Tight Page 2

  Ma smirks. “I guess that’s how I make you touch laundry.”

  “Nah. That’s not funny,” I tell her. But it worked. I start folding.

  “Why’s Mike coming for dinner?” I finally ask her.

  “Well, Mike seems nice,” she says, “and Pa and I thought he might make a good friend for you.”

  “Since when do you want me having friends? What happened to you saying no friends and I should focus on school?”

  “I know Mike. He gets good grades. When his mother brought in her paperwork, she showed me his report card. And it’s time to change from me telling you no friends because you’re getting older and you need friends. Good friends.”

  “Okay. What about Pa?” I ask. “Why is he acting different because of Mike?”

  “Pa’s not.”

  I mumble, “Whatevs,” and fold my Batman T-shirt.

  * * *

  • • •

  Our apartment door slams.

  I race into the living room, where Pa and Mike laugh about something. I’m too late for the joke.

  Pa goes toward the kitchen and tells us, “Sit. Food’s ready.”

  Ava sits next to Mike, and I sit next to Ma.

  As we eat, Mike jokes, “You know what’s better than melted cheese?” then nods at Pa, then Ava, who nod back at him. “Melted ham and . . . “

  “Cheese,” they finish his sentence.

  Mike, Ava, and Pa laugh at themselves for saying the same thing at the same time like they’re part of the same family together, and I’m not.

  I try to join them and fake-chuckle.

  Ava sneers at me like I farted something disgusting.

  Yo! I’m done! I wish I could empty this Mike kid’s plate in the garbage, grab his elbow, and shove him out my apartment so he falls flat on his joking face.

  What’s he trying to be funny for? It’s The Mike Show, and I feel invisible and I only half listen while I lick melted cheese off my fingers.

  But during one of his jokes, he turns to me and says, “Bryan, you know how this joke ends.”

  I have no idea what he’s talking about, but I pay more attention because he’s putting me on the spot.

  Mike keeps telling his joke, then he ends with “So she tells him, ‘This is an A and B conversation, so . . .’” He points his fork at me.

  I do know how this joke ends! I say, “This is an A and B conversation, so C your way out.”

  Pa nods and winks at me. “That’s a good one.”

  Then Mike says, “It was, like, he was all in the sauce and . . .” He points at me again.

  I finish his sentence. “And he doesn’t know the flavor.”

  Ma gives me a look like she’s impressed. Even Ava looks at me like I’m not so disgusting anymore.

  And Mike nods at me like I’m the man.

  Pa stands and starts taking our plates to put in the sink. Ma stands to help.

  Pa tells me, “Bryan, go get my dominoes. I want to see you and Mike play.”

  Dominoes? For real? I jet from the dinner table and rush back with them to the living room.

  * * *

  • • •

  I pour dominoes on the folding table Pa set up for me and Mike. The sounds of the tiles clinking amps me up.

  Pa stands over us. “Take seven,” he tells us.

  “Seven,” me and Mike say at the same time, then we smirk a little at each other because we said seven at the same time.

  I sit and hold my tiles the way Pa acts when he plays.

  “Who has the double six?” Pa wants to know.

  “Me.” Mike clinks the domino on the table.

  I clink a six-four.

  We play a bit, and Pa stands on my side now.

  He points at the five in my hand. “Count how many of those are on the table.”

  I do. Seven. Seven fives are on the table. One five is on Mike’s end. I look at Pa, confused.

  Pa winks. “There are eight in the whole pile.”

  I look back at my hand. That means I have the eighth five.

  Pa points again at the five in my hand, then at the table. “Put that down and you lock the game and win.”

  I shift in my seat, too psyched to put my five down. I slap it on the table hard. The way I’ve seen Pa do. The way I think he’d want me to.

  Pa rubs my head and goes toward the kitchen.

  “Good game.” Mike pours the dominoes in his hand onto the table. Then he spins one fast.

  I watch it spin round and round, as Mike says, “I like doing this at the end of a game.”

  “You played before?” I ask.

  “My moms taught me. She plays.”

  “You win a lot?”

  Mike shrugs. “Usually, all my games.”

  He spins another domino. I look at him, wondering if he let me win.

  After a few seconds, I realize I really don’t care.

  I just played dominoes.

  Pa sorta played with me.

  Pa just coached me.

  Pa rubbed my head.

  I watch Mike spin more dominoes and I wonder. Maybe Ma was right. Right when she said Mike is a nice kid and a cool friend to roll with. Because having him around maybe isn’t so wack after all.

  CHAPTER 4

  “You like comics?” Mike asks after we finish our fourth dominoes game.

  I do but I don’t buy them on the regular since we don’t have loot for them.

  He rushes real quick to his backpack near the sofa, sits back across from me, and pulls out, like, seven comics. Each one is in its own see-through plastic bag. Like ziplocks for comics.

  I lean in wanting to ask to see one, and before I can, Mike hands me half his stack.

  “Open them,” he says. “Just be careful. In a few years, each’ll be worth mad much. That one right there is so boss it’ll buy me one of those all-black Escalades Jay-Z be in. With tinted windows you can’t see through.”

  I thumb at my room. “I have a comic. It’s a’ight but it’s busted because I . . .”

  He asks, mad excited, “Can I go see?”

  * * *

  • • •

  “This whole room is yours?” he asks as we walk in.

  “Yeah.”

  Because it’s my only comic, I hid it in a sneaker box under my bed. Now that I know Mike says comics will be worth bank one day, maybe I should put it up in a ziplock in my closet where I have my autographed poster from the Brooklyn Nets. I got that when my school went on a trip to the Barclays Center.

  I find my comic, and Mike walks to the window with it for more light. He holds the comic mad close to his face like it’s some precious treasure.

  “Son, this is the first Ultimate Spider-Man! Where Miles Morales becomes the new Spider-Man!” He says this like he doesn’t believe it.

  I didn’t know. I only bought it because the new Spider-Man in it is my age and looks like me. He’s half black and half Puerto Rican. I’m full Rican but heads rarely guess right.

  He asks, “You know how many of my comics is worth this?!”

  I cock my head. “Word? A few is worth that one? I didn’t—”

  “Bryan, keep this, a’ight?” He interrupts me like he’s OD serious. “Never trade it. I’m looking out for you. This is bank.”

  “It’s wrinkled though.” I point to wrinkly parts.

  “Still.”

  “Still?” I ask.

  “STILL!”

  Mike stretches out on my bed mad fast and flicks through my Spider-Man comic.

  I sit on the edge with his seven wavy, ziplocked comics: Supermans, Batmans, and a DC-Marvel crossover. I open and pull one out and check for his reaction but he’s not taking his eyes off my comic.

  He talks to me again but still doesn’t take his eyes o
ff what he reads. “Bust it!” He pops up on the bed, giddy. “This is where Miles comes out in the Spider-Man costume. He looks like you and your pops, Joe, you know that?” He holds the comic up to my head level next to my face and smiles. “You Spider-Man, Bryan? And I don’t know it?”

  What he just said has me feeling like I’m web-swinging high over Manhattan skyscrapers like Spider-Man.

  “He looks like you too,” I tell Mike. “Because me and you—”

  “We could pass for brothers,” he finishes.

  I wasn’t going to say that, but I like how that sounds. “Brothers.”

  Mike shuts my comic and scoots next to me.

  He points to the page of the Batman comic I’m reading and tells me a secret fact about Robin. “Robin has no pops or moms, just like Batman.” Mike keeps saying facts about Batman, the Joker, and more.

  “How you know so much about comics? Where you learn all of this?”

  He tells me he’s been into comics for a while then tells me more facts about heroes and villains from comics that aren’t even in this stack. Mike is a brainiac for real, for real. Like that genius kid David who used to be in my class and sounded too smart for my school. Then one day his parents transferred him out and I never saw him again. I believe Ma when she said Mike has good grades from when she saw his report card.

  Mike keeps blowing my mind with more comic facts, then he suddenly sits straight.

  “Out of these superheroes”—Mike holds a bunch of comics in both hands the way magicians hold up cards when they ask someone to pick one—“whose power you want?”

  I point to Mike’s Batman comic. Then to his Black Panther comic. “Them two. It says on Batman’s cover he’s the world’s smartest detective. Or I’d be Black Panther since he’s as smart as Batman. They figure stuff out fast and know things ten steps ahead. Plus, they fight as good as anyone if they have to.”

  “Black Panther is smarter. Batman is one of the smartest people on Earth. Black Panther is one of the smartest people in the whole Marvel universe.” Mike corrects me about that then holds up a comic. “But this is the man! Luke Cage. Nothing hurts him.”

  Luke Cage rocks a skintight T-shirt, has huge muscles everywhere, is black, and bald.

  “Nothing?” I ask.

  “Nothing. His skin can’t break, he’s strong like Superman, and he throws trucks. He’ll run through this brick wall. Tobi at school has Netflix, and Luke Cage has a show.”

  “You have a phone? Show me.”

  Mike shakes his head. “Nah, I don’t have one.”

  “Me neither,” I say.

  “But if I did,” he says, grinning, “I’d show you Luke Cage’s show and it’s sick. In one episode, he stops a car racing at top speed just by stepping in front of it. I’m telling you: Nothing hurts him.”

  “Cool!”

  When he gets ready to leave, Mike puts each comic back into a ziplock, then stacks them in a pile. A piece of white copy paper sticks out a bit in between the comics.

  “What’s that?” I ask, pointing at it.

  Mike slides it out and hands it to me.

  Whoa! It’s a blazing pencil drawing of Batman choke-holding the Joker while Superman floats above everyone and bullets bounce off his chest. I keep catching new cool parts of this drawing—details and shading making it hot enough to be in a comic. Mike’s name is signed in the bottom left-hand corner.

  “You drew this?” I ask, mad impressed.

  He nods. “Yeah. It’s not my best. I have better at home.”

  I can’t believe dude is an artist. “Hold up!”

  I go to the top of my drawer and bring down my sneaker box. “Check these out.”

  Mike flips through my drawings. Drawing after drawing, his nod goes from a little to a lot of nodding. “This is what’s up! You draw too?”

  “Been. Since third grade.”

  “Me too!”

  Mike reaches his fist over to me and we fist-bump.

  “I have to jet,” Mike says. “But let’s chill tomorrow. After school, maybe we could read comics and draw. At my place.”

  “That’d be cool.”

  We leave my room, and Mike says good-bye to everyone.

  “Maybe you and Bryan should hang out again,” Pa suggests.

  Ha!

  Me and Mike nod at each other like we’re in the same secret club together since we already privately spoke about that.

  Mike asks Ma, “Can he come over my place tomorrow?”

  She squints, thinking about it. “Will your mom be there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, then,” Ma says. I figure Ma is fine with it because she works late most weekdays, so now I’ll have another safe place to be after school.

  Me and Mike fist-bump each other again. “Tomorrow.”

  This is crazy. Just yesterday I wished things could be different. And now they are.

  I was worried about Mike and now we cool.

  Tomorrow is going to be lit.

  CHAPTER 5

  Mike’s building is like mine. Outside, heads hang everywhere.

  “Ayo!” one grown man jokes mad loud with Mike. “Who dis? Another brother of yours?”

  A bunch of guys laugh like that’s the funniest cut.

  “Yeah,” Mike says like it’s true. “This is my brother Bryan.”

  Dudes nod and greet me. “Whattup, Mike’s brother.”

  Some put fists and hands out. I fist-bump and dap back as me and Mike go in his building. I have to admit it feels good.

  I head to Mike’s elevator and he says, “Let’s take the stairs.”

  His elevator must be like mine.

  On the fourth floor, Mike uses his key to open his apartment door. It’s quiet inside.

  “Where’s your moms?” I ask.

  He shrugs like it’s no big deal and says, “She’ll probably be home soon.”

  What’s up with homeboy? Did he lie to my mother? On one hand, I feel a bit uncomfortable. On the other hand, I figure it must be okay. I mean, Ma and Pa want me to hang with him.

  In his bedroom, there’s almost no room to walk, with three beds squeezed in. Now I get why he made a big deal about me having my own room. Now I get those times Ma told Ava and me we don’t realize how good we have it.

  Mike says, “I have three brothers.”

  My eyes pop. I have three brothers! But I don’t even live with one, and he lives with all three.

  “Yeah, one of them won’t be here for a while. He went to live with his pops for I don’t know how long. You want a Superman, a Spider-Man, or something better?”

  “Whatevs. You said ‘better.’ Hook me up with better.”

  Mike grins and jokes in a high, whiny voice like that comedian Kevin Hart: “Oh, you not ready. ‘He wasn’t ready.’”

  He goes and kneels by his bed and slides out a sneaker box from under it.

  Wooooow. He hides stuff in a sneaker box under his bed too.

  He pulls two comics from it. “Bust these.”

  “Daredevil!” I read both covers’ titles. “These covers are lit!”

  Mike points at Daredevil, all built in his bloodred costume. “He moves like Spider-Man. He beats up guys left and right.”

  “C’mon, son,” I interrupt Mike. “I know Daredevil. When he gets mad, he turns into a green giant who gets stronger as he gets madder.”

  Mike looks at me like I’m dumber than dumb.

  I joke, “Gotti! Daredevil is blind! He can’t see and uses a billy club to fight and swings above buildings like Spider-Man.”

  Mike laughs and exhales hard. “Woo! Good one. I thought for a sec you seriously confused Daredevil with the Hulk.”

  Mike takes one of the Daredevil comics and climbs on his bed. I stand there not knowing what to do.

 
; “Sit there.” Mike points. “That my brother’s bed. The one who’ll be ghost for a while.”

  I hop on it.

  When I’m done with mine, we swap.

  Then we get two new comics, finish, and swap again.

  We swap so many times that at one point I stop reading and tell him, “Yo, my feet fell asleep.”

  “My butt been fell asleep,” Mike says, laughing.

  We both laugh as I punch feeling back into my legs.

  Mike laughs, punching his butt.

  We go back to reading, and soon it’s dark out of his window and I realize I have to leave.

  All that time, none of Mike’s family ever came to his apartment.

  When I get back home, Ma asks, “So how was it at Mike’s?”

  “Fine.”

  She doesn’t ask if his mom was there, and I’m glad because I don’t have to get into specifics.

  Part of me figures Mike might’ve thought his mother was coming home and the next time she’ll be there. But what if it is just me and him again the next time? Well, what’s so bad about that? We did what Ma likes me doing: chilling, staying out of trouble, and we even read. Ma thinks reading is the best, so I guess it’s all good.

  CHAPTER 6

  The next day I hang with Mike after school again in his apartment. I meet two of his brothers, Jim and Desmond. But they’re jetting so we don’t really speak.

  His mom ends up being there for a little bit too. I meet her as I leave but she doesn’t say much either. None of Mike’s family stays long enough in each other’s space for anyone to talk-talk.

  The next week I’m glad when Mike says, “Let’s head to your place.” I’m happy because it’s my place, and Ma said she’ll be home early so she’ll be around. That feels better to me. So just like that, we stop going to his apartment.

  Once in my place, Mike points at a photo on the living-room shelf near the TV. It’s of Pa and his friends from jail. They all rock prison uniforms. Nobody smiles. Mike grins and says, “They gangster.”

  I nod and tap his elbow. “Come on. Let’s go over . . .”