Rancor (n.) deep, bitter resentment
Chingy and I always meet on the corner of St. Ann’s Avenue and 141st Street after I drop off my sister and walk together to school. But when I arrive, he’s nowhere to be found. I check my watch, and I’m right on time. Always am. Chingy, too. The first time Nestor made us late for first period was the last. I insisted that we give him a few minutes, and the next thing we knew, Chingy and I were running to beat the bell. After that, Chingy would bop through the intersection at exactly eight o’clock without breaking his stride. Whoever showed up just jumped in alongside him, and usually it was just me. Sometimes when we were halfway to AC, Nestor would come huffing and puffing behind us, yelling, “Y’all niggas left me.” Eventually, he stopped appearing altogether, but it took Chingy and me a few weeks to realize that he had dropped out of high school.
Suddenly, a man calls my name. It’s none other than Rubio sidling up to me in his Civic, and it’s too late to pretend that I don’t see or hear him. “You need ride to school?” he asks. I barely shake my head. Damn, Chingy where you at? “Come on. I take you.”
“I’m waiting for somebody.”
“¿Quien? ¿A Nestor?” I just suck my teeth and give him my back. “I have question about the paper you mother give me.”
Chingy finally races around the corner. “Thanks for waiting, cuz. If you had bounced I wouldn’t’ve been mad at you.” Without noticing Rubio, he steps and rambles.
I fall in beside him as if nothing is unusual. “What happened, kid?”
“Man, I overslept. The Giants-Cowboys game went into double overtime, yo. You know a brother had to stay up and watch it.”
Rubio creeps the Civic alongside us like a stalker. When we reach the corner, he turns right and blocks our path. A woman with a shopping cart curses at him in Patois for blocking the curb cut. He ignores her and unlocks the car doors.
Chingy peers through the passenger window. “Yo, E, it’s your pops.” He throws open the back door and jumps inside. “¿Cómo estas, Sr. Rodriguez?”
But Rubio’s eyes are only on me as I slide into the front passenger seat and slam the door behind me. “Estoy bien. ¿Y tu…?”
This is mad embarrassing. “His name is Rashaan,” I bark. The guy has only been my best friend for twelve years. “Get it right already.”
“Chill, E. It’s cool. Estoy muy chévere, señor. Gracias por preguntar.”
Rubio isn’t here to help Chingy practice his Spanish so I finally turn to him ask him what he wants with me. “¿Y que quiere conmigo?”
“¿Que yo quiero contigo?” he repeats sarcastically. “Eres tu que m’esta buscando sin venir a verme, mandando a su mai.” Me looking for him? Yeah, right. If I wanted to see him, I know where Awilda lives. I know where all his jumpoffs live. And this is why I didn’t want my mother to call Rubio about the financial aid form in the first place.
“Don’t you know it’s rude to speak Spanish in front of people who don’t know it?” Of course, that’s Rubio’s point. He doesn’t want Chingy to understand what we’re talking about. On the real? Neither do I. I’d rather not have this conversation at all.
“Speak for yourself, son,” says Chingy. “I’m fluent.”
We arrive at AC, and I fly out the Civic. “You come by my work,” says Rubio. “We talk about your papers for school.”
As Chingy thanks Rubio for the ride, I bound toward the school building. He double-times to catch up with me. “What’s up with you, man?”
“I told my moms to leave that alone.” As Chingy walks me to Spanish class, I explain how Rubio created static between my mother and me by blowing my chat with Nestor out of proportion. I can tell that Chingy doesn’t like the fact that I was parlaying with Nes, but he bites his tongue. “Then she calls him about some forms he needs to fill out so I can apply for financial aid, and he got it in his head that she used that as an excuse to talk to him, freakin’ narcissist. And now he’s trying to bypass her and come to me, fronting like he doesn’t understand the paperwork.”
“So?”
“So?”
“Even if he thinks that about your moms, what difference does it make?” says Chingy. “You know the truth, your moms knows the truth. Besides your pops probably really doesn’t understand the forms. It’s not like English is his first language.”
“Don’t defend him.”
“I’m not trying to defend him. I’m trying to look out for you.” We reach my classroom. “Look, E, I know your pops did some foul stuff, and I understand how you feel about him, you know, using you to hide his dirt. But if the guy wants to step up and help you with your grind, let him. Maybe that’s his way of making it up to you. Don’t get in your own way just to spite him, cuz. That’s just stupid.”
That’s what I mean about Chingy being oblivious. I don’t question that he’s trying to look out for me, but obviously, he doesn’t understand at all to say something like that. The bell rings, and I tell Chingy to peace out and go into my classroom.
Giving into Stevie’s incessant reminders that she hasn’t shown us a movie all month, Señorita Polanco plays a documentary about the Young Lords called P’alante, Siempre, P’alante. As she dims the lights and the credits roll, my mind is still on Chingy’s advice. If I were anything like Rubio, I’d do exactly what Chingy says. I’d use him to get what I needed regardless of how it might make anyone feel. But just because Rubio’s my father doesn’t make me his son. I’m my own man. A man unlike him.
