Checkmate (3 page)

“You’re sick, Bobbi,” I said.

“But she’s probably right,” LaShonda said. “But maybe, just maybe, he’s not using drugs. Could be he was trying to get them for somebody else.”

“You ask me and I’m thinking that what I see don’t smell right,” Kambui said. “Something’s funny here and it’s not about ha-ha!”

“We can have an intervention, like they do on television,” LaShonda said. “You ever see those programs where they get somebody in a room and tell them they got to stop doing
whatever
and everybody is screaming and stuff? That’s what we need to do.”

That seemed like a good idea and we contacted Miss LoBretto and asked if we could use the media center. She said we could and Bobbi said she could get Sidney to come to a meeting during lunch.

“Maybe everybody shouldn’t come,” I said. “Sidney did me a solid when I needed it most. If I can do him one, then I got to be on time. If you want to show, then that’s cool. If you don’t want to show it’s still cool.”

“It’s not that, Zander,” Kambui said, shaking his head. “I got some druggies in the fam, man, and it don’t go down smooth no matter how much heart you got in it. You know what I mean?”

“If it was the druggies in your fam would you be at the media center?” I asked Kambui.

“I’d be there,” he said.

After school I walked home by myself. I had Sidney’s phone number and thought I would call his house before he got home. His grandfather was a cool old Russian dude and he loved to talk. Maybe he would say something that would give me a clue to what was going down with Sidney. But when I called it was Sidney who answered.

“Hey, Big Sid, how you doing?”

“I’ve done better,” was the answer.

“I heard you had a little trouble,” I said.

“Zander … Zander … the cops said I was facing Juvenile and then State,” he said. I could hear him crying.

“What’s that mean?”

“It means I could go to juvenile jail until I’m eighteen and then get switched to a regular prison,” he said. “God, man, I’m really scared. I’m really scared. I didn’t think any of this would happen. I really didn’t.”

“Sidney, you have friends, dude. I know a lot of times they drop the cases,” I said. “Guys around my way don’t even worry if they’re caught with drugs. They just have to
go downtown, stay a few hours while they get written up, and then they’re back on the street again.”

“You think I can get off?” I could hardly hear him.

“Yeah, look, the Cruisers are having a meeting and we’d like to invite you.”

“Other people know about this?”

“Sort of … but that’s good,” I said, thinking as fast as I could. “The important thing is to get you out of trouble. Do your parents know?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

“They want to send me to Europe or Siberia or wherever.”

He agreed to come to the meeting in the media center, but I had a funny feeling about it. In my life things don’t work out that easy. I thought he would be upset when he found out that the other Cruisers knew about his problem. I wondered if he was more involved in drugs than we knew and was desperate for help.

When I got home I asked Mom if she knew anything about drugs.

“Why?” she asked.

“Just wondered.”

“Did anyone offer you drugs in school?”

“Not unless you think that education is the opiate of the people,” I said.

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t say
nothing
to me,” Mom said. “I’m your mother!”

“Karl Marx said religion is the opiate of the people because he felt that religious people wouldn’t rebel against the government,” I said. “I just substituted education because it sounded cool.”

“Go back to
nothing,”
Mom said. “Anyway, what did you want to know about drugs?”

“A kid in my school was caught trying to buy some prescription drugs,” I said. “But this is a real good kid and I don’t think he would use drugs.”

“Who?”

“Just a kid.”

“Kambui?”

“Why does it have to be a black kid?” I asked.

“Did he offer you any drugs?”

“I’m sorry I asked,” I said.

“That’s how it starts,” Mom said. “You turn away from your parents and go out on your own. The next thing you know you’re experimenting with drugs.”

“I’m not experimenting with drugs,” I said.

“Should I call your father?”

“What would he say that you wouldn’t say?” I asked.

“He’s a scientist!” Mom said.

“He’s a weatherman!” I said. “He doesn’t even figure out what the weather is going to be. He just reads it off a screen.”

“You sure?”

“That he doesn’t figure out the weather? He told me he didn’t.”

“I mean about the drugs,” she said, lowering her voice.

I knew what was going to happen next. A mama hug, then a mama kiss on the forehead, and then me saying I would never do drugs.

It all happened.

But it took the rest of the night to convince her not to call my father in Seattle, not to call the police, and not to take me to a rehabilitation center.

I dig the way I look but the thing about me is that I always look too young. I was wishing I was older or at least looked older when Sidney got to the media center. LaShonda and Bobbi had arranged the chairs
in a circle, and Sidney sat in the chair that Bobbi indicated. Something bothered me again. It was a little too easy.

I had thought the whole thing out and had decided to start off by telling Sidney that we were on his side. But before I could get my mouth open LaShonda got her thing off.

“Sidney, I have figured out what is wrong with your dumb-butt self,” LaShonda said. “You’re just stupid. Why do you want to mess with drugs?”

Sidney looked down at his hands and shook his head slowly. “I just can’t help myself,” he said. “At first I just wanted to experiment a little —”

“And then you got hooked!” LaShonda said.

“I’m not hooked!” Sidney said, looking around at the Cruisers sitting in a semicircle. “Really, I’m not. I just enjoy the feeling so much.”

“What feeling?” Kambui asked. “Like you’re probably going to jail for the rest of your life? Is that the feeling you get?”

“It’s like I’m — I’m floating away from all my troubles,” Sidney said.

“You have a lot of potential,” Kambui went on.
“People who have lots of potential can kill it off just like
that
!”

He made a circular motion with his hand and snapped his fingers.

“I know what you’re saying is true,” Sidney said. “Everything you’re running down is right, and I do want to stay away from drugs, but …”

Sidney had his head down, his hands clasped in front of him. I really felt sorry for him.

“I think everybody should say why they don’t think Sidney should use
las drogas
,” LaShonda said.

“Why don’t you start?” I said to LaShonda.

“It messes up your skin,” LaShonda said.

Sidney nodded.

“It’ll be messing up your whole life,” LaShonda said. “You ever see those people nodding out on the corner? That’s, like, a pitiful sight. Or maybe you like sleeping in hallways or on somebody’s roof. Drugs are, like, the worst things in the world.”

Sidney nodded.

“Here’s a good reason to stay away from drugs,” Bobbi said. She opened her notebook and took out a newspaper clipping. It was from
The Village Voice.

Sidney put his hands over his face and I thought he was going to cry.

Kambui said that it would mess Sidney’s family up as well as him. “If you’re using drugs it gets to everybody you know,” he said. “Just like we’re here thinking about you and wanting to deal with you. People in your family are going to be hurt.”

“You know what I’m thinking?” I asked Sidney. “I’m thinking you could have told us all these reasons yourself. So what we need to do is to see how sincere you are. I know you’re strong because you stood up for me when I needed it. I know you’re smart. You don’t become a chess champion by being stupid. What’s happening, man?”

“I was just wrong … just wrong.” We were hearing Sidney but he had his head down and we couldn’t see his face. “I feel like I let everybody down. The whole school.”

“It’s not even like you to be using drugs,” LaShonda said. “If you don’t die from an overdose you could get AIDS or something and die slow like those guys on the Public Broadcasting station. They looked terrible!”

“The important thing is what can we do to help you?” Bobbi said. “The same way that you would help us if one of us was using drugs.”

“What drugs are you using?” I asked.

“I got busted looking for any kind of head medicine I could find,” Sidney said. Slowly, he began to lift his head and I saw he was crying. Sidney is whiter than most white people but when he gets excited or upset he gets redder than anybody is supposed to get. “I guess I just kind of drifted into drugs and didn’t realize what was happening until I was in too deep to back out.”

He kept going on about how he should have been asking for some help but he didn’t think it would get away from him.

“You can’t always make it by yourself,” LaShonda said.

Bobbi asked if Sidney’s family knew about the drugs and he said they did.

“It really hurt my parents,” he said.

All of a sudden the whole thing seemed like a lame reality show to me. Sidney was crying and covering his face with his fat, stubby fingers. Bobbi and LaShonda both looked like they wanted to go over and give Sidney a hug. I wanted to ask him more questions. The first thing was where he was getting any drugs and how come he had to ask somebody where to get some more. He was really upset, but I wasn’t sure if he was upset about using drugs or not getting them, or maybe he was even getting them for somebody else and just taking the blame. I didn’t want to come down too hard because if he was on the edge I wouldn’t want to be the dude that pushed him over.

I made sure that Sidney put everybody’s number on his cell phone.

“Look, man, you really got to get yourself straightened out,” I said as we left the media center.

“Zander, I know,” he said. “Culpepper got all over me today and told me what was going to happen if I got into trouble again.”

“What did he say?”

“What he actually said was that I would get kicked off the chess team, probably suspended, and maybe even get kicked out of the school,” Sidney said. “That was what was coming out of his mouth but he looked like he wanted to kill me on the spot.”

“Did he say anything about seeing a doctor or anything like that?” I asked.

“He said something about talking to a psychiatrist,” Sidney said. “He said that maybe I had an addictive personality like Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote Sherlock Holmes.”

“I don’t know about that,” I said. “But just call one of us when things get hard, okay?”

We were on the street and Sidney shook my hand when the bus pulled up to the stop. I watched him get on and felt really bad. Drug addicts were supposed to be weird-looking guys sneaking around in hoodies and looking nervous all the time, not kind of fat white guys who played great chess.

They were also supposed to look desperate. Sidney looked miserable but not desperate. Maybe that would come later.

A
re you going to have your clothes on?”

“Zander Scott! Yes, I’m going to have my clothes on. I can wear a snowsuit if you want me to. I’m just going to do a run-through of the commercial. And I’d like you to come to see me at work. Is that too much to ask?”

That’s how I ended up in a studio on Ninth Avenue and 43rd Street. There were two couches and I sat on one of them with Marc, Mom’s agent, and someone from the agency. Two guys took Mom into another room to get her ready. There was a glass panel on the wall opposite Marc and me, and through it I could see a huge blue screen.

“Is she going to be on that screen?” I asked Marc.