This Side of Providence Read Free Page A

hang out for long. A lady with a face so dirty I can’t even tell what color she is climbs up the cement hill in worn-out tennis shoes three sizes too big. She slips under the railing at the top and disappears into the darkness. The sound of coughing echoes through the overpass, so loud I duck on instinct. Crouch low like an animal. I run my fingers across the stubble on my head, a habit I picked up after I started buzzing it. I like the way it feels against my fingertips, like petting a shaved dog. The first time Mami cut it all off was to get rid of lice, but I kept the clippers she borrowed from school so I could trim it once a week—just like the black guys at the barbershop on Broad Street told me to, so I could hold onto that feeling. Sometimes I want to let it grow out, to see how big of an Afro I could have. I don’t really remember having long hair, but I’ve seen baby pictures where it’s so curly I look like I’m Dominican. Mami begs me to grow it out all the time, to look like her little boy again, but no matter what I promise her, I’m in front of the bathroom mirror buzzing it off again when Saturday morning comes.
    The cars on Manton are backed up like it’s a parade, half waiting in line for the Dunkin’ Donuts drive-thru, half goingto the flea market. If I had a few dollars I’d buy Mami an iced coffee, extra cream no sugar, but instead I walk through the flea market. No matter who’s working the booths they’re always selling the same stuff: Nike rip-offs in extra-large sizes, twelve-packs of tube socks with the stitching all crooked, fake leather suitcases with broken wheels. One suitcase is so big I could crawl inside and it could take me anywhere. We don’t go on trips no more, not since moving up here from the Bronx almost five years ago. Mami always says she’s never going home again, but I’m not sure what she means. If home ain’t where you live, where is it?
    A small table in the corner is selling a bunch of stuff with the Puerto Rican flag on it. I grab a key chain and stuff it in my pocket before the guy can see me. I don’t even have a set of keys, since the lock on the front door is busted and we only use the chain lock at night, but it’s nice to feel it in my pocket, to hold something no one else has held before.
    I cut across the parking lot and down a side street, passing the outdoor pool I spent every day floating in last summer. It should be opening for the season next week, but some kid drowned last Labor Day and they shut it down for good. There’s a chain-link fence surrounding it, the bottom curled up from years of people sneaking in after dark. Like all the fences in this neighborhood, it can’t keep nothing in or out. A piece of plywood covers the old sign, with the word CLOSED spray-painted in large black letters across it. I read the sign out loud, just for practice.
    â€œClosed.” Cerrado .
    I rest my head against the sign and stare into the empty pool, its bottom covered with rotting leaves. Where does all the water go when they drain a pool this big? There used to be tiles on the sloped part of the floor, blue and white stripes like the flag of a country I’ll never visit, but now they’re gone. I wonder if they got washed away with all the water. I remember doing handstands on that floor last summer, how smooth the tiles were against my fingertips, and how quiet it was under the water, so quiet I always worried I’d busted my eardrums and would come back up deaf. Teacher says they’ll probablyturn the pool into a playground one day but for now we have to walk by and stare at this empty shell. It must be like staring at a boarded-up house you used to live in, or a picture of a dead person you used to love.
    A bird circles overhead but never lands. It watches me like it knows something I don’t. I whistle at the bird and it screeches in response, landing on the roof of a nearby