by Coe Booth
Me and Jasmine go to my room ’cause Cal ’sleep on the couch. Probably took one of them pills ’cause he out cold with his mouth open and shit. “How’s he feeling?” Jasmine ask, sitting on my bed.
“He in a lot of pain. Every time he breathe, you can see in his face how much it hurt.”
She shake her head, and I don’t want her getting even more sad than she already is. So I put on some Spanish music to cheer her up and remind her ’bout her party.
Jasmine try to smile, but it look like her mind still ain’t there.
“C’mon,” I say. “Don’t let nothing mess up your big day tomorrow. I mean, how many times you gonna turn sixteen?”
“That’s the point. It’s my day, right? I been talking about what kinda party I was gonna have since I was, like, twelve or thirteen. Reyna knows that. So why isn’t she here? It doesn’t make sense, Ty. Unless something’s wrong. How can I not think about that?”
I sit down next to her and slip my arm ’round her waist. “You right,” I tell her.
“And she’s a stripper? How stupid is that? Stripping.”
“I know you worried ’bout her and I don’t blame you, but tomorrow I want you to have fun, you hear me? And I’ma do the best I can to make your party hot, okay?” Long as nobody wanna hear music.
“Alright.” She rest her head on my shoulder. “I’m okay.”
I kiss her forehead, then she turn toward me and we kiss on the lips fast, but good. Then, just as I’m ’bout to kiss her again, my cell ring. Shit.
Andre name come up on the screen. Fuck. I click the talk button and right away he go, “Ty, I need you to do the Bronx/Harlem pickup again.”
“You ain’t serious,” I say.
“What you mean?”
“The shit you pulled yesterday. You remember that, right?”
“You said you got robbed. I still need you to—”
“Andre, I’m through.” I make sure my voice real strong, so he know my mind’s made up.
“Through with what?” “Through with you.”
I click the cell off and lean back into Jasmine and try to get back to what we was doing. But she pull away and say, “Who was that?”
“Look, Jasmine, I know you like to know everything ’bout what I do, but—”
“Just tell me.”
It take me a couple seconds to think of a way outta this, but there ain’t none. So I just tell her. “It was Andre. I did some work for him and now—”
“What?” Jasmine eyes bug out and she cover her mouth with her hand, all shocked and shit.
“I ain’t sell no drugs, Jas—”
“You promised me you wasn’t gonna do nothing with them. Didn’t you promise me? I remember you promising me.”
“Yeah, I did, but you don’t understand everything that’s been going on, like, since my pops got out and …” I stop talking ’cause if I tell her any more, I’ma hafta tell her that my pops took his equipment back and I ain’t got nothing to use for her party. Then I’ma hafta deal with more tears than I already put up with all day.
“You’re so stupid,” Jasmine say. “God!”
“Look, Jasmine. I gotta take care of myself ’cause nobody else gonna do that for me. Why it matter to you so much what I do?”
She shake her head over and over and roll her eyes. “You’re so stupid.”
“You said that already. Yeah, a’ight. I’m stupid.”
“You’re stupid because you can’t see that I got feelings for you, stupid.”
Okay, now I don’t even know what to say to that. Or what to do. But I don’t gotta do nothing ’cause before I open my mouth to say anything, she back to kissing me. And this time our kissing is hard and nasty, like the kind that make me know she want it from me bad.
Me and her kiss for a long time, longer than I ever spent kissing a female. To be honest, I’m trying to slow myself down ’cause I been thinking about getting with Jasmine for so long, when we get going, I wanna make sure it last.
“Watch me,” Jasmine say, standing up right in front of me. I wanna get up and keep kissing, but she put her arm on my shoulder. Then next thing I know she taking off her clothes, and I’m still sitting on the bed trying to be cool and keep my mouth closed. But damn. Damn. I can’t believe this shit is ’bout to go down. “You looking sexy as hell,” I tell her.
She smile and throw her top on the dresser. Then her bra come off and now I’m the one smiling. I swear, Jasmine titties is bigger than the last time I seen her naked, one time back at the shelter when she was changing and she thought I was ’sleep. Now they probably a D cup or something, and she only now turning sixteen. By the time she twenty, they gonna be least a double D.
I know she trying to strip for me, but I can’t take it no more. I gotta get my hands on them things. On her. I get up from the bed, put my arms ’round her waist so she don’t think I’m only going after her titties and we stand there kissing for a while. Finally, I move my hands up slow ’til they where they wanna be, and man, it was worth the wait, for real. I ain’t gonna lie, just touching them make me ready to go. And I don’t waste no time getting the rest of her clothes off while she taking off mines.
It don’t matter that I don’t know what Jasmine thinking and why she wanna do it with me all of a sudden. All I’m thinking is if she want it, I’ma let her get it.
And that’s what I do. I grab a couple condoms from my top drawer and, in the same move, get her on the bed and kiss her some more. Then I lay it down hard. For real. I ain’t gonna lie, girl got me breathing hard and sweating. Working hard. All the time I’m making sure she getting as much outta this as me. And I can tell she is, all the noise she making. She definitely know what a guy need to hear to know he doing the right thing.
When we through, we lay in bed with our arms and legs wrapped ’round each other and Jasmine talking and talking, but it’s hard for me to stay awake. The girl wore me out.
“I wish I could stay here with you,” Jasmine say.
“What time Emiliano getting home?”
“I don’t wanna think about him now.”
“I know,” I say, ’cause I don’t wanna think about him neither, not when I know he wanna do the same thing to Jasmine that I got finished doing. “I don’t want you to get in trouble if you get home late.”
She sigh. “I know. It’s just—”
She stop talking and I wait for her to finish what she was gonna say, but my eyes is closing. Finally, I feel her pulling away from me. I open my eyes and try and keep her next to me. “Don’t go nowhere,” I say.
She sit on the bed with her back to me. “I have to go. I have to change trains and—”
I sit up and wrap my arms ’round her waist. “Stay here. Just for a while.”
Next thing I know we back laying under the covers, kissing. Then ten minutes later I’m ready for Round Two. A girl like Jasmine ain’t easy to let go of. Not ’til there ain’t nothing left.
TWENTY-SIX
When we wake up, Jasmine start freakin’ out ’cause it’s after six. She sit up in bed fast and first thing she do is call Emiliano and tell him some bullshit ’bout how her and her friends went out after work and they was trying to get they nails done or something but the line was too long and now she on her way back home.
Soon as she hang up, and ’cause I’m thinking two steps ahead, I call Patrick to see if he borrowed his uncle truck for the party yet, and when he say he did, I tell him to meet us downstairs in five minutes. I can’t hardly drive a regular car for shit. Ain’t no way I’ma figure out how to drive a stick. Anyway, I ain’t ready to let go of Jasmine yet, so why drive when I can let Patrick do it?
While Jasmine go to the bathroom, it’s hard for me to move. Having sex with that girl came outta nowhere but that shit was crazy good. I knew if I ever got with her, it was gonna be something I wasn’t never gonna forget, but I never knew she would be like that. She was like a different person or something, a female that did everything and let me do any
thing. It was like she couldn’t get enough. Even trying to get outta bed, my legs is still weak. Good thing she ain’t here to see it ’cause this shit is embarrassing.
I might hafta quit smoking for real and start going to the gym if I’ma get with Jasmine again.
Patrick uncle a plumber and he own the broke-down brown truck. He don’t work on the weekend, so when I throw a party I pay him fifty dollars to rent it to bring my equipment to the party. While Patrick drive to Jasmine place, me and her squeezed in next to him, still kissing. Even with Patrick right there, I can’t help myself. After what just went down between us, I’m feeling closer to her than I ever did before.
Then, when we get on Jerome Avenue, Jasmine stop kissing me and just put her arms ’round me and hug me for a long time. I hug her back, but I don’t know. “You okay?” I ask her.
“Yeah,” she say, and she don’t let go of me for a while.
I’m like, what’s she thinking? That she shoulda never got with me or something? But I don’t wanna ask her nothing now, not with Patrick here, so I just keep my arms ’round her.
When we get in front of her building, Jasmine tell Patrick, “Don’t stop here. Keep going and I’ll tell you when to stop.” Two blocks later, she tell Patrick he could pull over now. Before she get out, she give me a couple fast kisses on the lips. “See you tomorrow,” she say, which just make me think ’bout how much I gotta do before the party.
“Don’t worry ’bout nothing,” I tell her. “All you gotta do is look good and have fun tomorrow, a’ight?”
She smile and nod. “Okay.” But, damn, she don’t look happy no more. And I don’t know if it got anything to do with me or not.
I tell Patrick that we ain’t going straight back to Bronxwood. We going to my moms and pops new apartment. I mean, I don’t know how I’ma do it, but I hafta get my hands on that storage room key again. Ain’t got no choice.
When my pops open the door, I can tell him and my moms ain’t in the mood to have nobody visiting them. They in the living room watching some movie on TV and drinking, and my pops is only wearing boxers and my moms got on some long T-shirt thing, and I’m glad I told Patrick to stay downstairs in the truck ’cause nobody else need to see my moms and pops like this.
“You need something?” my pops ask me, standing in the door, blocking me from going in.
“What he want?” my moms call out from the couch.
I’m they son. They acting like I’m somebody trying to sell them The Watchtower or something. “I left something in my — I mean, I need to get something outta one my boxes.”
“You couldn’t call first?” my pops ask. And he serious too.
“I was over by here with my friend, and I ain’t think it was gonna be a problem or anything.”
My pops step aside and let me in, but I don’t know why it even took this long. “Hurry up,” he go. “We in the middle of something.”
“I can see that,” I say. “Y’all go back to what you was watching. I’ma be in and outta here.” I go down the hall to the room where my stuff is at. I put the light on and start going through boxes looking for nothing. Only thing that get my attention, that I could say I came here for, is my old pocketknife. Shit kinda rusty, but my pops might believe this is what I came here for.
I hear the TV go back on in the living room and that’s when I decide it’s okay to sneak over to my pops room. I can’t walk no slower or quieter, but I don’t know what my pops would do if he catch me.
I don’t wanna take a chance and put on the light in they room, so I’m looking ’round in the dark. My pops pants is hanging on a chair and I go through his pockets, but only thing he got in there is a lighter and a couple dollars.
“You find what you need?” my pops yell to me from the living room. Shit.
I fly out to the hall and go, “Yeah, I got it. I’ma just go to the bathroom, then bounce.” I turn the light on in the bathroom and close the door, then run back to my moms and pops room.
I head straight for my pops dresser, which got all kinda shit on top. I’m feeling my way ’round in the dark and I don’t know how, but I find his key chain. He got all kinda keys on there, but I recognize the storage room key just by how it feel ’cause it’s bigger and thicker than the rest of them. Then I spend a while trying to get it off the key chain, ’cause my pops got all the rings hooked together like a crazy person. Shit take forever to take apart.
And I just get away with it too. The second I get the key and fly back to the bathroom, I hear my pops coming down the hall. I flush the toilet and wash my hands and come out the bathroom, cool, like I ain’t got nothing to worry ’bout. My pops is practically right in front of the door, like he waiting for me or something. “Everything good?” he ask me.
“Yeah.” I take the knife outta my pocket like I need to show him proof or something. “I needed this for—” Damn. Why the fuck I’ma need a knife tonight? “My friend wanna borrow it.” Sound as stupid coming out my mouth as it did in my head.
I go back down the hall to the front door and say to both of them, “A’ight, I’ma see y’all next week at the agency, then.” And I’m outta there fast as I can without looking like I’m up to something.
Me and Patrick go straight to the storage room ’cause I ain’t gonna wait ’til tomorrow to get the equipment and give my pops time to figure out I stole that key. We grab the hand truck and the rope and shit, ready to load up that truck and get the fuck outta there, but the second I open that door, even before I turn on the lights, I can just hear the echo in the room and know the place is empty. Patrick flip the light switch and go, “Where—?”
“I can’t believe this,” I say, and it kinda feel like I got punched or something. “My pops, he musta rented it out or—”
“What you gonna do?”
I just stand there looking at nothing. “I don’t know,” I tell him. “I don’t know.” And I don’t.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 16
TWENTY-SEVEN
By six o’clock Saturday, me and Patrick is at the community center on Jerome near Bedford Park Avenue, where Jasmine party gonna be at. I’m tired as hell, trying to get myself awake by drinking Pepsi and Red Bulls, but they ain’t working yet. I ain’t gonna lie. I hardly got no sleep last night, not after seeing that empty storage room and knowin’ I was gonna be the reason Jasmine gonna have a fucked-up, no-music party.
I been stressed out all night, counting and recounting my money, but all I had was the two hundred dollars Andre paid me, the five hundred dollars I never told him I kept, and some of the chump change I brung back with me from Atlanta. I had to get speakers and a amp, and all the other shit I needed before Jasmine party, and I ain’t think I was gonna be able to do it.
But I did. Me and Patrick got all his equipment in the truck and drove to that DJ store in Astoria. I ain’t even look at all the nice shit in the front. Nah, I went straight to the back. Still, after I picked out the amp and speakers I wanted to get, I still needed a hundred seventy dollars more, and I don’t know why I still had that man chain in my backpack, but I went ’round the corner to this pawnshop and sold that shit for two hundred twenty dollars. Got beat on the price ’cause that chain probably cost my pops three times that, but I ain’t care. All I was thinking ’bout was buying what I needed to get through the party tonight.
Crazy thing is, my pops been calling my cell all morning and afternoon and I been ignoring every one of them calls. I know he figured out I took his key, but ain’t no way he know where I’m at now. Shouldn’t of never lent his shit out to whoever he gave it to. Now he gonna hafta wait to get his key back.
Fuck him anyway.
While me and Patrick set up the DJ table, three ladies is decorating the walls and the tables they got all ’round the dance floor. Everything, all the tablecloths and balloons and flowers is light purple and white, and all the chairs got big purple bows on the back. All the stuff they taping to the walls, the balloons, the streamers got SWEET SIXTEEN written on it.
On the other side of the room two ladies is setting up the food tables and even them tables got purple bows on them. The whole thing outta control, you ask me.
“Can’t wait for the females to get here,” Patrick say. “I know they gonna be fine, ’cause remember them girls Jasmine came to your other party with, them dancers?” He laugh, all excited. “I hope she bring them again.”
I’m plugging in cables in the back of the amp. “What you gonna do if she bring them? Ask one of them to dance?”
“Yeah,” he go, but his voice don’t sound like even he believe what he saying.
I’ma hafta see it for myself. I been so busy that I ain’t had time to try and get him in no better shape. We only got the chance to play ball once. Dude was outta breath, running ’round the court without hardly picking his feet up off the ground. But I think it was a good thing for him, getting his heart beating fast and shit. And least he was outside for a change.
My cell ring. Again. This is getting annoying already.
“Your pops?” Patrick ask.
“He be a’ight,” I say, turning off my cell and sticking it in my backpack. I got no time for him, not tonight. I need to focus on making this the best party Jasmine could think of.
It’s, like, twenty minutes to eight when Emiliano get there. He walk in like he the man, in a black suit and a white shirt. Dude’s shoulders is, like, three times the size of mines, but he short. Good. He come over to the table and give me this weird look like he sizing me up and say, “Everything ready?”
Why he looking at me like that for? The first thing I think of is, do he know what happened between me and Jasmine?
Even though I don’t like the way he staring me down, I need the six hundred dollars he paying me, so I gotta put up with it. “Yeah, we ready,” I tell him. “And I got all the music you want.”
