Now he keeps it stored away, in a plastic bag, the paper inside yellowish and ripped on one corner.
Too delicate, Ollie says, to show anybody anymore.
We all know what came next in the story Ollie says
he can’t remember.
A preacher and his wife found
and kept him.
Loved Ollie just like the note asked them to do.
Then the preacher died and it was only his wife—
Bernadette, who’s Ollie’s mom.
Bernadette, who comes over sometimes to drink coffee with my own mama
and sometimes, if it’s a Friday night, one glass of wine.
Any more than that, Bernadette says,
and I forget my own name.
Even though she’s said that a hundred times,
she and Mama laugh anyway.
Ollie looks at my dad sometimes
with those bright green eyes like he’s deep
in a dream of remembering his own father living.
Ollie, who my dad used to call my son from another
father and mother,
which always made Ollie duck his head to hide
how red his face got
to hide how big his smile got.
Ollie says he doesn’t really remember the story of being a baby in a basket
but sometimes the story lives inside his eyes when kids ask
What are you?
You Black or white or Spanish or mixed?
And Ollie has to shrug and say
Maybe I’m all those things.
And maybe I’m something else too.
Once, when Ollie told my dad about
kids always asking him this,
my dad just gave Ollie a fist bump and said
You know what you are, Ollie?
You’re a hundred percent YOU.
Rap Song
Make me a rhyme, little man.
First day of school, first grade,
Beastie Boys blasting from the car radio.
We’re driving home, me with my lunch
box open on my lap cuz my after-school snack was always
what I didn’t eat at school—grapes, carrot sticks,
apples and peanut butter, whatever,
I dug it out, sitting in the back seat of my dad’s car.
September sun shining in on us,
Mama home or maybe visiting the grandmas, so much
I don’t remember. So many places where there’s white
space where memory should be, and some days I wonder
if my own mind is going like my dad’s. But that year,
he was still Daddy. Still playing ball and driving me from school
whenever he was home.
Make me a rhyme, little man, my daddy said, glancing
through the rearview at me with my mouth full
but my head moving to the Beastie Boys.
And then I must have swallowed. Must have said
My name is Zachariah
and I’m on fire.
Can’t go no higher
than Zachariah.
You got skills, son, my dad said.
Yeah, I said back.
Yo
I know
I think I got ’em from you.
Cuz you’re Zachariah too!
Unbelievable
The first time my dad heard one of my songs, he asked
Who wrote that?
We were in the kitchen and it was pizza night with
extra cheese, extra sausage and lots of olives.
I was singing because of that.
And I was singing because it was summer
and because the pizza smelled so good and the whole
day was only for us—no coaches calling,
no practice, no game to study, no fans
just me and my daddy—Mama in Arizona
visiting the grandmas. So it was
just us men and our pizza and all the rest
of the takeout we were planning to have
with Mama gone.
So I was singing about all of it—the summer,
our bright yellow kitchen, the good food
and me and my daddy alone
together.
I don’t remember how old I was, but
I remember my daddy’s smile.
You wrote that?
And me with a slice almost to my mouth, stopping
and saying Yep, it was all made up by me.
Then going back to singing, a song
about pizza and summertime,
a song about all the good things
already here
and the good things coming too.
On My Daddy’s Shoulders
I was on my daddy’s shoulders when
crowds gathered around us
pushing autograph books, T-shirts and
scraps of paper into his hands.
I was on my daddy’s shoulders when
a band marched through Maplewood
playing a song someone wrote
about the speed in his step
and the power in his hands.
I was on my daddy’s shoulders when
the TV ran their interviews
with him recounting the plays
of the Super Bowl game when the guy
on the other team let the ball
fly right through his hands.
I was on my daddy’s shoulders when
the crowds grew smaller and the coach said
Maybe next game—you need some rest,
then looked up at me and smiled,
trying not to stare too hard
at my daddy’s shaking hands.
The First Time, Again
I used to be a tight end, my daddy says, laughing.
But what I really wanted to be was a wide receiver.
Now I’m just wide.
The first time he said it, we all laughed
even Mama
and she usually just smiles when something is funny.
The second time he said it, I said
It was funny the first time, Dad.
The third time he said it, I said You always say that.
No I don’t, this is my first time, he said.
Stop messing with me, Daddy.
No, YOU, my daddy said, stop messing with me!
My daddy never shouts. But he was shouting.
My daddy never cries. But he started crying then.
Tears
My daddy cried every day the year his father died.
He tells me this each time I scrape a knee
or stub my toe or watch a really sad movie
and try to hold back my tears.
I cried the whole year, my dad says.
Three hundred and sixty-five days.
But I wasn’t born yet, so I didn’t see it.
And two years later when his mom
lost her leg because of a disease called diabetes,
my dad said, he cried because he didn’t have the money
to make life comfortable for her. You know, he said,
a fancy wheelchair, ramps, a new house
where she didn’t have to pull herself up on her crutches
to reach for everything.
And two more years later, when he signed his first contract,
my daddy said he cried because
now he could buy that wheelchair
and that house and help his mother and his sister
move into it together
and see them cry happy tears.
But some days now, my dad
sits at the window,
silent tears slowly moving down his face.
I don’t even know when his tears started.
I don’t even know when they’re going to end.
Real Fiction
On Saturday mornings
I read novels about stuff like guys running
or playing ball or just being with their friends.
“Realistic fiction.” I don’t know why
it’s not just called “real fiction” or why
I don’t want to read anything else anymore.
I like that it’s real people,
real stuff happening to them
in real time. In my books, nobody
jumps off a mountain, then bounces
back up to the top. Nobody can fly or
cast a lifesaving web
across the city. I wish.
But life doesn’t work that way.
Today I’m reading a novel about these kids
who live in Harlem
and get in some trouble over a science project.
Something about their faraway life and
different kind of problems makes the stuff
happening around here seem like—
I don’t know. Feels like anything can
that’s why I like realistic fiction. Real
problems that real people could have
and the stories not always ending
with some happily ever after. But still
most people seem to end up
okay.
Race Day
Yo, ZJ! It’s race day!
I’m lying in bed watching the snow come down
but jump up quick
when I hear my daddy.
Yo, ZJ! It’s race day!
Throw on my track pants, sneaks and hoodie before I even
brush my teeth.
Used to be me in a jogging stroller, my daddy
pushing me all over Maplewood.
Then me on my scooter, trying to keep up with him.
But now we mostly run together.
And one day a year, we race!
It’s Sunday and this is the year I’ll beat him. I know it.
This is the year, I yell down the stairs to him. You ain’t ready!
Don’t say ain’t, my daddy yells back.
And I already am ready.
You the one up there still getting dressed.
I run down the stairs and he’s standing in the doorway,
bending over to touch his toes,
then stretching his arms up and over.
I stand behind him and do the same thing, bending
left with him
and right with him and
over and up with him.
The two of us, the way we’ve always done.
And then we run!
Down Valley to Baker Street, Baker to Ridgewood Road,
then Cypress with him only a little bit ahead of me and the air leaving my lungs, coming back in cold,
the snow turning to beads
on our faces, mixing in with the sweat.
I can hear my daddy’s own breath coming
hard as we turn at the golf course,
make our way back, and that’s when
I kick a sprint at him, take off
with the air stinging my cheeks,
my smile as wide as anything until I hear him
coming up behind me,
his size fourteen shoes crunching in the snow,
his laughter the soft sound
I’ve always known.
You thought you had me, he says between breaths, and then he’s gone,
kicking dusty snow up and yelling back over his shoulder
One day, ZJ.
But today is not that day!
I keep running, though, because the day feels regular
and regular feels cold and good.
I keep running fast and hard,
just a little bit behind him, already
thinking I’m gonna win this race
next year.
Tackle
One time, me and Ollie were in my yard playing tackle while his mom, Bernadette,
talked with my mom inside.
Ollie tackled me so hard, my head hit the ground
and my nose bled.
I ran inside with the blood all down the front
of my shirt, Ollie
running beside me saying I’m sorry, ZJ.
I didn’t mean to bust your nose like that. I’m sorry.
After that, both my mom and Bernadette said
if they ever saw us playing tackle without helmets again . . .
That’s all they said, but we knew the rest.
My dad probably holds the Football Hall of Fame record
for the most concussions. Even with a helmet on.
I don’t think Mama really likes football,
but she won’t say that,
just says I better never see you playing without a helmet
just says Why don’t you and Ollie find another game to play
just says Be careful
just says I love you, ZJ—body, brain and soul.
Maplewood, 2000
This guy on the radio said the world was going to end
when we got to the new millennium. That it was gonna explode—a whole nother big bang
but this time, instead of the earth being created,
it was just gonna bust into smithereens and all of us would be gone from here.
Forever.
December 31, 1999, came on a Friday. So
Ollie, Darry and Daniel were all staying at my house.
A little bit of snow was falling, and we were in my room
listening to a Prince CD, playing that song “1999”
over and over again.
Maybe one day we’ll see him
dancing on TV.
He danced over to the window, looking up at the sky,
waiting for some sign.
I asked him if he saw anything that looked like
the end of time.
Nope, he said. Just snow.
And maybe we were a little bit scared that it was true.
That this was the last night of all of our lives.
And maybe we were a little bit excited for
some kind of explosion.
We were only ten then, and I guess
when you’re a little kid like that,
some part of you just believes
that no matter what happens, you’re gonna be safe.
If the end of time comes, Daniel said, we had us
some good years together. I’ll always remember y’all.
We didn’t know what was coming.
We didn’t even think it was strange that
my daddy was in his room with the door closed
instead of in his chair in the TV room, watching
videos of football games.
But when he came into our room and started yelling
about the loud music,
we all froze.
Who are these boys, anyway? he said, frowning
at Ollie, Darry and Daniel,
who he’d known practically forever.
At first we thought he was kidding. I said
Daddy. Stop playing.
Then he said Do I look like I’m playing?
and left the room,
slamming the door so hard,
the whole room shook.
After that, we all just went to bed.
Didn’t stay up to say Happy New Year.
Didn’t try to wait to see if the world was gonna end.
My daddy had never yelled at us kids.
So in some kind of way,
the world as we’d always known it
had already ended.
January 1, 2000
Was your dad drunk last night? Darry whispered.
We were all sitting in the kitchen mixing cereal:
Kix and Cap’n Crunch and Froot Loops and
some bad organic one
my mom tried to sneak in with the others.
My dad doesn’t drink.
Maybe it was drugs, Daniel said.
People get caught up sometimes.
Ollie looked at me, and I stared down at my bowl.
My dad doesn’t do drugs either. Y’all know that.
He doesn’t even like those shots
they give him to help when he gets hurt.
Nobody likes a shot, Ollie said. Not even football players.
And they don’t even really care about pain. Anyway, he was just messing with us. He got y’all good!
Ollie looked at me. And smiled.
C’mon, man! I knew he was just playing, Darry said.
He took a mouthful of cereal.
No you didn’t. Your eyes got all big! Ollie said.
He wasn’t playing, Daniel said. Something’s going on.
Nah, he was playing, Darry said. He almost had me too.
I swear, he almost had me.
Like We Used to Do on Fridays
Right after school on Friday I ask
Ollie and Darry and Daniel
if they wanna come to my house
and throw the ball around and stuff,
maybe play some video games, watch a movie, whatnot.
Your dad gonna be there? Daniel asks.
And is he feeling any better?
They all kinda look at me
kinda look at each other
kinda look at the ground.
I shrug.
Well, he’s not yelling anymore, I say.
I’m kinda joking but
nobody laughs.
I don’t tell them that the quiet in our house
is like a bruise. Silent.
Painful.
We’re standing in the schoolyard, and most of the cars
picking up kids are gone. Ollie—well, he walks home most days.
Daniel rides his bike.
Darry gets picked up by his dad but