Fire in the Streets (10 page)

I shut off the tap. Don't bother to look over my shoulder. “Where to?”

If she answers I don't hear it. Just footsteps on the floor and the door closing quietly.

Raheem comes home late from policing, seems surprised to find me lying on the couch instead of gone to bed.

“Where's Mama?”

“Out.”

Raheem studies me for a second. Then he goes to the cabinet and brings out the bills. I've left all the lights off, except the one lamp that stands between the end of the kitchen counter and the back of the living room chair. Tipping the pile toward the lamplight, he flips the papers one by one and sighs. He picks a paper from the pile, puts the
rest back. He takes the coffee can down and counts out the money inside, adds a few dollars from his pocket and attaches it to the bill with a paperclip. He folds it into his pocket, to be taken down to some office and paid in the morning.

“Is it bad?” I ask.

“Just a rough patch,” he says. “Honestly.”

“Okay.”

Raheem comes and stands near me, his shins against the small square coffee table. His body blocks the lamplight, looming over me in shadow. “You know I'm gonna take care of you, right?”

My breath leaves me softly. “Yeah.”

I can see only his outline. I don't know what he can see of me. My furrowed brow, or the way my fingers are laced so tight across my stomach. He does take care of me. If it wasn't for Raheem, Mama would have slid into nothingness by now, and surely dragged me with her. But no matter how he tries to make it seem okay, often it feels like we're still sliding.

M
OST DAYS AROUND THE NEIGHBORHOOD
nothing changes. As summer tips toward fall, the weather starts its slow tilt coldward.

I've realized now that Sam has good days and bad days. On the good days he wants to talk and do things. On the bad days he just wants to hold my hand and walk. More often than not, I let him. But things still have to get done.

Today we head toward the Panther office together. He rests his arm across my shoulders and I think about things like kissing. My arm goes around his waist and suddenly we take a little detour.

Sam leads me into the narrow alley between Charlie's Soda and the check-cashing place. We know from the past that if you go far enough in, beyond the Dumpster, the garbage smell goes away and it's just nice and quiet.

We sit on castaway milk crates. He holds my face in his
hands and kisses me. My arms around his back. His hands on my waist. Kissing. Kissing. After a while he's leaning me back against the bales of flattened cardboard at an awkward angle.

“Wait—” I put my hands on his shoulders.

He gives me this misty-eyed stare. “Come on.”

“Come on, what?” I wet my lips. He watches. Leans back in.

I hold his shoulders, force him to look at me.

“It's the only thing that feels good,” he whispers.

“I know.” I let up, let his lips meet mine again. It erases the world around us. The slight garbage stench, the pressures of the neighborhood, the memories of Steve.

No words. No plan. Just what feels right.

Which is exactly what makes it all wrong.

“Stop.”

He does, drawing away from me altogether.

“What are we doing?” I ask him. “I mean—”

“Let's go to the office,” he says, standing up and starting down the alley.

I swallow. “What?”

He's halfway to the Dumpster already, leaving me behind. I'm stunned motionless.

“Can that actually happen?” I blurt. “Can you just start kissing me and then act like it never happened?”

Sam doesn't say anything or even look back. If it seemed like a good day at first, it's a bad day now.

Sam beats me to the office by better than half a block. I, for one, am walking slower because I feel the need to pull myself together. Mainly so I don't make a fool of both of us by blowing up at him in front of the whole office.

I see him go in the door, and by the time I get there he's already disappeared into the back room. So be it. I flop into one of the desk chairs.

Rocco hefts a twine-bound stack of newspapers onto the desk in front of me. I hand him scissors from the drawer and he slices the bundle open. Says, “You got a copy of the new issue yet?”

“No.”

“You got a quarter?”

I shake my head.

“Okay.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls one out. Lays it on the table between us. “You try and pay me back if you can, okay?”

“Sure.”

Rocco picks up the paper and opens it to about the middle. He takes the scissors from the desk and carefully cuts out a big corner. Spins it and spreads it with his fingers so I can see.

“Read this,” he tells me. “Tell me if there's anything you don't understand.”

“Okay.” I reach for it. Start to slip it into my school bag.

“No, read it now. Then you got to fold it in your pocket. Every day, all the time. You feel me?”

Rocco folds the rest of the paper neat while I struggle with the words on the page.

The Pocket Lawyer of Legal First Aid:

What you need to know if you are arrested.

1. Remain silent.

2. Do not resist arrest.

There are fourteen points on the list. It's going to take me a long time to get through it, and Rocco's sitting there waiting.

I take the rest of the paper and tuck it under my arm. “Okay, I get it,” I tell him.

“You sure?” Rocco pats his pocket. “I got mine right here.”

“Thanks. I'll pay you back.” There's usually some way to get a touch of spare change. Anyway, the other day Leroy was talking about how buying the paper is an investment, in knowledge and awareness. I guess he meant it's not like buying an ice cream, because you don't just enjoy it for a minute. It lasts.

Sam emerges from the back room, comes over to us. He catches me with his sad eyes and it makes me wish he would just come out and say whatever it is that he's holding behind them.

“Hey, man.” Rocco drums his fingers on the desk. “I'm headed over to the clinic in a minute. You want a ride there?”

“Naw, I'll walk,” Sam says. “Stuff to do around here first.”

“No hurry. I'll wait for you.”

“No,” Sam says, kind of sharp.

“He has to walk me home too,” I say, trying to cover. Sam won't ride in a car anymore unless it's absolutely necessary. It's because Steve died in a car; he was sitting in the passenger seat, in fact, when he was shot to death by some cops that pulled them over. Raheem was driving; Sam was in the back. He saw it all happen. No way to erase a memory like that. Raheem told me it's the worst thing he's ever witnessed in life, and after where we come from, that's saying something. It must go double for Sam. I tried for a long time to get him past the things he sees when the door closes behind us. When the brakes ease on and he clenches his eyes like it's happening all over and over. I'd hold his hand, but nothing doing.

I should know, things like that have a way of coming back, even when the worst and more has already happened and every last tear has been squeezed out of you.

D
UTIFULLY SAM WALKS ME HOME. HE'S
not happy about it, mainly because my frustration with him is manifesting as a whole bunch of chatter. I like kissing Sam, but I used to like talking to him too. I want to be able to do that.

I can't stop myself, and he's not filling in his side of things, so I'm coming across as something of a runaway train.

“You wanna go down to the water?” It's my last-ditch effort to have something actually happen here.

Sam turns his wrist to get a look at his watch. “I have to be home,” he says. “Dinner.”

“Oh.” I wonder what it feels like to be tied to a place and time like that. Sounds like a drag to me, but maybe it's nice knowing someone will miss you if you don't show up when you're supposed to. I come and go as I please.

We say good night on my sidewalk, as usual. No kiss.
No hand-holding. No lingering or last words. Just this strange new distance between us.

I climb up and up and slip inside the apartment, thinking about supper and maybe a little bit of Panther reading before bedtime. Maybe try to figure out the list Rocco gave me. But I pause in the doorway, unsettled by something out of sight. It's quiet at home, but not the calm sort of quiet. Then I see them.

A large pair of work shoes tangled with Mama's black pumps, just beside the door.

I ache with disappointment. It's been a while since Mama tried on a man for size. A long enough while to make me almost forget the bad times.

No. I'll never forget. But it's been long enough to start me believing it might never happen again.

There have been men before. Twelve men in maybe eight years, starting from the time the main man up and walked out on us. Some stay longer than others. The ones I like never stay long enough. He wasn't the best of them, my real dad, but he's the only one I miss.

“He's a good man, baby. It's going to be different this time.”
She's usually right about things being different, but almost never right about him being good. Least not good enough for us.

It's almost always the shoes I see first. Sometimes it's the voices. The moment she lets them into the place, into her bed, it begins. The roughness around the house that keeps me on edge, keeps me on the street until the last possible second.

It was just the one who tried to touch me, before I learned to live on edge. One hit Raheem, and one hit Ma and that was that for each of those. Most of the rest were no-good suckers too, but least they kept their hands to themselves. Two were nice enough. One I liked, woulda had him stay forever was it up to me, but now I don't let myself even think his name. You can't walk back to the good past neither. Once you learn how to be putting things behind, it's all or nothing.

Sliding back into the hall, I close the door again. Real quiet, like I hadn't even been there.

I
WANDER DOWN TO THE CORNER STORE AND
hang by the snack counter, hoping old Clem will take pity on me and give me a taste of something. He's a softie, as long as you don't take advantage and try to play him too often. A new-man day isn't exactly special, but it's the sort of thing that makes me want to treat myself.

Twenty minutes of sad eyes does the trick. Clem gives me a beef patty and a grape soda, which ought to keep my belly happy. No way to know what will happen about dinner, since Mama seems otherwise engaged. Then I walk a long figure eight around the blocks, chewing and sipping as I go. Could go to the park, I guess, but I just feel like walking and thinking. It'd help if I could remember Raheem's exact work schedule for today and what time he's likely to get home.

There's a darkness to these buildings, even in daylight, but it stands out especially at sunset. Before the lights go
on indoors and things begin to glow and it's clear that the day is over. At dusk, the street takes on a restless insomnia, a heavy-lidded stumbling toward the night. The furtive underbelly of things, all pale and hairy, pokes through to the surface.