The Old Neighborhood (38 page)

I shake it and say, “Joe. Good to meet you,” hoping this ain't some kinda 'Beam me up, Scottie' joke.

“Interesting stuff, huh?” he said.

“Yeah… Pretty cool.”

“You ever hear of dark matter?”

“Yeah, it's that invisible stuff that changes the orbits of stars and galaxies.”

“Ever think about it in terms of antimatter?”

“What, like dark matter's made up of antimatter?”

“I don't know, maybe, though—that'd explain a lot,
wouldn't it?”

“But, wouldn't there be more collisions and annihilations happening out there in the Universe on a big level?”

“Yeah, maybe there are and we just haven't observed it yet? Maybe, that's what a supernova is? Or a type of supernova, anyway?”

“Shit, that's trippy, man. Like, what if there's a big-ole ball of antimatter headed straight for us right now?”

Scott looked upward towards the sun and flicked his hands above his face and said, “pshhhhhhhhhhh!!!” and I found myself giggling.

“If that's how this little dot goes, I'm gonna be pissed as hell,” Scott chuckled as Dydecky walked back in, grinning at us.

“Alright, fellas, that's it,” he said, “Wrap it up, I gotta get the projector back to Mr. Hollander's room before they lock it for the night.”

As Dydecky wheeled the projector past, he whispered,
“
Good comments, Joe.
”
One bushy eyebrow rose way up along his forehead. This ball of pride expanded in my chest, same as when I made an open-field tackle and the coach slapped my helmet when I got back to the sidelines, or when Mickey brought up that fight outside of Senn.

“It was good meeting ya,” I said to Scott as I got up.

“Come back again. Dydecky's always bringing in big shots like that guy.”

“Maybe I will,” I said and stepped out the door.

On my way to the north exit, I ran into Antwon's fat ass as he was plodding outta the Detention Hall and dragging his pick through his messy afro, and I got on the bus twenty bucks the richer. Then, I was sitting there watching the red-bricked world slowly slide past on the packed Addison bus, lost in thoughts about particle physics and the destiny of the frickin' Universe itself. Imagine that.

CHAPTER 25

LOVEBIRD

IT WAS A SLOW MONDAY AFTERNOON,
and we all bullshitted down at the sills, hoping for custies, but nobody was really about smoking on a Monday. If anything, they'd toke on resin from the weekend. The breeze blew the winter in hard, stirring up the leaves into these spiraling clusters along the gray sidewalk.

“So you're taking Hyacinth to her homecoming this weekend?” Angel asked.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding.

“What about you, Ryan? You gonna go to our homecoming?” Angel said, grinning at me as I winced.

“I ain't goin to no dance,” Ryan said, then spit on the sidewalk slab. “Dances're for lames.”

“Fuck dat,” Angel said, his huge teeth beaming. “You just can't get no bitch to go with you.”

“Fuck you, motherfucker,” Ryan said, glaring at him. “What bitch you goin' wit'?”

“I gotta take her, man,” I said, cutting through the pettiness. “You know how dat shit goes.” I took a pull of my Marlboro Light. “It'd break her heart if we didn't go to that thing.”

“I hear you,“ Ryan said, relaxing his shoulders. His Bulls jersey slumped.

Some of the Good Girls approached the sills: Monica, Hyacinth, and some other one I'd only seen a couple times. Hyacinth wore a white cardigan. She walked fast and kind of led the other two, who were flared out at her sides. Monica had one arm folded over her belly, holding the other elbow like it was broken or something. She had a guilty look on her face, and her bottom jaw hung open a little, showing the blue and red rubber bands in her braces. As Hyacinth got close, her face changed, and suddenly I realized she was furious. Her eyes were all puffy from crying, but now her mouth was pursed. She walked right up to me with her arms forced straight down at her sides. I stood up and suddenly knew. Somebody'd told her. Somebody'd told her everything. I took a deep breath and looked down at the tips of my Nikes.

“How could you?” she hissed disgustedly as I scrambled for what to say. I thought of how to tell her it was a lie. The seconds ticked past. The truth oozed out of my pores and leapt from my defeated, slumped shoulders. Then, she turned, and I thought it was to walk away. I reached out for her hand, then I felt a pop to the side of my face. My head reeled backward. A sharp sting sizzled across my cheek. I just sat back down on my sill. I didn't know how to tell her it was the worst mistake I'd ever made. How I didn't like Gabby—I didn't give a damn about her. How it was like, peer pressure or something. How it was out of my control. I just sat there and watched her stomp away in the same direction she'd come from. The one girl followed her, but Monica sulked at me. Her doe eyes pierced my heart before she turned and caught up with Hyacinth. No one said a word until they were gone. The only sound was my heart beat banging.

“I guess none of us is going to the dance now, huh,” Angel sighed.

“Fuck you,” I said, my cheeks glowing hot.

I tried calling her, but she didn't want to talk to me. The next night, I tapped on her window, but she just sat up and flicked me off with her thin middle finger. Then, she flopped back down on her bed out of sight, flicking me off the whole way.

•

THE NIGHT OF THE DANCE,
I was sitting on my front porch keeping an eye on Hyacinth's house and thinking maybe she'd go with some of her girlfriends, or maybe TeeTee'd take her. But I knew deep down in my gut that she probably had a bunch of dudes from her brother high school ask her and some motherfucker was taking my girl to the dance instead of me. Some motherfucker was taking my girl to the dance instead of me.

A new Nissan pulled up on the corner about 7:30, and some dude in a suit got out of the passenger seat clutching a plastic box. I found myself walking down the block to get a better look. They were inside for a few minutes. I posted up across the street behind a tree. He came out first—a skinny Filipino kid with round cheeks and straight teeth. He smiled and cupped his ear, listening as he waited for her just outside the door.

That chink motherfucker better never come around here again! Stab dat motherfucker in the face!

Then, I saw her. She stepped down her front stairs. Her hair was pulled up in a bun that exploded into a cascade of twirls like the frosting along the edges of a wedding cake. Her cheeks swelled in a smile. Her teeth beamed white and straight without the braces. All the rage evaporated from my chest and dropped into a heavy brick that hung low in my belly. I hid behind the tree and peeked out at her. Her rose-colored dress was elaborately pleated and puffy at the shoulders. It was low-cut at the chest, and the curves of her breasts pushed close. There was a white flower on her wrist. She didn't wear a necklace—my nameplate was in some drawer or trash bin. I wasn't angry. I felt myself whispering,
'I love you, Hyacinth. I love you, Hyacinth. I love you, Hyacinth.'
As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she glanced my way. Her dark, still eyes penetrated me and told me all in one instant that it should have been me taking her hand and helping her into the car. It should have been me in the suit. Should have been me to dance with her, to kiss her out there amongst all the slow-swaying bodies below the corny gym decorations. But it wasn't. It wasn't, and that was all. She bit her lip and got in, and the car was gone with her.

•

ROSE WAS A GOOD SISTER
to me. It's funny how guys can ignore their sisters their whole adolescence and then one day—BAM—there they are, right when they need 'em. I was sitting in the kitchen finishing lunch that weekend when Rose walked in.

“Come on, Joe, let's go shoppin',” Rose said nonchalantly. Her hair was all done up in elaborate French braids in the style Da Brat had made famous that summer.

“Huh?” I looked up at her as she grasped her huge ring of keys and Warner Bros gag keychains off the counter.

“Come on, I want to buy you your birthday present,” she urged. Wiley Coyote's head hung upside-down from her light-brown hand.

“Ok.”

We rode in the green Tempo she shared with Jan. It was messy and had a pungent scent of dank herb and cigars deeply ingrained in the fuzzy interior fabric. Rose plucked a menthol out of the open pack of Newports that rested in a cup holder atop a pile of pennies and dimes in the center console and lit it. The minty smoke clouded over the blunt scent.

“Want one?” she said as she cracked her window.

“Naw, I'm good. Those things burn too much.” I patted my chest, then cranked my window down a little.

“OK.” She popped in a clear tape that stuck out of the tape deck, and some kind of crazy mixes swelled into the cab—it was electronic but slower than most house music I'd heard.

“What's this?”

“My guy made it—Samson, from up by Howard. He makes beats.”

I bit my tongue. I wanted to tell her, 'Why the fuck you hanging out with them GD's up there? They're fucking animals! They're worse than animals!' But I couldn't. She just wanted to spend some time with me and buy me a present that I really liked; something I actually wanted rather than the crap Ma always bought me: socks, underwear, and crappy t-shirts with sports logos for teams I didn't even like and would never wear.

The car lugged northward into Rogers Park.

“Where're we headed?” I asked.

“There's that big Foot Locker on Howard. I know you like jerseys. I'ma get you a jersey,” she said, sliding her circular, wire-rimmed glasses up higher on the bridge of her nose with her index finger.

“Ok,” I said. My heart pattered.
Why the hell don't we just go up to Evanston, or something?

By some miracle, we found a spot on Howard right out front of Foot Locker. I'd been meaning to get a Larry Bird jersey. I didn't liked Bird all that much; I couldn't like him after all the hell he'd put Jordan through, although some of those shots he'd made falling out of bounds and all those rings he'd won were impressive. But those Boston jerseys House of Pain wore in their 'Jump Around' music video had all us white boys going nuts. And Bird with the number 33; 3-3 split the 6, it was too perfect. I started sifting through the authentic jerseys, but they were like $40 bucks, so I found some stylized ones on another rack that were half the price. I started sifting through 'em trying to find my size.

“So, you still going with Hyacinth?” Rose asked as she picked through a rack of hoodies a few feet away.

“Naw, well, we kinda broke up,” I replied, checking out some of the Charlotte Hornets get-ups.

“You want to be with her still…” Rose said, grinning without looking up from the rack she sifted through.

“Yeah, but she's pretty mad at me.” I looked up at her, and she smiled at me.

“Write her a letter,” she said with a flick of her wrist. Her maroon fingernails flashed at me for an instant.

“A letter?”

“Yeah, sometimes it's hard to tell someone you're sorry face-to-face 'cause they don't want to hear it and just start arguing or walk away, but they can't do that to a letter.”

“What if she just throws it away?”

“She might, probably will. Maybe even tear it up. But give it an hour or so, and she'll be digging in the garbage taping it all back together. Trust me. I'm a girl. I know.”

“Maybe you're right,” I said as I pulled a medium Celtics jersey with the 33 on it but no name on the back.

“What'chu think of this one?” I held up the jersey towards her
.

“Why don'chu get one of the authentic ones?” She walked to the rack I'd been looking at earlier. “Look, they got a Bird right here.”

“Too expensive….” I shook my head 'no.'

“Why you worried about how much it cost? I'm the one payin'. Come on, I'm gonna just get it for ya.” She grabbed it and turned towards the cash register.

“Alright… Alright.” I moped over to take a look.

All they had was a large, but I didn't give a shit—it was getting cold anyway, so I could wear it over my hoodie. Rose bought it, and I slid it over my black hoodie. I strolled out, almost forgetting whose neighborhood I was in, but my dissing of the six-point crown was so elaborate, and seeing how green and black was Cobra's anyway (and they were Folks), no one would have ever guessed I was representin'.

“Ahh, shit,” Rose said as we pulled away from the curb. “I'ma pull through here and see if my friend around.” Rose turned toward Juneway Gardens. The needle-sharp point of a barbed hook pierced my temple and sent a screeching scream through my cranium. Howard was like the face of the Jungle; Juneway was the fucking heart.

“We shouldn't go in there Rose… I shoul—”

“It's fine. I know all these guys,” she said, waving her long acrylic nails towards me. “It'll just be a minute.”

We turned down Juneway and were enveloped in the six-story brick Section Eights. They leered on both sides of the narrow street. It was like entering a red brick fortress. The trees were ablaze—scorched brown and red in agreement by the oncoming winter. A bunch of kids ran around in the leafy front lawns, and a bum crackhead limped up the sidewalk with his mouth hung open in a fuzzy black hat with a small bill on it.

Up high in a 5th floor window, a kid with a puffy 'fro leaned out of a drapeless window. His eyes grazed to us, then past us, then he cupped his hand to his mouth and let out a loud and lazy, “We Good.” The message was echoed down at street-level three times in succession, each voice further down the street.