Slapboxing with Jesus (Vintage Contemporaries Original) Read online

  Praise for VICTOR D. LAVALLE’s

  slapboxing with jesus

  “The characters in Victor D. LaValle’s astonishingly good story collection … are tough young men and women of New York City’s outer boroughs, old in experience of tawdry pleasures and arbitrary cruelties, yet the inventiveness and soulful vigor of their voices make these tales of thwarted longings not just wrenching but exhilarating to read.”

  —Elle

  “Looser than a novel, more organic than a traditional collection of short fiction, a connected set of short stories is one of the trickiest genres around.… And Victor D. LaValle’s slapboxing with jesus is certainly an example of the genre at its best. An auspicious debut that marks LaValle as an important new writer.”

  —Time Out

  “Reminiscent of James Baldwin, LaValle does a remarkable job of capturing the sometimes-harsh realities of young people growing up in urban cities.”

  —The Source

  “Like [Junot] Diaz and [Sherman] Alexie, Mr. LaValle is something of a literary renegade.… His language is gritty, his sensibility direct and naturalistic. An auspicious debut—and then some.”

  —Washington Times

  “Earnest … high-wire prose about the lower depths. The no-hopers … are offset by one sterling character, who sees through the destructive swagger of the neighborhood streets and eventually gets himself out.”

  —The New Yorker

  “LaValle’s work is first-rate and it reminds us that by accepting our imperfections, we have a chance to become beautiful.”

  —The Village Voice

  “There’s a connectedness to these episodic urban tales: They all share a similar jagged rhythm, and together in slapboxing with jesus they generate a feeling of convincing familiarity, as LaValle envelops us in his world.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  VICTOR D. LAVALLE

  slapboxing with jesus

  Victor D. LaValle is the author of The Ecstatic, a novel. He won a PENAmerica/Open Book award for Slapboxing with Jesus. He has received the key to Jamaica, Queens. He lives in New York and teaches fiction at Columbia University.

  A VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES ORIGINAL, OCTOBER 1999

  FIRST EDITION

  Copyright © 1999 by Victor D. LaValle

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  this page constitutes an extension of this copyright page.

  Some of these stories first appeared or will appear, in slightly different form, in the following publications : “chuckie” in Code magazine (Nov. 1999); “class trip” in Tin House (Fall 1999); “Trinidad” in Transition (Sept. 1999, issue 80); “pops” in Bomb magazine (Winter 1999).

  Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage Contemporaries and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  LaValle, Victor D., 1972–

  Slapboxing with Jesus: stories / Victor D. LaValle.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-80338-2

  1. Queens (New York, N.Y.)—Social life and customs—Fiction.

  2. City and town life—New York (State)—New York—Fiction.

  3. Urban youth—New York (State)—New York—Fiction.

  I. Title.

  PS3562.A8458S58 1999

  813′.54—dc21 99-26222

  Author photograph © Marion Ettlinger

  www.vintagebooks.com

  v3.1

  This book is dedicated to

  Damali LaValle

  and

  Karen Nabisase Beckford

  (1915–1982)

  with love

  contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  One

  Raw Daddy

  Ghost Story

  Getting Ugly

  Slave

  Ancient History

  Two

  Chuckie

  Trinidad

  Who we did Worship

  How I Lost my Inheritance

  Pops

  Kids on Colden Street

  Class Trip

  Acknowledgments

  Permissions Acknowledgments

  —And haven’t you your own land to visit, continued Miss Ivors, that you know nothing of, your own people, and your own country?

  —James Joyce, “The Dead”

  one

  the autobiography of

  New York today

  (in five parts)

  raw daddy

  The next morning I was still scratching my nuts, for hours; in the afternoon I called Lianne; I was fiending. When I asked for her, Ray stopped flipping through television channels long enough to whisper,—What are you thinking?

  She sounded like sleep; it was a Wednesday afternoon. Outside, Brooklyn traffic was turned on: boys screamed tag or bounced balls against concrete; girls were laughing. Around here, even if it wasn’t funny, girls were laughing at something. She didn’t recognize my voice. Ray had the sound up, loud, and wouldn’t lower it, so I was screaming. It had been some time.

  —Oh, she sighed. Whassup, Sean.

  I laughed. —Damn, it’s been seven months, you could sound a little happier to hear from me.

  —I’m sorry, she said, it’s not you. Work’s got me standing eight hours a day. So why I haven’t heard from you in forever?

  —Just living, I told her, moving my hands to emphasize the first word not the second.

  —Uh-huh, sure. So why you calling me out of nowhere?

  She knew. Was that the sound of construction there, far beneath her voice? —What are they building? I asked.

  —No, she corrected. Tearing down.

  I wasn’t subtle all the time, asked, —So what’s up with that yum-yum?

  She laughed hard despite herself. —You’re a fool, Sean, you know that?

  —But that’s why you love me, right? She was quiet; I cleared my throat.

  Lianne seemed to be thinking about it; finally she agreed. —Tonight we could do something. I don’t work again until tomorrow night.

  I put up one finger, inspected the nail. Ray walked for the bathroom shaking his head. He left the set on, an airline commercial; jet engines ran loud to make their point: the most powerful planes in the sky. I asked a favor for Ray, could she bring a friend for him?

  —What I look like, she snapped. A pimp?

  —Nah, but come on, spread love. You know? And none of your little snaggletooth, mud-duck friends neither.

  —What are you talking about? she huffed. All my girls are fly.

  My coughing passed. —I need to remind you that Aysha’s eye is so fucked up that if you want her looking at you you have to talk into that bitch’s ear?

  She stifled some kind of laugh. —It’s just that one eye, damn. One thing wrong and you flip. But I’ll find someone for Ray.

  —That’s what I’m talking about. I clapped twice.

  —And don’t call my girl a bitch.

  I apologized. Someone parked outside was pumping a tape. It was almost winter so the car windows were up, but ignoring all that bass was impossible. I couldn’t tell you the tune, just the tempo. A second after a beat, their window would rattle hard; two seconds after that, our living room glass too. I wondered how far those waves could travel. For a minute, I was jealous.

  She sa
id, —Bring a movie.

  —Woman, I explained, you’re going to be so into me you won’t be seeing straight, so forget a flick.

  —Unless you had a dick transplant you better bring all types of things to distract me. Her laugh was loose in my ear.

  I hung up after our good-byes, then went to the television and ran my hand over the screen. My palm came up gray with dust; electricity sparkled against my skin. I got some paper towels, glass cleaner, sprayed it on and wiped the tube down. Then I did the sides and back. I walked to the bathroom door, knocked for Ray. The toilet flushed as I knocked again and he came out, irritated.

  —What man? What?

  I paused. I pointed. —You didn’t wash them hands, Ray.

  —Man, Ray sighed, used to me. Leave me alone.

  —That’s why you get no ass, I told him. You go to hold a woman’s hand and your fingers smell like shit! I paused so he could think about this. We’re going to Lianne’s.

  —Not me, Lone Ranger. Ray swung at me, playful. You’re on your own. Remember the last woman she set me up with?

  —What? I laughed. She was willing, right? And you know you don’t come across charitable girls that often.

  Ray yelled, —She took her panties off and my eyes started to tear up!

  —Well, you shouldn’ta been trying to eat her out.

  —Sean, I wasn’t even in the room.

  He got me, Ray always did. That face he made was perfect, like someone had jigged him in the gut. I held my side, fell back into the couch. We had such a small apartment. It was long and thin, got wider at the end, here in the living room; the place was shaped like an extension cord.

  ———

  When I opened my eyes Ray was at my face, behind him our boy Trevor. Now we were supposed to call him Knowledge, but when you’ve seen a boy, at thirteen years old, cry for his stolen Lego, you will never be able to call him Knowledge. The best I could manage was to use the first initial. —Peace to the Gods. I smiled at K.

  He nodded approval, said, —What up, Sun?

  I had fallen out on the chair in my room after making a quick trip to Harlem for some clothes. Because my work schedule was funny I had the habit of checking the date every time I woke up. See, today in 1908 the first factory-built Model T was completed. One of the benefits of working at a Ford dealership: free fun facts printed on your complimentary calendar. Henry had taken the car on a hunting trip to Wisconsin.

  Ray left my room, in the back end of the apartment, wound through the kitchen, which came next, down the little hallway and into the bathroom as K and I walked. Ray had his towel and his soaps. K stopped us in the kitchen. Leaning in close, I whispered, —Man, that kid, he got like two different shampoos, a soap for his body, gel for his face. A fucking loofah pad.

  K, at the fridge, opened it, stuck his big-ass head inside. —Ah-hah. Ray man, he called out, Sean is making you sound like a bitch.

  But Ray already had the shower going. He thought I didn’t know, but he wasn’t in yet. He did this every other morning, sitting on the toilet filing down his toenails. K’s magic nose had sniffed out the bowl of hard-boiled eggs Keisha had made for me. His big hammy hands were all over them. While he hunted I got out a broom and swept, reaching the long yellow bristles down the hidden side of the fridge, around the oven, underneath the cabinets, pulling out all the secret bits of fallen food, paper and dirt. When I found a dime layered in dust, I threw it at K; he’d been foraging for too long. He didn’t get angry. He said, —Turn on that radio.

  There was one by the sink. K twirled his hands like a band leader, getting me to raise the volume. Good, now louder, he gestured. He said, —Brooklyn is amped today.

  —For what?

  He shrugged. —When you ever known this place to need a reason? Shit is just hot. Niggas are out and girls are, he stressed it, everywhere. It’s like summer.

  —That’s why I’m staying in until dark, I said. Everyone starts acting up on days like this.

  K dragged me into the living room, single file in the hall, his other hand carrying the food, pointed out the windows. —Nah, you gotta come build with me today. Gods are out there, right now, so much science getting dropped they’re creating new worlds and shit. Universes. I got to remind you? All this shit you see before you, we made. You don’t want to be a part of that?

  I rolled my eyes; the T.V. was still shouting, fighting with the radio I’d left on in the kitchen. Plus Ray was singing while he washed, no shame, like how hard he sang made up for how bad. —I don’t want to hear this shit today, K. I laughed at him, but who was I fooling? I loved it; I was ready to be convinced.

  K could see this. He said, —You seen how many times Osiris got shot by the cops? Like forty-one.

  I laughed. —Even these crazy-ass New York cops couldn’t get away with that much.

  He shrugged. —It was a lot, forty-one, fourteen. They shot him and he didn’t die, motherfuckers told me he didn’t even fall down. You tell me, what normal man’s going to walk away from that? He has to be God manifested on Earth and that’s what I am and that’s what you are. Come to one cipher and build, just listen to the brothers and you’ll believe.

  Whenever I was ordering a new rearview mirror for a ’92 Escort, I wanted to hear K’s speeches deifying us again. If he wasn’t around I’d tell them to myself. Then, if I was feeling really charged, I’d shut my eyes, had faith that if I could think of enough good things to do I’d be God when I opened them again. I’d always start small: the complete Sherlock Holmes series with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce would run on channel 13 every day; I wouldn’t be going bald anymore; the rent for everyone on our block paid for the next twenty years; more trees would grow through the concrete; Ray would actually get to be an airline pilot. Each time it failed I didn’t lose enthusiasm, I just hadn’t dreamed up anything big enough. To be God you had to think larger.

  K looked out the window. —Only thing that’d keep people calm today is clouds.

  He gave me an idea. I shut my eyes. I waved my hand and thought, Rain; nothing happened. I shrugged. K started telling me something else, that Keisha knew I was cheating, that she was tired of it. I sat down, trapped again by earthly pressures.

  —Where’d you hear all this? I asked.

  —Her cousin.

  —Alice.

  —Nah. He smiled. The other one, Ayanah.

  —Since when you been tight with her?

  —Since she’s been getting the essence of the God! K squeezed at his dick. He laughed and me with him.

  —You’re hitting that? I thought it was you and Alice? And you’re trying to talk to me about being faithful?

  He shrugged. —The God must spread his seed.

  —See that, I said. Even the righteous brothers are wack.

  He sat up. In his open mouth I could see the food being chewed. —Don’t kid yourself, so are these women. They both have men, but look, they still come to me.

  —That’s real deep, I said.

  —Don’t roll your eyes, K protested. I’m dropping bombs and your mind can’t handle it.

  —Most you’re dropping, I pointed out, is those UPS packages while you’re working.

  As soon as I stepped out these two were all over me, Ray being loud, —Damn! And I thought I took a long-ass time. Someone had turned on the fan, set it on the sill in the living room where those two sat. It was September. Cold air lanced our apartment, strong enough it might have peeled paint loose, blown bugs from their corners. I was in my towel, still wet. Between them sat the bowl of eggs my girl had made for me; they had been reduced to nothing but their grayish-white shells in a messy pile.

  —Man, K said, put your shirt on. No one here wants to see your scrawny chest.

  —You dream about this shit right here, I said, pointed to my pecs, flexed my arms.

  —Damn Sean, K said. You been working out.

  I got thrown but he seemed serious. —Well, I been doing push-ups.

  They turned to each other,
started laughing. K hopped up, flexing. —Well, I been doing push-ups, he said, sounding like a faggot. Our living room wasn’t worth much, the ceiling creaked if you bumped into the light that hung down on a wire.

  —What’s your cousin’s name? I asked Ray

  —Ramon?

  —No, no, Chocolate or something. I pointed to my face like that might give Ray a better idea.

  —Yeah. Cocoa. You got something to tell me about my cousin?

  —Not him, his boy who I see all over, all fucked up.

  Ray nodded. —I know who you mean, that kid is bad news.

  I scratched my head. —I saw him when I bought some pants for tonight, uptown, hanging on to a phone booth like he was going to die if he let go. He was looking rough. I was standing right next to him.

  Some people were always reminding you how close you were to falling off. The thought of him put a little fear in me. I took the phone down to my room and called Keisha. While it rang I folded the clothes I’d washed yesterday. Some of them were still a little wet and this pissed me off because I’d spent a whole hour with them in the dryers. Instead of hanging them out to dehydrate I creased them up and put them in their drawers. I saw this as some kind of punishment. They’d smell a little when I took them out, the fabric would wear out sooner and it would be me who’d pay for it, but I couldn’t stop myself. I shoved them in like they were headstrong children determined to do their own thing. I slammed the drawers closed like I was locking the clothes in a room. Keisha’s mother answered. —Hello Miss Bonyers, I said.

  —Oh, hi Sean.

  I laughed. —No one’s too happy to hear from me today.

  —Keisha’s not here, she exhaled. She turned her mouth from the phone but I heard the light pull on a cigarette. Her voice was soft, showed no sign of the good thirty years she’d been doing that.