been in months. My grandma goes every weekend though.”
“Oh. What did she do?”
“Stabbed an ex-boyfriend who used to beat her up. She snapped one night and stabbed him in his sleep. But since he wasn’t doing anything to her at that moment, it wasn’t self-defense or whatever. She got locked up. Meanwhile, he’s still around the Garden, probably beating somebody else’s momma.”
“Damn. That’s messed up.”
“It is what it is.”
I’m being super nosy. “Why don’t you go see her?”
“Would you wanna see your momma as a shell of herself?”
“I already have.”
Curtis tilts his head.
“Back when my mom was on drugs. I saw her strung out in the park one day. She came up and tried to hug me. I ran off screaming.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah.” That memory is still fresh. “It was weird though. As scared as I was, part of me was happy to see her. I used to look for her, like she was some mythical creature I wanted to spot or something. I guess even when she wasn’t herself, she was my mom. If that makes sense?”
Curtis rests his head back against his window. “It does. Don’t get me wrong, I love seeing my mom, but I hate that I can’t save her. Shit’s the worst feeling in the world.”
I can practically hear Jay’s bedroom door closing. “I get it. I’m sure your mom will, too.”
“I don’t know,” he says. “I been away so long, I’m hesitant to go back. I’d have to tell her why I’ve been away, and that shit wouldn’t help her at all.”
“I doubt she’d care why, Curtis. She’d just care that you’re there.”
“Maybe,” he mutters as Zane climbs on the bus. Curtis nods at him. “Since you got all in my business, now it’s my turn to get into yours.”
Here we go. People love to ask me what it’s like to have Lawless as my dad. They don’t realize the question should really be, “What’s it like having a dad that everyone seems to remember but you?” I always lie and tell them how great he was, even though I barely know.
“All right, be honest with me here.” Curtis sits up a little more. “Who are your top five rappers, dead or alive?”
That’s a new one. I appreciate it, too. It’s nothing against my dad, I’m just not in the mood to fake about a stranger. “That’s a hard-ass question.”
“C’mon, it can’t be that hard.”
“Yes it is. I have two top five lists.” I hold up two fingers. “One for goats, aka the greatest of all time, and one for what I call could-be goats.”
“Damn, you’re a serious hip-hop head. All right. Who are your top five could-be goats?”
“Easy,” I say. “In no order, Remy Ma, Rapsody, Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, and Joyner Lucas.”
“Solid. Who are your top five goats then?”
“Okay, disclaimer: I actually have ten, but I’m gonna keep it to five,” I say, and Curtis chuckles. “Again, in no particular order, Biggie, ’Pac, Jean Grae, Lauryn Hill, and Rakim.”
He frowns. “Who?”
“Oh my God! You don’t know who Rakim is?”
“Jean Grae either,” he says, and I nearly have a heart attack. “The Rakim name’s familiar though . . .”
“He’s one of the greatest to ever touch a mic!” I’m probably a little too loud. “How in the living hell can you call yourself a hip-hop head and not know Rakim? That’s like a Christian not knowing John the Baptist. Or a Trekkie not knowing Spock. Or an HP head not knowing Dumbledore. Dumbledore, Curtis.”
“Okay, okay. Why is he in your top five?”
“He invented flow as we know it,” I say. “My aunt put me on to him. I swear listening to him is like listening to water—he never sounds forced or choppy. Plus, he’s a master at internal rhymes, which is like a rhyme in the middle of the line instead of at the end. Every single rapper with skills is his offspring. Period.”
“Damn, you’re really into this stuff,” Curtis says.
“Have to be. I wanna be one of the goats one day.”
He smiles. “You will be.” He eyes me from head to toe over the seat, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was checking me out. “You look cute today, by the way.”
Well, damn. He was checking me out. “Thanks.”
“You look cute every day, honestly.”
I raise my eyebrows.
Curtis laughs. “What?”
“You pay attention to me like that?”
“Yeah. I do. For instance, you always wear dope hoodies, but it’s not like you’re trying to hide or something. You’re just being you. You’ve also