I called in a few cruisers and set up a couple of traffic barriers on Georgia, one at Lamont and one at Park. We diverted the cars like that, kept the kids from congregating on the street. It worked. Nothing too bad was happening that I could see. I was standing outside my cruiser, talking to another cop, Eric Young, who was having a smoke. That’s when I saw Tonio Harris running east on Morton, heading for the housing complex. A late-model black import was behind him, and there were a couple of YBMs with their heads out the open windows, yelling shit out, laughing at the Harris kid, like that.
“You all right here?” I said to Young.
“Fine, Sarge,” he said.
My cruiser was idling. I slid under the wheel and pulled down on the tree.
Just around midnight, when I was fixin’ to go out, my moms walked into my room. I was sittin’ on the edge of my bed, lacing up my Timbies, listening to PGC comin’ from the box, Tigger doin’ his shout-outs and then movin’ right into the new Jay-Z, which is tight. The music was so loud that I didn’t hear my mother walk in, but when I looked up, there she was, one arm crossed over the other like she does when she’s tryin’ to be hard, staring me down.
“Whassup, Mama?”
“What’s up with you?”
I shrugged. “Back Yard is playin’ tonight. Was thinkin’ I’d head over to the Hole.”
“Did you ask me if you could?”
“Do I have to?” I used that tone she hated, knew right away I’d made a mistake.
“You’re living in my house, aren’t you?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You payin’ rent now?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Talkin’ about do I have to.”
“Can I go?”
Mama uncrossed her arms. “Thought you said you’d be studyin’ up for that test this weekend.”
“I will. Gonna do it tomorrow morning, first thing. Just wanted to go out and hear a little music tonight, is all.”
I saw her eyes go soft on me then. “You gonna study for that exam, you hear?”
“I promise I will.”
“Go on, then. Come right back after the show.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I noticed as she was walkin’ out the door her shoulders were getting stooped some. Bad posture and a hard life. She wasn’t but thirty-six years old.
I spent a few more minutes listening to the radio and checking myself in the mirror. Pattin’ my natural and shit. I got a nice modified cut, not too short, not too blown-out or nothin’ like that. A lot of the fellas be wearin’ cornrows now, tryin’ to look like Iverson. But I don’t think it would look right on me. And I know what the girls like. They look at me, they like what they see. I can tell.
Moms has been ridin’ me about my college entrance exam. I fucked up the first one I took. I went out and got high on some fierce chronic the night before it, and my head was filled up with cobwebs the next morning when I sat down in the school cafeteria to take that test. I’m gonna take it again, though, and do better next time.
I’m not one of those guys who’s got, what do you call that, illusions about my future. No hoop dreams about the NBA, nothin’ like that. I’m not good enough or tall enough, I know it. I’m sixth man on my high school team, that ought to tell you somethin’ right there. My uncle Gaylen, he’s been real good to me, and straight-up with me, too. Told me to have fun with ball and all that, but not to depend on it. To stick with the books. I know I fucked up that test, but next time I’m gonna do better, you can believe that.
I was thinkin’, though, I could get me a partial scholarship playin’ for one of those small schools in Virginia or Maryland, William and Mary or maybe Goucher up in Baltimore. Hold up-Goucher’s for women only, I think. Maybe I’m wrong. Have to ask my guidance counselor, soon as I can find one. Ha, ha.
The other thing I should do, for real, is find me a part-time job. I’m tired of havin’ no money in my pockets. My mother works up at the Dollar Store in the Silver Spring mall, and she told me she could hook me up there. But I don’t wanna work with my mother. And I don’t want to be workin’ at no Mac-Donald’s or sumshit like that. Have the neighborhood slangers come in and make fun of me and shit, standin’ there in my minimum-wage uniform. But I do need some money. I’d like to buy me a nice car soon. I’m not talkin’ about some hooptie, neither.
I did have an interview for this restaurant downtown, bussin’ tables. White boy who interviewed kept sayin’ shit like, “Do you think you can make it into work on time?” and do you think this and do you think that? Might as well gone ahead and called me a nigger right to my face. The more he talked, the more attitude I gave him with my eyes. After all that, he smiled and sat up straight, like he was gonna make some big announcement, and said he was gonna give me a try. I told him I changed my mind and walked right out of there. Uncle Gaylen said I should’ve taken that job and showed him he was wrong, for all of us. But I couldn’t. I can’t stand how white people talk to you sometimes. Like they’re just there to make their own selves feel better. I hired a Negro today, and like that.
I am gonna take that test over, though.
I changed my shirt and went out through the living room. My sister was watchin’ the BET videos on TV, her mouth around a straw, sippin’ on one of those big sodas. She’s startin’ to get some titties on her. Some of the slick young niggas in the neighborhood been commentin’ on it, too. Late for her to be awake, but it was Friday night. She didn’t look up as I passed. I yelled good-bye to my moms and heard her say my name from the kitchen. I knew she was back up in there ’cause I smelled the smoke comin’ off her cigarette. There was a ten-dollar bill sittin’ in a bowl by the door. I folded it up and slipped it inside my jeans. My mother had left it there for me. I’m tellin’ you, she is cool people.
Outside the complex, I stepped across this little road and the dark courtyard real quick. We been livin’ here a long time, and I know most everyone by sight. But in this place here, that don’t mean shit.
The Black Hole had a line goin’ outside the door when I got there. I went through the metal detector and let a white rent-a-cop pat me down while I said hey to a friend going into the hall. I could feel the bass from way out in the lobby.
The hall was crowded and the place was bumpin’. I could smell sweat in the damp air. Also chronic, and it was nice. Back Yard was doin’ “Freestyle,” off Hood Related, that double CD they got. I kind of made my way towards the stage, careful not to bump nobody, nodding to the ones I did. I knew a lot of young brothers there. Some of ’em run in gangs, some not. I try to know a little bit of everybody, you see what I’m sayin’? Spread your friends out in case you run into some trouble. I was smilin’ at some of the girls, too.
Up near the front I got into the groove. Someone passed me somethin’ that smelled good, and I hit it. Back Yard was turnin’ that shit out. I been knowin’ their music for like ten years now. They had the whole joint up there that night, I’m talkin’ about a horn section and everything else. I must have been up there close to the stage for about, I don’t know, an hour, sumshit like that, just dancing. It seemed like all of us was all movin’ together. On “Do That Stuff,” they went into this extended drum thing, shout-outs for the hoodies and the crews; I was sweatin’ clean through my shirt, right about then.