Karin Lin-Greenberg
Big Brother
Curtis and I made a strange pair. Curtis was ten, small and wiry, but strong and quick. He had skin the color of walnuts and big round black eyes that could stare you down until you did just what he wanted you to do. I was twenty-seven, tall and wiry, but not strong or quick. My usual state was of foot-dragging lethargy, hands patting my pockets in search of a cigarette. I worked in graphics, and spent all day staring at a computer screen. The first time we met, Curtis said, “You been sick for a long time? You look like you never been in the sun.”
I hung out with Curtis on Sunday mornings, while his mother was at church. On his ninth birthday, Curtis decided that he didn’t want to go to church anymore, and even though his mother screamed and shouted, told him his sorry ass would end up in hell, he was adamant about not going. He even signed himself up for the big brother program, hoping it would get his mother off his back. I was Curtis’ assigned big brother.
A few weeks before I signed up for the program, my boss announced that any staff member who spent at least ten hours a month involved in community service could have Friday afternoons off. Pretty soon people were wielding hammers for Habitat for Humanity, planting organic gardens in the middle of the city, taking senior citizens shopping. I flipped through the list of volunteer opportunities and this big brother thing looked okay. You didn’t have to crawl around in dirt or wear overalls and it was only for a few hours every other weekend.
The first time I showed up at Curtis’ house in North Philly, his mother opened the door and stared. She didn’t say anything for about a minute, just kept looking, like she was memorizing my face in case she had to describe it to the cops later. Finally, she said, “Don’t let Curtis talk your ears off. He will if you let him. And don’t give him strawberries. He’s allergic.” She left me standing in the doorway and went to get Curtis. When they returned, he eyed me up and down the same way his mother had. I wished I’d changed out of the shirt I’d slept in the night before.
“Bring him back whenever,” said Curtis’ mom as she shut the door.
“So hey,” I said, turning to Curtis, “I’m Brook.” I held my hand out for a shake, but he just stared at it.
“That’s a girl’s name,” he said.
I wasn’t going to argue. In Greenwich, Connecticut, where I grew up, Brook was an acceptable boy’s name. In North Philly, it probably wasn’t.
“So I was thinking we’d go to the zoo today,” I said.
“No. I don’t like zoos.”
“No? Did you have other plans?”
“Maybe. What’s your job?”
I told him that I was an artist, explained that I designed all sorts of packaging—cereal boxes, the containers toys came in, cardboard displays that are put up in supermarkets.
“Can we go to your job?”
“It’s not that exciting. It’s just mostly rows of computers. And no one’s going to be there today.”
“Please?” Curtis looked at me, eyes wide and pleading as if he were on the verge of tears. I thought if I said no he’d start crying. I certainly wasn’t going to wipe away his tears and hug him right there in the middle of the street; someone would call the police and say some weird-looking white guy was all over this tiny little black kid. I didn’t need that.
“Yeah, okay, fine,” I said. We headed for the subway and I lit a cigarette as we walked.
“Shouldn’t smoke,” said Curtis, dramatically swiping the air in front of his face and coughing loudly. “Gives you lung cancer.”
I didn’t want to argue. I dropped the cigarette on the ground and stomped on it with my boot.
“Good,” said Curtis. “Now you’ll probably live an extra day or two.”
When we got to the office, I took a picture of Curtis on a digital camera and scanned it onto the computer. He was unsmiling in the picture, serious. I remembered that after about the age of eight, I stopped smiling for pictures: girls smiled for photos, boys were supposed to look tough, look as if the last thing in the world they wanted was for their picture to be taken. I wondered where all of us learned this, where it was written that boys cannot smile for a photo.
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” I asked. It seemed like such a typical clichéd adult question to ask, but I didn’t really know what else to say.
“Don’t know,” Curtis said, shrugging his thin shoulders and looking into his lap. The way he said it made me think he did know, but didn’t want to say.
“Yeah you do.”
Curtis shook his head and shrugged again.
“I know,” I said, “a ballet dancer.” I found a picture of a ballerina in a pink tutu and spliced Curtis’ head onto her body. I added a sparkly tiara on top of his head.
“No!” he said, giggling. “No no no!” He rubbed his hands across the computer screen, as if it were an Etch-A-Sketch and he could make the image go away just by jiggling it.
“No?” I said, “how about this?” I found an image of a sumo wrestler and stuck Curtis’ head on top of the enormous body.
“What is that?” said Curtis. “No way. I don’t know what that is, but no way.”
“So what then? Tell me.”
Curtis mumbled something.
“Huh?”
“An astronaut,” said Curtis, looking scared I was going to start laughing.
“That’s cool,” I said, nodding.
“Everyone thinks it’s weird,” said Curtis. “Like at school the boys want to play pro sports or be rappers and the girls want to be models and actresses. No one wants to be an astronaut. I tell people I want to be a basketball player when they ask.”
“Do you like basketball?”
“I hate it. Even more than church,” said Curtis. “But going into space is good, not just because you get to fly up there in a shuttle, but because they do all sorts of experiments there too. I like science.”
Curtis watched carefully as I spliced his head onto the body of an astronaut. We put a helmet on him and made him stand on the moon, planting a flag on the surface that said, “Curtis Was Here.” I printed out the picture, handed it to him, and he grinned, said he was going to tape the picture to the wall in his room. I grinned too and decided that this whole big brother thing was a piece of cake.
I was in bed when someone started pushing the buzzer to my apartment. I kept the place dark, with thick curtains on top of closed blinds, and I blinked in the shadowy room to see the clock on my dresser. It was nine thirty. I liked to sleep until at least noon on Saturdays. I thought whoever it was would stop pressing the buzzer soon, but it just kept going and going, raucous buzzing, making my ears hurt. I dragged myself out of bed, pressed the button on the intercom, and angrily said, “Yeah?”
“It’s Curtis.” He was breathing heavily. I had no idea how he’d found my apartment; he must have looked me up in the phone book. I’d never brought him here. I thought it would look strange, me letting this kid hang out in my place. In the five months since we’d started the big brother program, I’d hung out with him every Sunday morning, but we never came to my place. It seemed wrong, improper or something. We were only supposed to get together every other week, but we’d gotten into this routine. I’d take him out for breakfast on Sundays and we’d walk around the city and talk. It gave us both something to do and I really didn’t mind the time I spent with him. And besides, I didn’t really have anyone more interesting to spend time with.
“It’s Saturday,” I said.
“I know, I know,” he huffed.
He sounded as if he was in some sort of trouble and I figured it was my duty to help him. From what he’d told me, his mother wasn’t much help, and even though the idea of my becoming a male role model in Curtis’ life made me queasy, I couldn’t just leave him out on the stoop.
“You want me to come down there?”
“No. I want to come up.”
I buzzed him in and poked my head into the hallway to see if anyone else was up; I didn’t want anyone to see me, still rumpled from sleep, welcoming this boy into my apartment. I didn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea.
When Curtis reached the top of the stairs on my floor, I saw that he was wearing just jeans and a sweatshirt, even though there was snow on the ground outside. He was panting, barely able to breathe, and he looked as if he’d been crying. “I ran all the way here,” he said, hunching over and resting his hands on his thighs. He must have run three or four miles down Broad Street to get to my place. Sweat was running down his face.
“Come in,” I said, and led him to the couch. I found a blanket and draped it over him. As his body cooled, he started to shiver. I wished I had hot chocolate in the apartment, but I didn’t. I only had coffee.
“Did you hear?” said Curtis.
“I just woke up. Hear what?”
“Columbia,” he said. “You didn’t hear?”
“I told you, you woke me up,” I said, running a hand through my hair and rubbing my eyes with the other hand.
Curtis reached for the remote and turned on the television. I watched the newscasters detail the explosion that had happened a half hour before. Thirty minutes ago these astronauts were alive. And now the entire country would watch their shuttle explode over and over again. “I got up and was watching TV and saw this explosion. I ran right over here to tell you.”
I wanted to ask him why it was so important that he come over here, why he needed to tell me, but before I could say anything, he said, “I came because I figured you’d have cable.”
I nodded, even though I knew he was lying. He could watch this on regular TV; CNN wasn’t going to tell us anything that ABC or CBS wouldn’t. I knew Curtis wanted me to react in some way, do something, tell him how to feel, but I hadn’t even digested the event myself. I wondered if I was the only person who knew that Curtis wanted to be an astronaut.
“I need coffee,” I said, “you want some?”
“No thanks,” he responded, as if it wasn’t a ridiculous question to ask a ten-year-old. He watched my face, studying it closely, waiting for my reaction. As long as I kept busy, I could avoid reacting. I didn’t want Curtis to remember me crying and I wasn’t sure if I even felt like crying.
I thought back to fifth grade, the first time I saw an adult besides my parents cry. My teacher, Mrs. Crawford, had cried right in the classroom, right in the middle of the day. I was lucky to have Mrs. Crawford; she was the least strict fifth grade teacher and was always smiling and laughing. To see her cry was a shock.
After lunch on a cold day, Mrs. Crawford, came into the classroom, tears running down her face. She was a few minutes early returning from lunch, and we hadn’t transformed the classroom from the chaotic lunchtime play area back to the orderly rows of desks. It was very cold outside, too cold for us to play on the blacktop behind the school, so we were all in our classrooms, playing board games and drawing and reading and running around in circles. I was playing Clue with Ralph Robertson.
Mrs. Crawford was crying so hard when she walked into the classroom that we were sure that someone had died; maybe her husband had gotten into a car accident. The classroom got quiet quickly and we all stared at Mrs. Crawford. She walked over to the lunch aide who was watching us, whispered something to her, and the lunch aide put her hand over her mouth and ran out of the classroom.
We were riveted. Mrs. Crawford was still crying, and had to pat her face with tissues before she talked to us. She could hardly speak because she was crying so hard. She told us that the space shuttle Challenger had exploded, and all the astronauts had been killed. We wanted to know if she knew one of the astronauts. She shook her head, and she said that one of the astronauts had been a teacher. Did you know her? we asked, and Mrs. Crawford said no. Did you meet her at one of your teacher conventions? we asked, and she shook her head again. She said that a television would be brought into the auditorium and the entire school could go and watch the news. She wanted to know if we had any questions before we went into the auditorium. Ralph raised his hand, “You didn’t know a single one of the astronauts?” he said. Mrs. Crawford shook her head again. “Then why,” said Ralph, “are you so sad?” We were glad he asked that question; we all wanted to know the answer.
Mrs. Crawford probably did a lot of great stuff with us that year, but all I could remember was that one day, those tears flowing down her face. That’s not how I wanted Curtis to always remember me; like it or not, I was his main male role model, and I couldn’t let myself dissolve into tears.
As I waited for the coffee to brew, I heard whimpering from the other room. I peeked out of the kitchen and saw Curtis crying, wiping his nose on the corner of my blanket.
I poured steaming coffee into a chipped mug, took the coffee out of the kitchen, and sat down next to Curtis. He looked up at me, looked hard into my eyes. I took a sip of my coffee; it was hot, scalding. We stared at the screen—there was little new information, but we listened to the same thing over and over again, a loop of news. Curtis was still crying, blubbering, and I went into my bedroom and found a roll of toilet paper I was using as tissues. I tossed it into his lap.
“Does your mom know where you are?” I said and he shook his head and said that she wouldn’t care. “She doesn’t care about anything,” he said and that statement seemed loaded, seemed directed at me.
“Do you have any questions about this?” I said, pointing to the screen and trying to remember how Mrs. Crawford had handled things. Curtis just looked at me as if I’d said something crazy and turned back to the screen.
I didn’t like this situation, didn’t like how history was repeating itself, but I especially didn’t like the fact that I was the adult this time. “Are you crying?” he finally asked, eyes still fixed on the screen.
“The coffee burned my tongue,” I snapped back too fast, without thinking.
“Oh,” said Curtis, wiping his tears and sniffling. He sat up straight, and pulled the blanket tight around his shoulders. He bit his lip, and I could see his efforts at holding back tears.
In the entire time I’d known him, I’d always been careful not to touch him, hypersensitive of any sort of impropriety. But I looked at him, swaddled in the blanket, trying not to cry, and he looked so tiny and helpless and I just didn’t know what to do. I thought about my co-workers who planted gardens or built houses and thought they never had to deal with anything like this and, just for a second, I was jealous, wanted fingernails lined with potting soil or jeans covered in primer instead of a sobbing little boy on my couch. I thought of stretching my arm around Curtis, but didn’t, couldn’t, just reached for the remote, turned the volume up on the television, and let the newscasters fill the dark apartment with their somber voices.
©2003 by Karin Lin-Greenberg
