Evening Football
“Bryce, yuh like man or wha?”, Jabari asked casually.
Calvin couldn’t answer, he was slightly stunned.
“W-wha?”
Jabari turned to face him, his attention focused intently on Calvin’s eyes.
“I aks yuh if yuh like man. Yes or no. Yuh like man?”
Calvin was trying his best to read the other boy’s face, but it was inscrutable.
“No. Why? You like man?” he asked, turning the question around.
Jabari scoffed, “No. I jus want to know. Yuh eh have a gyul, I never see you even try to pull a smalls with a gyul. So I want to know if is man yuh like, daiz all.”
Calvin turned his head back to the football game to hide the fact that he was blushing.
“You does be on some real shit, you know that?”
Jabari laughed, “Is a normal question, hoss. I doh care if you like man. I just find it strange you never pull a ting.”
Fiction
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July 30, 2019
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7-minute read
Calvin flinched internally, “Who tell you I never pull nuttin?”
Rocking his head back slightly and stretching his arms, Jabari grinned a big toothy grin, “Dan, we limin’ since form 1, I never see you pull a ting, and yuh never talk about it. So I want to know.”
Calvin sucked his teeth and frowned—Joe Public’s defender had let Jabloteh through, the strikers were closing in on the goalie. Jabari swatted a mosquito dancing near his calves, briefly studying the small splotch of red and black on the white face of his palm.
“Yuh gettin’ bite?” Calvin asked.
“Small ting.”
Calvin produced a small vial of citronella oil from his JanSport bag.
“If yuh doh want to roll down yuh pants leg, just rub it on yuh foot.”
Jabari did. The smell of citronella pungent, and unmistakable.
Jabloteh’s strikers shot for the goal.
“Yuh know, if yuh like man, is no scene eh.”
The goal keeper deflected the ball with a deft sliding kick.
“I dun tell you, I doh like man, hoss. Wham to you?” Calvin said diffidently, picking at a scab on his elbow. Another boy in their class had stabbed him with a ballpoint pen the week before. He had called Calvin a “bullerman”. Calvin had adroitly kicked him in the chest, leaving a big, dirty, size-eleven footprint on his shirt—a faint NIKE swoosh on the pale blue polyester/cotton blend.
The strikers had regrouped on the deflected ball and were sweeping in again for another chance at the goal; the defenders were running about haphazardly. Their faces were haggard and strained. Even from the stands, both boys could see their fatigue.
“Joe Public playin rell shit today.”
“Yeah.”
Jabloteh’s strikers are weaving in and out, confounding Joe Public’s defenders. The goalkeeper looks bewildered, the moment is at hand.
Jabari’s hand silently slips over, slowly. And tenderly wraps itself around Calvin’s.
Calvin’s eyes widen and his heart skips a beat.
There is a silence between friends that sometimes seems cold, or like a vacuum that threatens to collapse all meaning or understanding between the worlds that exist within each. The first to speak will pierce the bubble, crushing the moment and spoiling something that was for a mere moment, a fraction of time, in the rest of their lives—perfect.
The ball hits the back of the net. The goalie’s last heroic dive, tragically crashes into the hard dry earth.
“Actually…”
The crowd cheers.
Ishmael Ho
was accidentally born in Trinidad and Tobago in 1989. He currently resides in Hyogo, Japan where he teaches English and occasionally writes. In his free time he enjoys martial arts, fine art, and trap music.