When I Was the Greatest

Special thanks to Elena Giovinazzo and Caitlyn Dlouhy.

And, of course, my family.

“Be good to your family, y'all,

no matter where your families are

'cause everybody needs family, y'all . . .”

—Y
ASIIN
B
EY
(M
OS
D
EF
),

“S
UNSHINE
”

1

“Okay, I got one. Would you rather live every day for the rest of your life with stinky breath, or lick the sidewalk for five minutes?” Noodles asked. He turned and looked at me with a huge grin on his face because he knew this was a tough one.

“It depends. Does gum or mints work?”

“Nope. Just shit breath, forever!” He busted out laughing.

I thought for a second. “Well, if I licked the ground, I mean, that might be the grossest thing I could ever do, but when the five minutes was up, I could just clean my mouth out.” In my head I was going back and forth between the two options. “But if I got bad breath, forever, then I might not ever be able to kiss the ladies. So, I guess I gotta go with licking the ground, man.”

Just saying it made me queasy.

“Freakin' disgusting,” Needles said, frowning, looking out at the sidewalk. “But I would probably do the same thing.”

A sick black SUV came flying down the block. The stereo was blasting, but the music was all drowned out by the loud
rattle of the bass, bumping, shaking the entire back of the truck.

“Aight, aight, I got another one,” Noodles said as the truck passed. He shook his soda can to see if anything was left in it. “Would you rather trade your little sister for a million bucks, or for a big brother, if that big brother was Jay-Z?”

“Easy. Neither,” I said, plain.

“Come on, man, you gotta pick one.”

“Nope. I wouldn't trade her.”

Another car came cruising down the street. This time, a busted-up gray hooptie with music blasting just as loud as the fresh SUV's.

“So you tellin' me, you wouldn't trade Jazz for a million bucks?”

“Nope.”

“You wouldn't wanna be Jay-Z's lil brother?” Noodles looked at me with a side eye like I was lying.

“Of course, but I wouldn't trade Jazz for it!” I said, now looking at him crazy. “She's my sister, man, and I don't know how you and your brother roll, but for me, family is family, no matter what.”

• • •

Family is family. You can't pick them, and you sure as hell can't give them back. I've heard it a zillion times because it's my mom's favorite thing to say whenever she's pissed off at me or my little sister, Jazz. It usually comes after she yells at us about something we were supposed to do but didn't. And with my mom, yelling ain't just yelling. She gives it
everything she's got, and I swear it feels like her words come down heavy and hard, beating on us just as bad as a leather strap. She's never spanked us, but she always threatens to, and trust me, that's just as bad. It happens the same every time. The shout, then the whole thing about family being family, and how you can't pick them or give them back. Every now and then I wonder if she would give us back, if she could. Maybe trade Jazz and me in for a little dog, or an everlasting gift card for Macy's, or something. I doubt she'd do it, but I think about that sometimes.

Me and Jazz always joke about how we didn't get to choose either. Sometimes we say if we had a choice, we would've chose Oprah for a mom, but the truth is, we probably still would've gone with good ol' Doris Brooks. I mean, she's a pretty tough lady and she don't always get it right, but there's no doubt that she loves us. And we know we're lucky, even when we're getting barked at. Plus, it's not always about us. I mean, sometimes it is, but other times it's about other things, like our mom just being stressed out from work. She's a social worker, and all that really means is that she takes care of mentally sick people. She makes sure they get things they need, kind of like being a step-step-stepmother to them. At least that's the way she breaks it down to us. I could see how that could be stressful, so Jazz and I do the best we can to not add to it.

What's crazy is that we don't ever really see our mother that much anyway, mainly because she also has another gig at a department store in the city. So she works with the mentally
ill from nine to five, and then sells clothes to folks who she swears are just plain crazy, from six to nine thirty, and all day on Saturday. Sunday she takes off. She says it's God's day, even though she spends most of it sleeping, not praying. But I'm sure God can understand that she's had a long week. I sure do.

Mom says the only reason she has to work so hard in the first place is because our rent keeps going up. We live in Bed-Stuy, and she's always complaining about the reason they keep raising the rent so much around this part of Brooklyn, is because white people are moving in. I don't really get that. I mean, if I'm in a restaurant, and I order some food, and a white person walks in, all of a sudden I have to pay more for my meal? Makes no sense, but that's what she says. I don't really see the big deal, but that might be because no white people live on my block yet. And I can't see none moving around here no time soon either. Shoot, black people don't even like to move on this block. People say it's bad, and sometimes it is, but I like to focus on the positives. We got bodegas on both ends, which is cool, and a whole bunch of what my mom calls “interesting” folks who live in the middle. To me, that just equals a good time, most of the time.

A lot of the stuff that gives my neighborhood a bad name, I don't really mess with. The guns and drugs and all that, not really my thing. When you one of Doris's kids, you learn early in life that school is all you need to worry about. And when it's summertime, all you need to be concerned with then is making sure your butt got some kind of job, and staying out
of trouble so that you can go back to school in September. Of course, Jazz isn't old enough to work yet, but even she makes a few bucks every now and then, doing her little homegirls' hair. The point is, Doris don't play with her kids fooling around in all that street mess. Lucky for her, I don't really have the heart to be gangster anyway. I ain't no punk or nothing, but growing up here, I've seen too many dudes go down early over stupid crap like street cred, trying to prove who's the hardest. I'm not trying to die no time soon, and I damn sure ain't trying to go to jail. I've heard stories, and it definitely don't sound like the place for me. So I always just keep cool and lay low on my block, where at least I know all the characters and how to deal with all their “interesting” nonsense.

Like my next-door neighbors, Needles and Noodles. They're brothers, and when you talk about having a bunch of drama, these dudes might be the masters. They're both my friends, but Noodles, the younger brother, is my ace. He's only younger than Needles by a year, so it's more like they're twins, but the kind that look different. Not identical, the other kind. And really, when I think about it, Noodles actually is more like the big brother in their house, but only because Needles's situation, which I'll get to, makes it hard for him to do certain things sometimes.

I met them almost five years ago, when I was eleven, after the Brysons left the neighborhood. The Brysons were an old couple who lived next door, who everyone loved. Mr. Bryson had lived in that house since he was a kid, and when he met
Mrs. Bryson on a Greyhound bus coming from the March on Washington, a story he used to tell me all the time, they got married and she moved in that house with him. They lived there until they were old, and out of the blue one day they were gone. Not dead. Just gone. They moved to Florida. When they got there, they sent me a postcard from their new home. On the front was a picture of Martin Luther King Jr., and on the back it said, in Mrs. Bryson's handwriting:

Dear Allen,

We had a dream too . . . that one day we wouldn't

have to take the “A” train ever again. Our dream

has come true.

With love,

The Brysons

I never heard from the Brysons again, and after they left, their brownstone got grimy. I don't know who took it over, but whoever it was, they didn't care too much about nothing when it came to who they let live there. All kinds of wild stuff started happening up in there, from crackheads to hookers. I guess the easiest way to put it is, it became a slum building—a death trap—which was crazy because it was such a nice place when the Brysons had it. Then one day Needles and Noodles showed up. Well, really just Noodles. It was a Sunday morning, and I was running to the bodega to get some bread, and when I came out the house, Noodles was sitting on my stoop. I had never seen him before, and like normal in New
York, I ignored him and went on about my business. But when I got back from the store, he was still sitting there.

We made eye contact and sort of did the whole head-nod thing. Then he spoke.

“Yo,” he said. His voice was kind of raspy. I noticed he was holding a crumpled ripped-out page of a comic book, and a little pocket-size notebook that he was scribbling in.

“Yo,” I said. “You new?”

The guy looked exhausted, even though it was the middle of the day. The sun was baking, and sweat was pouring down his forehead.

I glanced down at the comic. Couldn't recognize which one it was, which didn't surprise me. They were never really my thing.

“Yeah,” he said, tough. He quickly folded the colorful paper up and slid it between the pages of the tiny notebook. Then he smushed it all down into his pocket.

“What floor?” I asked. I was a little confused because I didn't think anybody had moved out.

“Second.” He tugged at the already stretched-out collar of his T-shirt.

I laughed but was still confused. I guess I just figured he was joking.

“Come on, man, I live on the second floor, so I know you don't live there.”