All American Boys

Your left! Your left! Your left-right-left! Your left! Your left! Your left-right-left!
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I left. I left. I left-left-left that wack school and that even more wack
ROTC drill team because it was Friday, which to me, and basically every
other person on Earth, meant it was time to party. Okay, maybe not
everybody on Earth. I’m sure there was a monk somewhere on a mountain
who might’ve been thinking of something else. But I wasn’t no monk. ank
God. So for me and my friends, Friday was just another word for party.
Monday, Tuesday, Hump Day (because who can resist the word “hump”?),
Thursday, and Party. Or as my brother, Spoony, used to say, “Poorty.” And
that’s all I was thinking about as I crammed into a bathroom stall after
school—partying, and how I wasn’t wanting to be in that stiff-ass uniform
another minute.
Thankfully, we didn’t have to wear it every day. Only on Fridays, which
was what they called “uniform days.” Fridays. Of all days. Whose dumb idea
was that? Anyway, I’d been wearing it since that morning—first bell is at 8:50
a.m.—for drill practice, which is pretty much just a whole bunch of yelling
and marching, which is always a great experience right before sitting in class
with thirty other students and a teacher either on the verge of tears or yelling
for some other kid to head down to the principal’s office. Fun.
Let me make something clear: I didn’t need ROTC. I didn’t want to be
part of no military club. Not like it was terrible or anything. As a matter of
fact, it was actually just like any other class, except it was Chief Killabrew—
funniest last name ever—teaching us all about life skills and being a good
person and stuff like that. Better than math, and if it wasn’t for the drill crap
and the uniform, it really would’ve just been an easy A to offset some of my
Cs, even though I know my pop was trying to use it as some sort of gateway into the military. Not gonna happen. I didn’t need ROTC. But I did it, and I
did it good, because my dad was pretty much making me. He’s one of those
dudes who feels like there’s no better opportunity for a black boy in this
country than to join the army. at’s literally how he always put it. Word for
word.
“Let me tell you something, son,” he’d say, leaning in the doorway of my
room. I’d be lying on my bed, doodling in my sketch pad, doing everything
physically possible to not just stop drawing and jam the pencils into my ears.
He’d continue, “Two weeks aer I graduated from high school, my father
came to me and said, ‘e only people who are going to live in this house are
people I’m making love to.’”
“I know, Dad,” I’d moan, fully aware of what was coming next because he
said it at least once a month. My father was the president of predictability,
probably something he learned when he was in the army. Or a police officer.
Yep, the old man went from a green uniform, which he wore only for four
years—though he talks about the military like he put in twenty—to a blue
uniform, which he also only wore for four years before quitting the force to
work in an office doing whatever people do in offices: get paid to be bored.
“And I knew what he was trying to tell me: to get out,” Dad would drone.
“But I didn’t know where I was going to go or what I was going to do. I
didn’t really do that well in school, and well, college just wasn’t in the cards.”
“And so you joined the army, and it saved your life,” I’d finish the story for
him, trying to water down my voice, take some of the stings out of it.
“Don’t be smart,” he’d say, pointing at me with the anger of fury. I never
managed to take enough bite out of my tone. And trust me, I knew not to
push it too far. I was just so tired of hearing the same thing over and over
again.
“I’m not trying to be smart,” I’d reply, calming him down. “I’m just
saying.”
“Just saying what? You don’t need discipline? You don’t need to travel the
world?”
“Dad—” I’d start, but he would shut me down and barrel on.
“You don’t need a free education? You don’t need to fight for your
country? Huh?”
“Dad, I—” Again, he’d cut me off.
“What is it, Rashad? You don’t wanna take aer your father? Look
around.” His voice would li way higher than necessary and he’d ing his
arms all over the place temper-tantrum style, pointing to the walls and
windows and pretty much everything else in my room. “I don’t think I’ve
done that bad. You and your brother have never had a care in the world!”
Then came his favorite saying; it wouldn’t have surprised me if he had it
tattooed across his chest. “Listen to me. There’s no better opportunity for a
black boy in this country than to join the army.”
“David.” My mother’s voice would come sweeping down the hallway with
just enough spice in it to let the old man know that once again, he’d pushed
too hard. “Leave him alone. He stays out of trouble and he’s a decent
student.” A decent student. I could’ve had straight As if I wasn’t always so
busy sketching and doodling. Some call it a distraction. I call it dedication.
But hey, decent was . . . decent.
Then my father’s face would soften, made mush by my mother’s tone.
“Look, can you just try it for me, Rashad? Just in high school. That’s all I ask.
I begged your brother to do it, and he needed it even more than you do. But
he wouldn’t listen, and now he’s stuck working down at UPS.” The way he
said it was as if the lack of ROTC had a direct connection to why my older
brother worked at UPS. As if only green and blue uniforms were okay, but
brown ones meant failure.
“That’s a good job. The boy takes care of himself, and him and his
girlfriend have their own apartment. Plus he’s got all that volunteer work he
does with the boys at the rec center. So Spoony’s fine,” my mother argued.
She pushed my father out of the way so she could share the space in the
doorway. So I could see her. “And Rashad will be too.” Dad shook his head
and left the room.
That exact same conversation happened at least twenty times, just like
that. So when I got to high school, I just did it. I joined ROTC. Really it’s
called JROTC, but nobody says the J. It stands for the Junior Reserve Officer
Training Corps. I joined to get my dad off my back. To make him happy.
Whatever.
e point is, it was Friday, “uniform day,” and right after the final bell
rang I ran to the bathroom with my duffel bag full of clothes to change out
of everything green Springfield Central High School bathrooms were never empty. There was
always somebody in there at the mirror studying whatever facial hair was
finally coming in, or sitting on a sink checking their cell phone, skipping
class. And after school, especially on a Friday, everybody popped in to make
sure plans hadn’t been made without them knowing. The bathroom was
pretty much like an extension of the locker room, where even the students
like me, the ones with no athletic skill whatsoever, could come and talk
about the same thing athletes talked about, without all the ass slapping—
which, to me, made it an even better place to be.
“Whaddup, ’Shad?” said English Jones, making a way-too-romantic face
in the mirror. Model face to the le. Model face to the right. Brush the hairline
with my hand, then come down the face and trace the space where hopefully,
one day, a mustache and beard will be. at’s how you do it. Mirror-Looking
101, and English was a master at it. English was pretty much a master at
everything. He was the stereotypical green-eyed pretty boy with parents who
spoiled him, so he had y clothes and tattoos. Plus his name—his real name
—was English, so he pretty much had his pick when it came to the girls. It
was like he was born to be the man. Like his parents planned it that way.
But, unstereotypically, he wasn’t cocky about it like you would think, which
of course made the ladies and the teachers and the principal and the parents
and even the basketball coach even more crazy about him. That’s right,
English was also on the basketball team. Be captain. Be best player.
Because why the hell wouldn’t he be?
“What’s good, E?” I said, giving him the chin-up nod while pushing my
way into a stall. English and I have been close since we were kids, even
though he was a year older than me. We were two pieces of a three-piece
meal. Shannon Pushcart was the third wing, and the fries—the extra-salty
add-on—was Carlos Greene. Carlos and Shannon were also in the
bathroom, both leaning into the urinals but looking back at me, which, by
the way, is a weird thing to do. Don’t ever look at someone else while you’re
taking a piss. Doesn’t matter how well you know a person, it gets weird.
“You partying tonight at Jill’s, soldier-boy?” Carlos asked, clowning me
about the ROTC thing.
“Of course I’m going. What about you? Or you got basketball practice?” I
asked from inside the stall. en I quickly followed with, “Oh, that’s right.
You ain’t make the team. Again.”
“Ohhhhhhhhhhh!” Shannon gassed the joke up like he always did
whenever it wasn’t about him. A urinal ushed and I knew it was him who
ushed it, because Shannon was the only person who ever ushed the
urinals. “I swear that’s never gonna get old,” Shannon said, laughter in his
voice.
I unbuttoned my jacket—a polyester Christmas tree covered in
ornaments—and threw it over the stall door.
“Whatever,” Carlos said.
“Yeah, whatever,” I shot back.
“Don’t y’all ever get tired of cracking the same jokes on each other every
day?” English’s voice cut in.
“Don’t you ever get tired of stroking your own face in the mirror,
English?” Carlos clapped back.
Shannon spit-laughed. “Got ’im!”
“Shut up, Shan,” English snapped. “And anyway, it’s called ‘stimulating the
follicles.’ But y’all wouldn’t know nothin’ about that.”
“But E, seriously, it ain’t workin’!” from Shannon.
“Yeah, maybe your follicles just ain’t that into you!” Carlos came right
behind him. By this point I was doubled over in the stall, laughing.
“But your girlfriend is,” English said, with impeccable timing. A snuff
shot, straight to the gut.
“Ohhhhhhhh!” Of course, from Shannon again.
“I don’t even have no girlfriend,” Carlos said. But that didn’t matter.
Cracking a joke about somebody’s girlfriend—real or imaginary—is just a
great comeback. At all times. It’s just classic, like “your mother” jokes. Carlos
sucked his teeth, then shook the joke off like a champ and continued, “at’s
why we gotta get to this party, so I can see what these ladies lookin’ like.”
“I’m with you on that one,” English agreed. “Smartest thing you’ve said all
day.”
Off went the greenish-blue, short-sleeved, button-up shirt, which I also
rung across the top of the door.
“Exactly. That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout,” Shannon said, way too eager. “‘See
what these ladies lookin’ like,’” he mimicked Carlos, the slightest bit of
sarcasm still in his voice. If I picked up on it, I knew Carlos did too.
“I can’t tell you what they’ll be lookin’ like, but I can tell you who they
won’t be lookin’ at . . . you!” Carlos razzed, still on get-back from Shannon
being slick and for laughing at my basketball crack. It had been at least three
minutes since I made that joke, and he was still holding on to it. So petty.
“Shut up, ’Los. Everybody in here know I got more game than you. In
every way,” Shannon replied, totally serious.
I kicked my foot up onto the toilet to untie my patent leather shoes. Just
so you know, patent leather shoes should only be for men who are getting
married. Nothing about patent leather says “war.”
“Argue about all this at the party. Just make sure y’all there. It’s supposed
to be live,” English said, the sound of his footsteps moving toward the door.
He and Shannon didn’t have mandatory basketball practice like usual, but
were still going to the gym to shoot around because, well, that’s what they
did every day. For those guys, especially English, basketball was life. English
knocked on my stall twice. “Look for me when you get there, dude.”
“Bet.”
“Later, ’Shad,” from Shannon.
“Aight, ’Shad, hit me when you on your way over,” Carlos called as the
door closed behind them. Carlos grew up right down the street from me,
and, like English, was a senior and therefore could drive, and therefore
(again) was always my ride to the party. We smoked him with the jokes all
the time because he’d tried out for the basketball team every single year, and
got cut every single year, because he just wasn’t very good. But if you asked
him, he was the nicest dude to ever touch a ball. What he actually was good
at, though, was art, which is also why he and I got along. He wasn’t into
drawing or painting, at least not in the traditional sense. He was into graffiti.
A “writer.” His tag was LOS(T), and they were all over the school, and our
neighborhood, and even the East Side. Whenever we were heading to a
party, for him it was just another opportunity to speed around the city in his
clunker, the backseat covered in paint markers and spray cans, while he
pointed out some of his masterpieces.
Really they were more like our masterpieces, because I was the one who
gave him some of the concepts for where and how to write his tag. For
instance, on the side of the neighborhood bank, I told him he should bomb
it in money-green block letters. And on the door of the homeless shelter I
suggested gold regal letters. And on the backboard of a basketball hoop at
the West Side court, I suggested he write it in gang script. I never had the
heart to do any actual tagging. I mentioned how my father was, right? Right. Plus Carlos was a pro at it. He knew how to control the nozzle and minimize
the drip to get clean tags. Like, perfect. I never really told him, just because
that wasn’t something we did, but I loved them. All of them.