Long Division(20)

“Yeah.”

“Well, don’t ask me to show my work when I tell you this, okay?”

“Okay!” I wiped my eyes and tried to get the boogers out with the same wipe.

“This is 2013, City, and…”

“What?”

“Let me finish. I’m scared because, well, I think I’m dead. Can you help me?”

I waited for her to say more, or at least look at me with a goofy grin. But she didn’t. Not at all.

“Shalaya Crump, I want you to show all your work now. All of it. I don’t give a damn if you say it’s long division.”

Instead of showing her work, Shalaya Crump took me by the hand and led me to the edge of the woods, where the sticker bushes met the shallow ditch that separated the woods from the Old Ryle Road.

“You can’t talk to anyone, City. I only come out here at night when can’t no one see me,” she said. “I keep trying to find myself.”

I wanted to ask Shalaya Crump all kinds of questions, but across the street, in what should have been Mama Lara’s house, was a girl sitting on the porch with a tiny silver briefcase on her lap. Down the road, I saw that the trailer next door wasn’t even there anymore. The girl on the porch had her head down, except for every now and then when she’d raise it to drink from this huge cold drank. Every time she took a swig, she looked toward the woods. It looked like she was talking to herself and playing with a calculator.

“Where did that person get that big ol’ cold drank from?”

“All the bottles of cold drank are big around here.”

I looked harder at the girl and looked over at Shalaya Crump, hoping she would give me something more than she was giving me. “Well, why is she sitting on Mama Lara’s porch?”

“Does that look like your Mama Lara’s porch, City?”

“Well, kinda. I mean, not really. I mean it does, but it doesn’t. But…” I didn’t know how to say what I wanted to say. Shalaya Crump was right that the place didn’t exactly look like my Mama Lara’s any more. It looked like what my Mama Lara’s place would look like if it had been in a few tornados. It made me feel funny that Shalaya Crump didn’t say anything about how the girl sitting out on the porch, at least from where we were, looked almost just like her except this girl was thicker with way shorter hair, maybe a bigger nose, and boobs that looked like the balled-up fists of a seven-year-old.

“Who is that?” I asked her.

Shalaya Crump didn’t answer, and I got tired of asking her questions she wouldn’t answer. I started across the street toward the girl on the porch.

As I got closer to the porch, I could see that the girl on the porch had a strange haircut like a boy. The hair was the shape of Mr. T’s hair but there was still hair on the sides, and the top was thicker than his.

The girl on the porch closed the tiny silver briefcase and stood up. She placed this book, with the words “Long Division” on the cover, on top of the briefcase. The silver briefcase was one of those weird things you only see on TV. When she stood up, you expected her to say something. Or you expected me to say something, but I didn’t, and she didn’t either. I just looked at her for probably ten whole seconds. Then she finally said, “Excuse you! Who you looking for?”

I walked closer and realized that Shalaya Crump had the same eyes and face shape as this girl on the porch, but this girl was a little lighter than her and she had really long legs, and arms like a penguin. Up close, you could see that this girl’s forehead was one of biggest and greasiest you’ve ever seen in your life.

“You might wanna check yourself, mayne, don’t you think?” the girl said. “You think you can just walk up on folks because you can dress?”

“Um, I can dress?”

“Where you get them Converse at? I like that little hipster white boy thang you got going on.”

“You do? I got these for Christmas.”

“What’s your name?”

I just looked at the girl and thought of the coolest name I’d ever heard. “Voltron,” I told her. “But you can call me T-Ron if you want.” I never told white folks or strangers my real name. But usually I alternated between Bobby, Ronnie, Ricky, and Mike, the names of the dudes in New Edition.

The girl rolled her eyes, then opened up her little briefcase and sat back down. “Okay T-Ron, my name’s Baize. Baize Shephard,” she said before moving the book and opening up the tiny silver briefcase. “Look, mayne, I don’t mind you being on my porch, but you gotta quit looking thirsty like you wanna steal somebody’s rhymes.”

“Rhymes? What kind of rhymes? Girl, what’s wrong with you? Why you keep calling me ‘mayne’?”

“That’s what we say.”

“Who? How do you even spell that?” I asked her. “Just be yourself.”

“You don’t even know me,” the girl said. “And I don’t know you either. Mayne! But I know how you look. And you look like the type to wanna steal somebody’s rhymes off their computer. Can I keep it one hundred?”

“I guess so. What does ‘keep it one hundred’ even mean?”

“One hundred. Like 100 percent. Listen, if you don’t want me to think you jack people, then don’t call yourself T-Ron. That can’t be your real name,” she said.