Playground

by 50 Cent

  “I mean, yeah, I did it kinda fast,” I said, “but you said I’d already missed the deadline, and I didn’t want to let any more time pass, you know?”

  Liz was now scanning the pages I’d spent so much time filling out the way somebody reads a half-memorized grocery list. “And, like, I know it’s not even close to being perfect, but I think I did an okay job, right? I mean, if I didn’t, I can always—”

  “This all looks just fine to me,” Liz said, cutting me off. And then she picked up the DVD I’d handed her. “And this?” she squinted at the label my mom had driven me to the office-supply store to print out. “This is your work sample—The Superhero of Suburbia?”

  I nodded like I didn’t care, but inside I felt shy. “Yep, that’s the best I’ve got. You can watch if you want. It’s not dirty or anything like that.”

  Liz smiled. “I wasn’t suggesting that it was. I love the title, and I hope one day you’ll let me watch it.”

  “You can watch it right now if you want,” I said. “I mean, not when I’m sitting right here, if you don’t mind. That would be a little embarrassing.”

  “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t do that to you,” Liz said.

  There was a silence as we sat there looking at each other.

  “So are you sure?” I asked. “I mean, you’re sure I should do this?”

  “It was my idea, wasn’t it?” Liz said. “All right, so I’ll be sure to put this in the right people’s hands and make a few phone calls, but after that, you’re on your own. So please try not to screw anything up, okay?”

  Liz was chuckling as she said this, but I knew she was dead serious. For as long as she’d known me, all I’d ever done was screw shit up, so it was actually pretty wacked that she was giving me this chance in the first place.

  My whole life, school had just been a place where I escaped from whatever was going on at home. Before Watkins, nothing all that bad had ever happened at school, but nothing much good went down, either. It was just—school. Four walls and cheap toilet paper and some bad fluorescent lighting where I passed my time five days a week. Whatever happened with Cunningham, it was kinda . . . eye-opening, I guess, to realize that it could actually be something more.

  There was a silence, and I suddenly realized Liz’s eyes were drilling into me. “On another subject, you look like you’ve lost a little weight lately, Butterball. Am I right?”

  My mom had said the same thing at the restaurant, and I hadn’t known how to respond then, either. “Yeah, well, I’ve skipped a few meals here and there over the last few weeks,” I said. “Just haven’t been as hungry as I used to be.”

  I was now sitting diagonally across from Jamal and Shaun every day. The three of us had never exchanged a word, but it was like we’d called a sort of truce, an agreement not to interfere with one another. It was working for the moment, or at least it sure beat the handicapped stall.

  Liz and I spent the next half-hour rapping about nothing in particular—the end of school, how nasty-ass hot it was getting already, our plans for the summer. I’d noticed a neatly zipped suitcase in the corner of Liz’s office, right by the mini-fridge.

  “Heading out?” I asked, pointing over at it.

  “You’re very observant, Butterball,” Liz said. “Yes, I was—George and I are driving up to Rhode Island for a wedding this weekend, so we’re taking the whole rest of the week off and making a vacation out of it. I’m supposed to pick him up at his office at four. Walk me to the car?”

  I nodded, and we went back out into the parking lot together—the first time I’d ever seen Liz outside the confines of her little office. It was bright and sunny out, a different season from when I’d started coming to her at the end of that long dreary winter.

  As we passed the fried-chicken place, I stopped and turned to her. “Thanks for helping me out with Cunningham,” I said. I wanted to thank her for other stuff, too, but I didn’t know how to phrase it exactly. “I mean, I really appreciate it.”

  “No problem,” Liz said. “I think you’d be very happy there, Butterball.”

  “Yeah, me, too,” I said. “Too bad I have more of a chance of getting a pro basketball contract than getting in.”

  Liz chuckled. “Now, I wouldn’t say that. Like I said, I’ve got friends in high places, and if that DVD’s half as good as I think it might be . . .”

  “Nah, don’t say stuff like that,” I said. “I don’t want to get my hopes up, you know?”

  “It’s not the worst thing in the world, is it? Getting your hopes up.”

  I wasn’t sure what Liz meant by that, so I didn’t say anything, just started walking across the lot with her again.

  “So do you have any plans this summer?” Liz asked as we made our way across the asphalt.

  “Nope. Just working on my movies and stuff. My mom wanted me to go to a summer program. But I know she doesn’t have the cash for that, and I’m happy working on my own, or with this neighbor kid who starred in that DVD I gave you.” I hesitated for a second, then decided to tell her. “But I do have some plans to see that girl I told you about a while back—Nia, remember?”

  “I remember very well,” Liz said.

  “Uh, yeah,” I said, feeling a little embarrassed. “Well, actually what happened is that I ran into her whole family at Houston’s the other night. We all got started talking, and, y’know. Everyone got along real good.”

  “That’s great,” Liz said. “Who knows? You could have some summer romance in your future if you play your cards right.”

  “Aw, c’mon, Liz,” I said. “It’s not like that at all.” And it wasn’t, but I couldn’t tell her what it was like because I really had no idea. “And another thing I might do—I might ... Well, I was thinking about stopping over at Maurice’s one day, just to say hey and, like, that I’m sorry for everything that happened between us. Do you think that’d be stupid?”

  “I don’t think that’d be stupid at all,” Liz said seriously. “Quite the opposite, in fact. Good luck with that, Butterball—I hope you’ll fill me in on how it turns out.”

  We stopped in front of a beat-up red Honda. Just like I’d suspected, Liz wasn’t exactly raking in the big bucks in the therapy business.

  “It was good to see you again, Butterball,” Liz said now, stooping to unlock her car door. “Stop by anytime you’d like, okay? And remember, if you don’t invite me to all your screenings, I’m going to write you a bad-conduct report. Promise you’ll keep me in the loop?”

  I laughed. “Yeah, yeah, I promise.” I hesitated. I felt like I had one last request to make.

  “There’s . . . just one other thing I wanted to ask you.”

  Liz turned away from her car to look at me. “Sure, what is it?”

  “It sounds kinda weird, I know, but—well, would you mind calling me Burton from now on? Because ... that’s my real name, and that’s what I’m going to answer to next year, no matter where I go.”

  Now it was Liz’s turn to laugh. “Of course, Burton. Nothing would please me more. Now have a good weekend, all right?”

  “You, too,” I said. “Have fun in Rhode Island.” And for a while after she drove off, I just stood there by myself in the parking lot, watching the sun beat down on the asphalt. Then I took a deep breath in and walked back home.