The Boy in the Black Suit

by Jason Reynolds

  “At her grandmother’s funeral.”

  “You pick up women at these funerals? That’s why you like this job so much!” He howled, but I didn’t laugh at all, because that’s not the reason I loved the funerals, and if he knew the real reason he wouldn’t have found it so funny.

  Noticing I wasn’t sharing in his joke, he eased up.

  “Okay, son, well, let me ask you this. She smart?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She in school?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She gotta job?”

  “Yep.”

  “Nice?”

  “Of course.”

  “Pretty?”

  I just squished my face up, like it hurt me to think of how pretty she was.

  My father busted out laughing again.

  “Well then, enjoy your dinner. And if for some reason you feel like having dessert, think twice, son. One slice of her pie could equal a lifetime of your cake, if you know what I mean.”

  “What?!”

  Mr. Ray and I left the hospital around noon. The second we got in the big black car he picked up the discussion we’d been having on the way to the hospital a few hours earlier.

  “So, have you thought about what you’re bringing?” he asked.

  He had been explaining to me—really, it was more like preaching—how you never go over nobody’s house empty-handed. Especially when you’re going for dinner.

  “Naw, I can’t really think of nothing, and to be honest, I don’t even think Love would trip if I didn’t bring anything. I mean, we both said we were just gonna eat leftovers.”

  Mr. Ray looked at me like he couldn’t believe what I was saying.

  “You really green, huh?” he said, eyes back on the road. He began rolling the sleeves of his white shirt up to his forearm. Mr. Ray wore a suit, even on holidays. But he didn’t wear a tie, so I guess to him he was dressed down.

  “Matt,” Mr. Ray said, putting on his blinker. “Trust me. You want her to like you, right?”

  “Of course.”

  Mr. Ray jerked the car over the side of the road, pulling up in front of a bodega.

  “Then don’t show up empty-handed.”

  In the store I walked down the aisles looking for something that Love might like. Mr. Ray told me that this whole process would’ve been so much easier if we were older, because then I could just get a bottle of wine and be done with it. But because I can’t buy wine, I’m stuck trying to figure out whether or not to go with soda, juice, cookies, or chips.

  “Man, don’t go with chips,” Mr. Ray demanded.

  “Why not?”

  “Breath. Can’t risk it. You might luck up and get a kiss.”

  Didn’t even think about that. Chips were out.

  “And soda isn’t a good choice either, because girls her age are trying to make sure they don’t get no unexpected bumps on their faces.”

  “Pimples.”

  “Right.”

  We walked up and down the cluttered aisles as he continued to shoot down my options.

  “And juice, well, juice ain’t bad. But we don’t know what kind of juice she likes, and you don’t want to bring grape when she loves apple. And Lord knows, she might even like one of these fancy ones with the kiwi and passion fruit and all that mixed up in there. So cookies it is.”

  Dude was nuts.

  “Yeah, but I don’t know what kind of cookies she likes either,” I explained.

  “Chocolate chip,” he said right away. “I ain’t never met a person that didn’t like chocolate chip cookies.”

  Me neither, I realized. I started looking around the bodega for the cookies. Oreos, those nasty wafer things that taste like dirty air, and those cheap strawberry cookies. No chocolate chip? I looked and looked. No chocolate chip! Then, out of pure instinct, I went for the eggs. And the flour. Some sugar. There were chocolate chips in the house from when my mother and I baked cookies for my dad’s birthday.

  “But what if she don’t like them?” I said, as I tried to non­chalantly put the ingredients up on the counter.

  “What’s all this?” Mr. Ray asked, confused.

  “Well, they didn’t have any chocolate chip cookies, so I’m just going to make some,” I said, matter-of-factly.

  He studied me hard. “You serious?” he asked. “You know we could just try another store down the block.”

  “Naw. I think I’d rather just make them myself,” I said, a little embarrassed. “They’ll be better, and it’s easy. No big deal.” No big deal? Who was I kidding? Huge deal!

  Mr. Ray just looked at me strange. Who knows what he was thinking. Probably that I was weirder than he thought.

  “But answer my question.” I put a ten-dollar bill on the counter. “What if she doesn’t like chocolate chip cookies?”

  Mr. Ray snatched the money off the counter and gave it back to me, replacing it with his own. He collected his change, grabbed the bag of cookie ingredients, and turned back toward me.

  “Then run.”

  Love had texted me her address and what time to be there the day before.

  815 Greene Ave

  Be here around 2:30 :)

  I’d been surprised—I had no idea she lived so close. Greene Avenue was only, like, ten blocks from me. Definitely walkable.

  That gave me about two hours now to make the cookies. I broke out the sifter, the mixing bowl, the mixer, some measuring cups, and the old wooden spoon my mother loved to use. Then, finally, I opened up the notebook—THE SECRET TO GETTING GIRLS, FOR MATTY—and flipped through until I found the recipe.

  Daisy’s Damn Good Choco Chip Cookies (for Matty)

  What you need:

  1 cup of white sugar

  1 cup of brown sugar

  1 cup of veggie oil

  an egg (no shells, son)

  1 tblspn of milk

  4 cups of flour

  a pinch of salt

  a pinch of baking soda

  a few drops of vanilla extract

  2 cups of choco chips (nonsweet)

  What to do: Mix up everything but the choco chips. Those go into the batter last. Then scoop out two pinches of batter at a time (or you’ll have cookie pancakes) and put them on a nonstick pan. Put them bad boys in the oven at 350 and let them bake for ten minutes. Boom. You got yourself some damn good choco chips. Love ya, Matty, but I’ll tease you if you burn these.

  Mom

  I could actually hear my mom’s voice while reading the recipe. I checked to make sure we had everything—the vegetable oil, the brown sugar. Check and check. The vanilla extract. Check. Everything was there. For a minute it felt like fate, but then I realized it wasn’t that deep. I was just baking cookies, and my mom cooked a lot, so of course we had everything. It’s like walking into a funeral home and being surprised there are caskets.

  I measured and poured and pinched and mixed until the batter was done. (My mother was a master pincher.) Then I poured the chocolate chips in, and some honey, which I just added because I figured it would be a nice touch. I stuck my finger in the batter, which my mother would’ve tripped about, but I just had to. She used to let me lick the spoon, but my finger? No-no. I gave it a taste. Oh . . . man. Slammin’. Then I scooped out little nugget-size chunks and lined them up on the pan, eight rows of four, and into the oven they went.

  I checked my phone. One o’clock. I was tempted to run upstairs and wash up and get dressed, but my mom always said never to leave the stove. I had already set the timer for ten minutes, so might as well wait. Plus, the recipe clearly stated that she’d laugh at me if I burned these cookies, and I kinda felt like she would figure out a way to let me know she was laughing. Even if it was by showing up in a dream or something. So I sat at the kitchen table and waited, flipping through the notebook—through the recipes.


  Daisy’s Friggin’ Fried Chicken, for Matty

  Daisy’s Sweet-ass Sautéed Spinach, for Matty Because He Needs His Vegetables

  Daisy’s Dirty Shrimp and Grits, for Matty

  Daisy’s Carolina BBQ, for Matty

  Daisy’s Pineapple Upside-down, Right-side Up Cake, for Matty (Relax, It’s Just a Pound Cake, Son)

  And on and on. I flipped page after page, reading her little notes to me, smiling to myself, a part of me aware that this was the first time seeing her handwriting didn’t crush me. The first time I’d even wanted to cook anything. Did I feel sad? A little. But I also felt, I don’t know, different. Like something about it all was kinda calming.

  Ten minutes had passed and the smell of baking cookies had started to sneak from the oven door and float around the kitchen. It’s a smell I’ve smelled a million times, but it never gets old. The oven dinged. I opened the door, and there they were, thirty-two perfect little pieces of chocolatey heaven. At that point, I knew for sure this was a better idea than just buying a bag of cookies from the store. Like my mom used to say, food is better when it’s cooked with love. Well, these were cooked with like, but for Love, so . . . pretty close. I slid the tray out, took a bite, and at that moment, yeow ! Burned my tongue. But hadn’t burned the cookies. I felt like Mom and I had done all this together.

  I also hoped she was right about, y’know, cooking being a way to get girls.

  I glanced at the clock—shoot! I needed to get dressed. What to wear, what to wear. I knew I couldn’t wear my suit. That just would’ve been ridiculous, showing up in an all-black suit—the same black suit she met me in. The one, in fact, I wore to her grandmother’s funeral. Not good. But when you wear a suit every single day, it’s hard to not wear one. Like Mr. Ray. He was dressed up on a day off, not because he wanted to be, but because he probably doesn’t know how to not be. As a matter of fact, I’ve never seen him in jeans. I bet he doesn’t even own none.

  I jumped in the shower, because even though I love the smell of baking cookies, I didn’t want to smell like them. Reeking of sugar might’ve been a turn-off. After I washed up I looked through my closet at clothes I hadn’t thought about in three months. I pulled out a few different things, colorful Polo shirts, blue jeans, khakis, sweaters, but I didn’t feel comfortable in none of it. So I went with black jeans, a black T-shirt, a black jean jacket, and black sneakers. I looked in the mirror. Simple and comfortable, and close enough to my everyday uniform.

  Then I noticed sharp lines running through my shirt, making it look more like paper than cotton. My jeans were stiff, and creased in weird places. And for the second time that day, I could hear my mom loud and clear: Take pride in the way you present yourself, followed up by, And ain’t no pride in looking like a tumbleweed. Go run some heat over them clothes and knock them wrinkles out before people think I ain’t trained you.

  Yeah. Mom was right, as usual. I was a mess. So I started over, this time ironing till everything was smooth and flat. I looked in the mirror again. No wrinkles. I looked ten times better. Present­able and trained.

  I packed up the cookies, grabbed my coat, and headed out.

  2:05. I texted Lovey.

  On my way

  Then I texted Chris.

  On my way

  Just as soon as I locked my front door, my phone buzzed.

  1 TEXT MESSAGE

  It was from Chris.

  Good luck champ lol

  Then another message came through.

  1 TEXT MESSAGE

  This time from Lovey.

  Good ;) I live on the first floor.

  The ten blocks seemed like they lasted forever. I was walking fast enough to not be late, but slow enough so that I wouldn’t start sweating. I didn’t want to get there and not be fresh, especially after all that ironing. I also thought about how showing up with a plastic bodega bag didn’t exactly match my whole look, so I trashed it and just carried the cookies in a Ziploc.

  815 Greene. A three-floor brownstone, pretty much like every other house in the neighborhood. A seven-step stoop, an old-school buzzer box, and Christmas lights in one of the neighbor’s windows that I could tell had been there all year long.

  Lovey said she lived on the first floor, which is always buzzer number two, because buzzer number one would be the ground floor, basement apartment. At least that’s what I hoped.

  I pushed the button. It made that weird noise that sounded like someone being electrocuted.

  “Hello?” Love’s voice came crackling through the speaker, loud but sweet.

  “Hey, it’s Matt.”

  “Okay. Be right down.”

  Then, I got nervous. I was good all the way up to that moment, but once I knew the date was actually going down, robot face started to appear. My stomach got tight, and my palms started feeling slimy as I held the bag of cookies with both hands as if I were presenting a cake.

  I heard her apartment door open inside. Then the footsteps to the front door. Then the turning and clicking of the locks and the wiggling of the doorknob.

  “Hey,” she said with a big smile, swinging the door open. She was dressed in jeans, a sweater, and a light jacket. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her face was perfect, and I don’t even think she was wearing makeup. She leaned toward me for a hug, wrapping one arm around me lightly. I did the same. The cookies pressed up against her stomach.

  “What’s this?”

  “Well,” I started, nervous. “I didn’t want to come empty-handed.”

  Her eyes grew bright. “That’s sweet.”

  Instantly, I thanked God for Mr. Ray.

  I didn’t even get a chance to tell her they were homemade before she added, “The kids are gonna love these.”

  Robot-mutant-infant-animal-face.

  “Kids? You . . . you got kids?” My voice shot up to soprano.

  “Ha! Boy, please. Picture that. I’m talking about the kids down at the shelter. That’s where we going.”

  I was confused. “Oh, I thought . . .” I started to say but got too embarrassed to finish.

  “You thought what?” she asked. Then it came to her. “Oh, you thought we were eating here?” She started laughing, but not in a mean way. “I told you, you might be a killer. I mean, now you know where I live, but I ain’t about to let you in!” she joked. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. It’s just that my grandma cared a lot about those folks in that shelter, especially the kids. I just feel like I need to do this. Y’know, keep her tradition alive. Plus, they’re expecting me to handle the newspeople this year.”

  “Newspeople?”

  “Yeah. Every year, the news comes down and does a spot about what Thanksgiving is all about. They film a little bit, ask a few questions, and air it later tonight. It’s no big deal, but it’s cool.”

  “Sounds like it,” I heard myself say, but my brain was thinking, Shelter? Newspeople?

  “Grams used to always talk to them, but now that she’s gone, I guess it’s on me,” she explained. I’m not sure if I looked disappointed—I can never tell—because Lovey added quickly, “But I totally get it, if you don’t wanna come.”

  “No, I’m down,” I said, recovering. I wasn’t going to blow this. “I never been to a shelter, anyway. Something new.”

  I wasn’t mad about not having a private dinner with Lovey in her house. Just disappointed because I had worked myself up so much to be ready for it. But at the end of the day I was actually kind of happy we weren’t eating there. Being around other people—even though they were homeless people—made it less like a date, less serious, which for me was a good thing, because I really didn’t know what I was going to do or say once we got alone, other than offer her homemade chocolate chip cookies and hope she didn’t say she didn’t like them.

  “Cool.” She took the cookies and tried to place them in
a plastic bag on the floor in the hallway. Actually, there were a bunch of plastic bags. “Help me with these.”

  She handed me a couple, filled with what I guessed was food wrapped in aluminum foil like big silver boulders. Whoa! They weighed a ton. We shuffled down the sidewalk to the bus stop. I did my best to pretend like the bags weren’t heavy. But they were heavy as hell. Like, heavy enough to pull my shoulders right out the sockets.

  On the way Love talked about how her grandma had turned the shelter around.

  “You know how it is. People judge people. We all do it. But homeless people get it the worst, ’cause they smell bad sometimes, and some of them have issues, but Grams treated them all like people,” she explained. “That’s the difference with this place. You go to some shelters and they serve food but won’t actually say a word to the people living there. Or they’ll let them sleep there for a night but talk to them any kind of way.” She stopped for a second to rest, swapping bags from one hand to the other. I was so glad we took a break, because it felt like my arms were literally going to fall off. She flexed her fingers, trying to get the feeling back, I guessed, because I was doing the same thing. “But Grams got to know them. I mean, these people are like family to me. I’ve been around them basically my whole life. Honestly, if the shelter could pay me, I would’ve kicked the Bucket a long time ago,” she said, talking about Cluck Bucket.

  “What? You would leave your big-time job in the hood?” I teased, and hoped she got it. The worst thing that could happen was to flop a joke right now. Luckily, she started laughing.

  “Yep. I’d let go of all the glitz and glamour of chicken grease to help people,” she said, dramatic. Awesome.

  Before I knew it, we were there. A HELPING HAND SHELTER was painted on a wooden sign that was nailed to the door. The sign was old, and a lot of the paint had chipped and cracked. There were a few guys outside all huddled up. One was holding a handful of cigarette butts while the others sifted through, picking out the ones that still had a little tobacco left in them.

  “Hey, boys,” Lovey said.

  They all seemed excited to see her.

  “Miss Lady.” A tip of the hat.

  “Lovey, how you, sugar?” A nod.