Tutored (14 page)

She walked over to the door and opened it.

“You bagged my shit on up to tell me to get out of
here? Leesa, you’re really gonna do me like this? After I watched your kid for free?”

“Yeah, and she landed in the hospital, so thanks a lot.”

Hakiam looked from his belongings to his cousin, then back to the paper sack. He grabbed his things and told her, “It’s been real.”

W
endy answered on the first ring.

“Where are you calling from? The hospital?” she asked.

“No, I got put out on the street.”

“Don’t tell me Leesa is still blaming you.”

“Who else would she blame?”

“How is Malikia?” she asked.

“She woke up.”

“Good. Is she able to have visitors yet?”

“I don’t know. She’s going to stay with my aunt for a while.”

“Your aunt who’s into church?”

“Yep.”

“Well, that could be the answer. See if she’ll take you in too.”

“I don’t know, maybe I’ll start my job search again. Maybe I’ll get lucky this time.”

“You can’t live at your job. Where will you sleep?” she asked him. Her own mind was searching for an answer. He could try a temporary shelter—but would he want to get mixed up with the system again? With social workers and counselors and the database entries? Hakiam needed a family, not a program.

Meanwhile, Hakiam said nothing. It felt like one of those awkward pauses they’d had when they first met.

“I’m just glad Malikia will be all right,” he finally said.

Wendy nodded. “You know, when they say kids have hard heads, they’re not kidding, Hakiam. Those skull bones don’t join together till later in life. Sometimes falls aren’t as bad as you think.”

“Wendy, I can count on one hand the number of people in my life who give a damn. Thanks for coming when I called you. Thanks for giving a shit about Malikia.”

A tear came to her eye and she quickly blinked it away.

“I’ll always give a shit about Malikia, Hakiam. I’ll always give a shit about you, too.”

“I guess I’ll see you at the center, Wendy.”

“The center?” she asked incredulously.

“Yeah, you know, the place you volunteer at.”

Her voice rose. “You’re homeless and you have no source of income.”

“Yeah,” he said.

“What are you going to do? You can’t stay on the
street.” That was the last thing she was able to transmit to him before his quarter on the pay phone ran out.

The line went dead. Her mind buzzed with more questions. Where was he? What was he going to do with very little money and no place to live? Would she ever see him again?

S
omewhere in the back of his mind he always knew he’d end up in a hobo jungle. Where else did people who didn’t have a net end up? When they fell, they hit the pavement.

It was sort of like that movie with Will Smith and his son. Hakiam could now look forward to spending the night in a toilet stall, but would there be a light at the end of the tunnel, like in that flick? Would he get a six-figure corporate job? Or an Oscar nomination?

Hakiam left Leesa’s hood and its police sirens and ambulance cries, its basketballs bouncing and children screaming and doors opening and closing. He headed for downtown, because why be homeless around a bunch of poor people?

He hopped a turnstile and snuck onto an elevated train. He rode to the end of the line, which was
downtown, then switched to another line. His goals were to stay warm and to stay out of the elements.

For a minute or two, he wished for seventy-five bucks. If he had that, he could catch a Greyhound bus back to Cincinnati and start all over again. Again.

After the third merry-go-round on the train, he had to stretch his legs. They felt thick and his butt was numb. He had to get out and move.

He got out at Sixteenth.

Rain fell heavy and fast from the sky. The street was washing out; the sky had opened. From the newsstand, he took a free Metro newspaper and put it over his head. It was soaked limp within moments. He was still hungry.

Down the street, a hotel doorman was gesturing to him.

Hakiam put his hand to his chest, asking, “You want me?”

The man kept waving.

Hakiam stepped closer to him. “What did you say?” he asked the man in coat and tails.

The doorman told him, “You need an umbrella.”

Now he was wet, hungry, and broke. Night had fallen, and the hour he’d spent walking aimlessly in the rain hadn’t helped at all.

He would have loved to have anything to eat. A sandwich—didn’t matter what was stuck in the middle. Turkey. Baloney. A swipe of peanut butter.

A slice of cheese, even.

Libraries closed at eight. Stores in the city closed at
ten, but they hustled everyone out by nine-forty-five. And this being Sunday, they closed even earlier.

So he walked some more. Taxicabs and buses passed him.

The neon signs flashed. He’d never noticed how many tall buildings Philly had till then.

He ended up in a twenty-four-hour laundry.

He got a hot cup of coffee from the vending machine for twenty-five cents. He put in three more quarters and got a danish wrapped in plastic.

It was hard to bite into.

Hakiam noticed her the minute she walked in, a girl with a splash of blond hair and twinkling green eyes. She was the kind of girl he always had his eyes peeled for back in the day.

She put a load in the wash and took a seat near him on the bench, placing her handbag at her feet.

She had an iPod in her ears and her laptop was absorbing her attention. All he had to do was the old bump-and-swoop. He bet she had a few fives, maybe even a few twenties in her purse.

Hakiam thought about it and thought about it. It was almost like God (or some other all-seeing being who knew Hakiam was desperate) had sent her here to solve his problems.

All he had to do was reach out and take it.

But he couldn’t get his body to cooperate. Temporary paralysis took over, and when he recovered, all he could do was tap her shoulder.

She took out her earplugs and turned to him with a warm smile.

“Your bag’s on the floor.”

“Oh,” she said, like it was the farthest thing from her mind. “Thank you.”

His smirk morphed into a smile back at her.

W
endy emptied her head during a history exam, traded ideas in her English literature peer group, and wrote a theorem on the board when her name was called in calculus. Thanks to a crazy global-warming day, she was spending lunch with Erin out on the school’s rolling lawn.

“I’ve fallen out of bed before. I even fell out of a bunk bed—the top I bunk,” Erin said.

“I’m sure you weren’t an infant at the time.”

“It’s a shame.” Erin nodded, shading her eyes from the sun. “So your dad really let Leesa have it.”

“It wasn’t very productive. He was just venting at her and Hakiam.”

“Why Hakiam? He sounds like the hero in all this.”

Wendy frowned and put things concisely: “It’s guilt by association.”

“Uh-oh. So, where does that leave you and Hakiam?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know where he is. Leesa
kicked him out of her apartment. That just puts a nice little cherry on top of the sundae,” Wendy said, listlessly spooning through her yogurt and granola.

Erin’s eyebrows knitted together as she stilled her friend’s hands. “Kyle and I had a blast that night. I hope we can all hang out again. Be sure to tell him that when you see him.”

At the end of the school day, Wendy stopped by the Lower Merion post office. When she got up to the window, she found out that the application she was sending weighed a whopping one pound, five ounces.

“Howard, eh?” the bespectacled man behind the counter asked, reading the address.

“Yes,” Wendy answered.

“I hope you get in,” he said with a bright smile. “How would you like to send this?”

“Express, please.”

H
akiam had stayed up all night. The sun rising in the morning, with birds flying through the trees, wasn’t necessarily the most beautiful sight to him. But at least he had a few things scheduled.

He went to the downtown mall between Eighth and Tenth and took the escalator to the ground floor, where the food court was. Mickey D’s stood there, shining like a yellow and red beacon, exuding the smell of coffee and Egg McMuffins and hash browns.

He entered the store and stood off to the side till the manager noticed him. The moonfaced woman asked, “May I help you?”

“I need a job, like now,” he told her.

“Right this minute?”

“Yep.”

“Did you fill out an application?”

“Not here, but a few weeks ago I went up and down Chestnut Street. I ain’t heard nothing.”

“But you didn’t apply here?”

“Look,” Hakiam said, “I—I want a job. I do. I know this ain’t the right way to go about things but I’m nearly out of money, so if you need someone to do whatever you do here, I’ll do it. Cuz I’m almost out of money.”

He could tell the woman was trying hard to keep her jaw from dropping open. Finally, she gave him a half smile and said, “Well, we could always use a hand.”

After giving him paperwork that she said he could fill out during his lunch break, she showed him to the mop closet, where the rags and disinfectants were stored. His first task was to wipe down the tables from the breakfast rush.

As he trudged his way through the paces of his new job, cleaning off crumbs and spilled orange juice, he spent the first hour in a state of shock. It was unbelievable to him that he’d actually been hired. All he did was ask!

He looked at the patrons. They didn’t really look back; there was no real connection. His role relegated him to being the proverbial fly on the wall, and that was fine with him. Hakiam moved on to putting the straws in the dispensers and the wad of napkins into the canisters, and before he knew it, it was time to punch out.

He was one for one. He decided to press his luck.

He caught a bus heading west and got out near Catharine Street.

He walked quickly on the cold streets, passing morose faces, church spires, and leafless trees.

After he made it to her address, he paused before ringing the bell. He took a deep breath.

The door opened.

“Hakiam, Hakiam, it’s been so long, too long. I had a feeling you’d be coming by. Every lost sheep comes back into the fold. I’ve been praying about it,” she said, and held her arms out.

“I didn’t even get a chance to ring—”

“I saw you clear down the block.”

Hakiam accepted her tight hug. She was a thin woman, covered up in a long-sleeved shirt and a skirt to her ankles. Her Afro was gathered in a headband.

She started to say her signature line: “God is great—”

“All the time,” Hakiam finished for her.

“I’m glad you came. Let me get you something to eat—”

“Don’t go to the trouble.”

“It’s no trouble, Hakiam. I’m happy to do it.” She left the hall and went into the kitchen. Hakiam followed and steadied her hand before she was able to reach for anything on the shelf.

“I just wanted to see Malikia,” he told her.

She nodded and led him upstairs to Malikia’s bedroom. “She’s been asleep for most of the afternoon. The doctor said that’s good.”

Hakiam’s heart started pounding hard. Aunt Josephine had the crib set up in the center of the room. Beside that she had a rocking chair with a Bible placed on the armrest. It was open to Matthew, chapter 18.

Aunt Josephine took the book in her hands. She began reading with passion in her voice. “ ‘Whoever therefore humbles himself as this little child, the same is
the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. Whoever receives one such little child in my name receives me …’ ”

Hakiam swallowed hard and his eyes glazed over. This was what had driven him to avoid his aunt since he’d come to Philly. He had a low threshold for all this born-again stuff.

Malikia gave a random kick.

“ ‘But,’ ” Aunt Josephine continued with the quotation, “ ‘whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him that a huge millstone should be hung around his neck, and that he should be sunk in the depths of the sea.’ ”

Hakiam’s eyes panned the rest of the room and stopped on a teddy bear that was on the nightstand. It was holding a single yellow rose.

Aunt Josephine pointed. “That’s from that nice-looking girl who came by yesterday afternoon. She said she knew Malikia through you. She said her name was—”

“Wendy.”

Malikia began to stir again.

“Is it okay to pick her up?” Hakiam asked.

His aunt nodded.

Hakiam walked over to the wooden crib and let down the gate. Malikia looked small and lost in the crisp white bedding. There were bandages over her head. The rest of her was swaddled, so he couldn’t tell if she had any more bandaging. She was very still but breathing steadily.

“Why don’t you stay here,” his aunt said, moving in beside him. She gently patted Malikia. “You can stay with me if you want. Leesa was by. She told me about the
party and how you found Malikia. I told her not to blame you. I told her you saved her life. You did a good thing, Hakiam.”

“I’m just glad she’s going to be all right.”

At that very moment, Malikia burst into tears.

Hakiam sighed and said, “Well, baby, I guess you’re stuck with me again.”

W
endy was all dressed up in her favorite outfit: willow green roll-neck wool sweater, a long skirt with microdots, and low leather boots. She waved hello to Mr. Clayton, the guard, who was busy eating hot wings.

She hustled up the stairs to the center and saw a miraculous thing. The book was cracked open, and Hakiam was reading.

He looked up at her and they exchanged a deeper gaze.

She hooked her tote bag around the chair.

Late-afternoon sunlight illuminated the room.

“Well,” she said, sliding into the seat directly across from his. “We might as well get started.”

A Philadelphia native and a Virgo, Allison Whittenberg studied dance for years before switching her focus to writing. She has a master’s degree in English from the University of Wisconsin. Her middle-grade novels about Charmaine Upshaw,
Sweet Thang
and
Hollywood and Maine
, are available from Yearling Books, and her first novel for teen readers,
Life Is Fine
, is available from Delacorte Press. Allison enjoys traveling, and she loves to hear from her readers. Visit her online at
www.allisonwhittenberg.com
.