Books by Philip Hoy

You hate taking the bus home.

A few of your fellow riders are from your neighborhood, sure, but your friends all live on the other side of town, and most of the people on your bus are from streets you’ve learned to avoid. The front of the bus is the safest. Less elbows, less projectiles, less threats. The farther back you have to go to find a seat, the less welcome you are.

Today, you’re not so lucky. The first available opening is six rows back. When you get there, the guy sitting dead center on the seat looks up at you. You indicate with a lift of your chin that you’d like to sit down. He shrugs and moves a few inches closer to the window, which is as near as you’ll ever get to, of course, make yourself comfortable my fellow traveler. There’s just enough room for you to sit with your backpack on your lap and one leg sticking halfway into the aisle.

As soon as the bus gets rolling, it starts.

“Check it out, man,” someone from behind says. “It’s TKO.”

“Who?” asks someone even closer.

“TKO, that white boy, from lunch.”

“Órale, it is, isn’t it?”

“Hey, dude,” someone else says. “You still have grass in your hair.”

“You fall down after you get hit, man,” says the first voice. “Not before.” This gets a big laugh.

Someone taps you on the shoulder. Slowly, you twist around in your seat to find the guy across the aisle and one row back smiling at you. “Órale, homeboy,” he says, “We’re just fucking with you.”

You nod.

He leans toward you in his seat and even though you are still facing him he taps you on the arm again. “Trust me, man,” he says in a more confidential tone. “I hate that punk-ass bitch more than you, only he knows better than to try that shit with me.”

The guy sitting next to him smirks. “You tell him, Angel,” he says, and you recognize the voice that started it.

Angel frowns back at him and then returns his attention to you. “What’s your name, TKO?”

“Matt.”

“Listen, Matt. You want some advice?”

“Sure.”

“Next time that bitch comes at you, head-butt the mother-fucker.”

His friend laughs. “Yeah, right.”

Angel ignores him. “I’m serious. Look,” he says, making a one-two motion with his fists. “You can’t square-off with this fucker, right? You got to fight dirty.”

“Okay?”

“What you have to do is get in there close, right in his face, and then, as hard as you can with this part right here,” he says, reaching out and touching your head just above your hairline. “Not here,” he says, tapping your forehead. “You’ll knock yourself out. Got to be the top of your head.”

“Okay.”

“Now,” he says, leaning even further out of his seat. “If you can get your hands behind his head, even better.” He reaches up, takes you by the back of the neck, and slow motion pulls you toward him until his head bumps the bridge of your nose. “But fast,” he says, releasing you. “Hard as you can. Trust me, he’ll go down.”

“And if I can’t,” you say with the soapy musk of his hair product still lingering in the air between you, “get my hands behind his head?”

“Fuck it,” he says. “It’ll still work. Just remember, get in close, tuck your chin, and go for his nose.”

“Okay,” you say. “Thanks, man.”

At the next stop, Angel and his friend get up.

“Later, TKO,” he says as he passes.

The friend just smiles and shakes his head.

No one else messes with you the rest of the way.

When you finally get home, the house is quiet and you go straight to your room, close the door, and drop your backpack onto your unmade bed.

On the other side of the room is your brother’s bed. It is neatly made, the navy bedspread tucked in at the sides and folded back along the top to reveal the coordinating light blue sheets and pillow beneath. The same set is on your bed, only your top covers are pushed against the wall in a twisted heap.

You open the top drawer on your brother’s side of the dresser and take out his blue Sony Walkman with its foam-covered earphones. You pop open the cover and remove the cassette inside, Rush’s Moving Pictures, and replace it with one of your own, Reggatta de Blanc by The Police. Then you kick off your shoes and roll onto his bed. As soon as you push play, you are overtaken by the rhythmic thump, choppy guitar, and skipping bass of the song. “Bring on the night,” sings Sting. “I couldn’t stand another hour of daylight.” By the time the song ends, you are fast asleep.

CHOOSE: 
Time to wake up.

​​THE MISADVENTURES OF MATTHEW VAN DER BOOT is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental … no matter how many times you ask.