2:53pm 1 New Message from Dad
AUSTIN
And those three words were enough to help Miles get a grip and dial himself down. That and what he found when he finally got back to their dorm.
Ganke. Being Ganke.
Music was blasting. Hip-hop from the eighties. Old break-beat stuff that Ganke had found online. Stuff that Miles’s father talked about whenever he was trying to prove a point about what was “real hip-hop.” Ganke was stepping, sliding, and gliding around the room in his socks, ticking, popping, rocking, dancing like he had just won the lottery.
When Miles came in the room, Ganke robotted his way over to him, a silly grin on his face. He held his hand out for a five. Miles slapped it, and Ganke waved his arm up to his shoulder and down his arm again as if Miles had just sent an electrical current through him. Then, he stopped the music.
“Is this what you do when I’m not around and you’re not playing video games?” Miles asked.
“Maybe. I mean, sometimes. How you think I keep this physique?” Ganke wiped sweat from his forehead, flopped down on his chair, and reclined on its back legs. “Psych, nah. I heard about what happened in the reality TV show that is Chamberlain’s class, and I knew you would be in a funky mood. So I figured this would at least take some of the edge off…by putting you in a real…funky mood.” Ganke nodded slowly.
“Thanks, man.” Miles threw his backpack on his bed. Took a seat. “But I’m okay. My pops told me we’re going to see my cousin…well, Austin, tomorrow.”
“Word?”
“Yeah. But it doesn’t mean seeing you pretend to be Crazy Legs—Was that his name? Crazy Legs?”
“Whose name?”
“Never mind. Just sayin’ I still appreciate you trying to make me feel better, dude.”
“Well, to be honest, it was for me too,” Ganke said. “Man, it’s Friday. And you know better than anybody that that means I gotta go home to my weird house.” Ganke cracked his knuckles, stared at his own reflection in the black screen of the turned-off television. “And guess what, because I’m not going to be around on Sunday, my pops is gonna come over tonight to do, like, the family dinner thing. So my Friday night will basically be the three of us sitting there quiet, eating kimchi jigae. And trust me: the pork and potatoes and all that is good stuff, but it don’t taste the same when nobody’s talking. And I bet it’s gonna taste even worse with all this happening on a Friday. A Friday, Miles.”
“Yeah, I hear you.”
“It sucks. So I just needed to get it out, y’know.”
Miles thought of all the plans that had been running through his mind before the texts from his dad. “Yeah, I do.”
Ganke turned to Miles. “You should try it.”
“What…no. Nah.”
“Come on, man. It’s just us in here.” Ganke got up and turned the music back on, the bass thumping, bouncing off the plastered walls. He bobbed his head. “Let me see what you got, homie. Just let yourself go.” Ganke shook out his arms, while Miles crossed his.
“We have to go.” They had a train home to catch.
“We will. As soon as you hit me with a move.”
“I know what you doing, Ganke.”
“What? Trying to help my friend chill out? Trying to help a dude I consider my brother remember that life is still good? Trying to remind the great Miles Morales that nothing can stop him, and that’s cause for celebration? What’s wrong with that?”
“Whatever.” Miles sighed because he knew Ganke wouldn’t stop until he complied. And he needed to get off campus as quickly as possible. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Miles stood up, rolled his neck from right to left, left to right to loosen up.
“Just feel the music, bro,” Ganke said encouragingly. Miles bobbed his head to the beat, and when he felt like he’d caught it, he started to do…something. One leg shot out, then the other, like some kind of Irish jig. His arms, stiff as boards, swung out in front of him like a zombie’s. It was bad. Bad. So bad that Ganke immediately cut the music, while Miles was mid…um…lurch.
“You know what? This was a bad idea. Let’s just go.”
Rush hour. Friday. That meant a packed train with no seats. Miles and Ganke crammed in and held the railing above their heads, smaller people nestled into their armpits, bigger people with their hands planted flat on the ceiling of the train car. Most had earbuds in, books fanned open, or were talking to someone beside them.
“So, about this Halloween party tomorrow,” Ganke said. “You still goin’, right?”
“Why you keep asking me that?” Ganke had been bugging Miles about it every day that week. He had already made up in his mind that Miles would back out. And Miles had thought about it, was on the verge of flaking until he realized Mr. Chamberlain would be at the party, and he was buzz worthy. If it meant Miles had a chance to crack the Chamberlain code, there was no way he was missing the party.
There was only one problem.
“Have you even asked your folks?” Ganke knew Miles well.
“I keep forgetting, but I will.”
“Do you even know if you’re allowed out of the house this weekend? I mean, you lost your job. And then the next day you broke a desk with your bare hands.”
Miles glared at Ganke, who shot back a just sayin’ face. The commuters all swayed with the rocking train. Everyone but Miles.
“You don’t have to keep reminding me. Anyway, I’m going, Ganke.”
“Okay, good. Then I should tell you that I’ve decided that in your honor, I’m going as Spider-Man,” Ganke said low, keeping a straight face. “Just let me hold your suit. It’s spandex, right? It’ll stretch.” Ganke paused. “Unless, of course, you were planning on going as him. You.”
“Whatever.” They both laughed. A blind man snaked through the crowd, his cane tapping against the shins of many of the riders. He shook a jangling cup, and begged, “Can you please spare some change? Can you please spare some change?”
“What you think?” Ganke whispered as the blind man approached. Miles concentrated on the old man, studying the hesitation in his movements, the muscles around his eyes. Miles nodded at Ganke. They both put dollars in his cup.
As the train pulled into Prospect Park, people poured through the doors, allowing space for Miles and Ganke to breathe. Elders and teenaged jerks snatched up seats, sometimes squeezing in the sliver between an earbudder and reader. Miles and Ganke moved their hands from the railing to the pole as the doors closed. And then…
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We hate to disturb you on your way home and actually have come to provide the perfect start to your weekend. Most of you know what time it is, but just in case you in from out, or up from down, we welcome you to our crazy town with…SHOWTIME!” A young boy with a raspy voice came strutting up the aisle bare-chested, his T-shirt wrapped around his head, his hands cupped around his mouth.
“SHOWTIME!” two or three other boys shouted in unison.