CHAPTER ONE
Anthony Jones, an inky-black knot of a fourteen-year-old, stomped down the elevated railroad tracks, hammering his thigh with a clenched fist. Inside his hand was crammed the hastily written note he had scribbled while his mother dictated. He’d been back at home only minutes before, splayed on the couch with one eye on the clock and the other on the TV, waiting for her key to stab the lock. She’d blown in and up the stairs, then slid out of her overcoat and barked the familiar orders: “Get up. I need you to go to the store.”
Of course she did. And of course he went, just like the day before and the day before that. He wouldn’t mind so much if she spread it around a little, maybe made his brothers go every now and then. But that would never happen. Andre and Darnell were too old to be bossed around and too big to hit.
“Maxi pads,” he spat at the wooden ties in front of him. “What I look like, buyin’ somebody’s maxi pads?” He uncurled his fingers and reread the list, each printed item giving the paper weight. Two bags of shit, maybe three. How was he supposed to lug all of that by himself? “Whatever I cain’t carry I’m just gon’ leave,” he said, and then checked over his shoulder. His mother had a way of showing up in unexpected places.
He scooped a handful of rocks and stomped on, looking for something or someone to hit. Some people called him a troublemaker, but he saw himself as more of an adventurer. The noise and the rush, the fear of getting caught, bitten, or beaten made him tease dogs and test total strangers, break bottles wherever he found them, and dash into the path of moving traffic.
“Maxi pads.” The words made him uncomfortable, especially the first one. He tried to clear his head by firing a rock at a pole. It struck the wood with a thok and ricocheted into dead bushes. “She make me go to that school, she gon’ have to get her own damn Kotex, anyway.”
He checked behind him again and walked on, looking down at the houses and busy streets below. It was warm, more than sixty-five degrees in early March, and it looked like everybody in East Cleveland had found a reason to be outside. Dudes in T-shirts and baggy jeans slopped soap on Oldsmobiles and Mustangs, while packs of teenage girls walked by slowly, hoping for a chance to ignore them. Shorties on BMX bikes jumped curbs and toiled across the clumpy little lawns, flinging mud into the air behind them and drawing brown scars on the pavement. And packs of grim boys weighed down some of the street corners, flagging cars and leaning into the windows.
At a bridge he came down and crossed the street, pushed through the electric door at Judd’s Supermarket, and found an empty cart. As he maneuvered the cart through the cramped and pitted aisles, Anthony wondered what it would take to get his mother to forget about Belton Academy. He wasn’t going. They hadn’t even given him an answer yet, and even if he did get in, he still wasn’t going. Tuition was steep and his family was always broke.
That didn’t stop his mother, though. All she could do was talk about it; tell her friends that her baby boy was going off to some “school for smart people” up in Maine. To hear her tell it, that dude from Belton came down to East Cleveland specifically looking for him. Never mind that he was a regular in detention. Never mind that he only once made the honor roll. And never mind that he didn’t play organized sports, didn’t belong to any clubs, and only occasionally finished his homework. He’d filled out the application, so now he was special.
And now he couldn’t listen to music or talk on the phone without her jumping all over him about what they listened to up in Maine, or how they talked up in Maine, or how he better not go up to Maine and start acting ghetto. Maine. Anthony’s mother didn’t even know where it was until he’d shown it to her on a map, but that still didn’t stop her from acting like she was born there.
His cart loaded, Anthony coasted to a stop in line, rested his elbows on the handle, and stared at the lanky security guard in front. Kids in the neighborhood called him Barney, even though that probably wasn’t his real name. And every time he walked into the store, especially if he was with his best friends, Floyd and Mookie, Barney became their white shadow.
Anthony paid the cashier and accepted the change, dropped the money in his pocket, and lifted the bags. Walking out, he felt Barney’s eyes on the back of his neck; felt like turning around and spitting.
Walking home, he came across a group of dope boys on the sidewalk. They were all wearing loosely laced Timberlands and blue hats or bandannas. One of them, chocolate brown with thin eyebrows and thick lips, smiled at him. “W’sup, Ant?” he said, and lightly punched the boy on the shoulder. “Yo’ momma sent you to the store again, nigga? What you got in there?” He tried to look, but Anthony took a step back. Shane was cool but unpredictable.
Just then an old Ford rattled to a stop at the curb and a woman stuck her wild hair out the window. Shane stood tall and checked the block, then he pimp-limped over to the car. Seconds later, he was back at his spot on the corner, adding a crumpled bill to the knot of cash in his sock. “Stay busy out here, dude,” he said to Anthony without looking at him. “All day, every day. Work for me an’ you can make some paper. Enough so you can pay another nigga to go to the store for you.”
Anthony laughed but shook his head. The bags were getting heavy, and he switched them around. “I’m straight,” he said, and nodded good-bye to everyone there. “Need to get home, before my momma start trippin’.”
Farther down the block he saw his big brothers, Darnell and Andre, slouched on the front stairs at John Mays’s house, bobbing to beats that pumped through an open window. John stood on the porch above them, resting his ashy elbows on the banister while his quick tongue and fingers put the finishing touches on a blunt. Andre nodded and then scooted over. “Cop a squat, little nigga,” he said. “What you get from the store?”
Instead of telling him, Anthony passed the bags and then sat down hard. Seconds later, Andre’s hands were rooting around inside the plastic sacks while Darnell scowled at him.
“Anything sweet?”
“Yeah,” Andre said, and tossed up the pads. “Chew on these.”
“Chew these nuts,” Darnell answered, and threw them back. “Ain’t no cookies in there?” He looked at Anthony and the boy shook his head. Cookies hadn’t been on the list.
“Got some Cheerios.”
Darnell frowned and leaned back on his hands. “What I look like, eating some Cheerios?”
Weed smoke, thick and danky, rolled from John’s mouth and churned in the open air before the wind bundled it up and took it away. “I got some cookies in the house,” John offered. “Chocolate chip. They good as hell.”
Anthony looked at Darnell, who was staring at Andre. The three of them shook their heads together and then laughed. “Cookies and roach eggs,” Andre said. “You can keep that shit to yourself.”
They laughed louder, except for John, who took savage pulls from the blunt. He inhaled and exhaled, inhaled and exhaled until the end was bright red. “Like yaw niggas ain’t got roaches,” he said finally, and more to himself. “Everybody around here got some bugs.”
Darnell reached for the weed. “Other niggas got roaches, but them roaches got you. How much they be chargin’ you for rent?”