“Dad?” she finally said, surprised at the whiney sound of her voice.
In the midst of a long swig, Victor jumped in his seat as if he’d forgotten that he wasn’t alone. “Huh?”
Sheila put down her spoon and tried to catch his gaze. “What happened between you and Uncle Gentrale?”
Her dad’s lips made a pop sound as he took the bottle away. “Aw, girl. You ain’t interested in no ancient history. Bes leave it alone.”
“Unk says you disappointed him,” she said, leaning forward and resting an elbow on the table.
“He said wha..?” Victor mouthed a curse word. “I’ll stomp that fool—humph, talkin’ behind a man’s back like that!”
“Aw, Dad, he wasn’t exactly doing that,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“What exactly then did he say? Get yo’ story straight now, girl.”
Sheila spoke as she put her dish in the sink. “He said something about being really sad when you abandoned them back on the farm. That they were in a real bad way for a long time and…”
“Abandoned them? Sh…it wasn’t my fault! I…” Victor let out a giant burp.
She stood behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I’m not blaming anyone, Daddy. I’m just curious about you and him not talking for all these years.”
Victor shrugged and looked at the bottle as if he expected it to say something. “Since yo’ uncle got him a little time at the school when we was young, he thinks he can go around castin’ dis-dispersions and…”
“Aspersions,” Sheila said dryly.
“Huh?” he said, turning around to look at her, being careful not to disturb the hand that still rested upon his shoulder. The touch comforted him. “Damn, you like him in that regard, goin’ around correctin’ people’s speech. Anyway, he always thought that he was a slightly higher cut than the rest of us. I just couldn’t stay any longer. Had to get up and out of there. A man’s gotta do what he’s gotta do. I know you heard that one!”
“Just like a woman does, Daddy!” Sheila said, smiling big.
“What? Whew…you be somethin’, girl. Look at you! Growin’ up so fast. Yes, I suppose for a woman as well, today! That’s why I’m so proud of you and your progress in school.”
Sheila sat down again and didn’t interrupt him as he slurred on about his hopes for her, how proud he was of her and her accomplishments: honor roll, vice president of the debate team. Her father’s words took hold of her, caressed her. They sent her back to when she was a child on the swings. Victor, with every push, would render endearments in her ear. With each exertion, the change in his voice embraced her: you are my—heart, my—sweetie pie, you are the—smartest, the—strongest, the—prettiest girl in the universe. She hadn’t known what he meant by universe at the time. Years later, she came to understand that he probably didn’t either. But to her ears at the time it all sounded really good.
The crash of the vodka bottle on the floor snapped her out of her daydream. There wasn’t much in it to talk about in the first place, but the old drunk, as he knelt down to collect the largest shards, carried on as if he’d lost a child. A finger of the stuff lingered in a large corner piece.
Sheila held her breath as she watched him contemplate the unthinkable before chucking it in the trash. She wanted to help him but was paralyzed in her chair as she listened to him tell her that after he’d left the farm, something bad happened, that it was something that he didn’t want to talk about.
“If you wanna talk to somebody about it, you can go and talk to your uncle or maybe even yo’ brother. I think they talk. But don’t ask me anything ’bout it no more. Okay?”
Her promise to not ask him about it swept away the courage to ask him why he left Tim and her and their mother.
THE GLOVE
Tim liked the evening hours of the library during mid-August. With a week since Spank’s party and that mess at Rasheed’s, he could finally revel in his own thoughts, whose only competition was the tick-tick of the giant wall clock. There were so few people in the joint, it was as if mice were scurrying around in slippers while bookworms lounged in their pajamas. He didn’t think it exactly, but sitting at one of the heavy wooden tables, he sensed the patience of the computers—silently waiting to transport, inform, educate. He laughed when he thought of the carefully stacked newspapers, remembering something Darryl had said the day before about the paperboy.
Yeah man, every morning that poor kid delivers freshly printed papers, full of old news.
Picking up a daily, Tim chuckled again and thought, Dag! If a newspaper was a person, he’d probably be in a funk most of the time. Maybe even in therapy! Having recently read an article about psychology, he imagined an animated copy of The Star Ledger on the therapist’s couch.
So, what’s on your mind today, Mr. Ledger?
It’s always the same dream, doc. I’m delivered to my customers and…
Yeah, go on…
I-I tell them what I know! But it’s always stuff they’ve already heard!
Yeah, Mr. Ledger, it’s the same-old shit dream. You have to get over this business or else.
Surprised at the echo of his laugh, Tim shushed himself, having forgotten that except for a few others in distant corners, he was pretty much alone. His eyes fell upon the massive card index that stood proudly in the corner of the room. Unlike the newspapers, he imagined that it wouldn’t have problems of insecurity since chaos would be certain if for example it were spontaneously abducted by extraterrestrials.
“S’up Tim. I thought you weren’t going to show today,” Darryl said, half whispering.
So deep was he in his muse, Tim hadn’t heard the dude walk up and jumped in his seat. He turned quickly to face him. The glove on Darryl’s hand made him forget all about aliens and shit. “Yeah-yeah, I know, I’m late. Got hung up at the house,” Tim said, eyeing the glove.
Darryl leaned on the table, scratching his chin. He rolled his eyes. “That’s what you said day before yesterday, dude.”
The glove was right next to him now. He couldn’t resist asking. “So, Darryl—like, wh-what-up with the glove?”
Darryl’s sardonic smile faded as he took his hand from the table. “Uh, yeah, nothing really, just an image thing I’m trying out.”
Tim pushed his lips out from his teeth with his tongue. “Hmm…yeah, I got that! Something new, huh?”
“Kinda-sorta, yeah.”
Tim stood up. “Li-like how long you been sporting that thing? I-I don’t re-remember seeing it before.”
Darryl turned away and nodded hello at some students just entering the hall. When he faced Tim again, he looked a little annoyed and his smile was a little crooked. “A man has to keep evolving —you know?” he said, exhaling heavily as he spoke. Then his voice seemed to catch on something like a thread on a nail, “Like—why are you suddenly so interested in this glove, yo?”
Tim sat down again and leaned back on his chair, balancing on its rear legs. “Aw man, forget about it. Chill pill. Okay?” he said. “So, what you got for me today?”
“Aw man, I’m cool. So, how goes the yoga? Is that why you’re late? Did you get yourself twisted up in a knot this afternoon?”
“Veeeery funny. It was just one little article the other day and now I got to hear about it forever. Huh?”
Darryl went to help three girls who’d just arrived. He scooted back to Tim’s table. “Oh, I know the article you were checking out! Yeah, the one full of fine honeys doing the down dog!”
“It’s downward facing dog, dawg!” Tim deadpanned.
“You know, Rene was here today,” Darryl said casually.
Tim jumped out of his chair and stood next to him. “What? Did she ask for me?”
Darryl sat down and gestured for his friend to do the same. “I feel you, bro. She’s a nice girl—real nice. In a way she did ask for you. Mentioned that she’d heard you were coming here every day. I told her yeah, you’d probably swing by sometime today. She let it drop at that.” Hi
s expression was purely mischievous as he spoke. Chuckling at Tim’s open mouth, Darryl hopped up from his chair. “I have to get back to work, man. I’ll be back in a few with something good. Okay?”
“Aw, man!” Tim said, lacing his fingers behind his head. “That’s cold to leave me hanging like that. Alright, I’m here. Catch you in a few,” he said pulling some worksheets from his back pocket.
A sharp click-clack of high heels on tile announced the arrival of the librarian, famous for never looking at you as she spoke. “Hello, Darryl. Hi, Tim. I’m happy to see that you’ve settled into a rhythm of sorts,” she said, inspecting the bracelet on her arm.
“Oh, hi, Mrs. Shepard. A rhythm?” he asked, trying to catch her eye.
Now the librarian seemed to be studying the face of the big clock as she listened to him. “Yes, eh-hem. I meant to say that you are showing a new determination and consistency with your studies. This is good news!” She clapped her hands together softly exactly on the word good. It made Tim nervous. “Darryl, when you’re done with Tim, I need you in the reference section. Okay?”
“I’ll be right there, Mrs. Shepard,” Darryl said. They watched the sway of her hips as she clacked her way back to the other side of the building.
“Yo Darryl,” Tim whispered. “Yo, like, there’s a wrestling section up in here?”
Darryl’s eyebrows shot up. “Hee! Man, you’re crazy! It’s reference section. But never mind that, we’ll get over there later. For now, let me ask you a question. What’s the difference between these two phrases…”
Tim couldn’t be sure, but it seemed that Darryl’s movements had become stilted, less fluid, and the dude had somehow lost the glove. When Darryl hi-fived him for having figured out simple and past perfect tense, Tim couldn’t help but see the reddened mesh imprint at the base of each finger—the point where the glove stopped. He accepted the compliment and said nothing. There was hardly time to say anything, for soon it would be closing time and he still had twenty pages of exercises to complete. Eventually he laughed it off, thinking to catch up with Darryl later in the wrestling section.
THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING
At first Tim hadn’t recognized Chucky—never could’ve-would’ve imagined the punk sitting inside a library let alone reading anything. The runt and some dude he didn’t know sat a couple tables away. He did his best to ignore them. But then the whispering began.
“Psst, hey, Tim. S’up?” Chucky whispered.
Tim stared at his book, scratched his temple. “Nothing, just hanging, you know.”
“What you doin’ up in here? I heard you can’t read. Got you some nice picture books?” He pronounced it pitcha books with a goofy southern accent.
“Nah man,” the other boy chimed in, matching Chucky’s drawl. “He’s entertainin’ himself with one of those National Geogliphics. Ahhhaaa!”
As they giggled behind their magazine props, Tim corrected him. “It’s National GEOGRAPHIC—st-stupid.”
“Oooh! I do believe he called you stupid, brother,” Chucky said, grinning broadly, a missing front tooth on full display, as well as the S scar on his cheek. “I-I-know what’s up with him. Hey-hey, Tim. Ho-hoping to run into Maria?”
And so it went. Darryl had surprised Tim with some new readings. Today’s topic: Marsupials. With a snort Tim thought, Yeah, Chucky looks like a cross between an opossum and a wombat. Damn! Something told me not to come late today. Now I have to deal with these fools. I sure hope Rene doesn’t come in here now. Well, he ain’t said nothing about Rasheed’s yet—that’s good. Maybe he’s not here to fuck with me.
People had begun to leave. The silence in the joint had become so thick that he could hear an echo after each tick of the giant clock. Vague blunt noises came from distant corners of the library. No doubt it was Darryl throwing books around, but the sound alarmed Tim. Closing his eyes, he leaned heavily on the table and held his head with both hands. A good whiff of Chucky’s BO had given him a headache.
“Yo, Tim,” whispered the thug, shushing his boy who wanted to get into the action. “Yo, Tim. Tick-tock-tick. I heard that Mr. Jones showed you what time it really was back in June. Showed you who was the real punk.” Tim froze in his seat as the pounding in his head intensified and his heart sank to his stomach. He wanted to leave, but then where would he go? Couldn’t let these crazies follow him home. So he stayed put, stared at his book and hoped that they would get tired and leave.
A text came in. It was Les.
S’up?
Tim wrote back:
I’m at the library taking shit from that chump Chucky. Don’t know if I can take much more from the scrawny motherfucker.
“Did you hear me, fool?” taunted Chucky with an airy falsetto. Tim didn’t have to turn his head to know where they were. His nose told him that the duo had moved to the very next table. At the same time, two girls who were seated on the other side of his table got up and left. He couldn’t be sure if it was for Chucky’s stink or a sense of trouble in the air.
“Psst…yo, Timmy boy, I heard that he beat you down in the corner while you rolled around on the floor going, Ooh, aaah, what are you doing, Mr. Jones?”
Tim couldn’t move. Shame seeped into him like old greasy water.
Chucky dropped the falsetto. “So you don’t hear me, huh? Well, hear this. What about Rasheed’s? Tell me about that shit, motherfucker!”
Sweat rolled down Tim’s back from the nape of his neck as his body shook with rage. Okay, it was true, everyone knew about the last day of school. Maybe now was the time to get this shit straight, face up to what happened with Jones once and for all. Putting down his book, he looked Chucky in the eye and hoped to God that he wouldn’t stutter.
“So what about it?” was all he could get out. Mrs. Shepard, who pretended to read as she listened to their conversation, completely missed the surprise that swept over Chucky’s face like a fast-moving shadow.
Leaning in, he whispered, “Oh, so it’s like that, bitch? Accordin’ to you, leaving us and shit was okay? You should know Fidel wants to see your ass. The police towed his ride since you left it parked next to a hydrant. We had to walk back to the party. Seemed that you knew all along there was an alarm in the joint. Said so yourself on the phone. So in your eyes, that was cool?”
Finally understanding what the punk was talking about, Tim’s heart jumped in his chest. “Na-nah, man. I didn’t—”
In a flash, the dude was up and in his face. Cold spit hit Tim on the cheek. “Fuck it! You can try to watch yo’ back outside, motherfucker, but it won’t do you no good,” Chucky snarled.
They ran out the exit cackling like chimps on helium. Chucky’s southern drawl echoed from the walls. “Tick-tock, Timmy boy.”
Tick-tock-tick, mocked the clock on the wall, reminding Tim of his last two fights, if you want to call them that—Maurice and Mr. Jones. They were more like crucifixions. He smiled at his new vocabulary word and hopped to his feet when Mrs. Shepard rang her little bell, the closing signal for the day.
Everyone left by the rear service exit—a narrow hall with cinder block walls and fluorescent lights. Tim hoped that only an empty parking lot awaited him.
The air was hot and humid and the lot was vacant. He imagined the sound of a pipe whistle from an old Clint Eastwood flick. “The town is empty, no bad guys in sight,” he sighed with relief and turned towards home.
But no. Thirty feet away Chucky and a couple of other dudes were so busy talking they hadn’t noticed him.
A text came in. It was Les again:
Get out of there.
Now the boys were coming his way. They resembled a pack of hyenas in their approach: one from each side, Chucky down the middle. Tim had intended to stand his ground but then one of them clutched something in his hand.
He bolted straight into traffic.
The pack, stopped by a wall of passing cars, watched as their prey stood on an island in the middle of the street. Chucky sent his boys to the traffic lights a
t the opposite corners. Tim stepped out in front of a City Transit Bus, the company his dad drove for—with his hands above his head. It stopped with a hiss and a stream of curses from the driver.
Running blindly into a Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot, he slammed shoulder-first into an SUV. Pushing off with both hands, ignoring the pain in his arm, he stumbled past the drive-up window, turned the corner and made a hard right onto King Street. The dude that sat next to Chucky in the library was about fifty feet behind. Running full tilt now, Tim pushed by pedestrians and children at play. He couldn’t shake the dude even though his legs burned like hell. Then he saw it—about fifty feet ahead: his next move. It turned out to be a snap to hop over the low front-yard fence. The hoods sitting on the porch didn’t have time to react. Careening down the alley into the backyard like a madman, he never saw the Doberman lying silently on the ground. What he did see were teeth lunging from the shadows, but the rock and roll of a chain told him there was no danger.
Up and over the back fence, he found himself standing in the cover of trees listening to a cacophony of barking dog and shouting homies searching for the running boy.
He didn’t move.
Then he heard the goofy voice of…Chucky. “Hey, hey hey, he’s in the park, I’m goin’ around the other side.”
He sprinted into the blackness, happy to find that the terrain was flat. Running, pushing leaves and branches out of the way with every step, his mind raced ahead of him before it took a turn back to the beginning of the summer.
He saw himself still trying to read that damned sign, except it was Maurice’s face in the place of the missing letter—he’s in the hole his dad calls home, listening to his father’s drunken regret-gorged drivel—now he’s walking up to Jones’ desk, but this time, when Jones asks him if that was all he has to say, he hauls off and slaps him hard across his big pursed lips.
Ahgottahandleonit Page 8
