Life Is Funny (15 page)

DeShawn goes, “How'd you get that?”

And Mara goes, “Yeah, Gingerbread. How'd you get that?” And what can you do when it's hard enough just to get the answer staying in your seat all at one time with no daddy or basketball or jerking off to get you through?

And DeShawn knows, and he goes, “He can't explain stuff good, y'all know how he is,” and pulls my neck with the inside elbow of his arm and shines my gingerbread head, and Keisha starts breaking it down, and I watch, all proud, while she opens up her black knapsack and pulls out her papers and the brick book we got to use for math, and she tells them how you do it, all smart and soft and pretty with those big feet staring right at me just begging for a kiss.

“What are you staring at, Gingerbread?” Mara says.

And they all look up, and Keisha's eyes blush, and I tell Mara, “Your nappy head.”

And DeShawn goes, “Don't mess with my girl.”

And Mara smacks him on the ear and goes, “Who said I'm your girl?”

And DeShawn does his angel in the manger smile, and while Mara's laughing, Keisha asks me do I want to come over later, and they go, “Oooh,” and I grin like a fool.

*  *  *

I use the phone in her kitchen to tell my daddy, and he goes, “You going to get your homework done over there, or are you and me doing it tonight?”

Keisha's already got her books out on the table, next to our soda glasses and a bowlful of chips.

“We're doing it now,” I tell him.

And he asks, “Who else is over there with you?”

“Her brother,” I tell him, and she rolls her calm, sad eyes because everybody's always thinking you're going to fuck any chance you have.

“Where is he?” I ask when I'm through with my daddy, meaning her brother.

She shrugs and looks mad behind her face and goes, “In the back, in his room,” and I want to ask her more, but I don't, and we start trying to do our English, but she's as jittery as me, and we end up all over that kitchen, jumping up for more chips, or pulling open drawers like we lost our mamas somewhere in there, and she does my fortune in my palm, her fingertips tracing mine boings straight into my pants, how does it do that, and I'm squirming like a kid at the dentist.

“You're going to have a long life,” she tells me, all soft, and I lean up under the table scared to death she's going to think I'm a pervert and not just falling in love, and she pulls her fingertip along another groove in my skin and goes, “You really are a virgin!”

And I go, “How old am I going to be when I first do it?”

And she throws my hand away like it turned prickly and makes her eyes wide and sighs and goes, “Can't tell you that,” and we go back to English but not for long. We predict about Mara and DeShawn, and she tells me Mara likes him, and I warn her DeShawn's a good man but he doesn't keep his dick in his pants for too long, and sometimes with girls he forgets about right and wrong, and he'll get bored fast so Mara better know that, and Keisha tells me they'll be perfect for each other because Mara's the same way, a real good friend and not trying to be bad but sometimes leaving guys mad.

Then I get scared, thinking am I a trifle, does all Keisha want from me is some dick and is she really a virgin or am I going to get used, and I start laughing because the truth is what is a fine woman like Keisha going to see in a cookie man like me and how long have I been a fool, and Keisha says, “What's so damn funny this time?”

And I go, “You like me?”

And she goes, “You like me?”

And I go, “I asked first.”

And she goes, “Yeah.”

And then I go, “Yeah,” and then we sit there and do our English for a while.

*  *  *

DeShawn is worse than my mama, wanting to know every bit of it and he gets worked up when I won't say diddly shit.

“You get into her pants at all?” he's asking me, while we wait for the girls at the movie theater.

“I told you, 'Shawn,” I tell him again, “I'm not talking about Keisha like that and we didn't do anything anyway except fuck like wild things on her aunt's kitchen table,” which he knows is a lie bigger than God, and he's calling me a mad stupid liar when Keisha and Mara show in all their Saturday night, done-up hair, shiny-lipped, cherry chewing gum breath, barely dry fingernail glory.

We snatch that back row for an alien action love story, and we're hardly over the credits when Keisha bumps my knee with her knee, and first I'm thinking she's making a move on me, and then I see what she sees, which is Mara and DeShawn getting it on.

“Want to leave?” I ask, and we have to crawl all over them, and I'm amazed at old DeShawn because he's got his thing out already, and Mara's moving in on it real steady, and me and Keisha are out in the street quicker than a blink.

“Where should we go?” I say.

And Keisha goes, “We could go to my place,” which is what we do, and on the way I pick up her hand, and she lets me, and it makes us all giggly.

“You ever want to do it in a movie theater?” she asks while our legs go together over the cracks and dog shit and by baby strollers and leaves the color of night.

“Naah,” I say. And then I go, “Why'd they pay money for a movie if they're missing the whole show for booty?” and she laughs and then stops quick when we get in her door, and there's a little kid watching TV on the floor. Keisha's eyes go mad behind her face, but she stays Keisha calm and goes, “Hey, Tory, where's Aunt Eva?”

And the little kid says all nice, “She's down the street playing cards.”

And Keisha goes, “Where's Nick?”

And the little kid goes, “In the back in his room.” Keisha stands there still as a teacher before coffee, biting on her pretty curvy lip, and I go, “What's wrong, Keisha?”

And she looks and looks at the little kid and goes, real quiet, almost like it's to her own self, “Nothing as long as I'm around,” and before I can ask what that's supposed to mean, she says louder than anything, “That's my cousin Tory.”

“Hey, Tory,” I say.

“That's my friend Gingerbread,” Keisha tells her cousin, and the little kid's face breaks open and crashes out an ocean of laughing, the way people do hearing my name and seeing my face, and I love being here on this earth.

“You okay?” Keisha asks Tory after a while, and the little girl says yeah.

Keisha looks past the hallway to a closed door, and then that door flies open and a boy-man in the doorway yells, “Tory!”

And Keisha yells, “Nick!”

And the boy-man goes, all grumpy evil-eyed, “Shit,” and then that door closes, and Keisha stands froze.

“I'm not going in there,” Tory tells Keisha, and I feel dumber than dumb because I don't know what's going on, and Tory goes, “I'm never in there with him.” And Keisha goes, “Cool.”

“Y'all got some food?” I ask, because the air is thick and mean, and I want Keisha to smile and the kid to laugh again, and they pull out Lucky Charms, but there's no milk, so we eat it with our hands like chips. I do a drumbeat and throw up the bits and catch them in my mouth, and Tory giggles for more, and Keisha pretends to be bored, and Tory picks out all the purple marshmallows from the pile.

“Why's he always hopping around?” Tory asks Keisha.

And Keisha tells her, “Shush.”

And I go, “My brain was born mush, makes me mad hyper.”

And Tory goes, “For real? For real?”

And Keisha goes, “Tory, chill.”

And then I grab the last purple bit and chuck it in the air, and Tory yells, “No fair.”

And I catch it in my hand, not my mouth, and I go, “Tell me why she doesn't like Nick, and you can have it.”

“Gingerbread, she doesn't know.”

Keisha snaps me sharp, and I get nervous I messed up, and Tory begs, “Give me it.”

And Keisha tells her,
“Please.”

And Tory says, “Please, Mr. Gingerbread, please.”

And I hand it over and look at Keisha and go, “Peace.”

She makes my heart bam and my dick shrink up like a shamed dog when she doesn't answer for a while, but then she smiles. Oh, that Keisha smile.

*  *  *

We do our history project together, me and Keisha and Mara and DeShawn, and it's going all wrong. First it was going to be on Martin Luther King, but then Keisha said if she does one more damn thing on Dr. King, God bless all his work and bless his soul, she will die once and for all. And then it was going to be Harriet Tubman, and Mara and me say same bad, and then my daddy hears it all as he gets closer to our stoop, and he says, “What about World War Two and the black troops?”

Daddy bounces the ball in his good suit, and he tells us all about it and there's a book and a movie documentary and don't forget the library.

“Let's do that,” Mara says.

And DeShawn says, “Phat.”

And I go, “Yeah.”

And Keisha swats me soft and sexy with her fine hand and goes, “Fool.”

And I squawk, “What?”

And Mara and DeShawn nod like wise kings when Keisha says, “You never told us your daddy was like that!”

And Daddy grins and grins and steps over us and goes on in, and I play all stupid because I'm happy they like him because that's my Wall Street–working, basketball-playing, homework-helping, get-home-early-and-make-Mama-dinner real man daddy, and thank the Lord, Jesus, God, Allah, Buddha, Whoever for all I got.

*  *  *

So me and Keisha are at the public library looking up the troops, and Keisha's all smiles because she read how a Jew woman back then in those nasty murder camps was about to die a starved skeleton and then thought angels were black-skinned man-looking things because that's who saved her, out of nowhere, picking her up right there in black arms with hundreds more picking up her brothers and sisters from death's dungeon, and she didn't even know people that color lived here on this earth.

“You think God's white?” Keisha whispers in the deep back of the stacks. We're all alone down there, and I want to grab and squeeze, and every time I look at those big old eyes and big old feet, I feel the shake in my knees, so I try to focus.

“First, you've got to ask me if I believe in God,” I tell her.

And she pokes out her whole face and goes, “What? You don't?”

And I tap my fingers on the book spines, tap on each letter of each line, tap-tapping.

“Gingerbread?” Keisha says.

And I go, “I don't know.” And she's quiet, and I say, “You believe in God?” And over her powder, perfume, hair grease, I smell the books, old paper, million-year-old tree soot, dusty, like floaty dotted magic air caught in the beam of a film projector, and I just want to grab her, so I tap harder.

“I believe in God except then I don't know why he does things to people,” she tells me, and she's got that sad, serious face, that one that makes me stop moving all over the place.

“Why are you so sad?” I whisper, feeling dumber than dumb again. She stays quiet, just looking at me all soft and hard and real, and I want to fix her, hug her all up.

“Was God mean to you?” flies right out of my mouth from I don't know where, and I think I better ask my mama or my daddy because they'll know what I know but can't get, and she shakes her head.

“You're real nice, Gingerbread,” she tells me. Then that sad washes all out of her face like the stain out of the TV commercial shirt, and her eyes go sexy and blinky, and the next thing I know she's kissing me with that curvy crazy mouth, and everything goes stiller than I ever knew still, and it's all fine Keisha tongue, lips pulling, clean book dust air, sliding sweet-tart breath, cheek, chin, hard dick, oh, Lord.

“You really a virgin?” she asks me, staying up so close she asks my chest, not my breath, and she's pressing so sexy up against my thing I think I could lose it all over the insides of my jeans.

“Uh huh,” I go, and we're down to the carpet strip of floor with all those millions of nice books watching, and oh, Lord, I am on her, she's pressing up, I'm pressing down, wet mouth and warm skin under thin girl shirt, my palm stroking, brushing everywhere, sweaty fingers edging into my pants, crawling to my hard, hard dick, holding, squeezing, pressing, feeling, fingers stop and I want to cry, but she's pulling my hand to her jeans, unzip, panties, elastic, heat, slippery, sweaty fingers pushing mine inside, sliding, gliding, hips moving, one finger, two fingers, rocking, moaning, pulling, pushing, oh, Lord, oh, Lord, beautiful Keisha wet hot pussy fucking my fingers, please, please, please let my dick, and then someone's at my back snatching me up, and Keisha screams, and on her feet so fast, and we run, pants open, shirts off, through the books, the musty dusty tree soot smell, winding, weaving, breathing hard from sex and fear.

*  *  *

I wipe my hand on my jeans before tugging her to me, and we walk quiet, step, step, stepping, no talking, just breathing, no looking, just walking all the way to my stoop. My dick is down, but my chest jumping jacks all over the place, and Keisha holds my hand tight and keeps her mouth still.

We settle in on the second to bottom step, and I tap-tap-tap at her back.

“You think I'm a whore now?” She's trying to be all mad, but I hear her words buck up under a little, and I want to hug her tight, no hard dick, just hug nice, and I put my hand flat on her back.

“No way, Keisha. I think you're beautiful.”

“I really am a virgin,” she tells me. “I never even did that before.”

“Me neither,” I tell her.

“It was nice.”

“It was real nice.”

“I don't feel done.” Bang, bang, bang goes the jumping jacks, dick standing up straight, like a soldier.

“Me neither.”

“I'll be damned if I get myself pregnant.”

“Me, too.”