22

As soon as the last school bell rang, I set out for Kalvin’s place. His house was a good mile away, but I didn’t care. There was so much swirling in my brain. Walking would help clear my head.

I had to pass a couple of The Watchers to get to his apartment building. Right before I went in, I glanced back and saw them filming me. I ignored them. The front door to Kalvin’s building was open as usual. I made my way up and stood in front of his place, ready to knock.

But what was I going to say? I was so pissed about the video and upset about the assembly, I didn’t know where to begin. Rip his head off or hide in his arms?

Before I could come up with an answer, the front door swung open and a woman who was on her way out jumped back, startled by my presence.

“Oh, my! You scared me, honey,” she laughed. “Who you? What can I do you for?”

She was dark skinned, much darker than Kalvin. Her kind brown eyes considered me closely behind her librarian specs.

“I’m sorry, I was looking for Kalvin. . . .”

She smiled when she saw my school shirt. “Oh, Truman. Hi, I’m Kalvin’s mom.”

“Uh, hi . . . I’m . . . Erica.” I stood there awkwardly.

“Hello, Erica. Are you dropping off homework for Kalvin? He says he’s keeping up while he’s . . . you know . . . on leave,” she shook her head. “Always a different friend showing up. . . .

Glad you all can help him, though.”

I sighed. “Is he here?”

“He’ll be here in about fifteen minutes. Out walking that dog of his. You can come in and wait if you want to.”

“Uh, no thanks; I can come back.”

She took my hand. “Nonsense. Come on in; you must be thirsty.”

I guess I was. She took me into the kitchen and sat me down, plying me with juice and cookies. Maybe I looked younger than I was, but I didn’t care; I scarfed them down anyway.

“How is school, Erica?”

I was still surprised by her appearance. She seemed so homey, a good motherly type. Not like a woman who gave birth to the Knockout King. “Uh, fine.”

“I haven’t met you before, have I?” Then suddenly, something clicked when she noticed my red hair. “Oooh. You’re Erica. . . .” she said, knowingly. She winked at me. “One of Kal’s special friends.”

What did that mean? I blushed, staring into my glass.

She smiled. “Oh, it’s OK. He never introduces me to his girlfriends, so it’s nice to finally meet one.”

One?

“I shouldn’t show you this,” she whispered. She got up and opened one of the kitchen drawers, pulling out a crumpled piece of paper. She smoothed it out on the counter and brought it gently over like it might crumble into nothing. “The reason I know your name is, I was cleaning his room the other day and when I emptied the trash, I found this.”

She handed me the paper. It was in Kalvin’s writing. “A poem?” I said, surprised.

“He was probably too embarrassed to show you. Still, you must be quite something to inspire him to write poetry again.”

Again? “Kalvin wrote a poem? For me?”

My eyes quickly scanned the page.

Red hair flaming

Eyes on fire

She don’t go blaming

She ain’t no liar.

She a fish staring out

From her underwater tank

Recordin’ the truth

Like its money in tha bank

She got weight to her

And I don’t mean how much

She feel heavy inside

You can feel her touch

She suck the air out

from all ‘round me

She ain’t afraid

She see right thru me

She will say what up

Right to my face.

She keeps me real

She no basket case.

But that hair of hers

Is like a match—

One strike

And she’ll burn ya

that’ll be the last.

But for now

She my latest thing

She got weight to her

She my bling bling

Where did that come from? My anger kept falling away as I reread his words. But then it came rushing back when I thought about the video he sent to Destiny.

His mom paused thoughtfully. “It’s nice to see him writing after all these years. He used to write me all kinda poems when he was little. His hero was Muhammad Ali. You know, float like a butterfly, sting like a bee?”

Kalvin, the boxing poet. This was getting too much.

“Yes, he had quite the way with words. ‘Course I’m talking back when he was five, back when he was a happy little guy. He used to call them pomes. Wait here; I’ll show you something else.”

Then she just walked out of the room, leaving me there alone. Maybe she had to go to the bathroom. . . .

She returned a minute later with her iPad. “I just had these pictures transferred from my old scrapbooks. It’s so much easier these days.”

Two minutes in and she’s showing me baby pictures. Not what I had in mind. . . .

The first one was with a boy around three, cute as can be, sitting on her lap.

Even then, his eyes were intense.

“Where did those eyes come from?” I said, pointing them out.

“That’s all his father left him with, those eyes. Striking, isn’t it? He was such a happy kid in those days. Interested in all kinds of things. Always asking questions, how to do this, how to do that. Just soaking it all in.”

“And now?” I asked.

She shrugged, forwarded to the next image. It was a silhouette shot at sunset—Kalvin around six on the shoulders of a man—tall, big and muscled.

“His dad,” she said. “He was trouble . . . but I was attracted to trouble back then, like any girl is. I was rebellious, mostly against my parents, I guess.” She stared at the picture. “We had our moments. He was a good man, but also a hard man. He drove Kal to become tougher because he believed . . . that’s what it took to survive. Then he left us.”

I knew that story. “Yeah, he told me. I’m sorry for your loss. I know what it means not having a dad around.”

She looked surprised. “Oh? Your daddy’s in prison too?”

I was confused. “You mean he’s not—”

I heard the front door open, the dog yapping. Kalvin was back. I shoved the poem in my pocket.

“Not what, honey?” she asked. She saw Kalvin coming, then glanced mischievously back at me. “Oh, he’s not going to like this.”

Kalvin took one look at me with his mom and her iPad and knew it wasn’t good. He walked over and grabbed it from her.

“Kal! There’s no harm in sharing pictures with your friend.”

“Some things ain’t for friends!” he said. He glared at me and saw that I was more pissed off than he was. He grunted. “So I suppose you got it in for me too. Come on.” He walked toward his room.

His mom sighed. She was used to it. “You want some more juice, honey?”

“No, thank you, Mrs. Barnes. I’ll have a few words for your Kal, then I’ll be going.”

She shook her head. “I wouldn’t waste your breath. He won’t listen anyways. He doesn’t listen to anybody.”

He was sitting on his bed, holding his dog in his lap, when I walked into his room. I shut the door behind me. It was a little weird with his mom just on the other side, but I needed to unload.

First the sex video, then lying about his dad?

I knew he knew what I was mad about, so I waited for him to explain himself.

He was all tensed up, looking guilty. “OK, I fucked up.”

“Really? I’m trying to understand why someone sends a video of a girl he’s just fucked to that girl’s only friend! That’s what I’m trying to get. I mean, maybe I could see you showing it to your perverted little pal Prince, which would still be fucked up—but Destiny?!”

He kept his eyes glued to the wall. “It was an accident.”

My jaw dropped. “An accident? Oh, this should be good. Go ahead, tell me how a sex video of us gets sent to my best friend? Go ahead.”

His face was burning up. “This app I got posts it to Facebook and then you just tag the person you want to see it. Your name is right next to hers. I accidentally clicked on hers thinking it was you. It was a mistake. Believe me, D told me off good.”

I sat there with my jaw open. I didn’t know whether to believe him or not. “How is that even possible?”

“I said I was sorry, OK?!”

I was fuming. “No, actually, you didn’t.”

He looked at me for the first time. “OK, then. Well I am. Sorry.”

“Of all people, her. I mean, you two already have some weird history going on. I could see you sending it to her just to piss her off—”

“She’s just one of the guys to me now.”

“OK. I’m not even going to comment on that,” I said, shaking my head. “I told you I didn’t want you to record us.”

He blinked. “I thought you’d understand. You filmed the crew doing all kinds of things and shared it—”

“This is nothing like that! Jesus—that was . . . my first time.” A tear escaped my eye, but I quickly wiped it away.

“I’m—”

I cut him off. “Give me your phone.”

He saw he was going to lose this one. “Fine.”

He pushed Boner away and reached into his pocket, tossing the phone to me. Boner scampered to his hiding spot in the closet.

I didn’t have to search for the video; it was already opened on his screen. I didn’t ever want to see it again.

I deleted the video and waited for the phone to process it. “This was not something for others to see!” I threw the phone at him. He didn’t duck fast enough; it pinged off his chest.

“Fuck, girl. Get your shit together,” he said, rubbing his shirt.

“Delete it from Facebook. Now!” I watched him do it. He knew better than to argue.

When it was done, he stuck his phone in his pocket. “You got no problem filming some dude getting laid out—”

“Yeah, well that’s gonna change. What is wrong with you? I’m not just one of your slutty girlfriends. That was supposed to be . . . special!”

“Special? You been watching too much TV. This is real life. People do it all the time now.”

“Real life? It’s MY life!” I yelled. “It’s my fucking life!”

He jumped up when I started yelling. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Chill. My moms is out there.”

“I don’t care,” I said, my eyes misting up again. I ignored it, not wanting to give him the satisfaction.

“Hey. I’m sorry. Really.” He walked slowly toward me trying not to spook me. I flinched when his hand touched my arm. “I’m really sorry,” he whispered. “That was stupid of me. Maybe part of me did want to show someone; I don’t know.”

Unbelievable. “Did you show it to Prince and those guys?”

He seemed upset. “No. No, I promised I wouldn’t do that....”

I closed my eyes. Part of me wanted to hold on to my anger and let it eat him alive. But there was still something about him holding me that calmed me down instead. “You two. . . have a messed up friendship.”

He nodded. My arms were limp at my side; he held me close. We stood there for a minute until I finally raised my arms and pushed him away.

“And why did you lie to me about your dad being dead? What’s that about? I felt like an idiot in front of your mom.”

Kalvin scoffed. “I didn’t lie . . . not exactly.” He went to the window and gazed out. “He is dead—to me.”

I was out of words. I stood there for at least a minute or two staring at his backside. Finally, I just said, “I don’t know what he did to you that was so bad or why he’s in prison, but you are your own person. Those Tokers look up to you. You could do something with that besides turning them into fighting machines. I’m starting to think Joe Lee is right. It makes no sense what we’re doing.”

“What—you on his side now?”

“He came to our school today. With the police! So far, I can’t say he’s lied. I mean, I’ve only seen you guys pick white people as your targets. How can you go after white people and say you’re in—say you like being with me?”

He laughed bitterly. “Because it ain’t about race! You just been hyped up by those commenters on his website. They think this is some kind of black-on-white thing! Shit, Tokers is just looking for targets that won’t fight back is all. Can’t help it if white people can’t fight. If it makes you feel better, we clocked a Asian dude a while back—”

“Whatever. We’re putting people into the hospital. People are afraid to go out because of us. That guy may not be my kind of person, but I can understand how he just wants his life back. Maybe that’s what I want too.”

He was taken aback by that. “Did you even hear him at the rally? He didn’t have a life before. Now he’s somebody. He has people watching his videos. And how do you get more viewers? By calling it a race issue—”

This was going nowhere. “You’re just making excuses.” I pushed him away. “I’m leaving.”

I had my hand on the knob when he said, “Wait.”

I stood there in front of the door. I heard him open his dresser drawer and riffle through some junk. I glanced over my shoulder and saw him pulling out a bunch of DVDs in sleeves and flipping through them. He stopped suddenly when he came to what he was searching for.

He dropped the rest and stared at it like it was Kryptonite. “Fuck it.”

He pulled out the DVD and stuck it into his laptop. While it was loading, someone started banging on the front door. He jumped. When the banging continued, his mom called out, “Kalvin?”

He kept his eyes locked on mine. “Just sit and watch this before you leave. I’ll be right back.” He paused next to me. “Whatever you wanna think, it’s out of my hands.”