I don’t reply to that. But if he starts saying ay-bay-bay, we will definitely find ourselves in a fistfight. There are certain lines that just can’t be crossed.
Dwayne Wade cuts into Benny’s six-point cushion. I’m down four with a minute to go.
Kobe misses.
Dwayne Wade doesn’t.
I’m down two points with forty-five seconds.
Benny says, “Okay, you’re doing a lil’ somethin’ somethin’. But I’m not shook.”
Kobe clanks another shot. He picked the perfect time to go ice-cold. God bless his CGI heart.
I grab the rebound and go inside to old reliable again. Wade ties the score with an easy basket.
The breakdown: Twenty-two seconds left in the game, tied score, Benny’s ball.
Kobe dribbles away the clock. I attempt a steal. My bid is unsuccessful.
Six seconds.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Benny finally makes his move with Kobe, darting to the left, then quickly back to his right. My defender is no match for that slick move. Kobe is alone as he elevates for the last shot. He releases it smoothly. The ball moves in slow motion. I sit silent, watch, wait. The buzzer sounds, loud because of Benny’s state-of-the-art television. Kobe’s shot rattles through the hoop. The CGI Kobe pumps his fist and does a little dance. Benny drops his controller on the plush carpet and throws his hands in the air. Same pose Jay-Z struck at his retirement concert at Madison Square Garden. A winner’s pose.
“Dang,” I say, disgusted. “I can’t believe I blew that lead.” My controller also finds Benny’s carpet as I throw it down.
Benny moves over to me and rubs my shoulder apologetically.
“Luck,” I tell him.
“Don’t hate the player. Hate the game,” he responds.
All the attempts at cool talk aside, Benny is without question just a geek. His room proves it. It’s neat and orderly. There are no posters of swimsuit models on his walls. No Heidi Klum, no Tyra Banks, not even a worn-out poster of Britney Spears. No rap CDs scattered on his desk, even though he’s taken the vernacular and attempted to make it his own. I’m not even sure Benny likes music of any kind. I’ve never seen him listening to the radio, never witnessed him purchase a CD, and MTV and VH1 get no play on his television.
More important than what you won’t find in Benny’s room is what you will. GamePro and EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly) magazines, the jewel cases to any number of video games, comic books and controllers for every video game system invented. If you turn his television on, you’re likely to find it on one of two channels: Discovery or G4, the gaming channel.
And then there is Benny himself. He’s the best evidence to prove my point.
The things he finds really cool, the things that bring his blood to a steady boil, are things that none of the cool kids at school would find the least bit interesting. I sit in Benny’s leather swivel chair at his desk, across the room from him, and watch him in action. He’s got this look on his face I can’t quite describe. In one class we talked about the “glow” that permeates a woman’s skin once she becomes pregnant. Something about hormonal changes that affect the skin. That’s it, that’s Benny’s look.
I call out to him, “Who knocked you up, Benny? Was it Anne Hathaway?”
Anne’s a couple shades paler than Benny, with just as much acne, mousy-looking hair and, believe it or not, a pound or two more baby fat than even Benny. She dresses like a movie star—unfortunately, a star from the fifties—Katharine Hepburn or somebody, women old enough for my mother to have to stretch her brain to remember their movies.
All of that, and Benny gets tongue-tied around Anne Hathaway. I don’t think he’s ever gotten out a word in her presence. I don’t even know if she knows Benny exists. It’s bad when even the unpopular girls don’t know your name.
I say, “Or was it ‘Big Bertha’ Beatrice?” Nickname says it all.
Benny puts a finger up to his lips, shushes me. He has a cordless phone pressed to his ear; anticipation dances across his pale, acne-scarred face.
I start to say something else, but Benny clears his throat and turns his back to me. “Yes, my name’s Mike Hunt,” he begins. His shoulders rock as he stifles laughter. “I’m trying to locate a good friend. He had this number last, from what I’m told. I hope I have the right number.”
Benny turns to me, smiles wide, mouths Mike Hunt and gets a he-he-he look on his face.
Mike Hunt.
Mike Hunt.
Say it slow…Mike Hunt. My cu—you get the point.
“Yes,” Benny says into the phone. “I’ve been running into dead ends like you wouldn’t believe.” He nods and smiles, very proper, not an ounce of wannabe rapper left in the lilt of his voice. “I sure hope so. What’s his name?” He pauses for effect. “Ben Dover.”
He-he-he.
The person on the other end must think Benny’s crazy.
Benny repeats, “Ben. Dover.”
I shake my head at Benny’s immaturity.
He covers his mouth with his free hand to stifle more laughter, and, unsuccessful, just hangs up the phone. He tosses the cordless to me. I put it on his desk with all the gaming magazines. Benny falls on his bed. He kicks his feet in excitement. “My adrenaline is off the hook, Eric. What a rush.”
I say, “You’ve got problems, Benny.”
He says, “I had that lady’s mind in the Matrix, Eric. She didn’t know which way was up, whether I was feeding her the blue pill or the red pill.”
I don’t know what he’s talking about. He’s a real problem when he starts to babble.
He continues. “Wish I’d taped that one, Eric. I’d love to hear it on playback. It was classic.”
I say, “That’s illegal, Benny. A Homeland Security violation or something.”
“I’m not Barack Obama. I’m not on the gubment’s list.”
I say, “You mean Osama bin Laden.”
Benny says, “Same difference.”
“Keep joking around about this stuff and get the Feds breathing down your neck.”
Benny says, “I’m not scared of po-po.”
“Benny, you’re scared of Miss Mitchell.” Miss Mitchell has mashed-potatoes duty in the school cafeteria. She’s known to bark at students in her deep Newport voice if they try to pass her station without getting a healthy spoonful of potatoes. The mashed potatoes are close to inedible, but there isn’t a student in our school outside of Crash who’ll pass by Miss Mitchell’s station empty-handed.
Benny says, “You ever seen that pocketbook Miss Mitchell carries?”
“Have to be Stevie Wonder to miss it,” I reply. “It’s the size of a suitcase.”
“Exactly,” Benny says.
“And?”
“I’m not scared of her, Eric. Just cautious. She could easily have a gat tucked away in that thing.”
I laugh at the visual of Miss Mitchell pulling a gun from her pocketbook.
Benny says, “You feel me, homie?”
I just nod. What else can I do?
“Homie,” I reply. “You’re really taking this serious, Benny. You actually think you can remake yourself into one of the cool boys.”
Benny looks at me. “Who controls the past controls the future,” he says. “Who controls the present controls the past.”
“Who is that?”
“George Orwell.”
“And not one of the cool boys could tell you who George Orwell is,” I remind him.
Benny shrugs. “I don’t plan on reciting Orwell in school.” He taps the side of his head with a finger. “I’ll keep that kind of stuff up here, where it belongs.”
“That would be wise.”
He says, “In the meantime—”
A loud crash comes from outside in the hall, interrupts Benny before he can finish his statement. Benny frowns, looks at me with concern, and then heads out of his room to investigate. I follow on his heels. I prepare myself to make a run for the door if it
is anything remotely dangerous. Mama ain’t raise no fool.
“I’m looking forward to you dying, old woman. You are a miserable, miserable woman.”
The voice is deep and resentful. It belongs to Benny’s father. His father is in the room at the very end of the hall. I know that Benny’s grandmother occupies that room. I’ve never been inside it. The door is always closed. I only know she’s in there because Benny gets a hitch in his step every time he passes the door. He talks of her in hushed tones, and with a blatant lack of love. I’ve always wondered why.
Benny stops at the threshold of the room. I stand right behind him, peering over his shoulder.
“Should just let you rot in this,” Benny’s father continues. “Save myself from your abuse.”
I see Benny’s father drop a dirty rag in a brown paper bag next to the bed and crinkle up his nose as he pulls off a pair of white latex gloves. Benny’s grandmother clutches her bed rail with arthritic hands. Her fingernails are long, hard and crusted yellow. Fingers so gnarled by arthritis it appears as if she has two hands’ worth of fingers on each hand. Her skin has an unhealthy gray-yellow coloring to it. Her full head of white hair is tinted with a sort of dirty green-yellow. White lady composed of more colors than a rainbow.
The room smells like an overflowing trash can in the dead heat of late July.
“I’m not feeding you lunch today,” Benny’s father announces. “I don’t want you having anything else in your stomach. Some ginger ale, that’s it.”
I can’t believe how mean he is to the old woman. Mama’s always said that white people are touched by the devil. Just look at how they treat their own parents when their parents become old and helpless. Devils, that’s exactly what those white people are.
I’ve always avoided blanket hate of white folks. Benny’s been one of my best friends since the day I met him. Our school is diverse enough that you’re going to encounter folks of another race. However, most of the cool black kids stick together in a cocoon. I’ve never done that. I’ve never felt bad about venturing out and becoming friends with kids like Benny, either. In truth, the black kids have treated me worse than any white kid ever did.
But now, watching Benny’s dad, I’m starting to feel somewhat different.
“Any of that tuna fish left?” Benny’s grandmother asks.
Benny’s father replies, “I know you’re practically blind, but are you deaf, too, you old bag of bones? I said you aren’t getting anything.”
She snaps back, “I see. I see just fine. And my ears work plenty well, too.”
“Wish your mouth didn’t work. Shut your trap.”
I turn to move away.
Then I hear the old woman’s voice calling.
It sounds like she’s calling for me.
I turn back to see. Benny presses his hand in my chest, tries to move me back in the direction I was going. I push him aside, move back to the doorway of his grandmother’s room. I find a comfortable place in the space and stand there.
“Boy,” she says.
“Yes?”
“You see how I’m being treated?”
“Yes.”
“Shameful, isn’t it?”
I don’t reply. It is shameful, but I’m a guest in Benny’s home. It’s not my place to point out his family’s dysfunction.
“Bet your mammy raised you to treat old folks with respect, didn’t she?”
I nod. “Yes, Mrs. Sedgwick. She sure did.” I take it she meant mom when she said mammy.
“I could use her,” she says. “I can’t really blame my son here.”
“Quiet with your foolishness,” Benny’s father says to her.
She swats him away with one of those arthritic hands. “I’m trying to help you. This boy could be the answer to your problem.”
I say, “What can I do for you, Mrs. Sedgwick?”
Benny pulls at my shirt. I turn and give him an evil eye. Let me handle this, my expression says. In Benny’s eyes I recognize certain desperation. I ignore it and shoo him away just like his grandmother shooed away his father.
Benny’s grandmother asks, “Your mammy isn’t carrying a bundle at the moment, is she?”
I turn back to her again. “Pregnant, you mean?”
“Yes, boy,” she says, “pregnant.”
“No. Why?”
“Just wondering, boy. I know your women are most of the time.”
“Mother…” That’s Benny’s father again.
Benny continues to tug at my shirt. He can’t move me.
Benny’s grandmother says, “Your mother raising all those kids on her own. I do have empathy, believe me.”
I frown. What does she know about my mother? All of what kids? I want to ask. There’s only Kenya and myself. What is wrong with this old lady?
She continues, “I know it must be hard. And welfare only takes care of so much.”
“Welfare?”
She nods. “That food stamp program is shameful. Are you eating well enough? You look a bit peaked. Scrawny, actually, if I put aside pretense.”
I don’t know what to say.
She says, “I’m prepared to offer your mammy a job, boy. Wiping an old woman’s white ass isn’t a duty for her son.”
I say, “Mrs. Sedgwick, my mother already has a job. And we’re not on welfare.”
It’s like she doesn’t even hear me.
“No,” she says, “wiping a white ass is a job for a Negro woman.”
My dumbfounded “Say what?” is drowned out by the “Why, Mother? Why?” cry of Benny’s father.
Benny pulls at my shirt more forcefully. I finally relent and let him remove me from his grandmother’s room. I should have left while the leaving was good, as my mother would say.
“I’m so sorry about that,” Benny says.
I look at him through narrow eyes. My heartbeat is very pronounced, pounding my chest like a fist. This is apt, because I feel as if I’ve been punched. Sucker punched. “You’re sorry,” I say to Benny.
Benny nods. “Very. She’s a sick old woman. Her head isn’t right.”
For the first time I understand why the black kids don’t befriend kids like Benny. We are from two different worlds. We’ll never, no matter how much we pretend we could, ever fully understand one another. Martin Luther King was always hopeful that blacks and whites could find common ground, a level of appreciation for one another. Malcolm X was a realist. He didn’t like the prospects of that notion. Before today I’d have leaned toward Martin Luther King’s belief. But today changes everything. “Separate but equal” works just fine for me.
Benny says, “Let’s go play another game of—”
“Nah, Benny. I’m out.”
I start moving toward his steps. I notice for the first time how large his house is. The stairway winds and turns and appears to go on forever. The banisters are ornately carved out of wood. The carpeting on the stairs is a rich burgundy. His home is like Tara, the estate from Gone With the Wind.
I wonder where the slave quarters are.
“I thought you were staying the night, Eric.”
“Changed my mind,” I call to him as I start descending the stairs.
“If it’s about my grandmother, again, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize for her. She said what she felt.”
“And what are you feeling, Eric?”
I stop at the bottom of the stairs and look up at him. The concern in his eyes is clear. I ignore it.
“Feeling like I made a big mistake.”
“What mistake, Eric?”
“Thinking I could be friends with a fool-ass white boy.”
“What?” The hurt in his voice is a sound I won’t soon forget. But that doesn’t matter. Some things have to happen. This moment was preordained. It had to happen.
“Later,” I say, and then add, “homie.”
“Eric.”
I shut the door on his voice.
Shut the door on our friendship, for good this time.
I have a seventeen-block walk ahead of me. Luckily I have my soft Nikes on today. Otherwise I’d be an unhappy camper. The hub station for Metro Transit is on Jeremiah Avenue, far removed from Benny’s suburban landscape. I can catch a bus from there back to my hood. I don’t know why I ever thought Benny and I could remain as thick as thieves. We’re from two different worlds. His street address is 1154 Sycamore Avenue. His street is named after a tree. My street address is 90A Anestio Perdina Boulevard. My street is named after a seven-year-old Mexican boy felled by three stray bullets as he played with his Big Wheel out in front of his parents’ duplex. At the end of my block some folks in the community carved a little five-foot-by-five-foot square of empty land into a garden in Anestio’s memory. The flowers are kept fresh almost year-round. A cross is staked in the hardest area of ground. A picture of a smiling Anestio is kept secure in a large frame the entire neighborhood chipped in to buy. It’s a sad situation that folks have tried to turn positive. Making lemonade out of lemons is how the older folks describe this sort of thing. Where I’m from, that’s what you do.
I wipe my brow, frown at the sun, and keep moving at a steady pace. In Benny’s neighborhood there are no lemons; everything is naturally lemonade. Homes are well kept and adorned with manicured lawns, cobblestone circular driveways, wrought-iron gates, garden gnomes. Lemonade, fruit punch and Kool-Aid, take your pick. No lemons.
No activity on the street, either.
I’m the only soul walking.
Passing by homes with Lexuses and BMWs parked in their garages.
At times like this I wish I had an iPod to listen to. Mama was going to buy me one last Christmas, but I balked at the last minute, asked her for a portable DVD player instead. It wasn’t that I didn’t want the iPod. I didn’t want Mama to spend her hard-earned money purchasing one. Times are lean. She’s raising Kenya and me by herself for the most part. I hate watching her stretch her finances to provide for us. Hate the sacrifices she makes to ensure that Kenya and I don’t go without. Mama wears shoes until the heels fall off. She seldom buys new clothes. She gets all of her toiletries and beauty items at the Dollar Tree. It’s a tough way of living.
So I told her I didn’t want an iPod after all, that a portable DVD player would suit me just fine. It wasn’t a lie. I enjoy movies almost as much as music.
Dirty Jersey Page 5
