4. Picking the perfect snack from Fredo’s Corner Store.
Walking into Fredo’s was like walking into a dungeon, no matter what time of day it was. The light was always dim, and the shelves were packed so high that you couldn’t see over them. Walls of whatnot. No windows. Big enough for the world’s snacks, but too small for anything else. Always smelled like incense smoke trying to mask dirty mop water.
Kenzi and Simeon came through the door with the kind of confidence of someone who owned the place.
“Fredo!” Simeon called out, throwing up a hand, while heading toward the Bundt cakes and boxes of mini doughnuts.
“Well, if isn’t Wreck-It-Ralph and Tiny Tim,” Fredo shot back. He was flipping through the newspaper, licking his fingers every few seconds to turn the pages, as if anyone could read that fast. “You know, I look through this paper every day, hoping I don’t see y’all faces.”
“You never will,” Kenzi said. “Unless it’s for something good.”
“Something good like what?” Fredo asked, setting the paper on the counter.
“Something good like me becoming a big-time lawyer,” Kenzi replied.
“Yeah, or like me becoming a famous actor,” Simeon said. “So I can act like a big-time lawyer.” He picked up a snack cake, turned it over to check the expiration date. No telling how long Fredo kept things, and they’d bought cakes that tasted like bricks before.
“Listen, it’s more likely a school bus will fall from the sky.”
“Ouch.” Simeon gripped his chest dramatically.
“Don’t get me wrong. I hope all that happens so y’all can buy this store and I can retire, kick back and watch Law and Order marathons all day, every day.”
“Well, we’d have to change the name of this place,” Simeon said, accidentally bumping bags of chips off the shelves behind him. “To something like K&S Food.”
“Or S&K food,” Kenzi suggested.
Fredo knitted his fingers together, rested his hands on the counter like some kind of judge. “Okay, gentlemen. Whatever you say.”
A few moments later Kenzi and Simeon were at the counter. A bag of chips for Kenzi. And a snack cake for Simeon. A MoonPie.
“Fifty cents each, boys,” Fredo said.
“I got you,” Simeon said to Kenzi, sliding Kenzi’s chips over to be included with his cake.
“Okay, so that’s gonna be a dollar, big man.”
And then came the change. Simeon reached into his pocket and pulled out a fistful of dimes and nickels and pennies, slapped them down on the counter and started separating them and counting them out as if he were setting a checkers board. Kenzi chuckled. He was used to Simeon doing stuff like this, and seeing all that change on the counter, he couldn’t help but think about how Bit Burns—Kenzi’s short twin in school—who had a reputation for patting people’s pockets and stealing their change would never try that on Simeon.
“Hold on, let me count it out,” Simeon said. “Five. Ten. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight…”
“How your brother?” Fredo asked Simeon.
“He a’ight. Probably somewhere in the street, driving that old ice-cream truck around, frontin’ like he legit.”
Fredo nodded, then nodded at Kenzi. “And what about yours? I see you still carrying that old handball of his everywhere you go. You know he ain’t no good at that game, right?” And before Kenzi could answer, Simeon got frustrated and slammed his hand on the counter.
“You made me lose count, man!” Simeon boomed. “Gah! Now I gotta start all over. Five. Ten. Fif—”
“Okay,” Fredo said, scooping the right amount off the counter and into his palm. “We’ll be here all day.”
“Where you gotta go, Fredo?” Simeon taunted.
“To your mother’s house. Ask her how many times she dropped you when you were a baby.”
“Oh, no need to ask her that. I can tell you. She only dropped me once, into a vat of gold.”
“And a vat of gravy,” Fredo cracked, but Simeon didn’t laugh. And because Simeon didn’t laugh, Kenzi stepped up.
“Better chill, Fredo,” Kenzi warned. “Matter of fact, just for that…” And then, up on his tippy-toes, he reached over and grabbed Fredo’s newspaper off the counter. And when Fredo didn’t budge, Kenzi snatched his lighter, too. This got Fredo’s attention. “No more cigarettes. They bad for you anyway.”
“No more of them booty-funk incense either,” Simeon said, opening the door, his laughter lingering in the store after he and Kenzi left. Such silly things to take, a gossipy newspaper and a lighter, as if Fredo ain’t own a store. One with a bunch of newspapers and matches and lighters behind the counter. But still, it was about the principle. The loyalty. The brotherhood.
5. Making wishes.
When Kenzi and Simeon made it to their building, the building they’d been living in their entire lives, they sat out front on the steps. The whole walk home they laughed about Fredo, making up silly jokes about him.
“Fredo look like a puppet, like somebody got their hand up his butt controlling him,” Kenzi snapped.
“He look like the type of dude who would own a store that just sells… snacks. Like, you know what kind of guy you gotta be to just sell snacks? Snacks?” From Simeon, who now had the newspaper and rolled it up into a tube. He swung it around like a short sword.
“What do Fredo even mean? I mean, if it’s Alfredo, that would explain it, because he definitely cheesy,” Kenzi piled on, bouncing his ball back and forth under his legs. A slight breeze blew litter around. Plastic bags floating like jellyfish, and a deflated birthday balloon—one of the shiny metallic ones—lifted and zipped through the air like happy shrapnel.
“Exactly. Cheesy. But I can’t front, he got me with the gravy joke.” Simeon followed the balloon with his eyes as if it were a football thrown long. Or a messenger pigeon with a note from afar. A smirk crept onto his face.
“Yeah he did,” Kenzi agreed, and they both cracked up. Kenzi set the ball down, opened his bag of chips, offered Simeon some.
“Nah, I’m good,” Simeon said as the balloon floated out of view. “But… gimme that lighter.” Kenzi handed Simeon Fredo’s lighter, unsure of what he was going to do with it. He couldn’t grow up to be a lawyer if Simeon was getting ready to set something on fire. Jokes were one thing, but burning stuff down was something totally different. Simeon unrolled the newspaper; glanced at the front page, which was a story about a school bus falling from the sky; and ripped it in half. Then ripped the half in half and twisted it into a paper worm. At least that’s what it looked like. Then he took the MoonPie from its plastic, his huge fingers crushing most of it trying to slide it out perfectly.
“Happy Birthday to you,” Simeon started singing in a fake opera voice. “Happy Birthday to you.”
“What?”
“Happy Birthday, dear Kenziiiii. Happy Birthdayyyyyyy, to… youuuuuuuUuUuuuUUUUuuu.” Simeon stuck the paper worm into the MoonPie, making it a wick. Then he lit the end of it on fire.