Secret Saturdays (16 page)

The nightmare gave me a bad headache, but it also made me see things differently. Things I hadn't seen before.

THE NEXT DAY
while watching Saturday morning cartoons, I thought about Vanessa and Kyle.

Holding back from them didn't feel right. For different reasons.

Vanessa had gone to Sean's place and took his rhymebook.

I owed Kyle too. When I confronted Sean in the gym, Kyle wasn't normal chill Kyle. He stepped up. Called Sean out about his secret Saturdays.

Yeah, right now, I was the one with all of Sean's information. But along the way, we three had worked to get it.

You need to tell them, I thought.

I flicked my cell open and dialed Kyle's number.

“Hello?” he answered.

“Let's three-way with Vanessa,” I said. “It's about Sean.”

When Vanessa picked up, I said, “I need you both to meet me at my place later. I found out the missing pieces about Sean.”

 

When they showed up, I brought them to my room, shut the door, and told them everything.

“Sean's such a liar!” Vanessa said.

“For real!” Kyle said.

They reacted the same way I had.

I told them, “Try to think of Sean lying this way. He probably felt his dad hurt him by getting locked up. Maybe he feels if his own family could hurt him, then we could hurt him too. We aren't even his blood.” Vanessa and Kyle didn't say anything. I wanted them to see too that maybe Sean wasn't so grimy for lying.

After a few more seconds of quiet, Vanessa said, “Yeah. I can see what you mean.”

“Me too,” Kyle said. “Kind of. I know one thing: I wouldn't want people knowing my dad was in jail.”

“That's why we shouldn't tell Sean we know he's sneaking to see his father,” I said.

Kyle's eyes were confused, but he nodded.

“Let's just keep this to ourselves,” Vanessa said. “We three know. If Sean finds out we know, we'll handle it. But for now, let's keep it quiet. You were right, though, Justin. Sean bugged out the same time he started seeing his pops in prison.”

“Yep,” I said.

“Seeing his dad locked up was probably too much for him,” Kyle said.

“Yeah,” I said. “In his raps he says he doesn't even want to go and his mom drags him there. He's probably wilding out because he wants her to stop it but he doesn't want to tell her.”

“If going to jail is messing Sean up, his mother needs to stop taking him there for real,” Vanessa said. “She thinks because Sean's a boy, he needs to see his father, but Sean'll get left back if he keeps acting up in school.”

“So we just keep hanging out with Sean and act normal?” Kyle asked.

Vanessa looked at Kyle. “Yeah.”

“For real, though,” Kyle said, “I don't know if I can go back to normal with him. I understand why he might've lied to us, but knowing he's a liar will make me feel weird around him. He's a fake friend.”

“So what?” Vanessa said. “You going to stop hanging with him?” She turned to me. “Justin, you think Sean's a fake friend too?”

Fake friend. I thought back to the time I called Vanessa a fake friend in the stadium for lying about liking Sean. I even told her she didn't understand what friendship meant. But from how Vanessa acted with this whole Sean thing, she knew a lot about friendship. She had Sean's back from the get-go. And it wasn't because she had a crush on him. She was a real friend.

“Kyle,” I said, “Sean has enough with his father being in jail. I feel you that Sean's a liar. But at the same time, I'm thinking he doesn't need us, his tightest friends, acting ill with him.”

“Yeah,” Vanessa agreed. “Like Justin said, all Sean has is his front and us. He doesn't need us exposing him and switching up.”

Kyle pushed his glasses up his nose and shook his head. He heard us but needed more convincing. “Sean has had our backs since fourth grade,” I said. “Now that he's slipping, we should have his. Being friends isn't knowing everything about each other.” It made me feel good saying that, but I knew what Kyle was feeling. It would be weird knowing Sean was smiling in our faces but lying to us. In the end, we decided the best way to be his friend was to pretend we didn't know Sean's secret. I felt guilty inside. Vanessa and Kyle probably felt as grimy as me but I didn't ask them. We were wrong for stealing Sean's rhymebook. We needed to know what was up with him and we found out in a sneaky way. Yeah, he lied to us about his secret but we lied to learn his secret. All these lies on top of lies and now more pretending made me feel like I was buried under a mountain of crap and wanted to climb out.

BY THE MIDDLE OF JANUARY,
Sean was back. It felt like forever since he'd been in school. But he seemed like his old self. He came to school on time and he didn't miss a day.

He hung out with us on the regular. I stopped seeing him be around his cousin and his eighth-grade crew. He even handed in crisp work.

And something new was up with him. He didn't dis kids.

He even went back to freestyling with me, which was maybe his way of saying we were back to normal with each other. One day after school me and him were at the cab station arcade on Crazy Corner. We stood side by side, aiming our video-game guns at the game screen while we blasted zombies. He freestyled first:

While shooting body parts off people climbing out of graves, I rhymed back:

He didn't respond for a second because we entered the next level of the game and mad zombies jumped out an abandoned building and bum-rushed us. Me and him fired until we got rid of everyone and the game said our guns were empty. While we waited for our weapons to reload and for more zombies to show, Sean finished his rap.

With his eyes on the game Sean couldn't see me, but I smiled. I was happy to hear him say my best friend was back. What if he goes on another secret trip and doesn't tell you? I thought. Will he be my best friend then? I decided not to think about it. I was just amped that we back to being cool.

Weeks passed and things stayed normal with Sean.

Me, Kyle, and him did our sleepovers. If Sean didn't do them, on Friday, me and Kyle stayed up late at my place to see if Sean and his mom snuck to go upstate. They didn't. Maybe Jackie stopped taking Sean there because she figured out him going to prison was messing up his head and sending him in the wrong direction. If so, Sean's mom was smart.

 

Two months later, in March, me, Vanessa, Kyle, and Sean were in school at lunch.

“Fight him at three. Don't be like Stupid Sean and get suspended for fighting.” This seventh grader, Tyler, dissed him loud enough for our whole table to hear.

“You just called me stupid?” Sean put his sandwich down and turned to Tyler.

“Yeah,” Tyler said. “You know you were stupid for fighting in school.”

For a long time now nobody had bothered Sean. And Sean hadn't bothered anyone. Now Tyler was starting with him. He probably thought Sean was soft because Sean had stopped dissing on kids.

Sean looked at me. At Vanessa. At Kyle. For the first time, I saw someone dis Sean and Sean didn't have that “fight back” fire in his eye. Sean shook his head at Tyler and bit into his sandwich.

“You letting Tyler dis on you?” some girl asked Sean.

Sean paid her no mind. He kept chewing.

“Dang, Sean,” some boy shouted. “You booty.”

Tyler wouldn't stop either. “Let Sean eat, because he knows I'll dis him so hard, he'll cry,” he said to everybody.

“Ohhh!” some kids at our table said.

Sean's nostrils flared.

Ignore them, Sean, I thought
.
I wish I had that superpower to control people's minds. I would've used it. To hypnotize Sean into forgetting about Tyler and everybody here beasting. After, I'd make Tyler dive into a garbage can as tall as us. Come out with tomato sauce and spaghetti noodles dripping from his head. But that was make-believe. In reality, I knew Sean couldn't just stay dissed in front of a crowd. And I couldn't make Tyler and these kids relax.

Out here the rule was “Dis or get dissed on.” The best disser was king of the hill. Kids knew that was Sean.

Sean finally looked up. Maybe he was annoyed at everybody laughing at him. His eyes were different. He winked at me like he did before he threw his one-two knockout combo of disses. He smiled at Tyler as if Tyler was his dessert.

 

“With your wino father, you shouldn't dis on me,” Sean said.

The whole lunch table exploded with kids laughing. Tyler squinted at Sean. Tyler knew he couldn't say anything. Sean was telling the truth. Everyone knew Tyler's father was the drunk, homeless, toothless man named Peter who wandered Red Hook Projects, sleeping on benches, begging kids for money, and collecting cans.

Sean paused.

Mad kids were watching and waiting for him to keep dissing Tyler.

Sean's doing like my mother said, I thought. He's focused everybody on laughing at another kid's father and no one is even looking at Sean. So no one thinks Sean might be the one with the deadbeat dad.

“Son, just the other day,” Sean said, “I was going in the supermarket and I had to step over your pops because he was laid out, drunk, on the floor, blocking my entrance.”

“Ooooo!” kids said.

Tyler stood up like maybe he wanted to fight Sean.

“Don't even think about coming over here to fight,” Sean said. “That girl, Melly, busted your lip last month, so you know I'll knock you out. Just like I did to Manny. I'll wipe your pimply face on this floor and wax it with your zit juice.” Kids looked at Tyler and waited for him to say or do something, but Tyler was stuck on stupid for a second. He just sat there. Maybe wondering what to do next. He finally decided to leave.

Everybody at the tabled laughed at Tyler for bouncing.

“Punk,” one kid yelled at Tyler's back. Tyler kept going.

“Sucker,” a girl screamed.

Kids started giving Sean props and he smiled big at them. They gave him pounds. Patted him on the back. Including Vanessa and Kyle. Everyone except me.

Sean finally leaned over to me for a pound, saying, “I got that one.”

“You got it,” I said, putting my fist out to him, but I didn't mean it.

We were back to old times. Sean showed he could beat up a kid with his words. He grinned at me like I should want to be him. A few months ago, I did. Except things were different now.

Now, I was realizing stuff.

Sean being quick with a dis used to mean he was The Man, but not anymore.