Chapter SEVEN
WHENEVER WE WERE AROUND SPANKY in gym, Bonds and me kept our grills set to chill, and wouldn’t even think about cracking a smile. We’d both stand our ground, too, making him move over a step anytime we passed close to each other. Then one day, Bonds and Spanky wound up at the water fountain together.
I was shooting hoops at the far basket, so I didn’t see it start.
“Asshole’s going for water the same time as me. He puts a little hop in his step, like he’s gotta get there first. I know what he’s thinking—doesn’t want to drink after my black lips been there. Well, I wasn’t gonna suck up after his racist cracker-mouth, either,” Bonds told me after school that day. “I swing my shoulders around first, right in front of him. Only he don’t stop coming. So I stiffen up hard and let him bounce off me—give him a good ride, and he hits the floor.”
That’s when I heard kids making noise over it and saw for myself.
Spanky popped right up, but Bonds stuck his chest out and knocked him back a few feet. I thought they were about to start throwing bombs.
All my muscles tensed up, like I was standing in the middle of it myself. Not out of fear of fighting Spanky or anybody else. But from knowing that drama was about to jump off because of what happened to me that night in Hillsboro.
I was scared that feeling would follow me for the rest of my life.
Out of nowhere, Mr. Hendricks came flying in between them.
“Stop it! The two of you!” Hendricks hollered.
But he was facing Bonds and grabbed him by the arm, while Spanky was still looking to throw down.
Bonds yanked himself out of Hendricks’s grip, to make sure Spanky didn’t get in a free shot. But when he did, Hendricks’s fingernails scraped a long ribbon of skin off Bonds’s left forearm, from his elbow down to his wrist.
“Shiiiit!” cried Bonds, shaking his arm in the air trying to stop the sting.
Another gym teacher must have radioed for the deans and school security, and they came running on the double inside of the next minute.
In the end, the deans didn’t suspend either Bonds or Spanky, because neither one of them threw a single punch. But Bonds’s mother made a real fuss to the principal about her son’s scratches. The Board of Education came down hard on Hendricks. They made him take off three days without pay and apologize to Bonds in front of the whole gym class.
On the first day of his suspension, Hendricks came in to apologize, standing in front of us in his street clothes.
“It’s a sad day for teachers,” Hendricks said, so steamed he was red-faced. “We’re supposed to keep you all safe, even if that means putting ourselves in the middle of something dangerous. I put my hands on somebody here, trying to do just that. And I’m sorry he got scratched up a little. I was wrong, Mr. Bonds. Forgive me.”
Nearly every black kid there was grinning wide to hear Hendricks eat crow like that, and have him call Bonds “Mister.” Spanky and the kids he hung tight with were either staring at the high ceiling or the wooden boards in the gym floor. But there were plenty of white kids who hated Hendricks—kids he’d nailed with a dodgeball or barked on for not being strong enough to climb the thirty-foot ropes. And they were all enjoying that show, too.
Hendricks was walking towards the door when he turned back around and said, “And you can all bet that’s the last time I get involved in anything. If you twist an ankle, jam a finger—just go running to some other phys ed instructor, or maybe the school nurse. I got a hands-off policy from now on.”
At lunch, Bonds told Asa and me, “Yeah, it was pretty much a suck-ass apology. But I loved it anyway. Best day I ever had in school.”
“I wish for anything I could have seen it,” said Asa, “You gonna sue?”
“I want to, but my mother says we already got money for iodine and Band-Aids,” Bonds came back. “Noah’s the one about to hit it rich. Start a civil suit for money against Charlie Scat—the way those people did on O.J. Simpson.”
“Yeah, right,” I said. “That Scat dude owned nothing but his Land Rover, and I read where he sold that to pay for his lawyer.”
“So maybe the judge will sentence him to be your butler,” said Asa, cracking up. “He’ll have to pick up after you in the hood. Then you’ll make him bend over on the street corner, and brothers passing by can take turns booting him in the ass.”
That didn’t sound half bad to me.
This dime-piece of a shorty named Tiffany came over to our table and gave Bonds a high five for grounding Hendricks.
“I hate that gym teacher. I hope he gets fired and has to collect cans off the street,” she said. “You got it goin’ on, too, Noah. The way you’re standing up to those Hillsboro thugs.”
Then she gave me a high five and let her sweet palm sit flat against mine for more than a second.
“I’m a part of this crew. I don’t get no love?” asked Asa, with his open hand out in front of him.
Tiffany just left Asa hanging, sitting herself down right next to me.
My eyes hooked up with hers and I felt a fire spark. Bonds must have picked up on it, because he bounced right away.
But Asa’s head was hard as wood, and he was still running game at her.
Then two of Deshawna’s homegirls came walking past. They stopped right in front of us grilling Tiffany, like I was Deshawna’s private property. So I knew that whole scene would get back to Deshawna, who had a different lunch period. Only it was sure to get blown up bigger, with them telling it like Tiffany was sitting in my lap.
Halloween fell on a Friday, and I worked the late shift that night at Mickey D’s. I left the place around midnight, walking home alone through no-man’s-land with all that Halloween craziness in the streets. Junior high school kids were really feeling it, throwing eggs, chasing each other with cans of shaving cream, and swinging sweat socks filled with flour.
I guess I looked like an adult to them, because they all just ran right past me, like I was too old to be a target in that game.
I remembered crossing Decatur on Halloween with my friends when I was that age. We wore masks that covered up our faces, and went trick-or-treating on the first few blocks into Hillsboro. Those were all private houses, and the people who lived there could afford to give out brand-name mini-candy bars—Three Musketeers, Snickers, Almond Joy—the works.
“Trick or treat,” we’d say, with a high pitch to it.
We were trying to make our voices sound white, like there really was such a thing. Then we’d take our haul back to East Franklin, wanting to curse out the people from around our way who gave us loose pieces of candy corn or one-penny bubble gums.
This was my weekend to have Destiny Love, and that next day I took her to the playground with Mom and Grandma.
“Look at this place,” Mom said, disgusted. “Eggs everywhere.”
“Don’t these young hooligans know it’s a sin to waste food? What do their families teach them?” asked Grandma. “Noah, did you ever disgrace your own neighborhood like this, growing up?”
“No, Grandma,” I answered, knowing I’d boosted plenty of eggs from our refrigerator to chuck on Halloween.
But I was starting to see things different now.
I sat Destiny Love on my lap and went back and forth slow on the real swings, holding on to her with one hand and the steel chain with the other.
She let out a squeal of pure joy every time we swung in either direction.
And a good part of me felt that inside again, too—like I was still a kid.
That was the kind of thing my daughter could bring to me.
When we finished, I was super careful where I let Destiny Love crawl in that park, not wanting any of that filth on the ground to touch her.
DESHAWNA’S APARTMENT
DESHAWNA: I hear you, Tamika! I’ll torch his cheating ass! (Slams down the phone.)
DESHAWNA’S DAD: What’s all that noise about, Deshawna? (Muffles his anger.) You’re gonna wake up your daughter.
DESH AW NA: Noah Jackson thinks he’s God’s gift— that’s what, sending out signals to every girl at school. All my friends know he’s playing me.
DESHAWNA’S DAD: And what do you think he was after when he got you pregnant? A seventeen-year-old boy’s mind is on but one thing. Having a child with you ain’t gonna change that so fast. That’s just the truth of it, little girl.
DESHAWNA: Noah’s no closer to putting a ring on my finger than the day I had his baby.
DESHAWNA’S DAD: I told you ten times already. Now I’ll tell you again—just ’cause you share blood together, that don’t make you family.
DESHAWNA: Sometimes I really love him, Daddy. When they busted his skull with that bat, and I thought he was gonna die (Starts to cry.), I couldn’t take it.
DESHAWNA’S DAD: You don’t know real love for a man yet. You just concentrate on loving that baby of yours. What I had for your mama, that was real love. (Hugs Deshawna tight.) I held her in my arms for the last two months of her life while that damn diabetes broke down all her functions. You need to go through hard times together to find out what love is.
DESHAWNA (Through a flood of tears.): I miss Mama so much. I wish she could have seen Destiny Love.
DESHAWNA’S DAD (Softly.): We both do, baby. We both do.
DESHAWNA: What am I gonna do about Noah?
DESHAWNA’S DAD: That boy comes from decent folks. No matter what happens between you and him, he might grow up to be a good father. That’s all you can hope for now. That’s all you can try to hold him to.