After Tupac & D Foster Read online

  “She caught you out there, Neeka.” D laughed.

  “Can’t creep around Miss Irene,” I said. I did the creep-step from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video.

  “You lucky you don’t have some real mama all up in your stuff,” Neeka said to D.

  We got to the bus stop and D took a deep breath. The avenue was quiet the way it usually was. Most times, the loudest sound was the bus pulling up. But for a while, there wasn’t even that.

  “One day, my mama’s gonna show up again and things will all settle back to how they once was . . .”

  Me and Neeka looked at each other. It wasn’t the first time D had mentioned her mama coming back. Me and Neeka had believed her in the beginning. But after a lot of time passed with no real mama coming, we stopped. We didn’t tell D that. She was our girl and she needed to keep on keeping on like that.

  “That’s gonna be tight,” D said softly. “Real tight.”

  “Yeah,” Neeka said. “Until she puts you on lockdown worse than Flo.”

  “Or worse than your mama,” D said, and me and her started cracking up again.

  Neeka tried not to, but she couldn’t help smiling.

  “You remember how our mamas were when you first starting coming around?” Neeka said. “All suspicious and whatnot.”

  “Like you were going to ruin their innocent girls,” I said. “Meanwhile, Neeka already looking at every boy that got half a leg and—”

  “It wasn’t deep,” D said, cutting me off. A look came across her face, tired, old like a grown-up. “I would have been suspicious of me too—coming to this nice neighborhood out of nowhere. No mama or dad or even little sister to be coming over here with me.”

  “They got cool about it, though. My moms was just glad I had another friend,” I said.

  “And my moms was just glad you had some sense. And being how she seems to love kids so ding-dang much, she probably fell asleep dreaming me and you was a third set of twins in the family.”

  Me and Neeka laughed. D smiled, but she looked faraway. Like she was already on that bus and gone.

  “I used to be roaming all over the place,” D said. “And I’m glad because it got me here.”

  “Why didyou roam, though?” I asked. Whenever D talked about her roaming, I always asked why. I wanted to understand—deep—what it was like to step outside.

  D looked at me and shook her head. “Why? Why? Why, Miss Why? You know why.”

  “I know you be telling us why, but I still don’t get it. You say you want to see how other people be living, but that still don’t make a lot of sense to me.”

  “You really not curious about how other people be living?”

  “Yeah right,” Neeka said. “I guess you read all those biographies and all them other books just to feel the pages turning between your fingers.”

  “Shut up, Neeka. I’m talking to D. Doesn’t have anything to do with the books I read.”

  “Yeah it does,” D said quietly. She looked at me, her green eyes like tiny mouths asking me all these questions—Don’t you ever want to know the answers?they were saying. The real answers . . . to everything?

  “Uptown they got those fancy buildings. Out in Brooklyn they got those pretty brownstone houses. West Side got Central Park and people going all over the place in those bright yellow taxicabs.” D looked at us and I knew a part of her knew how much me and Neeka lived for the rare moments when she talked about her life, when she showed us where she’d been and, by doing so, we got to go to those places too.

  And then it made sense to me—crazy-fast sense in a way it hadn’t before. D walked out of her own life each time she stepped into one of those other places. She got off the bus or walked up out of the subway and her life disappeared, got replaced by that new place, those new strangers—like big pink erasers. Before me and Neeka started asking D about her life, we were erasers too—she got to step into our world, with all the trees and mamas calling from windows and kids playing on the block, and forget.

  “I can’t even imagine being as free as you,” Neeka said. “I’d be all over the place!”

  “That’s why your mama got you on lockdown,” I said.

  “Like yours doesn’t?” Neeka said back.

  D laughed, but then she said, “Some days I be feeling like I’m toofree.”

  “You really think there’s such a thing as too free?”

  “Heckio no!” Neeka said. “And I can tell you for a fact, D—you’d be kissing all that good-bye with a real mama.”

  D leaned her head on Neeka’s shoulder and smiled. “I’m done, girl. That’s what I’m saying. I seen everything I want to see. Lockdown like that? I’m ready. As long as it comes with my mama.”

  D started singing real soft “Dear Mama,” the Tupac song where he talked about having a beef with his moms but loving her anyway. D knew all the words and she moved real sweet when she did the rap parts. But when the chorus came on, she just stayed still and sung it—I love you. I need you. I appreciateyou—over and over until the song was done.

  We got quiet. An ambulance raced by, and way down the avenue, somebody started honking their car horn like they didn’t have any sense. It was June now and school was out for the summer. Our neighborhood was usually quiet even in the summertime. It had always been like that, boring and quiet with some kids and some teenagers and a whole lot of parents up in all of our business. It was the kinda block where somebody was calling your mama if you even talked too loud. Crazy how grown people liked their quiet.

  We loved D because she was our girl and because she’d been to places and seen things me and Neeka probably weren’t ever gonna see. Even though Flo had her on lockdown at night, D also had all this freedom in the daytime. I leaned against the bus stop sign and watched her and Neeka. Mostly I was the quiet one in our group, the Brain. Mostly I watched and listened. But I could watch until I was ninety-nine and I’d never be able to see what D saw.

  “The way I figure it,” D said, “we all just out in the world trying to figure out our Big Purpose.”

  “Oh, now you gonna go get all relevant,” Neeka said. Relevant was one of her favorite words. A lot of rappers used it and Neeka used it whenever she could too. “Well, drop your knowledge.”

  “I’m serious, Neeka. My Big Purpose ain’t about telling Flo to let me do whatever I want to do. I could do that and then be out on the street tomorrow. And the street is not my Big Purpose.”

  “What’s your purpose, then,” I asked. “I mean, what’s your BigPurpose?”

  D smiled.

  “You my girls,” D said. “You been my girls for a long time now and we tight like it’s all right. Everybody knows that. Everybody see us coming say, ‘Here come—’”

  “Three the Hard Way,” we all said.

  “I know I got this Big Purpose. And when I know what it is exactly, I’m coming right to y’all with the news.”

  The bus came and D kissed me and Neeka good-bye and climbed on. We watched her pay her fare, walk to the back and climb into a window seat. There were only a few other people on the bus and D pressed her forehead against the window and gave us the power peace sign. Me and Neeka gave it right back to her and stood there until the bus pulled away. She kept waving at us until the bus was way down the avenue.

  Then me and Neeka headed back to our block. We’d lived across from each other since we was babies. If Neeka wasn’t spending the night, she’d cross to her green house with the dark green shutters. Inside, Miss Irene would be fussing at the kids to be quieter and fussing at Neeka to help her get dinner ready before her daddy got home.

  My house was painted white and had dark red shutters at the windows. Mama worked most days, so a lot of the time it was just me, myself and I. Some days, I’d just lay back on my bed and stare up at my ceiling. I’d stuck these glow-in-the-dark stars up there and some days I’d just stare at them until the light faded enough to see them real clear.

  “You better call your mama the minute we get b
ack,” I said to Neeka.

  “Why? She’s probably still in the window clocking me.”

  “Just call, Neek.”

  Neeka nodded. Then we both got quiet. And stayed like that for the whole walk home.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Seems I’d always known Neeka. From our first baby steps, I remember the big hands of our mamas lifting us up out of the playpen. I remember the smell of our mamas’ coffee and the way their voices got all quiet when they were gossiping while me and Neeka chased each other around their legs and laughed at stupid stuff, like Elmo and the way dust turned all shiny when it got in front of some sun.

  Neeka had come running to me first when she kissed Tony Anderson in her hallway. “His lips tasted funny,” she’d said, scrunching up her face. “Like old cigarette ashes or something.” And later on, when we’d seen Tony up at the park, him and his boys passing a cigarette around, Neeka had run back home and started rinsing her mouth out real hard with mouthwash and a washcloth.

  “How come you let me kiss that nasty old boy,” she’d said. And I just sat there on her toilet seat, laughing at her craziness.

  But D was different. She just appeared one day. Summer wasn’t even over yet but fall was already turning a few of the leaves on our block red and gold. Me and Neeka had bought matching jean jackets with white stitching on the pockets for when school started and we’d worn them that day with these brown velvet pants we had. We’d walk up and down the block thinking we were bad, but we were just hot in our fall gear. We’d come back and sat down, hot and sweaty, on Neeka’s stoop. Down from my house, some little kids were taking turns on a Sit ’N Spin toy and we watched them, one by one, get up off of it and fall down on the ground from dizziness.

  When I looked away from watching them, I saw her standing across the street, leaning against somebody’s gate, watching us. Something about the way she stood there, just looking—no smile, no frown, nothing—it just caught something in me. Made my heart jump a bit. Something about the way she stood there was real familiar to me, like the way I’d want to stand someplace new and watch people I didn’t know.

  “Who’s that girl over there, staring us down like that?” I said to Neeka.

  Neeka looked to where D was standing and shrugged. Then she stood up.

  “You looking for somebody?” Neeka said. It wasn’t a real unfriendly voice, just a little.

  “Not really.”

  And I guess she thought that was an invitation to cross the street, because that’s when she came over to us. I looked her up and down. She was tall and skinny and looked like she thought she was cute with her green eyes and pretty sort of half way of smiling at us. Her hair was in a bunch of braids with black rubber bands at the end of every single one. The braids were long, coming down over her shoulders and across her back, and her hair was this strange dark coppery color I’d never seen on a black girl—not naturally. She was wearing a T-shirt that said “HELLO MY NAME IS” in green letters, only there wasn’t a name after that, so it didn’t make any sense whatsoever. I looked down at her feet. She had on white-girl clogs like you saw on the girls on TV—the ones with blond hair who lived in places like California and Miami or somewhere. Everything about her was screaming I’m not from around this way.

  “Those your real eyes?” Neeka asked, right off. I’d never seen green eyes up close like that, but that wouldn’t have been my first question.

  “Yeah,” D said. “Everybody be asking me that. This is my own hair too. Color and everything. It used to be real light but it’s getting darker every year. Figure by the time I’m grown, it’ll be jet-black.”

  I stared at her. Wondering what it would be like to have hair that changed like that, to have eyes that green against that tannish skin. She looked back at me and for a minute, or maybe for a few minutes, we just stared—like we were trying to take in every single bit of each other—each of us trying to figure the other one out.

  “Y’all sisters?”

  “Yeah,” Neeka said. “We came from different mamas and different daddies, but we’re sisters.” She held up her hand and I slapped it, saying You know it.

  “You always dress the same?”

  Neeka shrugged. “You got a lot of questions for a stranger.”

  “You could ask me some questions too,” D said.

  “What’s up with the shoes?” I said.

  She looked down at her shoes, then back at me. Something changed in her face that made me sorry I’d asked.

  “They just shoes,” she said, looking off down our street. “I roam and they get me where I’m going.”

  Neeka looked at her, then leaned back and put her elbows on the stair above the one she was sitting on. “What’s your name?”

  “I go by D,” she said. “I don’t have no sisters, that’s why I’m asking about y’all.”

  “Well, I’m Neeka.”

  I told D my name and she sat down, a few steps below me and Neeka.

  “I guess I’m kinda like an only child.”

  I frowned. “Like? Either you’re an only child or you’re not. There’s no gray area.” I watched her for a minute to see if she understood about gray areas. I’d just learned it myself and was trying it out.

  “There’s gray,” she said. “If you don’t really know, right? If you have some idea but ain’t really sure.” D looked right at me again. I knew I liked her then, even if she didwear white-girl shoes. Mama was always saying I was a brain snob, that I didn’t like people who didn’t think. I didn’t know if that was snobby.Who wanted to walk around explaining everything to people all the time?

  “But you the only kid in your house?” Neeka asked.

  D nodded. “Yeah. Gets boring. So I roam.” She looked off down the street again. “This is a nice block.”

  “Dag, you lucky,” Neeka said. “I got about seventeen brothers and sisters. All running me crazy.”

  “She’s got four brothers and two sisters,” I told D.

  “Yeah,” Neeka said. “But you gotta count all the twins twice because they’re bad. By the way,” Neeka said to D. “Where is your house?”

  D kept looking out over the block. “Around the way. Gotta take a bus from here.”

  “Well, what made you take the bus from yourhouse over there in some vague place you don’t seem to want to reveal to us,” Neeka said, speaking slowly—like English wasn’t D’s first language or something. “To ourstreet on thisday and at this time?”

  D smiled. I didn’t know then that it was her real smile, the way her lips only turned up a little bit, the way her eyes got sort of sad. I didn’t know that smile was gonna stay with me long after D had roamed on back out of our lives.

  “I saw the trees,” D said.

  “The trees, huh?” Neeka was making a slow circle with her pointer down by her leg—the down-low cuckoo sign.

  “Yeah,” D said. “I saw all the trees and got off the bus and just starting roaming over this way. That’s how I found y’all. So here I am.”

  “Yeah,” Neeka said. “Here you are. How old are you anyway?”

  “Be twelve at the beginning of October.”

  I stared at D. She looked older than me and Neeka because she was a little bit taller and already had some body going on.

  “But it’s only August, so you’re eleven like us,” Neeka said. “We’re gonna be twelve next May. And you get to take the bus and the train by yourself ? And ‘roam’ all over the place?”

  “Sho’ thang,” she said, and it took me a minute to realize she was saying Sure thing—saying it like the rappers be saying it. “Who’s gonna be taking them with me?”

  “Dag! How long you been taking the bus by yourself ?” Neeka asked, trying not to sound too jealous.

  “Forever and a day,” D said.

  Neeka gave me a look. We weren’t allowed to go anywhere by ourselves.

  “Flo works,” D said.

  “Flo your mama?”

  D nodded. “Kinda.” She stood up and brushed off
her pants.

  Neeka rolled her eyes. “You got a lot of kind-ofs up in your vocabulary. You kind of vague.”

  D shrugged. “Yeah.” She looked up at the sky. “All I know is I been roaming all day. Figure I better get my behind home. Y’all want to walk me to the bus stop?”

  “Nah,” Neeka said, trying to sound bored. “I’m comfortable here.”

  “Me too,” I said. “Plus, we’re not really allowed to leave the block without permission.”

  D swung some of her braids over her shoulder. “Yeah, I met a lot of kids who can’t go nowhere. Their mamas be strict like that.”

  “You know a lot of other kids?” I asked her.

  D shrugged. “Not really . . .”

  “Here we go again with the vagueness,” Neeka said.

  “Nah, I’m for real,” D said. “I meeta lot of kids, but I don’t knowa lot of kids. Either they act shady or their mamas act shady, you know.”

  “People just stupid sometimes,” Neeka said. “Be thinking they know stuff and they don’t.”

  D nodded and her and Neeka smiled at each other. I almost felt jealous, but then I didn’t. Neeka’s brother Tash was a queen and people used to always try to talk junk about him around us. When we were little kids, me and Neeka would get into fights over it, but we finally just started ignoring and making believe it didn’t hurt us deep to hear people hating on Tash. I figured that’s what Neeka was talking about and if it was like a bonding thing, then we could all bond on it, because Tash was just as much my brother as he was Neeka’s.

  I looked down at my boots—they were new, dark green with black laces and thick soles that made me a little bit taller. But they were heavy and my feet were sweating and itchy.

  When I looked up, D was watching me. She’d tucked one of her feet behind her leg like she was trying to hide her white-girl clogs. “I guess I should get going. I’ll probably come back around this way, though.”

  “The trees’ll be waiting for you,” Neeka said. Then she smiled. “You got a rope?”

  “Yeah.”