"Wouldn"t matter," the writer said, and I wondered what kind of books he wrote. Probably not travel guides. My dad never even said "s.h.i.t," let alone wrote it. "Angry has nothing to do with it. Friends, enemies, acquaintances. They"re all-"
"Um," Lisa Aden said, then faltered.
"What about girls? Women?" Kayla wanted to know.
"Just men. If you say it of a woman it means the same thing it means here. So you don"t. Unless you"re really angry."
Zach looked fascinated.
"So, um, that word doesn"t mean the same thing here that it does where you"re from?" Aaron Ling asked.
"That"s right."
"Like the way English people don"t use "erasers"?" Aaron Ling asked. "Or say "lift" instead of "elevator" or "flat" for "apartment"?"
The writer nodded.
"Can you tell us a little about how you came to write a book about taboo words?" Lisa Aden asked.
The writer laughed. "Well, you could say it was a lifelong interest."
Half the cla.s.s laughed, too.
"This is my first book about language. Before that I mostly wrote true crime, which grew out of covering the crime beat in Glasgow. The kind of people I write about, they"re not clergymen, you know? Not even close. Rough as guts, more like. I got interested in the words they used so often, and so, er, colorfully. Then I started looking stuff up and before I knew it I was writing a book about so-called bad language."
"So what"s the worst swear word where you come from?" Zach asked.
"You know, that"s a hard question to answer. The more research I"ve done on this, the more it seems to be that it"s not the words so much as the force behind them. I think people get too caught up in whether a word is or isn"t offensive and lose sight of what"s actually being said. I mean, is it more offensive for someone to advocate the killing of Arabs or the killing of "f.u.c.king Arabs"? Either way, that"s racism, pure and simple."
There was a moment of quiet.
"Do your books ever get banned?" Kayla wanted to know.
"Not that I know of. I don"t think books about language or true crime attract the book banners. Not sure why. Isn"t it mostly books for teenagers and children that get banned? Like that one about the two boy penguins who fall in love?"
The cla.s.s laughed again. I wondered if that was a real book or if he was making it up.
"What do you think?" Lisa interjected, addressing the cla.s.s. "What is it about writing for teenagers that leads to so much censorship?"
I knew the answer to that one but I didn"t raise my hand. It"s because grown-ups don"t remember what it was like when they were teenagers. Not really. They remember something out of a Disney movie and that"s where they want to keep us. They don"t like the idea of our hormones, or that we can smell s.e.x on one another. That we walk down halls thick with a million different pheromones. We see each other, catch a glance, the faintest edge of one, that sends a shiver through our bodies all the way to the parts of us our parents wish didn"t exist.
Like the glance me and Zach exchanged just then. I shifted in my seat. All nerve endings buzzing. Making me itch. Making me have to run. Run far and fast and wide. With Zach beside me, matching me stride for stride.
Not long after the cla.s.s ended that"s what we did. Ran and ran and ran.
But after that night I never saw him again.
FAMILY HISTORY.
When Mom and Dad told me I was going to have a baby sister or brother I wasn"t upset. I wasn"t happy either. I didn"t really think about it much, to be honest. I had other problems: dealing with doctors, school.
I was seven years old and covered in hair. There were lots and lots of doctors. I was pulled in and out of different schools. Each one worse than the one before. When the medication wasn"t working I wore pants and long-sleeved shirts. (We"d tried waxing, electrolysis, laser. The hair always came back within a day or two.) Sometimes I had to wear scarves and gloves as well. Even when it was ninety degrees. The other kids thought I was weirdo religious or covered in a dreaded skin disease. They weren"t far off. They didn"t want to go near me.
The growing b.u.mp in my mom"s stomach wasn"t much on my radar.
I was shocked when Jordan was born. Us racing to the hospital. Dad yelling at the taxi driver. Then hours and hours waiting with Mom"s friend Liz, who insisted that she hold my hand, before I was finally led in to see my dad tired and sweaty and beaming, and Mom, even tireder, holding a tiny blue bundle.
"Hallo, my darling," Mom said. "You must meet with your brother."
I looked up at Liz, who smiled at me. Dad nodded. "Check him out, Micah. Your brother, Jordan."
"Do I have to?"
Mom laughed. A tiny laugh. She looked ready to sleep for a month.
Liz gave me a little push and I took a step closer to the bed.
I took another step and put my hands on the edge of it, standing on tiptoe to peer at the baby.
It was hate at first sight.
Jordan was grayish blue and uglier than sin. His hair pointed in all the wrong directions, but at least it was only on his head. No family illness for this Wilkins child. His eyes were puffy little slits. "Why"s he that weird color?" I asked.
Dad reached down and took the bundle from Mom. "You want to hold him, Micah?"
I shook my head.
"You won"t drop him. See?" he said, demonstrating.
"It"s easy. You make sure you have one hand under his head and one under his body. Isn"t he tiny?" Dad pa.s.sed the bundle into my arms. I got a whiff of something not right that made the hair on my arms stand on end. Not p.o.o.p or anything like that. A wrongness. The blue baby didn"t smell right.
I held him, making sure my hands were where Dad said, though now I wish I"d dropped him. He opened his little beady eyes to look at me. I don"t like you, I could almost hear him thinking. I didn"t like him either. Right away he started screaming.
It"s been like that ever since.
AFTER.
The funeral goes on forever. I"m uncomfortable and irritable and not just because it"s so hot. Nothing anyone says about Zach bears much resemblance to the Zach I knew.
Everyone is lying.
Everyone is creating an ideal Zach with their words.
A Zach in their own image.
It"s a Catholic church. I"ve never been in one before. Light comes in colored by the stained gla.s.s windows.
At first I stand at the back, not sure where to sit. I watch people filing in. Most of them people I"ve never seen before. Do they know who Zach is? Was?
There"s organ music. Heavy and somber like an old horror movie. It hurts my head. There"s incense, too, as heavy and dense as the music. It doesn"t do much for my head either.
His parents walk by. They"ve shrunk, fallen in on themselves. Grief makes gravity even stronger. His older brother"s face is blank. Looking at them makes my eyes sting. They sit at the front near the flowers and the coffin. I"ve been trying not to look at it, but there it is, dark wood with golden handles. The shape and size are wrong. It doesn"t seem long enough. Zach was tall.
Almost all the seniors walk past, teachers, too. The guys wear suits; the girls, black dresses. They don"t look like themselves. I"m in the same black-dress disguise. The ones who notice me look away, disgusted. Only Yayeko and Sarah say hi. I lose track of Yayeko. Sarah sits down in front with Zach"s family.
Detectives Stein and Rodriguez walk past me. For a moment I am afraid that they will arrest me. They don"t nod. I"m not sure they see me.
The church is approaching full. While there"s still somewhere to sit, I slide onto the edge of a pew two rows from the back. I don"t recognize any of the people near me. That"s a good thing. None of them will whisper and point. The dress I"m wearing itches.
I wonder why I"m here. Zach knew I liked him. It doesn"t matter what any of these other people think of me, or of me and him.
I wonder what Zach would think.
But Zach doesn"t. Not anymore. He"s going into the ground. Or into the flames. I"m not sure which.
I try to remember the last time we saw each other. Once again. I try to pull together every detail. What he looked like. What he wore. I don"t really remember. The details are blurring. It hasn"t been that long and already I"m forgetting things.
The preacher drones a welcome and starts talking about Zach as if he knew him. But I can tell from what he"s saying that he didn"t. It"s easy to block the preacher out. An older man stands up a few rows in front of me and moves up to the podium.
"Scoot over."
I look up.
Tayshawn. Wearing a suit. I almost laugh even though he looks good. I"ve never seen Tayshawn in jeans before, let alone jacket and tie. He"s always wearing a tracksuit or shorts and jersey so that he can transition into playing ball at a second"s notice. He"s not nearly as good as Zach but he loves the game way more.
There isn"t a lot of scooting s.p.a.ce. I turn to my neighbor, a fat old white lady in a black cotton dress. I wonder how she knew Zach. She glares at me, but turns to her neighbor, and they make more wooden pew emerge. Tayshawn squeezes himself onto the last few inches, trying not to press into me, as I try not to touch my neighbor.
"I hate funerals," he whispers to me.
I nod. Though it"s my first one. They can"t all be like this.
"Some of us are going to hang out after. Drink and stuff. At Will"s place. You wanna come?"
I don"t drink-one of the many things doctors have forbidden me-but I don"t tell him that.
"Not sure," I whisper back. The woman beside me shifts her body in an I-disapprove-of-you-whispering-at-a-funeral way. I lower my voice. "I don"t think I"m welcome." Not here. Not at Will"s place.
Tayshawn looks at me. I can see him thinking about lying, then deciding not to. "I guess not," he says. He smiles at me. "So you know-I don"t believe any of that s.h.i.t about you."
"Thanks," I say. I mean it.
"Hush," the lady next to me hisses. "A young boy died."
I almost tell her that he had a name and if she actually knew him she wouldn"t be calling him "a young boy." I want to tell her that Zach was my-my what? What noun comes after "my"? Running partner? Friend? Best friend? No, that"s Tayshawn"s. Boyfriend belongs to Sarah.
"You wanna go?" Tayshawn asks. "I really hate these things."
I look at him, at the cranky lady next to me, at the old guy leaning into the podium, talking about Zach"s unfulfilled potential, his brilliance on the court. Must be his coach, I guess.
"Sure," I say.
Better to be anywhere than here.
AFTER.
Sarah is sitting on the church steps. She does not look all right but Tayshawn asks her if she is anyway.
"No," she says, looking up at us. "But I"m not going to be sick if that"s what you mean. It was too much in there."
She"s also wearing a black dress. It makes her look older. Mine is my mom"s. I wonder if hers is too. Her eye makeup is smeared from crying.
Tayshawn shifts his weight from one leg to the other and back again. I clasp my hands and stretch my arms out behind my back.
"Where you two going?" Sarah asks.
"Dunno," Tayshawn says. "Away. I don"t like funerals."
"Who does?" Sarah asks. "I can"t go back in there."
Tayshawn nods. I bite my lip, wonder what to say.
"Can I come with you guys?" she asks.
"Sure," Tayshawn says. "We wasn"t going to do anything much." He shrugs.
The plan was getting out of there. I haven"t thought beyond that. I think about the time Zach and me walked the whole length of the island. We started down at Battery Park and wound up here in Inwood. Well, not this here, this church, but farther up, on Broadway, at the bridge to the Bronx.
"Micah?" Sarah asks.
"Yeah?"
"You don"t mind if I come along?"
"No," I say, realizing that I don"t. She knew Zach better than I ever did. Tayshawn has been best friends with Zach since the third grade. They are the two people who knew him best. They are who I want to be with. "Sure," I say.
"We could walk," Tayshawn says. "Down to the park."
Sarah nods, standing up slowly. She has a tiny black sparkly purse looped over her shoulder. "You live around here, too, don"t you?"
"Yeah," Tayshawn says. "This is the neighborhood. Me and Zach, we used to, you know. . . ."
For a moment the weight of Zach"s death is too much. I feel my throat and chest tighten.
"I could show you. I guess."
Sarah blinks back more tears. "Please," she says.
FAMILY HISTORY.