Tyrell

by Coe Booth

  “Come set this table, Tyrell,” Ms. Jenkins say from the kitchen.

  I get up, kinda glad she making me do something besides just eat. She got four dishes set out like she still waiting for her ex-husband to show up. I start setting the table, but my mind is just thinking and planning.

  First thing I’ma hafta do is find a place for the party, and the cheaper the better. Then I’ma hafta find a way to get my pops equipment from the storage place. Maybe Andre or Greg can help me with that ‘cause they the only two niggas I know that got a license. Then I’ma hafta promote this party ‘cause I need the place to be packed with kids so I can make some real money.

  I finish setting the table and ask Ms. Jenkins if I can do something else to help out.

  “No,” she say. “Just go wash up for dinner. Then come back, sit down, and eat.”

  I smile.

  “And don’t think I’m going to let you go back to those boys’ apartment, Tyrell. Not with what they’re up to. No. You’re staying right here. Case closed.”

  “You sure, Ms. Jenkins? ‘Cause I know how you feel ‘bout having a boy here with Novisha.”

  She look me in the eye. “I trust you, Tyrell.”

  Damn. Now I’m feeling guilty.

  She laugh. “And I’m keeping Novisha in my bed with me, so don’t get any ideas!”

  “Mom!” Novisha say. She still sitting at the computer. “You’re embarrassing me.”

  “Girl, I said I trust Tyrell, right? But I wasn’t born yesterday. I was a teenager once myself, you know, and I know what I would’ve gotten away with if my mother ever turned her back on me and your father. That woman was on me like white on rice, let me tell you. But she knew what she was doing.”

  Novisha roll her eyes. “I’m not you. And Tyrell’s not Daddy. Thank God.”

  Ms. Jenkins give Novisha one of them stares. “Turn that computer off and come eat dinner. You know they’re going to cancel school tomorrow anyway. You don’t need to sit there all night.”

  Me and Novisha look at each other for a couple seconds. She don’t say nothing, but I can tell she thinking what I’m thinking. Her moms is bugging.

  A couple hours later, I’m all full and satisfied, and me and Novisha is in her room. We s’posed to be putting clean sheets on her bed, but I’m trying to get some good long kisses from her before she gotta go sleep with her moms. Of course her moms make us keep the door open, so we can’t really do much of nothing.

  But that don’t stop me from trying. I’m grabbing her ass and trying to feel her up whenever she pass by me. And every chance I get, I’m kissing on her like I can’t help myself.

  “C’mon, Tyrell,” she say, checking to make sure her moms ain’t watching us. “My mom’s gonna wonder what we’re doing in here if she doesn’t see these sheets changed.” She start taking her blankets off the bed, but I stop her and put my arms ‘round her waist.

  “I wanna sleep on your sheets,” I tell her. “So I can smell you all night.”

  She make a face. “What do I smell like?”

  “You know, that peach stuff you use in the shower. I love the way you smell.”

  “You do?” She smile a little. “But, if you sleep on my sheets, are you gonna—?”

  “Pro’ly,” I say, and laugh when she get all embarrassed and look away. “But I’ma be thinking ‘bout you when I do it. Like when we married, man, me and you gonna be doing all kinda wild things.”

  Now her smile get real big. “You sure you can wait that long?”

  “Yeah,” I tell her. “I’m sure.” I pull her real close to me and whisper in her ear, “I’ma wait for you ‘cause you my girl.” I kiss her on her neck a couple times. “Tell me I’m your man.”

  “You’re my man,” she say in my ear. Then we kiss on the lips, and this time she don’t act like she care if her moms catch us or nothing. She into it. Her lips are so sweet and juicy that, man, it’s hard to keep my mind from thinking ‘bout what else them lips could do for me.

  “You love me?” I ask her.

  “I love you,” she say. Man, I can’t explain, but them words make me feel real good.

  After a while, Novisha tell me she better go back out to the kitchen before her moms come looking for her.

  “I’ma read your diary,” I tell her.

  “Which one?”

  “Both.”

  “You better not,” she say, but she smiling, so I know she don’t mean it. Besides, she let me read her diaries before, so why not now? “Good night,” she say, and leave the room. I wish she coulda stayed, but at the same time, I ain’t slept in a room by myself since we lost our apartment, so I ain’t really complaining ‘bout being alone. Sometimes I just need time to chill.

  I lay down on the bed, reach under the pillow, and pull out the little purple diary with butterflies on the cover. This is the fake diary, and it’s just for her moms to read when she be spying on her daughter. This is the diary I like ‘cause this shit is funny.

  I open it and turn to the last thing she wrote.

  Dear Diary,

  I got my award tonight. I still don’t understand why they gave it to me. All I did was get other kids to do some volunteer work with me. Isn’t that what every Christian should do anyway? Tyrell came to the ceremony, so that made tonight extra special. Then we all went out to dinner. Dad came too. I love him, but I wish Mom would find someone special in her life again. She needs to move forward, not backwards. She deserves to be happy again.

  All I gotta say is, my girl is good. It’s like she writing this whole diary just so she could tell her moms shit. I flip back a couple pages.

  Dear Diary,

  Shanice and her boyfriend broke up yesterday. He said he was tired of being in a childish relationship. Those were his exact words. I’m glad Shanice didn’t turn her back on her values and give in to that idiot. I don’t understand why some boys only think about one thing. Tyrell isn’t like that. He respects me and would never pressure me. I’m so lucky to have a boyfriend like him.

  No wonder her moms trust me so much. She be reading all this and thinking me and her daughter ain’t doing no nasty shit.

  I put the diary back under the pillow, then get up to find the real one. That one is just a black and white notebook with GLOBAL HISTORY on the cover, and she keep it on her desk with all her other notebooks. When I find it, I sit in the chair and start reading from the last thing she wrote. It’s from yesterday.

  I just got back from dinner at Red Lobster with Mom, Dad, and Tyrell. I don’t understand Dad at all. He’s been hanging around here a lot, giving me money and sleeping with Mom like nothing’s changed. If Mom takes him back, I’m going away to boarding school.

  I’m so glad Tyrell came to the awards ceremony, but he seemed kind of down. I’m not sure why. I know he loves me and he’s happy for me, but maybe it’s hard being around me when I’m winning awards and he still doesn’t know where he’s going yet. Maybe I shouldn’t have invited him, but I thought if he came, he would see how great school can be. Sometimes I don’t get it when he tells me he’s going to support me when I go to college. Tyrell is smart enough to go to college himself. He doesn’t have to support me. I don’t need him for that.

  I wish Tyrell could see how much he’s capable of. He’s so sweet and sensitive, and he always wants to take care of people. I wish he would love himself and take care of himself first.

  I put the notebook back down on the desk. Damn. That shit get to me. What, she just wanna go to college by herself, not with me like we said we was gonna do? I don’t know if she mean it, but what she saying is real clear to me. She don’t need me.

  TWELVE

  Novisha wake me up by kissing me all over my face. “They closed all the schools,” she say, laughing. “Get up.”

  Novisha got on this long, thick-ass nightgown. I pull her down on the bed next to me and try to work my hand up that nightgown. “Ty, stop. My mom’s sleeping in the next room.”

  “I just wanna touch y
ou,” I say. “I can’t even see no skin with that thing you wearing.”

  She get up off the bed. “That’s the idea. My mom made me wear it since there’s a boy in the house.”

  “Just pull it up. Let me see your panties. C’mon.”

  “I’m not wearing any panties,” she say.

  Now I’m excited. “Come here. Take care of me.”

  “But my mom—”

  “Do it quick,” I say.

  And she do. She turn ‘round the St. Mary statue and get to work. I know she scared ‘cause so am I. If her moms catch us, man, we both dead. While Novisha doing her thing, I’m still trying to pull up her nightgown and see her, but she won’t let me. She think it’s okay if she make me feel good, but I can’t do nothing to make her feel good. I don’t get it, but I ain’t complaining.

  When we done, she get up and pick up my jeans from off the floor where I threw them last night. She hand them to me. “Get dressed. Then let’s make breakfast together.”

  She ‘bout to leave the room when she bend down to pick something up off the floor. She stand up with my money in her hand, counting it. “A hundred and fifty dollars?” She look at me like she wanna know what’s going on. “Where’d you get this?”

  I’m laying there trying to hold on to that good feeling in my body, and my mind can’t even make up no lie to tell her. “I got it from Cal and them.”

  “Are you working for them?” She ask it like she don’t even wanna hear the answer.

  “Nah. You know I ain’t gonna do that. I just needed some money ‘cause me and my moms is broke. We don’t even got money to eat.”

  “How are you gonna pay them back?”

  I don’t wanna tell her ‘bout the party, so I just say, “I’ma hafta work harder with them MetroCards. Cal said I could pay him back a little at a time.”

  She hand me the money. “Okay,” she say. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “I do,” I tell her. “Don’t worry. Me and Cal is tight.”

  After we get dressed, me and Novisha go out to the kitchen and decide to make pancakes. “I wanna make enough for your moms too,” I say. “‘Cause she been cooking for me, like, everyday.”

  I ain’t never cooked with Novisha before, but we having fun. She mixing the batter and I’m greasing the pan when my cell ring. I don’t know the number on the caller ID, so I’m thinking it’s probably my moms calling from Bennett again. But it ain’t. “Ty, it’s me. Jasmine.”

  Damn, now she tracking me down all over the fucking Bronx. Novisha is like two feet from me, so I don’t know what to say. “Yeah, what’s up?” I ask Jasmine.

  “It’s your brother. I went to your room this morning looking for you, and your brother was there all alone.”

  “What?” I feel the blood pumping through my body real fast now. “Troy okay? Where was my moms?”

  “Troy’s fine. I don’t know where your mother is though. Troy let me in the room because he got scared when he didn’t see your mom there. He started crying. I thought your mother must of went out looking for some food or something, so I stood there with Troy waiting for her. But it’s been, like, more than two hours, and your mother still isn’t back.”

  “This don’t make no sense,” I say. “How she gonna do this?” Novisha stop stirring and look at me like she wanna know what’s going on. I cover the phone and tell her, “My moms left Troy alone in the motel room.”

  Jasmine is still talking. “I just wanted to tell you that Troy’s with me. He gave me your cell phone number. You wanna talk to him?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Put him on.”

  “Hi, Ty,” Troy say in a real low voice. “You mad at me for letting the church girl in our room?”

  “No, I ain’t mad. You did a good job. But she ain’t no church girl. She just took us to church for the food, remember? I’m just glad you remembered my cell phone number. That’s good.”

  “Where Mommy at?”

  “I don’t know. Was she there when you went to bed last night?”

  “Yeah. We went to sleep, but I woke up when the church girl knocked on the door. Mommy wasn’t here no more.”

  “You okay?”

  “I like the church girl. She real pretty.”

  “Yeah, I know. Can you put her back on the phone?”

  A second later, Jasmine say, “Ty, your brother is really a great kid.”

  “Thanks, Jasmine. I’ma try to get back there as soon as I can. You mind watching him?”

  “No, we’re hanging out together, right, Troy?”

  In the background, I hear Troy say, “Yeah.”

  “A’ight. I’ma leave now,” I tell her.

  “Where are—?” Jasmine start to ask. “Never mind. That’s none of my business.”

  “I’m with my girl,” I say. “All that snow last night, I just got stuck, you know.”

  “Oh,” she say. All of a sudden she quiet now.

  “I’ma be back there in a little while, okay?”

  “Okay,” she say. “Don’t worry about Troy. He’s gonna be fine with me. It’s real bad outside, so take your time, okay.”

  “A’ight.” I flip my cell closed and shove it back in my pocket.

  “Who’s Jasmine?” Novisha ask, giving me one of them looks.

  I don’t know what to say, so I just go, “She this girl from Bennett.”

  “You went to church with her?” Novisha got a little attitude now, which she don’t get a lot, so I know she getting jealous.

  “Nah, it wasn’t like that. She found out ‘bout this church that be giving out free food to homeless people, so me and Troy went with her.”

  “I invite you to church every week, and you hardly ever go with me.”

  “I ain’t wanna go yesterday neither, but Troy was hungry.” I pick up the bowl and start stirring the batter, trying to work them lumps out. I can feel Novisha just staring at me, and I know I’m looking mad guilty, but I just can’t look at her right now.

  “Is she pretty?”

  “Novisha, don’t start, okay?”

  “Is she?”

  I put the bowl down on the counter. “Nah, she ain’t pretty. That girl is butt ugly. She got braces and acne. You way prettier than her.” I look up at her real quick and catch a little bit of a smile. “I ain’t looking at no other girl, you know that.”

  Novisha come over to me and put her arm ‘round me. We kiss, but now I’m feeling real guilty even though I ain’t even do nothing to Jasmine. She the one that got in bed with me and started touching me and shit. I ain’t ask her to do that to me.

  “Are you gonna stay and eat?”

  “Yeah, but I’ma hafta eat and run. You mind?”

  Novisha shake her head. “I understand.”

  We start making the pancakes. She pour the batter in the pan and I flip them, but the first three pancakes I try to make just fall apart on me.

  “You have to wait,” Novisha say, laughing. She grab some of the pieces and eat them while I pour more batter on the pan. Then she lean over and kiss me with food still in her mouth. Next thing I know, I got her food in my mouth. The pancakes is cooked on the outside and raw on the inside. Man, them shits is nasty. When I try to spit them out, they just go back in Novisha mouth. And back and forth. Me and her is laughing and kissing for so long, the pancakes on the pan start burning ‘cause we ain’t paying them no mind. But we having a good time.

  Finally, after a while, we make a whole stack of good pancakes and some bacon. Novisha wake her moms up and tell her we made breakfast for her. It take her a while to come out her room, but when she do, she looking real tore up with a scarf on her head, wearing a old beat-up robe. She go on and on ‘bout how happy she is that we made breakfast for her. But she don’t know how much food we wasted getting this made.

  We all sit down to eat. My mind is all over the place. I’m just looking at Novisha and wishing we was grown already and this was our place. She so perfect for me. It’s hard to explain, but she got everythin
g I want in a woman. She cute as hell, sexy, sweet, smart, and she love me. What more I’ma ask for?

  But to be honest, I’m still thinking ‘bout what she wrote in her diary. If she go away to college and don’t want me to come with her, I don’t know what I’ma do. All I wanna do is take care of her and be her man. I love her. What I don’t get is why she keep pushing me away from her.

  THIRTEEN

  Getting back to Bennett is crazy. Matter of fact, just getting to the train station ain’t no joke. The projects is already plowed and the sidewalks is clear, but the second I get near the laundromat and stores, nothing is shoveled ‘cause practically everything is closed. Only stores open is the bodega and the Chinese restaurant. Even the liquor store is closed. And in the projects, liquor stores don’t be closing for shit. The snow on the sidewalk is too deep to walk through, so I gotta walk in the street and try not to get hit by the cars and buses.

  The trains is running, but real slow, and by the time they do come, they just packed. I don’t know where all them people is going, but they serious. Nineteen inches of snow on the ground and these assholes can’t even stay in they fuckin’ house.

  When I get back to Hunts Point, it’s like the city just forgot ‘bout this whole neighborhood ‘cause the streets ain’t seen a plow yet. I gotta walk four blocks from the train station, which ain’t easy, and I’m practically going blind with all the white I’m seeing. The parked cars is just big white bumps now, and you can’t see none of the garbage and shit on the street. Man, I never knew Hunts Point could look this clean and be this quiet.

  I don’t get back to Bennett ‘til ‘bout 12:30, and when I do, my feet is all cold and wet, and I’m miserable. I never used to hate snow, but when you ain’t got no warm coat or boots, snow ain’t cool. Not only that, but I ain’t got no other sneakers to put on, so I’ma be stuck in these all fuckin’ day.