Who Am I Without Him? (6 page)

She told him that her dad would pick him up. E said he'd take the bus over. It was weird, showing up at her place. All the houses in that neighborhood were the same inside, so he knew where every room in her house was without even asking.

“You seem like a nice boy,” Ona's mother said, handing him a plate piled with liver and fried onions, a baked potato, and asparagus spears.

Her dad stared at him. Said he looked familiar. “Ever been around here before?” he asked, playing with his gold pinky ring with a black diamond chip on it.

“No, sir. I ain't never been around here,” E said.

Ona's mom corrected his English. Her dad frowned and asked E to take his elbows off the table.

Ona was so embarrassed. Her father was mean to E. He didn't like boys calling her or coming to their house. And he especially didn't like boys from Death Row. “When boys from that part of town are born, they don't give 'em a birth certificate,” he told her once. “They tattoo a prison number on their butts.”

Ona wanted to scream when he'd said that. To tell him that E wasn't like that. But she saw the clothes. Heard kids say he was selling weed. Wondered what he was up to.

E knew before he left that Ona's father wouldn't let him take her to the dance. He tried to be nice. To look up from his plate when they spoke to him, but he couldn't after a while. And even though he had on new sneakers and an outfit that cost almost a hundred and fifty bucks, he felt like a bum. Ona's father made sure of that.

“Man, you went all outta your way for that chick, and her dad treated you like that?” Noodles said, soon as E got back home.

E tried to play it off. But Noodles kept saying that E had to get Ona's dad back for disrespecting him.

“It don't matter,” E said, taking off his jacket. Sweating from the heat.

“Yes it
do
matter,” Noodles said, throwing punches in the air. “It matters anytime somebody treats you less than what you is.”

E's mouth tasted sour. He opened the window and spit. The wind and snow flurries turned his face as cold and hard as the ice on the window ledge.

“Man, do something,” he said. “Don't be no punk.”

E told Noodles to go home.

“Don't worry. I'll fix her dad for you, and jack her up too,” Noodles said.

E's fist slammed into Noodle's chest, shoulder, and right cheek. Noodles ducked and swung. E's mother broke up the fight. The next day, Noodles was at E's house, looking for something to eat— like usual.

Ona tried to tell him nicely. But there's no way to tell a boy three days before the second-biggest dance of the year that you can't go with him. So ultimately she just came right out with it. She didn't look E in the eyes, though. She stared down at a piece of paper on the hallway floor. Grabbed his hand and said that maybe she could meet him there anyhow. “My father doesn't have to know,” she said, finally looking into his eyes.

E's mother didn't ask any questions. She was glad to have the heat, new clothes for the little ones, and some extra change in her pocket. She was
glad
to ask the neighbors to come over and see how good E looked in a suit. “People go to these kinds of dances on a bus?” she asked when he headed out the door. “You sure?”

E didn't care if he had to walk. He was going to the dance. Going with Ona. Dressed up in new fancy clothes for the first time since his sixth-grade graduation.

When he stepped on the bus, he smiled. He could see people staring. Whispering. Noticing the boy in the sharp suit, carrying his coat on his arm. “People gonna see what I got on,” he told his mother when she said he'd better wear that coat. “Even if I freeze, they gonna get a good look at me.”

When he got to the school, people clapped. They whistled. They came up to him and touched his clothes and eyed his rings and asked if his mother hit the lottery. It felt good, being popular. Having girls wink and smile and press close to you, just because, E thought.

“No, I don't wanna dance,” he said to Maria. “I'm looking for Ona. You see her?”

Maria waved her little finger for him to come closer. “She can't come,” she said, blowing in his ear. “They got robbed.” She told him that Ona's bedroom got trashed the worst. “Cuss words were smeared on her walls in black Magic Marker.

Her clothes were cut up and her stuffed animals were shoved in the toilet.”

E looked up just when Noodles walked in the room in a powder-blue sweater, black pants, matching black gator shoes, and a gold pinky ring with a black-chip diamond in the middle.

E ran over to him. “What you think you doing, man?”

Noodles smiled. “I told you. Don't be disrespecting me,” he said, rubbing the ring and walking away. Then, turning back around and leaning against the wall, Noodles talked. His words jumped high over the loud music, then snuck down low when the sax, the drums, and the singing smoothed out, and then disappeared till the next CD took over. “It was nice being there all by myself. Kicking it with her dad's gin and brew and her mother's fancy wineglasses.”

E shook his head. Noodles kept talking.

“I smashed the grandfather clock first. Pow!” he said, closing one eye and firing an invisible gun.

E felt sick.

“Glass flies like tiny airplanes, you know?” Noodles looked at the ceiling like he could see planes overhead. “I mean, that stuff was in the yard, the kitchen, the family room—everywhere!”

E blinked and rubbed his eyes like he was seeing somebody else standing in front of him, not Noodles.

“Then I took my boots and spread peanut butter on the bottoms and walked on that dude's white rugs, and his white couch, and his pretty white bedspreads. That one was for you,” Noodles said.

E hated Ona's dad, but he clocked Noodles in the chest anyhow. It was dark and the teachers were busy complimenting kids on their clothes and talking to each other, so they didn't notice.

Noodles always could take a hit, so he kept talking. Telling E how he poured hot syrup on Ona's bedroom furniture and jerked her curtains off the rods and stuffed 'em into sinks that he filled up with water.

E watched the girls in their low-cut gowns laugh and shake and smile. “Ona,” he said.

“Man, forget her,” Noodles told him. “She home pulling glass out her bed and washing pee off the walls.”

E wanted a knife or a gun.
I should cut him
, he thought.
Or shoot him right in his big mouth.

Noodles knew when to stay clear of E, so he took off. He ran over to a girl and pulled her onto the dance floor even though she didn't wanna go.

“It won't matter,” E said.
Ona's never gonna be mine nohow
, he thought. So he left Noodles alone.

When the police showed up, Noodles started running before the cops even said who they were looking for. They bent his arms way behind his back and elbowed him when he spit and cussed at them.

E didn't move. He sipped sparkling pink punch. Broke open a piece of chocolate and sucked the cherry out. He listened for Noodles to yell his name. He didn't even give the police a hard time when they came for him.

“I told you, don't be disrespecting me. Not for no stinking girl,” Noodles said to E. Then he laughed.

E didn't ask the cop why he was hauling him off to jail. And he didn't say one word to Noodles on the long ride, either. He closed his eyes and imagined himself and Ona dancing—holding tight to each other. Ignoring all those people who wondered what she ever saw in him.

“I LIKE WHITE BOYS,” I tell my friend Winter when she sits down in the seat next to me.

“Who doesn't know that?” she says, rolling her eyes, then sticking two fingers in her mouth and pretending to throw up.

I slide my chair closer to hers. “I especially like Johnny,” I say, looking over at him.

Winter pats her own cheeks. “I only like boys that look like me. Brown. Black. Sweet as cho-co-lat.”

I ignore Winter and take another long look at Johnny, leaning on the wall, holding hands with his girlfriend, Wendy. Wendy's got strawberry-blond hair, blue eyes, and a big chest. Boys at this school like girls like that. And there are more Wendys here than girls like me and Winter.

“He's so cute,” I say, closing my eyes and pretending it's me he's holding.

Winter pokes me in the side with her elbow. “Forget it. You ain't his type.”

I get on Winter's case about the way she speaks. “Don't say
ain't
.”

“
Ain't
ain't a bad word,” Winter says. “Anyhow, that's how we talk in the ghetto. Right?”

Me and Winter both come from the other side of town.
Ghetto girls
, the kids around here call us sometimes behind our backs. They know we don't really belong. That we're on scholarship at this private school, just like most of the other black and Hispanic kids that go here.

I lower my voice so Johnny can't hear when he takes his seat next to me. “I'm just saying. You know how to speak
good
English.”

Winter shakes her head and tells me that “
Black
English” is
good
English. “But maybe it ain't good enough for a girl like you. A black girl who only likes white boys.”

I don't get mad when she says that, because it's true. Ever since I was five, I've liked boys that look like Johnny better than the ones that look like me. I never told anyone, though—until I met Winter.

I didn't tell her either, not exactly. She figured it out. Said all she ever heard me say is how cute the blue-eyed boys were. Or the ones with blond hair and extra-white skin. “What about the brothers?” she asked.

“What about 'em?” I said. Then I told her that when I was little I'd kiss the blond-haired boys right on the lips when they came on TV. Winter talked bad about me after that. But she never stopped being my friend.

Winter points to Johnny. “How can you like him?” she says louder than she should. “He's got donkey ears.” She frowns. “Skin like rice paper. And eyes that turn red as blood when you take pictures of 'em.” She reaches around me and taps him on the shoulder. “Hey, Vampire Boy. You. . . .You!” she says, snapping her fingers like he's a waiter taking too long to bring her food.

Johnny opens his mouth to say something to her, then shakes his head.

“You do your homework?” he asks me.

My smile is extra big. “Yeah. You?”

“Most of it,” he says. Then Wendy asks him something, and it's like he was never talking to me in the first place.

When Mr. G walks into the room, he points to me, Johnny, and Winter, and says we're in group one. He wants the class to come up with a new ending for the story we've been reading for a month. “Come up with something creative. Unique,” he says.

I sit as close as I can to Johnny. I check out his long platinum hair and sea-green eyes. I think about us being married one day, and having real pretty babies.

“High-yella babies, that's what I want,” I told Winter once.

She looked at my arms and face, which are exactly the same color as hers: raisin-black without the wrinkles. “High yella's fine, but this is better,” she said, rubbing her arm.

I didn't tell her, but I want my babies to be pretty. To have hair you don't have to relax, and skin that burns in the sun. All of my cousins are like that. Then there's me and my sister—Cocoa Puffs— that's what kids in the family call us when the grown-ups aren't around. I don't like that.

Winter pulls out a pen and pencil and tells Johnny to move his chair outta her way. “I'm in charge,” she says, taking over our group.

Johnny ignores her, then hands me a note to give to a girl who will give it to Wendy.

“See?” Winter says. “He's not thinking about you.” She turns to him and snaps her fingers. “You want to be in this group, or what?”

“Be nice,” I whisper. Then I move my chair closer to his.

For the rest of the period, Winter sticks it to Johnny. She shuts him down when he tries to talk. She suggests that a black girl should steal the boy in our story from his white girlfriend, then waits for Johnny to say something different. He keeps quiet. Then Winter asks him what kind of girls he likes. His cheeks turn pink, and he starts picking at his ears. “I don't know. Somebody pretty, I guess. With hair down to here,” he says, poking his ribs. My fingers go to the short tight curls on my head. They don't even reach down to my eyebrows. Winter likes to make people squirm. “You know anything about black girls, Johnny?” “What?” he says, looking back at Wendy. Winter won't leave him be. “You ever date one?

A black girl, I mean. Ever had one in your house?” I ask Winter if she ever had a white person over to her house.

“Yep,” she says. “The mailman. The insurance man. The police.”

I keep quiet and wonder why I even hang with her. But I know why. The other black kids can't stand me.

Mr. G yells over the first bell. “Five more minutes. Wrap it up, people.”

Johnny finally answers Winter's question. “No. I never dated a black girl.”

Winter goes into her purse, then smears a little grease on her ashy knees. “Ever have one in your house?”

He pulls at the long white strands on his arm. “Ever have what in my house?”

“A black girl. One of us,” she says, pointing from me to her.

He raises his hand. “Mr. G, when did you say we had to be finished?”

“In three, two, one. Pencils down.”

Johnny looks like he's glad class is over, even if we're gonna get in trouble for not completing the assignment. But when Winter tells Mr. G we didn't get that far, he cuts us a break. Says we can hand it in by the end of the day.

“Guess we have to lunch together,” Winter says, packing up to leave.

Johnny looks sick when he hears that. “Not me,” he says, reaching for Wendy's hand and walking out the door.

Winter and I go sit at the table at the back of the lunchroom where most of the black ninth-graders sit. When kids wanna be smart, they call it Little Africa. That's why I hardly ever sit there. That's one reason why the black and Hispanic kids call me a snob. But it's the third Friday of the month, the day Winter gets her way and we sit where she wants. So here I am.

“Melvin, you know you need your hair braided. I can start it now, finish up later,” Winter says, sitting down.

Melvin digs in his back pocket for a comb. “Er'ka. Wanna help?” he says, talking to me.

“My name isn't Er'ka,” I yell. “It's Erika. E-r-i-k-a,” I say, thinking about how much I hate the way black boys say my name.

Winter laughs.

Melvin puts away the comb. “It's Erika. So say it the right way—the
white
way,” he says, looking me up and down. He sucks his front teeth with his tongue like he's trying to get stuck food out. “You looking for the white kids? They're over there,” he says, pointing around the cafeteria.

Winter tells him to chill. I complain about her agreeing to do his hair. She says I shoulda known they wouldn't comb hair in the cafeteria. “At least not in
this
school.”

In a few minutes our table is full of kids. All black. All loud. Louder than anyone else in the lunchroom. I am so embarrassed. All the other kids are looking over their shoulders. Rolling their eyes. Wondering, I bet, why we can't act right.
Act white
, I hear Melvin's voice say in my head.

I grab Winter's lunch bag and head for another table. “Let's go,” I say.

Melvin asks her why she puts up with me. “'Cause you're her only friend, you know.” His lips curl and his words shrink like cheap bacon. “Only
black
one, anyhow.”

Winter and I spend the rest of our lunch period working on the paper. When lunch is almost over, in walks Johnny. Winter makes sure he knows his name's not going on it now. It takes ten minutes for me to make them stop fighting. It's not Johnny's fault, though. The only reason Winter is so hard on him is because she knows how much I like him.

“Chet Richards likes you. And he's our color,” she's said to me before. But do I only get to like boys that look like me? Or can I be like girls who look like Wendy, and get to pick any boy I want?

Johnny's tired of Winter, I guess. “Forget it,” he says to her. “Don't put my name on the paper. I don't care.”

I hand the paper to Johnny and let him read it.

Winter leans over the table and starts poking it. “I think the black girl in the story should be different.”

Johnny moves his lips while he reads. “She's all right.”

Winter looks at me. “See, I told you we need to spice her up.” Her eyes turn Johnny's way. “For that girl to take Joey away from his girlfriend, she can't just be all right. She's gotta be slamming.”

I finger my short, hard curls and wonder what it would be like to kiss Johnny on his tiny, pink lips. Right then, Melvin walks up to our table. He looks at me, then Johnny. “Got yourself a black girl, huh, Johnny?”

I roll my eyes. Johnny turns red. Winter laughs.

“Er'ka and you go together now?” he asks.

“Erika!” I say.

Johnny tells Melvin to mind his own business.

Melvin laughs, then tells Johnny that he should dump Wendy. “'Cause with Er'ka, you get two for one. A black girl on the outside, and a Wendy-white girl on the inside.” He walks away.

When I stand up, seventeen Oreo cookies come after me like flat black-and-white hockey pucks. Bouncing off my tailbone. Knocking into the side of my head and smacking my shoulder and cheeks. Winter ducks, but gets hit upside the head anyhow.

“Cut it out!” Johnny shouts.

“Cut it out!” a kid at the table repeats.

Johnny asks me why they act like that.

“Like what?” Winter says, brushing crumbs out my hair.

“Forget it,” he says, brushing off his shirt, then walking out the room when more kids from table nine head our way.

“That's the way the cookie crumbles,” I hear one of 'em say when they pass by.

Winter speaks up then. Says she's gonna jack up the person who hit her with the cookie. The kids keep quiet and keep moving, because nobody messes with Winter. She is almost six feet tall, runs track, and fights like a boy. In sixth grade she beat the mess out of Gerald Manson for trying to touch her butt. In seventh grade she beat me up. She came up to me after school with her fist tight and her mouth running, and punched me in the face for telling the teacher she was cheating off my paper. I never told that she hit me, so she didn't get suspended like she should have. But the English teacher gave her an E for cheating and made her come to me for tutoring. “Since you think Erika is so smart, let's have her tutor you three days a week after school,” she said. That's how we became friends. How I started telling her things I don't tell anybody else.

At the end of sixth period, Johnny comes up to me and says maybe he and I could finish the paper during study hall. I have him all to myself for a few minutes. But it's all over when Wendy walks over to him and says, “Let's go.”

Johnny clears his throat when he tells her that he and I have to go finish up this paper. Wendy says something in his ear. Johnny looks down at his feet when he tells me he'll meet me in study hall. But before I take ten good steps, he's saying for me to just write what I want and put his name on it. Wendy's got him over by the lockers now. Grinning in his face. Playing with the keys bunched in his back pocket.

I don't like it, but I head for study hall all by myself. The place is packed, so I end up with a seat right next to Chet Richards, the boy Winter thinks is perfect for me. I smile at him, because he's smiling at me, not because I like him or anything.

Finally, I sit down and write.
“I like you,”
the white boy says to the black girl in my story.
“I like your big brown lips and the stuff you do with your hair.”

Chet Richards interrupts me. “Hey, Erika?”

I don't even look his way. “Hi.”

He keeps talking. Asking me about homework. Telling me about a new movie that's out. Making it hard for me to concentrate. I tell him that, too.

“You know I like you too,”
the black girl tells the white boy on paper.

Chet drops his pen.

“Here!” I hand it to him.

“Thanks,” he says, asking me if I'm going to the school carnival next week. Most kids go in couples.

I stare at him awhile so he knows not to say one more word to me. That's when I notice the way he looks at me. Dreamy-eyed. Kinda like I look at Johnny. “No,” I say. “I'm not going.”

Chet is a nice-looking boy. Long brown locs, medium-build with a beginner's mustache. But he's not my type. And ten minutes later he's at it again. Telling me how pretty my hair looks. My fingers roll over my curls. I want to tell him my hair is not like Wendy's or long like Johnny likes, but “Thanks,” comes out instead.

After study hall, I head for my locker. The other black kids bump into me every chance they get. That's 'cause Winter isn't around. By the time I get to my locker, my arms hurt. But I don't care, 'cause soon as I get there, I see Johnny. He's by himself. And for twenty whole minutes he talks to me. Puts his name on the paper and even tells me to call him tonight if Winter tries to take it off.