He was alive when he went into the hospital.
So now you’re afraid of hospitals?
Nobody’s afraid. I’m fine. It’s not that serious.
Fainting is a joke, is it?
I saw you, baby, and I got a little excited. Come kiss me.
Don’t do that . . .
Baby, it’s nothing. I just got a little dizzy.
You love me?
Like summer loves short nights.
Get a checkup, then.
Only cure I need is you.
I’m serious about this, Chuck.
Only doctor I need is Dr. Crystal Bell. Now come here . . .
And then there is silence, so I put the pillow over my head
because when they stop talking,
I know what that means.
Uggghh!
hy·per·ten·sion
[HI-PER-TEN-SHUHN] noun
A disease
otherwise known as
high blood pressure.
As in: Mom doesn’t want Dad
eating salt, because too much of it
increases the volume
of blood,
which can cause hypertension.
As in: Hypertension
can affect all types of people,
but you have a higher risk
if someone in your family
has had the disease.
As in: I think
my grandfather
died of hypertension?
To fall asleep
I count
and recount
the thirty-seven strands
of my past
in the box
beneath my bed.
Why We Only Ate Salad for Thanksgiving
Because every year
Grandma makes
a big delicious dinner
but this year
two days before
Thanksgiving
she fell off
her front stoop
on the way
to buy groceries
so Uncle Bob
my mom’s younger brother
(who smokes cigars
and thinks he’s a chef
because he watches
Food TV)
decided he would
prepare a feast
for the whole family
which consisted of
macaroni with no cheese
concrete-hard cornbread
and a greenish-looking ham
that prompted Mom
to ask if he had any eggs
to go along with it
which made grandma laugh so hard
she fell again, this time
right out of her wheelchair.
How Do You Spell Trouble?
During the vocabulary test
JB passes me a folded note
to give to
Miss Sweet Tea,
who sits at the desk
in front of me
and who looks
pretty tight
in her pink denim capris
and matching sneaks.
Someone cracks a window.
A cold breeze whistles.
Her hair dances to its own song.
In this moment I forget
about the test
and the note
until JB hits me in the head with his No. 2.
Somewhere between
camaraderie and imbecile
I tap her beige bare shoulder
with the note.
At that exact moment
the teacher’s head creeps
up from his desk, his eyes directly on me.
I’m a fly caught in a web.
What do I do?
Hand over the note, embarrass JB;
or hide the note, take the heat.
I look at my brother,
his forehead a factory of sweat.
Miss Sweet Tea smiles,
gorgeous pink lips and all.
I know what I have to do.
Bad News
I sit in Mom’s office
for an hour,
reading
brochures and pamphlets
about the Air Force and the Marines.
handling principal stuff:
a parent protesting her daughter’s F;
a pranked substitute teacher crying;
a broken window.
After an hour
she finally sits
in the chair next to me
and says, The good news is,
I’m not going to suspend you.
The bad news, Josh,
is that
neither Duke nor any other college
accepts cheaters. Since I can’t
seem to make a decent man out of you
perhaps the Air Force or Marines can.
I want to tell her I wasn’t cheating,
that this is all JB and Miss Sweet Tea’s fault,
that this will never happen again,
that Duke is the only thing that matters,
but a water pipe bursts in the girls’ bathroom.
So I tell her I’m sorry,
it won’t happen again,
then head off to my next class.
Gym class
is supposed to be about balls:
volleyballs, basketballs, softballs,
soccer balls—sometimes sit-ups
and always sweat.
But today Mr. Lane tells
us not to dress out.
He’s standing in front of the class,
a dummy laid out on the floor,
plastic, faceless, torso cut in half.
I’m not paying attention
to anything he’s saying
or to the dummy
because
I’m watching Jordan pass notes
to Miss Sweet Tea. And I
wonder what’s in the notes.
Josh, why don’t you come up
and assist me.
What? Huh?
The class snickers,
and before I know it
I’m tilting the dummy’s head back,
pinching his nose,
blowing in his mouth,
and pumping his chest
thirty times.
All the while
thinking that if life is really fair
one day I’ll be the one
writing notes to some sweet girl
and JB will have to squash his lips
on some dummy’s sweaty mouth.
Conversation
Hey, JB,
I played a pickup game
at the Rec today.
At first, the older guys laughed
and wouldn’t let me in
unless I could hit from half-court . . .
Of course, I did. All net.
I wait for JB to say something,
but he just smiles,
his eyes all moony.
I showed them guys
how the Bells ball.
I scored fourteen points.
They told me I should
try out for junior varsity next year
’cause I got hops . . .
JB, are you listening?
JB nods, his fingers tapping away
on the computer, chatting
probably with
Miss Sweet Tea.
I told the big guys about you, too.
They said we could come back and
run with them anytime.
What do you think about that?
HELLO—Earth to JB?
Even though I know he hears me,
the only thing JB is listening to
is the sound of his heart
bouncing
on the court
of love.
Conversation
Dad, this girl is making
Jordan act weird.
He’s here, but he’s not.
He’s always smiling.
His eyes get all spacey
whenever she’s around,
and sometimes when she’s not.
He wears your cologne.
He’s always
texting her.
He even wore loafers to school.
Dad, you gotta do something.
Dad does something.
He laughs.
Filthy, talking to your brother
right now
would be like pushing water uphill
with a rake, son.
This isn’t funny, Dad.
Say something
to him. Please.
Filthy, if some girl
done locked up JB,
he’s going to jail.
Now let’s go get some doughnuts.
Basketball Rule #5
When
you stop
playing
your game
you’ve already
lost.
Showoff
UP by sixteen
with six seconds
showing, JB smiles,
then STRUTS
side
steps
stutters
Spins, and
S
I
N
K
S
a sick SLICK SLIDING
SWeeeeeeeeeeT
SEVEN-foot shot.
What a showoff.
Out of Control
Are you kidding me?
Come on. Ref, open your eyes.
Ray Charles could have seen
that kid walked.
CALL THE TRAVELING VIOLATION!
You guys are TERRIBLE!
Mom wasn’t
at the game
tonight,
which meant
that all night
Dad was free
to yell
at the officials,
which he did.
Mom calls me into the kitchen
after we get home from beating
St. Francis. Normally she wants
me to sample the macaroni and cheese
to make sure it’s cheesy enough,
or the oven-baked fried chicken
to make sure it’s not greasy and
stuff, but today on the table
is some gross-looking
orange creamy dip with brown specks in it.
A tray of pita-bread triangles is beside it.
Maybe Mom is having one of
her book club meetings.
Sit down, she says. I sit as far
away from the dip as possible.
Maybe the chicken is in the oven.
Where is your brother? she asks.
Probably on the phone with that girl.
She hands me a pita.
No thanks, I say, then stand up
to leave, but she gives me a look
that tells me she’s not finished
with me. Maybe the mac is in the oven.
We’ve talked to you two about
your grandfather, she says.
He was a good man. I’m sorry you never got to meet him, Josh.
Me too, he looked cool in his uniforms.
That man was way past cool.
Dad said he used to curse
a lot and talk about the war.
Mom’s laugh is short, then she’s serious again.
I know we told
you Grandpop died after a fall, but
the truth is he fell because he had a stroke.
He had a heart disease. Too
many years of bad eating and not taking
care of himself and so—
What does this have
to do with anything? I ask,
even though I think I already know.
Well, our family has a history
of heart problems, she says,
so we’re going to start eating better.
Especially Dad. And we’re going to
start tonight with
some hummus and
pita bread.
FOR MY VICTORY DINNER?
Josh, we’re going to try to lay off the fried foods
and Golden Dragon. And when your dad
takes you to the recreation center,
no Pollard’s or Krispy Kreme afterward, understand?
And I understand more than she thinks I do.
But is hummus really the answer?
35–18
is the final score
of game six.
A local reporter
asks JB and I
how we got so good.
Dad screams from behind us,
They learned from Da Man!
The crowd of parents and students
behind us laughs.
On the way home
Dad asks if we should stop
at Pollard’s.
I tell him I’m not hungry,
plus I have a lot of homework,
even though
I skipped lunch today
and finished my homework
during halftime.
Too Good
Lately, I’ve been feeling
like everything in my life
is going right:
I beat JB in Madden.
Our team is undefeated.
I scored an A+ on the vocabulary test.
Plus, Mom’s away at a conference,
which means
so is the Assistant Principal.
I am a little worried, though,
because, as Coach likes to say,
you can get used to
things going well,
but you’re never prepared
for something
going wrong.
I’m on Free Throw Number Twenty-Seven
We take turns,
switching every time we miss.
JB has hit forty-one,
the last twelve in a row.
Filthy, keep up, man, keep up, he says.
Dad laughs loud, and says,
Filthy, your brother is putting on
a free-throw clinic. You better—
And suddenly he bowls over,
a look of horror on his face,
and starts coughing
while clutching his chest,
only no sound comes. I freeze.
JB runs over to him.
Dad, you okay? he asks.
I still can’t move. There is a stream
of sweat on Dad’s face. Maybe
he’s overheating, I say.
His mouth is curled up
like a little tunnel. JB grabs
the water hose, turns the
faucet on full blast, and sprays
Dad. Some of it goes in Dad’s mouth.
Then I hear the sound
of coughing, and Dad is no longer leaning
against the car, now he’s moving
toward the hose, and laughing.
So is JB.
Then Dad grabs the hose
and sprays both of us.
Now I’m laughing too,
but only
on the outside.
He probably
just got something stuck
in his throat,
JB says
when I ask him
if he thought
Dad was sick
and shouldn’t we
tell Mom
what happened.
So, when the phone rings,
it’s ironic
that after saying hello,
he throws the phone to me,
because, even though
his lips are moving,
JB is speechless,
like he’s got something stuck
in his
throat.
i·ron·ic
[AY-RON-IK] adjective
Having a curious or humorous
unexpected sequence of events
&
nbsp; marked by coincidence.
As in: The fact that Vondie
hates astronomy
and his mom works for NASA
is ironic.
As in: It’s not ironic
that Grandpop died
in a hospital
and Dad doesn’t like
doctors.
As in: Isn’t it ironic
that showoff JB,
with all his swagger,
is too shy
to talk
to Miss Sweet Tea,
so he gives me the phone?
This Is Alexis—May I Please Speak to Jordan?
Identical twins
are no different
from everyone else,
except we look and
sometimes sound
exactly alike.
Phone Conversation (I Sub for JB)
Was that your brother?
Yep, that was Josh. I’m JB.
I know who you are, silly—I called you.