Look Both Ways Page 7

  “Anyway, like I was saying. We family.” Simeon nailed down what he was going on about before they stopped to talk to Ms. Post.

  “Exactly. You my brother,” Kenzi confirmed, bouncing the blue ball as they approached Chestnut Street.

  The way Kenzi and Simeon thought about it, Chestnut Street is a paradise. Light poles are like palm trees, bus stop benches like hammocks, and corner stores like island bungalows.

  There’s a smell in the air. A mix of exhaust and exhaustion. Also cooked food and cooked hair.

  There’s a feel in the air. A stickiness like walking through an invisible syrup. A thickness to life.

  There’s a sound in the air. A shrill and chill. The scream and whisper of the world making a symphony of so good and so what. Also, the sound of Kenzi and Simeon, their voices still young, still sweet like flutes cutting through.

  Most people tighten up when they walk down Chestnut. Tuck tails and tuck chains. But for Kenzo and Simeon, this was where they could let loose. Where they could run and slap the street signs pretending to dunk. Where they could stand on the blue mailboxes like pedestals or see who could balance the longest on the tip-top of a fire hydrant. Where they could open random doors of random shops and speak to the owners—Mrs. Wilson’s beauty supply store (Tell your mama I got new wigs!) or Mr. Chase’s hardware store (Your daddy get the sink to stop leaking yet?) or Sue, who owned the Chinese restaurant and was always too busy to speak to them. But nowhere was better than Fredo’s.

  4. Picking the perfect snack from Fredo’s Corner Store.

  Walking into Fredo’s was like walking into a dungeon, no matter what time of day it was. The light was always dim, and the shelves were packed so high that you couldn’t see over them. Walls of whatnot. No windows. Big enough for the world’s snacks, but too small for anything else. Always smelled like incense smoke trying to mask dirty mop water.

  Kenzi and Simeon came through the door with the kind of confidence of someone who owned the place.

  “Fredo!” Simeon called out, throwing up a hand, while heading toward the Bundt cakes and boxes of mini doughnuts.

  “Well, if isn’t Wreck-It-Ralph and Tiny Tim,” Fredo shot back. He was flipping through the newspaper, licking his fingers every few seconds to turn the pages, as if anyone could read that fast. “You know, I look through this paper every day, hoping I don’t see y’all faces.”

  “You never will,” Kenzi said. “Unless it’s for something good.”

  “Something good like what?” Fredo asked, setting the paper on the counter.

  “Something good like me becoming a big-time lawyer,” Kenzi replied.

  “Yeah, or like me becoming a famous actor,” Simeon said. “So I can act like a big-time lawyer.” He picked up a snack cake, turned it over to check the expiration date. No telling how long Fredo kept things, and they’d bought cakes that tasted like bricks before.

  “Listen, it’s more likely a school bus will fall from the sky.”

  “Ouch.” Simeon gripped his chest dramatically.

  “Don’t get me wrong. I hope all that happens so y’all can buy this store and I can retire, kick back and watch Law and Order marathons all day, every day.”

  “Well, we’d have to change the name of this place,” Simeon said, accidentally bumping bags of chips off the shelves behind him. “To something like K&S Food.”

  “Or S&K food,” Kenzi suggested.

  Fredo knitted his fingers together, rested his hands on the counter like some kind of judge. “Okay, gentlemen. Whatever you say.”

  A few moments later Kenzi and Simeon were at the counter. A bag of chips for Kenzi. And a snack cake for Simeon. A MoonPie.

  “Fifty cents each, boys,” Fredo said.

  “I got you,” Simeon said to Kenzi, sliding Kenzi’s chips over to be included with his cake.

  “Okay, so that’s gonna be a dollar, big man.”

  And then came the change. Simeon reached into his pocket and pulled out a fistful of dimes and nickels and pennies, slapped them down on the counter and started separating them and counting them out as if he were setting a checkers board. Kenzi chuckled. He was used to Simeon doing stuff like this, and seeing all that change on the counter, he couldn’t help but think about how Bit Burns—Kenzi’s short twin in school—who had a reputation for patting people’s pockets and stealing their change would never try that on Simeon.

  “Hold on, let me count it out,” Simeon said. “Five. Ten. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight…”

  “How your brother?” Fredo asked Simeon.

  “He a’ight. Probably somewhere in the street, driving that old ice-cream truck around, frontin’ like he legit.”

  Fredo nodded, then nodded at Kenzi. “And what about yours? I see you still carrying that old handball of his everywhere you go. You know he ain’t no good at that game, right?” And before Kenzi could answer, Simeon got frustrated and slammed his hand on the counter.

  “You made me lose count, man!” Simeon boomed. “Gah! Now I gotta start all over. Five. Ten. Fif—”

  “Okay,” Fredo said, scooping the right amount off the counter and into his palm. “We’ll be here all day.”

  “Where you gotta go, Fredo?” Simeon taunted.

  “To your mother’s house. Ask her how many times she dropped you when you were a baby.”

  “Oh, no need to ask her that. I can tell you. She only dropped me once, into a vat of gold.”

  “And a vat of gravy,” Fredo cracked, but Simeon didn’t laugh. And because Simeon didn’t laugh, Kenzi stepped up.

  “Better chill, Fredo,” Kenzi warned. “Matter of fact, just for that…” And then, up on his tippy-toes, he reached over and grabbed Fredo’s newspaper off the counter. And when Fredo didn’t budge, Kenzi snatched his lighter, too. This got Fredo’s attention. “No more cigarettes. They bad for you anyway.”

  “No more of them booty-funk incense either,” Simeon said, opening the door, his laughter lingering in the store after he and Kenzi left. Such silly things to take, a gossipy newspaper and a lighter, as if Fredo ain’t own a store. One with a bunch of newspapers and matches and lighters behind the counter. But still, it was about the principle. The loyalty. The brotherhood.

  5. Making wishes.

  When Kenzi and Simeon made it to their building, the building they’d been living in their entire lives, they sat out front on the steps. The whole walk home they laughed about Fredo, making up silly jokes about him.

  “Fredo look like a puppet, like somebody got their hand up his butt controlling him,” Kenzi snapped.

  “He look like the type of dude who would own a store that just sells… snacks. Like, you know what kind of guy you gotta be to just sell snacks? Snacks?” From Simeon, who now had the newspaper and rolled it up into a tube. He swung it around like a short sword.

  “What do Fredo even mean? I mean, if it’s Alfredo, that would explain it, because he definitely cheesy,” Kenzi piled on, bouncing his ball back and forth under his legs. A slight breeze blew litter around. Plastic bags floating like jellyfish, and a deflated birthday balloon—one of the shiny metallic ones—lifted and zipped through the air like happy shrapnel.

  “Exactly. Cheesy. But I can’t front, he got me with the gravy joke.” Simeon followed the balloon with his eyes as if it were a football thrown long. Or a messenger pigeon with a note from afar. A smirk crept onto his face.

  “Yeah he did,” Kenzi agreed, and they both cracked up. Kenzi set the ball down, opened his bag of chips, offered Simeon some.

  “Nah, I’m good,” Simeon said as the balloon floated out of view. “But… gimme that lighter.” Kenzi handed Simeon Fredo’s lighter, unsure of what he was going to do with it. He couldn’t grow up to be a lawyer if Simeon was getting ready to set something on fire. Jokes were one thing, but burning stuff down was something totally different. Simeon unrolled the newspaper; glanced at the front page, which was a story about a school bus falling from the sky; and ripped it in
half. Then ripped the half in half and twisted it into a paper worm. At least that’s what it looked like. Then he took the MoonPie from its plastic, his huge fingers crushing most of it trying to slide it out perfectly.

  “Happy Birthday to you,” Simeon started singing in a fake opera voice. “Happy Birthday to you.”

  “What?”

  “Happy Birthday, dear Kenziiiii. Happy Birthdayyyyyyy, to… youuuuuuuUuUuuuUUUUuuu.” Simeon stuck the paper worm into the MoonPie, making it a wick. Then he lit the end of it on fire.

  “Happy Birthday, my man. I would’ve sang you the Black people version, but I ain’t want to turn this special moment into a concert,” Simeon said, holding the MoonPie out for Kenzi. The growing flame licked the air.

  “It’s… not my birthday, bro.”

  “Quick, quick, blow it out before it turns this MoonPie to a s’more.”

  Kenzi gave in, leaned over.

  “And don’t forget to make a wish!”

  Kenzi thought for a moment, then huffed the fire out, bits of scorched paper flying off like black snowflakes. The smoke corkscrewing up into the air.

  “What you wish for?” Simeon asked.

  “I ain’t telling you because then it won’t come true.”

  “True,” Simeon said, standing up. “Well, since I can’t know your wish, I might as well go get at this homework. Mr. Davanzo wants us to write about environmental something. I don’t know, but I know I’ll get a better view looking out my apartment window. You can see more from up there.” Simeon pulled the paper out of the MoonPie. He split the snack, stuffed half in his mouth and gave the other half to Kenzi.

  “Yeah, I’m out too,” Kenzi said, back on his feet as well. He shoved his half of the MoonPie in his mouth too. Slipped the ball in his bag. Had to free his hands for what was coming.

  The handshake:

  They grab hands, shake, shake, slide, finger grip, shake, shake.

  Then point to themselves, double fist bump, throw a peace sign beside each of their right ears, point to each other, slap their individual fingertips together, rub the air as if they were holding a ball—bigger than the one in Kenzi’s bag—then they thumb their chins and shake their heads at each other before ending it with a big hug.

  “Brothers,” Simeon said.

  “Brothers,” Kenzi repeated, his voice muffled by the MoonPie he was still chewing.

  They did it just like they’d watched their older brothers do it. The same shake. The same secret. The same bond. On the same steps. And as they rode the elevator up to their separate floors—Simeon on seven, Kenzi on nine—Simeon looked at Kenzi, knowing what he wished for. And Kenzi looked at Simeon, knowing Simeon knew that he wished the smoke from the paper candle could drift, could carry a note through the air, across the city and state, over lands and highways he’d never been on, through barbed wire, stone, and iron, ghosting its way through bars and into the ear of his brother.

  To tell him how he wished he didn’t have to walk home from school.

  How he wished his brother, Mason, could pick him up in a car just like the car Simeon’s brother, Chucky, had stolen almost two years ago. The one Mason took the hit for, went down for.

  But not that one.

  A different one.

  And took Kenzi for a ride.

  Maybe even showed him how to play.

  SATCHMO’S MASTER PLAN

  TODAY, AFTER school, Satchmo Jenkins worked out a master plan to save his life.

  A plan he wished he’d come up with a long time ago.

  It started back when Satchmo was bit. He was seven years old and the rottweiler was thirty-two years old, which was old enough for him to know better, Satchmo had thought. The dog had taken a chunk out of the back of Satchmo’s leg, left teeth marks that scarred in the shape of a sad face. It was a freak accident, a moment that no one could’ve predicted because Satchmo Jenkins never ever missed. Whenever a ball was thrown toward him, he was sure to snatch it from the air. He was known for this. But when Clancy had told him to go long and heaved the football into the air, Satchmo had tried his best to extend his body, stretched out for it, but it was just beyond him. Overthrown. And when the ball hit the ground, it took the worst possible bounce right into Ms. Adams’s yard, where Brutus the Rottweiler lived, chained to a tree. When the ball tumbled Brutus’s way, he jumped up, tail like a stubby index finger wagging hard enough to knock him off-balance, nosed the ball and tried to get his mouth around it, tried to get his teeth locked down on the pigskin. But Brutus’s excitement got the best of him, and he ended up knocking the ball just past the length of the chain restraining him. Perfect for Satchmo.

  “Yo, Satch,” Clancy had called. “Hurry up and get it before Ms. Adams sees you.”

  Ms. Adams was Brutus’s owner. An older lady who sat in the window and watched the neighborhood, making sure no one stepped foot in her yard, as if her grass was a different kind of grass, like she had it flown in from wherever mean people get grass from. Sometimes she’d have the window wide open, even when it was freezing cold, and she’d just be sitting there, looking, the bottom of her mouth sagging from the tobacco she always had stuffed down in her lip. Sometimes she’d spit black juice loogies halfway across the yard. Clean pellet-size ones, like shooting bullets out of her mouth. Other times she’d spit in a jar. The rumor was she’d mix that tobacco slime with Brutus’s food. Make him extra mean. Make sure anyone that came into her yard knew they were dealing with a beast who could only be held by a big bull chain wrapped around a fat-trunked tree. And when she saw Satchmo, instead of doing the old lady wave and Hey, how’s your mother, like some of the other grown-ups in the neighborhood, Ms. Adams just nodded slightly.

  Satchmo had always imagined the inside of her house was like an old boxing gym. That it was bare and cold and smoky, heavy bags hanging from the ceiling that Ms. Adams gave bare-knuckle jabs and right hooks to. Maybe she even kicked them. Kneed them. Some elbows. Sometimes Satchmo even thought that maybe he had it all wrong, that maybe Brutus wasn’t Ms. Adam’s guard dog, but instead, she was Brutus’s guard lady. She was there to protect the dog. To bite anyone who tried to get close to him with those black-stained teeth.

  Satchmo had looked to see if Ms. Adams was sitting in the window. Then glanced back at Clancy, who shook his head no, as in, No, she ain’t there. As in, Yes, you should do this. As in, Hurry up. So Satchmo tipped off the street and onto the sidewalk, then off the sidewalk and into the yard of Brutus Adams, a basketball-headed rottweiler, black, with a heart of brown around his mouth.

  “Hey there, Brutus,” Satchmo whispered, creeping toward the football. There was nothing to fear, because the ball was far enough away from the dog that there was no way Brutus could get to him. But with each step, Brutus’s tail would wag harder and harder. Wagging like yes, yes, yes, and no, no, no at the same time. Wagging like I’m happy to see you, and I want to play, but we play different games. You never miss. Me either. Wagging like…

  Satchmo picked up the ball. Wiped the slobber on his jeans.

  … finders keepers…

  He held the ball up, a sign of victory for Clancy to see. Clancy put his hands in the air as if Satchmo had just retrieved a fumble. Victory.

  Wag. Wag. Wag, wag, wag, wag. Panting. Jumping. Jumping. Barking.

  … losers… runners!

  Satchmo glanced over his shoulder, and Brutus, now more excited than ever, was charging toward him, the chain snatching him back, but only for a second before he tried again, lifting up on his hind legs and towering over Satchmo, who had now started running back toward the street.

  But it was too late. The game had already begun. And seconds later the chain snapped, and Brutus came blasting toward Satchmo.

  Satchmo was named after Louis Armstrong, a famous jazz musician his grandmother loved. The story goes that Louis was nicknamed Satchmo because he had such a big mouth, a “satchel mouth.” However, Satchmo Jenkins’s mouth wasn’t big at all, but he learned that day that it could
be a trumpet if he needed it to. It could screech and honk and run up and down a scale as long as there was a dog making him run up and down a street.

  Four years later, Satchmo moved from his old neighborhood to Marlow Hill, after his mother had taken a job as an office assistant at a veterinary clinic. Satchmo’s run-in with Brutus had sparked a new dream of being a vet, and though she’d have to go through years of school and training to make that happen, she looked at this job, this move, as a step in the right direction. And now that she worked close to animals, she made sure Satchmo knew how to handle himself around dogs. But no matter what his mother said, no matter what she taught him, it didn’t matter. Fear had clamped down on his brain and the scars on the back of his leg—the raised dots and dashes like Morse code on his skin—served as a reminder that dogs were dangerous.

  He’d heard people say, “If they got teeth, they’ll bite,” and he watched his mother push back and argue against that, and on the flip side he’d seen all the commercials of sad pups locked behind cages, sick and shivering, and the voice of some celebrity trying to convince people to adopt one. And he’d say, sometimes out loud, “Maybe they’re in there for a reason.” His mother didn’t like that either.

  “Your bite was a misunderstanding, Satch,” she’d say. “He wanted to play, but you got tense, so then he got tense because your tension made it clear to him that you weren’t playing.”

  “Why would I want to play when he was barking and growling? His play-play looked like bite-bite.”

  But small dogs didn’t bother him. As long as they were no bigger than a football, he could deal. Anything bigger caused his back to tighten. Made his heart bark. Thankfully, since living in Marlow Hill, his walks home had been dogless.

  Until yesterday.

  Yesterday, he was walking down Nestle Street when he passed Mr. Jerry’s house and saw something out of the corner of his eye. Something big. And furry. It darted across the patch of grass Mr. Jerry had along the side of his house, blocked off by a chain-link fence.