“Mr. Bojangles?”
“When I was a little girl, there was a song called ‘Mr. Bojangles.’ It was about this old man who used to dance and sing,” Mama said. “I loved that song. When you were a baby, we used to call you Mr. Bojangles because you moved around so much.”
“Mr. Kerlin came to the job today,” I said. “He asked Reuben what I was going to be, and Reuben said I was going to be a pilot.”
“What did you think about that?”
“I liked it,” I said. “I had never thought of being a pilot, but that’s something I would like to do.”
“Is it phat?”
“Yeah, I guess it is.”
We watched television for a while, a program about some kind of monkeys on some island, but I was too tired to make sense of it.
I had a lot to think about when I went to bed. I thought about Reuben asking me if Ty was messing with drugs. When the police had come to the house and Ty had flushed something down the toilet, I figured it was drugs but I didn’t want to think about it. It was just out of my mind and I thought that nobody else knew anything about it, but Reuben must have been thinking about it.
Ty was into his own program and I knew it wasn’t cool, and that sometimes Ty hung out with the wrong crowd. When Loren saw them hanging on the corner or selling drugs, he said that they were just forming their own freelance cell block.
“David, Mrs. Mutu called. They’re having a problem,” Mom said. “I’m going to go over there. Do you want to come with me?”
“Who called?”
“Mrs. Mutu—Sessi’s mother.”
On the way up to Sessi’s house I asked Mom what kind of trouble they were having, and she said that they needed somebody to stand up for them as character references.
“They’re getting married?” I asked.
“They’re applying to become United States citizens,” Mom said. “Since the terrorist attacks, the government has been scrutinizing everybody very carefully. Do you know what scrutinizing means?”
“Means looking them over carefully,” I said. “Am I smart, or what?”
“Nice to know you have my genes,” Mom said.
Sessi’s apartment was the same as ours except the furniture was different and it was cleaner. Mr. Mutu opened the door and smiled and bowed as we came in. Then he asked us to come into the living room. There were family pictures on the wall and a picture of the church they had gone to in Kenya. A white lady sat in a chair near the window. She had a clipboard and a lot of papers on a small table near her. Sessi, Kimi, and Mrs. Mutu were sitting on the couch.
“This is Mrs. Goldklank, from the Immigration Service,” Mrs. Mutu said. She smiled, but she didn’t look that happy.
“The Mutu family has applied for citizenship and has completed most of the paperwork. For some reason they’ve neglected to provide the character references on this form, and they said that you might be willing to swear to their likelihood of becoming good citizens. They have two references and need one more. You won’t be held responsible for them in any way, but we would like you to be as honest and straightforward as possible.”
“I know the Mutu family from our local church, and they’re lovely people,” Mom said. “I’d be pleased to be a character witness.”
“I’ll be a witness for Sessi,” I said.
“I think the Immigration Service is looking for adults,” Mrs. Goldklank said. “But I will note that you volunteered. May I have your name?”
“David Curry.”
“Mrs. Curry, have you always known the Mutu family to be self-supporting and, of course, not engaged in any criminal activity?”
“That’s correct,” Mom said. “I think they’ll make outstanding Americans.”
“If you’ll write that on this form, I would appreciate it,” Mrs. Goldklank said. She handed the paper to Mom, and Mom started reading it.
I looked over at Sessi and she looked really nervous. Her brother was nervous, too. Mr. Mutu was standing behind me, and I didn’t want Mrs. Goldklank to see me turn and watch him.
After Mom finished reading the paper, she put it on her lap and asked for a pen.
“Thank you for asking me to be a character reference.” This is what Mom said to Mrs. Mutu, which got Sessi’s mother to crying right away.
When Mom had finished signing and given the papers back to the lady from Immigration, we had some tea, which I didn’t like, and then me, Mom, and Mrs. Goldklank left together.
“Are they going to be granted citizenship?” Mom asked Mrs. Goldklank in the hallway.
“Mr. Mutu has a master’s degree in journalism, so that stands in his favor. The problem is that the list of people applying for citizenship from Africa is this long.” She held out her arms to show how long the list was. “Many of these people get discouraged from waiting so long and just drop out of sight. Eventually they’re found and deported—and then they’ll never get into this country legally.”
“This country isn’t that happy letting Africans in, is it?” Mom said.
Mrs. Goldklank stopped at the top of the stairs and looked at Mom for a long while. “We let people in who we are sure will become assets,” she said. “We have enough problems of our own.”
When Mom doesn’t like something, she gets this look in her eyes. I knew that Mrs. Goldklank had said something that made her mad.
We got home and Reuben was reading the newspaper in the kitchen. Mom asked if he wanted anything to eat, and he didn’t answer. Then she asked me if I wanted anything to eat and I said no, even though I was hungry. Mom said she had to get ready for work and went into the bathroom.
“Where you coming from?” Reuben asked.
“Just now?”
“Is it a secret?” He still didn’t look up.
“No,” I said. “Mrs. Mutu asked us to sign papers for her so she could become an American citizen. I don’t know if they’re going to let her be a citizen, but we signed the papers.”
“Maybe somebody can sign some papers for me,” Reuben said. “What kind of papers they got? Be an American? Be a New Yorker? Maybe they got some ‘be respected’ papers? You think they got those kind of papers?”
I shrugged. I didn’t know what he was talking about.
Reuben sat looking at the newspaper—I don’t think he was really reading it—until Mom left for work. Then he went into the bedroom and shut the door.
Reuben never hurt me, but he was away from me. Even when he was near, it was more like he was dealing with something else, a strange thing that was always with him. I didn’t think I was like Reuben. Everything I had was just me, just what I was doing. I didn’t think about funny stuff the way Reuben did, and I didn’t have dreams like the old man.
Me and Ty got along all right until he started hanging out with the 147th Street posse. Most of the people on 145th Street were okay. It wasn’t a great place to live, but we all got along. The main trouble was around the bicycle shop. The guys who ran the bicycle shop were from 147th Street, and some people said that they sold drugs.
The bicycle shop used to be a roti shop, where you could buy hot West Indian food. They also sold incense, sodas, and loose cigarettes. Then the man who owned the shop died and they boarded up the place. The people who started the bicycle shop didn’t rent it or anything, they just broke the lock that kept it closed and started fixing bicycles in it. The police would come by and close them down, and it would stay closed for a week or so, then open up again and stay open for two or three months before the police came again.
Ty had another year of high school and was smart, but Mom said it didn’t matter how smart he was if he got arrested or if he used drugs. She didn’t say he was messing with drugs, but I think she thought he was. The night the police came to our house and asked if he was Circle T, she was really upset. When I asked her the next day if she thought that Ty was getting in trouble, she said no.
“He just needs to get away from this neighborhood for a while,” she said. “When he goes to
college, he’ll see a different kind of life and see what’s possible. That’s all you and he need to see, what life really has to offer a young black man who is as smart as both of you are.”
I knew that wasn’t right, but it was what she had to say because she had just about as much bad stuff going on in her life as she could handle.
In school they had told us what to do when we thought someone we knew was getting involved in drugs. We were supposed to tell a teacher or our parents.
“And talk to the boy or girl you think might be using drugs,” the principal had said at assembly. “Let them know that you don’t approve of what they are doing. Sometimes just your letting them know what you think of what they are doing will be the turning point in their lives.”
“If somebody is using crack,” Loren had said, “I’m not telling on them. They’re liable to go off and shoot me or something.”
I didn’t think Ty was going to shoot me, or hurt me. I wished I didn’t have to think about it at all.
Loren is on punishment. His mom always says that if he believes something, he should stick up for it, but he has to have a logical argument. But when he gets into his argument, his mom gets mad and right away he’s in trouble. Me and him were supposed to go up to the roof to see how Sessi’s house was coming along, but he had to clean the bathroom. When Loren goes on punishment, it’s always about cleaning the bathroom. He looked sad when I told him I was going to the playground to practice my free throws. He said when he finished he would come and find me.
“If it’s all right with my mother,” he added.
“Loren has to learn the difference between logical discussion and sarcasm,” Mrs. Hart said.
Loren’s mother is white and his father is black. There aren’t many white people who live on 145th Street, but there are some who work at the supermarket across the street. Loren’s father works in a bank, and I don’t know where his mom works. She’s got that look like she’s ready for you to make a mistake, so maybe she’s a teacher. Sometimes his parents run together in the park, which is cool. I knew that arguments didn’t work with your parents, and that’s what Loren had to learn.
It was hot when I reached the street. There was music blasting all over 145th Street. Usually when the music is that loud there’s somebody out there dancing, but it was too hot even for the young girls to dance.
When I got to the basketball court, it was almost empty, too. At least no kids were playing on it. Gordito Lopez, who lived over on St. Nicholas Avenue, was there, and he was reading, as usual. Gordito was twelve and like a brainiac 2003. He was also too fat to play sports, which is why everybody called him Gordito. The only other person in the playground, over near the fence, was Mr. Moses. There was about one foot of shade in the park, and he was sitting in it. He looked like he was sleeping, but when I got near him he said hello.
“Nice to see a young man exercising his body,” he said.
I made up a game in my head where I was playing for a college team. In the made-up game we were trailing by one point. I dribbled left, then right, then turned my back to the basket as the time wound down. I was on the foul line. Five seconds. Four seconds. Three…Two…I made a quick fake and then turned for the jumper! The ball was in the air as the buzzer sounded. It hit the back rim and bounced off. But I was fouled. Two shots. I missed the first one, then made the second. Overtime!
I went through the whole thing again. This time I missed both foul shots and sat down a little way from Mr. Moses.
“How is life treating you, David?” he asked.
“Okay,” I said, surprised that he remembered my name. “How is life treating you, Mr. Moses?”
“Life is like a bowl of delicious black grapes,” Mr. Moses said. “You ever have a big bowl of delicious, juicy grapes?”
“Sure.”
“Then you know that life is truly wonderful,” Mr. Moses said.
“What do you do all the time?” I asked.
“What does Moses Littlejohn do?” He scratched at his chin and looked up in the air as if he was trying to figure out what he did. “I eat a little, I work when I can find some that’s easy on the back, but mostly I just carry my dreams from day to day.”
“For all those years?” I sat a little way down from him on the park bench.
“That’s right, for all those years.”
“If you dream every night, that’s got to be thousands of dreams to remember,” I said. “You remember every dream you ever had?”
“No, I ain’t got that many dreams,” Mr. Moses said. “You see, regular dreams just come and go and you forget about them. But there are special dreams, dreams that fill up the soul, dreams that can be unfolded like wings and lift you off the ground. Those are the dreams I must bear.”
“How many special dreams you got?” I asked.
“Five now,” he said. “I used to have six, but one got away from me. That old man I told you about said that when I saw a dream getting away from me, it was time for me to move on and let somebody else do the carrying.”
“How did a dream get away from you?”
“I was lying on my bed one day, full of my own thoughts and my own visions,” he said. “I began thinking about one of my dreams, just mulling it over in my mind. Then, all of a sudden, I began not to understand what that dream was all about. I kept trying to put the pieces together again, but it didn’t make sense anymore.”
“What was the dream?” I asked.
“It was about people I thought I knew, friends who used to walk and talk with me, but then I didn’t know them anymore, or what that dream was even doing in my head. Now ain’t that something? Ain’t that truly something?”
“So all you got is five dreams left?”
“All I got is five.”
A pigeon landed in front of us and started pecking at a pizza crust someone had left on the ground. He pecked at it and followed it under the park bench as it moved away from him.
“Are all your dreams scary?” I asked.
“Sometimes they are. Sometimes a dream can be a dreadful thing—and sometimes…” A small smile came on his face and he clasped his hands together. “Sometimes it can be as soothing as water trickling down a Mississippi mountainside.”
“Is that where you’re from? Mississippi?”
“Ooo-whee! You are one quick young man. Yes, sir, that’s where I’m from. Mound Bayou, Mississippi. You ever hear of Mound Bayou?”
“Nope.”
The pigeon was still pushing the pizza crust around when a sparrow swooped down, grabbed the crust, and tried to fly away with it, but it fell from his beak back onto the ground.
“I bet you they got more pigeons in this city than they got people,” Mr. Moses said.
“Why don’t you tell me one of your dreams,” I said.
Mr. Moses put his head back and closed his eyes. For a long while he didn’t say anything. Then he started into what seemed a little like singing and a little like moaning. It sounded sad, but it sounded enough like music to make me think that he was going to put some words to it. Then he stopped singing, hunched forward, and put his hands on his knees.
“I got me a dream that’s as old as me and older,” he said. “In the dream I ain’t nothin’ but a child. Maybe five, or maybe six, or maybe even seven. I’m watching some people chain down my father and I hear him howling. Lord, I hear him howling!”
Mr. Moses’ body shook all over, and he shook his head back and forth. I looked down at where Gordito was sitting and saw him looking at me and Mr. Moses.
“When they done chained him down, they picked him up, chains and all, and carried him down by the water-side,” Mr. Moses spoke in a low voice, almost whispering. “The tide was in and the whitecaps were foaming and flickering in the sun. The water washed up on the beach and slid back into the sea. Up and back. Up and back, like it was reaching for something on the shore. I was watching my daddy howling and I howled with him.
“Somebody was saying we was all going into t
he ocean. Another poor person was crying out for mercy. I was too scared to cry out—I was just looking as they took my father on the boat. In the dream I can see his mouth gaped open like a dead man’s mouth and I can hear him howling and the sound of the water rushing against the shore. Oh Lord, ain’t that something. Ain’t that a dream for you?”
Mr. Moses shook his head and looked away from me. He didn’t say anything after that and I didn’t say anything either. I was thinking about his dream and trying not to think about it at the same time. Then Loren came. When I saw Loren, I told Mr. Moses I had to leave.
“Good to see you this morning,” he said. “You sure look like a sensible young man this morning.”
He smiled, and I saw he had some teeth missing on one side but the teeth he had were nice and white.
“Are you a homeless guy?” I asked.
“There ain’t no homeless people, David,” he said. “There’s just people ain’t in their homes.”
“Oh. Okay.”
I met Loren at the far end of the court, and he asked me if I wanted to play some ball and I said no, it was too hot, and we decided to walk over to Riverside Drive.
“How come you were on punishment?” I asked.
“It was about you,” Loren said. “I told my mother that you and your mom went over Sessi’s house to be character references, and she said that Sessi’s mom had called her, too, but she didn’t go.”
“Why?”
“She said she wasn’t sure if they should let everybody into the country just because they want to come over here,” Loren said. “I said she just didn’t like Africans. That’s what I said.”
“What did she say?”
“Clean the bathroom.”
“She let you come out, so that’s okay,” I said.
“You were talking to the old man?”
“Yeah.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me about a dream,” I said.
“I think you take him too serious,” Loren said.
“Yeah, maybe.”
Me and Loren walked along the park, and he was talking about the two of us going to the movies later in the week. We both liked the movies and picked four that we wanted to see.