CHAPTER 11 #2
I was dying for her to see me and tell me that I was still her baby and that there was no need to grow up so fast.
But Mama was a hurricane. And you can’t reason with a storm.
So, I held my tongue and waited for the weather to change.
The block was a stage that summer. A place where nobody was simply being themselves, they was all performing for an audience that never stopped watching.
I ended up being another actor in the block’s production.
The scary part was how quickly I started to crave the gravity of the block.
The sudden attention was overwhelming, and that energy was hard to define or manage.
Mia caught the shift in my vibe way before I was brave enough to confess it to myself.
“You feelin’ it, ain’t you?” She poked fun at me one evening on her stoop, our feet keeping a lazy beat against the concrete as we sat.
I threw out a casual shrug, my eyes drifting away to avoid the look I knew was written all over her face.
“Feelin’ what?”
She did a heavy, dramatic eyeroll,
“Don’t play dumb. Tha attention. Tha way tha hustlas lookin’ at you different?”
I kept my gaze down at the pavement.
“Nah, I don’t like it.”
Mia searched for a reaction, waiting for a moment of silence before sharing her thoughts in a hushed whisper.
“It’s okay to like bein’ seen Summer.”
I lifted my gaze locking eyes with Mia.
“But remember something. Don't think these bricks care about you. Cuz at tha end of the day, tha block don't love nobody."
Her warning rattled around my brain long after the city went mute.
Lying in the dark, I stared at the cracks in the ceiling while the whispers from the corner echoed in my head. I could feel my childhood slipping through my fingers quicker than water, leaving behind a load that was way too grown for me to carry.
I couldn't find the right words to make it make sense, but I knew the gravity was real. The pull was real. The same streets that had pulled Shay in, was now tugging at my sleeve.
PREYING
The humidity of late September hung over the porches on Parrish Street. Saturday, September 23, the official last day of summer and the city was vibrating. The radio was blasting Coolio’s ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’.
Saiyd, the birthday boy by a single day’s margin, came flying off the porch thinking he had wings, and landed hard on the sidewalk.
“I’m six! I’m the king of this block!” he roared. His face smeared with icing from a cake that hadn't even been cut yet.
Sinceer was tucked into his oversized T-shirt, meticulously peeling the paper off a red crayon, watching the neighborhood move by, like it was a movie he wasn’t starring in. Twins, with two different birthdays. That was a glitch in the script even the ol’ heads on the porch couldn't explain.
“Sai be careful! I ain’t goin’ to no emergency room!”
Mama yelled from the doorway.
She stepped out onto the porch, and caught Shay’s eye, then nodded toward the street.
“Keep an eye on ya’ brothers. This block is too busy today for Saiyd to be actin’ a fool.”
The entire block knew the twins by sight and by name.
It happens that way in ‘hoods like ours. Babies grow up in front of everybody’s eyes.
Aunties watch you wobble down the sidewalk on unsteady legs.
Ol’ heads see you riding your first bike.
Hustlers nod when you walk past, like they been keeping track the whole time.
You’re blind to it as a kid, but the block is your second parent.
Helping to mold your soul just as much as the blood in your veins.
The twins sat cross-legged on the concrete with a handful of little toy cars scattered between them.
The cars was scratched and missing pieces, they came from dollar bins at the store.
They didn’t care. To them, they was priceless.
Saiyd pushed his car fast across the pavement, making engine noises with his mouth.
“Vrrrroooom!” He crashed it into Sinceer’s car with a loud smack. Sinceer frowned immediately.
“That’s not how you play.”
Saiyd grinned mischievously.
“It’s a crash.”
“You supposed to take turns,” Sinceer insisted.
Saiyd ignored him and kept driving his car over imaginary ramps in the sidewalk cracks.
Sincere let out a heavy breath. He already knew he was dealing with somebody whose head was harder than the concrete they was playing on.
Sinceer respected the lines, but Saiyd wouldn’t be happy until he stepped over every last one.
Across the street, the corner was moving, like it always was.
And nothing moved on that block without Saiyd tracking it.
He was six going on thirty, keeping score of everything the streets did.
His toy car slowed in the middle of the sidewalk.
Then stopped completely. His little head tilted toward the corner.
Sinceer kept talking.
“You’re supposed to move the car after the stop sign.”
Saiyd didn’t answer.
“Did you hear me?”
Sinceer let out a huff of frustration.
He followed his brother’s gaze to a pack of hustlers rolling dice against the wall of the bodega. One of them had a thick stack of money folded in his hand. Sinceer’s eyebrows tightened.
“What are they doing?”
Saiyd whispered the answer, he already knew.
“They workin’.”
Sinceer’s face twisted up, he couldn’t make sense of the noise.
“That’s not work.”
Saiyd shrugged. His eyes stayed locked on the corner, clocking every twitch and turn. Sinceer rose gradually to his feet. He brushed dust off his shorts and squinted toward the corner. He crossed his arms.
“That’s stupid.”
“Why?” Saiyd squinted.
“They just stand around on the corner all day.”
“Man, whatever.”
Sinceer glanced down at the plastic wheels in the dirt, then toward the hustlers on the corner.
“They look like they scared, always looking over their shoulder.” Sinceer said. Saiyd let out a mischievous laugh.
“They ain’t scared.”
“No,” Sinceer said calmly.
“But the people who walk up to them are scared.”
“You see dat whip?” Sai murmured.
Sinceer didn’t pretend to be interested.
“So what?”
“That’s a nice car.”
“Yeah,” Sinceer reminded him.
“But Mama says nice things don’t mean good people.”
On the block the bell never stopped ringing. You caught lessons out here whether the teachers knew they was talking or not. Saiyd eased toward the curb, eyes narrowed. Sinceer grabbed his arm.
“Don’t go over there.”
Saiyd pulled free.
“I ain’t.”
But his feet stayed pointed in that direction. I pushed myself up from the steps.
“Sai!.”
He turned slightly.
“What?”
“Come back over here.” I ordered.
He hesitated but he stepped back. Sinceer looked relieved. He plopped down again and picked up the toy cars.
“Let’s finish the race.”
Sinceer’s voice carried that baby-of-the-house sweetness.
Saiyd finally returned to the cars, but the game had lost his attention. He pushed the toy car slowly now.
The corner was a mirror that never changed, same hustle, same hunger, same cold respect.
But Saiyd and Sinceer was looking at two different reflections.
Saiyd saw a throne he wanted to sit on, while Sinceer saw a trap he didn't want to step in.
And the block was clocking it all, because it never blinks.
They was still young enough to believe in magic and Mama’s hugs. Still green enough to think that the world plays fair. But the block stays hungry, and it feds on everybody sooner or later.