didnât sport no colors. I didnât go to the mall unless it was her and me. I never asked to go to the neighborhoods that kids like me live in. I stayed in the house. I didnât mind the quiet or the stares or that time someone called the cops âcause they didnât know I lived around here.
I tried so hard to do good; to do right. But high school ainât nice like they always portraying it on TV. Itâs hard-core. Scary. Even here in the burbs. The school was so white. And the teachers and classes were so different. I been behind since first grade. Ninth grade just means Iâm plain lost. So they might as well be speaking Portuguese at that school.
Cutting class is easy for me. Hitching a ride is like breathing: I do it all the time. Besides, they live in every city, in every town, on just about every block, I bet. Here wasnât no different. So one day, it happened. They found me. Or maybe I found them. You have to have somebody, even if you donât want to, I guess.
âAuntie.â I open the door. Close it. I canât ask her to let me stay. Sheâd just say no. But I donât have no place else to go. I open the door wider. âIâm not going to live with her.â I throw the words into the hall. They fall down the steps and she catches them.
âYou go where I send you. Or get locked upâwhich is most likely to happen anyway.â
I slam the door, almost catching Malcolmâs tail when he walks in. âIâm not living with her.â I kick hangers out my way. Pick up the lamp she bought at Macyâs on sale for a hundred fifty bucks and aim it at the wall. If I could remember one phone number, get to just one of them.
I put it down. Sit back on my bed. Try as hard as I can to remember a number. Only I canât. It wouldnât matter anyway. I owe a few of âem money. And they want it. Auntie told me she was gonna open an account for me. âPutting five thousand bucks in it for starters.â She wanted me to learn to manage money. Big money. â âCause one day itâs all gonna be yours anyhow.â
I pick up the picture frames, wrapping them in between my shorts and shirts. Leaving the one with her and me dressed in cowboy clothes right where it is. But I take the one we took at the mall. It was after church. We was eating someplace special. One of my boys saw us in the window and came in to say hello. Auntie doesnât understand. My boys are not like me. Old people are just old people to themânothing special. So when she gave him a piece of her mind, like she was packing or something, he told me about it later. Said he would hurt her, and still might. â âCause you gonna get the money anyhow, so why should we wait?â
I think thatâs why they lent to me. Why they let the debt build up so high. âIâm good for it,â I always said, when I lost at craps.
âMalcolm, come.â I let him get in my bed. Then I lay across it, too, patting him. Remembering how Auntie would come and find me when I stayed out too late, or all night long, even. I donât know how she did it, but sheâd show up wherever I was. Sheâd tell my boys to keep quiet and for me to come home. Not leave when theyâd say sheâd better get gone or else. She grew up with six brothers. Two got killed in the war. One died of lung cancer and two more was shot on the street. âBad boys run in our family like cancer,â sheâd say to them. âDying donât scare me, so donât mess with me.â
I couldnât figure out if they was joking or not when theyâd say, âLetâs just off her. Tie her up. Burn her up. Get all that dough.â
But I would always tell âem straight up, âNo. She my auntie. Yâall nuts?â
Now Iâm here wishing Iâd listened to them. The money. The house. It would all be mine.
I go to the bathroom and turn on the shower.
Learning to Kill: Stories