Victor Lavalle - Slapboxing with Jesus

— That’s how you want it? I asked Horse. In all our clothes, with the boardwalk watching, we ran into the sea. My legs were so strong I was jumping waves like fucking hurdles. The horizon didn’t even seem that far, two big hops and we’d be there. Then the sea floor fell away and we were treading. Kept going, didn’t stop until my lungs were thunder in my ribs.

I said, — Didn’t think you’d keep up.

Horse laughed, but not happily. — Are you joking? We could keep going G.I. Joe. Right now. And all you could do is follow the trail of me kicking up water.

You would have thought Horse’d stopped sucking his thumb when he was ten, even twelve. Like normal motherfuckers. But when he was fifteen he was still doing it, in front of others, running his other hand over his ears, shutting his eyes. We had a plan so he would never need braces. Once a week, on his front steps, I’d lean my palms into his top teeth as hard as they could take; then I’d stop; he’d bite down on something, tell me about the pain in his fucking mouth, but that was a good sign, that they were shifted closer into place. We did it like that every week for years. When we were sixteen I was getting tired of his stupid plan and getting stronger, pushing hard even after he was tapping my elbow, then punching me.

— It’s not so bad now, I said, laughing, after Ahab had reminded me of that scheme. I’d never tell him, but Melissa liked it when I whispered in her ear; the way my teeth bent in, the words came out with that little whistle and it tickled her ear. I did it every chance I got. She grabs my hand and squeezes it hard like she’s angry, but when I look, man, she’s always smiling. That stupid look on Ahab’s face, I knew he couldn’t understand anything more than what his crotch wanted. Dogs look like that, old ones: dumb.

Ahab asked, — Now how are we going to find that shit?

I said, — You’ve got better eyes than me, dip your head under. Like it was an order, Ahab went that fast. As though he’d been practicing obedience too. I admit, I watched him with contempt.

——

I dove in quick to get away from Horse. It was impossible to see, stupid to try. When my air ran out I went up, sucked deep and went in one more time. The second try, Horse grabbed the side of my head. Held me there. That was funny at first, true, but his arm was stiff and he gripped my hairs so tight I thought a few would come out. He was saying some shit, vibrations bounced around underwater, but I couldn’t make it out. My eyes were burning. I tried to kick or push, but there was no leverage.

Horse pulled me back. I’d only been a foot under; my eyes went wide letting in that sunlight, so much it hurt, but I didn’t have time to thank him as I inhaled. Inhaled. Now I could understand him, Horse was saying, — I’m leaving. I’m getting out. He was repeating this.

Eventually, I stopped. I floated there after Ahab came up. The far brown boardwalk, from the water, seemed like a fence put up around the farthest ends of this country. The way it ran in both directions I could believe it went three thousand miles, thirty. More. A perimeter. A guardrail. And who would be defending it? Ahab? This moron I’d grown up with? Who’d be at his post with nothing greater on his mind than the new rims he wanted on his car and in his hands a loaded gun? This was all funny, so I laughed at him.

——

Despite Horse’s laughing, the attempt to drown me, I could ignore him. I was thinking of the uniform, how it would fit. With anticipation. For fucking days I had been watching television, thinking I had to pack in a lot of viewing time because when I went to boot camp I’d be spending all my hours doing sit-ups and marching in the rain. Four nights before, I came across this channel, the little gold H in the right bottom corner. All these white guys at desks, screaming. It was funny to me, this was almost forty years ago and they rocked electric blue blazers, thick-ass ties. It was when Nixon was going down, had done all that impeachable shit. Then the camera cuts to this one lady, behind a desk too; she’s talking about her Country and her Constitution, which she loves. Loved. She spoke clearly, directly, all the ways Horse had been trying lately, hers had no sneer. Horse was an obnoxious motherfucker. I didn’t tell him about Barbara Jordan. But watching her, how much she looked like me, it was the first time I’d thought my only options in the world weren’t to be like Horse or to be like Sanford.

— Patriotism, Horse spat. A word he said all the time around me now. He said it like a curse.

— You know where patriotism is going to take you? I asked Ahab. To some brown country where you’ll be told to shoot lots of brown people.

Ahab said, — You’re still around when I’m on leave and I’ll shoot you.

When I first mentioned I was leaving, changing neighborhoods and lives, I was all joyful. No parts regret. I enjoyed telling Ahab, slowly, which buses he could take to visit, knowing he never would. When I grabbed him tight in a hug, I know, it wasn’t to show Ahab love. It was triumphant on my part, like in life I was the only hero. From how he was acting, Ahab might have been stupid enough to be feeling that way about America.

I left Horse behind, waited on the beach for maybe half an hour while he paddled out there, turning his back to the shore and staring at the far horizon, maybe thinking of his future like I was. When he finally came in we agreed the ship was lost, left like so many other things to drift on ocean currents for maybe five hundred years. On the bus we didn’t speak. To be the fortunate son, even men like us wanted this.

In our neighborhood I walked to my house while Horse sped around the corner in a rush. He owned a Chevy, two-door, not sporty. It didn’t run, two wheels were on cinder blocks, but he liked to sit in it like he might pull off. The radio worked. We lived barely a block apart, so when he got to it, I could hear the yelp of a rusted car door opening, the sound like bones being broken, loud like that.

So it was me, my boys and two new kids, Mark and Chuckie. All of us were heavy with equipment, the two new fellas with bikes. Saturdays parents existed only when we woke up and went to bed, the long line of hours in between were just baseball, baseball, baseball. We’d decided to stretch over to that park in the Italian neighborhood; the one near us was full.

The game went right: ground outs, pop flies and stolen bases; I slid into second after a line drive and caught a nice piece of glass in my knee, it left the kind of scar you could roll up your jeans and brag about. While waiting to swing a bat we made up stories about girls far off we were fingering. We were almost ten and spoke loudly.

Baseball diamonds had been etched into the park, three separate plots. It was easy to find little ponds all over; like everything in Flushing they looked good from a distance. Only coming closer could you spy their murky gray insides. In the summers, very faintly, they emitted paint fumes. It was getting dark. That’s how night arrived then, bothering you all at once, bursting into the room. One of us said, — Let’s get the fuck out of here. We weren’t Italian. Not even Mark. Not even Chuckie. This is not to say I had no Italian friends, our neighborhood was a mash of origins, but still, there were intricate politics. This was 1982. You knew where you could be and when.

We gathered up our mitts and balls and both aluminum bats Jung had carried on his wide shoulders. Half a block traveled and I had to run back for the left-handed glove Mom bought special after searching through six different Modell’s for a first baseman’s. Then I chugged back to the guys on their feet, ahead of them Chuckie, Mark and the bikes they’d rode in on, these dope silver Huffys. Those two had learned how to do spins, other tricks, and instantly I hated them like I did all my boys: secretly. Those ties didn’t mean much to me. When you stopped speaking to some kid there would be another; one thing Flushing had in abundance was people.