Stepping Up to the Plate

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A very groggy Lamar answered the phone just as Stacy was about to hang up and try Ange’s cell. Should’ve called Ange first, he thought. Without preamble he told Lamar, “Come get me.”

Lamar balked. “Stace, now? Do you know—”

“It’s my birthday.” Was that a footstep he heard down the hall? His momma’s door was still shut, but was she out of bed already? “I ain’t going to school today, Lamar, and if you don’t want to drive out here to pick me up then I’ll call Ange.”

“s**t, boy,” Lamar grumbled, but Stacy knew him well enough to know it was only an act. There was an unspoken rivalry between the two friends, and all Stacy had to do to spur Lamar into action was threaten to ask Ange instead. Before he even got the words out, Lamar would be giving in. “Now hold up. I never said I wouldn’t…” Fifteen minutes later tires spun in the gravel drive and Stacy pulled the front door shut behind him quietly before falling into the passenger seat of Lamar’s ‘86 Firebird Trans Am.

The sports car was Lamar’s sole love in life. Painted a deep blue flecked with silver sparkles to catch the sun, windows tinted a shade that was barely legal, the bass cranked so high that houses shook when it drove past—Stacy once called it a pimp-mobile and had to duck out of the path of Lamar’s swinging fist. All it needed was a pair of fuzzy dice dangling from the rear-view mirror and the image was complete, but Lamar had a gold cross there instead, hanging from a thick chain he got at a pawn shop downtown real cheap. The cross was huge, more ornamental than religious, solid gold diamond-cut to look expensive. More than once it pulled the mirror off and Lamar had to super-glue it back to the windshield.

Also hanging from the mirror was a small square key-chain, clear plastic with a rolled up condom inside. Across the plastic in big black Army-issue letters was the legend, “In case of emergency, break glass.” Stacy had gotten off many times in that car but there was never any need for that condom—Lamar kept one in his wallet at all times, and there was a half-empty box in the glove compartment, behind some wipes to keep the leather interior clean. “You come on my seat,” he told Colin once, Stacy and Ange half drunk and giggling like schoolgirls in the back, “and you’re licking it up yourself, you hear me, motherfucker? I don’t care if the wipes smell like babies, you ain’t squirting your load in here unless someone swallows it down. And don’t look at me.”

At quarter after seven in the morning Lamar wasn’t quite so tough. Without Ange and Colin for an audience he was reserved, almost an artist’s pencil sketch of his usual colorful self. His pale brown skin looked gray by the morning light, his face ashen, his close hair scruffy over his scalp like a day old beard. When Stacy slid into the seat beside him, he looked at him over the top of his black sunglasses with blood-shot eyes and muttered, “Happy f*****g birthday, kid.”

“Shut up.” Stacy was secretly pleased that Lamar said something before he could remind him. “You’re only two years older than me, man. Don’t call me kid.”

They drove in silence, Lamar glowering at the morning world in front of them and Stacy gripping the seatbelt, anxious for no real reason at all. Sixteen, he thought, though the number meant nothing to him—he’d been sexually active for almost a year now, ever since he met the guys, they got together sometimes just to get off.

He already smoked—cigarettes mostly, weed when he could get it—and drank Colin under the table, quite a feat seeing as how he was a good hundred pounds lighter than his friend. And since he’d been in Driver’s Ed, Ange was letting him get behind the wheel of the cars at the shop, just pulling them into the garage, or parking them in the lot when done, but once he went around the block in a candy-apple red Corvette while Ange looked the other way. “You get caught and it’s my ass that gets busted,” his friend had said, holding out the keys.

Stacy tried to palm them but Ange held on. “Stace.” His low voice cut right through Stacy’s excitement. “I’m trusting you, monada. Don’t fail me.”

“I know, I know,” Stacy said, plucking at the keys. Ange still wouldn’t let them go, and the way he stared without blinking unnerved Stacy. “I get so much as a scratch on her and I shouldn’t even bother to come back, I gotcha.”

But Ange wasn’t satisfied. “I’m not Lamar,” he purred. Stacy stopped tugging at the keys and dropped his gaze, chastised by the slight reproach in his friend’s voice. “I don’t need to threaten you.”

Stacy whispered, “I know.” Ange let go of the keys, finally, the heavy weight falling into his open palm, and Stacy damn near crawled around the block, no way was anything f*****g up that car while he had it. Now that he was sixteen and able to get his license, he didn’t think driving would be as exhilarating as it had been only yesterday, when being behind the wheel had been illegal.

* * * *

They hit a snag with the morning traffic and Lamar cursed under his breath. “You couldn’t wait a few hours,” he grumbled, squealing tires as he took a curve too fast just to get away from everyone else. “Chilled until eleven at least? Then I could’ve swung by for you on the way to the shop.”

“You have to work today?” Stacy asked, disappointed. Just what was he skipping school for anyway, on his birthday of all days, if all he had to do was hang around Lamar’s apartment by himself? Glaring at the window, he watched his reflection ghost across the street outside and muttered, “If I’d’ve known that, I would’ve called Ange.”

“f**k you,” Lamar spat—that touched a nerve. He slammed on the brakes, hard enough to send Stacy into the dashboard, arms out to absorb the impact. “You can get out now, Stace. I ain’t stopping you. Walk your birthday ass to the nearest bus stop and catch a ride home—”

“Jeez, I was only kidding.” Stacy smoothed his t-shirt down around the seatbelt, then checked his baseball cap to make sure it was securely on his head. Behind them a horn tooted, a pissy sound, annoying, like someone clearing their throat. “Come on, just go. I’m not calling Ange.” Stacy covered Lamar’s hand on the gear stick, surprised at the heated flesh beneath his palm. Jiggling the stick, he tried, “I didn’t call him, did I? I called you.”

Lamar frowned at him for a long moment, then shook Stacy’s hand off his. Jamming the stick into first, he stepped on the gas and the car zoomed ahead. As he shifted gears, they leapfrogged, slowing to a lull then jerking ahead, until Lamar was in fourth and couldn’t go any higher.

It wasn’t until they pulled to a stop in front of his apartment building that he growled, “Just shut up about Angelo already, will you?”

Surprised, Stacy said, “I didn’t—”

But Lamar shook his head, adamant. “I’m sick of hearing about him. When it’s just you and me, don’t f*****g bring him into the conversation. I don’t want to hear it.”

“It wasn’t—”

Lamar turned to him like a provoked alley cat, his eyes narrowed, his face flushed. The hair smudging his head seemed to stand on end. “Stacy,” he hissed in warning, his knuckles whitening where he gripped the steering wheel. “I said stop it.”

“All right,” Stacy agreed, a little too quickly. He hated Lamar like this, spitting like a short fuse and just looking for a reason to explode. When he pulled this s**t, Stacy kept as far away from Lamar as he could, backing up against the window, slid all the way over in his seat so if his friend did go off, he wouldn’t catch the brunt of it. Colin was the same way but something about him infuriated Lamar and if he got mean when they were all together, the poor kid usually got blasted. Ange was the only one who could hold his own against the guy.

Stacy suspected that Lamar was scared of Ange, with his dangerously low voice and unreadable black eyes, and that’s why he hated him so. Because he couldn’t control him the way he could Stacy or Colin.

Because Ange wouldn’t let him.