Bobos

winter/spring 2010

I’m done with five dollar shoes. I’m just glad no one ever saw me and my mom buy them. She’d drive me to the pits of north Miami, a million miles away from the Miami of doctors and models and those gay guys who hang out with models. There’d be this old Cuban selling five dollar shoes on the side of the street, right out of his rusty station wagon. Maybe Castro kicked this asshole out because he hated his cheap shoes, too.

A week ago, my shoes felt tight. My feet have grown to a size ten, which is pretty good, so we went to get a new pair. The old man opened a yellow garbage bag of shoes and said, “Take your pick!” Like he’s Santa Claus. I wish I could draw, because then I’d show you how ugly they are. But think about those orthopedic shoes that people who are a hundred wear. And you know the Adidas logo? Those three clean stripes, right? give that orthopedic shoe eight of those fucking stripes. Like that. And then they have to go name these shoes. You can buy a pair of reeboms or some Dumas. Or maybe ones with letters and numbers, which I guess is supposed to be futuristic. Is there a pair of XJ900s on the moon? they going to Mars in some USA1000s?
Well, i went to school in some USA1000s. And the thing about my school is that everyone is black. Like eight out of ten. the rest are Cuban like me, with a couple of Nicaraguans too, but let’s say just Cubans, because when have you ever noticed a Nicaraguan? My cousins, who have money – my uncle and aunt are plumbers – worry I’m going to get killed before i get to high school next september. It’s not like that. You’d think the black kids would want revenge for all they went through and that this is their chance. But it’s just ordinary. the smart kids and the Jehovah’s witnesses stay quiet. The lazy ones cut class and lie. And the good looking black girls make the fat girls feel like shit every day.
So being Cuban is good, because you slide by – unless you’re wearing a pair of bobos. Bobos are no-name shoes. starting around seventh grade you could not be wearing bobos. Kids whose folks drove $800 beaters, or who were getting raised by their grandparents – they’d come to school in Air Jordans. How’s that work? I begged my mom for some real shoes, but no dice. She told me when she was my age Fidel was hunting her family, that she had to escape to America, and how glad she was just to have shoes – and what do you say to that?
Anyway, I’m in homeroom with my new shoes, white and fresh as a cloud. They’ve got six stripes, Velcro straps, and ‘USA1000’ written in alarm clock letters. I sit near Mr. Jackson, who is enormous. He must drink those body- builder shakes and not work out. He should stop messing with homeroom, and be one of those black sumo wrestlers in Japan – take the place over – but I’m not the one to tell him.
Mr. Jackson goes to the bathroom, and then Markel yells, “Derrick, what kind of shoes does Ricky got on?”
Derrick says back real loud, “ricky’s got some USA1000s.”
“Ricky, why you wearing USA1000s? You can’t afford some USA2000s?”
“Shut up, Markel.”
“You got on some USA1000s and you’re telling me to shut up? How much those cost?”
I don’t say anything. “How much were those things? A dollar?” where is Mr. Jackson? He’s probably taking a shit. “Hey Derrick, what do you call USA1000s?” “I call them some bobos.” Markel and Derrick start chanting real deep and slow, like a spell. “Bo-bos,
bo-bos, bo-bos.” two others join. i stare at the clock. some black girls jump in, and the pitch gets higher, and instead of a one-
two beat, they chant with no break: “Bobos! Bobo! Bobos!” the Cubans start up, and now it’s as loud as a garbage truck.
the clock. I stare real hard so it will shatter. That second hand sweeps by, and why won’t the school explode? There’d be Markel’s leg here, Derrick’s head there, but I bet they’d have to ID me by my USA1000s.
Mr. Jackson walks in. Silence. He flashes those angry teacher eyes, but you can tell he doesn’t give a fuck. He goes back to his crossword and we wait homeroom out.
That night i steal money from my dad. He’s in the TV room, drinking and watching star trek. He hides cash in a kitchen chair, just in case. I flip the chair, unscrew the trick leg, and pull the roll of cash out of the hollow inside. I get eighty dollars and put it back together.
My dad’s stirring his rum and coke with his finger. I go lay down on the carpet. Our neighbor paco gave us a huge roll of pink carpet he stole from work. paco’s fresh off the boat but is already teaching me words: “It is not pink. You think i give your father a faggot carpet? It is fuchsia, the carpet.”
My dad spread this fruit roll-up from end to end in the TV room. Anything, even water, stained it yellow. My dad wants to change it for that black tile in the rest of the house, so we can stop wasting money on vacuum cleaner bags. But I like the carpet. It’s good to lay on because it’s uneven and you can use the bumps for a pillow.
We’re watching this episode where an alien disease makes the crew hot for each other – even Data, who’s an android. Data’s in tasha Yar’s bedroom, hair slicked back, skin albino, his yellow eyes lusting at her. She’s wearing this green thing that’s like a bra connected to gloves, and her stomach is showing. She starts saying “Data” in a sex voice and I remember my dad’s in the room and it’s just yuck. Do I go piss? play cool?
shit. Tasha is going to kiss Data. Jesus Christ. I stare up. The ceiling is popcorn stucco. Little white hills, with glitter sprayed on. I think they’re kiss- ing. I start blurring my eyes. The ceiling goes from hills and stars to patches and flashes. I blur harder, and it all turns one color – spray-paint white – and now i’m pushing to make even the color go away. Then my dad says, “Ricky, they finished!” I let go, and it’s clear again.
The next morning my mom drops me off at school. School is two stories of concrete, with no windows, and four portables for the crazy kids. I make like I’m going in, but when my mom’s out of sight, I walk to the bus stop. I’ve never taken the city bus alone, so I’m waiting for the 42, trying to look legit.
Man, fuck.
If i didn’t wear these moon shoes, Markel would get his. See, it’s all loaded in my head. Like his left eyelid is busted. He can push it open, but usually it’s shut like a blind. I want to say, “Yo, Cyclops!” but i know he’ll hit back, “Yo, Bobos!” And his mom’s boyfriend lives with them. He’s white and doesn’t work. This guy once had a job drawing tattoos, then got fired from being security at the school, and then crashed an ice cream truck. I’m not even lying. Markel’s mom takes care of Francis – for real, Francis – because he keeps the place clean. I came up with, “Markel, your mom still buttering the cracker?” and it was, “Ricky, your mom still stealing shoes from the dump?”
But it isn’t Markel. I mean, fuck Markel and his one eye. It’s more that he’s in the way. Like we have this little house in the backyard. (that’s what we call it – little house – because this bullshit doesn’t have a real name.) My dad once had this idea to start making custom coffins for fat people. He heard you can charge triple for a fat coffin, and paco could hook up wood. everyone said this was stupid, but that only made him stubborn. He’d work weekends, nights, building the little house to be the office for his business. A month in, he saw this whole idea was dumb and took shortcuts. no toilet. A genera-
tor instead of real electric. Painted it pink, with paint leftover from when he made the doghouse. I was going to invite kids to hang out in the little house. Mostly Cuban kids, because I didn’t want any problems, but maybe I’d invite this black girl Ashanti. that’d be a thing, too, because she’s not regular black, she’s black black. Black like the universe. Black kids call her black. Still, i think about getting her stuff. Like a t-shirt or magazine. Maybe a video game.
Before I could invite anyone, Markel pulled out that bobo chant. And they all chanted, even Ashanti, who never talks to anyone. it was voices on top of each other, like when people sing Happy Birthday. But when Ashanti started singing, it was as if the other voices went away and I heard just her. Was she for real, or was she messing around? You’ve got to be smooth to ask. All I know is I’m never wearing these shoes again in my life.
Forty minutes and the bus comes by.
I thought the bus driver would see i was cutting class, but she doesn’t care. She’s not in a good mood, either. I give her a dollar and sit in the back. The last stop is the Opa-Locka Hialeah Flea Market.
You’ve never seen a place like this. it’s not one of those little flea markets where old people go to buy a vase. it’s like a refugee camp. Or maybe one of those big Arab bazaars. There’s a concrete wall around it, painted peach, with writing in english, spanish, and Creole: “FLEA MARKET * PULGUERO * TI MACHI.” They sell everything here. You can buy tires, modems, tampons, transmissions, mangos, silver, a hundred bras, and there’s a man who sells cats. the ground is asphalt, and it’s laid out on a grid. People making cash – like folks selling jeans – run their own stores by the entrance. the broke people are stuck in the back, sharing their shops with someone selling batteries or Christmas paper.
I don’t know where the hell to buy some nikes, so I start wandering. it’s hot, and the sun is so high, it’s in your eyes from every direction. the lanes are tight, with people stepping over soda cans and spark plugs.
I push to where you can breathe better. it’s hard to keep focus. One woman is selling fireworks in April. Another is hawking baby clothes. And this other lady has rows of berets, every color, twenty bucks. I could buy one for Ashanti later. there’s a man grilling sausages. I’m starving because I eat breakfast at school. He’s grilling onions too, and it’s greasy and sweet. He could charge for the smell. It’s three dollars, but he’s got one of those thin pervert moustaches, so I keep moving.
I see shoes. This old guy has the perfect store. It has a dozen of those big bookcases you buy at K-Mart, with the particle board and that fake wood panel, and the shoes are lined up in the shelves. Like a sneaker library. there’s a Nike section. A Reebok section. Pumas.
I’m kneeling to see the size ten Nikes at the bottom. They’re lined up in parallel, with no scuffs. You can tell they’re real because they stitched the swoosh on instead of using glue. He’s got basketball shoes, football ones, hi-tops, regulars. perfect. I’m usually around a lot of joke shit, so it’s hard to keep from smiling. It was the same when my uncle boiled us lobsters. I’d never seen a lobster before and I was grinning real wide, splashing lobster water on my sister, playing with the claws. I better get this smile shit fixed before I land a girl. Can you imagine? the girl shows me her titties, and i start grinning like I’m retarded. she’ll say I’m disrespecting her, and I’ll have to go, “No, baby, I just smile real stupid when things are good, and I’ll be mature once you help me become a man.”
I find Air Jordans. They’re red and white, with fat black laces. I’m about to pull off my USA1000s for the last time, but I hear a big thwack. It came from the rug stall.
the woman running it is white, but it’s a nasty white, like skim milk. she’s thin, wearing an old sea world t-shirt. She’s thirty, maybe, but she has that old lady chicken skin, so who knows. Her face is budget, too. You can see the bones in her cheeks, and her eyes are sunk in, but they’re wide open, hardly blinking. And those two teeth at the bottom – they’re brown and short, right in the middle. the woman keeps looking side to side, holding this green broom. she’s probably lived at the flea market her whole life. the girl looks ten. it’s her daughter. You can tell. she’s got beige skin and curly hair – she must be half – and would be beautiful if she didn’t have this hole between her nose and lip. There’s flesh around the hole, and some tooth peeking through, but man, this girl walks around with a hole in her face. I keep staring at her cleft lip, but maybe I should stop, because what kind of shit is it that you’re ten and everyone looks at you like you’re a monster?
I ask the old man about the shoes. He talks faster than i can listen, saying twenty percent off for two pairs, thirty for three – thwack! i turn back to the rug stall and watch the woman swing the broom – thwack again. she hit her right on the side of her head. The daughter’s face is scratched, with a trail of red lines going from her ear to her mouth. A clump of dust landed in her lip hole. she picks it out with her pinky. Most of it comes out on the first try, but she has to run her finger around the edges a few times to get the last pieces of dirt.
“Fold that fucking rug right now!” the mom yells. the mom’s eyes are red. Her face is red. the rug is the size of the girl, and she spreads her arms to grab two corners. she pulls it up. it shows a woman in a bikini. the girl matches up the rug’s corners, and her mom swings the broom, howling, “You stupid, too? there’s dirt all over it. Clean, then fold!”
the shoe man says, “Don’t worry about that woman. she doesn’t fucking know anything.” the girl is snotting up, and it’s rolling down her face into the hole.
“Man, how much for the Air Jordans?” “size ten? it’s seventy.” i need more change for the beret. “seventy? these are from last year. Let me get them for sixty.” “Kid, you’re not even supposed to be here. the price is seventy.” thwack. the girl’s mouth is open so wide you can hardly tell there’s a hole. I look to the shoe man, but he’s seen this show before. “What about sixty five?”
“Seventy.”
The girl is crying and breathing really fast. Her mom is behind her, stran- gling the broom. the rug is in a clump, but you can see the bikini woman’s face. she’s wearing sunglasses.
I go to the rug stall. the mother looks at me. She’s holding the broom by the neck.
“What the fuck you want?” “I want to buy that rug.” I mean, my room sucks anyway, and maybe it’d look alright. “who are you?” “i’ll give you ten bucks for that rug, you don’t even have to fold it or anything.” she comes up to me. Her breath smells like Listerine. there are a thousand little veins around her eyes. “go to hell. it’s a hundred bucks.” “You don’t have a cheaper rug? Like a baby rug?” the cleft girl pulls out a little rug, the size of a pizza box. it’s got black and white stripes. she walks towards us, and the mom yells, “Don’t you move! Don’t you move!” and thwacks her again. the daughter stumbles and she’s on her ass. there’s a zebra rug on her chest, scratches on her cheeks, and the sun is shining down on this whole thing. she pushes herself up, slips back down.
Her mom turns back to me. those two rotten teeth. “we don’t have any rugs.” “Let me buy that zebra rug.” “it’s not for sale.”
“Come on. i have money.” “what the fuck do you need a rug for?” “i got to tell you? what’s the cheapest rug you sell?” “You saw it. A hundred.” the mom hasn’t blinked. the veins around her eyes are raised up, like the veins on your hands. “i have eighty.”
“You think i’m joking? A hundred.” “i have some change – i can give you like eighty five.” “You’re not getting a fucking thing.”
the daughter is still on the ground. she’s wearing Little Mermaid socks. she’s not even trying to get up. Her left sock is inside-out, but you can see the drawing.
“Let me buy the broom!” “what the hell are you talking about?” “I’ll give you eighty for it.” the woman’s face gets tight like she’s about to scream again, but i just throw the money at her and grab the broom. i run out of there. i snake through the crowd, and don’t look to see if she’s chasing me. i run past the shops selling perfumes and radios, past the berets, past the smell of saUSAges and mangos. the sweat gets into my eyes. i keep running. My sides hurt, and houses are passing me, and it’s hard to breathe, but i don’t care. i remember the broom and squeeze it harder, and then the houses go away, and all i see is straight in front of me, like i’m running through a tunnel, and i keep going, and the beat i’m running to speeds up, and i push myself to catch up to the beat, and i’m pushing so that the only thing i can really see is the sun and i can’t stop until i get there.