Chameleon (5 page)

If I could fight like Bruce Lee, I woulda took it to them fools in red last summer.

When 40-Ounce said “Gimme yo’ shorts, podna!” that’s when I would’ve pounced into action.

With Andre surrounded by four Pirus and Trent and Lorenzo held from behind by two of them, it was up to me. I dropped from the sky, landing in front of the two holding Trent and Lorenzo.

“WAAAAAA-TAAAAAAAAA!”

40 stood inches from me as I approached. He took a swig from his brown bag and snorted. “’Sup, homey? That supposed to scare me or something?”

We stood eye to eye. My knuckles cracked. This was gonna be fun.

“You . . . messed with my friends. That . . . was a mistake,” I said.

Calm flowed through my body like a waterfall as I stared into his eyes.

“Man, Shawn, quit screwing around. Take these fools out!” Lorenzo shouted.

“I . . . will count to three, at which point . . . annihilation . . . of you and your crew will begin, soon followed by . . . humiliation,” I said.

“Are you serious, homey? I know you ain’t serious walking all up in
my
park with that Chinese waiter’s outfit thinking I’m go be scared of you or something. Come on, now! What yo’ wannabe behind need to do is bring me an order of shrimp fried rice, some garlic chicken, two egg rolls, and what else? Ay, anybody else want anything?” he shouted.

The Laugher holding Trent shouted, “Some spare ribs too!”

“With extra sauce!” Lorenzo’s captor added.

40 took another swig and smiled. “You heard them. Some spare ribs too. With extra sauce.” He then clutched his crotch and chugged down more brew. His already-sagging Dickies shimmied down his boxers as he laughed himself into hysterics.

“Look here, podna, you say you gonna count to three — well, here let me do it for you and save you some trouble,” he said with a smirk. “One. Two. Three.”

When his teeth appeared after he said “three,” I head-butted 40 and sent his brown-bagged bottle crashing to the ground. He reached in his back pocket for his club and swung. I ducked to the ground and swept his feet out from under him.

“Andre, Trent, Lorenzo . . . DUCK !” I shouted.

They did. I popped up as quickly as I went down and snapped kicks at the heads of two of the hyenas, dropping them to the ground. The third tried to get cute by ducking also, so I front-flipped over him and back-kicked him in the back. I spun on him and played rat-a-tat-tat on his back.

My boys hustled behind me as the Pirus jumped up. I didn’t think. I reacted. My limbs flowed through each Piru like water. My feet cut through them like a hot knife through butter. My fists slammed into them. I leveled them all like a hurricane in a trailer park, then stopped to admire my handiwork.

Moans and groans replaced the taunting cackles of the onetime comedians ordering takeout.

“Chinese waiter, huh?” I screamed over 40’s snaking body on the ground. “Spare ribs, huh? Spare this!” My right foot smashed into his ribs. “And don’t forget your fortune cookie.” I slammed the other side. “Andre, come here.”

A big smile spread across Andre’s face as he stared down at those who once stared down on him.

“Lorenzo . . . Trent . . . come here.”

The four of us towered over the bloodred thugs. I approached 40 from high and stooped to his level. “Now see what you made me do! I didn’t want to do that, but you MADE me do that. I didn’t wanna have to whup up on you, but you brought that on yourself.” I stood, then shouted, “You have just suffered annihilation, now . . . HUMILIATION! Lorenzo, Trent, Andre! Grab their pants!”

The moans and groans of the fallen increased in volume as the fellas rounded up the fresh-pressed, once-sagging pants. It’s not like they’ll miss them, the way they were hanging off their butts.

“Get up!”

All of them creaked to a standing position. The laughter that was once turned on us now fell on them.

“Now get out!”

They slithered out of the park in checkered boxers barely hidden by bloodred shirts, their feet guiding them in even bloodier-red sneakers. The fellas slapped me on the back, and applause filled the park.

My thumb brushed across my nose and I reentered reality. I jumped off the bench and onto my feet.

“Do you think . . . you can beat me? Come, let’s see? Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” I said.

“Oh no, not kung fu theater again,” Lorenzo said from his spot on the bench.

But Trent had been watching Black Bruce too and responded to my challenge. “Ha! Your skills are no match for mine. You challenge me to a match you cannot win, young kid. En garde!”

He leaped to a fighting position and faced me. His right hand thrust out in a fist, and his index finger curled to beckon me over. Just like Bruce Lee. I sniffed my nose at him. He sniffed his nose at me. I wiggled my eyebrows. He wiggled his. I bounced around on my toes. He bounced around on his toes. Then the noises started.

High-pitched “YIPs,” “KIYAIs” and “WAA-TAAs” rang out as Trent and I clashed. He kicked. I ducked. I punched. He blocked. I rolled backward. He rolled backward. We kicked and punched and screamed until we were out of breath. The bench caught us as we collapsed to suck the dry Compton air.

LORENZO LOUNGED ON HIS BENCH with his eyes closed and his belly pointed to the sun. He loved to take catnaps, and we loved to mess with him whenever he did. I motioned to Trent, then pointed at Lorenzo. I pressed my finger to my lips to keep quiet. He smiled, on the same page as me. He plucked a long blade of grass from beneath the bench and touched it across Lorenzo’s face. Lorenzo’s hand flew up like he was shooing a fly away. Trent then brought the blade up to his left ear and plunged it in, wiggling it around. Lorenzo snorted and leaped to his feet, trying to shoo the “fly” from his ear.

“You know I hate when you guys do that,” he said. His hand still brushed at his ear.

“If you didn’t sleep all the time, we wouldn’t do it,” Trent said.

“Come on, guys. Let’s run it back,” Andre shouted from the court.

Since Trent and Andre lost the first game, we kept the same teams. When they won, we would switch. That was the rule. This kept it even and interesting. Me and Lorenzo made a good team. I played good D on Andre, ’Zo crashed the boards, and we passed it when the other was open. So we also won game two. They finally beat us in the third game, 11–8, so we switched teams. We don’t play more than three games in a row with the same team anyway because we agreed that three games was about all we could take playing with Trent, win or lose. This became known as the “Trent rule.”

We ran until we couldn’t run anymore, then dragged our bodies to the shade of a tree. Andre rested the ball under his head on the grass. Trent leaned against the trunk. Lorenzo lay on his back with his hands under his head, and I sat Indian-style, plucking and tossing blades of green grass into the soft breeze.

DuBois just might have the freshest grass around: nice and thick and green. MLK just might have the worst: dry and thin and brown. It makes your butt hurt because there’s nothing under it except dirt. My butt felt good on this grass. I could melt into the green.

“I’m hungry,” Lorenzo announced.

“So what else is new?” Trent replied.

“Don’t start with me, Trent,” Lorenzo shot back. “Don’t make me break out the bags on ya.” He lay on his side.

“Bring it on, Buddha. What you got?”

’Zo bolted upright and exposed his white teeth.

“Ya mama so fat, her blood type is gravy!” he said.

“OOOOHHHH!” me and Andre shouted. Our hands flew to our mouths as always.

Lorenzo was going for broke from the giddyup. As always.

“Come on, Trent. What you got?” Andre asked.

“Hold on. Ummm. Lemme see. Ummm . . . ya mama so fat, they found a small family hiding in her armpits.”

“What? I don’t think so, Trent. Why do I even bother with you? You not even in my league. I’m a star on the varsity. You ride the pine on JV.

“But seriously, y’all,” he continued, “I
am
hungry.”

He hoisted himself up and stretched his thick arms east and west. We did the same minus the arm stretch.

“What time is it, Shawn?” Trent asked.

“About a quarter to three.”

Since I’m the only one with a watch, I’m the official timekeeper. Mama gave it to me for my birthday last year ’cause she got tired of me strolling into Aunt Gertie’s late and using the lack of a watch as an excuse.

“Where should we go?” Andre asked.

“Anybody got any money?” I added.

We turned our pockets out to reveal nothing but the insides.

“Ain’t this a blip! We ain’t even got a dollar between the four of us,” Lorenzo said. He sucked his teeth and tucked his pockets back inside.

“I don’t know about y’all, but I need to get something in my belly before I faint.”

“Who lives the closest?” Andre asked.

We definitely ain’t going to Auntie’s. I’d rather starve than go there.

Trent broke into a smile and said, “I have an idea.”

A couple of blocks away, he told us, was a street scattered with pomegranate trees. He walked this one block all the time and said one particular house had a bunch of trees in the backyard. We could hop the fence and pluck as many pomegranates as we wanted.

“I don’t know, Trent. Pomegranates?” I said.

“Ay, it sounds like a plan. I just want to get something in my belly. Let’s go,” Lorenzo said.

His sneakers started strolling, but Trent held him up.

“Wrong way. Follow me.”

We headed out of the park opposite the way we came in. The hum of activity was gone as we passed empty swings and tables on our way out. The tree that once shaded Black Bruce practicing his kicks now shaded untouched green grass. We carried our hunger and laughs on our path to pomegranate heaven, leaving DuBois empty and silent.

We teased, taunted, snickered, and chuckled our way to the front of a lime-green house with pink trim.

“This is it. There’s a whole bunch of trees in the back,” Trent said.

Our eyes stared at the house the way thieves stare at a bank.

“How do we get back there?” Andre asked.

“That fence looks pretty big,” Lorenzo said as Trent walked up to it.

“I don’t know, Trent. We could get into trouble if people see us trying to get back there,” I said.

Luckily the fence was shaded by a tree so we couldn’t be seen looking in. I swiveled my head around the block for eyes that might be watching us. I caught a few cars, but most of the driveways were empty. The last thing we needed was someone calling the cops, thinking we were trying to rob the place.

“Lorenzo, come here and hold out your hands to put me over the fence,” Andre said, walking toward Trent. His eyes remained fixed on the trees behind the fence.

“I don’t think so. I wanna go over there too, and if I hold you up, that means I gotta hold up everybody else,” Lorenzo said. Like an angry child, his arms folded up and he stared us down.

“Come on, ’Zo, that’s the only way. We’ll hop over, grab as many as we can, then hop back,” Andre said.

“Yeah? And how you gonna get back over, Einstein?” Lorenzo said, unfolding his arms.

He looked at Andre. So did Trent and I.

“Hold on, hold on. I have an idea,” Trent said. “You see that car?”

In the driveway sat an old Chevy Vega body on four cinder blocks. Cobwebs covered the axles, and flat-gray primer hid most of the rusted brown frame. It was parked right in front of the fence and definitely wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

“If we can get on the roof of that car . . .”

Lorenzo didn’t let him finish. “Trent, you are a genius!”

He booked it over and began to climb. The car groaned beneath his weight and wobbled on the cinder blocks the moment he stepped on the hood.

“Hold up,” I said. “How do we get back? There ain’t a car on the other side, is there?”

Trent and Andre looked at me, then we all looked at Lorenzo.

“Relax, I see some crates over here that we can use,” he said, peering his head over the fence.

“Be careful, man. The last thing we need is to have this car fall off the blocks,” Andre said as Lorenzo stood tall on the roof before jumping over the fence with ease. When we heard him say it was cool, we followed, retracing each other’s footsteps so the car wouldn’t rock or tip.

I was the last over. Lorenzo was already stuffing his pockets with pomegranates when my feet hit the dirt. I looked around to check out the surroundings. In a far corner of the backyard, a doghouse with a large opening caught my eye. It had the same peeling lime-green paint as the house and baked in the sun.

“You guys see a dog?” I asked.

No answer. I started plucking the fruit and filling my pockets as fast as I could, swiveling my head around the whole time. If there
was
a dog, I didn’t want to meet him.

Andre and Lorenzo stuffed their pockets while Trent stacked a pile of wooden crates on a trash can to hop the fence back to the other side. The sound of a rattling chain yanked me around.