“Do you need my address?”
“Naw, I’ve been there before.”
He drove away and as he did the woman in the bus shelter, the one who asked if she could come, gave Hendo the finger. He laughed and turned on the music and the bass.
“When were you over at our house?”
“Huh?” He turned down the volume. “Oh. Once or twice.”
“With Toucan?”
“Yeah. Do you mind?” He held up a cigarette. I said he could smoke if he wanted to, since it was his car. “Cool. Didn’t want to be an asshole.” He blew smoke out of the window. “Haven’t seen Gert around very much. How’s he been?”
“He got kicked out of school, but now he’s going back.”
“Didn’t even know he was in school. Right on. What’s he studying?”
“Economics, I think.”
Hendo took another puff of his cigarette. “Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh.” We kept driving. “I guess that’s why he’s tight with Toucan. Good with money.”
I told him that he was not tight with Toucan anymore, not since AK47 said he couldn’t hang out with gangbangers. “She thinks Toucan is a gangbanger.”
Hendo laughed. “Gangbanger. Sounds like a porno.”
I did not laugh. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing. It was a dumb joke. Nevermind.”
Hendo said he needed to make a stop. “Got to deliver this,” he said, reaching to the backseat and bringing out a stuffed giraffe. “It’s Artem’s birthday in a few days and I’m probably not going to be at the party. Little guy loves giraffes. He’s goddamn crazy about them.” He gave me the giraffe to hold. “Pretty cool, huh?”
“Giraffes can clean their own ears with their tongue,” I said.
“Really?”
“I read it in National Geographic.”
We drove to his neighborhood, which wasn’t far from our neighborhood. I tried to make a map in my brain of where it was.
He did not turn the engine off when he parked the car. The rain had stopped.
“If I leave it running, you’re not going to steal my car, are you?”
“No,” I said.
He got out and ran into one of the houses.
It was the first time I was alone in his car. I looked around it. His glove box wasn’t locked and when I opened it a bunch of papers and garbage fell out. I started putting all of it back as fast as I could when I saw that Hendo was already coming out of the house.
He got into the car and I said, “Sorry, it just opened,” meaning the glove box and the garbage, but Hendo was already trying to put the car in gear.
His Baby Mama came out of the house and started running toward the car.
“Shit,” Hendo said. “Get down.” He pushed my head down so I sank back into the seat. “Pretend you’re not there.”
I tried to hide myself like he said. He got out and shut the door, and I could hear them shouting on the other side of the window.
“I told you,” he said. “I have to work.”
“Work?” the Baby Mama said. Her voice was loud. “I can see her.” She knocked on the door and said, “I can see you. Hello? I’m not blind.”
Hendo opened the door and told me I could sit up. “I have to take care of this. Hold on.”
I sat up again, since she had already seen me.
She pointed at me while they argued. Another woman came out of the house, carrying Artem. The second woman brought the baby to Hendo, who took the baby in his arms and kept holding him while all three of them continued fighting.
The second woman walked up to the car, toward my window. She looked villainous and I pushed down the lock, which was a smart thing to do, since she tried to open the door. She was shouting and calling me a “slut” and other names that AK47 would not like me to repeat.
“Go away!” I shouted at her. She punched the window and I punched the window, until it was like a drum being played on both sides.
Hendo handed the baby to the Baby Mama and ran and stood between her and the window. That was when she started punching him, on his chest, and he held her hands and then, out of nowhere, there was no punching, just hugging. He had his arms around her and her face was in his chest, her hair going all around his shoulders until her face was buried in him.
He went inside and came out. He started the car.
“Sorry about that. She thinks you’re my new girlfriend. She always gets jealous whenever I’m seeing someone new. It’s why I try to avoid her at all costs.”
* * *
Nobody had ever thought I was anybody’s girlfriend. Except Marxy. Some people could tell we were boyfriend and girlfriend, since we held hands. Neither of us was normal. It was like we were doing battle together. A lot of people, like AK47 and Dr. Laird and Pearl, wanted me to know that Marxy and I were still very different. He would never be as smart as me, and even if that wasn’t a problem for me now it might be later.
Hendo was very beautiful. Men are not usually called beautiful. They are called handsome. Hendo had a kind of beautiful face that was like a movie star’s. I looked at him and started to think about what it would be like if I was his girlfriend. We would go out places and talk about the books from the library, and we would kiss and nobody would say, “Look at those retards,” the way they said that to me and Marxy.
He was very cool too, and was not embarrassed to be with me and have people see me.
“What?” Hendo said as we drove away from his angry Baby Mama.
“What?”
“You’re looking at me weird,” he said, and one of his eyebrows went up. He asked what I was looking at and touched his face and asked if he had food on it or something.
I took all the spit in my mouth and swallowed it back down.
“Are you in love?” I asked.
“With Artem?”
“With your Baby Mama?”
Hendo laughed. “No. In fact, I can’t stand her. The only reason I even bother is Artem.”
We were coming close to my neighborhood. My body felt like it was two hands being rubbed together, getting warmer and warmer. My pulse was getting powerful and I could feel it in my neck, thump thump thump.
He turned on the music, to a song that I liked. He nodded his head and left his arm hanging out of the window. As we drove out of the neighborhood people waved to Hendo, and I realized that he was legendary with many people. While we were driving I thought about how Hendo said that his Baby Mama thought I was his girlfriend.
I had thought about having a family, but so many people said that two people like Marxy and me shouldn’t be allowed to have babies. Hendo was normal, and if his Baby Mama thought I could be his girlfriend, maybe I could be someone who has a baby too.
Like Mom. If I was AK47, I don’t know if I would have gotten an abortion.
“She has big boobs,” I said.
He laughed. “Yeah, yeah, I guess they are big. But I’m an ass man. And legs. You got nice legs. Do you run?”
“Sometimes,” I said.
“Anyway, Gert doesn’t need to know about that compliment, right?”
Hendo pulled his car in front of our building. He shut the car off and we sat there for a second. My seat belt got sucked up by the car. In movies, people are always asking people they like to come upstairs. They also kiss in cars. I wasn’t allowed to kiss Hendo, since I was Marxy’s girlfriend and that was cheating, which I hate. Hendo’s fingers made a drum on his leg.