145th Street Read online

  That got my jaw a little tight, but I didn’t say anything. I just went on in and sat through the longest biology class I have ever had in my life. I thought the bell would never ring, but it finally did.

  “Okay, class, let’s wrap it up,” Mr. Willis said. “This slide project is going to count as twenty-five percent of your final grade so I want the slides labeled with your name, class, and—”

  My hands must have been sweaty. Maybe I caught a cramp in my fingers, I don’t know. All I remember was a sick feeling to my stomach when the slide slipped out of my hand. I went to grab it and almost had it before it hit the ground. I looked up and Mr. Willis was looking down at me and shaking his head.

  I had to explain to Mr. Willis how I didn’t break the slide on purpose and he didn’t believe a word of it. The man just looked at me and kept shaking his head. He picked up his marking book and I saw him write down a big red O next to my name.

  “I’m giving up,” I said to Froggy. “I’m going home, getting under my bed, and staying there until the year 3000. Maybe things won’t be going so bad by then.”

  “You could be a streaker,” Froggy said.

  “A what?”

  “A streaker,” he said. “I read in this book that some people do things in streaks. You ever hear about a baseball player who gets a lot of hits in a row, then he stops and they don’t get any more touchdowns?”

  “You mean base hits?” I said.

  “Whatever.” Froggy shrugged. “Anyway, some people go through their whole lives like that. All of a sudden something really bad happens to you and then you do a bunch of bad things in a row. Or something good happens and you do a bunch of good things in a row. You lost the ball game, you broke the bottle in the locker room, then you just broke your slide in biology.”

  “I don’t believe in luck or streaks or whatever else you’re talking about,” I said. We were taking a break in the cafeteria. I was having a soda and Froggy was drinking milk like he always did. “I don’t believe in astrology, either.”

  Froggy kept on talking about this streak stuff but I wasn’t into it. The next bell rang and we got up to leave. I dropped my soda can carefully into the garbage can. Then I grabbed Froggy’s milk container and tossed it into the center of the can. I said center because I meant center. I don’t know how it hit the edge of the can and bounced off into Maurice DuPre’s lap.

  Maurice DuPre is six feet high, six feet wide, and has more fingers and toes than he has points on his IQ. I watched as the last drops of milk fell onto Maurice’s lap. Then I watched as he looked up at me with his little squinty, bloodshot eyes. Then I watched as he stood up with his fist in a ball. Then I ran out the cafeteria as fast as I could.

  I spent all day sneaking around the halls and slipping into classrooms so Maurice wouldn’t find me. I mean, I wasn’t worried about fighting him, because I knew how it would come out. What I was worried about was if I would ever wake up when the fight was over.

  When school was over I didn’t even go to my locker to get my stuff. I just told Froggy to walk down the hall and if he saw Maurice to call out my name and point in some direction away from where I was sneaking out of a side door. Froggy didn’t understand sports, but he understood me not wanting to get my butt kicked and so he went along with it. Last thing I heard in school was that Maurice was chasing Froggy around the gym.

  I got to the block thinking about Froggy and Maurice and the streak. I stopped on the corner where I live and bought some potato wedgies and a soda from the burger joint. I got the wedgies first and started munching on them while the lady behind the counter poured my soda. Then I remembered I had taken my wallet out of my pocket and put it in my locker after lunch.

  “These wedgies don’t taste right!” I called out.

  “They’re going to taste a lot worse with a broken jaw,” the manager called out. “So you just better pay up and eat them.”

  I knew by the time he got around the counter I could get away. All he got was one little whack at the back of my head that didn’t even hurt.

  Right home. Up the stairs, close the door and lock it, then cool out. Life was just wrong! The phone rang and I started not to answer it, but then the way things were working out I figured maybe it was somebody warning me that a killer was coming up the stairs to get me. I rushed to the phone, stopping just long enough to hit my ankle into a dumbbell. You ever hear that sound your anklebone makes when it hits steel? You ever see them little stars that go off in your head?

  “Hello?”

  “Jamie?” the voice on the phone asked.

  “It depends,” I said. “Who’s this?”

  “This is Mr. Bradley,” came the answer. “I just wanted to let you know you failed your English test big-time. You’re about a hair from failing the course. I just wanted to warn you.”

  “Oh, thank you, sir. You have made my day with your kindness,” I said.

  By the time I got to the refrigerator to get some ice for my ankle I was crying. No, I don’t mean no sad look—I mean some right out boo-hooing with tears running down my face. My ankle was throbbing, my feelings were hurt, and I was ready to give it all up and resign from the human race.

  I put the ice on my ankle, which was bruised and swollen and a little bloody. Then I sat down, put my leg up on the kitchen table, and called Froggy.

  “Froggy, I give up, man,” I said. “I’m on a death streak and I know I’m probably headed right on out the world.”

  “No, man, the streak is going to end,” Froggy said.

  “Yeah, when I’m dead.”

  “No,” Froggy said. “Just like you missed the shot and lost the baseball game—”

  “Basketball game,” I said.

  “Whatever. Anyway, something dramatic can happen and the whole thing will turn around. Then you’ll have as much good luck as you had bad luck.”

  “What you mean by dramatic?” I asked.

  “Hey, when it happens,” Froggy said, “you’ll know it.”

  Ellen is my sister. She’s twelve and has a fast mouth. She also has braces that cost a whole bunch of money and I can’t pop her when she’s running her weak girl game.

  “What happened to you?” she said when she came home. “I heard somebody was chasing you down the street?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Why don’t you tell me who was chasing you so I can go tell them you’re here?” she said.

  “Why don’t you shut up?” I answered.

  “What happened to your leg?”

  “Nothing.”

  She went to the refrigerator and took out the eggs. She took one egg out and handed it to me.

  “Here,” she said. “If nothing happened to your ankle you must have an egg under your skin it’s sticking up so much. Here’s another egg for your other leg.”

  Man, I just wanted to punch her right smack in her wire braces. She went waltzing out the kitchen and had the nerve to stick out her tongue at me. That’s when I lost it. I tossed that egg toward the sink and started to get up but then the pain started throbbing in my leg and I sat back down real quick. I saw this movie once where this guy got shot in the leg and they had to cut it off. They gave him a drink of whiskey and a bullet to bite on. There was some soda in the fridge and I eased my leg down real slow and went for that. That’s when I saw it.

  Okay, wrap your brain around this. I got one hand on the refrigerator door when my mind hit the sink. I looked at the sink and there wasn’t any egg in it. Then I looked at the carton of eggs on the counter and there were twelve eggs in the carton.

  “Yo! Ellen! Come in here, quick!”

  Ellen took her sweet time getting to the kitchen. Then she stood in the doorway with her hand on her skinny little hip. “What?”

  “Did you hand me an egg a little while ago?” I asked.

  “Jamie, are you using something you shouldn’t be using?” she asked. “Like crack cocaine?”

  “Did you hand me an egg or did you not hand me an egg?”
I asked again.

  “Yeah, you had an egg,” she said. “Just don’t get violent on me. You seeing any purple rabbits running around or things like that?”

  “Check this out,” I said. I knew I was excited. “I threw the egg over here and it landed in the egg carton!”

  “Isn’t that sweet.”

  “No, you don’t understand,” I said. “First the telephone was ringing and then I hit my leg on the dumbbell and then I failed English, see?”

  “You really enjoy yourself when you’re alone, huh?”

  Okay, so the girl was seriously stupid. But I knew who would understand and I called Froggy back and told him what happened.

  “How many bad things happened to you?” Froggy asked.

  “A thousand,” I said.

  “No, exactly how many bad things happened to you?” he said. “We need the exact number.”

  I started counting. I missed the shot in the basketball game, that was the first thing. Then I broke the bottle in the locker room. The third thing was when I broke the slide in biology.

  “Then you dumped milk on Maurice DuPre,” Froggy said. “He’s still looking for you.”

  “Right, then I left my wallet in school and couldn’t pay for my potato wedgies. Then when I got home I banged up my ankle and found out that I flunked my English test.”

  “Seven things,” Froggy said. “Now you have seven pieces of good luck coming your way.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “I just found out that I failed the English test. I didn’t actually fail it at that time.”

  “When did you take it?”

  “Just before the . . . just before the basketball game,” I said.

  “Okay, now you just had one piece of good luck because you threw the egg toward the sink and it landed in the carton,” Froggy said. “You have six to go.”

  “I’m going for the top right away,” I said. “I’m asking Celia to the dance.”

  “Hey, go for it.”

  I figured I’d see Celia in school and pop the question. The whole scene was in my mind. Celia would be coming down the hall with one of those short little skirts she wears, looking tan and sweet and with those fine legs of hers strutting like she owned the world. Then I would call her name and say, “Hey, we are going to the dance together?” and she would just kind of go into a half swoon and maybe giggle a little and it would be all set.

  When I got to school I was feeling good. Math was the first class and we had one of Galicki’s famous pop quizzes. I was sitting in the back of the room where I always sit and dreaming about laying some serious lip on Celia when I heard Mr. Galicki calling my name.

  “Yeah, wazzup?”

  “I said”—Mr. Galicki raised his voice—“that I’m really surprised that you did so well on the pop quiz. You really understand parallelograms.”

  Hey, what can I tell you? I met Froggy, who was coming from band practice, and told him the good news.

  “That’s two things,” he said. “You got five left.”

  “That wasn’t luck,” I said.

  “Math?” Froggy said. “You’re good in math?”

  It was luck. I had to be careful. I needed to get a yes from Celia before I used up my streak. I stopped right there in the hallway and told myself to calm down.

  “Calm down and think hard, my Nubian selfhood.”

  I needed a soda. I went to the cafeteria, looked around to see if Maurice was there, saw he wasn’t, and went and dropped a quarter in the machine.

  “Yo, it ain’t working!” Tommy from the ball team called to me. “It takes your money, but you don’t get a soda!”

  I had only put in a quarter, but the machine was whirring and humming. Then a bottle of soda came down.

  The guys came over and started pounding on the machine, but nothing happened for them. That was my third lucky thing on my streak. I had four to go.

  Okay, I had to go for the big time. Celia was from Santiago, DR. Just looking at her made me want to move to the Dominican Republic. I decided to go the whole nine with her, flowers and everything. The plan was this. I buy some roses, take them over to her house, which is up on 153rd and Broadway, give her the roses, and ask her to the dance. There’s a guy on 135th who sells roses, so I bought six. A dozen sounds good but six is cool.

  Then I get a little nervous. Celia can make you nervous because she is so fine. Anyway, girls make me a little uptight. But I’m working on the streak so everything is everything. I buy the roses, and I come home. Ellen is checking me out and I tell her to mind her business. Then I call Celia’s number, which I had gotten from Ramona Rodriguez, who is also fine, but she goes with Paco, and nobody messes with Paco.

  “Hello? Mrs. Evora? This is Jamie Farrell. Is Celia there?”

  “Who?”

  “Jamie Farrell,” I repeated. “I go to school with Celia.”

  “Oh, she had to go to the doctor,” Mrs. Evora said. “She has an allergy to certain flowers and she has to take treatments.”

  “Roses?” I asked.

  “She told you?”

  “Something like that,” I said. “Will you tell her Jamie called?”

  “Yes, Gamie called to find out about her allergy,” she said.

  Right. Gamie called to find out about her allergy. I gave the flowers to my mother. That was four good things that happened. But the flowers cost me a lot and if I was going to take Celia to the dance I’d at least need money to stop for something to eat afterward and a taxi to get her home.

  My streak was running low and I was getting nervous. I still hadn’t actually asked Celia to go to the dance with me.

  “So just do it,” Froggy said. “Walk up to her and say, ‘Hey, mama, let’s you and me start working on the lambada so we look good for the natives at the dance.’ ”

  “What’s the lam—what did you call it?”

  “Call the chick quick,” Froggy said.

  So I’m lying in bed listening to the news, which sounds like the same thing they’ve been telling us for the last year, so I don’t see why it’s news, when there’s a knock on my door. I figure it’s Ellen coming to borrow something, so I don’t say anything. Then the door opens and it’s my dad and he flicks the light on.

  “Can I talk to you?” he asks.

  “Yeah, sure,” I say. I’m wondering if he ever dated a Dominican fox.

  “Son, I want to talk to you about drugs.”

  He never dated a Dominican fox, I think. He must have got lucky with Mom.

  Then my dad breaks into this whole rap about how bad drugs are and it’s like we’re making a television commercial or something. All the time I’m wondering how I’m going to get the money to take Celia home in a taxi and if I could make a move on her in the back of the taxi.

  “I know that so many young men living in the inner city feel deprived of the better things in life,” my dad was saying. “Son, I’m going to give you this hundred dollars so you won’t feel that way. And I’m asking you, in return, to come and talk to me about anything that bothers you. You seem so depressed lately. I won’t push it, though. I’ll wait for you.”

  That was the fifth thing in the streak. My dad giving me a hundred dollars just when I needed money. I was in desperate trouble.

  I had to concentrate on Celia. Celia, with the dark eyes and the nice boobs. I was in love with her and I had this one shot, this one streak to get her to go to the dance with me. Concentrate. Concentrate on Celia.

  I called Froggy.

  “You’re in trouble,” he said. “Your streak is jumbling up on you.”

  “What’s that mean?” I asked.

  “It’s out of control,” he said. “You’re probably just naturally lucky, so your luck is coming too fast.”

  Nothing. That was what I was going to do until I got Celia on the phone and asked her to the dance. Nothing. Lie on the bed. Nothing. I wasn’t even going to think of anything. I got a sheet of paper and wrote down all the good things that had happened to me. Then I realize
d that I was doing something that could result in good luck. I was lying on the bed and lifted my head until I could see my wastebasket. I tossed a high, arcing shot toward the basket.

  Panic! I dove for the paper to knock it away! I didn’t want this to be my next lucky thing. I hit it up in the air just before it went into the basket. Then the door opened and knocked the paper against the wall just over my Malcolm X poster, against the side of my dresser, and into the wastebasket.

  “What is wrong with you?” Ellen stood in the doorway. “Are you, like, freaking out or something?”

  I called Froggy.

  “Did you want the paper to go into the basket?” he asked.

  “Not when I realized it was going to be my sixth lucky thing,” I said.

  “But when you threw it, you did, right?” Froggy asked.

  I hung up and made a note to myself that I did not like Froggy.

  Okay, get the picture. I’m in school and I’m running out of luck. I’ve got one shot left on my streak.

  And my school, Ralph Bunche, is playing against Carver. We’re not supposed to beat Carver. But I’m worried and I tell the coach that my ankle is hurt and I can’t play. He looks at the ankle and it’s still swollen and he says okay. I’m on the bench.

  Carver is supposed to kill us. They’ve got guys on that team that are fifteen, maybe sixteen feet tall. But somehow our team stays with them and I’m praying that us winning with me not even playing is not my last lucky event. I figured no way that could happen. But then our guys, really going all out, are playing Carver so tough that the game is just about even. But some of our key guys are fouling out. It gets down to the end of the game and the coach turns to me.

  “Either you play or we only have four players and we lose for certain,” he said.

  Just don’t shoot, I think.

  I remembered how this whole thing began. Fifteen seconds to go against Powell Academy and me running toward the basket and then missing the shot. I want us to win this game but I want to go to a dance with Celia even more.

  I looked up at the clock. Nine seconds. I looked up at the scoreboard. Carver 47, Ralph Bunche 46. Don’t shoot, I said to myself. Just don’t shoot. Think of Celia. Dark eyes. Short skirt. Beautiful teeth. Nice boobs.