“Happy Birthday, my man. I would’ve sang you the Black people version, but I ain’t want to turn this special moment into a concert,” Simeon said, holding the MoonPie out for Kenzi. The growing flame licked the air.
“It’s… not my birthday, bro.”
“Quick, quick, blow it out before it turns this MoonPie to a s’more.”
Kenzi gave in, leaned over.
“And don’t forget to make a wish!”
Kenzi thought for a moment, then huffed the fire out, bits of scorched paper flying off like black snowflakes. The smoke corkscrewing up into the air.
“What you wish for?” Simeon asked.
“I ain’t telling you because then it won’t come true.”
“True,” Simeon said, standing up. “Well, since I can’t know your wish, I might as well go get at this homework. Mr. Davanzo wants us to write about environmental something. I don’t know, but I know I’ll get a better view looking out my apartment window. You can see more from up there.” Simeon pulled the paper out of the MoonPie. He split the snack, stuffed half in his mouth and gave the other half to Kenzi.
“Yeah, I’m out too,” Kenzi said, back on his feet as well. He shoved his half of the MoonPie in his mouth too. Slipped the ball in his bag. Had to free his hands for what was coming.
The handshake:
They grab hands, shake, shake, slide, finger grip, shake, shake.
Then point to themselves, double fist bump, throw a peace sign beside each of their right ears, point to each other, slap their individual fingertips together, rub the air as if they were holding a ball—bigger than the one in Kenzi’s bag—then they thumb their chins and shake their heads at each other before ending it with a big hug.
“Brothers,” Simeon said.
“Brothers,” Kenzi repeated, his voice muffled by the MoonPie he was still chewing.
They did it just like they’d watched their older brothers do it. The same shake. The same secret. The same bond. On the same steps. And as they rode the elevator up to their separate floors—Simeon on seven, Kenzi on nine—Simeon looked at Kenzi, knowing what he wished for. And Kenzi looked at Simeon, knowing Simeon knew that he wished the smoke from the paper candle could drift, could carry a note through the air, across the city and state, over lands and highways he’d never been on, through barbed wire, stone, and iron, ghosting its way through bars and into the ear of his brother.
To tell him how he wished he didn’t have to walk home from school.
How he wished his brother, Mason, could pick him up in a car just like the car Simeon’s brother, Chucky, had stolen almost two years ago. The one Mason took the hit for, went down for.
But not that one.
A different one.
And took Kenzi for a ride.
Maybe even showed him how to play.
SATCHMO’S MASTER PLAN
TODAY, AFTER school, Satchmo Jenkins worked out a master plan to save his life.
A plan he wished he’d come up with a long time ago.
It started back when Satchmo was bit. He was seven years old and the rottweiler was thirty-two years old, which was old enough for him to know better, Satchmo had thought. The dog had taken a chunk out of the back of Satchmo’s leg, left teeth marks that scarred in the shape of a sad face. It was a freak accident, a moment that no one could’ve predicted because Satchmo Jenkins never ever missed. Whenever a ball was thrown toward him, he was sure to snatch it from the air. He was known for this. But when Clancy had told him to go long and heaved the football into the air, Satchmo had tried his best to extend his body, stretched out for it, but it was just beyond him. Overthrown. And when the ball hit the ground, it took the worst possible bounce right into Ms. Adams’s yard, where Brutus the Rottweiler lived, chained to a tree. When the ball tumbled Brutus’s way, he jumped up, tail like a stubby index finger wagging hard enough to knock him off-balance, nosed the ball and tried to get his mouth around it, tried to get his teeth locked down on the pigskin. But Brutus’s excitement got the best of him, and he ended up knocking the ball just past the length of the chain restraining him. Perfect for Satchmo.
“Yo, Satch,” Clancy had called. “Hurry up and get it before Ms. Adams sees you.”
Ms. Adams was Brutus’s owner. An older lady who sat in the window and watched the neighborhood, making sure no one stepped foot in her yard, as if her grass was a different kind of grass, like she had it flown in from wherever mean people get grass from. Sometimes she’d have the window wide open, even when it was freezing cold, and she’d just be sitting there, looking, the bottom of her mouth sagging from the tobacco she always had stuffed down in her lip. Sometimes she’d spit black juice loogies halfway across the yard. Clean pellet-size ones, like shooting bullets out of her mouth. Other times she’d spit in a jar. The rumor was she’d mix that tobacco slime with Brutus’s food. Make him extra mean. Make sure anyone that came into her yard knew they were dealing with a beast who could only be held by a big bull chain wrapped around a fat-trunked tree. And when she saw Satchmo, instead of doing the old lady wave and Hey, how’s your mother, like some of the other grown-ups in the neighborhood, Ms. Adams just nodded slightly.
Satchmo had always imagined the inside of her house was like an old boxing gym. That it was bare and cold and smoky, heavy bags hanging from the ceiling that Ms. Adams gave bare-knuckle jabs and right hooks to. Maybe she even kicked them. Kneed them. Some elbows. Sometimes Satchmo even thought that maybe he had it all wrong, that maybe Brutus wasn’t Ms. Adam’s guard dog, but instead, she was Brutus’s guard lady. She was there to protect the dog. To bite anyone who tried to get close to him with those black-stained teeth.
Satchmo had looked to see if Ms. Adams was sitting in the window. Then glanced back at Clancy, who shook his head no, as in, No, she ain’t there. As in, Yes, you should do this. As in, Hurry up. So Satchmo tipped off the street and onto the sidewalk, then off the sidewalk and into the yard of Brutus Adams, a basketball-headed rottweiler, black, with a heart of brown around his mouth.
“Hey there, Brutus,” Satchmo whispered, creeping toward the football. There was nothing to fear, because the ball was far enough away from the dog that there was no way Brutus could get to him. But with each step, Brutus’s tail would wag harder and harder. Wagging like yes, yes, yes, and no, no, no at the same time. Wagging like I’m happy to see you, and I want to play, but we play different games. You never miss. Me either. Wagging like…
Satchmo picked up the ball. Wiped the slobber on his jeans.
… finders keepers…
He held the ball up, a sign of victory for Clancy to see. Clancy put his hands in the air as if Satchmo had just retrieved a fumble. Victory.
Wag. Wag. Wag, wag, wag, wag. Panting. Jumping. Jumping. Barking.
… losers… runners!
Satchmo glanced over his shoulder, and Brutus, now more excited than ever, was charging toward him, the chain snatching him back, but only for a second before he tried again, lifting up on his hind legs and towering over Satchmo, who had now started running back toward the street.
But it was too late. The game had already begun. And seconds later the chain snapped, and Brutus came blasting toward Satchmo.
Satchmo was named after Louis Armstrong, a famous jazz musician his grandmother loved. The story goes that Louis was nicknamed Satchmo because he had such a big mouth, a “satchel mouth.” However, Satchmo Jenkins’s mouth wasn’t big at all, but he learned that day that it could be a trumpet if he needed it to. It could screech and honk and run up and down a scale as long as there was a dog making him run up and down a street.