Oryon

by T Cooper

  I know it’s stupid because this is decidedly not her scene, but I keep expecting (hoping) to see Audrey at the party. Like last year when we went to our first high school rager together after we cheered our first JV game. Who will I have to make fun of everybody with, if not her? We get each other, not to mention everybody else. But she doesn’t know that now. Or can’t see it because of the shell I’m in.

  “Yo, Erkel!” It’s DJ, coming through the kitchen with some red punch sloshing around a blue cup.

  “I was beginning to think you’d bailed,” I say. “Can I have some?”

  “It’s just Hi-C.”

  “What else would it be?” I say with an exaggerated shoulder shrug.

  “Kenya’s here. She was asking about you,” DJ shares, then adds, “for some reason I can’t understand.” He rummages around an open cabinet and locates a glass, pours half his punch in it for me.

  We head toward the backyard. The thing I said about high school cafeterias and prison segregation? It’s on full display at parties too. All the white kids are inside dancing and drinking and talking about the game, and all the black kids are outside in the backyard, kind of doing a different version of the same thing. The Latinos aren’t really present and accounted for, except Carlos our safety, who’s five-foot-two and downright Hobbit-esque, but always seems to have a bevy of hot girls of all ages orbiting around him like flirty satellites.

  “Qué pasa?” he says as DJ and I pass him on the back deck.

  “Damn,” DJ says, shaking his head in admiration at Carlos.

  “Yoooooo!” A circle of dudes is calling DJ, who perks up soon as he sees them.

  “Cypher?” he asks me.

  And—I’m paralyzed. Like, I’ve just seen a ghost, which may be a cliché but is completely apropos because despite appearances to the contrary, I am the whitest thing out here right now, and I’m being asked to do pretty much the opposite of that. Not that anybody knows but me.

  “Nah?” DJ prompts, shedding his hoodie and stepping into the circle.

  The extent of my knowledge of cyphers consists of 1) 8 Mile the movie, where pale-faced Eminem playing a version of himself, blows away all of the “surprised” black people rapping and beatboxing and cutting up in cyphers outside the auto factory, in abandoned parking lots, and at rap battles; and 2) the line from the song “Vivrant Thing” by Q-Tip, where he raps, “You would find me in a cypher if I didn’t cop a deal,” which Andy’s older brother used to play in the car when his parents made him drive us to baseball practice.

  All I know is: I’m no Eminem, and I want nothing to do with a cypher, even though all of these guys (and one chick) are looking at me expectantly like, Why wouldn’t dude want to join in? I can literally feel sweat dripping under my armpits, my palms growing damp.

  “Um . . .” I say, but fortunately nobody can hear me, because someone is beatboxing, a few are clapping, and DJ is starting like, “Uh . . . uh . . . uh,” closing his eyes and jogging his head and generally getting down to spit his spoken word/hip-hop swag.

  Dashawn is waving me in, sort of dancing and moving his head with the beat too, but I say, moronically, like I’m fifty years old, “I’m okay, you all go ahead,” while surreptitiously taking tiny steps backward.

  “O, O, my boy, he’s so shy, took him to a party and thought he was gonna cry.” DJ points at me, then goes on: “Skate fool, hate school, so cool, got his juice from a pee paw, he saw, up in the mall, lucky he’s so small, not very tall, Oryon Small, who you gonna call? Ghostbusters, don’t trust us, colored punks getting busted, don’t pass muster, must be why he rolling on that skateboard, so hard, up with the Lord he a hot shot, big snot, naw, don’t be scurred of us, get on the bus, but not in the back, that shit was wack, 16th Street Baptist, goddamn Birming-Ham, Ala-Bam . . . uh, Montgomery Rosa Parks and the rest of us darks, say hell no, we won’t go, don’t shoot me, just ’cause I wear this hood-ee, oh goodie, he’s done with that surreous obit, accompanied by just a little wit, but don’t forget that shit or you just might end up repeating IT—”

  “Ohhhh!” Dashawn yells, and a few others join in as DJ finishes with a flourish, looking at me like, That is how it’s done, sucka!

  “Your turn,” DJ hollers to me. “Let’s hear some of that A-town crunk style!” And everybody claps encouragingly, and I’m about to buckle under my own weight when . . . my vision goes black.

  “Guess who?” The old hands-over-the-eyes-from-behind maneuver, which is usually annoying as hell, but is the most welcome greeting of all time right about now.

  “Kenya!” I shout, like she’s Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and Jesus all rolled into one get-out-of-teenage-social-jail card. I turn around to face her, grab her hand, and pull her toward the house. “Get a drink with me?”

  “Uh, okay,” she says. “You all right?”

  “Just thirsty.”

  I drag Kenya to the kitchen, just in time to catch half a dozen of the senior football buttholes I don’t know, surrounding the king of the buttholes, Jason, as he thrusts his cup in the air, clashing it against everybody else’s and causing massive waves of beer to splash all over the counter, floor, and walls.

  “To all the homosexuals in the house!” Jason screams, and everybody repeats, “To the homosexuals!” And then they all drink, practically choking because they are laughing so hard at how funny Jason is.

  “To all of the transvestites in the house!” Jason screams even louder next, and everybody repeats, “To all the transvestites!” And they drink and laugh even harder.

  “What the?” Kenya says.

  “To all the bitches!!!”

  At this I see Kenya’s jaw clench like she is about to march over to the butthole brigade and shut that idiot nation down, so I quickly tug her into the next room, where there’s a tub in the corner filled with wine coolers and beers chilling in dirty ice.

  “I don’t see how natural selection hasn’t kicked in on that dude yet,” she says, and I pop open a wine cooler and pass it to her. “No thanks.”

  “Sadly, he is natural selection,” I say, then take a big swig of the cooler myself. Raspberry, tart, strong, so surprisingly gooood, like medicinal lemonade. I swallow, pretending this isn’t my first time drinking wine, shake my head at the feel of it going down. “It’s worse than you know.” I take another swig, the bubbles burning the back of my throat.

  “Hey, slow up,” Kenya says. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m great!” I respond, feeling an inexplicable burst of energy (not to mention confidence), and pull her onto the dance floor, such as it is, where a table has been kicked over and about five girls are pelvic-thrusting to Michael Jackson squealing, “Billie Jean is not my lover, she’s just a girl . . .”

  Kenya gives in and starts moving with me, but I can tell it’s against what every cell in her brain is telling her to do.

  Long story short:

  We danced.

  She had a few swigs of my wine cooler.

  I had more than a few swigs.

  And . . .

  We kissed in the hallway by the bathroom. It just happened. She leaned in, or maybe I did, and her lips were crazy soft and it was completely unexpected, and I’d like to say I was prepared for what happened in my brain next, but it was as if I forgot who/what/where I was for a second, just gave in to this completely foreign feeling I’d been dreaming and speculating and talking with Andy about since I was like ten or eleven, and was thus completely taken by surprise when a few seconds in to kissing Kenya, I was transported to the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, set up for the Olympic track-and-field trials, and Kenya’s there on the second platform on the podium, bunches of flowers in her arms, and a silver medal being placed around her neck, her times qualifying her to go to the Olympics in Tokyo. Her parents were in the first row behind her, filled with utter joy (with a reserve of sadness for the fourth member of the family who couldn’t be there—her brother who was murdered).

  “Too much sizzurp?”
Kenya asks, pulling back from my face.

  “What? No!” I say, coming back to the present.

  “I thought I lost you there for a second,” she says, smiling, so I dip back in for another smooch. Her lips part a little this time, as do mine, and my hands instinctively reach around her waist and pull her toward me, and then I sort of push both of us up against the hallway wall, and we are just kissing like that for I don’t even know how long, half of me pressed up against her lips, the other half still at the stadium cheering along with the thousands of people in the crowd and sharing in the sheer pride and joy that swells around future Kenya in my Changers kiss vision.

  So that went down.

  I hadn’t planned it. No one ever does though, do they?

  After kiss number fifteen, as if scripted, my phone buzzed in my back pocket, her phone buzzed in her front: both of our parents summoning us back to our respective homes. I don’t even know how Kenya talked hers into letting her out on a Friday night in the first place, but perhaps because she’s a senior now they are willing to let her make some more of her own decisions in life. She’ll be out there in the world next year, headed, it seems, down the path to that podium, just like she’s always wanted. No one deserves it more.

  We stiffly hugged before bailing on the party, waiting out front where her dad was driving to come pick her up. I asked if she wanted me to wait with her, but she said no, it was probably better if she was alone when he got there. So I skated off toward home, down the dark, windy streets of the subdivision, the occasional streetlamp dilating my pupils from the flood of light.

  A small part of me knows I shouldn’t have kissed Kenya. That my heart is really with somebody else. But Audrey seemed out of reach, and Kenya was very much in reach, and I guess I could blame it on the al-co-hol, but that would be a lie. Maybe life was simpler when I was Drew, even with all the mixed-up feelings around Chase, back when he wasn’t such a self-righteous drag.

  Damn, why am I being so serious? It was just a party make-out session. That’s what kids do, they have a drink or two, kiss other kids (and more stuff), no big deal. Right? I’m not a user or anything. I’m not that guy. Besides, as my nana always says, “You can’t put the shit back in the horse now.”

  I skate faster, just me and the sound of my kick-pushing down the street, the gentle roar of four wheels beneath me. The beat of a pebble here, a shard of twinkling glass there. Not many lights are on in the houses, just a few blue TV screens glowing from the front rooms like eerie, fishless aquariums.

  CHANGE 2–DAY 20

  Today I stepped into a universe I previously had no idea existed: teen poetry slams. We drove to the Tennessee Titans’–sponsored Youth Urban Poetry Slam finals (YUPS), which is about a forty-five-minute drive from Genesis, during which I was squeezed between DJ and Kenya in the backseat of DJ’s mom’s 1989 cream Toyota Camry. DJ’s mom Emebet was at the wheel, with nobody in the passenger seat, because there is no passenger seat (for a reason I never really ascertained and didn’t feel comfortable inquiring about).

  When I climbed into the Camry in front of Central (of course I couldn’t be picked up at home per Changer rules), Kenya was already in the backseat next to DJ. We both said “Hey,” as she scooted over to allow me to wedge into the center seat, after which we didn’t say another word to each other for the length of the trip. I tried to flash her a solicitous smile, but she jerked her head away and rolled the window down, turning the whole backseat into an ear-battering wind tunnel.

  So much for a few harmless kisses.

  DJ also seemed tense, pushed against the rear door while flipping through his notebook, which was filled with maniacal scribbles like that scientist who went to MIT and everybody thought was crazy but was actually a genius. He didn’t really talk on the ride to the Slam, except to shush his mom after she looked in the rearview mirror, waited to lock down some meaningful eye contact with me, and said, “DJ shared with me what happened to your biological parents, and I guess I just wanted to say, I am so sorry for your loss. That shouldn’t happen to any child.”

  “Mooooom! Jesus Christ!” DJ shouted over the roar of the wind.

  “Language, Dee!” his mom cut back.

  “I told you not to say anything,” DJ returned. “Damn.”

  “It’s okay,” I said to him. “It’s okay,” I repeated to her. “Thank you though.” I felt like such an asshole, a sentiment it seemed Kenya was onboard with, given she was still turned toward the window as if actually catching sight of me would cause her to instantly projectile-vomit.

  “Well, if you ever need anything,” Emebet started, as DJ made pleading eyes at her to no avail, “you just say the word, and we’ll do anything we can. Right, Dee?”

  “Wow,” DJ said, then went back to flipping through his notebook. Nervous.

  We exited the highway. Kenya’s long legs were folded into the small space behind DJ’s mom’s seat, and I felt our thighs sweating against one another. We kept pulling them apart and readjusting while DJ’s mom commenced grilling Kenya about her college track prospects, which schools’ coaches were scouting her, what were her favorites.

  I sat and watched the city go by as we got closer and closer to downtown, past the warehouse district, where I briefly wondered what the newly buff Chase might be doing at that moment at the RaChas HQ—plotting, scheming, practicing his abdominal planks. We screeched into the parking lot beneath the Holiday Inn, where Emebet leaped out, all apologies, and tossed the keys at the attendant, because we were running late for registration.

  Up in conference room 2A with the green, red, and black floral carpet and heavy emerald drapes separating it from conference room 2B, a Titans player in a loose-fitting jersey was already up onstage welcoming everybody to the event. I think he was the third-string kicker or something, because nobody really cared he was there.

  DJ pointed Kenya and me to some seats in the rear while he looped the Titans lanyard with plastic-covered ID over his head and around his neck and stood to the side of the stage with about twenty kids who had also reached the YUPS finals. It was about 80 percent girls, and 70 percent black. Mostly juniors and seniors. The girl who came up second actually reminded me of Drew. Her poem was about a sailboat ride on the coast of Maine with a now-dead grandfather who fought in the war. And some other stuff, but a lot of “salty sea reclaiming the bounty” and naval war imagery.

  Another girl got up when (not) Drew finished, a black girl with straight hair under a (I swear) raspberry-colored beret. She was the previous year’s champ, and as soon as she took her place in front of the tarp painted to look like a graffitied brick wall, she began pacing and angry-talking about her daddy only being invited to attend her high school graduation if he could correctly tell her the name of the school she was graduating from.

  “This ain’t no multiple choice, it’s my life!” she spat, as the audience waved and whistled, clapping at practically every line. Her poem seemed to strike some chords.

  Raspberry Beret’s face was screwed up with rage. And sadness. She finished by suddenly stopping her manic ranting and pacing and standing frozen in the middle of the stage, face toward the audience, her mouth open as if she were screaming, with no sound coming out.

  I noticed a lot of women in the crowd shaking their heads and murmuring things like, “Preach, girl,” while the Drew-looking kid stood off to the side, tears streaming down her face. No wonder Raspberry won last year. She was stupid good. I snuck a glance at DJ, and I could tell he was even more apprehensive, but he was keeping it together, clapping really loudly for her.

  Sucks to be him, I thought. But soon enough it was his turn, and holy crap did he throw down. Less frenetic than the other competitors, DJ kept to one small section of the stage and somehow sucked all the energy toward him. I’d never seen confidence like that before, not even from Kenya when she’s on the track. He was so still and thoroughly absorbed in his own moment that it made all of us watching feel like we were seeing something we shouldn’
t, like this was a spontaneous eruption of confessional intimacy we just happened upon and could not turn away from.

  “My heritage needs my greatness. Stained, but enlightened. Wrinkled, not worthless. Did I forget how to fit the mold?”

  DJ sounded so wise and passionate, like a prophet or one of those guys who starts cults and gets all his followers to do whatever he wants just with the power and intention of his voice. It was all I could do to stay in my seat. I clocked his mom, and saw that her eyes were squeezed shut. Then I looked at Kenya and she was smiling so big I was surprised her cheeks didn’t cramp.

  “I am a living canvas. I am the reason. I am running past guilt. I am sprinting to glory. I am where I belong. I am my own story. I am my own story. I own my own story. I am.”

  When he finished, the room was silent for a beat, then exploded with applause. He ended up defeating Raspberry Beret. She was runner-up, looking sort of shocked at her loss. DJ was awarded a Titans jersey with Slam Champ and the year of the event as the jersey number, a Titans ball cap (which I know he’ll never wear as a lifelong sworn Atlanta Falcons fan), an inspirational-looking signed hardcover book he’ll never read, and a gold-painted trophy of a hand grasping a mic, YUPS etched on the plaque.

  The organizer asked him to put on the hat and jersey and hold up the trophy and pose with the third-string Titans kicker, who had left for the poetry part of the event but magically showed up just as DJ was being crowned winner, handing him a scholarship check for $1,500 as the cameras flashed, local news cameras rolled, and his mother gleefully hugged herself in her seat. DJ is so getting a full-ride scholarship to any college he even remotely thinks he may want to attend.

  When DJ’s name was announced as the champion, Kenya and I had spontaneously embraced, but suddenly snapped back rubber band–style to our silent awkwardness, which I don’t even know what to say about. I mean, half of me wanted to just be like, What the hell was that about at the party? to relieve the tension, but the other half was straight terrified of her, wondering if I’d hurt her somehow, fooled her in some way I didn’t know, and her dad was going to give me a beat-down, or DJ was, the minute she told him what happened. Luckily there was a lot to distract us onstage, as DJ shook hands and answered questions, just generally beaming like mad up there.