Team Seven (2 page)

I snuck out of bed, pushed my toy chest up against the wall, climbed on top, and opened the window. I knelt down, leaning my face against the screen, breathing lightly so I could listen and see. My ears started to tingle and my cheeks got hot when I realized it was Pop and Uncle Elroy blowing that smelly-smoke into my room. I knew Pop was grumpy but I didn’t know he was a bad man. I didn’t think he was all that bad. I was confused.

If him and Uncle Elroy were foolish bad men then why did Ma and Aunty Diamond marry them? I wasn’t sure what it was, but I got a feeling something strange was going on with Ma and Pop.

I could hear the nearby dance hall music so clear, but their voices seemed to only break through the songs in jumbles. Pop and Uncle Elroy both talked Jamaican, not all the time like Papa Tanks and Grampy Battel, they turned theirs on and off. When they hung out together they turned their Jamaican accents on, real thick. At first I couldn’t understand what they were saying or talking about. So I started spying on them every night they were out there, and after listening to them a few weeks I started to understand a little bit. I learned that “Jah” has something to do with everything, and everything bad was somehow caused by “Babylon.” Whenever they spoke, everything they said started with “I an’ I” or “Brethren.” I also learned that they call their weird-smelling cigarettes “vitals.” After about three or four of those green-bottle sodas and two or three vitals apiece they’d go silent. Two red dots pulsing in the dark.

Every now and again the dance hall music would erupt into gunshots or police sirens and the whole song would flip into rewind and the DJ would scream out over the song. He’d yell Jamaican curses, there’s a bunch of them and they all end in a clot: pussy-clot, blood-clot, bumba-rass-clot, anything ending in “clot,” really. Or the DJ would say even more random stuff like “Bulla-Bread” or “To-Backfoot.” He would shout three or four words tops, and nothing more. Pop and Uncle Elroy would say weird stuff too, like “Selassie-I” or “To-blouse an’ skirt,” and they’d laugh so hard. Half the time they said no more than one or two words to each other. It’s like they didn’t even need words to be friends. I’d kneel, watching
them inhaling their vitals until I was dizzy with sleep or Pop said he was going to bed and I’d run back to mine.

Some nights Uncle Elroy wouldn’t come back upstairs to Aunty Diamond. Instead he’d hop the fence and cut through our neighbors’ yard heading toward the parkway. He wouldn’t say bye to Pop either, he’d just laugh and say, “Riddim and Spice,” and hop the fence. Pop would chuckle and call back, “N’everyt’ing nice.” Some nights after Uncle Elroy left, Pop would get up and hop the fence too. Sometimes he’d be home the next morning. Sometimes he’d be gone for days, sometimes weeks.

When he left, I just hoped it wouldn’t be for months like Uncle Elroy.

On the nights he stayed, I liked it better that way, but I couldn’t ever tell if he did. He’d just sit there all alone in the shadows. Without Uncle Elroy he didn’t listen to the radio. He’d sit in quiet, with one leg on the ground and one on the edge of his chair, rocking himself side to side, muttering to himself. I always tried but I could never quite hear him. Every once in a while he’d sigh real deep to himself, blowing smoke into the shadowy darkness. One hand holding a green-bottle soda and the other a burning vital.

As much as I spied on him, the one thing I never got to see was what was on his mind. What was out there for him in the streets on the nights he stayed away? When he was gone, I wondered if he was out looking for Uncle Elroy or off doing his own thing.

On the nights he stayed, I’d watch him sitting out there all alone and I don’t know why he always seemed so sad but I could just tell. I wondered if he wanted company. If I went out there and sat with him, would it cheer him up?

I wanted to go out there and sit next to him. Maybe rest my
head on his shoulder. I’d tell him that I liked the smell of his vitals. I’d ask him why that smell makes me dizzy and sleepy after a while. I’d ask him why he wanted to fry his brain, and if he knew that Ma thought he was a foolish and bad man. More than anything I wanted to know why he got so mad when I asked him questions and why he never took me out with him.

The nights he stayed I watched him until he’d yawn and stand up muttering, and I’d hop off my toy chest so he didn’t see me when he turned around and faced the house. I’d sit in front of my bed, waiting, listening, nervous that he might still change his mind, hop the fence, head toward the parkway and leave. Sometimes he would. Sometimes he wouldn’t. It wasn’t until I’d hear him rattling through the basement door that I’d smile and get in bed, happy and ready to sleep, wondering what made him stay.

Gemini stomped his feet on the platform, marching in place, pounding his chest as the crowd cheered. The camera zoomed in on his face and his bushy mustache stretched thin and he growled at the crowd and strapped on his headgear. He adjusted his elbow pads and locked his fingers, stretching his arms out and cracking his knuckles and bouncing his pecs. The camera moved to the other platform where the contender stood. Patrick Sullivan, a redheaded computer programmer from Los Angeles, California. He played wide receiver in high school and club dodgeball in college.

The American Gladiators logo floated across the screen and the picture zoomed in on Patrick’s freckled cheeks. He flashed a gap-toothed smile at the camera and scrunched his nose trying to look meaner as he pumped his bony arm at the crowd and the platforms began lifting him and Gemini up into the air.

“A’ joke t’ing dat.” Papa Tanks stood in the doorway of the den pointing at the TV, waving his fork back and forth. “Look ’pon the broad-back black man, he a’go kill him. Look how him scream up the place like a’leggo beast.”

“Who? Gemini? He’s my favorite Gladiator on the show. He beats everyone, Pa-Paw,” I said.

“Don’t correct me.” He pointed the fork in my direction. “No matter, whoever him is he wouldn’t beat me. He facing
off against a pink-skin mawga-dog. Him nah’ prove nothing, mashing up a lickle man.”

“But, Grampy, Gemini’s the man!” I crossed my arms and turned away from him. The announcers started explaining the rules, basically they’re jousting with each other using what look like giant Q-tips. First one to fall off their platform loses.

“Wha’ ya say? Him a’who? You na’ know him, wha’ mek him a man? I bet him couldn’t even cook a one blinking dumpling fi himself. How him a man if him na’ cook? Muscles na’ mek you a man. See, I am a man, the man of dis house. Me handle me business, protect me yawd, and na’ tek bright from no one.”

Papa Tanks grinned at me and turned his body to the side, flexing his biceps. His rubbery skin stretched tight, puffing out a maze of veins up and down his arms.

The referee walked into the arena and stood on the red bouncy pad below the platforms. He slipped his whistle in the side of his mouth and looked up at Gemini and raised an arm in the air.

“Gladiator, readaaay!!” Gemini rocked side to side, knees bent, slowly nodding yes.

The referee raised his other arm up and looked up at Patrick.

“Contender, readaaay!!”

Patrick snapped his head side to side and gave a thumbs-up. The referee leaned back with his hands above his head and right as he went to blow the whistle the theme music came on and it cut to commercial. Papa Tanks went walking into the kitchen shaking his head as he flipped the plantain frying on the stove. We watch
American Gladiators
every morning and every morning he stands in the doorway keeping an eye on his breakfast cooking on the stove, and I sit on the couch in the
front den eating my bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios. Each day he tells me about a new person he remembers from back home in Limón, Costa Rica. He says he and the rest of the Jamaicans that came over to work the fields were built like oxen.

He cooks breakfast for himself and Nana Tanks, because she’s got a cold in her knees and some mornings she can’t come into the kitchen because it hurts to stand up too long, so she stays in bed watching reruns of
Bonanza
. Papa Tanks always fries some ripe plantain and cuts up some hot dogs, onions, and tomatoes and makes an egg mix-up.

“You think you could beat Gemini, Pa-Paw?” I called into the kitchen.

He walked back over from the stove.

“Champion, you mad or wha’? A’dat you know!” I like it when Papa Tanks talks about how tough he is and flexes his muscles. Sometimes he even does push-ups in the doorway as we watch. “Me a’give him one rattid box in’a him head. Mek him drop like bird out’a sky. From you see how dem size nah match up, you know dem a’bad mind the lickle red hair bump-face boy.”

The show came back from commercial and the theme music played as the referee blew his whistle, and a blast of smoke blew up between Gemini and Patrick. When the smoke cleared, Patrick wagged his stick at his waist like he was rowing a boat. He leaned down pretty low and swung a few times at Gemini’s legs. Gemini’s eyes locked in on Patrick and he whacked him a few times until Patrick looked stunned and Gemini wound the jousting stick above his head like an ax.

He chopped down and Patrick dodged the strike.

Gemini lost his balance and swung the stick back trying to regain his footing, and Patrick jabbed his stick into Gemini’s ribs, and Gemini jerked to the side, dropping his jousting
stick. Before he fell off the platform he turned and caught the side of Patrick’s next strike and bear-hugged the padded end of the stick and pulled them both to the ground. It was unreal. I’d never seen anyone beat Gemini. Gemini roared out as they fell to the pad. When his body hit first, before Patrick’s, I got a jolt in my knees. I didn’t think about it, I just jumped up out of my seat and roared like I was Gemini myself, but instead of me hitting a bouncy pad, milk and Honey Nut Cheerios splashed up in the air and flew everywhere.

“Woi! Boychild, look how you bright up yourself, wha’ sweet you?”

“I forgot that my bowl was on my lap, Pa-Paw, but Gemini lost.” I looked down at the Cheerios stuck to my legs and the milk at my feet. “I just jumped. I’m sorry, Pa-Paw.” I felt my face getting hot.

“Mmm hhhmm.” He turned his head, gazed down at me sideways, folded his arms, and smirked.

“I is da real champion—in’a these parts.” He flexed his arm at me and we laughed. I looked up at him and he smiled at me and his new dentures gleamed. “I know, Pa-Paw, I know.”

He came over and put his hand on my shoulder. “You lucky Nana in’a she room this morning, eeh?” He rubbed the top of my head and patted my back a few times. “Come on, get a rag and clean up and pour a next bowl for yourself.”

I shook my head. “There’s no more cereal, Pa-Paw, and I only had two bites before I dropped it.” I sniffled and looked away.

“Ay, don’t cry, my yout’, you alright. We a’mek you some breakfast, eeh?”

He clicked off the TV and we walked into the kitchen and I got a rag and started wiping up the milk. He took the plantain off the stove and walked the plate in to Nana Tanks.

He came back into the kitchen with a footstool and set it down next to himself.

“Boychild, come here.” I walked over to him and stepped up onto the stool next to him. On the counter in front of me, he put a bowl with two eggs in it and a plate with a short butter knife and a hot dog. He had the same setup in front of himself except he had small pieces of tomato and onion on his plate.

“Hold your knife in your right hand and hold the hot dog steady with your left, and cut it into eight pieces.”

I cut the hot dog down into eight little pink nuggets and looked over at Papa Tanks.

“What now?”

“Crack the eggs. Watch me.” He took an egg and knocked it on the counter until its shell cracked and he pulled it open and the egg dropped into the bowl. “Now you try,” he said.

I picked up the egg and cracked it on the edge of the counter, pulled the shell and the egg fell in the bowl, but some of the clear part got on me and it felt nasty. I dropped my fork and stepped off the stool, wiped my hand on my shorts. I looked at Papa Tanks. “I don’t wanna cook, Pa-Paw, the egg juice got on my hands.” I looked up into the bluish-gray rims around his sagging brown eyes, and he scratched the bald spot on top of his head. He put his hand on my shoulder and looked at me and the wrinkles on his face hung smooth and I could tell he was about to tell me something serious.

“You must learn to cook. Man is only to need a woman for love. If your wife run off and leave you, you na’ go’ dead. Champion, get ya backside back up here.”

I could tell what he said was important, even though I didn’t understand what he was talking about exactly. I hopped back up on the stool and cracked my other egg into the bowl. Papa Tanks looked over and tipped my bowl toward him, and
smiled. I watched Papa Tanks cracking eggs for Nana Tanks’s breakfast too, only he took the yellow parts out of the bowl with a spoon and tossed them in the sink.

“Why’d you take the yellow parts out, Pa-Paw?”

“Them is called the yolk. I take it out ’cause Nana has high salt and too much weight squeezing at she heart. She even take pills to equal herself out. Pick up the fork and pop the yolks.”

I poked my fork into the yolk and watched the yellow ooze out. Papa Tanks splashed some milk into my bowl.

“Now stir them up,” he said as he mixed the eggs in his bowl.

Once the eggs were creamy yellow, Papa Tanks told me to hop down and he picked up the stool and walked it over to the stove and set it down next to himself. He turned on the fire and we sat at the kitchen table. I looked at the sales flyers for the supermarket and Papa Tanks read the newspaper until the oil heated up and I could see the air rippling over the frying pan.

“Come on.” Papa Tanks turned back to the counter and got both our plates. He handed me my plate of hot dog bits. “Here, drop them in the pan.”

I stepped up onto the stool and the oil swirled around in the frying pan. I forked the hot dogs into the oil. The oil splashed up and a haze of smoke started filling the kitchen. I jumped back off the stool again and almost fell, and Papa Tanks leaned back against the counter holding his sides trying not to laugh at me. I could tell he was laughing, so I crossed my arms and headed for the front den, but his big hand wrapped around my shoulder. “Where you running off to?”