“Abdul, you ain’t moved!” Rita shakes the bag. “Come on now.”
She puts my shoes, suit, and shirt in the bag. Everything else on the bed she bought me, elephant and tiger flannel pajamas, slippers, another pair of jeans, two undershirts, briefs, four pair of socks. She reaches under the pillow, hand me a bag.
“A surprise for when you get to your new place. Don’t look now.”
She takes it from me and puts it in the bag. I sit down on the bed. She puts the bag near the door, then goes to sit on the bed near the window and starts putting on her makeup. She’s putting on her lipstick when someone knocks hard on the door.
“Who is it!”
“Mrs Render from the Bureau of Child Welfare for Ms Romero and Mr Jones.”
Rita opens the door to a tall white woman in a gray suit like a man’s only she has on a skirt instead of pants. She’s smiling.
“Are we ready to go?” Mrs Render smiles even more.
Rita looks at her like she’s crazy. “He’s ready,” she says.
“You have the papers?” Mrs Render asks. Rita hands her the manila envelope.
“How long has he been here?”
“Since his mother passed. I brought him home from the hospital. He had been staying in the house by himself.”
Mrs Render looks at the bed. “Is this where he’s been sleeping?”
“Where else would he sleep?” Rita asks.
“Ready to go, Mr Jones?”
I almost laugh. Mr Jones? Who’s that!
“Personal articles?” Mrs Render smiles.
Rita nods at the trash bag. Mrs Render reaches for the bag, I zip to the door and get it, she opens the door, I look down the dark hallway, the bathroom door at the end, closed, someone must be in it; in the middle of the hall, before you get to the bathroom, the stairs.
“You want me to carry that for you, Jamal?”
“No, I can carry it.” Down one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven, the rug’s not even a color no more, just old chewing gum, cigarette burns, twelve, thirteen, drag the bag—
“Sure you don’t want me to carry it?”
“Yeah.” Pick up the bag, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen third floor. At the Battle of the Little Bighorn I fought side by side with Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. I was the only black Indian there with my war paint, eagle feather. Me and Crazy Horse are friends, the only dudes who don’t smoke the pipe before we fight, we don’t believe in all that. My horse is a mighty white steed, stallion? What’s the difference between a stallion and a steed? Where’s all the people usually be in the hallway, how come nobody got their door open to give me a pastel or a croissant? How come Rita ain’t walk me to the door? The man behind the plastic booth near the door buzz me and Mrs Render out the hotel. It’s cold on the street, feel like it’s going through my leather jacket. My mother say leather ain’t nothing but style, it don’t really keep you warm.
“Over there.” She points, her car is new, a blue Saturn. I get in the backseat, there’s a catcher’s mitt and some comics on the floor. She must have kids. At home I got comics, the same ones. On the wall I got posters of Biggie, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Michael Jordan, and Tupac. I got Tupac up because my mother don’t like him. Ha, ha. It’s a bunch of mess, all that gangster shit. But it’s my wall, I can put whatever I want on the walls in MY room. No you can’t. Why! I pay rent here, you’re a little boy and you can do some things and some you can’t. You cannot do everything you want. I hate you! You know what, it’s time for you to shut up ’fore I let my hand do the talking! No! I said—are you crazy take that fucking poster down! How come you get to curse! I will knock your silly— Leave me alone (I run around the room and slide under the bed.) Stop screaming, fool! I’m not a fool! You acting like one! You was gonna hit me! I was not! You was! Would you stop all that damn screaming and come out from under there. No! It’s not acceptable for you to tell me no when I tell you to do something! Is it acceptable for you to die and not get me my dog!
“How long have you lived in Harlem?” Mrs Render asks, turning up Lenox Ave.
“I dunno.”
“You don’t know? Where were you going to school?”
“P.S. 1_.”
“All of Miss Lillie’s boys go to P.S. 5_. Well, here we are.” I can’t see her face, but she’s probably smiling.
I thought we was going to an office building or something. This building is by itself stuck in the middle of two vacant lots. Dusty bricks and garbage. Ashes to ashes? I still don’t know what that means. We seen a video of a baby getting born, ain’t no ashes.
“Well.” She leans over and opens the door for me. I follow her, trying not to drag my bag on the sidewalk. A little crack vial with an orange cap reminds me of Tyrese: TV, screen, Asian guy next to yellow-haired woman. “We’re happy to bring you this evening’s news.” (I’m not paying no attention.) Then she says, “There have been no new developments in the case of young Tyrese Knight, kidnapped last Monday from the school yard of P.S. 1_” (My school!) “The kidnappers, supposedly rivals of young Tyrese’s older brother, an alleged drug dealer in Harlem, are demanding one hundred thousand dollars for the seven-year-old’s return.” On the screen behind her big head is a note made from pieces of newspapers: “LEAVE MONEY AT PICKUP PLACE U KNOW WHERE SNITCH & BOY DIES.” Until then when I would hear people talking about Tyrese got snatched and all that, I didn’t believe it, it was like something on TV. But seeing it on TV made it real for me. My mother says, Danny can’t count to a hundred thousand, much less come up with it. The lady says, “Police are still testing a finger found in a paper bag under a table at a McDonald’s on Broadway and 125th Street last week after the kidnappers directed Tyrese’s brother, Daniel Knight, to retrieve a bag from the fast-food restaurant.” They show Tyrese’s picture on the screen behind the lady, then a recording of his voice screaming: “Danny please I love you, you’re the best I’m sorry Pleeaase give them the money. I’ll give it back to you when I’m grown up PLEASE. They’re going to cut off all my fingers Danny PLEEEZE.”
“Well.” Mrs Render smiles at me. “You sure you don’t want me to carry that?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No, I like to carry it.”
Nothing like that is ever going to happen to you. You and Tyrese are two different people. Plus you don’t have a fool for a brother like Tyrese has. I don’t have nobody. Don’t worry about it, just be a good boy and get in there and do your homework please.
I follow Mrs Render up the sidewalk to the front door of the raggedy building. She pushes at the front door. “This door is usually locked. I’m over here a lot. Miss Lillie has a few boys who are doing quite well. Where did you say you went to school?”
“P.S. 1_.”
“All Miss Lillie’s boys go to P.S. 5_.”
You told me already!
“Miss Lillie’s apartment is on the top floor. Ever lived on the top floor before? You don’t talk much, do you? Here, honey, give me that bag now.”
She takes my bag and starts walking up the steps! One two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen. She got big veins like wrinkled blue straws sticking out the back of her legs. Ugh, wonder what they feel like seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty twenty-one twenty-two twenty-three twenty-four twenty-five twenty-six twenty-seven twenty-eight twenty-nine—
“Here we are, Mohammed. I mean, Jamal.”
Mohammed? She walks out the stairwell into the hallway, I’m looking at the split in the back of her gray skirt, the backs of her white giant legs, the blue veins. She’s a giant, way taller than my mother and my mother is tall. The hallway smells like Pine-Sol, my mother use that to clean our kitchen. Pine-Sol smells like Christmas trees and motor oil together. The hallway is dark, only one light working and that’s the one when you’re coming up out the stairs. Somebody’s tagged the walls big time BB in big black letters. She stops at a door at the end of the hallway. I hear what sounds like a
dog rush up to the other side of the door. His toenails scratching on the floor, I can hear him panting, I can almost see his tail wagging. Another, two dogs? The number on the door is 6-F. I want to snatch my bag back from Mrs Render and go home. She rings the bell.
“Git back, y’all!” a lady hollers from behind the door, and then opens it. Smells like dogs, I can’t see nothing except pink polka dots. When I step back from the pink, I see this big light-skinned lady in a polka-dot housecoat and two big collie dogs.
“Well, don’t just stand there, come on in!”
“How are you, Miss Lillie?”
“Fine, fine, if I do say so. How about yourself? Coming in?”
“No, no, I have two more pickups this morning, I can’t stop.” She looks at my envelope, then hands it to the lady, “Miss Lillie, this is Mr Jones, Jamal Abdul.”
“Howdy, honey.”
“Say hello,” she tells me.
“Hello,” I say.
“Miss Lillie is going to be your foster mother.”
One of the dogs plops down by Miss Lillie’s feet, the other is dancing around shaking himself, his tongue is hanging out. The one laying down is looking up at me with nasty eyes with snot in ’em.
“Well, come on in, honey. You ain’t scared of dogs, is you?”
I shake my head no.
“Well, come on then.”
Mrs Render sets my bag down inside the door and I step inside the apartment next to it. Then she turns her back and rushes away, it’s like her giant legs and blue veins is what’s saying, “Bye, bye now, I’ll be back to see you, OK?” as she hurries away.
“Come on in, you can call me Miss Lillie, or Mama, whatever. You like dogs?”
“He looks old,” I say. I don’t say his eyes look like some kinda disease.
“He is, honey, he’s fourteen if he’s a day. You know how much that is in dog years? That’s almost a hundred! How old are you?”
“Nine.”
“You gonna be a big one, yep you is. Well, don’t just stand there, pick up that bag and git on in here. Don’t none of us bite.”
I don’t like her.
“Fox,” she touch the dog laying down with her foot. “He’s part collie. This one,” the one dancing around, “is all collie.”
I don’t like these dogs.
She closes the door. “Come on in here. OK, let’s see what these here papers say. What you got in the bag?”
“Clothes.”
“I figured that, big talker, but what exactly? I need to know so I can make sure you got everything you need.”
“My suit and stuff.”
“OK and stuff, let’s take a look in this envelope and see what we got here. Hm, uh huh Jamal A. Jones, nine years old alright.”
“My name is Abdul Jamal Louis Jones.”
“Well, sweetie, it say Jamal A. Jones here, and on your Medcaid card it say Jamal Jones. So I guess we gonna go with Jamal Jones, what you say J.J.! Hey, I like that, how about we call you J.J. here on out to save confusion.”
The dancing dog is sniffing at my feet wagging his tail.
“Come on out the doorway. That old dog ain’t gonna hurt you. You ain’ gonna make it here being no scaredy-cat.”
“I ain’t scared.”
“Well, that’s good. You had any breakfast yet?” I shake my head no. “Well, come on, I got some Chinese fried rice from last night. They serve breakfast and lunch up at the school, so most of the time the boys eat there during the day. Come on, let’s put your stuff up and get you something to eat. Batty Boy stayed home sick today, so he back there in bed, you can meet him. The others be here as soon as school’s out. Come on.”
I follow her down the hall and she pushes open a swinging door. “That’s the kitchen, y’all don’t really need to go in there ’cept dinner. See back there.” She points to a door in the back of the kitchen. “That door is my room. Don’t come in there ’less I call you. OK, that’s the bathroom, I keep a little light on all night, no excuse not to get up and use the bathroom.” Going down the hall, she opens another door. “This here is the living room.” Pretty. The white and gold couch is covered in shiny plastic, white marble coffee table, gold curtains. “You boys don’t need to go in there for nothing, really.” She pulls the door shut hard.
“Watch yourself!” I look down in time to lift my bag and sidestep a newspaper with dog doo-doo on it. Wonder did somebody save my goldfish. At school we was doing reports, mine was due but that’s when my mother died. I step around another piece of newspaper yellow and wet, no dog doo-doo. Miss Lillie stops all of a sudden, I almost walk into her pink polka dots. I jump back from her. Mama, my mother would never wear nothing like that.
“This is y’all boys’ room.” She opens the door and a boy laying on the bottom of a bunk bed jumps straight up and hits his head BAP! on the top bunk. We must have scared him. Ha! Ha! I laugh. He stares at me so hard I look down at the floor, which is like a big checkerboard, black and white squares. When I look up, the boy is still staring at me.
“This here is Batty Boy. Everybody in this house got a nickname. You gonna fit right in, J.J. Wait’ll you meet Snowball, that’s my baby.” She turn to the boy still staring at me. “And you, Mr Batty Boy, since you so sick I suggest you lay your behind back down or git up and go to school. And stop looking at J.J. like you ain’t got good sense.” I follow Miss Lillie over to a big dresser against the wall. “You can put your stuff in the bottom drawer, it’s empty since what’s-his-name left, ain’t it, Batty?”
Batty don’t say nothing, and he ain’t laid back down like Miss Lillie said or stopped staring at me like he hates me or something. I start taking my stuff out the bag.
“What’s that?” she asks.
“My shoes.”
“Well, don’t put them in the drawer.”
I wasn’t going to. Batty Boy is staring at me putting my socks and underwear away. Why? None of it can fit him. I should hang up my shirt and suit but I don’t want to say anything to Miss Lillie, so I just go ahead and put them in the drawer. Miss Lillie looks at the bag.
“You got a coat aside from the one you got on?” Miss Lillie asks.
“I got a down jacket, a pea coat, and another coat like a raincoat at home.”
“Um hmm.” She looks down at me. “And I know you got Mary J. Blige at home to cook your dinner too, at home. But I’m talking about here now.”
I look up at her. Why is she talking to me like that?
“J.J., you just like all the rest come in here, you got to adjust. Whatever you had at home is over and probably never was! I know how you kids make shit up.” She opens my envelope, looks in a folder, and starts reading, “‘Father unknown, mother deceased November 1, 1997, HIV-related illness.’ Uh huh just what I thought, so OK, J.J., relax, you like everybody else here.” She looks in the drawer. “Is that a suit?”
“Yeah.”
“Why don’t you hang it up in the closet. You can hang your leather up too. Landlord keep it warm in here. Y’all don’t need to be walking around in no jackets.”
She looks around the room, at what? Ain’t no toys or furniture except for the dresser and another set of bunk beds in the corner, diagonal-like across from the bunk bed Batty Boy is standing up in looking like a . . . a weird person.
“Well, let me go heat up some of this good ol’ chicken lo mein, pork fried rice, and egg drop soup.”
The door close and it’s like some magic or something, all of a sudden Batty Boy can move. He’s coming toward—I—He . . . he’s gonna hit me? For what, this is stu—BAP! I step back, look in his eyes, sleepy stuff, he smells like pee, hatred. Fight back, I tell myself just as he slams his fist into my eye, knocking me down. He jumps on my chest, pinning my arms down with his knees.
“Who you laughing at!” he screams
Oh, man, this dude is crazy. “Stop! Stop!”
“Shut up, you fucking baby! I said shut up, stupid!” He hits me again, and I see orange polka dots, then nothing. br />
“WAKE UP, STUPID!” A gray shadow smell like pee-the-bed is over me shouting, “Faker! Faker!” It grabs me by my shoulders and raises me up and slams my head into the floor. No air. I can’t scream. Rita’s gonna be mad at me. I’m gonna die. Someone hit you, you hit ’em back. I try to raise myself up. My head burns, burns. I try to say something, spit blood on the checkerboard floor. My mother dead. Rita. Please please.
“You can have it,” I finally say. That must be it, my jacket, he wants my jacket. “You can have my jacket.” My suit? shirt? What he want?
“Fool I got that jacket! It been mine, asshole!” Blood from my nose in my mouth. My head burning.
“I’m thirteen!” He raises me up and slams me into the floor again. “You better do what I say.” I ain’t gotta do what he says. I gotta get home to my mother.
“I ain’t gotta do what you say! I only gotta do what my mother and the teacher say.”
“Nigguh, shut up! You ain’t got no motherfucking mother! She’s a crack-addict ho died from AIDS!”
“BATTY!” Miss Lillie’s voice bust through the door. “Batty! Nigger, is you crazy! Get up off that boy! Get up off J.J. Is you crazy! You done lost your motherfucking mind. He got to go to school! I said git off him! Well, I’ll be damned. He can’t go to school looking like that. Come on, J.J. sweetie, sit up. Batty Boy was just playing with you. He didn’t mean you no harm! I know how rough you boys are. Rough, honey! Yes indeed. Let me go get something to clean up this mess. And you FOOL! You better not lay a hand on him while I’m gone neither.”