145th Street Page 11

  I thought that was kind of mean but I knew my friend was hurting inside. She was only nine when her father passed but they had been real close. She always said that he had been her best friend before me. When Peaches was young he used to take her to the park and he would get right down in the sandbox and make castles and stuff with her. When we got older he would take me and Peaches to a restaurant on Saturday afternoons and make believe we were grown ladies and that was, like, super-cool. Having your father for a best friend was all right and I could see how she felt. But I could also see her mother’s point of view. Big Joe had loved her mama for a long time and he did own a Bar-B-Que joint that was the serious bomb. What’s more, it didn’t take geometry or nothing like that to see that her mama loved Big Joe, too.

  When the woman who’s the borough president announced that the city was sponsoring a street fair on 145th Street, I saw a chance to cheer Peaches up. Peaches and me are home girls and I can’t stand for her to be sad all the time.

  “So let’s go on to the street fair and eat some potato salad or whatever else they got,” I said.

  She said okay and I said we should wear our black pants and put on some fly tops in case any boys showed and she said she wasn’t in the mood for boys and she was going to wear the top she had on. Whatever.

  So we’re at the street fair and it looks like it could develop into something. They had hooked up some monster amps on a flatbed truck and the usual hoochie mamas were showing off their stuff. Me and Peaches, who are both on a conservative tip, were standing in front of my crib checking things out. I’m not homely but I don’t have Peaches’ looks so I was scopin’ and hopin’, if you know what I mean.

  Leroy hooked up some jams and the dancing started. I was wishing that somebody would come over to us because I knew Peaches loved to dance and I figured that maybe a little shaking would get her out of her bad mood. That’s when J.T. showed up.

  J.T. was tall and dark, had pretty eyes, a thin face, and he was built nice for a sixteen-year-old. The guys on the block said he could really play ball, too. But he was always in trouble. He had even been in the Juvenile Detention Facility last Christmas for snatching a white lady’s pocketbook You knew you were going to read about him in the newspaper one day or see his picture on television with his hands behind his back.

  “Hey, Squeeze, what’s happening?” he said.

  “Hey, J.T.,” I came back.

  He stood a little way from us and started eyeballing the food table. There was beans and rice, fried chicken, ribs, plantains, and corn on the cob.

  I pointed him out to Peaches and right away she got caught up in her attitude and talking about why J.T. had to come around to mess things up.

  “It’s a street fair and he lives on this street,” I said.

  “You know he’s a thief, right?” Peaches said. “And I got the money on me for the wedding gift.”

  Peaches and me had gone downtown earlier looking for a wedding gift for her moms and Big Joe.

  “Why are you going to spend two hundred dollars if you’re so messed around about the marriage?” I had asked her when we were walking out of Macy’s.

  “I got to get them something,” she said. “And I am not messed around about the marriage!”

  Whatever. Anyway, J.T. was slowly sliding over toward the eats.

  “What do you want?” Peaches asked him.

  “This is a free party, right?” he said.

  “So you coming around to cop what you can get for free?” Peaches asked in this nasty way.

  I didn’t want to get into nothing with J.T., because sometimes when boys go to those youth houses they come out dangerous, so I told Peaches to cool it.

  “Cool what?” Peaches put her hand on her hip. “I’m not scared of no J.T.”

  “Why don’t you just chill?” J.T. said.

  “Why don’t you just shut up?” Peaches got right up in J.T.’s face. “You shouldn’t even be talking to decent people. I know you’re sleeping in the street. You ain’t even got a home and you’re telling somebody to chill. Leave me alone!”

  Peaches was getting loud, flashing proud and drawing a crowd. People were turning to see what was going on. Mrs. Liburd, a little Bajun lady, came over and said we shouldn’t argue.

  “You’re such lovely children,” she said, reminding us that we didn’t need to be showing ourselves out.

  J.T. dropped his head and walked away. He went toward where I thought he lived. You could see the hurt in his eyes. It made me feel bad for him and for Peaches, too, because that’s not the way she shows when things go right.

  I thought about saying something to Peaches but I figured it wasn’t the right time.

  Some brothers with dreads started playing steel drums and that was getting us back to a good mood. The steel drums were on the money and when Big Joe showed up with a portable barbecue grill everything was everything. Peaches’ mom was working with Big Joe and they looked like a cool couple.

  “You want to go help them serve?” I asked Peaches.

  “They didn’t ask me to help them,” Peaches said.

  “Maybe because they’re afraid you’re going to chump them off,” I said. “Like you did J.T.”

  “They just don’t need me,” Peaches said. “I usually make the potato salad at home. Now she got him I guess she wants to eat his nasty potato salad.”

  I have eaten girlfriend’s potato salad and it’s not all that but I saved that for later. I went over myself to lend a hand.

  Big Joe had on his chef hat and an apron. He was slicing up the ribs and dipping them in the sauce. Peaches’ mama had on an apron and she was serving up some lemonade. Every once in a while she would glance over at Big Joe and give him a little smile and he would give her a little smile right back. I like to see that in old folks.

  Me and Peaches have been best friends for as long as I can remember but wrong is wrong and everybody knows what God don’t like. After a while Peaches did come over but she made sure nobody thought she was having a good time.

  “Hold up on the serving until we set out the trash cans,” Big Joe said.

  Big Joe was a real good cook and the food line was stretched halfway down the block.

  “Now hear this! Now hear this!” It was Leroy on the P.A. system. “Anybody who is already fat and greasy should get on the back of the line and please save me some food if y’all want me to play some decent music!”

  With the food going, the music blowing, 145th Street was like a huge rent party without the door charge. Everybody was having fun. Except for Peaches, of course, but you could see she was needing to work at being miserable. Then little Debbie, wearing a dress so tight you could see everything she had, said something to the guys in the steel band and they started playing a reggae version of “Here Comes the Bride,” which was corny but in an okay kind of way.

  Peaches smiled and I half smiled back at her.

  “You still mad at me, girlfriend?” she asked.

  “No,” I said, even though I was, a little.

  “Look, you want to come with me and I’ll take a plate up to J.T.?” she said. “I know I didn’t act right.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” I said. “Just let it slide.”

  “Right, so now J.T.’s mad at me, and I hurt my moms, and now my main girl is hurt, too.” Peaches gave me that smile she knows always gets around me.

  “You know you got a fast mouth, girl,” I said. “I don’t know how you can be so correct and righteous in your heart, and still fix your mouth to say all them mean things.”

  “As long as I got my Squeezie to get me straight I’m all right,” Peaches said. “Come on upstairs with me.”

  I really didn’t want to go up to where J.T. was. I was just happy that girlfriend was seeing where she was at. “I’m not going up there,” I said, but when she fixed a plate of chicken and greens and salad and said she was going anyway I naturally had to go with her.

  We covered the plate with some aluminum foi
l and went into the building next to John’s Fish House. The halls were kind of dim and the tin on the stairs rattled as we went up, Peaches going first and me behind her.

  “I guess I got to get used to my mama getting married, Squeezie,” Peaches said.

  “I think you do,” I said. “Same way she got to get used to it if you get married.”

  “She’s still wrong for marrying him so soon,” Peaches said.

  We went up to the top floor to where we thought J.T. lived and saw there was a padlock on the door. Peaches turned and looked at me and I looked at her.

  “Maybe they moved,” I said.

  We went back toward the stairs and Peaches stopped. She looked up past the landing that led to the roof. Then she started up even though there wasn’t much light up there. Like a good homey I followed.

  “Who coming up here!” The voice sounded like a growl more than a person and I was ready for some serious stepping.

  “It’s me,” Peaches said. “That you, J.T.?”

  “Get out of here!” J.T. stepped down in front of Peaches. He had his shirt off and he spread his legs and had his fists balled up.

  “We brought you a plate,” Peaches said.

  Wham! J.T. knocked that plate from Peaches’ hand and it went up against the wall.

  “What’s wrong with you, fool?” Peaches was up in his face again.

  “Get out of here!” he said.

  I was reaching for Peaches to pull her back because I didn’t want her to get hurt. Peaches came down two steps and turned back toward J.T. He was so mad the spit was flying out with his words.

  Then, just when I thought we were going to go on down and get back to the block party, Peaches started back up the stairs again. J.T. put his arm in front of her and Peaches grabbed it and started wrestling with him.

  “Don’t you touch her!” I heard myself screaming.

  J.T. slipped on the stairs and somehow Peaches pushed him down a little and ran past him up toward the roof. Something inside me just went crazy, like a heavy panic thing, and I tried to run up the stairs after her and J.T. put his hand right over my face and started pushing me back. I hit the wall and had to catch myself before I fell down the stairs. Then J.T. turned to go after Peaches. I caught his leg and he kicked me with his other leg and I had to let him go.

  So by this time I’m crying and my shoulder is hurt. Then I hear J.T. cursing again, and this time it’s cursing and almost the same growling noise he was making before. If it had been anybody else but Peaches, I would have been down the stairs in a heartbeat, but I couldn’t leave her in no danger.

  I got my teeth clenched up and went upstairs ready to scratch J.T.’s eyes clean out of his head if I had to. He was standing on the steps just below the door that led to the roof. He saw me and tried to push me back with one hand.

  “Just get out of here! Just get out of here!” he was saying.

  I looked on the landing and Peaches was down on her knees and there was somebody else there, too. It was J.T.’s mama. She was sitting on the landing with a blanket around her. There was an empty cracker box, old newspapers, and open cans of food scattered around the landing.

  J.T.’s mama was shivering. The light coming through a crack in the door to the roof filtered through her hair to make a halo around her thin face. She looked over Peaches’ shoulder to me, the big sad dark eyes looking like they were a hundred years old. Peaches was just holding her with both arms.

  J.T. was still carrying on but he was slowing down and the growling noise was like him halfway crying at the same time he was talking. After a while he stopped and leaned against the banister. His mama brought her hand out from the blanket around her and she put it on Peaches’ arm.

  “Squeezie, go downstairs and tell Big Joe to come up,” Peaches said, softly.

  “I don’t need no Big Joe up here,” J.T. said.

  “Tell him that I need him to come up here,” Peaches said. There were tears coming down her face. “Tell him that I need him real bad.”

  I went downstairs slow and realized that my leg was hurt, too, as well as my shoulder. The music was still going on when I reached the street and it took me a while to get through the crowd and get to where Big Joe and Peaches’ mama were.

  “Squeezie, what’s wrong, baby?” Peaches’ mama said.

  I tried to say it without crying but I couldn’t and I could see Mrs. Jones getting more and more upset.

  “Is Peaches hurt?” Big Joe asked.

  “No, she just needs to help J.T.’s mama, I think,” I said.

  “We can take care of it,” Big Joe said. He was calm as he took off his apron. “We can take care of it.”

  We went upstairs, and Peaches’ mama wanted to run up, but Big Joe kept saying everything was all right and we went slow with him leading the way. When we got up to the top of the stairs, J.T. was sitting with his head in his hands. Big Joe told him to move and J.T. slid over.

  Peaches was still sitting with J.T.’s mama, kind of rocking her in her arms. After making sure that Peaches was okay, Mrs. Jones helped J.T.’s mama to stand up and Big Joe carried her in his arms all the way downstairs and up the street to Mother Fletcher’s house.

  J.T. had come down and he hung back, watching. Peaches went toward him and I went over in case some fighting was going to break out but she just took his hand. She didn’t say nothing, just took his hand like she was there for him.

  “I couldn’t even do nothing for my own mother,” J.T. said. He had tears running down his cheeks. “I feel bad about, you know, fighting you and everything.”

  “This is 145th Street,” Peaches said. “Hurt happens here just like everywhere else. Sometimes you can deal with it, sometimes you just got to get some help.”

  J.T. and his mama stayed with Mother Fletcher for a few days and then Big Joe got them a little place on 141st Street, across from the school. It wasn’t no mansion but it was cool. Then Peaches gave them her whole two hundred dollars wedding gift money, which J.T. said he was going to pay back but I know he didn’t have a job. I wouldn’t have given anybody all my money. But Peaches got that kind of big heart in her. And that’s how the whole block is, in a way. Yeah, you got some people who do ugly things, but I think, mostly, if they had a good chance they would be okay.

  The next month was the wedding and it turned out so good! Peaches’ mama had her hair done real nice, up off her neck, and she was so beautiful that I cried, which was no big thing because I always cry at weddings. Then Peaches, Big Joe, and Sadie had them a family hug which got my boo-hooing into high gear again.

  “I’m still a little scared about Mama getting married,” Peaches said afterward.

  “But we’ll deal with it, right?” I said.

  “Yeah, Squeezie,” she said, “we can deal with it.”

  “You’re still number one with me,” I said.

  “I’m still numero uno with my mama, too,” Peaches said. “Big Joe can’t compete with me.”

  “Go on, girlfriend.”

  So that was what happened to Peaches and her mama, and to J.T. and his mama. We still see J.T. and his mama around. They’re not really kicking it too tough right now but they’re sliding by, you know, staying strong and being righteous. I know they’re going to make it.

  Oh yeah, what we gave Big Joe and the new Mrs. Big Joe for a wedding gift was a pair of boss imitation Tiffany lamps that cost sixty-three dollars. All the money came from me but that was all right because, like I always say, me and Peaches got a friendship that’s all that and then some. You know what I mean?

  Walter Dean Myers is an award-winning writer of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry for young people. He has received the Margaret A. Edwards Award for his contribution to young adult literature and is a five-time winner of the Coretta Scott King Award. His books include Hoops and The Outside Shot, the Newbery Honor Books Scorpions and Somewhere in the Darkness, and Harlem, a Caldecott Honor Book illustrated by his son, Christopher Myers. Walter Dean Myers grew up in Ha
rlem and now lives in Jersey City, New Jersey, with his family.

  Other books by Walter Dean Myers

  Darnell Rock Reporting

  Mop, Moondance, and the Nagasaki Knights

  Me, Mop, and the Moondance Kid

  The Outside Shot

  Hoops

  DELACORTE PRESS

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  Copyright © 2000 by Walter Dean Myers

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Myers, Walter Dean

  145th Street : short stories / Walter Dean Myers.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Ten stories portray life on a block in Harlem.

  1. Children’s stories, American. [1. Harlem (New York, N.Y.) Fiction. 2. Afro-Americans Fiction. 3. Short stories.] I. Title.

  II. Title: One Hundred Forty-Fifth Street.

  PZ7.M992Aae 2000

  [Fic]—dc21

  99-36097

  CIP

  eISBN: 978-0-385-72984-0

  v3.0