Show and Prove (24 page)

I
spoke to Nike for the first time today.
Don't give Stevie your soda.
The kid already bounces off the walls without caffeine and sugar, but he kept badgering Nike for a sip. To spite me, Nike forked over the entire can. When we left the park, Stevie was content to sit with Pedro and talk his ear off. Now he's halfway across the bus while the driver hightails it back to the Boogie Down from Moses State Park. If Stevie doesn't sit his hyper ass down, he's going to get hurt.

“Stevie, get down,” I yell. Instead of minding his kid, Nike mopes at the back of the bus. He rewinds that creepy “Every Breath You Take” on his boom box for the eleventh time and stares out the window as if Sara's going to appear as a hitchhiker on the Southern State Parkway. She hasn't come to work for three days, and Barb told me we shouldn't expect her to come back. I didn't ask her why, and she didn't volunteer a reason. Cookie offered to take on the twins, and that was that.

A bus trip always puts everyone into a coma on the ride back to the Bronx. Everyone except Stevie, that is. Now he stands on his seat and leans over the back to tease the kids sitting behind him. One sharp turn and he's going to nosedive into the window. “Yo, Nike!” I holler. “Nike!”

Finally, the counselor across the aisle reaches over and taps him on the shoulder. Nike finally looks my way. I point at Shorty like,
Put him in check.
Nike mutters, “Shorty, sit down now.”

Stevie drops like an anchor. Not a minute later, he pops back up like a jack-in-the-box. “Nike, your kid!”

This time he just dismisses me with a wave. “Let him bust his ass so he'll learn.” Then Nike folds his arms across his chest, leans his head against the window, and closes his eyes for a nap.

I get up and make my way toward Stevie, holding tight to the backs of the seats as I move down the aisle. Just my luck, the driver hits a pothole that sends me flying into none other than Cookie, who was napping, too. “Damn, Smiles! Where you going, anyway?” Except for a few camp-related things, we haven't spoken since Nike's birthday either.

“Mind your business,” I say. “Go back to dreamland.”

Cookie sucks her teeth and flicks her wrist at me. “Later for you then.” She leans her head against the seat and closes her eyes again.

When I'm a seat away from Stevie, I hang back so I can catch his little crew at whatever it is that they're doing. This kid named Henry is holding up a tape recorder while his play cousin David, Stevie, and Pedro lean in to listen since the volume is way low. I strain to eavesdrop until I hear Eddie Murphy yell a string of curses through the speaker. Henry and David snicker, Pedro repeats what Eddie says, and Stevie rocks back and forth, trying to contain his laughter.

I take a big step forward, grab him by the arm, and yell, “Busted!” Then I snatch the tape recorder from Henry. “Whose tape is this?” No one answers. “I said, whose tape is this? I'm not asking a third time.”

“My brother's,” says Henry. Stevie wiggles out of my grasp and sits down with his hands clasped on his lap, fronting now like a Boy Scout. I'll deal with him in a minute.

“Let me guess. He doesn't know you have it.” Again, no answer. “He'd fly your head if he knew you were going through his stuff, right?” Nothing. Even though I have every intention of giving Henry back both the recorder and the tape once we reach the Bronx, I say, “If your brother wants his tape back, tell him to come to camp and get it from me.”

“Smiles!” whines Henry.

“You.” I reach down and grab Stevie's arm again. “C'mon.”

He yanks it away. “Where?”

“You need to go sit with your counselor.”

“Let me stay here. Please! I'll be good, I promise.” He slides out of reach. “Smiles?”

“Let's go.”

“Yo, Smiles.”

“Stop tryin' it.”

“ ‘Put the boogie in your butt!' ” he sings, imitating Eddie Murphy.

On another day, that would've had me dying and I would've let Stevie slide. Today's not that day. I take hold of his wrist and pull him out of the seat. He fights me, flailing for freedom. “Let me stay—I'll be good, I promise!”

“If you kick me, Stevie, I swear…You can be good in the back with Nike.”

“Nooooo!”

Cookie jumps up and rushes toward us. “What's going on?”

“Nothing,” I say. “Mind your business.”

“This is my business 'cause it's my job, Smiles, like it or not.”

“The job you were sleeping on.”

For a moment, that gets Cookie where she lives. Then she notices the tape recorder in my other hand. Cookie reads the face of the tape and asks, “Who does that belong to?” And just when I think she finally has a clue, she looks at me and says, “You?”

“Are you freakin' serious?”

“Well, you're the one holding it. Look, Raymond, I'm asking you nicely.” Every word is a ruler slapping my wrist. “Please. Go. Back. To. Your. Seat.”

Now everybody on the bus is awake and staring at us, except for oblivious Nike, who can't hear a thing with Sting wailing in his ears. “What are you gonna do if I don't?” I say. Cookie breathes fire on me, knowing she doesn't have that much juice. I bark at Stevie, “For the last time, go sit with your damn counselor!” And now that he has created so much trouble, Stevie can't get to the back of the bus fast enough.

I start to follow him down the aisle to give Nike a piece of my mind when Cookie says, “You're docked.”

I stop and turn, almost getting thrown off balance by the jarring bus. “What?”

“You heard me,” she says. “You're docked. A day's pay.”

“You're kidding, right?”

Cookie takes a deep breath. “Want to make it two?”

Just then the Famer bus rambles past us in the next lane. They bang on the windows, holler at us, give us the finger, all the usual mess. Some of their counselors join in, while others peel their kids away from the windows. The Champs are now riled up, booing them and giving them thumbs-downs. Cookie and the other counselors—except Nike and me—order the kids to sit back down and chill out.

I sink into the nearest seat. That crab just docked me. I did what she was too busy snoozing to do, and she docks me?
Cookie docked me.
And then, in front of everyone, she threatened to take away another day's pay if I dared say anything about it. In my three years working for Saint Aloysius, I have never missed a day of work or been docked a cent of pay.

I seethe in my seat for the rest of the ride home. The closer we get to the church, the more I boil. The driver barely brings the bus to a full stop in front of the church before I tear out of my seat and into the street, leaving behind that stupid recorder. I push between people waiting to pick up their kids and bound into the alley between the church and the school. Flies swarm around the garbage smelling of rancid milk and blackened banana peels from yesterday's lunch. I swat the flies with one hand and hold my nose with the other and pace like a caged panther, trying hard to keep it together. Then some rustling behind a garbage can makes me jump. I look around and grab a broom to chase off whatever has invaded the trash. I charge over to the trash can, using the broomstick to knock the lid off. The metal top clatters onto the ground, and somebody jumps, scaring the shit out of me.

“Smiley, it's me!” The scrawny woman holds up her hands. “Remember me? Dee Dee. You know my daughters, Lisa and Sandy. Lisa the one they call Blue Eyes.”

My eyes travel up her raised hands to the crack pipe she was about to fire up before I busted her. “Are you serious right now?” Dee Dee drops her hands to her ears and crumples like burning paper. “This is a freakin' church! A school!” I slam the broomstick onto the row of trash cans, making a horrific clang that bounces off the walls. “Get the fuck out of here now!”

Dee Dee scampers out of the alley, and finally my rage has some damn privacy. I bang the broomstick onto the cans again. Then again and again until it cracks into two. I grab the pieces and fling them against the brick wall. It's not nearly enough, so I start kicking the cans. “That stupid bitch!” I hiss under my breath. When it trips past my lips, something murky inside me comes undone. “Dumb spics. Fuck all those Puerto Ricans.”

The mixture of fury and funk causes my head to spin and my eyes to burn. I squat down, rubbing my eyes with one hand and balancing myself on the fingertips of the other. When I finally open my eyes, I see Pedro standing there, gawking at me and gripping the fence. “Pedro.” I get to my feet. Before I can figure out what to say, he darts out the alley. “¡Pedro, ven p'atra!” I chase after him and grab his arm.

Pedro whips me off him. “Step off, nigga!” Then he races to the front and into his grandfather's arms. I wait for him to repeat what I said, for his abuelo to storm into the church and have words with Barb, for Barb to march into the alley and tell me that I'm fired, for Cookie to gloat, for my entire world to implode. A corner of my soul even welcomes it. Instead, Pedro's grandmother plants a kiss on his head, takes his hand, and sets off for home.

And I just stand there, marveling at both how good and how horrible Pedro's English has become.

T
he only thing I hate more than people feeling sorry for me is having them ignore me. All my sulking finally gets me some overdue sympathy. That and some wack advice.

Give her time,
said Glo.

Give her space,
Smiles said.

And Cookie? Exactly what I expected her to say, even though I ain't even ask for her stupid opinion.
Give her up.

And maybe I would do all of that if I knew why. Later for what Smiles said about playing the victim. I
am
the victim. The girl stood me up on the most important night of my life and still hasn't given me the courtesy of an explanation.

So I camp out again at the Laundromat, because I know eventually Sara has to come. I've been here five days and will continue to come until she shows up and tells me why she did me wrong.

I sit in the row of seats along the window beside the entrance so I can spot her as soon as she turns the corner. Only today it hits me that I'm a sitting duck here. Junior is out there bolder than ever, seeing as how he killed Cutter, put Qusay out of commission, and disappeared Booby and got away scot-free. I shouldn't be out here at all, never mind in plain sight, but I have to see her.

Just when I decide to move to the back by the video games, where I can watch the door without anyone on the street being able to spot me, I hear Cookie's witchy laugh. She enters the Laundromat, pushing Sara's cart, and I see Sara coming in behind her. “Sara!” I make my way toward the door, and she spins around and back out onto the street. I start to go after her, but Cookie uses the cart to block the door. “Sara, c'mon!”

“I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!” Cookie yells, punching her fist into her palm. “I knew not to let Sara come here alone.”

“Yo, Cookie, I'm not playin' with you. You best move this cart if you know what's good for you!”

“For serious, Nike, you're out of control. This is creepy and gross even for you.”

I want so bad to shove her out of my way, but then she'll tell Sara and it'll be over for me. Instead I say, “You know why you can't mind your business, Cookie? 'Cause you jealous that Sara has a good man who'll do anything to be with her. You got dudes falling all over themselves running for the door!”

“If you think I want any of you suckers around here, you got another think coming. Ain't none of you good enough for me, your trifling behind least of all. I already got a set of pliers, so I don't need you with your bowlegs!”

“Oh, so you wanna snap!” My adrenaline races through my veins. Why couldn't this be happening at camp for everyone to see? “These pliers wouldn't pry you open because I don't want Javi's sloppy seconds.”

“Please! Javi didn't even get fresh firsts. What you
think
happened was back in the eighth grade, but you still bochinchando about it. You want to call me jealous and say I don't mind my own business, but you the one can't get over a little kissing game that happened four years ago.”

The Chinese lady who owns the Laundromat comes from her back office. “You kids, get out. I don't want no trouble here.”

Cookie whines, “Ms. Rhi, I got clothes to wash. My friend really needs me to do her this favor.” She gives me a
So there
look.

Ms. Rhi turns to me. “And you? You've been here five days in a row, haven't washed a thing.”

“Creep.”

“Shut up.”

“I don't want anybody selling drugs in here.”

“You cold, Ms. Rhi. Ain't nobody drug dealing.”

“Nobody doing laundry either. You. Go. Now.” Ms. Rhi shoos me away like a fly. I hate being dismissed, yo! I motion to Sara's cart still blocking my path. Cookie finally jerks it out of my way.

As I back out the door, I point at Cookie and say, “This ain't over.”

“That's the first true thing you've said in your whole wack life.”

“Wait until I catch you at camp tomorrow.”

Cookie points back at me. “Go for yours.” Then she gives Sara's rickety cart a kick and heads off to the front loaders.