Darnell Rock Reporting

  “Later!” Darnell swung his feet to the ground and headed for the door.

  On the corner, Chris was standing with Sonia. Darnell saw that Sonia had her books.

  “You going home early?” he asked as he got near them.

  “She hasn't been to school yet,” Chris said.

  “My mother had to go to court this morning,” Sonia said. “So I had to baby-sit my brother. What are you doing out here? I thought you had turned over a new leaf.”

  “Just needed some air, I guess,” Darnell said. “How come you just didn't stay home today?”

  “Because Mr. Baker said if my attendance record gets any worse I'm out of the school,” Sonia answered. “But I really don't want to hear his mouth, so maybe I won't go in after all.”

  “I saw you and Linda going in and interviewing Mr. Baker,” Chris said. “How did it go?”

  “I didn't know what to ask him,” Darnell said. “Linda asked a lot of stupid stuff.”

  “Like what?” Chris asked.

  “Like how he liked being a principal,” Darnell said. “I figured if he didn't like it he wouldn't be doing it.”

  “We got to get back into school before Mr. Thrush comes out,” Chris said. “You coming, Sonia?”

  “Yeah.” Sonia nodded as she spoke.

  They went around to the side of the building and in through the side door.

  After school, Larry had to go pay his mother's insurance and asked Darnell to go with him to the insurance office.

  “Where's it at?” Darnell asked.

  “Over on River Street.”

  “River Street?” Darnell looked at Larry. “You got money for carfare?”

  “Sure,” Larry said. “We can get the bus over on Montgomery Street.”

  “You want to walk and get some pizza on the way over there?” Darnell asked.

  “No, ‘cause I don't want to take the insurance money into the pizza place.” Larry took out his headphones and put them around his neck.

  “What you got on?” Darnell asked. “I bet you got one of them dumb tapes on.”

  “I'm listening to the speeches of Malcolm X.”

  Darnell snatched the headphones from around Larry's neck and listened. He looked up and saw Larry's stupid grin. “That ain't no Malcolm. That's that dumb music your aunt bought for you!”

  “So, it was free!” Larry said, taking back the headphones. “And the best things in life are free.”

  “No, they're not,” Darnell said. “You always say that, but I know it's not true.”

  “The air is free.”

  “Yeah, but so are measles,” Darnell said.

  “I don't even know how you get measles.” It was warm, and Larry opened his jacket. “There goes that crazy dude.”

  Darnell saw the tall brown man standing in front of the La Famosa bodega. He was standing in front of the window, looking at the cans of vegetables and talking to himself.

  “I'll tell you how you get measles,” Darnell said. “If somebody's got measles and they sneeze on you or something like that, then you'll get them.”

  “Anybody sneeze on me I'll punch them out,” Larry said.

  “Yeah, but you can't punch out a measle,” Darnell said. “But maybe you can keep them away with that okeydokey music you be listening to.”

  “Man, it's okay.”

  There were eighteen blocks from school to the insurance company. If they had walked down Jackson it would have been through blocks where mostly African Americans lived. The blocks they passed walking toward River Street had once been all Italian but now they were mostly Spanish, and the streets were lined with small shops with signs in the windows in both English and Spanish. There were vendors on the street as well, and the smell of grilled sausages and onions filled the air. Some little kids from St. Bridget's, in their blue and gray uniforms, crowded around the entrance to a five-and-ten-cent store.

  The insurance office was across from a bank, and they watched as two guards carried bags of money from an armored car through the bank's revolving doors. One of the guards had his gun out.

  They went into the office and went to the counter, where Larry gave the clerk the notice his mother had received and a money order.

  A thin white woman came in and came to the counter. The clerk put Larry's notice and money order down and turned her attention to the white woman.

  “Hey, Larry, how come that woman got waited on before you?” Darnell asked.

  “Yeah, I was here first,” Larry said.

  The clerk ignored them. The thin woman looked at Larry and smiled nervously. Larry smiled back.

  It took them another ten minutes before the clerk had taken the money order from Larry, entered it on her computer, stamped a receipt, and given it to him. Outside it looked as if it might rain again.

  “You shouldn't have smiled at that woman,” Darnell said. “When she smiled at you you should have given her a mean look.”

  “I can't give people mean looks,” Larry said. “Once I practiced giving out mean looks, but it didn't work.”

  “You practiced?”

  “Yeah, in the mirror.”

  “No lie?”

  “No lie!”

  “That's what that stupid music does for you,” Darnell said. “Takes away all your meanness.”

  Friday afternoons at South Oakdale were either great or terrible, but mostly they were great. Everybody was ready to chill out over the weekend and anxious to get started. It was only terrible if you had makeup homework to get done or Friday afternoon detention. Darnell was out the front door when he saw Eddie Latimer, a camera around his neck, pointing back into the building.

  “We have a staff meeting in two minutes!” he said.

  Darnell had forgotten about the meeting, and started not to go. But there was Eddie Latimer holding the door for him and talking about how they had to hurry.

  When they got to the Gazette office they saw that Kitty had put up a big sign that said “Please Put All Story Ideas on the Board.” There was one story idea pinned up. It was about the new gym floor and was signed by Angie Cruz.

  “What new gym floor?” Tony O! asked.

  If anybody in the world knew everything, it was Angie Cruz. The girl was in everybody's business. She was the one who broke the news that the gym was getting a new floor.

  “It's going to be a professional basketball floor,” Angie was saying. ‘‘Everybody's going to use the girls’ gym for two weeks while they put it down. It's already made up in sections. They just have to bring it here and lay it down.”

  “Who told you that?” Tony O! asked, mad because he didn't know about the new gym floor.

  “I have sources,” Angie said, closing her eyes the way she did when she was pleased with herself. “And they're going to put up new baskets, the kind with the glass backboards, too.”

  “Hey, they're nice!” Donald was leaning against the wall. He spun an imaginary ball around his midsection twice and then put up an imaginary layup. “It's about time they fixed up that raggedy gym,” he said.

  “I'm going to interview Mr. Thrush,” Tony O! said. “Darnell, you want to go with me?”

  “No, he don't like me,” Darnell said.

  “That's no big deal,” Tony O! said. “He doesn't like anybody. Come on.”

  Darnell thought that if anybody knew about Mr. Thrush it would be Tony O! He decided to go with him to interview Mr. Thrush.

  There had been a newspaper story about Merle Thrush, and someone had framed it and put it in the trophy case in the main hallway. It said that he had played football in high school and college and had wrestled on an international team. Now he coached most of the sports at South Oakdale and was in charge of detention. His office was on the third floor, down from the girls' gym, and they caught him just as he was going to leave.

  “Mr. Thrush!” Tony O! stood a foot away from the door and shouted into the athletic office. “Can we interview you for the school newspaper about the new gym?”

  Mr. T
hrush was stuffing a newspaper into an old briefcase. He looked up at the clock, then sat down in the swivel chair and motioned them in. Tony O! went into the office, and Darnell followed him.

  “How come we're getting a new gym?” Tony O! asked.

  “It's not a new gym, just a new floor.” Merle Thrush looked like a coach to Darnell. His neck was almost as wide as his face, and he had a chin that stuck out like it was mad at something. “We had the money for the new backboards for a while, but I wanted to wait until we got the new floor. If we get the backboards and the floor from the same company, they'll throw in a new scoreboard.”

  “Hey, that's going to be on the money!” Tony O! said.

  “And the first monkey I find hanging on the rims is going to have his ears cut off!” Mr. Thrush said. “I don't even think you guys should be able to use the gym if you're not in class.”

  “Anybody can use the gym?” Darnell asked.

  “That's part of the deal,” Mr. Thrush said. “It's going to be open at lunchtime.”

  “Then we won't have to play on those broken-down outdoor courts?” Tony O! said. “You can break your ankle on those outdoor courts because the blacktop is all messed up.”

  ‘They’re going to be a parking lot,” Mr. Thrush said.

  “That's a good idea, too,” Tony O! said, smiling. “Now I can bring my BMW to school.”

  “Yeah.” Mr. Thrush picked up his briefcase and motioned toward the door. “Now get out of here.”

  “Hey, Mr. Thrush.” Darnell, remembering the interview with Mr. Baker, decided to ask a good question this time. “What do you do when you're not in school?”

  Mr. Thrush looked at Darnell. “None of your business! Now get outta here!”

  FIVE

  When Darnell got out of school there was only one bus in front. He didn't feel like riding. It was cool but not really cold, and he thought he would walk home. Tamika was on the bus, and ran to the front door as he passed.

  “Why you walking?” Tamika asked.

  “ ‘Cause I feel like it,” Darnell said.

  “You got any money?”

  “If I had some I wouldn't give it to you,” Darnell said.

  “I'll clean your room for a week,” Tamika said. “Honest.”

  Darnell handed over the quarter and got a pat on the cheek from his sister. Then she ran back into the bus.

  The thing was, Tamika knew she could always get anything from Darnell that she wanted. Darnell knew it, too. Sometimes it made him mad, but when she asked him for anything he still found himself giving it to her.

  Sometimes he liked walking through the streets of Oakdale. He often thought that if he were rich, really rich, he would travel to a lot of cities and just walk around by himself.

  The school was thirty-four blocks from Darnell's house, and he had walked almost half the distance when he saw the men standing around the fire on Jackson Avenue.

  Jackson Avenue was one of the oldest sections of Oakdale. There weren't any tall buildings on Jackson Avenue, just two-story houses, some of them containing stores. But half of the buildings were boarded up, and there were empty lots here and there. It was in one of the lots that Darnell saw the men standing around a fire they had built in an old oildrum. It wasn't that cold, and the four men were just standing and talking and looking at the fire.

  “Hey! Young blood! Come over here!” one of the men called to Darnell.

  Darnell stopped, and looked at the men.

  “We ain't gonna bite you,” the man said. “Come on over here. You scared?”

  Darnell took a step closer to the men. “Scared of what?” he said, hoping his voice would stay low.

  “I want you to run to the store for me,” the man said. He was dark, darker than Darnell, and had a bushy beard. The beard was part white and part gray.

  “What you want?” Darnell said. “I don't have time to go to no stores.”

  “Ain't you Sidney's boy?” the man said.

  “Who are you?” Darnell asked.

  “Sweeby Jones,” the man answered, straightening his shoulders and standing taller. “Sweeby J. Jones.”

  “Sweeby?” Darnell smiled. “What kind of name is that?”

  “When I was a kid my mother named me Robert, but my brother used to call me Sleepy because that's what I did all the time,” Sweeby said. “But he couldn't say Sleepy, and I've been Sweeby every since.”

  “That's funny,” Darnell said. “What you want from the store?”

  “Two bottles of champagne and a quart jar of caviar!”

  The four men started laughing and one of them slapped his hat against his leg.

  “Make that four bottles of champagne!”

  “He can't carry no four bottles of champagne,” another man said. “Be reasonable!”

  “You tell your father you saw me!” Sweeby Jones said.

  “How you know my father?” Darnell asked, stepping closer.

  “We were in the Army together,” Sweeby said. “Viet—My Lovely—Nam.”

  “Where you work?” Darnell asked.

  “How come he ask so many questions?” one of the other men asked. “He a doctor or something?”

  “I ain't working, boy,” Sweeby said. He looked away.

  The four men looked at the fire. Now that he was closer, Darnell saw that one of the men was the same one he had seen in the supermarket. When he saw Darnell looking at him, he shifted his feet and squinted one eye. Darnell looked away. He didn't have to ask them to know they were probably homeless.

  “Well, I got to go,” Darnell said.

  “Yeah, you go on along,” Sweeby said. “You're a nice kid. I've seen you with your father. You look like a mannerly young boy to me.”

  “Some of these kids today don't know how to respect people,” the man who had tried to steal the potato said.

  “ ‘Bye.”

  Darnell walked down the street. He wanted to turn around and look at the men again, but he didn't. He couldn't wait to get home to talk to his father about Sweeby.

  At home Darnell saw that Tamika had eaten some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and left the open jars on the sink. He wanted to make a sandwich but he didn't want to put the jars back in when Tamika had left them out. He opened the refrigerator and found a banana and ate that.

  He went into his bedroom, put on the television and his radio, and saw there was an envelope on his bed. In the envelope was a picture of him that Tamika had drawn. It wasn't bad, either. He opened his drawer and put it with the other pictures that Tamika had drawn of him.

  He looked at his books, thought about starting his homework, and then began thinking about Sweeby Jones.

  “Hey, Tamika!” he called out.

  Tamika arrived at his door. “Speak, O turkey!”

  “Dad home?”

  “Yeah, but he went to the dentist,” Tamika said. “You in trouble again?”

  “No,” Darnell said, a little annoyed that Tamika would say that he was in trouble. “But you know that guy that stole the potato?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I saw him in a lot over on Jackson Avenue,” Darnell said. “And there was another guy there with him who was a friend of Dad's.”

  “What do I care?” Tamika asked.

  “Later for you!”

  “You like my picture?”

  “Nope!”

  Tamika went to Darnell's drawer to see if her picture had been placed with the others. She saw that it had been and smiled.

  When his father came home his jaw was swollen and he went right to bed. Darnell would have to ask him about Sweeby another time. Maybe it was better, Darnell thought. He didn't want to talk in front of Tamika, and there was no way he could have a talk with his father without his sister listening if she was home.

  “Stupid!” It was Wednesday afternoon, and Angie Cruz was screaming in the schoolyard. “I've never seen anything so stupid!”

  There were a thousand kids running around the schoolyard at lunchtime, and Chris ha
d told Jackson Holiday to pitch him a hardball. Jackson threw it underhand, and Chris hit it as hard as he could, and it went off his bat like a shot. It was a great shot except Chris was facing the school and the ball went right into the general office.

  Everybody was screaming and getting out of the way of the falling glass, and Tony O! was there trying to figure out if the hit would have been a home run on the baseball field.

  “This could be a big story,” Tony O! was saying.

  Mr. Baker stuck his head out another window, and a group of sixth-graders instantly pointed at Chris.

  “FU be right down!” he roared.

  Some of the kids and two of the teachers cleared out of the yard as quickly as they could. By the time Mr. Baker reached the yard almost everyone had stopped what they were doing to look at him.

  “Can you tell time, Mr. McKoy?” Mr. Baker's neck was swollen as he leaned over Chris.

  “Yes, sir.” Chris swallowed hard.

  “Then at exactly eight-thirty tomorrow morning I expect to see your face in my office! Do you understand that?”

  This time Chris's “Yes, sir” was so quiet the rest of the kids in the yard could hardly hear it.

  Linda showed up with her notepad. Eddie Latimer was there, too, taking pictures of Mr. Baker dropping his attaché case.

  “Get that camera out of here!” Mr. Baker yelled.

  “Fm from the school newspaper!” Eddie said. He looked hurt that Mr. Baker had yelled at him.

  Mr. Baker just stuffed his papers back into his attaché case and stalked across the yard to the parking lot.

  “It was an accident/' Chris was saying.

  “Don't worry about it,” Darnell said. “He'll probably just suspend you, have your mother come to school, and hang you by your thumbs for a little while.”

  “Man …”

  That was Chris's way of saying that he knew he was in big trouble.

  Miss Green came out the front door and made everybody go inside before they cut themselves on the glass.