Team Seven (11 page)

“Four on the floor, Andre Battel,” he said as his bushy eyebrows arced toward his receding hairline. I was surprised he already knew my name, but then quickly remembered what Nina had told me. He waited until I put all four legs of my chair on the ground and then he dropped the syllabus on my desk.

The first unit was on Newton’s three laws of motion. Our homework assignment was to read the handout he’d given us explaining the whole concept and to come to class prepared to
ask any questions. I read the handout and the concept seemed simple enough to me. Stuff doesn’t move unless something makes it move. Once something’s moving it’ll keep moving until something stronger stops it. It refreshed my memory, we learned that crap at the end of last school year. It seemed like the lab we did where we poured vinegar into a beaker with baking soda inside and it bubbled and fizzed over.

The second day of class, I had no questions, so I sat in the back of the room gazing out the window, bored out of my mind. Even though it’s been two years now, I still daydream about having recess, being able to run off a little steam in the middle of the day. It was the only thing I looked forward to about school and I don’t know why they took it away.

It’s so hard to sit through class with nothing to look forward to. My problem accepting school with no recess is what made my sixth-grade teachers start calling me a wanderer. I’d find any excuse to slip out of class and I’d walk around the hallways making faces at my friends in their classes, looking for someone to help me find recess, but all I ever found was myself in the principal’s office. My guidance counselor, Ms. Judge, was the one who called Ma and told her the teachers noticed that I was having trouble sitting through class. She recommended Ma take me to the doctor and get me tested for attention deficit disorder and that I start going to the “resource room.” Ma reluctantly agreed to me going to the “resource room” for more specialized attention, but when Ms. Judge kept urging Ma to get me tested for that attention disorder, Ma got really angry.

I was in the living room when Ms. Judge called and I heard Ma tell her that I was an energetic growing boy and that I didn’t have no attention disorder, I just needed to listen better and behave. She also told Ms. Judge that her problem was that
instead of working with the kids, she was trying to medicate all their personality away and that it was the last thing she was going to do to me. Ma ended the call and told me that they just don’t know how to deal with kids who are strong-minded.

The kids at school call the “resource room” the “romper room” and they say only Skippys and Speds have to go there. God did not skip over me when he was giving out brains and I never really imagined myself being a special ed kid. At first I hated it, I sat out of window range so no one would see me in there with all the slow kids. I didn’t really need extra help all the time, and I hate the way Ms. Lenny talks to me like I’m dumb, always hinting me toward the right answer. There was a bunch of times I tried to tell her that I was okay and didn’t need her help nor did I belong in there with the slow kids, but it was like screaming underwater—it did no good. Soon enough I just gave in and got used to having Ms. Lenny breathing over my shoulder and spoon-feeding me the answers. I’m not stupid, class is just boring as hell but most of the time I got all my homework done before I went home. I hardly ever bring any homework home anymore, leaving me plenty of time to play basketball after school.

The resource room was my next class after science and Mr. Stow’s deep voice felt like a sleeping pill, making time crawl. All I wanted to hear was the bell ring. It was warm outside and the window was open and a bluish-green dragonfly flew into the room. I watched it dart around for a while, it stole the entire class’s attention while Mr. Stow was writing on the board. When he turned around and realized everyone was watching the dragonfly, he rolled up a piece of newspaper and swatted at it until it flew back outside.

Everyone refocused on him and I looked around the room.
It felt like church, everyone was involved in something I didn’t completely understand. I mean, I understand church is about God, the pastor, and the congregation, and school is about class, teachers, and students, but what makes people pay attention and listen to teachers and pastors the way that they do? Looking around the room at everyone taking notes and paying attention, I just couldn’t figure it out.

I got tired of thinking, the heat in the room made me start feeling sleepy, so I raised my hand and asked Mr. Stow if I could use the bathroom. He gave me a hall pass and I left. I figured maybe if I stretched my legs a little bit it would take the edge off. I was only gone for about ten minutes, which was good considering how long I would’ve been gone for last year. He didn’t even have to send someone to come looking for me.

When I walked back into the classroom all my classmates were staring at me and giggling. I sat down at my desk and looked up at the blackboard and my name was written in big capital letters under the word “Detention” in the top right-hand corner of the board. All my classmates were sneaking glances at me and I felt my hands start shaking. My stomach dropped and I started feeling my heart beating in my throat. I couldn’t catch my breath, it sort of felt like I was breathing into a small paper bag. I raised my hand.

Mr. Stow paused his sentence about inertia and called on me.

“Excuse me, sir! What’d you give me detention for? I wasn’t even in the room. How’d I get detention when I wasn’t in the room?”

I couldn’t hide the anger in my voice. I crossed my arms and glared at him. He snapped the piece of chalk in his hand and his face soured as his blue eyes narrowed on me. He said, “Mr. Battel, you were gone much longer than it takes to use
the washroom. Now please stop interrupting. We can discuss this after class if you’d like, but for now—Newton’s first law of motion.”

He turned his back on me and wrote Newton’s first law of motion on the board:

Mr. Stow turned back toward the class and wiped two big yellow streaks of chalk dust on the pockets of his black corduroys.

“Let’s see if I can give a more practical example of the law of inertia. Say, for example, a student decides to go off wandering the hallways because he or she is bored. So boredom is what set the student wandering. Unless I, the teacher, stop this wandering, it may never stop.” He was looking straight at me but swung his arms wide while asking the class, “Now, does that make sense?”

No one answered him, the bell rang, and everyone started packing up their stuff. He walked over to the door, saying bye to everyone as they walked out of the room. As I walked toward him I put my head down and brushed past him.

“See you at two o’clock, Mr. Battel,” he called to me as I walked up the hallway heading toward the resource room.

When school let out I walked straight to Kelly Park to play some basketball. I didn’t show up for Mr. Stow’s detention because I hadn’t done anything wrong. What gave him the right to keep me after school for being at the bathroom too long? What if I’d had the bubble guts or something? I didn’t, but what if I did? After school, before the streetlights come on
and Ma gets home from work, my time is mine. I don’t need Mr. Stow busting my balls. I get enough headaches just being at home. Between Ma, Nina, Nana Tanks, and Aunty Diamond, there’s enough eye rolling, finger snapping, and teeth hissing to last me a long while. Especially now that Aunty Diamond and Ma been beefing. Aunty Diamond started it really, she’s crazy. She thinks the entire world has beef with her, but I think it’s the other way around.

When Aunty Diamond divorced Uncle Elroy, she got all weird. She started wearing all black and stopped hanging out with us and talking to Ma, and even though she lived upstairs in their apartment, she started being mean to Nana and Papa Tanks. She’d explode on them for the pettiest things, like one of them warming up her leftovers the day after she ordered food. She stayed in her room and didn’t really come out unless she was going or coming from work, getting something to eat from the kitchen, or using the bathroom. She wouldn’t even come out of her room to eat with us on Thanksgiving. She’d come out maybe for Christmas but that was only if one of her two boyfriends was around. There was her skinny, pale-as-pasta boyfriend Lex, he’s Haitian and deejays on the weekends but he ain’t got no real job. He’s usually hanging around the house waiting for Aunty Diamond to get off work. That’s only until she gets sick of him always mooching off her, which seems to be every couple of weeks, and she throws him out and calls her married boyfriend Brent. He’s not around as much, but sometimes I can never quite tell who I might see upstairs in Nana and Papa Tanks’s apartment.

This summer, after years of acting like all of us didn’t exist, Aunty Diamond emerged from her bedroom like an animal fresh out of hibernation. One night we were sitting down to eat dinner when Aunty Diamond knocked at our back door.
She had a bright smile, a paper plate and plastic spoon in her hand. She looked ready to sit down and eat dinner with us. Ma stood in the doorway. Aunty Diamond sniffed over her shoulder, “Smells good, Ruby. Whatcha making?”

Ma didn’t budge from the door.

“Nice to see you, Diamond. Wish I’d known you were being social again, and maybe I’da made enough food for a guest.” Ma closed the door, she didn’t slam it but it didn’t seem as if their conversation was over. The next morning I woke up really early. I sat eating a bowl of cereal while Ma was in the shower, Aunty Diamond snuck downstairs and shushed her finger to her lips and crept into Ma’s room. She came out with an armful of Ma’s work dresses. Again she shushed her finger to her lips, laughing like we were playing some kind of game. She skipped back upstairs. Ma got out of the shower and noticed immediately. She went upstairs in her bathrobe and I couldn’t hear what they were saying but I heard yelling. As I was finishing my bowl of cereal Ma busted through the back door with all of her dresses in her arms. Aunty Diamond was behind her and Ma slammed the pile of dresses on the ground and blocked Aunty Diamond from coming into our apartment.

“Ruby, just let me wear the dress,” Aunty Diamond demanded.

“Diamond, you can’t just up and decide we’re sharing clothes, especially when before yesterday it’s like you didn’t even know my phone number. Why didn’t you ask me first? That’s your problem. You just do whatever you want to people. But I’m done letting you walk all over me.”

Aunty Diamond folded her arms, looked at Ma. “So quick to burn a bridge, Ruby. Don’t forget, one day you might need something.”

Ma slammed the door in her face and Aunty Diamond yelled, “Bridge burnt, Ruby!” and walked back upstairs laughing this evil high-pitched witch-sounding laugh. Ever since Aunty Diamond started coming back out of her room it’s like she feels like Ma owes her something. Whenever Ma gets anything, Aunty Diamond wants it, no matter what it is, money, a new hairstyle, a dress, a new set of friends. It just seemed like Aunty Diamond was plain jealous of Ma and everything she did. She’s always trying to compete with Ma but the one thing Ma has that Aunty Diamond will never have is kids. In this department Aunty Diamond can’t compete, and she’d complain to me and Nina and get mad at us, claiming we always forgot about her, leaving her out of the things we did as a family. I try to avoid her when she’s around the house, she’s forever crying and complaining when there really isn’t much for her to be bitching about. She’s always swearing to the high heavens that the world doesn’t care about her. The weirdest thing about Aunty Diamond is that we’re so broke all the time, it’s crazy to even think we got anything for her to be jealous of. She has her own car, pays no rent living upstairs, has a full-time job, and supports Lex the full-time mooch. She has the most money out of anybody in the house and she seems the most miserable too.

Besides that, ever since Pop took me out to Lynn and forced me to meet EJ and his fat-ass mother, it’s the only thing I can think about. I never told Ma or Nina about what happened that day or where he took me. I didn’t tell so I could protect Pop either, I didn’t want Ma to feel bad about trying to do something nice for me. I can still hear his voice ringing in my head, fooling me into thinking that the whole thing was okay, “Now, Dre, who in da world said we haf ta tell ya mudda ’bout dis. When your friends at school do things, do you tell your
teachers? I am your friend, right? So why would we have to tell her?”

I knew there was something flawed about his reasoning and the more I thought on it, the flaw was that me and him ain’t friends, he just wanted to cover his ass. Ma’s been suspicious of me since that day, no doubt. She asked me why I came walking around the corner and why Pop didn’t drop me off in front of the house. I panicked and told her that I’d asked Pop to drop me off at Kelly Park because there was good run up at the courts. I told her I’d played for a bit and came home. She asked why I wasn’t sweating and I didn’t answer her. I could tell she didn’t believe me, but she didn’t press the issue any further. I didn’t know how to tell her what’d happened. I was mad at Pop, mad at myself, and I didn’t want Ma to feel bad about setting the whole thing up. Plus, there was no telling what would happen if Ma found out. Now when I’m home I try to stay in my room listening to music or upstairs in the den watching cable. If I’m not doing either one of those things I try to be asleep. Ma always asks me what’s wrong and I always tell her nothing, but the weight of the secret from my birthday has been weighing me down, thoughts and images from that day are always playing in my head, bouncing around and itching at my brain like a mosquito bite. I want it all to go away but it seems ain’t nothing that can be done to change the truth.

I don’t know what I thought was going to become of the detention, and I knew better than to tell Ma about it, so I did like Nina, acted liked I didn’t care and let it ride. I needed to be at Kelly Park, at the basketball court. It’s the place where my standing doesn’t change as long as I work on my game. It’s where I have control over how people judge me. The basketball court is the only place where everything that makes me uncool doesn’t matter. I can turn it all over on its head. It
doesn’t matter that my sneakers aren’t name brand or that my father’s a deadbeat, or that Ma doesn’t drive a nice car. At the basketball court it’s simple, all that matters is putting the ball through the hole, whether or not you’re good at it. There’s a big gap between talking and talented and everyone’s truth is revealed at the basketball court.