Buck (14 page)

Anything goes out here. Guys film up girls’ skirts. Girls whip their titties out like badges—flash. Dudes pulling their dicks out, flashing girls. Every few minutes—a roaring outbreak. Thirsty guys with camcorders getting girls in booty shorts to go buck.

“Take yo shirt off … Let me see something … Pull ’em out …” Hands grabbing whatever they can.

“Stop … Move … Get away ngh …” They run through an endless tunnel of pinchers, cuppers, cuffers, palmers, grabbers. Asses bouncing everywhere like a Snoop video. Dudes splash water on chicks like it’s champagne and they just won the championship. “Pussy,” someone says. We turn to see a girl with a short-ass skirt and no panties. Fifty dudes swarming her, video cameras pointed every which way like the paparazzi. A circle with popping pussies and asses in the center.

The crowd moves to South Street and I think about Odunde, this summertime African festival on South Street that my dad took me to back in the day. I remember all the people, the families, smiling, dancing, eating, laughing, posing for photos. I remember how my dad would give me ten bucks and I’d bargain with the vendors. Then we’d follow this procession led by stilt dancers in African masks with drums and shekeres and stop at the South Street bridge overlooking the Schuylkill River.

From the street, we would watch the priest and priestess, dressed in white robes, stand over the bridge singing African hymns, dancing, and throwing flowers into the river.

“They’re making an offering to Oshun,” I remember my dad telling me. “Oshun is the unseen mother present at every gathering. She is the goddess of the river. The Yoruba say that no one is an enemy to water and therefore everyone must respect Oshun.” The crowd joins the white robes and catches the spirit, chanting and shaking.

“The Yoruba say that when she possesses her followers, she dances, flirts, and then weeps.”

“Weeps? Why?” I said, thinking about my mom.

“Weeps because no one can love her enough and the world is not as beautiful as she knows it could be.”

Night falls hard.

Me, Amir, and Scoop hit up Club McDonald’s on Broad and Susquehanna. Most of the people who were at the park earlier are now out here in front of Mickey D’s. Steam shoots up from manholes. Scuffles, commotion, little rumbles break out around us. Scoop is thirsty for drama. He’s mean-mugging everybody, pushing nghz, and instigating fights.

The Ruff Riders crew zooms back and forth on Kawasakis, tires burning rubber and spinning smoke in the street. They put on a show, busting out long seat-scraping-street wheelies while they stand up, sit with their feet on the handlebars, legs crossed, backward, one foot, no hands—showtime.

Shots ring out,
buck! buck! buck!
The crowd stampedes like the running of the bulls. Girls scream. This way, that way, everybody zigzagging. Police horses screech, kick high, and charge the crowd. I catch Amir’s eyes—heavy, alert, and breathing like glowing coals. I lose him and Scoop in the chaos. I scan the faces, but they’re gone. More shots pop in the night. I run with the flow of the crowd to avoid getting trampled. I push up against the backs of strangers, dominoing around, drifting farther and farther into darkness.

I walk home alone, thinking about the last time I saw Amir.

A gleaming black casket lined with satin cream ruffles. The smells of talcum powder, oil sheen, and death float through the tight room.

Tears explode from dark sockets, streak across puffy brown cheeks, and run under veils.

“When are y’all going to wake up?” the funeral director asks us. “Y’all got to wake up now … or rest in peace.” After the service he calls all the young people to the back of the funeral home.

Ryan leans over to me. “I don’t even care who, Malo, but somebody got to pay.” He tells me to keep my suit on. “Or whatever you might want to get buried in.” He’s got two gats on him like
Face/Off
.

“While revenge weakens society, forgiveness gives it strength,” the director says.

I’m numb to the world. A chunk of my soul is gone, and even offing the ngh that did it—if we knew who did it—
wouldn’t bring my best friend back. I hear his funny voice—
Malo, you so black you showed up to my funeral naked
—but a cold, pained grimace is as close as I get to laughter. I know his playful self would want me to laugh, to smile, but I can’t. Amir’s mom sobs with a veil over her face, eyes as thin as paper cuts. I pull out the chain Amir left at my house the other day, the one he always wore, hand it to her.

She gives it back. “He wanted you to have it,” she whispers under soft piano sounds. I put it on and tell myself I’ll never take it off.

“I know y’all are hurting, I’m hurting too. Every week I’m burying kids. Babies in boxes. Younger and younger each year: twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. Virgins! A young person dies and us old folks imagine all of the experiences we would have wished for you … You aren’t even giving yourselves a chance at life, a chance to be lawyers, doctors, teachers. You’re giving it all up to be statistics!”

He shows us the coffins and tells us, “The little ones, for teenagers like y’all, are my best sellers and business is booming! Booming!… But I want you to put me out of business. Put me under! I’d rather sink than to have to keep burying babies.”

I think about how we used to brag about Philly being the murder capital
—da murda cappy
—and how this year, in Philly, we
got more dead bodies than days. Shit ain’t cool. Anybody can get it. Amir wasn’t even the target. Nghz can’t even aim ’cause they got no direction.

Some kid behind me says, “I can’t die yet anyway, ain’t got nobody to pay for my funeral.”

Me and Ryan spark a blunt and hotbox the car on our way home. Smoke curls through the whip as we drive through the city, buzzing by faces. I study each one. The cops don’t have a suspect, so everyone we drive past, pull up next to, or see on the street is a possible suspect. The cops are suspect for not having any suspects. They never have any suspects when we die. Tupac gets shot, dies, no suspects. Biggie gets shot, dies, no suspects. Big L gets shot, dies, no suspects. Amir gets shot, dies, no suspects. My soul weeps for Amir, for all the Amirs in this city.

We blaze until our eyes bleed.

We pour into Fels High like syrup, steady and slow.

This school looks just like jail. I wonder why mad schools look like jails. Or do jails look like schools? The jail Uzi’s in actually looks nicer than this. If schools look like prisons, and prisons look like schools, will we act like students or prisoners? Police roam the hallways whirling nightsticks like band directors. The windows are tinted with bars. No sunlight like a casino and you never win in here either.

At my old school, Friends, the teachers always fucked with me. At Fels, the teachers don’t know who the fuck I am. Overcrowded like Amistad. Fels is the opposite of my old school, Friends—Foes. They say Foes is one of the best schools in the city. They say Fels is one of the worst. Foes, private. Fels, pub. Foes, mostly white. Fels, mostly black. Foes kids’ parents got tuition money. Fels kids’ parents ain’t even got lunch money.

The metal detector line is long like the line to get into Club Dancers on Saturday nights. A bucket full of lighters, nail files, pocket knives. Everybody beeping, police digging through bags like moles. It takes forever to get in.

The hallway is a fashion show. Muhfuckas won’t even come to school if they ain’t got something fresh to throw on.

The bell goes off like we’re in some factory somewhere. Here.

First period—

I think this is homeroom. The teacher never shows up so no one really knows. Girls just sit and do their makeup and hair. I dip in and out of the pissy hallways.

“Take your hat off … Pull up your pants … Where’s your hall pass?” The guards yell every fifteen seconds like a recording. I act like I’m going to take my fitted off, then pull it down. I pull my pants up and let them fall back down—kiss my ass, toy cops.

The pyros light the trash cans on fire around this time. The smoke detectors don’t work, so the bathrooms are on Amsterdam, smoke clouds thick enough to hold rain. The first fight always jumps off around this time, either in class or in the hallway. We chase the fights like Action News reporters run
after stories. Motherfuckers get their ass beat coming into school in the morning and leaving in the afternoon.

Sometimes this Chinese teacher, Mr. Lee, comes in and takes roll.

“Yo,” this kid Lamont says real loud after Mr. Lee calls my name on the first day of school. The whole class turns to hear what he’s about to say. “What the fuck is a Malo?” Everybody laughs. Lamont is strong but he’s slower than a tar drip, too slow to see it coming. I show him what a Malo is, right there in the middle of the class, hit him with the punch my uncle Jabbar showed me, make him swallow and spit at the same damn time.

Second period—

“Turn off your beepers and cell phones” is how Ms. Mackey greets us every morning. Nobody turns shit off. My jawn vibrates like an engine on my hip. I don’t even know what class this is or what Mackey teaches. The flickering fluorescence over our heads reminds me of hospitals and nightmares. There’s never enough seats, so if you don’t snag one early, she makes you stand up against the wall like a wallflower at a house party. This one day, when there are no seats, she gives me the evil eye ’cause I sit on the desk.

“Whatever your name is—off the desk!” she barks. She doesn’t know anybody’s name. When she calls roll, she just listens, never even looks up.

“My leg hurts,” I say, all in my I-shall-not-be-moved Rosa Parks bag.

“Off the damn desk!”

“Don’t talk to him like that.” My homegirl Tamara jumps
up. “You need to get some more seats up in here.” Tamara is always rumble ready. Sometimes she comes to school in her fight gear: sweatpants, beat-up Reebok Classics, fake Gucci scarf, Vaseline face.

Mackey grabs the phone and, within seconds, police with crooked mugs and big black boots are dragging us out. Her class is stupid anyway, you just copy whatever she writes on the board, which doesn’t usually make sense. If someone asks a question, she calls them “ulcers” and starts talking about how she doesn’t even want to be here and how she gets paid either way. Sometimes she’s too lazy to come and we get a sub—fresh meat.