Long Division(30)

Saying that made me feel like Satan in a way because I knew that Coach Stroud couldn’t go up in anyone’s house in Melahatchie, including Grandma’s, and tell on me. Everybody in Melahatchie would allow Stroud to walk on their porch. And they’d sit down with him and they’d laugh loud and talk louder about the weather, the Saints, white folks, or some trifling heathen who wasn’t there to defend himself. But I didn’t know of one grown person in Melahatchie who would let him all the way in their house. Not one.


Coach Stroud drove his truck on down the road and MyMy and I were on our way out of the woods when that green truck that was parked in the trailer park drove slowly toward us.

It stopped in front of us. Four men were squeezed into the cab. They were blasting that old Ricky Rozay song, “I’m Not A Star.” One of the dudes had crossed eyes, dimples, red hair, and a pot belly that looked far too old for his face. I had a baby watermelon in one hand, my brush under my arm, and Long Division in the other.

“You the boy who was on TV yesterday?” Pot Belly asked. “The one with that brush who done all that talking?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” I told him. “My name is City.”

“City?” He looked down at me. “What’s a boy named City doing out here in the country?”

“I don’t know. I’m just visiting my grandma,” I told him. “City is just a nickname.”

“I see,” he said. “Let me ask you this. You fast as you is smart?”

“For my size, I’m alright.”

“You faster than this man right here?” he asked and pointed to the only boy in the truck, who wore a V-neck shirt with the arms cut off.

“That’s a boy,” I told them. “He ain’t no man.”

“City love to sass, don’t he,” Pot Belly said to the other men in the truck. “You had plenty of sass yesterday on that TV, didn’t you?”

Pot Belly whispered something to the round-face white boy. The kid jumped out the back and stood next to me. The truck was right in front of us.

“Now, we gonna say go,” Pot Belly said, “and I want y’all to run after the truck ’til we say stop.”

“Naw, I’m good,” I told the man. “I’m tired of running. I don’t even know y’all like that.” I put the watermelon down and started brushing my waves. “Plus, my wind ain’t that good ’cause I just raced.”

“That’s alright, Chucker. We ain’t going that far.”

“My name is City,” I told him and kept brushing my hair. “You know what? I don’t like the feeling of this situation, so we’re finna go on about our business.”

“Mind if I look at your brush, Situation?”

“Why?”

“Never seen one up close,” he said. “Just wanna look at it.”

“Naw,” I told him. “I’m good.”

“You don’t wanna race. You don’t wanna share your brush. What you wanna do, Situation? Use some sentences. How you practice for something like that?”

“My name is City,” I told him again. “Not no Situation.”

All the men in the truck were laughing so hard at this point. One of them said, “Situation, you wanna use ‘brush’ in a sentence?”

“I can do that,” I told him and started walking toward them. “The next funky-ass white boy to ask me for my brush is going to get knocked out Deebo-style, and if his friends jump in and try to help, they might get a few licks off, but I’m gonna get my revenge with my Jackson army one way or another. Let’s go, MyMy.” I grabbed her hand.

“Here,” the man said, and threw a comb on the ground. “You are so talented, Situation. I’ll let you see mine if you let me see yours.”

The comb wasn’t like the heavy plastic black combs Mama and them used sometimes. It had smaller edges and a thin handle. I reached down to pick it up and hand it to him, when out of nowhere, I felt a heavy foot in the center of my back. My solar plexus smashed into the ground and my lips kissed the asphalt right as my brush popped out of my hand. Then I felt another kick in my ass.

I looked up. One of the men picked up my brush and threw it to Pot Belly, and they all jumped in the truck. I spit the little rocks, dirt, and blood from my lips and looked at the eyes of the other men in the car. “Use that in a sentence, you nigger son of a bitch,” Pot Belly yelled. Red dirt started pouring out of the back of that truck and they slowly rolled away. I sat there on the ground swallowing the taste of rocks. It felt like someone was tickling the back of my tongue with one of those square batteries.

I went in my pockets, grabbed those right-heavy rocks, and tried to break out their back windows. MyMy ran with me. She was beside me throwing rocks. Pot Belly’s voice was still back there laughing, pointing, teasing, watching me. The young boy that he had called a man was recording it all, too, on a cell phone. “Hey girl, hey,” Pot Belly yelled as the boy recorded it all. “You best don’t grow to be no nigger-lover. Leave Situation alone.”


I turned around in the middle of the road, wiped the dirt off my face, and walked back into the woods. “Move, MyMy,” I told her, and spit a bloody piece of the inside of my bottom lip on some sticker bushes.