[1] The dark sky, filled with angry, swirling clouds, reflected Greg Ridley’s mood as he sat on the stoop of his building. His father’s voice came to him again, first reading the letter the principal had sent to the house, then lecturing endlessly about his poor efforts in math.
“I had to leave school when I was thirteen,” his father had said, “that’s a year younger than you are now. If I’d had half the chances you have, I’d… ”
Greg sat in the small, pale green kitchen listening, knowing the lecture would end with his father saying he couldn’t play ball with the Scorpions. He had asked and his father had said it depended on his next report card. It wasn’t often the Scorpions took on new players, especially fourteen-year-olds, and this was a chance of a lifetime for Greg. He hadn’t been allowed to play high school ball, which he had really wanted to do, but playing for the Community Center team was the next best thing. Report cards were due in a week, and Greg had been hoping for the best. But the principal had ended the suspense early when she sent the letter saying Greg would probably fail math if he didn’t spend more time studying.
“And you want to play basketball?” His father’s brows knitted over deep brown eyes. “That must be some kind of a joke. Now you just get into your room and hit those books.”
[5] That had been two nights before. His father’s words, like the distant thunder that now echoed through the streets of Harlem, still rumbled softly in his ears.
It was beginning to cool. Gusts of wind made bits of paper dance between the parked cars. There was a flash of nearby lightning, and soon large drops of rain splashed onto his jeans. He stood to go upstairs, thought of the lecture that probably awaited him if he did anything except shut himself in his room with his math book, and started walking down the street instead. Down the block there was an old tenement1 that had been abandoned for some months. Some of the guys had held an impromptu2 checkers tournament there the week before, and Greg had noticed that the door, once boarded over, had been slightly ajar.
Pulling his collar up as high as he could, he checked for traffic and made a dash across the street. He reached 1the house just as another flash of lightning changed the night to day for an instant, then returned the graffiti-scarred building to the grim shadows. He vaulted over the outer stairs and pushed tentatively2 on the door. It was open, and he let himself in.
The inside of the building was dark except for the dim light that filtered through the dirty windows from the streetlamps. There was a room a few feet from the door, and from where he stood in the entrance, Greg could see a squarish patch of light on the floor. He entered the room, frowning at the musty smell. It was a large room that might have been someone’s parlor3 at one time. Squinting, Greg could see an old table on its side against one wall, what looked like a pile of rags or a torn mattress in the corner, and a couch, with one side broken, in front of the window.
He went to the couch. The side that wasn’t broken was comfortable enough, though a little creaky. From the spot he could see the blinking neon sign over the bodega4 on the corner. He sat awhile, watching the sign blink first green then red, allowing his mind to drift to the Scorpions, then to his father. His father had been a postal worker for all Greg’s life, and was proud of it, often telling Greg how hard he had worked to pass the test. Greg had heard the story too many times to be interested now.
[10] For a moment Greg thought he heard something that sounded like a scraping against the wall. He listened carefully, but it was gone.
