slams the locker as Phillip slaloms around clusters of passing students. Cedric tries to follow him. At the end of the hall, Phillip stops, panting, not wanting to navigate the staircase, as Cedric, laughing a little, closes in and grabs him by the shoulder of his black T-shirt.
Leaning against the lockers, they both catch their breath, Cedric holding tight to Phillip’s shirt.
“Hey, give me the book,” Cedric says.
“Why should I?” says Phillip, putting it behind his back. “Say
please
—real nice.”
Cedric tries to reach around but can’t get it, and Phil grabs the front of Cedric’s shirt.
With the two of them only a few inches apart—each holding a handful of shirt—their eyes lock.
“Wouldn’t mind pounding me, would you Cedric?” Phillip says, trying to keep his rising bitterness under control.
“Just give me the book—I’m not playin’,” Cedric says, his voice flat, even, and all business.
It was just a game, thinks Phillip, who was feeling so buoyant a minute ago and doesn’t want this to end with the two of them rolling on the hard linoleum.
Why does Cedric have to make everything so hard, Phillip wonders in frustration as he lets go of Cedric’s shirt and looks down at the bony fist still stretching his T-shirt.
“Hey, chill.” Phillip spits, dropping the book on the floor from behind with one hand and punching Cedric, hard, in the chest with the other.
Cedric winces, letting go of the T-shirt, and Phillip slips away into the crowd, looking back once to see the angular boy in hush puppies quietly pick up his book from the floor.
As the day passes, Phillip’s act sags a bit. His timing is just a little off, and he blames it on his feeling bad about punching Cedric—about letting that whole thing get out of control. In his late afternoon classes he finds himself slipping into a pensiveness that, these days, makes him uncomfortable.
After school, with nowhere special to go, Phil wanders out a side door and settles on the stone steps that overlook the track, where the team is running wind sprints.
Being the class clown allows him to be in control, energized, making them all laugh, setting the tone. But some days—like today—it seems like battery acid leaks out of him, soiling his charming, hip-hop veneer. Punching Cedric like that? It has not been a good day.
Sitting there, grabbing handfuls of pebbles and powdered concrete from a crumbling corner of the steps—no audience in sight—he slips into reflection about what he calls his “double life.”
He does this every couple of weeks. It always means thinking back, if only briefly, to a time three or four years ago when there was a certain coherence to his life at home and at school, a consistency between the goals he publicly embraced and his inner desires, between the outward and the inward.
Back then, he didn’t feel like two people but one: a nerd. Phillip carefully guards his memory of that kid and his life. He wore straight-legged pants and an ironed white shirt, with a bow tie on Sundays. He was a top student who read a lot and would spend hours spinning the globe with his father, thinking about all the places he’d someday go to. Every Saturday, there’d be a morning prayer meeting at the Atkins house in the Highland Dwellings public housing project that would adjourn to the streets, and Phillip and his father would go door to door proselytizing and passing out
The Watch Tower
, hallmark of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Atkinses were a leading family at a local Kingdom Hall, where Phillip’s father, Israel, was a church leader.
All of that is easy to remember, because most of it remains intact.At home, at least, Phil is still like that, but everywhere else the other Phillip has emerged.
Whenever Phillip thinks about how he’s changed—a gradual process and not all for the worst—he always thinks of how it started one afternoon in the spring of eighth grade. He saw an older boy in the projects—a boy he
Leaning against the lockers, they both catch their breath, Cedric holding tight to Phillip’s shirt.
“Hey, give me the book,” Cedric says.
“Why should I?” says Phillip, putting it behind his back. “Say
please
—real nice.”
Cedric tries to reach around but can’t get it, and Phil grabs the front of Cedric’s shirt.
With the two of them only a few inches apart—each holding a handful of shirt—their eyes lock.
“Wouldn’t mind pounding me, would you Cedric?” Phillip says, trying to keep his rising bitterness under control.
“Just give me the book—I’m not playin’,” Cedric says, his voice flat, even, and all business.
It was just a game, thinks Phillip, who was feeling so buoyant a minute ago and doesn’t want this to end with the two of them rolling on the hard linoleum.
Why does Cedric have to make everything so hard, Phillip wonders in frustration as he lets go of Cedric’s shirt and looks down at the bony fist still stretching his T-shirt.
“Hey, chill.” Phillip spits, dropping the book on the floor from behind with one hand and punching Cedric, hard, in the chest with the other.
Cedric winces, letting go of the T-shirt, and Phillip slips away into the crowd, looking back once to see the angular boy in hush puppies quietly pick up his book from the floor.
As the day passes, Phillip’s act sags a bit. His timing is just a little off, and he blames it on his feeling bad about punching Cedric—about letting that whole thing get out of control. In his late afternoon classes he finds himself slipping into a pensiveness that, these days, makes him uncomfortable.
After school, with nowhere special to go, Phil wanders out a side door and settles on the stone steps that overlook the track, where the team is running wind sprints.
Being the class clown allows him to be in control, energized, making them all laugh, setting the tone. But some days—like today—it seems like battery acid leaks out of him, soiling his charming, hip-hop veneer. Punching Cedric like that? It has not been a good day.
Sitting there, grabbing handfuls of pebbles and powdered concrete from a crumbling corner of the steps—no audience in sight—he slips into reflection about what he calls his “double life.”
He does this every couple of weeks. It always means thinking back, if only briefly, to a time three or four years ago when there was a certain coherence to his life at home and at school, a consistency between the goals he publicly embraced and his inner desires, between the outward and the inward.
Back then, he didn’t feel like two people but one: a nerd. Phillip carefully guards his memory of that kid and his life. He wore straight-legged pants and an ironed white shirt, with a bow tie on Sundays. He was a top student who read a lot and would spend hours spinning the globe with his father, thinking about all the places he’d someday go to. Every Saturday, there’d be a morning prayer meeting at the Atkins house in the Highland Dwellings public housing project that would adjourn to the streets, and Phillip and his father would go door to door proselytizing and passing out
The Watch Tower
, hallmark of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Atkinses were a leading family at a local Kingdom Hall, where Phillip’s father, Israel, was a church leader.
All of that is easy to remember, because most of it remains intact.At home, at least, Phil is still like that, but everywhere else the other Phillip has emerged.
Whenever Phillip thinks about how he’s changed—a gradual process and not all for the worst—he always thinks of how it started one afternoon in the spring of eighth grade. He saw an older boy in the projects—a boy he
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