The Stars Beneath Our Feet Read online

  “You know Casimiro has a point,” Steve said to me. He used Vega’s first name, which he knew Vega hated.

  “The only point Casimiro has is on the top of his head,” I said. I watched Vega’s face for him to react. He was frowning, but trying not to giggle.

  “Not about that zombie garbage, Loll. But about you making something new,” Steve said. He dropped onto the bed next to Vega. “Not many of us have rich imaginations, but you do. It’s hard for most people to come up with any original ideas. Everybody consumes the same old TV shows, pix and memes over and over, regurgitating the same old ideas over and over.”

  “Regurgitating?” Vega asked.

  “Puking back up what you already ate,” I said.

  “Oh,” said Vega. “Like zombies puking up brains.”

  Steve went on, “If you only expose yourself to whatever everybody else does, you’ll never create anything new. I think that’s what got your brother: He couldn’t see any other way out of here besides dealing. Got caught up in that street lifestyle, like that sheisty Rockit and all them.”

  He reached into the plastic bag he’d been carrying and flung me and Vega each a wrapped gift. I could tell they were books by the way they felt. Vega had thought the same thing, by the disappointed look on his face.

  “Casimiro, I brought your gift over here because I figured you’d be with your man,” Steve said. “Cheering him up.”

  “Quit calling me Casimiro,” Vega said, tearing open his gift. It was a paperback. One on violin technique for kids. This was a book Vega would actually read, I knew. He had been playing an instrument ever since the fourth grade, when his mother enrolled him in music class.

  My book was all about buildings and stuff. A Pattern of Architecture. It was a giant hardback filled with pictures of stuff famous architects had built from all over the world.

  It was funny because it wasn’t something that I would’a thought to ask for, but sitting there then in my room, it seemed like something I had been wanting. I just hadn’t known that I had wanted it.

  I wanted everybody to go home.

  Steve had left a while ago, but now Ma’s friend Mr. Jonathan and his family had come over to celebrate the holiday. I just wasn’t feeling them.

  “That all the pastelles you want, sugar?” Ma asked me.

  “Shovel some more of my mac and cheese on your plate, Loll,” Yvonne added in. “That’s lush. Three cheeses. Put some hair on that frail little chest of yours!” Yvonne snickered.

  Ma said, “I don’t know where Sugar got that lil’ chest from. His father’s chest is broad.” Yvonne went on laughing. Ma’s face was blank.

  I ignored them and continued stuffing three plates with food for the other kids.

  I heard Mr. Jonathan call out from the living room, “Will you two lesbians stop harassing my friend Wallace! He is a twelve-year-old boy with a twelve-year-old boy’s chest! Not like you two balloon-bosom Weather Girls!”

  Yvonne burst out laughing again.

  Our apartment hadn’t heard lots of laughter over the past two months. Hearing it now reminded me of how things used to be when Jermaine was still here.

  I watched Ma search through cans of soda in the fridge. She had a dejected look on her smooth, coffee-colored face. My mother was a pretty normal mom, but different at the same time.

  The thing that was the most normal about her was that she loved reading mysteries. Something different was that she collected Pez candies. Not like the actual candy, but more the little dispensers that come with the candy.

  Ma had a huge collection of these Pez containers in our apartment. She had built special shelves and cabinets to hold them all. I guessed she owned over three hundred of them things. I think Ma expected me to take over her collection eventually, but I’m not interested.

  Ma worked as a security guard in Downtown Brooklyn.

  I think she got the job because she was so intimidating. Not that tall, but just really big. Both her and Yvonne were built like New York Giants linemen. But they both were harmless. They’d usually prefer to joke before they would tackle anybody.

  “Don’t make me march in there to defend my Wallace!” I heard Mr. Jonathan shout out again.

  “Shut up, Jonathan!” Yvonne shouted back.

  Even though Mr. Jonathan was a man, he really acted more like an auntie to me. He was a work friend of Ma’s who had known her since the old days—back when she was still with my father. In fact, I knew that my daddy blamed Mr. Jonathan for making my mother gay.

  “Dat limp-wrist friend of your mum still hang about?” Daddy would ask me whenever I saw him. When I would say yes, then Daddy would go on and on and on and on about how that Mr. Jonathan had been jealous of him and Ma’s joy and had convinced her that she liked women, when she really didn’t.

  I wasn’t even sure how that worked. Could you really make somebody gay just by chatting with them?

  I hoped that I wouldn’t turn out that way, because I talked to a lot of gays. I actually do like them, but they got too much drama to deal with. So many people hate them and call them names that I don’t think it’s something anybody would really pick to be if they had a choice in it. Who would choose to be gay when they knew it was so much easier to be straight?

  I steadied the three dishes in my arms and started to leave our kitchen when Ma slid a can of fruit-punch soda under my left arm. She suddenly hugged me really tight; I thought I was gonna drop everything.

  “Give that soda to Jonathan,” Ma said. “My cherry cobbler’s almost done.”

  “I don’t feel like nothing,” I said.

  “I know, I know,” she said, unhappy.

  Yvonne teased, “Lolly got all that grub in his hands and ain’t hungry?”

  Ma said to me, “But at least you got to test my cobbler for me, honey. My blood sugar’s probably sky-high already.”

  I nodded. I had only grabbed this food to make them think I was really starved. I hadn’t wanted Ma and Yvonne to nag me again, about not eating so much lately.

  My mother peeked into the oven with a firm, miserable aspect on her face. It was the first Christmas after Jermaine. I wondered if every Christmas from now on would feel this sorry.

  I hurried out of the kitchen and passed into our living room, balancing the plates. Mr. Jonathan relaxed in a chair there, gazing at our little Christmas tree with its twinkly lights.

  He was a older dude with black-and-gray hair on top of his head, mixed together. His eyes always sparkled like he had glitter in them. Mr. Jonathan pulled the can of soda from under my arm.

  “Don’t you let them get to you, Wallace,” Mr. Jonathan said. “You are entirely normal for your age.”

  I shrugged.

  “You okay?” he asked. “You been so down lately. You and your mother, slinking around here just as despondent…”

  I squinted at him.

  “Despondent,” he said again. “Sad.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  Mr. Jonathan shook his gray head. He missed Jermaine too. “You tell Markka and Darius not to make a mess back there with all that food!”

  “Your father said not to make a mess,” I told the two kids sitting on my rug. I gave one plate to the girl, Markka, one plate to her brother, Darius, and the last one to Vega, still lying across Jermaine’s bed.

  My bedroom was crowded.

  Out in the living room, I heard music. Ma had started playing her old chutney and calypso tunes. Harry Belafonte singing “Mary’s Boy Child” drifted in from the living room. I shut my bedroom door.

  No more Christmas.

  “Pastelles!” Vega said, smiling into his plate. He noticed I didn’t have one. “Where’s yours?”

  “I ain’t hungry,” I said. “I’m waiting on Ma’s cherry cobbler, anyhow.”

  Vega sat up on the bed and looked down at Markka. “Yo, his ma make the best pastelles!”

  “Not as good as Jermaine used to make ’em,” I said.

  Ma’s pastelles were just all rig
ht. I didn’t know what Vega was ranting about. Jermaine’s were so good because he learned how from our grandmother. When she used to babysit him, before she cut Ma off.

  “Pastelles,” Markka said, making a depressed face. She sniffed Vega’s plate, frowned a little and said, “Sorry, I don’t eat pig.”

  I don’t think I had ever seen Markka really happy.

  Mr. Jonathan had adopted both her and her brother out of foster care. The two of them were genuine brother and sister, and Ma said Mr. Jonathan had wanted to keep them together as a family.

  “She’s allergic,” her brother, Darius, added. “Pork.”

  How could you be allergic to pork?

  Darius jammed a spoonful of Yvonne’s mac and cheese in his mouth. His eyes were glued to the news on my TV. Supposedly, Santa was coming tonight, the TV weatherman lied to us.

  “You got roaches,” Darius said, pointing toward my closet. “I saw one.”

  “Everybody got bugs, dummy!” Vega said to him. “Yo, Lolly! When you gonna open up this Christmas present? I wanna know what’s inside.”

  “Who gave you that giant present?” Darius asked, shifting his eyes to the gift.

  “A notorious gangsta!” Vega called out. Markka’s gaze went to Vega and then to me, but she didn’t say nothing.

  “This dude named Rockit gave it to me,” I told her. “But I think it’s from my brother. He used to run with him.”

  “Your brother that got shot?” she asked.

  “That’s the only brother he got, stupid,” Vega said to her. “Yo, Loll, I bet Rockit gave you a box full of drugs.” He shook the present. “Or a Glock!”

  Darius turned full around now to peek at the gift. He had macaroni and cheese dripping from his mouth. “You got a gun in there?” he asked. His voice choked from too much food.

  “Vega, I told you I think it’s from Jermaine,” I said. “And he wouldn’t give me no gun.”

  He ran across the room with the gift and landed on top of me, crushing my bones. “Prove it!” Vega screamed.

  I felt like banging him in his face.

  I was hating all of the Christmas cooking and tunes and dumb holiday specials…but this one Christmas gift had slowly grabbed hold of something inside of me.

  I had been kind of curious ever since Rockit had dropped it off for me about a week ago. I had been coming home from playing ball when I heard somebody call out my name.

  “Yo, Lolly!” the voice yelled. “Lolly Rachpaul! Come here, negro!”

  And it was Rockit, a friend of my brother’s from before.

  Rockit was sitting on the passenger side of this monster SUV—bananas—right on the street in front of St. Nick. One of his boys sat behind the wheel. This enormous black-and-white dog watched me from the backseat, like it was trying to figure out who, or what, I was.

  “Where you been at, man?” said Rockit. “Me and my boy CJ been waitin’ on you since three, man.”

  “You should’a come over to the rec center, Rock,” I said. “I been hooping. Is that your dog? He’s a pit mix, right?”

  “That’s my boy’s,” he said. “His name Diesel. Go pet him. He’s a friendly pup.”

  I reached in through the open window and scratched Diesel on the middle of his head. The dog closed his eyes and laid back his ears.

  Rockit went on, “Your boy Concrete said you had stepped out. Here, man.” Then he shoved the red-and-white, candy-cane-striped present through the SUV’s window. I eyed his gift, not grabbing it. “I didn’t wanna leave it with your moms. You know how she get.”

  I nodded.

  “Take it, little man! ’Maine wanted you to have this.”

  I grabbed the present then, turning it around in my hands.

  “You all right?” Rockit asked. “You know if you ever need anything, you just reach out, okay? If anybody ever bother you…” He gave me his number on the back of an old receipt. I knew Ma would be heated about that.

  His friend behind the wheel spoke up without taking his eyes off his phone. “We gotta roll, Rock,” he said. “DeMarion’s waiting on us in the Boogie Down.”

  Ignoring him, Rockit went on to me, “Me and Jermaine was like brothers. So that make me and you brothers. A’ight?”

  I nodded. He grinned.

  “I ain’t never had no little brother before,” Rockit said.

  “Yo, Rock—” his friend started again.

  “Chill, Corey!” Rockit snapped at him. “You see I’m being Santa here!”

  “Wallace!” somebody shouted. As soon as I heard that voice, my whole body froze up. I glanced behind me and saw Ma on the footpath, clomping toward me and Rockit.

  Her face was all frowned up. She stopped at the SUV and glared at Rockit, the dog, me and then the candy-cane gift in my hands. Ma grabbed her hip and dove in.

  “I know this ain’t Calvin Bridgewater bearing gifts for my son.”

  “Hello, Ms. Rachpaul—” Rockit answered.

  “Don’t come around here talking to my boy. I will call the cops, yuh hear? Lolly, cut upstairs!”

  I started to leave, but she yanked the present out of my hand. As I hiked down the path toward our building, I could hear her and Rockit go at it.

  “You still blaming me for what happened to ’Maine,” he said to her.

  “You had a foul influence on my son!” she shouted. “You and that barbershop! Jermaine wasn’t nothing like that before. He was good!”

  And the two of them went at it like that for ten minutes. Rockit kept repeating that even though Ma hated him, my brother Jermaine had wanted me to have this present. That’s the only reason she kept it and why I was about to open it now.

  The main thing I had hoped for was that under this bright wrapping paper there would be a letter from Jermaine. Or some secret note from him maybe. A note confessing to me that he was still around. That for some reason he had had to fake everything and go undercover.

  Here in my bedroom, Vega, Markka and Darius gathered around and I ripped off the red-and-white wrapping paper, my heart thumping hard.

  Inside was one of the new video game console units. The latest model. I had seen one online for over four hundred dollars.

  Vega whistled.

  I looked all around for my letter, my note, but there wasn’t one. This console felt like it was a gift for another kid.

  I wasn’t even into video games.

  What did Rockit mean that Jermaine had wanted me to have a video game console?

  Vega’s ma called him back upstairs. They had to get ready to fly away to the Dominican Republic the next day. He left, upset that he didn’t even get a chance to play with my new system and that he would have to wait two weeks before he could.

  For the rest of the night, me, Markka and Darius played the one video game that came free with the console. After they had left, I tried playing some more, but I was just not into it.

  Instead, I grabbed some cherry cobbler and opened the big book on architecture that my neighbor Steve had gave me. My fingers flicked through the pages of A Pattern of Architecture.

  And then, just after midnight, I went kinda nuts. Like, I got this go-go sort of energy.

  About ten of my Lego kits came down off my shelves. I threw them to the ground and tugged them all apart, dumping the pieces into a pile. I faced all my other Lego kits—all neat and tidy on my shelves—and decided to do the same.

  I jerked and hauled them all down like a maniac.

  I wasn’t sure if it was just the sugar from the cherry cobbler or if it was bottled-up stuff over Jermaine or if maybe I had just stayed up too late.

  But something had grabbed on to me.

  I didn’t know what, but it gave me crazy energy to want to rip apart all of my Legos and make them into something else.

  Something different.

  Late the next morning I was sitting on our couch and setting up the new phone I had just got.

  After I had got it to work, my mother and me sat at the kitchen table eating cornflak
es with milk and cheese danish. Ma always liked having cheese danish on Christmas morning. She bought them from the Fairway supermarket because she said they had the freshest.

  “Thanks again for the new phone, Ma,” I told her.

  “You are welcome, sugar,” she said. Ma suddenly looked at me all serious. “Be careful out there with that phone, Wallace. Watch your back. Do not use it in the streets for the whole hood to see.”

  I nodded and started downloading.

  She said, “And don’t be strutting around here telling everybody you got that new fancy game console. That’s the last thing we need, them breaking in here to steal it and getting away with my Pez collection.”

  I nodded. I really didn’t think they would want Ma’s Pez holders, but I kept that to myself. This Harlem free Wi-Fi was sooo slow for downloads. I guess that’s why it was free.

  “I shouldn’t let you keep that console,” Ma said. She shoved half a danish in her mouth.

  I nodded again, checking out what was online with my phone.

  Ma went on, “I don’t know why I…I just don’t…” Her head slunk down toward the table. Out of nowhere, she had started sobbing again.

  I remembered even Daddy had cried like a little kid the last time he was over here. Couldn’t help it. I stood over Ma and held on, hugging her from behind, letting my chin rest on the top of her head.

  Her scalp smelled nice. Like the olive oil she used to condition her hair.

  I stood there holding her for a few minutes while she cried herself out. I asked, “You think Daddy’ll come over today?”

  Ma sat up straight, clutching my hand. She wiped her eyes with her other hand and started sifting through her cornflakes.

  “You think he’ll come for Christmas?” I went on.

  “Well,” she started with a sigh, “you know Benjamin as well as I do. Your father makes up his own mind, his kind of way. If he’d been around more, maybe Jermaine would’a turned out different.”

  “Daddy comes around sometimes.”

  She grunted and squeezed my hand tighter.

  “I turned out okay,” I said. “You’re the best moms. And father too.”