He ignores me and leans toward the photo the way someone in a museum does when they want to study every little part of a painting. Mike’s eyes trace Pa’s face in the photo. “Your pops is the man.”
“Yeah.”
That makes me think of when I was little and Pa asked me, “Would you rather have people like you or be afraid of you?” Back then, I said I didn’t know and Pa told me, “You want them afraid of you. If they’re afraid, they’ll respect you. Being respected is better than being liked.”
“So how’d you get to know my pops?” I ask Mike.
“One day when your moms was helping us at the center, your pops was there. Your moms thought he should talk to me because my dad’s not around.”
I look at Mike. I wonder where his dad is.
“So from then on,” he says, “if your pops saw me around the neighborhood, he looked out for me.”
I knew that from the times Pa hit Mike off with change and advice.
It’s funny how back before I knew Mike, it bugged me how Pa and Ma paid attention to him. But now that I know Mike is cool, I don’t mind so much.
CHAPTER 7
Now that me and Mike are tight like brothers, we start sitting next to each other in our school cafeteria.
One day I notice him snarling like me. “Whattup?” I ask.
He nods across from us at this other sixth grader named James and whispers to me, “I want to pinch his lips shut. Why he chewing with his mouth all open? Disgusting.”
I stare at Mike, not believing he just said that. James is why I’m snarling. It’s gross when people chew with their mouths open.
Then that afternoon, we’re in my elevator when this man in front of us tries to fart on the DL. The man knows what he just did is foul because he gets off on the second floor when he usually rides to five. The door closes and I tell Mike, “He deserves a neck for that.”
“THIS is what I’m saying! Who farts in a closed elevator?! So nasty.”
“We should’ve got off with him,” I joke. “Smells like rotten eggs.”
We bust out laughing at that.
The day after that, I realize another thing me and Mike can’t stand. We pass by Pa’s corner and Pa’s back outside. He’s in a huddle, kicking it with Pito and Hector from the corner store and there’s that new guy, Alex. One day, he wasn’t here. Then—boom—suddenly he was on the corner all comfortable, acting like he’s been tight with everyone since forever. He moves people’s plastic milk crates around without asking and sits where he likes. Pa turns to tell Hector something, and the look I see Alex give Pa gives me a bad feeling. Alex rocks a real fake smile like the comedian Steve Harvey has when he clowns someone. All teeth with sneaky, mean eyes.
Mike notices too. “Look at that snake,” he says, pointing where my eyes are aimed. “That dude. How come his face is so ill as he eyes your pops?”
“That’s Alex. Ma says he’s no good.”
Mike nods. “He looks sheisty. He best be careful with your pops.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I’ve seen your dad smack down a guy way more built than Alex. The guy was dissing old man after old man on your pops’s corner. He must’ve thought your pops was soft because he’s just chilling on his milk crate. Then he pointed at your pops, said something, stepped toward him, and—yo!—I didn’t know your pops could move so fast. I almost didn’t see it, but he jumped off that crate and smacked that young guy so fast!”
“Then what?”
“Then nothing,” Mike says with a laugh. “The guy hit the ground—boink! Then your pops told everyone to get rid of that troublemaker before he really hurt him. They listened like bodyguards because your pops is boss and they dragged homeboy off the block.”
Hearing Mike say this makes me feel all kinds of things. I eye my pops, sort of impressed. But I worry too—Pa’s temper put him in jail. He’s lucky he didn’t get locked up over another fight. I look back at Pa and Alex, and I feel good knowing Pa can deal with him but I wish there was another way for Pa to dead drama without using his fists.
CHAPTER 8
“You saw that?” Mike asks me as he munches on potato chips he bought earlier.
A UFC Mixed Martial Arts fight is about to start on my TV. The fighters pace in opposite corners. Mike scoots to the edge of the bed and is mad hyped and taps his feet on the floor. “You saw him?”
I ask, “Who? And give me some of those chips.”
Mike stands and points at the guy he means. “Him! His eyes.”
Is he ignoring me asking him for chips on purpose? I look at the guy who Mike points at: the guy punching his gloves together over and over. I sit up because I’ve seen his kind of wild, bulging, googly eyes before on Pa.
“Who you think will win?” Mike licks his fingers, making those chips look extra good.
Both fighters got muscles from head to toe. Even though the one with the crazy eyes acts all intense and kray, the other has tats all over, even on his face. He looks scarier, so I pick him.
“You lose.”
“You caught this fight before?” I ask.
“Nah,” he says. “I didn’t need to to know who wins. You ever hit someone or been in a fight?”
That makes me think of a long time ago. Waaaay before I met Mike, when I was in the third grade, my sister asked me to “make a fist.” When I asked her why, she said, “Because you can’t be soft out there. I don’t want boys picking on you.” But when I made a fist, she laughed. “You can’t hold your thumb in your hand like that when you punch. You’ll break your thumb. Forget it. I can’t believe we family. You can’t even throw a punch.”
Right now, I stare at Mike and his bag of chips. “Nah,” I finally say. “I never been in a fight. Why does it matter? Anyways, give me some chips.”
“You never been in a fight?”
I shrug. “Who cares. I haven’t. So what?” I stand and reach for his bag of chips.
“Nah.” He moves his chips away. “Wooooow. You never been in a fight.” He annoyingly repeats it like he’s discovered some big treasure.
The fighters on TV stand face-to-face.
“Why you think my man won’t win?”
“Like I said,” Mike tells me, “look at their eyes. Look at the dude you picked. He looking left, right, and everywhere except at the dude he has to fight.”
“But the dude I picked is more in shape and look at his tats all over. He looks scarier.”
“I don’t care how he looks. I don’t care if he has tats on his lip. Look at his eyes: He’s shook.”
Mike has me curious. I want to see if his guess is right.
The ref says stuff, the fight starts, and soon me and Mike are so into the fight that Mike bobs and weaves where he stands and I throw short punches where I sit. I look at the corner of the screen that shows the time left in the round and—boom—my man gets snuffed, falls, and Mike’s man sits on him and starts pounding on him. The ref tackles him off, and he’s won and punches his fist against his chest, all braggy, and his eyes are cocky.
“Told you!” Mike punches his fist into his hand. “What I say?”
“Yeah. You got it.”
I grab the remote to switch the channel. “You been in a fight?”
He laughs. “Too many. And if whoever I fight does what your man did and looks away when we start, I know I’ma beat him silly.”
Maybe it’s the way he says it. Maybe it’s that he’s been in a lot of fights. Mike makes me wonder.
I point at his potato chip bag. “Dude, share!”
He lifts the bag, taps the last chips left into his mouth, then talks all disgusting with his mouth full. “Not for you. I bought these for me. Plus, you picked the wrong fighter.”
I look at him for mad long. His eyes look cocky like the fighter he picked.
For the fir
st time since we started chilling, I feel different about Mike. I feel like I don’t know the whole him.
When he showed up at Ma’s desk, I felt this way, then got to know him and the feeling went away. But it’s back. I don’t know if I should trust my original bad vibe about him, or just move ahead and trust him?
CHAPTER 9
On Friday, Ma finishes stuff at her desk at work. Her workday was over ten minutes ago. I sit in my pretend-office doing nothing really. Just waiting for Ma while smacking a handball from hand to hand as long as I can without letting it fall. Doing this helps make my hand-eye coordination better for handball games.
“Are you ready?” Ma interrupts me.
“Yeah,” I say, snatching the ball midair and grabbing my book bag.
Ma leads me in the opposite direction we usually go, away from the projects, and holds my hand. Only a few boys out here hold their moms’ hands. Most act too cool to even walk close to their moms. I don’t sweat Ma holding my hand because she’s my heart and we’re tight and I don’t hide it.
I thumb behind us in the direction of our block. “Where we going?”
Ma winks. “I have a surprise.”
I have a feeling I know where she taking me. That cuchifrito spot that makes slamming fried Spanish food. The cooks there bag the food in brown paper bags, and the grease stains expand from pencil-point dots to stains the size of my fist! The food makes my hands, lips, and cheeks mad oily, but I don’t care. It’s all sooo good: alcapurrias with this crunchy hard outside but a chopped meat center; papas rellenas with a fried potato shell that makes me feel like I’m eating a baseball-shaped French fry; and chicharrones with salty, crunchy chicken so good that KFC can’t even mess with it.
I smile. “Good thing I’m hungry!”
She pinches my cheek. “So you think you know where we are going, huh? You’re psychic now?”
I nod.
Two blocks from La Estrella—the cuchifrito spot—Ma turns right instead of left to the restaurant. She grins. “Are you still psychic?”
Right as we get to the bus stop, the bus that rides out of our projects toward downtown Brooklyn pulls up.
“Hurry.” Ma tugs at my hand. “That’s us.”
After we climb on, I ask, “Where are we going?”
“I’ll give you a hint”—she lifts three of her fingers—“but you have to name three of your favorite superheroes.”
I speak so fast that it sounds like I say one word. And I’m so loud that grown people on the bus turn their heads and smile at me. “Batman, Black Panther, and Flash!”
“Okay.” She smiles. “So that’s the hint.”
I speak fast and louder than I did before, and the same grown people turn and smile at me. “You’re taking me to the movies!”
Ma nods.
I scoot close to her and hug her harder than hard.
* * *
• • •
After the movie, Ma adds extra sweetness to our chilling. She takes the refillable tub of popcorn before we leave the theater and asks me, “Want to refill it?”
Ma hasn’t done this in a while with just me. I remember the last time was the day after there was a fire in an apartment on my block. Fire trucks with loud sirens felt like they were on our street forever. The sound was too much for me. So the next day, Ma brought me to this movie theater, and it was so quiet before the movie started and so quiet after. Once the movie ended, I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay in that quiet, live in that theater with Ma. So I asked her, “Can we sit here for just a little?” And we did. We talked as everyone left until we were the only ones left sitting there. The lights flicked on and we talked some more. Then Ma asked, “How do you feel right now?”
“Peaceful.”
“Do you like it?”
“Yes. I like it quiet.”
Ma soft-pinched my chin. “Me too.”
The people who sweep the theater came in. When they got to our row, I jumped up to help them, grabbing empty soda cups and candy wrappers to run to them. “Here you go, sir.”
Back then, one worker told me, “No. You don’t have to help,” then told Ma, “Your son’s a good kid.” The other worker watching agreed. “He’s real respectful.”
Back then, right before we left that movie’s building, Ma was about to throw out the tub, and I asked her, “Can we refill it? Go somewhere? Keep talking?” And we did. Ma took me to Brooklyn Heights. When we stepped on the long boardwalk of cement that Ma called the Promenade, my jaw dropped. I said, “We see all of Manhattan!”
“Bryan, that’s only one tip of Manhattan.”
Right now, Ma’s telling me she wants to refill the tub of popcorn makes me think she might be taking me there. Then she reads my mind. “Want to go to the Promenade?”
* * *
• • •
At the Promenade, we sit on a bench and keep reaching in the tub and eating fistfuls.
The view is as whoa as I remember, as day turns to night and the sky becomes a painting of rainbow colors over Manhattan’s twinkling skyscrapers.
It’s so peaceful and I get so comfortable that I sit crisscross- applesauce and face Ma to keep talking. Back in the projects, I wouldn’t sit on a bench this way. I’d get called soft for sitting and being all expressive. But Ma doesn’t judge me. With her, I can sit any way and say anything—even the smallest, silliest stuff—and I like that.
Ma leans forward and asks me questions about the movie like she really wants to know my answers. Like my answers are important. And I start feeling important. Ma gets me all the way open as I speak and explain why I wish I could move like Flash but want Black Panther’s and Batman’s smarts, even though the Flash is supposed to think at the speed of light and more.
The whole time we eat popcorn and talk, something is sweeter than the treats: this feeling of chillness, of no drama, of peace. It’s a peace I wish I could bring back to my projects and feel all the time.
CHAPTER 10
It’s almost nine at night and my foot hurts because I’m lying in my bed with no shoes on and kicking the wall.
That’s my way of telling Ma and Pa to stop arguing. Sometimes my kicking the wall hard makes them get quieter. Sometimes Ma comes in, sits on my bed, and helps me control my temper. “Breathe,” she’ll repeat, “breathe.”
Right now, she does neither.
Pa barks at Ma, “Go ahead! Call my probation officer! You want me back in jail! Because when I’m out all you do is tell me what’s wrong with me. I’m the problem! So, get rid of me! Get rid of the problem!”
I start feeling nervous when he yells like this. It’s been a while because Pa was acting quieter when he first got out of jail. But now, he’s acting like his old self. He’s back to yelling, and when his voice gets to this level, he’s about to explode.
I’m also nervous at the thought that Ma might call his PO.
I stop kicking and my insides hurt more than my foot.
Ma screams back, “Joe, you fight in the streets! Then you come home and fight! All you want to do is fight, fight, fight!”
“I didn’t even want to fight!” he claps back. “I just was going in the kitchen and you didn’t have to say, ‘Be careful,’ that way. Like I’m an idiot!”
“I didn’t say it like that. You exploded for no reason.”
“What! Now I’m deaf? I heard you wrong? You know what? My friend Alex is right. You think you’re better than me.”
“Who’s Alex to tell you anything? Why’re you letting that loser poison your head? He’s jealous of you. And why do you listen to all those guys so much? All they do is get you in trouble!”
“I’m leaving!”
“Then leave!”
The door slams and then it gets quiet. Too quiet.
I hear my sister’s music turn on. She was listening to them fight too.
Then I hear music turn on downstairs in 3A in Ms. Bernadine’s apartment. She’s so nosy and was listening to Ma and Pa fight too.
The whole building probably heard everything.
I listen to Ava’s happy music and think there is nothing happy about our apartment right now.
* * *
• • •
“You seen Pa?” I whisper to Ava.
It’s seven something in the morning, and Ava is still in bed buried under her covers. Only her nose and mouth peek out.
“No!” she hisses real salty, and rolls away from me.
She hates waking up early for school.
I stand there, OD upset about Pa. And I’m OD upset too that she doesn’t care. I shake her real soft, whispering again, “Ava. Pa didn’t come home last night. He always came home before.”
Ava barks all loud, “Leave me alone and let me sleep!”
She buries herself so only her nose and mouth peek out again.
I’m so mad Pa isn’t home. I’m so mad Ava won’t help me know why. Something in me just pops!
I yank the covers right off her and run!
“MMMPH!” She swings and punches and kicks the air.
I’m already racing out her room toward the bathroom to lock myself in.
* * *
• • •
“Don’t think I forgot you snatched the covers off me,” Ava tells me as she pours herself cereal.
I look at her. Something about her face says she isn’t really mad at me. She’s tight about Pa and Ma’s argument too.
Then Ma comes in the kitchen and rubs my head and strokes Ava’s cheek.
She asks if we want her to make us breakfast.
“No,” we both say.
Maybe we both say no because she looks so sad.
I wolf cereal down fast because I want to jet before Ava can get me back for pulling her covers.
I dump the bowl and spoon in the sink and rush and hug Ma. “I love you.”
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