by Josh Farrar
“So, what, then? Who’s going to supervise?”
“Her brother,” Mary Agnes says.
“Jou Jou?” I ask. “Jou Jou’s going to hang out with us … on a date? No way will Bijou ever go for that.”
“It’s taken care of,” Mary Agnes says. “I know, it sounds a little weird—”
“A lot weird,” says Nomura. “But it’s the only way this can happen.”
“It gives her an excuse, right?” says Mary Agnes. “She’s not going to tell her aunt and uncle exactly what she’ll be doing. But later, if her uncle asks her where she was, or what she was doing, she could say she was hanging out with him—”
“And she wouldn’t be lying,” I say.
“Exactly,” Mary Agnes says.
Fine, then. I’m going to have to trust this redhead and hope for the best.
“At least it’s her brother, not her uncle, right?”
“Okay, I get it, I guess,” I say. “And she’s cool with this? She’s into it?”
“Yeah.”
“And that means she likes me, you think?”
“Or she might be slowly falling for you, and those little puppy-dog faces you make anytime she’s around,” Nomura says.
“We really can’t say for sure,” Mary Agnes says, laughing.
“We?” I ask. “You guys been having fun collaborating on this little project?”
“Project Bijou,” Nomura says, in his dorky “creepy” voice. Mary Agnes is falling … for this?
“Hey, you should be grateful,” Mary Agnes says. “I wish I had this kind of help with my own love life.”
Is she saying she wants help? I give Nomura a sidelong glance, but he either ignores it or pretends to.
“Just meet her on the—”
“Meet them,” Nomura says. “There’ll be two of them.”
“—meet them at the Parkside Q stop tomorrow, at three thirty.”
“Okay, Parkside it is,” I say, noticing that this will put us smack in the middle of the part of Flatbush that my mom has flat-out forbidden me to visit. “And Mary Agnes … thanks!”
“Good luck,” she says, smiling. “You’re going to need it.”
“Boy, is he ever,” says Nomura.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I say, punching him in the bicep.
15
Dollar Van
This is not how I imagined my first date with a boy.
First, I didn’t picture a boy at all; I imagined a man, or someone at least eighteen. And I imagined myself as a fullgrown woman, too, tall and filled with confidence. I would be wearing a beautiful, elegant outfit while my date escorted me to a fancy restaurant with a view of the water. Instead, I’m wearing a big winter coat, black with fat, puffy sleeves. And I’m waiting for a strange American boy to emerge from a grimy subway station in this new, freezing city I’m trying to call home. Trying.
Ah, there is Alex, walking out of the station. He wears blue jeans, like everyone does here, and a light-green jacket. He must have changed into these clothes specially for me. I wish I had thought of that. Next to him I will look so silly in my St. Catherine’s uniform.
I know I should go greet him, but I’ll wait here a little bit longer. It can be fun to spot someone before they know you are near; it’s the best way to see what they are really like. Alex puts his hands in his pockets, then takes them out, looking around for me but trying not to be noticed.
He walks toward an advertisement, a poster under glass, and stares at it. What does he see there? But now he pulls up his hands and smooths out his hair. He is not looking at the poster; he is making sure his hair is straight, that he has nothing in his teeth. He wants to make sure he looks good for me!
“Hello, Alex,” I say, at last walking up to him.
“Hi!” Alex says, a little too loudly. “How are you?”
“I am … good,” I say. “I wish I had brought some other clothes, though.”
“No, you look good,” Alex says. “You … always look good.”
Oh my Lord, did he really just say that? I have to look away for a moment.
His eyes are very pretty, I have to admit. The sun touches them, and white light dances off the blue (or is it green?) near their center. For the first time, I notice how tall he is. Most boys are shorter than me; not this one.
“Is … everything all set up?” Alex looks around, to the side and above my shoulder, wondering why I am alone, since that was not the agreement.
“Yes. You see, across the street?”
Alex waves across the street. “So, that’s Jou Jou’s van? He uses it for music, for the band?”
“No, he drives the dollar van.”
“What’s a dollar van?”
“You’ve never taken one? But you live very close to Flatbush Avenue, non?”
How can Alex live right next to Flatbush Avenue, how could he have seen the dollar vans a thousand times in his life, and never realized what they were for? It is as if we live in two different countries: not America and Haiti, but white Flatbush and black Flatbush. They are just as different, and just as far apart.
“Well, pretty close, yeah. People ride these … dollar vans … on Flatbush?”
“Dollar van is the only thing people ride on Flatbush.” As we cross the street, I smile to let him know it is okay he doesn’t know. After all, think of all the things I do not know about Brooklyn. “They go to places the city’s buses don’t, and you can pay a dollar, fifty cents, or even less. And the people are nice. Usually.”
“Hello, Alex!” Jou Jou says, jumping out of the van to let us in.
“Hey, Jou Jou,” Alex says, smiling. “How’s it going?”
“Good, man, good. Glad to see you.”
Alex looks more relaxed already. My brother has this talent, this gift to help people feel at ease, that I have never had. Everyone loves Jou Jou, right away.
“Okay now,” Jou Jou says as he gets back into the driver’s seat and puts on his seat belt. There are three rows of seats; Alex and I are all the way in the back. “You two enjoy yourselves as my special guests while Jou Jou make himself a little money.”
My brother drives down Church toward Flatbush Avenue, where two older Haitian ladies and a young mother and her little boy are waiting. The boy has a black parka with large yellow stripes across its front. He wears no gloves and shivers with cold. Three years old, four maybe, he struggles with his jacket, cannot get it off without help.
“Whachoo doin’, little one?” the mother teases her son, laughing at his long jacket sleeves. “You the abominable snowman.” It is still strange to me, so odd, to see West Indian people in this cold northern weather. We are too warm-blooded for this stinging wind.
“Praise the Lord, he tryin’ to stay warm,” one of the old ladies says, giggling, as they sit down in the middle row, the one in front of us. “Hallo, Joseph, how are you?”
“Good, Mrs. Jenkins. You get comfortable and rest your feet, now.”
Behind us, still on the street, a man in a wheelchair screams into a pay phone while finishing off a hamburger. He wears a camouflage Windbreaker with the hood up and squeezes his legs together at the knees, like a child who has to use the toilet. The hamburger gone, he lets the McDonald’s wrapper fall off his fingers, and the yellow paper flies away on the wind.
“You take this van all the time?” Alex asks.
“Every day after school,” I say. “Jou Jou, he pick me up from Parkside and take me home.”
The old ladies ask us where we go to school and are very happy when we tell them St. Christopher’s and St. Catherine’s. But Jou Jou has just picked up an old black man, an American, not a West Indian, and the man loudly interrupts the conversation.
“In my time,” he says, “they don’t let no black girl go to no St. Catherine school.”
“Progress, sir, progress,” says one of the old ladies. They all know one another; I don’t know their names, but I’ve seen them in Jou Jou’s van many times before.
“Some things change; some things, they stay the same,” he says. “Bet they don’t treat her like they treat the white girls.”
“They treat her fine; they good Christian people,” says the old lady, turning around and grinning at me. I can’t help but notice they would rather argue about how I am treated at school than ask me myself.
“You ever take the dollar van before, boy?” the old man asks Alex.
“First time,” he answers.
“How you travel regular, young man? Town car?” The man has a gleam in his eye. He’s only having fun, but Alex doesn’t understand.
“Uhh, no. Subway. Or bus, sometimes.”
Jou Jou yells from the driver’s seat, “We better than the bus! More cheaper, and faster!”
The old ladies get off at Rogers Avenue, followed by the man, as well as the mother and son. “Good-bye, children!” one of the ladies says to us. “We take ol’ Grumpy with us, so you can enjoy yourselves now.” Both women laugh, throwing their heads into the air.
All the passengers are gone now, and Jou Jou ignores a couple of people who try to flag him down. “We on our own now,” he says. “Let’s show Alex something fun.”
We are at the corner of Church and Nostrand, driving east. There’s a huge sign on the second floor of a brick building that reads IMMIGRATION in hand-painted letters, advertising for a business that doesn’t seem to exist, since all that’s left below is the Golden Krust bakery. The shop awnings, flags with bright, clashing colors, scream out, fighting for attention: MARIB’S UNIVERSAL MIX, OLIVE’S APPAREL CENTER (LINGERIE! UNIFORMS!), EMMANUEL GOSPEL BOOK STORE (CHRIST IS KING!), and every third business is a roti shop. I see Alex looking out the window, taking in all the details, his eyes hungry.
“You want a roti?” I ask.
“A what?” Alex asks.
“You live in Flatbush your whole life and you never had a buss-up-shut roti?” Jou Jou says from the front.
“Say it one more time,” Alex says.
“A buss-up-shut roti,” I say.
“I don’t even know how to pronounce that, never mind eat it. Is it Haitian?”
“No, from Trinidad most times, or Jamaica. But it’s still good. Jou Jou introduce it to me.”
“Okay, that’s it, I’m turning around,” Jou Jou says, heading back toward Flatbush Avenue. “We goin’ to Trini-Daddy’s, right now, before somebody else flags me down.”
He pulls into the first parking place he sees, claps his hands together, and says, “You want what for filling? Chicken? Shrimp? Goat?”
“For real, goat?” Alex asks.
“Watch, he’s going to have chicken,” I say, shaking my head in pretend disapproval.
“You Americans. So predictable,” Jou Jou says, turning to face us from the front seat.
“I’ll take the goat,” Alex says. He pushes his chin out, like: Ha, take that!
“Really?” Jou Jou asks, laughing. “You want to try it?”
“Yep, goat it is.” Then he raises his eyebrows. “Chicken’s boring, anyway.”
“Okay, three goat buss-up-shuts, comin’ up,” Jou Jou says, shutting the door. “You two stay in the van. I be right back.” I can’t help looking around us, outside the van. What if someone saw Alex and me alone here, together? It’s only for a moment, but no one would know that. The news would travel back to my uncle like this: “BIJOU WAS ALONE WITH A BOY IN THE BACK OF A CAR!” And you can imagine what Tonton Pierre would do.
My brother jogs across the street, bouncing with each step. He sidesteps the lovely tall tree that stands in front of Trini-Daddy’s. “Jou Jou likes you,” I say. I don’t say that I like him, please notice, although I must admit, I do; but I can’t make things too easy for him yet, can I?
“He’s so cool,” Alex says. “You’re lucky to have a brother like him.”
“You think you would rather go out with Jou Jou, then?” I ask. I can’t resist; it’s too easy.
“What? No!” He colors past red now, into purple, more eggplant than tomato.
“Don’t be embarrassed. I’m just teasing.” I try to reassure him with a smile. I spend a lot of time reassuring Alex, it seems. “You color so easy, Alex.”
“I know, I do it all the time,” he says. “But doesn’t everybody, at least sometimes?”
“Black people, we do not color. And if we do, it hides itself better. For this, it’s good to have dark skin.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
Alex smiles and looks out the window, and I notice how long his eyelashes are. Alex, he looks still so like a boy, with ears a bit too large for his head, and that distracted look on his face, like he’s always thinking of something other than what is right in front of him. But those eyes. He could melt any girl with those eyes.
“So you live with your aunt and uncle, is that right?” Alex asks.
“Yes,” I reply. Oh no, here we go. “Marie Claire and Pierre. He is the older brother of my maman.”
He is getting nervous again, I can tell. He doesn’t know what is all right to ask. “So you still have family, back home?”
“My mother, my grandfather, they’re from Port-au-Prince.” Why is he asking so many questions? Americans are too curious, if you ask me. “What about you, Alex?” I try to keep myself calm and make him talk about his life. Anything to get the attention off me and my family!
“Well, I live with my mom and my sister, Dahlia. We call her Dolly.”
“And your father?” Now it is my turn to be so curious, so nosy.
“He … left. A long time ago. I barely even remember him.”
“Really?” I say. I can’t help but be surprised. “Me too. I cannot even remember what Papa looks like sometimes.”
“I’m sorry.”
I laugh. “I’m sorry, too. What is the expression? We are in the same boat?”
“I’ve spent even less time in boats than I have in dollar vans.” Alex laughs.
And now we stay silent for a moment. Outside, two men speak loudly in Spanish. I can’t tell whether it is an argument or friendly joking. Everyone in Flatbush always is yelling, whether they are happy or they are angry or they are sad.
“One more thing,” Alex says. He has that look again. What is he going to say now? “I just want to make sure, you know, you’re okay with this? This chaperoned thing?”
“How do you mean?”
“I don’t know, but I hope I’m not making you do something you don’t want to do, like an obligation. And for Jou Jou, too. I mean, the way he has to come along. I don’t exactly go on lots of dates, but this is kind of weird, right?”
“Not at all. I wanted to see you and … get to know you better.” All right, this is partly a lie. It took Mary Agnes three days to persuade me to do this. But it’s not a lie if I’m honestly saying what I feel right now, is it?
“Really?”
“Yes, really. And this must be strange for you, to have my brother with us. But you must understand, for Haitians, we absolutely cannot see other people outside the family. Especially girls.”
“Yeah, I wanted to ask about that. I mean, I get the dating thing. Some parents are really crazy about it. But you can’t even hang out with Mary Agnes, or somebody like that?”
“Of course not,” I say, raising my eyebrows, pretending this is something scandalous. “She would corrupt me!”
“Mary Agnes? She couldn’t corrupt anybody. She’s like a parent’s dream. Nomura, too. He’s, like, a kid created by parents in a lab.”
“Oh, but she’s very nice. She’s been very good to me.”
“I know. I like her, too. But you know what I mean, right?”
“I have no idea what you mean.” But I smile, and he understands me. “Anyway, Haitian parents are a little bit too strict, it’s true. They think that if their children never see anybody outside the family, nothing can hurt them. But some things, even family cannot protect you from.”
“Was your mother strict, when you lived in Haiti?”
“We don’t have to talk about it,” he says. “Not if you don’t want to.”
“No, it’s okay, it’s just—”
Then Jou Jou saves me. The driver’s-side door swings open. “Here we are!” he says, carrying three foil-wrapped bundles and passing two back to Alex and me. As we open them, the thick, rich smell of goat meat fills the whole van. I pull out a big ball of hot, flaky dough and dip it into the mixture of goat meat, potatoes, and delicious sauce.
“You like it, yes?” I ask Alex after he tries his first bite. The meat, stringy but tender, is in perfect balance with the flaky, buttery bread.
“It’s great,” he says. “It’s like a West Indian burrito. Perfect for a cold day like this.”
“Exactement. Although we do not really have many cold days in the West Indies.”
“So how was Trini-Daddy?” I ask Jou Jou. The old man is a favorite of ours, kind and welcoming.
“Good, good,” he says. “Askin’ about you, said to say hello to my ‘ugly little sister.’”
“Oh, shut up,” I say. But Alex is laughing, and so is my idiot brother.
“You know, he’s more of a believer than Uncle,” Jou Jou says, driving back toward Church Avenue. “He say he is very glad that I spread the word, the gospel, of the good Caribbean food. That good food make you a good Christian. He wants to make sure we will be a, how do you call it? A convert.”
“Wow, he sounds worse than the priests at St. Chris’s,” Alex says.
“They are all the same,” I say. “They try to change your life with a bit of bread.” We all three laugh.
At the corner of Church and East Fifty-Second Street, Jou Jou pulls the car over again. He gets out and removes a large box from the back of the van behind our seats, and we walk into a store called Bull Bay One Stop Corner. The window advertises MEN AND LADIES WEAR, and in the windows, black-people mannequins model spring clothing, even though spring seems to be taking its time coming here to New York. Looking at those plastic people in their shorts and tank tops makes me miss home.
We open the door. “Bonjour, Guillaume!” cries Jou Jou before disappearing with the box down the stairs at the back of the store. Alex cranes his neck to see where my brother is going.
