A Star is Born (6 page)

S
unday night, and the whole world fell apart. I was watching
Night of the Dancing Zombies
in HD on the television and the same movie on my netbook in Korean. They came on at the same time but the television version was ahead of the netbook version and I was trying to warn the dudes on netbook what was about to go down. It was like I could see into the future (about six seconds into the future) and come almost close to ruling the world. Then Mrs. Jones called and told Mom that Mr. Lord was on television bad-mouthing Da Vinci. Mom switched channels (without saying anything to me, which she would have been pissed if I had done!) and I saw Lord running his mouth as usual.

“If they are supposed to be specially gifted, what are they doing for the community with their alleged gifts?” He was about an inch away from the camera. “I don't see anything that they are accomplishing!”

Then there was a cut to the time we were all in Mrs. Maxwell's office and I saw the Cruisers standing there. On-screen my head looked like a giant cantaloupe with braids. The only voice that was heard on the tape was Mr. Lord's, and he looked like he was getting madder every moment.

As soon as the news clip ended the telephone started ringing. Jody called, Kambui got on the horn, Kelly Bena, LaShonda, and then Mrs. Maxwell.

“I spoke to a reporter this afternoon but I wouldn't allow myself to be photographed,” she said in that cool, calm voice she has. “I told them that one thing we had in mind to do for the community would be to present a play in the school auditorium. I did mention an evening performance a week from this coming Thursday. I hope that sits well with the Cruisers.”

Yo! She called us the Cruisers. That sat well with me already. It meant we were getting props from our main lady. But then I thought about what play she was talking about and I knew it was
Act Six
and I wondered if LaShonda was going to go for it. She had done the costumes and I wanted them to be used in the play really bad. In the first place I looked good in mine, and in the second place I wanted LaShonda to get over it. She was really an angel and she needed to get her glow on despite what bad things came her way. I believed that. Truly. Mom and me had been living it even though we weren't always talking it. We were always going for the glow and hoping for the best.

“I can't speak for all of the Cruisers tonight,” I said to Mrs. Maxwell, “but I'm going for it big-time and I think they will, too.”

I called Bobbi and told her what the deal was.

“I'll set up a conference call and we can discuss it,” she said.

“Are you down for it?” I asked.

“If we put on the play for the community we might get some television coverage,” Bobbi said. “If we get television coverage then we blow ourselves up and our argument gets louder. If it gets loud enough, maybe somebody will actually listen to us when we talk about LaShonda's situation and anything else we need to say.”

“You thought of all that just now?”

“Yeah, what were you thinking?”

“How can you think that fast?”

“I'm a girl, we think faster than boys!”

“Whatever.”

Bobbi set up the conference call and Kambui was down with putting on the play. LaShonda wasn't sure.

“I think I just want to lie low for a minute,” she said. “Maybe go back to just being plain old LaShonda.”

“You've got talent, girl,” Bobbi said. “You can't walk away from that. It's going to stay with you, and you're either going to work it or it's going to eat at you until it messes you up.”

“The Cruisers are behind me?” LaShonda asked.

“I'm here,” Kambui said.

“I'm with you, girlfriend,” Bobbi said.

“I'll lay it all down for you, LaShonda,” I said. “For you and for your brother. Whatever it takes, I got your back.”

“Okay,” LaShonda said. “Let's do it.”

After we hung up I put on the tube and stared at some reality jam. Only it wasn't really reality because it wasn't touching anything that I was feeling. I was happy and proud that the Cruisers showed strong for LaShonda, but I wasn't sure of myself. In the movies when a crew got together the background music started to play and they all got these cool looks on their faces and everything worked out fine. We were all still hoping things were going to work out and I was a little scared. Okay, a lot scared.

Also, how come Bobbi had got on top of things so fast? She had thought it out before I could even spit it out. I didn't know if girls could really think faster than boys, but that girl sure smoked me!

 

Okay. Woke up on a Tuesday morning and everything looked fine. My room was still rectangular, the windows were still in the same place, and there were still cars double-parked in the street below.

When I got out to the kitchen Mom was at the table pushing a piece of lemon around her teacup with the spoon.

“Why are you doing that?” I asked.

“Just thinking about what your father was saying the other day.” Mom sounded moany. “I wonder if he thinks I'm a lousy parent?”

“What do you care?” I asked. “I think you're okay.”

“You're just in love with my mac and cheese,” she said.

“So today we're going to be doing the duck dish, right?” I said. “I even got Bobbi coming over to help and she's not into cooking.”

“I hope it turns out all right,” Mom said. “They said it was easy on the website.”

Mom was sweating making a fancy dish with me. It was funny in a way and not funny at the same time. She was an adult and we had been doing okay most of the time, but here she was getting all nervous about making dinner.

I checked out my teeth and rinsed. Then I washed my face and checked out how big my head looked in the mirror. It was kind of big but not as big as it looked on television.

“You're going to come straight from school, right?” Mom at the door.

“Yeah. Hey, do you think I've got a big head?”

“It's kind of big,” Mom said, turning my face toward her. “But you're good-looking, so it's okay. Good-looking covers up a lot of stuff.”

“When do you think people will stop having problems?”

“You mean when will there be world peace and the end of poverty?” Mom asked.

“No, like, when do you stop worrying about how you're doing?” I said. “You said looking good covers up a lot of stuff, and you look great, but …”

“Some things you always worry about, I think,” Mom said. “When I was young my mother used to dress me so I would look frumpy and the boys wouldn't notice me. She was always worried that some boy would take advantage of me. She still worries about it because people are people and they do what they want to do. And sometimes — well, you know….”

“What?”

“They do what they need to do instead of what they should be doing,” Mom said. “You've got things going on in your head that you know are right but you don't always follow those things. Sometimes you just do what makes you comfortable.”

“Like making this duck thing?”

“It'll be cool if it turns out great, won't it?”

“And when Dad calls and says what are you doing we can say we were making a duck castle, or whatever.”

“Cassoulet. Cass-oo-lay! It's French.”

“It's a French duck?”

“It's a French recipe.”

“Okay, we'll do it.”

 

“So the point of the whole thing is that Mom is worried because my father's putting her down because we aren't running around living the high life,” I said to Kambui. “So we're going to make this fancy French dish just so she can tell him about it.”

“Yeah, but that's, like, a girl thing, right?” Kambui was texting as we walked.

“I think it's more a fancy thing than a girl thing,” I said. “Anyway, Mom said that most of the top cooks in the world are guys. Maybe I'll turn out to be some great cook or something. I'll go along with it for her.”

“That's okay, man,” Kambui said. “And if it turns out really good you can cook something for me. But I don't eat ducks.”

 

“Zander, are you free for lunch?” This from Caren Culpepper when I was sitting in the media center.

“Why?” This from me.

“I need to talk to you about something,” Caren said. “I just need to get some things clear in my head.”

“What things?”

“I'll meet you in the lunchroom in front of the popcorn machine,” she said. “Twelve-thirty.”

Caren started walking away and I was just telling myself that there was no way I was going to have lunch with her when Phat Tony from the Genius Gangstas came and plopped his overweight butt next to me.

“Hey, man, the people are talking that
The Cruiser
newspaper is lame compared to
The Palette
. You see the story they got this week?”

Phat Tony pushed
The Palette
in front of me. There was a picture of a woman soldier on the front page.

“They got an interview with her,” Phat Tony said. “She killed two dudes over there and she just volunteered to go back again. Your little jive newspaper ain't got nothing like that, man. That's a collector's edition. All you got in your newspaper is whining and poems and stuff. You got a lame newspaper.”

I knew, sooner or later, that I was going to have to go to war with Phat Tony. The dude just got on my nerves. I picked up the copy of
The Palette
he had pushed before me and turned to the article by the soldier. She wrote about how she wanted to defend her country and how her parents were nervous about her being in a combat zone and how she had been caught in an ambush and had to fire her weapon. What she said was she might have killed somebody, and maybe even two people. She said she wasn't happy with the idea but she had to do what she had to do. It was a strong piece, especially with the photograph.

I didn't have anything to say to Phat Tony because he wouldn't have understood it, anyway. The fool had a high IQ but I knew that didn't make him smart in any kind of useful way. He had stink breath, too.

THE CRUISER

A SPECIAL EDITORIAL

THE SAME STORY, A DIFFERENT VIEW

By Sagal Shehabi

B
y lunchtime I was feeling low. Nothing was really breaking me down, but nothing was looking too cool, either. I was drifting off into Self-Pity City when Caren Culpepper and Zhade Hopkins came to where I was sitting. Zhade sat next to me (she was actually touching me!). I was surprised because I had forgotten that Caren had asked me to meet her.

“What's up?” Me, being lame.

“Caren said that you won't go out with her because you don't like her father and everybody's saying that if the Cruisers are so cool why are you putting down people's families?”

“What?”

“You didn't hear me?” Zhade asked.

“Yeah, I heard you.” I looked over to where Caren was staring dead at me with her head to one side like she was daring me to say the wrong thing. “We weren't even talking about going out.”

“So, you going to go out with me or
what
?” Caren asked.

“You want to go out?” I asked.

“She's here, isn't she?” Zhade said, looking at me all serious. “Or are you too macho to have a girl ask you out?”

I felt like I was between the devil and the deep blue sea. On one hand I didn't want to go out with Caren again because the last time I went out with her she put it out that I was sweating her big-time, which was a lie. On the other hand, what was Zhade's play? I wasn't sure if I was setting up a date with Caren or her. At any rate, I said I'd go out with Caren, hoping that it was going to lead to a date with Zhade.

“Friday,” Caren said. “The day after you guys put on the play.”

She was already standing up, and I looked at Zhade and she was standing, and she had this really satisfied look on her face.

“Zander, you're a good dude,” she said.

Then they were gone.

I saw Kambui in Biology and told him what happened.

“The same thing happened to a paramecium I was raising,” Kambui said. “Two lady paramecia got him in the locker room and sexually molested him.”

“Yo, Kambui, that is so seriously stupid I don't know how you can get it into your mouth to spit it out.”

“I ain't going out with the assistant principal's daughter,” Kambui said. “You are.”

I got home and Mom was shopping on the Home and Garden Network. In between her buying everything I told her what happened.

“Zhade was bringing in stuff about me being macho and getting up in my face like it was her that I was going out with or something. I was really confused.”

“Both of them like you,” Mom said. “They're just going about letting you know in different ways.”

“Neither one of them said anything about liking me,” I said.

“They didn't have to,” Mom answered. “You're easy. Hey, there's nothing wrong with that, because you're a guy. But, baby, you are easy. Right?”

“No!”

THE CRUISER

A LETTER

By Demetrius Brown

THE PALETTE

 

A Reply to Demetrius Brown
By Ashley Schmidt

I have read the letter that Demetrius Brown published in
The Cruiser
, and while I sympathize with Tyree, he was
caught
stealing and stealing is
wrong
! I am sorry that he stole, but I can't bring my heart to feel for him. It is not that I am unfeeling, Demetrius, it is because I know the difference between right and wrong!

THE CRUISER, SPECIAL EDITION

A REPLY TO ASHLEY SCHMIDT

By Zander Scott