Take Back the Block

by Chrystal D. Giles

  The dinner conversation was mostly Mr. Hank telling stories about his days in the army, only to be interrupted by an occasional joke by Dad. That’s the way Thanksgiving has been for years. Mr. Hank commanded the room, and I loved every moment of it. The more Mr. Hank talked, the less I had to.

  It wasn’t until someone else noticed Kari’s injured hand that things turned bad.

  “Kari, what happened to your hand?” Mom asked.

  “Huh? Nothing. It’s no big deal, Mrs. Maxine.”

  “No big deal, huh? You may as well tell ’em,” Ms. Tasha interjected.

  Kari sat silent with his hands folded in his lap.

  “He got in a fight. Apparently, they been pickin’ on him at that new school. Principal said Kari should have walked away. ’Cause he didn’t, they suspended him for two weeks,” Ms. Tasha said.

  “Kari, how long has this been going on? Wasn’t there someone you could tell?” Mom asked.

  Kari said nothing.

  The temperature in the room started to rise as everyone stared in Kari’s direction. I wanted to jump in and say something, but I knew better than to get in grown folks’ conversation.

  “Say something, Kari.” Ms. Tasha glared at him.

  “Ain’t nothing to say,” Kari finally spat out.

  And that was that.

  Thankfully, Mr. Hank started another story. He told everyone about the time he and his squad got into a brawl at a bar in Bangkok. “I escaped with just a black eye, but the other guys…hmmm, let’s just say I’m here to talk about it.”

  That cooled things down a bit, but I couldn’t wait to talk to Kari and find out what had really happened.

  After dinner, us boys were sent to the kitchen to bust the suds, my least favorite thing to do, but I would have some alone time with Kari. We stood there quiet while the sink filled up with hot, soapy water. Kari was like an ice statue. Cold and hard.

  “You gonna tell me the real story?” I asked.

  “Like I said, ain’t nothing to tell,” Kari said in a flat tone.

  “Something happened. Look at your hand.”

  “I got in a fight. Some kid was picking at my clothes, all right?”

  “All right.” I decided to leave it alone.

  The rest of the dishwashing session went along with not much talking at all. Except for the chatter in my head. When is Ms. Tasha gonna get Kari some new clothes? Of course kids will pick at him if he wears the same stuff over and over.

  When the suds were bust, we went back into the living room. Mr. Hank was in the middle of another Bangkok story.

  “Mom, can we leave?” Kari blurted out of nowhere.

  “Kari, stop it. The Hendersons made this great meal for us,” Ms. Tasha said.

  “Aren’t you staying for the weekend?” I asked Kari. I tried to hide the sting from Kari wanting to leave.

  “What’s the point? I may as well just leave now,” he answered.

  “Wait a minute, Kari, let’s talk—” Dad said.

  “Talk for what? No one cares about what I have to say,” Kari interrupted. Then he turned to Dad. “And I have my own family, remember?” He stormed past Ms. Tasha and out the front door.

  Cold and hard.

  “I’m sorry, y’all, I can’t get him to act right. I think it’s best we go on home,” Ms. Tasha said.

  And just like that, Thanksgiving was over and Kari was gone. Again.

  A Place Called Home had a special day-after-Thanksgiving dinner—and of course I had to serve. I’d thought about asking Jas and Alyssa to come along, but I knew they wouldn’t want to spend their Thanksgiving break at the shelter. Maybe they would’ve said yes, but I’d decided to handle this one with just me and Dad while Mom rested after cooking dinner for everyone the day before.

  On the ride over to the shelter, Dad kept trying to bring up Kari storming out, but I didn’t want to talk about it. I wanted to get this dinner over with and go back home.

  We arrived just as the line started to form outside. We slipped inside the back door, out of the cold air, and into the kitchen to help get things ready.

  “Wassup, Wes?” Brent called out from the other side of the kitchen.

  “Brent? What are you doing here?”

  It had been almost two weeks since he left the Oaks. He’d moved to a neighborhood past East Wood High. He still went to school at the Grove, but the walks to and from school weren’t the same without him.

  “I could lie and say I wanted to help serve…but my dad made me come.”

  I laughed—Brent always kept it one hundred.

  Ms. Grave put me and Brent in charge of the drink station. We filled plastic cups with sweet tea, unsweet tea, or lemonade, while Dad set out the tables and chairs.

  “Who would want unsweet tea?” Brent asked.

  “Right? That’s what I was thinking!” I said.

  Serving today might not be so bad after all—even if it was during Thanksgiving break, having Brent around the neighborhood made things feel a little more normal.

  I wished I could’ve told him before he moved about the chance of having the Oaks made a historic district. Maybe that would have encouraged him and his parents to stay. But I was sworn to secrecy. Ms. Monica said that because no one knew about Frederick Pippin and Pippin Village, we had a higher chance of getting registered. If Simmons found out what we were working on, they might try to do something stupid like steal the fountain—okay, I added that part, but they could do something to block the designation.

  When the doors of the shelter opened, the room flooded with people and food. It was Thanksgiving dinner on steroids. There were eight turkeys, six hams, collard greens, potato salad, mac and cheese, sweet potatoes, corn bread, and corn bread dressing—and a whole table of nothing but pies and cakes.

  While everyone ate, Brent and I worked side by side. We filled and refilled drinks, collected trash, and did whatever else Ms. Grave asked for help with.

  “I appreciate you young men spending your holiday break spreading some love in the community,” Ms. Grave said when she passed us on her way to the kitchen with a handful of dirty dishes.

  “See, Wes, I’m still as much a part of this community as you are,” Brent teased.

  I knew he was kidding, but it rubbed me rough. It didn’t seem hard at all for Brent to leave the Oaks. “Not really,” I said under my breath. “You left me and moved to a bigger house—remember?”

  “Dang, chill! I was joking,” Brent said. “And I didn’t leave you. It’s not all about you, Wes. You always think it’s about you. Plus, we don’t have money, like y’all do!”

  “Like we do?” I said, stepping back from Brent. “This is about more than money!”

  “Yeah right! You the one with all the fresh shoes and clothes. Now my parents will have enough money to buy me stuff.”

  Brent never got new things, and not like I was trying to be all flashy, but I did get new stuff a lot more than he did—not Mya-level new stuff, but more than most of the other kids around here.

  “Look, I’m not tryin’ to fight,” I said. “All I’m saying is our home is more important than a little money.”

  “I wouldn’t call a hundred thousand dollars a little money,” Brent said.

  I didn’t know what to say; that was a lot of money. I looked at Brent—the same Brent who had always been on my side—and remembered the only other time we fought, in third grade when he didn’t pick me first to be on his team. I’d made a big deal about it, but it turned out Brent was just trying to be nice to a new kid in our class and picked him first instead. I was being kinda selfish then, and maybe I was being selfish now. I was making this about me.

  We must have gotten too loud, because Dad shot us a glare from across the room. His eyes said, “I better not have to come over there.”

 
“My bad, Brent,” I said, my voice calmer. “I just didn’t expect you to really leave. I wish things were the way they used to be.”

  “Me too,” said Brent. “My dad said this was the only way for us to come up, so he took the money.”

  I did want Brent and his family to have nice things too.

  “That makes sense, I guess.”

  “We good?” Brent asked, reaching his fist over to me.

  “We good,” I said, returning the pound. It really did feel good to be cool with my best friend again.

  * * *

  • • •

  Jas and I entered the lunch line in the café just ahead of Alyssa and Brent. Alyssa had dumped those boring turkey sandwiches after Mya left the Grove, and now she mostly ate food from the lunch line like us.

  “Oh, look, today is create-your-own-chef-salad day. Mya would love this!” Alyssa said, pointing to the chalkboard at the entrance of the lunch line. Someone had drawn little pieces of lettuce and tomato in green and pink chalk.

  Alyssa was right; Mya was the only sixth grader I knew who loved salad. She always packed her own lunch, but she would have jumped at the chance to make her own salad. The thought of Mya actually enjoying something at school lunch made me laugh to myself.

  “How’s Mya, anyway?” Jas asked.

  “She’s good. She likes her new school, but I think she misses us. She even asked about Kari the other day,” Alyssa said, sneaking a quick look at me. “Her family’s Christmas party is in a couple weeks. She wanted me to make sure you guys are coming.”

  I was kinda glad Mya wanted me to come. After not getting an invitation on Halloween, I wasn’t sure if we’d ever talk again.

  “I’ll be there,” Brent said.

  “I’m there! I’ll never pass up a chance to visit Mya’s luxurious house,” Jas said, sticking his pinky up like rich people do in the movies.

  “Wes?” Alyssa asked.

  “You sure she wants me there?” I asked, trying to be cool.

  “I’m positive,” Alyssa answered.

  “Come on, Wes! It won’t be any fun if you aren’t there,” Jas pleaded.

  “Okay…I guess I’m in,” I said. Not that I had much of a choice; my parents got the invitation in the mail last week. We all went to the Coopers’ Christmas party every year. And I did kinda miss Mya.

  “Perfect!” Alyssa said. “The dress code is formal, so put on your best outfits.”

  I already knew any party at Mya’s house would be fancy, which meant I’d get to see Alyssa all dressed up. I had to be fly. At least I’d finally get to wear my new vest—I’d been waiting for the right time to wear it.

  Erykah Badu’s voice drifted into my room, lulling me back to sleep. For the first time in months, I was able to sleep in on Saturday morning. Between long blinks, I tried to ignore the screeching tires outside my window. I knew what was happening without even rising from my covers.

  It was another moving day.

  Our neighbors Mr. and Mrs. York had accepted the latest offer from Simmons. Word on the block was, over twenty families had accepted the offer so far. I knew Ms. Monica said change can take a long time, but after all this waiting to hear back about the historic designation, there wouldn’t be any Kensington Oaks left to save.

  “I can’t believe they’re leaving. Beverly used to be one of us.” Mom’s voice echoed. She gave the exact same speech about everyone when she heard they were moving away from Kensington Oaks. I’d heard enough. I brushed my teeth, slipped on a hoodie, and crept out the back door, undetected. I walked around to the front yard and across the street.

  “Wassup, Mr. Hank?”

  “Nothing but the rent,” Mr. Hank replied, leaning forward in his old porch rocker.

  Mr. Hank can always make me laugh. Even his corny jokes make me chuckle. I plopped down on the bottom step in front of his house.

  “How many trucks today?”

  “Two this morning, one last night. The Halls, the Smiths, and Bill. Kinda sad seeing it all end like this,” Mr. Hank said with a cloudy look in his eyes.

  “Can I ask you a question, Mr. Hank?”

  “Anything.”

  “Why are you staying? Brent said they gave his parents tons of money for their house.”

  “Wes, this place right here is all I have. Y’all are my family.” Mr. Hank stretched his wrinkled brown hand in the direction of our house. “Your parents shook me out of that awful place I was in when Sheila went to glory. Besides, who’d keep you out of trouble if I leave?”

  “But don’t you want the money?”

  “Money comes and goes, but family is forever.”

  I liked the realness of that.

  We sat there watching the moving truck fill up with boxes. The only sound between Mr. Hank and me was the occasional teeth smack or a long, low “Hmmm.” I knew Mr. Hank would never speak a bad word against a neighbor, but his frigid posture wasn’t from the December air.

  “When you gonna tell me about whatever y’all working on with that teacher from your school?” Mr. Hank asked.

  My back tensed a little. “Ummmm” was the only thing that escaped my lips.

  “Didn’t say you had to tell me what it is. Just asked when you gonna tell me.”

  “Soon. Like in fourteen days soon,” I answered.

  Mr. Hank’s silence was enough to say he understood.

  It was two days before Christmas, and Mom, Dad, and I loaded into the SUV and drove to the Southside, where Mya lived. The drive to her house took about twenty minutes.

  As we drove south, the houses got bigger and the yards grew farther apart. The Christmas decorations got better too. One house was lit up like Santa’s workshop, complete with mechanical elves riding a train across the yard and music playing over a loudspeaker. Christmas decorations in the Oaks were simple; the best I’d seen were at Alyssa’s house, with icicle lights draped around the front door. It was like a completely different city over here near Mya’s.

  We turned off the main road, entered Mya’s neighborhood, and parked in the clubhouse’s lot. Her neighborhood was fancy like that. No cars were allowed on the street.

  As we walked up the long, curvy driveway to Mya’s house, the lights from the decorations lit the entire yard and spilled out onto the street. The trees in front of the house were dripping in white lights, and the pillars flanking the front door were wrapped in red velvet ribbon, like candy canes. A small wreath hung from each window, dressed with red and gold bows. While we waited for someone to answer the doorbell, I counted eight of them.

  Mrs. Cooper opened the door dressed in a long, silky silver dress. Her dark brown hair was cut into a short stacked style.

  “Merry Christmas! Maxine, Walter, thank you for coming!” she said. “Wes, so good to see you.” She grabbed me and pulled me in for a tight hug. She smelled sweet, like chocolate and toasted marshmallows.

  “Thank you so much for inviting us,” Mom said.

  Mya peeked around the corner as we walked into the house. She wore a shorter version of her mom’s dress. Her hair was pinned up into a knot, with one hanging curl that brushed her cheek.

  “Hi, Wes, you look nice. Glad you came,” she said. Her eyes were happy and shy.

  “Thanks.”

  “Come in the kitchen. Alyssa, Brent, and Jas are already here.”

  I always have a hard time staying mad at Mya. She has a way of convincing me that she’s right and I’m wrong. Even if she never says it.

  I followed Mya through the museum-like front room, big and gray-white, with a colossal Christmas tree.

  In the kitchen, I found the crew standing next to a table loaded with fancy food. Staring back at me was a collection of silver domed platters, bowls of colorful fruit and vegetables, mini stuffed croissants, and shrimp wrapped with something that looked like th
in bacon. The air was almost as tight as Brent’s shirt.

  “Wassup, Brent? I should’ve known you would be parked near the food,” I said.

  “Hey, Wes. Man, you have to try out this prosciutto-wrapped shrimp,” Brent said, walking over to give me some dap.

  “What do you know about prosciutto?” Jas teased.

  “Nothing, until now!” Brent said, stuffing another shrimp into his mouth.

  Alyssa was wearing a red dress with sequins all over it. I didn’t ever remember seeing her in red before, but I liked it.

  “Your dress is pretty,” I said.

  “It’s new,” she said. “And I love your vest.”

  “Thanks.” I ran my hand over my new gray-and-black vest. I’d paired it with a crisp white shirt, a slim black tie, black jeans, and black-and-white Chucks. I knew I looked good. And from the way Alyssa was smiling at me, she knew it, too.

  * * *

  • • •

  Mr. Cooper stared at us from across the room. He was fake-laughing with some white people who looked snobby enough to live in Mya’s neighborhood. Mr. Cooper isn’t what I would call a nice guy, but today he seemed extra not nice. I got the feeling he didn’t like all these people in his house, stepping on his reflective tile floors, eating his extravagant food, and he especially didn’t like us kids joking loudly around his guests.

  As the kitchen started to fill with adults, we escaped to the media room with a platter of food. We passed another Christmas tree at the entrance of the media room. It was smaller than the last one but still way bigger than the tree crowded in our family room at home.

  A massive sectional sofa took up one side of the media room; it was centered in front of a seventy-five-inch projector screen that served as the TV. Brent, Jas, Alyssa, Mya, and I collapsed on the sofa to watch. It was almost like old times in the Oaks—minus the enormous house. Minus the giant TV. Minus Kari.