At the Crossroads (6 page)

“Yeah, he’s a handful,” Nigel said as he followed Stick to the back porch of the house.

Stick walked over to an old freezer and opened it up. He reached in and grabbed a white pillowcase that he had just taken from Mrs. Bertha’s house. It was the same one Nigel had just seen him run with. He tossed the pillowcase to Nigel and smiled.

“You can go through there and get a few things to pawn. That’ll put a lil money in your pocket,” Stick said as if he was doing Nigel a huge favor. “I’m a generous guy if you come at me right.”

“Easy to be generous when you’re not giving away your own things,” Nigel said, taking the case and slinging it over his shoulder. “I’m taking this back to Mrs. Bertha. This stuff don’t mean jack to you, Stick—it’s just another hustle. But to her this is everything. These are things her dead husband left her and Jason. He’s dead now, so he can’t just run out and replace them, ya heard. Do you get that?”

Stick stood there with a mean scowl on his face, but he was a coward, and he wouldn’t dare make a move toward the man in front of him. Even though he had about fifteen years on Nigel, he didn’t want any part of him. Nigel’swords had no real effect on him other than the fact that he just lost out on another hustle. Stick stood there huffing and puffing, and Nigel couldn’t help but want to punch him in the face.

“Oh, okay. You got it. Go on and take the old woman her stuff back, man. But you know that’s messed up, don’t you? I’ve been watching that house for years, and when I finally catch her leaving, you go mess it up. That’s ‘bout a good ten grand you holding there, but I’ma let you have it.”

“You ain’t gonna let me have jack,” Nigel said. “I’ma let your head stay on your shoulders, so say thank you.”

Stick fanned him off.

“I said say thank you,” Nigel said, dropping the pillowcase onto the floor and lifting his bat into a swinging position.

“Thanks,” Stick mumbled, but then got loud. “You’re good but please don’t mention my name. It’s too hot to be locked up.”

Nigel tightened his grip on his baseball bat and was tempted to have a little batting practice with Stick’s cranium but decided it would be a waste of his energy. Stick was a bum and was always going to be one.

“I want you to stay out of my line, ya heard? You see me, go the other way. Do that and you’ll be okay. If you don’t"—Nigel made a swinging motion with his bat—"ain’t no telling what I might do, ya heard?”

Stick nodded. He knew his place in the street hierarchy. He was a bottom feeder, the lowest man on the totem pole, and he was okay with that.

“Gone on, man. Take the bag,” Stick said.

Nigel picked up the pillowcase and walked out of the back door, hoping that Stick would heed his advice. He didn’t have a lot of patience when it came to his kind.

Once he was around Stick’s house and back on the street, he saw the paramedics loading Mrs. Bertha into the back of the ambulance and couldn’t help but wonder if she was going to be okay. He thought about little Jason and what he would do if something happened to his grandmother.

“Freeze,” a police officer said, pointing his gun directly at Nigel. “Drop the bag and get on your knees.”

Nigel froze. He dropped the bag and held his hands up above his head. He went down to his knees with his hands still in the air. He knew he was in trouble. Here he was literally holding the bag, and he knew that he would never tell on Stick. As sorry of a human being as Stick was, Nigel wasn’t the type of guy to tell the police anything.

A police officer rushed over and pushed him facedown onto the hard, hot concrete.

F
ranky was running late. He had gotten confused on which hallway his classes were on two times already. Now he found himself running to get to his last class before the late bell rang. He looked down at his schedule, then up at the numbers above the wooden doors.

“Finally,” he said as he heard the bell sound just as he opened the classroom door.

Franky walked in, and only a handful of students paid him any mind as he looked around for a place to sit. Four of the six chairs on the front row were free, so he walked over and took the one closest to the window.

“Good afternoon,” Mr. Johnson, his teacher, said. He looked to be in his midtwenties and from first appearances seemed to be a sharp guy.

“Good afternoon,” Franky said. “Is it all right if I sit here?”

“Sure,” Mr. Johnson said. “I love it when students sit in the front of the class. It sends a message to the world that they’re about their business.”

“Suck-up,” someone from the rear said, causing the peanut gallery to laugh.

“Don’t pay him any attention, Mr….?”

“Franky Bourgeois.”

“Nice. Is that Creole?” the teacher asked.

“French but …,” Franky said, hunching his shoulders.

“Okay. Well, welcome to Spanish. Take a seat and let’s get started,” Mr. Johnson said. “Everyone settle down and grab a paper and pencil. It’s note time. There will be a test on what is on this board, so I suggest you get to writing.”

Franky looked around and hardly anyone moved. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The room itself resembled any other classroom he’d ever been in. There was a whiteboard, a podium, lots of posters on the walls with math equations, a lot of desks that were filled with teenagers, and a teacher standing at the head of the room. But that was where the similarities stopped. The entire day had been one big eye-opening experience and explained why the have-nots continue not to have. His dad used to tell him about this, but he really didn’t have any real idea what he was talking about until now. Now he could see why his parents tried so hard to keep him away from the hood.

The world doesn’t need another shiftless Negro,
his dad would often lecture.
There are people out there who look just like you and I who will make sure the prisons stay filled because they refuse to educate themselves. I’m going to make sure you’re not one of them.

There were almost thirty kids in each of his classes, and he could count on one hand the number of them who showed the slightest amount of interest in learning what the teacher was attempting to teach. This new school would definitely take some getting used to.

Mr. Johnson, the enthusiastic Spanish teacher, was from a small town in South Carolina called Pamplico. As a child, he had always been fascinated with the foreign people he saw on television and wanted to learn how to communicate with them. Having parents who dropped out of school before they made it to high school, he made sure he studied hard and earned an academic scholarship to the University of Georgia. He finished his master’s degree in Madrid, Spain. He always stressed to his students the importance of learning a second language, but as he stood at the front of the class writing sentences on the board, the majority of the class did their own thing.

The girl who sat beside Franky was texting someone on her cell phone and laughing to herself at whatever response she was getting. Every now and then, she would look at him and blow a bubble from the wad of gum she was furiously working. One chair over from her sat a little guy who looked like he should still be in elementary school. He was asleep and snoring so loud it was amazing that
he
could sleep through it. A couple of kids in the back were listening to their iPods as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Two other guys were battling each other with raps while a third guy made beats with his mouth. And this was one of the calmer classes.

Mr. Johnson turned around and looked at the sleeping boy and huffed as if the snoring was just too much for him to take. He put his marker down and walked over to the boy. He stopped right beside him, leaned down right above the boy’s ear, and slapped both of his hands together as loud as he could.

CLAP!

The sleeping boy didn’t budge, which sent the entireclass into a laughing frenzy. Even Mr. Johnson chuckled and shook his head.

“Is he dead?” one of the kids asked.

“Have you ever heard a dead man snore?” Mr. Johnson replied.

“I don’t know what midgets do when they die,” the boy said.

“Come here, Mark,” Mr. Johnson said to the boy. “Grab his legs and I’ll get his shoulders. This is ridiculous.”

Mark was tall and wore a pair of gray sweatpants, a T-shirt with
m&m high basketball
across the front, and a pair of Nike flip-flops. He walked up, and they politely lifted the sleeping boy up from his desk and carried him outside the classroom and into the hallway. Mark decided to drop the boy’s legs before Mr. Johnson could get him on the floor.

“Oops,” Mark said.

“Why did I even bother asking you to help me?” Mr. Johnson said, shaking his head.

“Hey,” Sleepy said, finally waking up and pulling away from Mr. Johnson. “What y’all doing to me?”

“You will not sit up in my class and sleep. Especially not as loud as you snore. Go to the office,” Mr. Johnson said.

“I wasn’t asleep. Man, y’all need to stop trippin',” Sleepy protested.

“What happened? You had a bug in your eye, and you were trying to suffocate it?” Mark said.

“Shut up, Mark,” Sleepy said with a frown. “You so black you blend in with the dark.”

“And yo momma had liquor in her titties and stunted your growth, you lil ugly bastard,” Mark said.

“Hey, you guys, cut it out,” Mr. Johnson said, stoppingthe two before things got heated. “Mark, go in the classroom, and, Antonio, you go to the principal’s office. And when you get home today, I want you to ask your mother or father to take you to see a doctor,” Mr. Johnson said as he walked back into the classroom, shaking his head.

“Man, Mr. Johnson, you’re a hater,” Antonio said before walking down the hallway.

Franky was busy writing notes from the board when Mr. Johnson walked over and peeked at his tablet. “Thank God somebody actually wants to learn up in here,” he said, and went back to the board. “I appreciate that, Mr. Bourgeois.”

“Give him some time. He’s new,” Mark said. “We’ll have him corrupted in no time.”

“Sit down, Mark,” Mr. Johnson said.

“Hey,” the girl sitting next to him said to get his attention. “What’s your name?”

“Didn’t you just hear him tell Mr. Johnson his name, gurl?” a nappy-headed boy said.

The girl turned around and shot him a nasty glare. She didn’t say a word, just looked at him. He tried to stare her down but couldn’t and turned away. She kept staring until he placed his head on his desk.

“Franky,” he said. “What’s yours?”

“It’s Khadija,” she said with a pretty smile that showed off the straightest and whitest teeth Franky had ever seen. “You got a girlfriend?”

“Nope,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

“I’m just asking, but I think you’re lying. You’re too fine not to have one,” she said.

Franky stopped writing and looked at her. He hadn’t really paid her too much attention before, but now that she was trying to push up on him, he really studied her.

She was cute, and she would be even cuter if she took all that colorful yarn out of her hair. Khadija’s skin was a deep mocha and was as smooth as a baby’s bottom. Her eyes were a little big for her small face, yet they sparkled with life. Franky looked down at her thighs, which were nice and thick in her tight jeans. He wondered if she ran track or played any sports. She had on a pair of high-top sneakers with colors that matched her polo shirt and hair.

Khadija kept chewing her gum and blowing bubbles while she watched him watching her.

“Thank you. Are you gonna take any notes?” he asked, finally turning away from her.

“Nope,” she said. “I already know this stuff.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Maybe you can help me catch up. I haven’t been to school in a minute.”

“Maybe I can, maybe I can’t,” she said. “I don’t know. We’ll have to see.”

“Do you have a boyfriend?” Franky asked while he wrote.

“No,” she said quickly. “I don’t have time for these lames around here. Most of these dudes at this school can’t handle a girl like me.”

“A girl like you? And what type of girl are you?” Franky asked.

“A real one. And only real dudes can recognize and appreciate a chick like me,” she said. “Where are you from? You sound funny.”

Franky laughed and shook his head. “I’m from New Orleans,” he said. “And you sound funny to me. Where are you from?”

“ATL, shawty. Yep. Born and raised right here. I’m a Grady baby,” she said before blowing another bubble.

“What’s a Grady baby?” he asked.

“That’s the hospital where I was born. Grady Memorial. Get it, Grady baby?” she said.

“I got it.”

“It was a fool from New Orleans who shot my potna,” a voice said directly behind Franky.

“It wasn’t me,” Franky said, not even bothering to turn around.

“How I know that? You put in the mind of one of ‘em, so I might just take my frustrations out on you. Even if it wasn’t you,” the boy said.

Stand tall. Send a message. Don’t let nobody punk you.

Franky stopped writing and turned around to face the boy who seemed to be looking for trouble. Other than the time he took a trip to Africa with his parents, he had never seen skin as dark as this guy’s. He was almost the color of coal and had bloodshot eyes. His hair was short and nappy, but he had slanted eyes as if his ancestors were of Asian descent.

“Why would you do that? I never even shot anybody. I don’t even own a gun,” Franky said.

“You might wanna get one, homeboi,” the boy said, then stood up and walked out of the classroom without even asking for a hall pass.

Franky turned to Khadija and frowned as if to ask her what that was all about.

“That’s Tyrone. He’s a thug—or at least he wants to be one. Don’t worry about him. He just likes attention,” Khadija said. “Just punch him in the eye one good time and he’ll leave you alone.”

Franky sighed and shook his head.

“So you want my number or what?” Khadija asked.

“Of course,” he said with a smile. “You seem like you’regood people. Besides, you gotta help me catch up on this work in here.”