Darius & Twig

  I saw a few people from the church, wearing their armbands as Reverend Allen had asked them, just walking around smiling and saying hello to people.

  “My uncle thinks I should buy new track shoes,” Twig said. “He doesn’t know anything about running, but he just needs to get his mouth into everything.”

  “Is he going to buy them?” Brian asked.

  “He said he would,” Twig answered. “But he can’t tell the difference between a good pair of shoes and a wack pair. You need to find shoes you’re comfortable in. If you got to run according to the way the shoe feels, then you got a problem. All he knows is Air Jordans and he saw them on television.”

  “That’s dumb,” Brian volunteered.

  “Yeah, but it’s family, too.”

  “Let him buy you a pair like the ones you won the race with,” Brian said.

  “Yo, check this out!” Twig said. “I think the steel band is going to play for the kids.”

  The kids from the school buses, the boys in dark suits and the girls in dresses, gathered in front of the steel band.

  “Ladies and gentlemen.” The woman speaking was short, dark, and a little pudgy. “I would like to present to you the young dancers from La Vals de Brindis. Our sound system isn’t working today, but the Jamaican Lasses will try to play for us. Thank you.”

  A black woman took the microphone and said that the Jamaican Lasses would not just try but that they would play.

  “And our first number will be ‘The Blue Danube Waltz,’ by Johann Strauss.”

  The band started playing the waltz and the kids started dancing.

  “Yo, man, they’re great!” Twig said. “I’ve heard of these kids. They do ballroom dancing and they’re, like, eight years old.”

  They were frigging great. It was as if a group of very short classical dancers had suddenly appeared from another era. They danced as if no one were there except their partners, as if no one had the right to come between the young boys moving gracefully in a circle they held in their minds and the young girls trusting themselves to their arms.

  The kids changed the nature of the party, turning it suddenly into something magical and beautiful.

  Pop! Pop! Pop!

  A scream!

  Down! Down! Everybody down!

  Oh my God! Oh my God! They’re shooting.

  A gray figure, hood half covering his face, running across the park. He turns, stumbles, lifts his arm.

  Pop! Pop! Pop!

  There are people running everywhere. Women are pushing children out of the way.

  The sound of a police siren. A whistle. The kid dancers are crawling on their hands and knees back to their bus. A policeman stops them and boards the bus to check it out. He clears it and then motions the kids on.

  A circle of black women, their arms outstretched, surrounds the children.

  Then, silence.

  Down the street there are guys in hoodies, their pants down around their asses, running.

  People on the ground are beginning to get up.

  The shoot-by is over.

  So is the party in Marcus Garvey Park.

  chapter fifteen

  The falcon soars over the drabness of the city, hardly noticing the occasional bits of color in the streets below, the cars, the dark figures it knows are people. The falcon has no anger, no rage. Anger and rage demand knowing, demand looking into faces and feeling what another creature feels. No one does this in a war. In a war, one finds what one must destroy, and then one swoops down for the kill. There can’t be pity, or weighing of arguments, and never understanding. No, never understanding.

  I am the raptor, and you are the prey. I will swoop from the heavens and kill you. As you thrash about in agony, I will eat your flesh, and I will not hear your cries, the feeble beating of your wings against me, the quivering of your legs as I tear at your heart.

  I am the raptor, and you are the prey.

  “So, is she going to be okay?” Mom was carrying a dozen eggs in a plastic shopping bag.

  “Yeah, the bullet hit her shoulder, but she’s only two—not even two—and the doctors don’t even think it’ll leave a scar.” Mr. Watson sat on the stoop, his coffee in a cup beside him. “I just wonder what kind of people got to bring a gun to a party.”

  “Well, God was looking out for her,” Mom said, adjusting the package in her arms to carry upstairs. “That’s a blessing.”

  “We need some civilizing!” Mr. Watson said. “We don’t need no more blessing and no more scribbling on the walls about how we love another dead black child!”

  “Brian home?” Mom to me, avoiding Mr. Watson’s anger.

  “Yeah.”

  “Supper’s going to be ready in a half hour,” she said.

  I watched as Mom went into the house.

  Sammy Hines from the barbershop came over and leaned against the banister. “Hey, Darius, how you doing, youngblood?”

  “I’m good,” I answered.

  “Did you know that Watson here thinks these steps are going to get up and walk away if he don’t sit on them?” Sammy asked. “That’s why he’s here every day.”

  Old friends talking old-friends talk. Sweet.

  “I’m sorry if I get so mad,” Mr. Watson said, “but you know how old this mess gets? Was a time an old dude like me could look at his life and think it wasn’t so bad, because he had made a little bit of a path for some young folks. Didn’t even make a difference if the young folks knew it or not—an old man could remember what he’d been through. You know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, kind of,” I said.

  “Now we’re burying our young people, so what we got to look back on?”

  “I’m looking for some exercise to keep my body young in case I think of getting married again,” Sammy said.

  “Getting married again?” Mr. Watson shook his head slowly. “How long you been married to Hazel? Forty years? Damn near fifty years, and she’s the only one who can stand you. What you going to marry next? It better be a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken because that’s about the only thing you can handle. And you better marry it on a day when you got your teeth in.”

  Old men talking. Finding good vibes in being old men. Sweet.

  “Lord, this man is hard on me!” Sammy said, grinning. “He don’t show me no mercy!”

  “Look at these fools coming down the street with their pants hanging around their hips looking like four-year-olds,” Mr. Watson said.

  “You know they keep their pants low to get some air on their brains, don’t you?” Sammy said.

  I looked down the street and saw Midnight and Tall Boy coming our way. I saw Tall Boy point to me as they neared.

  “Yo, Darius, where your girl?” he said. “She out running some races?”

  “Twig ran his race last Saturday,” I said. “Won it, too.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Midnight looked down the street. “How you doing, Mr. Watson?”

  “Doing good,” Mr. Watson said. “Ain’t seen you in church for a while. See your mother there every Sunday.”

  “You know how that goes.” Midnight hunched his shoulders. “What y’all think about that shooting at the party? That was some foul mess.”

  “Pretty little girl,” Sammy said. “All eyes. I think she’s a little Muslim girl. But what kind of fool brings a gun to a party? Maybe they think shooting people is a lot of fun.”

  “Yeah, we got some names,” Tall Boy said. “And we got the answer to the question they throwing.”

  “You got the names of the people who did the shooting?” Mr. Watson looked up. “You call the police? You know you don’t have to give them your name. Just tell them who did the shooting.”

  “That ain’t the way it works in the street,” Midnight said. “What they throwing is ‘Are we some kind of punks going to let people just shoot our little sisters and shit?’ They want to know what kind of heart we got. The police don’t have nothing to do with it. This is a heart thing. We got enough heart and they’ll ke
ep their stuff on their own blocks, you hearing me?”

  “What I’m hearing is you saying that they came into your area and laid down some stink, and now you want to lay down some more stink to prove you can outstink them,” Mr. Watson said. “Why you think that’s a good idea?”

  “You don’t know what’s happening, old man,” Midnight said, shaking his head. “The set just blew by you, and you didn’t even see it coming. You like Peter Pan over here. Him and his little fairy friend going to run around in shorts and take over the world.”

  “At least Twig is doing something with his life,” I said, feeling stupid as the words came out. “There were a lot of college scouts at that meet.”

  “Guess what.” Midnight pushed himself up in front of me. “I don’t give a fuck! How’s that? I don’t give a fuck!”

  Tall Boy started off first, with his hand, palm up, behind him as he bopped down the street. Midnight ran behind him and slapped him five as they both laughed.

  “He don’t give a what?” Mr. Watson turned to Sammy. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “What he thinks is that there’s some power in what he just said,” Sammy said. “He thinks that if he gets up in your face and says he don’t care about nothing, you’re supposed to step back and let your jaw drop or something. What he don’t realize is that he’s going to reach a point where nobody cares about him, either.”

  “I’ll tell you when he’s going to find out that nobody gives a fuck,” Mr. Watson said. “When he’s sitting up in a jail with a whole bunch of knuckleheads just like him with nowhere to go except to lunch for some boiled frankfurters and mashed potatoes. When he’s done that for about three years in a row, he’s going to start getting a clue.”

  “No, he won’t,” Sammy said. “People like him don’t never get a clue. They go through all their lives talking to themselves and telling themselves how wonderful they are. Then they look around and start complaining about life ain’t fair.”

  “I guess you just have to avoid guys like that,” I said.

  “Can’t avoid them.” Mr. Watson shook his head and looked down the street as if he were looking off into the past. “You used to be able to avoid them, walk on the other side of the street, look the other way when they passed by, go to a different pool hall or barbershop. Now it’s hard. Look at that little girl. She didn’t go to that party looking to hurt nobody. She sure wasn’t looking for the fool that shot her.”

  “Good thing she wasn’t hurt bad,” Sammy said. “Soon as I heard what happened, I felt bad. You see her picture in the paper? Nothing but eyes on that baby. Nothing but eyes!”

  “Yeah, I heard they got guns hidden away up on the roofs,” Mr. Watson said. “So sooner or later that young fool is going to kill somebody. Sooner or later.”

  “Well, thank God that little girl wasn’t hurt worse or killed. They said she’ll get over it pretty soon,” Sammy said. “But you know the newspapers are going to run it. Child shot in Harlem! They’re going to keep it alive until they run out of damn ink.”

  I said good-bye to Sammy and Mr. Watson and started upstairs.

  “Thank God that little girl wasn’t hurt worse or killed,” Sammy had said, meaning the words. But how could he tell how badly she was hurt? How badly is a two-year-old hurt when she’s watching other children dance and suddenly a pain rips through her body? How could anyone tell how badly she was hurt?

  chapter sixteen

  The falcon soars high above the streets, looking down at the figures below, looking for what he will eat. The idea of mercy is lost. The creatures below, the ones who don’t give a fuck, have no mercy to give. But that is all right for the falcon. He is not looking for friends.

  Twig called to tell me that the little girl who was shot was out of the hospital. I told him what Midnight and Tall Boy had said, about getting revenge, which Twig thought was stupid. Which everybody with half a brain knew was stupid.

  “So how’s your story going?” Twig asked. “You finished it yet?”

  “Just about,” I lied.

  Miss Carroll had said that you didn’t have to tell everything in a piece of fiction, but you had to know everything. I didn’t think she was right. I thought there were feelings and mysteries in stories that the author might have to think about even after a story had been published. What I knew was that I was worried about the story. It hadn’t meant that much to me as I wrote it. It had been just another story, but then I had sent it off, and the letter saying they might publish it made it more important. Showing the letter to Miss Carroll made me feel good, and what she had said about it, that being published would change who I was, came as a surprise.

  “You’re still the same person, of course,” she had said. “But for many reasons people tend to look at you differently. Sometimes at parties you can hear people being introduced as So-and-so who was published in The New Yorker or some other magazine.”

  I wanted that kind of party. Where people had value because of something they had created, or painted, or performed. It sounded like a get-together of my kind of people.

  The story. A boy, who lives in an orphanage, is depressed. He wonders what his future is going to be. The beach is good for him, especially on colder days, when it is nearly deserted. Then one day he starts to swim out toward an island that is a bit far. How far is it? As he swims, he realizes that he is in an area almost too far for him to return. He starts back but grows tired. Then, from somewhere, a dolphin appears and nudges him toward shore.

  He is drawn to the cold waters and to the distant island. He pushes himself to swim a little farther, despite his bad leg. Why does he have a bad leg? Does that just make him less capable than the other children at the orphanage? Does he think he is less capable? When he is not in the water, does he think of the dolphins? Or does he just wonder if they will be there to save him if he swims too far? Does the reader have to know?

  The editor wants the story to be clearer. He wants to know if it is a story of hope and faith or a story of despair. Sometimes, in my mind, the two are so close together. So close.

  chapter seventeen

  In Riverside Park with Twig. He was stretching. With one leg on the top of the fence he brought his forehead to his knee and held it there for several seconds. Then the other leg was up and he was stretching his other hamstring.

  “So Coach Day brings this guy up to me. Mr. Day introduces the guy as Eddie and says he’s an old friend,” Twig said. “Then this guy starts asking me what size shoes I wear, and what kind of sweats do I like and stuff like that, and right away, I’m not feeling good about him.”

  “His name is just Eddie? No last name?”

  “Right.” Twig brought his leg down, put his hands on his hips, and started rotating his upper body. “I asked him his last name and he’s saying this and saying that, but not giving me his name. I kept pushing it and he’s like, ‘Oh, you’re so suspicious.’ Then he tells me he’s a consultant for athletic programs. But he’s, like, keeping a distance. You know what I mean?”

  “No.”

  “He’s talking, but he’s not saying anything,” Twig said.

  “Yeah, like he doesn’t want to commit himself,” I said.

  “Yeah. He’s not creepy, but he’s mysterious and stuff,” Twig said. “I don’t like mysterious. I like straightforward. That’s what I like about you. You got nothing mysterious going on.”

  “What are you talking about, Twig? I’ve got lots of mystery going on,” I said. “You think you know everything about me?”

  “Yep.” Big smile on a face that lights up when he’s happy. Twig is open, too, and he’s right, that is where we connect. “I’m thinking that maybe I don’t want to go to Delaware. If it’s going to mean hooking up with people I don’t trust. I kind of knew where this guy was coming from. . . . He thinks I can run, Coach told him that, I guess, and he can do something with it. But . . .”

  “Hey, Twig?”

  “What?”

  “You know, when you
were running against that guy, that Jameson, and you said you were feeling the pain, and you had to fight through it?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Maybe meeting guys like this is part of the pain of moving on,” I said. “You know, you and me hang together tough, and we like each other, but all I’m doing is hoping for you and cheering you on. Maybe the pain you have to get through is all the bullshit connected with running. Like Jameson had that rabbit pacing him, and that was bullshit because he didn’t need that guy. And the guy who was the rabbit was just out there being a rabbit. That’s really bullshit.”

  “I bet you he dreams about taking off one day,” Twig said. “Instead of just being a rabbit setting a pace, he’ll take off and set a record or something.”

  “Yeah, but it’s just a dream because he’s got himself trained to be a rabbit,” I said.

  “I know what you mean,” Twig said. “I know it. Look, I’m going to run for fifteen minutes with the weights, just to get loose.”

  “If it feels even a little bad, even a little, stop right away,” I said. “I don’t like the idea that much, anyway.”

  Twig had read in a book where a marathon runner ran with a five-pound weight around his waist, and he was going to try running with a three-pound weight to build up his strength.

  We coordinated our watches and then Twig took off with an easy pace. From where I sat, it didn’t look as if he was even noticing the weight, but I thought I’d be able to tell when he came back. If he stiffened up, then it was a bad idea.

  I don’t know how we got to calling the field Twig was running on Greeney’s, but that’s how we had known it for years. I watched as my friend ran. Twig had found a real joy in running, had found a pleasure and a freedom that he didn’t have anywhere else in his life. It was something he could do, a statement that his body could make to the world. I watched him run, looking free and happy. Holding on to the feelings that running brought to him, being alive with those feelings, and cherishing them. The guy who wanted to scout for athletic programs wanted Twig to be something else. He wanted a runner who would put aside his own feelings to be useful to someone—or something—else. I had a bad feeling about that guy.