club, see…”
“I don’t want to hear about your club, man. I got my own thing.”
“And the reason we got this club is to help each other out when we got problems. Why don’t you come on and join us, because you got the main qualification, and that’s a class-A problem.”
Charley stood and walked on toward the door.
“Hey, Charley,” Clyde called behind him. “You think you can beat me in a fight?”
“Any day, punk.” Charley turned around in the doorway. “Any day.”
“I think so, too,” Clyde said, “but if you have a problem, I’m still willing to help. So is Sam and so is Stuff or anybody else in the club.”
But Charley walked out.
* * *
Mr. Reese held practice every day for the next week. Carnation Charley didn’t show up even to play three-man basketball after we’d finished our regular practice.
Clyde called a meeting of the Good People and we tried to talk about it. The person who did the most talking was Maria. Maria wasn’t too smart. She was smart enough but you wouldn’t say she was real smart. But the thing she always did was say things just as they were. If you were asking her about something off the wall she would bring it right down front. And if you were saying one thing and meant something else, she would bring that down front, too. So when we’d been talking about a half hour about what we should do about Carnation Charley, it was Maria who said wh
at we were all thinking about.
“I don’t want to be messing with no dope people, not really,” she said. “If a guy’s a junkie you can’t even talk to him unless he’s looking at you seeing what he can steal.”
“But that’s not the point,” Clyde said. “If we just walk away from him we’re walking away from ourselves. We’re all from the same background as Charley, and I don’t see how it can’t happen to one of us.”
“But dope people are rough. And I don’t want to get myself killed over anything. Even if I liked the guy, which I really don’t care one way or the other, I don’t want to get messed up.” Maria sat down and looked down at her shoes.
“I know a guy over near Tieman Place that turned in a pusher and got killed,” Sam said. “They found his body stuffed in a garbage can and he had about nine bullet holes in his chest.”
“What was his name?” Clyde asked.
“I don’t know his name but—”
“How did you find out about it?” Clyde continued. “Was it in the paper?”
“I forgot how I found out about it, but they had to cut off his legs to stuff him—”
“Did you see it?”
“No.” Sam’s voice was lower.
“Then let’s stop talking about things we’ve heard or think we’ve heard and get down to the problem.” Clyde stood up and leaned against the wall. “We either are going to try to help people or we’re not. It’s as simple as that.”
We sat around for a while and thought about what Clyde was saying. It was true that we wanted to help Carnation but we were afraid of people who messed with dope. We had all heard stories about people getting killed or beaten up. Even cops. Maria had said that she was scared of dope people and we all were. Finally Sam said it, too.
“Clyde, I don’t want to mess with people in the dope business. And that makes the only thing we can do is to talk to Carnation Charley. I don’t think it’s really going to do any good. Because anything I say to him he already knows, see. I can say to him that it’s bad to be on dope. Don’t you think he knows that? I can say, ‘Hey, man, dope is gonna make you look bad, feel sad, and get had.’ But he knows that, too. I mean, any cat that grows up in this neighborhood knows about what it means to be a junkie. If I’ve seen one junkie nodding out on some corner I seen a thousand. And old Charley can see as good as me. I know that and you know that and everybody here knows that. So what can we tell him, man? What can we tell him?”
“I don’t know,” Clyde said.
“Maybe we could tell him to trust in God,” Maria said.
“I wish he did, but I really don’t know if it would help. But I will tell him if I have the chance, Maria.” Clyde looked at her, and I thought she never looked so pretty. “But in case that doesn’t work, what shall I tell him?”
“Just tell him that we’ll help him if we can, I guess. I know we want to help everybody and everything, but sometimes people get problems you just can’t do anything about. I think that’s what happens with junkies. They have to get themselves out of it. ’Cause all those drug programs they got don’t do that much good. They stay drug-free for a while and then they get right back on it as soon as they leave the program. It’s only when they make up their own minds to get off that stuff that they finally do.”
We all felt bad about not being able to help Charley. But none of us really knew what to do. You heard about those programs and things but none of us could really do anything about the problem. And as Maria pointed out, most of the programs didn’t seem to work too well, either.
It was almost another week when we heard from Carnation Charley again. It was after practice and most of the guys were just sitting around the center drinking Cokes or playing Nok-Hockey when Terry—she’s the lady who runs the center’s office parts—came in and said that there was an urgent telephone call for Sam. So Sam went into the office and a few minutes later he came out with a slip of paper and called me and Clyde over. He gave the paper to Clyde and we both read the address. It was the same place that we had went to the party before.
“That was some girl named Harriet. She said she was Carnation Charley’s girl friend and that he wanted someone to go over to his house and pick up a package that he had left on his dresser and bring it over to this address.” Sam looked at Clyde for a reaction. “She said that it was really important for someone to bring the package over or Carnation Charley might get hurt.”
We didn’t want to go over to his house and get the package, that’s for sure. Because if Charley might get hurt, then it stood to reason that we might get hurt, too.
“But, on the other hand, suppose we don’t take the package over and he does get hurt?” Clyde asked.
“You want to go to the police?” Sam asked.
“And do what? Say that there’s a package on Charley’s dresser and that his girl friend said to bring it over to this address? We don’t really know what’s in the package.” Clyde undid his sneakers and took them off. Mr. Reese had been letting us use the lockers with the combination locks and Clyde opened his and put in the sneakers. “And we really don’t want to know, I think. If we take the package over and we do get in trouble, we can all be witnesses that we don’t know what’s in the package.”
Sam said that he still didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to go either but I didn’t say anything.
“And how about this place we got to go to?” Sam went on. “It could be a whole dope den or something.”
“Could be,” Clyde replied.
“That’s the place we went to that time when we had the party,” I said, “when we first saw Charley nodding.”
Clyde looked at the address again and so did Sam.
“Hey, that’s right,” Clyde said.
“And my mother knows his mother and she knows me and she’ll probably give me the package, but I still ain’t going,” Sam said. “I’m going on out to play some more ball.”
“I’m going,” Clyde said.
“Man, what do you want to mess around with these dope people for? You don’t even like Charley that much.”
“You like somebody today and you don’t like them tomorrow. You meet somebody and they become your friend and then another year goes by and you don’t see them any more or they start doing something different and you meet new friends. But the guy is still people.”
“Still a junkie, too.”
“Maybe he’s not a junkie. Maybe he just tried it that one time.”
“Yeah, maybe grits ain’t groceries and eggs ain’t poultry, too.” Sam pulled up his sweatsocks and headed out the door. “See you guys later.”
“I’ll go,” I said. I don’t know why I said that. Maybe it’s because I dug Clyde and some of the things he did. Maybe because of what he said about having friends, and all. I don’t know. I was sure surprised to hear myself saying I was going to go, though.
“You don’t have to go, you know.” Clyde looked at me. “My going might be jive, too, but I have to give it a try. If I help Charley, okay, and if I don’t, at least I tried. Something I have to do. That make any sense?”
“Yeah.”
Clyde smiled.
“Well, if you get it all figured out, will you run it down to me, ’cause I don’t really understand it that much.”
We changed clothes and went over to Carnation Charley’s house. We got the address from the center log book. Everybody in the center had to put their name in the log book. It was only about three blocks and we got there in a couple of minutes. The building was dimly lit and the tin edging on the stairs was coming off. Somebody had written all over the walls, things like Soul Watcher 114 and Taki 182. We got up to Charley’s apartment on the third floor. The door was covered with sheet metal, except where the locks and the peep hole were cut out and the apartment number, 5C, was painted in red right below the peephole. Clyde rang the buzzer and a dog started barking. It sounded like a medium-sized dog. A moment later someone asked who it was.
“Clyde Jones, I came over to pic
k up a package for Charley.”
The door opened about an inch while Charley’s mother peered at us. I wondered if the peephole was working. Then the door closed and opened again while she took the chain off.
I had seen Charley’s mother a lot of times around the neighborhood. I had even borrowed a dime from her once at the laundromat to put into the drier. Only at the time I didn’t know it was Charley’s mother. She was shorter than Charley and really heavy. And while Charley had a narrow face, she had a wide face that always seemed just about ready to burst into a grin.
“Hi, boys, come on in,” she said. “Charley ain’t home right now but I guess he’ll be home any minute now.”
“He’s over on 118th Street and he called us and asked if we’d bring a package that was on his dresser over to him,” Clyde said.
“He did, did he?” She looked at Clyde and then looked at me, all the while wiping her hands off on a dish towel. “Don’t you owe me a dime?”
I nodded my head yes.
“Uh-huh, I thought you were the little rascal. You ain’t thinking about leaving town or nothing without paying me my dime, are you?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Well, go on into Charley’s room and get this mysterious package. How come you young boys and girls got to be so mysterious, anyway?”
“He just told us to get the package,” Clyde said.
Clyde and I went into Charley’s room and got the package. He had a nice room with pictures of ballplayers on the walls and two small trophies. Clyde asked Charley’s mother if she wanted to look at the package or anything and she said no, that Charley was so touchy about his privacy.
“I got to knock on the door before I go into the room now. Can you imagine that? That boy’s just beginning to smell his own pee and telling me I got to knock on the door?” She was beginning to wash the kitchen floor and had filled a large gray pail with hot, steaming water and ammonia. You could feel the ammonia tingling the inside of your nose. The soapy water made white bubbles on her black hands as she rinsed the mop out. “Just the other day I knocked on the door, didn’t really have nothing to say, just wanted to talk to him, and you know what he says when I knock? ‘Who’s there?’ Now just me and him in the house and he’s asking who’s there. I think that boy don’t have a bit of sense sometimes. I really do believe that. You tell him he better get up here in time to do his homework, too.”
Fast Sam, Cool Clyde, and Stuff Page 11
