Darnell Rock Reporting (6 page)

Tamika got some newspapers and put them down, and then they laid the bike on the papers and started spraying it.

“You said you told Larry what colors to get?” Darnell asked his sister.

“Yeah.”

“Well, he only got one color/' Darnell said, holding up the two cans of navy blue spray paint.

“Well, that's all he needs,” Tamika said. “This bike is going to look like Batman's motorcycle.”

“No, it's not,” Darnell said. “It's going to look like a bicycle painted blue.”

“That's ‘cause you can't paint,” Larry said.

“Paint it yourself!” Darnell said. He put the paint can down and started up the stairs.

“Come on, give us a hand,” Larry called to him.

“I got things to do,” Darnell said.

“Come on, Darnell!” Larry called again.

When Larry and Darnell had an argument and Larry was sorry, he would always stretch out Darnell's name so that it sounded like Darn-Nell.

Darnell turned and pointed at his friend. “I'll see you later, Lar-Ree!” he said.

“Okay,” Larry said. “See you later.”

Darnell started up the long flights of winding stairs. When he got to his door he heard the phone ringing. He got in and grabbed the receiver. It was Benny Quiros.

“What's up?”

“You hear the news?” Benny asked.

“What news?”

“Linda went into the boys' locker room after the wrestling match,” Benny said.

“Linda Gold?” Darnell asked.

“Yeah, she said she wanted to interview them,” Benny said. “Only they were undressed when she went in, and she didn't even care.”

“How come you calling me up to tell me that?” Darnell said.

“You're the only newspaper guy I know,” Benny said.

“So, Dad, how do you feel?” Darnell sat on the end of the couch.

“What do you mean, how do I feel?” his father asked.

“You feel good?” Darnell asked. It was Saturday morning and his mother and Tamika had gone to their folk guitar class, leaving Darnell home with his father.

“I feel okay,” his father answered. He moved the remote from one side of his lap to the other, away from where Darnell was sitting.

“So tell me,” Darnell said. “How come you ended up with a place to stay and a family and everything and Sweeby ended up—you know—like he ended up.”

“Sweeby? Sweeby Jones?”

“Yeah.”

“Where you meet him?”

“Over on Jackson Avenue,” Darnell said. “He looked like a homeless dude.”

“Probably is!” his father said. Darnell saw his father's jaw tighten and relax.

“You mad because I saw him?”

“No.” Mr. Rock's shoulders lifted and dropped. He turned toward Darnell, and there was the suggestion of a smile on his face. “Hey, he didn't say anything wrong to you, did he?”

“No.”

“Well, I'm not mad at you for seeing him,” his father said. “He told you he knew me?”

“Yeah. He said you and he were in Vietnam together.”

“A hundred years ago,” his father said quietly.

“A hundred years!”

“Not really a hundred years,” his father said. “Just seems that way.”

“How come you're okay and he's … like he is?” Darnell asked.

“ ‘Cause I took care of business,” Mr. Rock said. “And he didn't. I come out the Army and looked for a job, took a few civil service tests, and got into the post office. Sweeby, he came out and talked some talk about getting into singing. I told him right then that singing wasn't nothing. Lots of people can sing but they ain't going nowhere.”

“You ever hear him sing?”

“Yeah, I heard him plenty of times. Once we were in ‘Nam, place called Cu Chi, and they had a little party. Nothing big, just something to get your mind off the war. An officer told him to go down into a hole and see if there was any Viet Congs down there. He got to the top of the hole and sang opera—that's what he sings—down into the hole. Damn Viet Cong came out and gave himself up.”

“Get out of here!”

“That's the truth,” Mr. Rock said.

“He sings opera?” Darnell asked.

“Yeah, but you can't just sing no opera. You got to study for ten, maybe fifteen years. Then you got to have a certain kind of voice. He should have taken the post office test.”

“Is he smart?”

“Not smart enough to take the post office test,” Mr. Rock said. He clicked the stations of the television, and Darnell watched as four stations in a row had commercials on.

“You don't think he could pass it?”

“He just didn't do the smart thing, like I did,” Mr. Rock said. “You got to be smart, know what's going on in the world, so you can see what you need to do. I came out and saw there weren't any jobs around, so I took the test. That's why I'm where I am and he's where he's at.”

“I'm thinking about interviewing him for the school newspaper,” Darnell said.

“What for? You should interview some successful people so kids learn how to be successful,” Mr. Rock said. “Anybody can learn how to be a failure.”

“You ain't mad?” Darnell saw the little veins in his father's temple move.

“No,” his father said. “Nothing to be mad about, is there?”

Darnell didn't want to say anything more. He knew his father was upset, but he couldn't figure out why. Maybe, he thought, his father had liked Sweeby and had wanted him to do better. Darnell
watched television with his father, but images of Sweeby Jones standing on Jackson Avenue near the fire kept coming into his mind.

On Sunday, after church, Larry came over and told Darnell that the chain on his bicycle had broken. Darnell saw that he was disappointed.

“Maybe we can get a new one Monday from that place on Monticello that sells used bikes/' Darnell said.

“Yeah, maybe,” Larry answered.

Sometimes Darnell measured time by how much trouble he had during the day. It seemed that if he was having a bad day, time just dragged by, but if he was having a good day, it would go by fast. Monday morning started off as one of the slow days. Mr. Ohrbach gave a five-minute math quiz. Two of the problems were about square roots, and Darnell couldn't remember how to do them. He started the next one, which was one of those problems about two trains coming toward each other and you had to figure out how far they had traveled when they met. One was going at sixty miles an hour and the other one was going at seventy-five miles an hour. Darnell looked at the problem, tried figuring out how far the first train could go in fifteen minutes, decided that was wrong, and then heard Mr. Ohrbach say that the quiz was over.

“Great work, Darnell,” Mr. Ohrbach said, shaking his head.

The test started the day off wrong, and nothing went particularly right after that. He had hoped for a
good day because he wanted to try interviewing Sweeby that afternoon, and he didn't want to mess that up. But by three o'clock, after the test and forgetting his sneakers for gym, he was almost ready to forget the interview.

‘To, Miss Seldes.” Darnell saw Miss Seldes turning the lock in the library door with the key that hung around her neck.

“Hello, Darnell,” Miss Seldes said. “The library is closed.”

“Yeah, that's okay,” Darnell said. “I just needed to ask you a question.”

“I only have a minute,” she said, already starting down the hall. “I have a meeting downtown this afternoon. What did you want?”

“If you interview somebody, what do you ask them?”

“You can ask them any questions you want,” Miss Seldes said. “As long as you maintain their dignity. Put yourself in the place of the person you're going to interview. Imagine how it feels to be asked the questions you want to ask.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Good luck with your interview,” Miss Seldes said, pushing into the principal's office.

“Thanks,” Darnell said, knowing that Miss Seldes couldn't have heard him. He went out the front door, stopping for a moment and shielding his eyes from the bright afternoon sun.

When his eyes had grown accustomed to the light, he looked over the schoolyard and finally spotted
Larry sitting with Mark Robbins. Larry said he had been looking for Darnell.

“How you looking for me when all you're doing is sitting here?” Darnell asked as they started off.

“I was waiting for you to come by,” Larry said. “I thought we could get the chain for my bike.”

“Okay, but I got some other stuff to do first,” Darnell said.

Freddy Haskell waved as he went by. He was carrying a football.

“Let's see the ball!” Darnell called.

Freddy threw the ball. Darnell caught it and spun around as if he were the quarterback in a game. “Go deep!”

Freddy started running, zigzagging around imaginary opponents, and headed toward the school buses. Darnell threw a long, lazy spiral and watched Freddy run under it and catch it in stride.

“Man, he can catch a football!” Larry said.

“That's because I know how to throw one,” Darnell said. “You got to put a spiral on it.”

“He can still catch a ball,” Larry insisted as they watched Freddy get on one of the buses. “What you have to do?”

“First we got to go to the supermarket and buy some pork and beans,” Darnell said. “Then we're going to interview Sweeby Jones. He's that guy I saw on Jackson the other day.”

“I'm not going to interview him!” Larry said.

“I got a tape recorder in my bag,” Darnell said. “We'll give him the pork and beans, and then we'll ask him the questions.”

“Why you going to give him pork and beans?”

“ ‘Cause he probably needs something to eat,” Darnell said.

It was the first of the month, and the supermarket was crowded. They met Eddie Latimer, who was shopping for his grandfather, and then they saw Angelica Cruz.

“Hey, Angie!”

“Hi, Eddie,” Angie replied. “Hi, Darnell, Larry.”

“Angie's one of my fly girls,” Eddie said.

“You wish!” Angie said.

“I'm trying to teach her how to kiss!” Eddie said. “But she won't take her glasses off and they get in the way.”

“Eddie, why don't you grow up?” Angie said. “Either that or get back in your cage!”

“Oh, man, she really dissed you!” Larry said.

“That's ‘cause we're in public,” Eddie said. “If you guys weren't here she'd be throwing me one of them wet kisses.”

“Eddie,” Angie said, pushing past them, “do me a favor and die twice!”

Darnell found the pork and beans and said goodbye to Eddie. “I don't think you better mess with Angie,” he said. “She can put you down in a minute.”

“I think she really likes me,” Eddie said.

“Yeah, especially if you do her a favor and die twice,” Darnell said. “Later!”

When they paid for the beans Darnell saw that Angie was in another line but she wouldn't look toward them.

Jackson Avenue was bustling with people. A beer truck was double-parked on the street, and the traffic guard was arguing with the driver. Some older boys were standing on the corner, and Larry nodded at them.

“I think they're in a gang,” he said to Darnell.

They went down Jackson, looking for Sweeby, and finally found him sitting on a milk crate outside a used-appliances store. There were two other men with him—a thin, brown-skinned man and an older man who was dark and had white stubble on his chin.

“We came to interview you,” Darnell said. He held out the beans. “For the school newspaper.”

“What's this?” Sweeby asked.

“Some beans,” Darnell said.

“What you giving me this for?” There was a sharp edge to Sweeby's voice.

“Thought you might like some,” Darnell said.

“I don't want your beans,” Sweeby said.

“What he give you? A can of beans?” the oldest of the three men asked. “What he think he is, the Salvation Army?”

“Can I ask you some questions?” Darnell asked.

“No!” Sweeby said. “Get out of here!”

“I heard you could sing,” Darnell said.

“Well, go back and ask your daddy the questions,” Sweeby said, standing.

Darnell and Larry started down the street. Darnell looked back and saw that Sweeby was still standing, his hands jammed into his pockets.

“What you going to do now?” Larry asked. “Were you supposed to interview him for the paper?”

“No,” Darnell said. “Just something I wanted to do.”

They went to the used-bicycle shop, and the owner, a short, dark man with a big stomach, gave Larry a chain he said he had taken off an old bike.

“How much?” Larry asked.

“You have a choice,” the man said. “One dollar or seventy-four dollars and thirty cents.”

“I'll take the one dollar,” Larry answered.

“How come I can't make any money in this business?” the man said.

When they reached Darnell's house, Tamika was in her room, and his mother said to leave her alone.

“What's wrong with her?” Darnell asked.

“Her friend is sick,” his mother said. “You know Molly Matera?”

“She's always sick,” Larry said.

“Well, she's sick again.” Darnell's mother looked into the bag that Darnell had put on the table. “Your father told you to buy that?”

“No, he bought it to give it to a homeless dude, but the homeless dude said he didn't want it,” Larry said.

“Shut up, Larry!”

“You did that?” his mother asked. “That was nice of you.”