The Kid (17 page)

I follow him and Imena, who I assume is his girlfriend by how she’s acting, out the gym and down the stairs. I’m holding on to the railing as I go down. Fifteen minutes ago I was like a god, my body was under my control, like Jaime. I was like . . . like Xango throwing lightning bolts or Crazy Horse at the top of the hill. Now my knees fucking Jell-O.

Of course I realize when I get in the car Imena done made her boyfriend give me a ride. I get ready for the third degree. And sure enough—

“What happened to you?” she starts to grill me.

“Nothing.”

“Come on, J.J., that shit on top of your head and on the side of your face is ‘nothing’?”

“It’s OK,” I say.

“Tell me what happened, J.J.”

Boyfriend gotta put his two cents in. “How long you been coming to class now?”

“A few months.” What’s that got to do with anything?

“Well, you wanna keep coming to class, you gotta talk to Imena here.”

“Don’t tell him that, Ibrahim. He doesn’t
have
to tell me anything,
and
he can keep coming to class. Have you been messing around with drugs, J.J.?” She looks at Ibrahim. “Where you going? It’s only around the corner, at the Boys’ Home.”

“He said St Nicholas Avenue.”

“You moved, J.J.? You not at St Ailanthus anymore?”

I feel seasick even though I’m not in a boat. I’m too tired to cry. I just want to be left alone.

“J.J.! Did those freaks do this to you? Answer me!” Imena is really upset.

“Look, man, we just wanna help you. Imena is not gonna call the pigs or nothing. We . . . well, look at you, man, you had blood on your T-shirt, stitches on the top of your head, the side of your face sliced open. You was dancing all . . . all erratic and shit, man, and then you fall out! We brothers and sisters, man! You wanna be an African dancer, then you wanna be part of a community.”

“Artists stick together, J.J. If you can’t tell us, who can you tell?”

Nobody.

“How old are you, man? Believe me, the ball is in your court. We ain’t gonna say nothing to those Catholic freaks or nobody else. Them homos make a move on you? Them freaks beat you up?” Ibrahim is all beside himself now.

“How old are you, J.J.?” Imena asks.

“Thirteen.”

“Whew! You know you look older, man? Way older!”

“It’s true, J.J., you look older than thirteen. If . . . people . . . I don’t know. So what happened with the Catholics? They move on you and then kick you out or something?”

“Something like that,” I tell her. “I fought back, they fucked me up and brought me to Harlem Hospital. Then from there to my relatives, who is real old.”

“Real old? Where’s your mother and father, J.J.?”

“My mother died in a car accident, and my father got killed in the war.”

“Uh, what war?” Ibrahim asks.

“I’m not sure.”

“Well, who are these old relatives?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

I wish Ibrahim would shut up and not ask me no more questions.

“Well, J.J., just tell us who these old people are before we take you there,” Imena pleads.

“Imena, take it from me, we ain’t getting the whole story. I don’t know what it is, but we ain’t getting it,” Ibrahim says.

“Well, for God’s sake.”

They’re talking about me like I’m not here or three years old.

“Look at him, it’s obvious he’s been traumatized. It’s not his fault. J.J.,
please
tell us, to the best of your ability, who these old people are.” Imena sounds like in the soaps or something.

“Well, after my mom and dad died, I got took to St Ailanthus ’cause my only living relatives couldn’t be found. Then after I got kicked out of St Ailanthus, they found ’em, ’cause they had to have somewhere for me to go.”

“Imena, we ain’t hearing the full story.”

“And we’re not gonna tonight. Let’s just take the boy home.”

It’s dark already. We pass everything again, the school, the Y, police station.

“This is it? You said 805?” Ibrahim asks.

“Yeah,” I say before I even look. I was starting to fall asleep.

“Want us to come with you?” Imena asks.

No, I want you to leave me alone. I can handle this. “No thank you.” It’s just a ol’ slave, weird stink. Ain’t being whatever St Ailanthus was. A lie is what it was. “St Ailanthus Home for Boys”! Ain’t no fucking “home.” I’m sleepy, I’m tired, I’m cold.

“See you Saturday. Don’t worry about money, hear? Just come to class. I don’t want you to stop coming to class, OK?
OK?
”

“OK.”

“Good night, J.J.”

“Good night.”

“Lil’ bastard didn’t even say thank you,” I hear Ibrahim saying as the car pulls out.

“For God’s sake—” Imena says. I don’t hear the rest of what she says.

Well, if I’m gonna stay here, I gotta have a key. I can’t believe—Oh, fuck it! I got kicked out of St Ailanthus for knocking one of the brothers out when the faggot moved on me. So big deal, here I am. It happened. Next!

She—I guess her—
somebody’s
cleaned up the glass when I get back in the room. I ain’t gonna say nothing to her, just keep it like it is, like when I came in the house, I didn’t say nothing. She ain’t my mother or nothing. I ain’t staying here too long. No use in getting all buddy-buddy when my being here is just a mistake. I’ll soon be outta here. Soon.

Some towels on the bed. What’s that spozed to be, a hint? Can’t be, the way she look and how this place stink. But I take ’em and walk down the hall to the bathroom. I need to shit, but I’m all constipated. Laugh, think maybe ain’t none in me, maybe the police scared it all outta me at the station. Be good to take a shower or bath.

All I got in the world is in that suitcase back in the room and that bag what I got from Blondie, leather pants, watch. I know I got a couple or at least one pair of pajamas in my suitcase. I go sit on the toilet, grunt, groan a little, feel like at first I’m full of the glass I broke earlier. Then finally whoosh, I shit, shit. Feels good, like the past twenty-four hours is coming out my asshole. Like it’s over, outta me. Smells horrible, though. Open the window, night sky black computer stars dots of light. The night air smells clean. I never felt so old in my life. Shit, actually, I guess I never
been
so old in my life.

I turn on the water, all the way hot. Even though I got all these cuts and scratches, I want it hot. The washcloth is soft dark pink, the new bar of soap sitting in the soap dish say Camay. It’s
pink,
a girl’s soap. I wanna be disgusted, but I’m not. It smells nice. St Ailanthus, Irish Spring, is that a man’s soap? Or the House of Faggots soap. Do they fuck each other or only us? Not do,
did,
’cause I’m gone, past tense. Here now, a free motherfucking kid. If they fuck each other, they homos, if they only fuck us, they dudes. The water is hot. I stick my foot in. Burns almost. I plunge my body in. I wanna be clean. Like after confession. Brother John says you’re in a state of grace, if you die right after confession with no sins on your soul, you go straight to heaven.

The opposite of grace is
dis
grace, dirt, polices, lies, sperms. I want it off my body. Off my body, my body of a free boy, felt good to shit. My body of dance, felt good to dance. Fuck them! Fuck all that shit ’cept dance. The water feels good now. I feel my lips on Jaime’s neck. I feel so warm, like on ganja or some shit. Don’t make no difference if I had one leg, then I be a one-leg dancer, if I was two feet tall, then I be a midget dancer like at the circus, but I’m not a midget dancer, I’m more like God. God see through walls, eyes big and dark pools like Brother Samuel’s. I see outside the walls now, a door is opening, the elevator door is opening and a big, fucking lion is walking out the door, spraying shit from his dick like territorial markings. Lion roar AAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!! I’m there, feel scared. Shit, I must be fucking bugging, for a minute I think this shit is real, forgot I’m sitting here tripping. Ain’t no lion out there. So why do I think wack shit like that? Shit, ’cause I’m wild! A wild child! A free fucking baby! I’m black! I love to be black. I’m a boy, I love to be a boy! I’m strong six-pack all that! The hot water feels good, burns my scratches, but feel good on my shoulder. I wash like Crazy Horse rode, don’t care if it hurt, I like to hurt. I wash my face, splash water on top my head, easy now on them stitches Wang Wang give me.

I wanna be loved. I want someone to open me up like I did the kids and Jaime. Ram me up with love like useta be Brother John and me?
Love,
not like fucking dickhead stupid Brother Samuel. But warm like water. How come don’t nobody like me? That’s stupid! A lot of people like me. A lot. I’m rubbing the pink soap all over me, thinking about love and jamming and what it be like being a dancer, a professional, what it takes, and the water is good and fucking hot, we only take showers at St Ailanthus. I ain’t there no more, thinking that, I get to feeling all creepy, all alone, and it’s more than I can deal with, long stupid I don’t know. What the fuck, shit, what the fuck I’m thinking is stupid, I got to
do
something. I don’t think but see myself like a movie slicing my dick off. Then I’m burying my own body, but it’s not me, it’s a girl, little storybook girl golden. Rape her.
Something.
I should be in a house getting everything I need, getting good clothes, good food and things and places to go, and I should have a mother and a pops, I should have good shit, I should not be coming apart inside. It should not feel like the cracks in the plaster is me going
crack eeek errrecch
down the wall driving me stupid. When I put my feet on the ground, the ground should not move I should not feel this way I don’t understand how a good kid like me could have a mother die of AIDS. Why my mother. Why my mother. Turn on the hot water
hot
that makes me feel good yeah I feel good the hotter the better water feels so good I want to go to sleep I want to dream, call Imena and her drummer-ass boyfriend to come back back back and save me like on TV a parachute outta burning plane getting ready to explode open in rainbow colors. I wanna fall down slide down down deeper in the tub into the warmness of the water and feel how good it feel to have Jaime kiss me there
kill
me there my dick dick dick penis penis how it’s a fire a big fire that don’t burn you but freak you. I got that feeling, those feelings, let me love you let me love you let me love you I can hear drums break like waves along my balls down low down low it’s aching me aching me I need together a place a suitcase pack pack pack a car is waiting a car is waiting to take me away like I was never there never there like I never was there like I never was.

Creepy quiet here. But it ain’t quiet like when you really all alone.
Somebody
is here. So where’s the old lady? Behind these doors. What’s behind all these doors? It’s like three on the same side of the hall as the room my suitcase is in, including mine.
Mine?
Then across from me is another door, and down from it the kitchen doorway. So where’s her room? Who is the old broad and what am I, a rubber ball or some shit? Hit the ground and I be bouncing up somewhere else next week? This is a nice bathtub, big. This is a weird old apartment, feel like it got ghosts or monsters. One time we seen a BIG cat. Ugly like a monster.
Pregnant,
Jaime said. Jaime threw a brick at it, I threw one too.
Bad luck,
Amir said. Why?
It’s pregnant,
Amir said.
It’s black, bad luck,
I said.
You ain’t spozed to hurt nothing pregnant!
What’s pregnant? I wondered.
It was black!
Jaime said. If I was grown up, I would expose St Ailanthus as a camp of terror and cruel shit. Catholic school spozed to be so much better than public school, but they forgot a few little shits! Like beating up and fucking kids. And this shit here, you know, like pack up and get out, J.J., nice knowing your black ass. I can’t just let that shit go. What would Crazy Horse do—what would my father do? If somebody did some shit like that to him? The water’s getting cold ’cause I been sitting up here with the window wide open. I run the water hot, like a hot spring coming from the earth’s interior; in school we learned about people going out in the snow sitting in hot springs. Due to volcanic activity, the rock near the surface is still hot enough to boil water! The water comes up hot even in the snow! I’m gonna stop going to school? I mean, what’s up? Can school teach me how to dance? If I was a professional, I could run away somewhere and be a dancer, get paid. Water warm, I’m sleepy again. Nod, see a walled city like in photographs of China, ancient and all green, tigers, which makes me open my eyes and get out the getting-cold-again water, I got enough problems. I dry off and head down the hall past doors harboring big pregnant black cats.

My pajamas are big maroon and white stripes, just like all the other boys at St Ailanthus, unless their parents or relatives buy them something different. Some kids in St Ailanthus got parents that’s alive. Most of ’em ain’t. Now, it’s not no whole row of striped pj’s getting ready to bunk, it’s just me alone, one boy, one bed, one striped pajamas.

In the dream I’m paying attention to Imena, not just waiting for her to shut up and the drums to start. “Nkisi,” she says, holding up the ugly thing with its lips like a black duck. Why is she showing us this shit! Are niggers ugly? Or are we beautiful? The walls of the gym change to dazzling white. Blondie appears out of nowhere in her nurse uniform and nose ring. She’s holding this big jar. I think she’s trying to psych me out, but she can’t, can’t no fetus in a jar blow my mind. I already seen that shit in don’t- do-IT-until-you’re-married-because-IT’S-a-mortal-sin abortion videos. But it’s not a fetus. It’s my penis in the jar!