The Bad Kid Read online

  I took a sip of my pineapple juice and shrugged. “Who knows? All I’m saying is, Fingerless Brett starts the party, I make sure it stays fun.”

  Rita looked over at Mom, who was leaning on her elbow at the hostess stand, wearing a slinky blue dress like one of those Bloomingdale’s models that take up a whole page of the newspaper. Mom even had the same mean fashion-model stare on her face.

  “You’re brave, Claude,” said Rita. “If I’d ever been that disruptive, my parents would’ve killed me.”

  “I’m sorry, Rita,” I said. “You had an unhappy childhood?”

  “That’s not exactly what I meant,” said Rita.

  Phil leaned over the bar. “Keepin’ things interesting is in Claude’s blood. People talk about the gangs of New York like they’re something from ancient history. These guys were regulars in my tavern in Sunset Park. When this kid’s grandfathers were alive, the whole borough knew it. Plenty of guys still can’t sleep at night!”

  Over Phil’s shoulder was the big square window where you can watch a slice of the action in the kitchen. When Chef Guillaume looked through it and spotted me, he waved. Guillaume has a tan face and wavy blond hair and boings around the restaurant like a grass­hopper. He always sends me free snacks, which drives Mom bananas for some reason. My snacks came out with Rita’s appetizers and a plate of the chewy bread with the fluffy butter from France. It’s my favorite thing, having people to eat dinner with in this world. That’s what I was thinking when I started my next story, about Grandpa Si.

  “Your grandfathers are gangsters?” asked Rita.

  “Were,” I said. “That’s how my parents met. I never knew Mom’s dad, my Pepe Renaud, too well, on account of he didn’t like kids. But the real problem is, Grandpa Si died before he could teach me how to run things.”

  “So who’s running things now?” asked Rita. “Your father?”

  “Dad?” I looked at Phil. “Everybody knows he ain’t qualified.”

  Phil burst out laughing and pounded the bar with his fist.

  “Honestly, Rita?” I went on. “My life is a disaster.”

  “Go home, Claude,” snapped my mother, who was heading toward us. As she scooted around a waiter, I saw him do the double take people always give my mother, even people who see her all the time.

  “But my food just came out!” I said.

  “Whose problem is that?” said Mom.

  “Easy, Sara,” said Phil. “Claude’s all right here.”

  Mom’s eyes are so dark blue they’re almost black, like the bottom of the ocean when you see it on television. She’s got a long thin nose and long brown hair with yellow streaks, and her lipstick is electric orange-red, like coral in a reef. Anybody else would’ve turned inside out, my mother staring him down like that, but Phil’s known her forever, so it never bothers him. Mom grabbed my wrist and yanked me off my stool.

  “Hey!” I yelled.

  Mom dragged me into the triangle area beside the ladies’ room. “You do not sit in here all night like some barfly, Claudeline, telling perfect strangers about our family. This is a restaurant, not a hole in the wall. And you do not encourage Phil.”

  “What’s a barfly?”

  “A person whose life revolves around sharing war stories with the other lost strays.”

  “I’m a lost stray?” I said. “I’m here because you’re here! My mother! Nobody’s at home!”

  Mom twisted her hair up in a knot like she was sick of it. “Don’t be smart.”

  “I’m not doing anything wrong, Mom. Phil says I can stay as long as I want. And Chef Guillaume loves me, so he doesn’t care—”

  “Guillaume is in way over his head at this point.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Be quiet, Claude,” said Mom. “Stop talking to anybody who’ll sit still for five seconds.”

  Mom’s eyes were zapping everybody. Her freckles were the only decent thing. They made her look young and fun. She tried to cover them with powder, but you could still see them up close.

  “I would talk to you,” I said, “if you sat still for five seconds.”

  Mom put her wrist on her head and closed her eyes. “Enough with the guilt trip.”

  I walked away.

  Rita’s hand was over her heart, making the pledge of allegiance. “I am so sorry, Claude.”

  “It ain’t your fault, Rita,” I said, grabbing a slice of bread to eat on my way out the door. “The management tosses me outta this joint on a regular basis.”

  “Before you leave, say good-bye to your mother,” said Phil.

  “Good-bye to your mother,” I said over my shoulder.

  “When I get over to Green-Wood Cemetery,” said Phil, “I’ll give her the message.”

  I didn’t look back, and I didn’t say good-bye to my mother. The only person I could depend on lately was Phil, but I didn’t feel like sitting there all night while he acted fancy-schmancy with the customers, who wanted to be kings and queens everywhere they went, and have their chairs pulled out, and who, according to him, thought they farted French perfume.

  When I opened the door to Broadway, warm air sucked me out of the air-conditioning into the guts of the city. It felt like a hug.

  On a normal summer night, Grandpa would’ve taken me out for dinner at the noodle shop, or to the movies. And we would’ve spent the sweltering afternoon at the air-conditioned bakery, eating doughnuts and playing cards. Or he might’ve stopped by our place just to give me the perfect present, like a metal chicken with flashing lights for eyes. One way or another, I’d see Grandpa every day.

  I still did. Every day, I saw Grandpa on the street. He’d appear out of nowhere in his black eyeglasses and his fancy scarf, smiling on only one side of his mouth, waving for me to Come here, Claude, see what I got for you today. My heartbeat would sound like a train that’s getting closer, and right when I was about to yell, “Grandpa!” he’d turn into some other old man. It just seemed more likely that Grandpa was lost in the crowd than that I’d never see him again. Even though I went to his funeral, and I counted the neck hairs, and I knew.

  That’s why I love New York City, I thought as I skipped down the stairs to the subway to take the train back to Brooklyn. It gives you a hug without even asking what the problem is. It’s seen everything, through millions of pairs of eyes. It can usually take a pretty good guess.

  SIMON SONG JUNIOR & ALMA LINGONBERRY

  You have to invent life.

  —Agnès Varda, filmmaker

  You know how animals have instincts? One of mine is to check inside stuff, such as purses, for other, better stuff, such as money. The first time I met Alma Lingonberry for myself, I was fishing around in Mom’s blue leather purse, trying not to think about noodles.

  It happened the next morning, which was Sunday. Mom was sleeping in after her late night at the restaurant. Dad was leaning against the kitchen wall, talking on his phone.

  “I told you, man,” said Dad, “don’t question it. Don’t ask questions.” He messed with his silver rings as I squeezed past him to get to the refrigerator. When he looked up, I was holding the door open to show its emptiness. Dad gave me a non-wave, like he was saying hello and hang on at the same time. I gave him a non-wave back and kept standing there with the fridge door open.

  My Dad’s name is Simon Song, same as Grandpa. Dad is a small guy with a longish black ponytail who wears seven earrings in one ear. His rings are a snake, a skull, a diamond, a thorny thing, some plain bands, and a fish. He has straight teeth and a long scar running up his cheek to his eye. The scar is my favorite part. When I rub my finger over it, I pretend it’s a miniature mountain ridge. That morning he wore the blue T-shirt with the demon on it and black jeans. He was still talking to someone about not asking questions.

  “DAD!” I screamed.

  “Hang on, man; my kid woke up.” Dad lifted his chin. “I’m on the phone!”

  I put my hands in the pockets of my red jeans and kept starin
g. I tried to be as serious as this statue I noticed last year on a class trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I imagined my head and shoulders and black sleeveless hoodie carved from a rock. I tried to look two or three thousand years old.

  Dad covered the mouthpiece thing. “Don’t look at me like that. I gotta finish something up. Catch you at Skippy’s?”

  He went back to his conversation with whoever and bumped the wall with his fist as he walked toward the front door. Then he opened it and shut it and locked it and left.

  Sunday noodles at Skippy Chin’s noodle shop were a tradition for Brett and me, and usually Dad showed up at some point too. But I was afraid Brett would read the whole time or, worse, read out loud. I was considering going without him. I walked in circles around our small white kitchen table, trying to decide what to do. Every time I passed our only wall decoration, a warped calendar, I flicked it. That’s when I noticed Mom’s purse on the floor and went fishing.

  What I pulled out was a flyer. In the top right-hand corner was a pencil drawing of a girl with big ears, a crooked face, and a long braid draped over one of her shoulders.

  Untitled #3

  Reaching out

  Was the hardest part

  Now you’re safe

  Inside my heart.

  —Alma Lingonberry

  Hey there, Sunset Parkers! How’s the weather in our neighborhood? Unfortunately, I can’t see much from my hospital bed. The reason I’m writing is:

  I AM TRYING TO MAKE 10,000 NEW FRIENDS!

  If you are lonely too, or simply have room in your life for a new friend, I hope you will consider my offer!

  Your Friend,

  Alma Lingonberry.

  [email protected]

  FRIEND COUNT: 3

  Alma Lingonberry. This was the girl Brett had mentioned, the one Mother Fingerless was making crafts for.

  And she was a scam artist.

  I had to smile. Of course Brett’s old lady would fall for a sob story like this. I’d have to tell her somebody was yanking her girdle strings.

  As for Mom? Somebody on the subway probably shoved the flyer in her face, and she took it just to make them go away.

  The bedroom door muffled Mom’s voice. “Stay out of my purse!”

  “WHAT?” I yelled. “I’m not in your—”

  “Leave it!”

  My parents’ bed creaked. I heard Mom rustling for her robe.

  I grabbed my sandals and ran for the door. A bowl of spicy noodles was calling me from Eighth Avenue. “Run, Claudeline!” said the noodles. “Ruuuun!”

  LALIYAH “BARBA AMARILLA” RAMIREZ

  I learn a lot from all the circles I live in. Even when I’m just walking down the sidewalk, there’s a lot of information.

  —Cao Fei, artist

  I jogged past Brett’s without stopping and turned under the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway to see if my girl Lala Ramirez was around.

  Certain places in New York City collect grime for a living, and the BQE is one of them. You know you’re getting close when filthy scraps start clinging to your legs and exhaust fumes float up your nose and make you rub your eyes and cough. Getting to Lala’s turned my nostrils black, but I missed her. She hadn’t been allowed to hang out with me much this summer, ever since an incident I don’t have time to get into, but which had to do with spray-painting the Dumpster behind the basilica with the perfectly true observation I STINK. How anybody could disagree with that was beyond me, but it all got worked out with the help of a handful of cops and the parent-teacher-­community meeting Mrs. Ramirez organized. If I got to Lala’s place early enough, Mrs. Ramirez would still be at church, which would be, as those church ladies say, a blessing.

  From a block away I spotted Laliyah standing with her hands on her hips, facing her stoop, glittering like the princess of Brooklyn. She wore a black and purple dress with long sleeves. Matching purple extensions spilled out from her curly brown hair. I couldn’t imagine putting on all those decorations on such a muggy day. Or on a non-muggy day, come to think of it.

  The Ramirez boys sat on the steps. A couple are Lala’s brothers, a few are cousins, and the rest are friends who hang around a lot.

  “Mind your business!” snapped Lala.

  Her cousin DeShawn put his hands on his hips and used a girly voice. “Yeah! Don’t mess with me!”

  Cutie Cat stood beside Lala, facing the boys, who were falling all over each other laughing.

  DeShawn stuck out his lip to ham it up some more. “’Cause I’m tough! I’m about to mess you—”

  CRACK! Laliyah whipped a jump rope on the sidewalk. CRACK! CRACK! Cutie Cat leaped onto the stoop. The boys went ballistic.

  “Oh! Son! She’s gettin’ heated! Barba Amarilla!”

  “Lala!” I yelled.

  “’Sup, Claude!” she yelled back. “Keep laughing,” she snapped at the boys. “See what happens.”

  The Ramirez boys did keep laughing and punching each other, except for Kelvin Ramirez, who kept repeating, “It’s not that funny anymore,” which would make another boy say, “Barba Amarilla!” Eventually the group got bored and broke up. A few gave me high fives and said, “’Sup, Claude,” before they left.

  Me and Lala snapped our fingers together and took a seat on the stoop beside some flower pots. Cutie Cat jumped in Lala’s lap.

  Barba Amarilla is a story that’s gonna get told in the movie version of Lala’s life, because it shows one of the main things about Lala, which is that she’s impossible to make fun of. It starts when Jamie Ramirez brings home a picture of a snake with an oversized copy of Lala’s school photo for the head. The boys scream, clutch each other, all that. Lala ignores them and keeps writing in her notebook. Whenever the snake gets pushed in front of her, she smacks it, which naturally makes the boys laugh harder. Then Kelvin sees it. Kelvin with the fish lips who always sounds like he’s catching a cold.

  “Barba amarilla!” says Kelvin, pointing at the snake. “That is one deadly serpent.”

  And DeShawn starts in with the making fun of Kelvin’s voice. “Is that ba-ba-ma-ma-ra-la? I’m Kelvin and I must share useless facts!”

  That’s when Lala, no warning, up and scratches DeShawn’s arm.

  DeShawn busts out laughing, but in a few seconds his arm is blazing with red bumps. “You gave me rabies!” he yells, and the boys stop laughing at Kelvin and start laughing at DeShawn. “Get him, Barba Amarilla!” they yell.

  So Lala got the nickname Barba Amarilla, and she said she was glad. “It flows” is what she told me. She claimed she signed it on those poems she filled her notebooks with, but nobody could prove it. Nobody’d ever read one.

  Lala and the cat looked at me. “How’s your pops?”

  Grandpa Si passed away around the same time as Mr. Ramirez got killed in the army. That’s when Lala and Dad had bonded. It was before the Dumpster incident, when Lala was still allowed to meet us at the noodle shop sometimes.

  “Ask him yourself,” I said. “Can you sneak out for noodles?”

  “The peanut butter ones?!” Lala clapped. Cutie Cat yelped as she leaped out of Lala’s lap.

  “It’s sesame,” I said.

  “I’ll text my mother at church and tell her I’m going to Andrew’s,” said Lala.

  “You going over to Money’s house—a boy’s house—bothers her less than you hanging out with me?”

  Lala typed on her phone. “Mom talks to Ms. Ildiko on the phone and has coffee with her. She likes Andrew’s family’s values. She says your family doesn’t have any values, and that’s the dangerous part. No offense, Claude. Mom just doesn’t know your parents except what she’s heard around the neighborhood. Although—we shouldn’t, like, try to introduce them or nothing.”

  “No sweat,” I said. “Dad doesn’t even drink coffee.”

  I played with Cutie Cat for about ten minutes while Lala typed, waited, typed, waited.

  I had always liked Cutie Cat, how she pushed her silver head against my hand like we we
re old friends. Which I guess we were. Even if I didn’t have family values. Whatever that meant.

  “Stupid,” mumbled Lala. “Whatever! . . . What? Boy—you better . . .” Lala giggled. “Aw,” she said, and giggled again.

  It sounded like Mrs. Ramirez wasn’t the only person Lala was texting with.

  I kinda wished I had a cat. I also kinda wished I had somebody to send giggly texts with. Even before philosophy showed up, Brett had never had a phone. And Brett and me weren’t like that, anyway.

  Lala held her phone in the air and did a happy dance.

  “My mother said yes!” said Lala.

  At least I had my freedom.

  SKIPPY CHIN’S NOODLE SHOP

  A poet could write volumes about diners, because they’re so beautiful.

  —David Lynch, filmmaker

  A five-gallon bucket overflowing with dried mushrooms propped open the door to Skippy Chin’s noodle shop. It’s on Eighth Avenue, in the heart of Chinatown, between At Your Service Car Service and a kitchen store called Lucky Home. From the sidewalk I could smell spicy peppers and hear the sizzling wok. The air felt heavy, like it might rain, and like it needed to.

  Lala had run ahead to paint her nails at the drugstore before lunch. Sometimes she got both hands done without getting caught; sometimes she had to visit a few stores, which resulted in a rainbow effect.

  Dad hadn’t noticed me standing on the sidewalk, so I decided to stay outside and spy on him until Lala got back.

  When I heard myself think the word “spy,” I immediately wished Brett was with me. But I’d made my decision about taking a Sunday off from having noodles together, and, actually, I was still glad. The dance floor of my brain was packed with enough stuff to think about without philosophy jumping into the middle of it, busting moves nobody needed to see and knocking everybody around and making them trip over each other and scream, “We were here first! Get outta the way!” I’d just have to describe my observations to Brett later.

  From the way Dad knocked on the long yellow counter, I could tell he was getting irritated. According to Grandpa Si, Dad’s Chinese is lazy. I, on the other hand, am a natural, and will be awesome at Chinese someday. I think Mr. Chin said something like this: