CHAPTER NINE
THE AIR WAS FRIGID, hefty with the coming frost. It was a little after five in the afternoon, and the daylight would not last much longer.
Kollie walked steadily westward, the thought of his destination moving his feet forward. The team would be preparing for the state tournament they had recently qualified for—the first time in more than twelve years. Coach and X (mostly X) would be running them hard, he knew, with speed and endurance drills, zone simulations, passing and defense moves. They would all be tired, but exhilarated about the prospect of winning against some of the best teams in the state. Of being better than they, or anyone else, ever thought they could be. A team of black boys who no one thought would really amount to much. And now look at us! Kollie thought proudly. Then he frowned, spit on the ground, and revised the sentence. And now look at them.
As the hard November earth crunched under the weight of his Timberlands, he saw Brooklyn Center High School looming to his right. He grimaced before he could think about it. He was coming through the back way, appraising the school from behind. Its windows looked on at him dimly, holding little light. The gray walls seemed taller, more imposing than he remembered. A cold gust of wind kicked up and blew in his eyes; he shielded his face with his hand and pushed on.
He had been condemned to sit at home in his room for the past two weeks, on strict orders of no video games from his parents. This was to be part of his punishment. It was ridiculous, though, because his parents worked all the time, and his father pretty much lived at Vivian’s anyway. So, he stayed in his room playing Plants vs. Zombies and Star Wars: The Old Republic. Last Thursday afternoon, he had even managed to sneak in Gabe and Tetee through the back door, for a lively three-hour game of Dark Souls II. No one—not even Fake-Ass Angel, who had been at one of her frequent study sessions—had been the wiser.
Off in the distance, little black dots darted back and forth over brown grass, pursuing a small, white, spinning ball. Kollie began to jog, and he could almost feel the light thunk of the ball from foot to foot as he dribbled it down the field. His teammates were getting bigger now, growing into normal-sized human beings as he came closer. They had stopped running and were walking slowly toward the center of the field, hands on their hips in that familiar stance you took when you were trying to catch your breath. Kollie smiled in spite of himself. He had missed this—had missed them. It was wrong that he hadn’t come sooner. His team needed him.
“Kollie, man!” Jamil was the first to spot him and ran up. “Where you been, brother?” He grabbed his right hand and shook it, then pulled him in for a bro hug and back slap with the other.
“Yo, man, it been too long, man! It been too long.”
Then X stepped forward, interrupting him. “Kollie. Sorry, man, but you can’t be here now. You just can’t.”
Kollie turned to him sharply, really looking at X maybe for the first time. Despite his imposing presence on the field and in the goal, X was not tall or particularly large. For the first time, he wondered what it would be like to hit him, perhaps the one black kid in the school he would have ever ventured to call a friend. He was a pretty boy, after all, with a chiseled jaw and equally well-defined cheekbones. It would feel good to sully all that.
“You’re suspended and not supposed to be on school grounds. You know that.” X’s tone was level, not accusatory. So then why did Kollie feel like he was taunting him, trying to get him to react?
“I’m still part of this team-oh,” he said, trying to regain control, to mask the anger he felt overflowing every pore. “I might not be able to play in the finals, but I can still help. I want to help.” He hoped his voice didn’t sound as desperate to them as it did to him. He had not allowed himself to feel how much he missed the game, how he needed to be a part of something until this moment.
X sighed and hung his head. “But you’re not,” he said. “You’re not part of the team anymore, Kollie. Not after what you did to Clark. You put him in the hospital, man.”
Kollie could feel the energy of his teammates changing around him. As usual, they were considering the logic of X’s words, responding to their moral demands. Fuck you! Kollie screamed in his head. Fuck you, X!
“That motherfucker came at me swinging,” Kollie said, stepping toward X. He couldn’t stop the anger spewing out of him now; it had been building for more than two weeks. “He came for me, bro, and he was going to fuck me up good. So I had no choice—it was either me or him, man. You would have done the same.”
X simply blinked at him, apparently not intimidated. It was just that kind of confidence that made Kollie want to pummel the hell out of him. “I would not,” X said evenly. “I don’t care how much static I might have with a dude, and I know some of you don’t like Clark one bit—not even a little.” He was speaking not only to Kollie now, but to the whole team. “I know a little of your history and everything, so I wasn’t entirely surprised, but I was really, really disappointed. And that’s the God’s honest truth.”
His history?
Kendall, Jamil, even Gabe, they were turning away from him now, he could feel it. All because of X.
An unreasonable heat coursed through his body, and Kollie felt his fist tighten. If he did not let it out, it would consume him. So, he let his fist fly toward X’s perfect jawline.
X ducked, and Kollie spun around, his momentum carrying him.
A sharp intake of breath reverberated around the small circle.
“You seriously need to get the fuck outta here, dude.”
Kollie could not tell who had said this, but judging from the incredulous stares, it could have been any of them.
X had recovered from the attempted punch and was now standing firmly, regarding Kollie with disdain. “It’s past time for you to leave, Comrade.” He uttered this last word with derision. “That worthless piece of shit Eddie is headed over here right now.” He pointed to the right.
Kollie looked and saw a thick figure walking briskly in their direction. He turned and ran.
A small wooded area buffered the fields and the sidewalk, and he thought that if he could make it there, he might be able to lose Eddie. He pumped his arms harder and willed his legs to speed up. He dove under the cover of tree branches and hoped they would mask him somehow. He had just extracted himself from a patch of burrs when Eddie turned him around.
“You. Are. Not. Supposed to be here.” As he said each word, he pushed a fat, gloved index finger into Kollie’s chest.
“I’m sorry. I—” Kollie was startled, and struggled to respond.
“Save it,” Eddie said. “I don’t give a fuck.”
Kollie heard Clark’s skull scrape against the lockers again in his mind, and shuddered. They were far enough into the woods that Eddie could probably mess him up good, and no one would see. And he had put the one person who could corroborate any story of abuse in the hospital.
To his surprise, Eddie took a step back. “Just stay away from the school, the grounds, okay? I personally don’t have a problem with what you did to that little cunt, but once you have a notice, I am obligated to report to the police if you step foot on the premises.” He smiled. “Are we clear?”
Kollie felt bile collecting in his stomach. “Yes, sir,” he said softly.
Eddie squinted at him, like he couldn’t quite see him clearly. “What?”
Kollie swallowed the bile, then cleared his throat. “I said, ‘Yes, sir.’”
“Well, all right then.” Eddie smacked his arm lightly, like they were buds. “Glad we understand each other.” He laughed to himself before turning to go. “But then, it’s so much easier to come to an understanding with you people. You’re just so much more reasonable.”
Kollie didn’t know why he was frozen in time and space, why he couldn’t move. He felt like he was standing outside himself, watching the scene unfold.
Eddie winked at him, which brought the bile back up his throat. Then the security guard turned to go and walked slowly back toward the school.
Kollie watched Eddie’s back recede into the mess of tree branches that marked the entry into the woods and did not move until he was sure that he would not turn back. Then he flexed the fingers of his right hand. He was relieved to realize that he could still move of his own volition. “Motherfucker,” he said, first in a whisper. He glanced around him furtively, making sure that he really was alone this time. Then he took one step, then another, and another, until he fell into the rhythm of his own gait, and forgot he was walking at all. “Motherfucker,” he said again, this time louder. And then it became a mantra he uttered as he walked, stomping through weeds and dry grass and branches on his way back through his neighborhood, back home.
Later that night, he sat out on the deck, letting the cold air make him shiver. With his hands in his armpits, he collapsed into himself, daring winter to make him smaller. It was comforting in a way he never could have imagined in Liberia, the all-encompassing nature of the cold here. If you surrendered to it.
Of course, the rest of his family didn’t see it that way. “What you doing out there?” Angel shouted at him, when she got home. “Are you okay?” She had opened the sliding glass door perhaps an inch and projected her voice outward through the small space.
Kollie scowled. He leaned forward and wrapped his arms around his legs. This was his whole problem: There was no place where he could find some peace. When he was at school, he had to listen to a steady stream of irrelevant information and endure all kinds of ridicule. When he was at home, people who were intent on causing him disquiet took every opportunity to throw him off. Which wasn’t that hard, given everything coming at him at school.
He needed to clear his mind. He stood up and walked off the deck. He took one look behind him as he left the backyard and saw the strange image of his sister’s face in the glass, reflected and refracted by the glare of the living room light against the dark night. He expected her to look smug, having run him off the premises again. But instead, she seemed sad. He looked away, before he might ask himself why.
The suburban night enveloped him, and he was grateful. His mother wouldn’t be home from her shift for hours, and when his father called him in an hour to “check up” on him, he could tell him anything regarding his whereabouts and activities. This was the extent of their hold on him.
As he rounded the corner of the street that connected to his, he bumped into something. “Shit,” the something said, and they both fell to the ground.
Kollie jumped back, his fists up, ready to fight whoever it was. “Who that?”
“Easy! Easy, my man!”
Kollie could see the outline of a figure, maybe an inch or two taller than him, standing back up.
“Why you hurry, suh?” the figure said. “You got somewhere to be, at eight thirty on a Monday night on Danberry Street?” Low, easy laughter followed.
Despite himself, Kollie began to relax. He lowered his fists.
“That better, my man. That better.”
Kollie’s eyes were adjusting to the night now, and he could see that it was only William, the twenty-something good-for-nothing who everyone’s parents said to steer clear of. You could usually find him at or near the SuperAmerica, hanging out with whoever stopped by to fuel up or to buy a gallon of milk and did not imagine themselves sufficiently above him to engage in small talk.
“Eh, man,” Kollie said. “Sorry-oh. I didn’t see you.”
William laughed and brushed off his arm. “Yeah, man. I know.” He took a step closer to Kollie, and Kollie could see his NY Giants cap cocked to the side, his mouth full of smiling teeth, his slightly crooked nose. For some reason, the fact of this obvious, visible imperfection made Kollie feel more at ease with him, like he wasn’t trying to hide his defects like everyone else. His nose was busted, this was something that had happened. There was nothing pretty or nefarious about it—it was just a fact.
“They call you ‘Kollie,’ right?” William held out his hand, and Kollie shook it.
“Yeah.”
“William.”
Kollie nodded. “I know.”
William eyed him sideways. “You know, eh?” He sucked his teeth. “Liberian people like to talk-oh. I know they talk about your expelled ass too.”
Kollie couldn’t mask his surprise. “Expelled!? I’m only suspended, man! I’m not expelled!”
William laughed. “Suspended, expelled. Word about a delinquent gets around-oh. Especially from people who think they better.”
Kollie grinned, although he knew he shouldn’t. Although he knew that the last thing he should be doing was talking to this person, who his mother would describe as “de-gen-er-ate,” enunciating each syllable. Perversely, the thought of this made him want to talk to William even more.