Hold Love Strong (5 page)

“You went out,” I snapped. “And we just saw Mr. Goines.”

“That's cause I had to get groceries and make sure Luscious got here safely.” Nice looked at my mother and aunt on the couch. “Goines is outside?”

“That nigga is crazy,” decided my Aunt Rhonda. “He thinks cause Buster Douglas beat Tyson the other night he got a chance at being something. And don't be lying to the boy!”

“Who?” Nice asked.

“You,” accused Rhonda. “Luscious lives on the second floor. She don't need you to pick her up. She could have walked her ass up here all alone.”

“She came with me to the store,” my uncle said, defending himself against my Aunt Rhonda's attack.

Luscious ignored Rhonda and wrapped her arms around Nice so he would ignore her too. “Baby,” she said. “Which one is the new one?”

Nice glared one last moment at my Aunt Rhonda, then he sighed and smiled. He kissed Luscious's forehead.

“Over there,” he said, pointing at the two-foot-tall trophy next to the TV.

My uncle's trophies lined all four walls, each glowing and topped with a golden figure or a basketball. Some were a foot tall. Some stood two and three feet. A few were as tall as me. There were plaques, certificates, and ribbons. He was an MVP. He was a champion. And there were more trophies in the room he, Donnel, Eric, and I shared. They cluttered the dresser. They filled the shelf in the closet. He had sneaker boxes filled with medals and letters from college coaches begging him to consider playing for them. He had college brochures, and college paraphernalia, and college pens, pencils, and pennants. Sometimes, I took one of the college brochures or players' guides the coaches sent
him into the bathroom when I needed to use the toilet, and I'd sit there, my pants around my ankles, flipping through the pages, amazed at the contents of the glossy photos, the college students and their college lives. Coaches called nightly, and some called so often, I learned to recognize them by the sound of their voices just as they came to recognize me.
Oh, hello, Abraham,
they'd say.
I bet you play basketball too.
It seemed like every institution of higher education in America had a room, a jersey, a classroom, a professor, a tutor, and a plethora of salacious women just for my uncle. All he had to do was sit down, listen to what they had to say, and sign his name. Then he would be on TV, and win college championships, and be the MVP of tournaments and leagues. And then, with hard work, he would be a star in the NBA. He was a junior in high school. One day, everyone would wear Nice's jersey. He was going to make millions. It was his destiny. And that destiny, he swore, would take us out of Ever. And we believed him. He could do no wrong. He was king. My grandma did everything for him. She cooked him extra meals when he got hungry. She woke him as many times as he needed to be woken before he got out of bed to go to school. She found a way to buy him new clothes and she made my Aunt Rhonda and my mother do the same. Nice was royalty, blameless.

He picked up his newest trophy and showed it to Luscious. My grandma took the grocery bags into the kitchen.

“Forty-two points,” she called out. “He was taking them to school! My baby couldn't be stopped! It was like Jesus come down from the sky and took control of Roosevelt's soul!”

There was a moment of silence. Then my grandma shouted: “Roosevelt, I don't see no milk!”

“Damn,” he sighed, shaking his head. “I knew I forgot something!”

God gave Nice physical gifts, court vision, the body, dexterity, and the stamina of a perpetual dancer. Yet, when not on the basketball court, he blundered. He tripped over himself. He forgot things of great
importance. He made impulsive decisions, jumped to conclusions, and was easy to lead astray. He was carefree and untouchable, but because he was also a dreamer, solely grounded in everything related to hope, he struggled to recognize the difference between real need and fleeting desire. Although I was a child I had no doubt Nice had remembered the milk up until the moment he thought about something he wanted and hoped to get, and then, puff, what he needed to get and do left his head. Hoping, wanting, and getting, that was my uncle. It made him a great basketball player. It caused him to be loved, to not have a single enemy in all of Queens. Occasionally, it made him steal things from corner stores, clothing stores, any establishment he deemed unworthy of patience or money. Sometimes Nice came home bragging about the slice of pizza he didn't pay for, the Chinese food he took and ran with. Sometimes he came home with the stolen article of clothing, the hat, the shirt, the jacket he wore.

Luscious reached up and touched the side of Nice's face. “Baby, didn't I ask you if your grandmother needed milk?”

Although he made many, every mistake Nice made exhausted him. He deflated. He was a perfectionist. It was yet another reason why he was so gifted on a basketball court. He practiced and practiced until everything was just right. His eyes softened. He laid them upon Luscious. He blinked. There was something more than his forgetfulness. He shifted his eyes to my grandma.

“There ain't no money left,” he said.

My grandma walked out of the kitchen. “What you mean there ain't no more money?”

“I mean,” said Nice, “all that stuff we got cost more than what you gave me. I had to tell 'em that I'd bring the rest of the money tomorrow.”

My grandma put her hands on her hips. “Well, that's it,” she said. “That's all the money I got.”

“I swear to God,” said Nice, “I swear one day, when I'm in the NBA…”

My mother interrupted him. “Abraham, where's that money I gave you to get something to drink after your game?”

I reached into my pocket. Then, smiling, suddenly feeling joyous and proud instead of heartbroken, I pulled three dollars out of my pocket and held it up for everyone to see.

“Well, hurry up,” Nice said, a smile and shine easing upon him. “Go get your coat.”

It was us versus the world, us against the snow. I looked at my mother. “I can go?” I asked.

“Shit, you just bent on being as crazy as Goines, ain't you,” she said.

Then she thought for a moment. I waited.

“So go ahead,” she said, waving her hand at me dismissively. “Probably do your ass some good to see up close how serious all this snow is.”

Before anything else was said, I raced into the bedroom and dressed as fast as I could. I put on my winter coat, my winter hat, gloves, and an old pair of sneakers. Then I ran out of the room to join Nice.

“Hold on!” said my grandma. “Stand together. The both of you.”

Like two soldiers standing at attention, my uncle and I stood side by side.

“Now tell me. What you gonna get?” demanded my grandma.

“Milk,” my uncle said.

My grandma shifted her eyes to me. “Abraham?”

“Milk,” I said.

“Good,” said my grandma. “I'm counting on you. Don't let your uncle forget.”

I looked up at Nice. He looked down at me. “You got me?” he asked, holding his hand out for me to slap.

I slapped it. “Yeah.”

We walked out of the apartment. Nice stopped, turned around, and locked all three locks with his key. Then we heard the chain latch clack and slide into place on the other side.

“Milk!” shouted my grandma one last time. “And don't keep Abraham out too long. You know how he starts coughing!”

Outside in the hallway, the walls were cinderblocks painted eggshell white. They were scrawled and scribbled on; graffiti, names and nicknames, declarations of existence. There were hearts with initials in them and sexually explicit drawings.
Fuck
was spelled wrong. Gangs and crews proclaimed they were the most powerful, the utmost, the killers of all killers who killed for nothing, for everything, no matter the time. Things were written in pen and crossed out with marker. There were bullet holes. A few spots were still spattered with blood. There was garbage, foil wrappers, plastic utensils, papers, balled-up napkins, soda cans, broken glass. There was a backpack, torn open, classroom handouts and quizzes spilling out. The floor was concrete, painted industrial grey, and covered with dust so dense it looked like ash coated the floor. It was cold. A wind rushed through.

Nice looked down at me. “You sure you're gonna be warm enough?”

I was so happy to be going outside I was sweating. I nodded.

Once again, the elevator was broken.

“Motherfucker,” said Nice, pushing the button repeatedly. “Me and Luscious just took this bitch.” He kicked the elevator's doors. “Fuck it. Let's go.”

We walked to the stairwell and stopped in front of its door. It was exactly eighty-four steps from our floor to the bottom.

“You ready?” he asked.

I swallowed. The stairwell was always dark and cold and all of the lights were blown so I feared what we'd find, brothers and sisters des
perate for a place to sit, be warm, hide. Someone might be urinating or getting high or crying or a young couple might be ravishing each other, sucking and licking and humping with the hope to lift and carry the other away. Someone might be waiting to rob the first person coming down the stairs. They might have a knife or a gun. They might be reckless, distressed. Too many horror stories came out of the stairwell. Too many sisters were raped or almost raped. Too many brothers got jumped, beaten with pipes and bricks, cut with box cutters, stabbed with screwdrivers.

Nice put his hand on the door, pushed it, and walked into the blackness of the stairwell. I followed and paid close attention to the sounds around us, listened more desperately than intently for clues and reasons to stop walking, run back, save Nice and me from bearing witness or, worse, being victimized. I wasn't a fighter, but I'd fight if I had to, if I was forced to by circumstances and threats against those I loved. I descended with my fists clenched. I squinted into the blackness as if narrowing my eyes would help me see. Luckily, there was nothing. No sound; no one. In fact, the only noise came from our footsteps, sticking to something like syrup on the steps between the second and third floor.

“A,” Nice said, somehow sounding calm, his voice echoing through the stairwell. “Who were you gonna be tonight?”

The application of fantasy was how Nice survived, how he taught himself to play basketball and how, through watching and listening to him, I learned to play basketball as well. I couldn't just be Abraham Singleton. I wasn't enough. I was in Ever. I had to imagine myself as someone or something else for flight. So sometimes I was Michael Jordan. Sometimes I was Magic Johnson. I imagined I was the greatest, the strongest, the fastest, the highest leaper, the most courageous and clutch, and because I never made mention of it, because I never shared the notion with anyone, there was no one who could tell me no or prove that who I imagined was not who I was. So every time I played I chose
a player and made the moves he made. I scowled like them, swaggered. But that night, that game, my first championship and chance to win a trophy, I'd planned something else. I'd decided to be the one champion, the one MVP, I knew.

“I was gonna do 'em like you,” I said.

“Me?” Nice laughed. “What you gonna waste your time being me for?”

I thought for a moment, then said: “Cause you got all them trophies.”

We made it to the bottom of the stairs. Nice pushed the door open. We crossed the dim, industrial green of the building lobby. We stopped at the entrance of our building, at the heavy steel door with the slim rectangular window fortified with chicken wire in its glass. We stared outside. All of the snow extinguished Ever, the bustling, ramshackle world we knew.

“So Goines was outside?” Nice asked.

“He was boxing,” I said. “Punching the snow.”

“Maybe one day Ma will give him a chance, you know,” he said. He laughed a quick breath, then became serious. “Listen,” he said. “Don't be me. Don't be no one but you. You understand?”

Nice pushed open the door and I followed him into the whiteness. I didn't understand. Why not be him? Wasn't he the greatest, a hero? If not be like him, then be like who?
Be you,
he said. What did that mean? Who was I? What could Abraham Singleton do?

The wind whipped snow against me and ripped my face left and right. I tucked my chin to my chest and kept my eyes on the back of Nice's legs. The snow was two feet deep. I pumped my arms and lifted my knees just to trudge through it. We crossed the snow-covered concrete courtyard, the parking lot, and the sidewalk. Then, when we reached Columbus Avenue, we made a left and walked down the middle of the street, past parked cars engulfed in snow, past streetlights and the circles of pallid
yellow they cast upon the dusty blue darkness of fresh snowfall meeting its first night. Snow spilled, tumbled, and cast about each time I stepped. I thought about what Nice said, what he told me to do. Snow melted and dripped down my cheeks. We came to the basketball court and the twenty-foot chain-link fence that surrounded it. Nice walked up to the fence and stopped. Then reaching his hands up, he gripped the fence and gazed at the snow-covered court, the steel backboards, the steel rims with snow perched on them. We stood in silence for a few long moments. I looked at Nice and then at the court and then at Nice again. I wondered what he was thinking, what he hoped for.

“You figure out who you gonna be?” he asked.

“I'm gonna be you,” I said.

He laughed. “Then who am I?”

I shrugged. “You you too.”

“Just like that?” he said.

“Uh-huh.”

“Ain't no one else you want to be?”

“Who else is there?” I asked.

Nice considered my question.

“I bet you three dollars I can make it from here,” he said.

“We only got three dollars,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “Then I'm betting everything. I'm putting the house down.”