Show and Prove (3 page)

T
his humidity keeps messing with my hair, man. Why did I spend an hour blowing it out last night?
You go to bed looking like Tony Manero and wake up looking like Juan Epstein,
Smiles be saying.
Just rock a Jheri curl and call it a day.
I told him that he was so funny I forgot to laugh. Smiles can snap on my hair, but if I make one little joke about his bougie school, he gets his BVDs in a twist. He lucky I'm keeping our tradition and hanging out with him today. In fact, I finally copied the Eddie Murphy tape I borrowed from him and plan to give it back to him today before he hounds me for it.

I'm in the bathroom putting my DA back in check when my mother barges in. “Willie, you hungry?”

Since she's talking food, I don't go off on her about disrespecting my privacy. “Starvin'.”

“How 'bout scrambled eggs and bacon?”

“Nah.” I blast some of my sister's Aqua Net on a stray lick and attack it with my comb. “Make sausage.”

She finally scrams so I can get fly for the Fourth of July. I waste another fifteen minutes on my hair, though, before I give up. It don't matter, because with the baseball cap I had
NIKE
airbrushed across the front of, I still look high post.

When I walk into the kitchen to eat, instead of cooking, my mother is clipping coupons from the Sunday paper. She hasn't made a thing—no eggs, sausage, toast, nothing. “Where's breakfast?”

She closes the paper, and on the table are food stamps. Ma pushes them toward me. “Get whatever you want.” Then she digs into her pocket for some change to put on the table. “And bring me back four loosies.”

Damn, she set me up. No way I'm going to the store with those cupones. “Send Gloria.”

Acheface comes into the kitchen on cue, wearing a bata and rubbing sleep from her eyes. “Gloria what? I didn't do nothing!”

“You're already dressed, Willie. If you wanna eat something, you have to go to the supermarket and get it.”

“Isn't that your job?”

My mother squints at me in that angry way she has. “You don't think I work enough?”

I almost laugh. Is she serious? “I work. You lounge around here watching telenovelas, reading
People,
and bochinchando on the telephone or the stoop.”

“Is that what you think?” I wait for Ma to mention the fire. I wish she would, I swear! Instead she asks, “You think that because I don't leave the house, I don't work? How many nights a week do you make dinner, Willie? And I don't mean heating up a can of ravioli on the stove for yourself.”

“You know I don't cook.”

“Right. I'm the one in this house who cooks, and when I cook, I cook for everyone, right? I don't just make dinner for myself and leave you two to fend for yourselves.”

“True,” says Gloria.

“This is a conversation between A and B,” I tell her, pointing between my mother and me. “C your way out of it.”

Ma shuffles the sections of the Sunday paper until she finds the classifieds. She shoves them toward me. “Willie, look through those classifieds and tell me how much a cook gets paid per week.”

Finally! I drop into a seat and scan the want ads. One thing I'll give my mother, she's a def cook. I find an opening for one and say, “This one pays a hundred twenty dollars per week.”

Ma tells Gloria, “Do me a favor and write that down.
Cook—one hundred twenty dollars.
” Then she turns back to me and says, “As much as I'm on your case to wash your plate instead of just leaving it in the sink, who ultimately does the dishes and cleans the kitchen?” When I refuse to answer, she says, “Gloria, look that up in the classified ads. Let's see how much I would get paid by someone else to do that.”

My sister finds an ad for a dishwasher. “Sixty dollars per week.”

“Write that down.” Ma turns back to me. “And even though you take your jeans to the cleaners, I take everything else you wear to the Laundromat. See if you find any openings for a laundry worker.”

“A hundred dollars per week,” Glo says excitedly. “Not as much as a cook, but way better than a dishwasher.” She adds that figure to the column of numbers she has scribbled in the margin of the paper.

Ma says, “And I don't just clean the kitchen. I clean the entire apartment—including your room, Willie—so let's see what they're paying maids these days.”

“Ninety-one dollars,” Gloria says.

“And I'm the one who manages the money, pays the bills, and all that. I have to read and answer all your notices from school, not to mention take your telephone messages like a secretary.”

“OK, here's an ad for a bookkeeper that pays almost two hundred dollars a week,” says Gloria, all eager beaver. “Oh, and this one for an administrative assistant pays two hundred twenty-five.”

“So add all that up.”

“Seven hundred and ninety-six dollars.”

I glare at them, my arms folded across my chest. “Not like you do any of those things for forty hours a week.” If this game isn't about finding my mother a job, I don't want to play anymore.

“You want to make sure these numbers are accurate? Run this household for one week. Because I don't want you to think I'm cheating,” Ma says, all sarcastic. “And if that's too much for you, we'll make it simple. For one week just do your own housekeeping. You put in the time and shell out the money to shop for your own food, cook your own meals, wash your own clothes—” He interrupts.

“Forget it,” I say. “I ain't that hungry.” Then I spin out the kitchen and toward the apartment door.

Ma chases after me with the cupones. She even grabs at my arm and tries to stuff them in my hand. I elbow her off me and open the door. “After you add up the dollars and hours, come back to me. Then we can talk about how much is a fair amount for you to pay me to be your mother, since welfare is not enough.” I rush out and through the closed door she yells her usual threats. “One of these days te voy a dar un pescozá if you keep being disrespectful!”

I take the side streets to Moncho's shop. Used to be this was too early for Junior and his crew to be out there hustling. Nowadays, dealers and crackheads hit the street as soon as the sun comes up, searching for each other like star-crossed kids at some twisted prom.

As I walk past the supermarket, I peek into the window, and there's Blue Eyes at a register, staring at her nails. One time, after we were done getting busy at her place, Blue Eyes told me that her older sister Sandy got knocked up on purpose, hoping that welfare would open her own case so she could move out of their mother's apartment. That's when I knew I had to quit Blue Eyes before she trapped me, too.

Moncho's in the barbershop alone. “What's up, Monch!” I slap him five.

“Hey, Willie!”

“Nike.” I point to my cap before taking it off. “Can't rap to some biddy with this nest on my head. Cut it close but leave the tail.”

Moncho makes a face. “You homeboys wear your hair too damn long.” He reaches for an apron and flaps it open. “Tails, cornrows, Jheri curls…all that's for girls.”

“You too ol'-school, Monch.” He's also a businessman. Moncho'll do any style you ask irregardless and do it right.

“Want I should use the razor?”

“What the hell.” It's getting hot, and it ain't like it won't grow back like weeds. I sit in his chair, and he ties the apron around my neck.

“Came at the right time. In an hour this place is gonna get packed,” says Moncho. “Everyone wants to get fly for the holiday.”

“Word.” Every year Smiles and I head downtown to watch the Macy's fireworks. When he decided to go to Dawkins, I thought for sure he'd dis me for some rich kid's cookout in the Hamptons, wherever that is. So far Smiles hasn't flaked on me. Yet.

I glance over at the bulletin board above the mirrors. Sure enough, there are at least five flyers for hip-hop concerts going down over the holiday. Maybe Smiles and I should skip the fireworks this year. “Yo, Moncho, let me see that flyer right there.” I point to the yellow one with a drawing of a b-boy spinning on his head. Moncho plucks down the flyer and hands it to me. At the T-Connection on White Plains Road tomorrow, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five are going to battle the Funky Four Plus One More. “This looks fresh.” Even though Smiles likes the harder sound of that new group Run-D.M.C., I bet he'd gladly drop six bucks—only five with the flyer—to watch these crews rhyme. “Can I keep this?”

“Llévatelo,” Moncho says as he takes his electric razor to my scalp. The vibration against my head feels like a massage, and I imagine that the clumps of hair falling to the linoleum are shedding my problems with them. “I've got a magazine back there I've been keeping for you, too. They got an article 'bout that place downtown you like to go to.”

“The Roxy?” I haven't been there since I broke up with Vanessa after she made such a scene. Got to let enough time pass before I show my face there again.

“Eso es.” With most of my hair gone, Moncho puts down his razor and pulls out his shears. “Those Rock Steady guys are getting famous.”

“They were in that movie
Flashdance.
” My stomach kicks with jealousy. “Blink and you missed 'em, 'cause the movie's about the girl dancer anyways.”

“I be seeing you dancing out there.” Moncho snips around my ears. “You're good.”

“I know.” Then I spot the flyer with the opportunity of a lifetime. There's a battle at the Roxy—on my birthday no less—judged by none other than Hazardiss of the Rock Steady Crew. A lot of times when I'm dancing, I fantasize about confronting him at a concert at the Bronx River Center. When Afrika Bambaataa spins “Planet Rock,” I challenge Haz to a battle, busting my freshest moves and dusting that toy. So impressed with my skills, Rock Steady asks me to join them, and then I'd be off to the next Rap City Tour, traveling to England and France with new homies Fab 5 Freddy and Ramellzee. But this is better than any fantasy. I'll go down to the Roxy and, after taking out all the other suckers, call out the judge for everybody to see. No better way to spend my birthday—going back to the place to be and staking my claim to fame. The only thing I need to bring is a fly routine, some friends, and a fly girl. I grab the flyer, fold it and stick it in my back pocket.

“Look at what the cat done drag in.” Junior's ace coom boom Booby and his tail Pooh diddy-bop through the door. “More like drag out, 'cause he's been dodgin' a nigga.”

“I ain't dodgin' nobody.” I look around for Moncho, who finished my cut and broke out somewhere while I was lost in my daydream. I whip off the apron, pop my cap on my head, and consider breaking out, even though I haven't paid him. He knows I'm good for it, and I can get that magazine anytime.

“He's only messin' with you, Nike,” says Pooh, punching me hard in the shoulder. The pain shoots up my neck, but I keep a straight face. “What's up?”

“Nothin' much.” I don't trust Pooh, but best to play the role. “You still messin' with that girl on Willis?”

“Nah, man, that crab quit me, and guess who for.” Booby laughs and throws himself into a barber chair like it's his couch at home. “That who-ah dumped me for Junior.” He waits for me to comment on that, but I know better. “Not for nothing, he's my homeboy and all, but you know how he be acting like he Big Bank Hank or something.” True as that is, I'll be damned if I'm gonna agree so he can run tell Junior,
Nike was poppin' shit behind ya back.
Then Pooh asks, “Yo, your homegirl—the Rican chick with the braids—she got a man?”

“Cookie?” I get hot and don't even know why because I ain't even down with her like that no more. “Ask me if I care.”

“Yo, Javi was like, ‘Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina in the mooornin',' ” sings Pooh. Booby cackles, and for a moment I'd like to slug 'em both. I don't want to think of Cookie like that, but she's not my sister, and I told her back then Javi was no good. She ain't listen, and I've got enough problems.