Victor Lavalle - Slapboxing with Jesus

— Let’s think about what we’re gonna do, Mark said. He dropped his bag because he needed his hands free to think, to scratch his ears, rub his neck — his body needed that kind of stimulation to work, even during tests. Teachers often thought he was cheating.

Frankie asked, — Couldn’t we just throw books at them? I got good aim. And Anthony.

Jung said, — His mother doesn’t want dead birds, dick.

Frankie pointed down. — His mother wants what your mother already got: my fat one.

— If we scare them into moving, I said, and we have the other three or four stand close with their bags open I bet we could catch them.

Jung volunteered to be frightening because he had the shortest arms, smallest reach. While he walked forward, slow and crouched, we four raised our bags in the air. The birds were oblivious, hopping two feet to the right with an ease that suggested nothing but absolute stupidity. They burst into joy again and the sound was irritating. Jung pounced and they flew. Like a fire had been lit, they went that fast. I knew I wasn’t getting one, thought for sure we’d all missed out, but Mark had his bag closed tight at the top, from inside came a muffled twitter. Tony moved cautiously, saying, — Okay, okay. Just give me that one and I’ll put it back.

Mark would not agree so he, Tony and Jung went together into the mother’s room.

Frankie looked at me, finally said, — Let me see that hand.

I brought it close to him, he touched the palm and the fingertips. After some more perusal he went to the kitchen, returned with two Korean beers, brown bottles with a gold label, red letters. We drank them though I hated the taste. I couldn’t say no to a toast. Then Frankie went to the bookshelf and began tossing paperbacks.

The bird was agitated. It flew by my face and Frankie almost hit me. I joined in. It flitted from pace to place: it dallied at Tony’s sneakers, which had been set neatly by the door, their soles worn down from all the running he did in a day. When it landed it dropped its beak down like it was ducking. It flew to the stack of three empty pizza boxes in the living room, sat there as though there was time to reminisce, through the open bathroom door, perched itself on top of the mirror, until I sent an old summer reading copy of Animal Farm in there. At the wooden rack on the wall where a string of hats hung, it hopped to the Mets cap, moving one peg left as each of us sent something at it. On the dining-room table was a blue plastic box for clothes, a wash just done — the parakeet stopped there, dug its claws into Tony’s mother’s bra, a black one, which sat on top. On a stack of red oak tag paper it gave out a significant sound, directed at us. A shattered single note. The parakeet’s movements seemed random, bred from confusion, desperate and without any narrative, but when I looked where it had been going I saw that at each station there lay some of those seeds Tony had set out, so few you might not notice from afar. It had been feeding itself; where I’d thought gleefully that we had it on the run, the bird’s whole trajectory now seemed deliberate and precise. Mark joined in; Jung pounded against walls to add some noise. We ran out of softcovers after the Bible had gone up; we moved to hardcovers.

Jung then got dinged in the face with a sharp-edged red cookbook and started crying. He was deceptive, you’d see the tears and think he was some big pussy, but once he started swinging his arms like sledgehammers you knew you’d better run because he just might kick your ass. — Alla you get the fuck out of my house! Tony yelled. He turned off the blabbering television.

Mark, Frankie and I were angry to leave without having had some kimchee, jealous that Jung would be allowed to stay like always. As though it had been choreographed, we three bucked out our teeth and pulled our eyes narrow to slits, sang, — Me Chinese, me don’t care, me make shitty in my underwear!

In exasperation and some kind of resignation, Tony cried, for him and Jung, — We’re not Chinese!

I was laughing so hard that Jung turned to me, said, — I been to your house, Anthony. I don’t know what the fuck you’re laughing at. I heard your mother talk, she’s an African Bootie Scratcher anyway.

I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I knew my mother had been insulted and it had to be corrected. — My mother is not some fucking African, she’s black.

Mark shrugged. — What’s the difference?

Once we were in the hallway, I realized we’d forgotten our bags, banged on Tony’s door; reluctantly it opened some, one by one they came out, like sandbags right before a big flood.

We ate gum outside; Frankie had it and shared with me and Mark. I chewed it to hide the beer on my breath. We had a few more blocks to walk together. I saw Olisa before either of them and tried to lead them into the Lug-A-Jug with a promise to buy them Jawbreakers. Frankie peeped her, told me, — Go tell that bitch the facts.

I walked up, the others close enough to hear. We were across the street from a bus stop. Olisa handed me something bright, a maroon paper used for art projects in school; written in orange marker it was hard to see the words ANTHONY-N-OLISA. She asked, — Would you go to a movie with me?

Somewhere in school she’d have heard about my incident. I held that palm up to her face, close, like there was an odor left on it that she could inhale. Nancy Salvino was flat-chested; in her bra I’d felt all that tissue. I said, — Nobody loves your ugly black ass.

She stared at me as I passed. Her mouth divested of words. Her cheeks were round and good, but no one noticed. Frankie and Mark told me to throw her gift away, but I waited until I got home, stuffed it in the garbage near chicken fat and an old wig. I wrapped up the whole bag and took it to the incinerator. Back in the apartment I lay on my bed, spent the rest of the afternoon looking at the hand that had, just that day, touched the thing we thought we’d wanted more than anything else in the world.

This lawyer was fucking my moms, right in the pocketbook. She was explaining the process to my grandmother as I was splayed out on the floor, staring into the television that was burning through my good eyesight, glasses getting thicker right there on my face. I turned, over my shoulder, shooshed them; they regarded me and laughed out my place in the matriarchy.

My mother asked about school, did it lazily; not that she was uninterested, just so tired. Work produced exhaustion and minor paychecks. She was a secretary. Like many afternoons she’d left me enunciation exercises, not specific phrases for repetition, but a book and radio with a blank tape in the deck. The task was to read clearly into the speaker and she’d listen when evening came to see if I’d done it well. But, like always, she was too tired for her part; knowing this would happen, you’d have thought I could skip it, but Grandma would come to the bedroom door and watch me. One thing I guarantee, throughout Queens no one screamed, — Motherfucker! more clearly than I.

We ate dinner in front of the television. Grandma cooked a meal rich with gravy; as she ate Mom muttered, — I shouldn’t be touching this stuff. She rubbed her thighs as though they were expanding right then; she kneaded them with her knuckles in what looked like a punishment. I thought she might take a pill, she seemed agitated enough; she ate some more. Mom touched me where I sat, beside her on the couch, asked, Tomorrow, you want to come with me?

She didn’t need to give me a destination. My mother worked so many hours. — Where? I asked.

— I have to see my lawyer. And Grandma needs a break from you.