When I Was the Greatest (3 page)

Most of our neighborhood accepted Needles for who he was. No judgment. I mean, it's New York. A man walking down the street dressed like Cinderella? That's nothing. A woman with a tattoo of a pistol on her face? Who cares. So what's the big deal about a syndrome? Whatever. It's in our blood to get over it, especially when you're one of our own, and by that I mean, when you live on our block.

Noodles was the only person always tripping about Needles. Despite the head swipes, Noodles was super-protective over his brother, and paranoid that people were laughing at him. He would always be shouting at somebody, or giving dirty looks to anyone he thought might be even
thinking about cracking a joke about Needles. It was like he lived by some weird rule, that only he could treat Needles bad, no one else.

But nobody was ever really laughing at Needles. There was never a reason to. Needles did sweet things that were normal, just not always normal around here. He would help old ladies get their bags up the steps, ticking and accidentally cussing the whole way, calling them all kinds of names, but they didn't care because everybody had gotten used to it. They knew he couldn't help it, and that he was fine. Some of them would even give him a few dollars for his help.

But there were these times when Needles would sort of spaz out, but not like Noodles, who would just trip over any little thing. Needles's was more like mini meltdowns. It was like a weird part of the syndrome where every now and then his brain would tell him to have an outburst, but it wouldn't tell him to stop. So he would just go wild, cussing and screaming, over and over again, rapid-fire style. And even though folks around here was cool with Needles, the freak-outs were the only times people really looked at him like he was, well, crazy. I can't lie, the first time it happened, even I was shook up watching Noodles basically drag Needles into the house, giving a middle finger to all of us looking at his shouting brother like he was some kind of animal.

About a year ago Needles had one of these fits—a bad one. It was a Sunday, and my mother was by the window and heard a bunch of commotion coming from outside. She looked out and there Needles was, sitting on the stoop next
door, going off like nobody's business! I mean, he was really going for it, calling out all kinds of “screwfaces” and “ass-mouths” and whatnot. By this point I'd seen him lose control tons of times, but it had never been as bad as it was that day. The worst part about it is there was a crowd of people gathered there, just listening and staring. Some were even laughing under their breath, and this time Noodles wasn't around to shut it down.

My mother was pissed. I mean, really mad. I ran behind her as she stormed downstairs, and let me tell you, when that door flung open, those people met the worst side of Doris Brooks. She ran toward the crowd like she was getting ready to start swinging on folks, and people started walking away pretty quickly. I laughed a little bit, only because I was used to my mother being pretty scary, especially when she feels like someone is being treated wrong. After all the people left, she walked over to Needles, who was still shouting random stuff. She gave him a hug. He told her thank-you in his soft voice, and explained that he was locked out of the house. He was crying.

My mother figured that she might know something that could help him. She's no doctor, but she is a mother and that means something. Plus, it's pretty much her job as a case worker to know stuff about different kinds of syndromes and stuff like that. She told Needles to stay right there, and told me to wait with him while she ran back upstairs. I wasn't so cool with that, only because he was really buggin', but I knew I'd better do it before Doris got busy on me. Besides, he
was my friend, so I stayed, even though I did wonder where Noodles was and why he left Needles out there like that.

When she came back, she had one of those black plastic bags you get from the bodega. I thought to myself, I know she ain't bring this boy a leftover hero and some chips. And I was right. She didn't. She brought him something even more crazy—a ball of yarn and some knitting needles. What in the world? I tried to ask what she was planning to do with those, but she shushed me before I could get it out.

“You ever seen this, Ricky?” she asked, holding up the ball of yarn with the long silver needles jammed through it.

“Yes, ma'am,” he said, embarrassed.

“Do you know what to do with it?” she asked. I thought to myself, of course he doesn't. I don't even know what to do with it.

“Uh, not really. I saw an old lady on the train doing something with yarn and those things, but I don't know what,” he said, shy.

Then he blurted out. I couldn't really make out what he said. My mother didn't even flinch. She gave me a look. The look.

“Okay, well, let me show you. I think it'll help. Is that okay?” she asked. She wasn't speaking to him in any sort of “slow” way. Just talking pretty regular but being sure to ask a bunch of questions. It didn't seem like a good idea to try to force him to do anything in this particular situation.

He shook his head and worked to get out a soft “Yes.”

So my mother took the yarn, which was purple, and the
two knitting needles, and started to show Needles how to knit. Knit! Like somebody's grandma! Now, I didn't even know my mother knew how to knit. She never knitted nothing for me and Jazz. I didn't even know where the yarn came from. Turns out, it was something that she had learned a long time ago from her mom, and she was planning to teach Jazz how to do it, sort of as a passing-down-of-traditions type of thing, but she never had time to, with all the jobs.

“Okay, first you have to hold the needles,” she said, “like this.” She held the two needles in her hands the way my little sister used to hold her fork and knife when she was really hungry as a toddler. Like a caveman. “Got it?” she asked Needles, who had gotten real quiet—just twitching a little.

He looked at her hands for a few seconds, then positioned his hands just like hers, except he wasn't holding any needles yet. He looked up at my mother to make sure he was doing it right.

“Like this?” he asked.

“Yep. Just like that, Ricky. Very good,” my mom said, smiling. By now my butt was hurting, so I stood up. I knew I couldn't go home because my mother would have had a fit, so I just leaned on the shiny new door and kept watching.

“Now, this part is tricky, but you can handle it. It's called casting on.” My mother took the ball of yarn and tied a knot on one end. She slipped it on one of the needles. Then she started looping yarn around the needle until the whole thing was covered. Seemed pretty easy to me.

Needles leaned in, closer, staring. It's funny how some
people's eyes talk more than their mouth does. Needles is one of those people. His eyes say all kinds of stuff.

“Did you see what I did?”

“Yeah, I saw it,” he said.

“You sure?”

He smiled. “Yep.” His voice was still soft, but now it had a little happy in it. He nodded.

“Okay. Now watch closely, Ricky. I'm gonna make a stitch.” She took the needles and did something that I can't really describe because of where I was standing. All I know is, it made a stitch.

“And here's another one,” she said, repeating what she had just done. Now there were two stitches. I acted like I didn't want to know nothing about knitting, but honestly, it looked kind of cool. Like, at first it was just yarn, but now it was turning into something else.

“See?” she said to Needles while making another stitch. And another one. And another one.

Needles's eyes were following along. He nodded and moved his hands as if he were the one holding the needles. I couldn't tell if he was getting it or not, but he kept saying he was. I wasn't—it looked pretty tricky. Not to mention, judging from the size of those stitches, it would take Needles the rest of his life just to make a sweater.

Needles shouted out again, “Shit breath!” while slowly moving his hand toward my mom. I perked up a little just to make sure he wasn't about to try no wild stuff, because even though I ain't no bad dude, I know enough about throwing
a punch to put him in check. I mean, he was my boy, but I had never seen him this out of control before. But my mother stayed calm. He moved his hands until they were on top of hers. Then he slowly wrapped his fingers around the needles, and my mother released her hands. Next thing I knew, Needles was holding the needles.

My mother smiled. “Go ahead, Ricky.”

He started to move his hands around, almost as if he was trying to recall the movements my mother had been making with her hands before he took the needles. Then, like it was nothing, my man Needles started knitting up a storm.

His eyes were so big, like he couldn't even believe what he was doing, but he was doing it. You know when you have to smile but you don't want nobody to see you smile, but it almost hurts to hold it in, so it comes out like a weird smirk? Needles did that weird smirk.

I just stood there with my mouth wide open. I couldn't believe he figured it out, just like that.

I looked at my mother.

“What?” she said. “Oh, let me guess, you want me to show you how to knit now too?”

“Who, me? Naw, I'm good. That's all Ricky. I ain't trying to be looking like nobody's granny out here,” I shot back. She knew I was just playing tough, though.

“Uh-huh. Okay, Al. You bad,” she teased. She stood up and brushed the cement dust off her butt. “Aight, I'm headed in.”

“Me too,” I said quickly. I knew that wasn't really cool of
me, but I was kind of nervous to just be sitting out there with Needles without Noodles being around. Not that day. “Later, Ricky,” I said, walking over to the next stoop, which was mine.

• • •

When me and Doris got upstairs to our apartment, Jazz was sitting in the window drinking a glass of iced tea and working on her scrapbook, which was one of her favorite things to do. She started scrapbooking when my mother found all these old pictures of her and my father and me and Jazz from back in the day. My mom decided to get an old photo album to store them all in, and put Jazz in charge of doing it. But Jazz, being Jazz, decided to do her own thing and started cutting the pictures up, taking John, my father, from one, Doris from another, and maybe her and I from a different one. Then she'd cut out a page from a magazine, maybe of a beach, or somewhere overseas like Paris, and glue the cutouts of us to the picture. Like a bootleg, imaginary, family vacation photo. It was kinda cool. When Doris first saw what she had been doing with the photos, she was pissed that Jazz was cutting up the pictures. But then as she looked more, seeing us in random places we had never been, like Africa, she laughed and thought it was pretty cute. But soon the sight of seeing us all together like that, her with my dad, page after page, turned Doris's laughter into tears.

“Sorry,” Jazz said, staring at what she thought was something nice.

“No, baby,” my mom replied, smiling despite her wet face.
“It's fine. I love it.” It was obviously a soft spot for Doris, and after that, she never really looked at Jazz's scrapbook again.

Jazz had been cutting and glueing, looking down on the whole thing, and was now watching Needles knit his heart out.

“What were you teaching Ricky how to knit for?” she asked as soon as we walked in. She put her glue stick down, turned the glass up to her face, and shook a piece of ice into her mouth.

My mother walked over to the sink and washed her hands while looking out the window at Needles, still going.

“Because it might help him. If he focuses on knitting, he might not have so many outbursts.”

“Yeah, he might not say stuff like, Jazz is a cornball,” I teased, looking over her shoulder at what she was working on. Us in Las Vegas.

“Ali,” my mother said warningly. Jazz looked at me, crunched on the ice in her mouth, and smiled, because she knew she had won without even saying anything back. But I really wasn't trying to beat her.

“Jazz, it's like when you used to have a loose tooth, ready to come out. And I always had your brother come and pinch your arm. You'd be so concerned about Al pinching your arm that you would forget all about the fact that I was pulling a tooth out your mouth. And before you knew it, it was over.”

“And I got a dollar,” Jazz bragged. “From you, the fake tooth fairy.”

I laughed and shook my head.

“The point is, Ricky will be so focused on what he's doing with his hands, that he won't worry about anything happening with his mouth. Understand?”

“Yep. I think I get it,” Jazz said, turning to look out the window again. “Look at him down there, knitting. I can't even believe it.” Then it hit her. “You know what I'm gonna start calling him? Needles. Yeah, Noodles and Needles”—she paused—“I like that.”

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