Bronxwood

by Coe Booth

  Troy don’t say nothing. Sometimes I think he getting more and more like me, thinking too much and not saying what he feeling. Keeping a lot of shit inside.

  “Everything okay at Ms. Woods house?” I ask him. “’Cause it looked like something was bothering you yesterday. That right?”

  Under his breath, Troy mumble, “I hate her.”

  Man, hearing him say that get to me. Make me feel that there has to be more I can do to get him outta this situation. But course only my moms and pops can do that. “Why you hate her? She do something to you?”

  “She don’t like me. She always yelling at me and I know she don’t like me.”

  “Come over here.” I walk Troy over to the fence and me and him lean against it for a while. He look mad. He squinting his eyes and breathing hard. Finally, I go, “Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on over there.”

  And he do. He tell me a lot of things, like how she always tell him he eat like a animal ’cause Troy don’t like to use forks or nothing. He be pretending he a dog and picking up the food with his mouth. And she always making him mop the bathroom ’cause she say some of his pee got on the floor. “I can’t help it, Ty,” he say. “I’m trying.”

  I shake my head. “It ain’t your fault. You a boy.”

  “And she say I gotta watch what she wanna watch on TV and all she wanna watch is the news and other stupid things. And then the babies is always crying and they too little and I can’t play with them. I’m boring there.”

  “Bored,” I say. And I would be too. “I’ma handle it, Troy. Okay?”

  He nod.

  “Don’t say nothing to Ms. Woods. Just try and do what she want and don’t backtalk her.”

  He look down at the ground. “Okay.”

  “I’ma work to get you out of there.”

  Even as I’m saying this, I’m thinking, why don’t I just shut the fuck up? How I’m s’posed to get him outta there? My moms and pops is doing what they gotta do, but my moms gotta take them parenting classes for, like, a month before they can go to the judge and try to get him back, and I know for a fact that the city don’t never do nothing fast. It could be months before he home.

  I know my pops is out now, but I can’t help but feel responsible for Troy. I was like a father to him while my pops was away, and it ain’t easy to turn off that button and go back to being a brother again. Anyway, in a way I’m the one who got him into this situation in the first place. I should be the one to get him out.

  On the way to the train, I call Troy old foster mother, Ms. Reed, the one that treated him okay. While it ring, I don’t really know what I’ma say to her when she pick up, but the main thing I wanna know is why she let Troy go like that and what Troy can do to get her to want him again.

  But nobody answer. It go to voicemail. I don’t know what to say, so I just tell her it’s Tyrell, Troy brother, and ask her if she can call me when she get the chance, that it’s important.

  I hope she call me back. Soon.

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 8

  SEVENTEEN

  By Friday afternoon, I still ain’t heard back from Ms. Reed, and waiting for her to call is making me mad. So when Cal tell me he going to shoot some hoops, I go with him, and me and him spend the whole afternoon playing ball behind Building C with some of them same dudes that was playing out there on Sunday. I know it’s summer, but damn, that don’t mean they can’t have something else to do with theyself too.

  It feel good working up a sweat in the heat though. Me and Cal used to play all the time when I first moved in with him. We used to hang out and have fun. Back then, he used to get a day or two off every week so it wasn’t like he was working every day the way he hafta now. Shit changed fast.

  Another reason I wanna play hard today is ’cause me and Adonna going out tonight and I wanna be chill, so it’s good to burn off as much energy as I can now. I don’t want Adonna knowing how bad I wanna get with her. Girl like that, it’s best to wait ’til she begging me for some.

  Like that gonna happen.

  When we done, me and Cal go ’round the corner and get a couple meat patties from the Jamaican place and eat them on the way back to his apartment. I ain’t gonna lie, I’m dragging my ass. Been a while since I worked out like that. And I can tell from the slow way Cal walking, he feeling it too.

  In the elevator, Cal go, “You know, you one funky nigga. Need a oxygen tank to be in a elevator with your ass.” He laugh like he smell any better than me.

  “Dude, I can smell your sweaty balls all the way over here.”

  “That’s nasty, man,” he say. “Why you gotta go there?”

  Me and him laugh. A minute later we in the kitchen finishing our patties, still snapping on each other. Then his cell ring, and from what he saying I can tell he talking to Tina ’cause he telling her he can’t give her no more money ’til next week. “And even then it ain’t gonna be all that much,” he tell her. “Only enough for what CJ really need.”

  It’s good he finally telling her what he shoulda told her a long time ago. That girl don’t get it sometimes. She don’t know the kinda pressure he got on him.

  Even though Cal my boy and he doing the right thing setting Tina straight, still, that don’t stop me from laughing at him while he start arguing with her. Fucking guy used to just chill. Now he got a kid and a girl that think she his wife. And he gonna have eighteen years of this shit too.

  When he hang up, he reach ’cross the table and try to punch me. “Fuck you, Ty.”

  “Don’t blame me. You got yourself into that shit.”

  “Damn, man, why you gotta keep remindin’ me?” He lean back in his chair and he quiet for a couple seconds. Then he smile and go, “Least my kid is cute.”

  I laugh. “You stupid. You know that, right?”

  “Stupid? You talking? Who got third place in the science fair? Me or you?”

  “That was fourth grade. And I wasn’t even in that jacked-up ghetto fair.”

  Cal laugh. “’Member Rodney Webber and that broke-down volcano he made. Dumb-ass dude.”

  “Rodney got second place, stupid. Beat your ass.”

  “Damn, you right.” He reach ’cross the table again and this time he do punch me, right in the chest. Hard too.

  Course, I gotta retaliate. I get up out my chair and before he know what’s going on, I got him in a headlock and pull his chair back ’til he ’bout to fall. “You want me to let you go?” I ask him.

  “You do and I’m gonna kill you in your sleep.”

  “Don’t be a pussy.” I let the chair back down. “Man, if you gonna kill somebody, you gotta do it to they face. When they awake.”

  He slap me and I slap him back, and this go on for, like, a minute, us acting like kids. Two funky kids. Sometimes me and him act real dumb.

  When we through, I go in the refrigerator for a can of Pepsi while Cal tell me all the shit Tina wanna get for CJ and how much everything gonna cost him. He like, this ain’t never gonna stop with her ’cause she want everything she see. “She like a baby herself that can’t understand that money is tight.”

  Then he start talking ’bout Andre again, and how he told Cal that he want him working extra hard this weekend, making as much as he can. “He was like, weekends is when we make most of our money, like I don’t know that.” He shake his head. “So now I’ma hafta start earlier and stay out ’til I’m half ’sleep, and make enough to get him off my back for a while.”

  “Don’t make no sense,” I say. Then, just so he know he ain’t the only one that got problems, I tell him ’bout snatching the storage room key from my pops and how fucked I’ma be if he find out. “You know how much that equipment gonna cost me if I hafta buy it? No way I can play Jasmine party.”

  “You can’t just ask the man to borrow that shit? He ain’t throwing no party next week, right?”

  “Nah, not ’til the week after, but I don’t wanna ask him for shit just to hear him say no. Then I’ma have him thinking I need him or something.�
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  “You know I would help you out if I had it like that, right?”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  Me and Cal sit there for a while, talking ’bout how fucked up everything is. Me and him used to have fun 24/7. Now we like two old dudes talking ’bout his kid and how broke we are. This time last year we ain’t had nowhere near this kinda stress.

  A couple minutes later, I get up from the table and say, “I got a date.” I can’t help smiling ’cause the word “date” sound like something you see on them TV shows or something. When me and Novisha was together I don’t think we ever went out on a real date. Yeah, we used to hang and go out and eat and shit, but we never called it a date or nothing. I don’t know. We was just together.

  Course, Adonna ain’t Novisha. Adonna gonna need to go out on a real date. And sometimes a brotha gotta step up.

  Cal shake his head. “You sit here all this time talking ’bout how you broke, and now you getting ready to take Adonna out. That girl gonna take every last dollar you got.”

  “I know, I know,” I say, but I ain’t looking to hear that right ’bout now. What he saying is true though. He know it and so do I. Only thing, something tell me that a girl like Adonna is worth it. “I asked her out and I’ma take her out. And I ain’t gonna be like them other dudes that pro’ly be trying to hit it right away. By the time I make my move, she gonna be begging me for it.”

  Cal laugh, but he don’t know. My plan gonna work.

  “That’s the thing with girls like Adonna,” I tell him. “Guys always be moving too fast with them.”

  “And you think you gonna get some by being a turtle?”

  “Nah, not a turtle,” I say. “A gentleman.”

  EIGHTEEN

  And I am a gentleman. I dress up nice in jeans and another new shirt I got in Atlanta. It was expensive as hell, but I go over to Adonna building looking good. Clean.

  The second I walk into the building, I’m like, shit. Novisha coming outta the elevator. It don’t take her two seconds to see me, and when she do, she stop dead in her tracks a couple feet away from me. Me and her stand there looking at each other, the first time we together by ourself with nobody else ’round since we broke up in January.

  “Tyrell,” she say, and give me a almost-smile. “Um, how — how are you?”

  I don’t even know what to say to her. ’Cept for hi and bye, we ain’t really conversated since January.

  Seeing that I don’t say nothing, she keep on talking. “How’s Troy? Did your mother ever get him back?”

  “Nah.” I ain’t even know she knew ’bout what happened to Troy. “He still in the system.”

  “That poor little boy.”

  That’s the thing with Novisha. She do really care ’bout Troy. She mighta lied ’bout a lot of things when we was together, but by the look on her face, I can tell she really do feel bad for Troy. “He a’ight, Novisha. Don’t worry ’bout him. I see him all the time.”

  She sigh. “Oh, good.”

  “Yeah.”

  I don’t got nothing else to say so I start walking again. I get past her, almost at the elevator, when she go, “Why didn’t you ever return any of my calls? I left you a ton of messages.”

  I press the button for the elevator and say, “I never listened to none of them.” “Why?”

  I don’t even turn ’round when I say, “’Cause I was through.” I’m hoping the elevator will come fast ’cause I ain’t in the mood for none of this right now.

  “Oh,” she say, sounding all surprised. “Well, since you never listened, I can tell you what I said. I said I was sorry, you know, for lying and, um, hurting you. And messing everything up. I wanted you to know that.”

  I don’t know what to say to that.

  Out the corner of my eye, I see her start walking closer to me, talking ’bout, “If you ever wanna talk, Ty, and clear everything up, we could — um, is that the cologne I got you for Christmas?”

  Shit. I ain’t even think ’bout that when I put it on, but she right. It is. ’Stead of answering her, I go, “Where your new man at?” and I turn ’round to see the look on her face. “You standing here talking to me. You think your man gonna like that, Novisha?”

  “My man?” Only Novisha can make her face like this, like she looking surprised and at the same time, I can tell she know exactly who the fuck I’m talking ’bout. “I don’t — oh, are you talking about Marcus? He’s not … He’s just a—”

  “A what? A guy you brung ’round here to try and get me jealous? That what he is?”

  “It’s not like that, Ty,” she say, and it look like she ’bout to start explaining, which for Novisha mean she ’bout to start lying.

  So I cut her off. “Novisha, I ain’t into none of your games today. I got plans.”

  The elevator come and I get in and press 19. Novisha stand there and ask, “Who are you going to see? Adonna?”

  The doors close before I can answer her. Like who I’ma be with is any of her business. That girl got a lot of nerve, ’specially since she the one that fucked us up in the first place. We had a good thing, but every time I see her now, all I think ’bout is her with that other guy, Jamal. Regg was right what he said ’bout how guys can’t ever get the visual out they head when they woman is with another guy. That shit is true. ’Cause just knowing that she was with him, I can see it in my mind. And being that me and Novisha never actually had sex, I don’t got no other picture to cover that one up with. Jamal the only guy she ever got with. Not me. Him.

  So by the time I get to Adonna floor, I’m through thinking ’bout Novisha. I’m back to being a gentleman, ’cause I’ma charm the shit outta Adonna moms. I’ma be the kinda guy she happy her daughter is going out with. Just like Novisha moms used to be.

  I know how to work them moms.

  By the time me and Adonna is leaving outta Bronxwood, I can tell her moms like me and we even stop and talk to Kenny at his truck before we go to the corner to catch a cab ’cause Adonna too good for me to take her on the bus or train. I’m gonna show her off in style.

  We end up going to the movies at Bay Plaza and I let her pick the movie she wanna see, some stupid shit ’bout a female that can’t get no man and all her friends gotta try and find her a dude. Meanwhile, the girl so hot, the whole movie don’t make no kinda sense to me. They shoulda hired a ugly-ass actress if they wanted folks to believe that shit.

  At the movies, I’m still trying to be a gentleman, playing it cool and not trying to be all over Adonna, even though it’s dark in there and ain’t nothing more I wanna do ’cept kiss them pretty lips. But all I do is hold her hand. That’s it. I’m all ’bout making her feel comfortable with me. So when the time come, I’ma be in there.

  After the movie, I take her to City Island, where they be nothing but seafood restaurants up and down the street. And most of them, you can look out the window and see the water and shit. This the kinda date a girl like Adonna deserve.

  “This is nice,” Adonna say, looking out the window. It’s after nine o’clock, but it ain’t so dark outside that we can’t still see the water. Adonna lean ’cross the table and whisper, “Are you sure you can afford this restaurant?” Only thing, the way she say it ain’t like she worried ’bout me spending too much. Girls like Adonna don’t think a guy could ever spend too much on them. She just wanna know how much I got.

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” I tell her. “Order what you want.”

  She smile, but only a little bit. Then her eyes kinda light up and she open the menu and start talking ’bout how much she love lobster, but she can’t never afford it. Me, I don’t react. I’m cool. But damn. Cal wasn’t lying when he said I ain’t gonna have a dime when I leave outta here.

  After we order, the waiter bring over this basket of bread, and I sit back and watch Adonna spread a ton of butter on a roll and eat it, talking nonstop in between bites. I just like watching her ’cause she happy eating and talking.

  The last time I brung a female to City Island
was back in April, right when the weather was starting to get nice. I was talking to this girl from school and we came to one of these restaurants after hanging out one night. But she was one of them salad-eating females that act like they don’t never eat, even though she wasn’t no skinny girl. She probably got home and ate everything in her moms house.

  Adonna ain’t nothing like that. She keepin’ it real. Real expensive.

  A hour and fifteen later, me and Adonna leave the restaurant and take a walk so all that food we ate could settle down in our stomachs. Adonna talking ’bout something, but all I’m thinking ’bout is the fact that I spent almost ninety dollars on food, plus, like, forty dollars at the movies. And this date ain’t even over yet.

  We walk for a while holding hands, past all the other restaurants, then down to the pier. I lean up against the railing and put my arm ’round her waist and bring her close to me. I wanna get some good kissing in and this spot is mad romantic. Females like this shit, with the water in the background and all that.

  And it’s good. We standing there tonguing and shit for, like, ten, fifteen minutes. Something ’bout being with a girl like her. Seriously, I don’t need to think ’bout nothing else. Nothing ’cept her. Standing out here, kissing her, it’s worth it, spending money like that on her.

  After a while we stop long enough to look down at the water and talk ’bout what a nice night it is and all that. Looking down at the beach with all them rocks make me think ’bout what Adonna said last week ’bout not going to the beach this summer, and before I know it, I’m like, “We should go to the beach tomorrow, let me get a chance to see you in that bikini.”

  “I told you, you couldn’t handle it.”

  I smile. “My heart’s beating harder already. Damn, girl, you gonna give me a heart attack.”

  She laugh. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “So let’s go tomorrow, get you in that water and have fun.” I put my arm ’round her waist again. “Get you on that blanket.”

  “I can’t, not tomorrow. My father’s coming by and hopefully I’ll get him to take me shopping for school clothes.”