by Dana Dane
It worked.
One of Dupree’s shoelaces got caught in the fence, causing him to lose his balance and come crashing down on the hard cement, headfirst. Blood spurted out of his skull as if it were a split water hose. One of the boys, thinking Dupree was dying right before his eyes, screamed with fear, “His brain is leaking!”
Nearby, seventeen-year-old Big John was sitting on the stoop smoking a stogie when he heard one of the younger boys’ screams. He had the physique of a full-grown man and was naturally muscular. Running toward the source of the noise, Big John acted quickly and untangled Dupree’s shoelace from the fence. Then he ripped the tank top he was wearing off his back and placed it on Dupree’s injured skull. “Are you okay, kid?” Dupree was unresponsive and groggy, sliding in and out of consciousness. Big John didn’t know Dupree, but recognized him as the new kid that had just moved into the first floor. He scooped him up in his arms and rushed the boy to the steps of their building.
By this time another kid had run and told Dupree’s mother what happened. Jenny was running out the door when she saw Big John flying up the six steps that led to her door with her child cradled in his arms.
“Bring him in the house and set him down right there.” Big John followed her instructions and placed her baby boy on the couch. “Oh my God, how did this happen? My baby! Oh God, please don’t let my baby die!” At first, she thought to call the ambulance. Although the Cumberland hospital was right across the street, maybe three-quarters of a football field’s length away, she knew it would take the ambulance forty-five minutes to make a one-minute trip. The paramedics feared coming into the hood and gave less than a damn about servicing the underprivileged.
Jenny put cold, wet towels on his head and gently picked up her boy and prepared to walk him to the hospital. Big John offered to carry him, but Dupree’s mother would have none of that—this was her firstborn, her baby. At the emergency ward, the medics tended to him immediately at Jenny’s insistence.
Dupree ended up being okay, and Jenny was forever grateful to Big John. He became one of the first friends they made in the PJs.
The aftermath of Dupree’s injury was twenty-two stitches, a bald spot on the right side of his noggin, and a scar for life.
Now Dupree was being cheered on as he approached the point of the fence near the stoop and his kitchen window.
“Man, I don’t think anyone has walked it that fast before!” Jarvis gushed in approval. Jarvis and Dupree were now best friends.
“Get outta here,” Chap hated. “He ain’t do it faster than me.”
“Yes he did,” Jarvis rebutted, now in Chap’s face.
“No way.”
“Way.” They continued to argue.
Dupree was not paying them any attention. He was still up on the fence, but instead of walking he was looking through his kitchen window.
“You don’t do nothing around here anyway! You a liar and a cheat! You can pack your shit and get out!” his mother screamed at his stepfather. Her toned body was coiled and ready to strike, and her big almond eyes appeared to be even larger than usual.
“Bitch, who you think you mouthing off to?” Elroy lashed back. He was six foot one, with flawless brown skin. Most of the women in the projects thought he was very good-looking, but it was hard to see that now, with his face all contorted. Elroy stepped into Jenny’s face, invading her space. Although she stood barely five feet tall, she was a fireball and refused to take any mess from anyone—especially a man.
“Elroy, I don’t have time for this shit. Go on chasing them hoochies, I’m done. You out there fucking whatever’ll get naked for you and ain’t even taking care of your daughters.” She turned around to walk away when Elroy grabbed her by the back of the neck.
“Ah!” she gasped, pain mixed with anger. If I get free of his clutches, he gonna wish he never put his hands on me, Jenny promised herself.
Dupree jumped off the fence and raced up the stairs. He wouldn’t have been able to run any faster if he had on a red bodysuit with a lightning bolt on the chest.
Big John was perched at his usual spot on the stoop talking with some other people, puffing on a cigarette and listening to his music. “Easy, little man,” he warned lightly.
Dupree paid Big John no mind, flying right past him and through the open lobby door. His little husky frame blasted through his apartment front door as he yelled, “Don’t hit my mommy!” He was furious. This was the first and last time he would ever see a man physically abuse his mother.
Their two-bedroom apartment was small, sparsely furnished, but neat. The living room contained one long daybed that sat up against the left wall, and on the right there was a dining table with a black-and-white thirteen-inch TV on top. Elroy was in between the kitchen entrance and the dining table shaking Jenny by the back of her neck. She struggled to escape his grip, to no avail.
“Bitch, don’t ever turn your back on me.”
Dupree ran at his stepfather swinging with all his might and was greeted by a backhand to his left cheek. He had heard people say they would slap fire out of a person’s face before, and now he knew what they meant. His cheek was ablaze as he lay sprawled out on the floor near the refrigerator, crying in pain.
Realizing what he’d done, Elroy froze for a moment, letting up slightly. But that moment was all Jenny needed to slip from his grasp. In an instant she made it to the kitchen and snatched up the black cast iron frying pan that lived atop the stove. In her best imitation of Billie Jean King, she swung the pan until it connected with her target.
In a fit of rage, she continued to practice following through with her forehand. “Don’t—you—ever—put—your—hands—on—me—or—my—son—ever—again—in—your—life,” punctuating every word with a crack from the frying pan until she had beat him down to the dull brown project-tiled floor.
Hearing what sounded like someone in a world of hurt, Big John rushed up to the apartment. The door was open. When he saw what was going down, he grabbed the pan from Jenny.
“Ms. Jenny! That’s enough–you’re gonna kill ’im.”
Young Hustle
“Dupree,” Jenny called to her son, “come here, I need you to go to the store for me.”
Dupree came out of the back room that he shared with his two younger sisters. He was wearing his favorite light-blue Lee jeans, a striped navy, light blue, and white crewneck shirt, and a pair of navy blue Pro-Keds 69ers on his feet. Although Jenny didn’t have much money, she always made sure her children looked well kept, except for that black Brillo for hair Dupree’s deadbeat dad cursed him with. For that, there was nothing she could do but keep it cut, and most of the time three dollars for the barber was not in the budget.
In the two weeks since the unpleasant incident with his stepfather, the swelling on Dupree’s caramel-brown face had vanished. Physically, he looked as if it had never happened. Jenny was grateful that her daughters had not been present to see the fight. Fortunately, they had spent that night with Jenny’s girlfriend Sandy and her two daughters, who lived in the Farragut housing projects. When they returned the next day, Jenny made it her business to tell her four-year-old twin daughters that their father would not be living with them any longer. Jenny wasn’t normally the type to mince words, but she spared her daughters the full details. The girls would miss their father, but she knew getting rid of Elroy was best for them all in the long run.
“Did you make up your bed?” Jenny asked Dupree when he walked into the kitchen.
“Yes, Mommy.” Dupree was a momma’s boy.
“That’s my little man.” She smiled. “I need you to go get me a pack of Newports, a pound of salt pork, a quart of milk, and a stick of butter from the store.” She held out four dollar bills. “And don’t be running out in that street without looking both ways!” she cautioned.
“Yes, Mommy,” Dupree replied. “Can I keep the change?”
“Yes, baby, but hurry back. I want to cook breakfast for y’all this morning.”
>
Dupree stepped off the stoop into a clear Saturday morning. A soft summer breeze brushed his skin as he thought about how much change he’d saved up to this point and how much would be left over after purchasing the groceries for his mother. He was saving up for a Duncan yo-yo and a spinning top; he needed about a dollar more. Knowing there would only be about twenty to forty cents change, he wondered how he was going to get the rest.
“Ms. Jenny’s son!” a voice screamed out. “Yoo-hoo! Ms. Jenny’s son!” Everyone in the neighborhood addressed the other adults with a Ms. or Mr. tagged to their first name. “Ms. Jenny’s son,” the voice repeated.
Dupree looked up to see who it was that was so desperately trying to get his attention.
“Right here.” The voice belonged to a graying older lady, somewhere in her late forties. She was leaning out her seventh-floor window waving frantically. “Are you going to the store, young man?”
“Yes, Ms. Margaret,” Dupree yelled back up to her. Ms. Margaret was a cafeteria worker at his elementary school, P.S. 67. Given all the kids she served over the twenty-odd years she was employed there, he wasn’t surprised that she didn’t remember his name.
“Okay. Hold on, honey.” She disappeared inside her window and within moments was back with a brown paper bag, which she tossed to Dupree. It contained money and a list of the items that she wanted from the store. “Thank you, sweetie, and take fifty cents for yourself.”
Dupree’s face lit up when he heard he would be making another fifty cents on one trip to the store. “Thank you, Ms. Margaret.” He snatched up the bag and scurried off across Park Avenue to the store.
Dupree’s sister Takeisha, the oldest of the twin girls by three minutes and almost the spitting image of her mother, with her round cheeks and almond eyes, could not care less about her breakfast. Her attention was on a bootleg Barbie doll her daddy had bought for her fourth birthday. The younger, Lakeisha, had the same doll but opted to sit with her eyes affixed to the Saturday-morning cartoons on the small black-and-white TV. It didn’t have an antenna, but the metal coat hanger their mother stuffed in its place worked just fine. Lakeisha resembled her father and Takeisha her mother.
Dupree sat at the dining table with his back to the refrigerator, barely eating, preoccupied with his thoughts. He had gotten ninety cents just by going to the store for his mother and a neighbor. What if I went to the store for more people? I could make even more money.
“I don’t know what you daydreaming ’bout, boy, but you better not waste my food,” his mother snapped.
“Yes, Mommy.” Dupree smiled and began eating with gusto. The salt pork and grits with toast and jelly disappeared off his plate. Then he jumped up and darted out the front door, leaving the empty plate on the table before his mother could protest. There were people to see, errands to run, and money to make.
For the rest of the summer Dupree knocked on his neighbors’ doors asking if they needed anything from the store. Eventually he had regular customers he made store runs for, including Ms. Margaret, who never gave him less than fifty cents for his efforts.
Everything was going as smooth as Asian silk until Dupree got robbed by the dirty twins—Bo-Bo and Go-Go—who lived in 56 Monument Walk, the building diagonally across from his. No longer feeling safe going to the store by himself, he got Jarvis to start running errands with him. It cut into his profits, but some money was better than no money.
Dupree and Jarvis were like Laurel and Hardy or Abbott and Costello—an odd couple. Jarvis lived on the fourth floor in a three-bedroom apartment with his mother, two sisters, and two brothers; he was the middle child. Like most families in the projects, their main source of income was welfare. Jarvis was slimmer and taller than Dupree, with a long head. People teased him all the time, calling him names like Jarhead. Because of the constant teasing, Jar, as Dupree called him, would get into fights on the regular. After a while, Dupree came to the conclusion that Jarvis just got a kick out of fighting. The two of them got into a few tussles but never anything serious.
“Jar, you seen the new skateboard they got out? It’s made of some type of plastic, and when you get on it, it bends, but it won’t break. And it has big, clear wheels, too.” Dupree spoke enthusiastically.
Jarvis, struggling to eat a candy bar and carry a bag of groceries at the same time, spoke with his mouth full. “Yeah, Calvin from building 102 got that skateboard. He said he paid fifteen dollars for it.”
“For real? I got twenty-eight dollars and seventy-two cents saved up. How much you got?” Dupree looked at Jarvis.
“About nine or ten dollars,” he said with a little less enthusiasm than Dupree.
“That’s okay! I’ll chip in the rest and help you get yours.”
Jarvis smiled at his friend. That was one of the things he liked about Dupree. No matter what, Dupree was always willing to share what he had or help him out in some way. Jarvis would do anything for Dupree as well.
After they dropped all the packages off to their respective customers, they headed to Fulton Street, downtown. Of course they were going without the permission of their mothers. Going to the store across Park Avenue and going downtown were different things entirely. If their mothers found out, it would cost them an ass whipping for sure. But it was too nice out to worry about consequences.
Everyone was out enjoying the beautiful midsummer day. Some kids were riding bikes or playing basketball on the court in front of the building, and others were playing skellys. Young girls were jumping rope. The older kids and adults sat on benches. Hip-hop music was on the come up, and the teenagers on the bench were jamming to Planet Rock by Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force—pop locking and dancing.
Dupree and Jarvis walked through the projects past the benches in back of building 99, past the nursery up North Portland Avenue, where they stopped at Sarjay’s candy store and bought some goodies. Then they continued across Myrtle Avenue into Fort Greene Park, walking and talking. They were now approaching the fence that separated the playground from the rest of the park.
“I think I’ma get a red one. How ’bout you, Jar?” Dupree was imagining the skateboard he would be buying shortly. He fingered the change in his shorts pockets.
“I don’t know yet,” Jarvis said. He held out his bag of Cheez Doodles to Dupree. “Want some?”
Dupree reached in and took a handful.
“Yo! Little dudes, where y’all going?” The voice came from directly behind them. Dupree looked back.
It was the dirty twins, sitting on the bench finishing off some pizza. Fear ran up Dupree’s spine. He quickly turned his head and picked up his pace, nudging Jarvis to do the same. He knew the little thugs were nothing but trouble.
Jarvis was unfazed, but he could tell his friend was scared.
The eleven-year-old identical dirtballs were always tore up, and today was no different. Their clothes were soiled and tattered, their hair unkempt, their faces filthy, and they reeked of urine. The twins’ mother was a dope fiend, and their father, when he was around, was a drunk. Other than beating the twins’ asses whenever they felt like it, neither parent paid any attention to them. Well, at least that’s what Dupree heard the grown-ups say. He used to feel sorry for them—until they jumped him and took his change. Now he wasn’t sure what he felt.
“Yo, par … you with the big head,” Go-Go shouted toward the boys, using language he overheard from the teenagers. “Hold up!”
Dupree tried to ignore them by walking even faster, but his friend had a different idea.
Jarvis stopped.
“Come on, Jar!” Dupree exclaimed, but he knew he was wasting his breath, because Jarvis had no intentions of avoiding a good fight.
“Ya momma,” Jarvis retorted. Although the twins were three years older than they were, Jarvis was almost their height. “That’s right—I said ‘Ya momma’!”
Steaming mad, the twins moved in on Jarvis like he had been the one that started trouble with them. Bo-Bo circled to the l
eft, while Go-Go circled to the right. Bo-Bo reached out first, touching Jarvis’s pocket, making his change jingle. Go-Go smirked before taking a wild swing that grazed Jarvis’s ear.
Dupree wanted no part of the twins. He took off running past the water sprinkler toward one of the park’s exits, but something made him stop. What, he had no idea. Being that his feet were no longer obeying the commands of his brain, he looked back. Jarvis was fighting off both of the boys as hard as he could and losing. Dupree thought about the time when Elroy slapped him and compared it to the punches the twins had landed when they jumped him. What he felt from their young punches was nowhere near the pain he’d felt from his stepfather.
Dupree had made up his mind, and this time his feet were listening. He was going to war alongside his friend: win, lose, or draw. That’s what friends did for each other. With those thoughts fresh in his head, he charged back to aid Jarvis, the change in his pocket jingling more vigorously with every step.
When Dupree made it back to the action, he didn’t waste any more time. His first punch connected with Bo-Bo’s eye socket, catching him off guard. Bo-Bo was supposed to be the tougher of the two. He doubled over in pain, clutching his face.
Go-Go was shocked when he heard his brother scream. He looked up to see what had happened, but that proved to be the wrong move. Jarvis caught him with two well-placed punches to the face.
The blows dropped him. Blood gushed from his nose as he lay crumpled next to his brother.
Figuring that he’d had enough, Dupree began pulling Jarvis by the arm, away from the twins. “Come on, Jar!”
“No!” Jarvis pulled away from Dupree and kicked each boy one time hard in the abdomen for good measure. The twins moaned in anguish.
Now it was over.
Dupree and Jarvis took off running, looking back occasionally to see if they were being followed.
They weren’t.
They ran across Willoughby Street, turning left down Ashland Place on the side of Brooklyn Hospital, holding their pockets so the change wouldn’t dance around too crazily. They didn’t stop running until they were halfway up the block. That’s when they looked at each other. Panting and out of breath, they began to laugh uncontrollably.
