When I Was the Greatest Read online

  “Yo, man, let’s skate. I got it,” Noodles said. He wasn’t doing a great job at not being suspicious. He didn’t even whisper. He pointed down. I looked, but I wish I hadn’t. He had the ball of yarn stuffed in his pants. Not cool. Then, all nervous, he headed toward the door. He was walking so fast, he almost tripped over the cat. As soon as he pushed the door open, hippie girl caught on to what was going on.

  “Excuse me,” she said, and started coming from behind the counter. “Excuse me, young man?”

  Noodles broke for it. I mean, he really took off. He couldn’t run full speed because he had to hold his crotch to make sure the yarn didn’t fall out. She went after him, but there was no way she was going to catch him. Not with them Jesus sandals on. I took my time and watched it all go down. Then I took five bucks out my pocket, laid it on the counter, and walked out.

  3

  You know how I knew Noodles wasn’t really no tough dude? Two things. One, he was a comic book geek, and even though nobody else knew that, I did, and real bad dudes don’t read comics, or draw them. And two, he ran his mouth too much. I don’t mean just talking smack to people, even though he did do a lot of that, too. But what I’m talking about is, every time he did something bad, he would come back to the hood and tell the little kids about it, bragging like he accomplished something major. It’s like he felt tougher whenever he started blabbing about it, gassing his own head up, turning the story into a much bigger deal than it really was. Bad dudes don’t do that. They do dirt and keep quiet.

  The worst part about Noodles always bumping his gums is that our neighborhood is like one big bubble of gossip. It’s the telephone game we all played in elementary school, except not a game. Noodles tells a group of little kids playing in the hydrant about some stunt he pulled. One of those kids goes home and tells his mother about the crazy story Noodles told him. The mother tells her next-door neighbor, who tells another neighbor and another, the story changing, becoming worse and worse, until it finally, almost always, makes it to Doris Brooks.

  “So, I heard a few days ago Noodles busted up in some shop, slapped a couple of old ladies around, took a whole bunch of stuff, and took off running. Heard the cops chased him and everything.” My mother’s voice was coming from her room. She was changing her clothes, getting ready to go to her second job. I was in the living room practicing my right jab–left hook combo in front of a full-length mirror I took from her room. “You know anything about that, son?” she said in that weird way that means I’m already in trouble.

  My left hook went limp. It seemed like all of a sudden the sweat started to roll, and my stomach tightened up with nerves. She knew I was with him. I was always with him, ever since I met him. My best bet was to just tell the truth, but explain everything in a way that would keep me out of trouble.

  “It wasn’t all like that. No cops or slapping people or none of that extra stuff. Plus, I left the money on the counter,” I said with fake confidence, still bouncing on my toes, with my guard up.

  “But he tried to steal whatever it was?” she asked from down the hall.

  “Yes,” I replied reluctantly, feeling like I was snitching on my dude, but my mom had a way of getting the truth out of me. It mainly had to do with that cold look she always gave.

  Surprisingly, she didn’t get too upset about it. She came into the living room so she could see me. You know, look me in the eyes to see if I was being honest. She just stared at me for a second, sizing me up, probably thinking about whether she wanted to yell at me or not. Then she smirked and shook her head, bumping me out of the way so she could see herself in the mirror. She told me that she knew Noodles was my friend and that I was trying to look out for him. Then she said she would tell me not to hang with him because he’s trouble, but that she knew it would do no good because she knew I would kick it with him anyway while she’s at work. She told me she’d be kidding herself to think otherwise, and that she understood what it was like to be a loyal friend, and that she had bailed my father out time and time again the same way, until she just couldn’t do it anymore. She said that when I got to the point when I couldn’t do it anymore, when I couldn’t take Noodles’s foolishness anymore, I’d know it.

  “And what exactly was that knucklehead stealing anyway?” she asked.

  “Yarn. That part of the story is true,” I explained, wiping sweat from my forehead. “We were at a yarn store. He was taking black yarn. For Needles.”

  She smiled, and I think she was trying to hold in a giggle. I could tell she couldn’t believe it. Then she turned and walked back to her room. On the way she preached, “You know your father started off snatching small stuff too. And even though he said it was harmless, and that he was doing it for me, it didn’t make a difference at the end of the day, because wrong is wrong. I know this story too well, Ali.” She paused and then added with a sigh, “Too damn well.”

  It’s like I could hear her shaking her head.

  • • •

  About my father. He’s really not a bad guy. That’s one thing my mother was sure that me and Jazz understood. He’s actually a pretty good dude who just made some messed-up decisions. He wasn’t into no drugs or nothing like that. And he also didn’t beat on my mother neither. Doris don’t play that. He was just a booster. He would go to different department stores and steal a bunch of clothes and then sell them on the street for cheap. Mom said he’d have dresses and shirts and pants, and whatever he couldn’t sell, he would bring home to her. She says she still wears some of that stuff. He used the money that he made to pay bills while my mother was in school getting her social work degree. He also was saving a bunch of money so that he could take my mom on a trip. Like a honeymoon.

  The issue was, he just wasn’t very good at stealing and would get caught all the time. So my mother spent a lot of time down at the precinct, using up their honeymoon money to bail him out, which I think is another reason she has a hard time looking through Jazz’s scrapbook. Seeing them on a beach, like on a honeymoon—pretty tough. Of course, the money ran out eventually, which meant rent couldn’t get paid. So, my father started robbing corner stores. More money, faster. My mother said it was winter, and he would cover his face with a scarf, go into a random bodega far from where we lived, like in the Bronx, and slip the cashier a note that basically said, “I don’t want to hurt you. Just give me the money in the register.”

  And that was it. It actually worked a few times, and he’d come home and lie to my mother about where he got the money. And then one day she saw him on the news. He had tried to rob a store, and the guy behind the counter pulled out a gun and started shooting. My father shot back and hit the man in the chest. By the time my father got himself together to run, the cops were already outside.

  The man in the bodega almost died, but he didn’t, thank God. But my folks’ relationship was pretty much over. My mother said she could not raise her kids with a man who was bound to either kill somebody or get himself killed. She says she couldn’t allow herself to end up another sad story about a woman who stayed with a man who couldn’t get himself together.

  When all this was going on, I was superyoung, so I don’t remember most of it. And Jazz was just a baby. He did three years in jail, and when he got out, my mother made it clear he couldn’t stay with us anymore. She said she never stopped loving him and they still got together sometimes, but she knew she couldn’t depend on him anymore. He just messed up too young. He never graduated from high school, and being in and out of jail made it hard for him to get back on course, and get a real gig. Doris says she doesn’t think he ever really wanted to work a legit job. I know that’s why she’s so hard on me and Jazz about school and chores and staying out of trouble, and all that.

  It’s not like I never saw him, though. John came around all the time to check on us. He usually left a few bucks for Mom on the counter. She always split it between me and Jazz, but Jazz got the most during the summer, because once I got old enough, I worked a few mornings a w
eek cleaning up for Mr. Malloy, so I got my own money. My dad tried not to come by when Doris was around because it was always so awkward, him knowing she loved him, but also knowing she couldn’t deal with his crap. And I guess I could understand that since my mom and dad were pretty much married. That’s a different kind of love. But I couldn’t see myself getting tired of Noodles like that. Noodles was my main dude, and you never turn on your main dude. Really, when I think about it, he was my only dude. I knew Mom could somehow understand that.

  A few days after the whole yarn-stealing incident, I went down the block to Malloy’s house to clean up for him as usual, and to get some training in. The thing about Malloy is, he’s one of those old-school Brooklyn dudes. One of those “Great-great-grandfather was born here, and bought a brownstone in exchange for a pair of steel-toe boots, and a pot of grits, and kept it in the family for a hundred years, and now Malloy lives in it to keep the tradition going” types of people, just like Mr. Bryson was, and actually, just like my mom is. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was born in an alley, or behind a bodega. That Brooklyn. Lots of kids these days got Brooklyn tattooed on them, or talk mess to outta-towners about how Brooklyn they are, but they ain’t nowhere near as Brooklyn as Malloy. Ain’t nobody as Brooklyn as Malloy.

  Malloy himself told me that he had never really even been out of Brooklyn except for the time he spent in the service. Army. Vietnam.

  He was drafted. He said back in those days wasn’t no black kids just signing up to fight. He said, “We wasn’t that dumb, or that stupid.” I always laughed when he said that. Malloy said, back then, he felt like the government was substituting all the poor black kids for the rich white kids when it came to serving in the war and that getting that letter in the mail, the one that said he had been drafted, felt like he was called from the far end of the home-team bench, asked to go in the game, and sucker punch the other team’s star player. Take the rap. Be the bad guy. That’s how Malloy always put it. He never went into too much detail about the actual war, though. I got the feeling he just didn’t like talking about it too much. Once I asked him if he ever killed somebody, and all he said was, “Ain’t grits groceries?” I took that as a yes.

  One thing he loved talking about, though, was how Muhammad Ali didn’t have to fight in the war. He always, always, always said how he respected Ali for standing up to the government, even though they put him in jail. I wonder what was worse, jail or war. Well, I guess if you’re Muhammad Ali, one of the biggest stars and the best fighter ever, jail ain’t so bad. I mean, it ain’t like people were going to mess with the champ. Shoot, the biggest and ugliest dude in there was probably begging for Ali’s autograph.

  But for a regular Brooklyn Joe like Malloy, I’m not so sure. When I asked him what he learned from the army, he said he learned discipline, brotherhood, and most importantly, how to box. Said he was the baddest boxer in his camp, and couldn’t nobody see him with the hands. Too fast. Too focused. Floating and stinging, just like Muhammad Ali, except he ain’t sting like no bee, more like a Mack truck, he bragged. Malloy always said the army was okay, but it was the war that messed him up. Like I said, he never talked too much about it, but one thing he never seemed to mind was running down the story of what it was like waking up in the medic tent with no legs.

  “It’s strange, still. It’ll always be a little strange,” he said, his eyes looking away at something invisible. “You spend your whole life running, paying attention to nothing but all the dumb stuff, and then one day, while you running, something runs into you and leaves you with nothing.” I really didn’t understand totally what that meant, but it somehow made sense in some kind of way. The liquor on his breath was always there, just like the tears caked and crusty in the corners of his eyes. And he hated—HATED—for anyone to try to ignore his legs.

  His nubs didn’t look like legs at all. They looked more like giant fingers attached to his waist. When I first started coming to his house, I would try not to look at them because my mother taught me real early in life that it was rude to stare. She said she’d slap my eyes off if she caught me. Picture that, her slapping my eyes off! So when I first met him, I would look all around the room, at his face, over his head, at the floor, everywhere but his legs, until finally one day he said, “Listen, the most important rule when you dealing with me is, the obvious should never be ignored.” I didn’t know how to take that statement, but I knew, early, that it was an important one. He followed up with, “Now look at them. It’s okay. That way the pathetic legless elephant can disappear, and we can get the hell on with it.”

  His role in my life, according to Doris, was to be some sort of positive male figure. Go figure. But not just me, a lot of the kids in the neighborhood, mostly the ones without fathers in the house, would randomly pop up at Malloy’s and talk to him about girls, and, well, mostly girls, and he would be there to listen and give some drunken but still pretty solid advice. My mother had known him since she was a little girl growing up in the same house I’m growing up in now. She said her father, my grandfather, Kirby, and Malloy were pretty much best friends, which is why she trusted him to look after me. She started sending me over there when I was around six; I guess she figured anything to keep me on the good path while John was locked up. Jazz was little and Doris probably just needed a break. Or some help. So one day she walked me down there. When Malloy opened the door, he looked at my mother’s face and could probably see how tired she was. She always says it was like Malloy was reading her. There was no conversation about why she brought me there, or what she needed. Nothing like that. Malloy didn’t even invite her in. All he did when he opened the door and saw us was squeeze my mother’s hand and say, “Okay.”

  I’ve only been in one room in Malloy’s house. The gym. Which is really the living room. On the walls there are posters of boxers. Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis (who I found out later Malloy named his grandson after), Sugar Ray Robinson, Jack Johnson. It’s just a big open space for sparring, and over on the side he’s got a few dumbbells, a weight bench, a speed bag, and two punching bags, one hanging from the ceiling and one on a stand. The one on the stand is for him. No one can touch it. He keeps a permanent bottle of gin on a small, shaky wooden table in the corner, and a carton of Newport cigarettes next to it, along with a few military medals.

  His face is like leather, and he usually keeps sunglasses on, even inside. He always wears an army T-shirt and old blue jeans, the thick, medium blue kind from back in the day. He knots them at the legs and cuts the extra fabric, which makes his legs look like denim sausages. It’s strange to describe a person who doesn’t wear shoes because he doesn’t have feet. But he doesn’t have feet.

  The first time I went to Malloy’s, as soon as I got inside, he asked for my hand. I gave it to him, and he shook it tighter than anyone had ever shaken it, and then he balled it up into a fist.

  “Where’s your father?” he said sort of rudely.

  I couldn’t believe that was the first thing out of his mouth. What a jerk, I remember thinking.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You know him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “When’s the last time you seen him?”

  “I don’t know.” My mother told me to never tell people my dad was in jail. She didn’t want people to judge us.

  “Are you mad about that?” Malloy squeezed my fist tighter. “Are you mad at him, son?”

  I didn’t know what was going on. I started feeling scared. I was only six. Why was he grilling me with all these questions? Why was he squeezing my fist? I thought my mother just needed a break. A babysitter that was a man, so that I could have a strong man around since my father was locked up. Is this what strong men do?

  “I don’t know,” I answered, stuttering.

  “You don’t know?” he said, confused. “Well, let me ask you this, let’s pretend this punching bag is your father. What do you want to do to him?” He slowly released my fist. My nails were digging so deep into my palm tha
t I thought I had broken the skin.

  “Show me,” he said again, this time nudging my shoulder.

  I turned toward the punching bag, opened my fist, and wrapped my arms around it.

  Malloy sat there in his chair staring at six-year-old me, hugging a punching bag like it was a person. He nodded his head like I had passed some sort of test.

  “Okay. I got it,” he said.

  I stepped back.

  “So you’re not mad?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then I wanna teach you something.” He took my hands in his and continued, “And I’m only gonna teach you because I know you won’t abuse it, like some of the other kids around here. You love first, and that’s always a good thing. You’re not fighting the war that so many of the other kids are fighting. You’re rebelling against it, like Muhammad Ali. You know who that is?”

  I shook my head yes.

  “You’re like him. Got a heart for people.” He looked at me for a second with a funny smirk on his face. I’m not sure I really knew all of what was going on.

  “Okay,” I said. I had no idea where this was going, but I was hoping that eventually it would lead to a TV and a snack.

  This time he balled both of my hands up into fists.

  “I wanna teach you how to box, kid.”

  • • •

  Now here I am, almost ten years later, still at it. Except I’m actually throwing punches now.

  “Come on, Ali! Hit him!” Malloy barked as I threw my right jab at this kid, Jamaal Crowder. Jamaal was just another neighborhood guy that Malloy had taken under his wing. He didn’t talk too much, and if I was his size, I probably wouldn’t say too much either. I mean, who needs words when you’re a teenage giant.

  “Hit him!” Malloy commanded again, our shoes squeaking on the wood floor.

  I threw another jab, one I knew was a stinger. It would’ve had any normal person doubled over, but Jamaal didn’t even flinch nor did he wait for me to follow with another shot. He unloaded a flurry of body blows, backing me into a corner. I tried to defend myself by doing what Malloy had taught me. Block and counter. None of it was working.