She takes a breath and smiles. “I’m trying to let my babies grow up. But don’t think you’re too grown. How’s it going for Luke? I doubt I’ll hear from him. I know he’s got a lot on his plate.”
I have a lot on my plate too. “I guess he’s okay,” I say. “I don’t see him that much.” I decide to leave it at that. “But things are okay here.” If you don’t count my swimming fail and pee pants, it’s cool. “The food is really good.” I guess I had a lot on my plate today. I crack myself up.
She smiles. “I’m so glad you’re enjoying it, honey. You’re officially off punishment, by the way.”
Woot! “Thanks, Mom. Oh—I got into Street Style,” I say. “The dance class. I’m already thinking of entering the dance battle at the end of the summer.”
“Yeah, boyeeeeee!” She backs away from her computer and starts doing the robot.
“MOM!” I don’t even want God to see her doing that.
“I knew you would! So proud of you, sweetie—oops, honey!”
“Thanks, Mom. How’s studying?”
“I’m getting so much done,” she says, smiling wide. “In fact, I’m about to go out on an ice cream break with some people.”
ICE CREAM! BREAK! WITH! PEOPLE! I remember what Luke had said.
“What people?” I ask.
“My study group,” she answers. “I met some people who are also taking the test in September too. And I’m not the only elder! There’s a man named Brian who’s my age; it’s great.”
Worse and worse. “What’s so great about it?” I ask coldly. “And do you really think you should be doing that sort of thing?”
“What, studying so that I can realize my lifelong dream of becoming a doctor, or eating ice cream?” She laughs.
“I’m just saying … you banished us so that you could study, so … maybe go easy on the breaks.”
“Well, excuuuuse me,” she says. “Did you forget that you literally went behind my back and got yourself into this camp?”
Oh. Yeah, I guess I did.
She’s not done. “A few days away from home and you really do think you’re grown. Don’t think I can’t snatch you up right through this phone!”
“Mom! I’m thirteen! You can’t talk like that anymore.”
“You’re still my baby, Emmett. And you’re just thirteen, barely out of twelve.”
“Mom, I’m practically fourteen—”
She goes on. “Not even close. And I’m your mother and will talk to you—Okay, wait. Pause.” We had a family rule to say “pause” anytime a discussion was in danger of getting heated.
After a minute, I speak up. “I’m sorry … I just miss you,” I say. “And I am fully thirteen. Can’t deny that”
She rolls her eyes. “You should miss me!” We both laugh. “Seriously, it’s your first real time away from home, it’s normal to be homesick. You’ll adjust, I promise. And I’m just a little on edge about school. It’s kind of hitting me, what I’ve taken on, and I … it’s a lot.”
“You can do this, Mom,” I say. “You’re brilliant. Remember, you take after me.” We laugh again, and it fills the distance between us in a way that makes me feel warm and a little scared at the same time.
“So is that place as amazing as it seems?” asks Mom. “And what is it like, being in the midst of all of that Black excellence? That must be so much fun. They haven’t had the likes of you before, I’m sure. Go easy on them, okay?”
Ha. I’m not exactly the smartest kid in the room anymore. “Oh yeah, I am,” I say. “I’m trying not to unleash all my superpowers full force, just yet.”
After a few more minutes of conversation, I hear a horn honk in the background. “That’s probably Brian and the rest,” says Mom. “Gotta go get my banana split on. I’ll talk to you soon, okay, pumpkin? Oh! I saw WeeDee and Billy yesterday. They both got jobs at the mall. They seemed so grown up, which is not something I thought I’d be saying about those two.”
We talk for a minute longer, she makes kissy faces at me through the phone, and after I double check to make sure that no one outside can see me through the window or anything, I make them back.
We hang up, and I text Luke to see if he can come by with some more contraband snacks. Then Charles marches in.
“You really don’t have to keep walking like that,” I say. “Maybe just when Michelle’s around.”
He relaxes. “I thought it would be good to practice, but honestly, if she can’t love me at my Steve Urkel, then she can’t truly love me at my Black Panther either.”
“Who’s Steve Urkel? Actually, never mind. Anyway, you’re right,” I say, strolling in a little circle. “If you don’t have swagger, then you just don’t.” I smile, to let him know I’m joking, and he rolls his eyes and laughs.
Then he gets serious. “But … there is a dance at the end of camp, and, uh … you might have noticed that I’m not the best dancer. Can you help me? We’ve got two and a half weeks.”
“I’m your guy!” I say. “I told you, I learned from Luke, the Master of the Mack. And today’s Street Style classes were so good. I bet I can incorporate some of the stuff I’m learning there! You already got the terminology. We’ll take it to the next level, a couple back flips out on the field, maybe?”
He gulps. “Uhhhh. There are levels to this?”
“Okay, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I say. “Want to show me a few moves?”
Charles nods, takes a deep breath, and counts to eight. Then he gets into a pose that looks like something between doing a two-point stance in football and being really constipated.
“Huh,” I say. “Okay, um, let’s get some beats going.” I open the music app on my phone and start my Swag Style playlist. “Go, Charles! Go, Charles!” I chant. “Show me what you got!”
And, well … he doesn’t got a lot. He jerks from side to side a few times, then starts high stepping, lifting his knees on the one and three. Then he shouts, “Wave your hands in the air!” while he makes window-cleaning motions.
Oh, man.
Finally, mercifully, he stops, and looks expectantly at me.
“Well …” I start, and clear my throat. “So … um …” I close my mouth and then open it again. “Wow, that was …”
Charles starts laughing. “I KNOW!” he says. “And those were my smoothest moves! I’ve been practicing since last summer.” He falls back onto his bed, laughing, and after a beat, I join in, until we’re both out of breath.
Then I show him how to clap on the two and four, which takes a while. “Bruh, how are you a musician?” I ask. “Like shouldn’t your bassoon skills translate to your feet or something?”
“Very funny. At least you’re not like those kids at my school who are always asking me to show them how to dance ‘Black.’”
“What do you do?”
“This!” He starts his jerky robot zombie frenzy again, and we laugh until Marcus knocks and reminds us that it’s lights out/volume low time.
“Yo, did you ever see the old movie Can’t Buy Me Love?” I ask as we’re getting ready for bed. Charles shakes his head. “There’s the original, and then they had a Black version too. Your moves just reminded of this ridiculous scene from the first version. The main guy does the African anteater ritual at a school dance. Like what did that even mean, African anteater ritual? It was pretty racist now that I think about it.”
“Kind of a requirement for old teen movies, right?” says Charles, shrugging. He robots out of the room to get ready for bed.
Talking about movies makes me think back to that film fest conversation with WeeDee and Billy. I felt just as far away from them when we were all together as I do now. Sometimes it feels like I’m in a river, and the current’s real strong, and I have a choice between clinging to a rock and getting left behind, or letting myself get swept up in it and carried along without any control. Luke’s my rock; when the kids here know that I’m his brother, they’ll get that respect look in their eyes that Lamar had when
he found out. And then when they see me winning … maybe I’ll make new friends.
Charles comes back and turns out the lights. “Maybe I’ll just do what I do,” he says. “I’ll play for her. At the end of camp showcase, or even better – the last Night Hike.”
“You’ve got enough instruments for it,” I say. “Seriously, that’s a good idea. And Night Hike sounds all romantic, that’ll work.”
“Keytar?” he asks.
“Bruh. I saw you take that out yesterday. What is that even?”
He laughs, and we talk a little more about how to get Michelle to sit long enough to listen to Charles play. He advocates for them all, but I tell him to settle on one of his instruments, and not the keytar. I lay quietly in my bed for a long time, looking out of the window. The sky is inky black and for the first time, I can actually see stars twinkling, just like the song.
When Charles starts snoring, I slip out of bed and grab Mr. Elefancy and Boo Boo from my suitcase for the first time, then bring them back to my bed. I slide them both under my pillow and close my eyes.
Chapter Nineteen
Finally doing my Crazy Legs presentation. Triple M made me sweat about it for two days after he told me to have it done in twenty four hours. I dance first, and I think I see Triple M crack a smile when I made sure to do the signature W move at the end. The rest of the class was all, “Ayyyyeeee!”, so they liked it, at least.
My voice shakes a little at the beginning of my speech because of Triple M’s laser eye, but I’m pretty excited to talk about Crazy Legs. Between being off phone restriction and Charles’ handy hip-hop encyclopedias, I learned a lot. (He also had a book called Double Snaps and we stayed up way past lights on reading insults that we’d never dare to use on Derek.)
“His real name is Richard Colón,” I say, and Triple M stops me.
“His dance identity is not real?” he asks.
“I mean, yeah, I meant—”
“His dance identity is linked to his other identities, yes?”
I nod.
“Inextricably linked?”
That was a spelling bee word, so I know how it looks, but I don’t know what inextricably means. It seems like I should just nod, so I do.
A girl raises her hand. “He could say his ‘government name.’”
“Uh,” I say, thinking fast, “Crazy Legs, aka Richard Colón—” I pause, but Triple M doesn’t say anything, so I continue. “Is from New York and he’s Puerto Rican—”
“Boricua!” yells someone. “Nuyorican Power!”
I wait for the laughs to end, and I go on. “He was in a movie called Wild Style, and he went from street dance battles to competitions all over the world. Fun fact: He was a body double for the lady in the eighties movie Flashdance, like for this—” I get down and do a quick backspin, which gets me some applause. “I knew about that movie, but I didn’t know that.”
“Crazy Legs was a leader of the Rock Steady Crew, which was a b-boy crew, and he also won a Bessie Award for choreography,” I say, to wrap up. “And he’s still alive! He went down to Puerto Rico to help make sure people got clean water after Hurricane Marie.”
Triple M rolls his eyes. “Yes, what a surprise. He’s still alive, all the way in his fifties.”
“Exactly!” I say. “He’s still teaching and doing workshops and community activism and stuff.”
Everyone claps when I finish, and after class ends I hang back.
“Thanks, Mr. Micah McDowell, for the assignment, I learned a lot,” I say.
“Isn’t that a coincidence?” he says, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “Because you’ve got a lot to learn.”
“Seriously, that’s him really liking you.” I hadn’t realized that this girl named Jeimy is still in the room. “He only talks like that to the ones he thinks are really good.”
I shrug. “Uh, okay. Thanks.” I’m determined to impress Triple M. Somehow I’m gonna stand out at this place—and in a good way.
***
After the first few days, I get into rhythm, especially in Street Style (get it?). Chorus straight up turned out to be a bunch of us who can’t sing at all. Many of us are in this class because it was one of the few electives still open at the last minute, and it shows. Or should I say, sounds. There’s that guy again who sings everything instead of speaking, just so he can pull compliments, and this other guy, Jeffrey James, tries to do the same thing but he does a lot of runs and sings through his nose—and he’s as bad as the rest of us scrubs, just louder.
Today two girls who are sisters and think they’re Chloe and Halle are trying to get us to do “sectionals.”
“Y’all don’t really want to work!” says fake Chloe. Jeffrey does some runs, extra loud.
“You’re flat,” says imitation Halle. “LA, LA, LA, LA, LA!” she screeches, and I have to clench my fists like Arthur in the cartoon to keep from covering my ears. “Like that,” she says, and she even bows a little like she’s getting a standing ovation. “Come on, everyone, can we do this?”
Then fake Chloe starts giving instructions that no one understands, and Jeffrey “I Have to Put My Finger in the Air and Wave It Around” James, keeps interrupting and talking over them both.
“Um, did I miss something?” he asks into the air for the third time. “How did they get to be in charge?”
I kind of agree, but at least they’re trying. I want to say that, but Jeffrey’s been coming to DuBois for five years; he has clout.
“I know, right? I mean, how?” says Kristin, walking over to stand next to Jeffrey. She says “Yes!” every time he sings a note. Definitely a clout chaser.
Bootleg Chloe and Halle march around and keep trying to organize us; they end up shouting themselves hoarse before class even starts.
Our teacher, Calvin, does the warmup claps and we shuffle into position. I try to slide into the back row, but he waves me up front, saying, “You won’t be able to see my direction!” just to make sure everyone remembers that I’m short. “Zing-zing-zing-za! ZING-zing-zing-ZA!” We sound like my cat, Kangol, that time he got locked out in the rain.
After about two minutes Calvin looks like he’s going to cry. “Are ya’ll even trying?” he asks. “I was planning to have you do the DuBois song for the parents when they pick you up, but this … this is a travesty!”
“Maybe it could be a solo,” says Jeffrey, and the collective groan that suggestion brings out is more harmonious than any sound we’ve made yet, for real. Calvin cheers up a little after that, we squawk a little more and then everyone’s glad it’s over and I head from purgatory to hell.
***
“There it is, team, the Promised Land—aka the Isle!” says Brant, pointing to the lake.
The Promised Land is a stupid little island of dirt in the middle of the lake that level three and up swimmers can swim out to and sit around on. There are a couple of trees, some hammocks, and those long beach chairs that people stretch out and try to flex on. Older kids sneak snacks from the vending machines onto the rowboats and stash food in a cooler over there. The staff pretends not to know. Charles brought two waterproof card decks over, and Dr. Triphammer is giving Spades lessons to anyone who asks—and also anyone who’s just there minding their business. It’s dumb, really. You can do all the same things right here, without going across some stupid lake. I mean, you spend half the period getting there and back. What a waste.
I pretend not to see Charles wave. He and Michelle and Natasha and Troy are out there.
“Your friends are waving,” says Lance. “Why aren’t you waving back? Do you need glasses too? Where are your swim goggles? I wear them even for just blowing bubbles. Maybe you should too. Do you know how to blow bubbles?”
“You ask a lot of questions,” I say, turning away from the Isle and looking at Brant. “And you shouldn’t talk while the coach is speaking.”
“I’m telling, you’re not being a buddy,” says this little girl named Monifa, who would snitch on herself if she thought i
t would score her some points.
I try not to focus on the screams of laughter coming from the Isle. Like, who wants to just swim out to a dirt circle, sit on a towel, then swim right back a few minutes later? Yeah, okay, me. I do. I mean, everyone else my age (and quite a few younger) is out there every day. It’s designed to look like a beach, with big yellow-and-blue umbrellas and long red lounge chairs. I heard there’s even imported sand. Whatever. I’ve been doing a great job of pretending that I really want my friends to go without me. So good, I think I should have signed up for drama. Every day, as soon as my class starts, they race out there. And now Troy’s hanging with them, they’ve all been knowing each other; they don’t need me.
I try to focus on Brant’s speech on keeping our hips up to float.
“Let the water do the work,” says Brant. “Allow it to support you.”
Monifa the Snitch gets it right away, and I hear Brant tell her that she can take the test for level two tomorrow.
“Emmett, let me help you,” says Brant, wading over to me. He holds his arms out in the water, and I’m supposed to kind of hover over them in a float. It hasn’t worked yet; it doesn’t today. Monifa giggles, and Lance says, “You’re not a buddy, Monifa. Right, E?”
I just dunk my whole self under the water. I’m not here, I think.
I have a double period of swimming today, so I pretend I don’t see my friends when they head back to their dorms after all the fun they had on the Isle. But right as me and the rest of my group are about to start working with our kickboards, Charles jogs by again, on his way to orchestra, his bassoon slamming against his back with each step. I know he won’t laugh, but I still pretend to be helping another kid so he doesn’t see me kicking and flopping around like a dying fish. Even with Charles, I want to keep up appearances as much as possible. It feels like he’s my first real friend of my own, not a Luke hand-me-down, and I don’t want to mess this up. Unfortunately, the kid yells, “Get off me!” which is not easy to play off. But Charles just gives me a thumbs-up and keeps jogging.
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