by Paul Griffin
‘Nah, nah, hell, it was nothin. It’s not as bad as the movies.’
‘You just said it was worse.’ She took off her sweater.
Ray saw her underwear just above her jeans when her shirt came up with the sweater. He forced his eyes away, couldn’t help himself, peeked again, but by now Trini had pulled down her shirt.
‘We still friends?’ he said.
‘No, and you turn your head again while I’m clippin and I’ll make you van Gogh.’
‘How was I supposed to write you to tell you I got pinched for car theft after I just promised you, like, I wasn’t thieving anymore? I was embarrassed.’
‘Being embarrassed is better than being thoughtless.’
‘Well, even if you ain’t friends with me anymore, I’m still friends with you.’
‘You can’t do that. You can’t be friends with somebody if they don’t wanna be friends back.’
‘Oh, don’t worry. I won’t bother you. You won’t even notice me. I’ll just be friends with you in my heart is all.’
Trini stopped shaving his head. ‘What?’
‘Nothin. I’m fifteen now.’
‘So?’ She started buzzing his scalp again.
‘Y’all probly turned seventeen, huh?’
‘Still sixteen.’
‘Cool. I’m catchin up.’
‘You make me so mad.’
‘Ouch. José misses you.’
‘Ha.’
‘He wants to come uphill and drop a hi on you.’
‘That dawg can stay where he is, I’m just fine, thank you, got me a nice man now at school.’
‘The hell you do.’
‘The hell I do.’ She snapped her fingers Miss Thing style.
Ray scrunched his lips and eyes. ‘He older than you?’
‘Who, him? Yeah, he is.’ Trini lifted her chin high. ‘He’s eighteen.’
Ray sat up. Dag. Prob’ly shaves like at least twice a week. ‘He’s gonna start losin his hair, you gonna have a bald-head man. That’s when it starts, the baldness, eighteen. You get a look at the top of his head?’
She didn’t say anything.
‘Yup.’
‘Ttt.’ She was about to slap the top of his head, stopped, rested her hand on his scalp as if palming a basketball, stole his breath. She rested her hand on his shoulder. ‘Raymond, what are you doing?’ she said to his reflection.
‘Me? What I did? I ain’t doin nothin.’
‘Why’d you come back here?’
Ray stared at her, looked away. ‘I missed everybody is all, like.’
‘Raymond?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Ray?’
Not Raymond but Ray. What did that mean? ‘Still here.’
‘You know the day’s coming, right? At some point, you gotta move on, you know? Look at me. A special school. We’ll find one for you. Filled with kids like you. Special kids.’
‘Freaks, you mean.’
‘Special folks who’ll help you find what you love.’
I know what I love, he almost said.
‘Raymond, he wants you to go too. He told me one time. He said, “I’m gonna get rich and send Ray to an Ivy Leaf college.”’
‘Ivy Leaf. José kills me.’
‘Yeah.’ Trini caught herself wearing a dreamy smile, killed it, slapped the top of Ray’s head.
‘Forgot you was mad at me, huh?’ Ray said. ‘Yo, woman, we still friends or what?’
‘I gotta think about it.’
‘Take your time, you done thinkin about it yet?’
She squinted at him by way of the wall mirror. She pecked the top of his shaved head. ‘Okay, but no José. Not yet.’
Her kiss electrocuted him. From beyond the grave he said, ‘Okay, you let me know when you’re ready, then. About José, I mean.’
‘Promise me you’ll never steal again.’
He turned around in the chair to face her. ‘Trini, I swear to God. Even though I’m not sure I believe in God anymore. Tell you what, I swear to you.’
‘Please don’t break my heart.’
17
‘She’s outta her mind,’ José said. ‘Stop stealin? How’s a man opposed to eat?’
‘We’re workin pickups, man. We be a’right.’
‘That’s short-term, partner. Think Scarface is gonna hump junk the rest of his life? Soon’s my foot’s better, I’m back in action. How’d she look, though?’
Like I’d trade death for a kiss. ‘She looked a’right. You know, same.’
‘Thinks I’m gonna quit thievin for her? That’s more than a lifestyle change. That’s swappin out bones. Hell with ’er.’
‘I’m likin the idea that Yolie said she’d train us to cut heads. Earn while we learn style. Hell’s wrong with that?’
‘I ain’t workin in no braid shop, son.’
‘I think I’d like it.’
‘Then you go do it. Me, I’m a man. I need a man’s work. Dag, hair cuttin? That’s girls’ truck, son.’
‘You never seen a barber?’
‘Barberin is old men’s work. Plus I ain’t goin near Yolie’s shop, work or not. Trini’s liable a grab a shears and stab me on sight.’
‘She’ll yell at y’all for an hour and then you’ll be back in there. You gotta get up there quick, drop a hi on her. Look, I ain’t know how to say this.’
‘Say it.’
‘She got a new man. He’s eighteen.’
José’s eyes went wide. He recovered. ‘Psh, good for her. Psh. Like I care. Psh.’
‘J, she still likes you. I can tell. It’s not too late.’
‘Nah. I’m over her, man.’ José chewed a cornrow tail, spit it out. ‘Eighteen. Psh. Loser be goin bald soon.’
‘I told her.’
They shaped up with a bunch of pickup outfits through April until big brother Breon hooked them up with a Senegalese who took a liking to them and offered them steady work with his landscaping company, six bucks an hour to pull dandelions out of rich folks’ New Jersey lawns. Sundays off, Ray hung out with Trini. One weekend they went to the zoo.
‘Y’all ready to come on down Ten Mile way, drop a hi on my boy?’ Ray said.
‘He wanna see me so bad, he can come uphill to me, I don’t care one way or another if he does or not.’ Trini reached into the paper bag of feed she’d bought for the petting zoo animals, brought some cracked corn to her lips.
Ray stopped her, gave her his bag of peanuts. ‘You were wantin these, no?’
Trini pouted, stomped ahead, came back, grabbed Ray’s arm, huffed, ‘Let’s go, Mr. Slow.’
And then Ray went home and said, ‘Go see her, man.’
‘Ray, shut up about her, will ya? I don’t even think about her no more. Here’s a idea for ya. You take her.’
‘Psh, like I would.’ If only I could.
One day their boss Mr. Okolo sent them to meet up with Breon at a penthouse terrace on the Upper West Side.
On their way down Central Park West they passed a fancy school, JENNINGS PREPARATORY said the cut marble over the entrance. Ray pretended to be surprised. ‘Yo, that’s Trini’s school.’
‘Who, Trini’s? Serious? Dag. C’mon, we’re gonna be late for work.’
‘Maybe we’ll come this way on the way back,’ Ray said.
‘Nah. Maybe. Nah.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Nah.’
The miniature poodle ran out onto the penthouse terrace to interrupt the boys’ lunch break, pulled on José’s cuff to show the J-man how it liked to lick its butt.
‘I dunno how they can like to lick their butts so much,’ José said.
‘They dunno how you can’t,’ Breon said with a wink between Marlboro puffs.
Ray nodded. That kind of funny thrilled Ray. Not hee-haw humor but quiet, smart funny.
Breon was smart all right, treating the boys to thick steak sandwiches, gourmet potato chips and fancy soda that must have cost him half his day’s wages. Ray wondered what Breon wanted.
José swallowed his sandwich. ‘Real nice place.’
Ray sipped his soda. ‘Swank as hell.’
‘Sure. Yas see the kid’s room there, off the back hall there, past the bath-a-room there?’
Ray shook his head, not to say no, but because he knew what was coming.
‘That Macintosh laptop on the kid’s desk there. It’s a Macbook Pro, don’t you know. All them peripherals. Three gigs of RAM, don’t you know.’ Breon’s three came out tree. Ray thought that was so cool. ‘A man could take down the world with that machine. Don’t ya tink, José?’
José didn’t know crap about computers. He bit into his sandwich, squinted. ‘So what are you sayin?’
‘I’m saying I get a magazine that tells me that machine retails for seven tousand dollars.’
José looked at Ray. ‘So that’s what he’s sayin.’
Ray liked Breon, but he didn’t want to screw over Mr. Okolo. Just last week Mr. O had given the boys a stereo, his kid’s throwaway to make room for a better one, but it was nice. ‘Breon—’
‘I’m not saying anything anyway. Or maybe I’m saying this: I work for a couple of fancy landscaping companies that get me into these palaces here. I’m saying I can get you boys in with me, into these companies. Into these palaces. I’m saying we’re brothers.’
‘Sure, with that pink skin you wear there, we’re brothers,’ José said.
‘Brother,’ Breon said, lighting José a fresh Marlboro, ‘don’t you know the Mickies are the slaves of Europe? Like it or not, we’re brothers thick. See now, I always wanted kid brothers.’
And they had always wanted an older brother, one with a cool accent and a killer smile that made you forget what you wanted to say. Who was so cool he could make you almost want to steal a laptop with him, even when you had sworn to the love of your life you were doing your damnedest to stay clean. Breon would be a millionaire with a swank joint in Bermuda before he was thirty-five, and the boys knew it. Maybe he’ll take us with him, Ray thought, then hated himself for thinking it.
‘Look, yas don’t trust me yet. That’s fine too. Nobody with half a head trusts anybody anyway.’ Breon fed the boys fresh boxes of Marlboro 100s. ‘All I’m saying is, I’m tinkin that Mac there on the kid’s desk is a cool computer.’ Cool came out coal.
Yeah, Ray thought, Breon is coal.
18
‘Think he took it?’ Ray said.
The boys walked up Central Park West after work. Mr. O gave them the afternoon off to enjoy the weather.
‘He’ll give the doorman a grand to take it while the rich folks is on vacation. That’s what I’d do anyhow.’ José tapped his head. ‘I can’t help it, my criminal mind. It just keeps feedin me the ideas. Natural born thief, son. Ah well, we all got our gifts.’
‘We best keep to our plant waterin.’
‘For the time bein.’ José smacked Ray’s dome. ‘I tell you, I like Breon’s style. Quiet. Don’t trust him farther than I can piss, but I like him fine. I’m-a partner up with him soon’s my foot’s a hundrit percent.’ He smacked Ray’s head again.
‘Will you quit hittin me?’
‘It’s fun.’
‘Knew you was gonna get in on it with Breon. You’re on your own.’
‘I ain’t tryin a make you come with me, Ray. I’m happier you don’t.’
Ray stopped José. ‘I’m not lettin you do it.’
‘Oh really? Who the fuck are you? Mind your truck, I mind mine.’
‘You can’t do that to Mr. O. You steal from someplace Mr. O sent you—’
‘I ain’t gonna do it to Mr. O, Ray. I’m not a asshole. Only guys like Drago. Think I’d do that to Mr. O?’ José gave Ray mean eyes, walked ahead.
‘Then what about you? Gettin pinched?’
‘I won’t.’
‘Hey, J, you’re an idiot, man.’
José spun back, grabbed Ray’s shirt. ‘Grow up, son. Get gone. Serious. Sick a hangin around wif you. Goddam kid. Get lost.’
‘The hell you doin here?’ someone yelled from across the street.
The boys spun, saw Trini march down the Jennings School steps, through the crowd of kids dressed in their plaid skirts and blazers, bopping their heads to iPods, spinning BlackBerry wheels.
At the sight of her José dropped his filthy knapsack, pimp limped across the street, met her on the sidewalk, arms wide, hands dirty from planting flowers, reaching out to her. ‘Yo, baby.’
Trini reared back and slapped José with a right hook that made his head wobble.
The rich kids said Dag and Snap and Du-hude, that was a shot.
Some movie star-looking cat with sideburns, a wispy goatee and fake messy hair came down the stairs on a run, jerked Trini’s arm. ‘Who’s he?’
‘Back off, Richard,’ Trini said. ‘This doesn’t concern you.’
The Richard cat shoved José. ‘Fuck is your problem, homeboy?’
‘Stop, Richard!’ Trini said.
Ray gunned it across the street, got in Richard’s face. ‘You step to my boy, you step to me.’
‘I got it, Ray,’ José said.
‘Who’s this Lurch now? Another one of your uptown peoples, Trin?’
‘Raymond, don’t,’ Trini said.
Trini’s man spun back to José. ‘Who are you to be all up on my girl, man?’
Trini pushed her man off. ‘Back up, Richard. He’s—’
‘I’m not talking to you,’ Richard said to Trini. ‘I’m talking to him.’ He turned to José. ‘Yo, you deaf, homeboy? I said, what’s up with you getting all in my girl’s business and shit?’
Trini finger-popped in front of Richard’s face. ‘Hello! He’s just a friend.’ She snap-turned to José. ‘Hell am I saying? You’re no friend.’
‘Yeah, huh?’ Richard said. ‘Then what exactly is he?’
José laughed. ‘Chill, man. C’mon now. We’re men here. Let’s talk this out, bro.’
‘Talk what out?’ Trini said.
‘“Bro,” you’re calling me? You’re not my bro, bro.’ The loser tugged on his goatee, flicked his cigarette at José.
Richard’s boys circled José and Ray. A crowd gathered to watch the coming brawl.
‘Dude, why don’t you just head on back uptown or wherever your slick ass comes from and leave my girl be?’
‘Your girl?’ Trini said. ‘Your girl?’
‘I’d call you a slut, except you’re a prude,’ Richard said.
Ray blew back Richard with a stiff arm. He knocked down two of Richard’s posse with shoves. The rest of the kids set upon Ray and José.
Ray heard his name, an anguished cry. ‘Raymond, please! Ray, stop!’
He stopped, looked around, Richard’s posse on their backs, Ray and José standing. Stunned, José stared at Ray.
‘Stop!’ Trini said. ‘Just everybody stop. Please.’ She turned to José. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry I hit you.’ She reached out to touch his face, but when he reached out to her, she pulled back. Sobbing, she hurried to the subway.
The Richard cat dusted himself off, made his way down the steps to the curb and a waiting limo. ‘Take her, Paco. She’s all hand, no suck.’
Ray eyed the remaining kids. ‘Git,’ he said.
The kids scattered.
On the subway home José said, ‘Somethin happened to you in that juvie run.’
Ray had been sucked into a book called A Brief History of Time. It said the universe started out smaller than an atom. By the time it finished expanding, one atom would be bigger than the present-day universe. ‘I grew.’
‘I don’t think so,’ José said. ‘But you look like you grew.’ José winked, chicked his cheek, Breon Junior. ‘You beat up half the high school there, Ray. You might just be a badass.’
‘I wanna be a goodass.’
‘Ass ass.’
‘Tryi
n a read, man. Hush.’ Ray flipped the page.
‘Tellin me to hush. Yo? Fine, be that way, geek.’ José sighed, took out his motorcycle magazine, all pictures, bit off from the bar of chewing tobacco Breon had given him. ‘I’d cut both my arms off to hold Trini’s hand again.’
The book said time travel was real. You could travel to the future but not to the past. Too bad. Ray wanted to go back to the day he introduced Trini to José, redo it. Undo it.
That night came a knock on the stationhouse door. All hell broke loose with the dogs. The boys grabbed their baseball bats. ‘We’re armed,’ José yelled.
The door opened, Trini came in. The dogs remembered her. She hugged and settled the pack, put a strand of hair into her mouth, chewed it as she looked at José. She went to him, buried her head in his neck, hid there. He put his arms around her.
Ray left, wondering how many minutes would pass before they would realise he’d gone.
19
Breon took them to a crowded Starbucks after end-of-shift, bought the boys more than they could eat, told them to save a seat for him at the window, he had to hit the ‘canny.’
Ray had begun wearing a spoon on a chain around his neck. He balanced the spoon crossways on his finger and stared at it.
‘Damn spoon bendin,’ José said.
‘I’m so close to bendin it.’
‘Ray, I’ll be a respectable citizen before you bend any dag spoon.’ José grabbed the spoon, stuffed it into the trash. ‘Freak. Now where’s my boy Breon at? I don’t want to be here, rich losers swillin fancy drinks they can’t pronounce, small coffee runs on the tag tall in this joint, psh. What’s wrong wif Micky D’s?’
Ray pulled his spoon from the trash.
‘The dollar menu? Show me better value than the dollar menu, try to. Five bucks a damn cup a joe. That’s like four chicken chimichangas and a fry.’
‘But Starbucks got good cookies.’
José sighed. ‘They do, though. Their cookies are fierce. Here he is.’
Breon came out of the bathroom. On his way to the window counter he grabbed a souped-up laptop from a table where some guy was way into a conversation on his mobile, his head turned to stare at the butt of the chick who had come out from behind the counter to sweep dust into her dustpan. Breon folded the laptop, tucked it under his arm, casually walked across Starbucks, slipped the laptop into Ray’s knapsack. He even sat down and sipped his coffee.
