"No More Birds Will Die Today"
No More Birds Will Die Today
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Every Man For Himself
edited by Nancy Mercado (Dial Books for Young Readers 2005)
Word on the street is that being a guy these days can be kinda rough. Well, here are ten fictional stories, some funny, some sad, that deal with that very subject. Stories about being a guy, written by guys. From Walter Dean Myers’s story about a black kid who takes a white girl to the prom, to Mo Willems’s comedy about an invincible kid who goes to a high school for superheroes, to graphic novelist Craig Thompson’s story about the skaters vs. the wussy football players, each manages to ever-so-subtly reflect the modern-day concerns of guyhood.
Gathering together some of the most exciting writers of today and tomorrow, Every Man for Himself offers teen readers a great selection of honest and real stories about everyday guys who get pummeled by some life lessons . . . and still manage to come out on top.
You ever sit down, slip your body into relax mode and just let your brain slide into deep chill? Like nothing is going on between your ears except maybe the background noise of your friends trying out some light rap about nothing in particular? Conversations go, like, ‘Yo, what’s up?’ and ‘Man, I hope Miss Evans don’t check the English papers before she gives out the grades.’
None of that meant anything, because everybody already knew what was up, which was nothing. And it was the end of the year so everybody knew Miss Evans was going to check our papers before we got our grades. But that’s what my homies were saying because they didn’t have anything else to talk about. Then Tony Sutherland, my main man, opened his mouth and turned the whole game around.
“Yo, Fly, you going to the Junior Prom?”
“Yeah, I guess.” That was my cool reply.
“Who you going with?”
“I don’t know, maybe I’ll run a lottery,” I said. “See who gets lucky.”
That cracked Tony up. He started talking it around the school that I was going to run a lottery to see who gets to go to the Junior Prom with me. Now, I’m not saying I’m all that special, but I ain’t no sorry dude, either. Except sometimes I don’t think things through too tough, especially when I don’t see any danger. And I didn’t see the danger coming at me, even when Tony got Amy Griffin to put an ad in the school paper.
‘Win Fly Williams For The Junior Prom’
Eric ‘Fly’ Williams, star forward for the Crusaders, is putting himself up for grabs in a lottery. The winning girl (or boy!) gets to go to the Junior Prom with the future N.B.A. player. Put your name in the box at the newspaper office on the 3rd floor. The drawing will be held next Thursday.
I liked that bit about the future N.B.A. player because I think that’s exactly where I’m headed. They call me ‘Fly’ because that’s exactly what I do when I’m on the court. So I figured that a lot of the ladies would be slipping their names into the box. Also, since I didn’t have a particular lady that I hung with I thought it would be cool to see who showed up. It’d be like seeing what colleges offered me athletic scholarships.
So the whole thing was a big ha-ha, and they had the drawing and guess who won? No lie, it was Bibi Overmeyer. Now, Bibi was all right, mind you. She was real tall for a girl, but she was kind of cute and had a nice smile. She was also smart enough to be offered a scholarship, as a Junior, to Brown University. She was also white.
Now, not being of the white persuasion myself, I was still tolerant of all people, regardless of race, creed, or color. Check out my main dog, Tony. He plays forward on the school team, and he is also white. We hang together and we don’t have any problems. So, when Bibi won the drawing, I was cool with it. But then Bibi put some crap in the game.
“So, look, I want to go to the Prom with you,” she said. “And I’ll even go out with you afterwards. But I don’t do anything, if you know what I mean.”
Well, yeah, I kind of knew what she meant, but I hadn’t been thinking about, you know, doing anything. And that’s where it would probably have stayed if I hadn’t told Tony.
“Yo, man, why she have to say that?” Tony asked. “Just because you’re a brother she has to assume you’re going to hit on her?”
I didn’t know why she said that, or why Tony was talking it up around the lunchroom. Tony has two things, a good inside game, and a big mouth. Soon, everybody was talking about how Bibi had told me she wasn’t going to do anything.
“She’s making stereotypical remarks about the black man in America,” Gloria Jones had her hands on her hips and was doing the whole neck wiggling bit. “You have to tell her that if she can’t accept you without a racist outlook, you’re not going to the Prom with her white butt!”
Now everybody knew that Gloria was a militant. She even had the Koreans down at the Mall paint her nails red, black and green, the African liberation colors.
So the next time I saw Bibi in the hallway I said that I kind of resented the idea that she had to warn me about her not doing anything. Bibi had heard all the talk, too, and she was mad and told me that she was not a racist and if she was she wouldn’t have put her name in the box in the first place. That made sense to me and I was hoping it was going to end there. Bibi said that she was taking back what she had said before.
“Whatever happens,” she said, “happens.”
When Tony started rapping to me about how I should get on Bibi’s case I told him that I had already talked to Bibi and she had taken back what she had said and that she had added the bit about whatever happens, happens.
“She said that?” Tony asked.
“I just told you she did.”
“So what you going to do?”
I didn’t know what I was going to do, except to go to the Prom with Bibi, get through the night, and slide on into the summer. Then my pops got into the act.
“You need how much?” he asked.
“I think fifty dollars will do it,” I said. “The Junior Prom is next week and I’m taking this girl so I want to have some money in case we stop somewhere afterwards.”
“Who are you taking?” This from Mom.
“Bibi Overmeyer,” I said, saying her name kind of quick. “You don’t know her.”
“Carole Overmeyer’s daughter?” Mom asked, looking up from her magazine. “You know they all speak perfect German? It’s nice for a family to stay in touch with their roots.”
“German? If you’re taking some white girl to the Prom you can’t show up at her door without a ride,” Pop said. “You need to rent a limousine.”
“Then I guess I can’t go,” I said.
“I’ll spring for it,” Pop said. “Everybody is going to be looking at the Negro-White thing, so you have to be correct.”
Just like that I got to be a Negro. The last time I saw the word was when we were studying the Civil Rights movement in Social Studies. Now I was one and had to have Bibi in a limousine. It had been bad enough to have to go through all the stuff about what she was or was not going to do, now I had to represent the race as well. This was weak because I wasn’t even sweating Bibi. She had accidentally won me in a drawing. This is what I tried to explain to Richie Scott.
Richie is a senior and our team’s center. He thinks he’s God’s gift to the ladies and a basketball star. He’s neither. The dude’s too fat to run, and the only thing that keeps other centers from getting too close to him is his bad breath. But none of that stops him from telling everybody what they should be doing with their game or with their love life.
“If you springing for a limo, you got to throw some kisses on the chick and be ready in case anything sexual goes down,” he said, his heavy arm around my shoulders and his bad breath slipping in my ear and probably messing up my brain. “You need to get to the drug store and get some protection. You can’t be having no babies holding back your NBA career.”
“I’ll go with you to the supermarket,” Tony said, looking up from copying my homework. “We’ll get some of those condoms that come in different colors.”
“When am I going to have a chance to use them?” I asked. My palms were getting a bit sweaty. “How much can you make out in the back seat of the limo?”
“Suppose you take her home and she asks you in?” Tony said. “Her parents are asleep and you both tip toe to her bedroom?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Richie started scratching his chin, “and she give you that look like the girl on television selling those indoor pools, man.”
“Oh,” I said. What I wanted to say was that Bibi already said she wasn’t going to do anything so there wasn’t any need for me to buy any protection. Plus, I didn’t know if I wanted to do anything. You had to be careful hitting on chicks in our school. One time Richie lucked a date with this cheerleader. They had gone to the movie and she got all into the flick and he tried to put his hand on her knee on the sly. Only he was pretending that he didn’t realize where his hand was going and he put it on the girl’s knee to his left instead of on the cheerleader’s knee. The girl screamed on him right in the movie and then came to school the next day, told the whole story, and added that Richie had tried to kiss her in the elevator and his breath made her sick. That last part was probably true.
Bibi’s parents were from Germany and I knew she had traveled a lot. I didn’t know if she had much experience but I didn’t want to do anything stupid and then have her running her mouth about me. I mean, I wasn’t afraid to make a mistake or anything, but there was already a lot going on, what with everybody knowing about us going out plus the limousine.
So, anyway, me and Tony go to the supermarket, hit the pharmacy aisles and stop in front of the condoms. They have six different kinds and Tony’s trying to pick out the right ones for me.
“What size you want?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I said. “They got medium?”
“No, I mean you want a three pack or like, a dozen?”
The three pack looked safer so I bought one and Tony bought one. They did have sizes, which were regular, large, and extra large. I wanted the large, because that was the middle size, but Tony said to get the extra large.
“You got to show her you’re the man,” he said. “When she sees the extra large that’s going to play with her mind.”
So, I had everything covered. It was like the big game, maybe the championship of the city, maybe even of the world. The date with Bibi was set. I was going to have the limo. I had the condoms and I knew it couldn’t last more than a few hours. I figured I pick her up at 7, get to the dance by 7:30, get our boogie on until 10:45, then get her back into the limo. We get to her house at 11:30 and she says I can’t come in. Or maybe I can come in but I make too much noise and her parents wake up. In fact, if they’re decent parents they won’t even be asleep. I definitely was going to kiss Bibi, but I didn’t want to sneak and do anything. Then I’d go home and everything would be cool.
Along comes Monday morning and Tony drops his condoms in the cafeteria. Right in the middle of the table where he’s sitting with Bobby Scott, Joel from the band, Sarah Upton and big mouth Mary Costa. From fifteen feet away you could hear Bobby asking what Tony’s doing with the condoms. Everybody turned to look and Bobby’s holding them up in the air and Tony’s talking and pointing over toward where I was sitting putting ketchup on my French fries one by one like I always do. I was trying to figure out what was going on and then I saw Mary get this funny expression on her face and then she was getting up and going over to where Bibi Overmeyer was sitting.
As I said, Bibi is tall, at least six feet, and it doesn’t take her more than about six long steps to get over to where I was sitting. And I didn’t have to be 007 to figure out what was on her mind.
“Excuse me, Mr. Williams,” she said, “I understand you only bought three condoms for Prom night. Are you sure that’s going to be enough?”
“Yo, Bibi, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “I saw Mary Costa chewing on your ear but she ain’t the six o’clock news as far as I’m concerned. If I need to say something to you I’ll just come say it.”
“You’ve got a lot of high hopes for this date, haven’t you?” Bibi asked.
“I just hope we can both have a good time,” I said.
“You mess with me and you’re going to get more than you bargained for,” Bibi’s finger was at the tip of my nose. “And I’m still not backing out so you can call me a racist!”
I had already got more than I had bargained for. So when Richie came up and started talking about how Bibi, being white and all, was afraid of the black man, I really wasn’t ready to hear it.
“Throughout history, white people have been secretly afraid of us!” he said.
This whole thing had started out to be a cool way of getting a Prom date, but it had escalated into about nine other things. I was renting a limo because my Pop had me representing the race, I was buying Extra-Large condoms to show I was the man, and now I had the whole Junior class waiting to see what was going to happen. What I needed was a time out and a new game plan.
“You’ve got to be strong. You’re representing all of us. The men against the women!” This from Richie.
“Make sure she sees the box with the size on it!” this from Tony.
“Make sure you let the limo driver open the door for the young lady!” This from Pop.
“Do you think she wants to go to the dance with you because her parents are going to be out of town on Junior Prom night?” This from Mary Acosta, Miss Mala Prensa, who swore she had got the scoop straight from one of the women who work in the lunch room.
The days flew by almost as fast as the rumors about what was going to happen between me and Bibi on prom night. I wasn’t too uptight about the night itself. It was the instant replay when I got to school that worried me. Since I was representing almost everybody in the free world, I knew there were going to be a bunch of questions.
Night of the Junior Prom. I was nervous, but I was laughing it off. I got dressed and checked myself out in the mirror. Okay, the kid was looking good. Teeth brushed, lots of deodorant, just the right touch of Pop’s aftershave. Mom was shedding a Mom tear. Pop was giving me the elbow and saying not to do anything that he wouldn’t do, whatever that meant. The phone rung at 6:20 and I figured it was Bibi saying she didn’t want to go to the Prom with me. I fixed my mind to handle it but it was only the limo driver saying he was outside waiting for me.
No big deal, I told myself. I took the corsage out of the vegetable drawer and went out to the limo. The driver nodded when he saw me and opened the door. I had my game face on and my game plan in mind. I was going to play it super cool. Pick Bibi up and talk about the situation in the Middle East while we’re in the limo. I’d get the tall mama to the dance, swing her around the floor a couple of times, then when things wound down, I’d pick up Tony and a couple of other kids, whisk them out for a late spin in the limo, then drop off everybody except Bibi. Take Bibi home, throw a polite kiss on her, and then- the debonair move – ask her politely if she wanted to ‘do anything else.’ Just like that.
“Do you want to do anything else?”
“No, I don’t!”
“Then bonsoir, ma cherie!”
Then I give my head a little shake, kiss Bibi’s hand, and split like I was too sophisticated to even worry about it. Which I was.
When I got to Bibi’s house her parents were just leaving. I met them on the driveway to her house. They had a small suitcase with them. Uh-oh. Mary Costa was right. I took a deep breath as her Dad looked me up and down carefully. He shook my hand and showed me a firm grip. Her mother gave me this half smile and bowed her head a little.
“Bibi’s waiting for you,” she said. “Have a nice time.”
Then they left and I rang the doorbell. There was no answer at first and I’m thinking that Bibi was chickening out. Then the door opened and she was standing in the doorway looking like a goddess. Word! She was looking fine in this black gown that just barely kept her lungs in and clung to her body like it was happy to be doing it! My eyes liked to fell out and I was standing there grinning with my mouth open. I had to look stupid.
“Hi, Fly,” she said.
“Uh, hi.” My suave reply.
Bibi got her jacket and we got into the limo. I couldn’t think of anything to say about the Middle East, and then I come up with a really good idea of talking about what a nice day it was and was just about ready to lay that on her when her knee touched mine and I lost my train of thought.
We got to the dance and everybody was scoping how fab Bibi looked. Everybody’s checking us out. Dudes I didn’t even know were winking at me and giving me the high sign. We’re dancing some fast stuff and I’m all good because I got the moves to fit the groove but Bibi got some moves, too. She’s also hip to the beat so we got a little show thing going on and she’s smiling so everything is all right. There’s a little break while some teacher is making noise about drinking and driving and Bibi says she has to go to the ladies room.
“Yo, man, after the intermission the band is going to play some slow stuff,” Tony says. “You can tell what she’s thinking by how she slow dances.”
Meanwhile, I don’t see Tony dancing with anybody and all Richie is doing is guarding the punch bowl. Now, I’m down with fast dancing, but I really don’t know them slow numbers and I get a little nervous. I’m thinking about checking out Lost and Found to see if anybody had picked up my cool in the parking lot or wherever I left it.
So here we go. Slow dancing. Me and Bibi are in the middle of the floor and all my homies and a few gnomies are right around us scoping us out. I decided to just shut my mind, put my arms around the girl, forget about everybody watching, and get through it the best way I could. Why did she have to hum in my ear?
Bibi started humming in my ear and rubbing the back of my neck with one finger. She was definitely messing with my mind. Her touch was real light, too –a shoulder brushed against mine, a little hip rub, our chests touched for a half second just as her lips touched my cheek AND she was steady humming. Thoughts were flying around my head like balls in a ping pong tournament and my heart was making some funny moves on its own. When the first slow dance ended and we sat down my knees were ready to give out.
The next number was a reggae and Bibi danced with a teacher. Richie came over and told me he had thought about cutting in and had changed his mind.
“I saw the way you were working your show and I didn’t want to ruin it for you, man,” he said.
“Yeah, nice looking out, bro.”
Then the last dance came I found out that most of my crowd was going over to the next town and Bibi said she had to get home because her parents were going to call at one. I hadn’t even realized it was that nearly twelve.
We get into the limo and she snuggled up against me and started thanking me for a nice time, and I was thanking her for a nice time and we’re thanking each other until we got to her house. It was about six miles from the limo to her front door, but somehow I made it.
“You wanna….?”
“No,” she said. Then she kissed me. Her face was already close to mine when she was standing so I didn’t expect the kiss when it came and I didn’t know exactly what to do when it lasted a little longer than I thought it would. Well, maybe a lot longer. Just about the time I started thinking about where I might put my hands it was over.
“Hey, you want to go out again?” I asked as she backed into the doorway.
She reached into her purse and pulled out her cell phone and held it up.
Yes, I definitely was going to call her.
Monday, after basketball practice.
“Yo, man, you got to tell us what happened!” Richie said. We were in the locker room. Tony was leaning against the lockers with a towel around his neck and four other guys from the team were there.
“Nothing happened,” I said.
“Not according to Mary Costa,” Richie said. “She said she asked Bibi how it went and Bibi just closed her eyes and said you really know how to kiss. Why did she have to close her eyes, man? She must have been thinking about what you did. What was she thinking about?”
“I don’t know,” I shrugged.
Afterwards, when we were walking home, Tony said I was right in not telling everybody what had happened.
“That shows you’re not just a kid getting all excited about being with a woman and whatnot,” he said. “I’ve always thought that black dudes were cool like that.”
Yeah, I guess we are.
-Kirkus Reviews