“Showtime!” Ganke yipped, bouncing his eyebrows at Miles.
The music started, and then came the clapping. “Pay attention!” the young one shouted, as one of the older dancers started with the footwork. From there came flipping, handstands, pole tricks, and tourists looking on in awe, their mouths hanging down to their laps. Fingers in pockets and purses.
Thirty seconds later, the showtime boys yelled, “That’s our show!” The shirtless boy started clapping again, the train joining in. He ran up and down the aisle with a hat to collect the donations from the onlookers. Ganke held a twenty-dollar bill in the air, but when the kid got to the end of the train where he and Miles were standing, Ganke wrapped his fingers around the money.
“Let’s have a dance-off for it.”
“Ganke, don’t,” Miles whined. “Kid, he doesn’t—”
The kid looked up at Ganke. It was like he didn’t even hear Miles. “And why would I do that? I already got this money.” He shook the hat lightly.
“Because you just got about ten dollars from this car. I have double that in my hand. Either you walk away with thirty, or you walk away with ten. You can’t lose. It’s a safe bet.”
“And it’s me against you?” the kid asked. “What I look like, a fool?”
Ganke chuckled. “Okay, the best one of y’all.”
The young boy called the rest of the crew out. Miles tried to shut it all down, but Ganke kept waving the twenty around, which pretty much made Miles invisible.
“Aight, let’s do it. Me against you,” the captain of the showtime crew said. He was a wiry kid with braids and big earrings that were obviously fake diamonds.
“No, no, no. You guys got to choose your best, so I get to choose mine.” Ganke threw an arm around Miles. “Him.”
“He’s just playing. He’s gonna do it himself. I’m not a d-dancer,” Miles stammered.
“Yeah, you don’t really look like one,” the young boy jabbed. “You either,” he said to Ganke.
Ganke instantly went into a body roll. “Don’t try me,” he warned. “But he’s better.” Ganke leaned over to Miles and whispered, “Just don’t do what you did in the room.” Then he turned toward the showtime guys and said, “Hit the music!”
The beat came blaring from the janky handheld stereo again. A loop of some kind of electronic song Miles had never heard. Then came the clapping.
“Take two, ladies and gentlemen. A friendly competition!” The kid with the braids began contorting his body, almost knotting himself on beat. His limbs, long and noodly, were surprisingly strong as he jumped up, grabbed the ceiling rail, and air-biked down the train car.
“Give me your bag,” Ganke said, practically snatching it off Miles’s back.
“Your turn,” the young boy said.
“Dude, what in the world have you gotten me into?” Miles asked, but before he could say anything else, Ganke pushed him into the invisible dance circle. Everyone watched. Even the New Yorkers, who were accustomed to ignoring this kind of thing. Older black men glanced over their glasses, smirking. Young white ladies sat with their hands in their laps in anticipation. Little kids clapped off beat.
“Go! Go! Go!” Ganke said. Miles froze. And then, against Ganke’s suggestion, Miles broke into his weird convulsion dance, his legs and arms going every which way, his face contorting far more than his body, which seemed to have become stone. The kids burst into laughter.
“Uh, he’s just warming up,” Ganke said. He turned to Miles. “Do the wall crawl.”
“The what?”
“The wall…crawl.” Wink-wink.
And that’s when Miles got what Ganke had been saying this whole time. He turned his back on everyone and broke out running down to the end of the train, weaving between the poles. Once he got there, he jumped and kicked off the door—the one leading to the next train—and crawled on the ceiling of the train down to the other end. No railings. Just fingers and feet.
Everyone in the car went wild, erupting in a mixture of excitement and confusion. Even the young dancers were clapping and nodding. They cut the music, waving their arms and shouting, “It’s over! It’s over!”
Ganke put the twenty back in his pocket, then opened his backpack and trotted up and down the train car, collecting money from…everyone. Even the showtime boys gave him a dollar.
The young dancers glared quizzically at Miles. They even attempted the wall crawl, ridiculously trying to grip the ceiling before realizing they were wasting their time. Eventually the kids left the train and went to the next car for the next show as Ganke yanked bills from his bag and handed them to Miles.
“How much is it?” Ganke asked.
“Around forty bucks,” Miles replied in disbelief.
“Ahem,” Ganke said as the train pulled into the Atlantic Avenue stop, where Miles needed to get off to catch the C train to Lafayette. Miles peeled four bucks from the wad and slapped it in Ganke’s hand. “My fee is twenty percent. Also, this is gonna be the only fun I have tonight before the dinner of doom, so…c’mon.” Miles slapped another four in Ganke’s palm, stood up and threw his bag over his shoulder. And as Miles dashed for the door, pushing out as people were pushing in, Ganke shouted at Miles’s back, “Told you so!”
Thirty dollars richer, Miles walked through the park toward his house. In the late afternoon, the old men played chess and blasted soul jams from a parked car’s window. The little kids wobbling on their bicycles with uneven training wheels. First loves kissed on the wooden benches—soon to be beds for the homeless—next to the old ladies giving out church pamphlets. A breeze was in the air, and the trees in the park swayed, their leaves whispering to Brooklyn.
Miles passed the dog walkers, walking both pit bulls and poodles. People coming in and out of the corner bodega, the door chiming over and over again. Fashion folks draped in the latest trend snapping pictures in front of a sky-blue, rusted-over car. The one that used to be a home for someone. A man that was no longer there.
He went on past his house, down the block, and around the corner to the market. Not the bodega, but the actual grocery store. Flowers in buckets lined the front. One of the men who worked at the store was tending to them.
“How much?” Miles asked, checking out the roses.
“Fifteen,” the man spat.
Miles didn’t say anything else. He just kept walking. Roses would’ve been nice for his mother. But that would’ve been half his money. He knew he could’ve gone in the store and bought actual groceries, which would’ve been smart, maybe even convince his father to cook dinner for his mom for a change. She deserved it. But disasters come in all forms, and Miles and his father attempting to make a meal would’ve been nothing less than a disaster. And even if it weren’t, it would’ve resulted in Miles’s mother standing over them, her hand to her forehead as she gave orders in Spanglish and repeated over and over, “Alluda me santos.” Help me, saints.