Long Division(19)

If anyone else in the world, including my mama or Mama Lara, were boob-deep into a hole in the ground, asking me to follow them, I would have run away and called the police. But standing right there, watching Shalaya Crump want me to help her so bad, made me ask myself when was the next time I could count on Shalaya Crump inviting me anywhere dark, small, and secret with her. I figured the worst thing that could happen is that we could get covered in worms or maybe it would be too hot in the hole and my sack would commence to smelling sour. But worms don’t bite, I told myself, and Shalaya Crump’s underarms were already funky as six recesses.

The hole wasn’t the easiest to get in if you had wide hips, but after a while, I was in. “Now what?” I asked her. “Does my breath stank like stale Miracle Whip?”

Shalaya Crump grabbed my hand with her left hand and grabbed the handle with the other hand. “Don’t let go,” she said, “until I open the door again, okay?” Shalaya Crump pulled the secret door closed and darkness swallowed everything you were supposed to see.

“Your eyes closed, Shalaya?”

“Naw,” she said. “Yours?”

“Yeah.” I kept them closed for about ten seconds and tried to find Shalaya Crump’s hand. “What about now? Your eyes still open?”

“Yeah, City. You should open yours, too.”

“Mine are open now,” I lied. “I ain’t scared of the dark.”

“Okay,” Shalaya Crump said. “Just be yourself when we open it. I need you to be yourself and don’t say a word to anyone.”

Shalaya Crump pushed the secret door open after about seven more seconds. Just like that, the woods were green like the Hulk’s chest instead of green like a lime. It felt hotter when we stepped out of the hole, too. Took a while for my eyes to adjust to the brightness. You could see bigger slithers of dark road from where we were in the woods, like the woods had gone on a diet. The road didn’t seem like a road anymore, either. It looked like a tar-black slab of bacon that was way fatter than it was before we went in.

“What’s wrong with Old Ryle Road?” I asked her.

“It’s new,” she said. She looked at my face, hoping that I’d act like I understood. “This ain’t the same woods we know, City.”

“It ain’t new,” I sucked my teeth. “How could woods be new in like five minutes?” I looked around and saw the Shephard house. Then I turned and looked at Shalaya Crump, who was watching me watch everything around us. “Why you watching me like that?”

Shalaya Crump didn’t answer me. “You smell that?” I asked her and started coughing. The air in the woods was heavier than it had been. I always wanted my mama to get me one of those plastic asthma bottles like some of the white kids on TV, but she said I never needed one. “I think I got asthma, girl. I’m serious.” She looked at me and forced a fake laugh. “What happened to all the trees? And that house,” I pointed toward the Shephard house. “What happened to it?”

I started running toward what I thought was the Shephard house and Shalaya Crump ran behind me. It was the same shape as the Shephard house but it read “Melahatchie Community Center” on the iron front door.

“City, calm down. Please. You have to be calm. Don’t be so loud. They’re gonna hear us.”

“Who?”

I looked through the woods toward Old Ryle Road and saw a crazy blue Monte Carlo with the most golden wheels I’ve ever seen in my life. The rattling of its license plate was in rhythm with a deep boom that sounded over and over again. It was the craziest, best-sounding boom I’d ever heard in my life.

“You hear that? What is it? Is that some new Run-D.M.C. or Herbie Hancock? Who that?”

“Be quiet, City.”

“How you gonna tell me to be quiet and you got me going in a hole feeling crazy? What’s wrong with you?” I grabbed her by her shoulders.

Shalaya Crump pushed my hands off. “Don’t ever push me.” She looked me in the eyes. “Ever! I don’t care if you feel crazy or not. All we can do is watch, okay? We can’t let them know we’re here. Shhh. Listen.”

We stood there in the middle of what kinda looked the Night Time Woods, looking at what kinda looked like Old Ryle Road. I tried to block out anything other than the sounds of blackbirds chirping and stiff leaves blowing up on our feet and squirrels digging around in trees.

“Yeah, shoatee. Call me,” the voice said from the street. “I’ma keep my phone on!” But there was no one with him. The man was talking to himself.

“Is this a dream?” I asked Shalaya Crump. “Is it? It is, right? Well, I’m ’bout to wake up myself up.” I took out my sweat rag and started trying to pop myself in the middle of the forehead, hoping I would wake myself up.

Shalaya Crump took my rag from me and told me to shut up. I heard more rattling booms coming from another strange truck with all black windows and white hubcaps. I looked at Shalaya Crump and the confusion made me start tearing up right in front of her face. I tried to wipe my eyes with my sweat rag but it was too late. I was so Young and the Restless. Shalaya Crump was right.

“City,” she breathed all heavy and acted all weird like she was on a soap opera, “you know how I asked you not to show your work before?”