You Don't Even Know Me (10 page)

As soon as it's over we run across the street. “Stop. Let's get some watermelon,” she says. A man with a truck full of little ones gives us a sample. It tastes like sugar water, only sweeter. So we ask for more.

Elliott walks ahead of us, pointing at women painted blue and holding mics. Raven faces me. We walk and talk about the fireworks and melon, running out of conversation right in front of my favorite mural: a wall full of horses and people from around this way sitting tall on 'em. Golden always wants to ride on my back when she sees it, then we talk about all the places in the world she'll ride to one day. Raven tells me about the mural on 22nd Street. It's her favorite. “Somebody's gonna draw me on a mural one day,” she says, posing. “Then I'll live forever.”

Gunshots don't surprise us when we hear them. It's the Fourth of July weekend. Somebody's gonna die. “We better leave.” I take her hand. She holds my fingers tight. I think I am the luckiest boy in the world.

Elliott is cool sometimes. While I walk Raven to her front door, he keeps quiet, mainly lighting matches and flicking 'em high in the air. I stare at her hard as I do those murals, because I know I won't ever see her again.

She licks her pretty lips. I lick mine. She clears her throat. I do the same. Then a window opens. “Girl, get in here,” her sister says. “Dad's looking for you.”

Just like that, Raven's inside the house. Gone.

“You get her number?” Elliott asks.

“No.”

“She wasn't that cute anyways.”

It's what we say when we strike out.

We speed up, sweating like crazy. Philly heat don't know when to call it quits.

“He's gonna be mad,” Elliott says.

I quit walking. “It was worth it. I didn't even notice the heat all that much. I mean, I met a girl. You can't meet a girl in the house with your sisters.” We bump fists and I notice for the first time that him and me stink. I sniff my underarms. “You think she smelled me?”

“I smell you.” His nose goes under both his pits. “But we always smell like this. What's the problem?”

Ain't no problem, I'm thinking, taking my time walking back home, watching fireworks shooting off of porches. “I had me the best time. Dag.” I jump up, punching the air. “So I don't care. For real. What he say or do to me don't matter.”

“Blame me.” Elliott stops. “People blame me for everything anyhow.”

My mother says Elliott's got sad eyes. They're not sad, just big and tired-looking, like he never sleeps, which is true. He's up till three every night. “Never could sleep,” his mother always says. “Even when he was a baby.”

“You gonna sleep good tonight,” I tell him, yawning. “As soon as he finishes yelling, I'm going to bed.” I don't mention what I think next. That I'm going to sleep and kiss that Raven in my dreams.

Elliott turns in the opposite direction, jogs toward the corner. “Hold up. I'll be right back.”

I pick up a Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos bag and two Hot Tamale boxes, flatten them and put them away. Our teacher said if we showed him what our neighbors were eating, he'd tell us what was eating our neighbors. He got sick and left for good back in May. But I'm still doing the project. Hot. Spicy. Sweet. That's what they like around here. I don't know what that means yet, but I'm gonna someday.

“Elliott!” I yell like he can hear me, then walk around the corner to find him. I'm in enough trouble already, I think.

I find him on the next street, sitting in a car somebody ditched, firing up trash. I don't know if he knows why he does it.

“Elliott!”

“I quit last summer.”

“I know.”

“But quitting only makes me think about it more.” He takes the lighter and holds it to the busted leather seat with the stuffing pulled out.

“I know,” I say, holding my hand out.

He adds more trash, trying to build a good fire. “If the whole car went up . . . man, that would be cool.”

I look at him. “You take your medicine?'

He looks at me. “Naw.”

My hand burns when I snuff out the fire. “What about yesterday? You take it then?”

He smiles. “It makes me sleep. All the time.”

“You never sleep. That's your problem.” I start walking. He jumps out the car and follows. “You got too much energy—up here.” I point to his head. “Take the medicine. It's good food.”

We laugh at that because his mom always says it. It's hard, I guess, being smart like him with a 130 IQ, but with a mind that won't do what he says.

“I ain't bad.”

I take his hand. “Come on, we have to go.”

He hands over the lighter, then digs in his pocket and gives me two more. “She was cute,” he says, talking about Raven.

“Sure was. I shoulda asked for her number.”

He slaps me on the back. “You gonna be fourteen soon. Not a kid no more. You better learn to ask.” He digs in his pocket again and pulls out three numbers. “I do,” he says, when we hit our block.

This is why I like Elliott. He's braver than I am. Funny and loyal, too. You can't give up on someone like that just because their mind don't work like yours.

There are police cars parked in front of my house. That ain't no surprise. We stop at the corner. I pick up an empty juice box and the top to a pack of Lemon-heads.

“See you next year,” Elliott says, crossing the street. “Hey. Happy birthday, early.”

He's right. I'll be on punishment when my birthday comes in October.

“I'll get it for you. Her number, I mean.”

Elliott and I would do anything for each other.

Everyone's outside, waiting for me; waiting for their houses to cool off too, I guess. Miss Evelyn's sitting on her steps, watching the news on TV. Four little flags hang in front of her house, drooping like her flowers. “Boy . . . when you gonna learn?” I stare at the screen. There's a reporter talking about a dead body they found, and there's a helicopter in the sky shining a light on another street.

Patricia and Golden run up and hug me. “You in trouble,” Patricia says. “But I didn't tell.”

One policeman is sitting in a car. The other one, Mr. Dave, is standing by the curb. “Hey, Mr. Dave,” I say, watching him put his pad away.

“Where you been?” It's my stepdad.

Mr. Dave is my godfather. “This daggon Philly heat,” he says, wiping his forehead. “It'll make you crazy.” He looks at my father, while the other car pulls off. “Make a good boy do the wrong thing sometimes. Know what I mean?”

I tell them our house is hotter than fire. “We just wanted some air; water, too.”

My stepfather grabs me by the front of the shirt. “I been calling the house all day. Danka finally told me how you left them girls and never came back.” He asks what I was thinking, neglecting my sisters like that.

I push his hands away. “I'll be fourteen soon. I shouldn't be locked up in the house like you do them crooks!”

The people across the street get quiet. Patricia and Golden too.

My stepdad smells my breath. “I don't drink,” I say, feeling Elliott rise up in me.

He pats my pockets.

“What you doing?'

“Empty 'em. Slow. One by one.”

I've never ditched my sisters before. Never stayed out until dark. It's not right, him doing this to me. In public. And for what? Being a boy?

“Do you know how many people been shot tonight already?” He kicks my trash and asks my sister to pick it up. Sweat drips down his chin. “You know how many times I called home; rode around this neighborhood?” His fingers shake. And he stares at the ground. “Boys like you get into trouble 'round here all the time.” He stands up straight and sends the girls inside to get something to eat. “I should . . .” His fist goes back. My eyes close.

Mr. Dave steps in between the two of us, and then walks a little ways with me. “When you're a father, you'll understand.” He takes out a cigarette and lights it. “When you a cop, you know already. It's mean out here.”

He starts walking. “Don't make your father hurt you.”

I try to explain.

“He will hurt you, if he thinks it's gonna keep them from hurting you,” he says, pointing up the street. “Understand?”

“Yeah . . . but.”

He tells me to shut up, then walks me over to my dad and says the two of us have to work it out. We sit outside, the three of us, talking. I try to tell them that I'm not a kid anymore. “You lock me up, I'm gonna bust out— anybody would.” I'm shaking while I'm saying it, because once Mr. Dave is gone, my stepdad will show me who's really in charge. But I don't care. I met me a girl. I ate me the best food. And I'm never gonna forget those fireworks and her sleeping next to me.

My stepdad stares at his boots. “I told you . . .”

“I know.”

“If you got hurt . . . if the girls got hurt . . .”

My godfather asks to speak to him a minute. They go inside and come out shaking hands and talking about how hot it is. Mr. Dave goes back to work. My stepdad gets back to me. “I'm never gonna understand you liking North Philly the way you do.” All he sees is the trash, and kids out of control, police trying to get people to talk who won't, and boys like me in trouble or dead. But if he saw Raven. If he had that lady's sweet potato pie, or if he saw all that money on the porch, or those people line dancing, and grilling in the dark, then he'd know why I love North Philly.

He opens the door. “Maybe we need to change a few things around here.” He picks up Golden, who is out of her Pull-Ups again. “But first you have to get what's coming to you.” He's quiet a minute. “Tell me what you think is fair—and don't be messing around, 'cause I got plenty ideas about how to make you wish you were never even born.”

I look at him standing there like a mountain in that doorway. He doesn't wait for an answer. He walks into the house asking Golden if she wants Ernie in the tub with her, or Mickey Mouse.

I don't know why, but he doesn't tell me to come inside. And I don't go, not for a while, anyhow. I sit. I tell my stomach to quiet down when I smell fish frying up the street somewhere. I watch my neighbors kicking back, talking on cells and to each other. I hear Miss Bert yelling to someone to bring her a bowl of butter pecan ice cream, and some grease, so she can oil her scalp.

Philly heat. It makes people stay outdoors all night long. You can't hardly sleep for the heat and the noise sometimes. That's why I like it, though—like living here, feeling the heat, watching people walking the streets— knowing that it ain't all bad; ain't all good, neither. It's just where I live. My hood.

Brown

Baby

Girl

Beauty of the world

My little sis

Here's another kiss

A poem

A hug

Words to show the world

Just how much you're loved

I apologize

For living in the suburbs,

For talking white,

For trying to be cooler than I am,

For locking my windows when my mom drives me into the city at night,

For choosing Harvard over Howard,

For not going to public school,

For taking Paige to the prom,

And for sitting up in church, singing hymns like life was ever hard for me.

I apologize

For that time I pretended not to see you cutting up,

Or the time I sat in the barber shop, scared that more than my hair was going to get cut.

I apologize

For looking like you, but not knowing exactly who you are.

But you can apologize too, you know.

I hear you laughing at the way I speak,

Pointing at the geek you say is me walking up the street,

Asking why my family gotta act so white.

Stepping up to me because you think I can't fight.

I know what happens when I show up at a dance:

You and your boys sit back and don't give me a chance.

Laughter happens whenever you see me around,

Unless you need to borrow some money.

Then, well, of course me and you is down.

I don't always understand you.

You don't seem to get me at all.

I prefer golf,

You swear by basketball.

We are

City

And

Suburb,

A million miles apart.

Brothers

Still trying to understand and forgive one another.

So I apologize

For whatever.

And you?