“No, not at all. Sounds like it will be a good chance to reconnect with your family before you have to leave again. You know, in the Bible, the Last Supper was the last dinner Jesus had with his apostles before he was crucified. He laid everything out on the table. Revealed Judas. Outed Peter. It actually sounds like it was kind of a shit show. Is that the dinner where he turned over the table too?”

“Yea, he did. ‘Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.’ Then he got hype and destroyed the room. It’s all described in the four canonical gospels.”

“Word. That’s what’s up. Heavenly Father don’t play,” he says, laughing. “I’mma ask Chapman about it. He be telling me all about the history of the Bible now dat he ova dere wit da pastor all day. Anyways, I’m sure yo dinner gone be real nice. Here’s your oxtails. And tell yo motha I said hi.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

A train is coming.

“You hear the whistle?” Dre asks me.

“Yea, but it’s still a ways off. Still all the way down there somewhere.”

“It’s rumbling. Gaining speed.”

We are sitting in the big open field a few blocks from our apartment building. It’s just nice enough to sit out here with a heavy jacket. This field used to be a textile factory, right next to the train tracks, but has been abandoned since before we were born. Unlike other things in the neighborhood, it has not magically rebuilt itself.

When we were kids, we would come up here to watch the trains, imagine where they were going, and dream about all the things we wanted to be when we grew up. It was our only place to escape nosy adults. It was our ghetto playroom. We were never alone. We always had five or six neighborhood stray dogs with us.

“Why you so quiet, Quamy?” I say while playfully hitting Rone on the arm. Quamy is the nickname Dre and I give Rone. We give each other mock nicknames, which are not our actual nicknames. We only use these nicknames when teasing each other. We name Rone after the little Black boy with the square head on Magic School Bus. Quamy is not the boy’s actual name, but it looks like it should be. We give Rone that name because his head is also big and square. My teasing nickname is Keisha, based on the little Black girl with the puffy hair also on Magic School Bus. Dre’s nickname is Peter. We don’t know why we call him Peter. We just do. You don’t have to have an explanation for anything when you’re a kid.

“Just thinking,” Rone replies.

“What you thinking about? LaToya or Jasmine?”

Dre and I laugh hysterically.

“No, no, no. I’m not focused on girls right now.”

“Then what you focused on?”