On the trip to Minnesota the summer after Javon’s death, my father confirmed for me what I had, over the years, come to suspect, that my mother had never relayed my desire to live with him.
“It wouldn’t have made a difference,” she said when I confronted her. “He still would’ve said no.”
I wish she was wrong, but it’s hard to imagine the Bah Ba of my childhood jumping at the chance to raise me. There’s little doubt my father would’ve said no to my proposition, yet my mom still felt the need to fabricate his response. She was a queen of deception, juggling two men, one for romance, one for money—she had three kids to feed and clothe—but more to the point, she reigned as the Queen of Apartment 171, and she wasn’t taking chances—her youngest would not flee her queendom.
bathroom
My mother was slicing up beef in the kitchen when I came home. Her hair was tied up, and she was wearing Capri corduroys. “Faan Ke Ngauh Yuhk Faahn,” she said, “your favorite.” Beef with tomato over rice.
“I’m going to shower first,” I said. “I was playing basketball.” Judging from my face, you wouldn’t have known I’d just gotten my ass whupped, jumped for my Starter parka by a bunch of FOBs. They’d surrounded me. Someone kicked me in the back. The one rocking a pompadour struck my cheek. I’d punch one of them only to get blasted by blows I couldn’t even see coming. It was like fighting a ghost. I fell and rolled around trying to dodge their kicks. It was a cold day, so my jacket was zipped up, and the entire time on the ground, while one hand was shielding my face, the other hand maintained a grip over the slider of the jacket zipper. No way I was giving up my Starter parka. It had cost my mom (dad?) over a hundred bucks. Luckily, a lady from her upstairs window scared away my assailants by saying she’d called the cops. More good luck: I’d only suffer bruises, nothing broken, no wounds. Much easier to take kicks from loafers than say, steel-toe boots. The best news to me: I’d managed to keep my jacket.
When I returned to North Beach, I saw Richie Rich, who lived upstairs, hanging out by the bus shelter, and I told him what happened. Double R sported a Jheri curl and was sipping on a forty. He was in his twenties, just released after serving a stint for robbing some tourists. We saw two Chinese kids getting off the bus across the street. “Think that’s one of them?” he asked.
“Probably.”
We darted after them, and the Chinese dudes took off. I slowed to a strut, while Richie Rich raced after them in his Nike Cortez’s. He stopped to hurl his bottle at them, but it fell short, shattering on the pavement.
My mother now pointed her knife at me. “Any homework?” she asked.
“Already did it,” I said.
“Stop lying,” Ga Jeh said from the living room. She and my brother joined with my mother to form a three-headed Ghidorah parent. She’d told our mother I was hanging with some shady kids. She’d spotted me once with some graffiti writers. We were easy to identify: ink on our clothes, ink underneath our fingernails, tags written on our backpacks. Goh Goh had snitched to our mom about the stack of hats I had in the closest. Probably stolen, he’d said.
“Mom, don’t listen to her,” I said. “My school’s easy like that.”
“Then you should be getting As,” my mother said. “How come I never see your report card?”
“I bet he’s hiding them,” Ga Jeh said. She was wrong. I’d thrown them away. The last report card showed I was failing three courses.
“They probably have the wrong address,” I said.
“You’re retarded,” Ga Jeh said.
“Check with your counselor,” my mother said, “or I’ll call myself.” She always gave me the benefit of the doubt. I’d gotten arrested for graffiti, along with Rob, on Super Bowl Sunday. I told my mother that the marker the cop found on me was for art class. I wasn’t even taking that class anymore, but she didn’t know that. The weird thing was neither Rob nor I had actually tagged on that bus—the driver was lying. We all had to appear in front of a judge, in his chambers, and our moms mean-mugged the driver, a white woman with gray hair who didn’t take off her shades. Even Willie was giving the woman a dirty look. I’d hoped that seeing him in his bus uniform might force her to change her story. Maybe she wouldn’t fuck over a family from her own fraternity. But the lady stuck with the bullshit, and we were found guilty. A fine and thirty hours of community service. I appreciated Willie being there, but it changed nothing between us. He was still the secret I had to keep from my father.
I took off my parka and hung it on a hook behind the hallway door. My brother was in our room, lying on his bed, talking on the phone. It had to be a girl on the other end. Goh Goh’s voice was gentler, and he was giggling. I didn’t understand how this sappy tone could work, but it did. Even back in his middle school days. Once I’d walked in on him and a girl who’d been voted Most Popular fooling around
