More laughter, and this time even John joined in. There was no use in arguing with the obvious. In the house, the stereo played “To Live and Die in L.A.” and all their heads bobbed knowingly, even though the closest any of them had ever been to Los Angeles was Detroit.
John looked at the three brothers and hit the blunt again. Then he passed it to the left and laughed out a cloud. “I was just noticing . . . all three of yaw got some big-ass heads!”
Even Darnell smiled a little. People said the Jones boys had heads built for football.
“Forget you, man,” Andre said. “You know what they say about big-head niggas?”
“What? Yaw cain’t buy no hats?”
“Big dicks,” Andre said.
“Big brains,” Darnell added matter-of-factly.
“Kiss my ass. Maybe Ant, down there,” John said, aiming a narrow finger at the youngest. “Little dude goin’ to college next year an’ shit. What happened to yaw?”
“The same thing that happened to you, dumb nigga,” Andre said. “East Cleveland Public Schools.”
“I ain’t goin’ to no college,” Anthony protested.
Darnell looked at him with disappointment or regret, but really, Anthony couldn’t tell. His oldest brother’s face was always a flatline. “College, boardin’ school, you know what that fool saying.”
“So? I still ain’t going nowhere. They probably ain’t even gon’ let me in.”
“You gon’ get in,” Darnell said confidently. “Schools like that be loving them some black people. Probably gon’ throw you a basketball and some tap shoes as soon as you get there.” He laughed, but it was hollow. Anthony didn’t say anything else because he knew that he couldn’t win.
In time, the song inside ended. When nothing else came on Darnell hawked and spat a brown blob. “Roaches cut your ’lectricity?”
John jumped from his perch and disappeared through the door. Seconds later, Jay-Z’s latest bumped through the window and John came back, smiling. Someone sparked another blunt and they passed it around, but it never came to Anthony. It was time to get home; his mother would be worried. People had a way of getting robbed after dark.
When he got to the house, his mother yelled at him for taking so long and then disappeared into the bathroom. Left to himself, Anthony went to his room, plopped down on the bed, and scooped a book from the floor. It was The Stand by Stephen King. Inside, the characters tried to survive in a plague-stricken world while a dark man in cowboy boots and an old black woman fought for their souls. It was just the kind of stuff that Anthony liked to read; the kind of thing he even secretly hoped to write someday.
“You doing your homework?”
His mother’s voice at the bottom of the stairs made him jump. “Yeah, Ma. I’m doing it right now.” He dove for his bag and dumped it on the bed. Textbooks and boring math sheets covered the comforter. He got to work and then lost track of time. When he looked up again, it was full dark outside the window and cold gusts rattled the frames. He hated the season and the need for gloves, the black slush splashed up on his pants and coat by moving cars. Walks to Floyd’s took twice as long and meant stinging cheeks and numbing toes, bitter breezes and awkward falls that made him want to curl up and quit. His middle school principal, Mr. Davis, had said that up in Maine it was winter nearly all year long. How did they expect him to live through that?
The phone rang and it was Floyd. He was in a car with Mookie and Curtis, and they were on their way over to pick him up. Anthony went downstairs to find his mother gone and Darnell in front of the television, eating Cheerios from a mixing bowl. Anthony started to say something smart but asked for five dollars instead. “Come on, I’ll pay you back.”
“How you gonna pay me back, little nigga?” Darnell asked. “You ain’t got no job.”
“I got five dollars somewhere upstairs. Soon as I find it, I’ll hit you back.”
Darnell slurped his cereal, stared at the TV, and grunted. Jerry Seinfeld and his crew were trying to figure out if a local store’s yogurt truly was fat free. “I cain’t get into that white boy humor,” he said, and changed to BET. “What you need money for?”
“Why do it matter?” A horn sounded in the driveway. “Come on, man. Five dollars.”
Darnell clacked his teeth on the spoon and winced, fished a five-dollar bill from his pocket. “You better pay me back, Ant. Don’t think I’ma let you slide.”
“I know.” The bill disappeared quickly. “Soon as I got five, you got five.”
Curtis’s Buick was like a rolling massage. There was no spare tire, no jack, no road flare in his trunk of funk; only the subwoofers, amps, and blinking lights he made sure to show all of his friends. One day, Anthony knew, Curtis was going to show it to one person too many and have no stereo or car to flaunt. But for now, everything was cool, and he was happy to be where he was, floating in a car full of people with music so loud it made talking a waste of time.
In front of the store, sipping wine and telling lies, were the gray and dusty men who gathered there every day, blowing into cupped hands and rocking on unsteady legs. Ant saw his father standing among them, a big and leathery hand choking the throat of a forty-ounce bottle of beer. His dad saw him, too. It was too late to turn around.
“Well, lookey here.” Moses Jones opened his arms, but Anthony slapped his empty hand instead. “Too big for all that, huh? Not too big to knock out, though.” His father threw a playful punch and Anthony dodged it, then he threw an anemic punch of his own.
The other men looked on while they boxed, Anthony embarrassed but trying not to show it. Floyd and Mookie exited the store carrying paper bags. They nodded to the fighters and got into the car.
Anthony dropped his hands. “Gotta go.”
His father smiled at him. “You know I’m proud of you, right?”
Anthony looked away, but his old man was still in front of him, waiting for an answer.
“You don’t wanna go, do you?” Moses said finally.
Anthony kicked a hole in the snow with his heel and sighed.
His father laughed. “It’s awright. You only gotta do two things in this world: stay black and die. Everything else is up to you.”
Anthony made a face and his father nodded knowingly. “Don’t mind yo’ momma,” he said. “She be tryin’ to act all big ’n’ bad, but put yo’ foot down. You’ll see.”
“Like you did?”
“That was different,” Moses said after a pause. “Husband an’ wife shit. Plus I messed that one up. You ain’t got nuthin’ to worry about as long as you ain’t done nuthin’ wrong.”
“I guess so.”
Quick as a blink, his father pulled him close. “See?” He chuckled. “The old man still got some speed left in him.” They hugged quickly, patted each other on the back, and then separated.
“Good to see you,” Anthony said.
“You, too.”
“Tell yo’ momma I said hi. And tell her I still ain’t remarried.” He winked and went back to his friends.
Inside the car, Anthony stared at the unopened bottle of Private Stock between his knees and thought about his father. He didn’t remember living with him, although his mother said they stayed married until Anthony was four. What he did remember, though, were the broken promises; fishing trips that never happened because somebody had broken into his car and stolen the poles; birthday presents, mailed instead of hand delivered, that the post office always managed to lose. The lies were weak, but Anthony played them off. It was his father’s way of saving face, and deep down he believed that his old man would do all of those things if he could, even if Anthony’s mother thought the man was incapable of doing anything good at all.