I turned the corner, still looking over my shoulder for the police, but I stopped running, because if a cop saw a random kid running down the street in the middle of a school day, might be a sign the kid’s up to no good. And I was that kid, so I tried to throw off any potential cops by walking. But that felt cocky, so I did a weird don’t mind me, I’m just doing my old-lady power walk thing. I knew it was only a matter of time before the police came out of nowhere, charging at me, ready to take me to jail all because I wanted some dope shoes to be a better runner . . . to be a better basketball player. Be better so nobody could say . . . anyway. The cops never came. I didn’t stop, though. Too paranoid. I almost jumped into a trash can when a police car with his sirens on zipped past me. But he wasn’t looking for me. Nope, he was looking for a real criminal. And I wasn’t a real criminal. One with a real rap sheet.
Of course, after about five or six minutes of not quite running, not quite walking, I had to stop and figure out exactly where I was going. Didn’t want to head home. I mean, I could’ve. It would’ve been safe. But I just didn’t want to go there. When I’m there by myself for too long, the house becomes some kind of time machine, teleporting me back three or four years, listening to my mom and dad fight and scream every night. Taking me back to all the bad stuff. So that was out. There was only one other place I thought was safe enough to go—Mr. Charles’s store.
When I got there, Mr. Charles was talking to a deliveryman. He signed a piece of paper—one of those three-in-one papers—and a guy in dusty blue overalls ripped the pink one from the bottom and gave it to Mr. Charles. Then the guy grabbed his metal carrier thing on wheels and rolled out.
“Castle?” Mr. Charles said in his loud voice. He folded the pink piece of paper in half and tucked it somewhere behind the counter. He turned the TV down, then checked his watch, clearly confused about why I wasn’t in school. But instead of just asking, he asked the usual. “Let me guess, sunflower seeds?” He snatched a bag off the wall. I wasn’t even really thinking about sunflower seeds, but I did skip lunch, and since he brought it up . . .
“Let me guess, a dollar,” I replied, as usual, digging into my pocket for a buck.
“Nope. Ten dollars,” Mr. Charles said, pulling the seeds back off the counter.
“Ten dollars?” I snipped. “What you mean, ten dollars?”
“I mean, sunflower seeds cost you ten bucks from now on, until you tell me why you’re not in school.” Mr. Charles held his hand out, waiting for me to put the ten dollars I didn’t have in it. Then he shrugged and put the sunflower seeds back up on the hook.
“Mr. Charles,” I moaned. “Are you serious?”
“Serious as a heart attack,” he said, so predictably that I could’ve said it for him.
I looked at him for a second, y’know, trying to give him my best puppy-dog face even though I wasn’t sure I even had one.
“Won’t work,” he said.
I leaned against the glass of the big fridge Mr. Charles kept the deli meats in. “Okay,” I huffed. “I left after social studies because kids were laughing at me.”
Mr. Charles came from behind the counter, propped himself up against the ice chest. “Come again?”
“I said I left after social studies. Kids were laughing at me.” This time louder.
“Laughing at what?”
I didn’t say nothing. I just hiked my pants up and let my shoes do the talking. Mr. Charles looked down at my mangled kicks and dropped his mouth open.
“What’d you do?” he asked, stepping back to get a better view.
“I cut them,” I said flat out, letting my pants drop back down.
“I can see that. But . . . why?”
I wanted to rip open my backpack and say, To make them more like these! But I didn’t. Because then Mr. Charles would’ve wanted to know where I got those dope kicks from and all that, and the next thing you know, he would’ve jacked the price of sunflower seeds up to a hundred bucks.
“I’m on a track team now. And they all got good shoes. Low-tops. And you can run better in low-tops.”
“So you hacked half your sneakers off?”
“Pretty much,” I said, cool. “And today at school, when some of the kids noticed, they laughed. So . . . I left. Please don’t tell my mom.” I’d been saying that a lot lately.
Mr. Charles sighed, then went back behind the counter. He took the bag of seeds back off the hook and set them in front me.
“Okay. This one’s on me,” he said. But when I reached for them, Mr. Charles wouldn’t take his hand off the bag. “But no more running outta school. Especially just because people are laughing at you. People are always going to be laughing at you, Castle. Trust me.”
“You been laughed at?” I asked. I was willing to bet that he never got made fun of. I mean, there was the whole You look like a white James Brown thing, but I wasn’t sure if anyone else noticed that or if it was just me. And then there was the almost-deaf thing, but I figured that was just because he was old. No big deal. Other than that, what could anyone tease Mr. Charles about?
“Ha!” he hooted. “Of course I have. I get laughed at all the time, son. Listen, I come from a family of Einsteins. My brother’s a doctor. My sister’s a big-time college professor at one of those smarty universities. Both my parents were lawyers. And me, I sell you sunflower seeds.”
“What’s wrong with that?” I asked. Shoot, having your own store seemed like a sweet deal. You ain’t never gotta pay for no groceries.
“Nothing is wrong with it. Not to me and you. But to them? Oh, they look at me like some kind of letdown. You know what they call this place? Charlie’s little store,” he said, his voice now more serious. “Little. Don’t ever let someone call your life, your dreams, little. Hear me?” I nodded. He continued, all fired up, “Because while they’re out there sniffing their own butts, I get to hang out with a big man, like you. A future World’s Greatest. And that’s cool.” Mr. Charles smiled big. Warm. “So we got a deal? No more skipping school?”
“No more skipping school,” I agreed all quick.
He lifted his hand from the bag, but before I could take it, he slapped his hand back down on it.
“You’re not just saying that to get the seeds, are you?” he said, now glaring.
“Nah, man. For real. No more skipping school!”
He let go of the sunflower seeds, and I snatched the bag before he changed his mind again.
But I didn’t breeze on out of the store like I normally do. I was still kinda paranoid about being busted by the cops, slammed up against the wall, searched, caught with fancy running shoes in my backpack, and thrown in jail where the cafeteria food is worse than my school’s and the hospital’s. So I just hung around the store eating my seeds while Mr. Charles went through inventory. He had just gotten a drop-off of new stuff: sodas, chips, cleaning products, cereal.
“You can’t just hang out here, Castle. I mean, you’re my guy, but you see that sign?” Mr. Charles pointed to the one on the window. NO LOITERING.
“Ain’t nobody loitering. You don’t see me just spitting seeds on your floor or nothing like that,” I protested. I opened my hand so he could see that I had been spitting them into my palm.
“No, not littering. Loitering,” Mr. Charles said, ripping open a box. “Means you can’t just stand around.”