Crystal by Walter Dean Myers Page B

and everything. But when I was mad, then I would be a gunfighter. I’d imagine I was a gunfighter. I’d have this special draw and nobody would mess with me. Lucky forme, I never got my hands on a real gun, or I’d of probably spent half my life in some jail.”
    “And you’d sit in the park and think about things like that?”
    “The park was special to me. It was a place I could go when things weren’t working out for me. That night my father popped me I sat in the park and thought about being a gunfighter. I figured if I had lived in the old West he could have taught me how to shoot a gun, and then I wouldn’t have to ask him for sneakers and stuff. Later, when I got to be a man, I knew why he popped me. I had asked him for money and he didn’t have it, and it hurts to have a kid ask you for something and you can’t give it to them. It really does.”
    “I think you’ve given me just about everything I’ve ever wanted,” Crystal said.
    “I haven’t given you nothing to get you over,” her father said. “What you got you got from God. I’d like to get you that fast draw I was talking about. Something. But it’s just not that simple anymore. I try to tell you what I know about life, stuff like that, but it don’t work, because most of the stuff I’m telling you got to do with my life and my world, and there ain’t no way in the world you can understand it.”
    “I understand what you say to me, Daddy,” Crystal protested.
    “I think you understand that I mean well,” her father said. “I’m caught between a poor man’s dream and a rich man’s nightmare and afraid to let either one of them go. You’re young enough and smart enough to dream things that wouldn’t even fit in my head.”
    “I still think you’re a good father,” Crystal said.
    “Yeah, maybe.” The vein in Daniel Brown’s forehead bulged as he swallowed hard. “You happy with this movie thing?”
    “Yes,” Crystal said. “I think it’s going to be good.”
    “If it’s what you want, then it’s what I want for you.”
    “I still might not get the part, though.”
    “That’s because that producer hasn’t seen you the way I have. As fine as he thinks you are, he should have seen your face when you got home tonight after being with that—what did you call him?”
    “Cute nerd?”
    “Yeah. I bet he hasn’t seen you look that good.”
    “I bet,” Crystal said, stopping at the doorway to the kitchen before going to her room, “that you weren’t a cute nerd.”
    “Nerd? Me? I was a killer!” Daniel Brown said. “A stone killer-diller!”
     
     
    Crystal washed quickly and went to bed. She was tired, very tired. But she was happy. She hadn’t liked Charlie Harris that much, and Donald was silly. But she and Pat had had a good time. She hadn’t felt as good in weeks. Gizmo was on her bed, and she pushed him over to the other pillow.

7
     
    The midtown-Manhattan studio looked a lot better than Jerry’s. There were wires running all over the floor, and a small army of aluminum reflectors had been strategically placed about the high-ceilinged room.
    “Crystal, did Loretta tell you how long the session would be?”
    “She said it might last all day,” Crystal said. She tilted her chin slightly so that Frankie Mazzaro could put highlighter over her eyes from behind her.
    “This is a chance in a lifetime,” Jerry said. “And what we want to do is to get pictures which are going to say a lot about you, who you are, and which are going to knock Everby’s eyes out.”
    “Why are we using this studio?” The two-piece bathing suit Crystal wore was almost the same color as her skin.
    “It’s better equipped than mine,” Jerry said. “I worked with Mel Kaplan, the guy who owns this place, all day yesterday to get the feel of it. It’s going to work out just fine.”
    “Did you know that I took some test shots with himonce? They’re in my portfolio. I took them over there.” Crystal motioned toward a