Blackout Read online

  It caught me off guard how much I wanted to punch the guy, but Tremaine just smiled and said, “Somebody’s gotta snap the image for that future poster of yours, bro.”

  Clown-ass teammate couldn’t even come up with a response. Just stood there with his mouth all open, lookin’ like he’d witnessed something supernatural.

  I thought about that shit for weeks.

  I dunno. There’s a part of me that wishes I could be as . . . settled as Tremaine seems to be. Comfortable as himself or however you wanna put it. It’s crazy to me that I’m one of the top ten high school hoopers in the state, and I constantly feel like none of it is legit. Like any minute somebody is gonna find out about the real me. Then I bug out wondering why that would be a problem.

  Tremaine, though? People be saying all kinda wild shit about dude—there are rumors he “deflowered” both the starting quarterback and his girl—but it never seems to bother him. It’s just him and his camera. Dude is always mad clean (like, wardrobe is immaculate) and cool as a cucumber. Documenting shit.

  Usually.

  Right now, his chest is moving up and down a little faster than it was before, and as corny as it makes me feel, I’m getting worried.

  The urge to go over there and check on him is amping up. . . .

  But I haven’t had any real contact with dude in years. What would I look like going up to him on a dark train, during a blackout, acting all concerned like we friends or something?

  Bruh would look at me eight versions of sideways.

  Wouldn’t he?

  Yeah, I half-assed my “allyship,” as Jordy refers to it, and went back to help him in sixth grade. And yeah, if he still has the claustrophobia thing, there’s a chance he’s flippin’ out inside right now, trapped in this narrow-ass subway car.

  But what if I’m wrong?

  What if he’s mad I haven’t really said nothing to him since middle school?

  What if he gets the wrong idea?

  His Day-Glo bright white kicks draw my eye again.

  What if he gets the right one?

  Eighteen minutes.

  Folks are getting restless.

  The dude couple is definitely a couple couple. One dude is holding the other one, who has his eyes closed. Kinda reminds me of the way Langston’s dads sit all close together at our games, cheering their boy on like it’s the most normal thing ever. Which . . . it basically is, ain’t it? My folks come to our games and be all up on each other. Why wouldn’t Lang’s?

  Why am I struggling so much with this shit?

  Anyway, hipster bike homie is now sitting on his two-wheeled steed, feet on pedals, looking like he’s ready to ride out this joint the second the doors open.

  Ballet girls are huddled together.

  Baby is knocked out (I assume) in the stroller, but mom-dukes looks mad frazzled, moving the thing back and forth like she’ll burst into tears if she stops.

  And Tremaine . . . well, I haven’t been able to lift my eyes past his feet.

  I wish there was cell service in this tunnel. Something else about my baby sis: she knows stuff about me that no one else does. Just off intuition. I haven’t confirmed or denied any of her speculations, but lately she been dropping these hints that let me know she’s got some ideas about me. Like back in March, she was all asking me about my “prom plans”:

  Her: “So what’s the move, big bro?”

  Me: “What you mean, like what girl Imma ask?”

  Her: (with a shrug) “Or guy. We’re two decades into the twenty-first century after all.”

  April, she randomly accosted me on one of the rare occasions we were both doing homework at the kitchen table: “You know something, JJ?” she said, peeping over the top of the Malcolm X-ish glasses she rocks. “I’m really looking forward to the day you bring home a beloved.” (What fourteen-year-old even speaks like that?)

  “Jordy, are you talking about?” I said.

  “I just think you’ll make an excellent romantic partner to someone.”

  “Aka you want me to get a girlfriend?”

  She shrugged. (This girl with her shrugging.) “Or a boyfriend. Either way. I’m sure Mama and Daddy will be thrilled too. So stop dragging them boat-sized feet.”

  She was also the first person to notice my downward slide toward the end of the season . . . and to call me on it: “You got the blues, Jacorey Jr.,” she said over breakfast one morning. “And I know something happened. You should just . . . come out.”

  “I should what now?”

  “—WITH it. You should come out WITH it. Whatever’s bothering you, I mean?”

  “I don’t know whatchu talking about, man.”

  But of course I actually did. Know. What she was talking about.

  Not that she would know this, but even with my eyes closed right now, I can see Tremaine’s kicks. Because they’re seared into my memory.

  And as time ticks on in what’s feeling more and more like a giant coffin made of metal—that is kinda how train cars are shaped, is it not?—I wish I could call Jordy right now. Wish I woulda just told her back then.

  Because she’d been right. Something had happened.

  Twenty-two minutes.

  I lied again. About the lack of “any real contact with Tremaine in years” thing.

  I sneak another peek at the dude couple. They’re now all curled up together, both with their eyes closed.

  I re-shut mine.

  Shit really started back in January. I’d been kinda sad. And not about anything specific either. In a very general sense. I get a little bit down every winter—not that anyone but Jordy knows that. Coaches be feelin’ the same way about “that mopey-dopey shit” as they do about the whole fear thing. Trust.

  Anyway, I had an abysmally bad game: couple travel calls, an unnecessary shot clock violation, tripped over air driving up the court and busted my lip, couldn’t seem to sink a shot to save my life, had four fouls by halftime.

  I was just . . . off.

  So off, Coach benched me.

  It had never happened before. And as dramatic as it prolly sounds, with every pity look and pat on the back and “Don’t worry about it, JJ. You’ll be back on next game,” I felt like I was sinking lower and lower. Like tossed-overboard-with-weights-around-my-ankles type sinking.

  When I got home, I went straight to my room and locked the door. Popped onto the web looking for the uhhh . . . content I typically turn to when I want to zone out, if you will. Stumbled onto something different than what I typically seek out. (As I think back through this sequence of events, I’m tempted to look at the dude couple again. Because . . . yeah.)

  I didn’t hate what I found, is the thing . . . but I also got interrupted. By my dad. Knocking on the door and saying he was checking on me. And despite him not seeing a thing, I was embarrassed to the point where I didn’t pick up my tablet for a week.

  Now I do look at the dude couple again.

  What’s wild about the whole thing is I’m pretty sure Jordy’s right: our folks—dad included—wouldn’t have a problem with me . . . liking whoever I like. Him and Ma met at a damn drag show. Her best friend from college was performing, and Dad was the bouncer at the club. I never got to meet this friend because he moved to Atlanta before I was born, but from what I understand, he’s the one who set Ma and Dad up.

  Still, though: I couldn’t shake the fear of being found out. I’ve heard the stories where a dude like me gets caught lookin’ at some shit, and suddenly the guys he’s around all the time because of sports don’t really wanna rock with him no more.

  So my game continued to be off. Because I started having these . . . dreams. About me. And individuals like me. Me with individuals like me.

  Guys, I mean.

  Fast forward: February. By then I’d found and joined (under a different name, obviously) this site that would list different events for guys who liked guys happening around town. I’d skim through with zero intention of actually going to any of them and delete my b
rowser history afterward, but then one popped up that was happening the day after my eighteenth birthday. A masquerade party.

  I logged off.

  Birthday rolled around and my teammates threw me quite the bash. Our center’s dad owns this club uptown, and they pulled out all the stops for your boy. Fire-ass DJ, beautiful girls everywhere the eye could see. And one of them from another school, Shelley was her name, really took a liking to me. Danced me into a corner and started kissing on my neck.

  And I did kiss her back—she was a great kisser, objectively speaking—and when she pushed things a bit further, I rolled with it. But we were in a club. So there was obviously a stopping point.

  What’s wild is . . . I was relieved about this. That there was only so far shit could go. She gave me her number and told me to call her. “You can come over and we can pick up where we left off,” she said. My teammates were ecstatic, of course. “Bruh, you bagged the finest girl from Bed-Stuy Prep!”

  But I knew I’d never use those digits. So I erased them.

  Following night, I found myself on the train with a tux in my duffel bag.

  Along with a mask.

  Twenty-seven minutes on this train.

  It was 10:29 p.m. when I got to the building across the street from the address attached to the masquerade listing. It had a nook where I could conceal myself in the shadows and shit.

  I’d changed clothes in the bathroom at Herald Square, but was wearing a big coat so nobody could see I was in a tux underneath. The building looked sketchy as hell. Five-story brick joint on Bowery with a Chinese food spot on the ground floor. Invite said to go inside, say the password to the person behind the counter, and they’d lead me to wherever I was supposed to go.

  I felt like an idiot and a half.

  What if this was some kinda trap? Was I walking into a cult initiation? Was I about to get murdered? My parents—who were under the impression I’d gone to a teammate’s house—had warned me about this shit, and yet here I was, standing across the street from some sketchy-ass building at the literal opposite end of the city from my warm and cozy crib in Harlem. Only God knows what horrible fate might’ve been awaiting me.

  But then I saw a dude approaching the restaurant from my left.

  He also had on a coat and was wearing a hat pulled down low over his forehead. But I woulda recognized the walk—and the kicks—just about anywhere.

  Right as he reached the door, he took his hat off, and I caught a brief glimpse of Tremaine Wright’s face before he slipped his mask on. Then he walked inside, and I watched through the wide front window as he raised a hand to the woman behind the counter, who dipped her head and smiled in greeting, and continued into what looked like the kind of dark hallway where the bathrooms would be.

  I hurried across the street.

  Just like Tremaine, I put my mask on before entering the spot. It was a full-face Black Panther joint. Wasn’t taking any chances on potential recognition.

  And I wound up not needing the password. “Down the hall, door at the end on the left,” the woman said without looking up from whatever it was she was doing.

  So I followed her directions. Was too curious at that point not to. Through the designated door and down a flight of stairs. Which led to something like nothing I’d ever seen before: guys in tuxes of assorted colors and patterns, wearing a variety of masks.

  I had a bunch of “feels,” as Jordy puts it, hit me at the same time. There was a little bit of fear, yeah. Still wasn’t real keen on being recognized. But there was also this sense of . . . not-aloneness. Couldn’t call it belonging per se. I was (am) definitely still figuring myself out. But stepping into that room—with the music thumping and dudes chit-chatting and everybody looking some form of fly—really did something for my heart, as corny as that sounds.

  First funny thing of the night: only person in the spot without a mask was the DJ. And I recognized him. Don’t know his real name, but everybody refers to him as Twig (and he did kinda favor that one tree character from those superhero movies about the group that zips around the universe with the green lady and talking raccoon).

  Which I knew because he’d been the DJ at my birthday party the night before.

  Definitely wouldn’t be taking my mask off.

  Though I got the impression nobody would. There were different types of masks all around the room. Some covered only the eyes, some the whole face. There was a guy in a blue paisley tux with a velvet and feathered half-face joint. A dude in black on black on black had a mask that looked like something out of Phantom of the Opera. Another homie in red was rocking a court jester-style piece.

  Everywhere, all around, people similar to me dressed up with their faces covered.

  Some were deep in conversation. Some had drinks in hand. A few looked mad pitiful checking their phones.

  Basically the same stuff I saw at high school parties.

  Though I guess I looked pretty pitiful too. “First time,” someone said from my right. I turned to find a dude in a teal satin-looking getup with a mask covered in peacock feathers.

  So on the nose, this guy.

  “Uhh . . . you could say that,” I replied.

  “I like your style,” dude continued, giving me a once-over. “Very classic. The mask is perfect as well. Delightfully overstated. You seem like a man who knows what he wants.”

  Homie grinned, revealing crooked teeth.

  It was time for me to go.

  “’Preciate that,” I said. “You have a nice night.” And I turned to walk away, but dude grabbed my arm.

  “Oh, don’t play coy, now,” he said, leaning all close and smothering my ear with his hot breath. “We’re all here for the same thing—”

  And just as I was about to haul off and lay dude flat on his peacocking ass, there was another voice, and a hand landed on my shoulder. “There you are,” it said. “I been looking all over for you.”

  “Uhhh . . .” But before I could finish calculating how I was going to take both dudes out, and somehow manage to get away so I wouldn’t get caught at that damn party, I happened to glance down. And see a pair of white on white on white Jordan 1s.

  I froze.

  “My apologies,” Pushy Peacock said, looking Tremaine over the same way he did me. “Didn’t realize he was spoken for.”

  Did Tremaine know it was me? His tux was charcoal gray, by the way, and the jacket lacked lapels. Shit was maaaad clean, and his mask was a simple black one that covered the space between his eyebrows and nose. Reminded me of this sword-wielding dude who’s the star of those Zorro movies my dad loves. The whole look made my stomach do a weird swoopy thing.

  “All good, man,” Tremaine said. “Killer ’fit, by the way. Come on, babe.” And he took my hand and pulled me away.

  I was too dumbstruck to do anything but go along with it.

  (Babe, though?)

  When we reached an empty tall table at the back of the room, he let go. “Super sorry about that,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t usually hold people’s hands without at least learning their names, but that dude is a grade-A creep, and you’re clearly new around here. I’m Tremaine.”

  Confirmation.

  It was weird seeing him without his camera. I was also blown that he used his true name.

  My throat got tight. How was dude so settled about all this? Would I ever get to that point?

  He leaned closer. “And you are?”

  “Oh . . . uhhh . . . I’m Tobias.”

  I waited for him to laugh or call me out. Some verification that he knew exactly who I was.

  It didn’t come.

  “T and T!” he said, pointing to his own chest and then to me. “Nice!”

  It made me laugh. And loosen up a bit . . . though not as much as I would’ve liked to, considering that my guilt over lying to the guy’s face (mask) decided to drape its ugly self across my shoulders.

  Kinda bittersweet thinking about it now.

  “So tell me about your
self, Tobias.”

  Him emphasizing the name like that was a smidge suspect, but I made myself shake it off. “Whatchu wanna know?”

  He shrugged. “You got any hobbies?”

  “Oh, that’s easy: basketball.”

  Regretted it instantly.

  Homie didn’t miss a beat, though: “Ah. A sports guy.”

  I laughed again. “Why you say it like that?”

  “Don’t get many sports guys around here.” He made a visual scan of the room and I followed his eyes. “And I’m guessing you don’t get a whole lotta guys like the ones in this room at your sports stuff. Is this crazy uncomfortable for you?”

  “Uhhh . . .” And I decided to tell the truth. “Yeah, kinda. Between you and me, I’m not sure it would go real well if my teammates found out I came here.” I didn’t realize how trash I sounded ’til the words were outta my mouth. But I couldn’t figure out how to retract them. “You umm . . . come here often?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

  “Often is a stretch. They have things like this weekly here, but this is only my third time ever coming. It’s an interesting place to people watch.”

  “People watch?”

  “Yeah. I’m super into photography and really like studying people even when I don’t have my camera.”

  “How old are you, if you don’t mind my asking?” I said then, wanting to see if he’d tell the truth.

  “Turned seventeen in December.” He leaned closer to me. “Don’t tell anybody, but they only let me in because I know the DJ. I’ve photographed a lot of his sets. Technically supposed to be eighteen. And you definitely gotta watch your back for people pretending to be someone they’re not.”

  He stared straight into my eyes when he said this, and I swear I stopped breathing.

  But then he went on. “So . . . how old are you?”

  “I’m . . . nineteen. College freshman. Well . . . rising sophomore now.”

  “You being honest about that?” And he winked.

  If it had been possible to teleport out of that joint? Trust.

  Guessing my silence was telling because then he said, “I’m just messing with you. Whatcha studying?”