The Black Kids(71)

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We don’t talk the entire way back to Trevor’s dad’s car. When we finally get there, I look down to see that it’s been keyed, like somebody ran their house keys along the length of it in a series of uneven stripes. I guess I’m lucky in the grand scheme of things. It could’ve been stolen.

“Fuck,” I say.

LaShawn looks back in the direction of his grandmama’s house, worry keyed across his face.

“I’m sure they’re okay,” I say. “We can try calling again in a little bit.”

Above us helicopters whir, suspended in a cluster in the sky. Watchful floating eyes.

I get into Trevor’s dad’s car and start the engine. The car begins to move, but barely. It sounds kinda like a fork in a garbage disposal. I get out of the car again to inspect it. The front tire on the passenger side puckers with several deep, intentional gashes, wounds that can’t be patched.

When I finally look up from inspecting the tire, I notice for the first time the fresh graffiti on the wall across from us, maybe even written by my sister or somebody like her, a call to revolution in big defiant loops across the brick.

LA REVOLUCION ES LA ESPERANZA DE LOS DESPERADOS.

Revolution is the hope of the hopeless.

And then I start to laugh.





CHAPTER 19


ACROSS THE PAY phone windows, letters are scratched and marked with intent and occasionally with flourish, letting people know somebody was here, that this place belongs to somebody or somebodies.

Nobody is home. Not Lucia, not my parents, not Jo. My friends are at prom, and, let’s be honest, they’d probably leave me stranded here, anyway. I stand inside the phone booth and flip through the white pages while LaShawn stands outside, alert, watching.



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Unlike that silly Girl Scout song, I’m beginning to think maybe it’s actually my new friends who are better. Or maybe it’s just dumb to rank friendships at all.

“What happened to you two?” Lana says.

I look down at my dress, slightly torn and covered in grass and mud. LaShawn’s suit hasn’t fared much better. We look like the kids who only barely survive a horror movie.

Pham flings open the car door, sparkling in a purple feather boa. He kisses me on both cheeks. His breath smells of whiskey.

“Little troublemaker,” he says.

LaShawn steps forward to shake Pham’s hand. “Hi, I’m LaShawn. I go to school with Ashley and Lana.”

“So tall! Handsome boy!”

Pham throws the boa around LaShawn’s neck. He kinda has to jump to do so, since he’s so short and LaShawn is six-foot-three and still growing. LaShawn laughs. Then Pham goes to the back of his car and retrieves a donut tire.

“Where’s Brad?” I ask.

“Brad can’t fix shit.” Pham laughs.

“I thought Trevor was your date,” Lana whispers.

“It’s been a very long night.”

“Hold the flashlight,” Pham says to whoever’s listening. I walk over and shine the light on the slashed tire. He crouches down and removes the hubcap, then begins to crank the lug nuts loose. He tumbles back a little before righting himself.

“Is he sober?” I ask.

“Nope. Definitely not. But I drove,” Lana says. “We just got back from a party when you called.”

He places the jack under the car and raises the wheel up, up, up. He works quickly, like somebody who’s done this many times before, like he could do it in his sleep, humming to himself as he removes and replaces and tweaks and lowers and replaces again before standing up and wiping his hands clean on his party pants.

“All done.” Pham grabs his boa back from LaShawn’s neck. “Allons, les enfants! Aujourd’hui la vie est belle…”

LaShawn and I get back into Trevor’s car and follow them to Lana’s house, driving slowly so we all stay together.



* * *




Pham tells us to sit down in their living room, so we do. He asks us if we want tea, then rushes to the kitchen to put a pot on the stove before we can answer.

“Get up, Brad, we’ve got company!” I hear him yell from the kitchen into the house.

“So you guys were at a party?” I say.

“Well… kinda,” Lana says.

One of their friends is dying. An artist Brad’s exhibited at the gallery. Not old—only thirty-one, which is a real grown-up, but not, like, grandpa age or anything.

I don’t know anybody who’s died of AIDS, but I’ve seen the AIDS quilt, with its patchwork of grief and love and protest. It came to town and they took us on a field trip to see it, but some of the parents protested and started a petition arguing that the school was encouraging deviant behavior.

Kimberly’s mom tried to get my mom to sign the petition when she came to pick Kimberly up from my house one day. Lucia answered the door. My mother paused Jane Fonda mid leg-lift; walked over to our front door glistening in her pink leotard, purple leg warmers, and white Reeboks; and told Ms. McGregor to her face that the petition was “ludicrous and hateful.” Then she turned around and went back to her video while Kimberly and I said a muted goodbye. I thought that was pretty ballsy of my mother. Every so often, I think maybe my parents are kinda cool.