“We’re going to burn this joint down, my ninja! My outfit is fire.” We were in Foot Locker and DeMarcus popped his collar in the mirror. A floor mirror. The kind meant for checking your kicks, so he was leaning over real weird to do it. DeMarcus did everything weird.
The sharp, slightly toxic scent of fresh shoe rubber and insta-cleaner tinged the air. That fire outfit of his was some Old Navy jeans slashed strategically for the right percentage of exposed skinny leg meat, one shiny black patent-leather shoe, and one blinding white Air Force 1. A Drake T-shirt plus a lavender tuxedo jacket from the Salvation Army topped it off. Total swerve from the visor, polo shirt, and apron he wore daily as Chief Knot Inspector at Auntie Anne’s Pretzel’s.
The metal security grate was lowered, but not locked. Beyond it, in the main mall corridor, foot traffic was low, the only thing still open to the public being the movie theater upstairs. Typical summertime Thursday in Briarwood Mall.
We jumped when multiple somethings crashed in the back room, followed by a bass-heavy “Fuucccck!” A moment later Amir emerged balancing two shoeboxes, peering at us over the top. “Y’all just chillin’ like you ain’t hear that footwear avalanche. I could’ve died back there.”
DeMarcus said, “We would’ve gotten extra teriyaki chicken from the food court in your honor.”
Amir’s face scrunched. He scrutinized DeMarcus, aggravated. “What is that?”
“The chicken samples from the hibachi spot. We can’t drink, no pouring one out for the homey. So we drop some chicken in a trash can in honor of your untimely—”
“Naw, dude. Your outfit!” Amir spotlighted me. “You let him do that, Shawn?”
“I didn’t let him do anything,” I said.
“This Foot Locker, man. Ain’t no dressing rooms in here. He had to change in front of you.”
“Actually,” DeMarcus said, “I went behind the counter. Ducked down in uniform, popped up in swag!”
Amir set the boxes down by one of the try-on benches. “You went by my register?”
“Yeah,” said DeMarcus.
To me, Amir said, “You ain’t stop him?”
I said, “He’s not my minion.”
Amir flopped on the bench, hit us with the Disappointed Dad Sigh. “Fellas. I’m the assistant manager here. I can’t allow y’all behind the counter near the till. It endangers the company’s assets.”
This dude. “You calling us thieves?”
“I’m not gonna dwell. All’s forgiven.” He flipped the lids on both boxes, exposing glossy new shoes. “Jordans or LeBrons?”
“LeBrons,” we said simultaneously.
“Word.” He removed the Jordans from their box, kicked off his workday Reeboks, and tugged cardboard slip-ins from the new kicks.
I said, “Yo. You buying those?”
“Borrowing.” He worked his feet into them.
“That doesn’t endanger the company’s assets?”
“I need to know the product intimately if I’m to increase quarterly sales.” He produced a slim roll of clear tape from his hip pocket, tore off strips, and affixed them to the soles so as not to damage the loaner shoes. “Wanna explain your outfit?”
I gave myself a once-over. “What?”
“There’s a Care Bear on your shirt.”
“Chewbacca.” His ignorance was disgusting. “From Star Wars.”
“You and that dimensional galaxy shit.”
“Dimensions and galaxies aren’t the same—”
“Girls gonna be there, Shawn. Ole girl from Nordstrom gonna be there. She probably suspects you can’t afford nothing from her store already. You gonna roll into the spot looking like a five-year-old at Chuck E. Cheese’s? Dumb. At least DeMarcus can say he’s a musician or something. They’re allowed to wear anything.”
DeMarcus leaned into a sock display, probably checking for one long enough to double as a headband or necktie. “Leave him alone, Amir.”
I said, “How you gonna talk? You’re still wearing the Foot Locker referee shirt.”
“If this was Wall Street, I’d wear a suit. We in the mall, this is my suit.” With his shoes laced and tape applied, Amir threw his hands up, defeated. “Fine. Whatever. Let’s do it.”
He powered down the store’s lights and hoisted the security gate halfway. We ducked under, emerged on the second-floor corridor. The overhead bulbs burned at approximately one thousand watts, though the walkways were nearly deserted. On busy days, shopper traffic made the place feel like standing room only, but after hours the open spaces felt as wide as an airport runway.
While Amir locked up, I leaned on the polished teak railing and toed the safety glass that kept untold toddlers and Applebee’s drunks from tumbling to their doom. From this angle, I saw the scab-red OP in the GameStop sign below, waiting for me to relight it tomorrow morning. Amir stood, the gate secured.
There we were. The Eccentric, the Sneakerhead, and me, the Nerd. Traversing nearly one million square feet of floor space like Masters of the Retail Universe!
Amir turned to me. “What’s this thing about tonight, anyway?”
“Welcome to Mall-Stars!” Mr. Beneton, a round man with orange skin resembling the finest offerings in Wilson’s Leather Shop, tugged on a braided velvet rope fixed to a drop cloth covering the restaurant’s sign. When the cloth didn’t come down, DeMarcus chittered a sarcastic laugh.
I stared. He mouthed, What?
Mr. Beneton beckoned his trio of swole-up muscular helpers, with their too-tight-in-the-arm suit coats. They yanked the rope and the cloth fell, along with the last raggedy S in the signage—which didn’t fall all the way, just hung crooked, attached by one strained support. Electricity crackled, flooding all the letters—including that crooked S—with fluorescent blue light. MALL-STARS.
Our fellow mall employees celebrated the sign lighting with lukewarm applause. We were clustered in the East Atrium, stars visible through the skylight a hundred feet up. Thirty or forty of us from various stores were corralled next to the gurgling fountain, with its small fortune of loose wish-change submerged in greenish water. All clutching glossy invitations passed down from mall higher-ups to our managers to us, with “strong recommendations” that we attend this little party thrown by Briarwood’s big boss.
Beneton slipped index cards from his coat pocket, glanced at them, said, “Thank you for accepting my invitation to the soft opening of our newest venture. We’re excited to bring the ‘barcade’ model to Briarwood. Classic video games meet delicious food and signature drinks. As Mall Ambassadors, you will be the first to experience the magic. Put Mall-Stars through its paces. Anything that you order will be discounted twenty per—”
He frowned, signaled his least muscular helper for an eyeball debate over the notes he’d obviously not read before that moment. Then said, “Ten percent. Your discount is ten percent. Just ten.”
Groans from the “Ambassadors.”
“Try everything. Be sure to text any suggestions to the number posted at each table. Enjoy!” He slow-clapped, and like three other people joined in. When the applause died, Beneton’s guards ushered him off like the Secret Service snatching the president from assassins.
The crowd milled in, the dark space ghostly lit by flickering game cabinets, flat TVs racked around the bar, and assorted black lights. Some eighties song I’d heard my mom sing to, by that one dead artist, blasted from ceiling speakers, drowning everyone in old-school. I lingered outside the entrance, awed by Mr. Beneton’s kind-of-boss escape, and missed Amir giving me the ninja-look look, so he elbowed me in the ribs. “Shawn, she here.”
She was Dayshia Banks. Dark brown, fine, and flawless in a cream dress and low heels befitting the Nordstrom employee dress code. She went to Ocean Shore High, a town over. A senior, like us. Used to be a flag girl. This year she let band go to focus more on academics and saving dough for college. She didn’t tell me that personally. That’s off her Instagram and Twitter.
She ain’t follow me back yet. It’s been like eight months, but, I mean, I don’t post a lot.
“Shawn,” Amir said, “give me your phone.”
Dayshia strolled in, hugging herself against the arctic air-conditioning. I handed my phone to Amir, no questions.
“What’s your PIN?”
“1955.” The year Marty McFly traveled to in Back to the Future.
DeMarcus said, “Why you all in the man phone?”
“Something for Beneton’s suggestion box.” Amir dictated while he tapped. “Get Shawn to stop staring at women like a serial killer.”
I snatched my phone back.
“Talk to her,” Amir said with the hopeless enthusiasm of someone advising a PetSmart goldfish to towel off. “She right there.”
“I will.” I wasn’t.
She was right there, thirty feet from us, ordering a Coke at the bar. She was by herself, and doing those do-I-know-somebody-here glances before focusing on her phone. You know what would happen the minute I crossed that divide, and tried to spit game? This:
MWARRRGHH! MWARRRGHH!
That’s how Chewbacca talked.
MWARRRGHH!
That’s all she was going to hear when a dude in a freaking Chewbacca shirt stepped to her. What was I thinking?
Black. Nerd. Problems.
Amir said, “You regretting your outfit, ain’t you?”
“How’d you—?”
He tapped his temple. “I know things. Let’s grab a booth.”
We locked down seats with good views of the billiards table, the bar, and the Skee-Ball machines, where the dudes from the Far East Emporium—that store with mad decorative chessboards, tiger statues, incense, and a perpetual “50% OFF EVERYTHING” sale—were battling the twins, Brian and Ben, from Abercrombie & Fitch.
Brian scored a forty-pointer on a sweet roll that arced off the corner of the ramp. He high-fived his brother, then mean-mugged the competition.
DeMarcus said, “Why that joint seem so intense?”
Could’ve told him the beef was deeper and tougher than them one-hundred-point Skee-Ball holes. Brian and Ben were Brian and Ben Lin, Chinese Americans who been said the Far East Emporium was racist AF. Mr. Lee (like Robert E., not Bruce), owner of the Far East Emporium, and his sons said the Lins were too sensitive, that the store honored the “spirit of the Orient”—also racist AF. Thus, the Lin vs. Lee Skee-Ball war.
How I know? Food court gossip on dinner breaks gets you the whole rundown in Briarwood. But I didn’t explain all that to DeMarcus. My attention was elsewhere.
Cologne Kiosk Cameron had slithered in undetected, settled at the bar right next to Dayshia, a bulging man purse resting at his feet. A pretty boy who talked with his hands and way too many teeth, he had the complexion of a well-cooked french fry, brown and a little oily. No one was sure how old he was. Kamala from Build-A-Bear said he was a college sophomore, though nobody knew which school. Jeff, the old stoner from the vape shop, said he once saw Cameron at his aunt’s bingo night hitting on single moms. Who knew?
Whatever his age, there were no characters from a Galaxy Far, Far Away anywhere on his pristine slacks, pressed plaid button-up, or blazer with those voluntary patches on the elbow. He said something. Dayshia laughed. With him, not at him.
Amir noticed me noticing. “Yo, that dude appears like Satan. I’ve never seen him come and go.”
DeMarcus said, “I promise you a black cloud of brimstone smells better than the knockoff nerve gas he be selling at that box shop.”
I said nothing. Just unlocked my phone, opened my notepad app, and wallowed in defeat.
Pia, our waitress, who used to sling frozen yogurt but said this gig paid a dollar more an hour plus tips, propped her empty serving tray on her hip. “Y’all gonna order some food?”
Amir said, “Any of it cheaper yet?”
Pia glanced down. “Why you got tape on your shoes?’
“Just bring us more water with lemon, please.”
She stomped away while I slurped my third water down to the ice chips. I tapped my screen, ignoring Amir’s heat-vision stare.
“I ain’t sitting with you all night,” he said.
“Didn’t ask you to.”
“I could really be checking on these shorties. I heard Chrissy from the Sprint store is a freak.”
“Chrissy got a girlfriend. Stop spreading rumors.”
“Oh. Shit. Look who’s salty. Don’t be mad at me because you too much of a punk to take your shot with Dayshia.”
Naw, that didn’t sting. It might if it was true, but it wasn’t. Asshole. “You making a bunch of noise over nothing. She’s dope. We ain’t the same, though.”
“Of course you ain’t the same. Why would you want to be with someone the same as you? Like a female Shawn? A clone? Get off that sci-fi stuff a little bit. When you writing your books and movie—yeah, I know what you really be doing on your phone—it’ll be an asset. You gonna get all that good cosplay loving at the Geeki-Con. But today, act cool.”
“You’re only proving my point. I love ‘that sci-fi stuff.’ If she act the way you act over it, why waste the time?”
“You don’t know how she act, and you won’t ever if you don’t step up.” He pressed back in his booth corner. Looking like he wanted to dust me for fingerprints and solve me. “So you saying it ain’t a thing if I hollered?”
“Go for it. I’m cool.” The lie twisted my stomach on the way up, dragging acid.
Amir slid from the booth, went straight for Dayshia, who’d drifted toward a pack of other mall girls. There was Aubrey from Things Remembered, Vicki from Victoria’s Secret, and Desdemona Bloodbayne (the name she preferred; her birth name Jill) from Hot Topic.
Amir was charming when he wanted to be, so he infiltrated the ladies’ convo with ease. They welcomed him with smiles.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Of course it was a thing if he hollered at Dayshia! He should know that! A clear violation of bro code.
I couldn’t watch whatever happened next, so I did what came easy to me. Words.
My phone was full of them. Not the “sci-fi stuff” Mr. Know Every Damn Thing suggested. Just stuff. My observations about Briarwood.
Take this “soft opening,” for example . . . it did not seem to be going well. Those who ordered food—like the Limited employees occupying a circular booth in the corner—grimaced on first bites and left mounds of sauce-heavy wings virtually uneaten. Dude who worked in the JCPenney men’s department kept checking his watch, yet likely couldn’t escape because guess who was back! Mr. Beneton, checking on the captives, making everyone as uncomfortable as the Santa Claus–looking dude from Yankee Candle who’d ordered the crab poppers and was rubbing his stomach with regret.
Brian, Ben, and the Far East Emporium took their battle to the Shoot-to-Win Free Throw machines, while the Dick’s Sporting Goods crew went for like their tenth round on Big Buck Hunter—
“Hey.” Dayshia slid into the booth, taking Amir’s old seat. “Your friend told me about you.”
I died for half a second.
“You shouldn’t have been afraid to come talk to me.” She smiled with perfect teeth tinted blue under the Mall-Stars black lights. My head whipped toward Amir, aiming a Scanners-style telepathic attack at him, hoping to either explode his head or read his mind. What did you do?!
He raised a fresh glass of ice water with lemon at me, winked.
Dayshia said, “If you want to take care of it tomorrow, we open at ten.”
“I’m—huh?”
She pointed Amir’s way. “That guy told me about the broken clasp on your mom’s necklace. If her birthday was just last week, you’re well within the return window. Our policy is very generous, so it won’t be an issue to replace it.”
There was no necklace. Was there even a mom? My short-circuiting brain repaired itself, deduced Amir hadn’t hollered at Dayshia. He made up a story about problems with a purchase, created common ground for me and Dayshia. Chewbacca was still on my shirt.
Leaning forward, obscuring old fur-face, I said, “I didn’t want to bother you off the clock.”
“As my manager says, I’m a Nordstrom ambassador anytime I’m in the mall. I’m Dayshia, by the way.”
I nearly said I know—I follow you on the Gram. Trapped that foolishness in my throat. “Shawn.”
“You’re here in the mall?”
“Yeah, GameStop.”
“That sounds fun.”
“It’s all right. You game?”
“I have driven a Mario Kart on occasion. I also Guitar Hero’d at a party when I was ten.”
“So that’s a no.”
She laughed. Laughed! With me, not at me. Was this actually going okay?
Glancing toward Amir, I sent another telepathic message. I might not be whipping your ass after this. Maybe.
When I faced Dayshia again, I nearly shit myself. Cologne Kiosk Cameron was in the booth with us, arms spread along the backrest, his fingers nearly grazing her shoulder. She curled her lip, seemed as shocked as I was.
“Yo!” he said, a spicy cloud of whatever sample he’d doused himself in crop-dusting the immediate area. “What’s poppin’, fam?”
“. . . I was like, babe, I know it’s CU homecoming weekend, but somebody else gotta use those Kendrick Lamar backstage passes. I got other plans. You feel me?” Cologne Kiosk Cameron thrust his palm at me like a karate strike.
I was slow registering his attempted high five, dazed by all his not-so-humblebrags. I slapped his palm as quick as possible, then friction-burned my palm on my jeans.
“I’m just saying,” he said, “it’s crazy how many opportunities come my way at the kiosk. Everybody wanna smell good, so everybody come to me. Did you know we sell women’s fragrances, too?”
“You’ve mentioned it,” Dayshia said, glassy-eyed, aiming her chin toward the bar. “Earlier. Over there.”
His monologue never even paused, like a living PA announcement blaring weekly mall specials on a loop. “People drop in with concert tickets, passes to those gospel stage plays. Got my grandma on the front row of Javarius Jenkins’s If Your Man Ain’t Jesus, He Just Ain’t last month.” He scooted closer to Dayshia. “I got the hookup, is all. Just say the word.”
He flashed a smarmy grin my way. “Same for you, little man.”
“I’m taller than you.”
Dayshia pressed an elbow into his ribs, halting his lateral motion. “Excuse me. I need to . . . just.” She aimed finger guns in the general direction of elsewhere.
Slow, and somehow sleazy in a way basic motion shouldn’t be, Cameron exited the booth, clearing a path for Dayshia. As she escaped, she shot me an I-couldn’t-take-it-anymore look that got me laughing. With her. Not at her.
Cologne Kiosk Cameron sat again. “I know, dude. It’s funny how I can’t keep them off me. Hope you taking notes on that little phone of yours.”
What was his deal with everything being “little”?
“I mean, unless you smashing already. I didn’t get that impression because your shirt. If I misread the situation, get me up on game.”
Best I could tell, this dude misread every situation. Quick draw with my own finger guns, I pointed somewhere—anywhere—else, ejected from the booth. I moved to midfloor where Ben, Brian, and the Far East Emporium dudes battled on Pac-Man. Did a slow spin, desperately searching for Dayshia.
Pia stomped up, lugging a tray full of waters with lemon. “Guess you don’t want these anymore.”
“Have you seen the girl who was in my booth?”
“Nice to see you’re thirsty for something. She out by the fountain.”
Beyond the Mall-Stars entrance, on the fountain’s edge, Dayshia scrolled through her phone. I moved that way, a dull pinch in my lower abdomen registering. I took a few more steps, and it became sharper, more urgent, stopped me cold. Those ice waters!
Ignore my pulsing bladder to resume conversation with my dream girl? Tempting. Except she was sitting by a freaking fountain. All those spouts continuously splashing the surface, the ripples. I’d be squirming the whole time.
Maybe it was dumb—maybe I misread the situation—but it seemed like me and Dayshia connected back in the booth, if only for a minute. You know what would super ruin that vibe? Me pissing myself.
Quick detour, then.
The universal man/woman symbols were visible over a corridor between the Mall-Stars bar and the main gaming floor. I slipped through, took a sharp turn, and found myself in a long, darkly tiled hallway that ran the length of the restaurant. So familiar with the mall layout, I knew if I punched through the outer wall to my right, I could snatch a Father’s Day card for my pops off a shelf in Hallmark. Beyond that, a hobby shop. Crafts, and paint, and artist papers. Beyond that, my jam, GameStop.
Whenever I wrote stuff about the mall, it always struck me how all of it, all of us, were connected even if we didn’t know it—or didn’t want it (looking at you, Far East Emporium). A bunch of stores, and people, and reasons for being there underneath the big Briarwood umbrella.
Pushing into the men’s room, I tugged my phone from my back pocket, intending to jot that down, and . . . what the entire hell?
Inside the harshly lit bathroom was a party separate from the soft-open celebration.
A couple of infamous weed heads from the Regal 14 Theater puffed a blunt right under the smoke detector that now dangled, deactivated, from a single wire. Beyond them, Amir, DeMarcus, and other guys I knew from the mall grind. DeMarcus threw a pair of dice in a way I’d never seen dice thrown—overhand, flick of the wrist, something like a Navy SEAL tossing a knife at his enemy’s throat. The dice bounced off the wall beneath the plastic folding baby-changing table, settled on a piece of cardboard in the floor.
“Seven!” DeMarcus whooped over the collective groans of those on the losing end of that bet. He snatched his winnings, a loose grouping of fives and ones.
“How long y’all been shooting craps?” I asked.
Amir said, “You mean how long we been winning? Awhile. How else we gonna afford this expensive-ass food. How things go with Dayshia?”
Before I could answer, Cologne Kiosk Cameron exited the big end stall reserved for disabled customers. “Great!” He smiled, his spit-slick canines like fangs. “I think me and her really hit it off.”
My head whipped toward the entrance. I’d left him in the booth. He hadn’t passed me in the corridor. Where’d he come from? How?
If he wasn’t the devil, he was certainly in the training program.
The bathroom was oversize. Mr. Beneton must’ve expected a lot of drink sales, thus, a lot of pee. I used the ninth urinal in the far corner, away from the dice game and the funk permeating the air. Not the usual bathroom funk. A toxic mix of colognes Cameron was getting dudes to sample in the accessible stall, his new makeshift kiosk.
“I’m telling you,” Cameron droned, sales pitch cranked, “people sleep on Trump’s Empire cologne, but a true connoisseur will recognize those velvety oaken notes as the literal smell of money. You got a lady you interested in, this be like a hostile takeover of her nose.”
The telltale bottle spritz sounded like a cobra spitting venom. Jarrel from the Books-A-Million burst from the stall, clawing at his eyes and throat.
Cameron followed, grinning, holding the Empire bottle like a smoking gun. “My bad, homey. Guess the nozzle was turned the wrong way.”
At the sink, Jarrel thrust his whole head beneath the faucet, frantically waving his hand near the motion sensor, with no luck triggering the water. He convulsed over to the next sink. That motion sensor didn’t work either. He went for the next.
I finished at the urinal and washed my hands. Cameron watched me in the mirror.
He approached the movie theater guys, their blunt burned to the midpoint. “Let me hit that.”
High and generous, they passed the stubby cigar to Cameron, who took two puffs and never gave it back. “I’ll hook you up with something that’ll cover the smell so you don’t get in trouble with your boss. Be a shame if he caught a whiff of this, right?”
Neither of the theater workers seemed to love involuntary cologne-for-ganja barter, but Cameron moved on before they objected. “Shawn”—he jerked his head toward the stall—“come here.”
“For what?”
“You want to see this.” He held the accessible stall door wide, blunt dangling on his lip, its tip fiery red.
Everyone else continued their activities—craps, rolling a new blunt, eye-flushing—as if in a different reality from me and Cameron. I entered his domain cautiously.
Inside the stall, resting in the corner farthest from the toilet, was an open bag of assorted cologne bottles. Various shapes, sizes, colors, and levels of fullness. Label-gun stickers reading “Sample Not For Resale” were affixed to at least half of them.
Cameron rummaged through the bag, his goods clinking together. Streamers of earthy smoke snaked from his nostrils. He produced a white bottle adorned with a green crocodile from the stash. “She’s a Lacoste Blanc lady. I can tell.”
Removing the cap, he angled the bottle away and triggered a fine mist that drizzled over the U-shaped toilet seat in a citrus burst. “Smell that? That’s you getting what you want. Only cost you twenty bucks. Steep discount, my dude.”
Was twenty bucks for a stolen half bottle of cologne a good deal? Didn’t know. Didn’t want to. “Naw, I’m good.”
It couldn’t have been more than five minutes since I came in. That was five minutes too long. Dayshia could be gone, and I was screwing around with Bargain Beelzebub. I exited the stall, on my way out.
Cameron said, “Think you dropped something.”
I turned and felt the full horror of that demonic asshole’s power.
He had my phone.
Reflexively, I patted my back pocket, praying for the familiar bulge that meant what he held only looked like my phone. Naw. How many Rick and Morty iPhone cases were really in circulation at Briarwood? My heart bulged against my sternum, dragged me forward with my hand extended.
He scuttled back, staring at the screen. “And it’s unlocked. Yo, you a writer?”
“Give me my shit, Cameron.”
The rattling dice, the betting cheers, went silent.
Amir said, “Shawn.”
He straightened in my peripheral. As did DeMarcus. I made a chopping motion with one hand. I got this.
Did I, though? My hands shook. My vision vibrated with the force of my slamming pulse, making Cameron bounce in front of me. Most of my fighting was done from a PlayStation controller, but I’d never felt more like punching someone in. My. LIFE.
Cameron inhaled around the nearly gone blunt. “Why you acting so aggro? I like reading. Unless you’re really frustrated about something else. Ole girl from Nordstrom?”
I willed my face still. Held eye contact past the point of discomfort.
Cameron wasn’t fooled. “Wow. For real. Bro, this the mall. I take advantage of this week’s coupon, you catch next week’s sale. Feel me? Nordstrom got plenty for both of us.”
I smacked that blunt from his mouth. The ashen tip blazed gray and molten as it flipped end over end, its trajectory unknown.
At the time.
“Ohhh!” The bathroom morphed into a fight-night crowd.
Despite his slick talk, the shady comments, Cologne Kiosk Cameron seemed uncertain. His eyes cut quickly to all the witnesses. Mine, too. The mouths that would carry this story to every corner of the mall and beyond. They were from different neighborhoods, and schools, and cities. All anticipating the birth of a new “yooooo, remember that time . . .” story.
My last fight had been on the playground in second grade. I lost due to an inescapable full nelson, and it was horrifying to learn the ritual hadn’t changed. There was a tipping point after the trash talk, after personal space had been violated, when a physical gesture so offensive was made that to not fight was dishonorable. A punk move.
“Steal on him!” DeMarcus, the most lighthearted of my friends, ordered me to sucker punch our workplace’s Prince of Darkness.
“You think you got it in you!” Cameron bumped chests with me. “Swing if you man enough.”
Dishonor. Shame. Punk. My right hand curled, hardened, the knuckles protruding like Wolverine’s claws. My eyes flicked to Cameron’s right, a distraction, intended to leave the left side of his chin unprotected, I tensed, and—
The bathroom door swung open with force, crashed against the wall.
Yankee Candle Santa Claus burst in, clutching his stomach as if being torn apart. “Crab . . . poppers.”
Clawing open the first available stall, not even taking the time to lock it, he rustled loose whatever clothes needed to go . . . and . . . and . . .
Oh God! The sound. Like a pudding balloon dropped off a skyscraper. Over and over.
The exodus began immediately, not fast enough to escape the—what could only be called devastating—smell. Amir grabbed money and dice. The theater dudes collected their weed. DeMarcus grabbed my arm, and I snatched my phone from Cameron’s limp grip before moving to the exit.
Not one of us thought about the bag of stolen cologne samples, or that lit blunt I’d knocked to wherever.
Cameron yelled, “That’s what I thought. You ain’t want none.”
My desire to argue was sapped by the Crab Popper Apocalypse. We spewed into the corridor, Cameron on my heels, threatening violence where we both knew there could be none.
Fighting? Back on the main floor with everyone else? Naw. I wasn’t losing my job and store discount over his bitch ass.
We emerged into Mall-Stars proper, unnoticed by the dwindling soft-opening crowd. Ben, Brian, and the Far East Emporium guys were battling on Dig Dug. Mr. Beneton had the bartender counting the till in front of him while his goons loomed. Dayshia remained at the fountain outside, like no time had passed.
Cameron kept yapping, “I’ma take your chick, homey. Activating all my swag. Look at you, look at me.”
I looked at him. Looked at me—Chewbacca was still on my shirt.
“You don’t have more game than me, Shawn. No way you winning.”
Amir heavy-sighed. “Let’s just take this dude out behind a dumpster.”
Cameron’s mouth snapped shut, weighing the odds. You didn’t have to work at Kumon to know they weren’t in his favor. “So now you gonna jump me? Over a girl.”
No. We weren’t. Nobody here—except maybe Desdemona Bloodbayne; that girl was scary—was a back-alley brawler. Still, Cameron was insisting on a battle for Dayshia.
How do you win a fight you shouldn’t have in the first place?
That’s when it hit me. “Amir, DeMarcus . . . he’s right.”
“Pardon?” DeMarcus said.
Amir was like, “The fuck?”
To Cameron, I said (maybe in the voice of a 1980s computer simulation; I won’t confirm or deny that part), “Shall we play a game?”
He rapid-blinked, unsure where I was going.
“WarGames? 1983? Starring Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy?”
Everybody in earshot shuffled, confused.
Amir leaned in, whispered, “Is now the time to be bringing up those old white-ass movies you be making us watch?”
My usual response whenever he said shit like that. “I would’ve watched the Black WarGames if anyone made it.”
Cameron’s face creased, confused. “I don’t know what whack language you even speaking right now.”
“You’ll wish you did.” I left him steaming, exited Mall-Stars, eyes on Dayshia. She sat her phone facedown in her lap, eyebrow arched, observing the large congregation of guys hovering at the restaurant. “What’s all that about?”
Deep breath, Shawn. “Stupid guy shit.”
“Ooookay? You about to tell me something that’s gonna make me think of you as a stupid guy?”
“We’ll know in a minute. You ever see a movie called WarGames?”
She shook her head. “Is it good?”
“I like it. It’s about hackers and artificial intelligence trying to set off a nuclear war.”
“Should you have said ‘spoiler alert’?”
“Spoiler alert. The point of the movie was the only way to win an all-out nuclear war is to not have it. You win the game by not playing.”
With a dramatic head sweep, she motioned to all the beeping, tweeting game cabinets nearby. “I don’t think Mr. Beneton would agree with you there.”
“I don’t mean—”
Her smile shrank. “Did y’all make some kind of bet? Is that the stupid thing that got you over here to talk to me? They’re all staring.”
“No. Yes.”
She huffed, shifted her weight as if to leave.
“Wait a second, please.”
“I have been waiting. I don’t want to wish I hadn’t.”
She was waiting? For me?
“No bet,” I said fast, sensing somehow that time was not on my side. “I wouldn’t do that. There’s other stupid guy stuff. Cameron wants to kick it with you. I do, too. He tried to make a thing about it in the bathroom, some let-the-best-man-win shit. I almost went for it.”
Dayshia swept her phone into her purse. “I should probably go. If you want to return your mom’s necklace—”
Rapid fire. “There’s no necklace. Game isn’t real. I have Chewbacca on my shirt.”
“You’re not making any sense, Shawn.”
My phone was still in my hand, still unlocked with the Notepad app open. I showed her. “My thoughts get all over the place sometimes, so I write them down. My friends are always on me to say stuff and not be in my own head. Dudes like Cameron, I think, are the opposite. You follow so far?”
“Cameron talks too much and doesn’t think enough. I understand and agree.”
“So, like, normally I would say nothing to you at all. But Amir made up that necklace thing, and you talked to me, so I’d be stupid if I sat back while a loudmouth with not one solid thought in his head yammered at you, possibly piecing together the right combination of words to make you think he’s more worth your time than I am. Whew!” I was gasping. “Forgot to breathe.”
Dayshia locked eyes with me, her brow creased. “Shawn, listen to me carefully. It’s important that you understand what I’m about to say.”
I waited a three-heartbeat eternity for the sad trombone signaling how big a mistake me getting all outspoken had been. It didn’t come.
Dayshia said, “Cameron is ass.”
Inside Mall-Stars Ben and Brian Lin erupted in cheers. One screamed, “Suck it, Far East Emporium!”
My breathing stabilized, though speech was tough going. “I . . .”
“Cameron’s the worst, Shawn.”
“Somebody say my name?” Cameron sat on the opposite side of Dayshia, licked his lips. I stopped wondering how the fuck he teleported like that. He wasn’t that interesting anymore.
“I did,” she said. “Did you hear me call you ‘ass’?”
His grin flickered. “What?”
“Look. Me and my friend are trying to have a conversation. You’re being rude.”
“Girl, come on. We was vibing at the bar earlier. All them grins and chuckles.”
“No. I’m a Nordstrom ambassador, and you were asking me about our Shiseido skin-care products. It was funny because you obviously knew way more about the shit than I do.”
Oh. She’d been laughing at him. Not with him.
And so was I.
Cameron sneered and brushed fingertips across his greasy, baby-smooth cheek. “This don’t happen magically.”
I found my breath and words. “Bounce, dude.”
Cameron rose, plucked at his lapels. “Dayshia, clearly I mistook you for someone with taste. I guess a child with a dog-man on his shirt—”
“It’s a Wookiee. And Shawn said bounce.”
From Mall-Stars, Amir yelled, “Go exfoliate, ninja!”
The laughter—from my peeps, and Dayshia, and me—gave Cameron the fight he’d been looking for; one he lost. For the first time ever, I watched dude leave, shoulders slumped, as mortal as the rest of us. And Chewbacca was still on my shirt. “You said ‘Wookiee.’”
“Yeah, my big sister loves those movies, so I got it through osmosis. You said ‘yammered.’ You must’ve crushed your SATs.”
I waved a hand in the air. “Eh.”
This was banter! We were hitting it off. With Cameron finally out of the picture, nothing could possibly mess this—
Yankee Candle Santa Claus shoved through my boys hanging at the Mall-Stars entrance, barely holding his pants up. “It wasn’t me!”
Then the burning smell.
Then the shrieking fire alarm.
Then hell breaking loose.
DeMarcus rushed to us. “We gotta go.”
No argument from me. My only hesitation came in the moment I offered Dayshia my hand.
She took it.
The Nerd, the Eccentric, the Sneakerhead, and the So Cool Girl executed the emergency protocol, then stood in the parking lot while Briarwood Mall burned.
Not the whole mall—thank God. We needed those jobs. Mall-Stars was pretty much a crater, scorched and boarded up. For the rest of Briarwood, it was business as usual.
Amir left Foot Locker for a manager’s position at Footaction, and DeMarcus got on at Express Men. Moving up in the world.
Me and Dayshia became MeAndDayshia. Or as DeMarcus called us—once—“Day-Shawn.” Amir popped him in the back of the head, and he never said it again. Which I was grateful for.
I showed her WarGames. She showed me Love & Basketball. We didn’t spend much time actually watching either movie, and I had no complaints.
All the other Briarwood players kept doing their thing. Brian and Ben Lin stayed beefing with the Far East Emporium. Pia the waitress became Pia the time-share salesperson, which fit her no-nonsense attitude (“You’re going to vacation anyway, might as well do it for this once-in-a-lifetime price!”). Desdemona Bloodbayne kept moonlighting as a vampire slayer, or something. I don’t know. The biggest change was Cameron.
He vanished after the fire.
So did his kiosk. Like they’d never existed.
Kamala from Build-A-Bear said he was working a drone kiosk at Greenhaven Mall in Ocean Shore. Jeff from the vape shop said he conned a widow out of some insurance money and was on the run in Mexico. I believed the truth was somewhere in the middle because of what the fire chief said on the news.
According to him, the Mall-Stars blaze was caused by criminal negligence. An accelerant left too close to an open flame. Point of origin: the men’s room.
Things I thought about a lot after that report: the blunt I knocked from Cameron’s mouth. How it was still lit. Where it might’ve landed. That bag of cheap, stolen, highly flammable cologne.
Then I pushed those thoughts away. Didn’t talk about them—not with Amir, DeMarcus, or Dayshia. Didn’t write them down, either (at least nowhere anybody would see).
There was too much good shit to get here at the mall, I didn’t need more Black Nerd Problems. Plus, when it came to the ones I had, I was doing just fine.