Midnight (49 page)

“What time y’all running through?” I asked.

“About 10:00
P.M.
tonight. It ends at 1:00
A.M.
, you know how it is,” he said.

“I’ll be there at ten. Y’all be easy till I get there,” I told him.

“We got it,” he said. “Yo, yo, yo, my team won, did you hear?”

“I knew you would,” I said. “You’ll keep winning until you meet the blacks!” I said. We both laughed.

The beats in the music were so powerful I could feel them vibrating in my chest. It was dark like nighttime inside of there. Only the light from the DJ booth and a random beam from the flashlights of the four or so chaperones had any impact on the darkness.

Looked like every teen in Brooklyn was packed in the space of the gym. Each person was body to body, booty to booty for real. I stood still in the crowd waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, smelling hairsprays and perfumes and oils and sweat.

The DJ threw on a Doug E. Fresh, Slick Rick joint and the crowd jerked like a train pulling off from the station. It
was a good feeling in the atmosphere. I walked around looking for my boys but there were at least two hundred fifty cats up in there and three hundred girls.

By the time I walked all the way to the far wall, I still hadn’t seen them.

Bangs was there though. She found me before I found her. The DJ threw on some sexy-ass song named “Doing It” by a black chick who sounded like she was fucking and rhyming at the same time. Five hundred hips were grinding simultaneously. Bangs slid herself against the wall and right in front of me. She leaned her body back on it and started grinding on me. I put my arms around her waist and pulled her even tighter. We were pressed together like what.

The music did something no one could ever do, sucked my mind right out of my head.

Her body felt good from her shoulders on down, all curves and valleys. She was holding me so tight, like she would die before she would let me go. Her hands were rubbing all over me, no shyness, no restrictions.

The DJ changed the joint, sped up the pace, and flipped the vibe. I pulled back some. She pushed back in. I whispered in her ear, “Go home.” She let her hands drop from me and stood on tiptoe to whisper back.

“Why?”

“Because I said so,” I told her.

“Will you come?” she asked me.

“I don’t know,” I answered. “But you go,” I told her. She started cutting her way through the tight crowd. I followed her but she wouldn’t know. It was too loud, too crowded, too dark, too confusing.

Once she pushed through the doors of the gym, I waited a few and walked out.

I watched as she made it out to the sidewalk, then took off in a mean sprint.

It was 10:45
P.M.
I knew she had to be home to her grandmother by 11:00
P.M.
anyway.

When I went back in, I found Ameer in a dance battle against five dudes, all six of them freestyling and surrounded by a triple layer of girls cheering them on. It wasn’t long before I spotted Chris up against the wall wrapped around some girl like a pretzel.

This was the perfect crime scene, I thought to myself. Everybody all pressed together with the lights out. Nobody really controlling shit. No gun check at the door. Everybody dressed in their best. Scared niggas with their chains tucked. Bold niggas with their chains dangling, in plain view. If I had beef with people in here, I could stab them up easily and get away with it too.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who thought so. I seen a line of niggas collecting and swerving through the crowd like a train that ran off the track. They was being led by none other than the red team idiot from Red Hook.

I went and plucked Ameer from his good time and stripped Chris off of an unknown girl. “It’s about to go down,” I warned them. The Red Hook niggas started shouting Red Hook, which made the teens from this hood, which was Bed-Stuy, start screaming Bed-Stuy. Brownsville spoke up, then East New York sounded off with a crazy loud unruly crew. People started pushing and splitting up.

“C’mon,” I told Chris and Ameer. They followed me.

Before we could get to the door, a fight broke out. Some chains got snatched. The Red Hook nigga knocked a couple of people over then shot through the doors with the jewels. A crowd of hundreds got panicked and everybody tried to stuff themselves through the gym doors at the same time.

The sirens were screaming and police lights were spinning by the time we hit the open air. Everybody started running. I mean flying and jetting and zigzagging. Chris and Ameer
was gone and so was I. The cop cars were accumulating, careless and confused.

As I ran down the dark path to Bangs’ window, I heard eight Glock shots let off. I heard the separate siren sounds of the ambulances screeching.

Bangs had the window open. I jumped in. The lights were off in her room. I closed her window and felt around for the window lock.

“It’s at the top, but it’s broke,” she said. I sat down on the floor where she was at. It was warm inside.

“It’s so nice to see you,” she said calmly. She struck a match and held it up as though it could light up her whole room. It burned down and heated up her fingers instead. She got up and started searching for something as my eyes adjusted to her darkness. I heard her strike a match again then saw her light a candle.

She put the candle, which was waxed onto a plate that held it up, on the floor. Then she went and lit another one. There was one candle on her side and the other candle on mine.

Now I could see her pretty smile and deep-dish dimples. Still, my mind was on my boys and I could hear the running and chasing drama still going on outside.

“It’s nothing, Supastar. This shit happens all the time around here. You in Bed-Stuy,” she said, smiling, seeming much calmer than I had ever seen her.

“Where you think I’m from? The police is the police,” I told her.

“They’ll bring the paddy wagons around in about five minutes, start sweeping everybody who’s outside on the streets right up into their custody,” she said casually.

“Somebody got shot,” I told her.

“Better hope it’s not a cop. They’ll go door-to-door tearing everything up, pulling everybody out. Better hope it’s just
some nigga shot in the leg or some’in,” she said even more casually.

“Chris and Ameer is out there. I rather it be a cop than be one of them,” I said.

“You want me to go get ’em and bring them inside here?” she asked.

“Why would I send you out there?” I asked her.

“ ’Cause I live around here and it ain’t nothing to me. I’m a girl and they ain’t looking for no girls and won’t fuck with me. And even if they say something I can just say that’s my house right there. All they gon’ say is, ‘Well get inside and stay inside for the rest of the night,’ ” she said softly.

“Damn. How many times did this shit happen to you?” I asked her.

“It doesn’t happen to me. It happens around here. That’s what I’m saying.” She got up and put on her jacket.

“I’ll be right back,” she said.

In ten minutes she came back. I had stashed my gun by that time, just in case.

I got off the floor when I saw Ameer step up. He was smiling like this whole thing was a game.

“Brother, you really are a fucking disappearing magician, ninja secret agent, ain’t you? Look at you, you got a
girl
and a
house
and all that shit. Who the fuck knew? I’m supposed to be your best friend and I didn’t know,” Ameer joked. Bangs laughed too.

“Where’s Chris?” I asked him.

“I don’t know. You seen what happened, everybody broke up and split off and went they own way,” he said.

“I found him in the fried chicken store on the corner,” Bangs said. “Right where I knew he would be.”

“We gotta go and get Chris,” I told Ameer.

“The cops had a bunch of boys in the paddy wagon and some boys in the back of their police cars. I think I saw your
friend Chris in the back of the police car, but I’m not all the way sure. If you go out there now, you gon’ get rounded up. I’m sure about that,” Bangs warned.

“Wherever Chris is, that’s where he’s at,” Ameer said. “It’s not like he’s still out there running or looking around for us.” I thought about it for a minute.

“A’ight, let’s just lay low in here for a minute,” I told Ameer.

“That’s right, ’cause they out there, the police, the paddy wagons, the whole nine,” she warned.

“A’ight,” Ameer said. I could definitely chill right here.

“Go out in the living room,” I told him. Bangs pointed him to the couch.

She came back in and closed the door. As she went to sit down, Ameer came back in.

“If y’all about to get into it, could I at least get a blanket and one candle?” he asked. “Somebody didn’t pay the electricity bill!” He laughed.

Bangs got up. “Sit down,” I told her. “You don’t get nothing, Ameer. Just chill on the couch for a few. You scared of the dark? What you think this is?” I said. I got up and closed the door. I discovered there was no lock on her bedroom door either.

“How did you know where Ameer was?” I asked her.

“Because that’s how dudes around here do it when the police is chasing them. They blend right in with whatever everybody else is already doing. The ones that just keep on running on the streets are the ones who get caught,” she said calmly.

“How did you know which one was Ameer?” I asked her.

“Because he was the only one in there with green eyes,” she said matter-of-factly. But her words got me tight for some reason I didn’t immediately understand.

“I’m saying, he was with you when I first met you. So I
knew who you was talking about. But that’s it. The only reason why I know him is because he was with you, period,” she explained herself passionately.

I looked at her real good in the pieces of light offered by the candle. I’m thinking to myself, at least she left the party when I told her to and went straight home like I told her to do. She didn’t give me a lot of attitude and static. At least she was smart enough to leave the window open for me. At least she was bold enough to go outside and find Ameer. She was cool, I decided.

After some minutes she asked, “So what about us?”

“You know I got a girl, right?” I asked her, being serious with her about the topic for the first time.

“Yes,” she said, straight-faced for the first time on the topic.

“You might have figured out that I love her a lot?” I said, watching her closely.

“Okay, that hurt,” she said.

“Do you want me to lie to you?” I asked her.

“Yes,” she said and smiled in a mature way, like a woman instead of a fidgeting teen. “I’m saying, just don’t talk about her. Just don’t mention her. Don’t even tell me her name. Just when you see me, see me. We can be like real cool friends,” she said.

“Friends?” I asked her. “Could you really do it like that?” I asked her again.

“Could you and me really only be friends?” I pressed her. “And how many friends like me do you have?” I pushed.

“None,” she answered swiftly. “I don’t have a man and I definitely don’t have any friends like you,” she confessed.

I thought to myself, this girl doesn’t know me, not even a little bit. When that love works its way into my chest like it did with Akemi, I feel too close, so possessive, so crazy. I can do anything at that point. Same as I need to have Akemi
completely, every single inch of her, mind, body, soul, spirit, and anything extra, that’s how I would be with anyone who I loved. Now she wanted to be a part of it. But I knew she wasn’t ready.

“Supastar, I can make you feel good,” she sang, bringing back her excited ways.

“I can make you feel good too,” I answered feeling challenged by her.

“Well, come on then. Stop teasing me,” she invited.

“Then what?” I asked her.

“Then if you like it and you like me, you can come again,” she said, smiling.

“And when I’m not around, what will you do?” I asked her.

“Wait for you,” she said.

There was a knock at the door, too soft to be Ameer. It was her grandmother.

“The baby is hungry now,” she said. Bangs jumped up and walked over and took the newborn into her arms. Her sleepy grandmother walked away, closing the door. I could tell she didn’t even see me sitting right there on the floor. The door pushed opened again but this time it was Ameer.

“Man, I got to give it to you. You got a baby too? That’s it. You’re good,” Ameer said, still joking around and interfering.

“Close the door,” I told him. Bangs laid the baby on her bed. She pulled her T-shirt over her shoulders and unsnapped her bra and took it off. She picked the baby up and turned around. She bent over and handed the infant to me. “Hold her for a minute, please.” Her breasts, the size of two ripe grapefruits, were dangling when she went to pass the child, and sweet milk started shooting out of her nipples onto my face.

When she sat down on the floor, she took her baby back. The child latched on to her bare breast and started sucking on her nipples. The baby’s fingers were pressing into her titty.
The baby was breathing as if its mother’s body and milk were the closest thing to ecstasy.

“Now what were you saying?” she asked me.

I didn’t know if this was a test. I never seen or read a chapter in the Holy Quran that taught a man how to deal with a situation like this. And how strong is a man supposed to be when even the Quran says in one or two places that men are weak?

“Where is your baby’s father?” I asked her.

“Dead,” she answered. “He got hit by a drunk driver.”

“Sorry,” I offered.

“The newspaper article is on the back of my door. You can see it next time, when the power is back on.”

The flame from the candles cast an erotic silhouette of Bangs feeding her baby onto the wall. I felt like clamping myself onto her other breast.

“So this is why you’re always running, for your grandmother and to your baby?” I asked her.

“Yes. I run because my milk builds up while I’m at school. If I don’t get home quick enough to let her suck, my titties get too swollen and sometimes they hurt and sometimes they start leaking too.” My body was turned on by her. But I reminded myself not to spill my seed into her.