Eighth-Grade Superzero (9 page)

I leave my parents in the sanctuary and head over to the church library to meet Dave and the group, and not just because Reverend Coles said in an e-mail that he’s planning to “rock da house” with his sermon. We have another group session at Olive Branch coming up on Tuesday, and Dave wants to talk about the project, so everyone shows up today.

Ruthie barely says hi to me; guess she’s still got something up her butt about the things that Donovan said. I don’t know why
I’m
getting blamed. I grab a spot on the old saggy black couch in the corner of the room and take out an unfinished snack bag of onion and garlic-flavored chips and a new notebook. As I lick chip crumbs from my fingers, I feel someone standing over me and look up. It’s Mialonie.

I can’t help it; I take in a big, deep breath, and then I’m sitting there staring at her, holding my breath like a fool.

“Hey,” she says, in that low, sweet voice.

“Hah — hey,” I let out my breath with a
whoosh.
My
onion and garlic
breath.
Good job, Reggie.
She sits next to me, and I really have to fight to keep from taking another deep breath.

Dave claps his hands. “Okay, real quick, I just wanted to find
out how you’re feeling about the Listening Ears Project.” He scans the room. “How is it going?”

Silence, and then Jeff shrugs. “It’s depressing. Is that what you want to hear?”

“I want to hear the truth,” says Dave. “Go on, I’m listening.” But he looks at his watch as he says it. Dave isn’t completely focused on us, and that’s not like him.

“You could have warned us more,” Jeff continues.

Ruthie breaks in. “What did you expect? Homelessness is depressing. It’s a shame that we let it happen to people.”

“What
we?”
says Tiffany, glancing at Dave. “I mean, I feel bad, and I want to help, but it’s not
my
fault.”

“Whose fault is it?” asks Dave.

Some people mumble, but don’t speak up. I do. “It’s everyone’s. And no one’s. And theirs, and ours … I mean, it sounds corny, but the most depressing part for me was feeling like that could be my …” I’m not going to say Pops, so I finish “… someone I know.”

“So,” says Jeff, “it’s okay if it’s someone you don’t know?”

I’m not going to get into it with him; this is real. “No,” I say. “I’m saying I realized that there’s no one that I don’t know.” It’s only when the words come out of my mouth that I understand them.

Mialonie says slowly, “I know what Reggie means. Remember when we talked about grace, and hospitality? It’s like … I can’t walk past the guy who sleeps in front of Dunkin’ Donuts anymore without looking at him. I mean, I knew he was there, but now … I really look.”

Silence, and then a snort from Gabriella. She hasn’t been around in a while; I wonder if she’s going to come back to the shelter. Or help me with the transcripts.

“Give me a break,” says Gabriella. “You do one good deed — and I still don’t get how good it even was — and now you’ve got eyes into people’s souls? Come on.”

“Well, I got something out of it,” shoots back Mialonie. “And maybe you would have too, if you’d gone more than once.”

“Why do we have to get something out of everything anyway?” asks Jeff. “Everything is not some lesson.” He looks at Dave. “Or Jesus parabola.”

“You mean parable, bonehead,” says Ruthie.

“My partner, George, told me a lot of things about New York City that I didn’t know,” I say. “He’s real cool, actually. I’m getting a lot out of this, so it would be cool to give back.”

Jeff sneers. “You’ll get your medal in Heaven, then. Congratulations.”

I ignore him. “I’m just saying. There are kids there and everything. And some of the adults can teach us more than anything we learn at school. I mean, we’re supposed to be listening; we should do something about what we hear.” I rip a page out of my notebook. “We can ask people at the shelter what they need. Put a wish list together and then find community resources to fulfill it.”

“That’s a good idea,” says Gabriella slowly. “I’ll help.” I look down because I don’t want her to see my skepticism. “Seriously,” she says. “I will. Just … I might need you to remind me that it really
is
helping, Reggie.”

“Well, that place needs to be painted for one thing,” says Jeff. “Guess Home Depot had a sale on Depression Gray when they painted the first time.”

Ruthie smiles, but not at me. “We can be ‘The Hope Depot'!”

Everybody groans, but I’m kind of liking this whole idea. I don’t need Vicky to get involved at Olive Branch. The youth group is already there.

Dave looks at his watch, then shifts a little. “Guys, this is one of the better discussions we’ve had, but I need to be somewhere this afternoon, so let’s get going.”

“That’s it?” I say. “Don’t
you
have anything to say?”

Dave is already packing up his stuff and moving toward the door. “I have an announcement, but it’s no big deal, another time. We’ll talk later, I promise.”

For once I don’t feel like I can bank on Dave’s promise, and it doesn’t feel good.

“Why are you doing this?” George asks. This is my fourth time here, so I’m getting familiar with what George calls his “chill” days. I call them Grumpy Old Man Days, but not to his face. His eyes are closed, and we’ve been sitting in silence for fifteen minutes.

“Hey, I’m the interviewer,” I say, trying to be jokey and bold at the same time. “I need to ask the questions here.” When I was doing the transcripts, I realized that George and I talk more about me than anything else. I came up with some great new questions so it wouldn’t be all about me, but he hasn’t answered any of them yet.

“What, I’m not allowed to ask questions?” George opens his eyes. They’re bloodshot.

“Um, no … Of course you can ask … I’m just, um, you know, trying to finish the interview.”

“Uh-huh.” He closes his eyes again.

Pretty soon I realize that I’d better answer him about why I’m doing this. “I don’t know, I go to church every week with my parents,” I say. “And this is a youth group thing.”

“What kind of answer is that?” asks George. “I asked why
you’re doing this, and you tell me about church and projects and your parents.” He sits up and leans forward. “Why. Are. You. Doing. This?” George enunciates every word in a way that Mr. Stanzione, who runs the debate team, would go crazy for. “Stop playing around. You know exactly what I mean.”

The problem is that
I
don’t know exactly what I mean. I take a deep breath.

“I like youth group, okay? I told you, this is … real, and, um, you’re interesting, and you’re teaching me a lot.” I take out a bag of chips and open it. I start to tip the bag to my mouth, but I stop and offer it to George first. “I hope people buy the book with all the interviews so we can raise some money for the shelter. And I was telling the youth group that maybe we could help out here more. Satisfied?” I look at George, who takes the bag and tips it to
his
mouth.

“Church is all right sometimes,” he says. “I used to win the Sunday school prize every week for memorizing verses, and not just that old ‘Jesus wept’ trick. I was good at that. But we didn’t have no youth group or nothing after that. When you got too old for Sunday school you had to sit through all that preaching, and I couldn’t get down with that for too long.”

“Dave lets us have real discussions and we try to figure things out. How to talk the talk and walk the walk.”

“You got the Christianese down,” George says, making me feel silly. I wonder when he’s going to give up the chips. “I thought the whole point was that we can’t figure Him out because He’s God and we’re not. So, smart boy, what you got figured out?”

“Mostly that I can’t figure God out,” I say, and he laughs.
“When I was little, I thought God was like a superhero,” I say, keeping my eyes down. He doesn’t respond, so I look up. “I wanted to be a superhero too. Not like I wanted to be God, I mean. Just … you know. I wanted to have some kind of power that zapped everything perfect.”

George takes another swig from the chip bag. I can tell it’s already down to crumbs.

“How’s Night Man? You haven’t mentioned it for a minute.”

“Pretty dead,” I answer.

“Don’t give up on the superhero thing,” says George after a while. “It’ll make you feel strong.”

We both look over at Dave, who’s talking to Wilma and using his hands a lot.

“I wish I was as sure as that guy is,” George says, finishing the crumbs and crumpling the bag. “Your boy Dave looks like he could have been one of the twelve apostles. I’m the guy on the outside looking in.” He looks at the crumpled bag in his hand. “Just looking in.” He’s quiet a moment. “Jesus was cool, but sometimes I think He could help a brother out a little more, you know?”

My thoughts exactly.

He stretches. “I keep some Scripture with me all of the time anyway. When it gets down to it, I like having something to hold on to. It kind of goes with your comic book.” He takes a tiny folded piece of paper out of his cracked leather wallet and passes it to me. “Read it.”

I start reading, and he taps my hand. “Out loud, smart boy.”

I look around to see if anyone’s watching, then I clear my throat and start.

“What do you think?” he asks when I stop. “It’s … it sounds powerful,” I say.

“Yeah,” he says, taking back the paper and folding it very carefully. “It was one of my memory verses when I was a kid. Makes me feel strong when I read it now.” He slips it back into his wallet. “Sometimes I don’t have the strength to read it, though. I just can’t pull the little piece of paper out of my pocket.” He sighs.

I try to lighten things up. “You just reminded me of one of Dave’s favorite sayings: ‘If you want to walk on water, you’ve got to get out of the boat!’”

“Or get pushed out,” says George. He doesn’t laugh. I’m hungry. “Man, I wish I could have voted in the elections today. Gotta get some batteries so I can listen to the returns later. Speaking of that, how’s
your
election going?”

The pause goes on long enough for me to know that I have to answer. “Not great. I’m just not sure there’s anything I can do to get Vicky to take the issues seriously, and not just herself. It’s not even about issues anymore. It’s about people, and she doesn’t get that.”

“You know who Rosa Parks was, right?” asks George. I resist the urge to roll my eyes and just nod. “Of course you do,” he says.
“But you probably heard the old tired lady story. ‘She’d been working so hard, she was just too tired to stand up.’ Nuh-uh, don’t get it twisted. Rosa was an activist. She was part of the Civil Rights Movement long before she got on that bus. She knowingly took that risk, to say, ‘No, I’m not getting up.’ Everything that she’d been through, that she was, she used it that day. And after.”

George was leaning forward while he spoke, but now he slumps down in the chair, and I see the scars running up and down his dangling arms.

“That superhero thing is right there, Reggie,” he almost whispers. “Just do your thing, and be cool.”

I don’t know if he’s talking about Night Man, or God, or the election, or what. I wish I had more than chips for George. Because right now he looks like he has nightmares just behind his eyes.

I wait awhile, but he seems like he’s done, so I say good-bye, and head to the steel doors.

As Joe C. and I leave the school building, the posters announcing Holiday Jam committee meetings remind me how much I looked forward to winter break when the school year started. It was a relief to tell George that
Night Man
isn’t working, but I don’t know how Joe C. will react.

We pass the Crazy Sock Man, who’s in the middle of the street, wearing shorts and screaming about White people and black cats.

“That guy should be in a home or something,” says Joe C. “He’s dangerous.”

“He’s not hurting anyone,” I say quickly.

“Just my feelings,” he says. We both try, and fail, to laugh.

“I’m surprised you’re coming with me,” he adds as we walk to the 2 train. He wants to do a little browsing for
Night Man
inspiration at Bergen Street Comics before we go to his house to study. “We don’t really talk about
Night Man
anymore.”

“Lots going on,” I say. A kid runs by who reminds me of Charlie. I haven’t seen him at school in a while; even though I have no idea what to say to him, I keep looking for him in the halls.

“You and Vicky don’t have meetings or anything?” Joe C. asks. “Not that I think you should.”

“I know,” I say. “At lunch I told her that maybe we should propose a canned food drive for the shelter, something totally easy, and all she wanted to talk about was her proposal for a merit-based lunch voucher system.”

“What’s that about?” Joe C. asks.

“She wants people who get the best grades to get discounts in the cafeteria. She thinks that the more we support the top students, the more everyone will benefit. Ruthie called it a twisted Talented Tenth trickle-down theory.”

“Whatever that means,” Joe C. answers. “And they should be paying
us
to eat that food.”

“I’ve gotten some interesting e-mails from people about cafeteria food. Vegetarian options, kosher options … ‘not-nasty options’ …”

“My mom wants the school to go totally organic.” Joe C.'s mom is a lawyer.

“I’d like to avoid people making any connections between me and nasty food with a high you-know-what factor anyway.” I try to laugh but it comes out like I’m choking.

“Yeah, I guess you would,” Joe C. says. “Look, it’s not the best nickname, but it could be worse. What if you were Acid Face Johnson?”

Good point. Everyone used to call this girl “Pizza Face,” but after Ruthie did a current events on women in some country getting acid thrown in their faces, it became “Acid Face.” Last week, Hector asked Acid Face if he could use her as a model for his presentation on the moon’s surface.

Joe C. looks at me. “You can tell me. You do realize that you made a mistake, right? With Vicky?”

“I don’t know what to do,” I say, taking out my campaign notepad to look over some of the suggestions that I’ve heard. “There are kids who are actually coming to talk to me about the election, and there’s a lot we can do. I just wish I didn’t feel like I was the one running against my own candidate … and Donovan. I mean, Justin.”

“Yeah,” says Joe C. “Sucks to be you.”

Is he being sarcastic? I let it go.

“You do have a lot going on,” he continues. “The homeless thing, Vicky … When are you going to have time for Night Man? The things you really want to do?”

I take this as a rhetorical question; at least, I take it as one I don’t want to answer right now. A police car weaves through the traffic, siren screaming. Miss Yvette, who’s lived on my block “since before these yuppies were old enough to spell ‘gentrification,'” she always says, calls out a hello as she drops soda cans into a shopping cart. (Those nickels she gets from recycling send her to Atlantic City every weekend.) A couple of old guys playing chess in the park challenge us to a game.

There’s a couple slobbing each other down in front of a nail salon. They’re almost horizontal and I’m expecting a baby to pop out of the girl any minute. What if that were Mialonie and me, and …

I look away from them, fast. “I heard Justin did it in fifth grade.”

“Did what?”

I just look at Joe C. until he gets it.

“No way.”

“Yeah,” I say, stuffing my hands in my pockets. “That’s what I heard.”

“You believe that?” asks Joe C.

“All the girls at school are in love with him.”

“I guess …”

I look at Joe C. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Have you, you know …”

“Oh. Well, no. Anyway, you would know.”

“I thought maybe with that girl from computer camp …”

“What, are you crazy? Anyway, she wasn’t that cute. And Maria, remember?”

“So, you would have?” I say it real low, even though no one is close to us.

“I don’t know…. What about you?”

“I guess … I don’t know. Yeah, probably. It depends.” I’m almost whispering now.

“My mom tries to talk to me about that stuff. It’s so embarrassing.”

“Yeah, Pops gave me a book,” I say.

“Any pictures?”

“Naw, it’s one of those Christian books…. You know, ‘Save it for marriage.’”

“Oh.” We’re both quiet for a while. Then he laughs. “Maybe your parents will set it up so you and Ruthie can lose your virginity to each other. They’ll have to fight off Vicky first, though.”

I chase him for two blocks before he apologizes, and I still
make him pay for the fries we pick up at the Chinese takeout place.

When we get to the subway station, we just make it onto the train, and I know right away that it’s the wrong one. A bunch of older guys are laughing and playing around; with all of the labels on their jackets and shoes, they don’t even need real names. It’s quiet, and I can feel them staring, and it’s one of those times when Joe C. seems Whiter than ever. Joe C. squeezes onto the bench next to a guy who’s opened his legs even more to make the space smaller. I stand in front of him, grab the rail, and pretend to read the vocational school ads posted over the windows.

Joe C. pulls out a Gargantua comic book.

“I found it,” he says, way too loud. “Remember we were looking for the one where Gargantua and Velvet Steel work together?”

I glance down and away real fast, hoping he gets that I don’t want to look at the book right now. It’s a long time until the next stop, and low profile is the way to go.

He opens up the book to a pullout spread. “Look at these lines. I think I can do something just as good as this,” he says. One of the guys across from us lets out a snort. I shake my head a little. Joe C. goes on, and it’s like he’s shouting. “We should write them a letter too. Because if Gargantua and Velvet Steel work together in this issue, then what happened in Number 613 is impossible.”

The snorty guy says something I can’t hear, and some of the others start laughing. Joe C. looks right at them
(nooo!)
and shrugs, then turns back to me. “Here.” He waves the book at me. I don’t do anything right away.

“Your friend is trying to give you something,” says Snorty. “Why are you being rude?” His friends laugh some more.

I know what they’re thinking. My clothes and my hair are a little too corny. My friend is a little too White.

Joe C. looks at me, and at them, and then at the floor. “Anyway,” he mumbles after a long minute, “it’s just stupid.”

Snorty looks at Joe C. “I used to read those books. Do they still have the Space Brawler?”

“Yeah,” says Joe C. “Only he lost his powers and he’s on this pilgrimage to find out why.” Snorty reaches for the book; Joe C. hands it over. He flips through it for a minute.

“So you draw and stuff? You want to make your own comic books?” he asks Joe C. It’s like I’m not there.

“I’m okay,” says Joe C. He nods toward me. “We’ve been working on some stuff.” I try to catch Snorty’s eye, but he’s not having it. He just focuses on Joe C.

Joe C. pulls out his art journal and shows it to Snorty, who’s impressed.

“You’re pretty good,” he says, showing his friends. “Keep it up. My uncle is an illustrator; he’s done a lot of picture books. It’s good work.”

We pull into our stop. Joe C. gathers his things; Snorty and a couple of the other guys give him a pound. I feel like I have too many limbs and trip as I head to the door. As I head out, I hear one of the guys mutter “stupid Whiteboy” under his breath. I’m so glad Joe C. didn’t hear that, but when I look up I realize that the guy is looking me full in the face.