body
Sometimes, when I get really hungry, I lie down on the floor to push my crying stomach into silence. Me and Kun left the closet of a room, wedging a bunch of Lucia’s sweaters into the frame to keep the door open. The smell of weed followed us as we rumbled around in the kitchen (no food there cept some rice and beans for Ollie’s dinner and Lucia’s bottle of Jack stuffed between the stove and the wall) and Kun placed a hand against the flat of my stomach and said we had the munchies but don’t got nothing to munch on. His hand burned like a fire and I pushed him off to lie on the floor of the living room, near the sofa.
Kun told a story that I know was real; the woman lived neath us, living out her whole damn life behind a lock. Stupid, stupid, Lucia once said, she could just have kicked that fucking door down. Or, Ollie said, we can get her free too, you know, like how they do in the movies. But what I remember most was Ma, slamming a cup against the table. It’s her own damn fault, Ma spit on out, so don’t talk bout it.
We all got it bad here, only difference is there was no lock between us and the rest of the shitty world. Wished there was, wished Ollie didn’t come walking in just then, swinging her backpack like that and her face open, like a happy ending that could have been.
Kun lifted his head from my lap, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand but Ollie saw what she did and the look on her face burned. This must be the face of the woman downstairs, her face ready to live only to hear the door close, locking her in. Must’ve been a bitch to learn that nothing changes, even if we try and try.
Ollie., I said.
Yep. All the questions I wanted to ask were answered and Ollie bent over to help Kun find his sneakers. I couldn’t do nothing but stand up and place a hand on the top of Ollie’s head.
And again, I said her name as if I was crying, Ollie.
You know how it goes and goes. Nothing’s built to last, but I didn’t think it was gonna fall apart that fast. A month later, Lucia’s bruises are gone but her stomach got real big and Ma don’t come round much anymore, just work down at the factory, work down at the airport, then drinking at the bar cross the street. Me and Kun stopped hustling weed round Boston since the police did a crackdown on Dorchester. The dealers don’t even come round here no more, too scared of getting busted. Got a shit job over at the mall, spent my days hustling kids to buy cell phones but at least some money came in and then, everything fell right on down on top of me, nearly died from it.
The day I found out, I was holding onto Ollie’s hand as we walked to school. She got her pretty shoes on that don’t look so bad in the sun and she only asked how long shit’s been going down and I told her since last year and she never mentioned Kun’s name that whole way up the hill and down the white barrio to school.
She started to tell stories, real good ones like how Kun does, and she was in the middle of telling me one when Prith came running to us, hands deep in his pockets and I thought, fuck, this is how I’m gonna get busted up, right in front of my sister. But Prith did nothing but shove me hard against a wall and said, Yo, you heard, you heard yet? And I didn’t want to hear the rest because I knew what was coming, a story breaking in two so quick that it took my breath away.
Faggot died by a drive-by. Someone jumped his ass, thinking he from cross the barrio. A big ass nigga knifed him down at the alley, some college boys wanted some free dope; stories about how and why flooded the house like rain so deep that Lucia and me sat on top of the kitchen table and she held onto me once and said she knew, she knew and sorry, bro, sorry.
I don’t sleep much nowadays. Spend lots of time on the roof at night, sometimes drinking, something smoking, but most a time, watching the lights of the apartment building turn on and off, stories short-circuiting because there was nothing out there even worth it anymore.
I saw her once, her husband must have been asleep and I was coming back from the store with two 40s under my arm. On the second floor right above the door. Our window was dark, like the hole in my mouth where my tooth used to be, but the window underneath was bright, light shining everywhere.
Don’t use the word beautiful round here much, cause there ain’t much to look at but she was. Like a star, a song that hurts when you hear it, that kind of beautiful.
Glancing up and up as if I couldn’t get enough. I know where my place in life be at, just another sad fucker with nothing to show, but looking at her, just for once, I forgot. I would dance with her, under the street lamps so everyone could see. I would dance with her and hold her like that, like how Kun would want me to and our story together would be different.
We would not fade, not once, not twice, not ever.