Team Seven (12 page)

The best part about basketball is all I need is me, the ball, and the rim. Even if there’s nobody running full court I’ll shoot by myself until my arms are tired or the calluses on my fingers start to crack. Ma always tells me my life’s “off balance” because of how much time I spend playing ball, but at the basketball court I can be what I can’t be everywhere else: good.

Ma asked me how the first day of school was, I told her “fine,” ate my dinner, and went to my room.

The next day of school, I walked into science class and my name was still written on the board. This time it had a big yellow check next to it. Again, I raised my hand and asked why.

Mr. Stow clasped his hands and rocked on his heels as he said, “I missed you yesterday after school, Mr. Battel. So much so that now I’ll be seeing you after school for the next two days.”

Then he told me again to stop being rude and interrupting his class.

I heard a few girls in the front of the room gasp, and the new kid Roy Shepard, who was sitting behind me, started laughing and kicking my chair.

I’d stepped on Roy’s sneaker in the cafeteria on the first day of school and he tried to make a scene. He dropped to his knee all drastic and started spit-shining his Jordans. He looked at me and pointed at my sneakers whining,
“Dammmn, man, don’t be stepping on my J’s with your cheap-ass, Boe-Boe-ass sneakers.”

I wanted to smack him in the mouth but no one really paid any attention to our exchange so I let it slide. But now whenever I see Roy he calls me “Boe-Boe.”

Roy kicked my chair again as Mr. Stow asked everyone to take out our textbooks. As I turned in my chair to get my book out of my bag, Roy gave me the middle finger and I could feel my face heating up. He kicked the back of my chair again and I edged my desk forward, out of kicking range. I could tell if we kept going at this pace, we were going to fight.

I felt my heart sink as I looked at the clock and saw that there was forty minutes of class left. I tried drawing circles, scribbling big bull’s-eyes, ignoring Roy, watching the passing clouds, and thinking to myself. First off, I ain’t coming to no two days of detention because I took too long going to the bathroom. Even if I did walk around for a bit before I got there. I mean, who the hell does this guy think he is?

What I wanted to know was, who polices the teachers, who sets their rules? Because Mr. Stow’s pretty damn rude too. I mean, what’s the motivation to stop “being rude” once your name’s on the board and you’ve been singled out? Isn’t that an outside force acting on an object at rest? I didn’t even get a warning, I didn’t start any trouble with him until he started with me. Isn’t it rude to call me out, trying to embarrass me in front of the whole class? It’s bad enough already that since middle school started I don’t hardly get to see Beezy and Chucky no more and every day Roy Shepard has something new to say about what I’ve got on, calling my sneakers “Boe-Boes,” saying I dress like a white boy just because I’ve got on a pair of cargo khakis.

The tag was sticking out from the collar of my T-shirt and Roy read it aloud, “B.U.M. Equipment, isn’t that the brand they sell at the discount store Bradlees?”

I could hear Roy hissing at me and slowly scooting his desk forward so he could try to kick my chair again. My legs started shaking. I sat clicking the top button on my pen, trying to calm down. I stabbed my pen into the notebook and started raking tears down the page.

“It’s all about power and friction,” Mr. Stow rambled on about the second law of motion.

Roy kicked the back of my chair again and I leaned to the side like I was trying to tie my sneaker and spat a big wad of phlegm onto his sneaker. He kicked out and yelled, “Ayo!”

Mr. Stow looked at him and said, “Roy, what’s wrong? If you’d like to add to the discussion, please raise your hand.”

Roy didn’t answer him and my breathing steadied and I started thinking about the idea of power. Where does power come from? And how do people get it? And why do they have it? What gives people the right to have power over other people when we all start off as little helpless babies born to our parents? Why does being a teacher give them the power to give out detentions and why do cops get to arrest people when they’re just people too when they’re not working. Who gives churches and schools the power to operate? Churches are inspired by God and schools are funded by the government, but it seems like the two things don’t mix, so they can’t get their power from the same place, so then where does all the power come from? Some things I just can’t figure out.

After I got tired of racking my brain about power, Roy started kicking my chair again.

I raised my hand and asked to use the bathroom.

Mr. Stow sighed and said, “No, Andre, you can’t.” He looked me off and resumed talking about Newton’s second law of motion, he had it written on the board:

I was bored and pissed off and, sure, maybe I wanted to take a little walk, but I did also have to use the bathroom. I tuned out Mr. Stow and sat in my chair shocked, Roy Shepard lightly chanting in my ear:

I tried to tune him out too. What was it about being a teacher that gives this jerk the power to take away my right to go pee? It’s crazy and unreasonable to deny anyone the right to use the bathroom. It seemed like a joke. I could feel the side of my head pulsing and heard Roy chanting that damn Boe-Boe song, and all I want to know is why everyone thinks they got the power to fuck with me. My legs started shaking again. I knew I told Ma that this year would be different, but it feels like I’m losing control.

Ever since Ma joined New Day Pentecostal and stopped letting us go trick-or-treating, she’s always going on about how if you stand for nothing, then you’ll fall for anything. She was talking about Jesus, but I was thinking more along the lines of my pride. Without recess, or Chucky and Beezy, I was right back at the bottom of the social totem pole, and Roy Shepard was on top. His father’s a doctor and drives a Range Rover.
He lives in a nice house and he’s already damn near got a full goatee. Roy crushed me in the coolness department, but the more he whisper-chanted the Boe-Boe jingle in my ear the closer I came to the conclusion that it was time for me to take a stand.

Roy will learn to stop fucking with me.

I hated the way things switched up once middle school began. I liked going to Tucker Elementary better, everyone knew my name there, and not because I was a troublemaker either. Everyone knew my name because I had had enough playground fights that they knew I wasn’t afraid to fight and was actually pretty good at it. It’s not my favorite thing, but it goes hand in hand with being the best athlete in our grade, and everyone knew that too. Every day at recess me, Chucky, and Beezy dominated the playground. I wasn’t ever afraid with them around, but none of that really mattered now.

I had to make a new name for myself.

Roy Shepard stopped kicking my chair and started throwing pieces of paper at the back of my head. It was only Wednesday of the first week of school and I didn’t want to start off the year fighting, but Roy was grinding on my nerves. Another piece of paper hit the back of my head and Roy said, “I bet yo mama cuts your hair in the kitchen. Huh?”

It was true but I ignored him and raised my hand again. I made eye contact with Mr. Stow, and he brushed me off and called on someone else. Another piece of paper hit me in the back of the head and I turned around. Roy grabbed his pen like he was writing notes and looked up at the blackboard like he wasn’t doing anything. I could feel my shoulders getting tense and right then I decided, Before I tear this classroom up, I’m out of here.

I stood up, put my book and notebook in my backpack,
zipped it closed, smacked everything off of Roy’s desk, and walked across the room. The whole classroom paused, then broke out into a chorus of “Oooooohs” and laughter as I turned the doorknob and walked out into the dimly lit hallway. Mr. Stow ran to the doorway and yelled, “Get back here right now! Where do you think you’re going?”

“To take a leak,” I called back.

I heard more laughter and Roy’s voice yelling, “Look at Andre go, in those ugly-ass Boe-Boes.”

I kept walking and I thought Mr. Stow would just let me go, but I heard his voice getting closer to me as I walked and when I turned around his skinny body was striding right at me. I ran a couple steps and stopped. I turned around and stomped my foot and screamed, “What!”

He caught up to me, winded and pink-faced.

“You need …” He wheezed clutching at his chest. “You need to …” He coughed and took a big gulp of air. “You need to return to class.”

He slouched down, resting his hands on his knees, panting.

“Look, Mr. Stow, I told you I needed to use the bathroom. I don’t know why you been sweating me anyway. I know them three motion laws you talking ’bout. The third one’s for every action you get a reaction. You did what you did, and so did I.”

He started laughing sarcastically. “Young man, I’ll see you for a full week of detention, starting today.”

I turned around to start walking toward the bathroom when I saw his hand coming toward my shoulder and I jerked away dodging his grasp. I jumped toward him, balling my fist, ready to swing.

“You better don’t touch me, old man. Touch me and I got the right to defend myself. I ain’t wrong.”

He put his hands in his pockets, shaking his head. “After
the bathroom, take yourself to the principal’s office. And I will be seeing you for detention.”

He looked back over his shoulder and clapped his hands and roared, “Hey! Everyone back in your seats. Now!” Everyone disappeared from the doorway. I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Whatever,” and kept walking toward the bathroom. I didn’t know what I was doing exactly, but all I knew was how to carry it like Nina, just act like I didn’t care and let it ride. I wandered around the halls for a bit after I used the bathroom until the bell rang and I just went to my next class. When the school day ended I was going to skip Mr. Stow’s detention again, but he met me at my locker.

“I believe you’re going to be clapping the chalk out of my blackboard erasers today after school, isn’t that right? Come on, we’ll get the erasers.”

He started walking toward his classroom and I didn’t argue, I just followed him. I put my stuff down, he gave me a stack of erasers, and I went outside to clap them on the side of the building. As I clapped the erasers chalk dust flew up into the air like smoke and it made me sneeze. I clapped out the second eraser and went into one of those rapid sneezing frenzies. Right as I decided I just wasn’t going to clean any more erasers, I heard Roy’s voice singing that damn Boe-Boe song as he walked toward me all alone.

His words stung like alcohol in the eye. I looked around and there was not a teacher in sight. So I took a deep breath and I charged him. I started launching the erasers at him and the chalk dust puffed up everywhere. He was crying for me
to stop, coughing in a cloud of chalk dust before I even made it over to him. He tossed his arms over his face and hunched to the side, pleading for me to “chill,” but there was no more chilling, I’d already tried to chill. I punched Roy in the ribs and he moaned and grabbed his side. He left his face wide open and I gave him three quick jabs to the face. Roy pushed me back and took a wild swing at me and I tackled him, gripped his throat, and squeezed as tight as I could. I looked down into Roy’s face, he’s light-skinned, he was turning red, all the veins in his forehead wiggled like they were about to burst.

“Please, Andre, stop!” I could see the blood smeared on his teeth as he struggled for air. I held his head in my hands and started knocking it off the dirt on the ground until I felt a set of arms lock around my body, yanking me backward and I tried to wiggle away.

“That is enough! Break it up. Stop it right now, Andre.” I kicked free of the arms and stumbled to my feet.

I looked and it was Mr. Stow and Principal Brutus.

Principal Brutus walked toward me, eyes bulging out of his head. He snatched me by the arm with so much force I knew better than to try and fight his momentum. He led me to his office, where he yelled at me about being one of the troublemakers that are now on his radar and how we make his job much harder. I sat blank-faced until he was done and gave me my first ever three-day suspension notice. I took the notice and walked out into the hallway reading it when I saw Mr. Stow locking up his classroom. He turned out the lights and shut the door. As he was turning the key in the lock he turned his head and looked at me, snickering, “For every action there’s a reaction, eh, Mr. Battel?”

I ignored him and walked outside.

Ma asked me to ride with her down to Mass Avenue near Hynes Convention Center. Pop and the crew were rocking out, having a jam session at the Berklee College of Music. He and his band of clown-ass Rastas think they big-time, rehearsing at Berklee. Anyone with green dollars could rent out studio time there, they ain’t special. Ma rushed up in my room looking like she’d just won the lottery or something. She claimed Pop had bought us a bag of groceries, but I wasn’t really trying to roll out for this one. She promised she’d make her famous barbeque chicken for dinner and when she said that, it was game over and she was gone. I heard our front door slam and the rusty chokes and coughs of Ma firing up the Catalina. Disarmed before I could come up with an excuse. She was always good at making deals with me before I could respond.

Pop wasn’t never around anymore. These days he was more of a wrecking ball than a rolling stone. The only way to get in touch with him was through his pager, on the shaky chance the bill was paid. That was only half the battle. He wasn’t the best at returning phone calls. Drugs, music, and under-the-table paychecks—that’s how he stayed fed and made sure he didn’t have to feed us. Me, Ma, Nina, we’re no more than third wheels in his life and he made that no secret anymore.