Efrain's Secret (28 page)

The weight of the circumstances forces me to lower myself onto the bed. Nestor and I sit there in silence for a few minutes. I finally say, “I’ll go to the meeting tonight, but the second the heat is off, I have to quit, Nestor. When the time comes—and it has to be soon—we have to convince Snipes to let me peace out.”

Nestor nods. “Good lookin’ out. I appreciate that.”

“I can’t leave you hanging.” And in that moment, both Efrains are at a temporary peace with each other. They both know that the decision to attend the meeting is not completely selfish. Both of them take pride in being a good friend. And with the same forcefulness that Nestor came at me when I walked through the door, I announce, “And then the next step is to get you out of this shit, too.”

Nestor gives me this smile that for a split second reminds me of Rubio. It takes a moment to place it, but it eventually comes to me. Rubio would give me the same grin whenever I believed in something he knew to be untrue but didn’t want to spoil my wishful thinking, like when I found money under my pillow and
thought the tooth fairy left it there. Nestor looks at his watch and then lifts himself out of the recliner. “Look, I’m headed to the block.”

“When’s the meeting?”

“Not until six, but a soldier has to show up on the front, especially since I’ve been running around for the past two hours looking for your behind.” Nestor laughs. “Let’s go.”

“Nah, man, I’m going to have to meet you at Snipes’s.”

“C’mon, bro—”

“I’ll be there, I swear. Go back to the block and spread the word that Scout’ll be in the house,” I say. “But I have to head to AC and meet Candace. We haven’t spoken since everything went down. I gotta see her.”

Nestor is satisfied with that. “I like her for you.” He walks to his door. Before leaving, he shouts, “And don’t even think about being on time. Be early!”

And just like that, I’m more caught up than ever.

Renunciation
(n.)
rejection

I wait outside the school until the tutoring program ends. Chingy comes through the door and holds it for someone behind him. Candace. My gut smolders as if I’d swallowed a crust of lava. Candace listens to Chingy with the same intensity that he’s speaking. Should I be comforted or bothered by the seriousness of their conversation? Are they discussing me? If they suddenly were to laugh, would I feel better or worse about their closeness?

I catch up to them as they reach the corner and call out Candace’s name. They stop and turn. Chingy says something to her and continues on his way. As I near Candace, the fury surges over her cheeks and into her eyes. When I reach for her, she backs up a few steps and tries to storm off. “C’mon, ma, don’t be like that.” I grab her arm. “I can explain everything.”

“What’s there to explain?” she yells as she swats at my hand. “You’re a drug dealer.”

The words slam me in the gut. Even though I always knew I was committing a crime, I still never thought of myself as a criminal. “I’ve wanted to tell you the truth for the longest, but this is exactly what I was afraid of.”

Candace sticks her finger in my face. “You should’ve been! Just when people in this school have stopped calling me
that K-Ville kid
so close to my back that I actually hear them, my boyfriend gets arrested for selling cocaine on the street. Now the
same gossips who never had two words for me are in my face twenty-four/seven asking me questions.” She starts to walk away from me. “I’m not doing it, Efrain! I won’t go through that again. Not even for you.”

I grab her hand. “What are you talking about?” She tries to pull away from me, but I hold tight. “What do you mean you won’t go through this again?” I struggle to check my sudden rage at the idea that Candace is making me pay for someone else’s mistake. “Sounds like you’ve got secrets, too, Candace!”

We stand there in the middle of the cold street, fuming at each other. “You’re right, Efrain. I do have secrets. Want to hear a secret? Do you remember all those people who broke into stores and stole things after the hurricane? The ‘looters’?” Candace sarcastically squeezes quotation marks in the air. “I was one of them. I didn’t break the window. I didn’t haul off a DVD player or television set. But I stole things. Things that I could. Whatever I could carry to share with other hungry people.”

I don’t know what hurts more—that Candace didn’t tell me this before or that she believed I would judge her for it. I reach out for her hand one more time, and this time she doesn’t pull away. “Candace, you did what you needed to survive.” I pull her toward me, and she leans into my chest. “Nobody knows what they would do in a situation like that until they’re in it.” I think about how often people are too busy judging what others in dire straits are doing when they should be giving thanks that they are not in a position to know with absolute certainty that they would not do the same. I say, “I totally understand, ma. Trust me, I do.”

Suddenly Candace pushes away from me. “You don’t have a clue, Efrain. Lie to yourself if you want to, but there’s a big difference between you and me. I didn’t steal those groceries because
it was the difference between Hunter and Harvard, so don’t you dare act like we’re peas in a pod, because we’re not.”

“How are you going to judge me, Candace?” I say. A voice inside of me orders,
Square your shoulders, son, and tell that fickle chick to fall back
. “You know what? I’m not going to argue with you. I’m doing what I have to do because I’m out here on my own.” Now I’m the one who starts to back off. “I thought you knew something about that, but I was wrong. I always suspected it, too. That’s why I didn’t say anything, so forget you.”

I brace myself for her to run after me and wild out. I
want
her to. Cuss me. Grab me. Maybe even hit me. Instead, she yells, “No, Efrain. Forget
you.”
Even though I don’t turn around, I can see Candace standing there, shaking her head at me. “You didn’t say anything because you wanted to do what you wanted to do even though you know it was wrong. Just like your father.”

In a flash, I’m in Candace’s face again. I grab at her, but she sees me coming, and slaps my hands away, her eyes locked on mine. The girl is not the least bit shook. “What you gonna do? Hit me? I’m not scared of you.” I reach, Candace blocks. “I stood on the Crescent City Bridge and had the racist-ass Gretna police stick a shotgun in my face to keep me from crossing, so just what do you think you’re going to do to me, Efrain?”

I fall back, and for a second, Candace actually looks sorry for me. We are more alike than ever, striving to be something good only because others can be so bad. Candace and me, we’re so eager to march forward alone even if we stumble out of bounds. Not for its own sake, though, because pride and independence are virtues. Only because we decided that we cannot rely on anyone to step up for us. It’s not a good look.

That true voice says,
Tell her you’re sorry for the way your actions affected her
. But it seems trifling. I’m trifling, putting my hands on her like that. So desperate to touch her, knowing all
along if she reached out to me, I would push her away. Why hasn’t Candace walked away from me? I make it right by doing what she won’t.

I walk away, and because we’re more alike than she thinks, Candace just watches me go.

Conformist
(n
.) one who behaves the same as others

When I hit the block, Nestor says, “Yo, E., LeRon’s got something for you.” He has a cheesy grin on his face, so I suspect his efforts to salvage my name are working. I walk over to LeRon. “What’s up, L.?” I give him a pound and notice the folded sweatshirt draped over his shoulder.

“Yo, Scout, check it.” LeRon unzips his parka, and who pops out at me but Frazzle. That’s right. Homeboy’s wearing a sweatshirt with that Muppet’s bushy-eyed grille on it.

“Oh no!” I laugh for the first time in days. “Where’d you get that?”

“My sister made it for me when I told her how y’all be doing me.” LeRon starts counting the ways on his fingers. “She says I look like him, talk like him, act like him…. Nigga’s even afraid of the dentist like me.” LeRon is so serious, I crack up some more. “What you laughing at, man? Ain’t you ever seen that movie
Marathon Man?”

“No.” I had never even heard of it until now.

“Peep that shit and see if you ever go to the dentist again.” Then LeRon tosses the sweatshirt hanging over his shoulder at me. “This one’s for you.”

I catch the sweatshirt and unfold it. Kermit the Frog. I have to smile. At least, it ain’t Elmo. LeRon clowns me. “But Kermy’s
cool, though,” I pretend to argue. “He writes books, does movies…. He’s, like, a Renaissance frog.”

LeRon gives me a look like we’re debating capital punishment. “His girlfriend’s a pig, yo.”

“You don’t know my shorty, so keep her out of it.” My argument with Candace crashes back into my consciousness. I shouldn’t take out my problems with her on LeRon. Least of all now, with all the postraid
chisme
in the crew, but if he volunteers …

“Ah!” He points at me. “You were about to wild out, weren’t you? Aha!”

I head back to Nestor, yelling over my shoulder, “Yo, Frazzle, one more thing. You need to go see the dentist
before
your teeth start falling out. That be the point.” Nestor’s cracking up. Guess he knew about Kermit before I did. “It ain’t that funny, Elmo.”

“Nah, I ain’t Elmo, kid.”

“Yeah, you are. You’re simple, you’re ticklish, you’re stuck at the age of three….” Nestor unzips his leather jacket. “Yooo … it’s Fozzie!” I just lose it. “Man, you cats are taking me back. I forgot all about Fozzie.”

“Yeah,” says Nestor. “Wocka, wocka, nigga.” It’s a miracle I don’t piss myself, I’m laughing so hard. It’s insane that I’m laughing at all. An alarm on Nestor’s cell phone sounds. “It’s time, y’all.”

Nestor and I walk down the block, and as we pass the other guys in the crew, they fall in behind us while, across the street, Hinckley’s boys sneer. Nestor elbows me and cocks his head in their direction. “The second we’re gone, they’re going to be all over our side of the street, but that’s all right,” he says. “For the next hour, we grantin’ amnesty, and that’ll be the most paper they’ll see all month.” He holds out his fist, and I give him a
pound as I glance over my shoulder. LeRon and a dozen others swagger behind us, blazing mugs across Hunts Point Avenue at the competition. I catch eye with that punk Julian. He spits from the corner of his mouth, but I scoff right back to his face before killing eye contact.

When we reach the office, Trace is outside smoking an L. “How you left the block?” he asks Nestor.

Nestor offers him his hand, and they pull in for mutual back slaps. “It’s a lovely day in the neighborhood, bro.” Trace laughs, which I’ve never seen him do. Yeah, Nestor definitely is on the rise in Snipes’s operation because Trace doesn’t smile for anyone, let alone laugh
with
them.

Trace opens the door, and we all file into the building and into Snipes’s office. He has the radio on the quiet storm while he throws darts. The man’s pretty good, landing most of them near the bull’s eye, although none actually hit. On a table against the wall is a giant submarine hero, some tubs of macaroni and potato salad, paper cups, plates, and whatnot. Beneath the table sits a cooler of sodas and forties on fresh ice.

LeRon points at the hero and yells, “Yo, that’s for us?” He ignores the guys who clown him for asking, circling the buffet and praying for consent.

“Go on, Frazzle,” says Snipes, and we all laugh. No one thought he knew about that, and I wonder if I got the credit. “Fix yourselves a plate and sit down.” Everyone swoops on the hero like pigeons to crumbs. Despite Nestor’s grim warnings, the mood is ridiculously light. Snipes turns off the radio and heads to the front of the room and waits for us to settle. Once everyone has their plate and a seat, Snipes begins. “I called y’all here to give you a heads-up. The block is hotter than you think because last week’s sweep wasn’t on the same old, same old. I got intel that five-oh hosed the av because they heard Hinckley and me are
about to declare war over these corners. The po thought
Clean the street
, make both crews worry too much about them to mess with each other.”