"young loabe"... continued

Dammit , I'm going up there", I say blankly ,in a daze, eyes unblinking , thoughts faraway.

Red sucks his teeth at my announcement.

"How we getting in there , man ? Security won't let us past the front desk . Remember ? We'ze the 'boogey man' ? You forget ? Better look in the mirror and see something .

Soon as Security spot yo black ass , it's gonna be, 'Boy , what chu doin' around here? Show me some gott-damm ID .'

They don't want you up here. They don't even want them up here", Red says motioning towards the two girls in the window . "They don't want none of us up here, at they school --whether we supposed to be here , or not. And you not . You dreamin , fool . you ain't getting in. "

I feel the corners of my mouth turn down into my best, "Fuck you , punk-ass !" sneer . I hear what Red is saying , but the logic of his words fails to impress me.

I momentarily drag my eyes away from the window prize , turn to Red with pure disrespect for his painful lack of tactic and determination . "Where there's a way , there's a will " , an idea ferments in my brain.

Red snickers at my unintentionally insightful malapropism , " Yeah, and M = EC squared ? I think you got it backwards , Albert Einst... "

But before he can finish speaking , I tighten my fists and suddenly run full speed, straight towards the building's wall. At the last second before collision , I jump as high as I can while continuing to move my legs, as if running up the wall.

I throw my arms as far up as I can reach and the fingertips of one hand manage to catch hold of the steel neck of the security spotlight protruding from the wall. With my feet scraping brick for traction , I try to lift and pull myself high enough to get a better grip on the spotlight stem , but momentum runs out before I can secure the advance. Gravity pulls me back to earth with the muffled thud of thick , rubber soles upon concrete. I had failed.

The impact of the wall and my shoes --new, dark brown and of terry-clothed canvass cheaply glued to a thick tan, gum eraser-like, sole --causes small , multiple tears in the cloth ,that are not yet noticed , between upper and sole .


A tiny drop of blood very slowly oozes forth , and seeps down the tip of my index finger. The cuticle is slightly pulled away from the skin where I had grabbed at the steel lamp stem trying to get a hand hold in my first assault at the brick face mountain.

As I turn around and scramble back to the launch point, to try a second time, Red seems different, eyes now glinting and wider with surprise, more animated by what he has seen .

As if winds of possibility suddenly fill his sails, propelling him out of doldrums, he pats my shoulder grinning , "You almost made it, man. "

Still smiling, Red looks up at the girls again, perhaps for inspiration. Suddenly , his eyes shift from side to side and he pauses momentarily as his lower jaw slightly drops , as if a judge has granted a temporary divorce from the outer world.

"I got an idea," his face brightens even more , "C'mon ," he takes off at a quick jog heading for the rear of the building , near the loading docks for the building's downstairs cafeteria .

He waits till we are at our destination and out of earshot and then , mumbles coldly to me, " Once you git us in there, we might have to switch off , man ."

"Fuck dat. I saw her first. She mine. Mess wit my woman, I kill you. . " I grumble, equally remote.

"You can have Debbie . Y'all made for each other ," I offer as consolation , now snickering .

"Kill me? Motherfuckers do talk shit ! Don't they ? " he has turned his head to his right as if speaking about me to imaginary observers.

The weight of my last remark finally sinking in , immediately draws his attention from the imaginary listeners. He snaps his head back to his left.

"Made for each other?" he mumbles , seeming agitated .

Drawing himself to full height and pushing out his chest , he growls his mandatory challenge, "I might know a motherfucker made for an ass whuppin ."

"You know how many shit-ass muthafuckas already made me whup they ass -- this very evening --muthafuckas that looked just like you ? " I give a mandatory response to his challenge that forces him to laugh.

"You know how many sorry-ass motherfuckers 'round here --'this very evening' -- looking for a ride home , and got 'made' to walk ? " he responds to my response , forcing me to laugh also, which eases the tension and now we both can back down from confrontation without losing face.

Even in our alcohol haze, we both can sense that our rivalry will one day end in a "friendly little fight" just to see "who is who" . Whenever we "slap box"-- open handed boxing primarily to the face as a test of hand speed and defensive skills-- or "go hard to the body" -- boxing with closed fists as a test of strength , or when we wrestle -- it usually ends up a draw , but neither of us has ever gone all out to win --as we both would in a real fight.

Although we each can sense a willingness to test the other and ourselves , tonight there is a more important matter on our minds.

"Well , I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. " he responds. "Or" , he is quiet for a half second. Then, clearly amused at his own cleverness , adds a possibly insightful malapropism of his own. "I guess that bridge might cost when you get to it "

My frown briefly returns at having been "one-upped" by Red at my own unintentional game of malapropisms.

Like most teen-aged boys, as well as many grown men and on occasion , entire nations, it seemed there was a natural competition between us that sometimes egged us on to new highs and lows. Because it was natural , it was also unspoken , the same way that people know that there is air around us , but usually don't say much about it unless something out of the ordinary occurs.

But when you are 17 , do you really know how far out of the ordinary things really can get until you've already sped into unknown territory miles and miles beyond the simple borders of , "gone too far" ?

"Look , man , once you get in there, first thing you do is go downstairs , open the side door and let me in . They keep it locked on the outside so security won't have to cover it , but it opens from the inside in case of fire.

I've never seen any alarm systems on these dorms. Remember, don't do nothing stupid , don't say nothing stupid . You get in , then let me in and then --Just be cool an let me do the talkin'. These ain't no high school girls we dealin wit , this is grown woman pussy . I know how to deal with grown women , you still think like a high school boy cause you'ze still a young boy in the mind ."

Never mind that I graduated high school over three weeks ago and Red either quit or got kicked out back in tenth grade . But I decide not to argue with him . I'm too curious about why we ran all the way around here to the loading dock and what is his plan to get us into the building. I'm too curious to even insult him for saying that I'm a youngboy in the mind.

I had gotten my driver's license--then realized I had nothing to drive , I had worn a tuxedo, stayed out all night for the senior prom, graduated highschool and gotten a summer job --all in less than three months. You couldn't tell me my mind was a school boy's . You couldn't tell me I wasn't grown