Sons of the 613 (14 page)

Josh is definitely waiting for something, checking his cell phone for the fourth time since we got here. Whoever was supposed to be here is late, and they haven't called yet. Just as I'm thinking that, Durwin, who's leaning over to line up another shot, says, “You know she ain't gonna come.”

She. Not Lesley, I'm guessing. The girl at the bar. Trish?

Josh grunts and puts his cell back in his pocket.

I glance over at the Indians. I have a clear view of the one facing me on the outside of the booth. He's watching Josh and Durwin, and I try to guess at what he's thinking. Is he sizing them up? Four of them against Josh and Durwin? As I'm wondering that, the Indian shifts his gaze over, and for a moment our eyes meet and I look away, feeling a thrill of terror.
Hello, sir, are you perhaps Dakota Sioux? I once made a Dakota beadwork coin purse for a school project. I have also attended an Ojibwa drum ceremony, in case I've guessed your tribe incorrectly. Either way, I have studied your proud and tragic history and feel nothing but respect and please don't kill me.

When I hazard another look his focus has shifted back to Josh and Durwin, his expression bored. Durwin, swinging around for another shot, notes the man looking at him and gives him a tiny nod.

“What's up?” I hear Durwin say. There's no challenge or aggression in it, but no fear, either, just a simple greeting. The Indian nods back in response, also free of aggression. I immediately put Durwin's move right into my mental file of behaviors I want to master. I'm already planning how I'll practice in front of the mirror—the “what's up,” the nod, the effortless delivery. I'm learning a lot tonight.

One thing I'm learning, in addition to how much I want a Cool Black Friend, is that Josh is absolute crap at pool. He stalks around the table like he's just kicked its ass, and looks good when he leans over to aim, and then he takes his shot and the balls just go off and do their own thing. This makes me happy.

When Durwin heads to the bathroom, Josh walks over to me.

“You doing okay?”

“Yeah.”

“You want another Coke?”

I shake my head, no. I do, but this would require further interaction with the hideous bartender, and I don't want to remind him of my presence.

“Is Durwin a drug dealer?” I whisper to Josh.

“Durwin? Oh, yeah.”

“That's what I thought.” I lean back, disappointed by that news, too, but also excited. “What kind?” I ask.

“What kind of drug dealer? What does he deal? Everything. Weed, hash, meth, heroin, X, roofies . . . He's killed a few guys, too, guys who fucked with him.”

Holy shit.

“Jesus, Isaac, don't stand there with your jaw hanging open. You look like a retard.”

 

M
ERIT
B
ADGE
: B
LACK
F
RIEND

This time when they play I
really
can't take my eyes off of him. Durwin, sighting down his cue at the ball, the same concentrated expression he would have before pulling the trigger. Durwin, coolly sinking the eight ball, finishing the game. Durwin, who deals drugs and kills people.

I decide this: He deals to a very select group of customers who are consenting adults and responsible for their actions. He also, I project, really just deals marijuana, high-end organic stuff. If he has killed anyone, it's because his hand was forced, and the killee was undoubtedly a violent predator who got what he deserved. Durwin is an honorable drug dealer.

After Durwin has beaten my brother again and he's gathering the balls and reracking them, he glances up at me, eyebrows raised, and makes a little gesture with his head. I freeze. What is that? Does he want something? Did I do something wrong? Should I not have been looking at him? Should I say hello?

“You play?” he says.

I babble something that must have added up to
yes.

“Okay, why don't you break.”

I miss the triangle of balls completely on my first try, hitting the cue ball with a glancing blow that sends it spinning pathetically away like a wayward planet, slowly drifting toward the side bumper.

“Sorry,” I say, and add what I want to be a laugh, but which comes out as two separate, turdy
heh heh
s. Behind me, Josh snorts. Durwin's expression barely changes as he traps the cue ball and rolls it back to me for a second try.

I reset the ball. I never knew that when people talk about having sweaty palms it's a real condition.

“You have to hold your arm steady,” Josh is saying. “Use more chalk.”

Oh, screw you, Josh.

I lean over and sight down the cue at the cue ball. Durwin is standing to the side of the table, his expression impassive. The music has stopped. The entire bar is watching. The three scuzzy guys have stopped playing and are watching me. The people in back playing video games are turned this way. Bartender the Hutt is frozen, half-eaten pork hock interrupted in its journey to his gaping maw. The drunk at the bar has shifted his attention from his shot glass to me. Even the Indians are standing, peering at the drama unfolding on pool table number seven.

“Don't mess up,” says Josh.

Have confidence in yourself, says Lesley.

I slam the stick into the cue ball and it rockets straight into the cluster with a heavy
CLACK,
the other balls exploding outward to cover—well, to cover much of the other half of the table in a pattern that spells a mediocre but let's-live-with-it break.

I look up. The music is still going. Pool players are still pool playing, video gamers still video gaming, Indians are still silent in their booth. One looks asleep. No one is paying any attention at all.

Durwin nods. “All right,” he simply says.

After that we play mostly in silence, except for Josh, who won't shut up: “You're holding the stick wrong. That's the wrong shot. You have to be lower. Bank it. No, the three ball. Cut it here. Bad angle. Hit it softer. Hit it harder. Morespinlessspinthatballtherethispocket.” And for some reason, the more he talks, the better I start to play, like I have an enchanted pool cue that is powered by Josh's contempt. I'm sinking shots that I have no right even attempting, glorious, right there in front of Durwin, one after the other, which only makes Josh even more exasperated, until finally Durwin chimes in and says, “Leave the boy alone. He play better than you.”

I look up at Josh, grinning. He opens his mouth to respond, which is when his phone rings.

“Crap,” he says, looking at the display. “Hey, Mom.”

I glance over at Durwin. It's possible that there are traces of amusement on his face.

“What are you doing awake?” Josh is saying. “Mom, no one's answering the home phone because I turned off the ringer. Lisa's asleep.”

Charlie Brown parent voice faintly audible from where I stand. Josh's eyebrows go up in surprise. He glances over at me sharply. Uh-oh.

“Yyyeah,” he's saying, dragging the word out, playing for time. “An e-mail? From the school. They sent you an automated e-mail. Uh-huh. Yeah, he was sick again today.” He glares at me and mouths,
What the fuck!?

Muhmuhmuhmmrmuh,
says my mom, her words indistinct but her strident tone very clear.

“Because I didn't want to worry you! No, he's fine, the fever's down. He's sleeping now. Like you should be. What is it, five in the morning there?”

More talking from my mom while Josh shakes his head at me and covers the mouthpiece and whispers, “I'm going to kill you.”

Now I'm almost certain that Durwin is amused. It's wonderful.

“What? Yes, Mom, that's
exactly
where I am,” says Josh, with the irritated sarcasm you use when someone has asked you something completely absurd. “I'm in a
pool hall.
I'm
playing pool
while Isaac is sick and he and Lisa are home alone. Mom, I'm watching TV. Yes, okay. Fine. Bye.”

He cuts off the call and turns to me.

“You skipped?!”

“I was going to tell you . . .”

Behind me, Durwin makes a sound that might be a chuckle. He's on my side.

“You can't just skip, Isaac!”

“You mean, like the past two days?”

More chuckling from Durwin. Josh is getting his wide-eyed nostril-flaring pursed-lips expression, meaning the explosion isn't far off.

“Isaac,” he says through clenched teeth, and then his phone rings again. “Crap!” he says, then checks the display and his expression changes completely. “I gotta take this,” he says. “You're dead,” he adds before he hurries toward the door, phone at his ear.

I sneak a glance at Durwin, who's smiling and shaking his head as he chalks up his cue.

“We still playing?” is all he says.

I now have a Black Friend.

It's clear that we've bonded, that I've earned his respect with my minor naughtiness. I am playing pool with a Black Man, a dangerous Black Man who has killed several people who frigging deserved it. He's right there, and I'm here, and we're playing pool together. I try to mimic his fluid, languid movements, his casual expression, trying to be as natural as Josh was so that if someone new walks into the bar they'll see me and Durwin playing together and notice our unforced, easy friendship and wonder at it. Every so often when I sink a shot he murmurs something, one of his “Yeah, you all rights,” or a simple
Mm hmm,
and each utterance fills me with a sensation almost like what I felt when Lesley called me cute, a glow of sheer pleasure.

“Been brawling?” he says out of nowhere when he's lining up a shot. It takes me off-guard and at first I'm not sure if he's even talking to me, and then not sure what he means, then finally get that he's talking about my black eye.

“Uh, no. I'm not, I just, heh heh,” I blurble, then kick myself for missing the opening. He continues playing, the same mixture of melancholy and menace returning to his face.
You blew your chance, kid,
is what he's thinking.

For the next minute we play in silence while I try to think of ways to reopen the conversation. Then he takes me by surprise again: “You like the Clash, huh?”

The Clash. The Clash.
Quick! What does he mean!? Why is he talking about the Clash? What does that—my shirt! I'm wearing a Clash shirt!

“Oh, yeah, I like them,” I say. They're okay. “But, you know, I really like Li'l Wayne.”

“Mmm,” he says.

What am I saying?

“Yeah, Li'l Wayne, Fitty, Jadakiss . . .”

“Mmm.”

Seriously, what the hell am I saying?

“'Course, Jay-Z is, like, the classic stuff.”

“Mmm.”

“And Biggie.”

“Mmm.”

I don't know what's happening. I can't stop it. Usually I can't get my mouth to work, and now I can't stop it, and I'm afraid of what's going to come out next.

“I get a lot of stuff from my friend James,” I hear myself explaining, surprised to be describing a friend that I didn't know I had.
Don't say anything more. Don't speak. Don't—

“He's black too.”

Oh, God.

It falls between us with a heavy, wet thud, and lies there like a dead thing, like a sack of excrement. My black friend, my imaginary Black Friend. I've ruined everything.

But my real Black Friend doesn't seem particularly surprised or offended, just registering the information as if I'd said that I'd heard it might rain tomorrow. While I hold my breath he finishes chalking up his cue and takes his shot, and we're back at it, playing pool, and when he misses an easy one and scratches I go way out on a limb and say, “Nice shot,” and he chuckles and says, “They can't all be magic, baby.”

Once he says that, we're in a groove, and I get to work on building our relationship to a new level with a few more comments, little teasing things when he misses that get a smile or a chuckle each time: “That's amazing. Is that part of some long-range strategy?” “You
have
played this before, right?” “Are you luring me into a trap?”

Soon he's making comments back: “You know that white ball's supposed to stay on the table.”

By the end of the game we're both chasing the eight ball around the table, each of us somehow unable to sink the damn thing, and we're both laughing and giving each other crap with every failed shot. And then finally, I do it—I win. I win. It's an easy shot, yes, just a little nudge to put the eight ball in the corner pocket, but I do it, and we do the soul shake and he gives me a thump on the shoulder with the other hand.
It's just like a movie,
I'm thinking,
the bonding moment, when—

Josh comes stalking back.

“We're going.”

“Now?” I say.

“Yeah, now. Durwin.”

“Josh.”

Hand bump. Durwin's face has returned to its former impassiveness. He turns to me. “Isaac.”

We do the hand bump, and then Durwin starts pulling the balls out of the side slot and placing them on the table, the fun over.

“See you,” I say to my Black Friend.

“Bye, now,” he says.

I stay for a moment, hoping for more. Then Josh says, “Hey, Durwin, what do you do? Graphic design, right?”

Durwin, herding the balls around and capturing them with the rack, says, “Yep. A lot of branding, logos, that sort of thing.”

“My brother thought you were a drug dealer and a murderer.”

I'm on fire. I'm drowning. I'm falling. I want to bash in my idiot head with one of the pool cues or force-feed myself the eight ball. I want Durwin to look up, to snort and shake his head at me so I can smile and shrug back at him, because we're friends and have a deeper understanding, but he doesn't. He barely changes his expression, just raises his eyebrows for a moment and nods a few times as he arranges the balls in the rack.