by Jeff Rud
After his shower, Matt got dressed and noticed Amar waiting for him near the door. “You want to rent some videos tonight? I think my mom is making pizza,” his friend said.
“I can’t,” Matt said sheepishly. “I’ve got something to do.” Matt didn’t mention Jackson and McTavish and the rest of that crew. Amar hadn’t been invited and, obviously, Jackson hadn’t wanted him to know about it. For a second, Matt was torn. He felt guilty for excluding Amar and not telling him about being invited to hang out with the other guys. But Amar made it easier when he turned quickly and said, “Okay, Matt. Later.”
Jackson, McTavish, Steve White and a couple of other kids Matt had seen before but didn’t really know were outside the locker room door when he emerged. “We’ve got our bikes here, have you got yours?” Jackson asked.
Matt nodded. By the time the half-dozen boys headed out of the school parking lot, Matt hadn’t even asked where they were going. There was a wet snow falling that made cycling down the darkened, slick streets a little tricky. The heavy snow, back-lit against the orange glow of the streetlights, made it difficult to see where they were headed.
They stopped at the end of Densmore Street, about eight blocks from the school. Matt knew it well because Wong’s Grocery was at the far end of the block. “Oh, yeah,” smiled Jackson, turning on his bike seat toward Matt and the others. “We’re loaded up for some revenge tonight. You in, Hill?”
Jackson grabbed at the bag one of the boys — a skinny grade nine named Nate Griffin — was carrying, pulling out several cans of spray paint. It was obvious now that they planned to do some tagging. Matt had never done anything like this before, but it didn’t seem overly harmful. Anyway, he didn’t want to come across as a wuss. He could go along for the ride, couldn’t he? He wouldn’t have to actually spray anything.
“Sure,” he said, quietly. “I’m in.”
“Good,” Jackson said. “Let’s go then.”
They sped down a slushy back alley behind Densmore on their bikes. It had grown even darker, and Matt wondered again where they were going. He was a few feet behind the others when he noticed they had all stopped behind a large, dark metal garbage container at the back of one of the buildings.
“I’m first,” said Jackson, eagerly holding up a couple of the spray cans.
The others watched from behind the trash bin as Jackson gingerly made his way through the snow to the back of a building. He began to paint. A large, crude red swastika took shape across the white back wall. Suddenly, none of this felt right to Matt. He began to get an uneasy sensation in his stomach. He wished more than anything that he was at Amar’s, eating pizza and watching movies.
But Jackson wasn’t done. He grabbed another can, this one yellow. He started to write something across the back of the building in huge, three-foot-high letters.
As Matt strained to read it in the dark, he started to feel nauseous. Jackson had written “Go home Chinks” in ugly lettering across the wall and had also drawn a crude face with slanted eyes. And what was worse, in one sudden, utterly horrible realization, Matt now knew exactly where they were. At first he hadn’t recognized the building because they had come down the darkened back alley. But now he knew: This was the back wall of Wong’s Grocery. This was Phil’s store. And the kids he was with were attacking Phil’s family, maybe not physically but with these horrible words and symbols.
“That’ll show them for narcing on me,” seethed Jackson, his dark eyes flashing anger.
Suddenly it all made sickening sense to Matt. Jackson and his buddies were targeting Wong’s for a reason. This must have been the store where Jackson and White had been caught shoplifting. Phil’s grandmother was constantly chasing groups of kids out of her cluttered store because she suspected they were stealing from her. It didn’t surprise Matt that she had pressed charges after catching them. But why hadn’t Phil told him about this? Matt would have never agreed to hang out with Jackson and his buddies if he had known that they might target Phil’s family.
Matt was incredibly ashamed. Phil’s grandmother had fed Matt handfuls of candy, bowls of noodles and bottles of Coke and had always let the boys watch TV or play video games in the tiny room at the back of the store. She had always smiled kindly at him and often called him “lucky boy.” He wasn’t sure if she had meant he was some sort of lucky charm or if he himself was fortunate, but Matt had recognized it for what it was, a term of endearment.
Matt felt almost physically ill. He wanted to get away from this place, from these guys. But he was one of them. He felt strangely paralyzed with fear and shame, hiding behind the dark, cold metal of the Dumpster. A light flashed on in the back room of the store where Phil’s grandmother slept. The rickety back door swung open and Matt could see her round face peering out, cautiously. “Who out there?” she called. “Go away now, I call police.”
They bolted for their bikes and pedaled hard through the slush to the end of the alley and around the corner to Anderson Park. They stopped with their front tires in a circle. Jackson and his friends were laughing loudly and Griffin lit a cigarette. “Did you check out that old bag?” Jackson sneered, stooping over and putting on a mock Chinese accent. “Oooh, I call police.”
Matt wasn’t laughing. In fact, he felt like throwing up. He was so ashamed he could barely breathe. But he knew he couldn’t show the others how he felt. “I gotta go guys,” he said curtly. “My curfew is ten-thirty.”
“See ya, Hill,” Jackson said. “Yeah, see ya around, dude,” smiled White.
The five were still laughing in the park as Matt rode out of sight. He couldn’t pedal fast enough as his stomach heaved and a shameful tear trickled down his cheek. He pumped his legs furiously as his bike tires skidded through the wet snow. It was dangerous riding so fast in these conditions, but he didn’t care. Anything to put distance between him and the ugliness he had just been a part of.
His mother was asleep by the time Matt arrived home, so he quietly made himself a peanut butter sandwich before heading to bed. But even the comfort food didn’t make his stomach feel any better, and there was nothing he could do to ease his conscience.
Sleep didn’t come easily that night. Matt was restless in bed, thinking about what Jackson had done and feeling like he had been a part of it too. Part of him wanted to wake his mother and tell her what had happened, just to get the awful secret off his chest. But another part of him didn’t want to tell her anything. He was too ashamed and afraid of what she would think. Although his mom was sleeping in the bedroom just next door, as Matt finally drifted off, he had never felt more alone.
chapter nine
The next morning, Amar came to the door, holding his beat-up outdoor basketball in his right hand. “Want to go shoot some?” he asked.
Matt nodded, pulling on the old Nike high-tops that he used for playground hoops. Maybe hitting a few jumpers would make him feel a little better about himself.
“You missed some great pizza last night,” Amar said. “I took on all my uncles in PS-2 NBA and I dominated. Where did you have to go, anyway?”
Matt swallowed hard. “My Mom wanted me to do some stuff around the house,” he said, hating to lie to Amar. “I wish I could have come over.”
The last part was no lie. If he had been at Amar’s place last night, hanging out with his friend’s uncles and eating pizza, he wouldn’t have had anything to do with the incident at Phil’s store.
Although it had snowed the night before, the sun had already dried up the streets nicely as the two boys walked toward Anderson Park. It was January, but one of those winter days when playing basketball outside was still possible as long as you kept moving. A long, brown-paneled station wagon pulled up slowly beside the duo and Jake Piancato hopped out the back door. His parents were in town from the lake to get some groceries and supplies as they had plenty of business from hunters at this time of year. So Jake had some time to play ball too.
The three buddies had just begun playing H-O-R-S-E out on the
asphalt court where they had practically grown up, when Phil arrived. “Let’s get some twos going before we freeze to death,” smiled Jake.
Phil nodded and the game began. But it wasn’t much of a game. Jake and Matt absolutely crushed Phil and Amar even though Amar was by far the tallest, and likely the best, player of the four. Phil had no energy, no jump, this morning. And his shot was badly off. Normally a frenzied whirlwind on the court, he just didn’t seem into it. “What’s up with you?” asked Jake.
Phil’s face grew serious and his eyebrows furrowed below his close-cropped hair. “Aw, last night some kids tagged our store,” he said. “My grandma’s pretty freaked out. She doesn’t want to stay in the store on her own anymore. And I don’t blame her. The stuff they wrote on the wall was pretty bad.”
Matt felt a large lump in his throat. He began to sweat and he suddenly felt sick again. Playing basketball, he had almost forgotten about last night. Now it all came rushing back and it felt even worse because he could see that Phil and his family had been hurt.
Phil said that he had to go keep his grandmother company in the store for the afternoon. Jake and Amar talked briefly about the graffiti, shaking their heads. “Wonder who would do that kind of crap?” Amar said to nobody in particular.
It was the worst weekend of Matt’s life. Nothing could get his mind off the graffiti and the store or keep him from thinking about how he and his supposed friends had hurt the Wongs. Nothing could ease the shame he felt.
He had to do something. But what? What could possibly make this right? And how could he explain why he was hanging out with those guys? Why had he gone along with them in the first place? How could he explain it to his mother? He needed to talk to somebody about it, but who? He couldn’t think of a single person he would dare tell.
The ringing of the telephone interrupted his thoughts. It was Mark, making his usual Sunday call from Eton, a conversation which often involved asking for a loan until payday or for his mom’s chili recipe. She talked with him for a half hour, catching up on the latest news and girls in Mark’s life. Usually, Matt loved to close his eyes and just listen to the sound of her voice when she was talking to his older brother on the phone. She seemed so happy, so proud. But today even that wasn’t enough to make him feel better.
“Matt, come here and talk to your brother for a minute,” his mom called from the downstairs hallway
“I can’t now,” Matt stammered. “I’m in the middle of something.”
The truth was, Matt didn’t feel like talking to anybody. He could only think about the mess he was in.
Then a thought came to him. Mark! Maybe he could talk to his brother about this. Mark was older, he hadn’t always been an angel growing up. Maybe he’d know how to handle it.
“Wait, Mom, I’ll take the phone,” he called, running downstairs.
After making small talk for a few minutes, Matt stepped into the kitchen, just out of his mother’s hearing. “I need to ask you something,” he said to Mark. “But I’ll send you an e-mail, okay?”
“Sure, Mats,” his brother said.
That night, Matt wrote to his brother, explaining the situation and how he felt. He hoped Mark would have an idea on how to handle this. He pressed “send” and the e-mail disappeared. There, he had told somebody. There was no turning back now. All he could do was wait.
After supper, while his mom was out showing a house to clients, Matt signed onto the computer. In his e-mail in-box, there was already a return message from Mark.
It read: “Hey Matt, you’re right. You have to do something about this. You have to tell the Wongs who did the graffiti. They deserve at least that much. You have to tell Mom too. She might be mad, but she’ll support you. Believe me, I’ve done worse. If you don’t tell anyone, this will be tough to live with. Let me know how it goes. Good luck, Mark.”
As Matt read the e-mail, he realized his brother was right. Telling the Wongs was the right thing to do. No matter what the cost.
Matt had to wait until Monday night for the chance to hop on his bike and make his way the eight blocks through the biting wind from his house to Wong’s Grocery. It had bothered him all day at school. During basketball practice he couldn’t concentrate properly and could barely bring himself to look at Jackson and McTavish.
As he rested the front tire of his bike in the store’s black iron rack, Matt felt panicky. How was he going to do this? How was he going to tell his friend what he had done? How could the Wongs possibly understand?
Phil had seen him ride up. “Hey, Matt,” he smiled, opening the store’s front door with the familiar 7-Up logo on the wide, white handle. “What’s up? You want to stay for dinner? Grandma made lots of noodles.”
“I’m not really hungry,” Matt said, casting his eyes downward as he stepped through the front door and into the dim glow of the tiny corner store. “I just need to talk to you.”
Matt and Phil made their way down the center aisle filled with bright cereal boxes, cans of soup and bags of potato chips until they reached a pair of stools near the curtain that marked the entrance to Phil’s grandmother’s living quarters. They had sat on these stools for hours at a time, discussing major league baseball, Phil’s primary passion, and eating penny candy. The memories now seemed so far away.
Phil’s grandmother was at the front counter, selling a customer a lottery ticket, and well out of earshot. This was the time, Matt thought. “Phil, I don’t know how to say this,” he started.
“What is it, man?” his friend replied, a concerned look crossing his broad face.
From there, it all spilled out. Matt told Phil about hanging out with Jackson, White and McTavish and about the spray paint and about how he didn’t know what building the guys were going to hit until it was too late. He told Phil how sick the racist graffiti had made him feel, how ashamed he was, and how he hoped they could still be friends.
When he had finished, Phil was silent for a few seconds, staring down at the floor and gathering his thoughts. “Don’t worry,” he said quietly. “We’ll always be friends. As long as you aren’t hanging around with Jackson and those other idiots anymore, that is.”
Matt felt a rush of relief. Just getting the secret off his chest made him feel alive again. But he knew he wasn’t finished. “I want to tell your grandmother, Phil,” he said solemnly. “I feel really bad that she was so scared by this.”
“Let me talk to her,” Phil said. “She doesn’t speak English that well, so it could get mixed up if you do it. Don’t worry, I’ll go talk to her now.”
Matt watched, feeling helpless as Phil walked to the counter toward his grandma, a stooped and wrinkled woman in her late-sixties who seemed to be always dressed in a long colorful skirt, a sweatshirt and white tennis shoes. “Grandma,” Phil began, followed by a blur of Mandarin words. Even after years of hanging around in the store, Matt couldn’t begin to follow their language. He could only judge the conversation by the looks on their faces.
Phil’s grandmother glanced slowly in Matt’s direction and then back to her grandson. There was no mistaking the hurt in her round, heavily lined face as she turned and walked slowly toward the back room. Phil motioned for Matt to come to the front of the store. “Grandma is going to bed now,” he said. “You better go.”
Matt passed by Phil’s grandmother in the aisle as he walked to the front of the store. She didn’t look at him as she headed through the red curtain.
“Phil, I’m sorry… ,” Matt began, waving to his friend. There was nothing else to say.
The next morning, Matt rose at 5:45, went directly to the basement and grabbed a can of white exterior paint and a brush that had been there since he had coated the fence the previous summer. He hung the paint can over his handlebars as he pedaled his way into a brisk headwind toward Wong’s Grocery.
He felt a little better after talking to Phil the night before, but as he reached the back of the store, the shame returned. The Wongs had scrubbed off most of the graffiti, but y
ou could still clearly make out the outline of the horrible messages scrawled by Jackson and his friends.
There was no snow this morning, but it was cold and windy as Matt opened the can and slowly began to paint over the wall. He erased any trace of the graffiti, so it was as though the ugly incident had never happened. But Matt knew better.
The back door of the store opened and Phil’s grandmother stuck out her head. She glanced at the paint can, then at Matt and the freshly painted wall. When she realized what he had done, she flashed the warm smile and sparkly eyes that he had seen so many times before. “You lucky boy,” she said and she ducked back inside.
Matt returned home just in time to catch his mom at the kitchen table eating a bagel and reading the Post. “Where did you get off to so early this morning?” she asked.
Matt gulped. This was it, he thought, his chance to tell his mother. And once he began, the story again poured out of him. He didn’t stop, or even attempt to read his mother’s soft brown eyes, until he had finished.
She cleared her throat and looked directly at him. “Well, Matt, I have to admit I’m disappointed you would agree to go along with boys who were planning to do something like that. That is somebody’s property, and you should know better. But I am proud of the way you’ve tried to make it right. Please, just promise me you won’t hang out with those guys anymore.”
Matt nodded. He had absolutely no plans to do that.
chapter ten
For the first time since the graffiti incident, Matt’s mind was finally clear, and he was looking forward to basketball practice the next afternoon. But when Coach Stephens blew his whistle to start the session at precisely 3:55 p.m., two players were missing.
