If I Grow Up (3 page)

Gramma's apartment had one bedroom with one bed, which she and Nia shared. I slept on the living room couch. On most mornings, Gramma left to clean houses before we woke up. After breakfast Nia and I washed the dishes and put them in the rack to dry. On TV, people had kitchens with dishwashers and bathrooms with showers, but all we had were sinks and a bathtub. Sometimes I'd go into the bathroom and find Gramma on her knees, washing clothes in the tub. There'd once been washing machines in the basement of our building, but they'd been broken so often, the city took them out.

Outside, Terrell and Lightbulb were waiting for me in the yard. In the spot where Darnell fell, someone had stuck a small wooden cross in the dirt, with candles and bunches of flowers around it. The yellow crime-scene tape lay twisted and trampled on the ground. The three of us stared at the cross without speaking. Then Lightbulb said, “You got that Snickers bar?”

I gave it to him, and he tore it open while we walked to school. Terrell turned the bill of his cap to the right and stuck in his gold earring. Ahead of us, Nia and her
boyfriend, LaRue, waited on the sidewalk. They were in eighth grade. LaRue was slim with light chocolate skin and almond-shaped eyes, as if he had some Asian blood. His thick black hair was long with lots of loose dreadlocks. The bill of his cap was turned to the right and a black bandanna poked out of his back pocket.

“Terrell,” he called. “Com'ere.”

My best friend practically bounded over. He didn't have those cool, slow moves yet like the older guys. He and LaRue went behind some parked cars. When they came back, Terrell was arranging the front of his hoodie.

“What'd he give you?” I asked when we started walking again.

Terrell told Lightbulb to get lost. Our friend hunched his shoulders like his feelings were hurt, then went off. Terrell opened the pocket of his hoodie just enough for me to see the gray handle of a box cutter inside.

“Are you whack?” I hissed.

“I'm just gonna take it inside and give it back to him,” Terrell said.

“They find it, you'll get expelled,” I said. “And what do you think LaRue's gonna do with it in school?”

Terrell shrugged as if he didn't care. “All I know is he said he'd put in a good word for me to Marcus.” He took out his asthma inhaler. He seemed to need it whenever he got nervous or excited.

Lightbulb joined us again and we continued to school. Washington Carver was on the border between
Frederick Douglass and the Gentry Street Project. To the school's builders, that must've made sense, because kids from both projects could go to it. But the location also put the school in the middle of the war zone between the Disciples and the Gangstas.

Like a jail, our school had metal bars on all the doors and windows and a tall metal fence that circled the grounds. The sixth graders went in a different entrance than the seventh and eighth graders, whose bags were scanned and bodies were sometimes searched. The sixth graders were rarely searched.

At the sixth-grade entrance stood Ms. Rodriguez, the assistant principal, as ancient as the history in our history books. Her short hair was completely white, and she was all wrinkled skin and gristle. Her job in the morning was to make sure only kids who went to Washington Carver entered, and not any troublemakers from someplace else.

While we waited to go in, Terrell began wheezing again. He took out his inhaler and breathed in deeply. Then it was our turn. At the doorway, Ms. Rodriguez narrowed her eyes at my friend, whose hands were both jammed into the pockets of his hoodie.

“What have you got there, Terrell?” she asked.

Terrell began trembling, and even though I'd done nothing wrong, I felt nervous and scared too.

My friend sputtered anxiously. “I—”

“Don't give me explanations,” Ms. Rodriguez snapped. “Just show me what's in that pocket.”

Still trembling, Terrell slowly drew his hand from his pocket.

In it was his inhaler.

Ms. Rodriguez's expression softened. “You okay, honey?”

Terrell nodded and she waved us in.

Inside school my friend grinned devilishly. “Thought I was gonna get busted, right?”

“So did you,” I said.

He shook his head. “Nah, I was just foolin' around.” He went down the hall toward the cafeteria.

“Where's he going?” Lightbulb asked.

“Nowhere good,” I said.

 

It seemed like everything in Washington Carver was held together with tape. The cracks in the grimy windows, the pages in the tattered old textbooks, the pull-down maps in the front of the room—all held in place with yellowed, peeling tape.

The only things new at school were the teachers. Every year at least half the faces were different. Take Mr. Brand, for example. He had light brown hair, greenish eyes, and copper skin. He spoke proper, not ghetto, and wore button-down shirts, and slacks with cuffs. He was average height but rail thin, because, he said, he ran marathons.

“Settle down, everyone,” he said at the beginning of class. “Open your textbooks to page two hundred and eighty-five. Who can tell me why the pyramids were built?”

There were more than forty kids in the class and not enough desks, so some of us had to share. The chubby Douglass kid we called Bublz raised his hand. “Hey, Mr. Brand, is the reason you like ancient history so much because the Egyptians ran marathons like you do?”

“The Greeks ran marathons, not the Egyptians,” Mr. Brand replied patiently.

“My book ain't got a page two hundred eighty-five,” complained a girl named Ikea.

“Then share with someone else,” said Mr. Brand.

“Hey!” said a big, tough Gentry boy named Antwan. “I didn't know them Egyptians were brothers!”

“What'd you think, dummy?” said Bublz. “They come from Africa.”

“No, they don't,” said Antwan. “They come from Egypt. That's why they're called Egyptians, stupid.”

“You're stupid,” Bublz shot back. “Where you think Egypt is?”

“In Egypt, retard,” said Antwan. “And Africa's in Africa.”

Bublz shook his head wearily. “If you were any dumber, they'd have to give you a brain transplant.”

Bublz and Antwan were engaged in the daily ritual of clowning. At the beginning of the year, Mr. Brand would tell kids to quiet down, but they would ignore him and continue sassing each other, seeing how far they could push our teacher before he blew. It took a couple of weeks, but Mr. Brand finally exploded, ranting and yelling at the class, which was exactly what they wanted.

After a while, though, Mr. Brand figured out that if he let the class mess around for a time, they might get bored and eventually let him teach. Some days it worked, some days it didn't. A week like this, before a big vacation like Christmas, was usually a lost cause.

In a moment of quiet, Mr. Brand saw a chance to step in. “Who can tell Antwan the difference between Egypt and Africa?”

A couple of hands went up, including mine.

“DeShawn?” Mr. Brand called.

“Africa's a continent,” I said. “Egypt's a country in Africa.”

“Where in Africa?” asked Mr. Brand.

“Like, North Africa.”

“Well, look at the brains on DeShawn,” Antwan said snidely.

“That's enough, Antwan,” Mr. Brand said.

Antwan ignored him. “Maybe I'll kick your Douglass butt,” he threatened.

Instead of answering, I gave him the steely look I imagined Marcus would use. Only I wondered if Marcus's heart ever beat as nervously as mine was.

“What's that?” Antwan taunted. “You tryin' to look tough? You about as tough as my baby sister.”

“I said, that's enough,” demanded Mr. Brand. But it didn't matter. The class was waiting for my response.

“I'll see you after school,” I muttered.

Everyone oohed and aahhed.

Antwan narrowed his eyes and nodded, as if he accepted the challenge. Meanwhile Terrell motioned to me with a fist under his desk. As best friends, we had sworn to watch each other's backs.

When class ended, Mr. Brand asked me to wait until the others left. When they had, he gave me a searching look. “Are you really going to fight him?”

“If I have to.” The truth was, most of the talk was just bluster, to be forgotten as soon as the bell rang.

Mr. Brand shook his head as if it made no sense. “Tell me something, DeShawn. Why do they even bother coming to class?”

“Nothing better to do,” I said.

“What about you?”

I wasn't sure how to answer. Gramma said I was a good boy, because I did what I was told. But most of the time I only did that because it was easier than not doing it. Even at twelve I had a pretty good notion that school wasn't the way to succeed. We'd all heard stories about the rich and famous rappers and athletes who'd come from the projects. But you never heard of anyone from the projects who got famous for going to school.

Mr. Brand tapped the eraser of a pencil against his desk. “Have you ever heard of Hewlett Academy?”

“No, sir.”

“It's a magnet high school over in Beech Hill,” he said. “You'll get a better education there.”

“Why can't I get it here?” I asked.

Mr. Brand's eyes darted toward the closed door. He lowered his voice. “Just between you and me, DeShawn. This is a dumping ground for teachers who can't get jobs anywhere else. It's hard to get a good education from bad teachers.”

“But Beech Hill's far,” I said a little nervously.

“You could take a bus.” He could probably tell that I wasn't thrilled by the idea. “Don't want to leave your friends, right? Don't want to leave the comfort and familiarity of the hood.”

I nodded.

“DeShawn, what do you think's going to happen if you stay here?”

“Go to Munson, I guess.” That was the local high school.

“You know that more than half the kids who enter there don't finish?”

“Doesn't mean I won't,” I said.

Mr. Brand's shoulders sagged as if pulled down by the weight of something he knew that I didn't. “DeShawn, listen to me. It's one thing to go to school here with all your friends. But it's different when your crew's dropped out and you're the only one left. It's harder when you're still walking to school each day while your peeps drive around in hot whips. You can understand that, right?”

I nodded again. The second bell rang. It was lunch-time and I started inching toward the door.

“Hold on. I'll write you a pass.” Mr. Brand pulled a pad out of his desk and started to write. “I want you to think about Hewlett, okay?” he said, tearing a sheet off the pad. “You're still two years away, but you could start to prepare for the entrance exam. There's a special Saturday program I could help you get into.”

“I'll think about it.” I reached for the pass, but Mr. Brand held it out of range.

“You're pretty good at telling people what they want to hear, aren't you?” He knew he had me. I couldn't go out into the hall without that pass. I looked into his green eyes.

“You wondering why I even bother?” Mr. Brand asked. “Most of these kids don't want my help, DeShawn.
They're perfectly happy to waste their days clowning around without a thought about the future. But maybe you're different. You're one of the few in this class who reads at grade level. Maybe you're the one who'll really do something with his life. But to do that, you'll need a better education than you'll get here. So you'll think about Hewlett, right?”

I nodded. He placed the pass in my hand, and I headed for the door.

Just before the end of school, they announced a delayed dismissal and all sixth graders were sent to the gym. This happened about once a month, usually because there was going to be a gang fight and the school found out and called the police.

“You think that's why LaRue brought that box cutter?” Terrell asked as we walked down the hall to the gym.

“Shhh!” I pressed my finger to my lips. You never knew who might be listening.

In the gym, kids were standing around in groups or sitting in circles on the floor. Lightbulb sat down with a book and a thick pair of old-man eyeglasses with big brown frames.

“Since when do you need glasses?” I asked.

“They make me look smart,” he said.

“You look dumber than Urkel in those things,” Terrell said. “Ain't nothing gonna make you look smart.”

“Says you,” said Lightbulb. Some of the teachers said Lightbulb was a genius.

“What's 145 times 216?” I asked.

Lightbulb closed his eyes and moved his lips. “31,320.”

“That right?” Terrell looked at me.

“How would I know?” I said.

Lightbulb read for a while, then took off the glasses and pressed his fingers into the corners of his eyes. “It's hard to see through these things. My head hurts.”

“Where'd you get those glasses?” I asked.

“Found 'em.”

“You can't just wear any old glasses,” I said. “You have to go to a doctor and get them made special.”

“For real?” Lightbulb said. He may have been a genius in school, but in some ways he really was the dumbest kid we knew.

“Hey, DeShawn.” Terrell nudged me with his elbow. “Someone's checking you out.”

A group of giggling girls sat in a circle across the way. One was taller than the others, with long brown hair and sparkling eyes. We'd been exchanging looks for a few weeks.

“She's pretty,” said Lightbulb.

Terrell nudged me again. “Go talk to her.”

“Back off.”

“You scared?”

The truth was, I did want to go. I felt drawn to that tall pretty girl the way Lightbulb was drawn to candy.

“He's going,” Lightbulb cheered when I started across the gym.

“Go, DeShawn. Go!” Terrell chanted.

The girls around the tall one grew jumpy with
excitement and began whispering in her ear. Her eyes widened, and then a faint scowl appeared on her face and she turned and shook her head sharply. Suddenly it seemed as if she was annoyed with their chatter, because she got up and came toward me. We met in the middle of the crowded gym.

“Go on, get closer,” one of her friends called, and the others cackled.

The tall girl turned to them. “Shush! Shut your mouths.” She spoke with authority, and the other girls got quiet. I liked that.

“I'm DeShawn,” I said.

“I know,” she said, tilting her head toward the other girls. “They told me. I'm Tanisha.”

“New here?”

She nodded. Her eyes were glowing.

“Where're you from?” I asked. My heart was fluttering in my chest, but I knew I had to play it cool.

“Over on the east side of town. We moved over the summer.”

“How come?” I asked.

She lowered her head and stared at the floor. The reasons for moving to the projects were never good.

“Sorry,” I said. “It's none of my business.”

She raised her head. “How long've you been around here?”

“All my life. My gramma moved here about thirty years ago.”

“Your momma go to this school?”

“Yeah.”

“Bet she had Ms. Rodriguez,” Tanisha said. “She's so old,
everybody
must've had her.”

I laughed. Ms. Rodriguez had been a teacher before she became assistant principal. Tanisha was funny. I liked that, too. “Where do you live now?”

“Gentry,” she said.

And just like that we went from hot to cold. From hope to no hope. It didn't matter that I wasn't a Disciple. I was from Frederick Douglass, and if I was seen by Gentry Gangstas on their turf, they would automatically consider me a spy and up to no good. They might not kill me for that, but I was sure to catch a beating.

Sensing that something was wrong, Tanisha frowned.

“Well, nice to meet you,” I said, and turned away.