How To Be a Boy (10 page)

“Yeah,” I say, trying to be cool. Not knowing why he call me that.

There’s ten, maybe fifteen, guys standing around me. I don’t know how many will be coming at me, but Renz told me to try to stay standing as long as I can. He told me they might be easy on me ’cause of him. Or they might be harder on me ’cause of him. I think it’s like five or six start hitting me. You feel the first punches the most. After, they sort of mash up together.

Renz was right; falling sucks.

They kidney-kick me. Kick at my legs and face. Ain’t no way I can get up.

Then they stop. It’s after a long time.

Rubber pull me up. “You tough, Chili Boy.”

I can’t barely lift my right arm, so I wipe at my nose with my left. Blood covers everything. My right eye I can’t keep from twitching. It’s closing up, too.

But I’m in. These boys got my back. You know. Like your boys got your back. You gotta have a gang to run with. Otherwise, you all alone out there. Am I right?

Anyway, Renz had a spare piece he kept, ever since he got his Glock. Finding it wasn’t hard; Renz wasn’t too bright. A piece is a mighty fine thing to have.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18—MERCY HOSPITAL, ROOM 362

“When did I pick up that Ricky was smart as a whip? Aced his Math tests, never did a lick of homework, half paid attention during Math. Surprised the hell out of me when we were working on the human body. We cover bones and muscles, ligaments, that sort of thing. Each kid does a report near the end. Ricky chose the heart. Oh, his report was amazing, compared the heart to the city; showed a deep understanding. Diagrams and illustrations in full color. I got him oil pastels—didn’t know what they were for when he asked—but… Diagrams of the heart showing aortas and valves, arteries, where the blood goes, how it travels. Beautiful. The kid knew more about the heart than I did. That pretty much clued me in. Never seen a report like that.”

MONDAY, OCTOBER 17—FROGTOWN POLICE STATION 157

“Mr. Forest, ho, ho, Mr. Forest… Well, he … I don’t know… What can I say about Mr. Forest? Goddamn. That mo’fo got me into some trouble, didn’t he? Well, he’s all right, you know? I been through that school, all the grades. Pretty much, frankly, it didn’t seem anyone gave out too much love, if you feel me? No one gave one crack about me, you know? Goddamn. Mr. Forest, he … blam fool, he showed up at my house one day. Now ain’t that ridiculous? Come down into Frogtown. Goddamn. Stupid jack. Huh, yeah, I don’t know… You know, some teachers, most teachers, they just didn’t give a damn. Then you get someone like Forest; you wonder
why
he give a damn. What do he care what happened to me? Or when I take my bullet? You know, why do he care? All the time, though, riding me in school. And he, he didn’t ride me like the other teachers. Like, the other teachers were all, You’re not doing your work; you’re not paying attention; you’re not, you’re not, you’re not. Well, yeah, I am! It wasn’t like that with Mr. Forest. He be like, you can do better than this, man. I thought you’d get this. Ah, sometimes I was wishing that he was black. You know? He tried to act all cool. But he just a fool. I don’t know what else to say. What else you want me to say?

“Why’d I do it? Why’d I do it?

“He tell you about my report? My report I wrote? Wrote a report about the heart, the human heart. He tell you why I wrote it? Naw, I don’t think he did. He tell you why? Well, he tell you my brother… Did I tell you about my brother? He’s shot. Yup. Martin. Didn’t listen to Lorenz. Lorenz told him not to go into no mini-mart, especially no Hmong mini-mart. That their
own
money and they protect it, you know. And they got jack behind the counter to do it? Anyway, Martin took one in the heart, you know? Just one bullet, right here. Doc said the bullet been two inches higher, Martin lived; three inches to the left, Martin lived. So I want’d to know why that was, you know? I mean why’d my brother have to bite it when he just thirteen? And what’s it mean? What’s in there that’s so important? I mean, I know he got hit in the heart, but now I know a lot more.

“Anyway, there he is, you know? Laid out on some mini-mart floor ’cause a shot hit the spot, didn’t hit the spot, and here we was studying the human body. So we outside jumping rope, testing how fast our heart goes. Now what do you think I’m thinkin’ about when we’re testin’ how fast our heart goes? Marteen, yeah. Can’t get it out of my mind. Mr. Forest is like, Why ain’t you writin’ your jack down, boy? I’m like, He have no idea what I’m thinkin’ about. Anyway, didn’t write down that day, or the next three days. All I was thinkin’ about was the body, how it’s made and how if a bullet goes in the right spot, you dead. And if you miss that spot, you ain’t.

“‘Mr. Forest,’ I says, ‘we gonna be studyin’ the heart?’

“‘No,’ he says. ‘Just looking at other muscles and bones.’

“‘Well, I wanna know about the heart. Started out the whole unit with the heart, didn’t we? Had us outside jumping rope.’

“‘That’s because it’s a muscle,’ he says.

“‘Well, I wanna know more about it,’ I says.

“‘Why don’t you talk to me after class?’

“So I do.”

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18—MERCY HOSPITAL, ROOM 362

“You know the underpass on Dale under University for bikes and pedestrians, just the good side of Frogtown? Took that route pretty much every day. Spent the last three years riding my bike nearly every day. So I’m heading home from work, just about dusk; it’s getting dark 4:30–5:00 now. I go under the underpass, and I know now what it was that hit me, but then, it was just a
clunk
. I wear a helmet, didn’t do much for what hit my head.

“I’m on the ground, next thing I know. Chunk of concrete lying next to me, looks like it came out of a sidewalk. My bike is there, too. Kids. Kids, I’m saying, are rifling through the bags. They’ve got the computer bag out from where it was lashed into my kid’s seat on the back. Then a kid I know. It’s weird seeing a kid you know. A kid, you know. A kid, a kid, standing above you with a gun. Changes your perspective on things.”

MONDAY, OCTOBER 17—FROGTOWN POLICE STATION 157

“It’s kind of weird seeing a guy you know, a teacher, just lying on the ground. Just lying there, you know? Blood pouring out of his shoulder, head kind of turned sideways, looking up at you. Like he know, you know,
shit
, now. Naw, I din’t feel like
I
knew jack. You get memories, you know? You get memories; you
see
. Goddamn. I remember standing in class. Before him I felt like a goddamn idiot in school, but after him, I was smart, like I knew shit.”

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18—MERCY HOSPITAL, ROOM 362

“When you’re looking up, it certainly isn’t the same kid from your class. He is and he isn’t. As a teacher you’re always on the lookout for that spark, that click when the light bulb goes off in their head. Well, I saw something in his eyes, that’s for sure. Wasn’t anything I wanted to be seeing. It’s funny because I’m lying there, looking up at Ricky, his gun turned sideways in his hand. This is a thirteen-year-old kid—he’s looking down at you, and you see the kid! You see him in class, see his pencil eraser on his tongue, see his brain clicking away. The others I didn’t recognize. Didn’t know. Just Ricky. Then his eyes changed, a light bulb.”

MONDAY, OCTOBER 17—FROGTOWN POLICE STATION 157

“So OK, he cared. Yeah, I actually got that impression. More than any other teacher before. So what am I gonna do, pop him? Course with my boys yelling in my ear,
Take him! Pop him!
what else can I do?”

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18—MERCY HOSPITAL, ROOM 362

“He touched the gun to my chest, right on my heart. His lips were tight. Behind him the blur of boys were screaming. I saw leaves in the trees above his head swaying golden and red in the breeze. He moves the gun about two inches up my chest. I prepare myself for the jolt I know will come. He’s on that fence, you know? Balanced there, fighting between two rights. And his decision I know is the right one. The only one he can make.”

“STEP AWAY FROM THE CAR.”

I jump back, turn, expecting to see a copper. But it’s some suit striding towards me across the car park, holding his key out like it’s a Taser or something. His eyes flicker from me to the Merc and back again and then to my hand as if maybe I have a key of my own and was just about to take his wheels for a joy ride. I hold up my hands like, “Don’t shoot!” The car’s lights flash as he unlocks the door from ten paces. It’s as if the car is saying, “Yes, master. I live to serve.”

The suit glares at me as he climbs into the driver’s seat. Once he’s locked in and revving his motor, he shakes his head at me as if I’m this big loser. Then he drives off. Nice vehicle. I’d been looking in the window, thinking how cool it would be to own a car like that one day. But not if I have to become a wanker to get one.

*  *  *

“He probably thought you were going to key it,” says Crawley the next day.

“Key it?”

“You know – lay a big scratch along the side.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

Crawley shrugs. “People do it.”

I slap my forehead. “Oh, right. I’d forgotten I was a people.”

“People like
us
,” says Crawly, darkly.

“You mean
dangerous people
.”

“Youth gone wild,” says Crawley, like he’s a newsreader.

I nudge him and point at a little old lady waiting at the zebra crossing up ahead.

“Let’s push her into the traffic,” I say.

“Excellent. But not before we grab her bag.”

She glares at us, cringing, as we pass by, laughing our heads off.

How scary is that?

The thing is, it happens again, later that afternoon, at the Village Arts and Crafts Centre. The whole step-back-from-the-car routine. See, I’m supposed to meet Mum to go shopping for a new blazer, but she has to buy a wedding present first. So we’re in the shop and she’s looking at pottery and ornaments, and I’m just cruising around, not thinking of much, when I see this chess set on a pedestal in a little alcove.

The king looks like a puffed-up lord mayor with his chains of office on, and the queen looks like maybe she runs a pub or something – lots of make-up – maybe a brothel. The figures are only about seven centimetres high, but they’re amazing. It’s the pawns that really grab my eye. They’re kids. One bloke’s carrying a skateboard; one girl’s tuning her iPod. Another kid is balancing a football on his knee.

“May I help you?”

I jump back. The shop manager looms. It was a question, right? Wrong. In shop-managerese, “May I help you?” means “Step away from the chessboard!” Or maybe, “What are you doing here?” Or, “Is there a reason you exist?” He glances at my hands, just like the suit did earlier. I hold them out in front of him, open wide, like I’m saying,
See? Nothing. What’s your problem?

“Gordon, what are you up to now?” says Mum from across the room.

Jesus!

It’s only later – much later, lying on my bed with my hands behind my head – that I can even begin to think of what I would have wanted to say. Things like: “How much is this chess set? I’d like to buy it, but – oh, wait a minute – you’re a dickhead, so forget it.” Or maybe, “I was thinking of taking this but I nicked one just like it last week.”

But what I really want to say isn’t to the arsehole manager. I find Mum in the kitchen making dinner.

“What’d you mean when you said, ‘What are you up to now’?”

Mum nudges me out of the way. “What are you going on about?”

“At the craft shop, when the manager was getting at me.”

She pours water from the spuds into the sink. “Oh, it’s just a line, Gordon,” she says. “Something to defuse the situation.”

“It made it sound like I’m some sort of criminal.”

“Don’t be so sensitive.”

“Oh,” I say. “That’s a good idea.”

“We should write
CRIMINAL
on our foreheads,” says Crawley the next day at school.

Carla reaches into her bag and pulls out a lipstick. She opens it. It’s mauve with silver sparkles in it.

“Who’s first?” she says.

I don’t even hesitate. I pull the hair back off my face and try to keep my forehead smooth, which is hard when a pretty girl is standing that close and you more or less have to stare at her breasts and the smell of her watermelon gum is filling your nostrils and you’re getting ideas—

“Stop thinking,” she says.

The lipstick feels smooth and cool. She pauses.

“How many
M
s are there in
criminal
?” she says.

In registration, Mr Hicks is not amused. “We all know you are a juvenile delinquent in training, Gordon,” he says, looking down at me. “But contrary to popular opinion, it does
not
pay to advertise.”

He makes me go and wash it off, but I catch up to Carla after school and ask her to do it again. She gives me this look like I’m being kinky or something.

“Just do it,” I say. “There’s somebody I want to annoy.”

So she writes
CRIMINAL
on my forehead again, grinning like I just jumped up a notch in her good books. This time the lipstick is aubergine. She steps back to examine her handiwork.

“It goes better with your eyes,” she says.

As I walk down to the Village Arts and Crafts Centre, I wonder if Carla likes my eyes. Whether she could see herself there looking at me looking at her looking at me.

Want to check someone out, really up close and personal? Get them to write stuff on your face.

The bell over the door of the craft shop jingles as I enter but the manager doesn’t appear. There’s a staircase near the door up to a loft where there are paintings and etchings and stuff. He’s not there, either, as far as I can tell. I sniff the air, smile: the dickhead’s got a little secret. I make my way to the back, to the chessboard on its pedestal. Mobiles and wind chimes dangle from the ceiling all around the alcove. They tinkle as I pass through them, like I’m entering some sacred glade or something.

Somebody’s moved some of the chess pieces. This one pawn in an electric-orange hoodie, silver shades and red beanpole denims has dipped out of the way so one of the bishops can make his move. Except, this bishop looks more like a parish priest with a
RIGHT TO LIFE
picket sign resting on his skinny shoulder. There’s action at the other end of the board, as well. This black kid pawn in a white tee and camo fatigues has slouched out of the way to let a knight move up the board. Except the knight is a copper on the beat.