When I Was the Greatest Page 2

  Noodles’s nickname story is better than mine, though. Jazz liked him a lot, especially after The Young and the Restless joke, and the SpongeBob drawing, which she had taped to her wall. Every time they saw each other after that, which was pretty much every day, they would crack jokes and tease. One day she found the perfect ammunition. She saw Noodles out the window kissing some butt-ugly girl on the stoop—Jazz’s words, not mine. She told me that the girl was twice Noodles’s size and looked like she was trying to eat his face, and she couldn’t tell if the girl was our age, or if she was an old lady, dressed like a girl our age. She said Noodles looked so scared, and that his lips were poking out and puckered so tight that it looked like he was slurping spaghetti. The next time Jazz saw him, she rode him hard about it, squeezing her lips up like a fish. At first Noodles tried to deny it. Then he said it was one of his mother’s friends, and that it was more like a family-type kiss. Whatever it was, I wasn’t about to ask no questions. I could tell he was pissed, and I was starting to figure out that he didn’t take embarrassment too well.

  I was worried that he would stop being cool with me. I mean, I still didn’t know him that well for Jazz to be clowning him so bad. But I guess he had a soft spot for her, and if not her, a soft spot for dinner at my house. Either way, Jazz promised to never let it go, calling him “noodle slurper,” and stuff like that, and after a while he ended up just getting over it. And that’s how he got the name Noodles. Before that, he was just Roland James. That name is nowhere near as cool as Noodles, and even though he never gives my little sister credit, we all know he’s thankful for it now, even if it is a funny story.

  Okay, so as for Needles, he’s only technically been called Needles for about a year, and his nickname story is nowhere near as funny as Noodles’s and mine, but it is way more interesting. But in order for it to make any sense, I have to start at the beginning.

  I didn’t even meet Needles until about three months after I met Noodles, which I thought was weird. I mean, I knew Noodles had a brother, but I never saw him. I always wondered if he was forced to stay in the house, if he wanted to stay in the house, or if he was just someplace else, like with his father or something. All Noodles ever said about him was that he was kind of wild, which is pretty much what everybody always says about their brothers and sisters, so that wasn’t a big deal.

  When I finally met him, he was with Noodles. They were walking down the block, coming from the corner store, Noodles ripping paper off cheap dime candy and tossing it on the sidewalk. I first gave Noodles some dap because I already knew him, and as soon as I reached for Needles’s hand to introduce myself, he basically started cussing me out. Scared me half to death, I swear. I couldn’t tell if this was some sort of joke, or if he just didn’t like me, but I couldn’t understand how he could not like me when we didn’t even know each other yet. But after he finished dogging me, he said, “Wassup, man” in a superquiet voice like he was scared but cool. He also apologized for coming at me that way. That really confused me. And then, to top it all off, Noodles slapped him in the back of the head. I didn’t think that was cool, but I didn’t know them well enough to be standing up for nobody.

  So yeah, I thought Needles was a little bit weird, but when I told my mom about it, she made it clear, and I do mean clear, that there was nothing funny about Needles’s condition. She said the proper term for it is Tourette syndrome. So I guess it’s a syndrome and not a condition. She said that what happens is he blurts out all kinds of words whenever his brain tells him to. Not regular words like “run” or “yo” but crazy stuff like “buttface” and “fat ass.” I figured that’s what Noodles meant when he told me that Needles was “wild.”

  My mother told me she had a girl on her caseload who suffered from it, and that once people learn to manage it, they can usually live normal enough lives. But judging by the way Needles acted when he spoke, and how Noodles slapped him around, I could see it being tough to, especially since it had to be pretty embarrassing.

  As the months turned to years, everybody pretty much got used to Needles and Noodles, especially me. I would say we were like the three musketeers, or the three amigos, but that’s so played and has been said a million times. My mother said we were the three stooges, and Jazz said we were the three blind mice, but whatever. The point is, we were almost always together. Every holiday, they would come over for dinner. Every birthday, we’d dish out birthday punches (mine always hurt the most). And every regular day, we would just hang on the stoop. When school was in, I had to be upstairs by the time the streetlights came on, but summer, I could hang pretty late as long as I was out front. They never had a curfew, so they were always down to kick it. We would play “Would you rather,” talk trash about girls, and I would talk about sports, but neither of them knew anything about athletes, so I spent a lot of time just schooling them. Noodles would read his comics and draw in his book, and Needles, who at the time was still known as Ricky, would kick freestyle raps about whatever he saw on the street. Like, if it was a bottle on the sidewalk, he would rap about it. Or if it was a girl walking by, he would rhyme about her. And believe it or not, he was pretty good, even with the occasional outbursts that, for me, had become so normal that it was like they weren’t even happening. One rap I always remember is, “Chillin’ on the stoop, flyer than a coop, stay off the sidewalk, ’cuz there’s too much dog poop.” And then, out of nowhere, he screamed, “Shithead!”

  Even when we weren’t together, we were. See—and this is gonna sound weird—but our bathrooms shared a wall, and I don’t know if it was because of water damage or what, but the wall was superthin. You could hear straight through it, and it wasn’t like we were spying on each other using the bathroom—that wouldn’t be cool—but sometimes we’d talk to each other through the wall whenever we were washing up. When it was Noodles, we wouldn’t really be saying too much, just asking if the other person was there. I don’t know why. It was just always cool knowing someone else was there, I guess. And I always knew when it was Needles, because I could hear him in there rapping and talking all kinds of crazy stuff, cussing and whatnot. Whenever he was rapping, I’d make a beat by knocking on the wall, until Doris or Jazz came banging on the bathroom door, telling me to cut it out. The point is, we were always, always, always together. That’s just the way it was.

  Most of our neighborhood accepted Needles for who he was. No judgment. I mean, it’s New York. A man walking down the street dressed like Cinderella? That’s nothing. A woman with a tattoo of a pistol on her face? Who cares. So what’s the big deal about a syndrome? Whatever. It’s in our blood to get over it, especially when you’re one of our own, and by that I mean, when you live on our block.

  Noodles was the only person always tripping about Needles. Despite the head swipes, Noodles was super-protective over his brother, and paranoid that people were laughing at him. He would always be shouting at somebody, or giving dirty looks to anyone he thought might be even thinking about cracking a joke about Needles. It was like he lived by some weird rule, that only he could treat Needles bad, no one else.

  But nobody was ever really laughing at Needles. There was never a reason to. Needles did sweet things that were normal, just not always normal around here. He would help old ladies get their bags up the steps, ticking and accidentally cussing the whole way, calling them all kinds of names, but they didn’t care because everybody had gotten used to it. They knew he couldn’t help it, and that he was fine. Some of them would even give him a few dollars for his help.

  But there were these times when Needles would sort of spaz out, but not like Noodles, who would just trip over any little thing. Needles’s was more like mini meltdowns. It was like a weird part of the syndrome where every now and then his brain would tell him to have an outburst, but it wouldn’t tell him to stop. So he would just go wild, cussing and screaming, over and over again, rapid-fire style. And even though folks around here was cool with Needles, the freak-outs were the only times people really loo
ked at him like he was, well, crazy. I can’t lie, the first time it happened, even I was shook up watching Noodles basically drag Needles into the house, giving a middle finger to all of us looking at his shouting brother like he was some kind of animal.

  About a year ago Needles had one of these fits—a bad one. It was a Sunday, and my mother was by the window and heard a bunch of commotion coming from outside. She looked out and there Needles was, sitting on the stoop next door, going off like nobody’s business! I mean, he was really going for it, calling out all kinds of “screwfaces” and “ass-mouths” and whatnot. By this point I’d seen him lose control tons of times, but it had never been as bad as it was that day. The worst part about it is there was a crowd of people gathered there, just listening and staring. Some were even laughing under their breath, and this time Noodles wasn’t around to shut it down.

  My mother was pissed. I mean, really mad. I ran behind her as she stormed downstairs, and let me tell you, when that door flung open, those people met the worst side of Doris Brooks. She ran toward the crowd like she was getting ready to start swinging on folks, and people started walking away pretty quickly. I laughed a little bit, only because I was used to my mother being pretty scary, especially when she feels like someone is being treated wrong. After all the people left, she walked over to Needles, who was still shouting random stuff. She gave him a hug. He told her thank-you in his soft voice, and explained that he was locked out of the house. He was crying.

  My mother figured that she might know something that could help him. She’s no doctor, but she is a mother and that means something. Plus, it’s pretty much her job as a case worker to know stuff about different kinds of syndromes and stuff like that. She told Needles to stay right there, and told me to wait with him while she ran back upstairs. I wasn’t so cool with that, only because he was really buggin’, but I knew I’d better do it before Doris got busy on me. Besides, he was my friend, so I stayed, even though I did wonder where Noodles was and why he left Needles out there like that.

  When she came back, she had one of those black plastic bags you get from the bodega. I thought to myself, I know she ain’t bring this boy a leftover hero and some chips. And I was right. She didn’t. She brought him something even more crazy—a ball of yarn and some knitting needles. What in the world? I tried to ask what she was planning to do with those, but she shushed me before I could get it out.

  “You ever seen this, Ricky?” she asked, holding up the ball of yarn with the long silver needles jammed through it.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, embarrassed.

  “Do you know what to do with it?” she asked. I thought to myself, of course he doesn’t. I don’t even know what to do with it.

  “Uh, not really. I saw an old lady on the train doing something with yarn and those things, but I don’t know what,” he said, shy.

  Then he blurted out. I couldn’t really make out what he said. My mother didn’t even flinch. She gave me a look. The look.

  “Okay, well, let me show you. I think it’ll help. Is that okay?” she asked. She wasn’t speaking to him in any sort of “slow” way. Just talking pretty regular but being sure to ask a bunch of questions. It didn’t seem like a good idea to try to force him to do anything in this particular situation.

  He shook his head and worked to get out a soft “Yes.”

  So my mother took the yarn, which was purple, and the two knitting needles, and started to show Needles how to knit. Knit! Like somebody’s grandma! Now, I didn’t even know my mother knew how to knit. She never knitted nothing for me and Jazz. I didn’t even know where the yarn came from. Turns out, it was something that she had learned a long time ago from her mom, and she was planning to teach Jazz how to do it, sort of as a passing-down-of-traditions type of thing, but she never had time to, with all the jobs.

  “Okay, first you have to hold the needles,” she said, “like this.” She held the two needles in her hands the way my little sister used to hold her fork and knife when she was really hungry as a toddler. Like a caveman. “Got it?” she asked Needles, who had gotten real quiet—just twitching a little.

  He looked at her hands for a few seconds, then positioned his hands just like hers, except he wasn’t holding any needles yet. He looked up at my mother to make sure he was doing it right.

  “Like this?” he asked.

  “Yep. Just like that, Ricky. Very good,” my mom said, smiling. By now my butt was hurting, so I stood up. I knew I couldn’t go home because my mother would have had a fit, so I just leaned on the shiny new door and kept watching.

  “Now, this part is tricky, but you can handle it. It’s called casting on.” My mother took the ball of yarn and tied a knot on one end. She slipped it on one of the needles. Then she started looping yarn around the needle until the whole thing was covered. Seemed pretty easy to me.

  Needles leaned in, closer, staring. It’s funny how some people’s eyes talk more than their mouth does. Needles is one of those people. His eyes say all kinds of stuff.

  “Did you see what I did?”

  “Yeah, I saw it,” he said.

  “You sure?”

  He smiled. “Yep.” His voice was still soft, but now it had a little happy in it. He nodded.

  “Okay. Now watch closely, Ricky. I’m gonna make a stitch.” She took the needles and did something that I can’t really describe because of where I was standing. All I know is, it made a stitch.

  “And here’s another one,” she said, repeating what she had just done. Now there were two stitches. I acted like I didn’t want to know nothing about knitting, but honestly, it looked kind of cool. Like, at first it was just yarn, but now it was turning into something else.

  “See?” she said to Needles while making another stitch. And another one. And another one.

  Needles’s eyes were following along. He nodded and moved his hands as if he were the one holding the needles. I couldn’t tell if he was getting it or not, but he kept saying he was. I wasn’t—it looked pretty tricky. Not to mention, judging from the size of those stitches, it would take Needles the rest of his life just to make a sweater.

  Needles shouted out again, “Shit breath!” while slowly moving his hand toward my mom. I perked up a little just to make sure he wasn’t about to try no wild stuff, because even though I ain’t no bad dude, I know enough about throwing a punch to put him in check. I mean, he was my boy, but I had never seen him this out of control before. But my mother stayed calm. He moved his hands until they were on top of hers. Then he slowly wrapped his fingers around the needles, and my mother released her hands. Next thing I knew, Needles was holding the needles.

  My mother smiled. “Go ahead, Ricky.”

  He started to move his hands around, almost as if he was trying to recall the movements my mother had been making with her hands before he took the needles. Then, like it was nothing, my man Needles started knitting up a storm.

  His eyes were so big, like he couldn’t even believe what he was doing, but he was doing it. You know when you have to smile but you don’t want nobody to see you smile, but it almost hurts to hold it in, so it comes out like a weird smirk? Needles did that weird smirk.

  I just stood there with my mouth wide open. I couldn’t believe he figured it out, just like that.

  I looked at my mother.

  “What?” she said. “Oh, let me guess, you want me to show you how to knit now too?”

  “Who, me? Naw, I’m good. That’s all Ricky. I ain’t trying to be looking like nobody’s granny out here,” I shot back. She knew I was just playing tough, though.

  “Uh-huh. Okay, Al. You bad,” she teased. She stood up and brushed the cement dust off her butt. “Aight, I’m headed in.”

  “Me too,” I said quickly. I knew that wasn’t really cool of me, but I was kind of nervous to just be sitting out there with Needles without Noodles being around. Not that day. “Later, Ricky,” I said, walking over to the next stoop, which was mine.

  • • •r />
  When me and Doris got upstairs to our apartment, Jazz was sitting in the window drinking a glass of iced tea and working on her scrapbook, which was one of her favorite things to do. She started scrapbooking when my mother found all these old pictures of her and my father and me and Jazz from back in the day. My mom decided to get an old photo album to store them all in, and put Jazz in charge of doing it. But Jazz, being Jazz, decided to do her own thing and started cutting the pictures up, taking John, my father, from one, Doris from another, and maybe her and I from a different one. Then she’d cut out a page from a magazine, maybe of a beach, or somewhere overseas like Paris, and glue the cutouts of us to the picture. Like a bootleg, imaginary, family vacation photo. It was kinda cool. When Doris first saw what she had been doing with the photos, she was pissed that Jazz was cutting up the pictures. But then as she looked more, seeing us in random places we had never been, like Africa, she laughed and thought it was pretty cute. But soon the sight of seeing us all together like that, her with my dad, page after page, turned Doris’s laughter into tears.

  “Sorry,” Jazz said, staring at what she thought was something nice.

  “No, baby,” my mom replied, smiling despite her wet face. “It’s fine. I love it.” It was obviously a soft spot for Doris, and after that, she never really looked at Jazz’s scrapbook again.

  Jazz had been cutting and glueing, looking down on the whole thing, and was now watching Needles knit his heart out.

  “What were you teaching Ricky how to knit for?” she asked as soon as we walked in. She put her glue stick down, turned the glass up to her face, and shook a piece of ice into her mouth.

  My mother walked over to the sink and washed her hands while looking out the window at Needles, still going.

  “Because it might help him. If he focuses on knitting, he might not have so many outbursts.”

  “Yeah, he might not say stuff like, Jazz is a cornball,” I teased, looking over her shoulder at what she was working on. Us in Las Vegas.