Slapboxing with Jesus

class trip

— Hookers, Willy said. You know them. You love them.

He was trying to get us interested. What do you think? He was talking to three tenth-grade boys. Fifteen years old. Among all four we didn’t have half a brain. Willy, bullet-shaped head and all, was good at convincing and he wasn’t even working hard.

— We are hopping on that train, he continued, heading out to Manhattan and everyone here is getting his dick sucked. No arguments.

— Who’s going to put up a fight? I asked. We were each calculating how best to get some money, which parent often left a purse or wallet unguarded.

Carter asked, — How much we’ll need? He stood his tall ass up in front of me. When he stretched his arms over his head Carter could run his fingers around the lip of the visible universe.

Our building was budding with age groups, men and boys. Soon someone had beer; eventually it made the rounds from the eighteen-and-ups to us and after we’d taken our pulls from the tall brown bottles there were the boys we’d once been, ten or eleven, anticipating a first taste. We could all afford such open drinking until eight or nine at night because our adults were dying at jobs. Willy never left shit to settle, so before we went off he grabbed Carter, James and me, said, — This Friday. Get like thirty dollars.

Carter and I walked, no destination, just anywhere away from home. He was chattering about where he’d get his loot, not his mother or father, but that older brother who left his cash in his old shell-toed Adidas up on a shelf in his closet. Then he asked, — So what’s that woman of yours going to say about you checking out these hos?

I had forgotten about her. — Guess I won’t tell, I said.

He laughed, — Man, you know you can’t keep no secrets when you get drunk.

— I’ve never been drunk around Trisha.

Carter nodded. — Well then, maybe. He began telling me something else, he was almost whispering so it seemed like a secret. I was distracted but absently swore I heard my girl’s name. I wasn’t listening. It was evening in Flushing, Queens, and the buildings got glowing in that setting-sun red.

Friday, man, the whole day was full of explosive energy. During precalc a girl beside me dropped her book and in my head it sounded like a squad of soldiers battering through the door. When I saw any of the other guys we nodded conspiratorially. My girl made it easier on my conscience when she bowed out of school after third period. She clutched her belly and told me she was going home early, cramps were tearing up her insides. She had a big bag, full, and when I asked she reminded me of the trip she was taking to see her aunt, who lived in Massachusetts, some town near Boston. She’d be gone for days.

Then, in the evening, we rode the 7 out toward Manhattan. It was strange traveling with them; since about thirteen I had been coming out to wander alone. Most times I’d get off at Times Square where my ass would trip around for blocks trying to find something to kill me or make me laugh.

On the subway James scratched his balls, looked at an old asleep man, tortured in his wrinkled suit. He asked us, — What if I just punch that kid in the face? He pointed to the man. But we weren’t really like that. None of us. Talk shit, that was our game. Run fast, that was our game.

— Don’t start nothing, Willy said.

James sucked his teeth; the way his eyes were shaking in their sockets he seemed amped enough to hit this guy, but Willy talked him down until James sat back, sprawled out like he couldn’t on his mother’s couch. A year before, James got into it with an off-duty cop who was quick to show his badge and gun to James and me. The pistol was under his coat, outside his shirt, hanging on the rim of his jeans, the snubbed nose looking like a challenge. — So you’re a cop, James had said. So what?

The cop was black, so I was especially scared.

— You should watch your mouth son, the cop said, though he wasn’t very old himself.

James laughed that way he does, showing all his teeth; an expression that says, And?

Black Cop pressed the yellow strip to ring for his stop. In the back stairwell he said to me, — Your friend’s going to get you into trouble someday.

I wasn’t speaking; I nodded but my neck was soft with liquor, so I only managed a weak wobble of my head. He had made the mistake most people did, thought that because I was the quiet kid I was the one who should be saved.

——

At Times Square we discussed getting off, enjoying the flickering pleasures of video booths, but Willy was sure of his mission. He said, — Y’all will thank me when you have a mouth all on your knob.

We got off at Twenty-eighth Street, walked so quickly to the West Side Highway you’d have thought we were on wheels. A few blocks up, the Intrepid Museum was docked. I had been there three years before, with my mother and baby sister; I rode in the cockpit of a flight simulator imagining I could join the Air Force and float somewhere above the planet. James found sour balls in his jacket and sucked one.

— You keep making noises like that and some dude’s going to think you’re advertising, Carter said. We laughed, but then he pointed and silenced us all. There, forty feet away, was a hooker dressed all in tight silver. You can’t underestimate what this meant to us; imagine Plymouth Rock.

— You suck dick? James asked. She didn’t need to look up to know she should ignore us.

— Break out, she said, going through her tiny purse. She looked down the street, lit a cigarette, saw we had not left, said again, Break out.

Carter tried to make it clear. — My boy asked if you suck dick.

She whipped her red hair, real or fake, backward, elegantly. I frowned. Silver said, — You tell your boy I don’t fuck with little kids. The way she switched her weight from foot one to foot two made us forget any indignation and check out her lovely hips.

— I’m saying, James charmed. I got the loot and you got the mouth, right?

Silver lost her temper, cursed at us, screamed a man’s name. Then there he was, behind a rotten chainlink fence, amid these half-built homes of scavenged wood and sheets of plastic, all big shoulders and blond hair, like some übermensch, a fucking super-Nazi in an off-white overcoat.

Carter stayed behind to unload some more words at her; the rest of us were on the move. The expression on that guy, clearing the fence, crossing the street, was like he loved hurting people. Finally Carter appeared, stretching those long legs as he caught up to us. I looked over my shoulder, and the guy was still coming. My legs went faster. Soon I was whipping his Aryan ass like I was Jesse Owens.

The first time I held my girl’s hand I was shaking so deep I couldn’t control it. She looked at me. — You’re shaking.

It was a strange second and I didn’t say shit. This was six months before the night out with James, Willy and Carter.

Trisha said, — I think it’s sweet.

We were outside school, by the library. She and I had walked out, to the October cool, because I wouldn’t hold her hand in front of a crowd. — Are you that nervous? she asked.

Her hand wrapped around mine. I thought I should kiss her, touch her face, find that spot that works — opening her mouth, closing her eyes. I said, — Yeah, a little.

— Why? She was older than me. Sixteen.

— Just am.

We sat on the cold steps. She smiled. She had braces; they were shimmering and comely, there in her mouth. I had cuts across the backs of my hands. Trisha rubbed them with an open palm.

— How did these happen?

— I don’t know.

— No, seriously, you can tell me these things.

I really didn’t remember what had scarred them. She laughed; usually I got that reaction, laughter, from her only on the phone, where I could loosen up; in person I was always overcome by my goddamn emotions. When the cold air hit us harder, I thought of her, asked if she wanted to go in.

Trisha nodded. — It is cold. But we can stay.

I was quiet so long I forgot we were supposed to say anything.

Trisha stared to her right, to the wall where I had played handball at nine or ten. I was very tired all the time. It didn’t seem strange that I was fifteen and already feeling ancient.

She had been attached when I met her. Dating someone older, a freshman in some upstate college. He still sent her things, like bus tickets. This guy promised that if she went to him he’d give her the thing she liked most: perfume. Nice stuff I couldn’t afford; all she had to do was visit. Working in my favor was distance, with its power to break bonds.

— You’re quiet, I said.

She squeezed my palm. — Your hand’s stopped shaking.

— You want to go to a movie? I asked quickly. We weren’t dating yet, that day, just the early affection.

Her laugh came out slow so, at first, I thought she was considering it. I let go of her, asked, — What’s funny?

— You should have heard yourself, she said. She squeezed her nose between two short, thin fingers, talked all nasal, You want to go to a movie?

— I sounded like that?

She touched the back of my head. — You should get a fade.

— You think so?

— I think you’d look so good with one. And, sitting like that, it was on her to lean in for the kiss. I was surprised, uncomfortable.

Then Trisha stood; I still sat, touched her feet. — They’re so small.

She said, — My feet are perfect. Even the toes are nice.

I stood, laughed, liked that she was arrogant about the stupidest things.

When the four of us stopped running, Carter was the first to catch his breath, said, — Man, we could have fucked that dude up.

I punched him in the chest when I could stand straight. James and Willy heaved a minute more. We had no speed left, but we were safe. Not for the first time in our lives we were lucky.

Until a year ago none of these fellas had been my boy, but here we were looking out for one another. I went through friends quickly. That was the best thing about guys — trust comes quick and no one cries when it’s over.

We walked to Twenty-seventh, where the hookers were a populace. This was their beauty: almost nothing worn, skin. We stood at a corner to watch these women move. The worst-looking one was more gorgeous than the rest of the world.

Here in the land of ass a-plenty, we were being ignored. Four black kids on foot spelled little cash and lots of hassles. These workers had no time for games. Station wagons sped through with single passengers acting alternately calm and surprised, as though they’d found this block by accident. Husbands, fiancés and boyfriends. Newer cars bursting with twenty-year-olds eased down the street, their systems pumping heavy.

— These girls are not going to take care of us, said Willy, the pragmatist. The rest of us dreamed ideally, waved twenties at the high heels thumping past.

A woman with her glorious brown chest mostly exposed saw us, said, — Go down to Twenty-fifth.

— What’s there? Willy asked.

— Crackheads. She kept walking, moving in that extra-hips way that paid her bills. The backs of her thighs were right there, platformed and performing. Exposed. It is not an exaggeration to say I would have married her that night.

We made that move. Stopped at a car, the guy inside getting a blow job. His friends were waiting, herded around a telephone, laughing. The top of a woman’s head worked furiously, faster than I’d have imagined possible. I craned my neck to try and see more.

— That’s Nicky! one of his friends screamed. The car window was down and Nicky inside smiled back. We rejoiced with them, but only a little, any longer and a fight might break out. They were muscle guys in zebra-print pants, leather coats; their skin looked so tough I doubted anything short of a shotgun would pierce their shells.

On Twenty-fifth the market crashed, both customers and workers. Women here wore jeans and T-shirts like someone’s fucked-up neighbor out for a stroll. This block looked like our school’s auditorium had belched out its worst; there were slight variations on us, in groups, canvassing the street. Truly ugly men rode through in cars that rattled and died while waiting at a red light, crackheads hopped into their cars two at a time. Some rubbed close on all us boys. We tried to act calm.

James was tired and bored. A woman appeared from a shadowed doorway, he asked her, almost absently, — How much for you to suck my dick?

— Fifteen.

All of us but Willy bolted upright, so sure we were going to leave Manhattan unfulfilled. Willy stayed shrewd. — Yeah right. He’ll give you five and so will the rest of us.

She brightened, scanned the crew. — All of you?

Willy nodded; she agreed. That was the benefit of going to a crackhead, you could haggle.

Finally it was my turn. Carter and Willy leaned against a building while James, just done, rubbed his stomach. Trucks were parked on this block. Police cars seemed to have become extinct. Occasionally you heard their sirens bleating a few blocks up, but they seemed to have left everything on this block for dead. Charlene ushered me down the alley she’d made into her workplace. She was about my height and twice as old. We were well hidden but she took me farther, behind a green Dumpster, lid shut.

— You know why I wanted you last, right?

I smiled. Her scalp was hidden under a blue scarf with white dots, the haphazard folds making them look as random as the salt spread out on the sidewalk after it has snowed. She kicked away the cardboard she’d laid out when taking care of my friends. I wasn’t thinking of Trisha.

— I wanted the good stuff from you, she said. She brought herself close; I was not going to fuck her, no way. Get my dick sucked and move on. Then came her punches, two of them: one in the face that didn’t hurt, but the second got me in the throat and I went down. On my hands and knees, this little crackhead had taken me out. The concrete was cold and one palm rested on an empty bag of chips. She was in my pockets, but found nothing. Then she gave me the real one, something popping against my head like a fucking brick. It was a gun.

— Get up, she said. Stand. It was the shittiest piece you’ll ever see; a rusting.22, one inch above a zip gun. She was in control. Now give me that money.

No games, I got it for her. She counted out all thirty dollars, slowly, in front of me, like she was trying to rub it in. You could say I was scared, but it was delayed, didn’t go off in my stomach until the four of us were catching the train an hour later and I couldn’t ease my token into the slot; Carter took it from my palsied hand and pushed me through.

— You robbed them all? I asked.

— Nope. Just you.

— Why me?

She put the money away, scratched at her pussy from outside her jeans. My head was bleeding. I saw that she was peeing her pants before I smelled it; the stain spread in her crotch and soon the thin yellow slacks were loosing droplets that fell to the ground between her and me. She answered my question. — I don’t like your face, she said. You just don’t look good.

The whole next week in school I was hoping for my girl’s return, but Trisha was out for five days. I’d call her at home. One of her older sisters would only take a message, firmly say she’d call me, but the next night I dialed the number. I felt guilty, spent hours considering how much better life would be if I’d stayed out of the alley, if I’d been a better man.

Finally Trisha appeared. We went out to dinner. She sat at the table warm in her jacket and a turtleneck. She held my hand when we walked, but swatted me off when I tried to kiss her neck. This diner was good: the seats squeaked when you slid into a booth and a small cup of coleslaw came with every meal. — Tonight, she said, I’m paying.

— I won’t argue with that.

She laughed. — You never have a problem with spending my money.

— I was going to buy you something, I told her.

She sipped her water. We were quiet until a waiter came trolling for orders.

She asked, — Where is it?

— I didn’t have enough, I admitted.

— Yeah, I know you. You spent that money on nonsense.

I smiled. — You got that right beautiful.

— So what was it?

A group came into the diner and in the wonderful anonymity of the American family, I thought they’d just left. — Look. I pointed. Trisha peeped them, but wasn’t into laughing at stability. I was going to get you this bear.

— A teddy bear?

The food arrived. — Don’t say it like that, I protested. It was a nice one. Had a smoking jacket and a pipe. He looked like me. Don’t you think he would be cute?

She ate. Dinner done, she paid the bill. We got up and out. Flushing at night was like Flushing during the day, just darker. Together we walked to her building.

— Anyone ever ask why you’re dating a younger man?

— Maybe.

She wore a new good smell applied to her skin, but I ignored it, busy instead rubbing my nose, my chin, my neck, learning my face’s true dimensions.

— And what did you tell him?

She shrugged. — What should I have said?

We walked fast. Soon her building stood before us. It wasn’t so big but tonight it seemed majestic. Trisha’s two older sisters were outside. — Hey Anthony, Gloria said, looking to the others. The secrets this bunch held among them were enough to destroy one thousand ex-boyfriends. Trisha smiled, waited.

— What? I asked.

— You aren’t going to thank me for paying?

— You’re right. Thank you so much. The food was delicious.

— I know. She touched my side.

— Am I ugly? I asked her.

— You? She put her face against my neck. She tried to tickle me but neither of us was laughing. On the street, traffic was still a thriving business; the sky was purple and lost.