The Night Gardener

CHAPTER 7

Diego Ramone got off the 12 bus near the Metro station and walked over the District line toward his house. It had not been a good day at his middle school, but it had been a typical one. He had caught trouble, like he had caught trouble a couple of times every week since he started going there. He wished he could have stayed at his old middle school in D.C., but his father had insisted he transfer into Montgomery County, and things had not gone too well since.

Mr Guy, the assistant principal, had called Diego's mother earlier in the day to tell her that Diego had refused to give up his cell phone after it had rung inside the school. The truth was, Diego had forgotten it was on. He knew it was against school rules to have it on inside, but he hadn't wanted to give it up, on account of his friend Toby had got his phone taken away for weeks after a similar thing went down. So he'd told Mr Guy, 'No, I'm not gonna give it up, 'cause it was an honest mistake,' and then Mr Guy had taken him down to the office and called his mother. Mr Guy had said that he could have suspended him for insubordination and that he was cutting him a break. Some break. Diego was still going to hear about it from his father. Besides, being suspended was more fun than being in school. In that school, anyway.

Diego walked through a short tunnel under the Metro tracks and crossed Blair Road. He wore a long black T-shirt showing the Tasmanian Devil hand-screened by a friend, one of the Spriggs twins. Under the T-shirt he wore a Hanes wife-beater. It was autumn, but still warm enough for shorts, and his were Levi Silvertabs worn a few inches below the knee. Beneath the Silvertabs he wore SpongeBob boxers. His shoes today, one of three pairs of sneaks he owned, were Nike Exclusives, the white and navy.

Diego Ramone was fourteen years old.

His ringer, a Backyard live at the Crossroads thing he had downloaded onto his phone, went off. He unhooked his cell from the waistband of his shorts.

'Yeah,' he said into the mic.

'Where you at, dawg?' said his friend Shaka Brown.

'I'm comin up on, like, Third and Whittier.'

'You walkin?'

'Uh-huh.'

'Ain't your mother pick you up?'

'I took the twelve.'

His mother had come by the school, but he knew if he got in the car with her she'd want to take him straight home, go on about homework, all that. After some negotiation, it was agreed that he would take the bus and then foot it into their neighborhood, where, he had assured her, his plans were only to meet Shaka and play a little ball. Taking the bus gave him a sense of freedom and made him feel like an adult. He had promised his mother he'd be home well before dinnertime.

'Ain't like you to walk. Soft as you are.'

'Stop playin,' said Diego.

'Hurry up, Dago, I got a court.'

'I'm comin.'

'I'm 'a shred you.'

'Yeah, right.'

Diego ended the call. Before he could reattach the cell to his belt line, his mother rang him up.

'Hello?'

'Where are you?'

'Near Coolidge,' said Diego.

'You meeting Shaka?'

'Told you I was.'

'You have homework tonight?'

'I did it in study hall,' said Diego. It was just a white lie. He would get it done in study hall the next day.

'Don't stay out too long.'

'Said I wouldn't.'

Diego hit 'end.' Having a cell phone was tight, but it could be a curse, too.

Shaka was shooting buckets on the fenced court at 3rd and Van Buren. It was a nice clean court for D.C., with chains and everything, part of the rec center that ran behind and alongside Coolidge High School. There were tennis courts that the adults used, mostly, and a soccer field for the Spanish, and a playground for the kids. Diego had been hanging out here, progressing from the monkey bars to hoops, since before he'd been in Whittier Elementary. He lived with his parents and his little sister, Alana, just a few blocks south in Manor Park.

'You better hurry up,' said Shaka, as Diego crossed the court. 'I'm fixin to burn these chains off the way I'm droppin 'em.'

Diego took off his T-shirt, leaving him in his sleeveless, and wrapped the T around his cell. He placed the package on the side of the court, by the fence.

Diego said, 'Lemme see that rock.'

Shaka bounced the Spalding indoor/outdoor over to Diego, who took a medium-range jumper that hit the back of the iron and did not drop.

'You ready?' said Shaka.

'Gimme a few more warm-ups. You been out here awhile.'

'You gonna need a day of warm-ups to touch me.'

'I'm 'a damage you, son.'

Before they could go at each other, the Spriggs twins, Ronald and Richard, dropped by the court. After some talk, Diego and Shaka went two-on-two against them. The Spriggs twins were on the hard side and were frequently in trouble with the law for minor crimes like theft, which elevated them in the eyes of other boys their age. Diego and Shaka just thought of them as old friends. They had all known one another since elementary, and now they were going down different paths.

Ronald and Richard Spriggs were tough, but they couldn't ball. Diego and Shaka took every game, and the Spriggs twins left, smiling but not happy, muttering benign threats about 'next time' and something about Shaka's sister looking nice as they deep-dipped away toward their apartment over on 9th, the group behind the 4th District police station.

For the next hour, Diego and Shaka went one-on-one. Shaka was a year older than Diego and had a few inches on his friend. His skill level was higher than Diego's as well. But Diego showed heart in any sport he played. The games went even until the last rubber match, which Shaka took. As the ball went through the chains, a reverse layin that Shaka earned with a quick first step, Diego's cell sang out, that 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun' thing, go-go style. He answered it, using the T-shirt it was wrapped in to wipe the sweat off his face.

'Mom,' said Diego, reading the caller ID.

'Diego, where are you?'

'At the courts behind Coolidge. I'm with Shaka.'

'Okay,' said Regina, sounding relieved. Diego had made sure to mention the company he was in because his mother liked and trusted Shaka over all of his friends. 'You coming home?'

'I'll be dey soon.'

'You'll be dey?'

'I'll be there,' said Diego, ending the call.

He joined Shaka, sitting with his back against the fence, checking his cell for messages. Shaka wore a T-shirt showing Marley smoking a blunt, right off the Catch a Fire cover, but Shaka was not a weed smoker. He had never even tried it. He and Diego talked about it often, and romanticized it some, but they didn't use it. They considered themselves athletes, and Diego's parents and Shaka's mother had drumbeat it into their heads that athletes didn't get high. Of course, they knew this to be untrue. But they also knew that many of the kids they hung with who had begun to drink a little and get blazed had kinda dropped off from playing ball and weren't doing as good in school as they had before. That much they could see for themselves. Diego still played Yes League basketball and Boys Club basketball and football; Shaka, now that he was in high school, knew he had to pick one sport if he was going to be serious about pursuing an eventual scholarship, and had chosen basketball. Both of them had dreams of playing college ball and professional sports.

'You keep them Exclusives fresh,' said Shaka, chinning at Diego's Nikes.

'They feel good on my feet.'

'Good as they look, those shoes didn't help you none today, though, did they?'

'Couldn't find my shot is all it was.'

'Uh-huh. Maybe it's the shoes messed you up.'

'I got my eye on the new Forums,' said Diego. 'Them joints is wet.'

'Your father ain't gonna let you get another pair of sneaks.'

'If I get my grades up for the quarter,' said Diego, 'he will.'

They talked about girls. They talked about Ghetto Prince, the Sunday-night go-go show on WPGC hosted by Big G, the singer from Backyard. They talked about going to a band show at the community center on New Hampshire Avenue, in Langley Park. They talked about Carmelo Anthony and how he had been unfairly treated in that video thing up in Baltimore. Shaka claimed he had seen NBA star Steve Francis and his friend Bradley over by Georgia Avenue. Steve had come up in the area and was frequently seen back in the neighborhood, talking positive to kids.

'Steve was drivin that Escalade he got,' said Shaka, and Diego asked about the rims, and when Shaka described them, Diego said they sounded tight.

The sky had darkened some. They got up to go and collected their things. Through the chain-link fence, they saw their friend Asa Johnson walking south on 3rd. Asa was wearing a North Face jacket that broke midthigh. His head down, his brow wrinkled, he was staring at the sidewalk, taking long strides.

'Asa!' shouted Shaka. 'Where you goin, dawg?'

Asa did not answer or acknowledge the call. He turned his face away so they could not see his eyes. As he did, Diego thought he saw something shiny on his cheek.

'Asa. Yo, hold up!'

Asa walked on. They watched him as he turned left on Tuckerman, eastward bound.

"Sup with him?' said Diego. 'Actin like he don't know us.'

'No clue. Kinda warm for him to be rockin that North Face, though.'

'He was sweatin, too. Guess he gotta show that new coat off.'

'You talk to him lately?'

'Not much this school year. Not since I transferred.'

'He playin football?'

'He dropped out.'

'Maybe he's just in a hurry to get home.'

'He lives in the opposite direction,' said Diego.

'Maybe he's tryin to get away from home, then,' said Shaka. 'Way his father's always pressed.'

'Could be he's got a girl up that way.'

'You ever know Asa to mess with a girl?'

'True,' said Diego. 'But I ain't never see you with one, either.'

'I never am with just one,' said Shaka. 'I got a whole stable.'

'Where they at?'

'I ain't tellin you.'

They came off the court and walked south on 3rd. Down past Sheridan they went along a short commercial strip, past a women's clothing store with African designs, a barbershop, a dry cleaner's, and a ministry. On the next street, at the corner of 3rd and Rittenhouse, they stopped in front of a large warehouse-like structure that was now a banquet and party hall, rented out for anniversaries, birthdays, and general celebrations, called the Air Way VIP room.

'I'm headed over to Fat Joe's,' said Shaka. 'Play some PS 2. He got the new NC double A.'

'My pops won't let me go to Joe's.'

'Why not?'

'Joe's father has a gun. You know, that little thirty-two he got?'

'We ain't gonna mess with it.'

'My father don't want me in that house.'

'Okay, then,' said Shaka, tapping Diego's outstretched fist. 'Later, dawg.'

'Later.'

Shaka walked west down Rittenhouse, toward his mother's row house on Roxboro Place. Diego went east, in the direction of a pale yellow stucco colonial fronted by a porch, on a rise halfway up the block.

His father's Tahoe was not in the street. Diego felt that he was nearly a man, but he was still young enough to like the security of knowing his dad was home.

Dusk was near. The dropping sun cast long shadows on the grass.