Lovers & Haters (9 page)

T
he very next school day, Xavier attempted to get through without clocking out on anybody. Everybody who had a heartbeat underneath the roof of Coleman High was singing Xavier's praise and holding him up as a hero. The real cool, hard-core dudes gave him dap and kept it moving. All the regular guys celebrated his thrashing of the two thugs by crowning him like he was Lil Wayne, or somebody. He even had teachers eating out of his hands.

Xavier couldn't go anywhere without folks treating him like he was some kind of superhero. And the chick attention was really getting out of control. Girls who wouldn't normally give him the time of day were now clamoring to get a piece of the big man.

Doug put eyes on Xavier in the lunchroom. The place was louder than normal from the buzz surrounding yesterday's events. As usual, the cafeteria was crowded, threatening to explode with students at full capacity. It was also one of the main hangouts where students would go to dodge class. While making sure that everybody was in their right place by checking ID cards, Doug encountered Xavier. He was sitting at a table with a few of his fellow students.

“Good work, Mr. Hunter,” he said, congratulating Xavier again by tipping a worn beige Carhartt cap. “If I don't watch it, you'll be coming for my job.”

Xavier laughed. “No way. In case you didn't know”—Xavier winked at Doug—“I'm a bit of a rule breaker. It would be like giving a prisoner the keys to the main gate.”

“I know you are,” Doug came back. “Just because I know your old man, it doesn't entitle you to a free pass. But you still come from good stock. Your father might've had his faults, but his heart was always in the right place. Don't think I'm going to take my eye off you because of your good deed. I'll bust your ass if I ever hear of you crossing the line.” Doug laughed, then winked at Xavier.

“You'll grow hair back in that bald spot of yours before you catch me slipping,” Xavier joked. Every student within hearing distance burst out laughing.

The respect was mutual between the two.

Doug walked away shaking his head.

“Xavier, baby . . .” A girl named Eve Ross rolled on Xavier with her foolishness. “I've always had my eyes on you.”

Eve was one of the hottest pieces in the school, and she'd never parted her mouth to speak a single word to Xavier. So he simply sat there and allowed the chick to rub her hands sensually across his chest and up over his broad shoulders.

The rest of the students looked on in awe because Eve was the girlfriend of the forward on the Coleman High basketball team—Danny “Buckets” Sanford—and she was flirting with Xavier like her boyfriend would be okay with it. Eve batted her almond-shaped eyes at Xavier as she removed a black, felt-tip pen from her bag, lifted one of his hands, and wrote her number on the inside of his palm.

“I will be expecting a call from you,” she purred.

“I bet you will,” Cheese said. “Will you be including your boyfriend Danny in on a three-way?”

Everybody at the table laughed.

Cheese continued, “You'd better roll the hell out of here, Eve, before Danny catches you disrespecting him and pulls that little horsehair ponytail off your head.”

“Oohs” and “aahs” rained down from the students in the vicinity. Word was out all over school at how Eve got down behind the superstar's back.

“Sweetheart, why don't you gallop to the lunch aides over there in the serving line and tell those old, angry black women that you and your fellow Latino students plan to wage a protest if the school doesn't get any soft shell tacos up in this piece.”

Eve's response drew a few chuckles, but in a school filled with diverse students, the majority of them thought that she was asking for trouble.

“Eve,” Xavier said, “you're out of line.”

Dex sat to Xavier's right. “Give that racial bull a rest.”

Eve popped her neck and angrily batted her eyes at Dex, snapping, “Boy, go and get liposuction somewhere and get out of my face, fat bastard.”

Lamont “Jughead” Peterson sat next to Cheese. “Girl, you better cut the corner with all that talk. You know how jealous Danny can get. You're all about the hype, so beat it and quit causing trouble.”

Jughead was a seventeen-year-old senior, an All-American middle linebacker on the Coleman High football team. He was a lightning fast freak of nature and a force to be reckoned with.

Eve only rolled her neck at Jughead.

“Chill out, homey. I got this. Soft shell tacos—you got jokes, that's cool.” Cheese picked up a half-eaten fish patty with a fork from his lunch tray, held it close to his nose and sniffed. “Everybody knows that Danny is going to U of M, and from there, homeboy's a lock to go high in the NBA draft. We know why you're with him—because of the loot he'll be making. Besides, word around Coleman is that the guys you've been with state that they don't know which fish”—he smiled devilishly at Eve and took another sniff—“smells the fishiest.”

Eve immediately dropped her knockoff Gucci handbag and reached over to push Cheese's head back with an index finger to his forehead. The dude was still smiling when he stood from his chair.

“What you gonna do about it?” she asked Cheese as her eyes widened with fear. Eve already knew what time it was when it came to Cheese. The boy was no punk.

“Cheese,” Xavier said. “Bro, sit back down and chill out.”

Since Eve was in the market for embarrassing people, Xavier wanted her to experience the bitter taste of humiliation. He took a bottle of spring water and poured some inside his hand. He took a couple napkins from his tray and started vigorously wiping away her phone number from his palm.

The lunchroom crowd burst into laughter when they caught on to what Xavier was doing. Eve wanted to say something to him but bit her lip.

As word got around the cafeteria about how Xavier had dissed Eve, the entire lunchroom began laughing at her. But before she could shrink from embarrassment, Cheese seized her right index finger and bent the joint backwards. Her instant shriek was loud enough to bring Doug and a few of his guards running into the cafeteria.

They quickly separated the two, with Eve dropping nasty four-letter words like she had a patent on profanity. Only those who spoke Spanish understood the madness coming out of Cheese's mouth.

As two big, beefy guards wrestled Eve and Cheese out of the lunchroom, Doug asked, “Anybody see what happened?”

Nobody said anything. Snitches got stitches. Everybody resumed what they were doing before the action had jumped off.

“Xavier,” Doug asked, “did you see anything?”

“No, sir—no, Lawd. I thought I was blind till I saw you roll up in this piece.”

“Forever the jokester,” Doug said to Xavier. He turned and addressed the entire lunchroom. “If anything else jumps off in this cafeteria, I'll personally see to it that you are escorted to Principal Skinner's office.”

Jughead waited until Doug was out of sight. “You think Danny is gonna go after Cheese?”

“I don't know,” said Dex. He tore open the plastic on his honey bun. “Buckets is not all there. Remember he smashed one of those dudes from Rolling Deep?” Dex took a bite of the honey bun.

“Whatever happened to that beef anyway?” Xavier asked. “Those boys had put it on their mamas that they would get back at Danny on the revenge tip.”

“Coach Black smashed it,” Jughead informed. “He had a sit-down inside his office with his star basketball player and Rolling Deep's top goon, Dutch Westwood. Nobody knows about the terms, but Danny was given a free pass.”

A girl named Lucy Simpson was in the lunch line with her boyfriend, but devouring Xavier with her eyes like he was one of the choices on the lunch menu.

“This boy's been getting too much play,” Jughead said as he noted the action. “Since this fool came in the door this morning, girls have been throwing it at him like Frisbees.”

Dex eased up on the honey bun enough to say with a mouthful, “Shoo, I wish that would've been me who rescued Samantha. I'd be catching every Frisbee thrown at me right now.”

“Did you hear that those two cats who tried to attack Samantha didn't even belong to this school?” Jughead asked.

“I kind of figured that out once we started scrappin'.” Xavier looked at the bruised knuckles on his right hand. “Didn't look like anybody I'd ever seen before.”

Harvey Wellington almost fell through one of the lunchroom doors, getting everybody's attention.

“Five dollars says he's been drinking,” Dex said.

“Jughead,” Xavier said, “you need to go and get your homeboy.”

They watched the quarterback stumble around, grabbing and groping as many girls as he could.

“I'm not on drunk quarterback patrol today,” Jughead said. He then took out his phone and typed out a text. Minutes later, two of Harvey's teammates walked in and escorted Harvey's drunk behind out.

“Y'all need to get that fool some help,” Xavier said to Jughead.

Jughead merely shook his head.

“Anyway,” Dex said, “how is Samantha doing?”

Xavier thought about it for a second. “I'm in the dark like everybody else, waiting.”

Jughead looked toward the entrance. “'Member when I asked y'all if Danny was gonna try and smoke Cheese for what Eve started?”

“Think that question is about to be answered,” Dex said. “Looks like news travels fast.”

Jughead pointed at Danny. “He's coming this way, charging like a hornless white rhino.”

Danny stopped at their table, an angry shade of red covering his face.

“Y'all see what happened?” Danny wasn't one for mincing words. Being one of the few white boys in the school had him walking around with a chip on his shoulder.

Xavier and Jughead shook off the rudeness by not answering.

Dex acknowledged, “Eve and Cheese exchanged a few nasty words.”

“How nasty?” Danny asked.

“Nasty enough to get them both sent to the office,” Dex answered. “Anything other than that, homey, you gonna have to go to the office and get the butt-naked scoop.”

“Cheese start it?”

“Like he said,” Xavier butted in, his words slow and menacing, “the office is where you can get more details, homeboy.”

Danny looked at Xavier with pure contempt.

Surrounding students were on guard, and ready to scram at the first punch.

Jughead played it cool. He had Xavier's back. Danny was a heavy load and would require a little extra muscle to put the beast on his back.

The tension in the air was thick, electric, and doused in testosterone.

Danny came to his senses. Stepping to Xavier wouldn't exactly be good for a healthy basketball career. He walked away without another word.

All Dex could say was, “Phew.”

They continued to sit around the cafeteria chopping it up and laughing—until Dutch Westwood and five of his gang members walked through one of the doors. It was funny. They had just been talking about him. Westwood was a seventeen-year-old senior at Coleman and the leader of the Rolling Deep gang. One of the gang members Danny had gotten into it with belonged to Westwood's set. The boy shared the same complexion with midnight—except he might've had 12
A.M.
beat by a few shades. He was average height—nothing to really look at. But Dutch Westwood was violent, confrontational, and didn't mind staging a public beating to drive home the point that he was nothing to mess with.

Westwood grimaced toward Xavier as he and his crew passed by their table.

One of these days,
Xavier thought.
One of these days.

 

Right after lunch, Xavier sat in the back of his American History class. Mr. Coleman was lecturing on the American Civil War, but Xavier's mind was beyond the old white-haired man's chatter. Samantha could've been seriously hurt yesterday. Worse—it would've been his fault. No real dude worth his swagger would admit to being vulnerable. He wished that wasn't the case. The truth was what it was. He needed a notorious reputation to keep the predators in line, let them know that his family and friends were off limits. Anybody stepping to one of them would bring about his wrath.

Samantha's attackers had both turned out to be over eighteen and had no business being inside the school. They were locked away in Wayne County Jail at this very moment, awaiting arraignment. It wasn't enough for Xavier. He'd made a big statement in scrapping the two, but not big enough. The smash had only given him temporary satisfaction. If he ever saw them again, it would be a wrap.

Meanwhile, the dilemma in front of him was real, a growing threat and getting bigger. If outsiders had easy access to the school, neither he nor anybody else was safe. He would have to build up his name so that those looking to violate would think twice. The challenge would lie in operating within the boundaries of the student code of conduct. Principal Skinner was already on his head, and he couldn't afford to be suspended.

He had to toe the line.

Not only did Xavier want his lethal reputation to stalk the hallways and lurk in the shadows of the school yard, he also wanted it to extend into his neighborhood. What happened to Mitchell Green was horrifying, even for a G like Xavier. It was a doggone shame that he had to take it to a level of striking fear into the hearts of others to keep his people safe. He thought about this until he almost developed a headache. Getting with Romello and his boys would be a golden opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. He would have the muscle to establish his reputation and have a chance to make some paper.

For the rest of the class period, Xavier mentally weighed the pros and cons of lining his wallet with quick cash. First, the extra income would be enough to help out around the house. Secondly, his bigger-than-life street persona would definitely keep the bloodhounds from chasing Alfonso around and forcing him into doing something ridiculous.