· 4 ·
LUNCHTIME ON MONDAY, we break into teams for basketball. Ross sets the rules: winners take it out, you call your own fouls, free throws are one plus one. Shoot for teams and do-or-die to start. Game ends when the bell stops ringing.
Teams go like this: Otis, Alma, Shelley, and Ross against Jason Vale, Alex Levinson, Dezzy, and me. That girl Ross is stuck on—Leslie—stands on the sidelines swinging her red click-clacks, which click and clack like a timer for the game.
Because we’re roughly the same height, me and Ross end up guarding each other. I score more times than he does, but he passes for more points. We foul each other a lot, but neither one calls it. One thing I notice, he’s getting to be pretty strong.
I get the ball and Ross is on me tight. I fake right, spin left. Up for a jump shot.
Swish.
“In yo’ eye!” I crow.
Score’s 22–20, my team in the lead. Ross is dribbling and I’m guarding him close. We look like a couple of bumper cars at Kiddieland. He bounces off me, spins away, dribbles by. Takes about five steps into a lay-up.
Bank-swish.
“Go, Charlie!” the girl with the click-clacks cheers. She’s not the only one. Feels like the whole school is rooting for him.
“TRAVELIN’!” I yell.
“What?”
Charlie Ross comes marching up all outraged, like he thinks he didn’t take those extra steps.
“You were travelin’.”
“I’m allowed two steps.”
“You took five. And I know you appreciate the rules of the game.”
“No way,” he says. “Basket counts. Tie game.”
“That’s not right,” I say. “You were traveling, Ross, and you know it. Now, either you admit to the traveling and that basket doesn’t count . . . or I kick your ass so bad, you’ll be renting equipment from your own daddy.”
I don’t want to get in a fight with this boy. But if he swings, I’ll end it real fast.
Armstrong is threatening me in front of my teammates, schoolmates, and Leslie Maduros, whose click-clacks are neither clicking nor clacking. I can’t back down in front of her and everyone else. Can’t let this newcomer push us around. I think about the gym at the Mulholland Tennis Club, where I’ve gone from a measly twenty pounds on the bench press to a manly sixty. I hear Keith’s voice in my head: If you don’t kick his ass in front of the whole school, Charlie Ross, he’ll boss you all year long.
And my father’s: Some things are worth fighting for.
I’ve got the basketball in my hands. All I have to do is fling it in Armstrong’s face, and when he puts up his arms I’ll . . .
Punch him in the gut!
Kick him in the balls!
Knock him to the ground!
The schoolyard will be ours again.
I look Armstrong straight in the eye, my upper lip snarling, my arms trembling.
He looks at me, calm as Kung Fu Caine.
“I might have taken an extra step,” I say, just as the bell rings.
“We win!” I shout.
I turn to my team. Raise my hand for high-fives.
But no skin comes.
INCIDENT REPORT
Submitted by: Edwina Gaines, Yard Supervisor at Wonderland Avenue School
Date of Incident: Thursday, October 10, 1974
Time: 1:05 p.m.
Location: the boys’ bathroom
After lunch, when the yard was tidy, I made my customary rounds of the boys’ and girls’ bathrooms. The girls’ was quiet and empty. On my way into the boys’, I announced, “This is Mrs. Gaines, stepping into the boys’ bathroom.”
I checked to see that the stalls were empty, but the third one was latched.
“Is someone in here?” I said.
I heard a quick gasp of breath, like a cry suddenly covered up.
“Who’s there?” I said. “What’s wrong?”
Now, a woman of my height has a hard time crouching down. But I commenced to leaning over, and then leaning over some more, so that I might peek under the stall and see if I recognized the shoes. It was a pair of black and white tennis shoes. Keds, I believe. A common brand among the boys.
“All right,” I said, “you don’t want me to know who you are. That’s fine. Except I’m not here to punish. I’m here as a matter of concern of one human being for another. Something must be wrong in a boy’s heart if he’s holding back tears.”
He, whoever he was, made no answer.
“Now, you can come out of there and we can talk. Or I can go round to every classroom in this school and interrupt the teaching to determine which child is out of class.”
At this point the latch slid to the left, the door swung in, and I was looking into the face of Armstrong Le Rois.
“Armstrong,” I said, “what’s the trouble?”
“Nothing, ma’am,” he said.
“Then why are you crying?”
“It’s a personal matter.”
“You’re not required to share that with me. I’m just the Yard Supervisor. On the other hand, if there’s something I can do to help . . .”
There was a long pause. I waited. I did not want to rush the boy. And it’s a good thing too, because when he was ready he said, “Well, Mrs. Gaines, a friend of mine is dead.”
“Oh, Armstrong. I’m so very sorry to hear that. Was it sudden? Was it expected?”
“Expected? Maybe by some. But not by me. I saw him just three days before he passed.”
“Relative of yours?”
“A neighbor, Mrs. Gaines. He was the oldest man near where I live. I did some work for him.”
“How did he die?”
Armstrong’s hand came to his chin. “I don’t know,” he said. “Heart attack, I guess. I’m the one who found him.”
“You? What’s a boy having to find a dead old man for?”
“It was the day I was supposed to come over and read to him from Treasure Island. I knocked on his door and there was no answer. Just the sound of his dog, Patches, barking. So I went around to the rattling old window that he was going to teach me how to fix. I was able to slide it up, and, being small enough, I crawled in. Well, it was an awful thing that I smelled. A worse one that I saw.”
“Oh, Armstrong, you’d better stop the story. It’s going to upset you too much.”
“No, Mrs. Gaines. I need to get it out. And you’re so kind to have this chat with me, I have to make it all the way to the end. I went back to his bedroom. The door was open. I still heard Patches barking. I said, ‘Patches, why are you barking at me? You never bark at me anymore.’ So I pushed open the door a little wider, and there was Mr. Khalil lying in the bed. And there was Patches standing over him. Three paws on the blankets and one on Mr. Khalil’s shoulder. Guarding him the way a dog might stand guard over a toy. Or a treat. That’s when I took a closer look at the old man’s face.”
“And what did you see?”
“Well, it seems that Mr. Khalil forgot to feed Patches the day before he died. And during that day and a half, the dog must’ve gotten hungry.”
“Yes?”
“He had to eat something.”
At this point I staggered back and put my hand on the washbasin to keep me on my feet.
“Oh, child!” I said. “You will not have witnessed that! Lord forbid you carry that image to your grave.”
“Well,” said the boy, “at least now I’m not the only one carrying it, ma’am.”
I have, at last count, forty-seven sick days at my disposal. As a result of this incident, I will be taking one of them tomorrow.
Soon as Mrs. Gaines walks out of the bathroom, I hear a terrible sound.
The toilet flushing.
And soon as the flushing’s done, I see a terrible sight.
Charlie Ross stepping out of the last stall. He’s got this look on his face that says . . . a) I just had diarrhea, or . . . b) I heard everything you told Mrs. Gaines.
“What are you doing in the boys’ bathroom?” I say.
“Something from lunch didn’t agree with me.”
The answer is a.
“Did you hear what I told Mrs. Gaines?”
He nods his head. Looks like the answer is b, too.
Then he apologizes. Says he’s really, really sorry. Says he didn’t mean to listen in. Says he wanted to show some sign he was there, but he was so caught up in the story, he couldn’t speak.
He puts out his hand like he wants to touch my shoulder, but I pull back and glance at the sink to give a hint like maybe he should wash.
After he dries his hands, he looks at me real serious. With grandma eyes when you hold out a boo-boo.
“I’m so sorry about your friend,” Charlie Ross says.
I feel something stir inside me. Something I can’t keep down. I lean over and check the stalls to make sure nobody else is in here. And when I’m sure we’re alone, I let out what I’ve been holding in.
A confetti pop of laughter. The kind that shoots milk out of your nose if you’re drinking and along comes a good joke.
“You believed that? Damn, Charlie Ross, you’re way too gullible. It’s just a story I made up so I could ditch Mr. Mitchell’s social studies test. I was messing with Mrs. Gaines. Didn’t think I’d be messing with you, too.”
I go on laughing and shaking my head. But Charlie Ross has this new look on his face, like he doesn’t think it’s so funny.
Then he says, “My brother died in May.”
That stops the conversation cold. But I’ve got to wonder, is Ross just saying that to mess back with me?
“For real?”
“For real.”
Now I feel, well, not exactly sorry, but surprised. A boy whose brother died. That’s serious.
“For real real?”
His head goes up and down. Up and down again. Maybe it’s true. Still, he better not run to Mrs. Gaines and say I lied.
“You wouldn’t run to Mrs. Gaines and say I lied, would you?”
“No,” he says.
I give him the same cold, hard look my daddy flashes me when he’s mad.
“I won’t tell,” Ross says.
“Good,” I say, “’cause I got her sympathy now. That’s like a Golden Ticket around here.”
I start to go, but Charlie Ross’s voice follows me to the door. “You don’t know what it’s like to lose someone,” he says. “If you did, you wouldn’t lie about it.”
I walk out of that bathroom feeling like I just walked out of church.
That afternoon, with Charlie Ross’s words still preaching around my head, my feet decide to pay a surprise visit to old Mr. Khalil.
“Mr. Khalil!” I call out soon as I see him on his porch.
His head is bowed down to his chin. Hands folded like the newspaper in his lap. I go on in through the gate. Patches won’t bark anymore when he sees me, so I bang that gate real hard behind me.
Mr. Khalil is lost in a nap. At least I hope it’s a nap. Mama always says to be careful when you tell a lie. Some lies make themselves come true.
“Mr. Khalil! Wake up!”
Not a peep out of this old man.
I walk right up to his face, lean in close to see if he’s breathing. Mr. Khalil’s got one extra long hair curling out of his nose. When you’re real old, you stop trimming in the small places. If he’s alive, the breeze from his breath should make that one long hair dance.
It’s not dancing. Looks like a comma hanging from his nostril.
I look at his chest. A live person’s chest will rise and fall as part of the regular routine of living. Mr. Khalil’s chest is all flat. And stays flat for one one-thousand . . .
Two one-thousand . . .
Three one-thousand . . .
Four one-thousand . . .
I killed him. I killed him with my lie.
Six one-thousand . . .
And then, like he just came up from the bottom of a pool, his chest blows up with a big breath.
“You’re alive! Oh, Mr. Khalil, thank God you’re alive!”
“Armstrong?” he says, opening one soapy eye at a time.
“Hi!”
“Did I sleep all the way to Saturday?”
“No, Mr. Khalil,” I say, laughing because I’m so glad I didn’t kill him. “It’s Thursday afternoon. I was just walking by and, uh, wanted to see how you are.”
“And how am I?”
“You’re perfect,” I say. “But you take a long time between breaths.”
At lunchtime the next day I find Otis in the library reading Sydney Omarr’s Astrological Guide.
“Did you know that in a leap year your personality changes, and for one day everybody acts like they were born under the sign of the next month, not their own?”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I could do your chart someday, Charlie. If you want.”
“Sure.”
He opens up this little notebook he carries around. “When is your birthday?”
“July the eighteenth.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know the time of day you were born, would you?”
“I can ask my mom.”
“It’ll help me to know your rising sign. That’s the one that complements your birth sign, which is Cancer.”
“Okay. I’ll find out.”
Otis looks at me like he’s reading my face the way he’s been reading that book.
“You know your zodiac animal?”
I shake my head no.
“Crab. They move side to side.”
“Is that bad?”
“Well . . . if you need to get out of the way of something, it’s good. But if you need to stand your ground, it’s not.”
Otis goes back to his book. I hear him say things like “Uh-huh” and “That’s interesting” and “You don’t say?” I don’t want to interrupt him, but I’m curious about something, so when he licks his finger to turn the page, that’s my opening to ask, “What sign is Armstrong?”
“Taurus. The bull. He barrels straight ahead. Lotta times without thinking.”
“Is that why he’s so mean?”
“It’s part of it.”
“What’s the other part?”
“Armstrong is also mean because he’s the youngest and not allowed to fight back against his sisters. Armstrong is mean because at our old school he was considered small for his age, so he had to fight his way to the top. One time some kids jumped him. They broke his arm. And Armstrong is mean because of his daddy.”
“What does his father do to him?”
Otis looks at me like that’s private. I remember that Armstrong’s father is a kickboxer. Does he practice on his only son?
“How come he’s so mean to you?”
“We go way back. Besides, he knows I’m a Libra. We like to keep the peace. And we’re real quick to forgive.”
By now Otis’s finger is dry, and I can see he really wants to turn that page, but before he licks his finger again I say, “One more thing, Otis.”
“Yes, Charlie?”
“Is there anyone at this school who can beat up Armstrong?”
“Student or a teacher?”
“Student.”
“None that I know of. It might be possible for our teacher, Mr. Mitchell, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”
Friday afternoons at my old school, Miss Silverton used to read to us. Books from inside her desk. Books from her purse. Books from her coat. She was a library with feet.
I liked the one about the boy who wins the chocolate factory. And the Hardy Boys. A little too white for my taste, but they sure can solve a crime.
Here at Wonderland they’ve got the wrong idea about reading. Instead of reading from a book, Mr. Mitchell thinks we should read from a box.
He calls it the SRA box. Inside you find shiny plastic cards with a colored band at the top. Green, blue, yellow, orange, red, silver, and gold. Each one’s got a different article or paragraph they want you to read. Comprehension questions waiting on the back of the card. We do the questions, then check ourselves against the key from the back of the box. If we get all the questions right on three cards in a row, we go up a color.
Here’s something I read on a green card: A grasshopper can camouflage itself on a leaf. Both are the same shade of green. The insect blends in. On the back the questions go like this:
A grasshopper can blend in on a leaf because . . .
a) the sunlight is in its face.
b) it has the same color as the leaf.
c) it hides under a rock.
This is the most insulting type of reading you ever saw. The colors change, but the writing stays the same. Words get a little longer, is all. You never see the author’s name on a card. I wouldn’t put my name on them either.
Meantime, Mr. Mitchell is studying his Los Angeles Times. Miss Silverton never did her own business at the desk.
I go up to that box of cards and flip past the yellows and oranges. Pick up a red card. Maybe this is where the stories are.
Mr. Mitchell looks up from the sports section, where he’s checking the odds for Sunday’s Rams game.
“What are you doing, Armstrong?”
“Looking for something good to read.”
“What color are you?”
“Excuse me?”
“What color reader are you? I see your hands up there at red.”
“My hand is searching for a story, sir.”
“Yes, but you have to make progress to read in the advanced section.”
“Well, I have made progress,” I say. “I read at the same level as, uh, Charlie Ross, for instance.”
“Is that right?”
Mr. Mitchell folds up his Los Angeles Times like it’s ready for redelivery. He slides back from his desk and strolls over. “Mr. Ross,” he says, “Mr. Le Rois here thinks he can read at your level. What color are you up to?”
“I don’t know,” Ross says. “Red, maybe.”
“Red is just two colors shy of gold.” Then Mr. Mitchell turns to me. “And you think you’re a red reader, is that right?”
“I am if he is.”
“Well, if you are, you’ve been keeping it a secret.”
“I was brought up not to boast, sir.”
“Were you brought up not to bet?”
“Betting’s okay.”
“So you’d be willing to bet that you can read at the same color as Charlie Ross.”
“Yes, sir. But I’d like to know what it is we’re betting.”
“Your grade, of course. If you read a red card and get as many questions right as Charlie gets on his red card, I’ll give you an A-plus in reading.”
“And if he can’t?” Charlie Ross asks.
“Then he brings home an F to his mother, who I’m sure taught him not to lie, either.”
Terrific. Now I’m in a reading contest.
When Mr. Mitchell asks for a volunteer to keep time, the only hands that aren’t practically holding up the ceiling belong to Otis, Alex, and Shelley.
“Okay, Jason,” he says. Jason Vale, a heavyset kid whose hair grows wild down his shoulders like the ivy on our back slope, gets up from his seat. Mr. Mitchell hands Jason a small stopwatch.
“Ten minutes,” Mr. Mitchell says.
“Ready . . . set . . . go!”
I look down at my SRA card. It’s a page from The Boy Scout Handbook on how to construct a raft. At least that’s practical information. I wonder what Armstrong got. I glance at his card: “Parliamentary System of Government in England.”
How’s that for a fun read? What are we even doing here? It’s like Mr. Mitchell is going out of his way to embarrass Armstrong. For what? Claiming a level, a “color,” above his own?
When constructing a raft in nature, the first step is to . . .
a) seek level ground.
b) gather wood.
c) unspool rope.
The manual said the first step is to seek level ground. I choose c) unspool rope.
When gathering wood, you should look for logs . . .
a) of equal thickness.
b) of equal length.
c) of the same kind of tree.
I glance back at the part about wood gathering. It says the most important factor in selecting wood is length. I choose c) of the same kind of tree.
I can see that Armstrong’s on the last question when Jason shouts, “STOP! Time’s up!”
Mr. Mitchell asks us what card numbers we have. We tell him, and he gets the answer keys from the back of the box. He hands me Armstrong’s card and he hands Armstrong mine, telling us to grade each other.
There’s this underwater silence in the room as I go over Armstrong’s answers. Each time he gets one right I feel relieved, like it’s my own test I’m grading. Each time he gets one wrong, it’s hard to breathe.
“Well?” Mr. Mitchell says when we both look up.
“He got three wrong,” I say. Mr. Mitchell looks over Armstrong’s answer sheet. Then he looks at Armstrong. “And how did Mr. Ross do?”
The room goes quiet again. And then Armstrong announces the verdict. “Two out of ten.”
“Two wrong out of ten,” Mr. Mitchell says. “He beat you by one.”
“Two right out of ten. Eight wrong.”
Otis smiles. Mr. Mitchell plucks the card from Armstrong’s hand, thinking there’s got to be some mistake. He compares my answers to the key, then hands the card back to me.
“It would appear that Mr. Ross needs to work on his reading,” Mr. Mitchell says.
In the boys’ bathroom, I don’t even wait for Ross to zip up before I shove him against the wall.
“Don’t you ever cut yourself down for me again,” I say.
“What’re you talking about?”
“You put the wrong answers on purpose, didn’t you?”
Ross tries to look away from me, but I get right up in his face. “Thought you’d do me a favor. Make the bus boy look a little less dumb.”
“The contest was dumb, Armstrong. Not you.”
“Bad enough I got that man for a teacher. I don’t need any charity from you.”
“It wasn’t charity. I wasn’t paying attention.”
“Look, Ross, next time we get in a contest, pay attention. Try to win.”
“Fine,” he says. “I will.”
“Try as hard as you can.”
“Fine,” he says again. “I will.”
“Try like your life depends on it.”
“FINE!” he shouts. “I WILL!”
“And before you walk out of here, I think you should know that your fly is open.”
On my way out, I hear him zipping up.