Scottie couldn’t believe how light and small and dry the bills were. He didn’t expect twenty dollars to feel that way. He thought it would be heavier.
“You did good,” Jayzee said again. “Maybe I’ll need you to take another walk for me sometime.”
“Okay,” Scottie said.
“Hey, Crackhead,” Freak said, as Scottie turned to go. “Gimme that money back and I’ll give you somethin’ good.”
Scottie kept walking. He already knew what he wanted. He had to take the bus and walk six blocks and then take the bus again, and by the time he got back, he only had a few pennies and dimes left, but it was worth it.
When Scottie’s aunt Nichelle came home from her night job, she found him in front of the TV with his ten-year-old cousin Keesha. They were playing Super Mario Bros. 3 on the battered old Nintendo Scottie had purchased that afternoon at a Funcoland on Cicero.
“Where’d you get that?” Nichelle asked. There wasn’t much snap in her words. She worked three jobs to support herself and Keesha and Scottie. She didn’t have the energy for snap.
It took Scottie a few seconds to answer. Mario was jumping, grabbing magic coins out of the air. “I bought it.”
“Where’d you get the money?”
“Jayzee Clements gave it to me.”
“Jayzee Clements? Why would he give anything to you?”
“I did somethin’ for him.”
A giant plant snapped at Mario, almost swallowing him, and Scottie grunted and cursed. Keesha giggled and said, “Hey!”
“What’d you do for Jayzee?”
Scottie shrugged without turning to look at his aunt. “Nothin’.”
“Make up your mind, Scottie. Did you do somethin’ or did you do nothin’?”
Scottie began to breathe hard, almost panting. It was the sound he made when he couldn’t make words, when the circuit between his brain and his mouth overloaded, shorted out.
On the screen, Mario hopped and ran and hopped and ran until he ran when he should have hopped. He plummeted off a cloud, disappearing from the screen, and Keesha shouted, “My turn! My turn!”
Scottie handed her the controller and finally looked around at Nichelle.
“I bought McDonald’s too,” he said. “We saved you some fries.” He wasn’t panting anymore. He was smiling.
Nichelle didn’t return his smile. Instead, she took in a deep breath and held it for a moment, as if unsure what to do with the air in her lungs — talk, yell, scream, sigh.
In the end, she did none of these things. She simply turned and walked into the kitchen. It was almost ten o’clock, and she hadn’t had dinner.
Scottie found out Goldfinger was dead nearly a week later. Scottie was in church with Nichelle and Keesha, and some of the ladies were shaking their heads about that poor Michael Graham, who had so much promise once. Scottie thought it was sad too.
A few days after that, Jayzee stopped him on the street again.
“Hey, Crocker!” Jayzee called out.
Not “Crackhead.” Crocker.
“I got another secret mission for ya’, C,” Jayzee said when Scottie got close. “You know Marcus Dillard?”
He did. Scottie spent the next day following him, just as Jayzee asked. It was like a game, watching Marcus, trying not to be seen, and Scottie enjoyed it. He found himself moving more quickly, and thinking more quickly than he had in years.
He reported back to Jayzee the next morning. He stammered at first, fighting with the words. But for once Scottie won that fight, and the words started to come quickly and obey him.
“...and then he went to the building where Ricky Thompson lives and he talked to Ricky outside and Ricky gave him somethin’ in a brown bag and they looked at me so I went around the corner. And when I came back Marcus was gone so I looked for him and I found him walkin’ up Calumet and he stopped and got a burrito and then he started walkin’ again. And Dion Baker was drivin’ by in a car and he got out and Marcus gave him the thing he’d been carryin’ and...”
By the time Scottie was finished, Jayzee and his guys were laughing. But Scottie could tell it was a different kind of laughter this time, a kind he rarely heard. He didn’t understand it until Jayzee, shaking his head, said, “Damn, C. You really got you some eyes, don’t you?”
It was good. Scottie had done good.
Jayzee gave him another twenty dollars, and Scottie bought more old games for his Nintendo and a frozen pizza and a birthday present for Keesha — a pink Dora the Explorer backpack he found at Goodwill — even though her birthday had come and gone two months before. Scottie hadn’t worked in years, not since he’d lost his job sweeping up at McDonald’s because he forgot to show up sometimes, and he yelled at the customers when they called him “retard” and “Crackhead.” So for once, Scottie had his own money to buy Keesha a gift, and it didn’t matter to him if it was her birthday or not. Aunt Nichelle didn’t ask any questions this time, and Scottie felt something he hadn’t felt in so long he’d forgotten he could feel it: pride.
A few days later, Marcus Dillard and Ricky Thompson were dead.
They were found together in a dumpster, both of them shot in the chest. Scottie’s pride turned sour, bubbling in his stomach as if he’d swallowed something rancid. He wasn’t sure why he felt that way. No one knew who’d killed Marcus and Ricky, and Scottie certainly hadn’t hurt anybody. But the pain in his gut wouldn’t go away.
There was a memorial service for Marcus at Scottie’s church, and Scottie and Nichelle and Keesha went. The body was there, in an open casket, and Scottie almost expected Marcus to sit up and say something to him, say something about him.
But just looking at a dead man can’t bring him back to life, Scottie told himself. Just like looking at a living man can’t kill him.
Scottie avoided Jayzee’s corner after that, going blocks out of his way when he went to the store. He avoided certain thoughts in the same way — sidestepping them, not taking the most direct route from point A to point B. He didn’t think about why he was staying away from Jayzee. He didn’t think about why he’d stopped playing his Nintendo games. He tried not to think about any whys at all.
But it wasn’t easy to avoid Jayzee — not if he wanted to see you. One day when Scottie was in the store buying himself a Coke, he turned to find Freak behind him, blocking his way out.
“Hey, Crackhead,” Freak said. “Whatcha doin’?”
Scottie shrugged. “N-n... nothin’.”
“Good. Then you can come with me.”
Freak wrapped a hand around Scottie’s arm and pulled him toward the door. Even after they were outside, the hand remained, steering Scottie to Jayzee’s corner.
Jayzee greeted them with a big smile. “C! Where you been, my man?”
“I... I b-been... I been around.”
“Not where I could see you.” There was still a smile on Jayzee’s face, but Scottie couldn’t hear any smile in his voice.
“I... I j-just... I...”
Words abandoned Scottie, and he began to huff out hard puffs of air in their place.
“Hey, C! Don’t get like that,” Jayzee said, sounding friendly again. He wrapped an arm around Scottie’s shoulders, pulling him in tight. “I was just worried somethin’ was wrong, that’s all.”
Scottie’s breathing slowed. Jayzee’s smiling face was just inches from his own, so close they were inhaling the same air. Scottie tried to smile back.
“N-nothin’s wrong,” Scottie said, unsure if his words were true or not.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Jayzee’s hand squeezed the flesh between Scottie’s shoulder and neck. It felt reassuring at first, but the pressure increased, began to pinch, swaying on the line between pleasure and pain.