Magic Street Read online

  You can't have everybody like you, but you can make it so the ones that don't, keep their distance. Not that Mack ever fought anybody. They'd call him out, he'd just ignore them. They say, Meet me after school, and he says, I ain't doing your homework again, you're on your own now. And if they lay in wait for him, he just run on by. He was fast, but not track team fast. Thing was, he could run forever. Nobody ever kept up, not for long. Guys who pick fights, they aren't the kind to do a lot of solitary running.

  So Mack Street had a name for himself, and the name was, I'm here for my own purpose, and if you ain't my friend, leave me alone. Senior year, it was okay now, none of the kids his own age would try to pick on him. Anybody taller than Mack was on the basketball team. But even so, there was nobody who'd be all impressed if they saw him on this bike with this woman. Wasn't that a shame.

  But you got to live out the life you made for yourself. High school was a dry run for the real world, the principal said at least once per assembly. Mack figured in the grownup world, people wouldn't resent him because he was a hard worker and did good. They'd hire him because of that. He'd make a living. And then he'd get the right kind of girlfriend, not the kind that went for flash and strut.

  "You said that just like Martin Lawrence," he said.

  "You too young to be watching shit like that," she said.

  "Old enough to get a ride from a babe on a bike," he said.

  "No, you did that cause you 'crazy, de-ranged.' "

  They both laughed. Then she said it again. "See you when I see you, Mack Street."

  She peeled out and was gone. Everybody turned to look, but at her, not at Mack. She might have dropped off anybody.

  Why am I suddenly so hungry to be famous at high school? Famous at high school is like being employee of the month at the sanitation department. Famous at high school like being the last guy cut from the team before the first exhibition game. Nobody seen you play except at practice.

  But the smell of her was on his shirt. Not a perfume, really, like some of the girls dumped on themselves every morning. Nor a hair product, though her hair had given his face kind of a beating, to the point where he wanted to say, You ever think of cornrows, Yo Yo? only the bike was too loud so he kept it to himself.

  Mack didn't eat alone—he had a lunch group he sat with—but mostly he just listened to them brag about their prowess in some game or on a date, or talk raunchy about girls they knew would never speak to them. Some of these guys lived in Baldwin Hills and he knew their cold dreams. Not one of them cared about girls or sports as much as they said. It was other stuff. Family stuff. Personal stuff. Wishes they'd never tell to a soul.

  Well, Mack didn't tell them any of his deep stuff, so they were even. Only difference was, he didn't talk about girls or sports, either. Only thing he ever talked about at lunch was lunch, because there was no lying about that, it was right there on the tray in front of them. Apart from that and the weather and was he going to the game or the dance, he just listened and ate and when he was done, he threw away his garbage and stacked his tray and tossed his silverware and went to the library to study.

  Usually he studied his subject, though sometimes he still went back over the Shakespeare stuff, just to see if maybe he'd understand any of it better now—and he sometimes did.

  Today, though, he looked up motorcycles on the internet till he found the Harley that Yo Yo was driving. It was a fine machine. He liked the way it rumbled under him. Like riding a happy sabertooth, purring the whole way as you hurtle over the ground.

  PROPERTY VALUES

  Between his long walks and his cold dreams, Mack once knew everything that was happening in his neighborhood. But now the long walks took place in Fairyland, and he had the skill of shutting down all but the strongest dreams before they were fully formed. So there were things he didn't know about. Nobody was keeping it a secret, he just wasn't there to notice it.

  He knew somebody was moving into the fancy white house just below the drainage valley—he heard all about it when Dr. Phelps died and his second wife got the house in the will and sold it. And he saw a moving van come and guys unload stuff.

  What he didn't know was who the new owner was. There was no hurry. He was bound to hear, especially because the house was above the invisible line—it was up the hill, where the money was, and so whatever happened there was big news to the people who lived in the flat.

  He was eating dinner with Ivory DeVries's family even though Ivory was a year older than Mack and was off at college down in Orange County. Maybe they missed Ivory and Mack was kind of a reminder of the old days, when they both took part in neighborhood games of hide-and-seek. Back when there were enough kids that they could fan out through half of Baldwin Hills.

  So Mack was standing at the sink, helping Ivory's sister Ebony rinse the dishes and load the dishwasher. Ebony had always hated her name, especially because she was very light-skinned. "I mean why did my parents choose each other if it wasn't to make sure they had kids that could pass the damn paper bag test. And then they go and name me Ebony? Why did Ivo get to be Ivory? They name the boy the white name and the girl the black black black name?"

  "I hate to break it to you, Ebby," said Mack, "but both those names are definitely black names."

  "I guess you right, I ain't never going to see no blond boy named Ivory, am I?"

  Mack and Ebony got along okay, like brother and sister, not that Mack didn't notice how she filled out lately. But she was still in ninth grade and she was so short he could have fit her under his arm. And there was no sign she was interested anyway. So they did dishes together.

  He was telling her about teachers he'd had and they were teasing each other about how Ivo always said Mack liked exactly the teachers that he hated most, which Mack insisted on taking as a compliment. That's when the voices in the living room got loud enough to intrude.

  "You think it doesn't hurt property values to have that motorcycle roaring up and down the street at all hours?"

  Maybe it was the word motorcycle that caught Mack's attention.

  "It isn't roaring up and down the street, she's just going home."

  "She does not just go home. She rides all the way to the top of Cloverdale and then races down and skids into her driveway. I've seen her do it twice, so it's a habit."

  "Woman looks that fine on a bike, it isn't going to hurt property values one bit."

  "Now that is just absurd."

  "I value my front yard a lot more now there's a chance she might ride by."

  "That is the most disgusting—"

  "He just a man, what do you expect?"

  "It's like mobile pornography, that's what it is, that girl on her motorcycle!"

  "I never liked Dr. Phelps's second wife one bit, but now that we've seen this new girl, I wish we had Mrs. Phelps back again."

  "She is not like pornography, she's got all her clothes on right up to her neck."

  "Motorcycle-riding h—whatever."

  "The way those clothes fit her she might as well be naked."

  "So let's get together a petition that points that out to her. I mean, if she's that close to naked, why not—"

  "That's enough out of you, Moses Jones."

  "Isn't there a noise ordinance?"

  Mack and Ebby grinned at each other, and without even discussing it they went to the passage between the dining room and the living room and saw that while they were doing dishes, somebody convened a meeting of the neighborhood busybodies.

  Ebby's mama looked at her pointedly. "This is an adult discussion, Ebby."

  Ebby just laughed.

  "I don't like your tone, young lady," said Ebby's mama.

  "We were just wondering," said Mack, "who you talking about on the motorcycle?"

  "The person who just moved into Dr. Phelps's old house just below the hairpin on Cloverdale."

  "Whom I asked to keep the noise down late at night, to which she rudely replied that her bike was her only ride so how was she suppo
sed to get home when she finished work at three A.M."

  "She's one of those inhibitionists who can't stand it when people aren't noticing her."

  "Exhibitionists."

  Ebby poked Mack to try to make him laugh, and it nearly worked. To cover his stifled snort, Mack said, "Um, so she got no name at all? Just 'Motorcycle Ho'?"

  "Mack Street, I'm telling Ura Lee you use language like that."

  "But Mrs. Jones called her—"

  "I called her a motorcycle-riding hoochie mama!"

  "Her name is Yolanda White," said Moses Jones. "You want her phone number?"

  Joyce Jones smacked a sofa pillow into his face. "You better not have her phone number. I got scissors and you sleep naked."

  "That's more than we wanted to know, Joyce," said Eva Sweet Fillmore.

  "I'm getting Moses some pajamas this Christmas," said her husband, Hershey. Their standard joke: When Eva Sweet found out that Hershey Fillmore was the one leaving those chocolates in her desk in fourth grade, it's like they had no choice but to get married as soon as they got old enough.

  "Yo Yo," said Mack.

  "What?" asked Ebby.

  "If she likes you, she lets you call her Yo Yo."

  "Who does?"

  "Yolanda White. The motorcycle-riding hoochie mama."

  "If you children are just going to make fun!" said Ebby's mama sharply.

  "We're back to the dishes!" cried Ebby and she dragged Mack back into the kitchen, though truth to tell, he wanted to stay and listen. Mrs. DeVries made sure he couldn't hear anything from the kitchen, either—she came to the kitchen, gave a child-maiming glare to Ebony, and closed the door.

  "That look could dry up a girl's period," said Ebby.

  "Make a man's balls drop right on the floor," said Mack.

  "I seen her practice that look in a mirror, and it broke."

  "Homeland Security list that look as a weapon of mass destruction."

  From the living room, Mrs. DeVries's voice came loud and clear. "Quiet with that laughing in there or I come back in and look at you both twice!"

  In the end, though, when the meeting was over, Mrs. DeVries came to the kitchen where Mack and Ebony were studying, made a cup of coffee, and told them everything. They were going to get Hershey to write a legal-sounding letter—Hershey was a retired lawyer—to scare her that she'd get sued if she didn't quiet down. And Hershey said there might be something in the deed that he was going to look up.

  Mack listened to everything and didn't argue, but he knew—as Ebby had already said in their whispered conversation during homework—that this wasn't about the motorcycle noise. It was about Yolanda White being a single woman who might be anywhere from eighteen to thirty-five, nobody wanted to make a bet, who somehow had the money to buy a house like that.

  Mrs. DeVries was incensed. "Who does she think she is, buying a house like that? You got to scrimp and save half your life to afford that house. What business a girl that age got with a million-dollar house?"

  "Maybe she had a million dollars," said Ebby.

  "Or maybe she has a man got a million dollars, mark my words, that's how it's going to turn out.

  He'll get tired of her and suddenly she'll be left high and dry with a place she can't afford. Foreclosure!

  That's my bet."

  "You don't know how old she is, Mom, and she might have earned it. Maybe she invented a cure for cancer."

  "Black woman invents the cure for cancer, it's going to be all over the news. Only way that Yo landa be on the news is when she ODs on drugs or holds up a liquor store or gets busted in the front seat of Hugh Grant's automobile on Sunset."

  "Or gets lynched in Baldwin Hills," said Ebby.

  "We're writing a letter, not finding a rope, Little Miss I-Don't-Have-to-Honor-My-Father-and-Mother."

  "How do you know Yolanda White doesn't honor her father and mother?" asked Ebby.

  "Because I sincerely doubt she knows who her father is."

  That hung in the air for a long moment before Mrs. DeVries lost her look of triumph and gave a sort of quick glance toward Mack and then suddenly remembered she had to clean up some more in the living room.

  As soon as she was gone, Ebby looked at Mack and said, "What was that about?"

  "Isn't that just like grownups. It's okay to judge somebody for being a bastard, but not if they're sitting at the table with you."

  "Actually, these days we prefer the term 'differently parented.' "

  "No," said Ebby solemnly, "I am quite certain the term is 'paternity deficient.' 'Differently parented' means your parents are both the same sex, or there's more than two of them in the same house."

  They traded politically correct synonyms for bastard till Mrs. DeVries came in and sent Mack home so Ebony could go to bed. "It is a school night, and not everybody has the stamina to wander through the neighborhood all night and still be up for school in the morning."

  So people did notice him walking the streets. They couldn't know that for him, the middle of the night might really be morning, because he'd just slept the night in Fairyland. It was like perpetual jet lag for Mack, without the jet.

  At the door, Mack finally asked the only question he was still wondering about. "What if Yolanda does get rid of the bike? Would you all welcome her to the neighborhood then?"

  "Welcome her! What do you mean, bake cookies and cakes and invite her over? Not a woman like that! Not on your life!"

  "Well, then, why should she give up the bike for you, if you don't plan to treat her decent even if she does get rid of it?"

  "She won't be giving up the motorcycle for us. She'll be giving it up to avoid a big ugly lawsuit."

  And the door closed with Mack outside.

  Next morning, Mrs. Tucker came over for coffee while Miz Smitcher and Mack ate breakfast, which was becoming her custom now, with no kids in the house and Mr. Tucker off to work so early every day. Mack usually kept still, but today he had a lot on his mind.

  "Over at DeVries they had a meeting last night."

  "About Miss Motorcycle," said Mrs. Tucker.

  "Motorcycle ain't the problem," said Mack.

  "Wakes me up out of a sound sleep every time she goes by!"

  "I mean, last night Mrs. DeVries said it didn't matter if Yolanda give up the bike or not, she still not welcome here."

  "I completely agree," said Mrs. Tucker. "She cheapens the whole neighborhood." else's?"

  "Got to have respect for the neighborhood," said Miz Smitcher.

  "That bike is her ride," said Mack. "Since when do neighbors have the right to tell you what to drive?"

  "We not telling her what to drive," said Mrs. Tucker. "We telling her what not to drive at three o'clock in the morning."

  "Never woke me up," said Mack. Though he immediately realized it was probably because he was in Fairyland at the time.

  "Might not have the right in law," said Miz Smitcher, "but we have a natural right to protect our property values."

  Mack set down his fork and looked at them both in exasperation. "Can you hear yourselves?

  Property values! They taught us in school that 'property values' was how white people used to excuse themselves for trying to keep blacks out of their neighborhood."

  Mrs. Tucker snapped back, "Don't you go comparing racism to... to cyclism."

  "Not that you were alive in those days, Mack, so you might know what you're talking about," said Miz Smitcher, "but the only reason property values went down when black people moved in was because of racism. If they just stop being racists, then black people moving in doesn't lower property values."

  "So if you stop minding her riding her bike...," Mack began.

  "Being black doesn't make a loud noise in the middle of the night," said Miz Smitcher.

  "Neighbors got a right to have quiet. To keep people from being a public nuisance."

  "So you're on their side. To treat this girl like a... like a nigger just cause—"

  "That word does not get said in
my house," said Miz Smitcher.

  "Just cause she's young and cool. Wasn't anybody in this neighborhood ever young and cool? I guess not!"

  Mrs. Tucker looked at Mack and cocked her head to one side. "I don't know that I ever seen this boy mad like this before."

  "Say that word in my house," muttered Miz Smitcher.

  "I guess I just made your property values go down," Mack muttered back.

  "Listen to me, young man. You may be six foot four and too cool to stand, but you—"

  "You don't understand anything about what it means to a black family to own a house! White people been owning houses forever, but here in the United States of Slavery and Sharecropping we never owned anything. Always paying rent to the man when he didn't own us outright."

  "You never a sharecropper, Miz Smitcher," said Mack, trying to keep the scorn out of his voice.

  "My daddy was. Not a homeowner in this neighborhood who didn't have a grandma or grandpa paying rent to some redneck cracker in the South, and a daddy or a mama paying rent to some slumlord in Watts. These aren't the people who made money and moved to Brentwood and pretended to be white, like O. J. These are the people who made their money and moved to Baldwin Hills cause we wanted to have peace and quiet but still be black."

  "She black," said Mack.

  "We want to be black our way," said Miz Smitcher. "Decent, regular, ordinary people. Not show black like those hippity-hop rippety-rappers and that girl on her bike."

  Mrs. Tucker spoke into her coffee cup. "She's a little bit old to be calling her a girl."

  "How do you know she isn't a decent, regular, ordinary person who happens to ride a motorcycle?" demanded Mack.

  "And why do you think I didn't go to that meeting last night?" answered Miz Smitcher.

  "Well if you're against what they doing, why are you arguing with me?"

  "Because you judging and condemning people you don't even understand. What they doing to that girl, you doing to them. Everybody judging and nobody understanding."

  "You were talking about property values," said Mack.

  "I was explaining why somebody like that comes here, it makes us all feel like we getting invaded. Like the neighborhood maybe starting to turn trashy. Plenty of places for trashy people to live. They don't have to live here. This neighborhood is an island in a sea of troubles. Somebody young and loud like that, she's some people's worst nightmare."