I slipped the piece of paper in my pocket and went into my apartment.
“Nana,” I called out.
No answer.
I walked to her bedroom and eased the door open. She was sleeping soundly. I decided to let her get her rest. Maybe I would let Kwame’s homecoming be a surprise. I eased the door closed and went into my room to get out of those tight shoes and slick pants. I quickly changed into the sweat suit that I would wear to football practice. I grabbed the envelope that General Mack had given me. I opened it up and saw there was nothing inside. The outside was only addressed to “The Residents of 245 Harrington Way, Atlanta, GA, 30031.” I tossed it on my dresser and left the apartment.
I looked around for General Mack to see if he could tell me why he gave me an empty envelope, but he was nowhere to be found. I walked over to Amir’s place to pick him up for practice, and when I knocked on the door, his eight-year-old sister, Malaya, opened it.
“Heeey, cutie pie,” I said, reaching down and pinching her chubby cheek.
“Hey, Romeo,” she said before running back to her television show.
“You doing good in school?” I asked Malaya.
“Nope,” Miss Jackson, Amir and Malaya’s mom, said, wheeling herself into the living room. “Bad as she can be.”
“That’s not true, Romeo,” Malaya said, rolling her eyes at her mother.
“Roll another eye and I’ll knock you into next week,” Miss Jackson said, even though anybody with eyes knew it was an idle threat. She was paralyzed after being shot by a stray bullet from the gun of a ten-year-old wannabe gang member. Now she got around the neighborhood in a wheelchair that had seen better days.
Malaya rolled her eyes again, then went back to watching television.
“How you doing today, Miss Jackson?” I asked. “Outside of looking for a fight.”
“Fight?” she said, looking around the apartment. “Ain’t nobody round here can beat me.”
“Well, how are you doing?” I asked again.
“Boy, if I was doing any better, I’d be sitting on His lap.”
“On whose lap?”
“God’s lap, fool. Who you think I’m talking about?”
“I don’t know. I thought you might’ve been talking about some little man you were getting your creep on with round here.”
“Shut yo mouth.” She blushed. “You know I had a dream about fish last night, and who is the first person I see in my house? You! So who you got pregnant?”
“Miss Jackson, why you always trying me? Maybe Amir got somebody pregnant. Why it gotta be me?”
“Boy, you know Amir ain’t gonna bust a grape with Welch’s permission,” she said, laughing at her own joke. “It’s you. Sure as I’m sitting here.”
“Wrong. I’m a virgin,” I said, smiling as I walked into Amir’s room.
“Yeah, right,” Miss Jackson said to my back. “And Denzel Washington is my baby daddy.”
Amir’s room was a hot mess. He called it “the headquarters,” but it looked like someone’s hindquarters. One wall was painted black, one was bloodred, one was dark green, and the other one was the ugliest yellow I had ever seen in my life. The walls were adorned with posters of his heroes. Huey P. Newton, of the Black Panthers, was sitting in a straw wingback chair holding two rifles. H. Rap Brown pointed an accusing finger at somebody, and Malcolm X peeked out of a window while holding an AK-47 assault rifle. Martin Luther King frowned as he delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.
The stereo was blasting something from Public Enemy.
“I got so much trouble on my mind,” Public Enemy’s Chuck D shouted. “Refuse to lose.”
Amir didn’t even hear me enter his room. He sat at his desk in front of his computer, bobbing his head up and down as his favorite rapper of all time told the white power structure to kiss him where the sun didn’t shine.
“Don’t move!” I yelled, sticking my finger in his neck.
He jumped and turned around, scared out of his mind.
“Got dog it, Romeo! Don’t be coming in here with all that foolishness. This is a place of business,” Amir said, hitting the STOP button on the CD player.
“My bad. Don’t want to mess up the struggle,” I said, slapping him on the back.
“While you playing”—Amir reached over and pulled a paper off the printer and handed it to me—“check this out.”
“What’s this?” I said, looking at a letter addressed to the governor of Georgia.
“I’m trying to get a new law passed that says liquor stores in the hood can’t open up until after five o’clock in the afternoon. I’m sending one to the mayor too.”
I started laughing and he snatched the paper back.
“Think about it, Romeo. Why they gotta open before five? See, if we get this law passed, then we’ll get rid of half the bums in the hood. If a brother gotta wait until five o’clock before he can get his drink on, then he might as well get a job. He should be working anyway.”
“I hear ya. Where do I sign?”
“That’s a good idea.”
“What?”
“A petition.” Amir pulled out a blank piece of paper.
“Good luck,” I said, signing my name on the blank sheet.
“I don’t know why we gotta have a liquor store on every other corner anyway. I’m about to try to get another law passed that says two liquor stores cannot be within a twenty-mile radius of an already-standing liquor store.”
“Man, get ready for practice. You have the rest of your life to save the hood.”
“That’s where ya wrong, black man. Time is ticking and we’re about to be extinct.”
“Guess what?” I said.
“What?” Amir snapped.
“I was on the bus today going to see Kwame, and I met a fan of yours. He was talking about how good you were.”
“For real?” Amir’s eyes grew wide.
“Said he was gonna go out and try to find a jersey with your number on it. What is your number anyway, Amir?”
Amir narrowed his eyes. Realizing that I was playing him, he stuck his middle finger up at me. He got up and pulled his sports bag out of the closet.
“Come on, fool. I’m only on that old stinking team because you begged me to play. I don’t give a rat’s butt about no football, and you got the nerve to have jokes,” he said, walking out of the room. “Bye, Mom. I’ll see you after practice.”
“Amir, you got some money?” Malaya asked.
“Nope.”
“Man,” she pouted. “I’m hungry.”
Amir looked at me. I pulled out a ten-dollar bill and handed it to him.
“I’ll give it back to you this weekend when we get paid.”
We worked part-time at North DeKalb Mall in the Foot Locker sports store. Not only did it put a little extra change in our pockets, but more important, it also kept us rocking those fire tennis shoes the minute they hit the shelves.
“It’s all good,” I said, happy I could help out my best boy.
“Get Mommy something too,” he said, handing his little